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
White executives hold 'Head of Black Music' titles at some labels
“You actually, believe it or not, have white people that are the heads of black music with a title at some of these companies. You know, it's, and literally you have qualified black executives in the company, but actual white people with a title, the head of bl…”
Hyman: Dismissing fashion as trivial during the pandemic is an anti-feminist crusade
“And I'm very troubled by what I think is this anti-feminist crusade Around one of the most important and largest industries on earth, fashion, being considered trivial.”
Brown: Matching beef industry scale will be game over for meat producers
“When we get the economies of scale that they have, and, ah, when we've, you know, expanded our suite of products and so forth, that it's going to be game over for them.”
Brown: The beef industry asked lobbyists to shut down Impossible before launch
“Even from before we had our first product, I know from a direct source that a representative of that industry actually reached out to a lobbyist and basically Said to, you know, ask that, ask the lobbyists to get Congress or the USDA to shut us down.”
Wilson Blames Infamous Lululemon Pilling On Customers Sizing Down For Shapewear
“Women were coming into the store and not wanting Lululemon for athletics. They were coming in looking for it to shape their bodies. But the sewing technique and the fabric wasn't meant for it. So what they were doing is buying two to four sizes smaller than wh…”
Retailer Asked Daymond John to Remove Founders' Photos For Looking 'Gang'
“A large retailer did ask me to take the picture of myself and my three other partners off the hang tag, cause it said we look like a gang.”
Zimmer admits CEO replacement Doug Ewer was unqualified to lead company
“Look, I know I told you that Doug would be a good replacement, but after a couple of years, I was wrong. He's not qualified to run the company”
Men's Wearhouse intercepted Generation Tux's exclusive rental deal with Macy's
“My team and I were in New York in Terry Lundgren's office, the CEO of Macy's, making a deal to be the... Tuxedo, rental, and we had the deal. It went to legal review, and while it was in legal review, men's warehouse stole it.”
Quimby Believes She Was More Responsible With Burt's Bees Wealth Than Shavitz
“I feel that I was the more responsible party for managing wealth. I could do the right thing with it. And I don't know whether Bert would have really used it very productively.”
Neeleman views employee unionization as a fundamental failure of corporate leadership
“You know, I always thought if our people need someone else to come tell us how to treat them, then that would be pretty tragic. If I thought I didn't treat our people well enough that they needed somebody else, then, you know, that's not the company I wanted t…”
Dunn: Venture capital is a fundamentally misogynistically wired system
“So we have a mismatch where men who don't understand women or how women shop are trying to decide how to make investments, and only nine percent of VCs are women. So it's a fundamentally misogynistically wired system.”
Chen: Pure shareholder profit maximization is unfit for humans
“If underneath the mandate is, at the end of the day, make the most money for shareholders, it's a really, it's not really a good fit for humans, and I don't think it's, It portends very well for society if this is what we accept as the only way to do it.”
Mackey: VCs are hitchhikers who will hijack the car if crossed
“Venture capitalists are like hitchhikers, hitchhikers with credit cards. And as long as you take them to where they want to go, they will help you pay for the gas. But if you don't take them where they want to go, they will try to hijack the car, and they will…”
Incoming CEO Morgridge told Lerner she was everything wrong with Cisco
“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.”
Cisco CEO John Morgridge abruptly fired co-founder Sandy Lerner six months post-IPO
“I was sitting in my little office in the corner, as I did every day, and he came in, and he sat down in the chair without making an appointment, and he said, ah, you know, I think it's time you retire. He says, you've got all this money now, you just, time to …”
Founders sold all Cisco stock due to zero respect for management
“Len and I agreed to sell our stock on a very joint basis, and we did it because we fundamentally had no respect for people running the company. And it wasn't really that we didn't believe in the company. I mean, I was the one who said that Cisco would be a bil…”
Wilson: Lululemon name chosen because Japanese consumers perceived 'L' as North American
“And it started to occur to me that the five big trading companies in Japan were making North American brand name clothing. In other words, they would come up with their own brand name in order to deliver that to the Japanese customer. But Japanese, those big t…”
Wilson claims 2013 sheer pants pilled because women bought sizes too small
“Suddenly, women were coming into the store and not wanting Lululemon for athletics. They were coming in looking For it to shape their bodies. But the sewing technique and the fabric wasn't meant for it. So, what they were doing is buying two to four sizes smal…”
Lake: Informal VC settings like Tahoe hot tubs structurally exclude female founders
“I live up in Tahoe, and like, you know, entrepreneurs, they come to me, and like, they come and hang out with me in Tahoe, and they like, drink beers in my hot tub, and like, I get to know them and their businesses, and like, you know, there's part of that tha…”
Blank: NFL anthem protests address social injustice, not military disrespect
“And I will tell you, there are 1750 players in the NFL, and I will tell you, these players have great respect for the military, and so it's not about the military to them. It's just that becomes an opportunity, a platform for them to speak about their concerns…”
Jenn Hyman: One investor sexually harassed her while building Rent the Runway
“I, through the process of building Rent the Runway, was sexually harassed by one individual, and I'm happy to share that experience. However, I will say that I've had interactions with dozens and dozens of venture capitalists at dozens of firms, and this was j…”
Jim Koch: Heineken and Beck's exported non-compliant, inferior beer to America
“They send us Heineken that's outlawed in Germany because of Germany's strict beer purity law, and the Becks they send us isn't the same Becks they have in Germany. They add forbidden adjuncts to it.”
Wenner: Rolling Stone Published UVA Story Without Adequate Fact-Checking
“But the general report on rape on campus was quite accurate. The Illustrated main story of the rape victim that was made up by that rape victim. And we print that without adequately checking it.”
Mackey Compares VCs to Hitchhikers With Credit Cards Who Hijack Cars
“Venture capitalists are like hitchhikers, hitchhikers with credit cards. And as long as you take them to where they want to go, they will help you pay for the gas. But if you don't take them where they want to go, they will try to hijack the car, and they will…”
Case: AOL Time Warner Merger Made Sense but Failed on Execution
“I always believe, still believe, the idea of the merger made sense. I think it really was the execution, particularly around people and culture, where things got rocky, and I was very frustrated that the company wasn't able to achieve the kind of vision that I…”
Ethan Brown predicts eating animal meat will become a niche novelty
“There's part of us that's always gonna do this, right? Hunt people who hunt, you know, like, I go back to our farm and stuff, like, it's just part of who we are. But I think in the main, You know, it will be viewed as something that we used to do, and I think …”
Cuban: Feuding with NBA referees cost the Mavericks the 2006 championship
“And it set me off with a lot of those guys and probably cost me a championship in 2006.”
Koch: Heineken and Beck's exported beer with ingredients outlawed in Germany
“They send us Heineken that's outlawed in Germany because of Germany's strict beer purity law, and the Becks they send us isn't the same Becks they have in Germany. They add forbidden adjuncts to it.”
Tindell: Modern retail no longer needs the best, highest-paid salespeople
“There's really no people involved. There's no reason to have the highest paid, best salespeople in the industry anymore.”
Dawes: Taking strategic investment usually leads to selling the company to them
“What I now realize in hindsight is whenever you take a strategic investment, whether or not you intend to sell them the business, you should expect that to be the outcome. And the earlier you can know that when you're negotiating, probably the better.”
Dawes: Scaling a brand from $10M to $50M is harder than reaching $100M
“I mean, the one thing that I know about building a brand is starting is not really the hard part, and even getting to a million dollars isn't really the hard part. It's really getting from, like, ten million to fifty million is probably the hardest part, and t…”
Daymond John: Big-Box Retail Puts More Brands Out of Business Than It Helps
“So by the way, when you go to retail. You do four times the amount of work for half of the reward, right? Because you know, you now have to deal with buyers. You had to become a vendor record. You have to ship it. And by the way, you know, the larger companies…”
YETI's 2008 excuse of raw materials cost increases was "total bullshit"
“We blame that price increase on a cost of raw materials increase. Which was total bullshit, but we had to tell them something.”
Modi: Bobbie originally launched in the US positioned as a supplement
“Bobby brought it over as a pilot and decided to make what I thought was a very smart decision to position it as a supplement, as a companion formula to breast milk, which means that it moved out of the category as being the sole nutrition, and now it was in th…”
Bobbie halted new customer orders during shortage against board advice
“I called my board. I'm going, look, here's a little bit of the dilemma. Most of them were like, this is crazy. Just keep the growth going. Like, these moments don't come around often. Like, great moment for the brand. But I went to bed that night, and I rememb…”
A private equity firm demanded controlling interest in exchange for 17% equity
“They're asking for a controlling interest in your company for a 17% of your equity, you know.”
A 2X participating preferred term blocked Serena & Lily from raising capital
“One of our other major investor on Sandhill Road came up with the capital. They actually put the money into the company on top of our cap stack, on top of the capital chart, At a very heavy duty preference of a two X preferred participating, very gnarly securi…”
Acquirers demanded perpetual rights to founders' name, image, and likeness
“And meanwhile, our investors want us to take the acquisition offer regardless of the egregious terms, including, ah, owning our name, image, and likeness in perpetuity.”
Chuck Surack Criticizes Black Lives Matter Leadership for Divisive Rhetoric
“And I think the Black Lives Matter group, the people behind that were not necessarily good and strong. I believed in the movement. I believed in all bunch of stuff, but not the kind of rhetoric that was being thrown about.”
Basic cosmetics manufacturing costs 35 cents across the industry, says Shamah
“Well, that's what it, is what I'm trying to say. That's what it costs. Like, that's how much it costs everybody. Now, yes, you can put active ingredients, and yes, this was 25 years ago, and yes, there are more expensive componentry and finishes and all that, …”
Starr: Further tipped minimum wage hikes will make restaurant survival impossible
“I think at a certain point, especially with tipped employees, I don't know if it should keep going up, because, I mean, it's going to be impossible for restaurants to really keep, to stay in business.”
Tosi: Founders should delay or avoid institutional capital to retain focus
“You want to take institutional capital as late in the game as possible, if not wait forever, right? Like, challenge yourself to never take it. There's a lot of great things that come from institutional capital, but you're on the record, right? Like, they belie…”
Brian Smith: Lack of Prior Use Enabled US Trademark Registration for UGG
“And I did a search of the world, especially the US, to see if there'd been any prior use of the trade name Ugg, and they had not. So, That opened up the gate for me to do the registration of the trademark.”
AI revolutionized radiology scans, but human radiologist demand has still increased
“AI has now completely revolutionized radiology. Every single radiologist uses AI to Study the scans. It does it incredibly fast, incredibly accurately, better than a human can. However, radiologists' demand has gone up.”