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 49 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
Andreessen: Chinese manufacturer DJI is US Defense Department's primary drone supplier
“DJI is the most widely used drone today by many, many large, you know, American customers, including the United States Department of Defense. Right. The DOD's primary drone supplier is DJI.”
Andreessen: Albert Einstein was pro-Stalin and favored a communist dictatorship
“Einstein was the exact opposite of a moral exemplar. Einstein was Stalinist. Like, Einstein was, like, a full-on, like, Einstein was pro-Stolic, like, not even just pro-communist, was actually, like, pro-Stalin, and Einstein thought, but, like, American democr…”
Marc Andreessen: Russian Facebook ad spend during 2016 election was only $80,000
“I think the result of it was, I think it was a result of 80,000 dollars of ad spend by the Russians in, in the relevant period of the election. It was like a total of like a 140,000, but during the actual run of the election, it was 80,000 dollars, and so the …”
Andreessen: For every active US dockworker, another is paid to stay home
“For every doc worker in the U S actually works on the doc doc, there's actually somebody sitting, there's a doc worker sitting at home doing nothing, still getting paid.”
Andreessen: FDIC blocked private equity and bank bids to buy SVB
“There were both there were other big banks that wanted to buy SVB, and there were private equity firms that wanted to buy SVB, and basically do a private sector bailout requiring no, no taxpayer involvement, and the FDIC actually blocked those also.”
Andreessen: More People Globally Have Smartphones Than Electricity or Running Water
“Sitting here today in 2023, the following is true. More people in the world have computers in the form of smartphones specifically and internet access than have electricity or running water in their homes.”
Andreessen: Leadership fails when IQ gap exceeds one standard deviation
“One of the things that they've found over the years is if the leader is more than one standard deviation of IQ away from The followers, it's a real problem.”
Andreessen: Alibaba filed notice reassigning Jack Ma's voting shares to unnamed citizens
“They put out a revised financial statement the summer after they defenestrated Jack Ma, and they announced that the Jack Ma, Jack and his CFO, their voting shares had been reassigned to a set of, I think it was four unnamed other People's Republic of China cit…”
Andreessen: Xiaomi's electric car offers Porsche Cayenne quality for $20,000
“Xiaomi is one of the big Chinese makers of smartphones. They now have a car. And it's like sort of the equivalent of a Porsche Cayenne SUV. But it's like 20,000 dollars, and it's really good.”
Andreessen: Top 1,000 taxpayers account for half of peak California tax revenue
“In the peak years up to half of total tax receipts for the state of California come from the top thousand individual taxpayers. Which is basically all tech.”
Andreessen: Nuclear Regulatory Commission went 40 years without approving new designs
“They did not approve a new nuclear power plant designed for 40 years.”
Andreessen: Journalist advised Zuckerberg to accept $1B Yahoo acquisition offer
“Facebook got just tons of, you know, it's just like this is the most trivial, stupid, useless, you know, thing that doesn't matter, you know, Facebook, there was almost a deal for Facebook to get bought by Yahoo early on, and I remember a certain very prominen…”
Andreessen: Stanford and Yale have more administrative staff than enrolled students
“There are multiple large institutions too that have been identified in public, Stanford and Yale, that now have more administrative staff than they have students.”
Andreessen: Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved zero new plants in 40 years
“Zero new plants in 40 years.”
Andreessen: Venona transcripts show McCarthy understated Soviet infiltration in U.S. government
“What we know today is McCarthy actually underestimated the level of Soviet penetration in the U.S. Government. Just on the numbers, he underestimated it. And so his estimates, you know, topped out, I believe, in the 200, and it turned out, you know, the number…”
Andreessen: Moore's law has flipped from performance gains to price cuts
“Moore's law has now flipped. The dynamic now, instead of increased performance, has reduced cost. You now have this dynamic where every year, year and a half, the chip companies come out with a chip that's just as fast, but half the price.”
Andreessen: Every person globally will own a smartphone by decade's end
“So the big thing happening in the world right now is the smartphone, and the significance of the smartphone is, for the first time in human history, we're going to get a computer in everybody's hands, and by everybody, I mean everybody on the planet and by eve…”
Andreessen: 5 to 7 billion people will own smartphones by 2020
“And this is the thing I've been talking a lot about that people occasionally get angry about, because they think it won't Can't possibly come true, but I'm convinced it's going to come true, which is I think everybody on the planet by the end of the decade is …”
Andreessen: Corporate Five-Year Plans Originated From Joseph Stalin
“The creator of the concept of the five-year plan was, of course, Joseph Stalin. Like, it was literally the Soviet Union run as five-year plans, and actually, in, in the, between the 2019 twenties, 19 fifties, that idea actually mainstreamed itself into Western…”
Andreessen: Atlas Shrugged outsells any well-reviewed New York Times novel
“It sells, it'll sell far more copies this year than any well-reviewed novel. You know, the New York Times Book Review talks about, right?”
Andreessen: Trump held more press briefings in 70 days than past presidents
“He's done wildly more press questions, press conferences, press briefings in the first, you know, whatever, 70 days of his new term than, you know, the, than the previous presidents did for, you know, their entire, you know, for their entire runs.”
Andreessen: Only a16z and Khosla Ventures raised funds in 2009
“There were only two venture capital funds raised in all of 2009. It was us and a new couple of ventures fund, and Benoad, of course, was one of the legends of venture capital, so he was able to do that, but we were the only other literally venture fund raised …”
Andreessen: Virtually everyone under 70 uses social media as primary news source
“Really it's only been in the last five years when I think almost everybody, like, let's say basically everybody under the age of 70 and a very large number of people over the age of 70 basically have shifted from top down media as their main Source of informat…”
Andreessen: Top 1,000 taxpayers provided 50% of California's 2000 tax revenue
“So the extreme, I think that's right in New York, the extreme, if I recall correctly, but the extreme version was California in the year 2000. In the year 2000, the top, is it go back to the price, price, price is a lot of thing. In the year 2000 50% of tax re…”
Andreessen: Both political parties abandoned Operation Warp Speed framework
“Both parties that we're sitting here today seem to have just let the whole idea die. And I mean, that's in two parts. Number one, just all of a sudden, nobody cares about, like, vaccines. Like, there are no calls for, like, expanded vaccine development program…”
Andreessen: Adam Neumann invested $350M of personal capital into Flow
“Starting with alignment, Adam's put three hundred and fifty million dollars of his own money into Flow Living alongside us.”
Andreessen: One-on-one tutoring is the only proven scalable education intervention
“There's basically only one known education intervention at scale that actually improves outcomes after, you know, thousands of experiments. And it's one-to-one tutoring.”
Andreessen: The US has roughly 500 VC firms, which is too many
“Certainly we have too many venture capital firms, like there, we've got like 500 venture capital firms in the U.S., and certainly there aren't 500 competitors in every market”
Andreessen: S&P 500 returns $1T to shareholders while tech gets $50B
“About fifty billion dollars going into high tech. This year alone, more than a trillion dollars will be distributed from the, from just the US's 500 biggest companies. Just the S&P 500 will distribute more than a trillion dollars of cash back to their sharehol…”
Andreessen: Expert software systems consistently outperform human doctors in medical diagnoses
“I can tell you, and in all the studies that have been done in the last, like, 20 years, the expert systems make better diagnoses than human doctors.”
Andreessen: Global food supply chain causes up to half of carbon emissions
“The food supply chain in the world right now is responsible for like up to half of all carbon emissions for the current level of food output and the current kinds of food we consume.”
Andreessen: Long-haul truck drivers' life expectancy is 10 years below average
“I believe it's because I think commercial long haul truck drivers die of life expectancy, 10 years less than their peers.”
Andreessen: 1990s union rules required hand-built servers at Wall Street Journal
“For sure through the 19 nineties they actually had a full-time employee who actually hand built all their servers. Because it had been in a prior union contract that all servers to be used by the Washington Post company, or yeah, sorry, the Wall Street Journal…”
Andreessen: Global centralization peaked in 1950s with around 60 countries
“19 fifties was at the point when you had the smallest number of countries in the history of the world. Total number of countries got down to like something like 60.”
Andreessen: Issue #1 of Wired magazine did not mention the internet once
“And I read it cover to cover and they did not have the word internet in it once.”
Andreessen: U.S. Healthcare Stands Out for End-of-Life Care Spending
“If you look at the American medical system, like it's distinguished by, you know, the amount of money that goes into care in the last year. Of life, which is not, you know, the case in, in many other societies.”
Andreessen: Soviet egalitarian biology was a primary cause of famines
“And so the Soviets developed their own egalitarian biology, which, by the way, was one of the big reasons for all the famines.”
Andreessen: San Francisco authorized only 6,000 new housing units last year
“San Francisco last year, like, authorized, I think, 6000 new housing units, right, which is just like an absurdly low number relative to the demand for people who want to move there.”
Andreessen: VC "carried interest" originated from 17th-century whaling expedition profits
“The term carry, which is sort of how VCs get paid, the so-called carried interest, which is like the 20 or 25% that you make of the profits that, that you share. The term carry actually was the percentage of the whale that the ship carried. It was literally ph…”
Marc Andreessen: Working as a truck driver reduces life expectancy by 10 years
“Trucking will take 10 years off your lifespan.”
Andreessen: Carried Interest Originated With 12th-Century Whalers
“And it actually turns out the origin of the term carried interest actually is from whalers in the 12th century is where it first originated.”
Andreessen: Medical research funding disproportionately favors diseases affecting wealthy older donors
“Like, in medical research, it turns out that the diseases that affect old people there's much more funding for the cure than diseases that affect young people, because the medical research funding comes from old people who have made a lot of money who have tho…”
Andreessen: Wave of shareholder lawsuits will follow undisclosed corporate security breaches
“I think this will be endless litigation. I think that, I think actually this is going to be a whole wave of shareholder litigation that's going to follow from this, because as far as I can tell, there may be formal, there may be legal requirements for disclosu…”
Andreessen: No tech security policy progress will happen under Obama administration
“I think that I think nothing will happen under this, as far as I can tell, nothing will happen under this administration. I think whoever is the next president and whoever the next set of national security officials have a big opportunity on this.”
Andreessen: Disney's original Tron was disqualified from Oscars for using CGI
“The original Tron was from Disney, and it was the first movie that had integrated use of computer graphics, which was the big thing at the time. And as a consequence of that, Tron was disqualified from the Oscars because they cheated by using computer graphics…”
Andreessen: Navies resisted continuous-aim firing technology for 25 years
“What happened basically was Sims took, it took Sims like a full 25 years to basically convince the American and British Navy to adopt this technology.”
Andreessen: VC term 'carried interest' originates from 17th-century whaling
“The, there's a term in venture capital in hedge funds called carry, which is basically called carried interest, which is the sort of profit participation that the VCs or hedge fund managers make. The term carry actually comes from whaling in the 1600 off, like…”