Leonardo Larocca

Running a new DTC crafts brand with my wife. Amazon seller since 2013. Ex electrical engineer.

[Leonardo Larocca @leonardolarocca]

@mrpaidsocial Claude Ads

[Eugene Khayman @EugeneKhayman]

https://t.co/ssReLLMaa8

[Eugene Khayman @EugeneKhayman]

My community has $15b of yearly sales on Amazon with 800+ members.

These are small businesses. They employ real Americans and support local communities.

They do not have large margins to absorb shocks.

Every year Amazon squeezes them more and supports overseas Chinese sellers instead of local American businesses.

Now Amazon is hitting sellers with even more of a squeeze all back to back:

https://t.co/Xc1IeD5QHd has moved many sellers to DD+7
Meaning funds are held until 7 days after delivery, not simply paid out on the old cadence.
https://t.co/YkUKQvr0Uo just added a 3.5% fuel/logistics surcharge on fulfillment fees.
https://t.co/L9WWJUDkr8 top it off now Amazon Ads charges will be pulled directly from disbursements rather than floating on a credit card.

That combination matters.

Amazon already forces sellers into an environment where ads dominate visibility.
So now the same platform that pressures brands to spend more on ads is also tightening payout timing and pulling more cash out before sellers ever see it.

For a very large business, this is just a minor annoyance. But for a small business making payroll just got 50x harder.

Less cash on hand means:
less inventory
more stockouts
more debt
more strain on small teams
and ultimately a worse customer experience

This is not “supporting small business.”
It is starving the brands that create so much of the value customers come to Amazon for.

@WSJ @business @nytimesbusiness @BusinessInsider @ReutersBiz @CNBC @APBusiness

If you’re covering Amazon, local communities hit by a hard economy and large companies trying to squeeze hardworking Americans hit me up.

[Sean Frank @Seanfrank]

Everyone was mad when Meta removed credit card payments. They are mad because for many low margin sellers, this is how they fund vacations.

a tiny small bonus for dealing with the pain of selling online.

But Meta isnt the bad guy.
Google removed credit cards first.

And amazon is ACTUALLY hostile to their sellers.
Meta wants you to grow. Meta wants you to spend more. Meta grows as you grow.

Amazon isnt growing.
Their retail sales are growing at the rate of inflation.

Your profit is an insult to them.
Your margin is an error that belongs to them.

The only way for them to get more money (for the BILLIONS in ai spend) is to take it.

They will keep squeezing sellers.
Because for every seller who goes bust, another idiot starts up.

It just leads to shittier products, shittier services, at worst prices.

Amazon doesnt care.
Stock price is down.

The fees will increase until morale improves.

[Michael Patrón @michaelpatron0]

Yo @amznsellerhelp can someone explain to me how this helps my cash flow? lmao. Huge b**ch move by you guys...so obviously I expected it. Seems this is applying to random accounts and no announcement on your news page yet. Amazon been f**king sellers hard the last...

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

This person just gave you the neuroplasticity recovery protocol most people pay therapists $200/hour to discover.

The core mechanism here is dopamine baseline depletion. When you scroll, each interesting post spikes dopamine 100-200% above baseline. The problem is what happens next. Your dopamine drops 40-60% BELOW baseline for 2-4 hours. This means the homework, the book, the focused thinking you try to do afterward feels neurologically impossible. You’re not lazy. Your prefrontal cortex is literally running on empty.

Here’s the thing about that “I used to be sharp” feeling. Working memory capacity correlates directly with dopamine available in the prefrontal cortex. Lower dopamine, shorter working memory span. D’Esposito and colleagues at Berkeley showed this with neuroimaging. The people who can hold longer strings of information have more dopamine available for release. So when you’ve been chronically depleting your dopamine reservoir through high-stimulation activities, your working memory atrophies. You feel dumber because, neurochemically, your prefrontal cortex is operating at reduced capacity.

The “three days” recommendation in this article maps onto clinical literature. Anna Lembke’s research at Stanford’s Addiction Medicine clinic shows dopamine system resets require approximately 30 days for severe cases, but meaningful restoration begins within 72 hours of removing the stimulus. That’s why day three of any detox feels qualitatively different. Your neurons are beginning to upregulate dopamine receptors.

The boredom piece is where most people fail. Your brain interprets boredom as a signal to seek stimulation. That discomfort you feel when you’re unstimulated? That’s withdrawal. The reaching for your phone is your brain trying to bring dopamine back above baseline. Sitting with it trains the system to tolerate lower stimulation and still function. This is called raising your distress tolerance threshold.

What the article calls “rehabilitate,” the neuroscience literature calls neuroplasticity. Your brain is continuously rewiring based on what you repeatedly do. Chronic scrolling strengthens attentional circuits optimized for novelty-seeking and rapid task-switching. Sustained reading strengthens circuits for linear focus and deep processing. You’re not permanently damaged. You’ve just trained your brain for the wrong environment.

Two protocols actually accelerate the restoration. First: non-sleep deep rest. NSDR scripts (free online, 10-20 minutes) increase dopamine in the basal ganglia by up to 60%. Second: brief cold exposure. One to three minutes in cold water spikes dopamine 250% above baseline and sustains it for 2-4 hours afterward. Both of these replenish the reservoir without creating the crash cycle.

The real work is what she described: tolerating the discomfort of being understimulated long enough for your system to recalibrate to normal dopamine dynamics. The girl who used to read voraciously is still in there. The neural circuits are dormant, not dead. Plasticity works in both directions. Start with 10 minutes of focused reading a day. Your prefrontal cortex will adapt. Give it six weeks and measure the difference.

[Jonathan Gorard @getjonwithit]

Calling c the "speed of light" completely misses the point. Rather, c is the "spacetime exchange rate": how many units of space you can exchange for one unit of time.

In actuality, everything travels at the "speed of light", just not necessarily through space alone... (1/4)

[Leonardo Larocca @leonardolarocca]

@Klaviyodeepdive Prompt

[Leonardo Larocca @leonardolarocca]

@rajjha Yes please

[Leonardo Larocca @leonardolarocca]

@dtcpages Listicle

[Steven Borrelli @stevenborrelli]

Dear President Trump, @realDonaldTrump

I am the founder of a clothing brand called CUTS. We are a bootstrapped business that has been around for eight years and are a true example of living the American dream. We’ve built this business to millions of dollars in revenue over the last eight years, had a tremendous amount of success, provided jobs to hundreds of people, and I believe I am an example of the prosperity possible in America.

I voted for you in 2016, 2020, and 2024 because I believed in your vision for the country—and I still do. However, the recent tariff changes are happening too quickly. Removing 321 de minimis at the same time as increasing tariffs on China from 25% to 145% will be the death of thousands of eCommerce companies just like @cutsclothing . These are businesses that bootstrapped their way to success, created American jobs, and are now enjoying the fruits of their hard work in this country.

I understand and support the goal of putting America first—we are fully aligned with that mission. But the way these changes have been handled creates tremendous uncertainty for brands like ours. By placing tariffs on Vietnam and other countries, and then changing them so quickly, we are left unsure of what to do. More importantly, we need time to adjust to new legislation.

Regarding 321 de minimis, we were proud to use that exemption. In 2016, you mentioned using a “Hillary Clinton loophole” to lower taxes—and I respected that. That’s what a smart businessman does. Similarly, we used de minimis as a way to compete in a global market. Removing that, combined with the sudden implementation of heavy tariffs, would make our current margin structure unsustainable.

My goal in writing this is not to oppose you, but to stand with you in your mission of making America great again. We want to protect American jobs and help bring manufacturing back. CUTS is ready to help lead that charge—but it cannot happen overnight.

My request is that both the removal of 321 and the China tariff increases be delayed with enough time for U.S. companies to react—which, for production businesses, is at least 9 to 12 months. That time would allow us—and companies like us—to adjust, set up new manufacturing, and even pursue U.S. production that aligns with your vision.

I humbly ask that you take this seriously. Every day this continues, more businesses will fail. Solving one issue but hurting the very people who voted for you is not the best outcome. Mr. President, we believe in you, and we know there are things you see that we cannot. I hope you take this into consideration—so together, we can make America great again.

Respectfully,
Steven
Founder & CEO, CUTS Clothing

[Robert W Malone, MD @RWMaloneMD]

The Climate Scam is Over..
Peer-reviewed AI analysis completely debunks all of the "man-made" claims.
Please click on the link to read or listen to the essay:
https://t.co/2rpa0ADk8C

[Leonardo Larocca @leonardolarocca]

@SarahLevinger Marketing to mindstates??

[Leonardo Larocca @leonardolarocca]

@SarahLevinger Gold!! Thank you for sharing

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

A Chinese man has come up with the most ingenious anti-mosquito device: he put a net on a fan and attached a UV light to the back. All mosquitoes fly towards the light, after which they are sucked into the bag.

Save for summer.
https://t.co/p7inN2w4O6

[Wide Awake Media @wideawake_media]

RFK Jr: The war in Ukraine is a money laundering scheme for BlackRock.

"They're doing this right in front of us. They don't even care that we know anymore, because... they have a strategy."

"And that strategy is an old, old strategy, which is they keep us at war with each other... They keep the Republicans and Democrats fighting each other, and black against white, and all these divisions that they sow."

[Naval @naval]

No entrepreneur is worried about an AI taking their job.

[ⁿᵉʷˢ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. @RobertKennedyJc]

MAHA tip of the day:

I can't say this enough!

Eat more beef!
Eat more eggs!
Drop the carbs!
Eliminate processed foods!
Cook with butter!
Cut the sugar!
Drink plenty of water!
20 minutes of sunlight daily!

Check back with me in 30 days!

Your body will thank you!

MAHA!