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
Shaun Maguire: Equal outcome equity is communism and will destroy the West
“And the definition of equity Or like the widely accepted definition is, is not creating equal opportunities. It's to have equal outcomes. That is insane. Like the idea that, that like, no matter what someone's work ethic is, or no matter like what their talent…”
San Diego Persian Jewish dentist was killed without media coverage
“A Persian Jewish dentist who my family knows in San Diego was literally stabbed to death by a former patient named Mohammed, like just randomly, like it was not reported and it was not reported as a hate crime, et cetera.”
Maguire: Ukraine should agree to ceasefire and cede territory to Russia
“So I actually think that the thing that's in Ukraine's interest is to have a ceasefire and unfortunately seed some of the Eastern territory You know, and, but have some, there needs to be some security guarantee with teeth that is not NATO, but it's something …”
Asparouhov: Western Europe will eventually look like a third-world region
“Western Europe is going to look like a third world.”
Asparouhov: Western Europe is in societal collapse from socialism and regulation
“When you look at United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, et cetera, they're all just like completely, you know, sort of falling into societal collapse all for, you know, sort of slightly different reasons, but it comes down to a complete lack of, you know, sor…”
Asparouhov: Bill Gurley's firing of Travis Kalanick was morally depraved
“I wish that, you know, Bill Gurley's, you know, firing of Travis, you know, was, you know, sort of talked about more publicly about how morally depraved that entire basically situation was so that people can choose to opt into.”
Asparouhov: ServiceTitan is closer to LVMH than Tesla
“Service Titan is actually closer to LVMH than it is to Tesla. And that's fine. People should, you know, sort of invest in, you know, sort of brands that have, you know, sort of great distribution. Clearly returns can be made there, but let's, you know, sort of…”
ByteDance Will Delay TikTok Action Until After the US Presidential Election
“Likely, and I have no inside information here, I think ByteDance waits for the election, because they presume that Trump could get bought off by investors since, you know, he's a coin-operated person in his entire life, not just as in his presidency.”
Bryan Johnson: Humans are no longer qualified to manage their own affairs
“I'm fundamentally proposing that the human race is no longer qualified to manage our affairs.”
Lonsdale: Israel Will Keep Fighting and Completely Wipe Out Hamas
“The way it stands now is, is we're going to keep fighting. We're going to wipe out Hamas and hopefully we can work with others to have a government there. That's not, you know, does not allow terrorism.”
Lonsdale: Anti-Israel Hatred in Gaza Stems From School Indoctrination
“I think basically what creates a generation of civilians that hate Israel is you have the schools in that area have been run by people who teach people that Jews are pigs and Jews are wrong and our religion hates Jews.”
Plantenga: Predatory seed term sheets in small European markets handicap startups
“Like if you look what kind of like seed stage term sheets get to the table of like people I know building companies and I get like in these small markets in Europe, but it's like financial rape and it does a lot of damage. It's, it does a lot of damage because…”
Samani: Bitcoin has no productive value and produces no economic utility
“Bitcoin is a strictly financial construct. Bitcoin has no economic value. It has, it is no, it's not productive. Excuse me. Bitcoin is no productive value because it doesn't do anything. It's an asset. There are some interesting properties of that asset, but i…”
Tomaino: Taylor Swift exemplifies soulless greed for money and attention
“To me, she's kind of the definition of someone that has this, like, soulless greed for attention and money, and is not authentic at all.”
Samani: XRP, Cardano, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash are garbage lacking substance
“I mean, look, there's a lot of assets in the top 10 that most people who are sophisticated retail market participants view as, you know, garbage, XRP, Cardano, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, etc. I cannot explain to you how those assets are trading nine, 10 figures a…”
Rabois: No $100 billion European tech company has been created since 1990
“There hasn't been a hundred billion dollar European company created since 1990.”
Rabois: LinkedIn developed a mediocre culture because early engineers wanted 35-hour weeks
“Yeah, we didn't have an Olympic work ethic. We had a bunch of French engineers that wanted to work 35 hours a week. At the time, In 2003 to five, when the company was really founded, most people thought the internet was dead, so we didn't, Reid Hoffman, who fo…”
Petersen: Chinese believe in China, while half of Americans hate America
“Chinese people believe in China. Half of Americans hate America.”
Petersen: Remote US workers will lose jobs to offshore talent arbitrage
“By the way, I think remote work can really work, but it's not going to benefit the people who think like, it's not going to be people making 250,000 dollars a year hanging out in Jackson Hole. It's going to be geniuses in the developing world Making, you know,…”
Tomaino: Silicon Valley is driven by soulless greed, citing Sequoia Capital
“My sentiment in a lot of Silicon Valley is that it's very, there, there's a lot of soulless greed, and just this desire to create these kind of you know, massive funds create massive attention, and I think, again, Sequoia is the best example of this, and 1789,…”
Eisenberg Claims Woke Anti-Semitic Left Has Taken Over American Universities
“The kind of progressive, woke, anti-Semitic left has taken over a lot of American universities. And they don't like Jews, and that's just the truth.”
Eisenberg: College Is A Waste Of Money And Brainwashes Kids
“Not sending kids to college. It's a waste of time and money. I think it's worse than that. You send kids to these places, they are brainwashed with immorality.”
Eisenberg: Attackers Of Human Values Must Be Eradicated For Progress
“It's a human aspiration, except there are some barbarians that don't believe in this. And they need to be eradicated. And that's our job right now. And our job of our children is to go eradicate them so that we can have more weddings, more children, more grand…”
Lemkin: B2B SaaS CEOs should be embarrassed to conduct layoffs
“If you're a great SAS CEO, you should never have a RIF. It's called recurring revenue. You should have the ability to, I get it in B to C or D to C or X and Y and Z to C. I don't think good SAS CEO should, I think it's an utter failing to ever have a RIF unles…”
Huber: Wealth redistribution would revert to 80/20 inequality within five years
“You could take all the money in the United States right now. You take all the money and you could divide it equally among everybody. Take all the money and divide it equally. And in five, 10, 15 years, you could argue about the timeframe. In five years, at lea…”
Huber: Poorest Americans today live better than wealthiest Americans 50 years ago
“Today the poorest people in America have a better life than the wealthiest people in America 50 years ago. They have better access to healthcare. They have better living situations. They have more amenities. They have better food. It trickles down massively, a…”
Huber: Prevailing victim culture gives accountable families a competitive advantage
“I think this woke mindset and virus is a tremendous advantage for me and my family. The people who buy into it, Our victims, the people who buy into it are blaming other people, the people who buy into it are focusing on things that are totally outside of thei…”
Lessin: Founders who ask VCs for help are weak
“Because I, if you're coming to me for help, my view is you're almost by definition, or you're saying, I need help or whatever I want help. I think you're a weak founder.”
Lemkin: Startups should not hire tech workers who lack pre-boom experience
“I almost think We shouldn't hire any of these people in startups today. You have to have had some adversity or have worked before the boom or have, or you just need to flush through this and have a fresh perspective.”
Batchu: Hiring from portfolio companies is not a conflict for angels
“I, I'm pretty ruthless about that. I think that there's absolutely no conflict. I think it's extremely anti-competitive from a labor market perspective for you to think that I won't hire the best people from your company. And so you, it's your job to retain yo…”
Douwe Kiela: Incumbent AI firms promote existential risk to entrench regulatory advantage
“So the people who are pushing this narrative are really the people who are benefiting from this being the narrative. So these are the incumbent AI companies who are, who want to have either the market regulated. Right. Because then they benefit because they ca…”
Stebbings: The younger generation of workers is lazy and expects high compensation
“I think this generation is fucking lazy. They do not work, sorry, I'm on a rant now. They do not want to work hard, they do not want to come into the office, they get paid top dollar, and actually, they want great package, they want all of this, and they don't…”
AI Existential Risk Warnings Are Driven by Publicity Seekers
“I fully agree with Jan and not just because he was my boss at Meta, but I think if you really understand how machine learning works and you're not looking for free publicity, I don't see why you would say something like that, that, that getting more intelligen…”
Parker Conrad: David Sacks made wrong decisions across the board at Zenefits
“David was not really interested in making Zenefits successful. You know, almost every decision he made at the company was wrong. The decisions he made from a product perspective, from a strategy perspective, the people he. Fired the people he promoted, like al…”
Paik: Taxing carried interest as ordinary income would redistribute tech talent
“You probably should tax carried interest like income tax. That would write, that would like break that structurally different incentive mechanism, and then it would defuse talent elsewhere.”
Stebbings: Remote Work Is One of the Most Poisonous Things
“I don't buy remote by the way. I think remote is one of the most poisonous things.”
Tobi Lütke: Viewing wealth inequality as inherently bad is a bad faith take
“It's also like a bad faith take that wealth inequality is a bad thing by itself”
Tobi Lütke: The belief that micromanagement is bad destroyed massive business value
“I think there's probably no singular idea that has destroyed more business value on planet Earth than the idea that Micromanagement is a bad thing.”
Ackman: Biden wealth tax will bankrupt every startup in America
“You know, the Biden wealth tax, which is like, 25% of the appreciation of things that you own privately, it's going to bankrupt every startup. No one will ever start a business in America anymore, right?”
Emil Michael predicts Benchmark's fixed $435M fund model will fail
“That's why I think Benchmark ultimately is going to, is, has no innovation. Forget the reputation, which most entrepreneurs, if they do their deals, will find out about, but just not innovating stuck at four hundred thirty-five million for the next 10 years is…”
Mansour: The overinflated B2B SaaS ecosystem resembles a VC Ponzi scheme
“It's just the ecosystem is very hyper overinflated through a mechanism that is not too dissimilar to Ponzi schemes.”
Rabois: Building a tech company in Silicon Valley is an active disadvantage
“And I now believe Silicon Valley is a disadvantage not even neutral, it's an actual disadvantage.”
Harry Stebbings: Most retail investors on Robinhood are incompetent
“I think most of the people who invest in there are incompetent and shouldn't be given dollars. This will definitely be taken out, no doubt. I think this is like, you know, you're empowering people who should not be investing. They do not understand public mark…”
Chris Sacca calls Facebook a "cancer" and claims its leadership knows it
“Yeah, I think Facebook is a cancer, and they know it.”
Weinberg: Keith Rabois is a "giant doofus" regarding healthcare
“I think the guy is a giant doofus, and I would continue to hold my belief that he's a giant doofus, and I'll be very specific about why. I think Keith Raboy is probably a phenomenal technical investor, software company investor. It seems to me to be an amazing…”
Cyan Banister: San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin refuses to prosecute crimes
“We have a DA, Chesta, who will not prosecute crimes. I just found out yesterday a friend of mine whose house was burglarized. The perpetrators were let out of San Quentin for COVID. They robbed his house, almost kicked in the door of his neighbor who had a chi…”