Venture capital, startups and investing, on tape.

Every prediction, opinion and bold claim from How I Built This: extracted from the transcript, verified against the tape, checked against cited public sources, playable at the exact moment it was said.

6,762 assertions2,384 insights2,289 disclosures775 opinions282 predictions176 what-ifs

Recently on the ledger full ledger →

Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2030
Electric planes will outnumber gas-powered planes in the air by 2030
“By 2030, you'll see more electric airplanes in the air than gas powered airplanes.”
Kyle Clark Aug 24, 2023 ▶ 34:11 Electrifying aviation with Kyle Clark of BETA Technologies
Assertion Partly supported
Lore: Quidsi rejected a competing buyout offer $100M higher after Amazon threats
“Yeah, it's even, even worse that we got a higher offer that we didn't take.”
Marc Lore May 17, 2021 ▶ 46:34 Diapers.com & Jet.com: Marc Lore
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Amazon threatened to drop diaper prices to zero if Quidsi resisted sale
“They said, well, yeah, we're gonna take the price of diapers to zero, and we're gonna, you know, and they made some analogies to some other, used explicit language, and it was pretty scary stuff.”
Marc Lore May 17, 2021 ▶ 47:29 Diapers.com & Jet.com: Marc Lore
Opinion
Wenner: Early society did not produce great women journalists in rock/culture
“It didn't matter to me, but it's just that the general society just didn't produce great women journalists at that time. There are a few who wrote for the times, but not many who wrote in our area.”
Jann Wenner Jul 10, 2017 ▶ 33:55 Rolling Stone: Jann Wenner
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Carlyle Group removed Gregg Renfrew as CEO five months after buyout
“They made the decision in October that I was not capable of running the company, and they decided to remove me as CEO.”
Gregg Renfrew May 4, 2026 ▶ 52:29 Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Quidsi rejected a $100M higher buyout offer due to Amazon retaliation threats
“Because Amazon very clearly stated that if we took that offer, they would do even more to harm the business.”
Marc Lore Mar 30, 2026 ▶ 47:32 diapers.com: Marc Lore. The ecommerce visionary who lost to Amazon but still made billions (2021)

How the calls resolved the full record →

Assertion Supported
Raz: 96 survived and 83 died in Singapore Airlines Flight 006
“96 people survived. 83 people were killed in that flight”
Guy Raz Apr 14, 2025 ▶ 30:27 Vizio: William Wang
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Universal Hydrogen expects to retrofit half the target fleet by early 2030s
“We would expect to be able to get through at least half that fleet by the early 20 thirties.”
Paul Eremenko Oct 20, 2022 ▶ 24:17 HIBT Lab! Universal Hydrogen: Paul Eremenko
Assertion Supported
Zennström: Microsoft Acquired Skype for $8.5 Billion in 2011
“Microsoft came along and makes an offer that, you know, the investors took on for eight and a half billion.”
Niklas Zennström Mar 17, 2025 ▶ 1:03:53 Skype and Kazaa: Niklas Zennström
Assertion Contradicted
Giant Conductive Ring at South Pole Could Launch Objects Into Space
“In the end, one of the best ideas would be to go to the south magnetic pole and put a big ring of conductor material around the magnetic field there and put a huge current through it, and it would actually fly into space.”
Keith Alexander Aug 30, 2021 ▶ 9:13 Springfree Trampoline: Keith Alexander & Steve Holmes (2019)

Open predictions the full timeline →

109days Berdichevsky: Automotive battery integration takes roughly five years post-consumer electronics Gene Berdachevsky · prediction date: 2026-12-31 109days Berdichevsky: First consumer cars with Sila technology expected in 2026 Gene Berdachevsky · prediction date: 2026-12-31 175days Berdichevsky: Sila will achieve a 40 percent energy density improvement over graphite Gene Berdachevsky · prediction date: 2027-03-07 474days Swaminathan hopes Malta's first plant begins construction in 2024, operating by 2027 Ramya Swaminathan · prediction date: 2027-12-31

Track records all people →

Ordered by full support rate, then by supported count. Minimum three resolved. Partly supported claims count as resolved but not as fully supported, same as everywhere on the ledger.

PersonEpsStatementsSupportedPartly supportedContradictedFull support rate
Neil Blumenthal 4 28 15 0 0 100%
John Mackey 2 39 12 0 0 100%
Tony Hsieh 3 43 11 0 0 100%
Jerry Greenfield 2 24 11 0 0 100%
Perry Chen 4 36 10 0 0 100%
Adam Grant 2 32 10 0 0 100%
Niraj Shah 3 20 9 0 0 100%
Miguel McKelvey 5 34 8 0 0 100%

From the Wisdom Wall all quotes →

“what I now realize in hindsight is whenever you take a strategic investment, whether or not you intend to sell them the business, you should expect that to be the outcome. And the earlier you can know…”

“I mean, the one thing that I know about building a brand is starting is not really the hard part, and even getting to a million dollars isn't really the hard part. It's really getting from, like, ten…”

“So by the way, when you go to retail. You do four times the amount of work for half of the, the reward, right? Because, uh, you know, you now have to deal with buyers. You had to become a vendor…”

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