William Roller

Product & Growth Advisor, formerly @affinedefi @salesforce @IncludedHealth | @Harvard alum | Econ., Politics, and Tech | Personal Account. Views are my own.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Interesting

[William Roller @WCRoller]

Well said @stanine 👏

[Matt MacInnis @stanine]

I found the SpaceX IPO surprisingly emotional today. It reminded me of why I came to the US as an 18-year-old. Even then, I knew that I wanted to build stuff, and that the place to do it was America. There was no second option in the world.

The concept of American exceptionalism is nothing new, but I have come to appreciate the culture that justifies it. SpaceX is yet another case in point. America’s risk-taking culture celebrates wild successes while embracing the legitimacy of hard-earned failure. American culture doesn’t celebrate inherited wealth, nor does it frown upon inherited poverty. It doesn’t seek to create equal outcomes, but rather equal opportunity.

It is not immediately obvious that this is unique in the world. Truly unique. I’m Canadian, and I love many aspects of Canadian culture, but Canadian culture does not offer people the same environment in which to take risks.

I write this because I was dismayed to see US politicians complaining of the extreme wealth created by the SpaceX IPO. Say what you will about wealth inequality, or a single man’s politics, but don’t tell me that immense wealth creation in America is bad. Do not tell me you’d rather SpaceX not exist, exactly as it does. That you’d rather this company exist in some other country or culture.

Thankfully, despite today’s politics, SpaceX could not have been a Chinese company, or a Canadian one, or a French one. It could only ever have been an American one.

If nationalism is pride in your birthplace, then it’s merely tribalism, which serves to divide us. But if it’s pride in your culture, a culture that lets people achieve incredible things like this, then under those terms I am a nationalist. I want to protect and enhance our culture of risk-taking, of celebrating wins, and of celebrating failures along the way.

I think it is amazing that America created a trillionaire out of a risk-taking immigrant. It is absolutely fucking absurd, of course, but isn’t that the point? SpaceX is not a reason to be pissed off; it’s a reason for every person in the world who wants to build stuff to see themselves as American, no matter where in the world they live.

p.s. — this is entirely from my brain, with AI used only for fixing typos and grammar. :^)

[Nikhil Krishnan @nikillinit]

I have mentioned this before - but every industry is now going to have to figure out how to value "task complexity" in the age of AI

Healthcare has been doing this for decades with the RVU system, which similarly uses survey methodologies to assign complexity to tasks (and has it's own drawbacks)

I'm interested to see how different industries come up with their own methdologies for this

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

HT @omooretweets

[William Roller @WCRoller]

We’re also:
- Building our own prototypes
- Running our own technical investigations
- Shipping to prod

[Matt MacInnis @stanine]

Also true for PMs, at least at @Rippling...

- No more planning decks, only markdown pushed to a git repo
- Customer issues identified in ~realtime using LogRockets scanned via MCP
- PMs fix your own damn copy slop 🤣

really crazy how much it has changed

[Parker Conrad @parkerconrad]

Rippling launched its AI analyst today. I'm not just the CEO - I'm also the Rippling admin for our co, and I run payroll for our ~ 5K global employees.

Here are 5 specific ways Rippling AI has changed my job, and why I believe this is the future of G&A software. 🧵 1/n

[William Roller @WCRoller]

PM life at @Rippling right now

[Matt MacInnis @stanine]

PMs are gonna do it ALL, you guys

[Will Manidis @WillManidis]

https://t.co/I9DFhgyfnd

[William Roller @WCRoller]

This post rings true. The game is changing, but so can you!

[Peter Yang @petergyang]

So what's going to happen to product management anyway?

When I talk to mid-career PMs, I hear the same frustrations over and over:

“I’m looking for a director role but all I see are individual contributor jobs.”

“I want to work for an AI company but there are very few PM roles.”

“I’m too tired to build at night after a day of back to back meetings.”

I wrote 8 hot takes on where I think the PM role is headed next and why I'm actually optimistic.

📌 Read now: https://t.co/sCYM3CwNBp

[Parker Conrad @parkerconrad]

In other tech news - Rippling is launching corporate travel.

https://t.co/S5BmtFPWl3

- Control travel spend before it happens ("only allow booking flights within 30% of the cost of cheapest reasonable flight").

- Because it's integrated with Rippling, you can easily build out policies based on someone's role (different policies for VPs than Managers).

Congrats @mustbesyrup , who founded Rippling Travel and has been building it for the last 3 years!

[William Roller @WCRoller]

Congrats to @robindavidji @olivertang_ and the whole @liquifi_finance team!

It was a blast helping the team for a brief moment in their journey and I can’t wait to see their impact accelerate as part of @coinbase

[Coinbase 🛡️ @coinbase]

Big news:
We're acquiring @liquifi_finance, the leading token management platform for early-stage teams building onchain.

Together we can support builders earlier in their journey, accelerating the path to economic freedom.

[Robin D. Ji @robindavidji]

Thrilled to share this news. Four years ago @olivertang_ and I had an idea after facing these pain points ourselves. I'm excited for the next chapter.

To our team: we did it. From spreadsheets to @Coinbase.

[William Roller @WCRoller]

@robindavidji Congrats @robindavidji @olivertang_ and the rest of the @liquifi_finance team!

[Robin D. Ji @robindavidji]

Proud of our team. Scaling from $1 to $8.5B is no easy feat! But, it's just our foundation for the year ahead!

[William Roller @WCRoller]

@jpmcuddy You rooting for Air Force today? 😉

[William Roller @WCRoller]

@stripe acquisition of @Stablecoin is a huge milestone for crypto. Cold, hard utility -- not memes or token values -- are driving this acquisition. Broader adoption of stablecoin infra will allow users everywhere to transmit value far more affordably and efficiently.

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

Stablecoins are room-temperature superconductors for financial services. Thanks to stablecoins, businesses around the world will benefit from significant speed, coverage, and cost improvements in the coming years. Stripe is going to build the world’s best stablecoin infrastructure, and, to that end, we are delighted to welcome @stablecoin to @stripe.

[William Roller @WCRoller]

@stripe acquisition of @Stablecoin Is a major milestone for crypto. Cold, hard, utility -- not memes or revolution -- are driving this acquisition. Together, Stripe + Bridge will allow users around the world to transmit value more efficiently and affordably than ever before.

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

Stablecoins are room-temperature superconductors for financial services. Thanks to stablecoins, businesses around the world will benefit from significant speed, coverage, and cost improvements in the coming years. Stripe is going to build the world’s best stablecoin infrastructure, and, to that end, we are delighted to welcome @stablecoin to @stripe.

[William Roller @WCRoller]

Great post from @joeschmidtiv on how AI-wedges will allow startups to build deeper relationships with customers and eventually outmaneuver incumbent systems of record

[Joe Schmidt IV @joeschmidtiv]

What can Daniel Day-Lewis’s “There Will Be Blood” character teach startups that are trying to break into markets dominated by entrenched incumbents?

“I. Drink. Your. Milkshake!!” 🥤

https://t.co/7MLm3TkUXE

[William Roller @WCRoller]

@Nick_van_Eck Nice work @Nick_van_Eck and the @withAUSD team!

[William Roller @WCRoller]

Sending a much-belated congratulations to @TarikMoon @heemzers and the whole @AffineDeFi core-team for shipping ultraETH!

They've built an awesome ecosystem of partners -- ranging from @eigencloud @symbioticfi to validator partners, security partners and more -- that help make LRTs more powerful and approachable.

Check out what the team has built!

https://t.co/I6zQBXSgjm

[Affine DeFi (ultraETH) @AffineDeFi]

ultraETH and ultraETHs are now live at https://t.co/eI5VoWw9M2 🚀

Affine ultraETHs are the most robust, and long-term-oriented LRTs powered by Affine Risk Engine. Slashing goes live soon, and ultraETH will give you the best risk-adjusted returns!

Details 👇🏻🧵