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 4,184 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 58 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
Vanguard and rival index funds own 24% of the US stock market
“Vanguard is the largest shareholder of most U.S. Corporations, and together with the other big index funds like BlackRock, State Street, and Fidelity, they own 24% of the entire U.S. Stock market.”
Rival index funds like BlackRock would not exist without Vanguard
“None of those other firms would be in this market or doing it in the same way if it weren't for Vanguard.”
Vanguard has saved retail investors $1 trillion in Wall Street fees
“Because of Vanguard's relentless cost-cutting and low fees, Vanguard has saved investors over five hundred billion dollars in fees and trading costs since its founding in 1975, and as a recent book The Bogle Effect argues, Vanguard's actions also forced the ha…”
Active investing is mathematically zero-sum before fees are subtracted
“If you take all the winners and all the losers and sum them up, And don't take out any fees. You come up with zero. Every positive winner on the side of a trade has a loser on the other side of the trade. And so in aggregate, all investors together are the mar…”
Fidelity offers a far better product and service experience than Vanguard
“Fidelity is just a better product and product experience than Vanguard. So during the pandemic especially, it exposed that Vanguard's customer service and technology is like jank. It is not good. And there were a lot of horror stories of trades not going throu…”
Vanguard has lacked meaningful scaled innovation for a decade
“There is this interesting question, which is that they haven't really had any new innovations in a while, call it a decade, that Have been really meaningful to the business and that they've continued to scale.”
84% of Vanguard funds have outperformed their peers over the past decade
“84% of Vanguard's funds have outperformed their peers over the last 10 years.”
Running a successful mutual fund is a commodity, not a differentiated product
“Jack had the insight that running a successful mutual fund is actually not a differentiated product. It is a commodity. What you are seeking is the highest possible long-term return on your capital. That is not like buying a unique piece of jewelry. It is like…”
Zero-fee broad market indexing reliably guarantees top-decile 40-year performance
“There's gonna be lots of funds that you can be in that will outperform in fits and starts, but if you wanna be the, in the upper decile, After 40 years, then it turns out owning the market with no fees is an almost surefire way to do it.”
Gilbert: Ferrari is the only ultra-luxury brand with mass cultural awareness
“So I would say Ferrari is the only ultra luxury brand that has reached mass cultural awareness.”
Alfredo Ferrari: A company is perfect when partners are odd and under three
“A company is perfect when the number of partners in it is odd and less than three.”
Rosenthal: Enzo Ferrari was Italy's Steve Jobs in every aspect
“Enzo was a natural born
Entrepreneur and marketer.
He really was Italy's Steve Jobs in every aspect.”
Rosenthal: Lamborghini Miura was a better car than Ferrari's contemporary offerings
“Lamborghini had just launched the Mira, the Lamborghini Mira at this point in time, which was a truly excellent car. Like, a better Ferrari than a Ferrari at the time.”
Montezemolo: Sustained racing losses erode Ferrari's luxury brand myth
“There is not a direct correlation between Ferrari victories on the track and the number of cars that you can sell, but If for many years you do not win, it means that you do not add wood to the fire of the myth. The myth of Ferrari is based on competition on c…”
Gilbert: Ferrari Combines Hermès Scarcity with Manchester United Global Fandom
“Ferrari is Hermes and Manchester United smashed together.”
Rosenthal: The Lamborghini Urus shares its platform with the VW Touareg
“The Lamborghini Urus, the Lamborghini SUV, that is the same platform as the Porsche Cayenne, which is the same platform as the Volkswagen Touareg. When you buy a Lamborghini Urus, you are buying a car that is essentially a Volkswagen Touareg.”
Fiat paid virtually zero equity value to acquire Chrysler
“Fiat paid either zero or almost zero in sort of equity value for Chrysler.”
Gilbert: Ferrari Icona and Supercar buyers own 10+ new Ferraris
“Clients who were invited to the supercar or the Icona class These people own at least 10 new Ferraris, maybe 20 plus Ferraris in a garage. These people are tens of millions of dollars deep into buying Ferraris.”
Gilbert: Marrying a luxury brand with a sports team is a cheat code
“If you can marry a luxury brand with a sports team, it is a business cheat code.”
Court Records Revealed Bernie Ecclestone Skimmed an 8% Formula 1 Revenue Fee
“Nobody writes anything down, because Bernie never writes anything down, and when the dust finally gets settled, and many decades later, all of the books and stuff become public through a whole series of court cases, turns out Bernie's actually taking eight per…”
Bernie Ecclestone Stripped Formula 1 Race Tracks of Advertising and Hospitality Revenue
“In addition to these agreements that Bernie was having everyone sign, race organizers were required to surrender income from trackside advertising and corporate hospitality.
To Formula One owned entities.
So this now means that the race organizer, the track bu…”
Bernie Ecclestone Bought the FIA's Formula 1 TV Rights for Under $10M
“Rather than you taking 30%, I'll pay you five million dollars a year, going up by one million every year, up to nine million at the end of this term, in exchange for your percentage of the TV.”
Formula 1's Role in Inventing Consumer Road Car Technology Is Overstated
“I think people sort of overstate this when they say there's all this technology that That came from F-one cars, but I think it's more like the technology was sort of iterated and perfected, or they would explore new material science or something in F-one cars …”
Russia Paid Formula 1 $50 Million Annually to Host the Sochi Race
“So they sign a deal with Russia. And of course it's a deal with the state. You know, anytime you're negotiating with Russia, you're negotiating with the state. To construct a new two hundred and seventy million dollar F-one track around the Olympic Park. And p…”
Red Bull Racing Operates at Near-Zero Profit Just to Market Energy Drinks
“They generate zero profit despite being one of the best teams and the highest revenue teams or near zero profit, very thin to create the biggest marketing spectacle that they can to sell energy drinks.”
The Mercedes Formula 1 Team Generates an Estimated $200 Million in Annual Profit
“Mercedes does an estimated two hundred million in operating income from Formula One now.”
The Mercedes Formula 1 Team's Valuation Grew From $165 Million to $6 Billion
“When he joined the team in 2013, he negotiated to own almost a third of the team, which at the time, the whole team was worth about one hundred and sixty five million. And it's now, 13 years later, worth six billion dollars.”
Formula 1 Teams Average $200 Million in Sponsorships, Comprising 60% of Revenue
“About 60% of the revenue comes from sponsorship, and the teams are now averaging about two hundred million dollars of total sponsorship per team, but average is kind of the wrong way to look at it because it varies wildly from front of the grid to back of the …”
Formula 1's Unequal Prize Money Distribution Creates Unbreakable Front-Runner Feedback Loops
“This is holding the sport back. In my opinion, you get a positive feedback loop and a negative feedback loop at the top and the bottom, and so we're sort of stuck in this world right now where the teams on the front four or five of the grid stay there and the …”
Formula 1's Revenue Share Distributed to Teams Plunged From 50% to 37%
“The percent of F-one management revenue that goes to teams, which was 50% back in 2018 and has shrunk to about 37% last year.”
Operational Excellence Trumps Strategy in Formula 1 Because Strategic Edges Are Quickly Arbitraged
“And so the thing that I would throw out here is I think skill or operational excellence is actually more important in building a successful F-one team than strategy, because a lot of these ways that you can win via strategy have a short window that closes
When…”
Rosenthal: A Champion-Level Female Formula 1 Driver Will Emerge in Coming Years
“I think there's a related bull case of a champion or champion level female driver emerging in the coming years. It feels like that's. Gonna happen. Has to happen. Should happen.”
Gilbert: Formula 1's Future Growth Will Be a Slog Since Easy Levers Are Pulled
“A lot of the low hanging fruit that was available for Liberty to do is levers that they have pulled. So everything from here is going to be a little bit more of like a multi-decade slog than some easy, quick fixes.”
The Majority of US Formula 1 Fans May Never Watch Live Races
“There are lots of people who say they love F-one, who can name people, who will buy merch, who will associate and purchase from sponsors of teams, and who can tell you who won the championship last year, but will never tune in live. And that might be like the …”
Gilbert: Fantasy football and sports betting drove the NFL's modern dominance
“The thing that powered the NFL to be such a dominant force in society today is fantasy football and sports betting.”
Only 23% of Gen Z consider the NFL their favorite sport
“And if you look at the data, US adults as a whole, 33% say the NFL is their favorite professional sports league. But if you look at Gen Z, only 23% of Gen Z say That the NFL is their favorite professional sport, so 10 points less than the broader population, a…”
Rosenthal: Kaepernick controversy would not have happened in the NBA
“I don't think this ever would have happened or happened in the same way in the NBA. The NBA embraced both social media and the strategy of letting players have their own platforms, be their own voices and promote the league through that.”
Rosenthal: NFL teams trade on trophy prestige rather than rational economic multiples
“Even as the NFL has become this incredible business, they don't trade at rational economic prices because the people buying them are doing net present happiness value equations, you know, not economic value.”
Sports betting provides a $2.3B indirect annual benefit to the NFL
“Nielsen estimated the indirect impact like we were talking about on the league and in every way that it helps the flywheel to be about 2.3 billion dollars per year that the league benefits from the legalization of sports betting.”
The NFL traded NFL Network to ESPN for a 10% equity stake
“So August, 20, 25, the NFL reached a deal with Disney and ESPN to essentially sell the NFL network, the NFL's cable network and the NFL's official fantasy app to ESPN for a 10% equity stake in all of ESPN in return for this swap.”
The NFL added 4M female fans in Taylor Swift's first year
“In the first year of the relationship, September of 23 to September of 24, the NFL added four million female fans. The Chiefs were 3.4 million of those.”
The NFL skims a share of private equity exit returns for all owners
“Upon any eventual sale or monetization of the ownership stake that private equity would have in an NFL franchise, A portion of the returns on that investment get skimmed off the top and go back to the NFL and then get distributed equally among all 32 NFL team …”
Michael Lewis: Book writing does not compound audiences across topics
“The books have a kind of, Market, and it's a big market, biggish market, but it doesn't, I see no evidence that I'm dragging people along with me. I feel like each book feels like another startup, and then I've got to go out and make it happen almost as if I'v…”
Ben Gilbert: Internet niches aggregate millions globally despite local obscurity
“Niches are way bigger than you think they are.
So if you think you're writing about a niche topic, the internet being a global community of four-ish billion people means that any little niche, there might be six people in your geography that care about it in …”
Gilbert: Media separation of editorial and advertising is necessary for journalism, not all media
“The media business model of splitting the commercial activity from the editorial is a societal benefit that we all benefit from publications like the New York Times.”
Acquired invests in almost all of its private company podcast sponsors
“Not our public company sponsors, but almost all of our private company sponsors, we invested them.”
Gilbert: Great businesses hold unmonetized potential energy off financials
“Great businesses have a stored potential energy that you can't see in the current financials.”
Morris Chang told Acquired TSMC's solar and memory diversification was a mistake
“We were sitting down with Morris Chang, and he was talking about TSMC, and he told us that one of the ways that they aired was trying to exit the integrated circuit market, or diversify from that market, and go into solar.
Memories, and there was one other thi…”