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 4,115 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 53 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
Ad Auction Liquidity Guarantees Google's Search Traffic Remains Uniquely Valuable
“The most liquid auction
Will always win, and Google has already run away with the search ads auction liquidity, and so traffic on Google searches will forever be worth more than traffic on the second place browser.”
Google Chrome Kept the Web Alive as a Viable Application Platform
“I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that Chrome kept the web alive. As a viable platform for applications.”
A Divested Chrome's Only Viable Business Model Is Selling Search Traffic
“If the DOJ's ruling is that Google has to divest Chrome, there is one way that Chrome is a business, and that is getting paid by Google to drive traffic to Google as a search engine. It's the only way to operate a business of a browser.”
Microsoft Would Have Won Mobile OS Licensing Without Google Buying Android
“If they don't buy Android and they don't get started basically in the month that they did, this market belongs to Microsoft.”
Steve Jobs Lawsuit Threats Kept Pinch-to-Zoom Off Early Android Devices
“So Steve Jobs threatens to sue Google over implementation of multi-touch gestures. And so, as a result, Android for several years doesn't have things like pinch to zoom or the sort of swipe operating system UI navigation gestures, and I'm pretty sure if you re…”
Big Tech Companies Typically Capture and Dominate Only a Single Paradigm
“The state of play of being a big tech company, and this dates back 80 years, is technology moves fast, and the new paradigms disrupt everyone that came before you, so you get one era. And you gotta make the absolute most Of the one era that you grew up in, and…”
Google Is the Only Tech Giant to Extend Its Business Across Eras
“Nobody stretches a business model across technology eras. Nobody. And Google did it.”
Successful Google Products Require Core Academic-Grade Technical Insights
“Almost all of Google's successful products are based on a core technology insight that is underneath the whole thing. The type of insight that could be in an academic journal.”
Dimon: Bank One held more credit risk than Citibank under aggressive accounting
“I quickly realized that BankOne had more U.S. Corporate credit risk
Than Citibank did.
And they, the way they accounted for it was unbelievably aggressive.
And, you know, so they had less capital, less reserves, less this.
They were calling these things profit…”
Dimon: Banks earning 30% ROE pre-2007 mostly went bankrupt in 2008
“If you look at the history of banks from up until 2007, a lot of banks were earning 30% equity.
Most of them went bankrupt.
We never did that much.
Okay.
But in oh eight and oh nine, we were fine and they weren't.”
Dimon: An Unrescued Bear Stearns Would Have Triggered Immediate Financial Collapse
“It would have been gone, and the crisis would have just unfolded”
Dimon: 80% of Federal Mortgage Settlement Targeted Bear and WaMu Conduct
“80% of what they're asking for related to Bear Stearns and Wamuu, not JPMorgan Chase.”
Dimon: The $2T private credit market is not a systemic risk
“So there, it may, there may be something in there that would become a problem one day. I don't think it's systemic. So that two trillion, the mortgage market when the time it blew up was, I'm going to say, nine trillion, and a trillion dollars was lost.”
Dimon: US critical infrastructure protections are inadequate for cyber war
“But it is, you're talking about grids and communications companies and water and even part of the military establishment. The protections are not what you need. If we ever get any kind of war where cyber is involved, and China is very good at it, and so is Rus…”
Dimon: Venture capitalists caused SVB and First Republic runs by telling startups to withdraw
“What happened with Silicon Valley Bank and kind of First Republic is some of these large venture capital companies, call them there hundreds of them, maybe a thousand, told their constituent clients that they invested in, who all banked in Silicon Valley and F…”
Dimon: SVB and First Republic took excessive interest-rate risk known to regulators
“Both those had, they took too much interest rate exposure, known to management, and it was known to the regulators, and, you know, ah, and fixable.”
Dimon: Citigroup's conglomerate acquisitions like truck leasing lacked strategic fit and added risk
“Whereas, you know, Citi had consumer, consumer finance, that didn't fit. Life insurance, that didn't fit. Property, that didn't, they eventually got rid of them all. Sandy just wanted to do more of them. You know, he bought an American general, which did truck…”
Portals optimized for retention while Google optimized for exit speed
“This is basically why Google beat Yahoo. I mean, there's a lot more to it, but The portals all had this mentality of we want to build more and more and keep people on our site, in our ecosystem, continue to look at our banner ads, and Google, from this point, …”
Page and Brin offered to sell Google to GoTo for $200M
“And Larry and Sergey Before they raised the Sequoia and Kleiner round came to Bill and said, what about two hundred million?”
Rosenthal: Google would not have succeeded if GoTo acquired it
“Well, there's almost zero chance that Google becomes Google if that deal had happened, so”
Rosenthal: Google Has the Best Business Model in Corporate History
“It's the same beautiful ballet where every piece of the Google business model works together and reinforces the other pieces, and in concert it creates the best business model of all time.”
Ballmer: One of my major regrets is Microsoft losing its consumer muscle
“One of my regrets is we lost the consumer muscle along the way, because I think the ability to be ultra ultra, I mean, we're a great company, Microsoft's great company, but to have both of those muscles totally firing, if I'd been able to sustain that consumer…”
Ballmer: Microsoft wasn't seen as an enterprise company until late 2000s
“It was the late 2000. You know, certainly it wasn't before 2005. It wasn't the beginning of my tenure. We were still trying to prove that we were an enterprise company.”
Ballmer: Platforms must build the top first-party app to succeed
“Platforms need apps. You want to have the top first party app that runs on your platform. Otherwise your platform can't get good.”
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: Mastering Voice Technology Requires Owning a Smartphone Platform
“There's so many technologies that are hard to not just popularize, but even get good at, unless you have a phone these days, just take voice. You know, if you want to really be good at voice. You got to get enough signal and you'll get the signal off the phone…”
Ballmer: Microsoft Built Surface Because PC OEMs Failed to Rival Mac
“There were no high end PCs that would really compete with Mac. And we, I decided the only way we were going to get there, we couldn't sit there with our OEM model and have it work. If we're going to have high end PCs that appealed to users, because I wanted us…”
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: Gates strongly disagreed with Microsoft making Surface, phones, and HoloLens
“Disagreed about whether we should do hardware. That was a big one. We did, you know, surface was a big disagreement. Phone, big disagreement. HoloLens. Big disagreement.”
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 …”
Ballmer: Microsoft removed 'teamwork' as an official corporate value
“In Microsoft, I, we got rid of the value called teamwork. I didn't want that one. I said open and respectful and dedicated to making others better. Because teamwork could sound like a treat everybody, nice, nice.”
Ballmer: Intuit Dome bans visiting gear in its 4,000-seat fan section
“There's no suites on the side. We even built a student section right in the middle, i.e. It's standing room only. You must stand. That's what you have to agree to if you're going to sit there or be there. You have to agree to stand. You have to agree to cheer.…”
Ballmer: Visiting NBA teams shoot lowest free throw percentage against The Wall
“I saw data that said that the- Lowest free throw shooting percentage of the league for the visiting team is against the wall.”
Ballmer: Clippers Will Use Microsoft-Style Long-Term Grinding to Challenge Lakers
“Our goal is to be long-term grinders on that. And we want to beat them every time on the court. It's okay to have two popular teams. Los Angeles County, for gosh sakes, has the same number of people as the state of Ohio, pretty much. So there's plenty of peopl…”
US healthcare costs are psychological abstractions for patients
“If you're trying to unpack how did our health care become 18% of GDP versus 11% of the UK GDP, or a staggering six percent of Singapore's GDP, albeit at a much smaller scale. Why are we 18%? A big thing you have to understand is, psychologically, every healthc…”
The VA's Cerner EHR rollout will take until at least 2031
“The VA system was bid out in 2017. The latest announcement from the VA about this project is that it will be live at all VA sites by, this is a direct quote, as early as 20 31.”
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.”
Rosenthal: BCCI controls world cricket talent via wealth and veto rights
“The BCCI has cornered resource access to the best talent in the world. Because they have all the money, and they have the Indian fans who care about watching the best Indian players, and they have essentially veto right over the best Indian players playing any…”
Rosenthal: BCCI board member N. Srinivasan bought Chennai Super Kings for $91M
“Anyway, this I think is known at the time, one of the other board members of the BCCI who would soon become the chairman of the BCCI, a gentleman named N. Srinivasan, who also is an industrialist who owns the Indian Cements Company, He buys the Chennai Super K…”