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 411 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: Microsoft's mistake was forcing Windows into unnatural form factors
“I don't think we stuck with windows too long. I think what we did is we tried to put windows in places that it didn't naturally go, and we tried to be too windowsy, both in the API and the UI in some things.”
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.”
Ballmer: Microsoft only truly missed mobile devices and search
“So in the sense that we missed a major productivity area and we're in the productivity business and we were in the client Area, and we missed a client device. Those are the two. Nothing else we met, quote, missed.”
Ballmer: Longhorn was Microsoft's 'mistake of mistakes'
“Longhorn was a big mistake. I have to take accountability. I was a CEO. Bill's got to take a lot of accountability. And it was the mistake of mistakes.”
Ballmer: LA Clippers are far more secure than Microsoft stock
“No, that I do not own for financial purposes. And I will also tell you, unlike Microsoft, it cannot go to zero. Not a chance. It is far more secure than Microsoft. Why? They're not making more of them. And as long as anybody in the world's getting richer, the …”
Cerner is probably one of Oracle's worst acquisitions of all time
“You know, maybe it's too early to tell, but I think this is probably one of Oracle's worst acquisitions of all time.”
Rosenthal: Epic may be the most durable software company in history
“I think this is maybe The most durable software company in history.”
Epic Systems has the highest switching costs of any software in history
“I mean, this is the biggest switching cost piece of software ever.”
Rosenthal: Epic's Judy Faulkner is history's most successful female founder
“Judy is almost certainly the most successful by any measure female founder in history. I think that is actually true. I looked up to try and see who else might even come close.”
Epic controls which new software innovations can reach hospital physicians
“Epic is kind of the choke point of the industry at this point to decide what software innovations reach hospitals. I don't think it's overstating it to say if you're developing new breakthrough software to be used by physicians in hospital systems, Epic's kind…”
Epic is likely the world's most valuable vertical software company alongside Bloomberg
“Epic has gotta be the most valuable vertical market software company in the entire world. What else could possibly be up there? And so I started racking my brain. I was like, Bloomberg was the only one I could come up with that could. Plausibly maybe be as val…”
Rosenthal: IPL Originated as Lalit Modi's Revenge Play Against Rupert Murdoch
“And thus begins a 10 to 15 year journey that is not just the ultimate revenge play by Lalit on Rupert, but accidentally along the way starts the biggest sports entrepreneurial story phenomenon that has ever existed.”
Gilbert: IPL could not have existed without Lalit Modi
“You couldn't have the IPL without Lalit Modi, period.”
Rolex is not true luxury because it prioritizes high-volume revenue
“This is part of my argument that Rolex really isn't luxury at all. They have hit the sweet spot in the market. If you think about a curve, like an X, Y axis, they have found the sweet spot where you can maximize revenue, where you just sell an absolute ton of …”
Rolex is likely worth over $100 billion in enterprise value before assets
“There's no way that this business is worth 40. I don't know if it's worth 200, but it's worth a hundred plus. Zero doubt in my mind.”
Gilbert: $100B fab costs give semiconductor manufacturing natural monopoly characteristics
“Eventually it will cost 40,000,000,080 billion, a hundred billion. How many players are really going to be left standing with the ability to deploy a hundred billion dollars to build a building with some machines in it? This market has natural monopoly charact…”
Software lacks the immense moat defensibility of heavy semiconductor manufacturing CapEx
“Even better in the notion that gross margins of software can be 80 to 90%, not 50%, but I would back that down because it doesn't have the sort of moat defensibility characteristics that being able to plow your Capex into manufacturing capability does.”
TSMC has the strongest economic moat of any company in the world
“Other than that, I don't know that there is a stronger moat that any company has in the entire world than TSMC.”
Sean Parker Is Entirely Responsible for Mark Zuckerberg's Founder Control
“Mark having full control over the company as we are going to see time and time and time again as we go through the story here makes all the difference in the world, and that is 100% because of Sean Parker.”
Meta Enjoys Guaranteed Profitable ROI on AI Hardware via Ad Optimization
“It's one of the fundamental advantages that Facebook has today relative to all other AI companies is that they are guaranteed profitable ROI on all of their AI spend. All of their research, all their infrastructure, all their GPUs, they have highly, highly pro…”
Gilbert: TikTok stealing users was a bigger existential threat than Apple's ATT
“The interesting thing is, at this time, the real threat wasn't actually ATT. The biggest of those three threats was TikTok stealing users. The whole ATT thing is about how much money can we make off of an ad because it is so well targeted? That's an optimizati…”
Gilbert: Apple's ATT was net value destructive rather than captured by Apple
“And what ended up actually happening from ATT? It's been value destructive. Overall, because I don't think the amount of money that has shifted away from Facebook has been captured by Apple.”
Zuckerberg: Meta might be twice as profitable if it owned the platform
“I, it's hard to exactly estimate it, but I think we might be, like, twice as profitable if we own the platform or something.”
Gilbert: Xbox is culturally significant but insignificant to Microsoft's business
“Xbox has become an important part of our world. But not an important part of Microsoft's business.”
Schultz: Starbucks Pricing Has Become a Problem Amid Recent Inflation
“There certainly was a fair amount of discussion all the time about the sensitivity of the price points, and I think in later years, maybe in the last couple years, given the consumer inflationary time, I think it's become a bit of a problem.”
Schultz: Starbucks Asia delivers higher brand experience than US stores
“The interesting thing to me today is that the Asian business is operating at a much higher level
Of the soft side of Starbucks than we are in the U S”
Schultz: Starbucks underestimated the public groundswell for unionization after COVID missteps
“And I think the company made some early mistakes. Some of which were COVID related. Again, no textbook had to deal with COVID issues, health issues, safety issues. And then I think underestimated the groundswell of public sentiment for this movement in America…”
The Microsoft-IBM PC partnership was tech history's most important deal
“I think you can make a very strong argument, the single most important deal ever done in the history of technology.”
Gilbert: Renaissance Technologies operates as a casino house, not an investment firm
“Renaissance Technologies is actually not in the investment business. They are in the gambling business, and in particular, they're the house.”
Rosenthal: Studying non-tech giants is more valuable than tech case studies
“Is that those stories and studying the LVMHs, the Costcos, the Nikes of the world, if anything, that's like even more important than studying the great technology companies for building a great technology company.”
Gilbert: Spotify lacks operating leverage in music due to record labels
“I think Spotify in their music business has gotten to scale and has no potential to create a high operating leverage business. They're always going to be giving the same percentage of the profits to the record labels who have an unbelievable amount of bargaini…”
Visa's zero-risk information network may be history's best business model
“This information network that doesn't have to take on any of the risk of any of these transactions. It's purely about connecting buyers to sellers and moving information back and forth has proven to be maybe the best business model ever”
Visa's financial profile is superior to any major tech company
“The financial profile of Visa's business is more tech than any of the tech companies. It is what they all wish they could have.”
Munger says Walmart made a terrible mistake letting Costco win wealthy suburbs
“So it offended them to go against the rich suburbs and to have to pay up for the good locations, and Costco just specialized in the good locations where the rich people live. And Walmart just let them do it year after year. It was a terrible mistake.”
Munger believes nearly all investment assets worldwide have become overpriced
“Damn near. Of course it could be possible. It's not only possible, it's likely, and it's actually happened.”
Munger warns modern democracies risk becoming dysfunctional like Europe after blow-ups
“Yes, an unpleasant blow up of some kind. And God knows what happens after an unpleasant blow up with our modern democracies. You would get to see a lot like Europe, which is quite dysfunctional.”
Nvidia's $7 billion acquisition of Mellanox is one of tech's best ever
“They made one of the best acquisitions of all time back in 2020, and nobody had any idea. They bought a quirky little networking company out of Israel called Mellanox.”
Nvidia's Q2 FY24 release was one of history's greatest corporate earnings reports
“I think this was one of, if not the most incredible earnings release by any scaled public company ever. Seriously, no matter what happens going forward, last week was a historic moment.”
Nvidia is the only viable platform for training GPT-class frontier AI models
“If you want to train GPT or a GPT class model, there's one option. You're doing it on NVIDIA. There's one option.”
Any challenger unseating Nvidia's AI dominance requires an unforeseen flank attack
“So I think the bottom line here is it nearly impossible to compete with them head on, and if anybody's gonna unseat NVIDIA in the future of AI and accelerated computing, it's either gonna be from some unknown flank attack that they don't see, or the future wil…”
Phil Knight Essentially Invented Modern Sports Marketing With Steve Prefontaine
“It's Phil, like, basically inventing sports marketing. I mean, there was a sort of nascent idea of athlete sponsorship at the time, but it really, this is the invention of it as we know it today. And all athletic brands are defined by athletes, and this is rea…”
Lockheed Missiles and Space Had a Bigger Impact Than Skunk Works
“What LMSC, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, did, I honestly think, like, it is bigger impact to the country, to the world, and certainly on business to Lockheed and to Silicon Valley than Skunk Works.”
Ek: All media business models across all formats must move to freemium
“All media models ought to move to freemium. It's as someone who's Been saying that for 15 years. I obviously agree with him there, but I think that's true in all formats, right?”
Ek: Taylor Swift probably could not reach number one without streaming platforms
“Do I think she could have reached number one at that point without streaming? Probably not would have been the answer.”
Rosenthal: Walmart was the first applied technology company in America
“I still think that they were the first applied technology company in America.”
Rosenthal: Apple has been a terrible steward of the podcasting industry
“Apple has been such a terrible steward of this industry.”
Thompson: Twitter Should Have Had Disappearing Tweets from Day One
“I think actually one of the biggest mistakes Twitter made, and it's understandable. No one could have seen it at the time, but Twitter should have had disappearing tweets from day one. It should have always been a just in the moment sort of social network. I t…”
Thompson: Apple's privacy changes enhanced Meta's long-term ad moat
“The Apple changes were very devastating, and they're structurally devastating, and so they deserve a significant haircut on their valuation because of that, but I also think they were moat-enhancing in the long run, where I question whether any other company i…”