Alex Rampell
@arampell
Followers
45,932
Following
1,126
Media
631
Statuses
10,340
Silicon Valley entrepreneur (cofounder@ TrialPay, Yub, Affirm, Point, TXN), investor (General Partner @a16z ), husband, father and sarcast (one who is sarcastic)
Palo Alto, CA
Joined October 2010
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Real Madrid
• 1109926 Tweets
Champions
• 713204 Tweets
Joselu
• 326379 Tweets
Dortmund
• 302764 Tweets
مدريد
• 215334 Tweets
Bernabéu
• 200867 Tweets
Neuer
• 168199 Tweets
Wembley
• 152580 Tweets
Vini
• 144545 Tweets
Tuchel
• 134835 Tweets
Ancelotti
• 106136 Tweets
FURIA ES GRAN HERMANO
• 84262 Tweets
Davies
• 83833 Tweets
Harry Kane
• 78681 Tweets
De Ligt
• 68010 Tweets
Nacho
• 64361 Tweets
Steve Albini
• 61628 Tweets
الريال
• 55011 Tweets
Kimmich
• 52448 Tweets
#虎に翼
• 37577 Tweets
نوير
• 36532 Tweets
Musiala
• 35012 Tweets
#Number_i_ビアボールでカンパイ
• 30050 Tweets
Rudiger
• 26980 Tweets
Cable
• 24227 Tweets
Lunin
• 22267 Tweets
Muller
• 20527 Tweets
DPVAT
• 19368 Tweets
توخيل
• 18960 Tweets
ビアボーーー
• 17928 Tweets
アイスクリームの日
• 16860 Tweets
twenty one pilots
• 15265 Tweets
マドリー
• 10970 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts”
-Richard Feynman (1966)
132
189
810
This is the most brilliant iPhone app grouping I’ve ever seen...
268
7K
28K
My son is taking a summer class on investing. The homework was to present and analyze a stock. I hereby present his pick and analysis for Dogecoin
305
718
7K
1/ Why is “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) an early threat to trillions of dollars of market cap - Visa (almost $500B), MasterCard ($350B), card issuing banks, acquiring banks/services (Fiserv, FIS, Global Payments, etc)?
174
1K
6K
Selection bias (and its cousin, survivorship bias), or why you should be very skeptical of most surveys and “studies”
24
1K
6K
Just witnessed a black market plastic straw transaction. Not joking. Kid’s paper straw fell apart 3x. Waiter went back to kitchen, hid 2 plastic straws in a cloth napkin, clandestinely showed the father, who approved and selected one.
87
611
4K
The fastest Twitter product launch in history
BREAKING: Twitter, in a statement, said its board of directors has unanimously adopted a “poison pill” defense in response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s proposal to buy the company and take it private.
779
2K
6K
43
267
4K
Everyone should watch this — trust primary sources (the unedited original, at the end) and primary sources only.
This is wild. Watch Ron DeSantis’s full answer on Publix, Walgreen’s and CVS vaccine distribution and look at the edited cut 60 Minutes used:
2K
15K
51K
56
331
3K
1/n Visa today has a $328B market cap, bigger than virtually every bank on earth (JPM at $384B is the only one bigger). And yet it started out as a non-profit owned BY banks. How did it become more valuable than its “parents”?
34
649
2K
Kid’s school is *again* back to requiring masks…they will never give this up. It’s a religion that renders these people impervious to evidence and in denial of the burden of proof.
229
306
2K
Lehman Brothers filed for the largest ever bankruptcy 11 years ago, on September 15, 2008. Many things changed that day, but the most lasting impact is arguably what’s happened to the money supply — what a chart
39
609
2K
1/ How a company I co-founded (TrialPay) once exited the Catch 22 of “can’t raise cash without growth; can’t grow without raising cash” which is potentially the most “unsolvable” (Kobayashi Maru) situation a VC-backed company can face
80
233
2K
Real Estate: location location location
Startups: timing timing timing
39
151
1K
1/ September 18th marks the 61st anniversary of the most valuable network effect of all time: the credit card. How did we get here? Read on. And read
@opinion_joe
‘s book “Piece of the Action” for more...
33
415
1K
As always,
@matt_levine
is ahead of the curve
Spoke with North American Bitcoin miners. They committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.
23K
33K
296K
20
162
1K
1/ Thread: How to sell your company
Companies are (almost always) bought, not sold. This means somebody needs to *want to buy* your company.
Ideally this happens organically. But how do you, as a founder/CEO, expedite this…particularly when you KNOW you’re hitting a wall?
34
130
1K
1/ Just how Covid crazy is California?
A *math competition* scheduled today requires KN95s for all participants, at all times…except during lunch, where the virus obviously takes a break. What if your kid has a medical issue making all-day mask-wearing difficult? See next…
147
165
1K
1/ The Future of Payments…is Red?
What could disrupt Visa/MasterCard/Amex? How might a new payments Goliath start?
Let’s talk about the Target Red Card. Target did >$100B in revenue last year, 20% of which happened on its own cards:
57
139
905
“A big part of innovation is saying, ‘You know what I’m really sick of?’”
10
106
827
Buffett: ‘Buy into a business that’s doing so well an idiot could run it, because sooner or later, one will’
Analog in government: have a government with so little power that even if an idiot is elected, it’s fine, because sooner or later an idiot will be
16
54
751
On a plane last night:
-“masks must be worn at all times. If you do not comply, you will face civil and criminal penalties and be permanently barred from flying” 🙄
45 mins later…
“Dinner is served!”
Whole plane takes off their masks.
End this farce/theater,
@PeteButtigieg
19
57
720
I vividly remember 9/11, watching with horror as thousands of innocent people died. I don’t remember anyone “both sides-ing” that, or saying it was justified because of US foreign policy, or sending pathetic emails (like so many schools are doing) about “violence in New York and…
72
54
690
A more cynical read: if you’re a celebrity, you get free reach, no matter how crazy your positions. If the platforms ban political advertising but accept “earned” impressions, prepare for more celebrity politicians.
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵
14K
82K
352K
45
98
682
Finally get to unite my two interests:
Payments and insane Covid regulations
(As seen in Palo Alto, California…and yes, you can eat/drink here with your mask off, just not unlock your phone, because as everyone knows, smartphones kill)
39
24
688
Everyone knows Harry Potter’s runaway success and JK Rowling’s resulting fortune was the result of inside information on Hogwarts mixed with political bribes and a monopoly...
Anyone who has a billion dollars either exploited a monopoly that should have been broken up, got inside information unavailable to other investors, bribed some politicians, or inherited the money from their parents (who did one of the above).
2K
2K
5K
16
117
668
Was just discussing this with a friend — if you could redesign education around “must learn to graduate” courses — basics that anyone can learn, what would they be? Mine:
1. Logic (correlation ≠ causation)
2. Economics (supply and demand)
3. Computer Science (basic algorithms)
229
45
619
I'm at a restaurant where the waitress is talking to the bartender about the best law firm for an ICO
44
119
594
Sometimes I wish the USSR still existed so idiots like this could move there, but that wouldn’t be fair to people who suffered under communism
When somebody like JK Rowling sells 500 million copies of Harry Potter to adoring fans, thereby becoming a billionaire, evil wins! Evil!
32
40
602
How did I not know this? You can sign any PDF directly from iOS Mail and instantly mail it back post-signature:
This is a total game changer
15
150
567
The question is when, not if, this whole system collapses. Higher inputs (college costs) with lower outputs (wages) aided by leverage (student loans) which cannot be serviced as those two lines further diverge
Trinity College to charge $71,660 next year. In 2005, I wrote a story for
@chronicle
about how Bates decided to pass $40K mark. Only 75 colleges at the time had passed that mark. Yes, few pay sticker, but it's still a signal.
21
62
101
22
180
571
My attempt at the grand unified theory of cryptocurrency — where it came from, how it works, and why it matters (and why much of it has nothing to do with Bitcoin)
3
142
570
I bet SpaceX is getting a record number of applicants/volunteers to settle Mars right now
9
34
533
2/ Behind every card transaction there are FIVE parties: consumer -> issuing bank -> network (V/MA) -> acquiring bank -> merchant. The middle three get zero data on what items (“SKUs”) are being bought. Short video I made here:
7
60
518
1/
@Plaid
underpins virtually all of fintech; it is the strategic pillar that is allowing this industry to be built at unprecedented scale and speed. While I believe the DOJ decision to be misguided, I’m MORE excited for
@plaid
and
@zachperret
‘s decision to remain independent.
16
39
511
5/
@MATHCOUNTS
should be absolutely ashamed of itself. It’s an embarrassment to an organization that is supposed to be rooted in…mathematics.
11
23
498
It’s kind of crazy that Tesla is *selling* something that does not exist today, has no known timeline for completion, AND which may be functionally impossible with the hardware on the car (no LIDAR etc...)
68
93
474
1/ Controlling currency used to mean controlling payments. You print the money as the sovereign; all payments are transacted with that paper. But non-paper payments have changed that and yielded geopolitical risk...
19
130
473
Timely reminder of how IPOs work, why the price of a marginal share is not that of a giant block, and why small floats distort pricing:
19
100
472
People who don’t like trickle down economics sure seem to like trickle down taxation
24
30
427
Today is August 15, the 49th anniversary of the de facto end of Bretton Woods, creating the fiat currency world we know today. Bitcoin’s birthday is October 31, 2008, but it has a spiritual secondary birthday of today — the widespread beginning of fiat money.
53
117
414
Best way of understanding how archaic our banking, payments, and identity systems are: the US Goverment is paying banks ~$10B to *give away* $350B.
There’s a remarkably better way, and it rhymes with heck.
20
109
417
13/ Open-loop payments (the V/MA system) are one of the greatest network effects of all time, and have created and *captured* tons of value. The moat is immense. But BNPL and mobile wallets are creating the first market-based (not regulation-based) cracks in the fortress.
FIN
58
21
407
1/ There have been many attempts to topple payment network effects by paying users to switch. This almost never works, because (a) more people are motivated by convenience than small amounts of money, and (b) those motivated by money will suck up all the promotional budget ASAP
13
58
403
“Inflation is taxation without legislation”
-Milton Friedman
6
48
396
3/ Of course, all of this is couched under “keeping the vulnerable safe” — with no evidence it actually does, and no recognition of the pre-2020 existence of other viruses that also…affect vulnerable people. Why not require prayer to Zeus?
5
12
370
OS-based wallets like ApplePay pose an existential threat to cloud wallets like PayPal. Compare the experience at TheNorthFace with PayPal vs ApplePay. Eventually HomeDepot, Walmart, etc will embrace. PayPal smart to diversify. Let’s tweet this experience...
29
77
367
5/ This what makes BNPL so interesting. It’s a **parallel** network, with SKU level information, that bypasses the issuing bank, card network, and merchant acquirer. It’s just the consumer, the merchant, AND (this is exciting!) a new participant: the product manufacturer!
10
32
362
This coming decade will see a *massive* compression of this profit pool for banks as “robo-advisors” for debt — possibly built into the digital wallet — automatically refinance consumer debt to the lowest possible rate. Inertia and friction have maintained this biz for too long.
Americans’ near-record levels of credit card debt is helping bolster banking industry
30
63
65
19
52
358
19/ It was a very trying experience, and I distinctly remember
@bhorowitz
taking the time (as a non-investor who barely knew me in 2013!) to give my co-founders and me guidance and counsel as we navigated between rocks and hard places. Hope this helps others in the same boat. FIN
22
7
361
@justinkan
Not how market making works and Citadel Securities is separate. I’d be happy to talk more about this as I was on the board of the once biggest market maker (KCG). The insane volatility makes it VERY hard and requires massive broker collateral...versus “deplatforming”...
49
23
344
4/ The net result of this insanity — when unchecked at colleges, schools, math competitions, etc — is that eventually there will be a negative selection bias loop…of smart/reasonable people “opting out” of the insanity, concentrating the craziness even more in these institutions
6
16
347
This is the real issue for PayPal. Slowly, then all at once.
OS-based wallets like ApplePay pose an existential threat to cloud wallets like PayPal. Compare the experience at TheNorthFace with PayPal vs ApplePay. Eventually HomeDepot, Walmart, etc will embrace. PayPal smart to diversify. Let’s tweet this experience...
29
77
367
27
29
342
How does an order you place at brokerage become a trade? What do market makers do? How do exchanges make money? What is Payment for Order Flow?
Read
@skupor
and my detailed explainer on how it all works and why market making+PFOF helps retail investors:
10
64
332
1/ The internet drove instant, rich, free communication in a form humans have never before seen. With that comes good and bad.
*Right or wrong*, when the leader of a country is kicked off a massive communication network, it creates a geopolitical risk that will...
17
73
320
1/ Why are there so many SPACs?
Answer 1: Great economics for sponsor (average of 20% of money raised upon deSPAC / merging with a target, Eg $400M SPAC = $80M). It’s like a separate carried interest pool for each company and liquid since already public!
15
30
325
@SmithDanaG
This is misinformation — see the WHO’s 2019 Pandemic Preparedness Guide, which included *ALL* RCTs on masks for influenza…and showed “…no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza”
0
47
312
“The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly”
—Thomas Sowell
CA is launching a $116.5 MILLION GIVEAWAY for vaccinated Californians!
$15 MILLION in cash prizes for 10 winners selected 6/15
$50k for winners on 6/4 & 6/11
Already vaccinated? You’re entered.
Not vaccinated? Next 2 million that get fully vaccinated can ALSO get a $50 card.
4K
4K
18K
5
22
317
1/ Many areas of financial services have “stochastic margins” per widget, but hopefully (obviously!) positive margins for the whole batch of widgets sold - unlike most manufacturers, with fixed/declining COGS at scale. This means many things when you build a “financial” business
12
41
318
This is so good — watch it
1960, Orson Welles explained how he wrangled complete creative control for his first film, Citizen Kane, as well as the value of “ignorance” to break through old ideas.
139
2K
10K
22
72
314
Whenever I am asked “why is the price of X [asset] going up?” I now respond with this graph. The money supply caught a virus.
17
28
307
Somebody should fax him an update 😂
My barber asked me whether he should buy Bitcoin. This is like 2000, when pizza joints had CNBC, not sports, on their TVs
208
234
544
12
21
295
1. An example of how friction and inertia extract profits in consumer finance, and how technology solutions/fintech companies will change the game.
9
60
300
A simple decision-making framework for investing time (or money) during a time of change:
10
58
301
@annamv10
Collections rates on medical bills are poor so they boost the “cost” to get higher yield from those who do pay. UCSF and Stanford also charge about 5-10x that of a stand-alone radiology clinic for the same thing FYI. Tell them you want a discount and if so will pay it now.
20
16
275
What’s truly amazing about Bitcoin is that the process of “believing” has happened organically, versus how we got from gold->paper
10
126
274
The reason B2B2C models are so interesting: when we look at fintech investments, the questions of “how do you get distribution” and “how do you make sure somebody else doesn’t outbid you” are paramount. If you can nail a B2B2C model, you lock down both:
7
65
280
8 (fin): Protocol design matters. And a well thought through protocol is more valuable and protective than lawyers, contracts, and even governments — it will survive all of them.
16
36
265
A: “Follow the science!!!”
B: “Scientific hypotheses must be falsifiable! And testable! That’s literally what science is!”
A: “Why are you anti-science?!?”
Shout out to all the Bs on planet earth.
11
24
265
2/ It’s a big problem — we’ll sequester him (except during lunch), treat him like a leper, not allow him to work with other kids, and demand he stay far away from others as proper humiliation…with an “extra wide berth” of distance from the mask-wearers.
15
19
265
1/ few thoughts on iBuying in light of ZG news:
Amazon started off stocking every book it sold, but the vast majority of revenue is now 3P marketplace/FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon). Once AMZN aggregated consumer demand, it started aggregating other sellers and charging commissions
9
30
266
Nielsen has been doing this since 1942. There's nothing remotely nefarious or "secret" about this. Nobody being "forced" to do this, and almost every company does market research -- with consumer permission, consumer opt-in, and *paying* ONLY consumers who want to opt it...
Facebook is under fire once again — this time, for secretly paying people to install an app that lets the company monitor all the phone and web data on the device.
22
104
71
30
53
250
Much of the Bay Area has had no electricity for 48 hours.
Politicians:
37
54
243
The story of the Global Financial Crisis was “The Big Short” — a trillion $ of bad mortgages with fake ratings
The story of GME is “The Small Short” — how a once tiny *small cap* with >100% short interest tanked the market by forcing unwinds of large positions to meet margin
3
21
253
It’s only The Science™ if it comes from the Fauci region of France, otherwise it’s just a Sparkling Hypothesis
4
20
244
Medical billing in a nutshell:
At the hospital: “How much does this cost, and can I pay now?”
“I don’t know and unfortunately not now”
Weeks later...
Via postal mail:
“What is this unmarked, zero line item bill for? Why do I keep getting more?”
“We just handle the billing”
14
19
243
Here's a Power Law Distribution for you: of the 64 Grand Slams played since Federer won his first in 2003, just *3* people have accounted for 53 of the wins. And those three (Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic) are again in the semis, and have more majors than anyone in men's history
14
72
237
@DrJBhattacharya
Santa Clara County is refusing CPRA (California Public Records Act) disclosures of almost all Covid response discussion under a “deliberative process exemption”
They never want their capricious, innumerate, and harmful idiocy to see the light of day
7
45
235
@antoniogm
Met a famous rabbi who said that every week, people going through a tremendous hardship ask him “why me?” But not once has somebody of tremendous luck/fortune (being born in the US in modern day qualifies!) said “why me?” Really stuck with me.
7
31
230
Cool tennis data visualization: who’s the *end-state* GOAT? Seems inconceivable it won’t be Djokovic based on slope and current position...
23
47
234
In 2004, we got to T+3 settlement (used to be T+5!):
In 2017, we got to T+2 settlement:
That’s one day shorter every 13 years!
This is 2021. Everything is electronic. It can be, and should be, instant.
18
25
233
Honest, non-snarky question for those who support taking down Trump’s account permanently:
Should Safari block access to his websites? Should Mail block access to emails? Incitement can happen over any modality — what makes (centralized) Twitter more dangerous or different?
94
7
234
11
6
223