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 14 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
Permanent board seats are the death of every great venture investor
“First of all, know that boards are the death of every great investor. So Be wary. If you sell to founders that when they take your money, you will join their board and be on their board forever. Know that you have just ended your career eventually.”
De-escalate angry colleagues by voicing exaggerated, expletive-laden criticisms of yourself
“And one of the easiest ways is to simply have their anger named and their thoughts named. So I will simply say, hey, I sense that you're feeling a lot of anger right now, and my guess is that some of the thoughts you're having are blank, and then I'll really g…”
Outsource immediate business decisions to uninvolved parties when experiencing fear or anger
“If I have to act immediately, I outsource my thinking to someone else. Someone who's not in fear or anger. So I share the situation with someone who's not part of the situation, and their brain, therefore, is not triggered because it doesn't matter to them, an…”
Benchmark's Peter Fenton discloses a genuine personal weakness within five minutes
“The master of this is Peter Fenton at Benchmark. He, within five minutes of any conversation, he will tell you a weakness that he has, and it's not, he's not joking about it. He tells you a real weakness, and my God, it makes me love him, but I'm not unique in…”
Startup CEOs need warm network introductions from investors, not strategic advice
“And usually it's not strategic thinking because you have very little information about the company. They're at the company, 30 days a month, 12 hours a day. They have so much more information than you do. But what you have that they don't is you have a network…”
Mochary: Leaders Should Only Accept Feedback That Resonates With Them
“If the feedback is something that does not resonate with you, Then no, you do not need to accept it. I think you do need to say thank you, and you do need to reflect back what it is that they said so that they know that you've heard them, but you don't then ne…”
Train a Chief of Staff by granting total email and calendar access
“The best way to train chief of staff is to give them full access. They have complete access to your email, to your calendar, to every meeting that you're in. So they literally sit beside you, listen in on every call and sit in every meeting. And that lasts for…”
Y Combinator historically refused to accept enrolled Stanford students into its accelerator
“They were students, and YC wouldn't even accept them into their class.”
Mochary: Joy is a far greater motivator for founders than fear
“Fear is an incredible motivator, and I think that most people, including myself in my earlier days, that was my main motivation. Now, in my later years, I've learned to replace that with joy, which is an even greater motivator and certainly much more pleasant,…”
Mochary: Never force transparent feedback on stressed employees without agreed timing
“There has to be, you can't force this upon someone in the middle of them being stressed about another situation or being in the middle of another task. So the key is to simply reach out and say, Hey, I'd like to clear something with you is now an okay time for…”
Conducting monthly calendar energy audits dissipates executive fear within three months
“What you'll find is usually by month three, once you've done this three times, your calendar will be mostly green, mostly energy raising, and you will find yourself, I believe, feeling tremendous amounts of joy, and that fear will likely have dissipated a lot,…”
Mochary: Poor performance stems from disliking tasks rather than lacking skill
“Now, typically, if they're bad at something, it's because they hate it, and therefore it They don't want to do it. They don't want to invest in studying how to do it. They don't want to practice it. So they do it just the bare minimum required, which of course…”