why aren't all 7 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
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Stebbings: AI coding startup Lovable adds $2.5 million in ARR weekly
“They're growing, you know, 2.3 to 2.5 million ARR per week.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Stebbings: Lovable maintains over 85% retention, beating ChatGPT
“Their retention is better than chat GPTs at over 85%.”
Opinion
Stebbings: Peak PE buyouts like Anaplan and Coupa will struggle returning value
“I'm really looking at a lot of the PE board assets, your Anaplans, your Coopers of the world thinking, wow, you were bought at the height of the market. You don't have the founder as the CEO. You've lost product centricity. This is going to be a really tough s…”
Insight
Stebbings: Unprofitable $50M–$200M ARR SaaS growing in the teens are completely trapped
“Fifty million to two hundred million ARR SaaS businesses that are growing in the teens. And they're not profitable yet, or they're barely profitable. They are not acquisition targets for PE. Those are not good enough numbers. They're not good enough to IPO.”
Prediction Held up
Stebbings: Endowment pullbacks will severely reduce new VC fund managers in 2025
“When I speak to a lot of endowments today, they're simply not adding new managers, and they're even trimming their existing, and so I think that's bluntly gonna really impact the amount of new managers that we see this year.”
Opinion
Stebbings: The European tech ecosystem is fully united as a block
“I would say that Europe has solidified completely. There's definitely not this kind of isolationist element of like, oh, Spanish versus Italian versus whatever. And Jesus, even the English and the French are getting on these days. That goes to show just how mu…”
Opinion
Stebbings: Defense AI startup Helsing is the European equivalent of Anduril
“It's funny you said there about like the Andrew of Europe, it's Helsing. And my favorite thing is when you see defense funds and you're like, no, no, I don't quite know if defense is quite the category. It's more like Andrew and Helsing.”