
Andreessen Says He’s ‘Free as a Bird’ Since Quitting Twitter - swamp40
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-30/andreessen-says-he-s-free-as-a-bird-since-quitting-twitter
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jasode
_> “I think they’ll get by,” he said when asked how his 595,000 followers were
taking his silence. Twitter “will be okay too,” he said._

To journalist Sarah McBride, the most interesting angle isn't his Twitter
silence nor his hiatus. (Lots of celebrities take a break from Twitter.)

What's really puzzling was that he _deleted all his tweets_. Did you ask him
about _that_?

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I'm very curious about that too. Many famous people have taken breaks from
Twitter but to delete _every single tweet_ is an interesting way to go. It's
public so I can't see him trying to _hide_ something but why else would you do
it? To avoid and further Twitter interaction or something?

~~~
tw04
Exactly this. It removes the temptation of someone commenting on an old post
and then having media contact him to ask what he thinks about someone's
opinion of something he said a long time ago.

Could someone have archived all his tweets and still bring it up? Sure, but
it's far less likely.

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rebelidealist
His twitter posts are double posted in his Facebook profile. It's a hassle to
delete all your online skeletons.

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vonnik
That's too bad. @pmarca had one of the smartest accounts on Twitter. I'll miss
reading him.

~~~
vonnik
I can't believe this is getting downvoted. So let me add to it: The thing
about @pmarca was that his tastes were eclectic and many of his thoughts were
original, so whether he was tweetstorming his opinions to be met with furor,
or retweeting other accounts, you had a high density of tweets you'd want to
read. There are a lot of spambots and content marketers on Twitter, and he
wasn't one of them. So it's a loss to the ecosystem. On the other hand, he got
into trouble on Twitter, and as a famous person, he was probably accosted and
harrassed by pseudonymous morons, which is a much wider problem Twitter has to
address. I personally think that if Twitter tires you out, you're not doing it
right: turn off the notifications, allow yourself to interact for 30min out of
every 24h and you're golden.

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therobot24
i'm a 18-30 millennial in tech who has never used twitter, is it really more
addicting than reddit, facebook, et al.?

~~~
colmvp
Depends on who you ask and your interests.

Nearly every journalist/news junkie/policy wonk/social activist I know where I
live loves Twitter, largely because you can follow other interesting
journalists/writers/professionals and converse with them on Twitter. I've had
conversations with pretty notable people on Twitter which would never happen
on Reddit (save for IAMA) or Facebook. I'm glad that there's a platform for
anonymous users (Reddit) and identified users (Facebook/Twitter).

Whenever people trash Twitter, I'm always baffled, because the experience is
what you make of it. I can follow interesting people like Snowden, Musk,
Gladwell, William Gibson, Degrasse Tyson, Zach Lowe etc. and have endless list
of links to browse or interesting thoughts to ponder on... the experience can
be far more edifying that either Facebook or Reddit.

~~~
SyneRyder
Great point about the journalists - being on Twitter is how I've ended up
being found by journalists and appearing in some TV interviews on BBC & Al
Jazeera. That isn't why I'm on Twitter, but it's been a fun side benefit.

I also know some people who say they get most of their clients for their
freelance business directly from their Twitter feed now. They tweet they have
availability & get enquiries instantly.

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perseusprime11
Burnout from excessive tweeting...

