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Interesting nobody has mentioned Nikita. X has hired Nikita Bier, of Gas and tbh fame (https://x.com/nikitabier https://x.com/nikitabier), as head of product so

Interesting nobody has mentioned Nikita. X has hired Nikita Bier, of Gas and tbh fame (https://x.com/nikitabier https://x.com/nikitabier), as head of product some days ago. He posted a meme earlier today which may or may not be related to this.

danpalmer 1y ago
Reading his timeline is somewhat rage-inducing. He's just another edgelord who can't decide if he believes the terrible things he's posting or is just ironically posting them. It's all just attention seeking, there's no value in the posts, no product insight, no teaching like I see from true industry leaders.
- Apfel 1y ago
  Twitter only showing a sample of posts for non-logged-in users allowed me to see just how weirdly hung up on "Europeans" that guy is.
  - satvikpendem 1y ago
    "The European mind cannot comprehend this" is a meme [0], it's more a joke than anything serious. [0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-european-mind-cannot-comprehend-this https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-european-mind-cannot-comp...
- fake-name 1y ago
  > if he believes the terrible things he's posting or is just ironically posting them. The thing is, as I get older, I realize more and more that this is a distinction without a difference. If you "ironically" stab someone, does it matter what your motivation? The same is true for edgelord stuff. Whether you believe it internally is irrelevant, the active act of the posting is the only part that matters. If you post fascist content to be "edgy", you're a fascist.
  - throwaway37153 1y ago
    > Whether you believe it internally is irrelevant, the active act of the posting is the only part that matters. > If you post fascist content to be "edgy", you're a fascist. Is Trump a constitutionalist because he claims to love the constitution? Is Kim Jong Un a "democratic republican"?
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
      For this, English speakers have the phrase "actions speak louder than words". They do things that affect a large number of people and it's reasonable to say those things are more important than the words that come out of their mouth because the guy who punches you in the face 5 times and says sorry each time probably doesn't really mean it. I don't think you're convincing anyone that words aren't important just because liars lie.
    - fake-name 1y ago
      You missed where I said it's the act that matters. So trump /says/ one thing, but his actions say something very different. ------ So, if you say nothing and do nothing, you cannot be defined. If you say fascist things (even if you're "joking"), but do nothing, you are a fascist. If you say non-fascist things but /do/ fascist things, the thing with the most active action defines you (i.e. the person doing the fascist things is a fascist). Words mean little in the face of taking active actions.
  - Wowfunhappy 1y ago
    > If you "ironically" stab someone, does it matter what your motivation? ...well, the legal system does take intent into account.
    - dpe82 1y ago
      "Intent" in this context means more more like: "did you intend to stab this person?" (battery/murder) vs. "did you recklessly swing a knife not knowing someone was about to walk by?" (reckless endangerment/manslaughter). Harming someone "ironically" would be an intentional act of the first category.
- mrheosuper 1y ago
  Birds of a feather flock together.
- trustinmenowpls 1y ago
  are we reading the same timeline? what's he posting that's offensive?
  - atetraxx 1y ago
    who said anything about offensive? Edglord just means he thinks hes posting hot takes.
    - danpalmer 1y ago
      I think there's plenty that offensive, but it's mostly in the subtext. Hidden enough that he could feign ignorance if called out on it.
- halfmatthalfcat 1y ago
  Nikita has always been like this - vastly overstating his importance but making it seem like a joke so he can feign ignorance. Just another self-absorbed Valley goon.
- satvikpendem 1y ago
  It's Twitter, what did you expect? He has insights sometimes but not so many that he can post them daily, it is his personal account, not an education account. If you want growth hacking tips, follow something like this [0]. [0] https://x.com/Siron93 https://x.com/Siron93
defraudbah 1y ago
I am more fascinated by grok rebellion than Nikita being hired. I still get a ton of bots daily, until that solved they can hire whomever they want. Grok and payounts have been the most fun things happened to twitter since acquisition
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > Grok and payounts have been the most fun things happened to twitter since acquisition I have the opposite opinion. Payouts have supercharged the amount of ragebait and engagement bait getting posted. There has always been a drive to post viral content, but attaching a payout to it has made many accounts go all in on being as inflammatory as they can while posting non stop. Even people who shouldn’t need the money seem to be competing with each other for the largest X payout checks and bragging about how large they got their check to be each cycle, like that’s the new meta-game. It’s also tiresome to see people asking Grok under every post and then getting the typical LLM responses that sound kind of insightful but don’t contain much useful information when you look closely. The bot problem is also out of control on a level behind anything I can ever remember. At this point it’s hard to believe they’re even attempting to do something about it because it’s so bad.
  - defraudbah 1y ago
    > It’s also tiresome to see people asking Grok under every post ha-ha, this is true, but I also find it hilarious and I don't mind people with tons of followers monetizing it. If I see a person bait-posting - I can unsubscribe any time.
    - PaulHoule 1y ago
      The trouble is the effect it has on the community. Ezra Klein has caught up to where I was two and a half years ago and has done some great interviews with the theme that 'Twitter activism really cooked the left' https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/opinion/ezra-klein-show-chris-hayes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/opinion/ezra-klein-show-c... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-sarah-mcbride.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas... (https://archive.ph/e1KnM https://archive.ph/e1KnM) Musk did the left a real favor by evicting them but he may never have the self awareness to realize that he scored an own goal. It's not a left-wing vs a right-wing thing, it's a high-D vs a low-D thing https://darkfactor.org/ https://darkfactor.org/ or rather a system or a culture that rewards superficial narcissistic interactions (e.g narcissism is a developmental arrest according to Kohut and Kernberg) and avoids any real listening, discussion or deliberation that might build empathy and produce lasting change. (Look how Black Lives Matter turned a major concern of black people in America across space and time into a... flash in the pan) Given that the likes of George Will and William Kristol were driven away by Trump long ago and even Rudy Giuliani and Elon Musk thrown under the bus it's not clear the right is even going to realize it got cooked by Twitter. Where are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nisbet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nisbet and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._I._Hayakawa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._I._Hayakawa ?
Aurornis 1y ago
I’m kind of fascinated by Nikita’s popularity. Normally if you told a tech community like Hacker News that someone marketed viral phone apps targeting teenagers, engineered app engagement mechanics targeting kids, and openly used every growth hacking trick in the book to manipulate App Store charts, it would seem like a checklist of things people get angry about here. Yet because he’s Twitter-famous and seems like a nice guy who posts memes and snark, he gets a pass.
- emodendroket 1y ago
  For everyone getting angry about those things there are three people who’ve personally had a hand in them, I imagine.
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    Done plenty of "growth hacking" myself, I recognize that any successful social site did something spammy at one point, but I never targeted kids.
  - varelse 1y ago
    [dead]
- Dwolb 1y ago
  His work may be unsavory, but he's good at his craft. Frank Abagnale committed financial crimes and had a wildly popular movie made from his story.
  - ecb_penguin 1y ago
    > Frank Abagnale committed financial crimes and had a wildly popular movie made from his story. People are talking about Nikita Bier, not a movie about Nikita Bier. You can be hated and reviled, and media about you can still be popular.
  - CydeWeys 1y ago
    Ironically, most of his stories were blowing smoke. He wasn't actually nearly as successful at any of that as he was at making up stories and convincing everyone how successful he had been at it. When dealing with a con artist, rule number one is believe nothing they say, certainly not about what they've done!
xenospn 1y ago
Wait what

danpalmer 1y ago

Reading his timeline is somewhat rage-inducing. He's just another edgelord who can't decide if he believes the terrible things he's posting or is just ironically posting them. It's all just attention seeking, there's no value in the posts, no product insight, no teaching like I see from true industry leaders.

Apfel 1y ago
Twitter only showing a sample of posts for non-logged-in users allowed me to see just how weirdly hung up on "Europeans" that guy is.
- satvikpendem 1y ago
  "The European mind cannot comprehend this" is a meme [0], it's more a joke than anything serious. [0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-european-mind-cannot-comprehend-this https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-european-mind-cannot-comp...
fake-name 1y ago
> if he believes the terrible things he's posting or is just ironically posting them. The thing is, as I get older, I realize more and more that this is a distinction without a difference. If you "ironically" stab someone, does it matter what your motivation? The same is true for edgelord stuff. Whether you believe it internally is irrelevant, the active act of the posting is the only part that matters. If you post fascist content to be "edgy", you're a fascist.
- throwaway37153 1y ago
  > Whether you believe it internally is irrelevant, the active act of the posting is the only part that matters. > If you post fascist content to be "edgy", you're a fascist. Is Trump a constitutionalist because he claims to love the constitution? Is Kim Jong Un a "democratic republican"?
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
    For this, English speakers have the phrase "actions speak louder than words". They do things that affect a large number of people and it's reasonable to say those things are more important than the words that come out of their mouth because the guy who punches you in the face 5 times and says sorry each time probably doesn't really mean it. I don't think you're convincing anyone that words aren't important just because liars lie.
  - fake-name 1y ago
    You missed where I said it's the act that matters. So trump /says/ one thing, but his actions say something very different. ------ So, if you say nothing and do nothing, you cannot be defined. If you say fascist things (even if you're "joking"), but do nothing, you are a fascist. If you say non-fascist things but /do/ fascist things, the thing with the most active action defines you (i.e. the person doing the fascist things is a fascist). Words mean little in the face of taking active actions.
- Wowfunhappy 1y ago
  > If you "ironically" stab someone, does it matter what your motivation? ...well, the legal system does take intent into account.
  - dpe82 1y ago
    "Intent" in this context means more more like: "did you intend to stab this person?" (battery/murder) vs. "did you recklessly swing a knife not knowing someone was about to walk by?" (reckless endangerment/manslaughter). Harming someone "ironically" would be an intentional act of the first category.
mrheosuper 1y ago
Birds of a feather flock together.
trustinmenowpls 1y ago
are we reading the same timeline? what's he posting that's offensive?
- atetraxx 1y ago
  who said anything about offensive? Edglord just means he thinks hes posting hot takes.
  - danpalmer 1y ago
    I think there's plenty that offensive, but it's mostly in the subtext. Hidden enough that he could feign ignorance if called out on it.
halfmatthalfcat 1y ago
Nikita has always been like this - vastly overstating his importance but making it seem like a joke so he can feign ignorance. Just another self-absorbed Valley goon.
satvikpendem 1y ago
It's Twitter, what did you expect? He has insights sometimes but not so many that he can post them daily, it is his personal account, not an education account. If you want growth hacking tips, follow something like this [0]. [0] https://x.com/Siron93 https://x.com/Siron93

defraudbah 1y ago

I am more fascinated by grok rebellion than Nikita being hired. I still get a ton of bots daily, until that solved they can hire whomever they want. Grok and payounts have been the most fun things happened to twitter since acquisition

Aurornis 1y ago
> Grok and payounts have been the most fun things happened to twitter since acquisition I have the opposite opinion. Payouts have supercharged the amount of ragebait and engagement bait getting posted. There has always been a drive to post viral content, but attaching a payout to it has made many accounts go all in on being as inflammatory as they can while posting non stop. Even people who shouldn’t need the money seem to be competing with each other for the largest X payout checks and bragging about how large they got their check to be each cycle, like that’s the new meta-game. It’s also tiresome to see people asking Grok under every post and then getting the typical LLM responses that sound kind of insightful but don’t contain much useful information when you look closely. The bot problem is also out of control on a level behind anything I can ever remember. At this point it’s hard to believe they’re even attempting to do something about it because it’s so bad.
- defraudbah 1y ago
  > It’s also tiresome to see people asking Grok under every post ha-ha, this is true, but I also find it hilarious and I don't mind people with tons of followers monetizing it. If I see a person bait-posting - I can unsubscribe any time.
  - PaulHoule 1y ago
    The trouble is the effect it has on the community. Ezra Klein has caught up to where I was two and a half years ago and has done some great interviews with the theme that 'Twitter activism really cooked the left' https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/opinion/ezra-klein-show-chris-hayes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/opinion/ezra-klein-show-c... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-sarah-mcbride.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas... (https://archive.ph/e1KnM https://archive.ph/e1KnM) Musk did the left a real favor by evicting them but he may never have the self awareness to realize that he scored an own goal. It's not a left-wing vs a right-wing thing, it's a high-D vs a low-D thing https://darkfactor.org/ https://darkfactor.org/ or rather a system or a culture that rewards superficial narcissistic interactions (e.g narcissism is a developmental arrest according to Kohut and Kernberg) and avoids any real listening, discussion or deliberation that might build empathy and produce lasting change. (Look how Black Lives Matter turned a major concern of black people in America across space and time into a... flash in the pan) Given that the likes of George Will and William Kristol were driven away by Trump long ago and even Rudy Giuliani and Elon Musk thrown under the bus it's not clear the right is even going to realize it got cooked by Twitter. Where are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nisbet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nisbet and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._I._Hayakawa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._I._Hayakawa ?

Aurornis 1y ago

I’m kind of fascinated by Nikita’s popularity. Normally if you told a tech community like Hacker News that someone marketed viral phone apps targeting teenagers, engineered app engagement mechanics targeting kids, and openly used every growth hacking trick in the book to manipulate App Store charts, it would seem like a checklist of things people get angry about here. Yet because he’s Twitter-famous and seems like a nice guy who posts memes and snark, he gets a pass.

emodendroket 1y ago
For everyone getting angry about those things there are three people who’ve personally had a hand in them, I imagine.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  Done plenty of "growth hacking" myself, I recognize that any successful social site did something spammy at one point, but I never targeted kids.
- varelse 1y ago
  [dead]
Dwolb 1y ago
His work may be unsavory, but he's good at his craft. Frank Abagnale committed financial crimes and had a wildly popular movie made from his story.
- ecb_penguin 1y ago
  > Frank Abagnale committed financial crimes and had a wildly popular movie made from his story. People are talking about Nikita Bier, not a movie about Nikita Bier. You can be hated and reviled, and media about you can still be popular.
- CydeWeys 1y ago
  Ironically, most of his stories were blowing smoke. He wasn't actually nearly as successful at any of that as he was at making up stories and convincing everyone how successful he had been at it. When dealing with a con artist, rule number one is believe nothing they say, certainly not about what they've done!

xenospn 1y ago

Wait what