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 12 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
Gerstner: Seeding investment accounts for every newborn would cost under $20B/year
“It doesn't cost a lot of money, right? In the scheme of things like this is less than twenty billion dollars a year for the federal government.”
Gerstner: Value legends did crossover investing long before the term existed
“Paul Reeder, who started Park Capital, was doing private investments before Brad Gerstner showed up. Seth Klarman at Bellpost was doing private investments, you know, before we coined the term crossover, right? David Abrams in Boston. So I had a lot of legenda…”
Gerstner: Altimeter led Snowflake's round at a ~$175M enterprise value
“I don't remember what the exact share price was. I think the enterprise value at the time was somewhere around a hundred and seventy five million dollars.”
Gerstner: Tiger Global did 70 to 80 early-stage rounds in H2 2021
“Tiger did, I don't know, 70 or 80 series A's, and You know, seeds in series A in the back half of last year.”
Gerstner: Top 10% to 15% of venture captures 80% to 90% of returns
“The top 10, 15% of venture is going to take 80 to 90% of the returns, ok?”
Gerstner: Only 30% of Americans belong to the ownership society
“We only have 30% of people who belong to the ownership society.”
Gerstner: USA Networks acquired NLG and Expedia concurrently in 2000–2001
“Between October of 2000 and May of 2001 we put together a deal where USA Networks would be renamed IAC, bought both NLG and Expedia.”
Gerstner: Tech growth multiples crashed 50% in early 2022
“Just look at what's happened over the course of the last eight weeks, right? Growth multiples are down 50%. Risk premiums have changed dramatically.”
Gerstner: Bill Miller sold his private Zillow shares back in 2008
“Bill Miller of Lake Mason famously invested in Zillow in 2000 and six or 2007, and then in 2008 sold all those shares back to the company because everybody was unwinding their private positions”
Gerstner: Database software market cap was roughly $1T in 2000
“In 2000, if you aggregate the total enterprise value of companies that were principally driving their revenue from databases, it's about a trillion dollars in market cap in 2000.”
Gerstner: Google desktop search turned negative year-over-year in late 2012
“Google's desktop search, I think, didn't go negative
Until 2012.
Maybe the fall of 2012.
That's when there were fewer people searching on desktop, you know, on a year-over-year basis because people were switching to their mobile devices, okay?”