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 12 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
Spiegel: Social network value comes from close ties, not maximum connections
“And what Snapchat figured out that was, I think, different was that, you know, despite the fact that there were much bigger networks that connected more people, what really mattered was connecting you to the right people. And so if you could just connect someo…”
Misra: Hypergrowth can mislead teams into thinking bad product decisions succeeded
“That product market fit can be so strong sometimes that it can be hard to actually build something because you actually can't tell if what you're building is what's responsible for growing the thing or if it's actually hurting it and, you know, this is growing…”
Bier: People download apps to make money, find love, or unplug
“It's like people download apps to make or save money. Examples of that might be like, you know, WhatsApp where, you know, free texting. And then the other reason is to find a mate. So maybe like Tinder or Snapchat, find love. And the third is to unplug from re…”
Gilad: Google+ Caused Google to Miss Mobile Social Opportunities Like WhatsApp
“In hindsight, not only did Google bet on the wrong thing, it missed much easier opportunities. So just not far from Google's headquarters, there was WhatsApp. Not very famous in the US, but they actually created massive impact. Hundreds of millions of people w…”
Misra: Opening to camera was Snapchat's uncopyable moat against Instagram
“Snapchat opens to the camera. And that was actually the differentiator, right? That was actually that small decision was holding the entire company against all competition. Because when the moment passes where your friend is doing something funny, and you need…”
Empowering designers at Apple and Snap created their most novel products
“Like what Snapchat has done And I think Apple to the same extent is that designers run the show. And I think that's led to some very novel products coming out from both of those companies.”
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel enforces zero screen time for his own toddler
“For the two-year-old it's like zero screen time. We really just, you know, wanna, you know, essentially read with him and play you know, explore outside and those sorts of things, but not really focus on, on screens unless he is getting a haircut because he re…”
How early Snapchat hacked touch-events to detect screenshots without Apple's API
“Even though Apple didn't provide an API at the time to let you know that a screenshot had been taken, ah, there was a way for us to essentially detect this touch event to learn that a screenshot, ah, had happened. And then we would just send a notification bac…”
Spiegel: Snapchat has 200 million monthly active gamers
“We've, I think we've got two hundred million people playing games every month on Snapchat now.”
Stein: Snapchat initially did not permit photo uploads from camera roll
“Snapchat at the time didn't allow you to upload photos. It was like, you have to use a snap camera.”
TBH grew in 2017 using server-side Twilio SMS invites
“TBH grew through variety of things, people sharing their messages to Snapchat and text invites. And that was 2017. And the way you invited your friends on TBH was that you tap their name your contact name and there was a button that said invite. And then we us…”
Bier: Sarahah reached number one in US App Store despite being in Arabic
“I looked on the app store and the number one app In the United States was an app called Saraha. And it was for sending anonymous messages by adding a link to your Snapchat story. But the thing that was most interesting was the entire app was in Arabic. The num…”