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 24 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
Harrison: $1M in Ukrainian Drones Destroyed a Third of Russia's Bomber Fleet
“So in Ukraine, there was this, I think it was called Operation Spiderweb, where, ah, Ukraine snuck basically like under false floorboards of a truck. They snuck a million dollars of worth of drones into Russian territory. And then the drones basically took fli…”
US would run out of munitions in 11 days in China conflict
“If we were to engage in a large scale conflict, I think it's something like 11 days. Like, we would run out of munitions in 11 days.”
Harrison: U.S. Has Consistently Lost Wargames Against China Since 2015
“We have been effectively losing war games when they model the scenario of US versus China since, I think like, 2015. We have been, the US loses those war games.”
Harrison: Rebuilding Fleet Lost in China Conflict Would Take 25 Years
“Half of our naval fleet could be destroyed within the first couple months of a large-scale conflict with China, and it would take us 25 years to rebuild just to get back to where we were. So our shipbuilding capacity doesn't exist.”
Harrison: Conflict over Taiwan could cause a $10T global economic hit
“You look at a conflict over Taiwan, I think people say could be a 10 trillion dollar hit to the global economy. Like bigger than the financial crisis, COVID, anything. I think in some cases combined.”
Harrison: Index Ventures bars weapons investments and militarizing portfolio drones
“Index, as far as I know, still to this day, has a clause where they can't invest in anything that is a weapon or could be used as a weapon, and I remember they had investments in, in companies like a drone company, where they uniquely could have contracted a p…”
The vast majority of important tech companies will be built in SF
“Statistically, there are more people in the Bay Area building companies in a specific, within a specific playbook that have specific expectations and shorthands and heuristics that are more likely to lead to success for a company. And so I can simultaneously b…”
Harrison: China developed $15M to $20M missiles capable of destroying US carriers
“The Chinese have developed missiles that they affectionately refer to as carrier killers, that literally it's, I mean, these still might be fairly expensive missiles, right, these are 15, twenty million dollar missiles, But they can destroy a multi-billion dol…”
Harrison: The DoD represents sub-1% of global R&D spending today
“Today it is sub one percent of global R&D.”
Harrison: Anduril took over Microsoft's $22B IVAS contract for EagleEye
“And then a year ago Microsoft basically admitted defeat to some extent, and the government said, we're going to recompete the contract, and Anduril first as a potential partner to Microsoft, and then eventually took over a twenty-two billion dollar IVAS contra…”
Harrison: Anduril is actively working on subterranean warfare technology
“Like several people are working on that, including Anduril, much to the surprise, I don't know if you have heard this story, but there was a story of Palmer talking about subterranean warfare, and the marketing person at Anduril was there, it was like, to the …”
Harrison: Only a small handful of new defense primes will emerge
“There's not going to be 30 new defense primes. There's probably going to be a very small handful of companies that can check all the boxes you need to be able to do that. Obviously, I think Android can be one of them, and there's maybe a few others”
Harrison: F-35 Program Costs Could Reach $1T Versus Projected $13B–$15B
“And like you have projects that should have cost 13, fifteen billion dollars that are upwards could cost a trillion dollars, like the F-thirty-five program, right? It's like dramatic overages.”
Harrison: Ukraine is live testing and fielding military tech faster than the US or China
“Ukraine was like the military industrial complex in production where it's like they're live testing stuff. Way more rapidly, even than, like, even the US at its best, even China or wherever. In Ukraine, it's just, we try something and we immediately field it, …”
Harrison: Anduril risks private capital on internal R&D instead of government funds
“Where the military, you know, where the military is trying to acquire things built to spec, the goal of Anduril is to acquire things built to mission, right, so they fund their own R&D, they put their own money up, rather than asking the government for R&D dol…”
Harrison: Anduril has had products deployed in Ukraine since day one
“Palmer says that Anduril has had products on the ground in Ukraine basically since day one. They were over there pretty quickly, you know, deploying assets and stuff like that.”
Harrison: 12 of 16 Thucydides Trap historical cases led to war
“Any time a rising power threatens a established power, it ends in large conflict, great power conflict, and when you look throughout history, there are 16 instances where that happened. Of those 16, 12 of them resulted in mass scale conflict”
Anduril's first pitch deck promised making billions by saving the government billions
“In their very first pitch deck, he said, we are going to make billions of dollars by saving the government tens of billions of dollars of revenue and of costs.”
Harrison: DoD Accounted for 36% of Global R&D in the 1950s and 1960s
“During the cold war in the fifties and sixties, the DoD alone represented 36% of global R&D.”
Harrison: Anduril's first Sentry Tower customer was a private ranch owner
“And like their first customer, if I remember correctly, it wasn't even the government. It was a private like ranch owner who wanted to monitor because there was like drug traffickers coming across his land.”
Harrison: Anduril's first prototype was an autonomous firefighting tank
“Their first product they ever built and prototyped was? It was called Century, but it wasn't the tower. It was a autonomous firefighting tank that would roll into a forest fire and could deploy, like, fire suppression”
Five of Ramp's first 50 employees came from the Contrary network
“I think five of the first 50 employees at ramp came from contrary, a lot of the people at retool, a lot of the people and roll.”