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 348 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
Rippling sues competitor Deel alleging a corporate espionage scheme
“Parker Conrad, the CEO of Rippling, the HR software platform, tweeted on March 17th that Rippling was suing its competitor deal for running a corporate espionage scheme and stealing trade secrets from Rippling for months.”
Rippling caught a Deel insider using a honeypot Slack channel
“Rippling's general counsel sent a legal letter to three Deal executives mentioning a fake Slack channel called D Defectors that had supposed reputationally damaging information about Deal. Prior to general counsel sending this letter, the channel did not exist…”
Lieberman: Stripe avoids official layoffs by forcing managers into a rating system
“Stripe, they're not doing layoffs. It's not called layoffs. It's what's known as backdoor layoffs, where basically they're requiring their managers to do a rating system of they're, they have to answer a question, would you hire this direct report if you knew …”
Lieberman: Elizabeth Holmes went to prison for defrauding investors, not patients
“Yes, claims about health care solutions warrant scrutiny beyond whether or not rich investors get their money back, but Holmes wasn't convicted for defrauding patients. She's going to prison because she ripped off George Shultz, not because her bogus blood tes…”
Siroker: Rewind raised Series A at $350M valuation with $700K ARR
“We raised it a three hundred fifty million dollar valuation with 700 K and ARR.”
Airbnb Boasts Higher Free Cash Flow Margins Than Apple or Google
“I didn't have an exact reference point for is that a lot or a little, but he basically shared that on a percentage basis, Airbnb is more efficient than Apple or Google when it comes to how much cash they actually generate for how much revenue they do as a busi…”
Ankur Jain: Airlines and hotels make their money from loyalty programs, not core operations
“Airlines and hotels, I know you did a show on this, make all their money on the loyalty program and their credit card programs, not on being an airline and hotel... Delta, United, and American only exist because they make money on loyalty programs.”
Jain: Major airline market caps are lower than standalone loyalty programs
“When you combine the card business and the loyalty business with their airline business is worth less because the airline business loses so much money that the overall company Is worth less than the actual loyalty program in bank business.”
Scudamore: Fired entire 11-person team at 1-800-GOT-JUNK over culture
“It was the day I fired my entire team. Now, literally, I didn't preserve one. There were 11 people in the company. I always say that one bad apple spoils the whole bunch, and I think I had nine out of 11 that were bad apples. Now, not bad human beings, but jus…”
Mailchimp Founders Split $11.7B in Intuit Deal While Employees Received $500M
“Ben Chestnut and Dan Curzius each owned 50% of Mailchimp. In 2008, Mark Armstrong, the other co-founder, was bought out of the business. Three hundred million dollars was given to employees as bonuses for the deal, and two hundred million dollars worth of rest…”
Deel reached $800M ARR and profitability at a $12B valuation
“The business grew from a hundred million dollars in ARR in twenty-twenty-two to eight hundred million in twenty-twenty-four and hit profitability with its most recent valuation hitting twelve billion dollars after raising around Anchored by General Catalyst.”
Cursor reached $100M ARR in under a year at a $10B valuation
“Levels went from idea to MVP in 30 minutes simply by prompting Cursor, which is an AI coding assistant that got to a hundred million dollars in annual revenue in less than a year and just raised at a ten billion dollar valuation.”
Pieter Levels' AI flying game reached $67k MRR in three weeks
“Peter Levels, a well-known internet entrepreneur on Twitter, launched an AI-coded flying game that has gotten to 67,000 dollars in monthly revenue in just three weeks.”
Nagpal: Founders can rent home to business 14 days tax-free
“Another crazy one is you can actually rent your house to your business for up to 14 days a year and pay no taxes on the income. It has to be legit. It has to be for like a meeting, an offsite or something, but literally, you know, income from one hand into the…”
Kleiner Perkins does not actually run its venture fund on OKRs
“When John Dorris didn't share, like, they don't run their venture fund on OKRs. Like if OKRs are so good, why isn't Kleiner Perkins running OKRs?”
Lieberman: Microsoft Learned of Altman's Ouster One Minute Before Announcement
“To cause the board to make this move, a move that Microsoft, OpenAI's biggest investor, found out about one minute before the press release and ended up losing fifty billion dollars in market cap from as their stock continued to trade.”
Lieberman: Scaling Morning Brew to 300 employees in 18 months forced layoffs
“I remember when I would tell people that Morning Brew post-acquisition, we scaled from 50 employees in October of twenty-twenty to 300 employees in a year and a half. People were like, oh my god, that is the most amazing thing, and then when I give them the pu…”
FDA Approved 3 COVID Tests vs Germany's 96, Keeping Prices High
“In Germany, there are 96 approved COVID tests. So if you want to, in Germany, get tests for COVID, there are 96 different products you can buy. Therefore, the average cost of a COVID test in Germany is like one to two dollars. In the US, there are only three a…”
Lieberman: US Mental Health Funding Is at Record Highs While Outcomes Worsen
“We've had more mental health startups created than ever before, more venture funding for the space than ever before, yet mental health in the United States has never been this bad.”
Lieberman: Comcast Lobbied for Years to Block Free Public Wi-Fi in Philadelphia
“Another example is Comcast, who basically has lobbied for years to have citywide Wi-Fi blocked in Philadelphia. So there can't just be general public free citywide Wi-Fi, because of course that would hurt Comcast business.”
Special ed teachers face America's highest burnout rate due to government paperwork
“Special ed teachers have the highest burnout rate of any job in America, and they have such a high burnout rate because there is so much government mandated paperwork that has to be filled out for every single student that you have.”
Most of the world's richest people built wealth through acquisitions
“Most of the richest people in the world Are there through acquisitions? Some version of buying and selling small companies or private equity deals.”
SpaceX's 99 percent launch cost reduction enables Varda's space manufacturing model
“What they're doing is only possible because the cost of launches of things into space has come down by 99% since 1970.
This business was not possible two years ago or 20 years ago, and it's only become possible because Elon Musk and SpaceX have brought down t…”
Lieberman: Only four of Y Combinator's top 100 companies had solo founders
“And then Gary Tan, who's now the CEO of Y Combinator, he said of the top 100 YC funded companies, only four Were solo founders, and those founders were able to create their own MVP on their own.”
Former Clearbit CEO Alex McCaw lost two companies to 50/50 equity splits
“Alex McCaw, who is the former CEO of Clearbit, he's a serial entrepreneur, he's one of Matt's clients, he wrote that the idea of not splitting equity Fifty-fifty is key, and he went on to say two of his previous companies were destroyed by a fifty-fifty split.”
Electric aircraft remove thousands of parts and improve safety over helicopters
“When you moved electric, you were basically removing thousands of parts that are not necessary in a helicopter. You're changing the dynamics, like, the aerodynamic dynamics of the rotors and the blades that Change, like, the acoustic signature significantly. Y…”
Airbnb Shifted From Traditional Product Management to Product Marketing
“They have a product marketing function versus a product management function.”
Brian Chesky Restructured Airbnb From Divisional to Functional During the Pandemic
“During the pandemic, Brian rethought the entire organization's design so things could move faster, so he could be closer to the product, and so the company would operate on one single product roadmap. And so what he did is he moved the company from being divis…”
Jain: HUD reversed its denial to let Bilt points fund down payments
“Later that day, I got an updated letter from HUD. That said, dear Mr. Jane, you're pleased to inform that your use case requested is approved, and that was that.”
Lieberman: Starbucks keeps $160 million annually from unredeemed customer deposits
“With breakage, it means basically people who are getting Starbucks gift cards or have money in the app, 10% on average will never actually use that money. And so, they're basically, what's happening is Starbucks is getting lent, 1.6 billion dollars, and they'r…”
Kan on shutting down Atrium: laying off 180, losing tens of millions
“By doing that, I was able to pay off a 180 people and tell a bunch of people I'd lost millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars, and be okay, and know like, oh, this is gonna pass, and I'm okay with it, and I mean, it sucks right now, it's, this experie…”
Starbucks, Duracell, and Bumblebee manufacture Costco's Kirkland products
“From Kirkland Coffee, which is being created by Starbucks, to Kirkland Batteries, which are being created by Duracell, to Kirkland Tuna Fish, which is being created by Bumblebee, brands are manufacturing Kirkland products to compete with their very own brands …”
Salesforce hired fake protesters to picket competitor Siebel Systems' user conference
“Salesforce staged a mock protest outside of Cybell Systems, the competitor I mentioned. They had a user conference, and Cybell was the largest CRM at the time. Salesforce literally hired protesters to carry large signs that said the end of software, had them c…”
Lieberman: Voice AI can now extract content ideas via automated interviews
“Now with voice AI and AI agents, it actually can be done by software, not to suggest that the role of the content strategist is obsolete.”
Lieberman: Cursor Raised $300M at a $9B Valuation (45x Revenue)
“In the case of Cursor, the AI IDE, it just raised a three hundred million dollar round at a nine billion dollar valuation, which was 45 times revenue.”
Kevin Ryan conceived Gilt Groupe by copying a French business model
“Kevin Ryan taught me that that's how he got the idea for guilt group is he saw that guilt was happening in France and he like took it into America.”
Performance marketers dominate podcast advertising, leading to shallow market depth
“Podcast advertising is largely still driven by performance marketers, which means that there isn't that much depth in the advertising market and advertisers will exhaust small audiences quickly.”
Lieberman: Average Fortune 500 CMO tenure is two to three years
“Also in the world of Fortune 500, CMOs don't stay at companies for very long. I think the average CMO stays at their company for two to three years. So it's hard to think very long term.”
Lieberman: beehiiv is nearing $10M in ARR after 26 months
“I think I saw Tyler mention yesterday, the day before recording this episode, that Beehive is about to get to ten million dollars in ARR, and that's just in 26 months, so just over two years.”
Google AdWords Is an Increasingly Finite Global Marketing Resource
“The number one place on the planet for marketing spend is Google AdWords, and make no mistake about it, this is an increasingly finite resource.”
Lieberman: Andreessen Horowitz Grew to World's Largest VC With $35B AUM
“And Andreessen Horowitz, the investment firm that Mark co-founded in 2009, grew to become the largest VC in the world with thirty five billion dollars in assets under management.”
ServiceNow reached $1B in revenue having raised only $6.5M in external funding
“ServiceNow was also bootstrapped with no more than 6.5 million dollars in external funding. Only the second cloud software company after Salesforce to hit a billion dollars in revenues, ServiceNow reached two billion dollars in revenue just two years later.”
Harley Finkelstein advocates that Shopify employees annually evaluate if they requalified
“It reminds me of what Harley Finkelstein has said at Shopify, which is the idea that every year, every employee should think about, did they re-qualify for their job at the company?”
Press coverage drove early growth for over 20% of top consumer startups
“Though often advised against, getting press right out of the gate is a very legitimate early growth strategy, responsible for the early growth of over 20% of the most successful consumer startups.”
Hinge spent its last $25,000 on a 2,500-person launch party
“He said, we took our last 25,000 dollars and we threw a 2500 person launch party in D.C. We set the date and we just worked backwards from that. We were just like, we've got to get everyone on at once. No one's gonna stick around if there's not a lot of people…”
Brian Chesky recently eliminated a poisonous organizational chart at Airbnb
“If you want to see what it looks like to recognize and also remove a poisonous org chart, I highly recommend you listen to the podcast interview between Lenny Rachitsky and Brian Chesky, who is the CEO of Airbnb, and he recently went through this exact exercis…”