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 42 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
Future AI Will Autonomously Execute Long-Term Scientific Research Campaigns
“Future AIs would behave in the same way. Task, for example, to help solve energy scarcity by inventing a superconductor, an AI might draw up a reading list, conduct experiments, invent novel materials, and so on. Pursuing its goal over the space of a year or m…”
Cornelius Vanderbilt committed his wife to an asylum for refusing to move
“She gets hysterical about the plan move from Staten Island to Manhattan, and so Vanderbilt puts her in a private mental asylum for three months until she changes her mind.”
Musk personally interviewed the first 3,000 employees hired at SpaceX
“He interviewed the first 3000 employees at SpaceX. That's how important it was. One of Musk's most valuable skills was his ability to determine whether someone would fit his mold. His people had to be brilliant. They had to be hardworking, and there could be n…”
Standard Oil commercialized over 50 oil byproducts without inventing a single one
“So standard oil sold over 50 byproducts from the refining of oil. Standard did not create a single one of those innovations. Rockefeller would let others experiment. He'd wait until they developed a profitable market, and then he would move in.”
Larry Ellison Never Truly Wanted to Be CEO or Run a Company
“Ellison, by his own admission, had never really wanted to be a CEO and never really wanted to run a company.”
Microsoft priced early software at under half in-house engineering costs
“In the early days, our sales approach was to say, if you had to write the software in-house, your fixed engineering budget would be X amount of dollars. And Microsoft's price is less than half of X dollars. We competed. Against in-house engineering budgets.”
Luxottica Pulled Ray-Ban From 13,000 Outlets to Reposition and Hike Prices
“Over the next year and a half, Luxottica withdrew Ray-Ban from 13,000 outlets, hiked their prices, and radically improved the quality, increasing the layers of lacquer on a pair of Wayfarers from two to 31.”
Todd Graves Plans to Expand Raising Cane's to Thousands of Stores
“This guy's gonna have thousands of stores.”
Ivar Kreuger's companies comprised 25% of traded US securities in the 1920s
“I don't have in front of me, but I'm pretty sure from like 19, 22 to like 19 30, something like 25% of all the securities traded in America were for Ivar Kruger's companies.”
Tarantino considers Kill Bill to be his most autobiographical film
“Quentin thinks it's just one movie. He thinks of Kill Bill one and two as one movie, but he said it was the most autobiographical movie that he ever did. He just hid it under a bunch of metaphor and stories and everything else.”
Duveen supplied 95 of 115 paintings in Andrew Mellon's art collection
“95 of the 115 paintings in the Mellon collection, right, which gets donated to the public, which I'll talk about why he did this, was also a genius move in a little bit, came to Mellon through Duveen.”
Capital Cities Operated Without HR, Marketing, PR, or Legal Departments
“Headquarters staff was anorexic. No vice presidents in functional areas like marketing, strategic planning, or human resources, no corporate counsel, and no public relations department either.”
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.”
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.”
Schwarzenegger tracked physical gains monthly via photographs and magnifying glass
“On a calendar, I kept even fractional changes in measurements and weight. I had a photographer take pictures at least once a month. I studied each shot with a magnifying glass.”
Koenigsegg will build 1.5x its 20-year historical production in three years
“Right now, the company's actually gearing up, and in the last few years, they're gonna build 1.5 times as many cars in the next three years as it has in the past 20.”
Senra: Red Bull moved HQ to a 1,500-person village, making it wealthy
“Originally the company was headquarters in a bigger city called Salzburg, and he winds up moving the headquarters to this tiny village that I can't even pronounce, and it only has 1500 inhabitants. It's like almost all Red Bull. The local, like governing, like…”
Water freight was 50% cheaper than rail for early oil refiners
“Shipping by water was 50% cheaper than shipping by rail.”
At 30 employees, Microsoft had 28 programmers, a secretary, and Bill Gates
“When we got up to 30 employees, it was still just me, a secretary and 28 programmers. I wrote all the checks, answered the mail, took the phone calls.”
Senra: Bill Gates maintained a top-10 list of past mistakes to avoid repeating them
“He would keep a list of mistakes and it was a top 10 list. And he'd reread that to make sure they don't make the same mistakes in the future.”
Amazon added relentlessly lowering prices as its third experience pillar in 2001
“In July, we added a third customer experience pillar. Relentlessly lowering prices.”
Michael Dell launched with $1,000 while competitor Compaq raised $100 million.
“Michael Dell starts to come with a thousand dollars. Compact starts at twenty five million. And then they raised, I think another seventy five million.”
Hetty Green secured a $385,000 profit in a railroad proxy battle
“Heady shares provide nearly half of Alexander's 15,000 share victory, and she winds up making a profit of 385,000 dollars, nearly double what she would have made just by holding on a little longer.”
Microsoft's first 30 employees included 28 engineers, Bill Gates, and a secretary
“The first 30 employees of Microsoft, there were 28 engineers, Bill Gates, and a secretary.”
Sam Zell Collected an $11.5M Breakup Fee on Rockefeller Center Bid
“And so as he's going through this negotiation in the contract, he put a breakup fee in there in case Rockefeller Center was sold to another buyer, which it was. So he went up pocketing an 11.5 million dollar breakup fee.”
Online retail made up just 3.1% of US sales in 2006
“3.1% of all retail sales happened online in the year 2006.”
Hans Wilsdorf spent over £12,000 annually for consecutive years launching Rolex
“I decided to launch the Rolex trademark by means of an intensive advertising campaign. This policy entailed an annual expenditure of more than 12,000 British pounds, not for one year alone, but for several in succession.”
Texas Oil Discoveries Were Ten Times Larger Than the 1849 Gold Rush
“These discoveries in Texas in, you know, twenties, thirties, forties were 10 times the size of the gold strike that brought the 40 niners to Northern California in the 1800.”
Mateschitz paid for Red Bull's first ad campaigns through agency freelance labor
“And so he actually paid for this initial work with labor. He had no money. So he actually helps out in the agency as a freelance employee, just to pay for that marketing advertising that the advertising agency that his friends started is doing on behalf of Red…”
Les Schwab retail stores operated as separate entities with localized profit-sharing
“Each store operates as a separate entity and each store operates as a separate business. The store employees share only in the profits of the store they work in.”
Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary leaders are compensated solely on individual unit performance
“The individual businesses that Berkshire owns, the person running that business is only Incentivized and paid and rewarded are punished based on the performance of that individual business and not Berkshire as a whole.”
Capital Cities Ran Its Publishing Division With Only Three Corporate Staff
“Phil Meek took this message to heart and ran the entire publishing operation. So at this time they had six daily newspapers, several magazines, and a bunch of weekly like shoppers, these things you see in in like grocery stores. And he ran his headquarters wit…”
Tom Murphy Never Used Investment Bankers For Capital Cities' Acquisitions
“He did not delegate acquisition decisions and never used investment bankers”
Steve Jobs reduced Apple's product line from 17 to four after returning
“Soon after he returned, he slashed the company's product offerings from 17 to four.”
The $25 million Ritz Hotel sold for $725,000 during the Depression
“The Ritz Hotel,
Which cost twenty-five million dollars to build, sold for 725,000 dollars, and it had a 100,000 dollars worth of liquor in it at the time.”
At age 42, Arnault confidently predicted he would retire well before 70
“By the time I'm 70, I'll have retired long since, he says.”
Ludwig's tanker innovations focused on thinner decks and maximum payload
“Most of Ludwig's shipbuilding innovations were aimed towards a single goal, increasing payload without increasing cost. He was ever on the lookout for a way to reduce tanker design to the bare bones minimum. His ships had much thinner decks than the industry s…”
MCA packaged TV shows and took up to 75% of production costs
“MCA was everywhere, packaging a huge number of TV shows and taking up to 75% of their production costs.”
John Hess was groomed from age seven to lead Hess Corporation
“From the age of seven, John was being groomed to take over Hess. John spent time in the trenches. This is just like the Wallenbergs and the Greens again. John spent time in the trenches, learning the business by pumping gas at a station in Jersey, doing accoun…”
George Getty struck oil on 42 of his first 43 wells
“He attempts to drill 43 wells. 42 of them came back as producing oil”