dogan

Founding Engineer at OneOff. Using AI to connect shoppers with the creators they love. Previously Pinterest, Twitter. 2x founder (YC S'12). @BilkentUniv.

[dogan @dgn]

On a streak with my anonymous account. Also https://t.co/GmzfWfwBJI should just have a trash talk allowed mode.

[dogan @dgn]

@noahlt Congrats! By going through this with my two boys, I did get really good at dodging ballistic projectiles

[dogan @dgn]

Talked to a guy pitching his services. He said they have thousands of reddit accounts and can slowly create a narrative around any product or service. I can’t enjoy reddit the way I used to anymore.

[dogan @dgn]

🤦

[Jason ✨👾SaaStr.Ai✨ Lemkin @jasonlk]

California is adding sales tax to SaaS starting Jan 1

😥Not sure they could have picked a worse time

- 7.25% state + local district taxes, so 8-10% for most customers
- Every CA-based customer you have is getting a price increase you didn't send
- And if you're based here, your entire software and AI budget goes up 8-10% in 2027

Stacks on top of vendor uplifts. A 7% renewal increase becomes 16%.

👉Custom software and AWS-style infrastructure are excluded

🤷Nobody knows yet where usage-based AI spend lands.

[dogan @dgn]

I have to clean up my kids' YouTube recommendations with Claude every day. @TeamYouTube do better.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

lmao

[dogan @dgn]

When I have a hectic day, I stop and organize my external drives. It's my meditation.

[dogan @dgn]

Hit cc weekly limit a little early this week, time to give Codex another try.

[dogan @dgn]

@umutayildiz I am sure he is well aware of that. It is simply politics. if you already picked a side, you don't need to rationalize it.

[dogan @dgn]

@noahlt @saranormous @ouraring That’s a good feature request for oura. Mine definitely influences how I feel in the morning

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Today I discovered not only that there is such a thing as a quokka but also that my whole life I've been missing a quokka.

[dogan @dgn]

@AceParking @SD_Comic_Con The website is not working though

[dogan @dgn]

@noahlt I think that’s intentional

[Bay Area Air Quality @AirDistrict]

Visible smoke in parts of the Bay Area is from a warehouse fire in Tracy. Regional air quality impacts are not expected. Check https://t.co/U3NGKXoUWV.

[dogan @dgn]

Black holes and weird things https://t.co/5rIFgT1qFR

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

Amazon just got caught running a secret price manipulation operation with Levi's, Home Depot, Walmart, and many more.

Every time you "comparison shopped" online, you were looking at prices that were already rigged.

Here's what happened:

Amazon would monitor prices on Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Chewy in real time. The second a competitor listed a product cheaper than Amazon, they'd contact the brand directly and tell them to "fix it."

And the exact emails are now PUBLIC.

Amazon sent Levi's links to two Walmart listings with the subject line "styles of concern." They basically said the prices on Walmart are too low and we have a problem.

The next day, Levi's responded: "I talked to Walmart and they have partnered with us to take Easy Khaki Classic fit back up to ladder SPP price, $29.99 immediately."

Levi's literally called Walmart and told them to raise the price. Because Amazon told Levi's to make the call.

Walmart complied. Then Amazon matched the HIGHER price.

Both retailers ended up charging more. The customer paid extra. Nobody competed.

Same playbook with Hanes:

Amazon sent them links showing Target and Walmart prices were lower. Hanes confirmed they "reached out to Target and Walmart to have the prices increased."

Target increased the prices. Walmart increased the prices. Amazon kept their margins.

But it gets even worse...

Amazon told Allergan (the company that makes eye drops) that their product was "suppressed" on Amazon because it was cheaper on another site.

Allergan responded: "Walmart got their price back up to $16.99." Amazon then unsuppressed the listing.

They did this with pet treats on Chewy. Furniture on Home Depot. Products across dozens of categories spanning YEARS.

The mechanism is simple but terrifying:

If you're a brand and you sell cheaper on Walmart than on Amazon, Amazon suppresses your product, removes you from the Buy Box, buries you in search results, and effectively makes you invisible to 300 million customers.

Brands can't afford that. So they call Walmart and Target and say "raise your prices or we'll lose our Amazon listings."

Walmart and Target comply because they need the brand's products.

Amazon captures 40 cents of every dollar spent online in America. That gives them the leverage to set prices across THE ENTIRE internet. Not just their own platform.

So turns out, you were never comparison shopping.

You were looking at a coordinated price floor set by Amazon through backroom phone calls between brands and their competitors.

"Amazon is working to make your life more unaffordable."

3 separate antitrust trials are now scheduled for 2027. The FTC has its own case. 18 states plus the DOJ are piling on.

This is literally happening during the WORST affordability crisis in a generation. Groceries up 25% since 2020. Housing unaffordable. Wages flat.

And the largest ecommerce company on Earth has been secretly coordinating with brands to make sure you can't find a cheaper price ANYWHERE.

"Competition" in retail is just a fantasy.

[dogan @dgn]

@noahlt Liked it a lot so far, it did trigger my claustrophobia a couple times though. I cant image living in a confined space the size of a bus for the rest of my life. I would probably be in the Mars expedition.

[dogan @dgn]

Took a couple hundred pages to get there, but now I know what Seveneves is. It is "Seven Eves"

[dogan @dgn]

What a busy 3 months