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 15 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
Reber: Selling Wunderlist to Microsoft felt like selling to the enemy
“When I sold Wanderlust, it felt like I'm selling my child to the enemy. I didn't want to get bought by Microsoft. I viewed Microsoft as the enemy, and it was just stupid.”
Reber: Microsoft screwed up its acquisitions of Yammer, Skype, and Wunderlist
“I think Microsoft has Screwed up multiple acquisitions like Yammer or Skype, and they promised me when we sold it that they will try their very best not to screw up Wunderlist, and I think they did.”
Reber: Wunderlist could have reached hundreds of millions of users independently
“I think Wunderlist had a very unique character and could have grown to hundreds of millions of users and could have had a successful business process”
Reber: Real-Time Sync Was the Primary Reason Microsoft Bought Wunderlist
“And it actually, in the end, it was the reason Microsoft bought us, because of the real-time synchronization we've had.”
Wunderlist will become Microsoft's core task layer and spread its startup culture
“Ah, so for me and Wunderlist, it is integrate deeply into, to Microsoft, be the layer that connects things in terms of tasks, things you need to get done, and continue to both learn from one of the largest, most important technology organizations ever, but als…”
Wunderlist CTO Chad Fowler wants to never add another feature
“No, no, I don't want to add any features and that's not to say we won't, but personally, I would like to never add another feature to this piece of software. I think it's done.”
Reber: Wunderlist became the most downloaded app worldwide on the App Store
“Super popular there. Most downloaded app worldwide for quite some time.”
Founders should evaluate potential acquirers like interviewing a prospective employer
“I guess I can say that what we did was we evaluated whether there would be a fit in the same way that you would evaluate an employer when you're being interviewed and essentially interviewing them for a job. At least that's the way I looked at it, and I think …”
Wunderlist easily recruited US West Coast talent to Berlin
“So with that in mind, it has been very easy for us at Wunderlist, for example, to attract international talent from Almost all over the world, and certainly even the west coast of the United States, because it's a nice destination for people and a place where …”
Human user testing yields greater insights than purely data-driven metrics
“We have recently made quite an investment of time and energy into user testing of features sometimes even before we develop them so that we can get features into the hands of real people who aren't inside our heads and see what makes sense to them. And that's …”
Wunderlist maintained complete operational autonomy in Berlin after Microsoft acquisition
“Really nothing has changed. We're operating in Berlin. We're a solid team making decisions the same way we did before. Like I said, we, you know, we have freedom to do things exactly as we did in the past, but we have more help when we need it.”
Reber: The initial version of Wunderlist was built in six weeks
“So I wrote Wunderlist myself with two of my first engineers within six weeks or so.”
Wunderkinder killed Wunderkit due to excessive complexity before refocusing on Wunderlist
“With Wunderlist, for example, you know, we, the team before I joined had created something called Wunderkit, and the DNA of the company was very much exactly what I'm talking about, this simple consumer-first approach, but Wunderkit was their experience of Goi…”
Wunderlist never paid for advertising to acquire users
“So with Wunderlist, we literally never paid for advertisement.”
Wunderlist delayed adding folders for four and a half years
“Ultimately, we decided that folders really were an essential part of the experience for power users. And we added, added it later this year, but I think it had been on the request list since the initial launch, like four and a half years ago.”