A masterclass in the collision between visionary marketing and physical reality - The NEOM Project.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman explicitly pitched NEOM as the "most ambitious project on earth." He wanted a blank slate to build a post-oil economy from the ground up.
> The master plan broke this vision into massive, distinct regions. It included The Line (a linear city), Oxagon (a floating industrial port), Trojena (a mountain ski resort), Sindalah (a luxury island), and Magna (coastal eco-destinations).
> Early marketing leaned on massive inflated numbers to grab global attention and secure foreign direct investment. The Line alone was supposed to stretch 170 kilometers and house 9 million people by 2030.
> Reality hit the timeline hard. Planners recently scaled The Line back to just 2.4 kilometers of completed structure by 2030, capping the expected population at roughly 300,000.
> Building all these regions at once requires staggering amounts of cash. Financial models show Saudi Arabia needs oil prices to stay around $90 to $100 per barrel just to fund Vision 2030 initiatives without draining cash reserves or taking on too much sovereign debt.
> When oil dips below that $90 mark, the Public Investment Fund has to throttle spending and prioritize which massive projects actually get built.
> Buying materials for a 170-kilometer mirrored skyscraper breaks the global supply chain. You cannot just order that much glass and steel without cornering the market.
> Trying to procure those materials causes a self-inflicted supply shock. The project drives up raw material costs so fast that it sabotages its own budget before the foundations are even poured.
> Oxagon and The Line rely on technology that barely exists outside of labs. Building a physical city on top of unproven automated logistics and next-generation desalination means any delay in R&D immediately stops the cement mixers.
> Trojena promises artificial snow for the 2029 Asian Winter Games in a desert environment. Maintaining that snow requires massive baseline power, fighting directly against the mandate to run the entire region on 100% renewable energy.
> The Line's giant mirrored walls will bounce severe heat into the surrounding area. Managing this localized thermal dynamic requires immense cooling infrastructure that traditional urban planning rarely has to handle.
> Sindalah is the only zone actually hitting its targets right now. This is highly telling, as the island works simply because it relies on standard luxury real estate playbooks rather than experimental urban engineering.
Sovereign wealth funds can ignore traditional investment rules for a while, but they cannot ignore physics. NEOM skipped the phase where developers test a small-scale model first, pouring billions into the dirt before realizing the original blueprints were financially and logistically impossible to build all at once.
Fun fact.
In an all out 1:1 military conflict with India, without the shield of (Jewish-developed) American nuclear weapons, Australia would be decimated.
You're that irrelevant and weak.
Know your place.
*Shark Tank India*
Product: “Innovative healthy namkeen for Gen Z”
*Fun, whimsical background music*
“Zara apna entrepreneurship journey ke baare mein batana…”
*Soaring, inspirational music*
“Hamare papa ka namkeen ka wholesale business hai..”
Your tweet breaks the undermentioned laws as per the constitution of India:
Criminal Intimidation (Sec 351 BNS / 506 IPC): Issuing a 24-hour ultimatum and threatening criminal cases to force people to delete posts and apologize.
��Extortion by Threat of Accusation (Sec 308 BNS / 389 IPC): Threatening severe statutory action to coerce public compliance.
Suppression of Free Speech (Article 19(1)(a)): A private social media handle has zero legal standing to issue gag orders or censor discussion on public matters.
Misrepresentation & False Prosecution (Sec 217, 248 BNS): Misquoting Section 3(1)(v) of the SC ST Act- which legally applies only to iconic historical figures, not private individuals - to threaten baseless police complaints.
Public Mischief (Sec 353 BNS / 505 IPC): Disguising a tweet as an official "LEGAL NOTICE" to cause public fear and alarm.
Huberman dropped a sleep protocol with Raj Shamani that I’ve never heard anyone mention before.
Most people can’t fall asleep because their brain is still mapping their physical body in space (proprioception). To knock out, your brain actually has to forget where your limbs are.
The 30-second fix if your mind is racing at 1 AM:
1. Close your eyes.
2. Move your eyes slowly to the far left, then far right.
3. Trace a slow counter-clockwise circle, then clockwise.
4. Look gently toward the tip of your nose (without crossing your eyes).
5. Long, slow exhale.
This deliberate lateral movement interrupts the proprioceptive circuit in your hypothalamus and signals the nervous system that you’re off duty.
Tried this last night and it felt like pulling the master plug on a noisy server.
Save this for the next time you're staring at the ceiling.
This really speaks a lot about how Indians think and work - a cultral obsession with entitlement.
People blaming the government for distributing handouts do not completely understand that what government does is a mere reflection of what a majority of India demands.
India has become a society that prioritizes seeking "freebies" and "giveaways" over building sustainable value on their own. This kind of mindset is unsustainable.
I wasn't interested in arguing with you, but your response has made this a very different conversation. I have the complete exchange documented, including your statements about your role and the company. I won't be debating this further on X - I'll let the appropriate people at YC assess whether this is how they expect their representatives to conduct themselves.
@KanoiKrishnav@tr1ckastley You can’t hand distribution to someone with 0 experience scaling an enterprise’ is somehow the least controversial part of this.
The funny part is when your Head of Growth is 19 and thinks manufacturing a fake Tim Cook screenshot is distribution.
If you are talking about top of the line innovation - yes, India stands nowhere. Innovation and manufacturing of high level equipment is almost non existent.
China too has habit of reverse engineering and copying. It failed to design and manufacture EUVs made by @ASMLcompany among many others. But China works with a different - more complex strategy.
There are only really three pillars to anything around us, as far as consumable goods - Energy, intelligence, and dexterity.
While USA, deals and works on Intelligence part, China has monopoly in energy and dexterity. For Intelligence to be processed- it needs energy (rare earths, li-ions, solar panels, etc) and action (manufacturing + logistics + infrastructure).
Russia is a behemoth - It has almost all three but nothing in perfectness.
@Paritolkks The root cause of India's under-development is not merely due government handouts, but from a pervasive cultural obsession with entitlement - a mindset that prioritizes seeking "extra" over building sustainable value. The kind of mindset is bound to fail in every iteration.
While researching at @VYBhq, we stumbled upon some lesser known facts about India’s social media ecosystem barely anyone talks about, but they shape everything:
> India has the world’s highest repost-to-original ratio. Users share way more than they create — not because they’re shy, but because platforms don’t reward fresh voices early.
> More than 60% of Indian viral content starts on small pages with under 20k followers. Big accounts usually just amplify, not originate.
> Hindi + Hinglish mixed content outperforms English by 3x in speed of trend formation, but Western platforms still optimize ranking for English-first structures.
> High-volume posting isn’t punished by users - it’s punished by algorithms. Indian creators who post 15–20 times a day often see lower reach compared to posting 2–3 times.
> 70% of Indian internet traffic during peak hours is driven by “micro-drama cycles”: short, fast, emotionally charged events. Most platforms aren’t engineered to catch this volatility.
> Meme culture in India follows a “cluster model” - 5-7 major meme ecosystems that influence each other. They don’t operate in silos like in the West.
> Tier-2 and Tier-3 users consume far more creator commentary than polished influencer content. Rough edges perform better than studio aesthetics.
> India’s youth audience prefers “identity-flexible spaces”: places where they can switch persona -roaster today, poet tomorrow - without hurting follower expectations.
> AI content adoption is higher in India than most markets, but platforms don’t surface AI-native formats well. Users actually enjoy AI-generated memes when they’re unpolished.
> The biggest unlock isn’t features — it’s cultural timestamping: a feed that catches what India feels right this minute rather than what was posted hours ago.drivers shape daily discourse more than official news or celebrities.
> There’s a growing gap: young Indian users want a place where they can express without Western context, Western humor, or Western cultural filters.
> Engagement spikes in India follow “burst patterns” - short windows of extremely high activity around topics, trends, and micro-dramas. Current platforms don’t optimize for this.
> India’s social graph is shifting from follower-based identity to moment-based identity. People care less about who posted, more about the energy of the post.
> Creators want transparent reach, faster analytics, and early visibility - not algorithmic opacity that favors massive accounts.
> The market is ready for a platform built for India’s real-time chaos: high frequency posting, high emotion density, rapid trend turnover.
> The opportunity isn’t “another app” - it’s capturing India’s cultural firehose in a system designed for Indian speed, Indian humor, and Indian digital behavior.
While researching at @VYBhq, we stumbled upon some lesser known facts about India’s social media ecosystem barely anyone talks about, but they shape everything:
> India has the world’s highest repost-to-original ratio. Users share way more than they create — not because they’re shy, but because platforms don’t reward fresh voices early.
> More than 60% of Indian viral content starts on small pages with under 20k followers. Big accounts usually just amplify, not originate.
> Hindi + Hinglish mixed content outperforms English by 3x in speed of trend formation, but Western platforms still optimize ranking for English-first structures.
> High-volume posting isn’t punished by users - it’s punished by algorithms. Indian creators who post 15–20 times a day often see lower reach compared to posting 2–3 times.
> 70% of Indian internet traffic during peak hours is driven by “micro-drama cycles”: short, fast, emotionally charged events. Most platforms aren’t engineered to catch this volatility.
> Meme culture in India follows a “cluster model” - 5-7 major meme ecosystems that influence each other. They don’t operate in silos like in the West.
> Tier-2 and Tier-3 users consume far more creator commentary than polished influencer content. Rough edges perform better than studio aesthetics.
> India’s youth audience prefers “identity-flexible spaces”: places where they can switch persona -roaster today, poet tomorrow - without hurting follower expectations.
> AI content adoption is higher in India than most markets, but platforms don’t surface AI-native formats well. Users actually enjoy AI-generated memes when they’re unpolished.
> The biggest unlock isn’t features — it’s cultural timestamping: a feed that catches what India feels right this minute rather than what was posted hours ago.drivers shape daily discourse more than official news or celebrities.
> There’s a growing gap: young Indian users want a place where they can express without Western context, Western humor, or Western cultural filters.
> Engagement spikes in India follow “burst patterns” - short windows of extremely high activity around topics, trends, and micro-dramas. Current platforms don’t optimize for this.
> India’s social graph is shifting from follower-based identity to moment-based identity. People care less about who posted, more about the energy of the post.
> Creators want transparent reach, faster analytics, and early visibility - not algorithmic opacity that favors massive accounts.
> The market is ready for a platform built for India’s real-time chaos: high frequency posting, high emotion density, rapid trend turnover.
> The opportunity isn’t “another app” - it’s capturing India’s cultural firehose in a system designed for Indian speed, Indian humor, and Indian digital behavior.