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 12 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
Professional CEOs struggle to innovate more than founders struggle to manage
“And we thought there was a reason for that because it was much harder for a professional CEO to learn to be an innovator than for an innovator to learn to be a CEO.”
Steve Ballmer's executive presence won Microsoft the early cloud battle against Google
“But, you know, in the early days of that battle, when they had way better product, Google had a way better product, Balmer would, and Balmer's still CEO at the time, would show up in companies and say, I'm here. Is Larry Page going to come visit? And of course…”
Horowitz: Consensus hiring policies for executive roles are destructive
“A lot of times you'll see rules in early stage companies where, okay, everybody's got to vote thumbs up in order for us to hire this person, or everybody's got to score them eight out of 10 or better or whatever. But with an executive, that kind of policy can …”
Horowitz: Andreessen Horowitz faced criticism for marketing VC before competitors copied it
“It was basically known as a given that you did not market Venture capital firms. Nobody had ever marketed their venture capital firm in any kind of context, and it's definitely the decision we got the most criticism for before everybody copied it”
Horowitz: Macroeconomics is a complex system that is fundamentally unanalyzable
“There's nothing more unpredictable than macroeconomics. Like, it is a very, very complex Complex system. You know, it's path dependent. It's not analyzable. You know, everybody's always making predictions, and they're always wrong until they're right, like a b…”
Okta suffered severe employee attrition early on due to improper sales strategy
“Okta went through a very difficult time early on and they had like, you know, very deep attrition. And so Todd asked me to go talk to the company about why like why people should stay in the company. Like it was that bad.”
Horowitz: Board members must control the board to build deep CEO trust
“Well, look, I think in order to accomplish that, you really have to be the board member that controls the board. So if you're like a board member and you're the third strongest person on the board and you have a trust relationship with the CEO, that's not goin…”
Andreessen Horowitz fines team members $10 per minute for tardiness to meetings
“We find people basically, if you're on time, but if you're late, it's 10 dollars a minute for a meeting with an entrepreneur.”
Reed Hastings barred DVD executives from staff meetings during Netflix's streaming pivot
“Kind of the example that I use, the parallel example, is Reed Hastings when he switched the business from CDs to streaming, which, or DVDs to streaming, sorry. You know, he had no streaming revenue, and, you know, the DVD business was, not only was the entire …”
Horowitz: Destructive board behavior stems from members trying to sound smart
“I think the mistake board members make is they say things because they want to, like, sound smart and impress the other board members as opposed to saying things because they know what the reaction might be, and how it might affect how the company operates goi…”
Horowitz: Counterintuitive rules set culture by forcing employees to ask why
“Probably the key thing on a shocking rule is that it has to surprise people. People have to ask themselves, why in the world do we have that rule? That seems crazy. And one of my favorite rules like that, of course, is Tom Coughlin's, if you're on time, you're…”