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 87 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 5 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
Rejecting the MVP model drove Odoo's ultimate success
“It was very risky, because it took time to monetize and get to something that I could sell and everything, but now that I am looking back, it's probably what Medo do today. It's because I thought about the big picture, everything's smooth together, and it's no…”
Management software will commoditize into standardized horizontal tools across industries
“And I think as part of, for my vision is to commoditize the management software market. When you see that as a commoditization, I think everybody will use the same CRM, the same accounting, the same website builder. It doesn't have to be dedicated to one indus…”
Odoo's product is years ahead of Microsoft and SAP
“I think our product is years ahead of the competition. There is no way they can do what we do.”
Engineering managers must be the best developer on their team
“There is no way you can Make a team of developers become a better developer if you are not the best developer of the team yourself.”
Giving budgets to employees encourages irresponsible spending
“If you give budget to people, they will just spend the budget. They won't have any responsibility or whatever. If you don't give them budget, they will have to spend responsibly.”
IQ tests are the second best predictor of job performance
“One thing I noticed is that we also do an IQ test, and it's the second best predictive KPI on the performance of the person.”
Odoo bans recurring meetings to avoid traditional managers
“I forbid the recurring meeting at the company. They can do meetings. But on the job, or for specific tasks, or trainings, but not recurring meeting. I mean, recurring meeting is a way to manage people, and we try to avoid managers. We want team leaders that wo…”
SAP and Microsoft enterprise software is shitty, slow, and expensive
“On the market, you have two types of market. You have the large players, like SAP and Microsoft. They do several applications, but it's shitty, it's slow, it's expensive. And people are not happy using it.”
Universal software adoption requires low pricing
“If you want to commoditize the market and have every company own your software, you have to have a very small price.”
Odoo will displace SAP within 10 to 20 years
“First, I think it's just a matter of time. I think I don't know how they can survive to what's coming in from them. We have so much advance, years in our head, we are stealing so much clients to them, that it's just a matter of time for me. But it's gonna take…”
SAP's S/4HANA ERP product is a disaster, says Odoo CEO
“Thanks for Sapphorana, which is a disaster. Nobody wants to go. So that opens the door to new entrants like us.”
In slow markets like ERPs, superior product always beats marketing
“You can save time with marketing, you can save two or three years, you can grow the company, but at some point you cannot, the product matters. I am on a market that is very slow, you know, ERPs are very slow, LCPs is still shitty after two years, Microsoft Dy…”
Scaling is easier by training young talent than hiring VPs
“I think it's easier to scale when you don't need to get the top people. I mean, you just recruit young people, a lot of them, and train them and make them evolve. It's easier than always looking at the best VP of X, the best managers of X.”
Odoo ignores resumes and evaluates candidates strictly on practical tests
“So we don't look at resumes, we just make them do some practice and look at it.”
Hiring well-rounded candidates yields average talent
“If you look for people that are perfect in everything, you will get people that are average in everything. I mean, if you want people who speak multiple languages, who is a good developer, who is a good communicator, Probably it's gonna be average. So if you d…”
Odoo never hires managers or directors externally
“Yes, we never recruit managers and directors. Never ever, even when we reopen a subsidiary in a different country.”
Opening Odoo's San Francisco office was a mistake
“Retrospectively, if I would have opened it elsewhere, I would have preferred, yes.”
Meeting VCs outside active deal cycles is a waste of time
“Waste of time. I meet them when we have an operation, so once every three years we get a transaction, then I'm happy to meet everybody, but .”
Odoo will never sell to an industrial buyer
“We will never sell. At least industrial exit. So it's clear.”
Good product UX is often more efficient than AI agents
“So in a lot of ways, UX having a very, very good product is more efficient than AI, but there are also a lot of use cases where AI is good.”
Traditional education destroys personal responsibility in young people
“And young people, they are not responsible by default. School, the education system killed that.”
Reinvesting personal funds in Odoo because it reliably returns 50% yearly
“I still if I have money, I don't have a lot of money in my bank account, but if I have money, I will buy or do shares. Even more. I mean, it's the best investment I can do, so. It's purely financial. I don't know another company that can give me 50% year after…”
Management software market will consolidate to two or three players
“I do believe that management software will follow the same trends. Today, there are plenty of factors. But in the future, such technology will be so will be a commodity, like so much mature that there will be one, two, or three players that will have the world…”
Success in business requires complete obsession, says Odoo CEO
“You have to be obsessed. I don't think you can succeed if you are not obsessed.”
Odoo switched to open core with 80% free features
“So I had to do another pivot in the business model, and that time I switched to an open core. Business model, where 80% of the features are open source and 20% are for a fee.”
Odoo grew revenue 50% annually for 20 straight years
“So if you look at the past 20 years, we basically grew at 50% per year, year after year, every year.”
Odoo nearly went bankrupt trying to remain purely open source
“And I fought to keep this open source business model, but To the point where we were close to bankruptcy, so I had to switch.”
Software maturity makes product quality matter more than vertical customization
“So we think, I think that as these applications get mature pretty much all the CRM, they look the same today. So it's not so much about CRM for that business or that business, they are the same. So it's more about the quality of your product now rather than ho…”
Simple complex software requires genius developers, not an army
“In order to build such a complex software, because companies are complex, to make it super easy it's more about having the right people, a few of them, a few genius guys, rather than having an army of 10,000 developers.”
Odoo keeps financial budgets restricted to CFO and finance team
“So we do have a budget, but it's the role of the CFO, the finance team, and we don't share that with the teams. So the budget is just about can we recruit, yes or no, or much, and that's it. The team leaders, they don't have to worry about that. Even the direc…”
Most teams at Odoo operate without performance goals
“So on some teams, like the salespeople, we have goals, obviously they have sales target, but it's an exception. Most of the teams don't have.”
KPIs fail because performance evaluation is inherently subjective
“And so, I mean, things are very subjective. If you put KPIs, it's very difficult to and it was obvious, I mean, it was obvious for the whole team that this guy was the best. Yet, on the KPIs, it was the worst. It's just that we gave him the worst project.”
Odoo beats competitors in recruiting solely through hiring speed
“And we beat the market because we are fast, just because of that.”
Over 90% of Odoo dismissals stem from competency, not culture fit
“It's always competencies. For me it's always you will succeed or you will never, but it's always, for us, 90, probably more than 90% of the people we dismiss, it's always competencies.”
Tech CEOs waste time on external networking over operational needs
“I think a lot of CEOs are not right. If you look at the agenda, They are constantly meeting people, going to have a coffee with someone, and, or going to events, and I think the company needs them more than the external people.”
Doubts about an employee signal it is already too late
“I keep saying to myself, when there is a doubt, there is no doubt. You know, we are entrepreneurs, and as an entrepreneur, we are always optimistic. We want things to make it work, we think it's gonna be better, and if, even if it doesn't work with someone, we…”
Office expansion succeeds on leadership quality, not location
“For me, the way we operate is that the key is not so much about the country or the city, the key is to find the right director. I mean, you can have the best location, you go in San Francisco or Silicon Valley, and you have an average director, it won't work.”
Odoo has been profitable without outside funding since 2014
“We are growing since, since, since 2014. We didn't raise money anymore. We are profitable.”
Burning more money on marketing would not help Odoo much
“I couldn't burn much more in marketing, but I don't think it would help a lot.”
SAP failed in the small and mid-sized business market
“On small and mid-sized, they failed. On the large companies, they are still the main option.”
Odoo built its inbound engine before testing outbound with 30 reps
“So to be fair, we started a few months ago but it's only a few people, I think, 30 people at the company.”
Odoo has one product, three departments, and 400,000 lines of code
“We only have one product. One way to deliver the service. Only three big departments. All our companies everywhere operate the same way. Our product is only 400,000 lines of code”
Management layers create a constant dark force toward company complexity
“When you start to have managers and managers of managers and team leaders, they all want to do something. They all have ideas and the complexity is that there is like a dark force that push everyone to complexify the company. And to keep your company simple, y…”
Odoo executives took out loans to purchase shares every funding round
“Every round we were buying shares. And to the point where we get a big loan because we don't have money. We are just simple personnel, so we get a big loan just to acquire shares and at every round.”