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 2,397 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 42 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
Munger: Override credentialed experts when incentive bias impairs their cognition
“You must have the confidence to override people with more credentials than you, whose cognition is impaired by incentive-caused bias or some similar psychological force that is obviously present. But there are also cases where you have to recognize that you ha…”
Munger: The world is driven by envy, not greed
“It's not greed that drives the world, but envy. You have to cure yourself of this. Curing yourself of this is key, key for a well-lived life.”
Apple never ran a single A/B test on the original iPhone software
“At Apple, we never would have dreamed of doing that, and we never staged any AB test for any of the software on the iPhone.”
Max Levchin: The First B-Player Hired Will Destroy The Entire Company
“Max kept repeating, A players hire A players, B players hire C players. So the first B player you hire takes the whole company down.”
Senra: Business must tolerate eccentric founders to achieve non-incremental breakthroughs
“The lesson for business is that we need founders. If anything, we should be more tolerant of founders who seem strange or extreme. We need unusual individuals to lead companies beyond mere incrementalism.”
Thiel: Competitive markets destroy profits by creating undifferentiated commodity businesses
“Competitive markets destroy profits. Main theme of the book, Do not build an undifferentiated commodity business.”
Thiel: Successful companies earn monopolies by solving unique problems
“Every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot. All happy companies are different. Each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same. They failed to escape competition.”
Thiel: Founders only sell when they lack concrete visions
“Founders only sell when they have no more concrete visions for the company. Definitive founders with robust plans don't sell, which means the offer wasn't high enough.”
Thiel: VC diversification fails because returns follow an extreme power law
“Venture returns do not follow a normal distribution. They follow a power law. A small handful of companies radically outperform all others. If you focus on diversification instead of single-minded pursuit of the very few companies that, that can become overwhe…”
Thiel: Great businesses are conspiracies built around secrets hidden from outsiders
“Every great business is built around a secret that is hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world. When you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator.”
Thiel's Law: A startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed
“Which is, a startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed.”
Thiel: Successful startups resemble cults that are fanatically right
“The best startups might be considered slightly less extreme kinds of cults. The biggest difference is that cults tend to be fanatically wrong about something important. People at a successful startup are fanatically right about something those outside have mis…”
Graham: Top programmers create millions while mediocre ones generate zero
“A great programmer could create a million dollars worth of wealth in a couple weeks. A mediocre programmer over the same period will generate zero or even negative wealth.”
Graham: The macro economy is a rounding error compared to founder quality
“If we have learned one thing from funding so many startups is that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of founders. The economy has some effects, certainly, but as a predictor of success, it's a rounding error compared to the founders, which means that…”
Graham: Technology will continuously widen individual productivity and wealth variance
“Technology is just going to lead to a more, an ever increasing variance in the amount of productivity that one person could have, and therefore an ever increasing variance in the amount of wealth that one person has and one person doesn't.”
Kobe Bryant: Studied referee handbook to exploit court blind spots
“I made a point of reading the referee's handbook. One of the rules I gleaned from that was that each referee has a designated slot where he's supposed to be on the floor. If the ball, for instance, is in place W, referees X, Y, and Z each have an area of the c…”
Vannevar Bush argued startups are the best cure for corporate monopolies
“The best way to limit monopoly economic power, he insisted, was through the advent of small new industrial units, what we call startups today, for if these latter have half a chance, they can cut rings around the great stodgy businesses.”
Bush: Leaders can evaluate complex proposals quickly by judging people and grasping basics
“A man of intelligence, and only such will fit the need, can become well acquainted with the subject in a surprisingly short time if he puts his mind to it. This is not to master it, but to arrive at a point where he speaks the language and can judge whether a …”
Andreessen: Enter industries where founding company leaders remain active
“When picking an industry to enter, my favorite rule of thumb is this. Pick an industry where the founders of the industry, which is the founders of the important companies in the industry, are still alive and actively involved.”
Sam Zell: Intelligence and Genius Cannot Overcome High Market Competition
“Frankly, there's no substitute for limited competition. You can be a genius, but if there's a lot of competition, it will not matter.”
Sam Zell: Cost Redundancies Are More Reliable Than Speculative Revenue Growth
“Redundancies are much more predictable and transparent than theoretical opportunities to add value. My focus is always on the downside. Overly optimistic assumptions lead to the graveyard of corporate acquisitions.”
Teledyne never made another material acquisition or issued shares after 1969
“From this point on, the company never made another material purchase and never issued another share of stock.”
Teledyne had under 50 HQ staff for 40,000 employees
“At headquarters, there were fewer than 50 people in a company with over 40,000 total employees and no human resource or investor relations departments.”
Singleton: Buying whole companies pushes valuation multiples too high
“There are tremendous values in the stock market, but in buying stocks, not entire companies. Buying companies tends to raise the purchase price too high. Don't be misled by the few shares trading at a low multiple of six or seven. If you try to acquire those c…”
Munger Called Henry Singleton the Smartest Person He Ever Knew
“Munger said Henry Singleton was the smartest single human being I've ever known in my entire life.”
Hopkins: Advertisers must never rely on personal preference over public testing
“We must never judge humanity by ourselves.
The things we want, the things we like, may appeal to a small minority.
The losses occasioned in advertising by venturing on personal preference would easily pay the national debt.
There are divided opinions, and so i…”
Senra: San Francisco tech companies run terrible, self-absorbed billboard ads
“And you look at the billboards, they have the worst. It's like some of the most valuable companies in the world. And some of the worst billboards you've ever seen, because all the billboards talk about is me. Buy my product.”
Hopkins: The most effective ads never explicitly ask customers to buy
“The best ads ask no one to buy. The ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information. They cite advantages to users.”
Shannon: Working on three ideas simultaneously is more productive than focusing on one
“I've been working on three different ideas simultaneously, and strangely enough, it seems a more productive method than sticking to one problem.”
Shannon: A tiny percentage of the population produces most important ideas
“A very small percentage of the population produces the greatest proportion of the most important ideas. There are some people, if you shoot one idea into their brain, you will get half an idea out. There are other people who produce two ideas for each idea sen…”
Merchant Banking Dynasties Built Fortunes Through Gold Smuggling and Blockade Running
“How the Rothschilds, the Barings, in many cases, they're like smuggling gold, or illegally transferring materials through like blockades during wars. There's all kinds, they were cutthroats. That's how all the great houses were built”
Thiel: Companies with Definitive Plans Are Consistently Undervalued
“A business with a good definitive plan will always be underrated in a world where people see the future as random.”
Thiel: A startup is the largest group convinced of a plan for the future
“Positively defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future.”
Thiel: Human Progress Is Driven by Monopolies Replacing Incumbents
“The history of progress is a history of better monopoly businesses, replacing incumbents.”
Thiel: Social Detachment Shields Founders From Imitative Herd Competition
“If you're less sensitive to social cues, you're less likely to do the same things as everyone else around you. If you're interested in making things, you'll be less afraid to pursue those activities single-mindedly and thereby become incredibly good at them.”
Thiel: Startups Should Always Err on the Side of Starting Small
“Every startup should start with a very small market. Always err on the side of starting too small. If you think your initial market might be too big, it almost certainly is.”
Thiel: Entrepreneurs Cannot Diversify Their Lives Like Investment Portfolios
“Your life is not a portfolio. An entrepreneur cannot diversify himself. So therefore you should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing. But before that, you must think hard about whether it would be valuable in the future.”
Thiel: Single Markets and Distribution Channels Radically Dominate Outcomes
“The most important things are singular. One market will probably be better than all others. One distribution strategy usually dominates all others too. Time and decision making themselves follow a power law, and some moments matter far more than others.”
Steve Jobs: A Startup's First Ten Hires Determine Its Success
“When you're in a startup, the first 10 people will determine whether the company succeeds or not. Each is 10% of the company. So why wouldn't you take as much time as necessary to find all A players? If three were not so great, why would you run a company wher…”
Thiel: Recruiting is a core company competency that must never be outsourced
“Recruiting is a core competency for any company. It should never be outsourced.”
Thiel: Founder-Led Companies Are More Powerful but Far More Dangerous
“It's more powerful, but at the same time, more dangerous for a company to be led by a distinctive individual instead of an interchangeable manager.”
James Dyson: Anyone can become an expert in anything in six months
“Anyone can become an expert in anything in six months. After the idea, there's plenty of time to learn the technology.”
Honda separated R&D because manufacturing companies treat research as a neglected appendage
“Had we left research in the parent company, it would have been treated like a stepchild. For that company's purpose is the pursuit of profits. Since good research cannot be treated as simply as an appendage on manufacturing, I decided that it would have to be …”
Honda: Research units must empower talent, while manufacturing maximizes efficiency
“The organizational structure of a research institute is different from that of a manufacturing company. A research organization should be structured to enable individuals to make the best of their ability. Whereas a manufacturing company should be organized to…”
Joseph Pulitzer believed the most successful newspaper has the most enemies
“He said that newspapers should make enemies constantly, that the more enemies we have, the better. And he says the most valuable and most successful paper will generally be that which has the most enemies.”
Apple's core design team had 16 people compared to Samsung's 1,000
“There's 16 odd designers focusing on refining and improving Apple's products and manufacturing processes. By comparison, Samsung has a thousand designers working in 34 research centers around the world. Apple had 16 in one spot.”
Paul Rand to Steve Jobs: Before Launch, You Are the Product
“Between now and when you have a product, you are the product, my friend, and so you better be nice to people.”
Jobs and Perot Struck Secret Side Deal to Sell NeXT Hardware
“Steven Ross has struck a second secret deal. It would never appear in any press release or regulatory filing. They didn't even write the terms down to sell the next computer. Ross was willing to mobilize his high level government networks and his sales force f…”