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 160 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
Lieberman: Exploring fringe 'Edge City' subcultures is mandatory for finding ideas
“Because I want to set the foundation such that you understand why Edge City is mandatory for finding great business ideas.”
Lieberman is bearish on cold plunges, pickleball, and 99% of AI startups
“And then I said, I'm bearish on cold plunges. Sorry to people who enjoy cold plunges. Pickleball, 99% of AI startups, and BTC creator businesses.”
Sending voice notes unfairly transfers your time burden to the recipient
“I fucking hate voice notes. And the reason why is I think you're transferring your time to somebody else.”
Alex Lieberman believes building a B2B business is easier than B2C
“It's B to B, which I generally think is easier than building a B to C business.”
Lieberman: Social media content can generate nearly unlimited agency client demand
“I think the first thing is generating demand, meaning I think that just by me creating content on Twitter and LinkedIn, I can generate unlimited or close to unlimited demand from clients such that clients should never be the bottleneck.”
Traditional venture capital avoids high-risk, capital-intensive deep tech startups
“There's, you know, some folks at the big groups that focus on D tech, but they really focus on like kind of the ancillary businesses. They're not focused on the businesses that need a ton of cash that have potentially low odds of success that could be really g…”
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,…”
Jain: Silicon Valley Has Damaged Its Goodwill and Trust With Regulators
“Silicon Valley has not done itself any favors in building goodwill and trust with the regulators.”
Lieberman: Twitter and LinkedIn deliver higher ROI for founders than video
“I feel as though text-based platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn, which to be honest, for founders and for business professionals, probably have higher ROI of generating revenue or partnerships or investor dollars because I think these platforms have been forgo…”
Pujji: Claiming employees must have equity to act like owners is manipulative
“I don't think you have to own part of the company. And I think that's like a faux narrative oftentimes that founder, you know, founders will somewhat be manipulative around, oh, everyone's an owner here.”
Pujji: SVB's headwinds justified shorting the bank, not FDIC receivership
“Now, all of that is a good reason to short a bank and make money off the equity being worth less. None of that is a good reason for Silicon Valley Bank to now be in receivership.”
Lieberman: Meetings are often a lazy alternative to doing work
“And I find meetings are oftentimes a lazy attempt to get something done. Something needs to be done, and the easiest thing to do is for you to just throw time on a calendar instead of just doing the thing now.”
Lieberman: VC funding may force Doola to expand too broadly
“I think my biggest skepticism is I don't know if the venture route was right for them. It's not a winner takes all market. I just think to your point, I think for the business they're in, it could cause them to go super wide too soon.”
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.”
Lieberman: Buyers and sellers rarely act in good faith during M&A
“Most people do not act in good faith when they're buying or selling companies.”
Swanson: Most Founders and CEOs Are Mediocre Delegators
“Most CEOs
And founders are actually pretty mediocre delegators.
when it comes to working with an assistant we've worked with, you know, a thousand plus at Athena and some of the best YC Sequoia back companies, and most founders never graduate beyond the kind …”
Pujji: TikTok is the exact asset Microsoft has wanted for two decades
“Microsoft, on the other hand, this is the asset they've been waiting for like two decades.”
Rief: The study claiming happiness caps at a $70k salary is wrong
“I think there's like that whole 70,000 dollar salary you know, study that people are happier at 70,000 dollars. I don't think that's true. I think I am happier”
Amoruso: Three-hour morning routines promoted on social media are a scam
“I think it's a scam. I think it's really dangerous to inspire people with a lifestyle or a morning that takes three hours and, you know, unless you can go to bed at nine PM, it's not possible for most of us and it makes most of us feel bad.”
Amoruso: Founders do not need a 'hustle at all costs' mentality
“There's a lot of rhetoric for entrepreneurs just around like, you need to do whatever it takes to get done. You're a crazy one. You're a misfit, like hustle, hustle, hustle. And that's not necessarily for everybody. And you can be an entrepreneur without neces…”
Pujji: Major investment bank fees are worth paying on $100M+ sales
“Typically if you're selling it for under a hundred million, you'll find a boutique bank who knows your industry, but if you're selling for over a hundred million, you'll call up Morgan Stanley or one of the big, big kahunas, and they charge one or two percent,…”
Sanchez: Finance Culture Stifles Curiosity by Equating Uncertainty with Low Intelligence
“Most people in finance, you know, there's almost like a downside to being curious. People think, well, your intelligence must be lacking because you don't have all the answers, and that's how a lot of financial people think.”
Sanchez: Boring businesses fail less frequently than startups if sized properly
“It's just harder to have happen in these boring businesses if you do it right and you size them right, I think, than if you do a startup.”
Sanchez says ATMs are a terrible business with tiny profit margins
“ATMs, terrible margin business, not into it. One to three percent. These businesses typically just, you cannot collect enough of them to get enough income on them. Plus money's going away.”
Lieberman: Financial Services Has Higher Talent Density Than Media
“The density of smart, skilled, ambitious people was way higher in financial services”
Amoruso: Therapists Usually Lack Understanding of Executive Leadership Pressures
“Therapists don't have the understanding of what leadership really looks like often in a way that consumes our lives as much as our time with our families or our friends and the other things we might go to a therapist about, but they can't speak to you at all.”
Pujji: Twitter Has More Senior B2B Tech Decision-Makers Than Other Platforms
“There's something, by the way, about all these senior level decision makers and B to B in tech on there on more than any other platform”
Lieberman: Liquid Death is not worth $700 million
“So is this company worth seven hundred million? I personally don't think so.”
Lieberman assigns a 25% to 50% chance Bitcoin goes to zero
“The amount of money I have in Bitcoin, I have to be okay with that going to zero because there is a, you know, what I would personally assign a 25 to 50% chance of that happening.”
Sanchez: $10k angel checks will not yield material financial outcomes
“I would probably say like, you need to get a little bit more in the deals because none of them will have a material outcome. I mean, you'll have to have a thousand X and even then, you know, it'll be really interesting, but that's like unlikely.”
Alex Lieberman: Personal CRMs are a 'shitty business to build'
“With that, organizing your conversations and relationships makes a ton of sense, but unfortunately, I think there are enough good free products, not enough functionality differentiation you can make to make it worthwhile to pay for something, and I think it ru…”
Lieberman: Work-life balance does not exist when building a company
“I don't really believe in work-life balance in general when you're building a company. There isn't this clear delineation of church and state or work and personal life”
Lieberman: 15-Hour Days in Banking and Consulting Are Driven by Culture, Not Workload
“Does investment banking or consulting have so much more work than other jobs such that unplugging is impossible and working 15 hours a day is necessary? Absolutely not. I wholeheartedly believe that. But the issue is that a culture of work has been set for dec…”
No-code platforms let founders start almost any business without engineering backgrounds
“No code is effectively commoditizing code and giving any founder, technical or non-technical, the ability to start pretty much any business without an engineering background.”
Lieberman: Poker Fundamentals Should Be Mandatory in Business Schools
“Fundamentals of poker should be a required class at every business school. You learn statistics in real life. You learn how to weigh risk reward. You get a crash course in human behavior, and you learn how to act when money is on the line.”
Lieberman: YouTube offers more powerful audience data than podcast platforms
“The tools for creators on YouTube are far more sophisticated right now. I believe, and I could be wrong in this, that you can capture more information from a YouTube audience than a podcast audience. And so I think we can always drive people to listening to th…”
Lieberman: B2B companies are severely underutilizing influencer marketing programs
“And so an overall thought I've had is that like influencer programs are primed to be leveraged in B to B companies, and they're not being done nearly enough.”
Lieberman: A top engineer with AI could rebuild Distro in a weekend
“A cracked engineer with AI can probably rebuild Distro in a day or a weekend.”
Alex Lieberman: YouTube is the best platform for new content franchises
“Second, YouTube still has massive upside. TV viewership is shifting to the platform. Lots of advertiser money is flowing here. If I was to create a content franchise on one platform today, I would for sure start with YouTube.”
Lieberman: Self-service software serves SMBs and startups better than agencies
“I generally think the best products for SMBs or early stage startups are self-service software because I think Every agency has a natural bias to work with enterprise customers.”
Kagan: Sponsoring emerging 'pre-fluencers' is the most underrated marketing strategy
“I think the still most number one underrated marketing strategy is pre-fluencers.”
Rabois: Jack Dorsey uniquely combines design, technology, and strategy skills
“Jack Dorsey has an unusual combination of pretty good design ability, serious technology ability, and pretty good strategy. Those three things are almost never found in common.”
Lieberman: Founders view personal branding as a nice-to-have, hurting retention
“I believe that founders view executive, social, and personal brand as a nice to have, not a need to have.”
Lieberman: Targeting heads of marketing makes copywriting services a need-to-have
“By switching who our customer was from a founder to a head of marketing, we believe we could take our product from being a nice to have to a need to have.”
Lieberman admits co-founder Austin Rief was a better stage-two CEO
“I believe that Austin was a better stage two CEO at the time than I was.”
Lieberman: Universal paywalls create massive inequality in access to information
“I think there's a real danger of every business putting their content behind a paywall, and all of a sudden, content no longer is a public good of sorts, and there ends up being kind of like this Huge inequality of access to important information.”
Lieberman: B2B companies should adopt Supreme-style drop marketing
“The way I would describe beehive marketing is they've kind of taken the drop style marketing that fashion brands like Supreme have done over the years, and they brought it to B to B. What they've basically done is because they know their product roadmap going …”