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 42 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 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
Raboy: Lina Khan's Yale academic paper on Amazon contained false data
“She published a paper that was false. Like, her whole claim to fame is this paper about Amazon. And the data in the Amazon, the data she used in the paper at Yale was false.”
Keith Rabois predicts human-labeled AI data will be obsolete within three years
“The truth is, I think there's a very short half-life on human label data. And so everybody who's investing in these companies just to get revenue traction really didn't understand that there may be a year, two years, Three years max when anybody uses human lab…”
Rabois predicts Google Search will lose to AI competitors like ChatGPT
“I think Google's also, Google search, cross-search, is toast. And since they have Chrome and they theoretically have a quality team in Gemini, they should be putting these two things together and hoping to compete with Chad GPT. They're going to lose the searc…”
Rabois: US educational metrics uniformly declined since Department of Education's 1979 creation
“Every single educational stat has got worse in the United States since the department was created.”
Raboy: No other active VC can invest on just a keynote deck
“If I meet a founder and there's a keynote deck, there's no product, there's no metrics, that's my sweet spot. Because I also know nobody else in venture is good at that. Nobody else is still active in venture.”
Keith Raboy: Avoids investing in startup founders with prior domain expertise
“I always mentioned that I don't like people with expertise typically as founders.”
Raboy: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew lied to Congress about data access
“There are people in China monitoring what certain people in the United States are doing, and the CEO lied under oath to congressional committees about this, and the evidence is now in the public domain.”
Rabois: A flipped Congress will subpoena Twitter over foreign government influence
“But the government, if the U.S. Congress is turned over, there's gonna be a lot of subpoenas flying over to Twitter, because there are absolutely foreign governments influencing some of those decisions at Twitter.”
Rabois: Florida abortion law is more permissive than France and Germany
“It's actually more permissive than any European country. But nobody knows that. France actually only allows abortion up to 14 weeks. Germany is like 16. So we're 20 here, so we're more liberal than Europe.”
Rabois: Tiger Global will struggle with Series A investing
“And if Tiger thinks that they're going to be successful Series A investors, they're in for a very rude awakening.”
Rabois: AI allows small businesses to eat mid-market companies
“So the large, largest players, the NVIDIAs of the world, do benefit the more people that run, compute, etc. But then I think that the smaller businesses actually eat at mid-market companies because they can compete now and they've been at an economic disadvant…”
Rabois: Apple missed the AI wave but thrives through vertical integration
“The performance is absolutely miserable on the most important technology through the last 70 years, but the company is still alive and still worth trillions of dollars because it's vertically integrated.”
Rabois: OpenAI must ship a hardware device to maintain product advantage
“The way to stay ahead of the product level is shipping a device. They've got to ship the device.”
Rabois: Capping US spending at 2019 levels would yield budget surplus
“Because if you just held federal spending to 2019 levels, 2019 is not like, you know, decades ago. Literally with our current tax revenues, we would be in a surplus.”
Rabois: Musk's America Party can win House seats but not Senate races
“I think you can win a few house races. I think that's doable. I don't think you can win a Senate race.”
Raboy: Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures differ fundamentally in entry valuations
“Almost every successful investment of founders fund over eight funds was invested at a five hundred million dollars or more entry valuation. And almost every single investment at KV in eight funds was like the seed or series a investment with very few exceptio…”
Raboy: Early-stage metrics confuse investors; founder capability is the only data point
“At the end of the day, the only data point is, is this founder capable of building an iconic company? Period. And I prefer to compete when there's no metrics, because all the metrics you're gonna do is confuse you.”
Raboy: Trump is sole president in 60 years with declining net worth
“I think it's in the last 60 years, Trump is the only president whose net worth went down after office.”
Raboy: Quantum computing is at least a decade away from commercial applications
“First of all, I think there's a long time before this becomes a commercial product or application of any sort. So, you know, it's great that they're taking money, but think about it as like almost like Stanford takes money or the U S government funds basic res…”
Raboy: Apple faces structural disadvantages in consumer AI over next five years
“There are advantages Apple has in AI. But there's some significant organizational structural disadvantages, and that's the field that people are going to be competing on for the next five years from a consumer perspective, and they're playing on a field where …”
Raboy: WhatsApp is the only M&A exit to return a major fund
“You don't drive returns in venture to an institutional venture capital fund through an M&A. Like WhatsApp may be the only one that really drove a fund returning exit to a serious fund.”
Raboy: Trump administration will implement real tariffs against China without inflation
“So I think you're going to see real tariffs, like, especially against China, And the Trump administration is completely committed to reducing inflation, the cost of eggs, you know, and groceries, and I think those things can be reconciled.”
Rabois: Elon Musk acquiring Twitter will be a bad financial investment
“Yes, Elon should buy Twitter to save the world, but it's not going to be a good financial investment.”
Rabois: Founders Fund avoids leading down rounds unless cap table unanimously requests it
“We typically at Founders Fund really don't like to do those rounds. The only way we would consider it is pretty much if everybody on the cap table called us up, the founder, CEO, the board members, prior investors said, we really want you to do this, and like …”
Rabois: Capital as the main tech driver has failed for 50 years
“Powering money into companies and hoping that money is the key asset and the key ingredient for success has been false in, in the history of technology for 50 years.”
Rabois: Early liquidity before product-market fit creates perverse incentives
“When you have liquidity prior to success, that's not necessarily a good incentive. Like, I think success, liquidity should follow success with product, follow with users, follow with traction, not being advanced.”
Rabois: Finding local U.S. manufacturers is now a solved problem via AI
“There's almost always a choice in the United States. It's just people don't know where to find them, and how to negotiate with them, and how to get in touch with them even. And so that's a solved problem now through AI.”
Rabois: The Bitter Lesson requires data that may take decades to acquire
“Conceptual, you know, the blog post is right, but that's only true when you have enough data, and depending on the use case, the level of data you need may not be possible for years, decades, and you may need to hack your way there through human interactions.”
Raboy: Taking 2 to 5 years off venture capital makes returning impossible
“What I realized about where I am in my career in tech is if I stop doing what I do, I'm never going to come back. Like technology is rapidly emerging. We're going to talk about all the latest developments this week. Like you can't take your foot off the gas in…”
Rabois: Studies show 2016 voters were better informed than 19th-century voters
“There's no evidence that the American voter in 2016 had less information or less accurate information than in 1888. Or 1894 or 1910. In fact, the opposite is true by most serious studies.”
Rabois led zero new startup investments in the first half of 2022
“I haven't led any new investments since 22. Yeah, last year I led the 13 or 14 in a year. So to go to effectively zero for half the year is like me being on vacation.”
Rabois never includes board seat requirements in his venture term sheets
“I never give a term sheet that has a board provision for me.”
Rabois: VCs who fail on their first ten deals never become great
“Once you make five or 10 investments in venture, if those aren't good, you're never going to get great.”
Rabois: NYC recorded zero July 4th shootings for the first time ever
“You know, as you probably heard on July fourth was the first time in recorded history that there were no shootings or no murders. In New York on that day.”
Rabois: Science-focused AI models uncover biological connections humans never identified
“If you look at foundational models that just apply to science, there's lots of things about the human body, let's say in health biology, that we humans don't actually understand all the connections. Like, why do we do X? Why do some people get cancer? Why do o…”
Raboy: Personal move into politics is a decade away
“I'm in like the prime of my venture career. I'm only 12 years in actually, Chamath. So figure five, 10 more years, like is the sweet spot. And so I'd like to see the companies that I was involved in grow up, become public companies, et cetera. And I didn't fee…”
Keith Raboy: Chinese law mandates sharing user data with CCP
“So there's a law, the fundamental problem is in China, there's a law that says if you're a Chinese company, upon request of the CCP, you must provide all user data.”
Rabois: Founders Fund marks down growth investments using public comps
“It's very tricky. I think you can, if you, it, later stage one's a little bit easier because you can apply multiples. There's public comp, you know, public comps, and you just adjust to that. I think the earlier stage stuff, very difficult to do objectively. A…”
Rabois: Sequoia Capital is historically the best-run VC fund
“I think, you know, Sequoia is the best run fund historically.”