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 43 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
Smith: US Longevity Gap with G7 Is Driven Primarily by Diseases of Despair
“America is falling behind some of the other, like, G-seven nations around longevity, but I thought it was because generally people were dying earlier but it's actually due to these things called diseases of despair. So just like alcoholism drugs, etc. But if y…”
Smith: Half of for-profit US assisted living facilities generate 20%+ returns
“There are 31,000 assisted living facilities in the United States. Four out of every five are run as for profits and half of all the operators in the industry are clearing annual returns of 20% or more.”
Smith: eVTOL is the first new FAA aircraft category in nearly 80 years
“They started approving these electric Vertical takeoff and landing companies, the EV tool companies, and again, that was in the news, but what wasn't covered as much was the fact that this was the first new category of aircraft in nearly 80 years”
Smith: Waymo already accounts for 20% of Austin Uber rides
“Waymo's are already taking up 20% of Uber rides in Austin”
Smith: Target AI software at labor-starved industries to ease sales friction
“Those are exactly the industries that people should be looking at for building AI products, right? If you think about even just the selling motion that you need to do for any new product, if you're going to a company and they have ample demand, and there's lik…”
Smith: RPA Software Cannot Replace In-Person Human Workflow Shadowing
“There's always going to be things that a human can spot more easily by just like literally shadowing someone, like sitting next to them for a day on zoom or in person. That I think there still is this gap that RPA, there's always going to be a delta between wh…”
Smith: Keeping a day job enables better creative risk-taking
“I actually think that the hybrid approach is possibly the best approach because you have the complete financial stability through your job. Right. And so you don't need to worry about that, which means you can go and be really risky, really creative and really…”
Smith: Tech giants build kid apps for decades-long user retention
“Why do you think YouTube and Instagram want to create versions for kids? I mean, it's so that they can acquire users easily and then kind of stick with those users for the next five, 10, 2050 years.”
Smith: US spends 0.8% of federal budget and $50B+ on kidney dialysis
“It was basically that .8% of the US budget is spent on kidney dialysis, which was basically three times NASA. So all these people need dialysis. It's like, I think Medicare spends over fifty billion dollars annually on dialysis and other related treatments, wh…”
Smith: Founders ignore eldercare because they have never experienced aging
“Problems that people face at this point in their life most entrepreneurs have not experienced, right? So, like, they are not thinking about what an eighty-year-old might need because they've never been 80, right?”
Steph Smith: Socialization and Strava-like features will emerge for CGMs
“I think there should be a Strava for CGMs. Now that more people are using it, even during just that trial period of a month of learning, like, I think being able to kind of socialize what you're learning, but also compete in a way that's what Strava is. Like, …”
Smith: Niche sports succeed by being either radically accessible or extremely difficult
“If you take an existing sport and you make it more, make it less agile so more people can participate, that's one direction. And then techball is the opposite. The same way that in, like, fashion. You have fast fashion, and then you have the premium brands, an…”
Smith: Human happiness follows a U-shaped smile curve across age
“People tend to be happy early in life. And then in mid, mid years, there's this like, they call it the smile curve. Cause like generally they become a little less happy. And then that curve goes like up and up and up as people get older, which is really intere…”
Smith: Scraping public job postings can usurp Glassdoor's salary database
“All, every time a company is posting a job posting, they are saying how much they pay. And I have not seen anyone aggregate this information in a meaningful way, where if I'm again, if I'm trying to join a new company or if I'm trying to negotiate, I'm still g…”
Steph Smith: Tangible evidence of work matters far more than projected confidence
“What I think is important, especially in this era where everyone can seem like an expert is evidence. So evidence over confidence. And what do I mean by evidence? It's like, don't tell me you're this business expert, show me the businesses that you've built an…”
Smith: Competitions attract better talent than traditional recruiters
“If they want to develop some new technology, they put out some competition, and that tends to attract more interesting people than, you know, if they hire a bunch of recruiters to go, you know, find the people in theory they're looking for.”
Smith: Hard kombucha will take off nationally in 3 to 5 years
“And I think it's just, it's going to take off. And so someone in like Wyoming, go, go start a hard kombucha brand. I think you're going to kill it in, you know, the next three to five years.”
Smith: Dedicated Automation Specialists Easily Pay for Themselves
“I think you would see the ROI on this role immediately. Right. So, so they would easily pay for themselves and more.”
Smith: Many subscription box startups obtain product inventory for free
“Actually a lot of subscription boxes just get their products for free because these companies want to be in it.”
Smith: Most Common UK Age of Death Shifted from Infancy to 87
“In, in the UK in 1965, the most common age of death was the first year. That's perhaps not surprising, but today the most common age to die is 87.”
Smith: Men's cardiovascular mortality exceeds women's before 55, then reverses post-menopause
“Below the age of 55, cardiovascular illness is a more likely cause of mortality in men. And then after 55, again, around that menopause stage, it basically reverses, because what menopause is, is like, I'm obviously oversimplifying, it's just like a super, sup…”
Smith: 6,000 US women reach menopause every day
“And just due to the nature of, like, you could say, TAM, 6000 women in the U.S. Hit menopause every single day.”
Smith: Japanese nursing homes grew nearly 50% over the past decade
“In Japan, the number of nursing homes has risen nearly 50% over the last decade”
Smith: Over eight million abandoned houses in Japan are given away or sold cheaply
“There's over, there's tons of articles on this, over eight million IKEA's that are being given away by the government or again, sometimes for very cheap.”
Smith: US assisted living median costs rose 31% above inflation from 2004 to 2021
“From 2004 to 20 21, the median annual price of assisted living increased 31% faster than inflation and has hit 54,000 dollars per year.”
Robert Marchand broke cycling records at 101 and competed until 105
“He passed away at a 109, but he at a 101, Was still cycling, and he broke some records at a 101, and he decided that wasn't enough. So he then worked with a bunch of trainers and tried to break his existing record. At a 103, he hit 27 kilometers an hour on a b…”
Steph Smith: Dexcom's Stello is the first OTC FDA-approved CGM
“Their new product, Stello, is the first over-the-counter FDA-approved CGM. This was just as of, like, last month end of August.”
Steph Smith: 30-second podcast mention drove six figures for Internet Pipes
“Off that I'm pretty sure it's hard to tie directly. Like, but for sure, six figures.”
Steph Smith: 2.5 billion people projected to experience hearing loss by 2050
“So the stat or the digit is that nearly 2.5 billion people by 20 50 are expected to experience hearing loss. With over seven hundred million requiring rehabilitation.”
Smith: a16z invested in emergency 911 response drone startups
“Yeah, we, at A-X-Z, invested in a few of these companies”
Smith: Microgravity Enables Novel Pharmaceutical Compounds Impossible to Synthesize on Earth
“The physics when you're on earth due to gravity and some of the other forces that don't exist in space results in you not being able to create certain chemical structures, and that impacts the way that drugs can be basically ingested or administered. And so th…”
Smith: Mass Hardware Adoption Almost Always Unlocks Massive Secondary Accessory Markets
“Every time there's a new device that ends up penetrating, ah, a lot of people's homes or wallets, ah, there's almost always an opportunity for accessories.”
Smith: 70% of Teenagers in the United States Own Apple AirPods
“70% of all U.S. Teens have AirPods.”
Smith: The Average Person Spends $1,500 Following a Breakup
“It was this stat, which is the average person spends one and a half thousand dollars after a breakup.”
Steph Smith: Hitting 100% of goals means targets lack ambition
“If you're hitting a hundred percent, you're not setting ambitious goals. If you're hitting nothing, then you're just lost in the world probably, but I hit maybe 50% every year.”
Smith: Kirin Developed Electric Chopsticks Making Food Taste Saltier
“So Kirin, which is K-I-R-I-N, it's a company in Japan, and they partnered with a university, and they found a way to make, to basically use a super weak electrical current, both in bowls and chopsticks, so that when you're eating, something about the ionizatio…”
Smith: Companies Would Pay for Competitor Job Posting Intelligence
“I also think that companies would pay for this, right? As in like, Companies that have competitors want to know what their competitors are doing, and so, like, we're launching something at HubSpot soon, and I've already gotten an email from someone who works a…”
Smith: Clothing Returns Cost Up to 66% of the Item Price
“And a return with clothing can cost up to 66% of the cost of an item.”
Smith: Washington National Cathedral Earns $100k Annually Leasing Tower to Motorola
“So a 100,000 a year just for access to their 234 foot tower.”
Smith: Cloudflare Exec Performance Grants Scale Up to $979 Target
“Their first price target is 156 dollars, and it goes all the way up to 979 dollars. So this is what these execs internally are tracking towards.”