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 6,762 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 44 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
Viator Invented the Highly Lucrative 'Skip the Line' Tour Concept
“So with the tour operator, they approached the Vatican, the church and said, what if we did this thing that we'll call skip the line? What if we charge these guys three times as much, but you let them straight in? And the Vatican, you know, the commercial, the…”
Gap founder Don Fisher promised full funding and creative control for acquisition
“But he said, I will, as long as you're profitable, I will completely fund it, and you're on your own. I'm not going to tell you what to do. You have complete creative control.”
Patricia Ziegler: The Limited's Outback Red copied Banana Republic at lower prices
“In fact, there was a whole, the Limited started a line called Outback Red that was really a copy of Banana at a lower price.”
On was likely the first running shoe to embed a rigid plate
“We were probably the first brand using plate, a plate in the shoe, we call it speed board.”
On's partnership agreement with Roger Federer fit on a single page
“Literally our agreement fit on one page. And it had none of the usual clauses, like no minimum days that he has to you know, spend with us. No, no licensing fee, nothing.”
Winthrop: US manufacturing has far stronger legal protections than Bangladesh or China
“And to be clear, if you make stuff in the United States, you get the human rights benefits, the environmental benefits, the worker safety benefits that are baked into domestic law in a way that if you make it somewhere else, like Bangladesh or China, there are…”
Initial Twitter hackathon prototype included an audio feature that Williams removed
“I do remember a conversation where at first there was a version of what became Twitter presented that had audio, and I remember asking, what if it didn't have the audio piece?”
Jack Dorsey had never been a manager before becoming Twitter's CEO
“Jack went from individual contributor, he had never been a manager, I believe, before he became CEO of this very fast-growing company,”
Oakland revoked Dhar Mann's cannabis license following his criminal fraud charges
“People that were doing business with me no longer wanted to work with me, and the city of Oakland even revoked the cultivation license I had won based on the charges alone.”
OpenAI realized Google's Transformer architecture scaled far better than anyone appreciated
“Another company, OpenAI, latched onto the idea that this is, in fact, extremely scalable, more scalable than anybody had appreciated. And they just basically scaled it up and scaled it up and scaled it up.”
Rhett and Link publicly stepped away from Christianity in 2020
“20 20 was the first year where we kind of told our, is our coming out stories, like, hey, we're not Christians anymore”
Quinn Emanuel made $450M representing Mattel in the Bratz lawsuit
“Oh my god, Cohen Emanuel, the law firm that represented, made four hundred and fifty million dollars.”
Primal Kitchen sold 18 restaurant franchises before opening a single location
“We went to market and we sold 18 franchises at our first meeting in the first year. And we didn't have an operating unit.”
Berdichevsky: Graphite in lithium-ion batteries has hit its thermodynamic limits
“There is, and it's a thermodynamic limitation. So it is the laws of the universe, it is what God gave us, and there is no getting around it. And we are at that limit in every lithium-ion battery today.”
Major liquor conglomerates squeezed craft distillers' shelf space in 2020
“No independent saw big years last year because the big guys, once the pandemic happened, they've got to keep those shares up. Right. And so they took over the shelf space. There was very little shelf space that remained for craft distillers.”
Harris: American and Chinese AI scientists hold informal safety dialogues
“I'm happy to report that informally, there are some of those dialogues that are happening between Chinese AI scientists about the risks and us ASI AI scientists about the risks.”
Chandra: Kaboodle coined the term 'social shopping' in 2006
“And so we ended up focusing a lot of our energy on fashion and women and coined the term in 2006 social shopping.”
Chandra: Poshmark paused marketing for a year, delaying funding by 18 months
“And we cut down growth by taking our marketing and bringing it down pretty close to zero for almost a year before we restarted it while we rebuild the infrastructure. The hard part was that this year of no growth Ultimately meant that to get a real funding rou…”
Heirloom operates North America's first direct air capture and storage plant
“Yeah, so this is the first director capture facility in North America that captures and stores CO₂ from the air.”
Ballard: Replacing concrete with steel or plastic increases global carbon emissions
“If you replace concrete with anything, that number goes up. If you try to replace it with plastic, if you try to replace it with steel, think about where you use concrete.”
Ballard: ICON's 3D-printed homes sustained zero damage in 7.2 magnitude earthquake
“So, yeah, that's a very active seismic area, and not a lot, and so we designed the houses to be seismic. We had to go through a bunch of seismic testing, seismic evaluation, seismic structural and civil engineering, and then not long after we finished the proj…”
Ballard: Municipal curfews halt automated 3D printers, doubling ICON's labor costs
“There's no hammering, but the building code says you have to stop at seven PM, but these machines are designed to just turn them on and print. And so right now, like I could print homes in one week for sure, but it's taking us two weeks, which means even with …”
Jim Koch: Truly was the first hard seltzer in the United States
“Truly was the first hard seltzer here.”
Cessario: Sponsored action sports athletes do not actually drink energy drinks
“The reality was, it was all bullshit. Like, these guys are actual athletes. Like, they have trainers. They will not be drinking this much caffeine and sugar.”
BloomX: Robotic pollination increases crop yield by 10% to 40% over bees
“In compare to any bees, when we apply those, you know, machines, we see a range of between 10 to 40% of yield increase to cause get of using our services.”
Sandra Oh Lin: Male seed VCs deferred to their wives on KiwiCo
“I mean, I think we did, I don't know, somewhere between 30 to 40 different meetings with Different folks. And even though they could see it or they would ask their wives what they thought of the concept we weren't necessarily kind of securing the funding until…”
Von Ahn: Knowing English doubles income potential in most countries
“And it turns out that in most countries in the world, if you know English, you can double your income potential.”
Von Ahn: USV invested in Duolingo despite doubting the idea worked
“I mean, they've now told me, look, we'd never thought this would work, but you had a really good track record. So why not?”
Von Ahn: Duolingo has 50x users and 5x revenue of Rosetta Stone
“By now, I would say we probably have 50 times more uses than they do. Our revenue is probably five X their revenue.”
Zoës Kitchen's same-store sales plummeted 12% right as CAVA's acquisition closed
“And when we were negotiating the deal, the sales were declining about three to four percent, same restaurant sales, you know, year over year. And I get this report just sent to my inbox, and I open it up, and it's -12.”
Google pivoted to full autonomy after test drivers slept at the wheel
“One was what we learned from people using the driver assist system. They would overtrust it. They, you know, would put on makeup and, you know, text and, you know, one guy actually fell asleep.”
Swiss Re study: Waymo eliminated bodily injury claims over 4 million miles
“That study that Swiss RE has done was very encouraging that when they looked at, you know, almost four million miles of, you know, our fully autonomous operation, they found that massive reduction in, you know, a hundred percent reduction in the bodily injury …”
Preysman undercut James Perse's 6x apparel markup with Everlane's 2x margin
“The James Pursty cost six, seven dollars to make, too. And they were selling that for a four to six X markup. And the basic principle of Everlane in the early days was two to two and a half X markup. That's it.”
Finke: Calcium silicate eliminates 60% of cement emissions immediately
“The calcium silicate rock, A, does not contain any CO two. So we eliminate 60% of the emissions just by using a different rock.”
Finke: Brimstone process yields magnesium waste that passively sequesters CO2
“It produces a magnesium-based waste product, and that magnesium-based waste product will passively sequester CO₂. Just sitting on the ground, it will react with CO₂ in the air to permanently sequester CO₂.”
Biofire Is the First Company to Sell a Commercial Smart Gun
“Nobody prior to BioFire has ever sold a commercial smart gun.”
Biofire Pioneered the First Handgun Electronic Fire Control System
“Biofire, we really went back to the drawing board and pioneered the world's first ever electronic fire control system in a handgun. The trigger mechanically is not connected to the firing pin in any way.”
Founders Fund Led the First-Ever VC Investment in a Firearms Company
“Our series a, which we announced last year, that was the first ever venture led investment into a firearms company from founders fund.”
Ben-Shitrit: Global cow population consumes more food and water than humans
“Most of the food around the world goes to cows and not to human beings. The water, the cows basically are one billion population of one billion. That eats more food and consumes more water than all of the human population.”
Brain data detects Parkinson's 10 years earlier than Apple Watches
“For example, you can actually pick up Parkinson's responses using the Apple Watch.
The issue is that by the time you pick it up at the hands or through walking metrics, your brain's already been dealing with it for the past 10 years.
And so with the brain, you…”
Harvard study shows BCI-timed breaks boost productivity by 4 hours
“Yeah, so we did a large study with a professor from Harvard, who's now a professor at Worcester Political, Technical Institute, and he had created this incredible method for identifying the individual's focus, and so what we were able to do, and we did close t…”
Rothblatt pulled $48 million from BETA's competitors to fund Clark instead
“Yeah, forty eight million dollars she had out in contracts elsewhere. And she brought those back in because they were behind schedule, not keeping promises. And she redirected that at us and said, go build a commercial version that I can move organs with.”
Abraham: Med School Curriculum Included Only Two Weeks of Nutrition
“And during medical school, I remember we had about two weeks of nutrition you know, and it was very high level, and we went through it, and then it was done.”
Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi had never played his own video games
“And I realize, this guy's never Played any of the games on his machine. Yeah. And he hasn't, he's just run the company. He hasn't like played any of those games.”
Soviet officials revealed they had never actually licensed Tetris console rights
“And he, Took the Tetris cartridge box into his hand, and he looked at it, and looked at it, and he looked at me, and he said, we never licensed console rights to anyone.”
Scott Svenson: Board disclosures led to a front-page FT story ousting CEO
“I walked back in the boardroom and shared what I had seen, and that led to a front page article in the Financial Times the next day that this CEO had been removed.”
Aurora's proprietary First Light LiDAR measures vehicle velocity instantly
“One of the core technologies we have at the company is we call it First Light, which is the special LiDAR technology. So LiDAR is using light like radar, and it allows us to see farther than other people can and see how fast things are moving instantly.”
Simkhai: Grindr's customer acquisition cost was essentially zero
“Our marketing spend was essentially zero, so our cost to acquire new users was essentially zero. I mean, that's what allowed us to grow. You know, if I had to spend money acquiring users, we would not have been able to achieve what we achieved.”