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 48 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 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
Only 40 people in the US can effectively sell to the government
“Ross Fubini, who I had on for hot take, he is the founder, the founding partner of XYZ Ventures. He said at Hill and Valley, there's probably 40 people in the U.S. That are capable of selling to the government. Like, it is extremely hard. That is a clear bottl…”
O'Shea: NYC Surpassed SF in New Founders Starting Companies Last Quarter
“Someone sent me a data report like a day or two ago that New York finally surpassed San Francisco in the number of new founders that have just started companies in the last quarter.”
O'Shea: Tiger Global was a primary driver of the venture bubble
“Tiger, if you don't want to blame them, I will, but I do think that, you know, they were one of the largest pieces of this domino effect, like pumping excess money into a category.”
O'Shea: The Defense Tech Boom Is Necessary to Rebuild Manufacturing Capacity
“People say we're in a defense bubble. Well, turns out it's kind of like a good thing because we're at a point where we're looking for automakers and People to be making missiles, to be helping supply the military complex.”
O'Shea: Anthropic Achieved a Full Year of Growth in One Quarter
“We were talking about Anthropic and their hypergrowth and how they pretty much reached a year of growth in one quarter.”
O'Shea: a16z raised 18% of all US venture dollars last year
“A-sixteen Z raised 18% of all US venture dollars last year.”
O'Shea: Carta data shows AI startups get a 30% Series A premium
“Carta just put out recent data in their fund performance report, and series A's are getting a 30% premium. What do they attribute that to? AI. So, AI companies get a 30% premium versus non-AI companies.”
O'Shea: AI company valuations are betting on incrementalism, not moonshots
“We're betting on incrementalism for most of these valuations. We're betting on incrementalism with these companies and how they're going to compound.”
O'Shea: Carta data shows concentrated venture funds outperform broad portfolios
“Turns out highly concentrated funds, typically like 20 companies per portfolio. Outperforms spray and pray, but spray and pray looks pretty good.”
O'Shea: 50% of LPs have stopped allocating to venture capital
“Carta put out a report a couple months ago on different LP trends, and about 50% are not allocating into venture anymore, and so that, that's being cut away.”
O'Shea: Carta report shows 50% of LPs are exiting venture allocations
“Carta actually just put out a report, I covered it in Sorcery, that LPs are committing less to the category, about 50% are not going to be allocating to venture anymore.”
O'Shea: AI models are a commodity product with zero customer loyalty
“They're using it, like, it's, like, it's commodity business, we all know that. Like, we've known that from the beginning, so I don't know why we go through these circular phases of, like, thinking it's gonna change the world, and it's, like, a power law thing,…”
O'Shea: Software companies are homogenous compared to varied factory workplaces
“You can go into software companies and everyone kind of looks the same, but everybody at these manufacturing and factory jobs, they all have a role and they're all different.”
Palantir CEO Alex Karp spent roughly $17M on private flights in 2025
“Yeah, last year in 2025, I think it was publicly reported that Alex Karp spent around seventeen million dollars on flying, and it, if you kind of like do some of the math on the price and the per hour, it came out to around three months in the air.”
O'Shea: Over $240B in 2025 Venture Secondaries Represented 31% of Venture Volume
“The stat was last year, twenty-twenty-five, over two hundred and forty billion was via secondaries. 31% of venture volume was all secondaries.”
O'Shea: OpenAI's $110B round comprised roughly one-third of 2025 tech funding
“OpenAI just raised a hundred and ten billion dollar round. I think that amounted to about a third of all funding in the private markets for tech in 2025.”
O'Shea: PitchBook data shows 40% of unicorns haven't raised in three years
“40% of unicorns have not raised capital in three plus years.”
Brex has surpassed $100 billion in total payment volume
“Most recently, you guys crossed over a hundred billion in total payment volume.”
O'Shea: AppLovin Vastly Outpaces Microsoft in Revenue Per Employee
“Applovin's revenue per employee is, like, huge delta between Microsoft. Microsoft is kind of, like, flatlined a little bit, but, like, that, that is, like, a true trend we're seeing.”
O'Shea: Coatue and Altimeter data show OpenAI outpacing viral social platforms
“KOTU and Altimeter did like a bunch of different surveys and data science around OpenAI's traction and daily active users against social platforms. So they're comparing it against like, okay, there's like a resource, like a learning tool for knowledge, and now…”
O'Shea: Plaid repriced its valuation down ahead of a potential IPO
“Plaid just did a big repricing. They repriced down a bunch to hopefully maybe go public.”
Molly O'Shea says seed-to-Series A graduation rates hit record 13% low
“I actually just read a Carta report today. I don't know if you saw it, but the graduation rate from seed to Series A is now at an all-time low, and before it was like in a normal year, they'd say like, 20 to 25% graduation rate. Now it's at 13.”
Unlike the US, other countries tweak digital algorithms to promote STEM
“You know, other countries, however, tweak their algorithms to make sure that STEM is, you know at the top of people's minds, but not for us, unfortunately.”
O'Shea: Center Systems reduced wire harness training from two years to four weeks
“They created a training program to pull literally anybody, anybody, they could have worked at Walmart, they could have been a bus driver, they could literally have been anything, To train and be able to create wire harnesses in four weeks. It used to take two …”
O'Shea: Figure AI now has more humanoid robots than human employees
“Figure AI. Like, they now have more humanoid robots at their office than employees.”
O'Shea: AngelList launched a private market fund for $500 minimums
“AngelList just came out with their private market fund that you can buy into for just 500 dollars today.”
O'Shea: Sequoia has invested billions into SpaceX and Elon Musk companies
“I talked to Sean McGuire of Sequoia, who they've invested billions into SpaceX and Elon companies.”
O'Shea: Carta report shows AI Series A rounds get 30% premium
“Carta put out a recent report that Series A's that are AI enabled, or AI in their name, are getting a 30% premium.”
O'Shea: AI Companies Accounted for 70-75% of 2025 Market Gains
“In 20, 25, over 75, like 70 to 75% of the gains in the stock market were from AI and AI adjacent companies. Around six trillion dollars.”
O'Shea says Alex Karp podcast interview reached 50 million impressions organically
“The Palantir team is just amazing. They think we probably easily reached fifty million impressions from that two week period.”
O'Shea booked Palantir's Alex Karp three days after publishing her wishlist
“No, less than three, like, I got a call that day, like, hey, I think we got something, and then by the third day, it was scheduled.”
O'Shea: PJ's viral AI video for Kalshi reached over 100M people
“I was talking to PJ, who creates all those, like, extremely viral AI videos. They did one for Kalshi. It reached, like, over a hundred million people.”
Carta Data Shows 30% Valuation Premium for Series A AI Startups
“There's also data in Carta that 30, that series A companies get a 30% premium on them compared to if they're AI versus non AI.”
O'Shea: MP Materials manufactures many magnets through China
“And then also MP materials, which by the way, like manufacturers, a lot of their magnets through China.”
O'Shea: Carta data shows 41% of Series A startups are AI
“Carta has some, like, incredible data on this that 41% of companies seen in Serie A, Series A are all AI, quote, unquote, AI companies.”
Carta data shows AI startups get larger valuation premiums at Series A
“There's some interesting Carta data around this cycle in AI, and there is a premium that AI native companies are getting, and it's more dramatic in the Series A and Series B.”
O'Shea: Turing Reaches $300M+ Revenue and $2.2B Valuation Profitably
“Three hundred million plus in revenue and profitable. Two hundred and twenty-five million in funding at a last valuation of 2.2 billion. A network of four million engineers and customers that include OpenAI, NVIDIA, Anthropoc, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Salesfor…”
O'Shea: Carta data shows median Series B to C gap is 18-24 months
“Did you know, by the way, on Carta, like, the median time to raise for a Series B to a Series C is 18 to 24 months?”
Legacy media is remarkably slow at covering startup news
“I saw this trickling throughout media like days after it's actually insane how slow like legacy media is.”
O'Shea: The Most Effective VC Value-Add Is Commercial Introductions
“The most, like, value-add VCs can give is, like, commercial value-add and, like, opening doors for contracts and, like, customers, honestly.”
O'Shea: Saturn raised over $68M in funding from top Valley investors
“You raised over sixty eight million dollars in funding by very large names in Silicon Valley.”
O'Shea lists Bezos, Benioff, Coatue, and GC as Saturn investors
“We have General Catalyst, KOTU, Insight, O-One Advisors, Jeff Bezos, Mark Benioff, Dara, Neo, Elad Gill, Dylan Field, and Inspired Capital, and I'm sure there's more.”
O'Shea: Cognition AI's Devin Spun Up MongoDB as Its First Task
“The first task that Devin did was spin up MongoDB.”