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
O'Leary: BlueYard will never raise a growth fund or expand geographically
“Blue Yard is always going to be a small firm, everybody's always going to be equal we're only ever going to have one strategy and one fund, and we're only ever going to have one office, and we're always going to focus on early stage, we're never going to raise…”
O'Leary: Large venture capital fund sizes prevent genuine early-stage focus
“I think for entrepreneurs, what is a good guide is always looking at the fund size. So you can say that you're an early stage firm or you focus on early stage, but if you You've got this huge, big fund, you know, it will never be it can never be a core part of…”
O'Leary: Most VC firms fail by trying to build a legacy brand
“Assume that with Blue Yard, we have to leave some kind of lasting legacy and brand. Cause that's where a majority of VC firms fail.”
O'Leary: Early-stage startups often fail by hiring senior executives too early
“The one thing that the board should hopefully protect you from and have, give you good guidance is on hiring the wrong people, or sorry, the right people too early, because sometimes you can bring in somebody who really only works well if they have 50 engineer…”
O'Leary: Great European startups will always be acquired by global capital
“No, because the capital is global, highly mobile. The biggest occurs in Europe are Google, Microsoft, SAP, and I don't care. And now Chinese companies Chinese companies, Japanese companies, I think that that makes it less of a problem. So big companies will be…”
O'Leary: BlueYard Capital intends to invest in science fiction technologies
“Jason and I were huge astronomy geeks and science fiction geeks, and so we think we've told a couple of people we're also going to try and do a couple of science fiction investments.”
O'Leary: The European tech ecosystem will become increasingly engineering-driven
“So we think the European ecosystem is going to geek up and it's going to be much more supportive for this wave of entrepreneurs.”
O'Leary: Willingness to scrap all code predicts seed-stage startup success
“Looking at seed and going to A, the more fluid and brutally honest teams are with themselves and how good their product is and the willingness to make extreme iterations, even if it means canning literally every line of code. That I've found to be a recipe for…”
O'Leary: Business books are nauseatingly predictable and should be half a page
“I hate reading business books. I think they are nauseatingly predictable, and they should be half a page instead of 200 pages, so you're not going to hear a business book from me.”
O'Leary: The ultimate investment thesis is unbundling economies into atomic units
“I'm not excited by any sector the most. The most excited about economies being broken down into atomic, highly efficient atomic units versus inefficient big entities, and that applied to every single sector.”