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 384 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
Jessica Lessin: Altman warned OpenAI staff 'vibes are going to be tough'
“We published a memo week or so ago, or details from a memo, quotes from a memo in which Sam Altman, ahead of the Gemini launch, but clearly when the team had been testing it, needed to rally his troops. And he said, the vibes are going to be tough out there. O…”
Lessin: White House drafting executive order to preempt state AI regulations
“White House working on an exec order that would foil state AI regulations.”
Lessin: The Information reported weak margins on Oracle GPU rentals
“We reported on Oracle some of their numbers around renting out GPUs and the margins don't look great.”
Dave Morin: Data center spending accounted for half of 2025 US GDP growth
“Like in the first half of this year, Data center related spending. Which, like you said, they're like these giant buildings full of GPUs accounted for half of GDP growth in twenty-twenty-five.”
Jessica Lessin: Oracle's infrastructure AI revenue margins are 'really bad'
“The margins on this revenue for Oracle are really bad. They are not software margins. They're not even normal infrastructure margins.”
Lessin: Judge Chastised DOJ and Cited AI in Google Antitrust Ruling
“The judge even chastised the DOJ for requesting Chrome to be spun off, saying that was such an extreme move and that the other remedies they were asking for would have like crippled the industry. And the highlight of it all is that they said Gen AI changed the…”
Sam Lessin: Tesla will not receive robotaxi regulatory approval this year
“You forgot the most important line, which is you're not going to have regulatory approval.”
Britt Morin: 31% of teens find AI companions as satisfying as friends
“31% of teenagers now are saying that their conversations with AI companions are as satisfying or more satisfying than talking with real friends.”
Lessin: Anthropic has surpassed $4 billion in annual recurring revenue
“We reported yesterday the information that Anthropic is at more than four billion in ARR”
Lessin: Meta is taking a $14.8B, 49% stake in Scale AI
“The information the next day had all the details of the 14.8 billion, the 49% ownership stake, and that Alexander Wang, the CEO of Scale.ai, Is now running a meta super intelligence lab.”
Morin: Coinbase Offshore Customer Center Socially Engineered to Expose Customer Data
“Coinbase was hacked, not digitally. They were hacked through social engineering. One of their customer service centers abroad outside the United States was socially engineered, meaning people figured out how to convince the people that work in that Customer se…”
Dave Morin: OpenAI publicly indicated interest in buying Google's Chrome browser
“Like I found it really interesting that open AI was first to raise their hand this morning about
You know, hey, we'll buy Chrome.”
Jessica Lessin: OpenAI is projected to lose $44 billion through 2028
“They're only projected to lose forty four billion between. 2023 and 20 28, according to the information.”
Dave Morin predicts Google's Wiz acquisition will easily secure regulatory approval
“I just, I think that it'll go through no question. In fact, I bet it accelerates through.”
Jessica Lessin: Rippling is suing rival Deel over alleged corporate espionage
“Rippling, one payroll company, is suing Deal, another highly valued, highly hyped, high expectation fintech payroll company. For a lot of things, including having a spy within their organization.”
Lessin: JD Vance has been deputized to organize TikTok's new investor group.
“I think the state of play is that, in particular, JD Vance. Vance has been deputized to do this. Is trying to figure out what group of investors broadly, including strategics, can own what parts of TikTok and satisfy you know, the law.”
Sam Lessin: DJI announced removal of US restricted airspace flight limits
“At the same time, DJI, like today, announced the drone company that they're no longer limiting drones, like, from flying in restricted airspace in the United States, which I'm sure is actually unrelated, but it's a hilarious story.”
Sam Lessin: Appointees exploit forced divestment for tax-free asset diversification
“There's this hack where some Goldman Sachs guys got cabinet positions and they're like, well, the reason they did that, or like at some level of seniority of the government is because you are forced to sell, but you don't have to pay taxes on the sale. And so …”
Lessin: Reporting shows Sam Altman knew he had board problems before ouster
“I mean, I just have so much reporting pointing to the fact that Sam knew he had problems with the board, and then a lot of people were like, well, why didn't he do anything about it?”
Jessica Lessin: TikTok will partner with Larry Ellison or Elon Musk
“Tick tock will operate in some form in the U S in a partnership. Either with Larry Ellison or Elon Musk. It's my prediction.”
Sam Lessin: Ultra-wealthy use government cabinet positions to defer capital gains taxes
“There's this hack where some Goldman Sachs guys got cabinet positions and they're like, well, the reason they did that or like at some level of seniority of the government is because you are forced to sell, but you don't have to pay taxes on the sale. And so i…”
Morin: Democrats built swing-state local print newspapers to target suburban women
“I went to this big cabal, you know, this was two years ago. I think I've talked about it in the pod before. It was like this secret meeting. Lots of people from the democratic side. And they were talking about how one of the big pieces of infrastructure that t…”
Jessica Lessin: Wells Fargo halted third-party merchant payment processing for Stripe
“What our reporter Michael Rodden reported for the first time is that Wells Fargo has stopped working with Stripes in this capacity to help process payments.”
Sam Lessin: Telegram is not actually end-to-end encrypted
“Telegram tells this whole story about encryption and pro free speech, but it's actually not end to end encrypted.”
Lessin: Bolt Founder Ryan Breslow Pitching Self-Dealing Return Proposal to Investors
“Ryan Breslow, the founder of Bolt, who had left the company, is staging a comeback with a very audacious proposal that he's pitching investors on for him to return.
Includes a lot of self-dealing, as reported in the information.
Also reported that investors se…”
Jessica Lessin predicts Skydance will complete the Paramount Global acquisition
“Skydance seems to be the one that's going to get the deal done”
Jessica Lessin: OpenAI is discussing converting to a B Corp
“I think it's very likely we've reported they're talking about converting to a B Corp, which is a company which would essentially completely liberate him from the nonprofit kind of overhang and the issues that had that board boot him.”
Jessica Lessin: The Information reported Apple paused next Vision Pro
“The information is reported there, they're not even working on the next version of it.”
Khosla: AI inference costs will drop up to 10x by June 2025
“I think what will happen is the expensive PhD will become dirt cheap. My bet is a year from now, it'll cost one-fifth to one-tenth of what it does today.”
Jessica Lessin: Slack defaulted users into training its AI on their data
“Slack Auto defaulted all of its users into using all of their data, their messages, everything to train their AI. The way to opt out was to email, email an address with a certain subject line”
Sam Lessin: US politicians will not risk banning TikTok before 2024 election
“There's just no chance that in that environment they're gonna, like, risk any youth vote, even if they're terrible, woke people, for the sake of banning TikTok right now. And I think that sucks, because I think it is a huge national security risk, But I think …”
Lessin: Sequoia and Roelof Botha publicly apologized over failed Klarna coup
“Sequoia and Roloff, who runs Sequoia, then sort of returned with their tail between their legs a little bit and publicly apologized for this and said they now support the CEO and are ready to move forward.”
Jessica Lessin: AI power demands will drive new nuclear plant construction soon
“And I think we're gonna see that, like, literally come to, like, building nuclear power plants, right, in, in the near term.”
Jessica Lessin: China holds a board seat in a secretive ByteDance subsidiary
“I thought of this because the reason the world knows that actually the Chinese government owns ByteDance is because Of some of the great reporting of my colleagues in Asia that actually broke the news of not just this idea that Chinese companies are controlled…”
Lessin: Apple will not remove TikTok due to China exposure
“Apple's not gonna kick them out. Apple's China exposure is enormous, right? Like, you know, even if they should, they won't, right?”
Lessin: Microsoft Is Developing Cheaper In-House AI to Avoid OpenAI Costs
“So Microsoft, who's ten billion dollars into open AI, gave it exclusive access to their IP, has decided in part because it's too expensive to run, they're going to build a cheaper functional enough version to have to power some of these applications.”
Jessica Lessin: Leaked documents show Microsoft's cloud business is smaller than thought
“Information also had a story this week that Microsoft accidentally released some documents that showed its cloud business is not as big as people think it is”
OpenAI pushed out its head of revenue overseeing enterprise corporate business
“They pushed out their head of revenue, the woman who's doing the corporate business and just replaced her.”
Stanford: Nvidia H100 rental rates plunged from $8 to $2 per hour
“Like, the H 100 used to be eight bucks, or something like that, per hour, like two years ago, and now you can get it for two bucks.”
Lessin: Gwynne Shotwell donated hundreds of millions to Trump accounts
“And she did, and she donated hundreds of millions of dollars in SpaceX to Trump accounts.”
SpaceX reached a $2.5 trillion valuation as of June 2026
“We're at two and a half trillion dollars as of this taping.”
SpaceX IPO Is 4x Oversubscribed With $300 Billion in Demand
“It's Forex oversubscribed. There's like almost three hundred billion in demand. Including a lot of the Middle East.”
Lessin: OpenAI won Elon Musk lawsuit because jury ruled he filed late
“We should mention, everyone knows, that OpenAI won a decisive victory in their Elon Musk trial. That came down to the jury deciding Elon was too late to file this lawsuit.”
Brit Morin: Sam Altman offers enterprises two free months of Codex tokens
“Sam Altman today tweeted that enterprises who want to move to Codex can get their first two months of tokens free.”
Morin: Only 4 million people use GitHub Codex
“There are only four million people using codex. That's like no one, literally no one. Is using AI engineering tools. No one in the grand context of the world.”