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 10 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
Ittycheria: Selling to VC portfolio companies never works for startups
“A lot of investors say, well, I have this portfolio of companies you can talk to and maybe they'll become customers. That never works because no company is going to buy from you because there's some interconnection between a common investor.”
Ittycheria: Test investors by their value-to-overhead ratio
“And to me, the real test of a investor and a board member is what I call the value to overhead ratio. Adding new investors and board members creates more overhead for the CEO. So why is that overhead worth it? Well, what's the value that they're providing?”
Ittycheria: Claiming everything is perfect signals ignorance or dishonesty to investors
“And any seasoned investor, if they hear that things are going perfectly well, will either worry, one, that you don't know what you don't know, or two, that you're lying to them.”
Ittycheria: Sharing bad news early builds board trust and drives problem-solving
“So with my board, I share bad news very, very early, and it does a couple things. One, they then trust me because I'm not trying to hide information. And two, now they're really motivated to help me actually solve all those problems.”
Ittycheria: Bad news travels slowly and is always worse than reported
“Bad news travels very slowly, especially up the organization. And it's far worse than what people are telling you. So whenever I see bad news or hear about bad news, I assume two things. One, I'm the last to know. And two, it's far worse than what people are t…”
Dev Ittycheria: Leaders must sometimes be inefficient to build team buy-in
“There's times when I do think that being a little more patient and recognizing that sometimes you have to be inefficient to be effective is an important attribute, and that's something I constantly need to work on. That the best answer is not the shortest path…”
Ittycheria: Scaling leaders must be 'students of the game', not masters
“One of the attributes I think of is really important for leaders who can scale is that they're students of the game and not the master of the game. And what I mean by that is that you have to have the attitude that you don't have all the answers. That you have…”
Ittycheria: Leaders overlook data asymmetry in internal versus external hiring
“One of the classic mistakes I see a lot of people make is when they're assessing an internal candidate versus an external candidate, and the biggest mistake they make is they don't fully appreciate the asymmetry of data that they have between the internal cand…”
Ittycheria: Employees fail due to either skill gaps or motivation gaps
“And as I said, there's really two reasons why people fail. One is either they have the skills to do the job, or they don't have the will or the motivation to do the job.”
Ittycheria: Superior products could not easily overcome 1990s enterprise account control
“In the early nineties, the large companies had an enormous amount of account control. With customers. And so even though if you have the best mousetrap, it was still not easy to win business because these companies have such good account control. They take the…”