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
Costolo: Silicon Valley hero mythology falsely elevates founders above normal people
“The thing that I believe that maybe many people in the industry disbelieve, I think that as opposed to the mythology of Silicon Valley of there are these sort of superheroes out there, and they have these amazing superpowers that the rest of us don't have, the…”
Costolo: Improv comedy teaches founders to trust initial instincts
“Some of the things I learned about improvising helped me being an entrepreneur. 100%. There's no question about it. Things like you just have to run with whatever you've got to go on. Any, whatever your first idea is, whatever your instincts are, Run with thos…”
Costolo: Large-company employees can adapt as flexible startup 'stem cells'
“No, I don't agree with that thesis. I think that people surprise you and people who were in very specific functional roles in company X when it was 10,000 people can jump into a startup and be a, you know, what I would call a stem cell and play multiple roles …”
Costolo: Founders receive flawed advice driven by investor success bias
“A lot of CEOs and entrepreneurs are given bad advice by investors that are based on success biases of other things they've invested in, They're given bad advice by their CEOs who are giving their advice based on the success biases of their own companies.”
Costolo: Earning a regular salary deters people from taking early-career risks
“Once you start making money and have a salary, you don't want to go back to scraping two pennies together.”
Costolo: Startup vision becomes dogma when teams cannot question it
“Sometimes one of the reasons that startups and companies don't learn quickly is because they have some vision that becomes dogma because you're not allowed to question it.”
Costolo: Startup optimism must be counterbalanced by radical truth-seeking
“You have to have this really aggressive dose of optimism that's offset by, we always have to be able to tell each other the truth, and we always have to be able to interrogate what we believe to be true.”
Costolo: Giving teams ownership of solutions yields better creativity and accountability
“By doing that and not being prescriptive about the solution, but giving the team ownership and authority over the solution, they're going to be a lot more creative. They're probably going to be aggressive and creative and, you know, and then it's easy to hold …”
Costolo: CEOs must compartmentalize and focus strictly on high-leverage priorities
“As an entrepreneur and a CEO, you have to be able to compartmentalize. Otherwise, you know, you go insane because there are always 50 fires you can be thinking about fighting and worrying about. You have to choose what you're going to focus on. Focus on those …”
Costolo: Startup leadership is always hard, anyone claiming otherwise lies
“If you had one sentence of advice for a new first time CEO, what would it be? And I looked at him and I said, it's always hard. And people who tell you otherwise are just not being truthful. It's always hard.”
Costolo: Scaling CEOs wrongly assume satellite offices automatically adopt HQ culture
“I think the biggest mistake a lot of CEOs of companies that are scaling outside their headquarters office for the first time make are They assume that all of the offices understand and operate based on, you know, the CEO and the headquarters folks understandin…”
Twitter embedded SF executives overseas for years during global expansion
“So one of the things I did when we opened international offices was I would send a couple of my folks from my leadership team in San Francisco to open the office and stay there for a One to two years as we built that office out and brought in local leaders and…”
Costolo: Great VCs assist with recruiting and avoid giving product advice
“I think that, you know, great investors are helpful when you ask them to be helpful and need them to be helpful, and they dig in and roll up their sleeves with things like recruiting, particularly on areas like recruiting or another area where a CEO may need h…”