Michael Lewis

Author & Financial Journalist · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

authorjournalisthostmichaellewiswrites.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Michael Lewis is a bestselling narrative nonfiction author known for examining finance, decision-making, and sports in books such as Liar's Poker and Moneyball. Multiple of his books have been adapted into Academy Award-winning and nominated films.

13statements → 8claims → 5claims resolved → 60%fully supported → 3.85/5average certainty → 1.85/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 8said about them ↓

3 supported 1 partly supported 1 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 8 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 7 assertions · 1 opinion · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 8 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Michael argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Lewis: 30% of prospective smart speaker buyers abstain over privacy

“The 30% of the people who are interested in buying a smart speaker have not done so because of privacy concerns.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 17:06 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Their most notable contradicted claim

Prediction Didn’t hold up

Lewis: Mycroft Mark II Won't Ship Until Q2 or Q3 2021

“We're not due to really ship it, I think, until the second or third quarter next year. That's, I think, our realistic timeline.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 5:59 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

0% certainty 3

88% certainty 4

none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Michael Lewis on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said13 What others said8 Episodes1

Everything Michael Lewis said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion

Lewis: Amazon copies and sells every profitable third-party vendor product

“There's basically no vendor who's worked with Amazon that hasn't been screwed over by them. If Amazon finds a product that is making good money, they copy it and they sell it themselves.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 22:13 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Disclosure

Lewis has personally bankrolled Mycroft for the past year

“So for the past year, I've basically been bankrolling the company personally myself.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 12:30 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Assertion Supported

Lewis: 30% of prospective smart speaker buyers abstain over privacy

“The 30% of the people who are interested in buying a smart speaker have not done so because of privacy concerns.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 17:06 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Prediction Didn’t hold up

Lewis: Mycroft Mark II Won't Ship Until Q2 or Q3 2021

“We're not due to really ship it, I think, until the second or third quarter next year. That's, I think, our realistic timeline.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 5:59 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Assertion Supported

Lewis: Mycroft has raised over $5M without institutional capital

“Mycroft over the last five years has raised over five million dollars in crowdfunding and very favorable loans. But we've never raised an institutional round.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 6:58 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Assertion Partly supported

Lewis: Mycroft cap table includes over 1,500 crowdfunding investors

“We have over 1500 investors because we went through a crowdfunding campaign a couple years back.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 8:35 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Assertion Supported

Lewis: Mycroft crowdfunding investors only hold non-voting shares

“First of all, we have two classes of shares. We have voting shares and non-voting shares. So, All this the cohort of the crowdfunding investors are all non-voting shares.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 9:37 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Lewis: Mycroft has held retail talks with Walmart and Target

“We've been in talks with the big you know, the big box retail chains, right? There are people who want to put a privacy respecting solution on their store shelves. You know, we're talking about, you know, Walmart and target and, you know, these companies want …”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 15:52 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Disclosure

Lewis: Mycroft Plans to Partner with OEMs on Voice Technology

“Down the road, we expect to partner with OEMs to provide our assistant technology in their own devices, including smart speakers”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 4:33 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Lewis: Mycroft Mark II Costs About $100 to Produce

“About a hundred bucks right now.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 5:54 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Lewis: Mycroft has 50,000 users and is not actively monetizing them

“We have about 50,000 people who are signed up to our system and are using our system, but we are not actively trying to monetize them yet because, quite frankly, the experience isn't where we want it to be.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 6:22 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Disclosure

Lewis: Mycroft is almost entirely a software platform play

“No it's almost entirely a software play. What we're really promoting here is a platform. Mycroft is promoting a platform.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 13:52 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

Disclosure

Lewis: Mycroft is free to developers and OEMs, monetizing via consumer upgrades

“It's a completely open source system. It's free to developers. It's free to OEMs to integrate into their system. What we charge is the consumers for basically upgrades.”

Michael Lewis Sep 26, 2020 ▶ 23:09 MyCroft Raises $5m to Ship Home Speaker Echo Competitor That Doesnt' Suck In Data

The other half of the tape: Michael Lewis's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 8 times in 6 episodes on Top Founders. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Michael Mandel 2 Benny Schneider 2 Eric Frankel 1 Darren Jer 1 Anindya Datta 1 Aaron Carr 1