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 9 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
Rascoff: Early-stage VCs were more helpful than Fortune 500 CEOs in 2008
“I'm thinking back to 2008 when, you know, the world came to an end. The directors that were most helpful to us working through that were the VCs that had a lot of early stage experience and had seen a lot of other companies die. It wasn't the marquee, you know…”
Rascoff: Zillow replaced board PowerPoint decks with Amazon-style written memos
“We switched about a year ago to a memo system after Bezos and Amazon's model of kind of no PowerPoint for one or two meetings in a row.”
Rascoff: Board members dialing in via phone are effectively useless
“I hate when I have to dial into a, to a board call, and I hate when people are on the phone. I just think it, You know, we all know they're only half paying attention. We all know that, you know, it's hard for them to hear, and papers are shuffling and whateve…”
Rascoff: Domain expert directors keep management honest and thoroughly prepared
“It's more that in the boardroom, It keeps the conversation on that topic much more honest, and it forces the management team to become much more prepared, because the, they know they can't snow the director on that particular topic. Maybe they can snow the oth…”
Rascoff: VC firm brand matters far less than individual board partner
“And don't just think about the Brand of the VC. Because once the check clears, that doesn't really matter that much. What matters is who's in the boardroom for the next 10 years.”
Rascoff: Inviting executives to board meetings creates a hard-to-reverse precedent
“Once you start inviting executives to board meetings, it's really hard to get them out.”
Rascoff: Bad news must be shared before board meetings to avoid surprises
“The biggest sign of a bad board meeting is one where there's, there are a lot of surprises. Like, if you've got bad news to share, for example, you want to share it ahead of time, and you want to make sure that you know, bad news should travel faster than good…”
Rascoff: Zulily's first board meeting had 30 attendees due to observers
“So when I showed up the first time at the first Zulily board meeting, there were literally 30 people there or something, because it was a hot company about to go public. Everyone was there with their observer seat, and their assistant, and their associate, and…”