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
VCs wrongly expect first-time founders to be market-ready immediately
“I don't think anyone's market ready from the get go. I think it's a flawed assumption with VCs where they try to imagine that, that these first time founders or any founders are going to just figure it all out.”
A new breakout consumer mobile company will emerge in 2016 or 2017
“If history is a guide, you know, this year, next year, we're going to see a breakout in a brand new company.”
Startups needing under $2M in deficit financing should not raise VC
“I think if your company needs probably, you know, less than a million or two million dollars of deficit financing to accomplish the mission, You know, you shouldn't raise venture capital for that.”
First-time founders possess a unique audacity and fearlessness
“I think first time founders have a level of audacity that, you know, sometimes more experienced people don't have because they, they're just, there's no fear.”
Founder vision and instincts matter more than academic pedigree
“And I also, I've just never bought into this kind of elitist way of thinking about like where you went to school You know, where you work, you know, whether you work at Google or, you know, Apple or something, it's more of, you know, what's your idea? What, wh…”
Bijan Sabet favors VR over AR as an investment sector
“Yes. I mean, yes. If I have to pick one, I pick VR over AR, but AR, AR is certainly interesting.”
Investing in post-bubble consumer tech was non-obvious in the mid-2000s
“The idea of backing entrepreneurs that were first-time entrepreneurs after the bubble burst in consumer, you know, right now it seems very obvious, but I can tell you at the time, it wasn't obvious.”
Twitter had under 250,000 daily active users when Spark Capital invested
“There was less than 250,000 daily active users.”
No other platform matches Twitter's viral retweet distribution model
“This is a very unique distribution platform where things like retweets and things like that can take a piece of content or information and spread it in a way that no other platform, you know, could do or at the time, certainly, and even today, I don't think ot…”
David Karp became a great CEO after hiring Derek Godfrey
“David Karp's CEO chops went from good to great when he brought in Derek Godfrey to run engineering.”
Facebook is more likely to acquire breakout products than build them
“There's a higher chance that there's a breakout that Facebook wants to buy than Facebook creates themselves.”
Google offers enormous utility but is not a fun product
“Google has enormous utility, but I don't think Google's was, is a fun product.”