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 316 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
Nagpal: Raised a $70M venture fund via Twitter DMs
“When I fundraised for my fund, I raised about seventy million dollars on Twitter DMs with, I want to say like maybe under five actual meetings.”
Nagpal: Took zero management fees and funded 25% of his fund
“What I did with my fund is I took zero management fees, which was absurd for a fund of that size and a quarter of all the capital was mine.”
Nagpal: Carry operates in-office 11 months and remote during February
“The default expectation is we're in the office every single day, but we're remote for one month. And partially it's because for anyone in New York, winter in New York can be soul crushing. So we're remote in February, in the office, 11 months of the year, whic…”
Nagpal: Almost never hires MBAs, doing so only despite their degree
“Like, I'm, I almost never hire MBAs. And once in a while, if they do, it's despite their MBA.”
Levesque: Schedule recreation and workouts first, fitting work in between
“I put it first on the calendar. That's that. If I'm making my calendar throughout the day, it's I'm going to go mountain biking. I'm going to sign a cold plunge. I'm going to work out. And if I have time, I'll work in between. And that's just very simple.”
Sanchez: I passed on investing in Robinhood because it harms society
“I had a chance to invest in Robinhood way back in the day, but I'm glad I didn't, because that is one platform that I actually do not think is better for society. I think it is worse.”
Sanchez: Kirchner nationalized industry and outlawed my Argentina investment business overnight
“We got pushed out of Argentina entirely when Cristina Fernandez came in, took over, nationalized all industry, and actually made my business illegal, which was, all we did was, we have international investments, and so if you want to invest outside of Argentin…”
Peterson: Spouses should prioritize marriage first, children second, and business third
“I'd prioritize it as the relationship comes first, and then kids comes back again, businesses come third.”
Kennedy had someone follow his future wife while deployed overseas
“And then when I was overseas, I had somebody follow her to make sure she was a good woman.”
Sanchez: We screen job candidates' Twitter replies and reject negative trolls
“We started running the screen when we hire people, which is that we look at their Twitter replies. And what we found, I don't know if it's dark triad or not, but if it's largely negative, And trolling or hateful comments. There's a high correlation between the…”
Johnson: Leaving church and getting divorced cured his 10-year chronic depression
“I left my church, and I got a divorce. And those two changes just made it evaporate. So it was environmental, and it was contextual.”
Johnson labels any action that accelerates his biological aging as self-violence
“I'm going to say any action that I take that increases my speed of aging, going to label as an act of violence, and I'm going to shift it.”
Sanchez: Founders' spouses must sign away business rights before I invest
“I always make the partners
Of the founders that I invest in and the founders or investors in a fund, usually their partner needs to sign documentation to waiving their rights to the business.”
Sanchez: Her blue-collar workers out-earn average marketing degree holders
“And I can say this firsthand, we have plumbing companies and landscaping companies and boring blue collar service businesses where the guys make way more. Than the average marketing degree.”
Adelman: We receive frivolous lawsuits every day across properties and businesses
“We get frivolous lawsuits every day from our properties and from our businesses. Every day.”
Adelman: Family members must work elsewhere 3–4 years before working for him
“I have a hard and fast rule that if you're a family, you can't work with me unless you work someplace else for three to four years. You gotta pick up those habits somewhere else, be trained by other people, and you know, that's kind of the way I've thought abo…”
Godin: Why I refuse to track blog traffic or book sales
“My blog has no comments. I don't know the stats on my blog. I don't know how many people read my blog. I don't know how many books I sell.”
Godin: Public appearances are a deliberate role rather than real self
“When I am in public, I am playing the role of Seth Godin. I'm not really Seth Godin. I know what that role is like. I know how to act that role, but that's a choice.”
Sanchez: Employees Must Attempt Direct Peer Resolution Before Escalating Conflicts
“If you guys talk to each other and you can't work it out and you are doing it direct, then you can bring it to me. But if you are not even having a conversation, I don't want to hear about it because all you're teaching me is that you're not good enough or str…”
Herjavec: Prefers hiring people with military service background
“I like to hire people with military service. People with military going to this point, they understand a greater purpose.”
Herjavec lets founders leave immediately on acquisitions over $10 million
“When I bought a one to ten million dollar business, I had to have the founder stay. So I would lock him in with a big earn out. I would pay very little upfront. Give them big options, all that kind of stuff. Above ten million, I was okay if they left the next …”
Sanchez rejected a senior job candidate for submitting an obvious ChatGPT brief
“Guy must have gone to ChatGPT, you know, listed out a few questions, and wrote me the most obvious AI ChatGPT brief of all time. And because of that, didn't get the job.”
Woods built an agentic AI CFO to automate financial email analysis
“I have now gotten to the point where I have built an actual agentic AI CFO. That literally is in my email every single day. If I get anything from my finance team, it reads it. It opens up the Excel files. It is got probably 10 pages of instructions on how to …”
Woods uses a 30-year future self AI persona as his top advisor
“My most valuable board member is my future self. I created a persona of the man I want to be 30 years in the future so that that version of me can advise me every single day.”
Hammer recommends a one-month emergency fund before aggressive debt payoff
“So that's why we recommend at least a one month emergency fund before going crazy on debt.”
Sanchez mandates access to every Slack channel across her companies
“I have access to every Slack channel across my companies. It's a mandate.”
Sanchez: 90% of day-one employees left as companies tripled annually
“We found in our companies, we about triple every year. And that's crazy, by the way. Well, we've only been in business for like, you know, four years, but I think that originally used to freak me out. And I'd be like, my people who are here from my first day, …”
Pabrai: Portfolio positions are typically capped at 10% of total assets
“Now, typically when we make an investment, we don't do it in more than 10% of our assets.”
Evans: Built much of his career through reciprocal workplace dealmaking
“I think I made a lot of my career effectively by deal making, by finding people that I could align with what they wanted and help them get what they want, and then I would sometimes talk to them privately and be like, hey, I will help you get this, but like, I…”
Taylor: Kickstarter bans guns, weapons, and 3D-printed firearm projects
“We're not gonna allow it. We've had people trying to three D print guns on the platform. So yeah, anything that's weapons or harmful.”
Taylor: Kickstarter to become mobile-first and video-first this year
“One of the things that we're doing at Kickstarter this year, give you a little bit of exclusive, is that we're gonna become a lot more mobile first and video first on our platform”
Jain: Bilt took its first outside capital from real estate owners
“And so when we started this, I mean, the first bit of capital, like we just bootstrapped this and I funded a lot of this upfront just with my partners. And the first money we took in was from real estate owners. It was folks who owned businesses like Related A…”
Jain: Missing a cultural mismatch past 90 days reflects poorly on managers
“If you catch in the first 90 days, that's great. If we catch it after 90 days, that's on you. And that speaks to your leadership ability here at the company too.”
Jain: Mat Ishbia and UWM Invested $100M into Bilt
“We just brought in United Wholesale Mortgage. The CEO and founder there, Matt Ishpi, is one of the most talented operators I've ever met, and he's built the largest mortgage business in the world. And when Matt and I teamed up to go build, built for homeowners…”
Zimmer: I used to be sarcastic, hostile, and aggressive in deal negotiations
“I used to really get too riled up, you know, and I used to be, you know, I'd be tough on my colleagues and I'd be tough on the buyers and so, and I was just so, you know, I was sarcastic and nasty and like, you know, people would call and say, oh, we have this…”
2 Chainz: Negotiated Deal to Reclaim His Music Master Recordings
“I bought them back, but they don't, they literally can't give them back to you for I don't know if it's seven or twenties. I don't know the date, but yeah they're supposed to revert back to me, you know, some, but yeah, I did that.”
Galloway: Average Personal Tax Rate Over Past 10 Years Was 17%
“My average tax rate the last 10 years has been 17%.”
Galloway: Lost $5M Investment in a Venture-Backed Health-Tech Startup
“Two weeks ago I found out, I made a, one of my biggest, I invested five million dollars in a tech space healthcare company, Tier one VCs. Baller CEO. Best investors. Had to elbow my way to get in. That's a big investment for me. It went out of business last we…”
Gurley: Investors should only back SPVs if underwriters commit 50%
“The only way I would ever consider an SPV is if the underwriter is Putting 50% of the money in, or more.”
Housel: He holds more cash than financial advisors generally recommend
“I think a lot of financial advisors might look at my net worth allocation and say like, what are you preparing for? It's not that conservative, but probably more cash than people would generally recommend.”
Sanchez: Refuses outside investors to retain permanent business control
“Somebody was asking me the other day... Why haven't you taken investors?... And I said, cause you got to pull this thing out of my cold dead fingers.”
Senra: Founders Podcast employs no researchers or editors, produced entirely solo
“No one else works on the podcast.
Like they're like, why don't you hire an editor?
Why don't you hire a researcher?
It's just like, I like doing it.”
Hundreds of cold calls to celebrity advocates yielded only six partners
“You can think of any mental health celebrity, any celebrity that has had a mental health challenge that has talked publicly about it, or any Olympic athlete that has a huge platform about mental health. I have cold called every single one of them now, and I on…”
Sanchez restricts investing strictly to her business, mutual funds, and private equity
“I literally only have three investments I worry about. That's it. My business, mutual funds, and equity and private businesses. I don't do single stocks. I don't mess around with gold. I don't try to speculate on Bitcoin”
Tu: Prenup splits assets equally with 100% business equity carve-out
“So everything going into our relationship that we have, fifty-fifty. All assets, cash, everything, while we're married, fifty-fifty. The only carve out being the equity and ownership in my business, because if something were to happen, I would not want my ex-h…”
Sanchez Bans Executives From Emotional Cussing at Her Companies
“Executives at my companies, they don't cuss emotionally. So if you need to take a minute and stand outside until you can emotionally re-regulate, that's perfectly fine, and come back in. But we don't do angry cussing at the executive level.”
Holiday instructs his assistant to keep commitments off his calendar.
“Their job is to keep things out of the calendar, not put things in the calendar. Like the calendar should have large amounts of white space in my opinion.”
Serhant Sends Rejecting Clients Orchids With 'Sorry for Your Loss' Notes
“When people reject me, my go-to, because I just know how great I am, and I feel so instinctually bad for the person who's rejected me, because I know what they're about to go through with someone else, that I send them an orchid, the same way you would to send…”