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 54 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 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
Khosla: Most VC Board Members Are Unqualified to Advise Founders
“In fact, I would suggest that most board members, just because they went to business school and joined a venture firm, are not qualified to advise an entrepreneur. They're not qualified to challenge an entrepreneur. They're not even qualified to help them judg…”
Khosla: Nuclear fusion will demonstrate net positive energy by 2025 or 2026
“I believe demonstrating positive energy by 25, maybe 26, will be also 10 X faster.”
Khosla: OpenAI's AGI Could Eliminate the Need for Human Work
“OpenAI is going after a big, hairy, audacious goal of building an AGI. That, to me, is worth pursuing as an investment, but also for society. It may eliminate the need to work for society, Lots of issues there, but it could be really, really exciting if it wor…”
Khosla: Western democracies will lag China in AI adoption
“I worry that the Western political system Ah, and capitalism is by permission of democracy. Ah, so the Western political system will pay more importance to the short term, which is things like job displacement, while in China you might get Tiananmen Square typ…”
Khosla: Excluding India's Muslim population risks violent unrest and economic derailment
“Leaving a population like the Muslim population behind in India would be a huge disaster and could completely change the optimistic projection I have for India if you leave a part of the population behind, and that becomes A source of violence, rioting, things…”
Khosla: Large companies haven't driven major radical innovations in 40 years
“So I was hard pressed over 40 years to find one area where a large company was willing to take the risk and innovate in a big way.”
Khosla: I Avoid Board Meetings Because Most Are a Waste of Time
“I don't go to a lot of board meetings now. I focus on this because I find most Most boards don't operate this way, and a waste of time for the founders.”
Khosla: AI progress will advance steadily regardless of Wall Street sentiment
“I think the progress of AI applications in utility for society will go on a steady pace based on technical capability and entrepreneurial interest in it, not what Wall Street or investors think about it.”
Khosla: AI will cause large job displacement over next 25 years
“If I'm right, the level of job displacement over 20, 25 years will be large”
Khosla: AI will spur massive GDP growth alongside rising income inequality
“AI will cause, and this was Six years seven years ago. AI will cause great abundance, great GDP growth, great productivity growth, everything economists measure, and increasing income disparity.”
Khosla: AI will take 80% of doctor load, enabling 5x more visits
“I think we can have an excess even when we increase the number of interactions by five acts because AI can take 80% of that increased load.”
Khosla: Only two or three major LLM providers will emerge
“There'll be two or three major providers of large language models.”
Khosla: AI will enable 24/7, low-cost global healthcare within five years
“But all of those I'm pretty convinced will happen in the next five years. And we'll see The capability developed to provide very, very low cost, much more frequent and accessible care, and accessible both, accessible 24 seven, and accessible at a very cheap pr…”
Khosla: Analog compute is likely to reduce AI training costs by 100x
“Could one have analog computing, and we are working on that dramatically change that equation by a hundred X, both cost and power. And I think that's entirely not only possible, but likely.”
Khosla: Cheaper, 70% less-carbon cement plants will become operational in 2023
“Already I can say the cement we are producing will be 70% less carbon, and our first plants will be operational this year and cheaper. Then traditional Portland cement.”
Khosla: Splash.ai trained its music models without using any copyrighted artist music
“In Splash.ai, we've trained the music from scratch. There is no YouTube music or any artist music used in training our AI. And it's completely IP free of any artist.”
Khosla: Autonomous transit systems will replace most urban cars within 25 years
“I believe, as an optimist, we can replace more scars in more cities in the next 25 years.”
Khosla: Waymo and Cruise self-driving models are not transformative for cities
“I think the Waymo approach and the cruise approach is nice. It adds functionality. It's not transformative of cities.”
Khosla: Most VC Firms Are Afraid of High Technical Risk
“Mostly high technical risk that most others are afraid to take, and really large impact.”
Khosla: Industry Experts Are Only Experts in a Past World
“I would say experts are experts in a previous version of the world, Not the world you're trying to create.”
Khosla Ventures bans IRR calculations when evaluating potential investments
“We don't allow IRR calculations in our firm when making an investment, which is pretty unusual for an investment firm. We never look at them.”
Khosla Ventures Passes on Founders Who Discuss Exits in Initial Pitch Slides
“If somebody talks about exits or IPOs in the first few slides, I almost never go beyond that, say, if that's your focus, we are not a good fit for you, the founder.”
Khosla: Accept 90% Failure Risk for 10% Chance of World Impact
“To me, if there's a 90% chance of failure, and there's a 10% chance of changing the world, that's a pretty good deal. So go for the 10%. Don't be scared by the 90%.”
Khosla: Mission-Driven Founders Generate Higher Returns Than Cash-Motivated Ones
“So I do think mission oriented founders make for much better companies, much bigger companies. And much higher returns, even if they go through ups and downs.”
Khosla: Juniper Networks investment returned $7 billion on $3 million
“We invest in Juniper, which by the way, Was a 2500 X return, a seven billion dollar return for us on a three or four million dollar investment.”
Khosla: AI will enable custom treatments for 6,000 single-mutation genetic diseases
“I'm pretty excited that for a large number of genetic defects, and there's probably 6000 or so diseases that are single mutation genetic diseases, we will be able to design with AI's help custom solutions because we've essentially solved the protein folding pr…”
Khosla: Clean energy tech should not receive subsidies past 5% market share
“Early subsidies help get technologies developed when they're subscale, but by the time they're five percent of market, they really shouldn't need subsidies at all.”
Khosla: Decade-old clean tech bets like QuantumScape returned 5-10x multiples
“If I look across our portfolio, some of the investments we made more than 10 years ago are, you know, there's a whole number of them. QuantumScape, Verdeji, Lanza Tech, Impossible Foods, that are five to 10 X multiples though they took a longer time to get the…”
Khosla: Anti-immigrant sentiment will damage European social and economic revival
“But this anti-immigrant sentiment will hurt these European countries from really renovating, you know, invigorating their societies.”
Khosla: AI will enhance top musicians like Taylor Swift, not replace them
“I do think, you know, the Taylor Swift's of the world will still be there. I'm not suggesting they will disappear. Artists and phenomena will be there. Their creativity will be dramatically enhanced by AI.”
Khosla: Company Building Must Precede Financial Returns in Venture Capital
“Our firm and I am much more focused on how do you build company, not on returns. And if we build a big, successful company, then the returns take care of itself. So returns come second, building something of significance comes first.”
Khosla: Small Strategic Adjustments Can Boost Trajectory by Hundreds of Percent
“From my point of view, a few small nudges left or right can change the trajectory of a company by hundreds of percent.”
Khosla: Most board members push startups toward inconsequential safe plays
“Most board members advise the startups to reduce risk in a way where you can increase the probability of success of the startups, but make the consequences of that success inconsequential.”
Khosla: Safe companies with good returns do not yield large businesses
“It's perfectly reasonable to go build reliable, safe companies That have good financial returns, but that's not building a large business.”
Khosla Ventures passed on hundreds of millions in profits over moral values
“We will not make an investment that's negative for society. We might make some neutral ones, and there's real situations where we passed on hundreds of millions of dollars of profit because we didn't want to do the wrong thing because it conflicted with our va…”
Khosla: Private company boards should be advisory, not fiduciary
“In private company boards, I don't think the role of a board is as much fiduciary as it is in public companies. It's much more advisory.”
Khosla Has Invested in Three Future Nobel Prize Winners
“Three people I've invested in have won Nobel Prizes after we invested, not before.”
Khosla: Doctors will provide empathy while AI handles medical research analysis
“You can't expect your oncologist to be caring, talking about your cancer, and have read the 5000 most recent articles, ah, on your cancer. They can't keep that knowledge in their head, so that's the kind of partnership that'll be possible.”
Khosla: Almost all AI training data was designed for humans, not machines
“Almost everything AI is training on is designed for humans, not for machines.”
Khosla: Commonwealth Fusion built a 20 Tesla magnet in three years
“Commonwealth Fusion was able to build a 20 Tesla magnet for Fusion and demonstrate it in three years, three and a half years.”
Khosla: At least one to three fusion startups will succeed commercially
“At least one or two or three will be successful in this.”
Khosla: US fusion transition requires retrofitting 5,000 boilers, not building new plants
“If you take every coal plant in the country and it's boiler, the coal boiler or the natural gas boiler is replaced every five to 10 years. They deteriorate pretty quickly. If you could replace it with a fusion boiler, you wouldn't have to build 5000 new power …”
Khosla: Future AI music will hyper-personalize to individual brain states and activities
“I think at some point, you might want music for your brain, the way your brain works, and the music you like, for a quiet walk, or when you want to get energized before an athletic event. It'll be personalized to you, and can be personalized.”
Khosla: CK-12 banned AI model training in its open-source license years ago
“Multiple years ago, we changed our open source license to include a prohibition against derivative works. So we looked ahead a few years and said our content will not allow for derivative work, including derivative algorithms that use the content to train on.”
Khosla: Failing to foresee dedicated routers at Sun was my biggest mistake
“My biggest mistake ever was I was at Sun and Cisco routers was software running on Sun machines and Sun's logo or tagline used to be the network is the computer. And I didn't see, and nobody at Sun saw, routers as more, as maybe a huge thing, even though we ha…”
Khosla: Startups Usually Fail From Founder Weaknesses Rather Than Strengths
“They usually fail not because of what they're strong at, but what they might be weak at.”
Khosla: Filtering Advice Is an Entrepreneur's Hardest Task
“Whose advice to take on what topic Is the single most difficult thing an entrepreneur does, because there's plenty of advice.”
Khosla Ventures bans investments in gambling, debt collection, and ad tech
“For example, we've chosen not to invest in some areas like gambling or encouraging drinking. That was a recent example that came up. Or debt collection, things like that. We basically don't invest in advertising tools now, which I think are being used fairly n…”