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 836 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
Mike Agassi gave ten-year-old Andre speed before a national tennis tournament
“Sure enough, at the Nationals, my father gives me a pill. Hold out your hand, he says. This will help you. Take it. He puts a pill in my palm. Tiny, white, and round.”
DeepMind Employees Had Google-Wide Access While Google Staff Was Barred From DeepMind
“People that worked at DeepMind could get into any Google office globally, but people that worked at Google were barred from DeepMind's premises.”
Google DeepMind Closed Technical Gap with OpenAI Within Two Years
“Less than two years after the messy shotgun marriage that created Google DeepMind, Demis' team had closed the technical gap.”
Jensen Huang has 60 direct reports and skips one-on-ones
“Jensen has 60 direct reports and he doesn't do one-on-one meetings.”
Jensen Huang predicted Nvidia's average selling prices would uniquely rise
“He said that Nvidia would be a unique semiconductor company where products average selling prices rise. We are going to be the only guy where ASPs go up over time when everyone else's ASPs will go down, he said.”
Peterffy predicted in 1971 that automated systems would replace floor traders
“As soon as this electronic brain is hooked up to its voice box so it can answer the phone, staff will be able to go on a permanent vacation.”
Prosecutors alleged John DeLorean and Colin Chapman split millions in UK funds
“They alleged that DeLorean had pocketed 8.5 million of the government fee while Chapman had taken eight million for himself.”
Berkshire operates with no HR, legal, IR, or PR departments
“We have no human relations department, no legal department, no investor relations, no public relations. We don't have any of that. We've got a bunch of all-stars out there running businesses. We just asked them to mail the money to Omaha.”
Berkshire refuses to sell businesses unless they drain cash endlessly
“And like one thing that they bring up over and over again is in their wholly owned businesses, unless it's going to completely drain a bunch of money, they're not going to sell them. Even if, you know, they can say, Oh, we're, we used to make 15%. Now we make …”
Jensen Huang Manages 60 Direct Reports but Refuses One-on-One Meetings
“Jensen's famous or infamous, the fact that he has 60 direct reports and he refuses to do one-on-one.”
Jensen Huang Criticizes Employees Publicly So the Entire Company Learns
“Jensen does not believe, you know, there's this maximum like praise publicly, criticize privately. No, he does not. He criticizes publicly so that the entire organization can learn from a single person's mistake.”
Kobe Bryant vowed his post-basketball career must surpass his NBA achievements
“Kobe mentions this in that interview with Alex Rodriguez, where he says, you know, when he tells people that if the next 20 years of his life isn't better and he doesn't achieve more than the last 20 years, he would consider that a failure.”
Duveen engineered the National Gallery to inflate prices and clear wall space.
“By getting Andrew Mellon to donate his collection to it, the National Gallery was the perfect front for Duveen. In one gesture, his clients avoided taxes, cleared wall space for new purchases, and reduced the numbers of paintings on the market, maintaining the…”
Earl Woods used military POW psychological techniques on 12-year-old Tiger
“Earl put him through what he called Woods' finishing school. He would use psychological warfare and prisoner of war techniques that he had once taught to soldiers. Earl broke down his son in an attempt to toughen him up.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
NeXT Team Used Channel Stuffing to Inflate Sales Figures to Jobs
“The team reported sales figures by determining the number of units given to distributors, not sales to final customers. Distributors didn't have to pay right away. They got the machines on credit. Next then immediately counted these as sales, even though no mo…”
BeOS Founder Brought No Laptop or Presentation to Crucial Apple Pitch
“The founder of B walks in and he pursued a different approach. He hadn't brought anyone else from his team. He wasn't carrying a laptop. In fact, he had prepared no presentation whatsoever because the two teams had been kept separate.”
SpaceX designed Dragon's docking mechanism using off-the-shelf bike shocks
“The Dragon's capsule docking mechanism was reinvented from off-the-shelf bike shocks And catalog parts instead of adopting NASA's existing design.”
NASA found SpaceX developed Falcon 9 for a fraction of legacy costs
“A NASA study found SpaceX developed Falcon nine for roughly four hundred and forty million. They estimated the same work with traditional contractors would have cost three to 10 times that amount.”
Gwynne Shotwell convinced NASA and the Pentagon to accept standardized rocket launches
“She made it so the world's most conservative buyers, NASA and the Pentagon would accept a radical new model of standardization.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang prefers to torture people into greatness
“There's a line from the founder of Nvidia, Jensen Wong. He said that he doesn't like to give up on people. He'd rather torture them into greatness.”
Rockefeller's wealth grew more during his retirement than his active career
“What's crazy is Rockefeller's wealth wealth grows more in retirement than it did when he was active. And it did this because he never sold his stock.”
Standard Oil secretly funded patent litigation to financially bleed a rival
“Standard Oil had secretly approached Tweedle and told them that they will cover all the legal costs when Tweedle gets sued for patent infringement, which indeed happens. They then purposely drag the case through the court slowly to bleed the smaller company. E…”
Oracle Slashed Its Global Product Pricing Staff From 200 to Under 10
“We had about 200 people around the world involved in analyzing and reanalyzing, setting and resetting prices. It costs us a fortune in duplication of effort. We were competing against ourselves. It was embarrassing. Now we have less than 10 people working on p…”
Jensen Huang refused board recommendations to hire a COO
“Jensen had steadfastly refused to change his management philosophy, even when new board members joined and recommended that he hired a chief operating officer to reduce his administrative burden.”
Nvidia repurposed failed high-end chips to price low-end rivals into losses
“Nvidia could create a whole new derivative product line that could turn a profit without the expensive and time consuming process of research and development. That line would serve as defense against competitors for whom the low cost chip Was the main product.…”
Peterffy hired female floor traders to bypass exchange specialists who ignored him
“He hired six tall, beautiful women to trade for him. The specialists who had ignored his bids suddenly fought to fill his new employees' trades.”
Peterffy built Wall Street's first fully automated trading system in 1987
“In 1987, Peterfi achieved what he had first dreamed of in 1971, so that's 16 years of trial and error. The first fully automated trading system in Wall Street history. His machines could now place trades without human intervention.”
Senra: Microsoft held 'Borland War Councils' and printed 'delete Philippe' T-shirts
“Gates held meetings that became known around Microsoft as the Borland War Councils, during which him and his staff plotted how to beat the Frenchman being Philippe Kahn. Gates reportedly walked into one such meeting and threw Kahn's picture down on a table and…”
Luxottica Fills 80% of Its Acquired Retail Stores With Its Own Frames
“This formula means that when you and I walk into a LensCrafters, or a Sunglass Hut, or a David Clulow, or an Octacost Carol, which has 950 branches in Brazil, or a Zulang glasses in Shanghai, or a Ming Long store in Hong Kong, around 80% of the frames on displ…”
Citadel is historically the most profitable hedge fund of all time
“So the wonderful history of Citadel is how we are the most profitable hedge fund of all time.”
Michael Ovitz returned Coke's $10M check and renegotiated a $31M payment
“He says, they sent me a check for ten million for the ads. I returned the check with a post-it note attached. Hey, let's discuss this. We did, and they wind up talking to the people at Coca-Cola. I was friendly but unrelenting, and they finally sent me a new c…”
Leon Hess personally paid foreign bribes without seeking corporate reimbursement
“He has to write a letter to shareholders because the regulations in the oil industry are changing. So I just want to read some excerpts from this letter to the shareholders. He goes in the hope of obtaining a benefit for our corporation. I made a series of pay…”
Jensen Huang: 'I'd Rather Torture People Into Greatness'
“Jensen has a great line in the book. He says, I don't like giving up on people. I'd rather torture them into greatness.”
Nvidia's AI Pivot Originated From Employee Weekly Update Emails
“One of the weak signals that he intercepted years ago was a wonky, but exciting development in machine learning that kept popping up in T five T emails. Jensen decided that NVIDIA needed to invest more in tools for accelerating workloads on its GP use. This is…”
Jared Kushner invested in Brad Jacobs' latest company and joined its board
“My friend, Jared Kushner just invested in Brad's latest company and joined his board.”
Nick Sleep Sold Half His Amazon Stake at $1,500 in 2018
“By 2018, Amazon had risen so much that it accounted for more than 70% of Nick's net worth. Nick began to worry. Could Amazon's market value grow to three or four trillion dollars or were there limits even to Amazon's greatness? He wasn't sure. So after 13 year…”
Getty refused a ransom demand to protect his 14 other grandchildren
“His whole point is, like, I got 15 other grandchildren. If I just keep immediately, you know, paying out money, I'm signaling to the world that if you want to make money, just kidnap one of my kids.”
Rolex dominated the US market by expanding marketing during the 2008 crisis
“When the financial crisis happens in 2008, they pull back on their marketing. Rolex did not. Rolex put the pedal down, and it was really 2008, 2009, 2010, which really elevated Rolex in the United States to a level that it is today.”
Steve Jobs considered a free, ad-supported version of Mac OS
“And he's like, Hey, what if we gave it away for free? And we just did an ad supported version of Mac OS. And instead of buying them, you can get it for free, but you have to watch an ad every time before you use your computer.”
Larry Ellison Commanded Recruiters to Hire the Cockiest College Graduates
“Ellison insisted that his recruiters hire only the finest and cockiest new college graduates.
When they were recruiting from universities, they'd ask people, are you the smartest person you know?
And if they said yes, they would hire them.
If they said no, …”
Elon Musk Personally Interviewed First 3,000 SpaceX Hires
“He interviewed the first 3000 employees at SpaceX. That's how important it was.”
Cornelius Vanderbilt's personal wealth exceeded all Central American governments combined
“Vanderbilt had more money than all Central American governments combined.”
A competitor paid Cornelius Vanderbilt $40,000 monthly simply to not compete
“For two months, Aspen Wall had paid him 40,000 dollars a month on the condition that Vanderbilt not put his steamers on the Panama run in competition with Aspen Wall's own vessels. That money went to Vanderbilt personally, not to the transit company, even thou…”
Michael Jordan used a butcher knife to destroy a friend's Puma gear
“He goes into the kitchen, gets a butcher knife, and literally cuts up everything. This was like his second or third year in the league. He literally took a butcher knife to my shoes, ripping and cutting. When he's all done, he picks up every little scrap and w…”