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.

clear all ✕

why aren't all 17 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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

Prediction Didn’t hold up
Foroughi: AppLovin will become the third-largest digital ad marketplace
“Like if you just to size it, that's Facebook, Google one, two, or in whichever order I'd have to check, but that's the third biggest digital marketplace for advertising in terms of scale that will exist.”
Adam Foroughi Nov 29, 2021 ▶ 32:04 20VC: AppLovin's Co-Founder & CEO, Adam Foroughi on How AppLovin Might Be The Venture Capital Industry's Biggest Miss, How To Run a 1,000+ Organisation with Very Few Meetings & Balancing the Demands of Wall St with Long Term, Sustainable Growth
Assertion Supported
AppLovin Operates Without a COO, CMO, CRO, or Chief People Officer
“If you look at our exec team, we have CEO, CTO, CFO, and general counsel. We don't have a CRO. We don't have a COO. Go down the list of other C levels that people might have. We don't have a CMO. We don't have a chief people officer. We don't have any of these…”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 21:26 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
AppLovin Core Ad Business Generates Over $10M EBITDA Per Employee
“So if I just went to the core business, Our core advertising products are about 400 people. So call it some very, very high percentage of all the companies EBITDA comes from the core business. So if you then calculate the EBITDA per employee over 400, it's a r…”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 19:36 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Adam Foroughi: AppLovin Operates Without a Dedicated Product Management Team
“We don't have a product organization. Our engineers are meant to be product managers.”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 30:09 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
AppLovin Restricts Equity Grants to Only the Top 10-15% of Employees
“And we used to believe that every single person should have equity granted by the company. Instead, we went to a place where we said the top 10 to 15% of the company will get equity, and the rest won't.”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 26:31 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
AppLovin Cut Departmental Staff 40-50% in 2024 Despite Fast Growth
“Mostly in 24, we had a year where we probably grew near double digits. Sorry, near triple digits. But we ended up cutting the team's staff by 40, 50% in most departments.”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 15:09 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Foroughi: AppLovin will clear over $15 billion in ad spend by 2022
“And we put out there by the time we're done with this next year, clearing over fifteen billion dollars of ad spend in our marketplace.”
Adam Foroughi Nov 29, 2021 ▶ 31:57 20VC: AppLovin's Co-Founder & CEO, Adam Foroughi on How AppLovin Might Be The Venture Capital Industry's Biggest Miss, How To Run a 1,000+ Organisation with Very Few Meetings & Balancing the Demands of Wall St with Long Term, Sustainable Growth
Assertion Supported
Adam Foroughi: AppLovin Achieved a 150 Rule of 40 Score Last Quarter
“I mean, our rule of 50 in the last, rule of 40, sorry, in the last quarter, I think was like a 150.”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 48:25 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Adam Foroughi: AppLovin Platform Reached $11B Ad Spend Run Rate
“We put out that a year ago, the scale of investment on our platform was eleven billion dollar run rate.”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 49:34 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Adam Foroughi: AppLovin Reaches Over One Billion Daily Active Users
“We build a business trying to better, to help an advertiser reach a consumer, drive a transaction inside this gaming audience, billion plus daily active users.”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 1:16:19 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Vivas: AppLovin Was Spun Out From My First Ad Tech Business
“So we sold that company. But before we did, we spun out a few assets. One of them was called Bright, which I went to go focus on. And then another one was called Applovin, where my brother and my co-founder Adam Fergie went to go focus on.”
Eddie Vivas Apr 1, 2022 ▶ 4:52 20VC: The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make Hiring, The 2 Reasons Startups Fail and How to Avoid Them, Why Most Startup Equity Plans are F****** and Why You Should Scrap Titles From Your Company with Eddie Vivas, Founder & CEO @ Curated
Assertion Supported
AppLovin generated over $190M in software revenue in a single quarter
“And that's why last year we did two hundred million in software revenue. And you can just see acceleration this last quarter, we did over one hundred and ninety million in software revenue. So almost the entirety of last year in one single quarter because of e…”
Adam Foroughi Nov 29, 2021 ▶ 27:28 20VC: AppLovin's Co-Founder & CEO, Adam Foroughi on How AppLovin Might Be The Venture Capital Industry's Biggest Miss, How To Run a 1,000+ Organisation with Very Few Meetings & Balancing the Demands of Wall St with Long Term, Sustainable Growth
Assertion Supported
AppLovin Market Cap Dropped 92% in 2022 to Under $4 Billion
“In 22, we fell about 92% to a little bit under four billion dollar market cap.”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 4:47 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
AppLovin Operated Without a Board From Founding Until KKR's 2018 Investment
“When we were private from 2011, when we started the business to 2018, when KKR invested and we got our first three person board, I didn't have a board.”
Adam Foroughi Apr 27, 2026 ▶ 1:11:30 AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn't Angel Invest & Why the Best Don't Need Mentorship · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
AppLovin operates nearly 20 studios with 3,000 game developers worldwide
“We've got 3000 game developers that are building games for us. We've got almost 20 studios around the world.”
Adam Foroughi Nov 29, 2021 ▶ 26:36 20VC: AppLovin's Co-Founder & CEO, Adam Foroughi on How AppLovin Might Be The Venture Capital Industry's Biggest Miss, How To Run a 1,000+ Organisation with Very Few Meetings & Balancing the Demands of Wall St with Long Term, Sustainable Growth
Assertion Contradicted
AppLovin scaled 2020 revenue to over $1.5 billion
“Under Adam's leadership, he's taken the company public, he's grown the team to over a thousand people around the world, and scaled revenue in twenty-twenty alone to over 1.5 A billion dollars.”
Harry Stebbings Nov 29, 2021 ▶ 0:18 20VC: AppLovin's Co-Founder & CEO, Adam Foroughi on How AppLovin Might Be The Venture Capital Industry's Biggest Miss, How To Run a 1,000+ Organisation with Very Few Meetings & Balancing the Demands of Wall St with Long Term, Sustainable Growth
Assertion Supported
Foroughi: AppLovin spent its first two years unable to grow apps
“We started in 2010 trying to build mobile apps, and for a couple years we were just building apps, and we couldn't grow them.”
Adam Foroughi Nov 29, 2021 ▶ 3:15 20VC: AppLovin's Co-Founder & CEO, Adam Foroughi on How AppLovin Might Be The Venture Capital Industry's Biggest Miss, How To Run a 1,000+ Organisation with Very Few Meetings & Balancing the Demands of Wall St with Long Term, Sustainable Growth
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