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 43 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 3 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
Eisenberg: Companies will build custom software with AI instead of buying SaaS
“I think you'll see a lot of companies build their own software. Or you have tools that create kind of unique business processes software for a lot of these companies. I don't know if it's tomorrow or in five years, but I think there'll be more of that.”
Eisenberg: US Nvidia chip bans have not meaningfully slowed China's AI
“The U.S. Put a banner on Nvidia chips going to China. I don't sense that it slowed China down in a meaningful way.”
Eisenberg: China is 10 years ahead of US in TikTok AI psyops
“I think they were 10 years ahead of the U.S. On AI and psyops using TikTok. I think they were 10 years ahead of the U.S. In sophistication of how to manipulate the minds of young people.”
Eisenberg predicts more private equity software investments will see Pluralsight-style zeroes
“I'm not concerned. I'm certain. It's happening.”
Eisenberg: VC funds with only one strong partner will fail first
“I think the first style of funds that goes out of businesses is funds where there's three, four or five partners and only one of them is good. And then that person gets tired of holding everybody on their shoulders, and they leave and set their own thing up, a…”
Eisenberg: Mark Rowan asked UPenn donors to withhold checks until leaders are fired
“Mark Rowan wrote, wrote yesterday that he's calling on pen to fire two people, otherwise he's telling people to hold their checkbooks.”
Eisenberg: Financial reality dictates most AI foundation model companies will fail
“I don't buy that five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 of these are going to work. It's just not true. Financially, it's not true.”
Eisenberg: Users will rely on AI agents over direct publisher websites
“As you kind of play this forward, you're going to see a whole series of agents. Like I'm not going to go to the New York times.com to read it. I'm going to go to my AI screen and say, fetch me the articles that interest me from the New York times today.”
Eisenberg: Only one or two foundation model startups will prove profitable
“There is, there are one or two companies. In there that will make their venture investors a lot of money and the rest of them will cost their LPs and GPs a lot of money.”
Eisenberg: Israel lacks talent density for foundation models due to military focus
“We didn't think there was a talent density in Israel specifically for foundation models. Because a lot of the Israeli technology comes out of the military and not academia.”
Eisenberg: Incumbents will find AI catch-up harder than internet adoption
“And I think what's going to be shocking about this, that's not like the internet, is it's going to be harder for legacy companies to catch up to AI companies, which is different from the internet.”
Eisenberg: AI will disrupt horizontal SaaS processes
“I think in general, horizontal SaaS processes are going to be disrupted by AI.”
Eisenberg: Strict AI regulation will further erode Europe's economic competitiveness
“I think that is going to set Europe back in competitiveness more than it's already been set back in competitiveness over the last 20 years.”
Eisenberg: US, China, and Israel will lead AI over Europe due to lower regulation
“And so when you look at kind of the key markets for AI development, where the US is first and China is second and Israel is third I think those are likely to be less regulated than most, and certainly than Europe, and so these, those will be advantaged economi…”
Eisenberg: Investors will lose a lot of money chasing defense tech
“And so people will lose a lot of money chasing the new, new thing, which today happens to be defense in addition to AI.”
Eisenberg: Secondary market buyers claiming interest are mostly fishing for startup data
“Over the last three or four weeks, we've decided to do a little experiment. We reach out to them now. We used to ignore them. But now it's interesting because, like, you discover there are actual buyers there. There aren't, ok? There are not actual buyers ther…”
Eisenberg: A generation of ZERP-era venture funds will die
“A whole good generation of people grow up during ZERP. And, you know, now reality is biting. And so, yeah, of course.”
Eisenberg: Aleph raised an insane amount of foreign capital post-October 7
“We've raised an incredible amount of foreign money into our company since October seventh, an insane amount of money. It's wide open for business right now. Investors are on the ground every day.”
Eisenberg Predicts Venture Investment In Israel Will Surge Due To Resilience
“If you ask me what comes next in the next chapter of the State of Israel, I think I do know, and the Israeli tech community, and that is much more investment is going to flow here because people want to invest in resilient societies in the 21st century, as it'…”
Eisenberg: Massive venture capital inflows will result in scarce investor returns
“There's no capital scarcity, by the way, but there could be, and this will take longer to play out, a scarcity of returns because of all that capital that's come in.”
Eisenberg: Market bust will reallocate tech talent but won't reduce salaries
“A bust in the past and maybe now would reallocate some of that talent around. I actually don't think it would reduce the cost of it for what it's worth, given how scarce the talent is, but I think it could reallocate it to better places.”
Eisenberg: Software is McKinsey's fastest-growing business unit
“The fastest growing business inside of McKinsey is software.”
Eisenberg: Outcome-based pricing will rapidly enter the software market
“And I think the consultants like Accenture and McKinsey are the leading edge of this. But I think it's going to come into software very, very quickly.”
Eisenberg: Anduril will scale defense contracting much faster than Palantir
“Palantir took 20 years to crack this code. Andrew will crack it much faster because of Palantir.”
Eisenberg: Synthetic biology is shifting to a low-cost 'labless' model
“ZERP built out a huge amount of biological infrastructure. And so now you can just rent labs for cheap. And so I think we're moving to a labless model where you do kind of AI, you know, in your office, and then send out things for testing to labs and maybe eve…”
Eisenberg: Venture Capital Performance Declines as Investors Age
“You know, I don't ignore the data which says as you get older in this business, you don't do as well”
Eisenberg: Mellanox technology is the backbone for NVIDIA's AI scaling
“Yael Waldman's company Mellanox was purchased by NVIDIA, and that's really the backbone that enables NVIDIA to scale for AI.”
Eisenberg: Israel Will Become a Garden of Eden for Tech and Humanity
“This is going to become a Garden of Eden for technology and humanity and civic resilience, and how the world becomes a much better place. A Garden of Eden. That's what it's going to become, and it's going to be hard before it's better. I just want to say that.…”
Eisenberg: All major US sports leagues spoke out on October 7, FIFA didn't
“You'll notice, by the way, that all of the major sports leagues in America spoke up against this, but FIFA didn't, and that's where the World Cup was last time in Qatar.”
Eisenberg: Investors will lose money in AI, but foundational companies will emerge
“So a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money. During this, like a lot of money. And some foundational companies and technologies will be built.”
Michael Eisenberg lost his cousin in the October 7th attack in Kfar Aza
“Unfortunately, as you know, Harry, I lost a cousin of mine in battle on the first day when he went in to protect the town called Kfar Aza which is a border town where tens of people were massacred, and he was literally the first, ah, jeep in, and he was unfort…”
Eisenberg: Over 100 Americans, Europeans, and Israelis are held hostage by Hamas
“If I could just jump in, Harry, also, it's important to know that there's well over a hundred Americans, Europeans, and Israelis in Hamas captivity. They were kidnapped from the music festival, and they're still being held hostage by ISIS, Hamas.”
Tech Founder Ami Daniel Built Civilian Rescue Platform Used By Military
“One of my founders, Ami Daniel, I kid you not, as soon as this happened on Saturday morning, he set up a forward command center. Quote, unquote, in which he literally directed the rescuers, literally directed them to where the people were. They've already, you…”
Eisenberg: Aleph will prioritize target ownership over low pricing
“So what we're doing is even if we have to pay more, we're optimizing for ownership and we'll continue to do that.”
Michael Eisenberg: Founders take significantly more capital via secondary sales today
“One of these is different between now and 20 plus years ago in particular is there's a lot more secondary going on, which means that founders are taking capital off the table in a lot of these rounds. And it's hard to know how they react. You know, if the goin…”
Eisenberg: Nineties VC Was Concentrated Solely in Silicon Valley and Israel
“Venture capital was decidedly a Silicon Valley and Israel, candidly, investment theme in the late nineties. You almost didn't see it anywhere else at the time. You know, New York wasn't a thing. London certainly wasn't a thing, and it wasn't China yet to the b…”
Eisenberg: Post-1999 Tech Crash Occurred in Two Phases Including Fiber Optics
“People forget that there were two phases to the bubble coming undone. There was the.com, which has become famous because of the pets.com commercial, right? So that's what we all think.com.com. But there was a second one in fiber optic communications, which was…”
Eisenberg: Modern founders sell far more secondary equity than in past cycles
“One of the things that's different between now and 20 plus years ago in particular is there's a lot more secondary going on, which means that founders are taking capital off the table in a lot of these rounds.”
Eisenberg: Aleph Will Prioritize Ownership Stakes Over Price Discipline
“So what we're doing is even if we have to pay more, we're optimizing for ownership and we'll continue to do that.”
Benchmark partners all invested in Michael Eisenberg's Aleph at launch
“My agreement when Benchmark, as Peter Fenton has so famously said, decided to get out of the imperial era of venture capital and focus locally, the partners at Benchmark were super supportive and went out on my own, so to speak, found a partner, Eden Shohat, a…”
Eisenberg: Israeli couple held wedding on Gaza border during reserve mobilization
“There was a couple that was meant to get married yesterday, and the future husband, the fiance was called to reserve duty on the Gaza border. They decided not to cancel the wedding. The wedding was held on the Gaza border.”