BC TECH
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

1) Let's talk about the question of 'how should we think about Chinese tech'

What do we talk about when we talk about Chinese tech? Who is 'we' here? How do you pronounce Elema?

I've hit 10k in followers and it's time to earn my stripes as a thinkboi.

 2) Chinese tech is a loaded term. The very fact that we have to say 'Chinese' tech rather than tech demotes its otherness.

So what does a place of origin signify? The different market conditions, political context and imo most importantly, the development stage of the country.
3) I think @benedictevans and @ToniCowanBrown's podcast on 'How to think about Chinese tech when you know fa about China' (my title, not theirs), lays some of the groundwork here.

China's different market conditions and political context often means a parallel tech world
4) This means a fundamental rethinking of first principals that's hard to stomach for most Western tech folks
- Copy is not wrong, in fact, it shows you've picked a de-risked business model
- There are no unscalable resources, esp when labour is cheap
https://t.co/TeWzeTV2Wm
5) But I think the most important factor that gets overlooked is that China tech demotes something very particular. It is coming from a developing country. The life stage of a country is different from its cultural context.

What happens when a developing country is innovating?
6) What happens when technology isn't augmenting existing institutions but instead, creating it?

A lot of phenomenons of Chinese tech makes more sense once you consider it through a developmental lens on institution creation.
7) Why did China have super apps? Because there was enough space for them to expand into adjacencies and do well.

Chinese Mobile payments happened not just because credit card didn't take off, but because governments never created the institutions called credit agencies
8) I think Chinese tech has shown a parallel world of tech-enabled institution creation in a more obvious way.

I think China's also more upfront about the fact that tech giants are institutions and should therefore be held accountable to the same level.
9) So with that framing, I think it needs to be asked who's 'we' when we talk about Chinese tech. Benedict and Toni talk from the perspective of Europeans but with the implication being that western tech companies will be affected and then the rest of the world through them.
10) But I think the true beneficiaries of Chinese tech's innovations are other developing countries who are also embarking on their own journey of technology-enabled institution building.

Whether it's Grab or SEA in south-east Asia or Rappi in South America
11) To take a global 'we', Chinese tech's innovations are going to profoundly shape the lives of the next billion as they come online.

In the West, you'll just be getting Substack 10 years after paid WeChat official accounts
12) Last thing, Elema's Chinese name is 饿了吗 (literally translated as Are you hungry). To hear how it's pronounced, press the sound button below the box.

https://t.co/MRIfXWCPCZ饿了吗
13) Last Last thing. If you're looking for good resources on Chinese tech I recommend:
- @TechBuzzChina - great primer
- GGV's 996 podcast backlog (it's now called The Next Billion)
- Acquired podcast on PDD, Tencent and Alibaba
- My newsletter?
I'll be writing threads like this for the rest of Jan, follow me if you like these to spam your TL

More from Lillian Li

Lillian Li
Lillian Li
@lillianmli
1) Let's talk about a key part of the Chinese creator economy. The creator management and incubator agencies known as Multi-Channel Networks (MCN). We''ll summerise key lessons for the western creator economy.

And know how Li Ziqi got her 12m YouTube subscribers

2) MCNs are modern-day talent agencies (but more) who target influencers and creators as their clients. It originated in the US but has proliferated in China, with industry estimates of 5k-7k Chinese MCN operating as of 2020.

3) Typically, as creators gain enough following, they find it difficult to be an-all-in-one content creator, editor, customer support rep, accountant, lawyer, and marketing guru that the job demands.

Enter the MCNs who offers the creator the following:

4) Audience and traffic growth, PR management, monetisation through ads & e-commerce and support with retail fulfillment.

Their services are more holistic than western MCNs, who's offerings are more domain-specific.

5) Agreements between Chinese MCNs and creators can get into guarantees of the number of followers provided, copyrights, subtitling and distribution help, as well as providing analytical feedback on their content.
ECONOMY
Lillian Li
Lillian Li
@lillianmli
1) Let's talk about my favourite video platform Bilibili. What is it, what it isn't and and how it makes money. It's been called the Chinese YouTube that that framing lacks imaginary.

The $bili stock also 5x in 2020 - who knew weebs could be so lucrative

2) Grossly simplified, it's the Chinese equivalent of Youtube. Except it's not. It's like if Youtube, Twitch, Steam, Patreon, TokyoPop and Netflix had a CRISPR-baby, and that baby was a weeb, but that weeb is also super down with Chinese Gen Z

3) Bilibili was founded in 2010 by avid Anime, Gaming and Comics (AGC) fan Yi Xu from a frustration that the mainstay Chinese anime platform kept crashing with no consistent access to his beloved vocaloid Miku

4) Serial entrepreneur Rui Chen went from an angel investor to CEO, having obtained Yi Xu's trust by correctly identified the origin of Bilibili as from the anime "A Certain Scientific Railgun". Anime knowledge is life.

5) Currently it's the biggest mainstream portal for the Chinese Gen Z with user-generated video sharing, live streaming, mobile gaming, online comics and event ticketing. It’s also diversified its content coverage with coverage on beauty, e-sports, pop culture and many others.
TRADING
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Lillian Li
Lillian Li
@lillianmli
1) Let's talk about how Alibaba has achieved the holy grail of big data - a holistic view of the consumer - through a plethora of product offerings and investment.

This is their overarching moat. And Amazon's got nothing on them.

2) To the outsider, Alibaba's product range is confusing af. It's all over the place and there seems to be no core competency they are focusing on.

A few divisions - Taobao (B2C marketplace), Tmall (High-end B2C marketplace), Alibaba (B2B marketplace, Cainiu(logistics)..

3) ...Elema (Food delivery), Autonavi (maps), Youku (streaming) and Feizhu(travel booking)

Also the promotional strategy is weird, In the lead-up to singles day, half the time they were promoting some cat rearing in-app mini game.

Wtf?

4) When we view Alibaba's strategy as working to create a full view of a consumer's life, including their preferences, social network and spending capacity (and ability). Then everything starts to make sense.

4) Whether a consumer buys on Tmall or Taobao tells Ali about their preferences and budget, delivery address for packages and food lets Ali know where they live and where they work (also cross-referenced with property data to infer wealth level + occupation).
BUSINESS , BUSNIESS
Lillian Li
Lillian Li
@lillianmli
1) Let's talk about social-commerce, limitations of growth for a community and why there is no good Chinese Instagram equivalent.

In modern China, XiaoHungShu aka Little Red Book aka RED is no longer the Mao manifesto, but rather a shopping app.

2) XHS was founded by friends Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao in 2014. Initially, it was conceived as a travel app, the founders wanted something that let them know what spots were cool and what goods to get when they're abroad

3) For context, I would say shopping abroad has been a major Chinese middle-class hobby due to:
1) Perception that foreign goods are of higher quality
2) Cheaper prices for equivalent goods relative to China as no import tax
3) Verified authenticity

4) XHS tapped into this desire by creating an online community where people can share details of what they brought and where. In elaborate posts with multiple accompanying pictures. Showing off your lavish life while being helpful is fun.

5) After building up a robust and lively community among mostly affluent young women, XHS moved into cross-border commerce in 2015. Now rather than just looking at the pretty items from France, you can buy them.
WORLD
Lillian Li
Lillian Li
@lillianmli
"By creating the concept that data is a factor of production, China Inc. has formalised and legislated the stance that data itself is valuable rather than the algorithms it helps train.

The Chinese leadership has subtly but deftly implied that data's value to a nation is underpriced and currently subjected to market distortions."

I think China's making money moves in the area of data. Read about it
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Guillaume Chaslot
Guillaume Chaslot
@gchaslot
The YouTube algorithm that I helped build in 2011 still recommends the flat earth theory by the *hundreds of millions*. This investigation by @RawStory shows some of the real-life consequences of this badly designed AI.


This spring at SxSW, @SusanWojcicki promised "Wikipedia snippets" on debated videos. But they didn't put them on flat earth videos, and instead @YouTube is promoting merchandising such as "NASA lies - Never Trust a Snake". 2/


A few example of flat earth videos that were promoted by YouTube #today:
https://t.co/TumQiX2tlj 3/

https://t.co/uAORIJ5BYX 4/

https://t.co/yOGZ0pLfHG 5/
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Matt Wallace
Matt Wallace
@MattFnWallace
Hey, who wants to read a story about @Upwork fucking over freelancers in order to upsell their clients on unnecessary services the clients don't want and can't afford? Strap in!

So after my marketing agency closed I started freelancing again. A marketing company that wanted to work with me only hires freelance writers through @Upwork. So I signed up. I wasn't thrilled about it, but that's who they contract with and it's their marketing company.

I've been receiving regular assignments from this company, thru @Upwork, for over a month now. I've written dozens of articles for them. My work has been exemplary. I've been handling repeated rush jobs and delivering. The client was and is very happy. That's coming from them.

While I was wrapping up several assignments this week I was contacted by the marketing company. They asked if I had taken a new full-time job and wasn't available anymore. It seems @Upwork's talent group told them I was no longer available to take assignments.

I was very surprised. Nothing had changed on my end. I still needed the freelance work very much. I told them so. So the marketing company pressed @Upwork and were told there were "compliance" issues that were preventing the marketing company from giving me any more work.
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Antonio Garc\xeda Mart\xednez
Antonio García Martíne...
@antoniogm
Observing the public conversation around FB, and the private ones happening among techies and ex-FBers, I think the mutual misunderstanding is worse than when I set out two years (and 500 pages) ago to (in a small way) bridge that gulf.

We're basically fucked.

The tech world has gotten so huge, self-reinforcing, and insulated from reality they can no longer even vaguely look at themselves (and their actions) as others do. They just live on a different planet than most people.

Conversely, the average tech consumer doesn't understand the technology that has slowly taken over their lives, and their designated emissaries to figure it out--politicians, pundits, regulators, journalists--understand it barely better than they do, and have their own agendas.

To say more than generalities for a moment, here's what I think is likely the core problem.

Techies take weird, improbable visions, and make them realities: some BS pitch deck to a VC, mixed with money and people, really does turn into some novel thing.

Most people work inside a legacy industry that's evolved that way over time (usually for good reasons), and they think about the future via some analogy with their present (which is a function of a long-ago past). The interruption that tech will introduce is often hard to grasp.
TECH
Mukund Mohan
Mukund Mohan
@mukund
EV Battery overview
Batteries are the key differentiator between the various EV manufacturers. The amount of energy stored in the battery determines the range of the EV, thought to be a major limitation on EV sales.


Consumers tend to worry that an EV with a range of 80 to 250 miles on a single charge would be inconvenient for long trips due to the time it takes to recharge the battery. Commercial batteries need to ensure there is quick recharge and less time between charges


The lithium-ion battery is important because it makes EVs expensive than ICEs. Battery costs per kilowatt-hour (kWh) declined from roughly $1,000 per kWh in 2010 to $227 in 2016


Lithium-ion batteries made up 70 percent of the rechargeable battery market in 2016
BNEF projects that global production capacity for lithium-ion batteries will increase from 103 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in the first quarter of 2017 to 273 GWh by 2021.


The battery manufacturing supply chain has three main parts:

cell manufacturing,

module manufacturing, and

pack assembly.
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Taylor Holiday
Taylor Holiday
@TaylorHoliday
1/ What causes long term sustained performance in an ad account?

🧵featuring real examples 👇🏻

If you explore the source of FB ad growth and subsequently revenue growth for eCom brands it is almost never a function of iterative improvements to ad creative or tactics over time.

2/ More often it is a series of moments that unlock an order of magnitude increase in awareness, engagement, traffic and performance.

These moments can be caused by:

A single ad
A big PR moment
A breakthrough campaign
A change in market dynamics
A new product release
Etc.

3/ The problem is they are very hard to predict and create.

I’ll give you an example of a few that happened for us @QALORing that changed our trajectory (and ad account performance) each time...

4/ The first was @andydalton14 wearing a ring on @HBO hard knocks. It was the peak of the series popularity and they did a :30 piece on the ring he was wearing while playing.

See screenshot

Notice the traffic before and after the peak.


5/ This increased organic traffic let us alter our AdWords strategy, extract more post intent demand from new searchers and pull clips of the show to supplement our ad credibility.
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Killing new-born twins was common practice in the 19th century among the Ibibio people of Nigeria, but one Scotswoman went to great lengths to put an end to this.

Aberdeen-born Mary Slessor was one of the few missionaries in Africa who learnt the local language, adapted to the native customs and environment and gained the trust of the locals in order to make a truly positive impact.

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A Thread on the Boss himself @Mitesh_Engr

Mitesh Sir's Positional Option Selling 101:

• How to find direction
• Which options to sell
• How to deploy capital
• Exit criteria
• What ROI he targets weekly
• What % risk he takes

Done with the help of @niki_poojary


How @Mitesh_Engr Sir finds the direction?

• Daily charts S/R
• 75 min charts S/R
• Intraday trend
• Always play directional
• Never trades in strategies


Which options to sell in weekly expiry according to @Mitesh_Engr?

• Weekly candle High/Low
• Sell 1% away options from those
• Exit when levels breached


Position Sizing by @Mitesh_Engr Sir.

How to deploy your capital?

• First sell 20%
• Pyramid the next day
• When to exit
• What to do when view goes wrong
• What to do with idle capital


Some important tweets of @Mitesh_Engr Sir

• What Data to look at
• ROI for safe players per month
• Max risk per day
• Gather knowledge and play directional
• Never play strategies
OPTIONS LEARNING , ALL , MPLEARNINGS
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\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8I Support Our Military & Law Enforcement\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8
🇺🇸I Support Our Milita...
@TheWiseOwl_AZ
1. We were informed that Tier 4B (us, the Internet Group) would receive 800# notification on Wed. 16 Dec. (A Shotgun Release of liquidity started on Mon. 14 Dec.).

Redemption Center personnel were scheduled to work for the next nine days from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm until...

2. ... Dec. 24, when they would close at 5:30 pm.

The general public would begin exchanging at the new International Rates on the first banking business day after the Christmas Holiday.

A. The RV, NESARA, GESARA, Restored Republic and Martial Law

3. According to Charlie Ward we began the Ten Days of Darkness on Tues. 15 Dec. The Ten Days would finish Dec. 24 Christmas Eve with the US going into NESARA and then the rest of the world would go straight into GESARA on 1 Jan. 2021.

4. Every single country and territory has agreed to GESARA. The UK government corporation was liquidated in Oct. last year and it was finalized last week. France has started breaking up their Parliament. Everything needed for implementation of NESARA/GESARA was finished.

5. Trump’s Christmas present: In a recent Executive Order President Trump declared that all government agencies (except for essential ones) permanently close on Dec. 24 2020. Trump had that authority since we were already under Martial Law (the US had been functioning under...
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Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
शमशान में जब महर्षि दधीचि के मांसपिंड का दाह संस्कार हो रहा था तो उनकी पत्नी अपने पति का वियोग सहन नहीं कर पायी और पास में ही स्थित विशाल पीपल वृक्ष के कोटर में अपने तीन वर्ष के बालक को रख के स्वयं चिता पे बैठ कर सती हो गयी ।इस प्रकार ऋषी दधीचि और उनकी पत्नी की मुक्ति हो गयी।


परन्तु पीपल के कोटर में रखा बालक भूख प्यास से तड़पने लगा। जब कुछ नहीं मिला तो वो कोटर में पड़े पीपल के गोदों (फल) को खाकर बड़ा होने लगा। कालान्तर में पीपल के फलों और पत्तों को खाकर बालक का जीवन किसी प्रकार सुरक्षित रहा।

एक दिन देवर्षि नारद वहां से गुजर रहे थे ।नारद ने पीपल के कोटर में बालक को देख कर उसका परिचय मांगा -
नारद बोले - बालक तुम कौन हो?
बालक - यही तो मैं भी जानना चहता हूँ ।
नारद - तुम्हारे जनक कौन हैं?
बालक - यही तो मैं भी जानना चाहता हूँ ।

तब नारद ने आँखें बन्द कर ध्यान लगाया ।


तत्पश्चात आश्चर्यचकित हो कर बालक को बताया कि 'हे बालक! तुम महान दानी महर्षि दधीचि के पुत्र हो । तुम्हारे पिता की अस्थियों का वज्रास्त्र बनाकर ही देवताओं ने असुरों पर विजय पायी थी।तुम्हारे पिता की मृत्यु मात्र 31 वर्ष की वय में ही हो गयी थी'।

बालक - मेरे पिता की अकाल मृत्यु का क्या कारण था?
नारद - तुम्हारे पिता पर शनिदेव की महादशा थी।
बालक - मेरे उपर आयी विपत्ति का कारण क्या था?
नारद - शनिदेव की महादशा।
इतना बताकर देवर्षि नारद ने पीपल के पत्तों और गोदों को खाकर बड़े हुए उस बालक का नाम पिप्पलाद रखा और उसे दीक्षित किया।
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Jonathan Ware
Jonathan Ware
@ReassessHistory
So when it first appeared in Normandy, the Sherman Firefly and it's meaty 17 pounder represented an ideal combo of reliable chassis, great gun and devastating firepower right?

Ummm...

Truth is a bit more complex. /1
#WW2 #SWW #History


Deliveries of Firefly to units only commenced in April 1944,
just a few weeks before Overlord & left minimal time for familiarisation.

Armoured Regiments mostly utilised Fireflies on a basis of 1 per troop of 4 tanks. /2


Finally each armoured regiment troop had access to integral, meaty, anti-tank firepower capable of dealing serious damage to any German AFV likely to be encountered. /3


The dual purpose 75mm gun was quite capable of laying down a reasonable HE shell or AP round for dealing with Panzer III or IV.

Firefly's 17 Pounder had.... problems with HE, but excelled at tank killing. So Tigers and Panthers would need to be wary. /4


Firefly's design history dated back to March 1943 when the General Staff published "Policy on Tanks" which effectively stated the majority of tanks should have a good HE weapon and...

[See image below] /5
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