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 1,810 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
Studies reveal Coca-Cola is the world's number one ocean plastic polluter
“I was looking up studies recently, and the Coca-Cola company is the number one polluter globally of Crap in the ocean. Pepsi's very close behind all the big drink companies.”
Warren Buffett's legendary Coca-Cola investment has actually underperformed the S&P 500
“He would have been better off buying the S&P Over that same time period. Including dividends over that same time period. The S and P 500 is up about 11% annually. So the famous Berkshire Hathaway Coca-Cola investment today is actually underperforming the marke…”
Noam Shazeer Urged Google Leadership to Replace Search with Transformer Models
“Gnome, though, immediately starts advocating to Google leadership. Hey, I think this is going to be so big, the transformer, that we should actually consider just throwing out the search index And the 10 blue links model and go all in on transforming all of Go…”
OpenAI Rushed ChatGPT Launch After Learning of Anthropic's Chatbot Plans
“So, Anthropic was working on what would become Claude, and rumors were out there, and people at OpenAI Got wind of like, oh, hey, Anthropic and Dario are working on a chat interface. We should probably do one too. And if we're gonna do one, we should probably …”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
Gilbert: The BCCI banned IPL creator Lalit Modi for life in 2013
“And in 2013, the BCCI bars him from India cricket for life. I mean, this thing that he, like, willed into existence, that he created billions of dollars of value for all these other people, he has been barred from.”
Chang: 2009 TSMC CEO retake was triggered by 600-700 performance layoffs
“Another problem was the immediate one that triggered me to retake the CO ship because the previous CO had laid off, except he didn't use the term laid off, you know. He used the bad performance review, the worst performance review people, and there were about …”
Chang: TSMC's 2009 CEO circumvented board approval by framing layoffs as performance dismissals
“So I said to him, if you want to lay off, bring it to the board. I'll call a special board meeting. And I knew what I would ask the board to do, you know, which was not to grant the permission. That's right. But he decided to circumvent that, the CEO, you know…”
Morris Chang: China heavily subsidized and took control of solar manufacturing
“The solar business could have been pretty good. However, China ruined it. They subsidized the hell out of it. And they now control that business, solar cells.”
Chang: TSMC Offered NVIDIA Over $100M with 48-Hour Deadline
“Yes. More than a hundred million. And I also said, our offer is effective, 48 hours. If you do not, there is not going to be, we are not going to argue, we are not going to bargain. If you don't accept the offer within 48 hours, we will have to go to an arbitr…”
Chang: Previous TSMC CEO Offered NVIDIA Zero Dollars in Dispute
“The previous CEO did not even give him a number, you know. The previous CEO gave him zero.”
Facebook Acquired Onavo to Track Competitor Network Traffic and App Usage
“Well, in 2013, Facebook acquired a small Israeli company called Onavo, and Onavo was exactly what you just said, Ben. A VPN, actually, I think it initially started as, like, a data compression tool, so if you were worried about your data plan, which was Really…”
UK probe found Facebook told Cambridge Analytica to delete data in 2015
“The conclusion was that the quiz was taken by 320,000 people. Since those people had access to friends, the total surface area was the public profile data of eighty-seven million Facebook users. They also found that Facebook had requested that Cambridge Analyt…”
Gilbert: Popular belief that Nadella originated Azure is historically inaccurate
“As the general public is concerned, Steve Ballmer was obsessed with Windows. He built the enterprise business. He left. Satya Nadella came in and launched Azure, and Azure has been great. Like, not exactly. That's not really what happened.”
Schultz: Starbucks was seven months from insolvency in 2008
“I went up there, and I laid it out. Chapter and verse. I think we have seven months left. We are going to be insolvent.”
Bernard Arnault secretly accumulated Hermès shares using equity swaps over ten years.
“So in 2001, right after he lost Gucci, Bernard quietly buys an initial stake in Hermes of 4.9%.
Now I believe that was just under the threshold that they would have to disclose it under French securities regulations.
And then, here's what they do that the Herm…”
Eli Lilly claimed rebates account for 75% of insulin's sticker price
“Eli Lilly has publicly claimed that the cost of these discounts and rebates accounted for 75% of the sticker price of insulin.”
Wegovy and Ozempic cost over $1,000 monthly in the United States
“The price of Ozempic to treat diabetes is north of a thousand dollars, and Wegovy for weight loss is north of 1300 dollars per month before insurance, and this is in the U.S.
So expensive, right?
That's a lot of money.
In Canada, of course, Ozempic is 147 doll…”
Early studies show GLP-1 weight loss causes 40% lean muscle loss
“When you're losing weight normally, you lose, like, 25% lean muscle, and these early studies are showing it's something like 40%.”
DeMuro: Porsche Digital's Online Car Auction Site Marqued Is Fledgling
“Porsche has a business right now an auction business called marked that they're running and as a, from Porsche digital, and it's fledgling to say the least.”
Nike Over-Supplied Retailers to Reach $126M in Air Jordan Sales
“Nike needed that first year of the Jordan deal to be a huge hit. So they stuffed the channel. They pushed so much product on retailers and through the futures program and whatnot that that's how they hit the hundred and twenty six million dollars in sales. The…”
Ferdinand Porsche Was an SS Member and Hitler Associate
“Ferdinand himself not just was a Nazi, but was a very close personal associate of Adolf Hitler. He was a member of the SS”
In 1978, Porsche Launched the 928 Intending to Replace the 911
“So in 1978, Furman introduces the Porsche nine, 28 with the stated intention that this is going to eventually replace the nine, 11.”
Lasky: Early Riot Games acquired DotA community websites to redirect player demand
“We bought the websites that we bought the Defense of the Ancients websites and just turned their editorial to-”
The NFL Is the Single Largest Media Property in the World
“It's that the NFL is the single largest media property by value, and the funny thing is, if you go look at the, because we did this for the Nintendo episode, you go look at the largest media Media properties. They list Mario, they list Pokemon, and they, and t…”
The SEC let Enron recognize 20 years of future cash flows immediately
“The SEC allowed them to go out to 20 years that they could collapse into today revenue.”
Ken Lay's wife dumped 500,000 shares minutes before Enron's bailout deal collapsed
“At 10:20 a.m., 10 minutes before the news comes out, Ken Lay's wife sells 500,000 shares of Enron stock that the Kenan whatever her name is, that the Lay Family Foundation held.”
Gilbert: Enron's Rebecca Mark Sold $83M in Stock Without Charges
“She sold about eighty-three million dollars of stock. She actually got out early enough, and she was sort of cast out by the male executives at the top in a way where she was actually never accused of any wrongdoing and never really a part of the prosecution o…”
Stanford's endowment blackballed Benchmark's Fund I over its 30% carry demand
“Literally almost all of these folks who are starting Benchmark, they get so angry that not only do they not invest in the fund, they start organizing against this young benchmark capital. They call up all of their peers, the other university endowments across …”
Rosenthal: AWS was built to scale, not to monetize excess seasonal capacity
“The excess capacity story is a myth. It was never a matter of selling excess capacity. Actually, within two months after launch, AWS would have already burned through the excess amazon.com capacity. Amazon Web Services was always considered a business by itsel…”
Rosenthal: Amazon's engineering team in Cape Town built the original EC2
“That becomes EC two. It's that team in South Africa that builds EC two.”
Gilbert: Amazon will inevitably surpass Walmart in total global revenue
“If you look at the gap that Amazon closed in total revenue since the time they were founded to Walmart, they're going to catch them.
No doubt about it.”
Weber: Track Officials Ejected Brooks Execs From 2012 Olympic Trials
“They kicked me out, our head of marketing, and our head of sports marketing.”
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.”
Microsoft will not make Activision games Xbox exclusive following the acquisition
“People are worried about with the Activision deal about whether Microsoft would make Activision's games exclusive on Xbox. I don't think they will.”
John Foley sold $96M of Peloton stock near its 2021 peak
“John Foley sold ninety six million dollars of Peloton stock in 2021 when the price was really high and he was talking about what a strong future the company still had in front of it.”
Ithaca Holdings Sold Taylor Swift's Catalog to Shamrock for $300 Million
“Big Machine, the operating company, all the other masters of other artists, they have everything that stays with Ithaca Holdings. They sell only the Taylor masters to a private equity firm for about three hundred million dollars. So about the same price that t…”
The Lion King musical is history's highest-grossing single entertainment product
“The Lion King musical has grossed over eleven billion dollars in total revenue in its run, which I think makes it the single highest grossing entertainment product in history, in any medium, film, music, TV, video games, other Broadway shows.”
Pixar's IPO made Steve Jobs a billionaire, creating more wealth than Apple
“Pixar closes its first day of trading, At a one and a half billion dollar market cap, this is how big a hit Toy Story was and how much it was in the public consciousness. This is how Steve Jobs becomes a billionaire... He didn't make anywhere near that kind of…”
Steve Jobs demanded 100% of Pixar film profits in renegotiation with Disney
“He proposes a deal to Eisner, and this is where the relationship becomes irreparable. Pixar should actually be getting a hundred percent of the profits, not 50%, and they're now prepared to fund the budget themselves, too. Disney would just get a 10% distribut…”
Disney secretly formed Circle 7 Animation to make Pixar sequels without Pixar
“Disney actually does start a new studio inside the company called Circle Seven Animation. That will be tasked with developing, right away, Toy Story III, Monsters, Inc. II, and Finding Nemo II.”
Top weekly Disney+ movies are consistently Pixar and Disney Animation
“We've heard that the vast majority of the top 15 movies viewed every week on Disney Plus are either Pixar or Disney Animation. Not live action, not Star Wars, not The Avengers. The stuff that kids watch over and over. And those Disney animation movies are all …”