Twitter's influence is amazing for elite in-group messaging, but Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube reach the early majority.
Amjad breaks down platform strategy: X is for Silicon Valley and early adopters, while Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube reach the early majority. ✦ AI generated
Amjad Masad · a16z Podcast · 2026-07-17 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 19:44
“How should I think about X versus other platforms?”
Twitter's influence is amazing, but it tends to be elite kind of inside group influence. I think Instagram, Facebook still, you know, YouTube is where you get to the early majority. And I think I was late to to YouTube. Uh to sorry, to Instagram. Like um you know, I just started focusing on it in like maybe February or something like that. And we're getting insane amount of views
verbatim transcript · starts at 19:44
19:44think about that? >> Well, I I think X is very good for the set of Silicon Valley, for tech, for kind of the in-group messaging, for maybe one hop outside of Silicon Valley, which is kind of the early adopter, if you're targeting early adopters. Uh you know, so I would also cluster Hacker News within that as well. Um but it it actually once you want to go to late adopters or like early
20:13majority, if you think about this uh kind of bell curve of adoption, uh Twitter becomes actually not very impactful there. It can still be be very important where um like you know, just this morning uh journalists reach out to me to ask to talk to me about a tweet that I made about some some of the stuff that's happening with Anthropic. Uh and so like Twitter can still be a
20:37place where it is it is the start of stories. And that's another thing, you know, back to the conversation of why this is important is the landscape shifted so much that journalists report on Twitter. So, it's kind of starts on Twitter. So, Twitter's influence is amazing, but it tends to be elite kind of inside group influence. I think Instagram, Facebook still, you know, YouTube is where you get to the
21:01early majority. And I think I was late to to YouTube. Uh to sorry, to Instagram. Like um you know, I just started focusing on it in like maybe February or something like that. And we're getting insane amount of views and the followership kind of >> You started to build this clips machine of yours, your interviews. The podcast is interesting because it's a medium that could be turned into every other
21:22format. >> Right. Right. So I I feel like I I should have maybe done Instagram like a year or two ago. So I was like a little late on that. I thought it was going to be harder. Well, it turns out it can just like you know, do these clipping and just grow grow not just your account, it can grow a lot of different accounts that way.
21:42Um And but but but I would I would start with Twitter because the again, that's where the news starts to happen. This is where you can have outsized influence. >> And are you are you bullish on the platform? Do you do you think that in the next, you know, three to five years that will stay the same? >> I I think it is actually kind of risky