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 17 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
Kamal Ravikant: VCs shouldn't legally invest LP capital into social deals
“I don't think legally should be able to invest in that, because it's not my money. It's other people who trust it. I really feel very strongly. These people trusted me with their money.”
Kamal Ravikant: 90% of VCs add no value and 70% are dangerous
“He's like, 90% of VCs are not helpful, and 70% of VCs are actually dangerous. You know, it's actually, I think he was exaggerating a bit, but there's a strong element of truth in it.”
Kamal Ravikant: Entrepreneurs create startup value, not venture capitalists
“I think the entrepreneur is the one who needs to have the power. The entrepreneur is the one who creates the value, not the VCs.”
Kamal Ravikant prefers operator AngelList syndicates over traditional VCs
“I would take their money over a lot of VCs any day, in a heartbeat, because I've actually been”
Kamal Ravikant: Effective founders build product instead of attending conferences
“The doers are usually not at the meetups. Doers are not at a lot of the conferences. They're home coding.”
Kamal Ravikant: Venture capital is not real work compared to running startups
“And honestly, I don't think it's real work, because what is my work? It's meetings and research, and maybe once in a while fundraising, right, and helping companies, which I do anyway. Like, real work is making payroll, you know, having to go and put payroll o…”
Kamal Ravikant: Hands-off 'dumb money' is often the best startup capital
“Honestly, sometimes the best money is dumb money. People give you cash and leave you alone. It's your job to pull this off, right? I genuinely believe it depends on the investor, the person, what they're known for. You know, some are known for being helpful, s…”
Kamal Ravikant: Founders unable to produce mock-ups or prototypes shouldn't build tech
“You gotta have product. A product can be mock-ups and like, you know, LOIs from customers. A product can be an actual, you know, working prototype. It's gotta be something. You gotta, if you're not capable of doing that, you're not capable of, you know, you sh…”
Kamal Ravikant: Founders bear single-bet risk while VCs diversify portfolios
“The entrepreneur is the one who makes, who loses big, because they're going all in on one thing for their life, right? For three, five years of their life. For a VC, you're just another company in their portfolio.”
Kamal Ravikant: Treat every investor as an incentivized advisor
“Ultimately, anyone who puts money in your company, you should look at them as an advisor who's incentivized now, because their money's in it.”
Kamal Ravikant: Startup success requires unglamorous weekend work, not media glamor
“If you're doing a real, like the real entrepreneurs, everyone I've known who's succeeded, especially people who succeeded multiple times, there was nothing sexy about what they're doing. You know, you watch their weekends, you watch their time. They're just si…”
Kamal Ravikant broke his rule against uncapped notes to back Bolt
“My most recent investment was a company called Bolt. And normally, funny enough, it was a uncapped note. I never signed on do uncapped notes, just on principle alone.”
Kamal Ravikant: A VC's primary job is saying no to almost everything
“As an entrepreneur, my job was to say yes to everything and figure it out, right? My job as a VC, that this is the weird thing, is to say no to everything and to find that occasional yes.”
Kamal Ravikant: Cloud infrastructure lets two people build what once required thirty
“And to build, you know, currently, like what we built back in the late nineties with giant teams of 20, 30 engineers and product managers and all, and we have our own servers and our own hardware. You can do that now with one or two guys and Amazon services an…”
Kamal Ravikant: My self-published book outsells most New York Times bestsellers
“That shit, that's what happened with me, and my book outsells most New York Times bestsellers, and it's only on Amazon, right?”