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 16 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
Shirky: US overlooks China's fundamental mobile payment innovations
“The kinds of innovations around e-commerce where people are paying using their mobile phones as with M-Pace in Kenya or have entirely alternate payment systems as with Alipay here, that's a kind of innovation Americans don't even recognize, right? Our innovati…”
Shirky: Compliance with Beijing censorship is only advantageous inside China
“Because unlike hardware, the, an internet service company doesn't just have to operate at scale. It also has to implement an enormous number of controls that Beijing demands over Over certain kinds of public speech, whether it's monitoring or censorship or pro…”
Shirky: Treating Apple as the primary innovation archetype has harmed US tech
“When I look back at the U.S., I think that the U.S. Has been somewhat damaged by regarding Apple as our official most innovative company.”
Shirky: Global tech competition will be fought in developing markets like Kenya
“The competitive battle is not going to be engaged in North America. It's going to be engaged in Kenya and Mexico.”
Shirky: Next innovation battles will occur in high-density, moderate-income cities
“The U.S. Has no, no native testbed for building out services that have Tens of millions of potential users on moderate income living in a small area, and yet that is where many of the next battles over innovation and market share are going to be waged.”
Shirky: Hardware Is the Least Important Part of Xiaomi's Innovation
“When you look at a company like Xiaomi, what you see is innovation in process. You see innovation in customer service. You see innovation in manufacturing. The hardware itself is the least important part of this incredible chain of supply and creativity.”
Shirky: Xiaomi leverages flash sales to secure bulk component discounts
“What it lets Xiaomi do is do these flash sales where they say, Look, we've got a 100,000 of the Hongmi, or we've got a 100,000 of the Me Too. We're going to sell those now. You have to sign up for the right to get a ticket to have a chance to buy the phone, wh…”
Shirky: Xiaomi's operational model resembles Amazon more than Apple
“The company that Xiaomi is most like is Amazon, and when you think about the kinds of things Amazon has done to innovate you see, again, this obsession with supply chain management.”
Shirky: Xiaomi unlocked a market segment for affordable luxury hardware
“Xiaomi has created this sweet spot, which no one previously thought existed in the market, where that is, is a well-designed product for cheap enough to be competitive with luxury products in its same domain.”
Shirky: Xiaomi bypassed retail chains by shipping directly without returns
“They bet on open source software. They bet on e-commerce. They said, you know, we're not even going to bother with the supply chain thing. We're going to ship from the warehouse. Anybody who buys a phone from us, whether it's a, you know, mom and pop vendor or…”
Shirky: Chinese delivery and local service apps dwarf US scale
“Getting that scale in, in something that works like a city rather than a country means that the kinds of applications that rely on density, any app that has to do, anything that has to do with delivery, anything that has to do with transportation, anything tha…”
Shirky: One-third of Xiaomi MIUI features originate from user suggestions
“Blaise Jones has said that a third of the features in, in me UI have come from suggestions from users.”
Shirky: Xiaomi Measures Success by Converted Customers, Not Handsets Sold
“Richard Liu, who was one of the, ah, ah, one of the earliest investors has said, we never talk in terms of handsets sold. We always talk in terms of customers converted.”
Shirky: Xiaomi Releases Weekly OS Updates and Polls Users
“Every time they ship a new version of the operating system, which is every Friday, they do it every week, and they've done it every week for years. They go out with a set of exactly the same four questions they ask the user. What was your favorite feature? Wha…”