South Korea is panic buying trash bags because of a war in the Middle East.
Not oil.
Not food.
Trash bags.
That’s how deep the dependency runs. Every plastic product you touch traces back to naphtha. Naphtha traces back to crude oil ,crude oil traces back to a region that’s been unstable for decades.
We built a global civilization on a single material with a single source, and nobody thought to ask what happens when that source gets disrupted.
Now a country is rationing the bags people use to throw out their garbage. That’s not a supply chain problem. That’s a civilization design problem.
China’s most dangerous weapon is not what you think.
It is not missiles or military power.
It is influence.
Through the United Front Work Department, the CCP targets politicians, academics, and business leaders with access, opportunities, and carefully controlled exposure to China.
The goal is to turn influential voices into defenders of the regime, often without them even realizing it.
This influence even helps shield the forced organ harvesting industry from global scrutiny.
We have seen it shape narratives in institutions around the world.
In my book, Killed to Order, I break down how it all works.
Get your copy now:🧵
@jappleby The entire CRM industry exists to solve this problem and somehow a WhatsApp thread between a founder and a contact in Dubai still has more deal context than any Salesforce account ever will.
@mskoriwilson The glamour is a highlight reel of someone else’s invisible work. What you don’t see is the two years of repetitive unglamorous effort that made the highlight possible.
@Tim_Denning The most dangerous feeling in the world is having enough time. It’s the exact feeling that makes people look up ten years later and realize they’re exactly where they were.
@_sgarbini Every platform optimizes for stopping the scroll. Substack optimizes for starting the read. Those are two completely different relationships with an audience and they produce completely different results.
@Codie_Sanchez Most people know this intuitively but never act on it because Type 1 feels safe and Type 3 feels uncertain. The gap between knowing and doing is where most people spend their entire working lives.
@andrewchen The funniest part is that the trial period has always been available as an option. Companies just chose the resume and interview because it felt more formal and professional.
@Codie_Sanchez The best signal that a team is working well is that the one on one has nothing to cover. The worst signal is that everything important gets saved for it.
@sweatystartup Most people treat fitness like a project with a start and end date. The people who stay lean forever treat it like maintenance. You don’t renovate your house and then stop maintaining it.
@obsdmd
18 employees.
1.5 million users.
$2 million in revenue.
$300-350 million valuation.
Zero funding.
The core app is completely free.
They make money only if you voluntarily pay for sync or publishing.
No ads.
No investor pressure.
No growth team forcing numbers up.
A team smaller than most startup engineering departments built something worth hundreds of millions entirely on the back of people genuinely loving the product. That doesn’t happen by accident. That’s what it looks like when you solve a real problem and refuse to compromise on it.
@asaio87 Every channel is a distribution strategy. SEO, cold outreach, paid ads, partnerships. The only question worth asking early is which one closes the gap between you and your first hundred customers fastest. SEO is never that answer.
India: ~6 million engineers.
Apps built for the world: 0.
Indian engineers who built those apps: millions.
Best employees on earth.
Worst founders by choice.
A founder I know runs a restaurant doing $200k/mo.
Everyone thinks he’s rich
His food cost is 30%. Staff is 35%. Rent is 15%. Utilities, insurance, waste ,another 10%.
He clears maybe $20k on a good month. Some months he pays out of pocket just to stay open.
That’s the business most people dream about owning.
A small agency with 5 clients and a tight niche can match that profit with a fraction of the headache.
No tables to turn.
No staff to manage.
No landlord to negotiate with.
The next time sending a cold DM feels hard , remember what hard actually looks like.