Rokas

Designer and untalented runner. Tech, media & culture.

[anu @anuatluru]

NEW MEDIA is INSIDER MEDIA

Rooted in Silicon Valley, but really a meditation on the moment. A theory of culture, taste, prestige, of TBPN, Mafia, Feed Me, and why a small audience of the right people beats a massive one of the wrong ones.

Working Theory #100

Essay link below

[Rokas @rokasnn]

This is how we get a world steered by intensity rather than insight

[Paul Graham @paulg]

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

This is always true, but it's truer now than usual.

[Rokas @rokasnn]

Rem Koolhaas (One of the most influential living architects) coined the phrase "the premature sheen.” The premise: You can make anything look really good really quickly. Things that look like great work. But it doesn’t make them good, because it misses the underlying thinking.

[Rokas @rokasnn]

@pmarca @tylercowen Define taste

[Rokas @rokasnn]

@gokulr @lennysan Shipping velocity is the bottleneck right now because AI made building cheap. The next bottleneck is differentiation in a market flooded with functionally-equivalent products - and that bottleneck is design-shaped.

[Rokas @rokasnn]

@TheNatural_05 @Dominykasssss @angliavandenis @thenatural_05 Fair. That’s the winner circle. Outside the 4 teams that won EuroLeague, only 6 other active clubs have reached a F4 in the modern era - Žalgiris is one of them.

History, fan base, organization, rising budget - clearly above mid-tier. Definitely not Elite yet.

[Benji Taylor @benjitaylor]

Making something people love is mostly making something you love and hoping the overlap is real

[Rokas @rokasnn]

All media is training data

[NASA @NASA]

Hello, Moon. It’s great to be back.

Here’s a taste of what the Artemis II astronauts photographed during their flight around the Moon. Check out more photos from the mission: https://t.co/rzM1P0QbOl

[Felix Haas @felixhhaas]

I see a lot of founders making the same mistake.

They hire the wrong branding partner.
Usually a big agency that takes way too long.

The best brands I’ve seen don’t come from big agencies.

They come from small, sharp teams with super strong taste.
Teams that move fast and build with you, not for you.

So I curated my go-to list of studios I’d recommend to any early-stage founder building in consumer tech.

Built in Lovable.

https://t.co/DIEAM7NrF3

[haris @haris_chc]

We used to have respect for the Annual Report.

[🎨 @devinjacoviello]

new website for The Virgil Abloh Archive

scroll or hit spacebar to see all the colors

“i” to (always) invert

[Rokas @rokasnn]

🇱🇹

[Rokas @rokasnn]

@businessbarista Claude

[Rokas @rokasnn]

@ramit Officine Universelle Buly shops are cool.

Modern architecture: Le Corbusier, Maison de Verre, Centre Pompidou.

Les Pavillons de Bercy.

Fashion: Words, Sounds, Colors & Shapes.

[Rokas @rokasnn]

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

[Rokas @rokasnn]

We collapse design into execution because business rewards building, not the search for what’s worth building.

[Karri Saarinen @karrisaarinen]

https://t.co/KODwT4eDqF

[Rokas @rokasnn]

Take a walk

[Rokas @rokasnn]

You push, you pull, you pull, you push
Over easy, easy over, over easy
Who's that? Who's there? Who cares?

[Rokas @rokasnn]

I think this misses something critical.

'Looking inward' will help you shape your preferences. Not good taste.

Taste requires social transmission, not only introspection.

I wrote about it here → https://t.co/sjngTwxfQ6