Fede 🪶Nov 22, 2022
Anna Winterstein
I saw a link on Hive to a crowdfunding page with nearly $300k pledged. That's a lot of money, and it got me curious who the founders of the app are. So I went digging...and came up with very little: a foundational myth of a self-taught woman who picked up code in her college dorm and made Hive in 4 months. Is that true? Perhaps. Does it trigger my bullshit meter? Well, some receipts would be good.
I reckon #businessjournalism is on it, but meanwhile, a summary. #business
Nov 22, 2022 at 1:16pmWeb
Show threadAnna WintersteinNov 22, 2022
According to the Hive website, in June 2019, Kassandra Pop (now renamed Raluca on the about page) picked up Swift in her dorm. In October 2019, she put Hive onto the Apple Store. I'm not a specialist, but it sounds very fast to me, not so much because of the programming but because of all the infrastructure a network like that requires. Besides, getting the app approved by iOS takes like 1 month in itself.
Any specialists wanting to chime in, please do.
Show threadAnna WintersteinNov 22, 2022
Anyway, Kassandra Pop, according to her LinkedIn, was just out of a year and a half working full-time in accounting and was carrying on with a psychology BA at the California University, when she got started on code—so no prior experience there. A bit of a wonder child if true. Again, not impossible, but would love to see some interviews/investigations on that period of time.
Show threadAnna WintersteinNov 22, 2022
She was then joined in 2020 by an unnamed UX designer. An online search reveals that designer to be someone named Gilberto Malfabon. He's described as a co-founder of the company on apollo.io, but according to his LinkedIn, he's also been employed full-time elsewhere since 2021, so I'm kinda curious: is he still with Hive? And regardless, why not associate himself with it openly? Idk.
Show threadAnna WintersteinNov 22, 2022
We don't know who the full-stack dev who joined in May 2021 is. Inquiring minds do want to know. Again, bear in mind I'm asking because there is a $300k and counting campaign on WeFunder that contains zero info about the company. Also, this is a place that asks us to trust them with our private info and thoughts. Who they are is relevant.
Show threadAnna WintersteinNov 22, 2022

Anyway, I actually don't hate the Hive app, but especially with how we've been burned before, I want more from them than "a genius lady coded this in her garage." If she is, good for her, but genius is rare and I'd need some convincing. And if she's not, then it might be time to offer the 1000000 users some transparency.

Also I'm an idiot and I forgot to unlist the first 2 replies. Apologies!

Show threadDuke of Germany 💫Nov 22, 2022

@awstein For me, personally, the whole background story sounds a little bit too "cute" / "good". 😉

And I am very hesitant to invest significant amounts of time into a Twitter replacement by yet another company. 🤷‍♂️

Show threadAnna WintersteinNov 22, 2022
@duke_of_germany Yeah, that's it - it smacks of "we spin a story to make this look attractive", and if that's the case, it makes me want to know what's unattractive about the actual chain of events.
Show threadralf tauscher Nov 22, 2022

@awstein @duke_of_germany

would be so cool if the time of non-free software platforms are counted. the fediverse is owned by us all and there should be no need for a next thing to be bought by elmo murks. #dream on