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 18 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 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
Rachleff: Wealthfront software outperforms Goldman Sachs' $15M accounts for $500
“So basically what we're trying to do is take the financial services that are delivered to the very wealthy through people called private wealth managers, automate those services and software so we can deliver it for account minimums of as low as 500 dollars, a…”
Rachleff: Executive Experience Does Not Help VCs Predict Startup Success
“Because the skills that you develop as an operating executive have nothing to do with identifying which company might succeed.”
Rachleff: Only five investors worldwide can successfully time the market
“You cannot time the market. There are probably five investors in the entire world who are good at timing the market.”
Rachleff: Wealthfront will deliberately alienate non-target users to serve core customers
“We will purposely piss people off With what we do if it serves our core target audience.”
Rachleff: Apple, Google, and Salesforce failed to succeed on original ideas
“None of their original ideas were the ideas on which they succeeded. So Apple, Google, you name the company, Salesforce, Hewlett Packard, none of them succeeded at their original idea, if you can believe that.”
Rachleff: Iconic tech companies rewrite history to obscure early pivots
“But they all revise history to make it seem like they did. Because you want to buy products from a company that intended to sell to you.”
Rachleff: Board Members Should Evaluate Product-Market Fit, Not Operational Details
“It's not my job to find issue with any of the particular things that they do. They're closer to the business than I. It's my job to determine, one, do they have product market fit, to hold a mirror up to them so they can be intellectually honest about their pr…”
Rachleff: Wealthfront's main competitor abandoned pure software for human advisors
“So even our closest competitor, which was pure software, has given it up, and they now have married advisors or planners to their software.”
Rachleff: Prefer superb product for 70% over average for 100%
“I'd rather that we build something that's great or superb for 70% of our clients and shitty for 30 than something that's pretty good for a hundred.”
Rachleff: Computers perform routine investing tasks better than humans
“Almost everything in investing that's good practice is really routine, and computers are a lot better at routine things than people.”
Rachleff: SEC testimonial bans limit innovation and protect financial incumbents
“So the SEC forbids you from using testimonials, but what it means, it really limits innovation because you're at a tremendous disadvantage to the incumbent.”
Rachleff: 60 VCs, including himself, rejected Veritas before its $1B success
“Now, Mark hates venture capitalists because the company that he grew to be a billion dollar business actually was very, very hard to finance, and I think 60 venture capitalists, including myself, turned him down.”
Andy Rachleff: Transactions cannot close without creating a fear of loss
“If you can't create a fear of loss, you're never gonna close the transaction.”
Rachleff: Investment experts cannot consistently outperform the market
“So there is a tremendous amount of research that has been published that shows that even the experts can't pick stocks to outperform the market.”
Rachleff: Poor market timing costs average investors 4% annually
“Dalbar, an organization, found that this behavior of buying when the market goes up and selling when it goes down costs the average investor about four percent annually.”
Rachleff: Letting negotiation partners set fair terms works 90% of the time
“And I found in my life that treating every negotiation that way works out 90% of the time.”
Rachleff: Entrepreneurs mistakenly assume competitors will immediately copy their innovations
“One of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs make is thinking that everyone, that once others see what you're doing, of course they're going to drop what they're doing and do what you're doing. It doesn't work that way.”