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
Payne: DoorDash never subsidized expansion by selling dollars for 90 cents
“For a while, there was a narrative like, oh, we're giving away dollars for 90 cents. Absolutely not. You couldn't do that because you would lose money very, very rapidly. Too fast for a company that didn't have a lot of money.”
Payne: DoorDash grocery, retail, alcohol, and Drive are each multi-billion dollar businesses
“So if you look at DoorDash, you'll say, okay, it's restaurants, it's grocery, it's alcohol, it's retail, right? It's DoorDash Drive, our platform business. All of these now are multi-billion dollar businesses that are, and so you have to have that.”
Payne: Microsoft under Bill Gates required forceful defense of ideas
“Microsoft's a very challenging environment, very competitive environment and when, you know, Bill challenges you respond with force. You know, you gotta be You know, behind your idea and everything.”
Payne: AI will make organizations flatter and expand managerial capacity
“And so I think that, that that's gonna have huge implications for how organizations are run and your ability to manage teams of humans and AIs is gonna go through the roof. I do think organizations will likely be flatter in the future.”
Payne: DoorDash was running out of money and couldn't raise in 2017
“There were periods where DoorDash was running out of money and couldn't raise money in 17”
Payne: DoorDash targeted gross margin profit at 6 months, contribution profit at 12
“So you have to hit six months of volume to get the gross margin positive, and then you have to get to 12 months at a certain volume to get what we call contribution margin profit. To flow through the bottom line.”
Payne: My six-month stint as Tinder CEO was a total disaster
“But then there was the Tinder experience where, you know, it was a disaster. I got fired after six months and I, you know, it just didn't, I didn't fit there.”
Payne: Amazon launched its entire video business in six months in 1998
“This is in, you know, March or April of 2000, sorry, in 1998, right? And Jeff wants us to launch in October, right? And so, roll forward. October of 1998, we launch Amazon. I'm in every mahogany boardroom for every movie studio. So I went from, like, can't get…”
Payne: 92% of eBay sales went through search in 2009
“So when I joined eBay, they said, Christopher, go fix search. That was my thing. This was 2009. 92% of the sales went through search at that time.”
Payne: DoorDash's nationwide expansion succeeded through remote city launches
“And DoorDash cracked that. That was our, we figured out how to expand economically remotely. And that, that allowed us to expand across the country. Everybody calls it the suburb strategy, but it really was an expansion strategy.”
Payne: Tony Xu and I pitched The Cheesecake Factory in person
“Tony and I, who was showing up at the Cheesecake Factory selling the Cheesecake Factory? It was Tony and me, right? We were the little engine that could, right? We, and we were like, we're not in Rideshare. We're in food delivery. We're gonna, we're in, so the…”