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 37,600 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 974 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

Opinion
Hoffman: Buying Truth Social stock or crypto enables foreign political corruption
“What if foreign actors, Russia, others, were transferring economics to people with political power in order to influence the U.S. And what they're doing? You know, easy ways to do that are like, you know, buy true social stock. Easy ways to do that are buy fre…”
Reid Hoffman Dec 16, 2024 ▶ 5:58 Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn & Paypal Founder: Trump Administration, Elon Musk and DOGE | E1239 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Hoffman: Medicare should eliminate public spending on end-of-life care
“And you go, well, look, there's a whole bunch of money that's spent on these last three to six months of life. Let's reduce the spending on that and say that is not a public, you know, a public expense. And let's increase, like, for example, preventative and o…”
Reid Hoffman Dec 16, 2024 ▶ 18:49 Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn & Paypal Founder: Trump Administration, Elon Musk and DOGE | E1239 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Partly held up
Benioff: Salesforce Will Not Hire Software Engineers in 2025 Due to AI
“We're not adding any more software engineers next year because we have increased the productivity this year with AgentForce and with other AI technology that we're using for our engineering teams by more than 30% to the point where our engineering velocity is …”
Marc Benioff Dec 9, 2024 ▶ 12:33 Marc Benioff, Salesforce Founder: Why Salesforce Isn't Hiring Software Engineers | E1236 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Benioff Passes on OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI Over Product Commoditization
“I don't know if I'd really want to invest in any of them right now because I think in those cases we're seeing all of them to being about the same kind of product. A lot of them are really becoming the same Technology.”
Marc Benioff Dec 9, 2024 ▶ 17:33 Marc Benioff, Salesforce Founder: Why Salesforce Isn't Hiring Software Engineers | E1236 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Storonsky: Revolut paid $2M for 55 executive hires and fired 50
“I think I hired like, you know, 55 through executive recruiters, paid like, you know, two million in fees. I ended up, you know, firing 49 or 50 of that, so it's such a waste of money.”
Nik Storonsky Dec 2, 2024 ▶ 5:13 Nik Storonsky, Revolut Founder: What Revolut Needs to Do to Hit $100BN Valuation | E1233 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Hommels: Germany and UK have only four days of ammunition left
“The ammunition is, is a cruel one, yeah. So, so the numbers I have from the military is like four days in Germany and UK and five in France, which is 25% more, but it doesn't make a difference.”
Klaus Hommels Nov 27, 2024 ▶ 28:32 Klaus Hommels: Why "Portfolios are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy"? | E1231 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Hommels: US fighter jets require real-time remote US clearance to start
“Even if you buy US fighter jets, Yeah. So the way how it works is you are the owner. It stands somewhere in the hangar, and you want to, you know, start flying. You have to put it in the way where, where you want to fly, and then this data is sent to the US, a…”
Klaus Hommels Nov 27, 2024 ▶ 29:14 Klaus Hommels: Why "Portfolios are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy"? | E1231 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Hommels: Europe cannot independently launch satellites after Ariane sold capacity
“Yeah, currently we either we get a slot in a SpaceX, yeah, with all the with all the restrictions that there are, or we have Ariane, but Ariane base lastly sold a hundred percent of the defense transport capacity to Amazon. So basically, as Europeans, we are, …”
Klaus Hommels Nov 27, 2024 ▶ 31:13 Klaus Hommels: Why "Portfolios are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy"? | E1231 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Grimm predicts Israel will achieve near and total conquering of Gaza
“I think what we end up seeing is we end up seeing the, ah, ultimately kind of the near and total sort of conquering of Gaza,”
Matt Grimm Nov 11, 2024 ▶ 12:18 Matt Grimm, Co-Founder @Anduril: How a Trump Administration Changes the Defence Industry | E1224 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Anduril and Co-Founder Matt Grimm Officially Stand With Israel
“I don't at all, no. Absolutely not. Personally stand with them, and we as a company do too.”
Matt Grimm Nov 11, 2024 ▶ 12:40 Matt Grimm, Co-Founder @Anduril: How a Trump Administration Changes the Defence Industry | E1224 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Nov 2029
Grimm: Anduril will become the sixth defense prime alongside incumbents
“I don't see it as like Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, Raytheon, et cetera. We're going to take all of them down. I don't see that at all. I think it's going to be like, we're going to become the sixth prime alongside them and that there's still plenty, plenty, pl…”
Matt Grimm Nov 11, 2024 ▶ 34:46 Matt Grimm, Co-Founder @Anduril: How a Trump Administration Changes the Defence Industry | E1224 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Stebbings: European founder quality is much worse than in the US
“I think the quality of European founders is much worse than the US”
Harry Stebbings Oct 28, 2024 ▶ 31:48 Daniel Khachab: "We Are in the Middle of a Cold War for AI Talent" | E1220 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
McCabe: Trump and supporters lead the defense of personal liberty
“It's crystal clear that Trump and fans are the people who are promoting the most personal liberties and freedoms.”
Eoghan McCabe Oct 11, 2024 ▶ 0:23 Eoghan McCabe, CEO @Intercom: Freedom of Speech, Censorship and Government Control | E1213 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McCabe: Very few tech industry figures are not voting for Trump
“And that's why everyone I talk to, it's very few people I talk to in technology who are not voting Trump at the moment. Very, very few. There are some people who are either triggered by Trump or they're they don't actually study a lot of these topics, but most…”
Eoghan McCabe Oct 11, 2024 ▶ 32:20 Eoghan McCabe, CEO @Intercom: Freedom of Speech, Censorship and Government Control | E1213 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Bret Taylor: AI pre-training outside AGI labs wastes capital
“Unless you are an AGI research lab, doing pre-training on a model I believe is just burning capital.”
Bret Taylor Oct 2, 2024 ▶ 0:07 Bret Taylor: Why Pre-Training is for Morons & Companies Will Build Their Own Software | E1209 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Schneider: Customer success departments are make-believe organizations that shouldn't exist
“So we got rid of customer success because quite honestly, it was a, just a make believe organization that didn't need to exist.”
David Schneider Sep 11, 2024 ▶ 36:53 David Schneider: Why the Worst VCs are "Seagull VCs" & VC Value Add - Is it Real? | E1200 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Sean Rad: Bumble is elitist and its women-first model hurts women
“Bumble. Is elitist. Why, you know, women go first. Women have all the control. Why? Who are, you know, like that, that is a, I actually, I'm not even sure that's good for women.”
Sean Rad Sep 9, 2024 ▶ 41:31 Sean Rad: Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Growing Consumer Social App in History | E1199 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Sep 2029
Chirls: 75% of 2020-2021 vintage VC funds won't return principal
“If you think about the twenty-twenty-one vintage, I think a one X fund will be top quartile. I think returning your money is, I think returning your LP's money on almost any timeframe will be top quartile. So in that sense, probably 70, I would guess 75% of th…”
Nicholas Chirls Sep 6, 2024 ▶ 21:11 Nicholas Chirls: Why Big VCs Ruin Startups, VC is a Ponzi Scheme Today & Most VCs are Bankers |E1198 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Aug 2034
Narayanan: AI model scaling cycles are ending
“We're not gonna have too many more cycles, possibly zero more cycles, of a model that's almost an order of magnitude bigger in terms of the number of parameters than what came before, and thereby more powerful.”
Arvind Narayanan Aug 28, 2024 ▶ 0:00 Arvind Narayanan: AI Scaling Myths, The Core Bottlenecks in AI Today & The Future of Models | E1195 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Nejatian: 'The Lean Startup' did more damage to software than any book
“I think the book lean startup may have done more damage unintentionally to software than any other book.”
Kaz Nejatian Aug 14, 2024 ▶ 2:21 Kaz Nejatian: How Shopify Built a $90BN Business to Last 100 Years | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Maguire: Modern DEI paradigms are a toxic cancer for society
“The modern paradigm of DEI is toxic, woke ideology that is literally cancer for society.”
Shaun Maguire Aug 12, 2024 ▶ 0:14 Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Maguire: Donald Trump is the best chance to prevent WWIII in Middle East
“100%.”
Shaun Maguire Aug 12, 2024 ▶ 0:38 Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Maguire: Colombian and Venezuelan drug cartels report directly to Iran
“Like the cartels in Colombia and Venezuela basically report into Iran. Iran handles most of the money laundering for them and coordination processing of a lot of like the precursor chemicals, stuff like that.”
Shaun Maguire Aug 12, 2024 ▶ 6:11 Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Maguire: War is now required to strip Iran of nuclear weapons
“If you want to go the path of removing nuclear weapons from Iran, then we're at the point now where there has to be war.”
Shaun Maguire Aug 12, 2024 ▶ 17:51 Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Maguire: Trump J6 incitement was no worse than Hillary's 2016 denial
“I don't think that Trump did much more to incite the January six insurrection than what Hillary did of denying the election results.”
Shaun Maguire Aug 12, 2024 ▶ 27:27 Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Maguire: BLM and Antifa are more extreme than the far right
“The BLM riots were, and like anything that Antifa does is way more extreme than what the far right has done seriously.”
Shaun Maguire Aug 12, 2024 ▶ 33:56 Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Shaun Maguire: Equal outcome equity is communism and will destroy the West
“And the definition of equity Or like the widely accepted definition is, is not creating equal opportunities. It's to have equal outcomes. That is insane. Like the idea that, that like, no matter what someone's work ethic is, or no matter like what their talent…”
Shaun Maguire Aug 12, 2024 ▶ 46:09 Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
San Diego Persian Jewish dentist was killed without media coverage
“A Persian Jewish dentist who my family knows in San Diego was literally stabbed to death by a former patient named Mohammed, like just randomly, like it was not reported and it was not reported as a hate crime, et cetera.”
Shaun Maguire Aug 12, 2024 ▶ 53:12 Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Maguire: Ukraine should agree to ceasefire and cede territory to Russia
“So I actually think that the thing that's in Ukraine's interest is to have a ceasefire and unfortunately seed some of the Eastern territory You know, and, but have some, there needs to be some security guarantee with teeth that is not NATO, but it's something …”
Shaun Maguire Aug 12, 2024 ▶ 1:04:16 Shaun Maguire: Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil & Trump is the Only Hope for Peace | E1189 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Aug 2034
Ohanian: NWSL will be bigger than MLS in 10 years
“That's why I think the NWSL will be bigger than the MLS in 10 years. Because we can tell a story of excellence in women's football in America using the NWSL. But not the MLS.”
Alexis Ohanian Aug 7, 2024 ▶ 54:16 Alexis Ohanian: The Full P&L Breakdown of the World's Most Valuable Women's Sports Team | E1187 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Mollick: OpenAI's $3B revenue run rate is largely an accident
“I mean, they're incidentally making three billion dollar run rate this year, I think by like just accident, but there isn't like a, there isn't really a product there right now.”
Ethan Mollick Jul 31, 2024 ▶ 24:14 Ethan Mollick: Why OpenAl Abandons Products, The Biggest Opportunities They Have Not Taken | E1184 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Asparouhov: Western Europe will eventually look like a third-world region
“Western Europe is going to look like a third world.”
Delian Asparouhov Jul 29, 2024 ▶ 4:38 Delian Asparouhov: Inside the Walls of Founders Fund: What the World Does Not See | E1183 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Asparouhov: Western Europe is in societal collapse from socialism and regulation
“When you look at United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, et cetera, they're all just like completely, you know, sort of falling into societal collapse all for, you know, sort of slightly different reasons, but it comes down to a complete lack of, you know, sor…”
Delian Asparouhov Jul 29, 2024 ▶ 3:57 Delian Asparouhov: Inside the Walls of Founders Fund: What the World Does Not See | E1183 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Asparouhov: Bill Gurley's firing of Travis Kalanick was morally depraved
“I wish that, you know, Bill Gurley's, you know, firing of Travis, you know, was, you know, sort of talked about more publicly about how morally depraved that entire basically situation was so that people can choose to opt into.”
Delian Asparouhov Jul 29, 2024 ▶ 42:16 Delian Asparouhov: Inside the Walls of Founders Fund: What the World Does Not See | E1183 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Asparouhov: ServiceTitan is closer to LVMH than Tesla
“Service Titan is actually closer to LVMH than it is to Tesla. And that's fine. People should, you know, sort of invest in, you know, sort of brands that have, you know, sort of great distribution. Clearly returns can be made there, but let's, you know, sort of…”
Delian Asparouhov Jul 29, 2024 ▶ 59:34 Delian Asparouhov: Inside the Walls of Founders Fund: What the World Does Not See | E1183 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2029
Motamedi: Current Series B VC vintage overall will not perform well
“Again, Harry, I come back to, unless you're betting that public market multiples are going to re-expand, or that the growth durability of these assets is a lot stronger than what we've seen in the past, the vintage writ large is not going to perform. It does n…”
Saam Motamedi Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 49:53 Saam Motamedi: Why Series B Won’t Make Money & Why $1M ARR is a BS Milestone for Series A | E1177 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Alex Wang: AI could be a greater military asset than nuclear weapons
“At its core, this AI technology has the potential to be one of the greatest military assets that humanity has ever seen. Potentially even more of a military asset than nukes.”
Alex Wang Jun 12, 2024 ▶ 0:00 Alex Wang: Why Data Not Compute is the Bottleneck to Foundation Model Performance | E1164 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Held up
ByteDance Will Delay TikTok Action Until After the US Presidential Election
“Likely, and I have no inside information here, I think ByteDance waits for the election, because they presume that Trump could get bought off by investors since, you know, he's a coin-operated person in his entire life, not just as in his presidency.”
Reid Hoffman Jun 10, 2024 ▶ 59:28 Reid Hoffman: The Future of TikTok and The Inflection AI Deal | E1163 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sam Altman: OpenAI will steamroll startups built on static model assumptions
“It would seem to me that 95% of the world should be betting on the latter category, but a lot of the startups have been built in the former category. When we just do our fundamental job, we're going to steamroll you.”
Sam Altman May 24, 2024 ▶ 11:39 Sam Altman, Arthur Mensch and more discuss:Which Startups Are Threatened vs Enabled by OpenAI?|E1156 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Hulme: Microsoft acquired Inflection primarily for its 12,000 H100 GPU cluster
“I do not believe that Microsoft were buying the Pi model. I think Microsoft are GPU constrained, and we're buying a cluster of 12,000 H-one hundreds.”
Tom Hulme May 8, 2024 ▶ 49:13 Tom Hulme: Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 275x on Robinhood & Making Billions on Uber |E1150 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Hulme: GV would not invest in OpenAI at a $90B valuation
“I would struggle To make that investment today. No.”
Tom Hulme May 8, 2024 ▶ 50:12 Tom Hulme: Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 275x on Robinhood & Making Billions on Uber |E1150 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2027
Hulme: 90% of AI foundation model capital will go to zero
“Foundation models, 90%. Application layer, 70%. And in the incumbents, the value going into the incumbents, only 20%.”
Tom Hulme May 8, 2024 ▶ 54:01 Tom Hulme: Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 275x on Robinhood & Making Billions on Uber |E1150 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Hulme: AGI hype correlates directly with founders' capital fundraising needs
“I think there is a Correlation between how aggressively people predict AGI is coming and how much capital they need to raise. So you've got Emodi from Anthropic, you've got Altman, OpenAI, Musk, XAI, all of these guys are saying that it's just around the corne…”
Tom Hulme May 8, 2024 ▶ 1:11:38 Tom Hulme: Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 275x on Robinhood & Making Billions on Uber |E1150 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Tavel: Benchmark barely reserves capital for follow-on investments
“We don't think about reserves. Period. Barely. We're very oriented towards our initial investment, and in that moment, you know, we are more ownership sensitive than probably most other firms. But then after we invest, we are 100% aligned with whatever objecti…”
Sarah Tavel May 6, 2024 ▶ 55:05 Sarah Tavel: Will Foundation Models Be Commoditised? | E1149 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Suster: VCs settled with embezzling founder, getting equity but zero cash
“It's one step worse than that, which is, I know of a company in which the founder embezzled money. Ok, literally stole millions of dollars. In order to not end up in a big legal battle, their VCs ended up settling, and they got all the stock back, but none of …”
Mark Suster May 1, 2024 ▶ 7:44 Mark Suster: Why Private Equity Will Replace IPOs and M&A as the Exit Path | E1147 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Altman: OpenAI will steamroll startups building static software wrappers
“When we just do our fundamental job because we, like, have a mission, we're going to steamroll you.”
Sam Altman Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 0:23 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Lightcap: Current AI models are honestly not that good
“I think right now expectations are extremely high. Reality is still pretty bad, honestly. These models are not that good.”
Brad Lightcap Apr 15, 2024 ▶ 18:29 Sam Altman & Brad Lightcap: Which Companies Will Be Steamrolled by OpenAI? | E1140 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Dixon: a16z Crypto currently holds 94% of all historical investments
“Throughout the lifetime of the crypto funds, we could, we today hold 94% of our investments.”
Chris Dixon Mar 27, 2024 ▶ 40:07 Chris Dixon: Who Will Win the Next Generation of Venture? | E1132 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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