Steven Cloud

consumer social | prev @airgoods (YC S23) @myplatoai @riceuniversity | interested in what continues mattering after AI

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

placing greater restrictions on startups/innovation in AI in the US will only allow other countries to advance further, faster likely bringing greater risks than what legislators are concerned about since US labs will be behind

difficult to see the benefit of any non-international regulation

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@omooretweets short lived

marginal value of each ad increased w time as systems improved in personalization

marginal value of selling data decreases as more work is covered

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@signulll scapegoat

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

todays developer workflow: one claude code window of a nonstop fable making changes, and another window of a fable asking you questions so you can learn wtf other fable is doing to the codebase

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

funny its almost contrarian today to be bullish on UI

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@BigTexasJit @cukecity @brian_armstrong not possible / practical before to charge for fraction of a cent

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@cukecity @brian_armstrong some companies already paywall, and as they are able to charge small amounts in a very convenient way, the number of consumers willing will increase

if consumers wont pay, then market forces will help each company decide on ads vs transactions

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@oanaolt BaaS

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@cukecity @brian_armstrong every website has the ability to charge small fees to consumers directly instead of running ads

and large companies that scrape a lot subsidize more consumer activity on the web

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@alexpotato @Nexuist chainsaws at the moment - existing knowledge compounds use of AI

may converge to lightbulbs with time as loops get built for all professions

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@ajhodls perplexity

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@garrytan the cringe is great for the eyeballs to posts ratio compared to twitter

maybe having a shitty recommendation system is a moat after all

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@pzakin seems predicated by an agents ability to have desire which coming from a prompt + orchestration could be anything

curious if there are any that weren’t possible before due to data privacy concerns that are if everyones personal agent represents them & handles their own data

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@omooretweets interesting if network of LLM users (chatgpt, claude) will be used to defeat any consumer apps with network effects

series & similar UX is an obvious case of being threatened

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

when your entire marketing campaign is don’t forget i exist too

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@a16z leverage increases until commoditization sets in

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

@sporadica shot up during covid and is correcting as in real life habits & communities reform

lack of novel social modalities (2000s - pictures, text, video. 2010s - short-form video. 2020s - ?)

also this looks like a correction that could bounce back as well

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

if AI is commoditizing white collar labor, why do so many seem to think there lies long-term, non-commoditized value in stitching together the AI that automates that same labor

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

newsletters are most useful for the industries you're least tapped into but want to keep a pulse on

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

difficult to obtain knowledge is a moat

most SaaS exposes the learnings of a company through the product, but some exceptions of complex backend features built through experimentation will be more difficult to replicate with agents

[Steven Cloud @StevenMCloud1]

unicorns have already raised more in 2026 than in all of 2025

source: crunchbase data