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
Housel: Extreme founder success is normally paired with undesirable personal traits
“So many, maybe there are exceptions to this, but I think it is the norm that the ridiculously successful, crazy genius entrepreneur also has personality traits that you and I would not want to associate with, probably wouldn't want to work with, wouldn't want …”
Housel: Investors must believe absurd stories because winning startups also sounded ridiculous
“So the fact that we can point out Theranos and FTX and WeWork, I think doesn't do justice to say that, like, you shouldn't believe in ridiculous stories, because the ones that do work out were also ridiculous stories.”
Housel: Expect a significant culling of both VCs and startups
“And the hit rate is probably going to be much lower now, and there's going to be a significant calling of both VCs and startups because The stories got ridiculous”
Housel: VC funds' top winners are rarely the investments expected to drive returns
“When they look back in hindsight and they have two or three massive, massive winners, massive exits by and large, those were not the companies that they expected to be driving their portfolio returns when they first made those investments. And by and large, th…”
Housel: 90% of virality in content and business is driven by luck
“I do think, and this sounds a little fatalistic, but I think 90% of virality, whether it's in content Or maybe even companies too, maybe a little less for companies, but a significant part of virality is luck. It's something that you really can't put your fing…”
Housel: Extreme outlier success is driven primarily by luck, without exception
“Daniel Kahneman, the great psychologist, he said something one time where he said, the greater, the degree of success, like the higher to the outlier the more standard deviations away from norm that you are of successful, the higher, the more luck played a rol…”
Housel: Economic pessimism and founder hate stem from status insecurity
“I just think a lot of whether it's jealousy or economic pessimism is because people who don't feel good about their success They almost fantasize about other people failing in order to make themselves like justify their lower status in the world.”
Housel: Outlier achievers are driven by internal torture, not motivation
“The right word to describe a lot of these people in any career, whether it's sports or startups, whatever it would be, is not even, it's not driven. It's not motivated. I think the right word is tortured. They are tortured that they are there. There's a proble…”
Housel: Financial media forecasting success rate is near zero
“The majority of the financial media was based around forecasts and trying to predict what's going to happen next. And the success rate of it was near zero.”
Housel: AI transforming society completely may take 10 to 20 years
“It would not be shocking at all if yes, this is like, this is what's going to completely transform the future. But when I say the future, it might mean 10 or 20 years from now. Now things are moving so ridiculously fast. I don't know if you've played with Clau…”
Housel: Valuations equal today's numbers multiplied by tomorrow's story
“Every company's valuation, whether it's a startup or a public company or even a bond, is a number from today multiplied by a story about tomorrow.”
Housel: Markets always reach absurd levels to discover investor limits
“Markets are always going to get to a ridiculous level because that's the only way that they can find the boundaries of what other people can put up with.”
Housel: WeWork was egregious storytelling, whereas Theranos and FTX were straight fraud
“And I would separate Theranos and FTX, which were just straight up fraud from something like WeWork, which was a story about what it could become, but it just became the most egregious kind of, I think Scott Galloway calls it yoga babble where it's like, no, t…”
Housel: Morning routine obsessions ignore basic cause and effect
“I think like the most perverse example of this Is the obsession with like morning routines. It's people getting so caught up in cause and effect that, you know, oh, if this person is, has this, if this successful person eats this for breakfast, that's what I s…”
Housel: Risk and luck are external factors that outweigh intentional action
“I actually think that risk and luck are virtually the same things, just in opposite directions. Risk and luck, the definition that I would give to both of them are, there are things that can happen outside of your control that have a bigger influence on outcom…”
Housel: Microsoft would not exist without Gates attending a computer-equipped high school
“Bill Gates went to the only high school in America that had a computer by his own saying there would be no Microsoft if he didn't happen to go to this one specific school.”
Housel: Human reactions to greed and fear remain identical across history
“When you read about the Great Depression or the roaring 19 twenties, the details of what happened back then in terms of the kinds of businesses there were, the kinds of regulations there were, are obviously completely different than they are today. But the beh…”
Housel: Major world-changing technologies historically take decades to move the needle
“It can, there's so many examples historically of major, major world changing technologies that took years, if not decades before they were really moving the needle.”
Housel: Early automobiles were inferior to horses in every way
“When the automobile came out, it was inferior to the horse in every way when it came out. It was less reliable. It was slower. It was dirtier. It could go fewer places.”
Housel: Far fewer founders can build great businesses than great products
“The number of people who are capable of building a great business Is way smaller than the number of people who are capable of building a great product.”
Housel: Capital cycles inevitably attract tourist investors who leave in downturns
“It's always the case that whenever you have a capital cycle in any, whether it's public markets or private equity or VC, that you're going to get a lot of
Tourist investors, people who are there because it's fun and they want to be there to enjoy the view, but…”
Housel: VCs only prove their true skill during difficult downturns
“You earn your value when it's hard. You show your skill when it's hard. And so if you felt like you were skilled
In VC over the last five years, but now you're struggling.
Like, there's, there, there's kind of your sign.”
Housel: The VC market flush out will probably continue for a couple of years
“The cost of success is what you're dealing with right now. And we'll probably continue dealing with for the next couple of years. Like this kind of like flush out.”
Housel: 'The Psychology of Money' grew from 5,000 print run to 5M+ copies sold
“The first print run of Psychology of Money was 5000 copies. And we did it because that's what we thought it was. If we sold 5000 copies, we would have been stoked. Like the book industry is not, it's not easy to get people to pay 25 dollars for a piece of cont…”