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 52 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 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
Claure: I Invested $150M Into FTX at SoftBank Due to FOMO
“So I invested hundred and fifty million dollars on FTX, which I mean, apologies to SoftBank, because I should have never made that investment, but it's probably one decision that has changed my life forever. I'm never going to invest in something that I don't …”
Claure: Pitching Steve Jobs Created the Mobile Phone Trade-In Model
“So back then, I used to own Brightstar. And I had an idea of how could Apple actually double their sales. And after many emails to Steve Jobs, which he wrote me back, no interest. One day he got tired of everybody pinging him that he had to meet me. So he agre…”
Claure: SoftBank disrupted venture capital just like Uber disrupted taxi drivers
“The same way Uber disrupted the taxi drivers, we disrupted the venture capital industry. While people used to write these small checks, we suddenly showed up with a hundred billion dollars, and we disrupted the way venture capital works today, and therefore, w…”
Claure: Tiger Global replicated SoftBank's model, forcing faster dealmaking
“Tiger basically has replicated the SoftBank model, and there's nothing magical about what they're doing, and it's great, because what Tiger does, it forces my teams to make quicker decisions now.”
Claure: The Era of Passive Dumb Capital Is Over
“And at the end, I believe that the new firms are going to be the ones that have the ability To help entrepreneurs alter the course of their business. I think the days of just dumb capital with access are long gone. Those were the days in which capital was free…”
Claure: Advice From Non-Operator VCs Is Cheap and Confuses Founders
“In many cases, I've seen so many board meetings, VCs who've never built businesses, or who've never been around great businesses. I'm just, everybody gives, advice is, is cheap, it's free, right? And many founders sometimes get confused.”
Claure: Bicycle Capital Raised $500M Fund With Just Five LP Calls
“It's a Mubarala, who, Mubarala wanted to make a bet in Latin America, and we've known Mubarala for a while, both you and myself, and then we called five other LPs. We made five phone calls, and the five of them said yes, and it was my family office, so we real…”
Claure: Nubank Is the World's Best Digital Bank
“You look at Nubank. Great example. To me, the world's best digital bank.”
Claure: Three of Uber's Top Five Global Cities Were in LatAm
“When we were investors in Uber, you know, we had to keep it a secret that after New York, three of the top five cities were Latin American cities.”
Claure: LatAm Is the Only Market Where Opportunities Exceed Capital
“Latin America is, to me, the land of opportunity, and I think Latin America is the only place where, which is great, because there are more opportunities than capital available. Everywhere else, There's more capital than opportunities available, which drives c…”
Claure: The Next Decade Will Be LatAm's Best Economic Period
“I am a huge believer in the macro story of Latin America, and I think the next 10 years are going to be the best 10 years of Latin America for two very, very simple reasons.”
Claure: General Atlantic's Best Investment Returns Come From Latin America
“If you look at the returns of GA, people often don't know, but if you truly study GA, the great returns have come from Latin America.”
Claure: SoftBank produced 22 Latin American unicorns in one year
“We have produced, I think, a total of 22 unicorns last year, where before that, there were like one, so it's been amazing what I'm seeing in Latin America.”
Claure: SoftBank tests founder execution, not business models, in LATAM
“And to be fair, we have a competitive advantage. And that's the fact that we have seen these business models being deployed in China and India and the US. So when companies shop in Latin America with a similar business model, we don't need to test whether the …”
Claure: SoftBank constructs Chinese walls when portfolio companies become direct competitors
“What we do at that point in time is we basically split the responsibilities within investment partners. We build these Chinese walls to make sure nobody except me can see what they're doing, and we're very careful in information sharing.”
Claure: VCs should provide full capital upfront to avoid continuous fundraising
“We're believers in you have to provide an entrepreneur the right amount of capital on day one. Entrepreneurs should not be focused half their time trying to raise money and half the time trying to run a business. So why not provide the right amount of capital …”
Claure: SoftBank Will Take 8 LATAM Fund Companies Public by 2022
“My expectation is that we take at least eight of our companies public between this year and next year of the Latin American fund.”
Claure: Non-Ivy League Black founders face extreme fundraising barriers
“We can say whatever we want, but it is hard as hell for black people to raise money if they didn't go to an Ivy League school.”
Claure: Passing on Nubank early due to valuation was a mistake
“I passed on Nubank because of the price at the beginning, when we started the fund and it was the wrong decision because the opportunity was huge.”
Claure: I Am a Good Operator, Not a Good Investor
“I don't think I'm a good investor. I think I can spot good businesses, I can spot good entrepreneurs, but there is a master to invest in, and what I can do is I can bring opportunities, and I can then pass them up to Shu, and Shu often analyzes them a lot bett…”
Claure: Nearly Every Startup Founder Has Faced Bankruptcy
“Every single founder has been in the verge of bankruptcy. Very few have not been.”
Claure: Great Founders Are 90% Right When Trusting Their Gut
“At the end, a great founder, well, you know what they'll do? They're gonna listen to all of us, but at the end, they're gonna trust their God. And their God is 90, or our founder is 90% right. And when you go back to them and say, look at the last 10 decisions…”
Claure: LatAm GDP Is Double India's With One-Third the Population
“And Latin America, if you add the GDP of Latin America, we happen to be two X India with one quarter of these people or one third of the people.”
Claure: Bicycle Capital Has a Deep Alliance With Sequoia China
“So we have a very deep alliance with Sequoia China, and we'll say more Sequoia China, with Neil Shen.”
Claure: Entry valuation is irrelevant for companies targeting massive addressable markets
“The key is to determine in advance if it's a company where price matters or it doesn't. For some companies with an immense opportunity, think of Alibaba, think of Facebook, think of Google, think of Amazon, whatever. It was worth coming in at almost any price …”
Claure: Passing on Nubank early due to valuation was a mistake
“I passed on Nubank because of the price at the beginning when we started the fund, and it was the wrong decision because the opportunity was huge. Now I made that mistake. I said, oh my God, it's too expensive. But I didn't realize that the size of the pie was…”
Claure: Sprint Cut $11B in Costs Under His Leadership
“We basically reduced eleven billion dollars of cost, and we figured that we could do a lot more with a lot less people, a lot less just bureaucracy.”
Claure: SoftBank deploys $40B to $50B annually
“We're investing 40 to fifty billion dollars a year.”
Claure: SoftBank uses Univision TV ads to accelerate fintech portfolio growth
“We're using that company to put ads in traditional TV to help people to download the app of our fintech companies and making our fintech companies explode.”
Claure: SoftBank Passed on Nubank Early On Due to High Price
“I passed on Nubank because of the price at the beginning when we started the fund, and it was the wrong decision because the opportunity was huge.”
Claure: SoftBank backs over 84% of Latin American unicorns
“I was looking at the market share of unicorns that we have in Latin America. It's over 84% of companies”
Claure regrets SoftBank missing major MercadoLibre investment in 2018
“So MercadoLibre, in July, 2018, the value was significantly less, and I didn't push mass enough for us to make an enormous play with MercadoLibre, because I didn't truly understand investing back then.”
Claure: SoftBank aims to deploy $5B annually in Latin America
“Well, you know, if we can continue to do this, my goal would be to invest five billion dollars a year in the foreseeable future.”
Claure: Only 5% of investments are so large that price is irrelevant
“Yeah, that's 95% of our investments. There's a five percent where price doesn't matter, and those you cannot afford to make a mistake.”
Claure: Entry valuation did not matter when investing in Kavak
“Perfect example of that is Kavak in Mexico. The size of the used car marketplace in Latin America, especially in Mexico, is gigantic. So therefore, at the beginning, it didn't matter if the price was 204 hundred million, it really didn't matter because the siz…”
Claure: Bicycle Capital Partners Committing $200M of Their Own Money
“When you look at Bicycle Fund One, We're bringing our own capital. We're probably one of the few funds who, we're bringing more than two hundred million dollars of our own money, right?”
Claure: Brazil Will Become the World's Largest Food Exporter
“Brazil will become the largest food exporter in the world, so all that means is this com, these countries are going to be, I would call them economically sound.”
Claure: Brazil and Mexico Will Rank Among Top 10 Global Economies
“It is expected that both the Brazilian and the Mexican economy Will be among the top 10 economists of the world, so it's nice.”
Claure: LatAm Historically Had World's Lowest VC Investment to GDP
“Latin America had the lowest percentage of venture investing as the percentage of GDP of whatever than any other region in the world, I think as close to Africa.”
Claure: Bicycle Capital Started With Three Partners Before Consolidating to Two
“We had a third partner. And we, we're only two partners. And we were three when we started, and it was those hard discussions that made us be two.”
Claure: 95% of portfolio investments require strict price discipline
“Yeah, that's 95% of our investments. Five percent where price doesn't matter.”
Claure: Kavak's initial $200M-$400M price tag was negligible given market size
“Perfect example of that is Cabac in Mexico. The size of the used car marketplace in Latin America, especially in Mexico, is gigantic. So therefore, at the beginning, it didn't matter. The price was 204 hundred million. It really didn't matter because the size …”
Claure: SoftBank wrote $50M and $8B checks on the same day
“There was a meeting in which we wrote a fifty million dollar check, and there was a meeting that we wrote an eight billion dollar check. And that could happen the same day.”
Claure: SoftBank invests exclusively its own capital with no LPs
“We only invest our own capital. We don't have our own LPs. We don't have specific cycles.”
Claure: Half of the population in Latin America is unbanked
“I mean, half the population is unbanked, right?”
Claure: SoftBank invested in Univision and backed its Televisa acquisition
“We just invested in, in a media company in the U.S. Called Univision, which is, has a 70% market share for Hispanics, And then we helped them buy Televisa in Mexico.”