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 9 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
Pincus: Zynga held two-hour daily spreadsheet stand-ups up to 50 employees
“We had a stand-up call that would go on for two hours, and I had everyone's name in a spreadsheet, and I had what they were supposed to do yesterday and what they're gonna do today. And I go through name by name and say, okay, did you get that done? Can everyo…”
Pincus: OMGPOP built Draw Something by copying Words with Friends
“They said, we're going to take this proven game and do everything about it that in as perfect students of what is already working and viral on mobile, and they perfectly copied our turn-based system from Words with Friends, and they made a massive hit.”
Pincus: Sid Meier's Facebook game failed due to poor onboarding UX
“Sid Meyers, like, the, you know, godfather of game design, who's the most revered game designer, he came out with, I think, a social civilization on Facebook, and we thought, oh god, here comes, like, the ultimate game designer, and 10 minutes after the game c…”
Pincus: Erring on radical transparency burned out teams at Zynga
“I err on the side of transparency and honesty and, you know, being authentic to a fault. And I burn out people in that process. And I did it Zynga and I have since because It, you know, people will say the negative critique I'm working with me is, oh, working …”
Pincus: Facebook absorbed all platform verticals except music and games
“With us, you know, we saw it on Facebook, you know, they, the two areas that they just didn't care about going into was music. Cause it was really painful with IP rights and games because they didn't want to like hire artists. But everything else they did abso…”
Pincus: Gut instincts are right 95% of the time, but specific ideas fail 75%
“We have these instincts like in our gut, these human level instincts that are pretty much always right. And then we put these ideas on top of the instincts that are usually wrong. And my rule of thumb is your instincts are right. 95% of the time, your ideas ar…”
Pincus: Four active social round trips drove 80% multi-day monthly retention
“We built a metric called ASN, and it stood for what we measured, what was your active social network? So we looked at how many round trips you had with a friend or another player? Meaning you took a turn and they took a turn back. You gifted them and they gift…”
Pincus: Corporate hierarchies isolate data-closest junior staff from actual product decisions
“The people in the trenches are usually closest to the data, closest to probably the right answer, but they're also usually furthest from making the decision, and that's what I call the expert witness syndrome, because you're called to the stand by the adults, …”