I think we're all aware by now of the conspiracy that's building in the background of 2077. Most of us know about the mysterious Blue Eyes who appears in The Sun ending to the game. He operates as The Stinger of sorts for (that) ending of the game; He and V discuss a job vaguely alluded to through out the ending sequence and then the ending cuts to V in space charging off towards The Crystal Palace. Cue DLC Hook and credits.
But, let's go back here. This is only the tail end of the conspiracy and where it actually intersects with V's story. Blue Eyes (and some connections to him) crop up multiple times through out the game and, when pieced together, start building a larger picture that runs deeper into Night City than the pockets of most corporats.
I've finished my second playthrough of the game and I've been drafting this post as I play and find more clues. I doubt I'll find everything or might completely dismiss some, but I want to be on the front lines of uncovering this mystery, especially if this will be our Gaunter O'Dim for Cyberpunk 2077. I apologize for the length of this post ahead of time, but I need to summarize a bunch of lore and at least 4 major side-quests; "I Fought The Law", "Dream On", "Full Disclosure", and "The Prophet's Song".
Here's a long essay incoming, but I hope you chooms enjoy and I hope you read through to the end because, oh boy, I uncovered some cool shit!
So, who is Blue Eyes? Who are his contacts? What is his role in the ecosystem of this city?
"I FOUGHT THE LAW"
Let's start with where he most appears in the game; Jefferson and Elizabeth Peralez, political family in the running for Night City's first family. Which I kinda have to summarize their questlines, including the first one which Blue Eyes never appears in. But I'd prefer to go in chronological order and not jump around, so stick with me.
Elizabeth first contacts you for the job "I Fought The Law". It's fairly basic, but the quest tells us she convinced her husband to hire V to look into the recent death of Mayor Rhyne. We get a BD of a cyberpsycho attack by Peter Horvath on Mayor Rhyne. Weldon Holt leaves the room before the attack and then the security gate crashes right before Peter walks in with billions of eddies worth of chrome. The attack is unsuccessful and stopped by Detective River Ward, who was only there because Peter went missing internally at the NCPD and he knew where Peter would go.
When investigating Peter Horvath, his previous boss describes him as paranoid that "probably thought Mayor Rhyne talked to him through the TV" and that the world was out to fuck him. She then mentions that someone "finally saw what he was worth" which cues into how Peter was thrown into this attack in the first place; he had a patron who funded his chrome and the attempt on Rhyne's life. Tellingly, River than goes into a little talk about how clues rarely make sense until put into the larger context, much like we're doing right now.
V goes to the club Rhyne died in; The Red Queen's Race. V sneaks through, takes out some Animals, and can investigate what actually happened to Rhyne. If we read the emails on the office terminal, we know that Weldon Holt arranged for Rhyne to be there. He initially mentioned this to Rhyne during the first BD; Rhyne asked Holt directly to arrange his usual room at the club. So, this doesn't inherently look too suspicious on it's own, but Holt knew where Rhyne would be. We also find out via the Animals Boss there that Weldon Holt is the one who hired them to smash up the club and they're currently waiting around for payment. Further, you can go to the room Rhyne died in, find the BD headset, and put it on... which INSTANTLY knocks V out and they need to be rescued by River (who, btw, takes out any Animals on the property you didn't get to! Ty bro!). They surmise that Rhyne was killed by a virus in the headset. Lastly, we find footage of Detective Han (River's partner) covering up the death of Rhyne. They confront Han, V goes off to the Peralezs, and quest ends.
Of note, finding the BD set is a hidden dialogue option with the Peralezes suggesting, yes, that's the correct deduction to make. You don't get that option otherwise. And V never actually comes to any real conclusion to what happened to Rhyne.
So, let's summarize what we know about the death of our Mayor. Peter Horvath was hired by an unknown Patron who spent a ton of money to turn him into a suicide bomb against Rhyne. They have connections internally to the corrupt NCPD which allowed Horvath to get access to Rhyne, both from escaping NCPD custody and for the security to give him access to Rhyne's conference room. That fails so our mastermind instead assassinates Rhyne at his usual sex club, one that we know for sure Holt knew about. Rhyne is assassinated via malware in a BD porno headset, NCPD comes in an Detective Han cleans it up. Later, Holt hires the Animals to take claim to the club and fuck it up.
Holt is looking suspicious AF rn, but we also don't have any direct evidence and V says as much if you accuse him. Personally, I think it's a little too clumsy if it's him. Holt leaves the room just as an assassination attempt goes down, sets up a sex club appointment for the Mayor where he's successfully assassinated, NCPD covers it up... and then he hires a gang to cover it up more? Something doesn't fit here.
My theory is Holt is innocent. He's a scum bag, but not the culprit here. Why would you EVER give your identity to the Animals you hired to cover up an assassination? The big dumb brutes of the underworld? A name they give up with almost no fight? No, I think someone hired them under Holt's name. And I think they hired them because they KNEW the BD Headset was left behind; Han dismissed it entirely as Rhyne dying of a heart attack brought on during sex. They needed that destroyed to cover the final footprints. It's the only piece of evidence that doesn't have Holt or NCPD's name on it and doesn't fit the narrative that both are pushing. If they're covering NCPD or Holt's tracks, why not delete the emails or footage of Han? And if Holt or Han were trying to push this false narrative, why leave the headset right there the first time?
And, while I have no evidence of this assertion, the Animals are only still there because they're waiting for payment to come in... I think our employer never intended to pay them and left them in the path of V, who is likely to shoot them and tie up the loose end for our mysterious entity. Animals destroy the BD set, V shoots the animals, no trace. And, even if he doesn't, Animals will point V to the wrong person.
No, we've got a third party here. But let's continue so we can finally let our lead actor take center stage.
"DREAM ON"
"Dream On" starts when Jefferson calls V and asks them to help in another case. Long and Short; Jefferson woke up in the night and found a man in a mask (or an implant) standing over him. Jefferson shot the man, only for his head to fry and knock him out. Coming to, he's back in bed with no evidence it ever happened. SSI, their private security, insists that there was nothing on the cameras, no evidence, and nothing happened. Elizabeth claims she slept through the whole thing event.
V investigates the apartment, with Elizabeth giving the tour, and finds a lot of evidence. Elizabeth is kinda dismissive at first thinking V won't find much. First small stuff leading into larger reveals. Let's start small and work our way up.
First room Liz takes us to is the campaign room. She talks about running the campaign entirely out of pocket and having to keep most of their supplies at the Penthouse; "It's cheaper that way". You find a picture of their daughter on the wall and Liz explains that she's off at university in Europe while Jefferson is running for office; "It's easier that way" she says. That phrasing again.
EDIT: A redditor in the comments pointed out that the Peralez are being controlled via drugs in their food as part of the tech. They mention they've been eating fast food lately, explaining why Jefferson was lucid enough to catch the agent and shoot him.
V can look at Jefferson's emails (which Liz slightly discourages them, saying there's nothing there) which reveals a bit more about their campaign. There's a video of the iconic commercial and poster of Jefferson pulling out a gun and shooting a bunch of paperwork. In the email, Jefferson HATES this commercial, but his assistant, Lea Patel, insists on it as it will air in television time slots with action-drama series and catch the attention of voters. Further emails have Eric Boucher, Jefferson's Campaign Partner (Manager?), saying Jefferson has been acting unpredictably lately; presumably referencing one of the next emails. Boucher is confused because they fired Lea Patel together, only for her to continue working and sent him a new ad for approval. When emailed, Jefferson is confused about Lea being fired at all and doesn't remember the event ever happening, even telling Boucher to be honest if he has some issue with her. A final email is from SSI Chief of Security, Wallace, discussing Jefferson's intent to hire a merc to look into Rhyne's death ("Dream On") and they suggest Jefferson drop it or have NCPD or themselves look into it. Private Security just... offering to investigate the former mayor's death? Huh... sounds more like they want to squash the issue to me.
We should now talk about the Peralez's campaign. As you explore the apartment, Liz explains that they're running on a corp free campaign; they want to get Night City out of the control of the corps and do so without ever owing any favors to them. She specifically cites "Night Corp, Militech, and Petrochem" as ones they've denied. Militech and Petrochem come up a few times in other quests but Night Corp is relatively obscure. And they choose that corp to be the first one she mentions? Stands out to me. It also isn't lost on me that we're talking about running a campaign out of pocket and refusing corp assistance... while walking on the fancy ass balcony of a penthouse in Charter Hill- North Oak.
Next room, we find Jefferson's office. Elizabeth and Jefferson both graduated with law degrees from Asukaga University in Berkley. V points out it would be extremely expensive for them both, but Elizabeth says that both got full ride scholarships from the Richard Night Foundation, run by Night Corp. To further fucking cement this moment, there's a Richard Night biography shard on the desk. But we'll drop this for now because I want to get to Night Corp a bit later.
The computer on the office desk has some emails on it sent by Elizabeth. One is between her and Judy where she's asking Judy for help on the original "I Fought The Law" quest and Judy is the one who gave her your contact in the first place. Another is from their daughter kinda asserting the same thing earlier; safer for her in Europe so she's not a target on the campaign trail. And here's the interesting one; Boucher emailed Elizabeth asking why Jefferson changed his mind on Lea Patel. Elizabth says Jefferson explained it to her that it "slipped his mind" and "circumstances changed in Lea's favor" and she asks him to drop the whole thing. She's dismissive and gives extremely vague details.
Next room, Bedroom. Elziabeth's gun is on the table. It's the one Jefferson claimed he fired and scanning it tells us that it has been fired recently. We also find the wedding photo of Jefferson and Elizabeth where she fondly talks about having blue roses because she loves them so much... except the photo's roses are red and V says as much. Elizabeth quietly corrects herself that they only had red roses instead and moves on.
In the hall, we find the blood trail and gun shots in the wall; both covered up hastily. Following the trail, we enter a tv room. The Smart Glass isn't working and Elizabeth says it stopped working recently; not like they use it much anyway. Passing a Tech Check lets us try and fix it... only to be quickly blacked out by it so hard Johnny felt it too. V asks Elizabeth about it but she doesn't know what V is talking about despite having been standing right there. We also find a hidden door in the wall. Unlike earlier, Liz is actually confused by the door but demands V try and open it.
Downstairs we have the security room. Liz says that it used to be her place but "Security had to set up somewhere" and that she had to make sacrifices for this campaign; "it wasn't the first nor will it be the last". One computer has a Welcome email from SSI to new recruits. It details that they have access to all areas except Section Zero, which is reserved for Blue or Black agents and that, should the encounter a Blue or Black Agent (SPECIFICALLY "in the night"), do not interact or acknowledge them. The next email from Wallace mentions an accident where there was a "behavioral anomaly" and "ALPHA" injured a Blue Agent (BLUE-66M) who is in critical and the SSI head is requesting access to Sector Zero to give medical aid. SSI gives Wallace the code to Sector Zero and sends a team to aid. SSI knew about the accident and lied. You go to the second computer, unlock it, and can unlock the upstairs door. On that terminal is a bunch of deleted files (presumably the security footage from that night) and emails discussing "normal maintenance procedure" and further informing security that ALPHA (Jefferson) hired a merc (V) and, should security encounter them, do not interact with them.
Small thing I found interesting, a shard called "You Are What You Slot" is found down here too. It details a fictional assassin who kills and then steals the identity of her victims. Small and doesn't mean much on it's own, but the shards are hinting at the story here; one of false identities and manipulation.
Now, let's get to the main event; the secret room. Inside is a control center. Elizabeth is horrified and feels violated. She shouts that she's not letting SSI anywhere near them, only for her head to start hurting and she tells V to do what he needs to do. She leaves him. Inside the control room is a box of bloody medical supplies. The computer discusses "behavioral norms" for ALPHA (Jefferson) and suggests amplifying "neural dampening". It discusses things similar to Wallace's terminal, but from the other side; ALPHA is displaying odd behavior by hiring a merc, the SSI teams avoided meeting the merc, and then the actual accident that occurred injuring BLUE-66M during regular 'maintenance'. The other side of the room also has another data shard, "Rewriting Synaptic Pathways", basically talking about using tech to rewire the brain a bit.
Following some wires from the control room to the roof, we find a signal dish. Johnny (replacing Elizabeth for conversation now that she's gone), joins in that the tech looks prehistoric but functional and that Militech used it in the war; it requires line of sight to transmit data but otherwise can't be intercepted. We can see the tower and go to investigate. V tells Liz the whole deal; V can suggest that the Van near the tower could be SSIs or that it might not be due to unconventional tech. Liz then itterates twice that it's a stressful campaign time for Jefferson and V should talk to her, NOT him. "Sure, whatever" V and the player dismiss.
(I SWEAR WE'RE ALMOST DONE WITH THE SUMMARIZING FOR DREAM ON, I'M SO SORRY.)
We drive after the van, Johnny is suddenly excited for smashing a corpo conspiracy and iterates that citizens do not choose their representatives, instead they're chosen by "key players" who watch the Peralezes for weaknesses or blackmail material. We arrive at the facility patrolled by Maelstrom and the occupants of our van park, get out, and climb ladders to the roof where they get into an AV that is cloaked to be near invisible (as shown in a couple of vids on YouTube and this subreddit).
At the place, Maelstom is explained; "UNKNOWN USER" contacted them while driving the van for protection to take care of V and then destroy the van. Van's data makes it pretty clear; the Peralezs' minds are being manipulated, new neural pathways are being created, and their memories are being created, changed, or erased. There are also a couple of other names of other test subjects. The data is then erased. We do see an almost flower like symbol before the data is destroyed.
The agents on the cloaked AV CAN be killed and do drop a shard, thought it doesn’t have many more details, merely that they’re contacting HQ to arrange extraction and that the Van’s data should be destroyed and echoing the arrangement with Maelstrom mentioned earlier in their shards.
V calls Liz, Liz wants to meet in person instead of over holo and send him to a Japantown Raman shop (same one that used to be Rainbow Cadenza, coincidentally). Odd choice for an upstanding congresswoman. She says her nerves are shot, the ramen shop is a quieter place to meet than the apartment, and she needs a moment to gather herself since she last saw V, with V even asking if something has happened since they last saw each other. Of note, Liz is stress smoking the entire scene, something she hasn't done until now. She then explains, no, it's been over a longer period of time. She's been watching her husband change and act differently for awhile; he stopped reading, his taste changed, and he even insisted he was an only child and never had a bother when Liz asks about visiting the grave. Of note, yes, Antonio Peralez has a Columbarium Vault, which proves Liz is correct on this. She confesses that she herself has been told by others she's been acting strangely. V says she knew what V would find and she asserts that she doesn't know the who, how, or why, but "they're changing us". Jefferson apparently went on in great detail about a trip she swears they never went on, but she doesn't know if the vacation is a fake memory or if she's the one that doesn't remember.
She saw a stranger in their apartment tinkering with a monitor, only for him to be missing when it was reported to SSI and they looked at the feeds. The next day, she got a phone call from a stranger (whom she refers to by "he") saying that she's walking on thin ice and Jefferson could have an accident. They later erased all data that the phone call had happened. Elizabeth claims she's terrified for herself and her husband's safety and doesn't want V to reveal the truth. V points out "they" could be telling her to say that but it doesn't really change how she feels since she just wants Jefferson to be safe. She tells V to tell Jefferson it was SSI spying for Holt. She asserts she wants SSI out of her roof if they're spying on their sleep. She will take responsibility for firing SSI, but wants Jefferson to be safe and out of that fight. She adds a meeting with Jefferson to his calendar at Reconciliation Park. But, ultimately it's V's choice (especially since she has no idea if she'll remember the conversation) and leaves. Johnny jumps and and talks and mentions that there were talks like this back in his day and worrying about the damage a puppet mayor could do.
V heads to Reconciliation Park to meet with Jefferson. Entering, V is called by an Unknown Number which blacks out V's optics. They claim to know who V is, *what* V is, and what V wants. It doesn't matter what V tells Jefferson, but "don't dare cross that line" and "you're playing with fire". Its a garbled male robo voice, so safe to say it's irrelevant to the owner.
Enter Stage Right, our missing lead; Mr. Blue Eyes. He is standing on a balcony watching the place where we meet Jefferson. In the Scanner, he is labeled "Mr. Blue Eyes", has no known affiliation, is wanted for "SC 370", and is wanted for "Classified". His eyes are electronically glowing blue you can even see from several yards away. You cannot injure him as grenades do nothing and you can't aim at him. Of small note, and I don't know if this ACTUALLY means anything, but his hair style asset is referred to as Morgan Blackhand in the files, but could mean nothing if this hair is actually used by other NPCs. MOST LIKELY THIS IS NOTHING UNLESS SOMEONE HAS FURTHER INFO.
(Plot twist: It meant something. But we'll get there.)
V sits with Jefferson and can reveal the truth; "SSI is on the take from an unknown group to control your lives". V can even point out the absurdity of Peralez being as successful of a politician as he is without any corp sponsors. "They want you to be *their* mayor. Molding you like clay". You can tell Jefferson how to proceed and additional details, but it doesn't matter. Later, Jefferson will send a text and delete your number and so will Elizabeth, who will call you out for telling Jeff. In the end credits voicemails, Jefferson has decended into paranoia about some vitamins Liz gave him which he didn't trust so he sent them to the lab, only to then not trust the lab results saying they're fine. Jefferson Peralez is confirmed the new mayor during Late Act 2 and the major difference is his state of mind at the end game; either hiring V to be on his security staff or descending into absolute paranoia over everything in his life.
Lastly, Johnny appears and cryptically talks about back in his day when they'd talk about rogue AIs. Personally... I kinda completely dismiss this? It comes out of nowhere, Johnny cites NOTHING for why he'd bring this up in relation to the case, and I can't fathom a motive. I’d also point out that this isn’t the only time Johnny is outright wrong. In fact, he’s wrong A LOT in the game. For example, he criticizes V for listening to the Netwatch Agent and that he’s bullshitting you. Except, the agent is 100% correct that VDB did spike V as a suicide virus and Johnny is actually wrong. He also claims he doesn’t know what happened with Thompson after Never Fade Away, but this is a lie because Thompson is flying the AV Johnny takes to Arasaka in 2023. The only connection I can find is "Who is controlling Blue-Eyes" which might make Johnny correct, if just not in the way 'Rogue AIs' initially implies.
So, what actually has happened?
The Peralez family has been molded for a very long time into being the perfect political couple. They got scholarships from the Night Foundation for two fancy law degrees, have successful political careers, and Jefferson is running for Mayor on an anti-corp platform, an insanity for Night City. And he's actually successful at it. During a maintenance service at night on the Peralez's apartment, Jefferson woke up and shot an SSI/Unknown agent making repairs. The Control Booth knocked Jefferson out and they pulled the agent out of the apartment into the secret room. SSI put the Peralezes back into bed and hastily cleaned up everything, but the damage was done and Peralez hired V who uncovered mostly everything.
Elizabeth seems to be initially very upset by the discovery, but wants V off the trail when we meet her next. However, she's not in on it as she's equally a victim to the brainwashing/gaslighting and that's for certain. I think she's a pawn who is either too scared or too programmed to break the rules of movement on this chessboard. It's worth noting that, while the unknown entity threatens Jefferson's life and V's well being, they do not make due on either of these threats. I call their bluff. They have put too much work into Jefferson to abandon or kill him.
But, where else have we heard of this gaslighting brainwash process before?
"FULL DISCLOSURE"
Ok, we're on the shorter end so I don't have to actually explain this quest in full. Sandra Dorsett is a netrunner and a very skilled on at that, actually collecting data from Night Corp. She was kidnapped by the savs we rescued her from at the beginning of the game shortly AFTER she stole this data, suggesting Night Corp was behind it. This data is on the shard she asks you to collect during the aforementioned quest. V has full ability to NOT read it, but let's look at it; "Operation Carpe Noctem" ("Seize The Night" in Latin)
Described in it is an experiment on Night Corp's own employees where they are quietly brainwashing them and getting them to do whatever they want. They specifically cite an empathetic and calm employee who they got to fight a co-worker and then jump from a 16th floor window. The shard ends on mentioning that they're ready to install CN-07 on "our actual target".
I think multiple quests discussing brainwashing and gaslighting is too coincidental to be utterly unrelated to each other. I think Night Corp's actual target mentioned here is Peralez.
So, what is Night Corp?
Night Corp is the most mysterious of the corps in Night City. It currently operates to better Night City via philanthropic ventures, fundraising, community support, and city infrastructure. Basically, while Militech and Arasaka and the others operate in the city, Night Corp basically RUNS the actual city. They're also noteworthy for the level of security they have that even the best netrunners can't get much from them and, since they keep to themselves and seemingly just do city infrastructure stuff, no one really super bothers them. It has been run by Miriam Night, wife of late-Richard Night, until recently and we currently don’t actually know who runs NightCorp.
Originally, they were the Night Foundation, but that requires explaining Richard Night... oh boy, Lore Drop. I'll make it quick as possible.
Richard Night is the founder of Night City. He started as a partner of a firm, but his ambitions grew beyond that to founding "Night International" to build his dream; a city that would be so grand it would make all other cities pale by comparison, Coronado City. A capitalist mecha of opportunity, Night City would be run by corporations and have next to no anti-business policies on the books. Arasaka, EMB, and Petrochem were his first backers and he came into claim of land on the central-California coast; Del Coronado Bay and Morro Bay would be the location of his dream city.
(BTW, irl, Morro Bay, California is a real place. Been there, have family there, go there regularly, kinda cool!).
Despite being a capitalist mecca city and run by corps, Richard Night also dreamed it to be "A sprawling metropolis, free of crime, of poverty, of debt. A place where people could live safely, peacefully, without having to worry about the dire situations that were growing around the world at the time".
However, due to the design plans, Night didn't employ local contractors and instead got expensive architects and builders from all over the world. Local builders didn't like that, they had mob connections, bloodshed started. And soon Richard Night was murdered by an unknown assassin, presumably a mob hitman. The city was renamed Night City in his honor and his dream utopia became to embody everything that was destroying the world. Mob took control and corps didn't give a fuck since it didn't hurt them any until they eventually had to take out the mob gangs, but not in any favor to Night’s dream either.
Miriam Night, Richard's Widow, founded the Night Foundation (later Night Corp) to stick to Richard's Ideal dreams of what he wanted the city to be. They invest heavily in ecological research, alt power sources, civic infrastructure, public works, and charities and scholarships for Night City youth. "They've even managed to stay out of the normal corporate power struggles which tend to plague every other corporation, both inside the city and out. Even the shadowy corporate rumors about them, like having underwater bases in the bay or access to orbital satellites, remain unsubstantiated despite extensive investigation."
So, where does this put us now? We have ONE last quest...
"THE PROPHET'S SONG"
Garry The Prophet is our local crazy man. He spouts off insanities to anyone who will listen near Misty's Esoterica in Kabuki. However, some of his ideas aren't quite as much off the mark as one might think. There ain't no technonecromancers from Alpha Centuri (or Spanish Inquisition) nor is Saburo Arasaka an immortal vampire, but he was correct that Saburo wasn't dead and in fact immortal; via Mikoshi and The Relic.
He send you on a quest to investigate a meeting; he says that his ripper mistuned some cyberware in his head and he can hear their communications. You show up to a meeting between corps and Maelstrom. They say some nonsense phrases and transfer a data shard. Reading it ("Destroy After Reading") it seems like nonsense. But does include the line "The cages of men melt as night descends". You can decode it via a Null Cipher; first letter of every line: “Project Oracle Command Execute Plans”.
We don’t know what Project Oracle is. In real life, secret project or operation names actually tend to be chosen at random and are unrelated to the actual project (you can google funny stories about names that ended up awkward to the actual project), so this could mean nothing. But, narratives tend to give meaning to everything. Oracles are mythical in references and could predict the future or see the unseen. Perhaps perfect prediction via behind the scenes manipulations? Not sure we’ll get answers on this one for now.
Going back to Garry, he's been kidnapped. His protoge is screaming he's been kidnapped "Black suits came by - blue eyes and all". Blue Eyes huh? Further, she claims that they threw him into an invisible AV... Huh, like the one we saw back during "Dream On"? "Night's comin... The eternal night"
So, it’s time to jump us to the final step in our Fool’s Journey: The Sun.
“THE SUN”
The Sun ending has V wake up in their new penthouse apartment (with their love interest if they have one). Checking the computer, we see emails from our dear Mr. Blue Eyes. He wants an answer from V as to the job to the Crystal Palace he has planned and that they’re on a tight schedule for “obvious reasons”. We meet with him at the Afterlife and he talks about the job; Casino security is going into maintenance and V mentions giving him the casino client list. V also asks him to “hold up your end of the bargain”. They never discuss eddies or payment. It’s all in such vague terms. “Your end” or “Obvious reasons”. Smaller point but an email from Vik on the space shuttle also tells us that he’s asked around about Blue Eyes and has nothing; either he works with people WAY above Vik’s paygrade or he’s shady as hell… or both.
I think Blue Eyes knows V is dying (the obvious reasons) and I think the unspecified payment is V’s survival. V always says that they want to come back to their love interest so it’s not a mindless suicide run and I don’t think V would risk it all for nothing but eddies; especially not after Reaper (both versions) paint suicide runs as a horrible terrible thing. To then glorify it in another ending… no, the game is smarter than that.
Your love interest doesn’t seem to be too upset about the situation either. Panam and Judy leave V in The Sun due to their lives taking different directions, but it seems mostly amicable and understanding. They even express desire to see V again because they know V needs to do this job. Kerry, who stays with V in The Sun and expresses worry and also a desire to settle down with V, also seems mostly understanding that V needs to go on this quest. I don’t think they’d be so calm and loving and understanding if this were a suicide run. They know more than the player does.
Further, I think Blue Eyes isn’t after the casino aspect of the Crystal Palace at all. While that’s the major commercial aspect of the station as marketed to the citizen world, the station also has embassies from every nation on earth, facilities from all the major corporations, and is pretty much THE place where all the dark corporate espionage goes down. There’s so much more to this location than ‘casino resort’. *EVERY* corp has space stations and hideaways in space because the Crystal Palace offers it’s own legalities and opportunities that are not allowed within Earth’s terms and conditions. If they want to do some research that would be frowned upon elsewhere and get up to some Top Secret shit, it’ll be in outer space. Night City is controlled by corps and has lax laws, but outer space’s are even more so.
I think the cure V wants is not only on the station, I think it’s what Blue Eyes himself is after, but I’ll get there when it’s time to theory craft about the future.
I think it’s worth noting; Blue Eyes IS IN THE TRAILER FOR THE GAME. Yeah, anyone remember that shot on a shuttle with a guy being burned out from the inside? Yeah, he’s there. In the foreground. *Smirking*. The shuttle also seems like they’re in space.
These events leading to the Crystal Palace and the conspiracy with Blue Eyes are blatant DLC Hooks for the future and suggest a post-game DLC. This isn’t the first CDPR has done so either; Blood and Wine takes place after the story of Witcher 3 and is explicitly incompatible with the worst endings of that game. I think, conceivably, other endings where V is still alive could be roped into this adventure; Blue Eyes merely needs to hire them with the same offer of survival. While The Star takes V to Arizona and away from Night City, I think that choice of location is appropriate as, to even get to space for The Crystal Palace, citizens go from LAX to Arizona for a space port to launch them off Earth’s surface. They could have chosen anywhere else to send Panam and V, but they choose Arizona, huh. I do think Reaper, Temperance, and Devil will be locked out of this future, however, as all make any point of Blue Eyes hiring V irrelevant; there’s no V left to hire/save. MAYBE a rejected Devil ending, but I wouldn’t blame them for not continuing that conclusion either as Devil is one of the bad endings.
So, it’s finally time to really compile a lot of this information into where I think this is going in the next comment below

from the SEC:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1801170/000119312521029637/d66346dex991.htm
click for all the tables/images.
​
EX-99.1 2 d66346dex991.htm EX-99.1
Exhibit 99.1
In Response to Short Seller Firm’s Questions
📷
Andrew Still-Baxter 18 min read
From:
Vivek Garipalli, CEO and Andrew Toy, President of Clover Health
Clover’s mission is to improve every life. We do that by scaling the Clover Assistant platform across physicians to drive a meaningful positive clinical impact towards as wide a percentage of our membership as possible. We align our incentives for the Clover Assistant by embedding our software platform inside of the business of our Medicare Advantage plan. As we improve outcomes, and lower costs, Clover can pass those savings on to consumers, improving the attractiveness of our plans and spurring rapid growth. We ultimately seek to transform healthcare for each and every one of us.
Clover welcomes questions about our business, as it gives us the opportunity to share our vision and to address any skepticism, whether founded or unfounded. As you will see from our detailed,
point-by-point response to the short seller firm’s questions, the alleged “report” is rife with ad-hominem attacks, sweeping inaccuracies and gross mischaracterizations. Importantly, the short seller firm did not contact Clover, and we had no knowledge of the short seller report prior to it being made publicly available. In our view, it belies a desperate attempt for publicity while sacrificing any regard for the truth.
In addition, we would note that the report’s title specifically calls out the involvement of “The King of SPACs,” Chamath Palihapitiya, and accuses him of a dearth of diligence. This, as we will show, is completely untrue, and we suspect this was done in order to sensationalize what is otherwise a rather underwhelming piece of research. Given the market’s latest views on short sellers, we believe that Hindenburg, which takes pains to call out their altruism in saying that they are not short on CLOV stock, is foolheartedly seeking to redeem itself by posturing as a white knight of the financial markets.
We’ve put together this response as rapidly as possible. We hope you will find it extremely informative.
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1. Did Chamath and/or Clover know about the ongoing DOJ investigation? If so, why was it concealed from investors?

Chamath and Clover were fully aware of the DOJ inquiry.
To be clear, Clover does not believe it is, or has been, in violation of any rules or regulations related to the inquiry.
We went through both an IPO and de-SPAC due diligence process, and this subject received extensive focus and attention. Consistent with the views of Clover’s outside counsel, Social Capital’s outside counsel, and independently retained outside counsel of third parties, including IPO underwriters’ counsel, we concluded that the fact of DOJ’s request for information was not material and was not required to be specifically disclosed in our SEC filings.
How could a DOJ inquiry not be considered material information? As heavily regulated organizations participating in Medicare Advantage, Clover and its peers receive frequent requests for information from regulatory bodies. These are typically confidential. We promptly respond to these requests as and when they come in. As the short selling firm points out, the DOJ also often reaches out to ex-employees, including by civil investigative demands, as part of their information-gathering process.
For absolute clarity:
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Clover Health believes it has made all appropriate disclosures, which were reviewed and vetted by outside counsel to all parties.
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Clover has not received any civil investigative demands or subpoenas from the Department of Justice.
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Clover has received a request for information from the Justice Department, to which, as we do with all requests from regulatory bodies, we responded. This was on a voluntary basis.
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Clover has conducted a detailed review of matters potentially addressed by the DOJ request for information and has concluded that it is in compliance with all laws and regulations material to its business.
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Up until the publishing of the short selling report yesterday morning, Clover was unaware of any other ongoing investigations of the Company, its officers, or any companies with which they are affiliated.
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Following the report yesterday, Clover received notice of an investigation from the SEC. We believe this inquiry is based on the short selling report issued yesterday morning.

1. Is Clover aware of any other regulatory investigations into the company or Vivek Garipalli and his related companies? If so, what are the details?

Clover is unaware of any other ongoing regulatory investigations, except, as noted above, following the short selling firm’s report yesterday morning, Clover received an inquiry from the SEC. We believe this request is based on the short selling report issued yesterday morning.

1. Has Clover received any subpoenas or civil investigative demands from regulators? If so, how many and from which regulators?

No. Clover has not received any civil investigative demands or subpoenas from the Department of Justice. Clover has received a request for information from the Justice Department, to which, as we do with all requests from regulatory bodies, we responded on a voluntary basis.

1. Why does Clover’s subsidiary, “Seek Insurance” operate a website called “SeekMedicare.com” claiming to offer “independent” and “unbiased” advice on selecting Medicare plans without disclosing that it is owned by a Medicare plan provider, representing a blatant conflict of interest?

Seek Medicare is a startup that was incubated and set up as a separate company from Clover — it has its own management team, outside investor (a nationally-recognized public company), board and employees. Clover and the outside investor share in governance of Seek at the board level, including decisions such as the nomination of the CEO. Clover has the right to appoint a Board Member (currently Andrew Toy, Clover’s President & CTO), the outside investor has a right to appoint a Board Member (currently an employee of the outside investor), and the third Board Member, the CEO, must be mutually agreed upon. In addition, this investor has a unilateral contractual option to convert its investment into 50% equity ownership of Seek.
It’s not unusual for payors to create or have stakes in FMOs. What makes Seek different is its fundamental belief that Medicare consumers are simply not well-informed and that hurts their ability to get affordable, great healthcare. Seek is purpose-built to deliver against that problem. In order to make sure it could effectively pursue its goals, Seek was set up as a separate company, and it has raised nearly all of its capital from the outside investor.
At Clover, we obviously want everyone to pick a Clover plan, but we want to earn that business by providing great and affordable healthcare coverage. The most important thing is that Medicare eligibles end up in the right plan for them.
One final note here: Seek is a brand new startup, and its website is still in version 1.0. Please take a look back next week when its planned version 2.0 comes out.

1. Clover’s subsidiary, Seek Insurance, claims on its website “We don’t work for insurance companies. We work for you” despite literally being owned by Clover, an insurance company. What is your response?

While Seek is an affiliate, as we said, it operates separately from Clover, with its own financing and its own goals, which are to provide neutral, objective advice to Medicare eligibles and to empower, educate and assist them. Seek offers Clover plans but, more importantly, Seek also offers many more coverage options. In fact, in every market in which Seek operates, Seek endeavors to offer at least 80% of available plans in that market.
Even though Seek began very recently, it was able to stand up its agency in the most recent AEP and also launched a pilot in ~100 retail locations in six states, with a focus on markets in Georgia, New Jersey and Texas.
If you want to see the objectivity of Seek, we think the results of Seek’s initial sales period speak for themselves:
Percent of Seek sales, by insurance plan, in the most recent AEP:
1.
Cigna: 20%
2.
Humana: 20%
3.
CVS/Aetna: 17%
4.
Clover: 13.5%
5.
UnitedHealth Group: 11.3%
6.
WellCare: 8.5%
7.
Horizon: 5.7%
8.
Other (unrelated to Clover): 4.0%
In terms of scale, applications from Seek totaled less than 1% of the total applications Clover received in the most recent AEP.

1. How much has Clover paid B&H Assurance, the undisclosed outside brokerage firm run by Hiram Bermudez (its Head of Sales) since inception?

Clover has paid approximately $160k directly to B&H since 2017.
Hiram has disclosed the following in connection with his B&H relationship:
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He does not receive any compensation, direct or indirect, from B&H Assurance for any work related to Clover.
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He maintains a 50% ownership interest in B&H Assurance, which he has owned since before he joined Clover.
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Hiram’s only work on behalf of B&H Assurance is monitoring compliance and negotiating contracts, from time to time, with parties that do not include Clover.
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He maintains an ownership interest in B&H Assurance so that, in case he separates from Clover, he has the option to go back to the brokerage agency he co-founded and not have to start over.
As a general matter, Clover engages with brokers in each of its markets in order to distribute its plans. This is standard operating procedure in the Medicare Advantage space. Broker payments are statutorily defined by state insurance regulators, broker scripts are actively monitored by both internal compliance and CMS — including via “secret shopper” and other methods — and we take our obligations to CMS, our members and potential members very seriously. We believe our marketing materials and the brokers that represent us accurately reflect and portray our plans to our members and potential members and do so with transparency and integrity.

1. What portion of Clover’s business has been referred by B&H Assurance since inception? How many members?

Approximately 8,200 of our current members were referred by B&H Assurance to Clover.
While B&H has been a strong producer, we strongly disagree with the statement that B&H alone has “fueled” Clover’s growth. We believe that all Medicare Advantage plans have key producer relationships, and to say those relationships somehow illegitimately fuel growth is a misnomer.
We believe Clover plans are appealing because they are often amongst the lowest cost plans in our established markets, and they offer the same cost-sharing for in-network and out-of-network primary care and specialist visits. As we expand across the country, we intend to establish relationships with additional brokers and key producers.

1. Former employees told us that the relationship between Clover and B&H Assurance was transferred into the name of Hiram Bermudez’s wife “for compliance purposes”. NAIC filings confirm it was transferred into his wife’s (maiden) name weeks after the go-public announcement. What is the explanation for this?

The statement underlying this question is false and misleading. The reason that B&H Assurance’s appointment list does not include Clover is that B&H has what is referred to as a “downline” relationship with Ritter Insurance Marketing, which contracts directly with Clover (note that it appears B&H does contract directly with a number of other plans based on the cited NAIC record page). Rather than a nefarious circumstance, this is also a standard construct in the Medicare Advantage world.
Further, the statements interpreting Yesenia Rivera (Bermudez)’s NAIC profile are incorrect in their conclusions: (1) there was no transfer of any relationship between Clover and B&H Assurance from Hiram to his wife; (2) the NAIC filing simply shows that on August 14, 2020, Mrs. Bermudez was directly appointed by Clover Health to be able to sell Clover plans as an agent.
For context, Hiram underwent a major organ transplant surgery at the end of last summer due to chronic kidney disease. He, thankfully, is doing very well healthwise after the surgery. Hiram informed us that he and his wife made a decision for her to go through broker certification so that, if his condition deteriorated further, she would be able to take over his 50% ownership in B&H.
No one should ever feel compelled to share this type of personal and private health information publicly, but we deeply respect Hiram’s desire to disclose this to make clear he had no malicious intent. Hiram is highly mission-oriented and an amazing teammate at Clover, and pathetic attempts to slander him are shameful.

1. Will Clover produce the agreement showing the transfer of the relationship into Hiram Bermudez’s wife’s name? Who signed off on the agreement and which senior members of management knew about the deal?

See previous response.

1. Is Clover aware that disclosure of significant transactions with key senior employees is something investors like to know about, so they can be made aware of potential material conflicts of interest?

Consistent with applicable laws and regulations, Clover has conflict of interest policies requiring employees to disclose any existing or potential conflicts of interest. Clover follows SEC rules and regulations regarding the public disclosure of these relationships.

1. Was Chamath aware that the DOJ was looking into issues of potential upcoding when he mentioned, unprompted, on CNBC “they don’t motivate doctors to upcode or do all kinds of things in order to get paid”?

We agree (as does Chamath) that upcoding is a significant problem in the Medicare Advantage industry, and Chamath was fully aware that we have built the Clover Assistant to address the problems in the approaches used by other insurers.
To be clear, Chamath’s statement that “we do not motivate doctors to upcode or do all kinds of things to get paid” is accurate:
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We pay Clover Assistant Primary Care physicians a fixed, flat payment per office visit.
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Unlike other plans, we never compensate more for agreeing with the Clover Assistant. We never pay less for disagreeing with the Clover Assistant. This payment is fixed and guaranteed, and physicians use their own judgment on what they believe is clinically correct in relation to their direct understanding of the patient.
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Put another way, a clinician could choose to disagree with every suggestion, which means there are no additional diagnoses and no additional risk adjustment codes, and they still get paid the exact same amount as if they did agree. There is NO financial motivation that we provide to physicians to answer in any particular way.
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This is why we specifically do not believe in capitation contracts the same way that others do. These contracts often share risk adjustment back to physicians — i.e., an indirect way to reward them for coding more. Clover does not support those types of strategies.
To be clear, the focus of the Clover Assistant is driving clinical value. Because of its important role in early and improved detection of disease burden, accurate risk adjustment is one of the byproducts of clinical engagement with the Clover Assistant. Notably, however, much of the content in the Clover Assistant has absolutely nothing to do with risk adjustment. More than 50% of the clinical data we capture through Clover Assistant visits has no risk score impact whatsoever.
Here are just a few examples of the Clover Assistant driving clinical value:
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Colorectal Cancer Screening
Medication Therapy Management:
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For Chronic Kidney Disease
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For Statins
Addressing risk:
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Fall Risk
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Mortality Risk
Covid — 19 Response
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Mail Order and Home Drug Delivery

1. Clover reported that “onboarded” physicians used Clover Assistant for 92% of member visits in 2019, but never defined “onboarded”. We found that less than half of Clover’s in-network doctors are considered “Clover Preferred”. What is the definition of an “onboarded” physician? What percentage of Clover’s in-network doctors actually use the Clover Assistant?

This is a good question. Similar to enterprise software, there are two phases of bringing on physicians to Clover Assistant:
Contracting: Where we explain the benefits of Clover Assistant to the physicians and they have agreed to use the software.
Onboarding: Where the physicians have received their initial training and have created their accounts, and we have answered their questions. Basically, they’re ready to use the software. We also refer to the physicians as the “Live” physicians.
We use the Onboarded/Live number (as opposed to Contracted) when discussing engagement because that correlates to the physicians that are trained and ready to use the Clover Assistant. We typically have a pipeline of Contracted physicians waiting to be onboarded at any given time, and our goal is to go from Contracted to Live within 60 days.
Speaking to the second question, currently 22% of all in-network Primary Care Physicians are Live. This correlates to 4% of the total in-network physicians (including PCPs, specialists, etc.), but the Clover Assistant is currently built as a tool for PCPs, so we believe 22% is a more useful number.
That said, we don’t view either of those figures to be particularly relevant to the scalability and impact potential of the Clover Assistant. Instead, we focus on membership coverage. More specifically, as of YE 2020, 56% of our membership were attributed to one of those 22% Live PCPs. An additional 11% are attributed to a PCP who is contracted but in the onboarding pipeline (bringing us to 67% total coverage for Clover Assistant as of YE 2020).
This is because as we bring on physicians, we focus on contracting and onboarding those with more Clover members first, so a disproportionate number of our members are attributed to Clover Assistant-Live PCPs. As we continue to deploy the Clover Assistant, we intend to bring on the remainder of these physicians and we expect to see these numbers converge more. Right now we’re very proud of that 67% coverage number of all Clover members as of year-end 2020.

1. If Clover’s software is so “delightful” to use, why does Clover have to pay doctors extra ($200 per visit) just to use it?

We think this is a big part of the innovation model of Clover and why it’s so important that we build this tool internally as a payor.
The Clover Assistant is a SaaS-type enterprise clinical decision tool, but rather than charge physicians to use it (like regular software startups), we instead reimburse PCPs to encourage them to use it and to recognize the incredibly important role PCPs play in assessing and taking care of our members and controlling costs. PCPs receive less than 5% of total medical expenses in the US, and we believe that to solve the ballooning health care expenses in our country, we need to shift more of our focus, resources, and compensation to primary care doctors.
To be clear, the “extra $200 per visit” is not incremental or “just to use” the Clover Assistant, but represents the overall payment that covers both the PCP office visit and the use of the Clover Assistant. This translates to roughly twice the traditional Medicare fees paid to PCPs for an office visit, more in line with fees paid to specialists.
Most critically, this is a flat fee. We don’t pay them more to agree with us, or less when they disagree. A lot of programs effectively do this, and that creates moral hazards like upcoding or trying to skimp on care. We pay the flat fee because we want to reward PCPs for great data-driven primary care without creating those moral hazards and bad incentives.
Speaking to the delight point — we measure this in an objective, standard way in the form of Net Promoter Score surveys. We run these surveys within Clover Assistant for all Clover Assistant users on a quarterly basis to see how we’re doing in terms of user satisfaction and delight. We’ve traditionally received a score between 55–63 which we think is excellent — particularly for healthcare.
Here’s a screenshot of our NPS survey:
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Clover Assistant NPS Survey
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Our most recent NPS results from the end of last year.
As you can see, most of our Clover Assistant survey respondents give us very high ratings. There are a few “middle” scores, and there are, of course, some detractors who give us low scores. When we receive detractor feedback, we strive to send our Product and User Research teams to interview these users to find out how we can do better. We’re not perfect, but our fast iteration rate (releasing a new Clover Assistant version on average every 3–4 weeks) helps us continuously improve our platform.

1. Multiple doctors explained that it was difficult to remove prior diagnoses from the Clover Assistant. Is Clover aware of this? And can Clover guarantee that in future versions of the software doctors will be able to remove prior diagnoses, so as to ensure accuracy and cost efficiency?

For clarity, every diagnosis that appears in the Clover Assistant is for physician consideration, and they can choose to tell us they don’t think that diagnosis is currently relevant. Here’s a screenshot of how it’s shown.
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Every suggestion made is based upon clinical data that we have at Clover and personalized for each specific patient. Then the physician can tell us whether they can confirm the diagnosis. If they cannot confirm, they can easily select that option (shown above), and we ask them to share the reason why so we can update our internal data.
Note that when a physician tells us a diagnosis is not currently relevant, we do not show that diagnosis again that calendar year unless there is a new reason to believe that the diagnosis applies (e.g., new clinical data).
We may also resurface a diagnosis the following calendar year for reconfirmation. There’s a reason for this: many chronic diagnoses may come and go in terms of their diagnosis state. For example, diabetes may resolve (removing the diagnosis) if a patient loses weight, but if the patient puts the weight back on, diabetes will come back. Or, active cancer may go into remission, then unfortunately return. As such, it’s clinically appropriate to track these previous diagnoses.
Bonus Question: Is Clover Assistant actually helpful to physicians in providing better care above and beyond their EHR?”
This wasn’t actually in the list of questions addressed to us but was implicit in the short-selling firm’s commentary, so we wanted to hit this on the head, too.
We are incredibly proud of the ways, in only a few short years, we have been able to build the Clover Assistant platform in order to support PCPs in providing better care for our members. The Clover Assistant is not attempting to be an EHR; rather, we are focused on building a product that is supplemental to the EHR and driven by physician feedback.
We’ve supported the rapid transition to remote visits during the outbreak of COVID-19 this past spring, we’ve supported members getting their medications delivered to them when they couldn’t leave their home, and we’ve gotten clinical information otherwise not available to PCPs into the hands of those most equipped to utilize that information.
We also surface evidence-based protocols specific to a member’s disease profile. To be clear, we do this in order to help our members receive the right medications, access the right testing, and achieve better outcomes. By doing so, we pay more money now in order to decrease costs and patient suffering down the line.
If you take a look at our most recent investor presentation, you can easily see a view of that functionality on page 10. On page 19 of the same deck, you can also see a view of the Clover Assistant’s impact outside of accurate diagnosis capture.
We are just starting this journey, and know that, like with any software, there are plenty of opportunities for fine tuning and further improvement. But we are motivated by those challenges and solicit that feedback from the healthcare community and our in-network physicians regularly.
— The Clover Product, Clinical, and Engineering Leads

1. A former employee explained that Clover handed out gift cards to doctors and nurses to generate patient leads, a practice prohibited by CMS. These gift cards were justified as being for everything but recruitment, including “morale,” a “thank you,” “motivation,” and “friendship.” How do you respond?

Clover does not provide gift cards to doctors and nurses to generate patient leads.
Clover prides itself on a strong culture of compliance. If we were to discover any violation of CMS regulations or any applicable law or regulation, our compliance department would take decisive and strong corrective action.

1. Does CEO Vivek Garipalli deny that his CarePoint hospitals at one point charged the highest emergency room prices in the entire nation?

It is important to note that CarePoint is a separate and independent business entity, with different management teams, investor structures, and boards of directors. We do not comment on its operations. We also do not respond to ad hominem attacks against our officers.

1. Why did CEO Vivek Garipalli make a secret $1 million donation to the Mayor of Jersey City?

The aforementioned contribution to a PAC has been reported in the media. Like any private citizen, Vivek makes contributions. As our first market, New Jersey is near and dear to us, and Vivek believes the Mayor of Jersey City has done a commendable job of attracting businesses and developing affordable housing policies.
Vivek also donates to other causes in New Jersey and elsewhere — such as a $1MM contribution to the Goodwill Rescue Mission homeless shelter in Newark, NJ.

1. Why has Clover had such extensive executive turnover, with 3 CFOs, 3 COOs, and 2 General Counsels in the last 4 years?

Clover has evolved significantly over the past four years, and we needed different people with different skill sets at each stage of our journey. We are grateful for the contributions of every one of our employees, past and present, and are proud of our current management team. As is evident from our team’s background, they bring extensive experience across their areas of expertise. We believe we should always be looking to bring on more and more talented and mission-oriented individuals as we evolve and grow.
In particular, we are grateful to our co-founder Kris Gale for his work as the original Clover CTO to build the fundamentals of the Clover data platform. When Andrew Toy, our current President and CTO, came on board, one of the first things he did was focus on the creation of a way to turn data into improved care by physicians. The result of that was the Clover Assistant.

(Editorial note: This article is from March of 1962. After reading this, consider how neatly the new Elizondo "revelations" continue and update this narrative, which is now 70 years old).
"An Open Letter To Saucer Researchers" by Dr. Leon Davidson
(1) I would like to deviate from my usual writing style and cast this article in the form of an "open letter" without rigorous documentation. I have been unable to properly keep up with the correspondence that followed my article "Why I Believe Adamski". Hence this open letter of reply. (2) Because of the somewhat unpopular position which I have always taken on this subject, I would like to state my qualifications to justify the somewhat pompous position which I may seem to affect. I challenge any other saucer researcher to present a better list of qualifications to pontificate in this field. (a) I have read the full text of the secret version of the Project Grudge Report of August, 1949. (b) I have worked for classified government projects -- mostly in the atomic energy field including a stint working for "Uncle Sam" in AEC Headquarters in Washington at a highly respectable level. (c) I have held high U.S. security clearances for over 15 years. (d) I have lived in several areas of the Country where and when flying saucer activity was going on including New Mexico during the "green fireball" period and Washington, DC during the 1952 "National Airport radar sighting" period. (e) I have extensive files of flying saucer magazines, books, newspaper clippings, NACA and other technical reports, and correspondence with military agencies collected personally starting when I first became involved in this field in 1949.
(f) My professional background can be found in American Men of Science, 9th Edition, Volume I. (g) I am a trained engineer with a doctorate in chemical engineering and am a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. (h) At Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, I worked with the semi-official project looking for the "green fireballs" in cooperation with the Laboratory security organization. (i) I was given a special private showing of the "Tremonton Film" by Major Dewey Fournet in a Pentagon briefing room in November 1952 which the films were being kept secret from the public (and from Major Keyoe). (3) If there were need to expand the above list further, I could list my correspondence files (including informative replies) from many scientists and officials (including members of the 1953 CIA panel )and many saucer researchers (including Adamski, Al Bender, Barker, Moseley, Dan Fry, Richard Ogden, Len Stringfield, Ruppelt, John Otto, LaPaz, Menzel, Whipple, Munsi…, Keyhoe, Dick Hall, etc.). I could also point to my appearance on the Long John radio show and my authorization (by Congressional action) to publish the official Air Force Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14. (4) Let me now say what I think is the true explanation of the flying saucer situation as it now stands and as it has developed. In a nutshell, it is this:
The Central Intelligence Agency (formed in 1947) took the public image of the "flying saucers" created by secret flights of U… aircraft and artificial meteor research etc. during the 1947-48 period. In 1950, the CIA had set into motion a plan of encouraging public belief in interplanetary travel through a psychological technique of guiding the release of planted information ordering "secret" tests of authentic military developments which gave misleading impressions to observers, etc.
It delegated the Air Force to act as the official "investigator" to stave off public inquiry. It secretly sponsored the formation of saucer study groups and contact c… including NICAP (under T. Townsend Brown with whom, incidentally, I have voluminous correspondence.)
The CIA set up many saucer publishers, sponsored the publicity received by Adamski's books and others; and sponsored the … of saucer articles in 1952 in Life, Look, etc. The CIA also conducted hoaxes played upon Adamski and Fry including the former's desert contact, "train disappearance", etc.
The motives of the CIA can best be described by Allen Dulles. He has recently retired from his position as leader of that Agency. He is quoted in Stringfield's book as sayind that "by use of the injunction, if necessary he would prevent anyone from testifying in court concerning Addamski's … because maximum security exists concerning the subject of UFOs."
The atom bomb drive of 1957-58 which led to the U.S.-Russian-English ban on clear bomb testing (only recently broken) was the only worthwhile object that of the CIA-sponsored flying saucer movement which is as yet publicly readable. The build-up for this is evident in the earliest saucer contact s…
(5) A more detailed historical development of the CIA's … the saucer story follows:
In 1946 based on research done during WWII and … lead from German rocket and satellite information, the U.S. Navy developed several interesting projects including: (a) The "Flying Flapjack" -- scheduled for test flight at Muroc in the summer of 1947 -- the very place and time of Cases 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the official Air Force saucer investigation "Project Grudge". This plane was designed by C.H. Zimmerman of the NACA and Chance-Vought. (b) The "Flying Platform" also designed by Zimmerman based on his patents #2,417,896 (applied for on Aug. 10, 1945 and issued March 25, 1947). This was not publicized until 1955 when the Office of Naval Research made the cover of Look and/or Colliers magazines with it. (c) The launching of artificial meteors from shaped charges carried aloft by V-2 rockets over New Mexico starting in December 1946. (This led to the "green fireballs".) (d) The "Skyhook" balloon project and other high-altitude research. In 1947, the Air Force was embarrassed by sightings of "saucers" at Air Force bases although Naval air bases were not bothered. The Air Force had YB-35 "flying wings". But they did not fly well and the YB-49 jet version crashed at Muroc in June 1948. (Muroc was renamed "Edwards AFB" in memory of the test pilot Capt. Glen W. Edwards.) The Navy "XF5U-1 Flying Flapjack" did not have any publicly-reported flights. Yet it was not officially scrapped until March 12, 1948. The Navy had a large restricted area near Arco, Idaho through the end of 1947 (which is now the site of the AEC Reactor Testing Station). The area is near the center of activity of "saucers" during that period and could have been "their" base of operation.
The CIA started operations under Admiral Hillenkoetter on May 1, 1947. The 2 earliest dated cases in the official Air Force "Project Grudge" files are: ● Case 82-- May 1 (or 21), 1947, Oklahoma City. "Round, disk-like, 10 times longer than thick, high speed." ● Case 92-- May 19, 1947. Manitou Springs, Colorado. "Reversal of direction of flight; maneuvers."
In early 1949, just after "unification of the Army, Navy, and Air Force started to take effect, an Air Force general ordered the Air Force to discontinue the investigation of "flying saucers" and to close Project Grudge by the end of 1949. This general's name and the full text of his letter are given in the secret Project Grudge report No. 102-AC 49/15-100, Project XS-304, Release Date August 1949. Classification: Secret. Written by Lt. H.W. Smith and Mr. G.W. Towles of Air Materiel Command Headquarters at Wright Field.
In this letter, the general ordered the name of the project changed at once from Project Sign to Project Grudge. The name "Project Sign" had been given -- under CIA auspices -- to help spread the idea that saucers were interplanetary bearers of messages of wisdom. This general -- who was not in on the secret but saw that the Navy was sending its "secret aircraft" to taunt the Air Force bases -- used the name "Grudge" to connote the fierce inter-service rivalry existing then.
The June 1947 Maury Island (Tacoma, Washington) sighting did not become widely known until after the secret Grudge Report was released in 1949. (Released only to the Military and the AEC. It was not -- and is not yet -- available to the public.) The Maury Island incident was referred to by the Rand Corporation in its chapter of the Grudge Report. The Maury Island affair is fully described in the book by Kenneth Arnold and Ray Palmer. (And thus Palmer is associated with the earliest stages of the flying saucer story.)
During 1950, Allen Dulles became actively involved with the CIA work on saucers and saw the psychological impact which theyhad. He started a plan to build them up as a psychological warfare weapon. Ruppelt's book clearly shows the steps that the CIA took. Project Blue Book was warmed up in 1950-51. Ruppelt was selected by a screening process and groomed for the job of public relations cats-paw (without his knowledge). A seies of "incidents" was planned and carried out involving regular military units which led to cases considered as authentic evidence of saucers.
See my article in the March/April 1960 Flying Saucer Review of England. See also page 127 of Ruppelt's book (hard-cover first edition) regarding the Sept. 10, 1951 Ft. Monmouth radar sighting. By this time, there was no need to fly "real aircraft" any more. The "Flying Flapjack" and the Skyhook balloons had done their job -- the public had been inoculated. Since that time, there has been no need to postulate the existence of "secret new aircraft" to explain the eyewitness reports.
The CIA scheduled a big upsurge of publicity for saucers in the Spring and Summer of 1952. The public kick-off was the "Have We Visitors From Space?" article in Life (April 1952). This article had been under preparation for a year with help from the Government according to Ruppelt. The "green lights" or artificial meteors used earlier in New Mexico were developed into a new technique (the "Blue Flash"). This was first tried over Seattle, Washing in May 1952. (See front-page of N.Y. Times for May 12, 1952.) It was then used for the outstanding "blue meteor" of Sept. 12, 1952 over Washington, DC and simultaneously over 4 adjacent states including Maryland and West Virginia.
This incident occurred simultaneously with the Flatwoods, WV "monster" sighting and -- in fact -- the "meteor" was seen to land near the spot where the "monster" was discovered. This incident -- described by Gray Barker in his book They Knew Too Much About Flying Saucers -- was investigated by Barker personally and publicized by him and marks his early connection with the CIA-sponsored program of hoodwinking the public.
By Fall of 1952, the CIA had laid out its plans for the "landing" and "contact" stories. The warm-up for this had been the fabricated and planted stories about "little green men" such as the famous lecture at the University of Denver in March 1950 described in Scully's book Behind the Flying Saucers (page 5). This was a psychological test and showed that about 50% college-level people would believe a well- presented story. The Desverges (Florida scoutmaster) landing story in 1952 and the Mayor Links landing story from Germany in the summer of 1952 were part of the same pattern. These were all planted by the CIA. No actual human contacts were yet reported.
The Tremonton films made in the summer of 1952 served to convince me that the saucers were real. And I suspect that they were shown privately to others besides myself whom the CIA wanted to convince of the reality of saucers. These films are a clever job of faking.
The major sightings of the 1952 "flap" are well known to all saucer researchers. The Nash- Fortenberry sighting over Norfolk, Virginia and the Coast Guard photos over Salem, Massachusetts received much publicity. But the newspaper clippings of that period show hundreds of cases. The editorial pages and editorial cartoons (even the book reviews) of the major newspaper bristled with the subject of flying saucers.
In January 1953, the CIA convened a panel of 5 top-notch scientists to "study the situation". The results was "pre-conditioned" by the CIA according to Ruppelt's book and to detailed letters from Ruppelt in my files. The upshot of this panel's report was to land credence to the validity and "respectability" of saucers in official Government circles (outside the CIA) although the report was kept secret from the public. During this period, Major Keyhoe was carefully fed reports (by his "friends" in the Government) to bolster his case that the saucers are interplanetary. His books were best sellers. Likewise, George Adamski -- who had been duped into cooperation and participation in later 1949 (to take pictures of saucers "near the Moon") -- was hoaxed into going to a desert "contact" with a "spaceman" on Nov. 20, 1952. He as then given strong backing the CIA (he calls them "Space Brothers) in writing and publishing his book Flying Saucers Have Landed. During the next year, he was given the "space flight" hoax as described in my article "Flying Saucer Review" (England), Jan/Feb 1960 issue.
Jim Moseley introduced himself to me in 1954 an we became good friends. He was typical of the young, single, unattached men of mysterious antecedents who became active as saucer publishers during this period. The saucer magazines and clubs spread the stories of the contactees and publicized their books. Surprisingy enough, even Moseley -- who purported to espouse the "Earth Theory" -- gave most publicity to the contactee side of the picture.
Dan Fry's experience was not actually published until 1954 although dated back in 1950. The sequences of the "contact story" buildup seems to have been planned by the CIA as follows: (1) "Little Green Men" stories 1949-1950. No witnesses. (To "soften up" the public and start discussion of "space visitors".) (2) Contact by voice radio. Dan Fry, 1950. Also radio contact by Laimon Streeter with Williamson's and McCoy's group in 1952. (3) Contact with a human being "from space". Adamski, desert, 1952. (4) Contact with English-speaking human "from space" and flights into "space". Adamski, 1953, at Camp Irwin, California. (5) Visits to "other planets". Angelucci, Nelson. (1952, 1954) (6) Publicity for "midgets" contacting the general public, not restricting contacts to the "chosen few" contactees. 1955. (7) Publicity for full-size "human space people" cocntacting Earth people. (Howard Menger, the Planetary Center, the California contact clubs, etc. (1956-1957) (8) anti-Atom bomb propaganda disseminated by saucer clubs all over the World. (1957) This led to the cessation of bomb tests in 1958. (9) Current status of contactee cults: Most of the "saucer club" activity these days is oriented to the belief that "space people" are here on Earth. That they are identical to human beings. And that either the human race originally came from other planets or the other planets wre originally colonized from Earth etc. You pays your money and takes your choice. But the fraction of "saucer research" activity that is connected with technical subjects (such as propulsion etc.) is very small or almost nil these days and the whole subject of "saucers" now really means "space people". (1958-1962) … Although in 1952-57 after seeing the Tremonton films in a private showing at the Pentagon (which I now realize was arranged by the CIA acting through Col. W.A. Adams of Air Force Intelligence) I firmly believed that flying saucers were real objects, I no longer believe this.
I had thought that these were "secret U.S. aircraft or missiles" and perhaps that is what the CIA was hoping the intelligence agents of other countries would believe. But all during that period, my friends who worked in other Government agencies kept telling me that we had no such devices. I nevertheless believed that we did and that it was the best kept Secret of all time.
Firm in that belief, I went through with the publication of thousands of copies of the Air Force Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 in order to make the "inanity" of the Air Force's denials of saucer reality clear to all intelligent researchers. In the act of publishing the Bluebook Report, I was unknowingly acting as one of the chief agent of the CIA helping to spread the belief that saucers wre American secret devices (as explained in my editorial remarks in the Bluebook publication). The dawn cam slowly during 1957 as I looked in the John Otto - Mildred Maier - Major Walker - CIA case concerning the "code signals" recorded during a "saucer communication experiment". When Jules St. Germaine (a Long John show affiliate) had these decoded into a teletype cipher message and when Major Voya Skakich of the U.S> Air Force came to interrogate me about my interest in these, I began to see the light.
My articles in various issues of Moseley's Saucer News during 1957 and 1958 showed the transition in my thinkings. And the idea of psychological warfare being played by the CIA (against whom??) seemed more-and-more to be the real explanation of the whole saucer riddle. It even became apparent that many saucer magazines were not being written to circulate to their (purported) ordinary "saucer fan" readership but were really being written and circulated mainly to convey the "saucer activity news" to those on the inside of the research (some of whom could be expected to be enemy agents who were supposed to be believing and extracting the "American secret device" hokum from the stories).
The man I feel sorriest for in all of this is Major Keyhoe. He has been ill-used by the CIA and is still being fed stories to relay to the public. In Flying Saucers - Top Secret pages 18-20, he thinks that he is telling a story of an actual interplanetary saucer sighting when it is obvious that the case he describes is a "dress rehearsal" of a psychological warfare gimmick which "simulates" a flying saucer (to "scare" crews of enemy planes???). The way in which (on pages 19 and 20) the crewmen were interviewed and made to write reports on what they thought they saw and also shown photographs to match they had seen sounds just like what the CIA would do in a "field test" of a new psychological warfare gimmick. It is quite similar to the test made in 1950 on college people as described on pages 5 and 6 of Scully's saucer book.

I want to start off by saying I'm not an expert by any means, however I had a plan in place to grow my channel and it worked fairly well over the last 6 months. In this post I want to share the details of how I did that so I can help anyone who is struggling to get started on YouTube.
This post assumes you know the basics of YouTube that everyone talks about such as:

• Make good content
• Have good audio
• Have good lighting (if applicable)
• Have good thumbnails and titles
• Be consistent (at least weekly content)

The aim of this post is to go a little beyond those basics. If you aren’t interested in reading the full post then I want to leave you with a few bullet points that really made a difference for me:

• Learn YouTube SEO
• Create searchable content
• No one cares about you at the start, so focus on providing value
• Reply to every comment
• Use YouTube analytics and tools like TubeBuddy or VidIQ to make educated decisions
• Be patient
• Most important: if you think growing on social media is only a game of luck then it will be for you, but if you think you can strategically grow your channel then it will grow. Make an educated plan, don’t just hope it works out

Where I started from

I made around 20 videos back in 2018 so I had 490 subs before I made a solid plan and took action. I actually forgot about my channel until it was recommended to me on another YouTube account. When I saw all the positive comments it inspired me to make more videos. I was making videos for around a month before I started my main sub-niche’s content, here’s what my channel looked like right before I made an educated plan:
https://prnt.sc/x5g78k
I only had a few members in my Discord server. If you look the outro of my first Discord.JS video it shows 27 members:
https://prnt.sc/x5ga19
This post will be broken down into different sections, each is very important and is designed to be followed in order:

1. Selecting your niche and sub-niche
2. Planning video ideas
3. How to do CTAs (call to actions) correctly
4. Growing a Discord server
5. Scheduling and Bulk Recording Videos
6. Monetization outside of ads
7. Conclusion

Selecting your niche and sub-niche

If you select the wrong niche then you are doomed to fail before you even start. This is the first topic I want to talk about because it is incredibly important. There are two primary factors to think about when selecting a niche: 1) How skilled or knowledgeable are you in that niche? 2) How much demand is there in that niche?
Point #1 is very important to prevent burnout and ensure you can provide value to your viewers. If your content is educational then it is very important that you know what you’re talking about. I’ve been a programmer since 2008 so my niche is software development tutorials. Over the years I’ve learned things that I can now make videos on to help educate my viewers. If your content is entertainment based then it is important that you are entertaining (of course). This can be done by being very good at a game or having a fun personality. Those who do very well will often have both.
Point #2 is also important because you need to ensure there are people who want to watch your content. If you were to select “programming” or “FPS games” then obviously there’s millions of people engaging with that type of content daily. That’s great, but now it means that niche is too competitive. So you need to select a sub-niche, and perhaps a sub-niche within your sub-niche. This will allow you to have a lot less competition and be able to provide direct value to a specific audience. This is also an incredibly important concept because at the start it is better to be a large fish in a small pond than a small fish in an ocean. You can use the initial sub-sub-niche viewers to grow your audience and then eventually branch off into more competitive sub-niches.
So how do you select a niche? Also how do you verify demand for your niche?
For most of you an idea immediately comes to mind for a niche, for others you might have to think more on it. I would suggest looking for videos and channels within any niche ideas you have, and seeing how well their smaller creators are doing. If you are seeing videos with hundreds of thousands of views then you need to niche down further into a sub-niche. You are aiming to find a sub-niche with most videos getting 5k - 60k views or so, and ideally without a huge amount of creators in that space. This will take some time to find so don’t rush it.
After looking into various programming sub-niches I thought about Discord bot development tutorials. After looking into the competition I noticed most the dedicated Discord.JS channels had less than 20k subs and most video views were less than 100k even from larger channels. Also everyone watching those videos had a Discord account, so it was a great way for me to simultaneously grow my Discord server which is very important. I’ll talk a lot more about that in section 4) Growing a Discord server.
Be sure to note down all of your findings when looking for a good sub-niche. If one seems a little too competitive to start out with then it might be great to come back to later on. I have around 7 other sub-niches written down that I will eventually make a lot of content because of this.
Finally it is important not to brand yourself completely around your sub-niche. I always say I’m creating ”programming tutorials”, rather than “Discord JS tutorials”. That way when I branch out into other content it doesn’t catch anyone by surprise. I also sprinkle in non-Discord.JS content from time to time, usually things that will also help my core Discord.JS audience.

Planning video ideas

When you’re doing your niche research be sure to note down what videos are doing well compared to the creator’s sub count. If someone has 500 subs and 14k views on a video then you know they ranked it well in search results and related videos. The goal here is to replicate their success and greatly improve upon their video to provide more value to the viewers.
Sometimes you will have your own ideas and that’s great, but it’s important to verify that your idea is good. Try searching the most broad keyword for that video topic to check the competition and demand. If the topic is “Discord JS Canvas Welcome” (something specific to my type of content) then I wouldn’t search “How to make a Discord bot that has a canvas welcome message”, I would literally search the fewest words possible which is “Discord JS Canvas Welcome”. This will give you the best results to compare against.
IMPORTANT: Be sure you are in incognito mode when checking for competition and demand. YouTube will alter the search results to best fit what you usually consume, it is best to have a more generic search response by going incognito in your web browser.
So at this point you have a few video ideas, now it’s time to branch those ideas into more ideas. I suggest getting the TubeBuddy Chrome extension and using it’s keyword explorer. For example if I search up “Discord JS tutorial” it will provide some related search terms as well:
https://prnt.sc/x5gc0b
You can even use the YouTube search dropdown for more video ideas. There are cool tricks you can use as well such as an underscore character to act as a “wildcard” or “placeholder” for any words. Examples:
https://prnt.sc/x5ge4u
As you can see the underscore acts as a mystery word and this can help provide even more video ideas.

How to do CTAs (call to actions) correctly

I often find a new channel and the video immediately starts off with “LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE” and I immediately skip forward or find a different video. Your goal is to provide value to your audience, not for your audience to provide value to you. Like I previously mentioned in my bullet points: NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOU AT THE START. People don’t owe you anything including a subscription, a comment, etc. For people to care about you and interact with the video how you want, you must first provide value to them. Don’t ask to get married on the first date, and focus on improving the user experience.
I heavily focused on a Discord join CTA rather than a subscribe CTA throughout my Discord.JS series. This is likely one reason why I have more Discord members than subscribers. At this time I value someone joining my Discord more so than someone clicking subscribe.
You will notice a trend in how I do my CTAs. In a vast majority of my videos my Discord join CTA goes something like “If you need help with anything then feel free to leave a comment down below or ask in the Worn Off Keys Discord server, a link to that is in the description and the pinned comment”. I eventually changed it to just the Discord part and not mentioning the comments. You notice how I tied the CTA with a value proposition. I don’t just say “Join the Discord server”. Why would someone join? You need to tie the answer to that question with the pitch. People will often need help when watching programming tutorials, so when they do throughout the video they now know to join the Discord server to get help.
I rarely mention subscribing to keep the number of CTAs low, however I do have an animated popup that I specifically place right when the viewer likely got the result they wanted. As a programming channel that’s right when we finish a feature for that video. If it’s a Call of Duty channel it might be right after you get a crazy sniping kill or a 3v1 team wipe. I also mention a Patreon CTA towards the end of the video when everything should be working for the viewer. No matter what CTA I’m pitching I’m ALWAYS tying it to some kind of value for the user.

Growing a Discord server

Growing a following on community platforms (Discord, Facebook Groups, etc) is incredibly important. This allows you to host community events, interact in a more direct way, and have your community interact with each other. These benefits go far beyond a simple subscribe and comment interaction with your viewers.
This section will include a lot of features that I utilize in my Discord server to keep the community engaged and active.
Before launching your Discord server you need to ensure it is set up well to encourage people to stay and interact. This would include the essentials:

• Staffing and auto moderation
• Easy to read rules
• Essential channels
• Proper permission settings (no one can @ everyone for example)

Patreon Perks
It is also useful to know what type of perks you will give to future Patrons (or similar supporters). This will allow you to set up the perks beforehand and not remove them from everyone later on which typically leads to complaints. For example my Patrons (and soon YouTube members) gain access to the following:
https://prnt.sc/x5gi03
I also have a #supporters text channel that announces whenever anyone boosts the server or becomes a Patron. This announcement shows to everyone (but I don’t tag anyone) so the supporter gets their name in the spotlights, and it also advertises the perks for those who might be interested in boosting the server or becoming a Patron.
Taggable Roles and @ everyone
I mention that I don’t tag anyone, this is very important. People find @ everyone very annoying and will either disable it or leave a server if you do it too frequently. I have specific roles for various reasons that users can opt-into:
https://prnt.sc/x5gkcx
I basically treat the @ AllNotifications role as @ everyone, and I basically never use @ everyone. For new YouTube uploads I tag @ YouTubeNotifications, and whenever I go to launch my Minecraft server (being developed live on my channel) or stream Call of Duty (different channel in the future) I will tag those appropriate roles as well. The ONLY time I plan on using @ everyone is if I launch an important paid product such as a new course. I will also tag @ JavaScript if that course is related to JavaScript, this bypasses the “Suppress @ everyone and @ here” setting that most people have enabled.
A system like this offers the users the ability to be notified only when they want to be, and not whenever you decide. This means that people who opt-in for YouTube notifications are specifically telling you they are interested in new YouTube videos. If you @ everyone for each video then it won’t be as effective if you ever do @ everyone for a more important reason.
Hosting events and contests for your community
People mostly join my Discord server to ask for help with programming. I quickly noticed that I didn’t have enough time to help everyone, so I created something called a “Thanks Leaderboard” where people type the command “!thank @” and it will “thank” them. At the end of each month whoever has the most amount of thanks gets $25 USD. If someone says “Thanks”, “tysm”, etc. then a custom bot will remind them to use the “!thank” command. This encourages more people to help each other and frees up a lot of my time so I can focus on other things. Here is how that is setup:
https://prnt.sc/x5gmhx
It updates every 60 seconds, and at the start of each month everyone’s thanks are reset.
There are also monthly programming competitions with various themes. There is no cash prize and we just recently started this, but we get a dozen or so competitors entering each time. I just started hosting monthly giveaways for Discord nitro as well. These are mostly used as a way to give back to the community rather than a way to bring new people in. This is because people who join for just giveaways are usually far less likely to stick around in your community or support you in any way.
These are all ways to keep your community engaged and get them to stay in your server.
Getting Video Ideas from your Community
I have a #suggestions text channel where people can suggest changes to the Discord, changes to my software products, or new video ideas. In my video description I mention that if you have any video ideas to leave a comment or suggest them in the #suggestions channel in the Discord. This gives people another reason to join the Discord server if they want to request a video, and also has provided me with dozens if not 100+ video ideas I can now use moving forward. This works very well with educational type channels, but if you are in gaming then you might ask for challenge ideas.
Crowdsourcing Content
Once your community has started growing it could be a great place to crowdsource content. Currently my community can submit mini-tutorials for code snippets with bugs in them where Instagram and Twitter followers try to find the bugs. I offer them a shoutout and whoever got the most engagement on their post at the end of the month gets a small cash prize. If you are creating gaming content then this could be highlight videos or gameplay reviews, these are things that are often seen in the COD Warzone niche.

Scheduling and Bulk Recording Videos

Being consistent is very important on YouTube, and scheduling videos will help ensure your content comes out at the correct time. I would highly suggest recording 2 videos a week and scheduling them for once a week. This way you create a backlog of videos that Patrons can access early and it is less stressful to create a video. If something comes up in life and you can’t record a video that week then you might have 5 scheduled videos and it’s no big deal. Find a schedule that works best for you in terms of recording and editing. Some creators record multiple videos and edit them throughout the week.
When scheduling your videos on YouTube they will be private so you cannot share it with Patrons, to fix this you can use the TubeBuddy extension (not sure if VidIQ has this). I believe this feature is part of their $20 a month plan, but this also gives you a more powerful keyword research tool so it is worth the money if you are wanting to take YouTube seriously. With TubeBuddy you can set your video to unlisted to share it with Patrons and then schedule it’s publishing via TubeBuddy. You can also add your video to a playlist once published this way which is often useful.

Monetization outside of ads

Ads in your videos are only one way of making money from your content, and ideally this should be less than 50% of your income from your channel. No matter your niche, there should be ways to monetize outside of your video ads. This is especially true in educational content rather than entertainment content.
For example I offer tutoring sessions at $25 for 30 minutes, and $45 for an hour. This alone is very close to my monthly ad revenue. I also try to find affiliate products related to the content I create. For example I signed up for the Audible Affiliate Program so I can offer my audience 2 free audio books and I get paid $5 per free trial, even before they pay anything. If they do pay something then I get paid another $10. On my website I list various software development books that people might be interested in, and I get a few signups per day which adds to the passive income my channel generates. When looking for affiliate products it is important you are still providing value and helping your audience. Don't just sell something just to sell something, ensure it is useful too.
Try to think outside the box when it comes to other income generating ideas, things such as Patreon are a great place to start for most people. If you are able to create a digital course/product then that could become a great source of income while providing massive value to your audience. Just ensure you are focusing on the value to the user before the profits.

Conclusion

Like I mentioned at the start I’m by no means an expert, however this strategy has worked for me to start my YouTube growth. There’s still a lot to do to grow this into a livable income, but it’s a start. If anyone has any feedback or their own tips feel free to leave a reply to help more people out.

Hey everyone! I post regularly about business ideas and opportunities. I made a previous post like this and you all seemed to like it. You can check out more ideas like this here.

Finding SaaS Deals Takes Too Much Time

“I buy a lot of different SaaS (software-as-a-service) tools for various things. Sometimes it’s for personal use, sometimes it’s business-related. I often find an affiliate code, or some other deal I didn’t know about after I purchase the software. I always forget to hunt for deals before I make a purchase, and it costs me a lot of money.”
- SaaS Consumer

The Opportunity

Someone should create Honey for SaaS tools and digital products.
Honey is a chrome extension that searches for coupons and discount codes for physical products automatically right before you check out. Currently, Honey doesn’t work with any digital products.
To give you an idea of how successful this Honey is, it was purchased roughly one year ago by PayPal for $4B and they are doing over $100M in revenue each year.
The idea is to create a chrome extension that works in the background hunting for affiliate codes and other discounts at the checkout for software and digital products. I like this idea because the value proposition is so clear - save money on products you were already going to buy.
Note: I believe this business can print money, but more on that in the ‘Economics’ section down below.

Market Background & Opportunity Size

SaaS (software-as-a-service) tools and digital products have exploded in the last 10-15 years. Whether you know it or not, you, or your company, are paying for multiple SaaS tools and digital products.
In 2019, the average company spent $514,500 on SaaS tools, which is a 50% increase from 2018. Most companies invest in anywhere between 100-300 tools, depending on the size of the organization.
A few interesting facts:

• Companies are spending more on SaaS tools than they are on laptops
• The average employee uses 8 SaaS tools to do their job
• Every 2 years, companies switch roughly 50% of their SaaS tools to different providers

These tools and products aren’t limited to business use cases. On average, Americans are spending somewhere between $60-120/month on digital subscriptions (or about $720-1440 each year).
Note: If you want to dig more into these numbers, most of the stats came from here.

Pain Points

While there are many pain points related to SaaS tools and digital products, we’re going to focus on the problem detailed above. There are pain points for both users and SaaS companies.
Users

• Finding deals on digital products is time-consuming and you often forget to do it. This results in you spending more money on the same tool or product.
• Currently, there are no good solutions to help automate finding and applying coupons to SaaS tools and digital products.

SaaS Companies

• Acquiring new users is a huge challenge for most SaaS companies. Offering them access to a targeted customer base in exchange for discounts is a great value proposition.

Current Solutions

Appsumo

• Appsumo is by far one of the most popular sites to get deals on software. They partner with software companies that want to offer heavily discounted prices in exchange for access to their estimated 800,000 users. They do roughly $30M in revenue/year. That said, they don’t use any software to help you find deals on products you’re looking to buy, you have to search their database.

F6S

• F6S is a site that helps founders succeed. While they do many things, one of their features is a deals platform where founders can get access to discounts on software. All the deals are business tools and you have to search their database to get the deal.

Dealify

• Dealify is a Chrome Extension that notifies you whenever a new lifetime deal becomes available. However, they currently don’t help you find deals on the software you’re already looking at buying

Note: The two biggest players, Honey and Rakuten don’t currently offer discounts on most software. But, nothing is stopping them from moving into this space and becoming competitors.
Additionally, I found a guy who’s working on this problem currently, Shaun MacLellan. He’s a super nice guy, reach out to him if you’re interested in this opportunity.

How Do The Economics Work?

How Honey Makes Money?
This idea becomes one that I think can print money when you look at the business model used.
The gist of it is this: every time you make a purchase using Honey, they get a commission paid by the retailer. This is similar to how bloggers, YouTubers, or newsletters use affiliate links to get commissions when they refer customers to a product/website.
One nuance here is that many believe (although it’s not confirmed) that Honey actually steals commissions from other affiliates. By offering codes right at the point of purchase, it is likely Honey receives all the commission on the purchase. You can read more about this here.
Does This Work For Software?
The commission offered by SaaS companies is 2-3x the commission offered on physical goods. If you’re able to emulate Honey’s business model, this could easily be a business that prints money.

How to Execute

• Populate Your Extension With Deals: After doing some research, there are dozens of platforms that offer deals that you could use to populate your extension. Additionally, here’s a link to ~150 software affiliate programs you could sign up for to immediately start making money.
• Find Your Early Adopters: This extension isn’t for everyone. I’d start by going after the individuals who already use Appsumo or other solutions. This will likely be indie makers, startup founders, or digital marketers. There are dozens of online communities where these people hangout that you could use to capture your first 1,000 users.
• Build a Smoke Test): This idea is perfect for running a smoke test - it’s got a simple value proposition and the product is easy to understand. I’d drive traffic to a well-designed landing page and capture emails before building out the tech. This will help you test both channel and market risk.
• Build Partnerships: Once you’ve got some initial traction, I’d focus on building partnerships with SaaS tools and digital products. The best way to make your extension sticky is by always having the best deals for your user. Appsumo has done this well, so steal a page out of their playbook.

Challenges

• Low Purchase Frequency: Unlike physical goods, SaaS tools and digital products are bought at a much lower frequency. This is bad for two reasons: 1) If your business model is getting commissions on each purchase, you make less money, 2) It may be harder to convince people to download the extension if they feel like they’ll use it often enough.
• Incumbent Threat: As mentioned above, Honey and Rakuten don’t currently offer discounts on SaaS tools and other digital products. That said, there is a real threat of them adding these products to their offerings. If they did that, competing with them would be challenging.
• Creating + Managing Partnerships: Most physical goods are purchased through online retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Fashion Nova, ect… These retailers already have affiliate programs set up, which makes things easy. While some SaaS companies have affiliate programs, there are a lot that don’t. To dominate the space, you’ll need to do some leg work to convince these companies to work with you.

Thanks for reading! Please reach out with any questions

Hello everyone,
Today I want to talk about a company that is getting a lot of heat lately. But first, I’d like to address that this ($0.35) penny stock has all boxes checked to be an EXTREMELY RISKY investment with accusations of being a fraud.
(TSNP is merging with a company called HUMBL and ticker symbol will be changed to HMBL - merge is valued at over $1B)
HUMBL maintains offices in San Diego (HUMBL – North America), Mexico (HUMBL – Latin America), Miami (HUMBL – the Caribbean and Africa), and Singapore (HUMBL – the Asia Pacific and Oceania Region) and has created a global network of regional affiliates, who stand ready to implement sales and marketing programs in these corridor.
I would like to start introducing HUMBL’s CEO, who is the main reason why I believe this company could be a huge opportunity and not a fraud. Brian Foote is the founder of HUMBL and leads the daily operations of the company. Brian brings with him twenty years of consumer technology experience, having launched a number of top ranked global technology products across brand, market research, strategy and channel sales at companies like EPSON, where he was twice named to the CEO Innovators Award for his cross-functional work on consumer technology lineups that went to #1 in the world in sales in their respective categories. Brian is a former Sr. Vice President of a consulting firm in Silicon Valley, and has worked with Fortune 500 clients and merchants like Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, Walmart and Target to drive channel and merchant product sales, which led him to develop his market research around HUMBL and HUMBL Hubs consumer and merchant software products in the emerging markets. Brian performed his education at University of Pennsylvania (PENN), where he was named an All-Ivy League athlete. He then transferred to University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) where he completed his degree and was on an NCAA Final Four soccer team. Brian holds certifications in blockchain payments, digital and social media at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Brian was recently featured in Forbes as the CEO of a Startup to Watch in 2020 and as a featured speaker surrounding the positive impact of HUMBL digital payments, cross-border remittance and lending on Asia Pacific and Oceania Region on Government Programs and National GDP’s in conjunction with the UN 2030 Agenda.
“We didn’t build HUMBL for the 450 million digital customers using Apple Pay®, but for the 7 billion people for whom money has a totally different set of global pathways, access points, and cost structures,” according to the CEO of HUMBL, Brian Foote.
HUMBL offers three different functions (apps) called: HUMBl pay, HUMBL marketplace and HUMBL financial.
HUMBL pay is NOT a money service, it is NOT a Venmo or a Zelle neither PayPal. HUMBL pay and network was designed to disrupt entrenched regional banks, wire services, and roadside finance providers in emerging markets such as Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa to help reduce costs and improve settlement speeds for customers.
For instance, a Latino guy who works in the US and send money to his family in Mexico every week can send money without having to pay extra money to the bank or other financial entity. This app does, in a way, what UBer did to the taxi driver system. To be a taxi driver you need to pay and apply for a license and have to pay every year “this and that” to the government just for being a Taxi driver, you are not “government-free” as a business person. UBer removes that burden from drivers making them “government-free”. Uber deals with it and makes it easier and affordable so anyone can be a driver, unlike Taxi licenses that cost up to 1.3 Millions (crazy but real, check bottom source). HUMBL wants to make you “financial entities-free”, no extra charge for transactions and money moves like money exchange. Financial entities hold your money and HUMBL moves your money for less. Its business model is kind of like Netflix. Netflix brings together TV (signal providers) along with content creators (movies, series..), so people like us can enjoy this service it more comfortably at home and cheaper.
HUMBL marketplace is a mix of Shopify-Ebay and marketing online websites such as Facebook and Instagram. It bring together an affordable system for lower class people who cannot afford $100 dollars month Shopify subscription, plus money for adds and so forth. It is an app that brings everything together as a system and uses HUMBL pay as a touch less or long distance payment service. Think of HUMBL marketplace as mix of Shopify and Ebay where you can also advertise, comment, and rate other users. Now, think of HUMBLpay as a mix of Square-Venmo, an app that facilities payments among users. (it would be like you paying at the guy from the farmers market with this touch less payment system (square) {also works for long distance payments (Venmo)} along with the HUMBL marketplace app (Shopify-Ebay) that this farmer is using to advertise himself and track his payments and inventory. HUMBLpay and HUMBLmarkerplace is like if Shopify-Ebay (HUMBLmarketplace) were part of Square-Venmo (HUMBLpay) or viceversa.
The idea is to get rid of the burden of having to deal with so many different apps and the different conditions, rules and fees that each one of them has, by bringing together this HUMBL apps that can work alone or together as synergies. Shopify and Ebay are good for USA and Europe, but not really for countries like Africa, Asia or Latino America where all these money, e-commerce and market services are still developing. Also, I own a e-commerce business and use Shopify and Facebook. I have to say that it is expensive, and it is not easy to understand and get everything to work in sync. This is what HUMBL tackles, trying to make this e-commerce and payment systems friendlier and cheaper, trying to create a new and better way adapted to these emerging markets.
And last but not least, HUMBL financial. (Must say that this app is harder for me to understand, but at the same time my favorite one). It provides a simple format for long-term, passive and active investments into the new digital asset investment markets. We all know that there are more and more digital assets everyday, and while I am not a fan of cryptos, it is an increasing market and is here to stay. Physical money is coming to an end, and it is just a matter of time for cryptos to make their way into our society as payment systems. (HUMBL will be already there for when that time comes). This app focuses on BLOCK ETXs that provide new ways to get exposure to an emerging asset class rooted in blockchain. A block trade is the purchase or sale of a large number of securities - in the stock market these are mostly executed by funds (large amounts of money), but in the digital markets where cryptos are super cheap, this block trades can be executed by individuals and that’s how it is easier to expose growing assets. Digital assets constitute a total market size of $350 Billions. So what would be the comparison here? HUMBL financial is like RobinHood or Fidelity but for digital assets (the type of assets that most people with very little money operate as they are very cheap)
Brian Foote, before HUMBL, was working as a CEO for BLOCK30chain that resulted in what HUMBL is today. What BLOCK30chain is a developer of a blockchain network created for the tracking of the 24/7 Digital Trading markets. The company's platform is used to monitor the trading of cryptocurrencies by global media, financial institutions, government and investors, enabling them to get a reflection of the overall health of the market, its business cycles and the movement of both individual digital assets and thematic sectors in real-time. This company transformed itself into what we know today HUMBL.
This idea of HUMBL financial is pretty interesting and actually worth trying to develop in my opinion. This is another reason why I think this company isn’t a fraud, because of the huge opportunity that exist with digital assets that nobody has started working on, and even if HUMBL doesn’t turn out to be what they want, I think Brian Foote could redirect the company into something more specific and oriented towards digital currency growing markets and the end of physical money or even the end of money as we know it “dollars” “euros”... This (digital currency) is part of our future just like EVs are.
This is all about what HUMBL is trying to achieve, mow, I want to mention that yesterday Brian Foote had an investors call and announced that sometime along February they are launching their products in 40 different countries, as they already have many partnership all over the world with financial companies etc. This means that soon we will be able to try out these apps and know whether this is a fraud or they are actually cooking something worth tasting.
You need to understand that this is a start-up, just like for example ABML, the company where this guy from Tesla is trying to develop a way on how to recycle lithium for batteries. They do not have the recycling plant, neither the system built for anything of it, it is literally just an idea where people are investing money on and its price share is $3.3. At least HUMBL said it is launching the products on February which means that they actually have something to start making money with. The hardest phase for a start up business is to deal with the first years when there is no money and nobody knows you. They are trying to rise as much money as possible and fast to execute their plan sooner, as well as putting the brand out there for people to get to know it. That is why they have started marketing their brand heavily in time square and billboards in Mexico. You can check that on their Ig. (All links below) TSNP could go to $5 next month as well as it could go to 0 for fraud, however, I was taught well to do my own DD and be dead inside - I will hold my 30K shares position even if it takes up to 5 years or more for HUMBL to start making a profit. I do not think this is a fraud, and I also know that this could be like investing on Shopify when it first started.
I do not believe we are sitting in top of a tech bubble guys, the reason why the stock market keeps on going up I think is because there are WAY MORE individuals like us investing and the number keeps increasing (lower and middle class people). Before the stock market belonged to Warren Buffet, his 3 friends and company, but now that has changed. People like us try to find the next TSLA or AMZN and that’s why we invest in these cheap companies, reason why they all go up. VERY IMPORTANT - Invest in the ones where you see substance and future, do not invest based on hype and trends like EVs. Invest thinking about how the world is evolving and what we will need in the upcoming years. With the end of physical money and the rise of digital assets I am very excited to see how HUMBL will evolve.
I repeat, this is a EXTREMELY RISKY investment and you should take a look into this company before investing any money on it. My intention is only to bring value to this community and offer investment opportunities to make everyone’s life better.
Please leave a comment about anything you could provide about this company that wasn’t mention.
Thank you everyone and be dead Inside,
Cheers
SOURCES
HUMBL website. https://www.humblpay.com
HUMBL Ig. https://www.instagram.com/humblinc/
Full video investors call with Brian Foote. He mentions the launch of their products along the 9:15 minute. https://youtu.be/KnEnSgDDy6U
This is a report by Seeking Alpha. It is a good report and offers good information about the company and the merger, but they do not like HUMBL and here they explain why.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/article/4394711-tesoro-enterprises-humbl-not-deserve-to-be-unicorn
Taxi driver license price. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/how-much-is-a-nyc-taxi-medallion-worth-these-days/. .

Though it is hypothetical, let's limit to companies which have revenues in India and listed entity will have control over operations in India (may be Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangaladesh, etc) and include your reasons.
Some contenders:
Foreign companies with Indian operations: Amazon India, RB India, Google India, FB India, Salesforce India, Coca Cola India, PepsiCo India etc.
Startups with majority revenues from India: Delhivery, Swiggy, Zomato, Flipkart, etc.
Established Indian companies: GCMMF, Parle, etc.
Indian companies with majority revenue abroad is also cool. Eg: Postman. Companies that started operations in India only, not Indians starting in another country. Eg. Zilingo, Sprinklr is not cool.
Feel free to add a neighborhood kirana store, local retail chain or a welder next to your house. There could be foreign companies that are major suppliers for Indian businesses. You be the judge of cases not covered.
Let this be akin to Lynch’s first step to pick stocks from everyday life, but for unlisted companies.
Assumptions, etc:

1. The listed entity is not playing any accounting loopholes that will not benefit Indian investors. And there is no other kind of chori.
2. Investing in markets abroad is not considered.
3. No one has access to market reports from research firms. Just what’s available free online and everyday observations. If you have information from reports, do share. This assumption(what’s a better word?) is in place as hard numbers are difficult to find, and to welcome purely qualitative opinion. Let’s just acknowledge that this is mostly from gut for this exercise.
4. Rational prices for the stock is an assumption. But you can provide statements like, ‘would like Coca-Cola India because of x, y, z. But since Buffet made lot of money with Coke there will be lot of investors driving up its price.’
5. The companies we all like would be well run and do not need to raise capital from Indian public markets. So assume stock are magically listed on April 1, 2021, though they might not have requirement for capital.

My picks: In addition to assumptions above, I will be assuming companies pay a fair fee to motherships abroad for brand names and know-how (IP, product, marketing, logistics, etc.). And some of my observations (over long period of time) might be wrong or oblivious to the rest of the story. Let me know in such cases.
RB India
Dettol, Harpic, Durex, Lysol, Mortein, Vanish, Strepsils.
RB India specializes in creating categories and being the dominant/only player, and they bow out of categories they can’t find a foothold in. How many people would be able to say ‘Anti-septic’ is the category of Dettol brand? The brand name has become the name of the category.
Look at Vanish. It was introduced in India when stain on clothes was handled solely by detergents. Must have been a bit more than a decade they have been slowly building up the brand. My family or I never had to look for stain remover. A year and a half ago an elderly acquaintance posed problem of not able to remove stain with detergent. Though I never have used it I told him the only thing I know is Vanish. He tried and was happy with the product.
Similarly they have been slowly pushing Veet, Colin (window/glass cleaner). Couple of weeks ago, saw Colin bottle in pantry at home.
BANG was the brand name for their household stain remover when introduced in India, if I'm not wrong. It is discontinued. May be for introducing later. Dettol has most marketing in its brand extensions. Solidifying and deriving from the core product. Very limited but focused marketing for Durex. Harpic built a solid base and was winding down its marketing expenditure till GoI push for toilets. Since then they have ramped up marketing, roped in Akshay Kumar (Toilet Ek Prem Kadha), had small (wise, imo) brand extension (bathroom cleaner. Red one. Blue for toilet bowl). The anecdotes in this paragraph tells me RB is very prudent in capital allocation.
Amazon India
Here I’m assuming AWS is not part of Amazon India, and pays fee for AWS hosting, prime content licensing, brand and logistical know-how.
My premise is that for at least the next 5 years or so the bulk of growth for e-Commerce sales in India would be due to the inability of local shops to carry everything the customer wants. There are some categories which people are defaulting to e-Commerce even outside the urban centers, where local shops ordering from e-Commerce sites for other customers (not talking about the pick up or drop off points from the company) is a small scale business.
Now among the e-Commerce players Amazon is my default. I do buy from others, but the experience is comparatively poor from my perspective. There are GMV numbers, growth numbers and stuff available, I’m not using that. A general feeling I have is Amazon is letting Flipkart try things first (burn the money) and try themselves if it is worthwhile.
Amazon prime is a good deal in India for the price. I’m assuming that Prime video content creation in India will break even and they will not try to make that part profitable.
On marketing side Amazon is going for an all inclusive approach and not targeting different segments (mostly). They also have the affiliate program, which I think would be a boost for them.
I think they are the winners in Indian e-Commerce battle and looking at their modus operandi in US, they will grow big and tall from there.
Delhivery
There are no last mile 3PL providers in India with last mile service(delivery and pickup). Delhivery will be that what fills the role of DHL and FedEx in Western countries. It will serve mainly businesses setting up independent stores with Shopify, Big/Woocommerce, etc.
S.M. Kannappa Automobiles
They are coachbuilders for large buses from Volvo, Benz, Scania etc. They build the coach and interior. They operate under the brand name ‘prakash’. The name is generally placed on the body of buses next to the passenger door. From what I have seen they have near monopoly in South Indian market.
Website - https://www.smkpl.in/
Pankajakasthuri Herbals
It’s ayurvedic company in Kerala, largely OTC. Most things would be similar to what I mentioned about RB India. Prudent capital allocation, dominance in small market, etc.
Website - https://www.pankajakasthuri.in/
Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pankajakasthuri_Herbals
Amul, Parle - Will look into it if they were listed.
Reasons tapered at the end. I blame it on fatigue.
As I mentioned before, treat this as the first step in Lynch’s style of stock picking that he advocates for most investors.
What are yours? Please provide brief reasons.

Okay, even with the greatest plan and experts, we won't get anything done with the current political situation anyway. This is just a thought game and a very lazy one.

I) Right Wing program (with Neoliberal characteristics) :

- Restore the Presidential regime. End the power sharing between the "three presidents".
- Privatize as many public companies as possible. Allow foreign firms to establish themselves in new free economic zones devoid of Tunisian cumbersome legislation with competitive labor and financial costs. Subject national firms (STEG/SONEDE/STT) to international competition. Destroy the old febrile UGTT and replace it with dispatched local Labour Unions across the country, freeing the Individual from heavy and corrupt institutions.
- Deregulate financial sector and labour markets. Lift barriers to investments, business opening and employment.
- Deploy the Army to : 1- force workers in Gafsa to get back to work. 2- destroy informal markets and subject the middle-class to heavy taxation to pay foreign debts, increase Dinars value, and accumulate capital for further investments in new technologies and infrastructure.
- Encourage foreign firms to delocalize their assembly line in Tunisia, build other plants or research centres, e.g. car, communication, high-tech and medical companies.
- Increase Industrial production : the brains and infrastructure are here, we know how to make high-value industrial components, we can and must make more.
- Tax reduction for employers and entrepreneurs in highly-valued industries like cheap high quality medical healthcare for foreigners, massive Luxury SPA/Hotels, industrials, etc.
- Keep salaries and social benefits low for workers, increase production with new technologies and strong corporate leadership. This is is temporary of course. When Tunisia's economy gets stronger, the "trickle-down" mechanism will enrich all levels of the social pyramids. Just work hard and be patient for brighter tomorrows. If you work hard enough you may become an entrepreneur as well one day ! Make the Rich and the Poor richer !
- Death penalty for every individual involved with Terrorist/Islamist groups. Label the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates (Enahda) as terrorist organizations. Fight crime with new AI tracking technologies Made in China. Make Tunisia one of the safest/cleanest country in the world to attract tourists and investors. Follow the Singaporean/South Korean model of development.
- No minimal wage. Drop the Labour laws. We must attract investors and pay our debts.
- Ratify free trade agreements with China, Europe and the United States (maybe integrate the European Union ?) Specialize and increase Tunisian First sector production for a few commodities, namely : olive oil, dates and seafood. Get rid of traditional ineffective agriculture practice and modernize production with drought resistant GMOs.
- Basically, follow the IMF/World Bank development austerity plans to get more loans from them (and a solid grade).
- Reopen the debate on the National Identity : people won't follow the government of a country they feel they do not belong to.
-Protect family and Islamic values : criminalize LGBT, post-structuralist, neo-feminists and lib-tards movements to keep good composure with neighbours and satisfy conservative elements in Tunisian society, but keep it cool with foreigners (we want more gay rich tourists/engineers, so maybe open a few informal gay bars in free economic zones ?)

II) Left Wing program :

- Reinforce public institutions by opening up more job positions in administration, education and public companies to increase efficiency and relationships with all society stakeholders.
- Restore the UGTT's past greatness by reinforcing the "côtisation obligatoire" for all professions. UGTT will have the Manpower and talent necessary to enforce strict Labour regulations and ensure a strong national labour movement that will guarantee workers' rights, dignity, solidarity and education.
- Augment salaries, especially for teachers and workers.
- Restore the "Cycle Court" starting from 14 yo. Students willing to pursue a vocational training should be set on the right path as soon as possible, and cultivate their pride to belong to the Nation Builders. They may start working as soon as 16 during their formation as an apprentice.
- Set up an aggressive Tax legislation : every single Tunisian national abroad or at home will have to declare their revenues to the Fisc and pay a progressive income tax. Anyone with a revenue above 1,5 times the national average revenue will pay 55% in taxes. The top 1% will have to pay 75% in tax and investment revenues.
- Follow the Cuban model : free high quality healthcare and education for all. Everyone will receive a topnotch education in whatever fields he/she wants to pursue.
- Make all drugs legal and free to use under condition : consumption shall be under medical supervision in state-sponsored facilities. (except for recreational weed maybe, follow the Dutch model)
- Support local artisans and small agricultors : resist big Agro and GMOs usage. Increase the use of agroecologist and permaculture models with local drought resistant seeds. Make more land available to young farmers thanks to new desalination plants . Increase food self-sufficiency at all cost by subsidizing it !
- Try to (slowly) operate a decentralisation process : give more freedom and flexibility to governorates while allowing them to set up their own fiscal system, rendering them more responsible and autonomous. Also, will decrease the risk of corruption.
- Decriminalize homosexuality and legalize gay marriage. Ensure sexual freedom and birth control to all.
- Protect local businesses by imposing heavy import taxation.
- Suppress traditional "Fatalism" by investing everything in the individual : by setting him free from all tribal/religious dogmas and attachments, providing him with high quality education, he will find the courage and growth mindset to innovate, undertake challenges and create high value for himself and society. And eventually, all problems will sort themselves out.
- To fight corruption, informal economy and ensure total fiscal efficiency and transparency for a direct democracy : end payment in cash. All transaction will slowly go virtual.

III) The Nordic Model : A Combination of Both.

A) What's the Nordic Model ?
A comprehensive welfare state and multi-level collective bargaining based on the economic foundations of social corporatism, with a high percentage of the workforce unionized and a large percentage of the population employed by the public sector (roughly 30% of the work force)
It seems the historical struggle of the working class for a more egalitarian society in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland created a set of highly inclusive institutions that allows for a perfect balance between social justice and free markets (also known as the Third way). These institutions aims partly to enhance individual autonomy, mobility and flexibility in a fast changing environment disrupted by globalization, immigration and a open free market.
Although highly competitive (best countries to do business according to WB), they score the lowest in terms of wage gap and wealth inequality due to the heavy taxation on the 55% highest revenues and solid redistribution of wealth through pensions, social services and free high quality education and healthcare. The Nordic countries score the highest in the Happiness Index, low corruption Index, financial health and general trust in political institutions.
These highly transparent institutions include a wide range of extremely efficient collaborative Labor Unions and Employers Association ("Patronnat") who negotiate TOGETHER the wages and workers' benefits , with the mediation of the state. Unlike in France or Tunisia where Unions are mostly used as tools of brute contestation, the Nordic syndicates provides efficient communication tools, free education for adults in their reconversion process, career consulting, cultural centres and so on.
They do not have social workers. They abhor the French "Nanny State" apparatus and their monstrous bureaucracy policing and surveying citizens to determine which deserves such and such social benefits. The simplicity of their concept is as follow : everyone gets free stuff. Free education (childcare, primary, secondary, trade school) at all ages and abilities, free healthcare, and a pension if you are unfit to do any work.
But does it work ?
B) A Model that works.
Conventional wisdom links innovation to wide inequality. The belief is that inequality motivates, by increasing both the risk and potential reward, attracting talented people who love adventure.
The bold ones make the breakthroughs that propel invention and innovation. It sounds reasonable. Three researchers at the London School of Economics examined that patent filings in Sweden a so called "nanny-state", had more patent filings per resident than the United States for most of the last half-century. The advocates of inequality invokes the concept of meritocracy. They point to the olden days in the United States when high rates of upward mobility showed that the poor with talent and grit found the country a land of opportunity... but studies have shown that mobility and equality actually increased freedom and entrepreneurial spirit.
There is something in Denmark and Norway that they call "Flexicurity" :
If the business you own can no longer compete in the world market, it's fine with Norwegian government and Labor Unions for you to close it and lay off your workers. Flexicurity means the Government has a social contract with those laid-off workers to do everything possible to help them land a new job that's just as good or better for them. Your unproductive capital becomes available for a new start-up.
Rates of start-up creation in Norway are among the highest in the developed world, and Norway has more entrepreneurs per capita than the United-States. Same for Denmark, Canada and Switzerland.
By investing as much as possible in the Individual, the Nordic countries has created nations of independent, self-motivated problem solvers with high skills and high self-esteem.
Nordic Workers are among the most productive and efficient : they work 359 hours less than Americans (lowest in the OECD countries) and still have a higher GDP per capita. They also get one month of paid vacation per year and 18 months of paid parental leave. Full evidence that social benefits does not curtail innovation and production, but rather INCREASES them.
C) How did it happen ?
Social-democrats parties and coalitions ruled for centuries and managed to stay out of the marxist/capitalists ideological wars. They established a "consensual democracy", where both parties, the owners and workers, managed to keep their rights for property and decent working conditions. They COLLABORATED to induce perpetual innovation in all sectors in order to remain competitive in an increasingly globalized world. They did not choose to cut themselves out of the global market by increasing import taxes, but by increasing innovation. And it worked !
Cooperatives are prevalent. Less likely to fail. Also turnover in co-ops averages 15% against the industry standard of 40 to 60%. The housing co-ops created 750 000 apartments with 860 000 members in Sweden. Parents co-ops provide between 10-15 % of day-care centers.
​
D) The Neoliberal experience
In the 80's, two countries the Nordics held in high regards (UK and USA) started implementing their new Neo-Liberal policies : unrestrained by the law, private banks were now free to sell any kind of securities to anyone, disregarding their long term solvability or not. Taxes were lowered for the top earners, workers wages and administrative jobs were cut. We know the results : successive financial crashes in the 90's and the 2008 crisis.
In Iceland, a small nation of 350 000 people, a few private Banks tinkered hard with Neolib tendencies : they sold highly volatile bonds to British Citizens and set up a Ponzi scheme that blew up after the sub-prime crisis. What happened next ? Usually, the IMF-pressurized Governments applied austerity measures. They make the average citizen pay for the irresponsible behaviours of some private Hedge Fund managers. But Iceland did not. They let their bankers down and refused to pay the British their money back, after 10 000 people (5% of the population) went down the capital city to protest the 30% cut in Social Service. Same for Norway and Sweden : they did not follow the IMF plan and kept up with this strategy : increase taxes on the rich, reduce taxes on the working class, force banks to write off mortgages for householders under the water. They even strengthened their social safety nets !
From all OECD countries, The Nordics, (including Iceland who suffered the most from this ordeal) recovered the fastest from the crisis.
E) Comparison with the Anglo-Saxon Model
Soviets and Capitalists justify maintaining high level of poverty reassuring their 99 per cent that the sacrifice would pay. "Communist rule will one day shower you with goods and services" or "A rising tide lifts all boats" (in the US)
Among 32 OECD countries, the ten most equal countries include Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Swede. The United states are among the five most unequal along with Turkey and Mexico.
F) Can we apply the Nordic model in Tunisia ?
It has been said regularly that applying the Nordic approach in other non-Scandinavian countries was impossible because...different culture/mindset. The Nordics are supposedly more united linguistically, racially homogenous, have a religion that promotes hard-work, individualism, responsibility and so on...
It's half-true. If you get a glimpse of Norway history you'll realize :
- They got colonized by Denmark for centuries, had 100 different dialects (villagers set 200 m apart could not understand each other because of mountain chains).
- Were controlled by capitalists overlord who tried to fund some fascist coup to stay in power.
- Only 3% of the land was fit for agriculture.
- They did not have much natural resources except for some fish and logging. They were extremely poor and backward compared to other industrialized economies. So they had to invest everything in sea trade and had thousands of experience doing it.
- They could have emulated the Soviet revolution since there were many powerful red movements ...but fearing to loose their properties, the party of farmers opted for a cooperative model, rather than a collectivist one. This set the tone for a long history of inclusive institutions, ensuring constant bargain between work and capital.
But it wasn't easy. It was a constant struggle. For decades, inequalities rose as the economic elite resisted change for a while.
Eventually, they created a visionary movement that grew, engaged in struggle, attracted allies and won. By winning non-violently. This is the power of political association and cooperation between all fractions in a society.
The Nordics were not smarter or more skilled than Tunisians. Their working class simply managed to get more power because they were more independent.
Tunisians have been living in servitude for most of their existence. There is no national union, or common goals, although Movements like the "Jeunes Tunisiens" or Neo-Destour managed to bring up some reforms like women liberation and education for all, the civil society is not strong enough. People are strangers to each other and do not trust their institutions.
But this can change. Slowly, thanks to new technology, social benefits can be distributed much quicker without the need for tens of thousands of social workers or labour lawyer.
It didn't take 10 000 years for the Papus to transition from the stone age to the post-industrial age. Only 30 years. I don't think we'll have to wait 100 years like the French to get a more inclusive government (not necessarily democratic. Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, all reached top-level development under dictatorships. Maybe we'll have to go through a technocratic stage with strong governance at the beginning.)

Happy Solstice!
In honor of Winter Solstice for the northern hemisphere, I've made an updated list of popular lights. Today is the day you're most likely to need a flashlight if you live north of the Equator..
Because a definitive buyer's guide is too hard, I've made an arbitrary list of popular lights you should consider if you're shopping for a light. There is no best flashlight, so this is not the last word in what's good, but a list of lights that are often bought or recommended here with a touch of my own opinion thrown in. Exclusion from this list doesn't mean a light isn't good. To search more lights by their attributes, try http://flashlights.parametrek.com/index.html
Where possible, official manufacturer URLs are linked here. Sometimes the manufacturer offers good deals through direct orders, sometimes vendors have the best prices. There are coupon codes available that apply to many of the lights listed. I'm hosting a version of this list on my own site with affiliate links because a few people have asked for a way to give me a kickback.
Shipping/availability may be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, items shipped by USPS are taking an usual amount of time to arrive. You may have to be more patient than usual if you want certain flashlights, chargers, and batteries.

For those in a hurry

If you don't want to learn much, just get one of these.

All of the lights in this section come with a rechargeable battery and have a charger built in to the light. The battery will be a standard size you can buy online from third parties, and the charger will use USB as its power source, though some options do use a special cable. Aside from the A4, all have very good color quality compared to the average LED flashlight, improving your ability to see details. In this section, I've linked good places to buy the lights rather than the manufacturer.

• Wurkkos FC11 - a general-use light for $30. USB-C charging, but it needs to use an A-to-C cable. There's a strong magnet in the tailcap, and a pocket clip for carry. A 25mm (1 inch) diameter and 120mm (4.7 inches) long is suitable for larger pants pockets. 18650 battery.
• Skilhunt M150 with high-CRI LH351D LED option - a smaller everyday carry light with many characteristics similar to the FC11, but a smaller (14500 size) battery and magnetic charging connector. This light can also use AA batteries, both rechargeable and disposable, but the built-in charger only works with a 14500. $44 with coupon code "reddit", and sometimes available on Amazon, but not always with the right LED, which is important since the color and beam quality of the other options is poor. 21mm (0.82") at its widest point and 84mm (3.3") long.
• Skilhunt H04 RC with high-CRI LH351D - a headlamp, right-angle handheld, and magnetic work light all in one. This version has a beaded optic with a somewhat diffused beam, but there's also a reflector version with a little more focus. This version has USB-magnetic charging, but it's available without for a lower price. $58 with the optional bundled 18650 battery and coupon code "reddit".
• Acebeam EC35 II, Killzone special edition with SST-20. I swear I'm not trying to favor Killzone here, but this one is a dealer exclusive. The T-word is overused in marketing, but many would describe this as a handheld tactical light or duty light. This is a great option for situations where the user might need light quickly in a stressful situation because the tailswitch is high-only with other functions on the sideswitch. If you think you want a single-mode light, you probably want this instead. USB-C charging (A-to-C again), and it's a USB powerbank (C-to-C works for this). $77 with bundled 18650 battery, $67 if you bring your own battery.
• Sofirn SP36 (Anduril/LH351D version) - a larger high-output light with three 18650 batteries and a $65 price tag. It has USB-C (A-to-C only) charging and a more complex user interface, but basic operation is similar to most of the others in this section. If you need to light up a room for a long time, or light up a field, this is up to the task.
• Wowtac A4 v2 - a long-range light able to provide fairly good visibility at 300m and detect large objects at twice that. Neutral white suggested, though it doesn't have the color quality of the other options in this section. 26650 battery included, and micro-USB charging. $40 with the current clickable coupon on Amazon, but usually $50.

These are at the top of the list not because they're the best in some objective sense, but because they're easy to own and use, and easy to buy. They score well on most measures flashlight nerds care about while also being beginner-friendly.

About specs and considerations

Moved to the wiki due to character limit

Mainstream lights

Everyday Carry Lights

These are selected for pocketability first and performance second, but most of the larger options are perfectly adequate for house/cacamping/etc... uses. This section excludes right-angle designs that double as headlamps, but many people do use those for pocket carry, so see that section as well.

Keychain

• Nitecore Tube 2.0 - a brighter, variable output, USB-charging replacement for button-cell keychain lights with shortcuts to high and low modes from off. $10
• Rovyvon Aurora A3x (Nichia 219C version) - neutral tint, 90 CRI, 450 lumens (briefly), USB charging, under 20g weight. Non-removable battery, so this will eventually wear out. Other Nichia Rovyvons are similar, offering different body materials, sizes, and sometimes colored LEDs on the sides. $33
• Sofirn SC01 - neutral tint, 95 CRI, 330 lumen advertised max, which is sure to drop quickly because this runs on a tiny, but standardized and removable 10180 battery, which can be charged inside the light through a micro-USB port. This seems to be a continuation of the Cooyoo Quantum design that inspired many rebrands and derivatives. $17 from Sofirn's site, shipped from China.

AAA battery

• Lumintop IYP365 Nichia 219C - 2xAAA, 90+ CRI (Nichia version only) and neutral white. This is a longer IYP07. Not as bright as a Ti4, but light quality is often more important for being able to see clearly. $19
• Thrunite Ti4 - 2xAAA - Neutral white available. High output for this form factor. $24
• Nitecore MT06MD - 2xAAA, 90+ CRI, neutral white, and still shipping with the Nichia 219B as far as I know. Similar to the IYP365 on paper, but many people prefer the tint of the 219B over the 219C. $32

AA battery

• Skilhunt M150 with high-CRI LH351D - this is the AA/14500 version of the M200, without the mode customization feature. It's only offered bundled with a 14500. The onboard charging works with any 14500, but won't charge NiMH AA inside the light. There's low-voltage protection for both battery types, so unprotected 14500s are OK. $43
• Thrunite T10 II - a side-switch light supporting both AA and 14500 Li-ion batteries with shortcuts from off to high and low and a magnetic tailcap. Neutral white available and recommended. $24
• Zebralight SC53c - 90+ CRI, warm-neutral white, e-switch with shortcuts to low, medium and high with several sub-levels for each. $57
• Thrunite Archer 1A - a dual-switch 1xAA light that can also use 14500. 200 lumens with AA, about 450 with 14500. $28

CR123A/16340 battery

• Acebeam TK16 (SST-20 version only) - 95+ CRI, neutral white, tail e-switch with shortcuts to lowest, highest, and last-used, plus two mode groups so you can choose between sensible runtimes and impressing your friends with the 1250 lumen peak output. 0.5 lumen moonlight. Battery included, but you'll need a separate charger. If you were considering the Olight S1 line, get this instead. Also available in copper. $55
• Wowtac W1 - a basic light using a 16340 (CR123A won't work well, if at all) and USB charging. It only seems to come in cool white at the moment. Why is it here? Because it costs $20 on US Amazon and should have Wowtac's usual solid built quality and accurate specs.

18350 battery

• Thrunite T1 (neutral white suggested) - 1x18350 (included), MicroUSB charging, magnetic tailcap, 1500 lumen max mode with a ramping UI for medium levels. $40, usually
• Eagletac DX3B Mk II - for those who might need to use a lot of light under stress, but want a more compact package than the average 18650 light. Mash the proud tailswitch and get 2500 lumens and 257m of throw; it always starts on high unless the sideswitch is also held, in which case it starts on low. An 18350 battery is included and the light has onboard micro-USB charging IlluminationGear has what looks to be a dealer exclusive option with an Osram White Flat LED for over 300m throw. Pricey at $95.

18650 battery

This category is so popular it gets subcategories. If you're looking for a lot of power and runtime that's still possible to carry in most pants pockets, this is your battery.

Dual-switch lights

A tailswitch controls power, a sideswitch changes brightness. The ease of explaning the UI makes these perfect to hand out to others.

• Eagletac DX30LC2 - slimmer than most 18650 lights, with a unique take on the dual-switch interface: it always starts on high, unless the mode switch is held, in which case it starts on low. Longer throw than most in this size at 260m, neutral white available from some dealers. $75
• Sofirn SP31 v2.0 - efficient driver and optional, recommended high-CRI LH351D LED for the very budget price of $24 shipped from China.
• Acebeam EC35 II (Killzone special edition) This has a bit different UI than the others here. The tailswitch is alawys high, with half-press for momentary. The side siwtch is an electronic switch with shortcuts from off to low, last-used, and high. This offers versatility in combination with dead-simple reliability under stress. USB-C charging (note: requires A-to-C cable; does not charge from C-to-C), optional battery, and it's a USB powerbank (powerbank function does work with C-to-C). The Nichia 219C is a bit cooler with a fairly balanced beam profile, and the SST-20 is warmer with some more throw. $67 by itself, or $77 with a battery. $10 less for the 219C.

E-switch lights

Electronic switches enable shortcuts from off to useful modes - usually lowest, highest, and last-used.

• Zebralight SC64c LE - the SC6x series has long been an EDC favorite for their compact size, high efficiency, great low modes, and a user interface that was well ahead of the competition when it came out. Now, many would prefer ToyKeeper's Anduril firmware as used on the FW3A and D4v2, but Zebralight has added some configuration options that should keep most users happy. The 828 lumen max output sounds low next to today's hot-rods, but lights this size can't sustain more than that for longer than 5 minutes without burning the user's hand. $80
• Thrunite TC15 - like the Neutron in form, but trades battery flexibility for 2300 lumens turn-on output and replaces the ramping UI with fixed modes. $56
• Skilhunt M200 (high-CRI LH351D option recommended) - Were you considering the Olight S2R? Consider this instead. Magnetic charging, but with a standard 18650. Optional high-CRI neutral white LH351D. Magnetic tailcap. Magnetic charging. The linked version even has configurable mode groups, and you can decide whether to pay extra to get it with a battery. Pending due to lack of reviews, but Skilhunt stuff is usually solid. $43 without a battery, $51 with.
• Wurkkos FC11 - 18650 EDC light, high-CRI Samsung LH351D, battery included, magnetic tailcap, USB-C charging, e-switch with the option of fixed modes or ramping. Wurkkos is affiliated with Sofirn, and this seems very much like some SP36S parts found their way into an SC31. Early versions had some UI wierdness, but the UI has been revised and is now very good. The tint could stand to be better, but the color rendering is very good, and it's $30. Now there's a choice of color temperatures with options as low as 2700K, but the original 5000K, similar to midday sunlight, is a reasonable default for those who don't know their preference.
• Acebeam TK18 - a floody triple-emitter light with the E-switch on the tail. This resembles a more efficient and reliable version of the enthusiast-oriented Lumintop FW3A, or an 18650 version of Acebeam's smaller TK16. High-CRI Nichia 219C suggested. $75
• Acebeam L17 - a compact thrower more suited to a jacket pocket than everyday carry like the rest of these but still quite compact for its 800m throw. This uses the tail-E-switch UI of the TK18. $75

Other by use case

Right-angle lights and headlamps

If I could have only one portable light, it would be a right-angle light that functions as both an everyday carry light and a headlamp. Some lights in this form factor also offer a magnetic tailcap, allowing them to act as mountable area lights.

Small

• Manker E02 II - 1xAAA or 1x10440 makes this the smallest on the list in this class. At 21g without battery and headband, I suspect even /ultralight will tolerate this, and the 95 CRI SST-20 (only in the neutral white option), users will be able to see detail. A magnetic tailcap expands the utility. $23, but note a headband is not included; that costs an extra $7.
• Skilhunt H04 Mini RC - 18350 battery and USB-magnetic charging with my favorite headband in the industry and optional high-CRI LH351D. This offers a floody TIR, less floody reflector (R model) or reflector with flippable diffuser (F model) offered for $50.
• Zebralight H53c - All the Zebralight goodness described above for the SC64c LE, but in a right-angle, 1xAA form factor. The Cree XP-L2 may make a less attractive beam than the Samsung LH351D, but most people report Zebralight's optics smooth it out well. H53Fc for a frosted lens for a very even beam. This one even comes with a pocket clip, and the headband does not have the top strap the 18650 versions do. $59
• Thrunite TH20 - 1xAA headlamp available in neutral white with infinite ramping and shortcuts from off to low/high. $30
• Acebeam H40 with 95 CRI Luminus SST-20. This is very similar to the TH20, but trades having a good sub-lumen low for high CRI. It would be nice to have both in the same light, but for that, you'll need a soldering iron. $35
• Nitecore NU25 - the other ultralight option. Sealed Li-ion pouch cell, so no carrying spares, and it's effectively disposable when the battery wears out. The primary emitter is cool white and low-CRI, but there's a high-CRI secondary. Some sacrifices must be made for a weight of 28g. $36
• Thrunite TH01 - 1x18350 battery dedicated headlamp, 1500 lumens burst (450 stable). This is a USB-charged option without going to the larger 18650 battery. $40
• Wowtac H01 - 16340 battery (included), micro-USB charging without removing the battery, $20. This is here for the price and all-inclusive package.

Medium

All of these use one 18650 battery.

• Skilhunt H04 - the popular version has a honeycomb TIR optic for a diffuse beam pattern. A reflector for more throw and a version with a reflector and a flip-out diffuser are available. Uses a timed stepdown. Available in neutral white. Magnetic tailcap. These now offer a high-CRI LH351D option, making it considerably more competitive. $44, or $52 for the RC version with magnetic charging. Battery not included by default, but Skilhunt and dealers usually add one for less than $10.
• Wowtac A2/A2S - a budget option, with a reflector. Both come with an 18650 that has a USB charge port right on the battery, but can be used with any 18650. The A2S also offers neutral white, which I recommend. $20/$30
• Zebralight H600Fd IV - very compact, neutral white, great efficiency, well-regarded user interface, boost driver. What's not to love? The pocket clip isn't so good. 90+ CRI, a frosted lens for a more diffuse beam and a slightly cooler neutral tint that's a close match for the midday sun. H600d for non-frosted and a little more throw. $89
• Zebralight H600Fc IV - the H600Fd, but with warmer tint, like the late afternoon sun. $89
• YLP Panda 2M CRI - 1x18650 dedicated headlamp, with high-CRI neutral white LH351Ds. Not the most efficient, but the light quality is great and with an 18650 battery, most people won't mind. $38
• Thrunite TH10 V2 - over 300m throw in a right-angle light for those who need it. USB charging, and battery included. A bit more bulky than most. Likely to disappear soon due to LED availability. $60

Large

• Acebeam H30 - 21700 battery (also compatible with 18650), USB-C charging, powerbank function, 4000 lumen main output with optional neutral white, red secondary, choice between a green secondary, UV secondary, or a high-CRI Nichia 219C secondary. Boost driver for stable output when the battery is low or cold. Many people would consider this too heavy for a headlamp, but it weighs a lot less than a motorcycle helmet. Noncompliant USB-C behavior requires charging with an A-to-C cable. $120

Duty lights

These are suitable for first responders and possibly members of the military in combat roles. The focus is on simple operation, reliability and a good way to make sure the light starts on high.

• Acebeam L30 - 4000 lumens from a single 18650 or 21700 (included). Neutral white available and recommended. High-CRI secondary emitter optional. Not the prettiest light, but there's a lot of it, and enough thermal mass to sustain it for a few minutes. Stable output without overheating is 2000 lumens. Forward-clicky tailswith is always max output, but the side switch has shortcuts to low and last-used. USB charging. $110
• Acebeam L35 - similar to the L30, but with more output and throw, especially with the LatticePower P70 LED option claiming 570m FL1 throw. No onboard charging on this model, which makes it more waterproof. $100
• Eagletac GX30L2 Pro - for those who want a better Streamlight Stinger. 2x18650. Neutral white with XHP35 HI recommended for more natural color and throw distance. Onboard charging. Neutral white optional. The included battery pack is just two 18650s in series. It says not to charge standard 18650s, but there's no technical reason for that, and it is reported to work. Protected cells recommended. $155
• Eagletac T25V - a 21700-powered duty light with USB-C charging and battery included. Twist the head for output selection between three configurable levels with the light on or off, so it can be left locked in high. 2600 lumens and 214m throw with the XHP70.2, or 1640 lumens and about 400m throw with the XHP35 HI. The latter emitter in neutral white does the most to make this light stand out from its peers, if you can find it that way. This is a good alternative if the Olight M2R Pro looks appealing or you missed out on the Acebeam T36.$96
• Acebeam L18 - this is the L35, but optimized for throw with 1000m FL1 throw and 1500lm output. This is probably a secondary light for most people for when something is too far for the primary light. $80

High-performance lights

Most lights on the list are easy to carry, with performance constrained by size and thermal mass as a result. After all, the best light is the one you have. Here are lights to bring when you know you'll be using them.

Flooders

Turn night into day, but not necessarily very far away

• Thrunite TC20 - 1x26650, 1xXHP70.2. This is still small enough for a jacket pocket, but has a bigger battery than most EDC lights, and a spectacular 180 lm/W efficiency on medium. USB charging. Ugly tint, even when neutral. 3800 lumen max, and more efficient than most competitors in all modes. $90
• Acebeam X45 - 4x18650, not pretty even in neutral white, but it makes 18,000 lumens. $180
• Sofirn SP36 BLF edition - 3x18650, 4xLH351D, Anduril firmware, USB-C charging. Be careful, there's another version of this light with Cree XP-L2 emitters, which are ugly. Several options for color temperature exist, and batteries are usually bundled now, but not always. 90+ CRI, 5500+ lumens, 350m FL1 throw. This replaces the BLF Q8 in the list due to the LEDs offered and USB-C charging, though the Q8 is easier to disassemble for those interested in modifications. $50 from Sofirn's site, more from Amazon.

Throwers

What's that over there? WAY over there? The hotspots of these lights tend to be too focused for comfortable use up close, though using a diffuser is an option. These tend to be most useful for search and rescue, boating, and the like.
FL1 throw is the distance at which large objects can be detected in clear air. At half that distance, there's usually enough illumination to see clearly, though with more extreme throwers, the distances may be so great as to require binoculars to see clearly even during the day. Throwers have visible backscatter from the atmosphere even in clear air, which may obstruct the user's view of the target. Warmer color temperatures tend to have less.

• Wowtac A4v2 - 1x26650, MicroUSB charging, 1982 lumens and 564m throw according to zeroair. The A4v2 isn't quite a pure thrower; it's more versatile than that. Boost driver for near-full output even when the battery is low and better performance in the cold - that's rare to see in the A4's price/performance category. $50, but check for coupons
• Acebeam T27 - 1x21700/18650. This is like a thrower version of the L30 duty light above, though its charging is USB-C, and oddly, it can act as a USB powerbank. Boost driver for full output on a low battery. 5000K recommended. 1180m FL1 throw. Noncompliant USB-C behavior requires charging with an A-to-C cable. $140
• Acebeam T28 - it's a T27 with a bigger head and even more throw. There's not much more to say about it than that. $160
• Thrunite TN42 - 4x18650, 1550m FL1 throw advertised, 1700m observed by reviewers. $160

Hybrids

Some throw, some flood... probably a lot

• Acebeam K30GT - a hybrid, but leaning toward the throw side of things with 1km. 5500 lumens, but not for long due to heat. 3x18650. $160
• Acebeam K65GT - 1.6km and 6500lm, but much bigger than the K30GT with 4x18650 batteries, giving it the ability to say bright longer without overheating. $240
• Imalent MS18 - proprietary battery pack, 18xXHP70.2. Heat pipes. Fan cooling. 100,000 lumens. 1350m FL1 throw. This thing weighs 5 pounds, isn't waterproof, sounds like a jet engine, and I trust Imalent's build quality about as far as I can throw an MS18, not to mention the price. It makes no sense for nearly any practical purpose, but it's the brightest flashlight you can buy, so it goes on the list. $500

Other lights

Stuff that doesn't fit somewhere else goes here.

• Pelican 3315 CC - 3xAA, 130 lumens, intrinsically safe. The only reason to get this is because an intrinsically safe or explosion proof light is required. This is the least bad option with a warm color temperature and high CRI. $55
• Viltrox L116T - a 95 CRI, adjustable color temperature LED panel intended to be used as a camera light with adjustable output from about 200 lumens to 1000 lumens. Also works great as fixed lighting with a DC power supply, or a portable area light with a Sony NP-F camera battery. A battery holder and a bit of soldering will allow it to run on 2x18650. $34
• Viltrox VL200T - The 2500 lumen version of the L116T. DC power supply included. Radio-based remote control. $65
• Litufoto F12 (AKA Viltrox FA-D10) - A smartphone-sized LED panel with 96+ CRI, adjustable color temperature, USB-C power (note: noncompliant, A-to-C only), and sealed Li-ion battery. 800 lumens on high with 80 minute runtime, 70 lumens lowest, adjusts in 5% increments. 65% output available continuously without draining the battery while plugged in. This would even be viable as floody EDC flashlight if it wasn't for the obnoxiously long press for on/off. $48 on US Amazon

Enthusiast lights

Enthusiast lights can be subject to a bit of a flavor of the month phenomenon, and this section isn't necessarily going to try to include them all. What you'll find here are enthusiast lights with some staying power. There will probably be an Emisar D4 of some description this time next year, but not necessarily the latest new FW variant or whatever's currently trendy from Nightwatch.

Everyday carry

• Lumintop FW3A - this light was designed by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts. It's unusual in having a tail e-switch, while most others position it on the side. It has an open source firmware with continuous brightness adjustment and lots of options. 2800 lumen max (briefly), about 800 lumens relatively sustainable (thermally regulated). There are currently five LED options, and I would recommend most people go with one of the high-CRI options. Luminus SST-20 for more throw and less heat, but the Nichia 219C may have more pleasant tint. Caution: this light requires an unprotected, 10A rated battery and can set things that get too close to its lens on fire. This has fairly inefficient electronics, but the large capacity of the 18650 battery makes that a minor issue for a lot of use cases. There are titanium, copper, etc... versions for more money. Build quality and reliability may be a bit questionable, but these pack in a lot of features for the money. Several larger versions with higher output exist, but the original still makes the most sense to this list's maintainer. $40
• Lumintop FW1A - an FW3A with fewer emitters (one) and more reflector (again, one, in place of the FW3A's TIR optic). Less output, more throw, less demanding on the battery. $40
• Emisar D4v2 - every flashlight geek's favorite way to burn a hole in their pocket has been upgraded. It now comes with colored aux LEDs that can serve as a decoration, locator, and battery status indicator. Some versions of this light can exceed 4000 output at power-on, though efficiency is not one of its goals, even at lower levels. Not to be outdone by the FW3A, there are eight LED options, from which I'd suggest the 4000K, 95+ CRI SST-20 to most people. Optional extras include a tailcap magnet, steel bezel, pocket clip, 18350 and 18500 battery tubes, and different optics. There are exposed programming headers on the battery side of the driver for those who want to modify the firmware, or just keep it up to date with ToyKeeper's latest revisions. That's right, it's 2020 and you can get software updates for your flashlight. $45
• Noctigon KR4 - This is almost a tail-e-switch D4, but it uses a variable linear driver that provides a bit better efficiency and more stable output as the battery drains as well as allowing brightness adjustment without PWM and enabling the use of ultra-low-voltage LEDs like the Nichia E21A. If you were thinking about the Lumintop FW4A, this is likely a better option. SST-20 4000K would probably still be my pick here because the E21A doesn't seem to play all that well with the Carclo quad optics. $55
• Convoy S2+/219C - Popular light for DIY and modification. Many parts are available from the manufacturer and Mountain Electronics. S2+ linked. S3 is similar, but with a removable steel bezel. S6 has a deeper reflector for a narrower spill and longer throw. The high-CRI Samsung LH351D Nichia 219C and Luminus SST-20 LEDs, in order of most output to most throw, are strongly recommended over the prior options. 219C 4000K will probably make the largest number of people happy. "Body color" is actually drive current. More 7135 chips means more power, which means more output, shorter battery life, and more heat. x6 is a reasonable choice that should never get too hot to hold. x3 or x4 for giving to people who will waste the battery. x8 for max output. Convoy will assemble other combinations of compatible parts not listed in their store - just contact them and ask. $15

Jacket pocket, maybe

• Noctigon KR1 - Do you miss the Emisar D1? This is a jacket pocket light can reach nearly 700m FL1 throw with certain emitter options. It's the only light I've ever seen offer a high-CRI Cree XP-L HI, which in this case is an incandescent-like 2850K. $50
• Convoy C8 SST-20 - 1x18650. 4000K and 7135x8 will produce the best results for most users. Over 4000K is low-CRI for the SST-20, and yes, CRI still matters in a semi-thrower like the C8. This isn't in the performance class of the other high-output lights, but it's over 500m FL1 throw that fits in a jacket pocket for $20. Note that there are a lot of C8s on the market from different companies, but this C8 is the one most people should get. $20
• Haikelite SC04 - 1x26650/2x26650, 4xSST-20. The neutral white option is 95+ CRI and about 3000 lumens with 500+ meters FL1 throw. Side e-switch with a ramping UI and shortcuts. 2x26650 configuration is probably suitable for thumping someone on the head for those who miss that aspect of the classic Maglite. Boost driver for stable output when the batteries are low. This replaces the Convoy L6 on the list due to its LED choice and switch position. $60
• Emisar D18 - 3x18650, 18xSST-20 (XP-L HI by request). 4000K recommended for 10,000 lumens of 95+ CRI light (thermally limited). Efficiency is not a goal with this model's FET driver, but the battery capacity will make up for it for a lot of use cases. Uses ToyKeeper's excellent open source Anduril firmware. $100 - again, check the US warehouse
• Astrolux FT03 SST-40 FET driver, SST-40, big reflector, 26650/21700/18650 and USB-C (probably only A-to-C) charging. 955m throw and 2313 lumens according to zeroair. There's also an XHP50.2 version that trades some of the throw for output. 5000K suggested. $34
• Noctigon K1 - 1x21700, USB-C charging (including C-to-C!), and probably the most throw of any single-cell LED flashlight (LEPs are impressive, but not quite ready for prime time). 1600m FL1 throw with the Osram White Flat 1, 4500 lumens and nearly as much throw (briefly) from the Luminus SBT-90.2. A balanced beam and stable output from the boost-driver equipped Cree XHP35 HI. Several other emitters are available, though some are not listed and can only be had by request - email and ask if there's a combination you want. $90 and up depending on emitter.
• Astrolux MF01 Mini - 1x26650/21700/18650, 7 Luminus SST-20s (4000K, 95 CRI available), USB-C, Anduril firmware, FET driver, aux LEDs. Like a bigger D4v2 with more emitters and a USB port. $65, but check for active discounts

Big

• BLF GT90 - A huge 8x18650 flashlight with a Luminus SBT-90.2 for over 7000 lumens and 2700m throw claimed, but that's going to be limited by heat and power. For sustainable performance, the original may have the advantage. For short bursts, this will be most impressive. 360, but look for discounts

Notable revisions from the previous list:

• Wizard Pro 144A, Zebralight HI models, Catapult, IYP07, LD02, LD05, SP10S, Tool AA, HP30R, D4S, GT removed due to availability. XHP35 lights seem unlikely to be restocked due to the discontinuation of the emitter, so more removals seem likely as time goes on.
• Added DX3B Mk II, E02 II, H01, H04 Mini, L35, L18, TK18, L17
• TC12, Fenix HL10 removed as dated.
• H604c/d removed as overly specialized.