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 8 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
Jordan: Premier networks like Facebook and WhatsApp skip paid user acquisition
“A lot of the best networks that are platformed here aren't spending anything on, on acquisition. I mean, it's just, it's kind of an interesting thing in marketplace. Facebook, no. WhatsApp, no. Medium, no. You know, just OpenTable, no. Just, you know, just, th…”
Jeff Jordan Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 31:13 a16z Podcast | Getting Network Effects
Assertion Contradicted
Evans: Global annual photos taken likely reaches 10 to 100 trillion
“Even if you just add up the numbers from Facebook and Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and so on, you get to about eight or nine hundred billion photographs taken last year. And that's just, sorry, shared. So if there were eight or nine hundred bi…”
Benedict Evans Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 7:30 a16z Podcast | For Google, Android is a Tactic and Cloud is a Strategy
Assertion Supported
Evans: WhatsApp rivals global SMS volume with only 30 engineers
“Even more dramatically, WhatsApp is doing almost as many messages a year as an entire global SMS system, and it's doing that with just 30 engineers.”
Benedict Evans Jul 15, 2017 ▶ 4:23 Mobile Is Eating the World, 2014
Prediction Held up
Knott Craig: WhatsApp has permanently won the messaging market in Africa
“As soon as the smartphone kind of wave started breaking, you know, WhatsApp just won the race. It has won the race. It will win the race.”
Alan Knott Craig Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 31:23 a16z Podcast | Things Come Together -- Truths about Tech in Africa
Assertion Supported
Evans: WhatsApp processes 50% more messages than global SMS with 40 staff
“WhatsApp going to seven or eight hundred million users with a team of 30 or 40 people, and WhatsApp doing 50% more SMSs than the entire global telecom system, sort of 50% more messages than the entire global SMS system with 30 or 40 people”
Benedict Evans Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 24:44 a16z Podcast | The Rise of the Quasi-IPO
Prediction Held up
Andreessen predicts WhatsApp, iPhone, and Android will reach 1 billion users
“And then like WhatsApp is going to do it, and then there's going to be a whole bunch of others. And I, you know, iPhone is going to do it, and Android is going to do it.”
Marc Andreessen Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 12:12 a16z Podcast | Ben and Marc Explain (Practically) Everything – Part 1
Assertion Supported
Evans: WhatsApp handles 50% more volume than global SMS with 40 engineers
“WhatsApp is doing about twenty billion messages a day, and the entire global SMS system of every mobile operator on Earth is doing about twenty billion. So WhatsApp is 50% bigger than SMS with 40 engineers.”
Benedict Evans Jul 15, 2017 ▶ 16:08 Mobile Is Eating the World, 2015
Assertion Supported
Evans: Facebook bought Instagram for 1% and WhatsApp for 10% of valuation
“They bought Instagram for whatever it was, one percent of the value of the company, and then they bought Facebook for, so then they bought WhatsApp for, say, 10% of the value of the company.”
Benedict Evans Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 7:59 a16z Podcast | Messaging is the Medium
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