Tracing the entrepreneurial journey of X Product Lead: Why did Nikita Bier clash with Infofi?

Written by: Hongyu

Preface

I have been paying close attention to Nikita Bier since I started my social product entrepreneurship in 2023. Until he joined X last year as Head of Product, I’ve always wanted to write about this person.

His three products: Politify/TBH/GAS have all achieved considerable success. His company has only a dozen or so people. These three products may not have reached the level of being big and unassailable, because that requires perfect timing, resources, and luck. But he is one of the most insightful social product managers in my mind. Many in English-speaking communities call him the king of viral growth.

Nikita Bier’s entrepreneurial journey is like a meticulous experiment targeting human weaknesses: from a policy simulation tool on Berkeley campus, to two addictive viral apps for teenagers, to now leading product iterations at X (formerly Twitter). He always finds leverage in the subtle psychological gaps of users’ “why do I click, why do I stay,” and uses it to trigger large-scale behavioral change. At 31, he has twice turned small team ideas into high-value exits. Now, he’s bringing this approach to Musk’s platform, trying to reshape the future of a social giant. But behind the glamorous success are countless failures and honest confrontation with “the shameful truth.”

Politify: A university startup’s zero-cost user acquisition

(Nikita talks about why he founded Politify on TED, link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9QTVII_lkg)

Nikita’s starting point was not Silicon Valley, but his early fascination with websites. Starting at age 12, he built some consumer applications, like a full e-commerce site. Back then, he pondered why users click and why they stay—perhaps curiosity, urgency, or emotional resonance. These early experiments cultivated his sensitivity to user behavior.

This sensitivity was already evident when he studied at Berkeley.

His first product, Politify, appeared as a tax calculator on the surface, but was more advanced than similar tools at the time. Around the 2012 US election, many competitors were just simple tax calculators based on rough tax rates to estimate personal burden; Politify required details like family status and simulated how different presidential policies (like Obama’s or Romney’s tax reforms and welfare adjustments) would impact personal, community, and national finances, including income changes, expenditure effects, and government service usage.

This design stemmed from Bier’s observation: most Americans ignore their own economic interests when voting, leading to “self-harming behavior.” Politify used data algorithms and visualizations to target this blind spot. Users would see results like “Supporting this candidate costs you $2000 annually,” prompting reflection, sharing, and reconsideration of their voting choices.

This logic isn’t just about features or simple imitation; it’s a natural extension from user pain points. That’s the biggest difference between a product and a tool. Many so-called “Vibe coding” works on Twitter (including some of my own), are actually just tools, not full products. A product is an emotional extension and reshaping; a tool solves a specific problem. I won’t elaborate here.

Politify’s influence extended beyond campus. During the 2012 election, it attracted 4 million users with zero marketing budget, topped download charts, and won multiple awards. Knight Foundation supported its expansion into Outline.com, collaborating with Massachusetts and other governments to promote “digital democracy.” In his TED talk, Bier said: “Information asymmetry in voter decision-making is the root of social problems.” While there’s no data proving the product’s financial return, it demonstrated Bier’s viral talent: addressing human weaknesses through policy.

Later, he reflected on similar logic on X: “Consumers don’t adopt products because of feature gaps, but because of how it makes them feel.” This insight became a common thread in all his products—from Politify’s “self-interest simulation” to subsequent apps’ dopamine loops.

TBH: Viral explosion among students

What truly made Nikita Bier famous was TBH (To Be Honest) in 2017. An anonymous mutual-liking app for high school students, allowing only positive feedback to avoid toxic social interactions. It started in a Georgia high school, relying on natural viral growth among students, reaching 5 million total users and 2.5 million daily active users within two months. All this with only four people—Nikita Bier and three co-founders (Erik Hazzard, Kyle Zaragoza, Nicolas Ducdodon).

[Diagram of TBH product]

Analyzing why this product became a hit, it’s likely because it tapped into teenagers’ primal desire for “social validation”: the excitement of anonymous praise, triggering dopamine responses (“Who likes me? Do they find me interesting? Should I pursue them?”).

Bier revealed in a podcast that they failed 14 apps before hitting this point. Early on, they also tried negative anonymous ratings, but received little positive feedback because it was just a digital form of traditional online bullying. So they switched to positive anonymous feedback.

After launch, TBH quickly caught Facebook’s attention. From Instagram to Mnus, Facebook always tries to acquire successful apps.

At that time, Snapchat was capturing the teen market, and Facebook faced an “aging” crisis with a toxic content ecosystem.

TBH’s positive interaction model aligned with Zuckerberg’s “healthy community” shift; more importantly, its viral mechanism proved the potential of engaging young users with zero budget. After acquisition, TBH operated independently but was shut down in 2018 due to declining usage. Bier joined Meta as a product manager until 2021.

This deal was a win-win: Facebook successfully executed a defensive acquisition (like Instagram), Bier gained wealth and experience at a big company. From that time, he learned to maintain rapid iteration at scale.

Gas: Finally profitable, and challenging Teenage

Gas app

In 2022, Bier made a comeback with Gas—an upgraded version of TBH, adding voting, gamification, and paid features to reveal who liked you. In three months, it reached 10 million users, $11 million revenue, and topped the App Store charts, surpassing TikTok and Meta, becoming the most popular app in the US.

It monetized curiosity about who praised you through user payments. The product was acquired by Discord in January 2023 for $50 million, citing Gas’s understanding of teen communities and growth hacking skills, demonstrating the ability to turn short-lived virality into sustainable profit.

“Five years later, sold to the next big player.”

Summarizing his two entrepreneurial models: small teams, no funding, rapid trial-and-error. Although the failure rate is high, once successful, it can lead to viral explosions.

Product methodology: Emotional leverage and “madman” mindset

Bier’s product approach is simple but ruthless.

Focus on serving network benefits rather than individual pain points

He repeatedly emphasizes: good consumer apps don’t just solve individual user pain points; they serve the entire network. They don’t just patch competitors’ bugs but reshape the growth flywheel.

“Don’t optimize 10% of messages or photos—that’s already well done by WeChat, Instagram, etc. New players must rely on viral ideas and dopamine loops to kickstart growth from zero.” His favorite concept is “life turning points”—moments like school, trading, onboarding—when users crave connection, and if the product hits the right nerve, it can explode.

Bier also candidly admits: “We must acknowledge the ‘shameful truth’ of human nature,” such as primal desires for praise, status, and social validation. Amplifying these emotions is key to creating addictive products. He views consumers as “lizard brains”: politics or decentralization don’t drive adoption; only instincts like making money or dating do. Building products requires a “madman” mindset: 99% of decisions are critical, failure rates are high, but iteration is king. On X, he calls it “academic honesty”: quickly admit mistakes, embrace feedback, and avoid chasing illusions of big corporations.

Crypto side story: from advisor to Solana’s mobile ecosystem promoter

After two exits, Bier didn’t rest. He shifted focus to crypto/Web3—but his involvement remains pragmatic: not trading coins or building chains, but applying viral growth experience to help top-tier blockchains like Solana develop consumer mobile ecosystems. In September 2024, he joined Lightspeed Venture Partners as a product growth partner. Lightspeed is an early investor in Solana. Nikita’s role is to help portfolio companies optimize viral growth, network effects, and distribution strategies, allowing him to engage with more Web3 projects without being tied to a single chain.

On March 25, 2025, Bier officially joined Solana Labs as an advisor. He publicly stated that his views on crypto have been controversial, but recent regulatory easing, more crypto-friendly App Stores, and the meme coin craze—making Phantom wallet popular on millions of phones—have made Solana an ideal platform for consumer apps. His work involves helping grow Solana’s mobile ecosystem and related projects.

However, he remains somewhat distanced from crypto. Though he has advised Pump.fun through his Solana connections and praised founder Alon publicly, he emphasizes he doesn’t hold equity in Pump.fun.

He occasionally comments on meme coins on X, such as sarcastically saying “dropping a meme coin is a liquidation of your brand equity,” or criticizing “every meme coin launched last year has gone to zero.” But these are mostly jokes or moral stance statements, not genuine promotion of specific tokens.

This crypto side story aligns with his usual style:

• Seizing “turning points” (here, regulatory + mobile shifts)
• Amplifying network effects rather than chasing short-term volatility

After joining X, he’s sometimes joked about being a Solana maxi, especially when recent algorithm changes affected crypto-related content. All these points also foreshadow X’s financial positioning.

Joining X: From self-recommendation to product leadership timeline

By late June 2025, Bier officially joined X as Head of Product.

In 2022, Nikita Bier publicly recommended himself to Elon Musk on X for the role of Twitter’s VP of Product.

After taking the role, he ramped up development, launching a series of features—briefly: early July optimized core feed, October previewed community features. January 2026 was a peak—collaborating with the algorithm team to adjust the recommendation page, increasing content from friends, mutual follows, and followers; simultaneously launching Smart Cashtags (real-time stock prices + discussion), drafts (from app to web), fighting AI spam, etc.

Why do this? It’s also his logic:

• The recommendation page targets “network density,” showing familiar contacts to reinforce habits (like TBH’s “like” loop)
• Smart Cashtags strengthen X’s unique positioning (financial news), leveraging “turning points” (trading decisions)
• Feedback is extremely fast because he believes every user is a lever—ignoring them breaks network effects

All these measures serve a closed loop: first boost retention, then unlock monetization potential, consistent with his growth-oriented approach. Results: X app downloads increased by 60%, user time increased by 20-43%. Subscriptions surpassed 1 billion.

From Politify’s viral growth, Gas’s revenue, to X’s new subscription record, he keeps proving: products are “emotional leverage,” tapping into human nature.

Censorship of Infofi: possibly what you came here to see

On January 16, Nikita dropped a heavy bombshell: he announced that X would revise its developer API policy, no longer allowing “infofi” type apps (which incentivize users to post), and revoked API access for these apps.

Infofi was a buzzword in the crypto community, referring to apps that incentivize content creation on X via points or tokens, like Kaito, Cookie, etc. These apps once flourished, rewarding users for “yap” (chat posts), but also generated大量低质内容（spam）and reply spam, polluting timelines. If you’ve read the above, you’ll see Nikita’s move to ban Infofi was natural—大量低质内容不仅污染时间线，还可能导致大量用户流失。

Nikita always emphasizes “serving the network, not individuals.” Content from Infofi damaged Twitter’s content quality and violated his growth philosophy.

Deeper down, this may also conflict with X’s strategic layout in crypto.

X is pushing financial features, like Smart Cashtags for real-time asset prices (including crypto). The beta supports smart contracts and asset mentions, aiming to make X a reliable financial news and trading discussion hub.

Elon’s vision is to integrate payments, DeFi, and even memecoin ecosystems—provided high-quality content dominates. If infofi continues to proliferate, the platform risks drowning in low-quality yap, scaring off serious investors and builders. Currently, a lot of spam content already points in this direction.

Banning infofi is like Bier clearing the way for X’s crypto ambitions: eliminating scams, shifting toward sustainable network effects. This move might cause some short-term pain but could help X stand out as the “emotional infrastructure” of the crypto era.

In today’s environment where consumer social is increasingly difficult, Bier’s approach feels both old-fashioned and avant-garde. We’ve seen many apps rise and fall overnight. Now, he has X—a bigger experimental platform. If successful, it could reshape social platforms; if not, it’s another lesson in trial and error. We’ll just have to wait and see.