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 1,245 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 39 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
Senra: Steve Jobs became a billionaire from Pixar, not Apple
“Steve Jobs was, this actually is the first thing that makes Steve Jobs a billionaire. He was a billionaire off of Pixar stock, not Apple stock.”
Senra: Disney acquisition made Steve Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder
“Steve Jobs was the single largest shareholder in Pixar. And after this deal, another interesting fact was that that made Steve Jobs the single largest individual shareholder in Disney.”
Balenciaga Was One of 60 Firms Allowed in Occupied Paris
“So he was able to reopen, ah, his fashion house in September, 1940. And he was just one of 60 firms that the Germans allowed to function.”
In the 1950s Wealthy Clients Graduated From Dior to Balenciaga
“Dior dressed the rich. Balenciaga the very rich. And this was known at the time. It says during the 19 fifties, a woman graduated from Dior to Balenciaga.”
Mark Twain nearly died by suicide during extreme San Francisco poverty
“Several years after, he remembered one despairing night when I put the pistol to my head, but wasn't man enough to pull the trigger.”
Cameron Signed a $500M Deal with Fox Granting Greenlight Autonomy
“In the spring of 1992, Cameron signed an unusual five hundred million dollar multi-picture domestic distribution deal with Fox. They gave him power. To put any movie he wanted into production without Fox's approval up to a budget of seventy million dollars. An…”
James Cameron Openly Shares Proprietary Filmmaking Tech With Industry Peers
“Jim is very generous in the way he shares knowledge and information. He doesn't jealously guard technology and secrets.”
Glock's largest commercial opportunity, entering the US, was a salesman's idea
“The biggest sales opportunity of Glock's entire career was somebody else's idea.”
Glock achieved 65% gross margins compared to rivals' 5 to 20%
“Glock's gross margins exceeded 65%. By comparison, Smith and Wesson and Beretta ranged five to 20% of profit.”
90% of police agencies testing free Glock samples ultimately bought them
“More than 1000 requests for free samples of law enforcement agencies in 1986 alone. Glock would send the guns for free, said, hey, if you want to keep them, just send us a check, and the check, the price would be heavily discounted because Glock knew that the …”
Glock pushed handgun manufacturing costs below $100 per unit at scale
“The deals worked financially because of the company's startlingly low manufacturing costs, which Glock was able to push down even further to less than a hundred dollars a unit as its production volume grew.”
By 1995, Glock sold 20,000 guns monthly, mostly to civilians
“The company sells more than 20,000 guns a month at an average cost of 600 dollars a piece. They've sold over 500,000 Glocks in North America alone. Four out of five Glocks produced in 1995 were purchased by civilians who paid much higher prices than police dep…”
Rothschilds ignoring America created the market opening seized by J.P. Morgan
“And the Rothschild had the opportunity to expand to America before the Morgans, and they didn't think they needed to do so because all their power derived from Europe. And so that gap in the market that the Rothschild seeded, the Morgans jumped into.”
Sixteen of eighteen Rothschild grandchild marriages were within the family
“16 of the 18 matches made by Mayer's grandchildren were between uncle and niece, our first cousins.”
Ogilvy: Sales performance differences between ad campaigns can reach 19 to 1
“The difference between one advertisement and another when measured in terms of sales can be as much as 19 to one.”
Senra: Sol Price borrowed the Price Club B2B model from Makro
“To shop at Macro, you had customers required to prove that they were owners of a business. You have to prove that you're owner of a business, then you can buy the membership. So that idea is like, oh, I come back. He's like, man, this is a really interesting c…”
Tiger Woods watched 100 to 200 hours of golf before turning one
“By the time Tiger turned one, he had spent 100 and, between 102 hundred hours watching his father hit Golf balls.”
James J. Hill built a profitable transcontinental railroad without bankruptcy
“He's the only entrepreneur in history to ever successfully build a profitable railroad without going into bankruptcy first.”
Zeckendorf turned a $10M property into $15M by valuing components separately
“For example, one Park Avenue in Manhattan, which the marketplace had valued at ten million dollars, was ultimately worth fifteen million in Zeckendorf's hands. He calculated everything separately. The building's title, the land, the leases, the individual mort…”
Patagonia was first to teach clothing layering through its catalogs
“We became the first company to teach the outdoor community through essays in our catalog and our catalog, the concept of layering.”
High-quality companies earn 12x higher ROI than low-price competitors
“Companies with high products and services High product and service quality reputation, excuse me, have an average return on investment rates 12 times higher than their lower quality and low price competitors.”
Luxury goods remain the largest export of the French economy
“I think the biggest export of the French economy to this day is luxury goods.”
At 40, Arnault declared his goal to build the largest luxury group
“Arnold said he wanted to make LVMH the biggest luxury goods group in the world.”
Senra: Charlie Munger's drive came from an inner clock, not parental validation
“And so Charlie's answer to the question was fascinating. He says, no, I always had an inner clock. And so Charlie's point there was that he was doing it for him. He did it because he wanted to do these things. He was interested in them, not because X, even if …”
Munger turned a single Barron's idea into $400M with Li Lu
“I read Barron's magazine for 50 years. I only found, the entire time, I found one idea that I could act on. Only one. I made eighty million dollars on that idea, basically risk-free. Then I took that eighty million dollars and I gave it to Lee Lu and he turned…”
Standard Oil chartered third-party ships to maintain the illusion of competition
“Why would an oil company in such an advantageous position charter ships from an outsider rather than operating ships of its own? The illusion of competition and decentralization has to be maintained. The U S government still had laws on the books dating from t…”
Ludwig bypassed maritime scrap rules by splitting profits with the government
“So when he got a tempting offer, he wrote the maritime commission with a proposition. This company is offering to pay a 100,000 dollars for a turbine that he had just removed. Let me sell this engine, DK said, and I'll split the proceeds with you 50 50. On its…”
Bill Gates Left Harvard Disappointed After Failing to Find Smarter Peers
“Bill Gates would later tell a friend he went to Harvard University to learn from people smarter than he was, and he left disappointed.”
Brunello Cucinelli strictly bans group emails and mobile phones in meetings
“There's no group emailing inside the company. And he says, no emails can be sent to more than two addresses, just one or two, no group mailing. Why must a single email be read by 10 different people? Also, when you go to meetings, you're not allowed to bring y…”
Cornelius Vanderbilt placed a bounty on Daniel Drew during a railroad war
“When they were hiding in New Jersey, Vanderbilt went and put a bounty on Daniel Drew's head.”
Jay Gould's attempted kidnapping of a con man nearly caused an invasion
“Having failed to convince Canadian authorities to hand over Gordon Gordon, Jay Gould attempted to kidnap Gordon Gordon with the help of his associates and a future member of Congress. Future members of Congress. So you got Lauren Fletcher, John Giffelian, and …”
Helzberg: Warren Buffett does not invest in turnaround opportunities
“Perhaps one of the key reasons Warren Buffett has been the world's most successful investor, he does not buy turnaround opportunities, something that Buffett spends a lot of time discussing over many years in his shareholder letters. He doesn't believe turnaro…”
Helzberg: Dropping Non-Jewelry Lines Increased Both Sales Volume and Profits
“We phased out lines of merchandise such as china, crystal, silver, luggage, and radios. We believed that the dollar volume of business would decrease, but the profits would increase. So he's saying on a store, an individual store level, Like, hey, we're going …”
Zuckerberg instantly dismissed Yahoo's $1B Facebook acquisition offer in 2006
“When Yahoo offered to buy Facebook for a billion dollars in July, 2006, I thought we should at least consider it. But Mark Zuckerberg walked into the board meeting and announced, okay guys, this is just a formality. It shouldn't take more than 10 minutes. We'r…”
Nike bet its entire marketing budget on Michael Jordan
“Cause if you think about it, like they bet their entire marketing budget on Jordan when he was somewhat known, but not nearly as world famous as he was obviously going to be.”
Kobe Bryant evaluated and respected peers solely by their work ethic
“Work ethic was the one standard by which Bryant measured another player.”
Senra: Vannevar Bush architected the modern basic-to-applied innovation pipeline
“Because he was the conceptual architect of what we now call the innovation pipeline, in which basic research leads to applied research, which is then commercialized.”
Sam Zell Acquired $4 Billion in Distressed Assets Between 1974 and 1977
“Between 1974 and 1977, we bought roughly four billion dollars in assets with a dollar down and a hope certificate.”
Sam Zell Sold Equity Office Properties for $39 Billion in Early 2007
“So when I completed the thirty nine billion dollar sale of Equity Office, that's his company, in early 2007, I didn't yet know how the story would play out.”
Senra: A dollar invested with Singleton in 1963 reached $180 by 1990
“If you had invested a dollar with Singleton in 1963, by 1990 when he stepped down, It would have been worth a 180.”
Senra: Henry Singleton was a 43-year-old first-time founder when starting Teledyne
“Henry Singleton founded it when he was 43 and had never founded a company before.”
Teledyne acquired 130 companies by 1969, nearly all with company stock
“And between. And 1969, he purchased a 130 companies in industries ranging from aviation electronics to specialty metals and insurance. All but two of these companies were acquired using Teledyne's pricey stock.”
Senra: Singleton Dismissed Teledyne's Acquisition Team in Mid-1969
“In mid-nineteen 69, with the multiples on his stock falling and acquisition prices rising, he abruptly dismissed his acquisition team.”
Teledyne tied GM bonuses to a cash flow metric
“They devised a unique metric that they called the Teledyne return, which by averaging cash flow and net income for each business unit emphasize cash generation and became the basis for bonus compensation for all business unit general managers.”
Senra: 129 of 130 Teledyne business units were profitable
“And I think at that point, the previous year, he had, I think, a 130 different business units, and I think a 129 of them were profitable.”
Senra: Singleton Put Over 70% of Insurance Float in Five Stocks
“He invested over 70% of combined equity portfolios in just five companies, with an incredible 25% of his portfolio allocated to a single company, which was his former employer, Litton Industries.”