Welcome to another edition of Business Twitter, where we collect the best tweets to come out of Silicon Valley so you don’t have to. This article is part of a newsletter — if you want a weekly Business Twitter roundup sent to your inbox every Friday, subscribe here.
This week: Andreessen Horowitz launches a news publication called Future, HBO sends out “Integration Test Email #1,” why one company is letting its employees go on “entrepreneurial leave,” and tips on how to grow your presence on Quora.
1. A16z’s Future blog
Venture firm Andreessen Horowitz is getting into the online publishing game. Future, a16z’s brand new business news site, is aimed at anyone curious about the future of Silicon Valley. According to its “pitch us” section, Future is “committed to being your go-to place for understanding and building the future.”
Gavin Baker tweeted that Future could be the start of a new series of blogs from startups and venture firms alike. “Most venture capital and growth equity firms rely on blogs, podcast appearances, speaking engagements and a robust Twitter presence for this,” he wrote. “That was just the beginning — media properties like Future from a16z will proliferate over time.”
Not everyone was thrilled about the new publication. Journalist Heidi N. Moore tweeted about how Future may be a way for a16z to own its public image, writing, “I am continually impressed by how a16z has the worst ideas about disruption of media because most of their investors spend all their time just being jerks to journalists on Twitter.”
2. Entrepreneurial leave
Marissa Goldberg, an employee at Analytics Fire, was ready to leave her full time role to found her own startup. She was surprised to find out that her boss, the CEO of Analytics Fire, wanted to keep her on the team so badly that he suggested an “entrepreneurial leave.”
Much like any leave of absence, Goldberg would leave for two months to get her side gig off the ground, and her position would be waiting for her in September. Goldberg tweeted that she was “stunned” by the offer, and encouraged more companies to give their employees the autonomy to follow their passions, mainly because it would lead to greater long-term retention.
“This is just one of many examples of flexibility and support I've seen from this boss,” she wrote. “Want to have amazingly high retention and loyalty on your team? Do things like this. I'm thankful for experiencing his management because it's shown me how to be a better leader.”
3. How to win at Quora
Although Quora may not be as popular as some other social media platforms, it still has hundreds of millions of users seeking answers to pressing questions. Nicolas Cole, a self-proclaimed Quora guru who also tweets about writing, shared some of his best insights on how to get noticed on the platform.
Cole, who claims to be Quora’s top writer of 2015, said that telling stories was the best way to answer other users’ questions. Typically, the top responses to many questions tend to be stories with a message. Cole also wrote that focusing on a topic of expertise will raise your profile on Quora and help build your online presence as a whole.
4. HBO’s Integration Test Email # 1
On Thursday night, some HBO subscribers received a bizarre email, whose subject line was only: “Integration Test Email # 1.” The body of the email only read: “This template is used by integration tests only.”
On Friday, the mysterious email became a trending topic on Twitter, with many people joking that the subject line was the name of a new HBO show. In fact, as HBO admitted, the email was sent by mistake by, yes, an intern.
Users took the opportunity to discuss some of their embarrassing work flubs over the years, many of which were far worse than a stray mass email.