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 1,500 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
Daniel: Multi-managers like Citadel are new shadow banks relying on Fed bailouts
“So I really, truly believe that they are the new shadow banking system, that whenever something goes awry, there's a reason why Millennium hired who they hired, why Citadel hired who they hired, to make sure that when the calamity occurs, they call the Fed for…”
Schwimer Claims MLBPA and Agents Oppose BLA Because They Ignore Minor Leaguers
“The MLBPA looks at is players just lost ten million dollars because they don't care. About the minor leaguers. And to see the amount of pushback we're getting from them and from agents that obviously don't care about their players and care more about them keep…”
Dorsey: Buffett's Maxim About Idiot-Proof Businesses Has Done More Harm Than Good
“That phrase from Buffett has probably done more harm than good over time to a lot of investors in not interrogating the quality of management or underweighting signals that maybe capital allocation is poor, that management's incentives aren't aligned because t…”
Dorsey: Founder-Run Businesses Perform No Better Than Non-Founder-Owned Companies
“I don't think they're any better than non-founder owned businesses.”
Dorsey: 99.9% of American CEOs Are Overpaid Relative to Value Created
“99.9% of American CEOs are overpaid relative to the value they create.”
Jain: Semiconductor barriers to entry are declining as China ramps capacity
“Semiconductor industry, the barriers to entry are getting lower, not higher. Chinese are coming in a very aggressive way, including into semi-cap site, equipment site, memory site, the ramping up capacity. That's a far lower barrier to entry business than what…”
Jain: AI is powerful, but infrastructure economics are structurally bad
“Our view is that this is a powerful technology, but the economics are really bad. And time is not a friend. So if you're trading here, different matter. But the economics are not good economics.”
Grantham: Goldman and JPMorgan will never tell clients to exit overpriced markets
“You will never hit a Goldman Sachs or a JP Morgan Tell you to get out of the market because it's ludicrously overpriced. Everybody knows today it's ludicrously overpriced, but no one can tell you, and they never will.”
Grantham: Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers Are Unaccountable 'Teflon Men'
“My biggest investment peeve is that the Greenspans and the Larry Summers, they get away with murder. I call them the Teflon men. I was heartbroken when they kept getting reappointed by new presidents that I had higher hopes for, even as they had just presided …”
Baker: VC operational value-add is wildly overstated and unappreciated by founders
“The short answer is a lot of the operational value add from a lot of these firms is wildly overstated. The wise advice is super not appreciated.”
Grefenstette: China venture capital is the world's least crowded trade right now
“Right now it's the least crowded trade in the world is China venture.”
Gilmore: AIGFP had great people and Joe Cassano was super smart
“One of the things that really impressed me was the quality of the people at AIGFP. They had really good people. I thought a lot of Joe Cassano, who ran the place. He was super smart, very knowledgeable across many things.”
MacDonald: Spinning out HMC internal teams to pay 1.5-and-20 was illogical
“All these initiatives at Harvard lead to spinning out these firms. You think about Adage, Highfields, Convexity, Charles Bank. Now you go from them being internal paying them that to them being external in paying them one and a half and 20. And pause some of t…”
MacDonald: Harvard's oil and gas divestment caused meaningful financial losses
“The loss to Harvard by not investing in a sector of oil and gas over the last eight, 10 years is very meaningful because it was a target rich environment for returns that go to support the financial aid for students.”
U.S. hegemony as the primary global capital magnet is over
“A target-rich environment promoted by the fact that U.S. Hegemony in terms of being a magnet for capital is over.”
Seides: Many Private Equity Firms Have Already Raised Their Last Fund
“There are a lot of private equity firms out there today who don't realize they've already raised their last fund.”
Lyon: Building a diversified portfolio of 20 distressed companies is impossible
“I don't believe it's possible for any single person to assemble a reasonably diversified portfolio of 20 broken things. You can have an edge in one or two things where you think there's possibility to turn it around. You might know an operating executive or un…”
Credit investors never know companies as well as private equity investors
“What I learned back then, and it remains true to this day, no matter what anyone else may say to the contrary, credit investors do not know companies as well as private equity investors, and no one will ever convince me otherwise.”
Global Power Demand Is Forcing Energy Addition Rather Than Energy Transition
“The world, from our perspective, is going through an energy addition, not necessarily an energy transition, and I think AI is really amplifying that, in that we need more energy.”
Meli: Public equity markets may be growing less efficient due to indexing
“I have a sneaking hypothesis that I'm hesitant to say out here because there's a high probability I'm wrong, but I will say it. I feel like the market's becoming a little less efficient in certain areas, and I'll explain it.”
Arndt: Future Fund avoids large buyouts, viewing them as fee-eroded levered equities
“Our portfolio has no large buyout at all, because we think that large buyout is really just levered equities, typically. And if there's skill added on top, and there might be, then most of that goes away in fees. So we don't think it adds a lot for the portfol…”
Future Fund avoids brand-name PE managers that rely on leverage over operations
“Well, there's a lot of brand names we don't have, and it varies why, but one of the most significant reasons is because they just use leverage we found to juice up their returns, and we don't think that's attractive.”
Bitar: Perceived investment risk in Venezuela substantially exceeds actual risk
“It was a situation where there was a perceived risk much greater than the real risk, in our view, and a country that was overlooked by investors for understandable reasons, and that created an opportunity where you could find very High quality assets at very a…”
Aitken: US administration is directly signaling global capital to leave
“We now have an administration sending a very direct message over and over again to global capital. And I paraphrase, please go away.”
Papic: US asset outperformance driven by post-2020 fiscal spending is over
“It's the fiscal gravy train that gave us exceptionalism of the U.S. Asset flows from 20 20 to 20 25. That's over.”
Gave: China does not need a currency devaluation
“China doesn't need a devaluation. China's problem is first and foremost that consumer and business confidence has been crushed.”
Papic: The U.S. Is Starting to Trade Like an Emerging Market
“What's happening right now in the U.S., and I don't want to be too facetious or critical, but the U.S. Is starting to trade in many ways like an emerging market.”
Howard Marks: SEC doesn't scrutinize private credit valuations and LPs prefer it
“And by the way, the SEC doesn't look at these things, because these are private investments, so they don't require accuracy. And the investors in the fund are mostly happy without accuracy, because as I said, they don't have to report problems to their higher …”
Green: VCs holding stock in 2021 cost LPs hundreds of billions
“I think the amount of money that private equity Growth equity, venture firms cost their investors by not selling in mid to late 21 is in the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Bessent: 2024 election is last chance to outgrow US debt burden
“And I think we can through deregulation, energy, independence, and dominance in the U.S., and a growth mindset. We can get back to growth. I feel very strongly that this is the last chance to grow our way out of this.”
Nesbitt: Only about a dozen hedge funds really matter today
“And I don't know, there are, at least in my opinion, maybe a dozen hedge funds that really matter today.”
Salem: The prudent allocation to Chinese-domiciled company stocks is zero
“And that is one important reason, among many others, why I continue to maintain that I think from a tactical and a strategic point of view, but most emphatically from a policy point of view, the prudent allocation to stocks of companies domiciled in China is z…”
Salem: Asset managers cannot rigorously prioritize ESG while maintaining fiduciary duties
“I think there are some very conspicuous, visible actors running some of the largest asset management firms in the world that a few years ago Started to exalt and extol the virtues of ESG to an extent that even at the time, some of us could say, wait a minute, …”
Connaughton: Investment banks are probably the worst talent pool for PE
“And the rest of the industry was hiring from investment banks, which I think are principles at one level, but at the same time, they're really about getting fees for transactions, not for making returns on investment. So it's probably the worst possible place …”
Hunt: Financial Markets Are Entirely Driven By Narratives Over Fundamentals
“I am today a strong form narrativist. I think it's all stories all the way down, and that includes the stories we tell ourselves about value, about growth.”
Hunt: Private Credit Reinsurance Structures Recreate Pre-2008 Citigroup SIV Risks
“My strong belief is that we've shifted around a lot of risk into the insurance, particularly the offshore reinsurance world, where leverage ratio is incredibly high, increasingly invested with affiliates. And we all know what that means, but it's, the reason I…”
Dixon: Interest rates and macro factors are irrelevant to early-stage VC
“People talk about interest rates. I don't think it's relevant to early stage venture capital, because again, it's like any exit would be 10 years away. And fundamentally to get there, it's just so much more Driven by the quality of the team and the ideas than …”
Tepper calls TransDigm's price-tripling aerospace model 'slightly parasitic'
“You have some like Transdime, for example, which relies on FAA certification and are pretty open about they triple the pricing when they purchase a little part, and they raise prices over six percent per year, regardless of what the underlying cost of producin…”
Sandler: Wall Street establishment targeted Milken after Drexel enabled hostile takeovers
“So Mike was an attractive target because he really wasn't liked by a lot of people in the business round table and in the established firms. He was getting a lot of publicity. He was very successful. And so people complained to the SEC, they complained to Cong…”
Tangen: Climate change is a financial risk as apolitical as gravity
“The climate is a financial risk, and when people politicize and say that climate is a political question, I just don't get it. To me, climate is as political as gravity.”
Tangen: Exploiting oil and gas resources is not unethical
“I don't think it's unethical to exploit your oil and gas resources. Not at all. It's a very important part of what makes the world tick.”
Corre: UK CMA was doing US bidding on Activision deal before reversing
“I think in hindsight, we recognize now that there was more dialogue between the U.S. And the U.K. Than we had appreciated, and they were probably doing the U.S.'s bidding in a certain way, which is Surprising, but then they really reversed course when the U.S.…”
NAV Loan Dividend Recaps Are a Gimmick to Juice IRR
“The dividend recap of a private equity portfolio seems like a gimmick to juice distributions and IRR so the GP can ask for a commitment to its next fund. In fact, NAV lenders are pitching this concept to GPs as part of the value proposition for accepting a loa…”
NAV Loans Signal the End of the Private Equity Boom
“NAV loans strike me as a canary in the coal mine signaling the end of the private equity boom.”
NAV Loans Resemble Pre-2008 Subprime AAA CDO Tranches
“In many ways, NAV loans resembled the AAA tranches of subprime CDOs 15 years ago.”
Natural resource fund managers fail to hedge commodity risk despite their claims
“And all our due diligence had us being convinced by these managers saying that they hedge the commodity risk. They don't.”
Ballou: Legal rules shift private equity incentives away from workers and customers
“Lawyers like me have created a series of rules and regulations that have changed the incentives for investors that often works for the private equity firms, but may not necessarily work for workers, for customers, even for other investors.”
Klarman: Pockets of private credit could blow up during downturns
“The nature of most Wall Street innovation is it's never stress tested for a rainy day, because that wouldn't be any fun. It's fun to sell a lot of bonds, sell a lot of stocks, sell a lot of partnerships, and rake in the investment banking fees, but when the ra…”