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.
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Logan Bartlett predicts tariff-induced corporate paralysis will trigger a US recession
“I think people are going to be stuck in this state of paralysis a little bit of like, what do we actually do right now? And inherently, I think that becomes self-fulfilling in the way that it's going to lead to a recession for us. I hope, again, I hope I'm wro…”
Logan Bartlett argues the Democratic Party is anti-growth and anti-capitalism
“If you look Democrats have been very anti-growth and anti-capitalism in a meaningful way. And I think it was just kind of embarrassing in some ways to be extolling the virtues or pushing back too much over the course of the last couple months, because it was s…”
Bartlett: Sovereign wealth replaced pensions and endowments in mega VC funds
“I think if you talk to smart endowments or pension plans or stuff, they, they've definitely as fund sizes have gotten to three, four, five, six billion dollars. Like those people have raised eyebrows and maybe voted with their feet to either scale down or walk…”
Bartlett: VCs avoided real reckoning for 2021 excesses
“It feels like there wasn't A ton of reckoning for sins that were made in 2022 1021. It feels like people were able to get a mulligan and say, Hey, you know what? Like, yeah, we got a little crazy, but now we've really doubled down and focused on what it is tha…”
Bartlett: LP prisoner's dilemma keeps private startup prices elevated
“Now we're at this prisoner's dilemma where it would be theoretically a great time for everyone to lean in if other people backed out because then prices would depress, but everyone's staying in. And so it's actually leading to prices staying elevated”
Bartlett: OpenAI Should IPO Soon to Capitalize on Market Demand
“If I were open AI, I would try to get out sooner rather than later. Right. Cause I think there's this demand both from
Institutional and retail to have exposure to some of these things. And if you look, I mean Palantir's where they're trading, and obviously th…”
Megafund 'relievers out of the bullpen' are driving up startup prices
“I've probably seen more of Hey, this fund has a bunch of money and you might not be getting their number one person. It could be their, you know, whatever, their reliever out of the bullpen that's coming in to do the round. And those are the ones that they're …”
Bartlett: Most AI equity value will probably accrue to Big Tech incumbents
“And I think in large part, maybe with the exception of open AI, like the vast majority of the equity value will probably end up accumulating to the Facebooks and the Microsofts and the, you know, the Googles and I guess open AI as well.”
Logan Bartlett expects new US trade tariffs to be a permanent policy
“I do think we probably need to take it literally at this point and assume that this is probably here to stay in some way, shape or form.”
Logan Bartlett: AI hardware supply chains will suffer from tariff disruptions
“There's so many complicated pieces of the puzzle from an AI standpoint that that I think it's going to be hard to disassociate the aggregation that is what's being tariffed into AI. And in talking to people over the weekend that are exposed to these large mode…”
Logan Bartlett praises Bill Ackman for publicly opposing Trump's new tariffs
“But I do think it's interesting to see people like Dan Loeb, or Dan Loeb Bill Ackman break rank and start to come out and really be negative against these tariffs. I mean, we can joke and I have certainly on Twitter About him and changing his views and all thi…”
Bartlett: Early-stage funding is largely uncorrelated with macro conditions
“That said, it does seem pretty uncorrelated what's going on at like a high level macro with the early stage funding environment.”
Bartlett: Institutional VCs still face social stigma selling secondary shares early
“I'm not sure it's totally socially acceptable, at least for the institutional funds to do it. I think it's far easier if you're an angel, people are a little bit more understanding of that”
Bartlett: Private equity firms have institutional moats preventing spin-out competitors
“So if you're a private equity firm, if you're Apollo, or Blackstone, or BlackRock, or whoever it is, right, and you're this big entity the people within your firm can't really leave and compete with you, because there's so much institutional infrastructure aro…”
Bartlett: Individual VCs can easily spin out and raise $100M-$400M funds
“In venture, it's so beholden, I think, at least to individuals and individuals can walk out the door and they can go raise a 102 103 104 hundred million dollars. And like, effectively compete with you in some way, shape or form.”
Bartlett: AI-native startups will create hundreds of billions in equity value
“But I still think we'll end up with hundreds of billions of dollars of equity value created for, you know, the derivative companies akin to the, Yeah. To the Ubers and the WhatsApps and whoever else.”
Bartlett: Apple's secretive, cautious culture is antithetical to AI development
“But it just feels Antithetical to Apple's culture to execute on AI in the way that I think you need to they are very like measure measured 35 times and cut once and let's do this all secretively and let's like try to control the ecosystem and keep everything l…”
Bartlett: Over-optimizing startup entry price signals doubt about ultimate outcome
“What I've realized is like price very rarely within some zone has mattered. And when I find myself iterating a little too much on on like, oh, I'll do it at this price versus that price. It probably says something about what I think the ultimate outcome for th…”
Logan Bartlett: VCs will keep investing despite downturn due to cash reserves
“And so I do think with the war chest that a lot of the venture firms have right now, I think it's going to take a while before people actually stop dancing. I think everyone's going to convince themselves, at least in the near term, that this is a good buying …”
Logan Bartlett predicts market capitulation will take several quarters to manifest
“And so my guess is it's probably going to take a couple quarters before anyone starts to capitulate that maybe this is the new normal, particularly given how manic the market has kind of been and the decision seems to have been.”
Logan Bartlett: Blue-chip VC firms prohibit LPs from cherry-picking fund vintages
“If you leave a firm, then they don't let you back in the next fund. Like you don't get the cherry pick. Okay. I'm going to be a part of this vintage but not that vintage for the most part with the blue chip names.”
Logan Bartlett: Wiz successfully controlled the media narrative after rejecting Google
“What was interesting in that Wiz announcement when they announced that they were going their own and not going to be bought by Google, was like, everything that they said was then reported on the media in the media because of the leaked memo. And so they got t…”
Logan Bartlett: Pete Hegseth benefits most from tariffs dominating the news
“You know the big winner in tariffs right now is Pete Hegseth, man. I we were all, we were talking about last week. Signal this, signal that. Is he in? Is he out? And now that is a long since forgotten thing. So I if there's anyone that I think deserves credit …”
Bartlett: Macro uncertainty will significantly impact software customers and asset pricing
“And while it's not going to impact software companies or technology companies quite as much directly, like the end customers for a lot of these different businesses are going to be impacted in a meaningful way. And so until we get a little bit more clarity on …”
Bartlett: Morgan Stanley conference saw most negative market sentiment since COVID
“I heard some Morgan Stanley equity research person said that coming out of their conference, which is a week ago, they said it was the most negative sentiment that he had heard. I think with the exception of the onset of COVID in the last 10 years from people …”
Bartlett: Public software firms are adopting private equity efficiency playbooks
“If you look at the big software private equity folks, the Vistas and the Toma Bravos of the world, like they've been doing this for the last, It's 1015 years. I just think it wasn't something that people really tried to do in the public markets, and now we're …”
Bartlett: Post-ZIRP venture market hollowed out tier-two funds
“There was really a triaging or kind of a hollowing out of the middle that occurred, or maybe the tier B if you will, a tier two funds where you saw a handful of those folks blow up or really struggle with their fundraisers in some way.”
Bartlett: Cycle Peaks Drive Heavy SPV Formation for Outsized Checks
“This is a common phenomenon at the, not the end, but at the peak of a lot of cycles is you end up with a lot of these SPVs getting
Formed in a meaningful way. And you end up with managers trying to get write bigger checks for rounds than their funds can actual…”
Bartlett: Founders now prioritize individual board partners over firm brands
“It feels like we've rotated a little bit more back to like, who is my individual board member? Who is going to be on the ground with me day to day? Like I'm going to solve for that person rather than the soul, like just the brain past a certain point, right? L…”
Bartlett: Redpoint invested in Ramp at an $8B+ valuation in late 2021
“That round that we ended up investing in at whatever, eight billion or eight and a half or whatever it was what's a couple hundred million among friends. But I that was like, December, 21 when we were talking about it, and then the round ultimately closed in J…”