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 14 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
Ballmer: Apple services is just iPhone monetization, not a new platform
“It's an additional monetization model, but it's not a new locomotive. A locomotive is a, the business that can pull the cabooses and the locomotive remains the phone. You know, the services business go away pretty quick if the phone volume fell apart.”
Rosenthal: Without ARM, Intel probably would make all iPhone chips
“Like, if ARM hadn't become such a viable CPU architecture platform, and Apple hadn't standardized, you know, their Apple Silicon on ARM, Probably Intel would be making all of the chips that go into your iPhone, all the leading edge chips that go into your iPho…”
Matching iPhone Cash Flows Would Leave Reality Labs Net Negative Until 2035
“Well, I did that napkin math, and if twenty-twenty-four, This year was Apple's 2007, so you just take all the iPhone's cash flows and you start the clock right now. Meta's cumulative cash flows from Reality Labs would be net negative until at least 2035.”
The iPhone Broke Microsoft's Enterprise Lock-In Through BYOD
“All of the huge advantages in lock-in that Microsoft had built up, the iPhone changed that calculus because the iPhone kicked off shadow IT and bring your own device, and it kicked off the user revolt against IT.”
Rosenthal: Microsoft's Real Mobile Competitor Was Android, Not Apple's iPhone
“Microsoft's competitor was not Apple and the iPhone, it was Android.”
Rosenthal: Without Sony and Morita, Apple would not have created iPhone
“And I think you know, no Morita, no Sony, no iPhone.”
Leading-edge semiconductor fabrication is alchemy compared to device assembly
“Assembling an iPhone is completely, completely different than taking a brand new design for a next generation chip and manufacturing that chip. One is manufacturing and one is alchemy. The alchemy can only be done by alchemists.”
Gilbert: iPhone shifted mobile from cheap embedded systems to full computers
“The mobile industry to this point had been, how do I make the cheapest possible phone? It's certainly not a scaled down version of a Mac, which is what the iPhone was. So that was a completely different paradigm. This is a tiny computer, not a kind of crappy e…”
Gilbert: iPhone launch was the most spectacular demo since Engelbart
“The iPhone comes out. It's the most spectacular technology demo since The mother of all demos, the old Doug Engelbart one way back in the day.”
Gilbert: NVIDIA's investment in CUDA was an iPhone-sized bet
“Those were big bets relative to the company's size at the time, but this bet is like an iPhone-sized bet.”
The Original iPhone Relied on Built-In Google Maps and YouTube Apps
“There are two apps that launch in the very first version of the iPhone. Remember, it didn't have an app store. It was not open to third-party developers. There is a YouTube app and a Maps app, both of which are Google services. Now, the apps are written by App…”
TSMC manufactures all NVIDIA chips and every iPhone and Mac processor
“They make the primary chip inside every MacBook and iPhone shipped today. They're powering the AI wave, manufacturing all of NVIDIA's chips.”