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 22 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 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
Kaufman: Workers who fail to adapt to AI will be poor or burdens on society
“Seriously, if you're not going to take the time to make yourself valuable, to embrace reality, you're doomed. I'm not going to help you. If you don't want to do this, you're either going to be poor or a burden on society.”
Kaufman: Workers who fail to self-upgrade in the AI era are done
“But if not, fuck you. You're done. You're done. You're not done at Fiverr. You're done. Period. Because no one, there's not going to be demand for people that cannot upgrade themselves.”
Kaufman expects every Fiverr employee to automate 100% of their role
“In an ideal situation, my expectation of you is that each and every one of you, and it doesn't matter what you do, Is going to replace a hundred percent of what you do with automation.”
Micha Kaufman: The AI startup hype cycle mirrors the dot-com bubble
“I feel that we are in a period that is very similar to the .com, but it's now .ai. So it used to be pets.com, it's now pets.ai. Whatever, it's the same bullshit.”
Micha Kaufman: Copyright law is dead overnight due to generative AI
“You know, that copyright is dead essentially. It is dead. It's a notion from 1710, and it's dead overnight. There is no copyright. It's done. It's dead.”
Kaufman: Governments will not allow superintelligent AI to remain in private hands
“What AI companies is doing right now that like the foundational companies, It's like privatizing the Manhattan Project. Ok? Alright, so imagine that they do build the atomic bomb. And now they're sitting and saying, ah, you know, I don't know, maybe we'll do i…”
Kaufman: University is unnecessary for 90% of modern professions
“In 90 plus cases of modern professions, you can study on your own, and you can do it in a fraction of the time.”
Kaufman: AI Startup Flood Will End in Mass Consolidation or Bankruptcies
“Someone's going to win, which by definition is not going to leave that much for the rest, which means that there's going to be a cleanup either through consolidation or through companies going bust.”
Kaufman: AI Has Reduced Software 'Time to Clone' to 10 Days
“When we launched, launched five or 15 years ago, time to clone was between six and nine months. Okay. The time to clone right now is I don't know, 10 days, whatever.”
Kaufman: 999 out of 1,000 AI startups will fail in 1-2 years
“In terms of The amount of companies that are going to be around? Absolutely. Like, I don't know, like, 90, you know, 999 companies out of a thousand maybe is going to be around for a year, maybe two. It's going to be ruthless.”
Kaufman: Human content creators are effectively working for AI models
“Harry, I have news for you. You are working for AI and so do I. Because we're producing content and that content is going to be eaten by a machine and used to produce new stuff.”
Kaufman: Fiverr's engineering team will be larger in five years
“Will you need many, many more of them? I don't know, but you asked me, is your team going to be, is your engineering team going to be larger? Yes.”
Kaufman: Entry-level junior marketers are being replaced by AI faster than developers
“So I think that in, in marketing, the entry level juniors have been replaced the fastest. Definitely faster than developers.”
Kaufman: Fiverr will exclusively hire AI natives across all departments
“And if we think about bringing more people, these people need to be AI natives in whatever they do. I don't care if you're whatever, if you, or you're joining the legal department or the finance or customer support, you need to be very well versed in this new …”
Kaufman: Fiverr passed on building an OnlyFans precursor years before launch
“One of the strategic opportunities was to create OnlyFans many, many years before OnlyFans. And we decided not to do it.”
Kaufman: Banks refusing AI tools over compliance will be left behind
“Look, fine. So they shouldn't use it which is going to be another reason why banks are going to be left behind, whatever.”
Kaufman: Asking tech CEOs for five-year plans during AI shift is laughable
“People that ask me, oh what do you think what do you think the business is going to look like in five years? I start laughing. It's a laughable question. You can have grand general ideas, but people that ask you to describe it are just out of touch with what w…”
Kaufman: Best Angel Deal Was Written Off Before 50x Exit
“And I think that this is probably the best investment I've ever, ever, ever made. The multiples were like in the 50.”
Kaufman: Overwhelming majority of AI startups fail at customer retention
“Look, if you're an AI company right now you have two fundamental problems. One is getting noticed, so getting, getting customers, and then it's retaining them. In both, the vast, the overwhelming majority fail.”
Micha Kaufman: I will resign as CEO if demotivated five days straight
“I know I have a rule. If I wake up five days in a row saying, ah, fuck, no, then I'm done. Now I'm done. And it never happened.”