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Jim Gilliam

Founder & CEO, NationBuilder · 2 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

12statements → 8claims → 2claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 2.5/5average debate potential →

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 5 not checkable as stated how the 8 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 6 assertions · 2 opinions · 1 insight · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 8 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Jim argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Gilliam: Pew study shows 54% leave groups over poor leadership
“There's a there's a study done a few years ago by Pew, and they went and they identified 27 different types of groups. Everything from, like, political parties and unions to, like, fantasy sports leagues. And they went and they asked them a bunch of different …”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 20:48 a16z Podcast | The Internet is His Religion

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
100% certainty 4
50% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

246 words/min while actually speaking · 32.2 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Jim Gilliam: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 6,638 words across 2 episodes of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

Everything Jim Gilliam said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Gilliam: Restricting who can use political platforms is a dangerous slippery slope
“If we start to decide who has the right to run for office, or who has the right to lead, or who has the right to organize, it's a really, really slippery slope.”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:21 a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Gilliam: Internet systems will make traditional elections and government irrelevant
“But I think as more and more people do that, you know, the institutions of elections and politics and even government will become less and less relevant to people's lives as completely new systems are built by leaders outside of that system creating something …”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 16:52 a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gilliam: Democratic political software is a monopoly, unlike Republican tech
“In general, the Democrats have one system. There's a monopoly behind it. Everybody has to use one system. On the Republican side, it's much more, there's a lot more competition.”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 3:43 a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Gilliam: The world will shift from 250 nations to 250 million digital nations
“Part of the reason our company's called NationBuilder is the idea that there won't just be 250 nations in the world anymore. There'll be two hundred and fifty million of them.”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 18:04 a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Gilliam: Clinton spent eight times more on software than Trump
“Hillary Clinton spent eight times more on software than Donald Trump did.”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 2:07 a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement
Disclosure
Gilliam: NationBuilder was first to make national voter files free
“We compiled the voter file nationally and started to provide it for free, offering software for 29 bucks a month to go run for office. First time anybody's ever done that. Provide it for free to anybody running for office, even if you don't use Nation Boulder.”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 4:17 a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement
Opinion
Gilliam: Deep, meaningful understanding between opposing views is impossible online
“We have to, like, very intentionally figure out ways for people to come together and start to hear and understand each other in ways that are really deeply meaningful. It's impossible, I believe, to occur at all online at this point.”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 13:31 a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement
Assertion Not checkable as stated
IBM killed a 1982 OS deal to protect its Microsoft relationship
“They killed the deal because of IBM didn't want to mess up the relationship with this new guy, Bill Gates or his company, Microsoft.”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 4:14 a16z Podcast | The Internet is His Religion
Assertion Partly supported
Gilliam: All outsider 2016 presidential candidates used NationBuilder
“All of the outsider presidential candidates used NationBuilder.”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 1:46 a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement
Insight
Gilliam: Building custom tech distracts campaigns from developing resonant messages
“What we've seen is that, like, the campaigns that spend an awful lot of time putting together the technology in different ways, they lose sight of, like, oh, what is the actual message that's going to reach people?”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 5:52 a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Blog readers pressured UCLA into granting Jim Gilliam a lung transplant
“Some of the folks who as were like reading my blog and sort of following what was going on one of them sent an email to UCLA and was like, what's going on? This is crazy. Like you're only doing easy surgeries. No wonder your statistics are so great. It's not o…”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 14:44 a16z Podcast | The Internet is His Religion
Assertion Supported
Gilliam: Pew study shows 54% leave groups over poor leadership
“There's a there's a study done a few years ago by Pew, and they went and they identified 27 different types of groups. Everything from, like, political parties and unions to, like, fantasy sports leagues. And they went and they asked them a bunch of different …”
Jim Gilliam Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 20:48 a16z Podcast | The Internet is His Religion

Appearances (2)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
a16z Podcast | The Internet Is Your Movement Jan 2, 2019 14m
a16z Podcast | The Internet is His Religion Jan 2, 2019 16m
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