Ali Syed

Founder | Building Intelligent Security OS | last@DataPI #UCBerkeleySkyDeck | Humanitarian work across 🌎 | 🇺🇸 1st | Views expressed are my own | vCISO

[Ali Syed @alisyedx]

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

There is a video circulating on the internet that is difficult to watch. A woman sits on a pavement in Louisville, Kentucky. She is wearing a hospital gown. It is 36 degrees outside. Her belongings, everything she apparently owns, are in a plastic bag on the concrete beside her. Behind her, through the glass doors she has just been escorted through, the hospital hums along as normal. The security guards who brought her here have already gone back inside.

She couldn’t afford her bill.

This is not a scene from a developing nation or a history book. This is the United States of America.
The country in which it happens has spent decades telling the rest of the world that it has the highest GDP on earth. Which is a bit like a restaurant proudly displaying its bill on the wall. Enormous number. Terrible meal. The lobster was frozen, the wine came from a box.

Europe, by comparison, has spent the better part of a century building something rather different. The food, for a start, is extraordinary. Not in a showy way, but in the way that a simple lunch in Lyon or a glass of wine on a terrace in Lisbon reminds you that eating is one of the genuinely good things about being alive. The wine is the wine that the rest of the world has spent generations attempting to replicate, mostly without success.

Roughly 35 percent of Europeans live with a chronic illness. In America, that number is 76 percent. The difference is not genetic. It is architectural. It is the slow accumulation of decent food, walkable cities, actual holidays, and a healthcare system that does not require you to crowdfund your own appendix.

Europeans work fewer hours. They have more purchasing power on a smaller salary once you subtract the cost of health insurance, medical debt, and the private school their child needs because the local public one has a metal detector at the entrance. They live, on average, about ten years longer. Not ten years of decline and doctor visits, but ten years of being a person in the world.

In the first quarter of 2025, the number of Americans leaving the United States doubled compared to the previous quarter.  Europe was their top destination. Not for a sabbatical or a gap year. Permanently. These are not people who failed. These are people who did the maths.

There is a man somewhere in America right now who has worked fifty-hour weeks for forty years, taken one week off when his employer permitted it, and will, statistically, be dead before he sees seventy. And there is another man, not very far away on a map but an entire civilisation removed in practice, sitting on a terrace in the afternoon sun with a glass of something cold and no particular place to be. He has had six weeks off every summer since 1987. He knows his neighbours by name.

The first man’s country has the higher GDP.

The first man’s country tops the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) index. The second man tops the Quality of Life Index (QLI). The better health. The longer life. The afternoon.

MAGA America calls that losing.

Ask anyone.
Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Ali Syed @alisyedx]

@akoratana @matei_zaharia @pbailis @rauchg @zoink @drewhouston 100X

[Zohran Kwame Mamdani @ZohranKMamdani]

We’re getting there…

[Paul Graham @paulg]

Don't take money from an investor you have moral qualms about because of valuable connections they claim to have. Being upstanding matters more in the long term than connections.

[Ali Syed @alisyedx]

@Replit is Amazing!

That's it that's the tweet!

[Ali Syed @alisyedx]

@ericbahn I hope you feel better soon. Everything you said is spot on. I was diagnosed at 18 & have undergone multiple treatments. Ultimately, Remicade, combined with working out at the gym, has been really beneficial. BPC-157 is a peptide that surprisingly helped heal my colon lining

[Ali Syed @alisyedx]

Update iPhones, iPads, and Macs right away!

https://t.co/eUZrsu4TZE

#CyberSecurity #infosec #apple #exploit

[Sam Altman @sama]

i failed pretty hard at my first startup--it sucked!--and am doing pretty well on my second.

the thing i wish someone told me during the first one is that no one else thinks about your failures as much as you do, and that as long as don't psych yourself out you can try again.

[Ali Syed @alisyedx]

Change all your secrets now #aws #gcp #cloud #CircleCI

[Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency @CISAgov]

✅ Reality: The existence of a vulnerability in election tech doesn’t mean it has been exploited. Officials use varying controls to safeguard election systems.
❌ Rumor: Vulnerabilities in election tech means the election was hacked.

Learn more: https://t.co/UahoobRt80

[January Ventures @January_VC]

1/ Being a founder can be an exhilarating yet grueling experience. But even the most successful entrepreneurs can experience feelings of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, loneliness and burnout. In honor of #MentalHealthDay, we're sharing useful tips for founders. ⬇️

[Ali Syed @alisyedx]

@qatarairways worst possible airline and customer service. No communication amongst themselves. In-fighting he said she said scenarios. Anyone going to @FIFAWorldCup please be aware you will get the runaround with no resolution. They will screw the customer every possible way.

[TRÄW🤟 @thatstraw]

95% of my Twitter direct messages ask me about good resources for getting started with ethical hacking. So I decided to make a thread about it.

Here are some of the best (free) resources to get you started (for free):

[Ali Syed @alisyedx]

@mehdirhasan This is the impact of @dilawar @BizAtState! Bravo! 💪🤜🤛