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 9 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
Urban: A large email list reduces the need for posting consistency
“A big email list makes it less important to have consistency. I still think it's better than not. I think that you know, it's not ideal the way I do things, but I'm very inconsistent now. I'll disappear for a while, and then I'll come out with something big, a…”
Urban ignored crypto because it lacked proven future significance
“People wanted me to write about crypto, and I was kind of just like, ah, I don't know. This is, it's like this hasn't proven yet to be a huge part of the future, and if not, then it just seems so boring to write about.”
Urban: 'Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy' reached 14M readers
“Fourteen million people read that in a week.”
Urban: Deep research beyond intermediate understanding yields diminishing returns
“There's a diminishing return on like excitement as you keep putting those years in. So for me, it's like, I want to get from like a two or three, you know, to a six. Five or six, something like that, where it's like, oh, okay, I understand this way more deeply…”
Urban: Long-form writing monetizes downstream through paid speaking engagements
“It's like it's like taking content that if I write this AI post, it actually doesn't make much money because it's just on a blog. If I now go do a bunch of talks on AI, to me, that's like, that's the way that, that the, all the work I did for that AI post actu…”
Urban: Wait But Why will remain a two-person team
“Six years ago, we hired Alicia who's the manager of lots of things which is just like the second in command at Wait But Why and does a little of everything. And that's about it. I was just like, I don't want a big team.”
Urban: Wait But Why speaking revenue can exceed Patreon and merch
“Patreon, trying to, it's hard to remember the exact percentages, but like, Patreon, you know, is bigger than merch, partially because we just haven't made that much new merch recently but there's always, you know, there's always patrons, new patrons and speaki…”