Top all-time · #1385
Dalton Caldwell
Personal blog · daltoncaldwell.comstartupsbusiness
Dalton Caldwell's personal blog at daltoncaldwell.com covers startups and business. Since 2012, 53 different Hacker News readers have linked it 97 times, most often “What Twitter could have been”. The last post was in 2014, but the archive is still widely read.
Dalton Caldwell | Partner @ Y Combinator
Most-linked posts?
- What Twitter could have been9 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2012-07-01
- Dear Mark Zuckerberg6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2012-08-01
- Dalton Caldwell: Announcing an audacious proposal5 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2012-07-13
- Dalton Caldwell: We Did It5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2012-08-12
- App.net to support activitystrea.ms, pubsubhubbub, Webfinger, feeds3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-08-10
- The makings of history are banal3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-04-10
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-08-01
- Some thoughts on organizational complexity2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-12-27
- App.net 3rd-party revshare proposal2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-07-22
- Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-08-08
What Hacker News says?
You are on the right track. Couple points to round it off: 1. Dalton is questioning the dominant business model online & fired his first salvo via join.app.net. 2. As a vocal spokesman for a pro-user & pro-developer platform design, he's got to rally his forces. No wonder he is gunning for the big ones - the first indication was his response to Fred Wilson's post ( http://daltoncaldwell.com/fred-wilson-is-wrong-abou…
Comment linking /fred-wilson-is-wrong-about-free
on “Dear Mark Zuckerberg”Submitted Dear Mark Zuckerberg as a story · 743 points
HN discussion1) I am unhappy that I wasted my time and energy building on a platform that encouraged me to do so, and within the matter of months changed their mind. This is the same thing that makes me unhappy with what Twitter is doing to their ecosystem: http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been 2) Once Mark Zuckerberg gave personal blessing, he shouldn't have changed his mind. I have an interesting email thread…
Comment linking /what-twitter-could-have-been
on “Dear Mark Zuckerberg”Submitted What Twitter could have been as a story · 372 points
HN discussionI have been waiting because I have been afraid. I have been blogging extensively about platform-risk issues for the past month, but have never come out and said this part: http://daltoncaldwell.com/
Comment linking /
on “Dear Mark Zuckerberg”Submitted Twitter is Pivoting as a story · 313 points
HN discussionNearly everyone has bought into the utter bullshit that advertising makes the web free. This delusion buries not only the fact that we have made a deal with the devil, but also that the deal really sucks. What we traded our souls for we don’t even get. The web would be both cheaper and better if we just paid for what we use straight up. And more importantly, society would be better. I'll explain all of these. IT'S N…
Comment linking /an-audacious-proposal
on “Whatever goes up, that’s what we do”Submitted Oh, the Places You'll Go as a story · 289 points
HN discussionI think Dalton Caldwell laid out an interesting vision of the "Twitter as protocol" argument: http://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been
Comment linking /what-twitter-could-have-been
on “Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk, March 26, 2022”Submitted Dalton Caldwell: We Did It as a story · 178 points
HN discussionhttp://daltoncaldwell.com/what-twitter-could-have-been
Comment linking /what-twitter-could-have-been
on “Twitter CEO Dorsey Apologizes to Developers”Submitted Dalton Caldwell: Announcing an audacious proposal as a story · 168 points
HN discussionIt's rather unclear what Dalton means here. The interpretation that seems likeliest to me is that Dalton can easily provide independent evidence to a professional auditor (i.e., someone who can be given trusted access to sensitive data, and someone who isn't easily induced to lie on a client's behalf) that the tally is correct. Unless it becomes routine to actually employ these auditors, that doesn't really answer j…
Comment linking /we-did-it
on “App.net funded with $500,000.”Submitted Understanding Like-gate as a story · 167 points
HN discussionWe are using Stripe to host/power the billing aspects of join.app.net. In the very near future I will ask an impartial 3rd party take a look at our data (while preserving all privacy of our backers) and publicly verify that the join.app.net was operated in an honest manner. http://daltoncaldwell.com/we-did-it
Comment linking /we-did-it
on “App.net funded with $500,000.”Submitted "RIP Good Times": Silicon Valley's Cuban Missile Crisis as a story · 143 points
HN discussionSee this: http://daltoncaldwell.com/we-did-it
Comment linking /we-did-it
on “App.net funded with $500,000.”Submitted Dalton Caldwell: App.net is not Vaporware as a story · 131 points
HN discussionAn update from Dalton that deals with new features and third party verification of the funding - http://daltoncaldwell.com/we-did-it
Comment linking /we-did-it
on “App.net funded with $500,000.”Submitted Why having an MBA is a negative hiring signal for startups (2012) as a story · 111 points
HN discussionhttp://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal .
Comment linking /an-audacious-proposal
on “App.net funded with $500,000.”Submitted Two brilliant moves that helped create the Apple iOS powerhouse as a story · 100 points
HN discussionDalton continuously put out updates for people and I think updates like this( http://daltoncaldwell.com/appnet-is-not-vaporware ) would have pushed people who were mildly skeptic to contribute.
Comment linking /appnet-is-not-vaporware
on “App.net funded with $500,000.”Submitted Bitcoin adoption in 2015 as a story · 88 points
HN discussionBut what is actually being paid for? Who is ultimately paying "our" salaries? Why? “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.” ~ Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera. http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" ~ Up…
Comment linking /an-audacious-proposal
on “A catalog of wealth-creation mechanisms (2009)”Submitted Hot Dogs & Caviar as a story · 85 points
HN discussionI think WhatsApp is where Twitter was during their Ascend-to-protocol Vs Just-push-Ads phase[1], only that WA is dead-set on not going down the Ad route. IMO their options are whether to become an app platform for businesses(Service delivery, payments, shopping) or to become a user-data source for FB. KIM that they are naturally competing with IG & FB.com in generating revenue for FB Inc and subscription isn't worki…
Comment linking /what-twitter-could-have-been
on “WhatsApp Cofounder on How It Reached 1.3B Users Without Losing Its Focus”Submitted “Critical mass” vs “network effects” as a story · 82 points
HN discussion> you haven't seen it, you were not interested in looking and I doubt that any "evangelist" is going to change your mind This is disingenuous. (Also, ENS appears to be functionally similar to App.net [1]. I'm open to being challenged on this.) One thing pervasively lacking from Web3 is compelling fiction. Not "this and that trustlessly," but a functional narrative of someone doing something useful or compelling they…
Comment linking /we-did-it
on “On anti-crypto toxicity”Submitted Dear Mark Zuckerberg (2012) as a story · 77 points
HN discussion
