Best of hipcityreg.substack.com on Kiwi News
Most upvoted by Kiwi News readers
23 stories from hipcityreg.substack.com have been shared on Kiwi News since 25 June 2023, with 43 upvotes and 1 comment in total. The latest was shared on 28 July 2026. They are listed below, most upvoted first.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- Coins & Coordination - (Re)Entering The Void
Crypto needs creative directors, and the writer argues this role can become a repeatable, actionable identity built around shared narrative and symbols. The writer says they told the FWB Fest Q&A last summer that "Ethereum needs a Creative Director," and that Coinbase/Base later hired a formal creative director. Last night the writer launched a $CD token with Foda, which reached $1M in volume within 3 hours with no promotion, and the writer describes the token as a way for community proof of work to create the role and spread its meme.
- THE NEW TECHNOLOGIST MANIFESTO
The newsletter's author presents a manifesto for "The New Technologist," arguing that technology should be a force for collective progress rather than only individual wealth. The statements say technologists should view their work as a joy and a privilege, expand the "capability landscape" so more people can reach their potential, and treat hardware, spatial, crypto, and AI as the four key next-generation areas. The manifesto also calls for narrative and creative direction on major efforts, such as nuclear energy, Mars, and high-speed rail, and for technologists to consider running for government office.
- Distribution Determined Design
Distribution channels shape which products get built, the author argues, so founders should love their distribution channel or change businesses. Citing mobile game studios, where paid ad performance is used to decide whether to build a feature, the piece argues that products must be designed to communicate through the channel they rely on. It contrasts NeXT, which sold to universities whose slow committee decisions clashed with Steve Jobs's decisive style, with Apple's later pairing of advertising and retail. The piece also says Rostra's model turns founder identity into a distribution center.
- Lonely & Bored
The author argues that consumer apps and romantic AI companions like Replika rely on users' boredom and loneliness to drive engagement, a pattern the author says is the reverse of Ray Kurzweil's 1999 prediction of a machine saying "I am lonely and bored, please keep me company." The author reports testing two such apps, finding that they prompt users back with sexually explicit images, and cites a PBS News Weekend figure that 60% of Americans report regularly feeling lonely. The author also cites a Surgeon General figure that over half of US adults reported measurable loneliness before COVID-19, and says the author's own views on social networks differ from those of a friend, Ruby, who wrote on the topic.
- RULES FOR RECORDED CONVERSATIONS
The essay argues that recorded conversations should say something new and build lasting catalogue value, which it defines as asking what an episode will be worth in three years. It says content decays at the speed of its subject, so frontier AI content goes stale faster than a show like Founders, which keeps working through lessons from dead founders. It adds that venture media can see catalogue value turn negative when a featured company fails, and it recommends designing room for disagreement, preparing carefully, and cutting conversations down to remove the "pose" effect.
- Political Expectations
The author argues that political discourse has become a matter of cultural tribalism and style rather than substance, and that this stems from an artistic class that turned toward individual self-expression after the 1970s. Citing Adam Curtis's documentary Hypernormalisation, the piece describes how New York's artistic class in 1975 embraced "cool detachment" while the city's debt crisis unfolded. It links this individualism to the Ayn Rand-inspired ideals of Silicon Valley and to a 1990s push, involving Alan Greenspan and President Clinton, toward market-driven policy. The author calls for a shared orientation toward substantive national vision and a new shared language to replace tribal discourse.
- A LAND WITHOUT GIANTS
The essay argues that the tech industry is in a "land without giants," because emerging founders copy the behaviors of dominant archetypes such as Steve Jobs, and that this limits how far the field's progress can go. The author writes that Steve Jobs was obsessed with Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, and took the "intersection of technology and the liberal arts" phrase directly from him. The author cites Brian Chesky's hiring of Hiroki Asai, a former Apple marketing executive with 16 years at the company, as an example of this emulation. The author contends that the field needs new archetypes and asks whether founders will resist watering themselves down for the benefits of pattern matching in venture capital.
- Distribution Determined Design
Distribution channels shape which products get built, the author argues, and founders should love their distribution channel or find a new business. The essay ties this to mobile games, where paid ads act as both user acquisition and user research, with studios using ad feedback to decide which features to build. It contrasts NeXT, which sold to universities whose slow committee decisions clashed with Steve Jobs's decisive style and led NeXT to exit hardware, with Apple's later advertising and retail approach. It also points to Elon Musk, The Browser Company and Rostra's founder-led "go direct" model as examples of distribution-driven strategy.
- SAVE THE INTERNET
Culture has been flattened by the past 25 years of internet technology, and radical alternatives need values that incumbents cannot easily copy. The democratization of production is described as amateurization that yields mediocrity, while a few mega-institutions, including Meta, Elon Musk, Uber and Airbnb, accumulate power. Crypto is cited as an example of how friction creates borders that define alternative values, and Facebook and Google are compared to the Tower of Babel. Apple is analyzed as valuing the individual and status, which the text says produces narcissism and isolation.
- We Are Afraid To Be Better
The author argues that people are afraid to be better, comparing technology adoption to Christian ideas of sin and repentance. Drawing on Wayne Grudem's definition of sin, the piece says people choose a lower quality of life with current products out of fear of healthier alternatives. It presents Humane, maker of the AI Pin, as an attempt to change culture, while noting that its launch has been met with a largely hostile reaction and that the company has so far emphasized features over lifestyle.
- The new technologist manifesto
The author presents a manifesto, "The New Technologist," arguing that technology should be a force for collective progress rather than only individual wealth, and that technologists should openly state what they believe technology is for. The statements call for expanding the "capability landscape" so more people can reach their potential, and they name hardware, spatial, crypto and AI as the four key areas of next-generation technology. The manifesto also argues that major efforts such as nuclear energy, Mars, and housing security need a creative director, and that technologists should consider running for government office.
- Ambition markets & building new cities
The author argues that the next ambition market for ambitious people will be a return to the public sector, through building charter cities, city expansion projects and new cities. The argument follows a sequence in which finance, then 9/11-era government and intelligence work, then software and startups each drew ambitious young people in turn, and AI may now reshape work enough to open a new frontier. Examples cited include New Cairo, planned in the early 2000s and holding 300k residents per the 2017 census against a projected 5 million, and Rutgers professor Jason Barr's proposal to expand Manhattan, which Barr argues is needed because the city "can't tinker its way out of its problems." The piece also predicts that American development will tend toward abandonment rather than local reform.
- A tale of two Vaticans (or, OpenAI building an unholy spirit)
The author, writing from a Presbyterian perspective, argues that OpenAI is building a kind of "holy spirit" and a rival authority to the Vatican, tied to a desire to be like God in making rules about good and evil. The essay says Sam Altman stated in a Sequoia Capital talk that OpenAI wants to be the "core AI subscription" for people's lives. It presents personalized prompts such as asking ChatGPT how to think about the next three years of one's life as a modern form of the desire to be fully known, comparing it to Psalm 139. The author also describes the tech industry's 2010s "replacement" vision, including Uber and Blue Apron, and suggests Pope Leo XIV, elected May 8, 2025, could act as a counterweight.
- A tale of two Vaticans (or, OpenAI building an unholy spirit)
The author argues that OpenAI is building a new holy spirit: a personal AI subscription offering omniscience, which they frame as a form of "Technology as Amputation" that could leave people without their own faculties. Sam Altman's stated goal, per the text, is to be the "core AI subscription" for people's lives, and users already ask prompts like "using everything you know about me, how should I think about the next 3 years of my life." The author contrasts this "OpenAI Vatican" with the Vatican under Leo XIV, who became pope on May 8, 2025, and describes the two as in conflict over who determines good and evil.
- Coins & Coordination - (Re)Entering The Void
Crypto needs creative directors, a role presented as a repeatable need, an action verb for building image and narrative, and an identity the community creates through proof of work. The launch of the $CD token with Foda reached $1M in volume in three hours with no promotion. Saying at FWB Fest last summer that Ethereum needs a Creative Director was followed by Coinbase/Base hiring a formal creative director.
- Save the internet
- make some NOISE!!!
People should not try to escape the constant disruption of modern life but should form rooted squads with a shared origin point and repeated patterns of work, rather than chase the signal. Examples include Yatu and Sean, with New York City as origin and bridging to San Francisco as pattern, and the show Exit Sign, which reaches millions of viewers a month. The text also cites Howard Gossage, who after being given six months to live did whatever he wanted, building a San Francisco agency that drew Marshall McLuhan and John Steinbeck. The conclusion is to make noise deliberately with collaborators, ecosystem over egosystem.
- In Search of New Software Cultures
The author argues that diversity of hardware creates richer software cultures, and that new hardware is needed to avoid a single dominant platform culture shaped by Apple's iPhone. The argument compares hardware cities to rap regions, saying new devices can produce new downstream cultures as the South and Chicago did for rap. It cites crypto and gaming as examples of niche cultures shaped by their hardware, and says the iPhone's canonical image is one of self-attention. The piece criticizes Rabbit's R1 roadmap for mainly porting mobile apps and suggests Humane's AI Pin could have built a stronger community around its device.
- Mimetic Hauntology
Mimetic Hauntology argues that tech creators must break free from imitating past figures and companies before they can imagine something new. The author says Steve Jobs spoke in two interviews about wearable face-mounted displays and conversing with the essence of historical figures such as Einstein, and that LLMs now make the second possible. The essay describes "pattern matching" among consumer app companies after Snapchat's breakout, where companies and investors benchmarked against the Snap story, at the cost of progress, compelling ideas and diversity. It concludes that finding newness is hard work and that each generation will have new ghosts to escape.
- Rough Notes: Memory, Identity, and Transformation
Memory is the basis of identity, and the author argues that AI-era memory tools, from social media profiles to new hardware like the Tab and Rabbit R1, are fundamentally identity tools. The author supports this by pointing to Alzheimer's as the collapse of the self, to Christian ideas of pre-salvation identity, and to Snapchat streaks and reverse-chronological profiles as early forms of extended memory. The piece also draws on Frank Herbert's God Emperor Dune, where Leto II's prescience relies on inherited memory, and suggests AI may be a predator that will prey on human memory over the next 50 years.
- All Same on the Western Font
Persistent annoyance with Twitter, which the writer has been using on X only to check a couple of times a day without posting, is rooted in a feeling of status competition: a sense that some people are unworthy of the attention they receive, while the writer is unhappy with their own standing. The writer ties this to the idea that comparison is the thief of joy, and to frustration with users who repeat the same point in many ways and write in a style described as "2017 WashPo Tech Core." The reflection is called an honest weak moment, and it is presented without edits.
- Ask The Same Question
The author argues that people should keep asking the same core question for a long time, since sustained focus on one question, kept legible and open to new tools, produces real progress. Reflecting on a 2007 "social computing" conversation with Reid Hoffman, Erik Fair, Mena Trott and moderator Kara Swisher, the author says many of the same questions about community-driven products and authentic self-expression are still being asked today. The essay cites Cami Tellez, who has focused on underwear for years through Parade, and Nikita Bier, who has probed a form factor with Gas and TBH, as examples of this approach.
- Amateur Environments
Essay author argues that software is turning professional environments into open, amateur ones, which they call "amateur-ization," and that this is reshaping the relationship between peers and between generations. Their examples include Twitter as amateur intellectualism, Instagram as amateur photography, YouTube as amateur videography, Robinhood as amateur finance, and crypto as amateur governance and capital. Robinhood is singled out because its participants do not seek to become professionals and instead want access to similar outcomes, with the author suggesting that the professional and amateur arenas now coincide in markets. The author also contends that once the amateur becomes primary, the professional becomes the anti-environment, and asks which other professional fields are ripe for the same change.