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 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
Waters: Multibillion-dollar software companies succeed by catching megatrends, not commoditizing incumbents
“History tells us that the largest software companies in the world that get into the hundreds of billion in valuation, that's not what they did. They caught mega trends.”
Waters: Proprietary UI components help open-source companies differentiate in enterprise procurement
“Procurement is exceptionally good at pricing a certain kind of thing, which is labor per hour. So I've seen very large software contract orders and procurement will actually pick on the labor per hour because that has a near comparable. And so when you start t…”
Waters: Upselling support for active open source deployments is unsustainable
“If you're coming in and upselling support only, and they're already installed, And all you're upselling is the support model. That's going to be a lot more difficult because they already have it running. They already have it working at their scale. And all the…”
Waters: Enterprise software startups should target $400k to $1.5M annual contract values
“I think a hundred is too low. Like I would try to get to. 400 to 1.5. And the critical thing that happens at that is not that you extract more money. It's actually that you can be a better advisor. Like you can actually put talent on the ground and you'll find…”
Waters: Open source companies fail by selling support instead of targeting C-level buyers
“So many open source companies have died because they transact around the edges with like director level or technician level with, for support. And they never got to the CTO, the CIO and true strategic account control like the big players had.”
Waters: Avoid founding closed-source software startups without a unique niche
“So I would probably not start a closed source software company today unless I had a very niche novel idea that I felt no one else would try to do because quickly there'll be an open source alternative to what you're trying to do if you do not open source it.”
Waters: Open source 'dog piles' destroy potential for $500M revenue
“If you're in an open source dog pile, as I mentioned in order of caution, it's especially rampant. That can actually drive your entire upside of ever being a half billion dollar a year software company. Like your probabilities go down really hard.”
Waters: Open source is now a required buying criterion for enterprise IT initiatives
“Open source is now both a necessary part of almost any major software company strategy because it's a buying criteria that, you know, enterprises have for major new initiatives.”
Waters: High enterprise software pricing reflects outcomes and trust, not support
“It's expensive because you know, the trust model of enterprise buyers is you're really going to take care of them, advise them, ensure outcomes. You're not just providing support.”
Waters: Open source communities must align with enterprise buyer priorities
“Community development's really important, but if you just develop a little community, and it doesn't change a CIO, a CTO, anyone that's writing as serious as checks priorities, like by definition, you didn't build a software company that had an opportunity to …”