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 9 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
Small stakes in massive outliers beat high ownership in mid-sized exits
“You have to be in the big outliers to drive great returns, and you're better off being in them at a very small percent than owning a large percent of a company that exits for three to 500. Those just aren't going to move the needle.”
AI compute costs cap startup gross margins at 60% to 70%
“You know, a lot of companies, just because of the cost of computing inference, it's harder to say you're going to be an 80, 90% gross margin company anymore. But, you know, great companies are, you know, 60, 70% gross margin.”
Foundation model markets will never be dominated by one player
“These markets are never dominated by one player. There's going to be an alternative.”
VC funds should never sell early stakes in outlier winners
“Like I think if you're a believer, I think more than ever, we're in an environment where your outliers, your winners will compound and drive fund returns. So those are certainly not the ones you want to sell from.”
Multi-team VC platform expansion destroys partner alignment
“When you go full, full stack and you have like five different teams, you start doing sector, like everybody's kind of out for a pass and Sometimes I've seen this in other places where you feel like, well, I could do whatever I could do great things, but I can'…”
Small initial check increases next-round lead likelihood by 10x
“And I would say if you get even a wedge into a company, you're 10 X more likely to be able to participate significantly in the next round or lead.”
Outlier venture investments do not require internal partnership dissent
“I don't really ascribe to this point of view where you need like a bunch of no's and there's one person who's a yes, and that leads to an outlier. I know there are examples of that, but that's not really been my experience in the firms I've been part of or wit…”
Lacking a prior relationship is the main reason VCs lose deals
“The thing that's most often is that you were late to the party, right? Like, you know, you were not intentional enough that this was a company that you wanted to be tracking and building a relationship, so you're coming in, you know, a couple weeks or a month …”