The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 159 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 4 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Khosla: Most VC Board Members Are Unqualified to Advise Founders
“In fact, I would suggest that most board members, just because they went to business school and joined a venture firm, are not qualified to advise an entrepreneur. They're not qualified to challenge an entrepreneur. They're not even qualified to help them judg…”
Stanton: LP diversity statements inversely correlate with actual diverse manager investments
“And in my experience and several other people I know, we found an inverse relationship between the LPs who are very public about funding diverse managers and those who do so”
Mendelson: 50% of VCs Hurt Entrepreneurs, Only 25% Help
“In my opinion, at least 50% of them hurt entrepreneurs and 25% of them don't do any good. There's only really a quarter of the VC firms that I've worked with that really help the”
Bitcoin Runs on Greed While Solana and Ethereum Show Long-Term Potential
“And that greed element of blockchain, which is exactly what the Bitcoin thing is all about, in my opinion, is about greed, bringing down the, in the whole blockchain thing. While Solana and Ethereum, they're looking like they have a long-term potential.”
Traditional 'triple-triple-double-double' startup growth is no longer attractive for VC
“I turned down a company the other day, Because they were going from, like, one and a half to five to 15, and there's an opportunity cost of capital to say that's very real, and the growth expectations are just very different. In other words, triple, triple, do…”
Stebbings: 20VC hires mostly immigrants because British people lack strong work ethic
“Pretty much only hire immigrants. British people don't work very hard.”
Lemkin: Will only invest in startups working in-office six days weekly
“I want small high paid teams that work in the office over six days a week. That's I'm not interested in investing in anything else. I'm just not interested. And it's not because I don't have empathy. It's because they're gonna fail.”
Petersen: Most VCs collude more with competitors than their own partners
“There's a lot of collusion in VC. Like, I have a feeling that most VCs actually collude more with competitors than with their own partners.”
Laqua: Employees taking weekends off have no place at Corgi
“If your days off happen to be Saturday and Sunday every week, then you will not have a place at Corgi.”
Laqua: New York is a terrible startup hub, founders move there only to date
“That's why I think New York is not a good place to have a company at all. The people that, that move their companies to New York do so because they want to date. And they're, you know, that's the only reason, really real reason why they do.”
Feldman states the Trump administration is unwaveringly better for business
“Unwaveringly better for business. You know, there are things I agree with, there are things I disagree with in this administration, but unwaveringly better for business.”
Peets: Continental European tech sales talent lacks required work ethic
“I just think it's hard to find the types of people harder, I should say to find the types of people, particularly outside of the UK in Europe that are willing to put the effort in that I think is required to be successful. I just think it's challenging.”
Lemkin: Fire employees who brag about team size on LinkedIn
“Anyone on LinkedIn that talks about their team, fire them. My team this. They're all so precious about their team. Lead from the effin' front with AI.”
Tobi Lütke: Everyone should be deeply suspicious of non-profit organizations
“The problem with charity dollars is they can't be given to anything that has a self healing fitness function, like, which is very fancy way of saying the words. For profit. Like markets voting of if a thing should exist. And like a not for profit, like the wor…”
Jake Paul Claims He Is Uncancellable Because He Has Done Nothing Bad
“That's the thing is I'm uncancellable because like no one will ever find or see anything about me that is actually bad. And it's all just like fake hate.”
Jake Paul: Donald Trump Is One of the Best U.S. Presidents
“I think he Is arguably one of the best presidents the United States has had in, in this term. There's so much propaganda and things, but at the end of the day he's doing an incredible job, and there's always gonna be criticisms.”
O'Driscoll: Displacing Overeducated Young Elites Triggers Major Political Instability
“You can have dispossessed urban poor forever, and nothing happens, but if you piss off the twenty-something-year-old middle class, the overeducated elites, they tend to cause trouble.”
Lemkin: Governments should guarantee 0% financing for AI data centers
“We have to guarantee zero percent financing for all data centers. We'll get all our money back.”
Stebbings: TBPN is the Clubhouse of our era with near-zero engagement retention
“I think it's Clubhouse of our era. And so they have brilliant channel market fit, which is they crush it on Twitter for very specific clips. When you look at any of their view rates, very little. When you look at their retention on engagement rates, fuck all.”
Chang: Employees are underperforming if a gun to the head yields more
“If you have a gun pointed to your head today, would you have done more? If the answer is yes, that means you're not doing a good job.”
Randle: Founders Fund's 'never fire founders' policy is rooted in laziness
“I think it's actually a convenience for Delian and some of the Founders Fund folks to absolve themselves of that weight and that responsibility just by being like, oh, it's not part of our, it's not part of our thing. But I think, you know, it's almost out of …”
Lemkin: Fire half your team if AI hasn't reaccelerated growth
“If you haven't gotten a boost this year from AI, fire half your team right before the holidays, give them a turkey and three months of severance, but they failed. You have a, your team is not good enough. They had 18 months to ship a product that mattered in t…”
Salesforce salespeople are terrible hires because they are just order takers
“Salesforce. Terrible. Terrible. Because they have no idea how to sell. They, they're order takers. To your point earlier is they don't, if you go to a place that's just an order taker, they'd have no idea how to do it. They have no idea how to sell.”
Frosst: Sam Altman warning leaders about AI threat was disingenuous
“He did a world tour where he spoke to every major leader the world over to tell them, hey, this technology is gonna pose an existential threat. And I think that was academically disingenuous, and I think did a disservice to the technology he loves.”
Casado: Vertical SaaS Tech Is Simple CRUD Where The Team Doesn't Matter
“Every time I look at vertical SAS, I'm like, why do we even care about the technical team? It's fucking crud, man. It's like, crud is like create, you know, read, update, delete. It's like, they all do the same thing. They all just kind of look like a web app.…”
Galloway: Young people need to drink more alcohol
“Well, on a practical level, the young people need to drink more.”
Kaufman: Workers who fail to adapt to AI will be poor or burdens on society
“Seriously, if you're not going to take the time to make yourself valuable, to embrace reality, you're doomed. I'm not going to help you. If you don't want to do this, you're either going to be poor or a burden on society.”
Kaufman: Workers who fail to self-upgrade in the AI era are done
“But if not, fuck you. You're done. You're done. You're not done at Fiverr. You're done. Period. Because no one, there's not going to be demand for people that cannot upgrade themselves.”
Lemkin: A Top VC Firm Will Give Sam Bankman-Fried $100M
“I don't think Rory or I would, I'll defer to Rory, but I think someone will fund him. He's smart as Rory, Rory said, like he showed the upside as well as the downside. I don't know if there's a lot of morality in the business. I think someone will give them ju…”
Lemkin Advises CEOs to Mandate RTO and Fire Non-S-Tier Engineers
“The only advice I gave to this particular CEO is immediate, like he was hybrid. So I said to force a hundred percent of people returned to office in 30 days and let everyone go, except your S tier engineers, letting them all go. Because you don't need them.”
Hoffman: Trump abused state power for personal gain in first term
“Even in the first administration, there was the, there were some abuses of instruments of state for personal gain, for personal power. And that is, I think anti the spirit of anything in democracy, anti the spirit of anything in American.”
Hoffman: Buying Truth Social stock or crypto enables foreign political corruption
“What if foreign actors, Russia, others, were transferring economics to people with political power in order to influence the U.S. And what they're doing? You know, easy ways to do that are like, you know, buy true social stock. Easy ways to do that are buy fre…”
Hoffman: Medicare should eliminate public spending on end-of-life care
“And you go, well, look, there's a whole bunch of money that's spent on these last three to six months of life. Let's reduce the spending on that and say that is not a public, you know, a public expense. And let's increase, like, for example, preventative and o…”
Grimm predicts Israel will achieve near and total conquering of Gaza
“I think what we end up seeing is we end up seeing the, ah, ultimately kind of the near and total sort of conquering of Gaza,”
Anduril and Co-Founder Matt Grimm Officially Stand With Israel
“I don't at all, no. Absolutely not. Personally stand with them, and we as a company do too.”
Stebbings: European founder quality is much worse than in the US
“I think the quality of European founders is much worse than the US”
McCabe: Trump and supporters lead the defense of personal liberty
“It's crystal clear that Trump and fans are the people who are promoting the most personal liberties and freedoms.”
McCabe: Very few tech industry figures are not voting for Trump
“And that's why everyone I talk to, it's very few people I talk to in technology who are not voting Trump at the moment. Very, very few. There are some people who are either triggered by Trump or they're they don't actually study a lot of these topics, but most…”
Schneider: Customer success departments are make-believe organizations that shouldn't exist
“So we got rid of customer success because quite honestly, it was a, just a make believe organization that didn't need to exist.”
Sean Rad: Bumble is elitist and its women-first model hurts women
“Bumble. Is elitist. Why, you know, women go first. Women have all the control. Why? Who are, you know, like that, that is a, I actually, I'm not even sure that's good for women.”
Nejatian: 'The Lean Startup' did more damage to software than any book
“I think the book lean startup may have done more damage unintentionally to software than any other book.”
Maguire: Modern DEI paradigms are a toxic cancer for society
“The modern paradigm of DEI is toxic, woke ideology that is literally cancer for society.”
Maguire: War is now required to strip Iran of nuclear weapons
“If you want to go the path of removing nuclear weapons from Iran, then we're at the point now where there has to be war.”