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 21 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
McCall: Impending market downturn will result in a wave of dead unicorns
“And you're going to see that happen when the market downturns coming up here you're going to see a bunch of I think, what was it? Bill Gurley said, you're going to see a lot of dead unicorns floating around.”
McCall: Mutual funds writing $400M tech checks signals late-stage market excess
“Mutual funds coming in and paying outrageous prices and putting four hundred million into companies. These are all signs that were late on the stage.”
McCall: Capital-efficient startups historically outperform momentum-investing bets
“Right now we're in the middle of momentum investing, which is about pumping enormous amounts of money into companies with the hopes that someone else would pump even more money later on. But the strategy that has worked historically the best are those companie…”
McCall: Continuous random acts of kindness drive VC success and deal flow
“There's only one rule that I found and we've tried over 20 years, I've been in the business 20 years, we've tried everything under the sun to try and figure out what drives success and what doesn't you know, in terms of predicting, and it's, it really comes do…”
McCall: Uber was evolutionary mobile-meets-taxis rather than revolutionary
“Uber is not revolutionary. It's evolutionary, right? It's mobile meets, you know, taxis at the end of the day, but it's how it was done.”
McCall: Pritzker Group held one company for 14 years
“So we've got one deal, we're 14 years in, and we're still the only person, we're the only investor writing checks still to support the company.”
McCall: Applying tech to ugly industries creates strong competitive barriers
“One is an ugly industry where someone is bringing technology in. It's a huge competitive advantage and barrier to entry because in those industries, you either have the domain expertise or you're a technologist, right? But very few people have both.”
McCall: Most innovations combine evolutionary ideas rather than revolutionary breakthroughs
“Very few things are revolutionary Most things are two evolutionary things coming together.”
McCall: Venture capital is among the first asset classes to lose liquidity
“Venture being a very high risk asset class will be one of the first to lose liquidity.”
McCall: Millennial and female entrepreneurship will define the next 15 years
“So if there's one thing that in my life I want to do from this point forward is is, you know, to talk about the hero's journey, to talk about whatever wisdoms I have, but more importantly is to encourage this incredible batch of entrepreneurs coming through ri…”
McCall: Only 4% to 6% of venture-funded deals have female founders
“I think it's something like four to six percent, which, you know, pretty small.”
McCall: The Honest Company grew from zero to several hundred million in three years
“Jessica Alba at the honest company, right? Which has gone from zero to several hundred million in three years.”
McCall: Pritzker Group invested in next-generation AI assistant Viv
“The other, another deal that we recently did it's coming called Viv, V-I-V. And it's next generation Siri. It's Dag and his team who were the founders of Siri.”
McCall: Pritzker Group manages a $7 billion evergreen capital pool
“So we have, the advantage we have is with the Pritzke Group, we have a seven billion dollar evergreen pool of capital to invest off of.”
McCall: Pritzker Group invested $60 million into SMS Assist
“So we've written up to sixty million dollars into a deal. One of my companies, SMS Assist we put fifteen million in. The company was doing well, needed another forty-five million, and we wrote the check.”
McCall: Every reference during FeedBurner diligence praised Dick Costolo
“And when we were doing our diligence on on FeedBurner with Dick Koslow, what was interesting is every single person I talked to used the same quote. I'm in the Dick Koslow fan club.”
McCall: Pritzker Group reduced check sizes to prepare for market correction
“So we've been actually kind of holding our dry powder. We've done some smaller checks in the last 18 months. We've done quite a number of deals, but smaller check sizes, but we're holding our dry powder because it's, it'll, there'll be some really exciting opp…”
McCall: Half of Pritzker Group's SoCal portfolio has female leadership
“I was looking at our Southern California portfolio. We opened up our West Coast office about three years ago. Half are deals. Half are either co-founded or led by female founders.”
McCall: HelloGiggles reached 15 million unique visitors with zero capital
“On no money, literally no money, they've gone from zero to fifteen million uniques.”
McCall: Pritzker Group focuses on $4M–$10M Series A and B checks
“So our core investment focus is series A and B, and that's, you know, four to ten million dollars on the downstroke, but we have a very active seed program we use strategically. It you know, so that can be as little as two 50 or a 100,000, but really our core …”