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 12 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
Dixon: Google and Facebook will become low-growth legacy giants like IBM
“I think they're very likely going to become like IBM and HP and just chugging along and not really doing much new innovative stuff. They'll still be around and they'll still have their services, but I think that their relevance and growth are limited.”
Ellis: David Swensen created the first derivative swap at Salomon Brothers
“The first derivative ever done was done by David Swenson when he was working at Salomon Brothers. It was an interest rate swap between IBM and the World Bank”
Mullen: Allocators face no penalty for choosing consensus giants like Blackstone
“The infrastructure of it is a little bit reminiscent of the Apple, IBM computer debate of the nineties, where it's like you were never incented to buy an Apple product if you were a corporate purchasing person, because you got no penalty for buying IBM and you…”
Kim: Sales is a trainable skill; introverts can become exquisite salespeople
“Sales can be a trained skill. I sat next to very introverted people. Who were exquisite salespeople. I sat next to people who I considered to be pretty average horsepower. Very strong salespeople. I sat next to a very good looking, very charming people who cou…”
Papa: Acquiring Endeca Made Oracle the Dominant On-Prem E-Commerce Vendor Overnight
“They basically overnight went from competing for every deal with IBM to suddenly being the dominant on-prem e-commerce company.”
Papa: IBM spent $20M on Endeca software it couldn't build internally
“They spent twenty million dollars on us over the years and were using us for very important internal applications that they could not power with their own software.”
Russo: Berkshire's IBM Failure Paved the Way for $40B Apple Position
“And sure enough, IBM was a complete dud. However, it allowed for them to begin the journey to technology, and sometime later, instead of a six billion dollar position in the dud, IBM, they have a forty billion dollar position in Apple, and they were willing to…”
Klarman: Baupost told brokers to bring illiquid stakes, not mainstream stocks
“We'd say, look, you don't need to come by, but if you guys ever see on your desk a bond that you've never heard of, or a stock you've never heard of, or a shareholder in a business that wants to move it quickly, we're your call. So don't call us with IBM Insig…”
David Swensen created the landmark $100M World Bank-IBM interest rate swap
“While he was at Salomon Brothers, he came up with a cockamamie idea that nobody had ever heard of. An interest rate swap, a hundred million dollars, principle, between the World Bank and IBM.”
Howard Hughes Medical Institute's committee included Yale's David Swensen
“Here we had a very select number, maybe three folks on the investment committee. Folks that, Ted, you know, and David Swenson, who was there from Yale. We had the CIO from General Motors and the former CIO at IBM.”