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 290 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 5 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
Bhise claims he should have skipped formal education altogether
“I wish I knew that the formal education doesn't have a value in real life. That's about it. I should have skipped formal education altogether.”
Kimla: HubSpot is not a CRM; it is a marketing automation tool
“HubSpot is not a CRM system. First of all, it's a marketing automation tool.”
Latka: VCs Must Sell Ego Stories Because Their Economics Rarely Make Sense
“VCs have to sell the story, like the ego story associated with raising capital.
Otherwise, no one would raise capital because the economics rarely make sense.”
Latka: Apple and Google amplified Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal
“I really believe that Apple, Google, these guys that see Facebook as a threat are doing a great job right now at propping up this Cambridge Analytica scandal.”
John Jonas refuses to use Google Analytics due to distrust of Google
“I don't, I ignore Google Analytics. I don't have Google Analytics on my site. I don't like Google Analytics. I don't like the way it gives data. I don't trust its data. I don't trust Google.”
Latka: Selling SaaS lifetime deals on AppSumo is a stupid strategy
“I think it's the stupidest thing for CEOs of SaaS companies to put deals on AppSumo because Noah's a genius, and he knows if he can convince a SaaS CEO to sell a lifetime subscription, by nature, it's going to get a lot of signups. By the way, it also kills yo…”
Rossler: Demographic targeting is often unimportant for UX testing
“As we've learned from the usability perspective and UX perspective, it's oftentimes not really important who you're testing with.”
Rossler: The biggest future companies will sell to everyone, not niches
“Those that are going to be big in the future are those that are not focusing on a very specific target audience, but those that say, well, our product is so, that's us, it's our product, and we're gonna, we want to sell it to everyone.”
Adams: Constant Facebook Algorithm Changes Will Drive Three-Year Course Retention
“I, I'm confident our customers are going to stay for three years on end, especially in the digital marketing world. Facebook, like Mark Zuckerberg, all the algorithms changing, everyone's heads are exploding. Like Facebook is changing constantly to invest one …”
Google and Facebook do not want the open web to survive
“The Facebook-Google, you know, industrial complex doesn't necessarily want that same internet to exist in the current form. You know, it may be more about Facebook apps on Facebook, or maybe more about Google AMP pages.”
Sheth: RecruiterBox is the best self-serve product and competitors suck
“The competitors suck. I mean, on, in the self-serve category, I think we are the best product.”
Coppinger: Teamwork Was Built Because Basecamp Sucks
“Yeah, well, the reason we made this product is because Basecamp sucks.”
Brunson: The only purpose of a business is making its owners rich
“The only purpose of a business is to make the owners rich. And so like, I kind of believe that, like if you do that, then it creates jobs, it creates all these other things.”
Russo: VCs rejected him for portfolio CEO roles at age 44
“I was too old. I was 44 years old. They were looking for twenty-something guys to run their companies.”
Latka: Starting a company from scratch is the stupidest way to build
“A lot of people think the only way to like build something meaningful is to start a company. It's actually like probably the stupidest way to do it. It's much easier to like find an asset, figure out how to pull it out.”
Modern tech entrepreneurs prioritize quickly flipping companies over building lasting value
“And the class of entrepreneurs we have today, and I don't criticize them for it. Most of them are not building real value in real companies. They're making something, flipping it, and going.”
Nathan Latka: SaaS CEOs who run AppSumo promos are "idiots"
“I think the CEOs that run promos with them are idiots, and I'll tell you why.”
Latka: VCs promote 12-month CAC payback to force startup dependency
“You'll anything that a VC touches or like tech crunch, which they basically use to lobby, they'll articulate and say, yeah, you want a 12 month payback period. Why? Well, if you don't focus on getting your money back instantly, guess whose money you then need …”
Gunderson: Billionaires interviewed in Tony Robbins' book give horrendously bad advice
“He interviews a lot of billionaires, and the billionaires are absolutely giving horrendously bad advice.”
Latka loses respect for CEOs who use x.ai's scheduling bot Amy
“I hate that damn thing. I, when CEO, when I'm trying to schedule someone for my podcast, and they say, meet Amy, and then I very quickly realize Amy's a bot who's not actually helping me find a freaking time. I get so pissed, and I lose complete respect for th…”
Antonopoulos: Most wars start as economic embargoes rather than economic liberalization
“Economic liberalization has been the primary way of reducing conflict and violence around the world, not economic restrictions. In fact, most wars start as economic embargoes and push push populations into extremism.”
Jentzsch: DAO Attacker Is Morally a Thief Despite Exploiting Valid Code
“But from a moral point of view, you did take money, which didn't belong to him. That's why I would call him a thief.”
Jarvis: Open Education Marketplaces Dilute Quality and Lack Authority
“It's not a two-sided marketplace to us that just dilutes the shit out of the landscape. What do you mean by that? Well, some of our competitors where anyone in the world can put up a course. Then you don't have, there's no sort of authenticity or authority. Yo…”
Köppelmann: Bitcoin's fixed-supply model forces a zero-sum global fight
“I'm especially not very convinced of the Bitcoin model, so kind of you have this limited supply, and then kind of the whole world is trying to fight around that”
Intellectual property is a startup's only leverage in Big Tech acquisitions
“Because in the end of the day, once they're about to get acquired by Google or whatever that might be, the only actually tool that they will have in the conversation will be how good IP they have, of course.”
Patent count does not matter for user acquisition compared to market execution
“Like it doesn't, my point is it doesn't matter how many patents you have. You have to out execute in the market to get users.”
Barrett: Formalized Education Is the Biggest Scam Today
“I think that formalized education is the biggest scam that we're facing right now, and I just am horrified by it, and I'm so glad that I didn't get trapped in the massive debt cycle that everyone else does.”
Phil Town: Modern Portfolio Theory Math Caused the 2008 Crash
“And modern portfolio theory math is what happened to the country in 2008. It's the same math that created the giant meltdown in, in mortgage bonds.”
D&B and ZoomInfo are handicapped by relying on inaccurate public data
“All these other sources, whether it's done in Bradstreet or Mattermark or DataFox or, you know, NetProspects or ZoomInfo, these are all really handicapped by the fact that they're relying on publicly available data sources that tend to be very inaccurate.”
Rachleff: Vanguard Is The Only Financial Firm That Puts Clients First
“We think Vanguard is the only company that we know of in financial services that puts its clients first.”
Rachleff: Financial Industry Relies on Abhorrent Fees and Sleight of Hand
“The amount of
sleight of hand and inappropriate fees that are charged by this industry is just abhorrent.”
RocketReach claims 85% accuracy compared to Email Hunter and Data.com
“If you use something like email hunter and data.com, the, you know, the accuracy is going to be around the 40 to 50% mark, whereas ours is 85%.”
Latka criticizes Michael Stelzner's Social Media Marketing World conference
“Michael Stelzner I just think he misses a lot, right? So, I've been to his conference many times, you know, social media marketing world, and it's like just filled with people that are social media consultants”
Latka advises early-stage founders to aggressively copy competitors over inventing categories
“I believe in copying like hell. Anyone who has an ego that thinks they're going to create something new is never going to be successful, in my opinion, right? Especially, I'll take that, especially in the early phases. Once you're an Elon Musk, you can start t…”
Ricotta: Leaning toward Gawker over Thiel on free speech grounds
“You know I, I'd probably fall down more on the free speech side, so I'd probably be more on the gawker side.”
Berman: US-based reviewers produce higher quality leads than offshore workers
“Having an American that actually understands the business model of each client runs through each lead specifically you're going to get a lot more high quality leads than you would You know, having a Filipino that's reviewing a list pulled from, you know, some …”
Latka: Equal equity splits show founders lack courage for tough conversations
“When I hear a founder go like we split at 50 50, all I think is, okay, so you don't have the balls to have the tough conversation with your co-founder about who actually is going to, you know, what you're actually bringing to the table because very rarely is i…”
Entrepreneurs make a huge mistake focusing on just one business
“The reality is as an entrepreneur that that is just going to be a huge mistake, right? I mean, it is too many people out there that frankly just dive into one thing, build it, sell it, move on to something else. I get that, but I'd rather dive into multiple th…”
Dignan: Marketers Push 'Engaging Content' So Startups Fail and Hire Them
“There's a conspiracy among social media marketers. We tell you it's all about having engaging content because then you try it. It doesn't work. And then you hire us.”
Ley: Publicly discussing mass shootings spreads them like a meme
“You don't want to show when someone, when there's a mass shooting, don't talk about it. You're going to spread it. All right. It's a meme.”
Tresidder: Investors do not have to accept constant market risk
“There's a presumption in conventional asset allocation passive approach to investing that you have to accept market risk at all times in order to get a market-based return, and that's simply not true.”
Latka: Raising $20M without sales makes you a fake entrepreneur
“These entrepreneurs, they go out, they can't sell, okay, so they raise twenty million dollars on a hundred million dollar pre-money valuation with no sales. It's ridiculous. They're not real entrepreneurs.”
Jason Hartman argues that buying real estate with cash stifles investor growth
“If you have that cash to put down, then you would be stifling your growth. Because you would be waiting to buy your first single property until you saved up every ounce of cash, and you would have no leverage on that deal. The reason income property is so, so …”
Jason Hartman: 2008 crash victims were idiots speculating in cyclical coastal markets
“The people that got hurt in the crash were idiots that were speculating on
high-rise condos or high-flying properties in cyclical markets, not linear markets that we recommend. They were looking at the sexy markets. They were buying stuff in California, South…”
Jason Hartman claims half of all podcast download numbers are faked
“Most podcasters are worried about their downloads and their downloads are, half of them are fake because they're Twitter bombing their downloads.”
Derek Capo: Activist hedge fund strategies harm businesses long-term
“And the thing is that actually hurts the businesses in the longterm, like really hurts the businesses in the longterm. And I think yeah, you know, makes their investors money and stuff. But at the end of the day, it actually hurts future shareholders.”