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
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.”
Amazon board member offered VC funding to stop Amazon attacking Square
“I remember one guy telling me, oh, Amazon's gonna attack you? Don't worry, I'm on the board of Amazon, and I developed Amazon Prime, and we can get them to leave you alone. Like, if you take our money, we'll guarantee that Amazon doesn't attack you.”
Square's early investor prototypes broke numerous banking laws and financial rules
“Everything worked, but it was breaking many, many laws and rules.”
Interdependent 'innovation stacks' protect novel inventions from giant corporate copiers
“If you invent something truly new, you're not inventing one thing. You're inventing a stack of things, and that invention becomes its own protection. And as long as you behave properly, I mean, it turns out there are a bunch of rules that if you follow these r…”
Pre-Square, merchants under $100K in revenue were barred from processing cards
“Basically, if you didn't have a 100,000 dollars of business, You would not take credit cards. That was sort of the cutoff. Because it was too expensive. You had to have a sponsoring bank. You had to have a certain level of accounting. You had to have a physica…”
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.”
Apple's strict dock connector rules nearly killed Square's early hardware ambitions
“And at the time, it was this big port at the bottom, and you had to pay Apple for access to that port. You had to pay Apple for a special chip that allowed you to build your hardware, and then you had to Convince them to let you do it, and at the time the iPho…”
Square's early credit card readers cost 97 cents to manufacture
“And each reader cost you how much? 97 cents.”
Square received dozens of term sheets with only three investor rejections
“We had several dozen term sheets. I mean, I don't think we had More than three pitches that didn't result in offers.”
Square was originally named Squirrel and had an acorn-shaped card reader
“Originally the company was called Squirrel, because we thought squirrels, you know, were cute and saved nuts and thought that was a good payment name. Turns out it was a good payment name, and another company had a payment system called Squirrel, so we pivoted…”
Bark Sold Early Subscriptions Using a Phone Mockup and Square Reader
“So I started to carry a square in my pocket, and I'd show people, and they'd give me the reaction. I'd plug the square in, and I'd say, it's live. Swipe your card. And I'd hand, hand the phone to them, and their faces would change. They'd be like, well, so the…”