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 12 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
Sequoia demanded Qualtrics formally name a single CEO to secure its investment
“When we took money in 2011, Sequoia, I remember, was like, We're only doing this if there's a CEO. Which one of you is the CEO?”
Qualtrics raised the largest tech Series A since 2008 in 2012
“We've taken this money from Excel, this is the largest Series A raised in 2000, in 12, since 2008, in all of tech, it's outside of the Bay Area”
Ryan Smith requires sales reps to be able to demo products blind
“This is where I've always told our reps, like, do you know your product? I could do the demo on the phone in a car with a link walking them through. Without me looking at the screen. And explain to them every single thing that's going on.”
Dave Goldberg's SurveyMonkey attempted to acquire Qualtrics before its Series A
“You know, the gentleman who was doing it ran a company, I'll just be honest, it was called Survey Monkey at the time.”
Ryan Smith calls selling Qualtrics one of his most underwhelming days
“And when Qualtrics sold, it was probably one of the most underwhelming days of my life.”
Ryan Smith based his Utah Jazz offer on a Forbes mobile valuation
“It was literally a meeting where it was like, well, are you serious? Make us an offer. And we pulled up the Forbes valuation on the phone and I said, well, how's this?”
Jared Smith co-ran Google China with Kai-Fu Lee before joining Qualtrics
“And he had been assigned to go run China for Google. So he was living in Beijing. He was working with Kai-Fu Lee and like running Google China.”
A Qualtrics competitor raised $40M with a cheaper, better product in 2004
“Our competition had just raised a bunch of money. The product was cheaper than ours. They raised forty million dollars, and their product was better than ours.”
Ryan Smith compared Sequoia and Accel co-investing to Yankees and Red Sox
“And then, you know, we decided to go raise money from Sequoia and Excel. And at the time it was like taking money from the Red Sox and the Yankees.”
Ryan Smith avoided investing, boards, and real estate for 20 years
“I didn't do anything else when I was doing Qualtrics. I didn't invest. I didn't sit on boards. I didn't buy real estate. I was literally like Qualtrics for 20 years heads down.”