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 12 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
Steve Blank: The startup ecosystem is a giant Ponzi scheme
“The startup ecosystem is actually, and I mean it half facetiously, a giant Ponzi scheme.”
Steve Blank: Facebook is the most likely entity to destroy democracy
“But of all the things that are probably going to destroy a democracy, it happens to be Facebook.”
Blank: Ben Horowitz's wartime CEO analogy is flawed and inappropriate
“Business people who use that analogy. I'm not sure too many of them have been in the fight. If you lose in a wartime, it's measured and killed in action. And if you lose in business, it's maybe you lose your corner office. So I'm not sure that's the right anal…”
Blank: Venture-backed startups should take government PPP funds to survive
“Your job is to have your company survive, and if taking that money will do that, then for gosh sake, take the money and have the other discussions later after you're a successful company.”
Steve Blank: Sales leaders will never allow initial in-person meetings again
“If I'm in sales, there is no possible way, or if I'm the VP of sales or CEO, if there's no possible way, I'm ever going to let a salesperson again do a first meeting in person.”
Steve Blank: Incremental layoffs destroy employee morale and productivity
“The biggest mistake that I've seen time and again that people make is not making the cuts, but basically cutting a bit at a time, and while that seems well, we'll see how it's going, and we'll cut five percent, and then three weeks later, you realize, ah, we o…”
Steve Blank: The invisible hand now picks everybody else's pockets
“The invisible hand is actually today the invisible hand of the people who have their hands in everybody else's pockets.”
Blank: Startups search for business models while large companies execute them
“Large companies, existing companies Execute known business models, which is a fancy word for saying they know their customers, know their competitors, no pricing, no channel. They know all this stuff, but startups were doing something quite different. Startups…”
Steve Blank: Stock market and real economy have never been so disconnected
“There's never been a period where the economy and the stock market have been so out of sync.”
Blank: Video calls fail because over half of meeting communication is nonverbal
“At least half, if not more, of most meetings are based on nonverbal cues that you pick up from facial expressions, from body language, from other cues that video conferencing apps just currently don't have.”
Blank: Startup survival in a crisis depends on CEO decision speed
“What I've seen is that the companies that are going to survive and then thrive in the recovery are driven by CEOs who could assess rapidly, come up with rapid strategies, and then take action and seize the opportunities, or else you just kind of have what's go…”