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 11 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
Visram: Plantamica Must Raise Venture Capital Rather Than Bootstrapping
“If you're, like, really in this and you believe and it's your hundred percent thing, then you have to raise money from investors and you kind of go big or go home, is my feeling. I don't think you start this one on a bootstrappy, small way because ultimately y…”
Blank: Staying at Home Depot under Bob Nardelli would have been miserable
“And I was sure happy I wasn't there during the six years that he was there. Ah, so, ah. That, that, that would have been the worst time in my life.”
Blank: Early competitors believed Home Depot's business model would fail
“Every competitor came into our stores and visited us and said, I mean, these, I can't use bad words here because this is like kind of a live radio thing, but these, ah, whatever you want to call us, they're crazy. The stores are much too big. Prices are much t…”
Blank: Home Depot concept arose by defining an uncompetitive retail model
“Bernie had said, well, you know, if we were ever to leapfrog our own business, Handy Dan Home Improvement Centers, what kind of home improvement center store could we not compete against? And so we said we could never compete against the big warehouse, no fril…”
Raz: Home Depot reached $40 billion revenue faster than any US company
“Home Depot went from zero revenue in 1979 to seven hundred million in 1985, the fastest company in U.S. History to hit 40
Billion dollars in revenue.”
Szaky: Four retailers control the vast majority of the US fertilizer market
“And when I looked at the, at who controls the fertilizer market, it's only four retailers control the vast majority of it, which in the U.S. Is Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, and Walmart.”
Blank: Home Depot raised from 144 investors backing the founders
“The investors who invested in our company, it was a 144 of them really what they were buying into was just Myself and Bernie.”
Blank: Young executives overworking will become strangers to their families
“Too many young executives, men or women, they, their attitude is that we gotta work now, work hard, and, you know, put my career in, on fifth gear, and go, go, go, and so when you return home in 10 years, you're not gonna recognize your kids, and your spouse i…”
Blank: Nobody showed up to The Home Depot's 1979 grand opening
“So we had this grand opening, and nobody came.”
SkinnyDipped founders failed to coat almonds using Home Depot paint sprayers
“So we went to Home Depot, we bought a paint sprayer, We filled the paint sprayer with chocolate, and the chocolate would start to harden, so you couldn't actually get it to work, so we had to MacGyver some heat guns next to the paint sprayer to try to keep the…”
Blank: Home Depot founders spent 75% of early time on store floor
“I probably spent 75% of my time, as did Bernie, as did really most of our associates, on the floor of the store, finding out from customers what is it they like, what didn't like, and we kept changing the mix, adding things, taking things off, changing prices,…”