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 18 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
Alex Schultz admits Meta's Llama 4 missed the leading edge
“It's pretty clear Llama was not, like, Llama four wasn't leading edge where Llama three was. So, you know, our big release this year was not a slam dunk, but our big release last year was, and I'm pretty confident our next big release will be again.”
Alex Schultz: Meta shifted from a falling brand to a rising brand
“We've actually moved up tremendously in terms of brand sentiment. You think where we were five years ago, and think where we are today, people don't look at this stuff, obviously I do, and we were literally a falling brand, and now we're a rising brand.”
Alex Schultz: 70% of Meta engagement is un-followed AI recommendations
“So five years ago, we were 100% content shown to you based on people you follow, or accounts you follow. 100%. People don't understand, like, TikTok was tiny, it was the beginning of the pandemic, like, it was very early on, so let's say five and a half years …”
Schultz: Resurrections and Churn Drove Meta's Scaling, Not New Registrations
“When we implemented it, we thought it was registrations minus a bit of churn. What we didn't realize was that the churn number and the resurrection number were massively bigger than the registration number. And so we hadn't realized how big a lever Reducing ch…”
Schultz: Meg Whitman Campaigned Against Gay Marriage in California
“Meg Whitman went and campaigned on banning gay marriage in California.”
Schultz: Facebook Stopped Growing in 2007, Prompting Growth Team Creation
“We stopped growing in 22,007, and that's why we created the growth team.”
Schultz: Meta Aims to Make Reels a Major Monetization Engine
“I think that we want to turn reels into a really major monetization engine, not just an engagement engine.”
Alex Schultz: Less than 1% of Meta employees work on growth
“So across our nearly a 100,000 employees, we have less than one percent of the employees in the growth team.”
Alex Schultz: Coca-Cola shifted ad buying from mostly offline to mostly online
“Coke have changed from being vast majority offline, just I think five years ago, just before the pandemic, in terms of their ad buying, to vast majority online now ad buying.”
Alex Schultz: Meta click-to-messaging ads generate over $10 billion annually
“So click to messaging is north of a ten billion dollar business.”
Alex Schultz: WhatsApp business verification revenue exceeds $1 billion annually
“And that's a north of a billion dollar business.”
Alex Schultz: Meta spends less on marketing than its tech peers
“Apart from Apple, whose marketing is paid for by the carriers, we have the lowest percentage of operating income that we spend on the stuff, the media that we disclose in the XK”
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.”
Schultz: Facebook Lost Messaging Market Share to WhatsApp During Mobile Transition
“We were actually losing market share because the web was declining. Faster than mobile was growing for us, and then WhatsApp and iMessage and all of these things were coming along, and actually the shift of platforms meant even though we were growing mobile me…”
Schultz: KakaoStory Launched a Stories Feature Before Snapchat
“But by the way, cacao stories launched before Snapchat stories launched.”
Schultz: Meta Jumped From 49th to 4th in PwC Future Potential Rankings
“Pricewaterhouse releases this report every year, and we've gone from, like, 49 to fourth.”
Schultz Says eBay Was Run by Consultants During His Tenure
“And how to put together a very good deck, because it was run by consultants.”
Schultz: Facebook Pioneered MAU Metrics When Competitors Tracked Registered Users
“Meta, back when it was Facebook, innovated by moving from activated confirmed registered users to monthly active users. And no one talked about that before. They were still talking about their registered user base back then. That's what MySpace talked about.”