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 185 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
Garry Tan: AI code generation makes engineers 5 to 10 times faster
“Today, with CodeGen, you know, today, engineers are basically, you know, writing code about five or 10 X faster than they would before.”
Garry Tan: Apple opened RCS messaging in reaction to DOJ pressure
“Apple even today still, you know, they're opening it up a little bit more with RCS, but, you know, it's those are actually in reaction to the work of Jonathan Cantor and the DOJ.”
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.”
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.”
Zappos reached $1.6 billion in sales on just $10 million in equity
“Tony invested ten million dollars of his own money, but most of it was financed through being very, very creative, figuring out how to get merchants that we ordered from to give us credit and to increase the credit line. We had a, eventually got a line of cred…”
Dunford: Postman was the first company to conceptualize an API platform
“Postman does essentially a platform for developing APIs. This is a new concept. Nobody had this idea of a platform for APIs before Postman came up with it.”
Johnson: Male peak weight-to-rep ratio and VO2 max occur at age 18
“You max out your weight to rep ratio at age 18. So even though you can lift more in your twenties and maybe even your thirties, your ratio peaks at 18. The same is true with your VO two max, your cardiovascular fitness.”
Bragg: Nova Scotia and PEI alone restrict honeybee imports in North America
“So Nova Scotia and PEI are the only jurisdictions in North America that have restrictions.”
Erin Wade: Happiness research shows childfree people are on average happier
“Studies on human happiness, like, show that people who choose not to have children are on average happier because they can just, like, do whatever they want all the time, you know.”
Doucleff: Data shows giving children smartphones increases their loneliness and isolation
“It's interesting because all the data show that when they get the phone, it makes them more lonely. It makes them more isolated.”
Johnson: Weight-to-Rep Ratio and VO2 Max Peak at Age 18
“It's because you max out your weight to rep ratio at age 18. So even though you can lift more in your twenties and maybe even your thirties, your ratio peaks at 18 The same is true with your VO two max, your cardiovascular fitness.”
Lagos: MRI Research Shows Resonant Breathing Prevents Brain Blood Vessel Constriction
“My colleagues at Rutgers looked at what happens To the brain during resonant frequency breathing. And what they found through MRIs was something called vasovagal constriction. So during stressful moments, the blood vessels would constrict to shunt blood flow a…”
Rey Flemings: Ventilator prices spiked from $6K to $400K in ten days
“So the week before we took that project on, I think the average price of those devices was less than 6000 dollars. By the end of the 10 days or so that we worked on this project, the price reached nearly 400,000 dollars for a ventilator.”
Karp: Indigenous populations living ancestrally have zero modern lifestyle diseases
“And thankfully, there's a lot of populations out there that are still indigenous people, and they live the way that we lived 10,000 years ago, or even a thousand years ago. And they have none. And by the way, many of these indigenous peoples are in every conti…”
Karp: Ancient wheat contains magnitudes less gluten than modern wheat
“And the gluten level in fossilized wheat and the gluten level in some of these ancient grains, versions of wheat is, is magnitudes less than the amount of gluten that we're consuming today.”
Pasricha: Decision-making energy is replenished only by sleep and glucose
“Decision-making energy is a finite resource, and you know, there's that great book called Willpower by John Tierney, and it's a finite resource. When it's gone, and there's only two ways to replenish it, which is sleep and glucose”
Pasricha: Turning off bright screens gives an hour of extra energy
“And you know what they're actually also finding, Shane, is that the bright screen, when it turns off, gives you about an hour jolt of extra energy.”
Kunal Shah: 95% of Financial Products in India Are Bought by Men
“Another interesting thing is 95% of all financial products in India are bought by men.”
Sinclair: Cellular Autophagy Requires Three Days of Fasting to Activate
“But once you've gone more than three days, there's a special type of recycling of proteins that's very beneficial called autophagy or autophagy. And that takes about three days.”
Simmer: The Average American Gained Thirty Pounds During the Pandemic
“And by the way, the average American gained 30 pounds during the pandemic.”
Hertz: Three in five young adults feel lonely often or always
“Three in five, 18 to 34 year olds, feel lonely often or always.”
Hertz: Some shopping malls use acne-revealing lighting to discourage teenagers
“They also put special lights in the bathrooms of these malls, which expose teenage acne, so that young people won't want to spend time there.”
Eyal: LGBTQ suicide dropped partly due to online community connection
“What they haven't talked about is, for example, that LGBTQ suicide has dropped, largely because one of the reasons, not the only reason, but one of the reasons is that people from disparate groups, if you lived in that small town and nobody was like you becaus…”
Eyal: Facebook will not block feed-eradicating browser extensions
“I think the blowback would be so severe if they tried to do something about it that I can't see that on their radar.”
McGonigal: Taking three steps disrupts the brain's inflammation process
“Stand up and take three steps. And no matter how you're feeling because that gets the blood flowing and it automatically disrupts the inflammation process.”
Calacanis predicts Masayoshi Son will deliver very good returns for LPs
“Masayoshi-san is the last person in, and I think he'll ultimately wind up looking smart, because he picked some good companies, and I think he'll ultimately wind up having a very good return for his LPs”
Wojcicki: About eight US states outlaw children walking or shopping alone
“I can't tell you which states they're in, because I haven't memorized those states, but I know there's about eight states that have laws that say you can't let your child walk alone. You can't leave your child, you know, in the store by themselves.”
Robinson: Stephen Hawking Estimated a 95% Chance AI Destroys Humanity
“Stephen Hawking,
Gave mankind a one in 20 shot of surviving AI.
A one in 20 shot.
And you can do the math, that means a 19 and 20 shot, we don't survive.
AI.
That's how serious it is.”
Dixon: a16z employs over 100 non-investor operational staff
“We have over a hundred employees who are not investors at our firm, whose sole job it is to help companies do things like recruit employees you know build their, you know, their customers base.”
Valiante: 99% of New Year's Resolutions Fail by the End of March
“95% of them are over by the end of February, and then the other four percent are over by the end of March.”
Cava market capitalization is four to five times higher than Sweetgreen.
“Today I would gather that Kava is going to mark a cap five times what Sweet Greens is worth, something in that order, four or five times.”
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.”
Scilipoti: Retail investor share of total investment is at an all-time high
“And today the retail investor as a component of total investment is the largest it's ever been.”
Hetty Green Bought the Defaulted Town of Kohlauer for $100,000
“In December of 1890, when the town of Kohlauer defaulted and went up for auction, Hedy and Ned were there before dawn, walking the streets and inspecting every property. When bidding began at 10 o'clock, they had already arranged financing. Before other bidder…”
Costco intentionally loses money on every $1.50 hot dog combo sold
“Price Club sold a hot dog and soda for a dollar 50 in 1976. Today, nearly 50 years later, Costco still charges a dollar 50. They lose money on every single one.”
Les Schwab's 1970 profit-sharing formula retained only 38 percent for the company
“By 1970, Les had codified his profit sharing into what he called the 100 story. For every hundred dollars of store profit, 25 went to the manager, 10 to the assistant manager, 27 to the employee bonus and retirement fund. The company kept 38%.”
Shane Parrish: El Salvador replaced its K-5 math curriculum with Synthesis Tutor
“And it's crazy, so it teaches the kids math, and my understanding just from reading it a little bit is El Salvador just replaced, like, the K through five math with synthesis tutor, and the results are, like, astounding.”
Wolfe: Major LLM providers will offer enterprise document search within six months
“Why don't we wait six months? Because this is going to be available from all of the major LLM providers today that want to get the enterprise accounts.”
70% of all air filters are purchased for commercial settings
“70% of air filtration is actually commercial. And so, 70% of air filters that are purchased are purchased for a commercial setting.”
Research shows happiness increases up to $500,000 in income, then plateaus
“It shows that happiness increases post 500 K in income or up to 500 K in income. After 500 K, there's sort of these plateaus, and it's not really materially different.”
Dunford: Half of B2B software buyers are purchasing for the first time
“Half the people doing a purchase in B to B have never purchased a product like yours before. So they're doing this for the first time.”
Hoehn: At least 80% of book purchases happen on Amazon
“I believe it's at minimum of 80% of books, book purchases are through Amazon online.”
Bragg: Eastlink is the largest private telecom company in North America
“I think it's the largest private, yes, by far.”
Dunford: Siebel Was the Fastest Silicon Valley Company to $1B Revenue
“The gorilla in that space at the time was a big, big company in Silicon Valley called Siebel, and so they were a fantastic company, two billion revenue, fastest company to ever get to a billion revenue in the history of Silicon Valley, amazing success story.”
Dunford: Half of B2B buyers are first-time category purchasers
“Half the people doing a purchase in B to B have never purchased a product like yours before. So they're doing this for the first time.”
Doucleff: Most traditional societies utilize four to five alloparents per child
“And it's funny because I always say, like, it doesn't take a village. It takes, like, five extra people. Like, you know, because if you look in some societies, so they're called alloparents. This is what scientists call them. They're people in children's lives…”