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 403 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
Dick's Destroyed $5M in Guns and Accepted $250M Annual Sales Loss
“After Parkland in 2018, where the shooter had bought a shotgun at Dix, Ed made a decision that would cost at least two hundred and fifty million dollars annually. No more assault rifles. No firearms to anyone under 21. They destroyed five million dollars in ex…”
Parrish: El Salvador replaced public teachers with Synthesis AI tutoring software
“Oh, so they developed this Synthesis, this AI company developed this tutor, which actually teaches kids, and it's so good that El Salvador, the country, just recently adopted and replaced their teachers.”
Rockefeller Predicted Standard Oil Would Someday Refine All Oil
“The Standard Oil Company will someday refine all of the oil and make all of the barrels.”
The World Bank Advised Against Building South Korea's Gyeongbu Expressway
“The World Bank told the Korean government the project was economically and technologically infeasible and would add little to Korea's development.”
Korean Business Leaders Paid 500 Million Won Bi-Annually to President Park
“He and other major Korean business leaders had been making regular payments to Korean presidents as a matter of routine, For decades. Under Park Chung-hee, it was roughly five hundred million won twice a year.”
Wozniak: Jobs hid thousands in Atari bonus money for Breakout design
“Woz writes, the whole thing used 45 chips, and Steve paid me half the 700 bucks he said they paid him. They were paying us based on how few chips I could do it in. Later I found out he got paid a bit more for it. Like a few thousand dollars than he said at the…”
Volkswagen secretly supplied gray market dealers to maintain artificial scarcity
“He discovered he could sell Volkswagen as a gray marketer, buying beetles that Volkswagen secretly supplied while keeping official dealers on the allocation to create artificial scarcity.”
Former Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli Resigned With $210M Severance Package
“He resigned under pressure With a two hundred and ten million dollar severance package that sparked public outrage.”
Wozniak: Every computer prior to Apple I used front-panel switches and lights
“Every computer before the Apple One had a front panel of switches and lights, he noted. Every computer since has had a keyboard and a screen.”
Parrish: Apple I marked first time typing on a keyboard displayed directly on-screen
“He didn't realize it then, but this was the first time in history anyone had typed on a keyboard and seen it appear on their own computer screen.”
Parrish: Steve Wozniak Sold Cheap Pre-IPO Apple Shares to 40 Excluded Colleagues
“He took his own shares and sold them at a deeply discounted price to 40 colleagues. Who'd been left out after the IPO. He was giving away shares to people he felt deserved them. He called it the Woz plan.”
Parrish: Apple's Official Apple III Fix Was Dropping the Machine Onto Desks
“When customers called about system failures, technicians would tell them to lift the front of the computer three to six inches off their desk and drop it. The physical shock might reset the loose chips. The official fix for the computer worth thousands of doll…”
Parrish: Apple Lost Over $1 Billion on Apple III, Subsidized by Apple II
“In today's money, they'd lost at least a billion dollars on the Apple III, all of it subsidized by the Apple II's success.”
Parrish: Most Share Buybacks Merely Cover Up Stock Option Dilution
“You know, if you look at most buybacks, they're just covering up stock options.”
Hetty Green Loaned Over $6M to Save Texas Banks in 1907
“Her son, Ned, revealed years later that during the 19 oh seven panic, Hetty had loaned over six million in Texas alone in addition to her New York loans. She single-handedly kept several banks from failing, prevented numerous businesses from going under, and h…”
FedMart paying double competitor wages in 1957 resulted in lower operating costs
“The San Antonio retailers paid 50 cents an hour in 1957. Saul paid a dollar. Let's look at what happened. Employees could afford health care and dignity. Communities got stable families, not desperate workers. FedMart attracted the best people with near zero t…”
Schwab forced succession planning with an asymmetric 5 percent profit-share penalty
“Effective immediately, all manager shares dropped from 50 to 45%. If they appointed an assistant, that person got 10%. If they didn't, the company kept the extra five percent.”
Les Schwab store managers out-earned most 1970s corporate executives
“By the mid-nineteen seventies, some of the store managers were making over a 100,000 dollars annually, more than most corporate executives in the 19 seventies.”
Pattison fired his lowest-performing car salesperson every month without exception
“Two years later, Jimmy had developed what outsiders would call ruthless, but what he saw as a very necessary policy, crystallized in one brutal rule. Every month, whoever sold the fewest cars got fired. No exceptions. No negotiations. No second chances.”
Buffett: Henry Singleton Had the Best Capital Deployment Record in America
“Warren Buffett once said that Henry Singleton had the best operating and capital deployment record in American business, bar none.”
Vanderbilt Intentionally Crashed a Railroad's Stock to Secretly Acquire Controlling Interest
“Though initially dismissed, Vanderbilt quietly joined the Long Island Railroad Board, redirecting business away from the Stonington. Shareholders panicked at the high debt and reduced traffic. Its stock plummeted, allowing Vanderbilt and his allies, including …”
Modern department store makeup counters originated with Estée Lauder
“Those makeup counters you see in every department store today with the dedicated chairs and beauty experts. That all started because Estee refused to let her first customer try products alone.”
Estée Lauder countered Revlon by running an ad quoting leaked internal memos
“When Revsan's Ethira tried to challenge Clinique later on in the future, Estée authorized an ad in Women's Word Daily that quoted phrases from an upcoming campaign taken directly from his confidential internal memos.”
Parrish: Roaring Twenties tax revenues rose while debt fell despite lower tax rates
“The roaring twenties saw tax revenues remain stable or increase even as tax rates dropped, well, federal debt shrank considerably.”
Parrish: Mellon's personal income surged to $7.8M during the 1929 crash
“In fact, while the market crashed around him, his personal income actually increased from 5.2 million in 1928 to 7.8 million in 1929.”
Rockefeller's Fortune Tripled to Nearly One Billion Dollars After Standard Oil's Breakup
“Rockefeller owned roughly a quarter of every new company, worth about three hundred million the day the court ruled. His fortune skyrocketed to nearly nine hundred million just two years later.”
Hyundai Earned Top Credit Ratings by Finishing Projects Despite Massive Losses
“When the Ministry of the Interior assigned credit scores to the country's construction firms after the war, Hyundai's was the highest in Korea. Not because they had made money, they had lost a fortune. They got the highest score specifically because they had f…”
Vietnam War Work Provided Nearly 20% of South Korea's 1967 Foreign Exchange
“23,000 Korean workers in total. Their earnings accounted for 10% of Korea's entire foreign exchange in 1966, And nearly 20% in 1967. After five years of work in Vietnam, more than six hundred and sixty million dollars in foreign currency had been flowed back i…”
Hyundai Bought More Heavy Machinery Than Existed in All of South Korea
“Hyundai alone spent over eight million dollars to buy 1900 pieces of heavy equipment for the project. The entire nation of Korea at the time owned only 1400 such machines.”
Hyundai Built the World's Largest Shipyard in 27 Months
“Two years and three months after Chung had broken ground on an empty beach, the first stage of the shipyard was complete. It could build ships up to 700,000 tons. It was the largest shipyard on earth.”
Hyundai Won a Contract Worth Half of South Korea's Entire Annual Budget
“At nine hundred and thirty-one million dollars, it was roughly half the Korean government's entire annual budget. It was the single largest construction contract ever awarded to any company in the history of the world.”
Hyundai Earned $2B From Foreign Construction Projects in 1979 Alone
“Hyundai earned two billion dollars in gross income from foreign construction projects in 1979 alone. It was now the fourth largest construction company in the world. Revenue had grown over a hundredfold in five years.”
Chung Ju-Yung Was Forced to Pay $181M in Government Back Taxes
“Chung fought back, but eventually he was forced to pay one hundred and eighty one million dollars.”
Kroc's original McDonald's deal took 1.9% royalty, paying brothers 0.5%
“Kroc would take 1.9% of gross sales from franchisees. He proposed two percent, but the brothers talked him down. Tell a franchisee two percent, they said, and he'll block. Say one and nine 10th, and it sounds like less. Out of that 1.9%, the brothers would rec…”
Ray Kroc built a competing store to bankrupt the original founders
“In fact, Ray would go on to open a McDonald's across the street from them and run them out of business.”
Parrish: Henry Singleton repurchased 90% of Teledyne shares over 12 years
“Over the next 12 years, he bought back 90% of Teledyne shares. The result earnings per share exploded a 311% increase in just five years.”
Parrish: Clayton Homes retained riskiest loan tranches to enforce conservative underwriting
“I had dinner with Jim Clayton a few weeks ago, and he mentioned why they were so good at underwriting. They would Keep the very last payment, the most risky payments. This gave them every incentive to be very conservative with who they were lending money to.”
Parrish: Les Schwab built a $3B tire company while sharing 50% profits
“Les Schwab built a three billion dollar tire company in the mud and gravel towns of the Pacific Northwest. And he did it while charging higher prices than his competitors, and he did it while giving away half of his profits.”
Parrish: Jim Pattison has operated private conglomerate with zero partners or relatives
“He buys back all the public stock. He takes the company private again. He escapes the tyranny of the stock market, and for the last 48 years, he has run his company with the philosophy, no partners, no shareholders, no relatives.”
Jim Clayton: Good customer service solves 90% of all legal problems
“This kind of reminds me of Jim Clayton, who said you can solve 90% of all legal problems with good customer service.”
Parrish: Co-Pilots in Simulations Fail to Override Fatal Captain Errors
“Co-pilots get simulator training specifically teaching them to ignore foolish orders from boss pilots. From the captain. But even after this training, co-pilots in simulators will still allow the plane to crash because of some obvious error created by the chie…”
Parrish: Wozniak built a 28-chip home Pong a year before Atari
“To be the only person in the world with their own version of Pong at home, and he'd do it his way with just 28 chips. He completed this a year before Atari released their home version.”
RadioShack and Commodore kept 1977 computer specs secret to monopolize peripherals
“Radio Shack and Commodore had made a calculated decision. They wanted to be appliance companies. They kept their technical specifications secret, hoping to monopolize the market for peripherals and software.”
Wozniak reduced standard floppy controller design from 22 chips to two
“Of the 22 chips in the standard controller, only two were actually needed.”
Parrish: VisiCalc initially ran exclusively on the Apple II by accident
“VisiCalc could only run on the Apple II. And this wasn't because of some brilliant strategy. It was completely accidental. The Apple II just happened to be the only computer with everything VisiCalc needed. Enough RAM to hold the spreadsheet, a proper keyboard…”
Parrish: VisiCalc drove Apple sales from 1,000 to 10,000 units monthly
“Apple went from selling a thousand units a month to selling 10,000. Overnight, business people became 90% of their market.”