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
VCs will block life-changing startup acquisitions that miss fund return thresholds
“I think the truth is that even with your board as a founder, I'm not sure your incentives are completely aligned because it's back to, well, first of all, what is the price on the table, right? Is it a nice two or three X for the VCs on the board or not? Becau…”
Financial rails let Brex monetize 20x better than software like Expensify
“We believe that we monetize 20 times better Then other spend management systems, systems like Expensify or Concur, because we monetize through financial services.”
Multi-billion dollar tech acquisitions are mere call options for tech giants
“And so in all those cases, these companies are spending one to three percent of their market cap on the MNAs, which is not like, that's not transformative MNA. It's really like, again, these big consolidators are just taking call options bets on these fast gro…”
AI benefits will accrue mostly to fast-moving larger companies
“I think that in a world of AI and as AI starts to mature, I think a lot of the benefits actually go to what I would call not the incumbents, but like the fast moving larger companies. Like, of course there will be a few companies that start from zero and explo…”
Founders have a fiduciary duty to talk to corporate development
“Paul Graham has an essay called never talk to corp dev that he published, I think like 15 years ago which
I, my hot take is I actually don't agree with it.
And essentially his point is that look, as soon as you talk to a large big tech, or you talk to a pote…”
Founders should be harsh and direct when negotiating with corporate development
“In M and A, it's the opposite. I think you don't want to be nice. You want to be not rude, but you want to be direct and you want to be harsh.”
Most successful tech M&A occurs between existing commercial partners
“Most successful MNA, I would bet, you know, I have to run the numbers on this, but most successful MNA comes in tech where the companies have been partners first, because like, why wouldn't you take a call option on a relationship?”
Startup sellers have the least leverage between LOI and closing
“In terms of when you actually started the M&A process, I think that's when as a seller, you're actually at the most weak negotiating points to be very careful. So that's when you got something in writing and you're bought in, but nothing's closed. That's when …”
Founders selling to private equity should always use an investment banker
“So once you're selling to PE, I would say absolutely use a banker, 10 out of 10 times, because that's like a tried and true method of like a data room and a management presentation and like a whole dog and pony show.”
Founders exploring M&A should keep talks completely secret from their team
“The number one advice I give founders on when they're testing the waters on M and A is to not tell anyone at their company. Because as soon as you get folks excited, it's a little bit like raising around, but at an extreme, as soon as people at the company, ev…”
Successful business partnerships require companies of similar size and alignment
“You need to partner with folks that are similar to you in order for it to be successful. It can't be one really large company and one really small one or one that serves companies in one space and one in the other, because then again, it's like, what's in it f…”
Business development and partnerships should operate like a venture capital portfolio
“BD and product partnerships should be the VC arm of a company. And this is what I tell my team is like, look, we need to look for pole vault opportunities, but we're going to fail sometimes like, yeah, Navon zip are going great, but there's a bunch of other pa…”