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 53 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
Rep. Gonzalez: January 6 was an unforgivable assault inspired by Trump
“My view remains that it's an unforgivable assault on the country. And it was led by the former president who was inspired by him. And ultimately my view, which I think is coming out in this January six commission is that he kind of liked it and kind of liked w…”
Dimon: $5B Mortgage Penalties Led Him to Never Trust the Government Again
“They made us pay five billion dollars on the more, the bad mortgages that Bear Stearns had done, and that's what made me make the statement I wouldn't do it again. I wouldn't, put it this way, I don't know how to say this, I wouldn't really trust the governmen…”
Chang: Tim Cook told me in 2011 that Intel cannot run a foundry
“And anyway, he told me there's nothing to worry about because Intel just does not know how to be a Foundry.”
Schultz: Coffee in Italy is no longer as good as it once was
“The by and large coffee in Italy is not as good as it once was. There are certain coffee companies that have maintained the standard, but by and large, the coffee is not as good.”
Munger says top venture capital earners are trend-chasers, not great investors
“The people who made the most money out of venture capital are a lot like investment bankers deciding which hot new area they're going to get in. They're not great investors or great at anything.”
Munger claims BYD founder Wang Chuanfu is better at manufacturing than Musk
“The guy at BYD is better at actually making things than Elon is.”
Calacanis: Andreessen Horowitz is a soulless index fund of venture capital
“I think they're just an index adventure. I find it quite soulless, if I'm being honest. Like, I feel like it's a giant index on venture, and I don't think that their hearts are super into it.”
Bankman-Fried: FTX's revenue is clean, clear, and completely transparent
“When you talk about, like, recurring revenue, like, there's sort of, like, doesn't exist a clearer example of that than, like, you know, I don't know, we have volume each day, and we charge a transaction fee on it, right? It's incredibly clean, right? People a…”
Netflix functions as a utility button, not a brand with emotional equity
“The Netflix brand doesn't mean anything to anyone. The Netflix brand is the button that I push on my TV when I want to watch stuff. And sometimes it's great stuff, but if it's not great stuff, whatever. It whizzes by. I don't think one way or another about Net…”
The NFL blackballed Colin Kaepernick following his 2016 national anthem protests
“The NFL blackballed Colin Kaepernick after this.”
Gilbert: Monopolies benefit society by generating cash flow for basic research
“There is a positive benefit to monopolies because they create the cash flows that fund these sorts of boondoggle basic research. A lot of the most important technologies that move society forward come out of these.”
Michael Lewis argues private companies are much better run than public ones
“I think there's an argument to be made that in any industry where they're both private and public companies, the private companies end up being much better run. And I mean like that mostly bad things happen when companies go public and certainly less pleasant.”
Meta AI's User Numbers Are Inflated by Accidental Instagram Searches
“That was complete garbage. That was people searching Instagram who accidentally hit a llama model that made some things happen, and they were like, oh, go away. I actually am just looking for a user.”
Ballmer: Google remains only a one to one-and-a-half trick pony
“I might argue that Google's a one to one and a half trick pony. Still. I mean, if you just look at its revenue.”
Rosenthal: The IPL is structurally superior to the NFL
“To me, this is not a controversial statement. The IPL is better set up structurally than the NFL. It is the Most perfect sports league that exists.”
Chang: None of Taiwan's PC makers liked dealing with Intel
“Before this Apple thing, Apple and we, before Apple became our customer, I knew a lot of Intel's customers in Taiwan. You know, all the PC makers are Intel's customers. I mean, they, none of them liked Intel. None of them.”
Gilbert: Cambridge Analytica impacting the 2016 election is wildly oversold
“They had an incredible treasure trove of data that apps could slurp up in the early 20 tens, but the actual narrative of Facebook data that Cambridge Analytica had impacted election results is, like, wildly oversold.”
Rosenthal: Taylor Swift Enterprise Value Is $11B Using Disney's 20x Multiple
“Disney trades at 20 X free cash flow. Taylor is five hundred and fifty million in free cash flow. That's a eleven billion dollar enterprise value for Taylor.”
Zuckerberg: Meta is unashamed to adopt and improve competitors' innovations
“We're not embarrassed about learning from things that other people, like, discovered that were good first, and then we build a better version of it, and I mean, I think that that's, You know, no one company is going to invent everything, right? I think if you …”
Zuckerberg: Companies lacking technical CEOs and boards are not tech companies
“You know, they, the CEO wasn't technical. The board of directors had no one technical on it. They had, like, one dude on the management team who was the head of engineering who was technical, and, like, everyone else wasn't. It's like, alright, if that's your …”
Zuckerberg: Accepting blame during political crises only invites more attacks
“If you take responsibility for things, because you think it's a corporate crisis, not a political crisis and your view is like, okay, I'm, like, I'm gonna take responsibility for all this stuff. Like, and people are basically, like, blaming social media and th…”
Rosenthal: Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie deserve all credit for Azure's vision
“I kind of think all of the credit for the vision for it and the championing it for the initial seven years within Microsoft goes to Steve and to Ray.”
Schultz: Starbucks developed hubris and shifted to playing defense over time
“The worst thing that could happen to a company is believing that you are incapable of doing anything but succeeding, and you deserve the success. But if you start playing defense and don't have the offensive mind, it's not going to go well. And I think over ti…”
Munger says short-term gains should be taxed without any loss offsets
“If I were running the world, I would have a tax on short-term gains with no offset for losses on anything. And I would just drive this whole crowd every ball of business.”
Munger says consistently investing well in venture capital is nearly impossible
“It's very difficult to invest money well, and I think it's all but impossible to do time after time after time in venture capital.”
Munger claims most startup operators end up hating their venture capitalists
“By and large, having bumped into a lot of people in the businesses with venture capital financing, I would say the ordinary rule is that people in the business doing the work, they more or not, they hate the venture capitalists. They don't feel their partner t…”
Munger claims private fund managers enrich themselves while underdelivering to endowments
“The world is full of Goldman Sachs partners that formed a private fund, and they manage a billion dollars or something like that, and they charge two points off the top plus this, and that enables them to make very handsome livings themselves, but the endowmen…”
Munger claims China's economy has better 20-year prospects than most
“Well, my position in China has been Well, that the Chinese economy has better future prospects over the next 20 years than almost any other big economy.”
Munger claims excluding depreciation from earnings via EBITDA is lying about profits
“You got a big truck company and Take the depreciation out of the trucks, out of the earnings. You're ever lying about the earnings.”
Munger calls John Malone a great manipulator who avoided paying income taxes
“Well, I've never liked John Malone's extreme manipulations. I don't want to be known as the great manipulator like John Malone is. He paid less income taxes than anybody.”
Munger says business forecasting fails when CEOs like Bob Iger prioritize PR
“Well, I think a lot of companies are pretty good, but you can't confidently say what's going to happen because you may get some guy like Iger in that just wants to push everything and do the right public relations. So no matter how good the business is, it'll …”
DeMuro: Automakers Secretly Add Horsepower To Review Vehicles Via 'Press Finish'
“There is an option code that most automakers have but hide from their window stickers called press finish, and there is dispute about what that is. Some automakers, there is absolutely no question that press finish adds power. Absolutely no doubt, like they've…”
Ilya Sutskever argued next-token prediction inherently requires true world understanding
“The more accurately an LLM predicts that next word, i.e. The name of the criminal. Ipso facto, the greater its understanding, not only of the novel, but of all general human-level knowledge and intelligence, because you need all of your experience in the world…”
The SR-71 Blackbird Was Effectively a Decoy for Space Satellites
“This is heretical to say, because it's so beloved, but I think the Blackbird was a decoy. We were getting everything we needed from space. We just didn't want anybody to know about it.”
Ek: Spotify critics mistake increased creator competition for a broken business model
“But there's also more competition, which is, I think when people are talking about Spotify and criticizing it, that's the part I think is the biggest misconception. Because they hear so many, many people who are trying and it doesn't work where they're not mak…”
Lasky: Traditional sports owners who bought franchised esports teams hold dead assets
“I spent five years talking those owners, like the existing sports owners who had terrible FOMO from like dumping money into these things, and some of them took my advice, and some of them didn't, and ended up in, you know, with some really dead assets. But tha…”
Fenton: Late-stage investing dilutes venture fund return multiples
“If we start, all we're doing, we're investing more money in late stages. We're lowering our returns. That's all we're doing because our commitment is fixed. It's not like we're going to be more committed. So we're, you could say we're getting more cash on cash…”
Calacanis: California will be damaged for a decade or two
“I think Austin's kind of the future. I think California's gonna be damaged for a decade or two. So I think for the rest of our adult lives, this town.”
Calacanis: Andreessen Horowitz's long-term returns won't match Benchmark or Sequoia
“I think in the arc, it will not be comparable to benchmark at Sequoia.”
Boyle: Healthcare, housing, and education costs rose because tech hasn't touched them
“Everything has come down the cost curve, like televisions are less expensive, everything is less expensive in consumer land, except for healthcare, except for housing, and except for education. And it's really because technology has not touched those sectors, …”
Boyle: VC creates jobs while private equity fires people
“Private equity and venture capital as a category could not be more different from what they are doing. Venture capital is creating new things from nothing, and it is creating more jobs, it is Pouring money into companies so that they can grow, expand, and solv…”
Eich: Mozilla became captured by Google and cannot compete on distribution
“When I was thinking about Brave, I realized not only had Mozilla become captured by its search partner and was probably going to die because it couldn't compete, not just on Chrome intrinsic qualities, but on distribution, which really matters at scale.”
Eich: Google is complicit with digital ad fraudsters by collecting fees
“And that Google still gets the fee when this advertising money is stolen by fraudsters makes Google complicit with the fraudsters to some degree. It misaligns the interests again. It's a conflict of interest.”
Taylor Swift's Original Masters Are the Music Industry's Most Overvalued Asset
“There has never been a more overvalued asset in the music industry than the masters for Taylor Swift's original albums at three hundred million today. Not only is she actively devaluing them, but the whole industry is at complete peak for what people are willi…”
Michael Ovitz preferred negotiating with conflicted people to ensure deals closed
“You know, I've always felt, and I still do, I'm really interested in dealing with conflicted people because if you have a conflict, in essence, you want it to work out on both sides. So a lot of times I'll go to someone with a heavy conflict to this day to wor…”
Ovitz: Michael Eisner undercut me at every opportunity at Disney
“When I got to Disney, it was very clear there was a head-to-head conflict, and Michael undercut me every chance he could, and after a couple years, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore”