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 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
Prince: The story of eBay starting with Beanie Babies is PR BS
“So, so the eBay example, you're like eBay started with Beanie Babies. So I've talked to the founders of eBay about that. That's complete and utter PR retrospective BS.”
Taussig: High-margin eBay is losing market share yearly to Vinted
“Usually the highest EBITDA margin businesses have the lowest growth, right? And so it's this kind of funny thing where You know, the business like eBay has a great EBITDA margin. It hasn't really, it's not really growing and it's kind of losing market share ev…”
Prince: The eBay Beanie Babies origin story is a PR myth
“So I've talked to the founders of eBay about that. That's complete and utter PR retrospective BS. And the reason that a lot of stories look like that is because almost nobody Once, if you're in the, you're the journalist that, that, that you said before we sta…”
In the early 2000s, eBay's media category surpassed Amazon's total GMV
“I think eBay's media category was bigger than Amazon's GMV. So eBay was really in those days like Amazon plus Google.”
eBay's original business plan and Benchmark investment focused solely on collectibles
“Jeff Skoll wrote the business plan for eBay with Pierre. And I got a copy of it when I joined the business and they were focused entirely on the collectibles market. Now their argument was collectibles market in in the U S I think was a hundred, you know, it w…”
Finkelstein: Early e-commerce forced a choice between million-dollar software and marketplaces
“And at the time in 2004, 2005, there really were two ways to sell a product online. One way was you would pay some agency a million bucks to do some sort of IBM Webster integration or some sort of Magento or, you know, some sort of Hybris integration. These bi…”
LiveBid amassed $100M in inventory before acquisition interest from Amazon and eBay
“And in about a year we're able to amass close to a hundred million dollars in inventory that was, you know, being offered through auction through our website, which at the time was quite a bit, and we then had, had interest from eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon for acq…”
Lemkin: Andreessen Horowitz tripled its money on Skype in 12-14 months
“And the reason it was a structurally weird deal where they got a good deal. Now they took risks. Skype was a aging platform, but they bought it from eBay, right? Is that eBay needed to divest it? They had enough of it. There was no synergy and Andreessen went …”
Alibaba Pitch Framed Company as eBay, Amazon, and PayPal of China
“The story was positioned very simply that, hey, it's the China consumer play, and they are the eBay plus Amazon plus PayPal of China.”
Plantenga: Vinted originally charged sellers a 15% to 20% commission fee
“So they were asking something in the tune of 15 to 20% seller fee, which is like the standard thing that eBay and Poshmark were doing for years,”
Schultz Says eBay Was Run by Consultants During His Tenure
“And how to put together a very good deck, because it was run by consultants.”
Jordan: Benchmark Originally Invested in eBay as a Collectibles Marketplace
“When Benchmark wrote the joint, Bob Cagle and Benchmark wrote the check, he was investing in a collectibles marketplace.”
Webb: eBay grew from 300 to 14,000 employees during his tenure
“When I joined eBay, I think we had 300 people. When I left, we had 14,000.”
Buchheit: Early Gmail launch invites sold on eBay for hundreds of dollars
“People were selling the invites on eBay for hundreds of dollars. It became a real currency because people were so excited about getting an invite to the service.”
Justin Kan Sold Web Calendar Startup Kiko on eBay for $250,000
“Ended up selling on eBay. Decided startups weren't quite as bad as we'd thought because from the eBay sale, which was about a quarter of a million dollars, we made a little bit of money.”