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 17 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
Katz: Entrepreneurial success is roughly 51% grit and 49% luck
“I think it's something on the order of 50.5 to 51% purposeful good calls and brave moments, and times when you just didn't give up, the rest of it is definitely luck, because otherwise, how could I have made so many stupid, boneheaded decisions along the way t…”
Katz: The book publishing industry inherently resists technological change
“Book publishing is a, is, is people who love books, meaning that they're willing to get paid less, or they have the wherewithal to not get paid a lot, and you know, and they go into a world, and usually, they stand for the status quo and they usually resist, y…”
Katz: In the 1990s, Microsoft targeted any startup building a platform
“If anyone said they were building a platform, Microsoft would make it their business to destroy your company.”
Otis Chandler: Amazon promised to run Goodreads as an independent brand
“Amazon made it a little easy in that they told us they would want to run us as an independent subsidiary and an independent brand, just like they run Audible and IMDB and Zappos and now Twitch, and they have a long list of track record of doing this.”
Katz: Zero employees quit when Audible relocated to downtown Newark
“We moved in with a 120 people and nobody left.”
Katz: Audible became the largest employer of actors in New York
“We were becoming at that point the largest employer of actors in the New York area, which we've been for a while.”
Katz: First Audible download occurred on October 31, 1997
“The first download when it finally happened was in, I remember October 31st of 97, it was Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus, the self-help book, and I remember it was to a customer in Cave Creek, Arizona, and that was, and it was done at that then pre…”
Katz: Audible's first player cost $208 to manufacture and sold for $215
“But it cost us 208 dollars to make that little device, and we tried to sell it for 215 dollars.”
Katz: Audible stock collapsed from ~$29 to four cents in 2000
“The stock price, you know, which was once 29 dollars or something, it went down to four cents at the end of 2000.”
Katz: Robin Williams bought ~500k Audible shares before IPO
“Robin Williams had come in and bought, like, 500,000 shares of common stock before it went public.”
Katz: Audible raised ~$40M at IPO with 5,700 customers
“We walked away with almost forty million dollars. We had 5700 customers.”
Siminoff: Amazon is the only tech giant that elevates acquired companies
“Amazon was the only large company that I saw or felt
When they bought companies truly like brought it to the next level. Like I, you know, with audible and IMDB and Zappos and I mean, you look at Twitch, like you look at all the, they've just kept founders and…”
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”
Katz: Took an 85% pay cut at 43 to found Audible
“I was 43 years old, and I took an 85% year-over-year pay cut to start Audible.”