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 17 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
Yvon Chouinard Was 'Ashamed' of His 1987 Chouinard Equipment Catalog
“And we gave him a copy, and he called myself and my marketing director, who really was my partner in the business. And we said, as he looked at the catalog, that he was really ashamed of it, that it represented everything that he stood against in what was goin…”
The Existential Threat of a Niche Product Becoming Too Successful
“As a business person, you have two fears in life as a niche player. You won't be successful with your investment, or you'll be too successful. If you're too successful, it becomes mainstream, and bigger guys can get into it and outprice you.”
Removing the Option to Retreat Unlocks 100% Focus on Forward Progress
“As a climber, when you're doing big new routes, what you're constantly thinking about with part of your brain is analyzing, how am I going to get down? Do I have the gear to get down? How long will it take? So you're using a certain amount of your energy to ma…”
High-Stakes Survival Requires Brutal Honesty About Fear and Weakness
“It also showed me the importance, all of us, of being brutally honest with one another. Because in a situation like this, we were out now almost 14 days. It was 13 and a half days. It was six days worth of rations. Just enough gear to keep us alive. And there …”
In the Early 1980s, Climbing Equipment Lacked Basic Safety Standards
“There were no climbing standards at this time. There was no quality assurance standards at this time, and there was no labeling standards at this time, but because of this rapid change in tort law this became just the dream of plaintiff's attorneys going after…”
Black Diamond's Founders Refused Any Investors Demanding 51% Control
“For the effort that we're going to put into this, I did not want myself and the employee group to lose control of this business. It wasn't worth doing. If that was going to be it was like, let's walk away from it. It would be a brilliant failure. We're only go…”
Peter Metcalf Personally Guaranteed Black Diamond's Debt Despite Owning Only 10%
“I had personally guaranteed the loan, even though I only owned 10% of the business, and it was my job and career. So had it gone down, I would have lost everything. Our house my job, my savings, everything.”
How Black Diamond Unified the US Climbing Industry to Secure Insurance
“Brought together the small climbing industry of America, our competitors in the United States, and our largest retailer, REI at the time, held a series of meetings, found insurance experts, and realized that if we as an industry got together and decided that l…”
Black Diamond Was the First Outdoor Company Based in Salt Lake City
“At the time that I looked at Salt Lake, Park City, there was no other outdoor outdoor North ski company here. We would be the first”
Chouinard Equipment's Liability Insurance Surged From $10,000 to $350,000
“When I arrived at Shenard Equipment in 1982, we had five million dollars worth of insurance. It cost, I think, 10,000 dollars a year, and had a 5000 dollar deductible. By the time that all these suits hit, and what we were facing, the cost of an insurance poli…”
Black Diamond Launched With $900K Equity and 14% Interest Debt
“I raised just under 900,000 dollars of equity another like 150,000 dollars worth of sub debt, and then went to a commercial finance company and got the debt we needed at nearly 15% interest, 14%.”
Black Diamond Grew Over 35% Compounded in Its First Five Years
“And our first five years in business, after that first five plus million, we grew, for our first five years, we were growing at a compounded rate of over 35%.”
No LED Headlamps Existed When Black Diamond Entered the Market
“There was no LED headlamps, but they were appearing in electronic devices.”
Metcalf Owned 10% of Black Diamond Ahead of Its 2010 Sale
“I was a 10, 11% owner of the company, and I wanted this business to go on beyond me, and I felt it was a need for me to make a decision to change the ownership structure while I still had a number of years left in me to actually run it and not wait until I'm e…”