Golden Borodutch

💡 Look at the tools you use daily: is your performance negatively affected by them? Do you have too many notifications that grab you from the flow state and plummet productivity? Steve Jobs famously never let his kids use iPads, and Zuck doesn't use Facebook (or any Meta product) the way we use it. Why should you be led rather than doing what the leaders do?

This paradigm extends further towards the tool stack that you use. Are you a slave of an ecosystem, paying increasingly more money to trillion-dollar corporations for no benefit whatsoever? Are you sure you need all of these bells and whistles (that also track you) and that you can't get them anywhere else? Well, have you tried? I'm sure I have.

I've switched from iPhones to Androids around 2014. Since then, I've been buying flagship iPhones annually to test them out again (see if they've improved) — yet 2-4 weeks later, I always return them for various reasons. Mostly, I experience subpar performance and micro-freezes when using iOS. Things I can do quickly on Android don't work fast enough on iOS. For example, try opening an Android app with 2x the speed of animations and then the same app on iOS that doesn't have an animation speed-up setting. Jerry perfectly summed up my experience in this video.

Recently, I switched from MacOS to Linux. Since Apple introduced M processors, I thought it was stupid to buy any other laptop. Boy, I was wrong. It turned out that even if MacBooks on M3 are mighty (and Intel with AMD are quickly catching up), I didn't need that type of performance at all. Hence, paying a premium for something I didn't need is like driving a 911 with three kids — parents can attest to how stupid this is. Even though I can afford a full-blown 911, I opt for a Honda Odyssey. And now, having driven both, I can safely say that getting anything but minivans is not intelligent, even if you don't have kids.

MacOS was the last thing that held me back in the Apple ecosystem, and I'm so glad this period is over. I could keep spending $5500 every few years on a new MacBook, but the most recent Linux on laptop experience has freed me from this slavery. It's nice to keep making a 3-trillion company richer, but from now on, you'll have to do this without me.

🤔 "Sherlocking" is when a large company releases a feature available to users using a third-party application or service. Generally, when a company sherlocks a feature, the original inventors aren't attributed or recognized — hence the negative sentiment toward the company that sherlocks features.

The team "sherlocking" comes from a case when Apple released Spotlight, completely replacing the then-popular app "Watson," which did the same thing. Hence the joke — Sherlock replacing his beloved friend Watson. The issue here comes from the fact that the company has access to the data on what features and third-party apps are popular, making it an easy "kill" to replace them with built-in features.

Ethically, companies with access to large budgets buy out or at least recognize the original inventors. Microsoft, Spotify, and even Apple do it from time to time! But how is this relevant to Telegram or my blog?

I run a collection of fully open-source, primarily free, public goods software projects. Yesterday, 84,349,300 users used the apps I built (see the real-time statistics and the list of projects on my website). Some of these projects are Telegram-native bots.

Back in 2016, Telegram announced the bot-prize to give away $1,000,000 to the developers of popular bots with no strings attached. That was when I started building bots for Telegram, too. The same year, Telegram distributed $200,000 and completely forgot about this promise. The Telegram team hasn't granted any prizes publicly since then.

Even though I submitted all my bots for the prize, I have never intended to win anything. There are way more developers in need than I am, so I let it slide. However, the recent developments in the Telegram ecosystem are alarming. Primarily, the sherlocking happening here and publications about it are actively being silenced.

I sincerely believe in coincidences — hence, I haven't spoken up about this topic recently. Things can happen once or twice, but when they happen for the third time following the same pattern, my internal skeptic wakes up and starts to investigate. See, I will give you a pattern here and ask you a simple question.

- In 2017, I launched @voicybot; in 2022 (5 years later), Telegram integrates voice message recognition into Telegram Premium.
- In 2018, I launched @randymbot; in 2023 (5 years later), Telegram integrates raffles into the messenger.
- In 2019, I launched @temply_bot; in 2024 (5 years later), Telegram integrates quick replies into the Telegram Business.

A sherlocking a year keeps the doctor away, am I right? The worst part here is that no one ever attributed or recognized even a portion of what I've done for the Telegram ecosystem (entirely for free). I wouldn't have spoken up about it — things happen like this; the same ideas come to different people roughly simultaneously.

However, in this case, my bots had tens of millions of users, and the pattern is entirely apparent. Telegram tracks what bots are popular to later sherlock their features without any attribution or recognition, fails to deliver on promises for the bot prize, and does it constantly. This is precisely why I quit building for Telegram (see my blog post) and advise anyone who listens to also never touch the ecosystem.

Since I left building for Telegram, I've earned multiple fortunes in the ecosystems that care about developers. And it happened within months, not years of trying. I write a lot of code for a living and build a lot of open-source public goods tools. The experience is alarming: I've earned precisely $0 and zero recognition in my eight years on Telegram, even though tens of millions of users use the tools I've built.

I must warn you if you're considering starting anything on Telegram. If you put the same amount of energy into ecosystems that care about contributors, you will get exponentially more rewards for the effort.

💡 "Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." — Haruki Murakami. I dedicate a chapter of my book to how you will undoubtedly struggle against something on your path to success, noting that the way you feel when you're down is totally up to you. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, suffering grants one nothing.

If you think suffering alone can benefit you, you're wrong. For instance, when you take cold showers or an unimaginable amount of overtime work or work out so much, the whole body hurts. These actions taken without a plan will end up causing you suffering — and that's it; statistically, there are no benefits. On the other hand, if you have a plan and execute it, you will have a higher chance of achieving the goal without suffering.

Some people take pride in how much they suffer. They cut off carbs from their diet and feel miserable. They sleep 5-6 hours a day and feel miserable. They dismiss the family because they have "one more thing to take care of at work" and, yes, feel miserable. You must avoid misery at all costs, and the same goes for suffering. Work smarter, not harder. No one will ever pet you on your head because you are so miserable. The most you can get is pity.

Suffering without a purpose (and let's be honest, most of your suffering does not have a purpose) actively hurts your goal of becoming successful. Opportunity costs are everywhere, and when you spend time on unnecessary suffering, you are actively choosing not to spend time on something that advances you on the journey.

In my book, I compare the lives of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Who would you want to become when you grow up? It is tempting to make an uneducated choice toward the life of Elon. Alas, one of them sleeps in the factory — and another has retired with billions and lives the dream life doing whatever he wants.

Choose the dream life over sleeping on the floor. Choose virtue over unnecessary suffering. Choose progress over screaming at the skies for all the troubles the gods send your way.

💪 One of my passions is increasing my healthspan (years spent in a healthy body without crippling diseases). I dedicated much of my book to peer-reviewed scientific research on living longer and healthier. However, besides all the research pointing at a few interventions that work, I also study anecdotal evidence rich people publish. They are the slice of the population with ample resources, time, and motivation to increase their healthspans. They are also quite indulgent, no matter what they say. If there is a thing that they want to do without too much risk, they will do it.

We all know animal products are tasty — there is no way around the fact. However, time and again, whenever billionaires share their diets, for some reason, it is almost exclusively vegan. Pavel Durov shared that he doesn't drink alcohol or eat animal products (by the way, alcohol also doesn't have any benefits beyond what eating red grapes provides, only downsides). Bryan Johnson — the only human who verifiably significantly decreased his biological age — doesn't have any animal products in his diet.

Unfortunately, going vegan cold turkey (pun intended) frequently leads to nutrient deficiency. On the other hand, not going vegan also results in nutrient deficiency (see the percentage of the population in meat-eating countries with the condition). The best way to stay healthier longer is to "Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants" (quote by Michael Pollan). Whenever one goes on a vegan diet, they mostly lack protein, iron, and B12.

Protein is the most challenging problem — people are deficient even on a non-vegan diet. I used ChatGPT to generate a vegan meal plan with 110g of protein per day that I cook for two hours a week and reheat over the next seven days. I'm not deficient in iron, judging by my annual blood panel — but if you are, it is easily solvable by a simple supplement. B12 is a weird spot, though, as it is challenging to get it from plants (except eating nori seaweed, for instance). I take one pill a week, as explained on the Nutrition Facts website, and I have a surplus of B12 in my blood. My meal plan handles the rest of the macro and micro-nutrients.

There are dozens of scientific peer-reviewed papers that found non-vegans are prone to cancers, diabetes, coronary diseases, and overall mortality. We've gathered the most essential sources on the Magic Pill website with easy-to-understand benefits bullet points.

But don't trust me. Read the research — and maybe follow what rich people do to live longer. They have the most skin in the game to stay healthy.

@golden_borodutch

💡 Incentives rule the world — and the funniest thing is that incentives are not intrinsic but extrinsic properties. People tend not to want something because they have an internal urge — but because someone else among their friends wants it. This effect results from the Mimetic Theory manifesting itself.

Look no further than incentives whenever you need someone to do something or want to understand one's motivation. For instance, the motivation of a VC is to raise funds and multiply them by investing in a few successful projects that will exponentially outperform the markets. If your startup "makes sense" number-wise, then you will not make it in the VC game. If you can turn X money into 10X, you need a bank loan, not VC funding.

Instead of logic, appeal to a story and herd authority. It hurts to realize that humans with a lot of money are irrational about it — but it is what it is. A lot of money is flowing around, and it mostly goes to whoever can tell a better story. Whatever our feelings about the facts are, they don't change the reality.

@golden_borodutch

💡 People tend to underestimate the role of proximity in success due to a false belief in our world being meritocratic. However, the reality is that your network and how close you are to the decision-makers matter way more than we all want to consider.

Whether you want to raise money for your startup, get more customers, do politics, or participate in an ecosystem (e.g., Ethereum, Solana, etc.), you require being close to people who decide where the capital goes. I use "Capital" as an umbrella term for financial and social attention.

For example, if you're close to Ethereum Foundation members, you will have higher chances of succeeding in the Ethereum ecosystem. It is the same with Telegram, Product Hunt, Y Combinator, etc. Data shows that proximity better predicts future success than the product's usefulness.

There are instances when teams without proximity become successful, but these exceptions to the rule don't happen enough to count on you being one of them. Getting close to the people who matter is relatively easy, and I'll share my experience in the upcoming posts on this channel.

@golden_borodutch

(P.S., the comment button under the post above broke for some reason so feel free to express the thoughts in the comments here)

Hi all 👋 This is @borodutch, I finally got @golden_borodutch back. You probably subscribed to this channel when searching for @VideoDownloadBot a while ago — this is one of the bots I maintain.

I've built some of the most popular bots on Telegram including @shieldy_bot, @voicybot, @banofbot and others. More than 80,000,000 users use my bots daily (see the live chart here). I've sold one of them for $329,000 in 2021, and then raised $4,400,000 for one of my companies in two rounds (pre-seed, seed).

Recently, I've written a book (buy on Amazon, Audible) on how to live longer, healthier and happier, based on scientific peer-reviewed research.

Before this channel was stolen I'd shared extensive notes on how to make it in IT — even without any experience. Thousands of people persuaded startup life since then and hundreds stroke gold.

I know you came here for @VideoDownloadBot, but I kindly ask you to stay for my thoughts and experience 🙏 I will make sure to share truly transformative advice and pieces of wisdom that I've gathered for over a decade of hussling in IT.

Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments here or at @golden_borodutch_chat. I'm happy to help and share my expertise 🚀