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 12,668 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 96 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
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Amazon explicitly threatened to price diapers at zero to force Quidsi 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. I'll just leave it at that.”
Cost Plus Drugs manufactures generic pills cheaper domestically than in Asia
“And so we can make generic pills here in the United States cheaper than what we can buy them for from India or China.”
Eleven Madison Park will reintegrate fish, shellfish, and duck in October
“In October, we will reintegrate a few animal products, such as fish or shellfish, and yes, we will bring our duck back, our honey lavender glazed duck.”
Shane Legg estimates a 50% chance of AGI by 2028
“So I actually came up with an estimate then that it was about a 50% chance of what I call AGI now by about 20 28.”
Kevin O'Leary claimed major beauty brands would crush indie competitors like cockroaches
“And they would crush you like the colorful cockroaches you are. You only have so many minutes on earth, don't waste them trying to sell lipstick.”
Bill Simmons: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell lied about Ray Rice
“And they did. Though Rice's told them. No, he lied.”
Incoming Cisco CEO John Morgridge told Lerner she was 'everything wrong'
“Yeah, and he denies it, but I will swear on the lives of my cats, the first thing he said to me was, I hear you're everything that's wrong with Cisco.”
Peretti: BuzzFeed made the right call publishing the Trump-Russia dossier
“I definitely think it was the right decision, and the reason we published it was because you had everyone in the senior levels of government and media talking about this document and referring to the document even in public communications.”
Huang: AI innovation must be accelerated, not slowed, to improve safety
“There were even attitudes that, that we had to slow down AI innovation, which I believe is exactly the opposite. We had to speed up AI innovation because through innovation, we can make the technology safer, more secure.”
Gabbert: Private Equity Firms Ruin More Businesses Than They Grow
“One, if you'd looked at their performance generally They've ruined more businesses that they've grown. They just don't, one, they think they're smarter than the owners of people that created the business in the first place. Second, they think they can over lev…”
Angle: FTC staff post blocked deals on doors as badges of honor
“In fact, I had to testify, I was deposed as part of this process, and I was walking, you know, between sessions, walking the facility, and
On the doors of the agents at the FTC, the employees, like, badges of honor on the doors were deals blocked.”
Wingstop's private equity buyers diverted cash flow to avoid paying Swad's note
“Instead of using the money to make the payment to me for the company that I built, they took the money and they built corporate stores with it, which was adding to the intrinsic value of the company. They were bonusing themselves. If it ever looked like at the…”
Make Magazine's first issue perfectly described Square's card reader design
“If you want to know the real story, just get the first issue of Make Magazine. It's publicly available. It describes exactly what we were building, and I knew that when I went to Bob.”
Hastings: Modeling a company on a family is an inferior organizational approach
“Well families are dysfunctional in many ways. And so, yes, I think it's a inferior model.”
Hastings: Firing decisions are driven by instinct via the 'keeper test'
“No. There's, it's not rational when you let someone go. I mean, you want to think it through, but it's an instinct that you could get someone better for that role. So that the test we use is called the keeper test. Would you fight to keep that employee if they…”
Founder Travis Rosbach claims Hydro Flask degraded its product quality post-exit
“They changed the quality. They changed the price. They've changed some of the manufacturing techniques. I don't even really drink out of the bottles anymore.”
Newmark denies Craigslist killed newspapers, blaming TV news, Google, and Facebook
“I, in the past, felt that Craigslist did have a substantial effect on newspaper survival, but until
No one had done any of the numbers.
I'd spoke to industry analysts like Ken doctor and Rasmus Nielsen, who said it was ridiculous to think Craigslist had that b…”
Ahmed: Amazon copied WHOOP with Halo, tweeting 'whoop, there it is'
“They knocked the product off. There's no question. And by the way, it was so egregious that one of the lead product manager from Amazon, when it came out, posted on Twitter, whoop, there it is announcing the new Amazon Halo.”
Dylan Field claims Adobe is not a direct competitor to Figma
“They're really not. I mean... They're very focused on other aspects of their business, and that was made abundantly clear in the antitrust process to all the regulators, too.”
McKenzie: Billions spent on social media content moderation failed to fix trust
“They've invested billions of dollars on this. They come up with these policy documents that are hundreds of pages long. And it doesn't appear to us like it has actually helped misinformation problems, or it's helped Reduce the level of harassment, or it's help…”
Best: Platforms should not decide what is right or who to trust
“I don't think our role as a platform on the internet should be to tell you what's right and what's wrong or who to trust and who not to trust. And it's a seductive idea that it should be that role. And a lot of platforms took that stance and it just didn't wor…”
McKenzie: Musk offered to buy Substack and make Chris Best Twitter CEO
“And he responded by getting Chris on a call and saying to him, well, how about Twitter acquire Substack, and you, I'm looking for a CEO to run the company.”
Lion Capital ballooned headcount and destroyed profitability post-acquisition
“Within six months of selling the company to them, we went from 17 employees to 59 employees. The business didn't triple. They only grow the business about six to eight percent a year, if that. They destroyed profitability.”
Ainsworth: Competitors admitted targeting Marucci to slow its market share growth
“There's no question. We've had conversations with some of those other companies across, over the years, and they said, we could take some hits from some smaller companies, but what you guys did, y'all were taking so much market share, you know, we kind of had …”
Shufelt: Non-alcoholic beer will account for over 50% of beer consumption
“In my head, I think it's going to be over 50% of beer.”
Milstein: Don't take a co-founder if a great first employee suffices
“So unless you absolutely feel that you need this person by your side, and that they really have something for the business that an incredible first employee can't bring you. Don't have the co-founder.”
Mason: Yahoo in 2010 was a place where great companies went to die
“And my perception of Yahoo at the time was it was a place where great companies go to die.”
Bosch: SmartSweets' first co-packer stole the recipe to launch a competitor
“That manufacturer took the recipe and ended up going on to launch a product themselves,”
Maldonado: Most retailers make more from slotting fees than product sales
“And these, you know, retailers, most of them, they make more, more money from slotting fees than they do from actually selling products.”
Dhar Mann admits falsifying dates on city grants to accelerate reimbursements
“I decided to take some shortcuts on my grant application. I changed the dates on my paperwork to make it seem like the projects had been completed and contractors had been paid sooner than they were in order to start the reimbursement process faster.”
Harris: Applying Section 230 to Social Media Shielded Addictive Tech From Liability
“And that made sense when the internet was just a bunch of bulletin boards and it was not powered by AI, but we used that immunity shield and applied it to social media companies when they came along later. And so when they go and intentionally addict children,…”
Harris: Mark Zuckerberg's plan to open-source AGI is extremely dangerous
“Mark Zuckerberg has publicly stated within the last week or so that he wants to build a Open source artificial general intelligence, which is the most dangerous thing you could possibly do.”
Yassin: CCTV approached Nas Daily to promote tourism in Xinjiang
“To be clear, we've had people from China, CCTV, tell us to go to Xinjiang and talk about the culture and the food.”
Yassin: US State Department asked Nas Daily to make anti-China videos
“But we also had people from the State Department tell us, hey, why don't you make videos about China and how bad it is?”
Wolfe Herd: Tech could prevent breakups within 10 years
“And my dream, Guy, is 10 years from now, We will be able to prevent breakups before they ever happen. We will be able to prevent bad relationships from ever having a potential of happening.”
NRA Does Not Publicly Oppose Smart Guns, Says Biofire CEO
“The NRA, as an example, does not oppose the development of smart guns, right? That's their public stance. You can go read on their website.”
Ben-Shitrit: Redefine Meat will become the world's biggest meat company
“We started saying to everybody, we're going to become the world's biggest meat company. This is what we're going to do. And if you're the world's biggest meat company, you're not selling the technology. You're selling meat.”
Szaky: Recycling is a band-aid; the only real solution is buying less
“Recycling is a band-aid, right? And it's better than landfilling and incineration. It's a step in the right direction. You know, reuse is an even better step than recycling. But in the end, the only answer is going to be a significant reduction of buying thing…”
Simkhai: Grindr avoided VC to not answer to straight corporate investors
“And I felt that if I would take venture backing
I would essentially become a monkey to them, and that I would need to essentially work for them.
And a lot of them were, you know, straight men who I felt like didn't understand my business, and you know, I didn'…”
A food VC firm plotted a hostile takeover within three months
“They had a very different agenda. I think it maybe took about three months where, you know, we had a little bit of a honeymoon phase where they did connect us with a better sales force and better manufacturing expertise and things like that, but it was very so…”