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.

clear all ✕

why aren't all 10 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

Assertion Supported
Rowan: Tech and industrial giants dominate private investment grade issuance
“But if you think of the largest issuers of private investment grade, it's Intel, it's Air France, it's EDF, it's AT&T, it's Meta, it's BP Energy, and so on, and you're hearing lots of public companies.”
Marc Rowan May 27, 2026 ▶ 20:12 Private Markets, Software Repricing and Capital Allocation | Marc Rowan on a16z
Assertion Supported
Hennessy: Bell Labs and Xerox missed major economic gains from key inventions
“Bell Labs and AT&T were not the major beneficiaries of the discovery of the transistor. Xerox was not the major beneficiary of the discoverer of modern personal computing, right?”
John Hennessy Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 45:00 a16z Podcast | From Research to Startup, There and Back Again
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McGurk: Premature exclusive deals with telecom giants like Verizon have killed startups
“I've seen companies die over it, literally. Yep. So doing a deal with Verizon and you can never do another, at a, too early of a stage. You know, not being able to then do a deal with, You know, AT&T or Sprint or anyone else.”
Jamie McGurk Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 13:27 a16z Podcast | Dealing with Corporate Dealmakers -- When to Talk to Corp Dev
Assertion Partly supported
Andreessen: AT&T used Defense Secretary to fight 1984 antitrust breakup
“In 1984 a federal judge went to break up AT&T which at that time was the national telecom monopoly. They owned and controlled everything. And AT&T actually got the Secretary of Defense in 1984, 20 years later, to testify that that if the federal judge broke up…”
Marc Andreessen Jun 28, 2024 ▶ 32:58 Marc Andreessen on Inventing The Internet Browser (How We all Access the Internet)
Assertion Supported
Evans: Apple disrupted mobile by treating cellular networks as transparent data pipes
“One of the things that allowed Apple to disrupt everything was by saying, no, no, no, no, it's just a piece of wire, and we ignore it completely. We make zero effort to optimize bandwidth, and, you know, it's kind of an overstatement, but we just completely ig…”
Benedict Evans Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 5:09 a16z Podcast | Location, Location, Location -- and Mobile
Insight
Kupor: SaaS subscription economics mirror traditional cable and telecom business models
“None of this stuff is actually that new, this concept that we're talking about here, right? So if you think about, you know, a company like Comcast, right, or you think about AT&T, they'got this same problem, which is, you know, it costs a lot of money to acqu…”
Scott Kupor Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 21:55 a16z Podcast | Valuing Today's Fast-Growing Software Companies
Assertion Supported
McCall: Incumbents made up to $500M in revenue when Samsara entered ELD market
“AT&T had a solution. Verizon had a solution. There were a number of companies that were in sort of the, you know, hundreds of millions, half a billion in revenue already doing this.”
Andy McCall Aug 12, 2026 ▶ 9:26 Lighthouse or Landgrab? How to Pick Your AI Sales Strategy
Disclosure
Casado: Nicira launched with AT&T, eBay, and Fidelity as customers
“When we launched the company, actually went public with the company, not like public as in the stock market, but we actually came out of stealth. We had AT&T, NTT, eBay, Rackspace, and Fidelity.”
Martin Casado Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 15:57 a16z Podcast | Infrastructure... Is Everything
Assertion Partly supported
Sinofsky: Telecom giants failed to predict the university-born internet
“WorldCom and AT&T did not predict the internet was going to come out of universities.”
Steven Sinofsky Feb 6, 2025 ▶ 43:19 What DeepSeek Means For The Future Of AI | Tech Veterans Weigh In
Assertion Partly supported
AT&T First Used the Term 'Network Effect' in 1907
“The first time it was used was in 19 oh seven in a annual report by AT&T.”
James Currier Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 0:50 a16z Podcast | Not all Network Effects Are Created Equal
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