Top all-time · #1585
kwokchain
Personal blog · kwokchain.combusinessstartups
kwokchain is a personal blog at kwokchain.com about business and startups. Since 2018, 45 different Hacker News readers have linked it 55 times, most often “Making Uncommon Knowledge Common”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-09, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Kevin Kwok's essays on startups, growth loops, collaboration tools, venture studios and platform economics. HN commenters cite them as background to threads on Figma, Slack, remote work and startup studios.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- One commenter calls the essay on data content loops an awesome read; another suggests the Superhuman acquisition notes as interesting reads.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Making Uncommon Knowledge Common10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2019-04-09
- The Arc of Collaboration8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2019-08-16
- Figma and Canva are taking on Adobe and winning7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2021-02-05
- Why Figma Wins7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-06-19
- Blockchain & Chinese Food: Monetizing Underutilized Fixed Assets4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-01-23
- The Halo Effect3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-07-15
- Notes on Superhuman’s Acquisition Loops3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-10-25
- The Mike Speiser Incubation Playbook3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-09-22
- Aligning Business Models to Markets2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-05-24
- Cursor and SpaceX: In search of a complete loop2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-04-23
What Hacker News says?
And just when "Why Figma Wins" is #1 on HN, we have Figma integration in Nim via Fidget: - https://github.com/treeform/fidget - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB8Yt2dqZbo&list=PLxLdEZg8DR... - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23584954 - https://kwokchain.com/2020/06/19/why-figma-wins/
Comment linking /2020/06/19/why-figma-wins/
on “NimConf 2020 Videos”Submitted Why Figma Wins as a story · 385 points
HN discussionThis sounds like what Kevin Kwok was describing[0] in his recent essay, The Arc of Collaboration. Even down to using the Discord metaphor. Kwok says that Slack ended up being more of an exception handler when normal processes break down. Contrast to Discord, which is more of a meta-layer around games and integrates within game platforms. I wonder if Tandem is what will make collaborative communication ubiquitous, i.…
Comment linking /2019/08/16/the-arc-of-collaboration/
on “Startups from Y Combinator’s S19 Demo Day 2”Submitted Figma and Canva are taking on Adobe and winning as a story · 288 points
HN discussionKevin Kwok agrees: https://kwokchain.com/2019/08/16/the-arc-of-collaboration/
Comment linking /2019/08/16/the-arc-of-collaboration/
on “Non-obvious remote work techniques”Submitted Why Figma Wins (2020) as a story · 61 points
HN discussionMentioned at the footer, but Kevin Kwok's article on data content loops centered around the Rich Barton Playbook is an awesome read as well: https://kwokchain.com/2019/04/09/making-uncommon-knowledge-c...
Comment linking /2019/04/09/making-uncommon-knowledge-common/
on “The Economics of Data Businesses”Submitted The Mike Speiser Incubation Playbook as a story · 45 points
HN discussion> We hope to ultimately build a Slack/Teams alternative designed for rich, asynchronous human interactions that encourage deep work. All I can say is keep going. I've been feeling the absence of this for a while, and have taken to making occasional videos on Loom to supplement live meetings and Slack messages. But it's a disjointed experience, and Loom is not trying to be a collaboration tool at all. It would be gre…
Comment linking /2020/06/19/why-figma-wins/
on “Launch HN: PingPong (YC W21) – Video messaging for remote teams”Submitted Notes on Superhuman’s Acquisition Loops as a story · 41 points
HN discussionYou are missing out the OG #1 venture fund / studio: Sutter Hill Ventures - https://kwokchain.com/2020/09/22/the-mike-speiser-incubation... Success rate is a helpful metric, but it depends on which player/party is interacting with the Studio. Studios lend themselves well to Consumer fields which traditionally have lower exit multiples than B2B/Infra/Software. - Are you an LP? You can have great paper returns, but po…
Comment linking /2020/09/22/the-mike-speiser-incubation-playbook/
on “Startup studios that created billions in value”Submitted The Halo Effect as a story · 31 points
HN discussionMr Kwok already analysed these deals and gave them a nice little acronym: HALO https://kwokchain.com/2025/07/15/the-halo-effect/
Comment linking /2025/07/15/the-halo-effect/
on “Nvidia's $20B Antitrust Loophole (Not an Acquisition)”Submitted Narrative Distillation – The shifting sands of tech IPOs as a story · 30 points
HN discussionSome interesting reads for you: https://www.reforge.com/blog/growth-loops https://kwokchain.com/2019/10/24/notes-on-superhumans-acquis... https://tomtunguz.com/feedback-loops/
Comment linking /2019/10/24/notes-on-superhumans-acquisition-loops/
on “Ask HN: What are some of the best growth/viral loops?”Submitted How to eat an elephant, one atomic concept at a time as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted How Figma and Canva are taking on Adobe—and winning as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Arc of Collaboration as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Blockchain & Chinese Food: Monetizing Underutilized Fixed Assets as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Arc of Collaboration as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Making Uncommon Knowledge Common as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Understanding How Uber and Lyft Grow in Markets as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Cursor and SpaceX: In search of a complete loop as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Eat an Elephant, One Atomic Concept at a Time as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why Figma Wins as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Arc of Collaboration as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Making Uncommon Knowledge Common as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted 1MDB and Malaysia: Notes and Adjacent Thoughts as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Eat an Elephant, One Atomic Concept at a Time (2021) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Selection Bias in Poker as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
