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 176 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
Dalbir Singh: Founders probably wouldn't start if they knew the true costs
“Had we known what we know now about how much money or how much time or how much effort a lot of this stuff takes, we probably wouldn't have started.”
Mark Cuban would have seen huge returns on his Stasher deal
“He would have been clicking his heels.”
McLeod: Hinge was inspired by a canceled Harvard Business School dance
“I don't think I would have, that initial spark would have happened had the dance not been canceled, and I hadn't been walking with Brett that Wednesday afternoon to class.”
Ferriss: Modern Email Library Notices Would Have Prevented His Suicide Intervention
“And if that had happened today, for instance, it would have been an email alert, and I wouldn't be here.”
Powell: Powell's Books would not have survived without PPP funding
“First of all, if not for the PPP program, we wouldn't be here today, you know, fundamentally our loan that we received. So we shut down March. 15th, we received our loan in early May. If not for that loan, we wouldn't have been able to bring people back to wor…”
If I became a billionaire, I would have funded Khan Academy anyway
“And anything above that, if I did become a billionaire, I frankly would have donated it to an effort like Khan Academy. So you might as well just cut out the middleman, you know, just time shift it and work on it.”
Raz: Rejection as NPR anchor led to creating How I Built This
“And had that not happened, you know, I wouldn't have gone on to collaborate with Ted To do the TED radio hour, and then create how I built this, and wow, co-create wow in the world”
Boyd: The Laundress survived the 2008 crash by avoiding US boutique reliance
“Because if we were only sold in the U.S. Boutiques, we would not have come out of that the way we did.”
Neeleman credits his Brazil mission over college for building his confidence
“Be plucked from your life, and put into a completely different environment, and to be able to learn a foreign language, and to be able to kind of learn from a new land, and it just had a profound influence on me, and it changed my life in ways that, you know, …”
During early struggles, Kopp would have surrendered Teach For America to anyone
“I mean, honestly, if someone had appeared who I felt like could get us out of this and get us to a point of stability or something, I would have just turned the whole thing over to them at this point. There's no doubt about that.”
Stoppelman would have joined SpaceX if Elon Musk replied sooner
“And it's kind of a funny question of what would have happened if Elon had responded faster. I probably would have gone to SpaceX just because, I don't know, hedge fund versus rocket ship company. I might be tempted by the rocket ship company for the summer.”
Lonely Planet needed Tony to exist, but Maureen to hold it together
“Lonely Planet could never have existed without Tony, but it probably wouldn't have held together as long without me.”
Wilson: Lululemon could not finish first retail store without $50K severance
“And if it wasn't for that 50,000 dollars, we never would have been able to finish our store.”
Collison: Selling Auctomatic early spared him the standard career treadmill
“Had we been, or had I been kind of on just the treadmill of, you know, you go to college, and you get your degree, and then it's your first job, and so on, such that, you know, I can certainly imagine sort of a different version of, you know, my life or my car…”
Wendy Kopp would have handed Teach For America over to capable leadership
“I mean, honestly, if someone had appeared who I felt like could get us out of this and get us to a point of stability or something, I would have just turned the whole thing over to them at this point. There's no doubt about that.”
Blakely: Early Skepticism From Friends Would Have Stopped Spanx Entirely
“I feel like if I had heard that the night that I cut the feet out of my pantyhose, I'd probably still be selling fax machines.”
Corcoran: Pitching Midtown corporate HR door-to-door saved early brokerage business
“If not for that, I don't think I would have stayed in business because I went door to door and knocked on all these corporate Personnel departments to try to get business. I saw where the traffic was coming from, and I had great accounts that fed their people …”
Corcoran: Corporate bureaucracy would have killed the initial Corcoran Report
“Initially, if I had been a big company, and I'd run it by attorneys, vetting, committee decisions, it would have never gone out. The beauty I had as a little guy is I had the freedom to run it.”
Hicks likely wouldn't have stayed without her business school break
“You know, for me, if I hadn't kind of taken that time, I probably wouldn't have stayed.”
Reid: Selling LaFace Records ultimately led to my firing three years later
“And the takeaway was, if I not sold my company, then I wouldn't have gotten fired three years later, because I was the owner, you know.”
Stafford admits she never would have started Bobo's if she stayed married
“If I had stayed married, I would never have done it.”
Turner would have declined a Schwarzenegger movie for American Gladiators
“You could have cast me in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, I wouldn't have taken that over being an American Gladiator.”
Kelly: Marketing experience would have stopped her naming product 'cheek stain'
“I wasn't like a marketing person. Had I been, I probably would not have named it a cheek stain.”
Brian Lam regrets not negotiating a formal role during the NYT acquisition
“If I could do it again, I would have negotiated a job for myself because I thought I'd be hovering like an owner does.”
Rae: Stanford gave me room to fail creatively that NYU wouldn't have
“I really wanted to go to NYU, and there's no way in my mind that I would have been able to, like, fail, or suck, I'd say, as hard.”
Ballance would have refused to start Merge if she knew its scale
“If I had thought that it was going to turn into what it is now, or that that was the goal, I would have said, no, I don't want to do that. That sounds like too much work. No way.”
Ma: Zola could not have succeeded buying all registry inventory upfront
“And if we did have to buy all the inventory for the registry, because it's required such a broad assortment, I think it would have been very hard to make the business model work.”
Creelman: Would not have started Spindrift had he known manufacturing complexity
“I don't think I would have gotten into this business had I known how complicated it was.”
Puddicombe: Headspace would have failed without seed money from Pierson's father
“I mean, honestly, if it hadn't have been for Ian, like we wouldn't have made it.”
Logic: Career would not exist without Tarantino, Kill Bill, and RZA
“If it wasn't for Kill Bill, if it wasn't for The Risen, if it wasn't for Tarantino, dude, like, we wouldn't even be talking right now.”
Fisher: Overwhelming success at her first trade show would have caused failure
“And it was the right amount, because anymore, I would have never been able to deliver. I wouldn't have been able to get enough fabric. I wouldn't have been able to figure it all out fast enough, or get the money to make it happen.”
Fisher: More than $3,000 in initial orders would have caused delivery failure
“And it was the right amount, because anymore, I would have never been able to deliver. I wouldn't have been able to get enough fabric. I wouldn't have been able to figure it all out fast enough or get the money to make it happen.”