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
Clayton Homes grew sales 25% annually during the stagflation era
“During those tough times with 20% interest rates, Clayton grew sales by 25% each year while keeping factories open and sales centers staffed.”
Hetty Green Contributed Six Figures to Defeat William Jennings Bryan
“She contributed over six figures to the Fusion Party in Texas to defeat Williams Jennings Byron, who had made her a campaign target, railing against her wealth and demanding a federal income tax”
Switching to Per-Shift Pay Fixed FedEx's Nightly Sorting Bottleneck
“Federal Express changed one thing. They started paying by the shift, not the hour. Get done faster, go home earlier, exact same pay. Up until that point, the sort had been a nightly disaster, and suddenly it ran like clockwork.”
Commercial Fax Machines Hit $300 While FedEx Built Satellite Zapmail
“While FedEx built its satellite network, fax machine prices crashed to 300 dollars.”
Parrish: John Bragg built North America's largest private telecom company
“He's built North America's largest private telecommunications company.”
Les Schwab reached over 120 locations and $130M in revenue by 1975
“By 1975, Les Schwab had over 60 company stores plus 60 member dealers. Revenue exceeded a hundred and thirty million.”
Les Schwab dominated the Pacific Northwest without acquiring a single competitor
“Most telling was by 1975 Les Schwab dominated the Pacific Northwest without acquiring a single competitor. Every store was built from scratch or recruited as a member dealer.”
NeonX grew to over 4,000 employees and $159M in annual sales by late 1968
“NEONX had grown from 600 to over 4000 employees. Annual sales jumped from 8.5 million to one hundred and fifty nine million.”
Toyota employees submitted 400,000 improvement suggestions in 1980
“40,000 Toyota employees submitted 400,000 written suggestions in 1980. 10 suggestions per worker per year.”
Parrish: Mellon's Gulf Oil stake held $100M market value despite $17.4M book
“Mellon's personal fortune exploded from fifty-five million in 1913 to eighty million by 1921, but these were merely book values. They really understated how much he was worth. His Gulf oil holdings alone were valued at 17.4 million on paper, but they were wort…”
Eaton's refused to accept third-party credit cards until 1981
“While competitors embraced bank cards in the 19 fifties, Eaton's clung to their own system until 1981.”
Bragg: Honeybee rental is the single largest cost in blueberry farming
“The biggest single cost are the rental of honeybees for pollination.”
Housel: Vanderbilt fortune reached $400B equivalent and was lost in three generations
“When Cornelius Vanderbilt died, his net worth adjusted for inflation cause he died in the
Was the equivalent of four hundred billion dollars. And in three generations, there was nothing left, which is an astounding thing to think about.”
Housel: Anderson Cooper was the first Vanderbilt heir to inherit nothing
“The first Vanderbilt heir to not get any money, when all the money was exhausted, the first heir where there's nothing left was Anderson Cooper of CNN. His mother was a woman named Gloria Vanderbilt. She got kind of the last trust fund in the family.”
Google searches for 'imposter syndrome' surged alongside Instagram's launch in 2010
“In 2010, when Instagram came around, you can see it literally in Google search algorithm. Imposter syndrome starts to take off.”
Children lack personal identity until roughly age seven and a half
“Our concept of me and myself and stuff is a lot of times carried out and formed before the age of eight. Now, a child has no concept of me. They don't even, they don't think of themselves as having an identity until around seven and a half when the frontal lob…”
Kobe Bryant kept his 'Black Mamba' alter ego secret for five years
“Even Kobe, we created it in 2004. He didn't tell the world about it until 2009 when he won the world championship, when they, or when they won the NBA championship, even Beyonce with Sasha fierce, wasn't revealed to the world really until 2008 when she was ret…”
Stalk: Average CEO tenure is currently under five years
“The average CEO tenure is less than five years right now.”
Pasricha: 95% of people charge phones within arm's reach while sleeping
“95% of people right now are plugging in with an arm's reach of themselves.”
Parrish: Selling one million copies ranks a book in the top 0.001%
“A million puts you in like the top, 0.001% of all books ever published.”
Sinclair: Depriving rats of sleep for two weeks causes diabetes
“If you stop a rat from sleeping for just two weeks, it will develop diabetes.”
Sinclair: Someone in the US breaks a hip every 19 seconds
“Every 19 seconds, in the US at least, someone breaks their hip.”
Huberman: Body temperature is the second most powerful stimulus for wakefulness
“Second to light temperature is the most powerful stimulus for wakefulness. Actually, when you wake up in the morning, it's because your body temperature is rising.”
Thomas Zurbuchen: Rocket launches have a 1.5% to 3% failure rate
“You know, with 1.5 to three percent likelihood, it will not make it out of the Earth's gravity, statistically speaking.”
Irvine: Stoicism books for general audiences appear over once per day
“And at present, there are books on Stoicism Written for general audiences coming out at the rate of more than one per day.”
Dr. Z: Mars Sample Return spacecraft targeted to launch in 2026 and 2027
“And so basically that, that we're going to collect those samples in 26 or 27 our next two spacecraft will take off. One in 26, one in 27, we think, today.”
Pasricha: McKinsey finds 31% of the day is spent task-switching
“McKinsey says, 31% of our days are now spent bookmarking, prioritizing, and switching between tasks.”
Scott Page: Firm and species lifespans both follow power-law distributions
“The lifespan of firms, some of them can be really short, but if you happen to get really big, you're going to last a long time. That should be a power law, and it is. It's also true that the lifespan of species phylogenera in ecology, you can think of that as …”
Half of Scientists Were Creationists When Darwin Published Evolution Theory
“At the time that Darwin published his theory of evolution, 50% of scientists were creationists.”
Japanese Settlers Owned Over Half of Korea's Farmland During Chung's Youth
“By the time Chung was a teenager, Japanese settlers owned more than half the farmland in Korea.”
Mary Kay Ash's older son gave her his $4,500 life savings
“Her older son can't leave his job. He has a family, but he pulls out his checkbook and writes her a check for 4500 dollars. Every penny he saved since he was a kid, he hands it to her.”
Mary Kay Cosmetics Scaled From $10M in 1967 to Over $100M in 1976
“1967, they're four years after opening, annual sales, ten million dollars. 1971, they hit twenty-seven million, with nearly 30,000 consultants. By 1976, they exceeded one hundred million in annual sales for the first time.”
Hetty Green Died While Arguing Over the Cost of Milk
“The woman who had spent her life fighting for every dollar died while arguing with her cook over the cost of milk.”
Pattison eventually acquired the piano company he couldn't afford lessons from
“The boy who couldn't afford piano lessons would eventually own the company that made pianos.”
Memory chips generated over 90% of Intel's revenue in 1985
“Intel in 1985 was a memory company. The business generated over 90% of their revenue, and it would soon be gone.”
Karr: Average S&P 500 CEO tenure is three to four years
“I think the average S&P tenure is somewhere between three and four years.”
Pasricha: North American Life Expectancy Is 30,000 Days Versus 25,000 Globally
“Right now, life expectancy is 30,000 days. That's North American life expectancy. It's 25,000 days globally, by the way, which is 68, 30,000 days from North America, which is 83.”