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 13 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
Blank: China operates like Silicon Valley while DoD runs like GM
“On a good day, China operates like Silicon Valley, and if we're really lucky on that same day, the DOD is operating like General Motors.”
Blank: New Entrants Must Capture 10% of Major Defense Programs in 3 Years
“The goal ought to be that 10% of the MDAP major defense acquisition programs ought to have new entrants on them in, in the next three years, and if they don't, we're simply not rebuilding the national industrial base.”
Blank: Stanford was the only Cold War university encouraging commercial spinouts
“Because all research universities in the United States during the Cold War worked on military weapons systems, but it was only Stanford where back by then the term was the provost Who pointed the university outwards. All other universities were focused inwards…”
Blank: Stanford is most accurately described as an incubator with dorms
“And today I label Stanford as an incubator with dorms, which Most of the professors don't like to hear, but as you know, is, is probably the most accurate description of the school.”
Blank: SpaceX is the largest satellite manufacturer, surpassing traditional primes
“The largest satellite manufacturer is not Northrop Grumman or Lockheed or Boeing. It's SpaceX, right? Have a factory that makes this at scale at a scale unimaginable”
Blank: VC investment in social media hurt US national interests
“And so where did VCs put their money in social media? Was that in the national interest? We could argue possibly not. In fact, I would argue from vehemently not”
Blank: DeepMind protein folding accelerated molecular biology by 30 years
“Google deep mind figured out how to do protein folding in a way that basically, you know, accelerated
You know molecular biology probably by 30 years.
we solve, you know, the three D structures of two hundred million proteins.”
Blank: US was the only WWII nation outsourcing advanced tech to professors
“Then OSR and D is, as some of your listeners and viewers know, basically was a brilliant move by the U.S., the only country who did this in World War II, that outsourced advanced technology to professors.”
Blank: Rathke and Vollmer Created OSC's Billion-Dollar Loan Authority
“The only economists we have in the DOD are the ones working at the Cape. You know, the, with green eye shades and whatever. It took two random guys, Jason Rathke and Eric Vollmer to come up with a billion dollar loan authority at the Office of Strategic Capita…”
Blank: Executors cannot invent innovation systems, and innovators hate process
“The DOD is built around execution. Execution of processes and PBE and whatever. Silicon Valley is built around innovators who create new things that never existed before. And here's the rub. The executors never come up with innovation processes. I mean, they'l…”
Blank: Selling to the DoD Is Fundamentally Unlike Enterprise Sales
“You could teach startups this as a process because the other mistake that goes on in Silicon Valley is thinking sales to the DOD is just simply complicated enterprise sales in the commercial market. And I laugh hysterically when I hear that having done both.”
Steve Blank: Chip Export Controls Left Loopholes for Foreign Suppliers
“Now, to be fair, we ended up building a dam across half the river because while we put export controls on the U S companies, Tokyo electron and ASML, who provide the other parts of the machinery, don't have export controls.”
Blank: Bill Perry gave all ESL employees equity unlike Hewlett-Packard
“The other thing he did was he modeled the company after Hewlett Packard's culture, which was the gold standard at the time, except he said at HP, only the executives had stock, and he changed that. Everybody, including the lowest level employees, which include…”