Xolisa Mapatwana
@xolie.bsky.social
💁🏽♀️ Black in Tech
🌱Product Manager
📍Amsterdam
Yes, I’ve made my job my whole personality.
🌱Product Manager
📍Amsterdam
Yes, I’ve made my job my whole personality.
Spent the last 3 weeks travelling India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
[Insert every travel cliché you can think of to describe the experience]
Forgot that I’m almost 35 so living out of a suitcase is a lot more rough than it was 10 years ago 😅
[Insert every travel cliché you can think of to describe the experience]
Forgot that I’m almost 35 so living out of a suitcase is a lot more rough than it was 10 years ago 😅
May 4, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Spent the last 3 weeks travelling India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
[Insert every travel cliché you can think of to describe the experience]
Forgot that I’m almost 35 so living out of a suitcase is a lot more rough than it was 10 years ago 😅
[Insert every travel cliché you can think of to describe the experience]
Forgot that I’m almost 35 so living out of a suitcase is a lot more rough than it was 10 years ago 😅
I watched Con Mum last night and man, I’ve never wanted to victim blame someone as much as I did Graham. No way!
March 31, 2025 at 1:01 PM
I watched Con Mum last night and man, I’ve never wanted to victim blame someone as much as I did Graham. No way!
That South African tech bro is so unhinged 😅
February 25, 2025 at 6:14 PM
That South African tech bro is so unhinged 😅
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
Imagine being rich enough to do anything you want and choosing to take food and medicine from starving children to give yourself even more money.
February 18, 2025 at 11:06 PM
Imagine being rich enough to do anything you want and choosing to take food and medicine from starving children to give yourself even more money.
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
Fair chance that Deep Research by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google will only get worse over time: not because LLMs will get worse, but because valuable data for any decent analysis will NOT be on the open web.
Paywalls are coming to lock away quality stuff. Even now I can see it:
Paywalls are coming to lock away quality stuff. Even now I can see it:
February 16, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Fair chance that Deep Research by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google will only get worse over time: not because LLMs will get worse, but because valuable data for any decent analysis will NOT be on the open web.
Paywalls are coming to lock away quality stuff. Even now I can see it:
Paywalls are coming to lock away quality stuff. Even now I can see it:
Happy to report that I’m finally going to start watching Severance this weekend. I feel like I’m the only person who hasn’t seen this show 😅💁🏽♀️
February 7, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Happy to report that I’m finally going to start watching Severance this weekend. I feel like I’m the only person who hasn’t seen this show 😅💁🏽♀️
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
lmao no, TikTok users are not moving to Bluesky. They would literally rather learn Mandarin than learn how to read a feed of text posts. This is a millennial retirement home.
January 19, 2025 at 5:45 AM
lmao no, TikTok users are not moving to Bluesky. They would literally rather learn Mandarin than learn how to read a feed of text posts. This is a millennial retirement home.
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
Record revenue (on track for $156B), record profits (on track for $55B), fresh enough memories from firing 25% of staff... and Meta is at it, again.
Ruthless business rationale, as the goal is not cost savings, but firing the old, hiring the new.
Good luck to everyone at Meta.
Ruthless business rationale, as the goal is not cost savings, but firing the old, hiring the new.
Good luck to everyone at Meta.
January 14, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Record revenue (on track for $156B), record profits (on track for $55B), fresh enough memories from firing 25% of staff... and Meta is at it, again.
Ruthless business rationale, as the goal is not cost savings, but firing the old, hiring the new.
Good luck to everyone at Meta.
Ruthless business rationale, as the goal is not cost savings, but firing the old, hiring the new.
Good luck to everyone at Meta.
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
South Africans: too racist for Steve Bannon
January 12, 2025 at 1:27 AM
South Africans: too racist for Steve Bannon
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
Amazon curbs some DEI programs
Amazon curbs some DEI programs
Amazon is now the latest company to curb some of its DEI programs, Bloomberg reports, after Meta announced that it, too, is ending its diversity efforts earlier on Friday. An internal memo that was sent to staffers said that the company was looking to…
tcrn.ch
January 10, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Amazon curbs some DEI programs
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
Discussions on who will be impacted by climate change focus on poor communities in the global South. It’s part of why in a climate crisis, the most talked about tech has been AI. One wonders if these fires raging in the heart of where the most resourced storytellers live might change things.
January 10, 2025 at 8:15 AM
Discussions on who will be impacted by climate change focus on poor communities in the global South. It’s part of why in a climate crisis, the most talked about tech has been AI. One wonders if these fires raging in the heart of where the most resourced storytellers live might change things.
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
What a year! Bluesky opened its doors just last February. Since then, we opened federation, launched video, rolled out trending topics, and a whole lot more.
Happy New Year, and here’s to a great year ahead! 🎉
Happy New Year, and here’s to a great year ahead! 🎉
2024 In Review - Bluesky
It’s been a big year for Bluesky! Let's take a look back at everything that’s happened in the past year.
bsky.social
December 30, 2024 at 7:09 PM
What a year! Bluesky opened its doors just last February. Since then, we opened federation, launched video, rolled out trending topics, and a whole lot more.
Happy New Year, and here’s to a great year ahead! 🎉
Happy New Year, and here’s to a great year ahead! 🎉
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
New book I’m starting to read.
This years Spotify Wrapped was surprisingly disappointing and missed the fun in last years. I learned that the person behind much of Wrapped in previous years was let go last year.
He is @glennmcdonald.bsky.social on Bluesky and he is the author of this book.
This years Spotify Wrapped was surprisingly disappointing and missed the fun in last years. I learned that the person behind much of Wrapped in previous years was let go last year.
He is @glennmcdonald.bsky.social on Bluesky and he is the author of this book.
December 15, 2024 at 5:53 PM
New book I’m starting to read.
This years Spotify Wrapped was surprisingly disappointing and missed the fun in last years. I learned that the person behind much of Wrapped in previous years was let go last year.
He is @glennmcdonald.bsky.social on Bluesky and he is the author of this book.
This years Spotify Wrapped was surprisingly disappointing and missed the fun in last years. I learned that the person behind much of Wrapped in previous years was let go last year.
He is @glennmcdonald.bsky.social on Bluesky and he is the author of this book.
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
I didn’t leave X because people there had different opinions and ideologies, I left because it stopped being fun. I get on social media to chat with people who think thinking is fun. X stopped being a place where that was true.
December 1, 2024 at 3:45 PM
I didn’t leave X because people there had different opinions and ideologies, I left because it stopped being fun. I get on social media to chat with people who think thinking is fun. X stopped being a place where that was true.
1/ The strangest thing happened to me this year: I started my usual Dry January alcohol break, but this time, I just never went back. As an introvert, I’d always relied on alcohol as a social lubricant to feel more at ease in groups, so this was a big shift for me.
December 1, 2024 at 7:38 PM
1/ The strangest thing happened to me this year: I started my usual Dry January alcohol break, but this time, I just never went back. As an introvert, I’d always relied on alcohol as a social lubricant to feel more at ease in groups, so this was a big shift for me.
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
Pretty incredible how Bluesky does two things no other major social network does:
1. Show content from people you follow
2. Don’t deprioritize posts with links
The “incredible” part is how ads-driven social networks & ones optimizing for “engagement” stopped doing either.
1. Show content from people you follow
2. Don’t deprioritize posts with links
The “incredible” part is how ads-driven social networks & ones optimizing for “engagement” stopped doing either.
We want Bluesky to be a great home for journalists, publishers, and creators. Unlike other platforms, we don't de-promote your links. Post all the links you want — Bluesky is a lobby to the open web.
Traffic from Bluesky's @bsky.app to @theguardian.com is already 2x that of Threads
In its first week on the platform & with 300k followers, Bluesky traffic from @theguardian.com posts is already higher than it was from TwX in any week in 2024, where the account had 10.8m followers, but🧵
In its first week on the platform & with 300k followers, Bluesky traffic from @theguardian.com posts is already higher than it was from TwX in any week in 2024, where the account had 10.8m followers, but🧵
November 27, 2024 at 3:18 PM
Pretty incredible how Bluesky does two things no other major social network does:
1. Show content from people you follow
2. Don’t deprioritize posts with links
The “incredible” part is how ads-driven social networks & ones optimizing for “engagement” stopped doing either.
1. Show content from people you follow
2. Don’t deprioritize posts with links
The “incredible” part is how ads-driven social networks & ones optimizing for “engagement” stopped doing either.
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
Please. Buy books. Would it be lovely if you bought books from local indies? Yes. Yes it would. But buy books because we need books to have a culture, and we need book sales to keep people writing books.
Yes. Indie bookstores are better ethically. But my attitude is you should buy books wherever you buy books as that makes you more likely to buy books. Please skip the "amazon is bad" stuff as I PROMISE YOU EVERY AUTHOR ALREADY KNOWS.
November 26, 2024 at 6:06 PM
Please. Buy books. Would it be lovely if you bought books from local indies? Yes. Yes it would. But buy books because we need books to have a culture, and we need book sales to keep people writing books.
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
The use of ‘South African’ here is troubling. We (South Africans) did not make this man a billionaire. Americans were not bringing up his country of origin when praising him as a tech ‘genius’. You are not calling Peter Thiel the ‘German billionaire’.
Trump’s election represents the triumph of normal Americans (a South African billionaire who does nothing but post all day) over unaccountable elites (a mid-level functionary in the EPA office of water enforcement with $25,000 in student loans)
November 23, 2024 at 5:05 PM
The use of ‘South African’ here is troubling. We (South Africans) did not make this man a billionaire. Americans were not bringing up his country of origin when praising him as a tech ‘genius’. You are not calling Peter Thiel the ‘German billionaire’.
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
A really interesting overview* of how Bluesky was built and scaled rapidly by a small group of people, and how it’s different from other social media platforms.
*by @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com & Elin Nilsson
newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/bluesky
*by @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com & Elin Nilsson
newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/bluesky
November 21, 2024 at 7:06 AM
A really interesting overview* of how Bluesky was built and scaled rapidly by a small group of people, and how it’s different from other social media platforms.
*by @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com & Elin Nilsson
newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/bluesky
*by @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com & Elin Nilsson
newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/bluesky
Reposted by Xolisa Mapatwana
I heard that Andrew Tate tried to come stretch his awkward wings here and got banned in just one day.
Sorry, hate has no home here. Stay in the bad place, thanks.
Sorry, hate has no home here. Stay in the bad place, thanks.
November 20, 2024 at 3:29 PM
I heard that Andrew Tate tried to come stretch his awkward wings here and got banned in just one day.
Sorry, hate has no home here. Stay in the bad place, thanks.
Sorry, hate has no home here. Stay in the bad place, thanks.
Maaaan, Instagram is horrible in so many ways. I was served 30+ furniture ads on IG Stories over a 24-hour period. How is this OK?!
The experience is terrible. The hyper-personalization makes me so uncomfortable. And no, I’m not interested in Threads either!
The experience is terrible. The hyper-personalization makes me so uncomfortable. And no, I’m not interested in Threads either!
November 20, 2024 at 6:30 PM
Maaaan, Instagram is horrible in so many ways. I was served 30+ furniture ads on IG Stories over a 24-hour period. How is this OK?!
The experience is terrible. The hyper-personalization makes me so uncomfortable. And no, I’m not interested in Threads either!
The experience is terrible. The hyper-personalization makes me so uncomfortable. And no, I’m not interested in Threads either!
I left Twitter 4.5 years ago after 11 years on that platform. I love how hopelessly clueless I am about Blue Sky — takes me back to 2009 when I first signed up for Twitter.
November 18, 2024 at 6:59 PM
I left Twitter 4.5 years ago after 11 years on that platform. I love how hopelessly clueless I am about Blue Sky — takes me back to 2009 when I first signed up for Twitter.