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 22 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
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 surrendered its payment product and mailed Square readers to merchants
“And it failed so badly that Amazon gave us all their soon-to-be former customers and mailed them a Square reader and said, we're out, go to Square.”
Chewy Sells More Pet Supplies in the United States Than Amazon
“I think it's the biggest distributor of pet supplies. I think it's bigger than Amazon when it comes to pet supplies in the U.S.”
Guayakí reached $100 million in revenue without Costco, Walmart, or Amazon
“We got to a hundred million without Costco, Walmart, Amazon, any of those big retailers that are usually a big part of it.”
Hsieh: Amazon preserved Zappos' independent culture seven years post-acquisition
“They approached us again and said, okay, we will let you guys be your own separate subsidiary with your own separate culture and own separate way of doing business. And happy to report seven years later, they've remained totally true to their word. And we've b…”
Online diaper sales did not exist at normal retail prices in 2004
“It might have been 2003, 2004, somewhere around there. You could not buy diapers at a normal price. They were, like, prices were, like, jacked to ridiculous levels. It just wasn't a thing. Nobody bought them online.”
Hero Cosmetics Bootstrapped for Three Years Using Amazon Profits to Fund DTC
“Amazon for us was a very profitable channel, and the money we made from Amazon, we put towards launching our DTC site, launching slowly in retail, and I mean, we were, we bootstrapped for the first three years, and I think largely the economics of our product …”
Lewis: Magic Spoon quickly became the best-selling cereal brand on Amazon
“We then launched on Amazon, very quickly actually became the number one best selling cereal on Amazon.”
Shear: Twitch's final funding round before Amazon was valued at $100M
“The last round we raised had been a hundred million dollar valuation, not that long ago, a year ago, year and a half ago.”
Armbrust kept mask prices flat despite surges and higher domestic costs
“And we haven't changed our price since. In fact, during Delta and Omicron Amazon went really high on their prices. People were complaining, but we have stayed exactly the same, but it is expensive because it costs more money to make it here.”
Otis Chandler: Goodreads was a top-100 US website when Amazon acquired it
“Yeah, but we owned most of a website that was one of the top hundred websites in the U.S. By traffic.”
Chandler: Shelfari had three employees and $1M seed from Amazon
“And then literally two weeks before we were going to launch, we discovered Shelfari, which had two co-founders, three employees, and a million dollars in seed from Amazon.”
Goodreads earned an 8% affiliate cut referring book buyers to Amazon
“So affiliate was, we get, you know, an eight percent cut of a book when we refer a customer to Amazon or Barnes and Noble or somewhere where they buy a book.”
Velez: Back to the Roots' Water Garden became the top-selling aquarium on Amazon
“At this time, Amazon was really starting to explode, so we put this item on Amazon, and it became the number one selling aquarium. And stayed that way for quite some time.”
Katz: Amazon stock was trading around $50 during the Audible acquisition
“And also, you know, come on, let's face it, most people know that, you know, senior people at Amazon get paid in Amazon stock. And so we did the transaction, the stock was like 50 dollars a share.”
Amazon acquired Audible for $300 million after it reached $110M in revenue
“In 2007, your annual revenue at Audible was like one hundred and ten million dollars. And in January of 2008, Amazon announced that they would acquire Audible for three hundred million dollars in cash”
Hsieh: Zappos rejected an early Amazon acquisition before Amazon launched Endless
“Amazon had actually approached us several years before 2009. They just wanted to acquire us, and then basically the company being acquired ends up joining the mothership, and kind of loses its original identity, and so we said, Know very quickly. And then they…”
Zappos initially rejected Amazon's acquisition offer to protect its company culture
“Amazon had actually approached us several years before 2009. They just wanted to acquire us and then basically the company being acquired ends up joining the mothership and kind of loses its original identity. And so we said no very quickly.”
Abraham: Top-selling Amazon pasta sauce is in a 45oz plastic jar
“The number one selling pasta sauce on Amazon is in a 45 ounce plastic jar, right?”