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 25 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
ButcherBox would not have survived if it raised VC, says Mike Salguero
“And so I actually, I don't think I'd be around right now if I had raised money.”
Hoffman would pause AI digital twins for the election year if possible
“Well, if I could wave a wand and essentially, you know, kind of say that nobody could be doing digital twins whatsoever, given the negative consequences, especially because it's a election year, I'd wave the wand because I think that the negative immediate con…”
Mayer: Yahoo's core business turnaround would have succeeded with one more year
“Cause I do think if we had with that team, with that base of revenue, with our plan, I really think we would have, if we had had another year, And we'd had 10 quarters of beating plan, and we really could have gotten there.”
Mayer: Yahoo should have pursued the Alibaba spin-off instead of selling
“In hindsight, I, you know, and again, hindsight is twenty-twenty, I think it would have been helpful to continue to pursue the spin. I'm optimistic that it would have been ultimately tax-free, though it may have caused an overhang. You know, that said, at that…”
Zoom might have been built inside Cisco if John Chambers had known
“If he knew that, very likely I would probably still be at Cisco, right, to build a solution, right?”
Cessario: Liquid Death would have died in every traditional focus group
“Clinical focus groups, I don't think really work. Like you can learn a little bit from them, but it's, liquid death would have died in every focus group.”
Suleyman: Nuanced Platform Liability 20 Years Ago Could Have Reduced Polarization
“And I think that had we taken a little bit more time to debate that and think it through, then some of the emergent effects that have to do with this kind of, you know, spreading of misinformation, this very polarized and outrage driven environment that we now…”
Hoffman: Following LinkedIn Open Networkers' advice would have derailed LinkedIn
“And if we followed their feedback, LinkedIn would not be where it is today. We had to steer away from a bunch of passionate users who told us very explicitly that we were fools for not following their advice.”
Hoffman: Mailchimp would have scaled faster with the right VC partner
“However, I believe if they'd found the right VC partner, they could have hit upon it sooner and scaled far more rapidly.”
Obama: Early push against the filibuster would not have swayed Senate Democrats
“And so, even if I had warned my earlier self, you're not going to get any cooperation on anything, So you might as well start making the argument to blow through some of these Senate rules. I probably couldn't have persuaded a bunch of Democrats who'd been in …”
Palka: US Digital Service would have failed without the Healthcare.gov crisis
“USGS would not have made it if it hadn't been able to take advantage of the moment of the failure of healthcare.gov.”
Mike Lazerow: Buddy Media would have struggled without the Salesforce acquisition
“It turned out that if we hadn't done that deal, I think, like, I haven't talked about this publicly either, I think we would have had a hard time as a business.”
Lacking a technical co-founder cost Madison Reed 18-24 months of product development
“Oh, I did not have a technical co-founder. And it cost us I would say about 18 to 24 months of really good digital product and commerce experience.”
Case: AOL would not have started without government breaking up Ma Bell
“Where we started America Online AOL almost 40 years ago, that company would not have started if government hadn't taken some action, including, you know, breaking up Ma Bell to create innovation in the telecom space.”
Novak says Crystal Pepsi would still be a hit today
“I think that product would have been a huge hit and it would still be on the marketplace, but it didn't last very long.”
Huffman: Hipmunk would have succeeded without raising venture capital
“If we had just built that product, we'd built a product in the summer. We had just built that product and run it as a small company. And then maybe sold that or licensed that, that would have been a good business. Instead, you know, raised a bunch of money, ra…”
Solivan: I would have found a co-founder before launching TaskRabbit
“If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have tried harder from the beginning. To find a co-founding partner. Like before I went to the incubator program, you know, maybe even before I left IBM, I would have taken the time from the very beginning t…”
Dyson: EV project should have ended immediately after Dieselgate
“The moment Dieselgate happened, and we saw what the big car manufacturers were doing, we probably should have stopped at that point. But we carried on for another two years and then realized that our worst fears were being realized, and that we should stop it.”
Mandel: Mimicking Veep creator Armando Iannucci exactly would produce a poor knockoff
“If I had tried to do and write exactly Armando's show, you would have gotten a weird knockoff. I can write Veep, but I can't do an impression of Armando. It just comes off like some weird bootleg, like a weird mimeograph. Slightly smudgy and purple and not qui…”
Hoffman: Dalio could have hedged 1982 losses by consulting others
“Had he consulted anyone but himself, Had he built a system for testing his theories before betting big, he might have been able to hedge his bets and reduce the company's exposure.”
Cornerstone would have died had it signed the 2000 AOL deal
“And had we signed that deal, we definitely would have been out of business.”
Hoffman: Passing on Etsy's angel round cost a 20x to 50x return
“And so part of the mistake was, you know, when she presented to me, it was before it was venture invested, right? I could have put in money essentially as an angel. And, you know, I don't know what Etsy's valuation is today, two billion dollars, something like…”
Male entrepreneurs would likely not have understood Bumble's early vision
“Had I sat in a room with any other entrepreneur, particularly any other male entrepreneur, I just don't know if they would have seen what I was trying to say, and he understood so clearly because he'd been dealing with data and insights of user behavior for a …”