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 235 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
Liow: 20% equity market drawdowns occur about 5% of the time
“The base rate of a 20% drawdown in markets is about five percent of time.”
Housenbold: Billion-dollar VC funds average a 1.44x net MOIC
“If you look at all of the Kauffman Foundation or the NVCSA or the Cornerstone Research, the average fund of a billion or greater returned a one seven one gross and a one four four net MOIC.”
Paul: BitMEX held 70% of global Bitcoin trading volume around 2020
“BitMEX, which had the largest trading volume for Bitcoin in the world, they had 70% of all volume about a year ago.”
Ginns: PayPal's Spinoff Filing Was the First SEC Filing Mentioning Bitcoin
“I remember the first SEC filing that mentioned Bitcoin and kind of feeling a level of validation, a level of
Excitement around this coming into the, just the first fold of mainstream.
And it was the S one where PayPal spun out of eBay.”
Peters: US 2021 Budget Deficit Will Reach 15% to 20%
“So when you look at the U S and you look at just the massive deficit that we ran last year, this year's deficit is going to be 15 to 20% with an economy that's actually bouncing back to life.”
Salem: No Specialist Private Equity Firms Existed in London in 1999
“Back in 1999, there were no specialist private equity firms, and so we were fishing in a pond that was just ripe for pickings”
Most of Vanguard's fixed income assets are actively managed
“Most of our assets on fixed income are actively managed.”
Chabran: Tikehau Ranks Among Top Five Global Asset Managers by Equity Base
“If you were to look at the equity base, I'm not talking the market cap, right? I'm looking at the odd equity base that TKO is benefiting from. You'd be surprised to see that we rank within the top five of the global asset manager, albeit with a much smaller AU…”
Morgan Housel notes Bill Gates attended America's only computer-equipped high school
“Bill Gates went to the only high school in America that had a computer, and the computer that they had was more advanced than most of the computer programs had at the top universities.”
Walthour: In 2015, most large institutions were still paying full alternative fees
“We went around and analyzed investor portfolios, and believe it or not, Ted, despite some of the world's largest institutions being invested in hedge funds and other types of alternative products, they were paying full fees. The overwhelming majority of the in…”
Mizuno: CFA and MBA curriculums lack even one chapter on ESG
“Given now the ESG is one of the hottest topic in the industry, but there's not even a chapter in a CFA curriculum or MBA curriculum.”
HDPE piping is 44 times less carbon intensive than concrete
“The HGPE pipes are about 44 times less carbon intensive than concrete, just to put a fine point on it.”
McCusker: PE Capital Calls Will Drop by at Least One-Third
“Our expectation is that calls and distribution will both be lower. I think when we analyzed it, calls and distributions were down by a third to half through the global financial crisis, and that's sort of our base case right now that we can expect At least a t…”
Duke: US schools pushed probability math from kindergarten to eighth grade
“So when you look at the curriculum for most K through 12 in 1980, starting in kindergarten, you were learning probability. And now the first point at which probability is introduced in the math curriculum in the United States is in eighth grade.”
Robertson: Oxford's central endowment was only £400M before OUEM was established
“And its endowment at that point was four hundred million pounds after a thousand years.”
The majority of private equity acquisitions are sponsor-to-sponsor deals
“These days, if you're buying a company, the majority of private equity acquisitions are from other private equity firms.”
James Aitken notes Total is one of the largest global forestry businesses
“Total, gigantic European energy company, well run, good shape, now one of the world's largest forestry businesses.”
Kraus: Merrill Lynch free cash plummeted from $90B to $10B in 2008
“I remember the time we had some ninety-odd billion dollars of free cash. I tell you that because that 90 went to below 10 within a short period of time. Just basically from mark to mark, it's not losses.”
Florida's $34 Billion Cash Pool Faced 80% Redemptions in 48 Hours
“In about 48 hours, the cash pool of the SBA, which is a, like I said, about a thirty-four billion dollar pool, received redemptions for something on the order of 80% of its assets.”
Friedman: Google Is Moving 20,000 AI Employees to Lower Manhattan
“Google is just moving 20,000 AI people to the tip of New York. Now, some of it's not an opportunity zone, but it's surrounded by three opportunity zones.”
China produces roughly twice as much AI research as the US
“If you look at the publication of AI research, probably two X has come from China as opposed to the US.”
McKeon: Later 2017 ICOs priced better, reducing day-one trading pops
“One of the things we saw is that as we moved through 2017, the projects got better at capturing more of that value. So we weren't seeing as large of sort of the pop On day one of trading.”
Over 65% of lifetime health spending occurs in the last six months
“Something over 65% of your lifetime health expenses are spent in your last six months.”
The Yale endowment holds almost zero public equities or bonds
“So our beloved alma mater, Yale University, has next to no money in public equities or bonds.”
Cembalest: Electricity is only 10% to 15% of industrial energy use
“I think electricity is maybe 10 or 15% of overall energy consumption by industry.”
Dayton Hudson pension gained 1,700 basis points on Black Monday
“And then October 19 came, and I think we made 1700 basis points in a day, which was great. You know, the Wall Street Journal highlighted us on their front page”
Hamed: Banks lend to founders but ignore rank-and-file startup employees
“Banks have provided liquidity to founders all the time with PGs, but there's no one who's really been serving employee 20 through 2000.”
Hamed: In 2014, NYC had only six institutional sub-$1M seed deals
“And there was a time, I think it was in 2014 or 2015 where there were six deals in all of New York that were at a million dollars in size or under that had an institutional seed investor in them.”
Masters: China's savings rate will drop rapidly as demographics mirror Japan
“China's Demographics are rapidly shifting from very healthy, as in, you know, a lot of working age people, to very Japanese-like, and as that occurs, you're going to get the same problems you had in Japan. Savings rates are going to start really dropping very …”
Spitz: International Equity Managers Outperform Benchmarks More Often Than U.S. Peers
“Although when you look at the data today, there's still a much higher percentage of international equity managers that out Perform the benchmark than U.S. Domestic managers.”
Indonesian, Thai, and Korean equities fell over 95% in 1997-1998
“Indonesia, Thailand, Korea went down over 95% in dollar terms.”
McDaniel predicts Scott Malpass will never leave Notre Dame
“Some people, Scott Malpass, will never leave Notre Dame. He's in his dream job.”
Nearly all US corporate pension funds use risk parity strategies
“You'd be hard pressed to find a corporate fund without risk parity.”
Schorr: Vice Cream will be a top-three super-premium ice cream by 2022
“Our goal is to, over the next The next five years is to build, you know, a national brand that has significant, you know, revenue and is a major player out there to be a third brand to Ben and Jerry's and Haagen does in the super premium space.”
Ellis: Over 90% of 1960s Market Trading Was Done by Retail Individuals
“91, two, three percent would be done by individuals, and they bought or sold stock every year or two, and almost exactly half of their trading was done In odd locks of AT&T common stock.”
O'Shaughnessy: DFA investors suffered a smaller behavior gap than S&P investors
“They've done an amazing job of convincing their investor base that they need to hold these strategies for the long term. Now, obviously, that works out well for DFA as a business, because they've got incredibly sticky money, but it has also worked out very wel…”
NYU's endowment held less than 15% in private assets before Knudsen
“When I got to NYU, less than 15% of the endowment was in private assets.”
Comegys: Vanguard Was 80% Active and 20% Passive 25 Years Ago
“We were still 80% active at the time, 20% passive, but you could see what we were doing.”
Baker: Anthropic researchers report substantial hiring driven by candidate posts on X and Substack
“Anthropic researchers have said a lot of our hiring comes from what people say on X. And what they might write in a substack.”
Seides: Most Wealth Channel Alternative Allocations Flow Into Private Credit
“Most of the move to alternatives in the wealth channel has been in private credit.”
Madorsky: Expected 2025 secondary volume is around $190 billion
“Let's say in 2025 expected secondary volume is a hundred and ninety billion dollars, plus or minus.”
Bitar: Central American healthcare is growing 10% to 15% annually
“Healthcare is growing like 10 to 15% growth annually, which is very attractive to us.”
Forman: Memecoins Make Up 5% of Total Crypto Market Capitalization
“So today meme coins are five percent of total crypto market cap.”
Reynolds: Venture funds contracted by 50% between 2005 and 2008
“And by the way, in 2005, six, seven, eight, funds contracted by 50% when they went to raise their next fund.”
Auby: Texas has the longest US teacher pension liability at 26 years
“Texas has the longest liability of any teacher fund in the United States, and that's because Texas is a high-growth state, so we're hiring a lot of teachers, so we have a lot of younger teachers, and so our liability is amongst the longest, 26 years.”
Tannenbaum: 90% to 95% of top Indian graduates emigrated in the 1990s
“I think of top Indian schools back then, 90, 95% of people left.”