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 35 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 35 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
Zuckerberg Claims Meta Media Would Be Twice as Profitable on Owned Hardware
“And Mark made the comment on stage with us that they've run the analysis. They think they could be twice as profitable in their Core media products if they were on their own platform.”
All Eight Transformer Paper Co-Authors Left Google Within Years
“And also, of course, within a couple years, all eight authors of the Transformer paper had left Google to either start or join AI startups, including OpenAI.”
Page and Brin Would Rather Risk Bankruptcy Than Lose at AI
“Larry and Sergey control the company. They have been quoted repeatedly saying that they would rather go bankrupt than lose at AI.”
Rosenthal: News Feed initially hurt Facebook revenue by reducing page views
“Newsfeed actually
Significantly hurt Facebook's revenue because where do you think all the page views were coming from and all the refreshes?”
Novo Nordisk's CEO declared in 2005 that obesity was not a business
“As recently as 2005, 2005, like same year Baeta came out, Novo Nordisk's own official position on the obesity category, as articulated by the then CEO Lars Sorensen, was quote, Obesity is primarily a social and cultural problem. It should be solved by means of…”
Gilbert: NFL generates $18B annually, expected to reach $25B by 2027
“Because the NFL does eighteen billion a year in revenue right now, which is expected to grow to twenty five billion by 20 27.”
Larry Page Pre-empted Benchmark and Sequoia to Acqui-hire Sebastian Thrun
“He and some, I think it was grad students, were in the process of starting a company, had term sheets from Benchmark and Sequoia.”
Epic generates $5.7B in revenue on $70K in equity
“They do 5.7 billion dollars in revenue today. They dominate an industry, at least here in the United States. And in total, they raise 70,000 of equity capital and 70,000 of bank debt.”
Epic requires all applicants across every role to pass logic tests
“It's all systemized and catalogued and everybody takes one on the way in.
For every role in the company.
The culinary team we heard. Takes not full software developer tests, but logic tests on the way in.”
Gilbert: Facebook Rejected Microservices for a Monolithic Codebase
“So they structured themselves in a way that encouraged flexibility of engineers, and they really broke from the tide of microservices in this era. They had one monolithic code base that everyone worked out of.”
Gilbert: Sinofsky's Office division set ship dates three years ahead for 6,000 people
“Three years in advance a date is set and then 6000 people ship on that date no matter what.”
Thompson: Substack's seed deck pitched 'Stratechery in a box'
“Substack's seed deck says Shackery in a box. That was their pitch.”
Gilbert: Fastow Made $60M from LJM Partnerships, Exceeding His Enron Comp
“And Fastow actually makes sixty million dollars from the LJM partnerships, from fees, carry, and selling partnership interests. So he actually makes more from the LJMs Than I think he does in total comp at Enron ever.”
Michael Ovitz lasted one year as Disney president, exiting with $140M severance
“So Ovitz lasts just over a year at Disney and leaves in December, 1996 with a hundred and forty million dollar severance package.”
Disney acquired 27,000 acres in Central Florida for its resort project
“They bought 27,000 acres. That is the size of San Francisco.”
Gilbert: NFL eligibility rules still prohibit entering straight out of high school
“103 years later, here we are in 2023. You still can't go to the NFL out of high school. You can only go with the junior year of your graduating class from college. You can go one year early in a hundred years. That's the one concession that's been made.”
Ben Gilbert: Trader Joe's offers no online ordering or delivery
“They don't stock all the things you need to buy each week. You can't buy online. You can't get it delivered in any way, even as the whole world turns to grocery e-commerce.”
Gilbert: EPL players receive 60%+ of revenue versus 50% in other major leagues
“In fact, almost every sports league now, it's on average players get 50%, except on English Premier League Soccer, it's something like players get 60 plus percent”
Cartier destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars in watch inventory in 2016
“Cartier overproduced watches in 2016 and had to destroy hundreds of millions of dollars of inventory.”
Costco's founders visited a Canadian IKEA for inspiration before launching
“And actually, I happen to know, the founders of Costco made a special trip up to one of the Canadian Ikeas, even before the founding of Costco, because they had so much respect for IKEA as a brand they admired. They, like, wanted to go and see it and experienc…”
Gilbert: IKEA acquired TaskRabbit for $50M to $75M
“So they bought TaskRabbit for a small amount, 50 to seventy-five million, somewhere in there, a few years ago.”
Gilbert: US PC Household Penetration Grew From 10% in 1986 to 62% in 2003
“The US household penetration of personal computers, again, flashing back pre-IPO, was only eight percent. So that whole doubling year over year over year, By Microsoft's IPO, they still only got to around 10% of penetrating the U.S. By 1997, 13 years later, it…”
Gilbert: Starbucks profits surged from $315M in 2008 to $945M in 2010
“Your low point in 2008 profits were three hundred and fifteen million, and by 20 10 they were nine hundred and forty five million.”
MITS negotiated Intel's 8080 chip price down from $360 to $75
“The list price from Intel for the 8080 chip was 360 dollars... He managed to negotiate a volume deal with Intel to get eighty-eighty chips at 75 bucks a pop.”
Compaq set multiple rapid growth records and became the largest PC maker
“Compaq was the fastest startup to ever hit a hundred million in revenue, then the youngest firm to break into the Fortune 500, then the fastest company to hit a billion in revenue, and by 1994, Compaq was the largest PC maker in the world.”
Chip-on-Wafer-on-Substrate advanced packaging accounts for 10% to 15% of TSMC's capacity
“So COOS represents right now about 10 to 15% of TSMC's capacities, and many of the facilities are custom-built for exactly these types of chips that they're producing.”
Rosenthal: Over half of Americans in 1955 feared nuclear death most
“In 1955, there was a national poll that asked the question, what do you think you are most likely to die from? And over half of America responded that they thought they were most likely to die in thermonuclear war.”
Gilbert: F-35 generates 20% of Lockheed Martin's total net sales
“The F-thirty-five, I believe, is the largest program, generating 20% of all net sales across all segments.”
Cacioppo: Vanta serves the majority of the current Y Combinator batch
“But now we serve a majority of the current YC batch, so people in YC right now”
Benchmark gave copies of 'Built to Last' to prospective Fund I LPs
“They actually hand a copy of the book to every LP as they're pitching them going around for fund one, which is really funny because a, I think they did believe in the values espoused there in, but it's also brilliant marketing.”
Rosenthal: Morris Chang founded TSMC at age 56
“Morris Chang was 56 years old when he founded TSMC, and TSMC is today, I believe, the 11th most valuable”
Peloton's revenue scaled from $60M in 2015 to $325M in 2017
“So, sixty million dollars in revenue in 2015. 2016, they do a hundred and seventy million dollars in revenue. 2017, there is three hundred and twenty five million at a 1.3 billion dollar valuation.”
Gilbert: Aladdin grossed $500M on a $28M production budget
“1992 with Aladdin. Box office. Five hundred million is what I saw, right? That's right. Half a billion. On a twenty-eight million dollar production budget.”