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 37 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
Dave Morin: Instagram Is a Train Wreck Impossible to Build On
“You know, like Instagram is an absolute train wreck right now. I don't know how you would build a business on this platform anymore.”
Dave Morin: Instagram Is a Declining Asset Meta Is Merely Harvesting
“You know, which to me suggests that this asset is, is now a declining asset. Like they're now in a position where they want to just harvest it, monetize it as much as possible while moving on to the next thing, which is probably threads fine.”
Morin: TikTok and Instagram are unequivocally optimized for addiction
“TikTok and Instagram now are absolutely unequivocally optimized for addiction. Like they will show you the next best thing to keep the dopamine level in your brain at the same level.”
Dave Morin: ChatGPT's daily time spent is nearing Instagram's
“I saw a chart last week that ChatGPT is now nearing Instagram's daily time spent.”
Morin: Instagram and X are the low-income housing of the internet
“It's like Instagram and X and all these things are like the low income housing of the internet. And like, we need to like move people out of these things into their own housing.”
Dave Morin: Default-private teen accounts will hurt Instagram's engagement metrics
“Changing the default is a huge deal. And I can't think of another technology company that is willingly, or perhaps under some pressure here, changed the default. It's something that actually really will, you know, influence the metrics. Perhaps damage the busi…”
Dave Morin: Meta AI's Instagram Search Integration Is a Terrible Decision
“When I saw this, like, Instagram thing happen, I'm like, this is the first Instagram product decision lately that just makes absolutely no sense to me. Like, as a user, I have no use for this. In fact, The box is in the way of search, right? Like, when I want …”
Britt Morin: Prediction markets will succeed with women if built into Instagram
“I actually think it's going to hit on with Meta if they do this and they build it into things like Instagram, because I think these things are already at large scale.”
Lessin: Most Big Tech acquisitions fail and end up shut down
“A lot of the big companies that did a lot of these acquisitions, they kind of all ended up shutting most of them down. Most of them don't work. Sure. You get it every once in a while you get like an Instagram, but like most of them are kind of nothings.”
Levie: Restricting tech M&A halts the full cycle of innovation
“I probably favor more allowance for M&A to happen. I think there's been some kind of, you know, dubious cases around, you know, why can't iRobot get, get bought by Amazon? Why can't Facebook buy Meta, buy, buy the Giphy or whatever, the 50 person VR company? L…”
Morin: Paid social customer acquisition kills direct-to-consumer businesses
“Which is why none of these businesses work.”
Sam Lessin: AI Bots Will Disrupt Glamour Influencers on Instagram
“I think this is a place where, like, if there's anything, anyone that should worry about disruption from AI, It is, like, very plasticky fake girls on Instagram, because, like, they can be beaten by bots, and the bots are already showing up.”
Julia Hartz predicts Gen Z will simply switch to Instagram if TikTok is banned
“It's all, they'll just go to Instagram. They'll just spend more time on Instagram. That's not, it's not, like, it's really not gonna change their lives.”
Lessin: AI Accelerates Image Modification but Does Not Fundamentally Change It
“AI absolutely elevates it. It makes it easier. It makes it more accessible, but it doesn't really fundamentally change the game. It just accelerates it.”
Lessin: Platforms introduce Stories to reset stagnant social capital
“They actually introduce new features, right. In a way that opens up new distribution to allow effectively new economic growth. It's like a game. You have to keep playing and adapting. Like you might've been really big when Instagram was about posting, but like…”
Morin: Threads will become a mainstream Instagram community, not tech VC
“No, I don't think I will. I don't think it's going to be a neat, like a techie BC community. I think it's going to be, like, a more mainstream Instagram community.”
Dave Morin: Meta needs 18% of Instagram to match Twitter's size
“All they need to do is convert, I guess, about 18% of Instagram to threads, and they'll have an app the size of Twitter.”
Belsky: Platforms like Instagram treat C2PA provenance as a binary AI label
“These companies like Instagram, you know, and products that are surfacing media for them, it's binary. It's like, if it has a CGPA in it that says any AI was used, they reported as being made with AI.”
Brit Morin: Reese Witherspoon Faced Severe Backlash for Pro-AI Post
“Reese Witherspoon put this thing on Instagram this week, which is just like, wow, I'm so interested in what's happening with AI, and women are pretty far behind on the learning curve here, and I'm like, curious to help them, and she got so much backlash.”
Lessin: Instagram partnerships lead Charles Porch is joining OpenAI
“Charles, who ran Instagram, some of the most important relationships, including a lot of their celebrity relationships, is going to open AI. To do a similar role there.”
Lessin: Instagram will be the only Meta division working in-office full-time
“I think they'll be the only division.”
Brit Morin: Taylor Swift's New Heights podcast drove 500 million views rapidly
“According to measurement company Mondo Metrics, Taylor Swift and New Heights reached half a billion views across all of the podcast episode across social media in under 24 hours. Three hundred and seventy nine million on Instagram, sixty one million on X, fift…”
Lessin: Universal "God content" across Threads, X, and Instagram is impossible
“If you can find a piece of content of performance art that is loved on threads and acts and Instagram, that is, like, a God content piece. Like, I'm not sure it's doable, right? Because the networks are so specific.”
Lessin: AI devalues photo filters, driving status seekers to unfakeable offline achievements
“Basically, the problem with AI is, is devalued filters to the point that everyone looks hot. So that's no longer a game anyone cares about. So now you need to do things that are, like, undeniable, like, that are harder to fake to prove and spend more money and…”
Meta Is Considering Launching a Standalone Reels App to Fight TikTok
“Meta is considering launching a standalone reels app, so that would be taking video only out of Instagram to go a little more head to head with TikTok.”
Britt Morin: TikTok ban could spur PE rollups of creator brands
“And I mean, could spur like a legit M and A. Feast. I bet private equity is, like, already figuring this out. Like, which things to salvage and buy for, like, 10 cents on the dollar. Do, like, various roll-ups of these brands that were popular on TikTok. Reboo…”
Sam Lessin: Looking Bad in Photos Is Culture's Reaction to Filters
“No, I actually think this is very on trend, which is now that with face filters and we're looking good, the new good is to look Bad. Right? Like that's like, that's just how culture works. Right? So this is why like all the kids on Instagram now have shitty ph…”
Jessica Lessin: Instagram rolls out default-private teen accounts and AI verification
“Instagram has rolled out an array of new teen controls, probably the most significant of which is default setting teen apps to private, and some interesting approaches to age verification, including, I think, some AI”
Dave Morin: Outdoor destinations face rescue crises from Instagram photo-seekers
“Some of the outdoors places that we go to have incredible search and rescue problems now because they've got way too many people doing dangerous things they shouldn't be doing just to get an Instagram photo.”
Lessin: Demand generation, not fulfillment, drives the cost of modern internet commerce
“The reason that this one dollar piece of metal is a 110 dollars on Instagram is because someone had to pay to make me think I want it, right? It's all about reaching the audience, right, and incepting the demand. That's the expensive part of this shit at this …”
Dave Morin: Creators Must Diversify Platforms and Build Direct Channels
“What I'm arguing for is that people do not build only for Instagram. I think you've got a lot of people that are out there building only for Instagram, only for TikTok, only for YouTube, whatever. Just like an investor would never invest in a single stock. You…”
Dave Morin: Fragmented internet subcultures perpetually disrupt top-down corporate alignment
“As the internet has kind of become like, I think we can safely say in 20, 24, the internet has become culture worldwide. Like you have this, Splintering of cultures, right? Where every person in an organization pays attention to a different sub graph of some c…”
Dave Morin: Threads' Biggest Problem Is Lacking Native Direct Messaging
“I think their biggest problem is they need DMS, you know, like this whole, like punt me back over to Instagram to do my DMS is just like, not right.”
Lessin: Threads' Social Graph Will Rapidly Diverge From Instagram's
“And then I think what'll happen is, is like, it'll just evolve in a different direction, and that'll be good. Like, the graphs will rapidly diverge”
Morin: OpenAI hired Charles Porch from Instagram to court creators
“Charles was hired at OpenAI from Instagram to like help build creator sort of love for OpenAI products, ChatGPT.”
Julia Hartz says live event discovery is inherently harder than traditional e-commerce
“The discovery of events is hard because it's not askew. It's an ephemeral thing that happens. You don't go to it alone. So I buy shoes on Instagram post-temp, but I'm not going to go to an event alone, you know, that often post-temp. You have to coordinate wit…”