The Ledger

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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

Assertion Supported
Lessin claims OpenAI is actively working on developing a web browser
“OpenAI is working on developing a browser”
Jessica Lessin Dec 13, 2024 ▶ 34:25 #77: Sora Reveal, Google's AI Agents and Digital Trade Under Trump · More or Less Podcast
Prediction Held up
Morin: Voice AI will reliably book restaurant reservations within five years
“Five years from now, you will, Sam.”
Dave Morin Dec 6, 2024 ▶ 46:10 #76: In a World with 99.99% Accurate AI… (feat. Aaron Levie) · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Lessin: The Washington Post lost 250,000 subscribers over the endorsement decision
“The Washington Post, which is about 10% of their subscribers.”
Jessica Lessin Nov 1, 2024 ▶ 54:15 #71: Big Tech Earnings and the AI Revolution · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: Inflection and Character VCs were compensated via licensing fees
“The VCs invested in inflection. The VCs invested in character. The teams were acquihired and they got like a licensing fee to compensate, you know, for their money.”
Jessica Lessin Oct 4, 2024 ▶ 35:34 #67: OpenAI Sets a Record and Will Apple Make Its Next Move? · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Dave Morin: The Apple App Store did $1 trillion in business in 2022
“You know, he was telling me that the app store did a trillion dollars in business in 20, 22 alone.”
Dave Morin Sep 13, 2024 ▶ 19:04 #64: Meta vs. Apple: the Future of Open vs. Closed Tech · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Lessin: Carta Report Shows Venture Funds Failing to Return Capital to LPs
“CARTA, the company that helps people track their cap tables and has other sorts of data and occasionally gets in trouble, but that is a topic for another day. Released a really interesting report that basically said venture capital funds are not returning mon…”
Jessica Lessin Aug 23, 2024 ▶ 14:41 #61: The Venture Capital Reset Era · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Brit Morin: Seed-to-Series A graduation rates halved from 30.6% to 15%
“In 2018, there were 30.6% of companies that raised a seed round and then made it through series A within two years. Now that's only 15% in the last two years.”
Brit Morin Aug 23, 2024 ▶ 19:50 #61: The Venture Capital Reset Era · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Dave Morin: Year-Five Fund DPI Has Only 0.22 Correlation With Mature Returns
“They analyzed 71 funds from vintage years, oh five to oh eight. And they found that the correlation between year five DPI and current DPI was just 0.22.”
Dave Morin Aug 23, 2024 ▶ 21:50 #61: The Venture Capital Reset Era · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: TikTok Pays Microsoft $20M a Month for Azure OpenAI
“I read in the information that TikTok is paying Microsoft Twenty million dollars a month to access open AI through Azure.”
Jessica Lessin Aug 2, 2024 ▶ 21:32 #58: The Death of Friends · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: OpenAI Generates $1 Billion Annually Selling AI Model Access
“Yeah, I mean, as my colleagues at The Information have reported, OpenAI is making a billion dollars a year in selling access to its model.”
Jessica Lessin Jul 26, 2024 ▶ 19:28 #57: Zuckerberg’s Open Source AI Manifesto · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Sam Lessin: EssilorLuxottica Does Not Manufacture Hardware for Meta Smart Glasses
“Look, Sadika, I promise you, is not making the hardware. Like, they make, they print lenses and, like, slap plastic on the brand and make a bunch of money on margin. Like, they're not a manufacturing company.”
Sam Lessin Jul 26, 2024 ▶ 45:30 #57: Zuckerberg’s Open Source AI Manifesto · More or Less Podcast
Prediction Held up
Jessica Lessin: TikTok Will Sue the U.S. Over First Amendment
“So what's gonna happen after Biden signs this is ByteDance or TikTok is gonna sue to block it on the grounds that it's infringing on the First Amendment.”
Jessica Lessin Apr 26, 2024 ▶ 3:18 #44: The $1B AI Girlfriend Market, the Tech Hedge Fund Fallout and Why VCs Can’t Quit AI · More or Less Podcast
Prediction Held up
Sam Lessin: Elon Musk will still run Tesla in 12 months
“Yes. Unless he does some hissy fit about his compensation package and like.”
Sam Lessin Apr 19, 2024 ▶ 38:57 #43: TikTok’s New App, Tesla’s Sunken Stock, Are Tech Workers Leaving Silicon Valley For Good? · More or Less Podcast
Prediction Held up
Sam Lessin: Dude Perfect will secure $100M for their theme park
“Well, I don't know what's public or not, but they, I don't know if this is public. They're going to have that money.”
Sam Lessin Apr 5, 2024 ▶ 23:22 #41: Is AI Killing Media? · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: Most of Microsoft's $10B OpenAI deal is cloud credits, not cash
“We saw it with Microsoft's huge, you know, ten billion dollar investment in OpenAI, huge portion of which isn't in cash. But it's in credits”
Jessica Lessin Mar 22, 2024 ▶ 17:00 #39: How (Not?) to Exit Your AI Company, Analyzing the New Google-Apple Tie Up · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Lessin: Microsoft Repaid Inflection AI Early Investors Plus a Small Return
“What the information was able to report last night is a little bit more of the terms there. So it looks like Microsoft gave the early shareholders in inflection their money back, plus a little bit of a return and more to come on what that structure looks like.”
Jessica Lessin Mar 22, 2024 ▶ 23:32 #39: How (Not?) to Exit Your AI Company, Analyzing the New Google-Apple Tie Up · More or Less Podcast
Prediction Held up
Jessica Lessin predicts the US Senate will take up and pass the TikTok bill
“I think the Senate's gonna pick it up. I think it's happening.”
Jessica Lessin Mar 15, 2024 ▶ 12:38 #38: Hartz and Minds and TikTok w/ Special Guest Julia Hartz · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Dave Morin says China limits youth screen time and mandates STEM algorithms
“They've actually banned TikTok usage longer than a certain number of minutes per day. They've also Banned the algorithm. They've like changed the algorithms that only pumps, you know, science and engineering and STEM related content to their kids. And yet they…”
Dave Morin Mar 15, 2024 ▶ 16:58 #38: Hartz and Minds and TikTok w/ Special Guest Julia Hartz · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: OpenAI is actively developing an AI agent and search engine
“The two new products coming out of OpenAI, one being the agent, the other being a search engine.”
Jessica Lessin Feb 16, 2024 ▶ 48:51 #34: 7 Trillion Reasons Why · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Dave Morin: Latin American payment providers are clearing payments with stablecoins
“I've been hearing that in Latin America and other areas, there's starting to be payment providers that are doing their cross border, you know, settling, clearing, like payments related stuff. They'll do it on chain with a stable coin and then just convert it b…”
Dave Morin Jan 26, 2024 ▶ 29:51 #31: Fintech Struggles, Netflix Rises and 'Big' is Winning · More or Less Podcast
Prediction Held up
Sam Lessin: The US will not ban TikTok in 2024
“No, TikTok won't be banned, but it should be.”
Sam Lessin Dec 22, 2023 ▶ 54:22 #28: What We Got Right and Wrong in ’23 and Calls for ’24 · More or Less Podcast
Prediction Held up
Sam Lessin: A Bitcoin ETF will finally be approved
“We will get a Bitcoin ETF, finally.”
Sam Lessin Dec 22, 2023 ▶ 1:02:35 #28: What We Got Right and Wrong in ’23 and Calls for ’24 · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Lessin: Sam Altman Pursues Major Outside Projects Beyond OpenAI
“Sam Altman doesn't just lead OpenAI. He runs or, you know, is, is hugely involved in Helios, a big nuclear project, in WorldCoin, big crypto project, He is one of the most prolific investors in Silicon Valley, and he was pursuing two side projects in recent mo…”
Jessica Lessin Nov 22, 2023 ▶ 36:54 #24: Sam Altman - Religious Cult Leader or CEO? · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: Sam Altman and Jony Ive are discussing an AI device
“Myself and my amazing colleagues at the Information Broker story recently that Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and Johnny Ive, the former Apple designer and designer of the iPhone, Have been deep in conversations about building a hardware device together that k…”
Jessica Lessin Sep 29, 2023 ▶ 6:21 #16: Why Your AI Startup is Probably Already Dead · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: Apple's U.S. chip manufacturing requires final assembly in Taiwan
“We reported the information that their big bet on, like, US semi-manufacturing actually has this wrinkle that final assembly still happens in Taiwan.”
Jessica Lessin Sep 15, 2023 ▶ 26:03 #14: The Apple Episode (Carbon Neutralish) · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Dave Morin: The majority of startups have chosen to stay remote
“You've got startups that have made the hard choice to stay remote. We've got, I would actually say that's the majority case in the startup world.”
Dave Morin Aug 25, 2023 ▶ 7:27 #11: Why hybrid work doesn’t work, long live the phone call · More or Less Podcast
Prediction Held up
Sam Lessin: NVIDIA stock will go up regardless of earnings report
“It literally doesn't matter what they report, the stock will go up.”
Sam Lessin Aug 25, 2023 ▶ 43:05 #11: Why hybrid work doesn’t work, long live the phone call · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Brit Morin: Penn gave Barstool back to Portnoy for 50% upside
“But I'm just, I think it's interesting that now, basically, Penn Entertainment is saying, like, hey, Dave, you can have Barstool Sports back for free as long as you give us 50% of whatever upside, if and when you ever sell it.”
Brit Morin Aug 11, 2023 ▶ 7:11 #9: How to save ESPN. Barstool’s Bad (Good?) Example · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: SoftBank is suing the founder of IRL
“SoftBank is now suing the founder of IRL after the information reported its user numbers were suspect and the SEC investigated and so on.”
Jessica Lessin Aug 11, 2023 ▶ 11:29 #9: How to save ESPN. Barstool’s Bad (Good?) Example · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: Bob Iger hired ousted executives Mayer and Staggs as consultants
“Bob has actually hired two people he pushed out of the company to As consultants to help him figure out this problem. Kevin Mayer and Tom Stacks.”
Jessica Lessin Aug 11, 2023 ▶ 40:27 #9: How to save ESPN. Barstool’s Bad (Good?) Example · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Brit Morin: Clinical trial shows semaglutide reduces cardiovascular risk by 20%
“There was a new paper that came out that actually proved that there is a reduction of heart attack and stroke risk by 20% for those that have used Ozempic”
Brit Morin Aug 11, 2023 ▶ 41:29 #9: How to save ESPN. Barstool’s Bad (Good?) Example · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
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.”
Dave Morin Jul 7, 2023 ▶ 17:44 #5: Twitter Won't Die! Long Live Threads! · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Morin: Study shows 72% of founders report mental health concerns
“There's a wonderful study that came out from UCSF Berkeley and Stanford called, Are Entrepreneurs Touched with Fire? And it looked at the mental health of entrepreneurs and founders in Silicon Valley and found that a surprising 72% of founders report mental he…”
Dave Morin Jun 30, 2023 ▶ 7:40 #4: MMA, M&A and Misfits; Silicon Valley's weird cultural moment · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Sam Lessin: The SEC is losing its case against Ripple over XRP
“The reality is, my understanding is, like, the government's basically losing, the SEC's losing the XRP case, right, the Ripple case and, you know.”
Sam Lessin Jun 12, 2023 ▶ 28:08 #1: Apple's head scratchy VR rollout; VR vs. AI in the interface wars; crypto's 'nothing burger'? · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: Musk confirmed he is building natural gas turbine blades
“Elon confirmed, he like re-shared or confirmed a story we wrote that he's getting into building his own blades for like natural gas turbines.”
Jessica Lessin Sep 4, 2026 ▶ 32:30 AI Agents Are Going Rogue. Should We Be Worried? │Claude vs. Grok, Tesla vs Waymo, Google vs Canva · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Sam Lessin: Apple is no longer TSMC's largest client
“But they're no longer TSMC's biggest client.”
Sam Lessin Aug 28, 2026 ▶ 50:59 Meta’s $17B Reckoning & Why Parents Can’t Compete With Big Tech's Algorithm · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Dave Morin: Elon Musk claimed a $1T revenue target moved up a year
“The one-liner was that they have now moved, what, they've moved up one year their one trillion dollar revenue number. That was the kind of funny Elon quote from the earnings call, that things are going so well That they're going to hit one trillion one year ea…”
Dave Morin Aug 7, 2026 ▶ 47:29 Jeff Dean Leaves Google, Airtable Sells, and the Bag-Securing Era · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Lessin: Meta's Earnings Disappointment Caused by Legal and Severance Costs
“Meta reported earnings that were disappointing, but mostly because they spent a lot of money in lawsuits and laying people off severance, so.”
Jessica Lessin Jul 31, 2026 ▶ 27:18 The Lilian Weng Saga, Mental Health Essay Then OpenAI | Meta's AI Ad, China Cracks DUV
Assertion Supported
Dave Morin: Hugging Face used open-source models to fix sandbox escape
“They did have to use Open source model that is not a frontier model in order to respond and to save their infrastructure”
Dave Morin Jul 24, 2026 ▶ 11:15 Stripe Is Trying To Buy PayPal For $150b | OpenAI Cyber Incident, Frontier Model Economics, Peptides · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: Stripe's free cash flow has surged to $3.2 billion
“Free cash flow surging to 3.2 billion.”
Jessica Lessin Jul 24, 2026 ▶ 40:50 Stripe Is Trying To Buy PayPal For $150b | OpenAI Cyber Incident, Frontier Model Economics, Peptides · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: Half of The Information's subscribers are using GLP-1 drugs
“Well, all I know to the GLP one point and most recent survey of information subscribers is now a year plus old, had like, 50% of respondents on them.”
Jessica Lessin Jul 24, 2026 ▶ 57:44 Stripe Is Trying To Buy PayPal For $150b | OpenAI Cyber Incident, Frontier Model Economics, Peptides · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Jessica Lessin: OpenAI is expected to unveil a smart speaker this year
“We're talking about the fact that sometime this year they are expected to unveil A smart speaker.”
Jessica Lessin Jul 17, 2026 ▶ 29:09 Open Source AI Wins. Now Labs Are Running to Washington |Thinking Machines, Johnny Ive, Realtime API · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Morin: Robinhood built the application for the Trump accounts program
“I do think it's cool that Robin Hood built the app for them. Like that's kind of cool.”
Dave Morin Jul 10, 2026 ▶ 20:40 AI Frontier Lab Is Essentially Doomed | Open AI Offered U.S. Equity, Xbox Is In Trouble, Post-AGI · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Lessin: Asha Sharma overhauled Xbox strategy and cut studios
“Yep, now Asha is running it, who was doing AI, and she's, like, totally overhauled the strategy, jettisoned a lot of studios.”
Jessica Lessin Jul 10, 2026 ▶ 36:29 AI Frontier Lab Is Essentially Doomed | Open AI Offered U.S. Equity, Xbox Is In Trouble, Post-AGI · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Brown: One in three Stanford searchers fails to close within two years
“That's why a Stanford search fund takes two years and one in three Stanford searchers doesn't close the transaction two years.”
Mike Brown Jun 17, 2026 ▶ 13:30 Teamshares IPO: $60M EBITDA, 92 Companies, Zero Exits · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
60 Minutes' 9% Growth Actually Lags Behind Its NFL Lead-In
“The sort of legacy folks like to say, well, it's growing nine percent, so it's doing okay, but its lead-in is the NFL, which is growing 11%”
Jessica Lessin Jun 12, 2026 ▶ 36:17 Apple’s New Siri, SpaceX’s $300B IPO & the AI Company Killing Its Own Brand · More or Less Podcast
Assertion Supported
Morin: Elon Musk and Key Investors Face 366-Day SpaceX Lockup
“Elon and key investors are 366 day. So full year lockups.”
Dave Morin Jun 5, 2026 ▶ 9:50 Silicon Valley IPO Summer 2026: SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI Explained
Assertion Supported
Lessin: Anthropic tokens cost 100 times more than open-source tokens
“Anthropic tokens cost like a hundred times as much as like the open source tokens, right?”
Sam Lessin Jun 5, 2026 ▶ 21:21 Silicon Valley IPO Summer 2026: SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI Explained
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