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 24 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
Rabois: Meta, Google, and Apple cannot accurately assess undiscovered talent
“So you've got to go find people who haven't yet proven what they can do that these large organizations think meta, Think Google, think Apple, think Amazon, think Microsoft, or even these days open AI. They don't know how to assess these people.”
Pujji: Creative is the new targeting in modern Facebook ads
“The new Facebook, you know, at paradigm is targeting like creative is the new targeting. So for anyone listening, running Facebook campaigns, you don't need to target anymore. It's broad. You let Facebook's algorithm figure it out.”
Success comes from copying proven business models, not inventing entirely novel concepts
“The name of the game is basically like, that's why I read biographies. It's just copy what others have done that's worked and try to avoid the mistakes that cost them a lot of like headache. And I'm not trying to invent anything new. We can, I can get real phi…”
Why No Successful Consumer Social Network Launched Since 2019
“There is a reason why basically no successful consumer social network has been created in the last five years, and the biggest social networks, Meta, Snapchat, etc., just continue to accrue value and power.”
Lieberman: Superfan referrals drove Morning Brew to 4.5 million subscribers
“We have four and a half million subscribers, but if you were to ask me what has been the number one growth driver for Morning Brew, I wouldn't say it's our paid marketing that we did on Facebook. I wouldn't say that it's cross promotions with other newsletters…”
Silicon Valley cultures split between lifestyle perks and mission-driven execution
“And I think there's like, there's, like, there's basically two bifurcated cultures out here in Silicon Valley. There's the culture of like, you know, Google, Facebook, Pinterest, that like, you know, we're here for you. We'll pay you as much money as possible,…”
Medeiros: Meta's biggest problem is that it does not care about advertisers
“And I think that's meta's biggest problem is just like, doesn't care about advertisers even though it's their business.”
Pujji: Advertisers spending under $500k monthly shouldn't hack Facebook targeting
“There's certain advanced strategies you can still hack, but I wouldn't worry about them if you're listening and you're spending less than 500,000 dollars a month on Facebook.”
Pujji: Mark Zuckerberg explained Facebook's entire multi-stage expansion strategy in 2005
“And he just, for 45 minutes, I didn't say a word. He just told me the whole strategy, which they actually did the whole thing. We're going to go into high schools and pods, then workplaces. It's going to be your online identity. Like he had already figured it …”
Nagpal: Candidates weighing an early startup against Facebook are poor fits
“Like, if there's an executive who is seriously weighing us versus Facebook, it's likely not a good fit. Like, we're not going to be able to pay anywhere near as much. We're, like, they're just not in the stage where they want what a startup has to offer.”
Parr: Direct web traffic is most valuable, while social traffic is worst
“Direct means that someone's typing a website to their URL, and that's the most important, because if you really love a website, like Netflix, you're gonna type in netflix.com. Search is really important, because if you rank high in Google, that means someone's…”
Jesse Pujji: Never spend more than $50 daily when launching social ads
“Facebook and TikTok, I mean, there's overhead and learning how to use their platforms. That's real. And so I would never start by spending more than 50 bucks a day.”
Pujji: Adopting established 'best practice' video hooks is usually too late
“By the time the thing makes its way to a best practice hook, it's basically too late.”
Pujji: Manual audience targeting increases Facebook advertising costs
“When you target, because you're limiting their freedom, they actually charge you more because they have less auctions you can be in at one time. Whereas when you say, go after anybody, I don't care. It lets them explore freely, which ultimately means you can b…”
Pujji: Ampush revenue jumped from $100k to $2M monthly within 14 months
“In June of 2010, the business did a hundred grand in gross revenue. By August of the following year of 20 11, it was doing two million a month in gross revenue.”
Pujji: Ramping Facebook ad spend too quickly wastes budget before pixel seasons
“If you spend too much money too fast on Facebook, you actually, their signal is not dialed in yet. And so you waste your money and you don't actually figure out demand.”
Pujji: Facebook Shut Down a Nine-Figure Sticker Business as Too Small
“That was like a nine-figure business they shut down. Because Zuckerberg's like, eh, it's too small.”
Noah Kagan was fired as Facebook's 30th employee for leaking expansion plans
“Noah gets into this section by sharing his experience as a twenty-four-year-old being hired as Facebook's 30th employee and subsequently being fired for leaking information about the company's expansion plans beyond colleges while he was partying at Coachella.”
The youngest top-10 global companies, Tesla and Meta, are twenty years old
“The two babies of the 10 largest companies in the world are Tesla and Meta or Facebook, which were founded in 2003 and 2004. So the youngest companies of the 10 largest in the world were founded 20 years ago.”
Lieberman: Morning Brew once spent $500,000 monthly on paid ads
“You know, at one point in the business, we were spending 500,000 dollars a month.”
Amoruso: Runs $400K–$500K in Annual Ad Spend on Delta Amex Cards
“I use the Delta Reserve. It's like Amex Delta Reserve credit card. It's like this purple card. I have one for Amaru's own co, which is one business. I have one for business class. And then I use one personally. I have three of these purple cards and we run all…”
Pujji: Unbloat already runs Copy.ai marketing text in live Facebook ads
“They're already live on Facebook. Fact. They're literally already live. The stuff you produce is already live.”
Lieberman: Facebook acquired TBH for $100M just three months after its founding
“Nikita founded an app called TBH and he built it in 2017. He was three months into building the company And Facebook acquired it for a hundred million dollars. And then in 2018, it was like nine to 12 months after they bought TBH, Facebook shut it down.”
Paid digital customer acquisition costs have risen significantly in recent years
“There's also never been more pressure to launch new products as today because the cost to acquire customers through paid marketing, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Snapchat ads, Has risen significantly over the last several years.”