Nikhil Kumar

building @5x5_Collective // explore all ideas

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

Soccer has multiple competitions during a club team season

The nba has 2

If the Knicks win they’ll be the first to win the nba cup and finals

Soccer has the “treble” for teams that win 3 trophies

What will the nba version be? “The double” is not good enough

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

@abhay @helium @jnwng 👨🏽‍🍳 👨🏽‍🍳

[Decal — Stablecoin commerce @useDecal]

Today we're launching Decal Treasury.

Your idle cash now earns automatically — and that yield funds a loyalty program that pays for itself.

One toggle. New revenue. Zero work.

Here's the whole idea 🧵

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

@immad Glad you said this! Hustle culture is stupid

[Jake Wintermute 🧬/acc @SynBio1]

Would love to see dirt plunges as the next wellness trend not even joking

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

There is still a need for a censorship resistant base layer of information

https://t.co/AlsVJr2DaN

[Nimali @KYDNimale]

Really respect how @saumil has been engaging directly with hard questions from fans on Ticketmaster, bots, access, pricing, and resale.

As a builder in live events and a former Ticketmaster employee, I think this kind of direct dialogue is long overdue.

A few questions:

[Liam Nissan™ @theliamnissan]

💯

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

@signulll The act of owning something and then caring for it, maintaining it, repairing and improving it is valuable in itself. It’s not easy, but it’s hard to replicate in a renter mindset

House, especially, is true here

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

According to my research, NYC subway performances are finally approaching pre-COVID levels

[Katie Chiou @katiewav]

during the @stripe sessions keynote this morning, @collision and @emilygsands reference ronald coase's nature of the firm (1937) which is a very interesting lens with which to view AI + its effect on corporate structure

in the original essay, coase essentially explains why companies exist—to reduce the friction and transaction costs of contracting individual work on the free market (it’s cheaper to do things internally than coordinate in the market). however, firms come with their own diminishing returns to size (bloat, coordination costs)

emily and john explain how AI changes that math

inside companies, AI lowers coordination costs so companies can do more with fewer people

but AI also lowers the cost of using markets––agents can discover vendors, integrate software, buy data, etc. etc. more work can happen outside the firm

one way i might extend this argument/read between the lines: AI makes two corporate forms viable

a hyper-optimized firm: you get the scaling benefits of shared context, systems of record, proprietary data, and AI helps you reduce bloat—fewer people just routing information, translating context, and keeping the machine moving. AI working inside the company

a nanocorp: a solopreneur or tiny team can launch globally, stay lean, and automate aggressively, with agents, APIs, contractors, payments, and cloud tools standing in for the old org chart. AI working as the company

the awkward middle is the company with proprietary context but neither the coordination nor the AI leverage to do anything with it—all hierarchy/bloat, no upside

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

@culturehacker @ColumbiaDSL soon @jnwng 👀👀

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

@AbolTaabol Fair point, but the world has been inflected by the internet whether or not folks are connected

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

Wild thought:

If you’re a millennial, there will be a point in our lifetimes where we’re the last people on earth who experienced life before the internet 🤯

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

@SynBio1 Did you just coin the term “lowkenuinely”

[Solana @solana]

Why We Ship: @useDecal

After building products for billions at Google and launching Solana Pay in a cafe in SF, @joshfried decided to go build the merchant product the ecosystem was missing.

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

@big_duca @coursera @solana My openclaw has been curating bangers

I’m gonna clean this up into a neater experience for *not me* but give it a look:

https://t.co/WDXolGiyM3

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

i've had the most fun in my career working with jon. we started at @coursera, ran it back years later @solana, and now it's time to chart our own course.

we're entering a world where skilled generalists will be more relevant than ever; where vision matters in profound ways. we were built for this. time to have some fun.

follow along for the ride here 🏀 https://t.co/XqMWyzGriN // @5x5_Collective

[jon wong @jnwng]

after four long years, last week was my final one @SolanaFndn. along the way, i've been witness to the growth of one of the strongest ecosystems in all of technology (let alone crypto) and i'm deeply appreciative of having played a small part in where @solana is today

there are too many stories to recount and too many people to thank so i won't begin to try, but i'm forever a fan of the entire Solana ecosystem and always hope to count myself as part of the family

as for what's next: i seek to fulfill a decade-long vision quest to build the last company i ever work for with my friend @nkumar23. across both of our many interdisciplinary experiences throughout our careers, we've seen the value of being glue, of mixing-and-matching skillsets, and of building powerhouse teams to tackle hairy problems. this all-around mindset is embodied by the rare achievement of getting a 5x5 in basketball: at least five points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocks in a single game. only 15 players have done it, ever.

we will take this approach to heart with the next step of our journey. this creative technology lab slash product studio slash members collective will have both highly experimental and entirely practical outputs, which we'll explore with software, writing, events, & art. we'd love for you to follow along as we figure it out: https://t.co/032T16mZrw // @5x5_collective

[Nikhil Kumar @nkumar23]

@tamarincrypto @jnwng @SolanaFndn @solana 🫶🫶🫶