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
Horowitz: Hiring through separate diversity initiatives fails at real inclusion
“So if you hire somebody on race and gender through the urban talent department, instead of through the normal talent department, through the fucking side door instead of through the front door, because you can't see the talent, then you're never going to be go…”
Horowitz: Founders who lie in pitches also lie to employees
“If you have a founder who's, like, say, telling you, like, some pretty aggressive, not true things in the pitch, then, you know, that's gonna be a tricky founder to work for, because it's very rare to have a person who, you know, lies only to investors and not…”
Horowitz: Annual performance reviews fail to drive company culture
“That's not how you move culture through an annual performance review. Like, this is a daily thing. People have to face it daily.”
Horowitz: Culture is defined by who gets promoted, not posted values
“You can't say, okay, people are going to behave according to the values on the wall. They're going to go, oh, that person who just got promoted, lobbied the CEO for six months, took credit for her work, did those things. That's your culture. That's how that ge…”
Horowitz: Enterprise sales teams must be compensated with commissions
“I was like, Stuart, we have to pay commissions. Like, we're not, like, this is sales. It's a prize fight. No prize, no fight.”
Horowitz: Company culture must support strategy, not copy Jeff Bezos
“Whatever your culture is should support your business strategy. It shouldn't be what you borrowed from Jeff Bezos, because he built a different company than you're building.”
Horowitz: Culture is defined by actions, not beliefs
“A culture is not a set of beliefs. It's a set of actions.”
Ben Horowitz: Shocking rules enforce culture by forcing employees to ask why
“And I call that that type of rule a shocking rule, which is a rule that you have that everybody wants to know why do we have that rule.”
Horowitz: Evaluate startup culture by asking about specific behaviors, not general questions
“If you say, is this a good culture? Nobody's gonna say that the culture is bad if they're trying to hire you so you kind of have to get into specific behaviors that you might think are indicative, or that you have experience in a bad culture and just see if th…”