1/ Since Dec, $TWTR stock has grown 50% above all-time highs. Lots has been said about Twitter’s product upside, ability to capture more of the value it creates (see @Post_Market @juliey4 @modestproposal1). I want to talk about the biggest bull thesis I see: cultural determinism

2/ I'm a huge believer in cultural determinism (see Nintendo essay) - who a company is/been trained ‘to be’ in turn decides who a company ‘will’ or ‘can’ be.

CD is distinct from whether a culture is good, employees talented, committed to change,

3/ By the early 2010s, Twitter began to solidify cultural premises: it was focused on building up ad revenues rather than maximizing reach or users/its network, building a self-contained ecosystem, and in my view, a misplaced obsession with “live”

4/ This contrasted with competitors focused on network growth (FB), product enhancements (Snap), total creators (YT, Unity). Instead, Twitter throttled APIs and 3P devs, ignored opportunity to be a standard protocol for internet comms (h/t @AVC in

5/ How did we see this? Lots of externally focused product investments – e.g. SeeIt TV Everywhere authentication experience w/ Comcast, helping TV networks integrate Tweets into live TV, allowing advertisers to buy Twitter adds… through Google