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 81 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 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
Adam Foroughi: TikTok Recommendation Engine Is Phenomenal for Non-Social Engagement
“I would say when it comes to engagement, creating the ability for a social network to not need any social interaction and still be able to deliver you fantastic content, the TikTok recommendation algo is quite phenomenal.”
Omer Shai says LinkedIn and TikTok present enormous marketing arbitrage opportunities
“Also LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn potential is enormous. The arbitrage, again, is there. The targeting is not perfect as an other solution yet, but I believe that those two are having tons of opportunity for us.”
Slonimski: TikTok Requires Three Times More Ad Creatives Than Meta
“So on TikTok, you need to have three times more creatives. They're not meta.”
Hacker: Duolingo was once bigger on TikTok than Nike
“I think at some point we were bigger on TikTok than Nike.”
Solomou: TikTok and Meta are top social platform buys
“I would say TikTok, I would buy. Meta, I would buy on their big bets that they've made.”
Solomou: Snapchat will remain an innovative hub for Gen Z over 5-10 years
“I believe Snap is an interesting place over the next five to 10 years. Whether it can compete with the TikToks, and the Metas, and at this scale, I mean, these players are Huge. And we've seen what they've done in AI. We've seen what they're doing in e-commerc…”
Tolkin: Western and Asian mobile app design styles are converging
“I think there's absolutely a convergence. I think probably the influence is a little bit more being pulled towards us, but the reality is like apps like, you know, TikTok, there's a lot of things going on, things flying around, scrolling, all that stuff. Like …”
Malik: Perplexity's only paid acquisition is lightweight TikTok ads for young users
“So right now, like the only paid acquisition we've ever touched and it's so lightweight are some just like simple TikTok ads testing different value propositions with 18 to 24 year olds.”
TikTok Is Content Distribution, Not an Explicit Social Graph
“Now, it's a social network, you know, as much as there's people, there's individuals who are creating stuff that's being consumed by other individuals, but it's not a social network in that, you know, I'm connected to my friend Harry, you know, on LinkedIn.”
Will Wu: Every mobile app ultimately competes for finite attention against TikTok and gaming
“I mean, I think you're competing for time. You're sort of share of mind for people, whether it's, you know, gaming or TikTok or whatever it is. I mean, at the end of the day, there's just a finite, finite amount of time in the day. And I think, you know, at so…”
Copying existing trends is the best way to launch on TikTok
“The best way to start Is to steal like an artist. And I say that because a lot of TikTok is like copying each other. Like that is the truth of it. When we first started, these trends were us just copying what we see and obviously giving credit where it's due, …”
Content that goes viral on TikTok often fails on YouTube Shorts
“A lot of things that break the internet and trend on TikTok don't do well on shorts.”
Duolingo's viral TikTok videos directly drive user acquisition
“So if we have a viral video, we'll actually see an uptick in users. Based off the timing of it and people saying, yeah, we heard about you from TikTok.”
A brand's social media comment section is its best creative brief
“The comment section is your social brief. Like, People will say stuff, like, lean into that. Like, if they're telling you they want to see X, Y, Z, give them X, Y, Z, and it can be that simple”
TikTok videos fail without a punchy five-second creative hook
“If you're not a creative writer and you don't know how to make something punchy in five seconds, even if you have a trending audio, it's not going to do well.”
Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn accepts pushback on video removal requests
“He does DM me and there's these open conversations and he's open to hearing pushback as well. There's been times where he's told us to take down a video and I was like, okay, cool. But what if I like change the audio, fix up the text a little bit, can I repost…”
Duolingo's TikTok succeeded because Parvez lacked traditional advertising experience
“I always say the reason why our TikTok was so successful is because I didn't really know all that much about advertising, if I'm being honest.”
Small human moments were key to Duolingo's viral TikTok growth
“No brand was doing it yet. And I think that was kind of our insight. And it was like these small human moments that I think has made our TikTok kind of blow up.”
Cohen: Long-form video generates far more investor revenue than short-form TikToks
“You know, it's the long form content where the money is as an investor. You know, you're not going to make much unless you're a very highly influential influencer on TikTok. You're not making much at the moment. YouTube, the big YouTube creators, they make mon…”
Dash: Apple Privacy Changes Made Buying Massive App Growth Much Tougher
“I think the targeting capabilities after what Apple has done has gotten reduced dramatically, so I think it would be much tougher, but If you spend that much money, maybe it's possible.”
Running ad campaigns will continuously become more expensive due to video formats
“Ad platforms are always getting more expensive. They're always more constrained. And if you particularly look at some of the trends that are happening with moving to richer formats like TikTok, it's just more expensive to create basic content. And so I think t…”
Schultz: TikTok Is Focusing Heavily on Messaging and Friend Graphs
“You look at TikTok and what they're doing right now. They're focusing very heavily on messaging. They're focusing very heavily on friend graph.”
Jordan: Startups must separate experimental marketing budgets from core spend
“I love the companies that have a, they segregate an experimental budget from their core, core acquisition budget, just to, because if you bundle them together, it, It's a barrier against experimentation. If you're constantly optimizing Google and Facebook, but…”
Sahgal: Social networks are shifting from friend graphs to interest-based communities
“What you're seeing now is the broad social networks are becoming all about communities and all about interests, and they just have different take on it. Like that's where tick tock is. That's what Instagram is becoming pretty quickly. That's what Reddit obviou…”
20VC Abandoned 100,000 Snapchat Followers Due to Declining Engagement
“I invested heavily in Snapchat stories when they were big for business. We gained a 100,000 plus fans there, but with the reducing popularity of the platform for business, The audience declined, and it was no longer worth the investment for me over other platf…”
Young Women Are the Primary Early Adopters for Social Platforms
“Whether it be Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest or Vine or Tumblr back in the day or TikTok, you know, it's always been young women who've been that first set of early adopters”
Diao: Answers AI co-founder drove massive growth by becoming a TikTok persona
“One of the co-founders in the company became essentially a TikTok Instagram persona, right? Who can create these videos kind of on demand for the company as well and drive very, very similar amounts of views and traction and growth for the company.”
Tenev: Robinhood was the top App Store app during GameStop surge
“Robinhood was the number one app in the app store. And my feeling at the time was, you know, everyone was sort of like, Wow, you should be really happy. You're the number one app in the app store ahead of Instagram and TikTok. Not just financial app, but every…”
Duolingo cross-posts 75% of its TikTok content directly to Instagram Reels
“I would say at this rate of where we are, I would say about 75% is rip and replace. And what the other 25% is us trying to actually think through, like, what would work better on Reels versus TikTok.”
Duolingo sets one million views as its benchmark for TikTok success
“One million views for us is like a viral video that is successful. That is what is like written down as like green check.”
Stebbings: UK TikTok news creator reached 10M followers and faced BBC attacks
“There's a TikTok star who does kind of news in the UK, and he has ten million followers now. And the BBC attacked him recently.”