The Argument Index
Debate potential by speaker, the highest-scored statement each year, and the companies with the most bearish calls on record. All of it clickable, all of it playable.
People
Average debate potential by speaker
All 92 guests with 5 or more scored statements, ranked. 20 more have fewer than 5, too few for a fair average, and the host is scored on his own page. Sort or filter below.
| # | Person | Avg debate potential | Statements scored |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eric Ries Founder & CEO, Long-Term Stock Exchange | 2.8 | 10 |
| 2 | Taylor Hendrickson CMO, WrenchPay | 2.7 | 10 |
| 3 | Maren Kate Founder & CEO, Avra Talent | 2.67 | 6 |
| 4 | Nick Maggiulli COO, Ritholtz Wealth Management | 2.62 | 8 |
| 5 | Anthony Pieri Co-Founder and Partner, Fletch | 2.62 | 8 |
| 6 | Lars Lofgren Founder and SEO Consultant, Lars Lofgren | 2.6 | 10 |
| 7 | Gia Laudi Co-Founder & CEO, Forget the Funnel | 2.6 | 5 |
| 8 | Yaniv Bernstein Co-founder & CTO, Vera | 2.57 | 7 |
| 9 | Dan Martell Founder & CEO, SaaS Academy | 2.44 | 9 |
| 10 | Andrew Berkowitz Co-founder & CEO, Suggestion Ox | 2.44 | 9 |
| 11 | Marc Thomas Coach, TinySeed SaaS Institute | 2.42 | 12 |
| 12 | John Samuelson Co-Founder & CTO, ScatterSpoke | 2.4 | 5 |
| 13 | Einar Vollset Managing Partner, Discretion Capital | 2.35 | 135 |
| 14 | Rand Fishkin Co-founder & CEO, SparkToro | 2.33 | 15 |
| 15 | Derek Coburn CEO & Co-Founder, CADRE | 2.29 | 7 |
| 16 | Wes Bush Founder and CEO, ProductLed | 2.29 | 7 |
| 17 | Jeff Roberts Co-Founder, Outseta | 2.23 | 13 |
| 18 | Justin Vincent | 2.23 | 13 |
| 19 | Jay Clouse Founder, Creator Science | 2.2 | 10 |
| 20 | Colin Netterkorn Founder & CEO, Customer.io | 2.2 | 10 |
| 21 | Pete Kazanji Co-founder & CRO, Atrium | 2.18 | 11 |
| 22 | Jason Cohen Founder & Chief Innovation Officer, WP Engine | 2.12 | 16 |
| 23 | Craig Hewitt Founder and CEO, Castos | 2.11 | 36 |
| 24 | Liam Martin Co-Founder, Time Doctor | 2.1 | 10 |
| 25 | Nick Francis Founder & Chairman, Help Scout | 2.09 | 11 |
| 26 | Will Schroeder Founder & CEO, Startups.com | 2.08 | 13 |
| 27 | Ruben Gamez Founder & CEO, SignWell | 2.05 | 40 |
| 28 | Derrick Reimer Founder & CEO, SavvyCal | 2.05 | 80 |
| 29 | Russ Walling President & Owner, TDN Electric, Inc. | 2 | 8 |
| 30 | Maya Voya Founder, GTM Strategist | 2 | 9 |
| 31 | Matt Wensing VP of Product & Design, Customer.io | 2 | 32 |
| 32 | Robert Cserti Co-founder & CEO, SessionLab | 2 | 5 |
| 33 | Steven Steers Founder and President, Steers Consulting Group | 2 | 11 |
| 34 | Keith Perhack Founder & CEO, SegMetrics | 2 | 6 |
| 35 | Julian Marzouk Coach and Former SaaS Founder | 1.92 | 12 |
| 36 | Mike Perham Founder, Sidekiq | 1.92 | 12 |
| 37 | Mike Taber Founder, Bluetick | 1.91 | 35 |
| 38 | Brendan Fortune Director of Product Management, Customer.io | 1.91 | 11 |
| 39 | Jane Portman Co-founder & CEO, Userlist | 1.91 | 11 |
| 40 | Arvid Kahl Founder & CEO, Podscan | 1.9 | 10 |
| 41 | Dan Norris Founder, East Coast Roast | 1.9 | 10 |
| 42 | David Newell Senior Advisor, Quiet Light | 1.89 | 9 |
| 43 | Laura Roeder Founder & CEO, Paperbell | 1.88 | 16 |
| 44 | Anthony Blatner Founder & CMO, Speedwork | 1.88 | 8 |
| 45 | Jordan Gal Co-founder & CEO, Rosie | 1.87 | 52 |
| 46 | Colin Bartlett Co-founder | 1.86 | 14 |
| 47 | James Kennedy Co-Founder and CEO, ProcurementExpress.com | 1.83 | 12 |
| 48 | Claire Suellentrop Co-Founder, Forget the Funnel | 1.83 | 6 |
| 49 | Asia Orangio Founder & CEO, DemandMaven | 1.82 | 11 |
| 50 | Colleen Schnettler Co-Founder, SaaS Marketing Gym | 1.81 | 43 |
| 51 | Courtland Allen Founder and Podcast Host, Indie Hackers | 1.81 | 26 |
| 52 | Tracy Osborn Head of Product, TinySeed | 1.77 | 35 |
| 53 | Zach Moreno Founder, Lightworks | 1.75 | 8 |
| 54 | Ian Landsman Founder, UserScape | 1.73 | 15 |
| 55 | Andrew Gazdecky Founder and CEO, Acquire.com | 1.73 | 11 |
| 56 | Josh Pigford Founder, Baremetrics | 1.73 | 15 |
| 57 | Dr. Sherry Walling Author & Speaker | 1.71 | 14 |
| 58 | Kevin Wagstaff Co-founder, Spectora | 1.7 | 23 |
| 59 | Braden Dennis Co-Founder and CEO, Fiscal.ai | 1.68 | 19 |
| 60 | Iran Galperin Founder, Gymdesk | 1.67 | 12 |
| 61 | Rick Heimanson Founder, detamoov | 1.67 | 6 |
| 62 | John Warrillow Founder, The Value Builder System | 1.67 | 18 |
| 63 | Don Pottinger Co-Founder, LanguaTalk | 1.67 | 6 |
| 64 | Anthony Eden Founder & CEO, DNSimple | 1.64 | 11 |
| 65 | Tara Reed Founder and CEO, Apps Without Code | 1.62 | 8 |
| 66 | Saul Orwell Co-founder, Examine.com | 1.62 | 8 |
| 67 | Xander Castro Events Director, MicroConf | 1.62 | 8 |
| 68 | Lane Wagner Founder and Lead Instructor, Boot.dev | 1.6 | 15 |
| 69 | Leon Barnard UX Designer and Writer | 1.6 | 10 |
| 70 | John Hainstock M&A Advisor, Quiet Light Brokerage | 1.6 | 5 |
| 71 | Danielle Simpson Co-Founder, FeedbackPanda | 1.6 | 5 |
| 72 | Jordan Hansen Founder, Cobalt Intelligence | 1.57 | 7 |
| 73 | Colin Gray Founder, The Podcast Host and Alitu | 1.57 | 7 |
| 74 | Tony Chan Co-Founder & CEO, CloudForecast | 1.55 | 11 |
| 75 | Helen Ryles Head of Customer Success, Transistor.fm | 1.55 | 11 |
| 76 | Philippe Lehoux Co-Founder & CEO, Missive | 1.5 | 12 |
| 77 | Harris Kenny Founder & President, OutboundSync | 1.5 | 34 |
| 78 | Pierre DeWulf Co-Founder, ScrapingBee | 1.5 | 8 |
| 79 | Steli Efti Co-founder & CEO, Close | 1.5 | 12 |
| 80 | Marie Martens Co-Founder, Tally | 1.5 | 10 |
| 81 | Grant McConaughey Founder and CEO, Postpone | 1.5 | 6 |
| 82 | Alex Theuma Founder, SaaStock | 1.5 | 6 |
| 83 | James Mooring Co-Founder, Astalty | 1.45 | 11 |
| 84 | John Howard Founder & CEO, Slingshot | 1.45 | 11 |
| 85 | Adam Wathen Co-founder & CEO, Tailwind Labs | 1.43 | 7 |
| 86 | Charles Duhigg Contributing Writer, The New Yorker | 1.43 | 7 |
| 87 | Tom Merritt Podcast Host, Daily Tech News Show | 1.38 | 8 |
| 88 | Brian Henderson Founder & CTO, Wash-Dry-Fold POS | 1.33 | 12 |
| 89 | Andy Cabasso Co-founder, Postaga | 1.33 | 6 |
| 90 | Adam McCrea Founder & Developer, Judoscale | 1.33 | 9 |
| 91 | Noah Kagan Founder & CEO, AppSumo | 1.28 | 18 |
| 92 | Noah Tucker Founder, Social Snowball | 1.22 | 9 |
Companies
The most bearish calls
Debate potential is an AI score of how much a statement invites disagreement. Bearish counts tally what was said about a company on the show; they describe the conversation, not the company. Every count opens to the exact tape. full disclaimer →
All 200 companies, funds and products with at least one bearish claim on the record.
Highest debate potential, by year
2026
Vollset predicts Anthropic will inevitably add advertisements to Claude
“Not only are they going to do it, but so is Claude. I guarantee it. You know, they might figure out something clever and do the thing, but like, there's no, there's just not a universe unless Claude get bought by Apple or something. That, that Claude aren't go…”
Ries: LLMs degrade actual capabilities and magnify the Dunning-Kruger effect
“The number one biggest finding, I think, for a use of LLMs is that LLMs cause the Dunning-Kruger effect to be magnified. They convince you that you're more capable than you are at while they degrade your actual capabilities.”
2025
Gall: Building vertical niche SaaS in AI voice is currently the wrong move
“Normally in SaaS, what would you and I recommend to ourselves and to other people? Don't try to be broad for everybody. Find a niche. The niches are big enough. Kill it for one type of customer, then expand. In this, I think it's the exact opposite. So I see a…”
Walling: SaaS Founders Should Not Waste Time Building an Audience
“Don't grow an audience if you want to build a SaaS. Grow an audience if you want to do books and courses and sell events and do all the stuff I do. But if you're going to do a SaaS, there's so many better ways to spend your time, so many better marketing appro…”
2024
Walling: Jason Fried and DHH's advice fails 99.9% of startups
“Jason Fried and DHH are tiny seed mentors. They invested in our first fund. So I'm not throwing shade at them, but I'm saying they often give advice that fits them really well and worked for them that I think it won't work for 999 out of the next thousand star…”
Walling: Twitter will be acquired at a deep discount in 2024
“The second prediction I want to touch on is I predicted that Twitter changes hands in twenty-twenty-four, question mark? And I don't know about you, but does it feel like the writing's on the wall? That Twitter is gonna be snapped up by someone at a deep disco…”
2023
Privacy purists on forums are 'assholes' about bulk email being spam
“There are privacy purists on the internet who say anytime any bulk email is spam, and they're just assholes about it, you know, and we would get this complaint all the time, and we'd have these people who were either, they were so far off in their perception o…”
2022
Walling: Basecamp's anti-VC dogmatism harmed new entrepreneurs
“I think they may have long-term done some damage. I think by making it such a religious thing, like they, you know, they used to say like, well, bootstrap will never take funding. Anyone who takes funding is XYZ. They also would say like, we don't split tests.…”
Vollset: Media Outrage Over Twitter Stems From Journalists Losing Privileged Status
“My honest to God view on this, and it may be deeply cynical, is that I think what has happened, the reason why there's so much heat and so much drama around this is because Two journalists, Twitter's very, very important, and they had a very special status und…”
2021
2020
Taber: Commercial office real estate will never recover
“I believe that commercial office space, real estate will never recover.”
Netterkorn: VC-backed founders crash companies with undisciplined spending and face no consequences
“I would see founders take when they were scaling a company with venture money was that it was really undisciplined and they were just spending cash all over the place. But at the end of the day, it didn't matter because they would end up like crashing the comp…”