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 30 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 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
Sam Lessin: Elon Musk and Sam Altman deliberately lie to motivate followers
“I think that Elon and Sam Altman lie, right? I think they say things they know to not be true, to Get people to do things. Right. And like, go on like with them. I just believe that from what I've seen, like, I think they're both way too smart to believe what …”
Brit Morin: Deel CEO allegedly recruited Rippling employee as paid spy
“Keith O'Brien, who was the man allegedly spying for deal while working at Rip Lane had to
Put out an affidavit today, and he basically, like, came forward and just was like, all right, here's the truth.
Alex, how do you pronounce his name?
Boise, Boise, the CE…”
Khosla: Open-source AI models will die due to massive training costs
“It is costing an order of magnitude more to train, and that's why I don't think open source models will be viable because of the training costs.”
Wolfe: Europe Is Screwed by Demographics and Failure to Assimilate
“I think that Europe is fucked, and there are bright lights of amazing entrepreneurs that are doing the very thing that Europe has historically not done, which is risk taking. The floor for Europe is higher than the US, so people do not fall through that, but t…”
Sam Lessin: A novel virus will definitely be invented using AI
“The main fear is that a novel virus is, you know, invented, and then crispered, and we have serious problems. Which will definitely happen.”
Sam Lessin: AI labs seeking regulatory capture is cynical and anti-American
“I think it's very cynical for these companies to even try to switch the field of play from business to politics, right? Like, I think that's a very cynical, anti-American thing to do, to be like, okay, we're not going to play and compete in capitalism in a fai…”
Sam Lessin: AI eliminates Silicon Valley's advantage over New York finance workers
“I'd actually argue the average person in Silicon Valley is not as smart as like the average person in New York finance, right? They're not the best marketers. They're not the best at anything. The advantage in Silicon Valley was actually knowing how to write t…”
Lessin: The pro-Palestinian movement is winning the memetic information war
“Well, I think the most successful information warfare mimetic war right now is actually being won by, like, the pro-Palestinian crowd.”
Sam Lessin: Backing founders with small children is generally a bad idea
“Parents of small children that is generally a bad idea. Not always, but generally a bad idea to back parents of small children.”
Sam Lessin calls VCs the least sophisticated financiers on the planet
“I actually think that venture capitalists are probably the least sophisticated financiers, like on the planet. They just have hope, right? Like it's the only hopeful version of finance, right? Because it is like, you know, you're basically investing in people …”
Sam Lessin: AI Is a Terrible Business with Almost No Monetizable Patterns
“I think the answer is almost none of them, and I think AI is a terrible business.”
Sam Lessin: People Will Kill Themselves and Others Because of AIs
“And like, at some point people are going to start killing themselves and each other because of AIs.”
Sam Lessin: OpenAI obviously stole O'Reilly Safari books to train models
“I think I saw this thing about Tim O'Reilly saying like, it's pretty obvious that like they stole all the proprietary information from Safari and like their books to like build it. And it's like, it's total. I'm sure it's true. We all know that they stole ever…”
Sam Lessin: SoftBank is probably the worst investor in history
“Probably the worst investors in history. We've lost so much money in valuable companies because of SoftBank.”
Sam Lessin: Men dominate top leadership because they are higher-beta risk-takers
“Because men have nothing to lose and are worthless, and therefore are very high beta, right? Like, it's just like, you just get more, like, the dumbest people in the world are men, and some of the smartest are. The highest risk takers are men. Guess what? It t…”
Morin: Elon Musk bought $40 billion in 'house ads' to buy America
“He bought forty billion in house ads for himself so he could buy America.”
Khosla: Open source AI models will not be viable due to training costs
“It is costing an order of magnitude more to train, and that's why I don't think open source models will be viable because the training costs.”
Sam Lessin: Google has never had a high-performance culture
“Yes, Google has not had a high performance culture Like ever.”
Sam Lessin: Google invented tech's low-work engineer culture
“So like this idea that it's work from home, Google invented the low work engineer culture.”
Morin: FTC Chair Lina Khan has completely stopped US tech innovation
“Yeah, she's been successful in completely stopping the innovation cycle in the United States so that nobody can get acquired.”
Lessin predicts OpenAI equity value is headed to zero
“Guys, I've been saying OpenAI zero the entire time. And I'm gonna keep saying it.”
Sam Lessin: AI Startups Will Yield Zero Value and Go Bankrupt
“And so if you're someone like me, who's in the camp of this is a great disruptive Business technology, and zero dollars will accrue to startups, and they're all going bankrupt. I am now a zealot for no fucking way, right?”
Lessin: Most media business talent are 'B-players' and not talented
“You have the media business talent, which with a few exceptions, I have to say that because there are some people I like, they're bees, right? They're not very talented.”
Dave Morin: Trump Media SPAC is the most insane pump-and-dump ever
“This is like the world's most insane pump and dump of all time, like.”
Sam Lessin: The AI revolution is fake outside of narrow applications
“I don't think the AI, I think the AI revolution is fake. We all know this.”
Sam Lessin: Operational 'number twos' are always expendable
“Those number twos are always expendable. They have to be.”
Sam Lessin: LLMs have only two use cases: summarization and data laundering
“There really are two use cases. One is Dave's point, which is summarization, and the other is Brisk's case, which is data theft, right, and data laundering. Like, I agree those are the only use cases”
Lessin: Big tech is better off cutting average nine-to-five engineers
“Most of like the line engineers and people who just kind of like, you know, show up in nine to five and crunch out small projects. They're just not that valuable and you're better off cutting them rather than doing whatever you possibly can to retain them.”