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 122 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 8 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
Sequoia Capital invested in AI voice startup Sesame
“We just, I think today right before this podcast, we announced our investment in a company called Sesame, which is an AI voice company, an AI conversation company.”
Cahn: Sesame hit 1M users and 5M minutes within weeks of launch
“They launched this product, this AI voice product that you can talk to, got a million users in a few weeks, five million minutes, like just tremendous product market fit.”
Cahn: The global SaaS market is currently $250 billion
“The entire SaaS economy is a two hundred and fifty billion dollar market, right?”
Cahn: Massive AI cloud capital requirements create significant barriers to entry
“Now, in order to be an AI cloud, you need to be willing to light a bunch of money on fire, right? And so I think that that is a pretty significant barrier to entry for new entrants.”
Cahn: Labor is the Single Largest Cost in Data Centers
“I mean, labor is the single biggest cost in data centers.”
Cahn: A consumer killer use case for AI has not emerged yet
“I think the consumer killer use case hasn't emerged yet.”
Cahn: Tech Giants Will Avoid Full Acquisitions of Major AI Labs
“I think that will probably sustain because it's not really possible to acquire these businesses. Now you can acquire the smaller ones, and we've seen that with Inflection and Adept, you can acquire some of the teams, but it's going to be much more difficult to…”
Cahn: Rational AI strategy is unclear for non-cloud giants like Salesforce
“I mean, I do think the like tier below those three big companies are scared right now. I think there's probably like those boardroom conversations are probably tense, right? I think on the one hand, huge opportunity, right? Make the product better. You already…”
Cahn: Nvidia will continue to surprise positively on chip performance
“The price to performance ratio continues to improve. I don't see that stopping. NVIDIA is a fantastic company. They've, Have a track record of innovating. They have a track record of new products. You better believe Jensen's driving his team super hard on what…”
Cahn: Nvidia's fat gross margins will inevitably draw heavy competition
“NVIDIA earns a big gross margin. And when you, when anyone sees a fat gross margin in a big market, people come chasing.”
Cahn: Big tech's supply chain influence is an underestimated AI advantage
“The big tech companies actually do a very good job of this. And I think it's another advantage they have that's underestimated is kind of convincing the supply chain to change their behavior is something that those guys have a lot of practice doing.”
Cahn: CyrusOne and QTS will produce massive returns for KKR and Blackstone
“KKR owns Cyrus one, Blackstone owns QTS, fantastic investments. There's gonna be huge money-making investments for those firms.”
Cahn: GPUs Account for Half of Total AI Data Center Costs
“About half the cost of the data center is GPUs, half is everything else.”
Cahn: Real estate investors supply significant capital for AI data centers
“A lot of the capital going to fund data centers comes from real estate developers. Real estate investors”
David Cahn: AI Data Center Debt Yield Spreads Will Compress
“So I think prices will get bit like the spread between the risk-free You know, return and the sort of risk adjusted return will compress, which just means that it's going to be less of a good deal as more people do it.”
David Cahn: Expect More Deals Like Blackstone's CoreWeave Debt Financing
“And so you know, Blackstone did this core weave deal. They were one of the first and Blackstone are generally very good at structuring these type of creative deals. Good on them. And I think we'll see more of that type of deals going forward.”
Cahn: Focus on Software Customer Behavior Over Stated Churn Intentions
“So I think the lesson is you have to listen to what customers do. They continue to pay for the, especially expensive products. If people are paying for expensive products and telling you they're going to churn, you probably shouldn't listen to that. They're pa…”
Cahn: Replicating 80% of 10 peers' distinct superpowers drives investor success
“I'm probably not gonna be as hundred percent as good as you if this is your superpower, but I'd like to be 80% as good at you at your superpower, and if I can be 80% as good as 10 people on each of their 10 superpowers, then I'll probably be pretty, pretty goo…”
Cahn: Optimal Venture Strategy Today Is a Barbell Approach
“And so I think the right strategy is this barbell approach, right? Where you're doing early companies and you're also doing late companies.”
David Cahn: Building a $10B+ company requires four distinct founder attributes
“I think if you have one of these, you can be very good. I think if you have two of these, you can be great. I think if you have three of these, you can build a billion dollar company. You need all four of these to build a ten billion dollar company, a hundred …”
Cahn Used Personalized Cameo Videos to Get Founders' Attention Early On
“One thing I used to do is I went through this phase where every time I met a founder that I really liked, I would go through their Twitter. I'd figure out something they really liked, let's say some TV show, and then I'd go in cameo and I would find the actres…”
Cahn: Zoom was profitable and didn't want capital when Sequoia invested
“When Sequoia invested in Zoom, they didn't want to raise capital, right? They were profitable. They were doing really well.”
David Cahn: Missing Datadog deal to Dragoneer was major financial loss
“One big financial miss is Datadog, and I worked on this before joining Sequoia, but I remember, you know, Datadog was this amazing company. The numbers were incredible. It was proper. Like, it was one of these businesses where you just, like, your mouth waters…”
Cahn: Amazon Announced $50 Billion in New Data Centers
“Amazon in the last six months has announced fifty billion dollars of new data centers, right?”
Cahn: DPR is the Largest General Contractor for Data Centers
“DPR is the biggest general contractor in building data centers.”
Cahn recorded one Loom video every day for over a year for founder outreach
“There was a phase that I went through for more than a year where I recorded a Loom video, one Loom video every single day. And it was just at seven PM. I would record a Loom video. That was what I needed to do. And I would find the coolest product I could find…”