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 20 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
Andreessen: VCs should only invest in obvious diamonds, not hidden gems
“Don't ever do diamonds in the rough, only do diamonds.”
Andreessen: VCs do not need to like founders they back
“And so I say no, you don't, because I think, like, if you're trying to fulfill your personal emotional needs at work, like, I think that's a very fundamental problem, and you shouldn't try to do that.”
Andreessen: Professionals should never bring their whole self to work
“We always say, do not bring your whole self to work. Like, whatever you do, do not bring your whole self to work.”
Andreessen: Passing on promising startups over price was always a mistake
“I think every time we passed on a promising venture company over price, I think it's been a mistake.”
Andreessen: Learning from mistakes is uniquely pernicious in venture capital
“In venture, the same thing happens. If you invest in a category, or if you invest in a kind of company or you invest in a kind of founder and it doesn't go well, it's extremely easy to learn from the mistake, right, and to basically say, all right, I touched t…”
Andreessen: Founder drive is revealed by early DIY projects, not credentials
“And then what I find on that, that one in particular, well, actually number two and three, like you don't necessarily see them on the resume, but like you can generally see them in the background. I think if you spend enough time, you know, with people, you ca…”
Andreessen: Some top founders are born driven, without childhood trauma
“Some of the best founders in history have no trace of trauma in their background that I can tell. And I'll just give you two examples. You know, Zuckerberg is one who, you know, grew up in a classic upper middle class, you know, New Jersey household, very, you…”
Andreessen: Upside on $5M seed check equals $500M growth investment
“Because as you know, the upside on the five million dollar check is every bit as big as the upside on a five hundred million dollar growth investment.”
Andreessen: Overfunding is more dangerous to startups than starvation
“More companies die from indigestion than from starvation which is overfunding is actually very dangerous to the operations of a company.”
Andreessen: VCs almost never lead down rounds in other firms' companies
“No new investor wants to do a down round in anybody else's company. If you put the investor hat on and you're like, I'm going to go do a down round in this company, because I'm going to be the hero and save the company or whatever, because it raced too high la…”
Andreessen: Non-tech growth investors create cap table conflicts for startups
“If you bring in non-tech mentality, non, whatever you want to call it, Silicon Valley mentality, growth stage investors, you do set yourself up for, like, you're now going to get a different set of pressures.”
Andreessen: High-innovation societies inherently produce wider economic inequality
“Having said that, like, if you want the country that is going to go to the moon and build AI, and all the rest of the stuff that is happening here, You know, you're going to have a dispersion. Of course, you're going to have a dispersion of outcomes.”
Andreessen: Failed founders develop permanent emotional biases against initial startup categories
“The founder version of the mistake is if a founder starts a company in a category and the founder doesn't work, the founder is then emotionally angry at that category for the rest of his life and will not acknowledge when there's something that's going to work…”
Andreessen tests founder IQ by whether they take notes during pitches
“My personal formula is basically the follows, is basically as follows, which is you need high IQ as table stakes. Like, you just need somebody who's, like, incredibly smart. My basic test is if I have my notebook open and they're talking, am I, like, writing o…”
Andreessen: Core founder drive is a primal urge to build, not greed
“But I do think there's a more fundamental ambition, which is, I want to build something. Of my own that really demonstrate. I want to really demonstrate what I can do. And I have a very primal drive to do that. And, you know, it gets kind of, you know, you cas…”
Andreessen: Founders struggle to find confidants out of fear of showing weakness
“Another thing I always thought about a lot as a founder, and I really see this now as a VC, is that, in particular, founders have a very hard time ever finding anybody they can confide in, right? Because if you, if, as a founder, you feel like if you admit tha…”
Marc Andreessen: Second chances are available in tech unless legal issues occur
“I think as long as you're still alive and as long as you've conducted yourself in a way that, you know, you haven't, you know, brought, you know, some sort of really fun, you know, some sort of fundamental, like legal issue on your head or something like that.…”
Andreessen: Early startup mistakes persist forever even in successful companies
“If you get those right as a founder, like, the payoff from that will go for decades. And if you get those wrong, like, even if your company succeeds, you're going to live with those sins forever. They're gonna extrapolate out.”
Andreessen: A VC firm's expansion strategies depend on early-stage success
“At the end of the day, the early stage business has to work. If the early stage business works, we have option value in doing all this other stuff, but that, that always is the core of the business.”
Andreessen: Founders dangerously misinterpret senior VC questions as direct orders
“You do have to be like really, really careful, I think as you get more senior in this field, be really careful both in your firm and also with founders, you know, God forbid telling them what to do, A B, suggesting what they do, which is sort of the same as te…”