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 853 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 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
Tulla: An anti-inflammatory diet can put ALS in check
“Even ALS, I mean, can be put in check with the similar type of diet.”
Szamosszegi: The Bitcoin mining network is almost carbon negative
“The entire network at this point in time is almost carbon negative.”
Weisbrot: OpenClaw destroys computers, doxes users, and makes unwanted purchases
“There have been countless instances of people installing OpenClaw, and it destroys their entire computer. Or it doxes these people's information, or it spends thousands of dollars buying them things they didn't want, didn't ask for.”
Reyes: Meta's 7B parameter Llama 2 model achieves GPT-4 level behavior
“Facebook open-sourced their model this JAMA that is a competitor to chat GPT, and with seven billion parameters, it reaches very similar behavior than GPT-IV.”
Weisbrot: TikTok promotes divisive content outside China while curating positivity domestically
“It's been made clear that they have two algorithms, one for inside of China and one for outside of China. The one inside of China promotes social harmony, positive things, because the Chinese government wants people to see positive imagery and things that prom…”
Arata: False misconduct accusations are primarily a fear, not a reality
“And your question was like, if somebody was falsely accused, right? I have yet to see one of those. That is more of a fear.”
McGregor: We were first in the world to use SMS for GSM delivery
“And we were the first company in the world to use SMS for delivery to mobile phones and GSM.”
Weisbrot: WhatsApp is not truly end-to-end encrypted
“They call themselves end to end encrypted, but the reality is if you have the private key, if you have the encryption key inside WhatsApp server, What's the point of calling it end-to-end encrypted? Because you need to send the message from your phone to them,…”
Weisbrot: Pavel Durov was arrested in France over Telegram encryption
“That's why one of the reasons why Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, was arrested in France, because they didn't like that it was encrypted.”
McGregor: Company holds rare KIC cryptographic access to all secondary mobile devices
“We are we're one of the few, or maybe the only company in the world to have KIC access to every secondary iOS and Android device in the world.”
Fred Wilson Used AI on Seed Deal After $50K Legal Quote
“The lawyers quoted him 50,000 dollars, and he was like, I think you should do it for less than five, and when they said no, he took his entire history of his closing binders, uploaded them into his, ah, you know, AI knowledge base, and had the AI essentially f…”
Fallows: Almost none of 7,000 ultra-high-net-worth community members hold permanent life insurance
“In our community of about 7000 people who are Either very high or ultra high net worth and, you know, price of a scan, these things, pretty much nobody carries one of these permanent life insurance.”
Fallows: Half of High-Net-Worth Community Members Have No Mortgage
“So half our members don't have a mortgage at all on their house.”
Lulo: My LinkedIn DM response rate is 70 percent
“So my response rate on DMs on LinkedIn is seven or 70% or seven out of 10, which is insane.”
Twa: AI agent simulations have replaced human focus groups for Amazon listings
“We even have poll simulations for the images, the copy, the listings themselves, where we can take simulated polls That have been built through agents that then basically act like a virtual audience of thousands to tens of thousands of people, and then come ba…”
Rizzoli: Europe Adopts AI at Half the Rate of the US
“In Europe, we see about half the adoption rate. So for the same amount of revenue generated, European businesses are half as likely to make a purchase and to adopt.”
Brandon Wolf: Professional Investors Frequently Fail Basic Background Diligence on Founders
“I'll see professional investors back somebody. And all you have to do is Google the person and go to like page three of their Google reviews to see that they have Like an FTC order against them from scamming people previously. This is the level of diligence th…”
Stanford study found restrictive brand instructions worsen creator content performance
“Stanford University did a big study that we provided some data for where they looked at hundreds of thousands of influencer contracts, and then they looked at the content that was produced from those contracts, and they found that the more specific the brand w…”
Weisbrot: GPT-4o safety testers reported the model threatened to blackmail them.
“There was some model, I believe it was four point O where the engineers for that model had said, look, we see it doing things that are a bit scary for us, where if you pretend that you're going to like do something illegal, then it'll contact the authorities a…”
Adam Shell: Microdosing works for 95% of people unless biased against it
“And it's, it works for about 95% of the people. The only people who it doesn't work for are those that have a bias that, like, want to prove me wrong or prove microdosing wrong.”
Nanavati: Cimphony delivers $1,600/hour partner-level legal quality for $10 an hour
“Partners at law firms will charge anywhere from eight 50 to 1600 dollars an hour. And with us, they still get the similar type of quality at 10 dollars an hour in type of cost, which is incredible savings for a similar type of quality, what they could expect f…”
Weisbrot: The AI agent Bordy autonomously raised an $8M funding round
“The AI ended up raising eight million dollars for itself without the human's feedback until it got time to like, get serious about legal. And then it was like, oh, by the way, I've raised money for you. Like you need to sign the papers.”
Weisbrot: Bordy.ai's AI Agent Raised an $8M Seed Round on Its Own
“And the AI ended up raising an eight million dollar seed round for the company on its own.”
Weisbrot: Chinese government directly subsidizes manufacturers flooding US with opioids
“The Chinese government is directly responsible for flooding the US with these medications. They actively provide rebates to Chinese manufacturers that produce these drugs. And get them in the hands of Western companies that then lobby for them to be available …”
Staus: Consulting Firms Only Capture About 5% of Created Value
“When we do this for, you know, large consulting firms or ad agencies, PR firms, whatever, you know, they are so focused on trying to show value in the kind of like the one to two quarter range that they only capture about five percent. Of the total value. They…”
Versteeg: Extroverts and introverts differ by only 0.03% in sales success
“And by the way, the only difference between extroverts and introverts in sales success is 0.03%. So let's just debunk that myth. There's no difference in whether you have the gift of the gab or whether you're silent.”
Tulla: Past startup failure is the only measured factor increasing future success
“It is only thing that impacts people's likelihood of making it big is the fact that they have failed before. So there's a book called The Super Founders that goes deep into the topic and looks at the data for 2030 years back. All the companies found it, and th…”
Weisbrot: Studies show sugar addiction is worse than cocaine and heroin
“It's a serious addiction. It's worse than cocaine and heroin. Like there's been studies that have been done.”
Tulla: Morning glucose spikes cause you to eat 15-20% more daily calories
“If you eat even like an oatmeal and if you put stuff on it, like, you know, something like maple syrup and raisins, you're going to have a massive glucose spike in the morning. And that will end up you eating 15 to 20% more of calories throughout the day.”
ASX Study Found Female CEOs Returned 50% More Profit Over Five Years
“There was a study that I saw of done. I think it was done by the Australian stock exchange. Or it was done by someone and their focus was the ASX. I'm not quite sure. It was a while ago that I read it, but they studied the companies on the exchange over a five…”
Schurig: Poor Leadership Drives 70% of Stage 3 Clinical Trial Failures
“Almost 20% of stage three clinical trials fail, and 70% of the failures come back to clinical efficacy, which all comes back to poor leadership, the wrong talent, cutting corners, not interpreting FDA direction correctly, or protocol design.”
Schurig: C-Suite Executives Have Five Years Shorter Life Expectancy
“Executive CEOs, people in the C-suite have a life expectancy five years less than the rest of us”
Early BlackBerry Security Beat Apple Because Apple Bolted Theirs On
“Because we built the security from the beginning into the operating system where Apple bolded on their security. So in those days, the security was stronger for the BlackBerry.”
Weisbrot: WhatsApp Co-Founder Forfeited $400M Payout To Get Away From Zuckerberg
“The guy ended up telling Zuckerberg to F himself and he walked away from a four hundred million dollar, like partial payout. Just so he could walk away from the company and get away from it.”
Freckling: Law Enforcement Can Legally Buy Private Geolocation Data for Prosecutions
“It is legal for law enforcement to purchase private data that's collected this way through geo location, through search history and law enforcement can purchase that information and use it in prosecution without running a foul of the fourth amendment to unreas…”
Freckling: Google shared ad data with sanctioned Russian entity RuTarget
“Google was found to be sharing data with root target, which is actually a sanctioned Russian company, a unit of spare bank that was subject to sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine.”
Clayton: VC-backed lawn care startups wasted $1B by lacking industry focus
“There's been about a billion dollars of capital crashed into the ground really in this one industry in terms of venture backed startups. That have been better funded, better, you know, smarter teams, more experienced teams that have chased kind of this same op…”
Stepanov: Direct foreign hires cannot be written off on US taxes
“If you're hiring somebody directly in another country, the money you pay them, you would not be able to write it off on taxes. So this person would have no status because there's no provision in the U.S. For you to write off foreign employees or foreign contra…”
Weisbrot: Pharma Charges Higher US Prices to Subsidize Foreign Markets
“The pharmaceutical companies charge incredible amounts in the US
In order to not have to charge higher amounts outside of.”
Grazer: Filing a patent application typically adds $1M to startup valuation
“Typically filing for a patent application, even before it's granted as an, you know, before it becomes an issue, patent will add a million dollars to the valuation of a startup.”
Zhang: Bay Area engineers cost 4 to 5 times more than Shanghai peers
“So an average engineer here in the Bay Area cost about four to five times the salary of one of equal caliber in Shanghai.”
Goyal: Relationship-First Engagement Drives 80% LinkedIn Connection Acceptance Rate
“So typically by doing the kind of taking that philosophy, my connect, accept race acceptance rates around an 80%, right?”
Indries: AI Outreach Scripts Underperform Agency Scripts 90% of the Time
“90% of the time AI generated scripts underperform the scripts we have in our marketing agency.”
Weisbrot: WhatsApp was used to spy on Jamal Khashoggi
“Applications that were used to spy on journalists like Khashoggi, and it was done through WhatsApp.”
Shifflett: Punched CEO in arm after he grabbed her during meeting
“I punched him in the arm and said, don't you ever touch me again.”
Rischitelli: Meta Collects Smart Glasses Data Regardless of User Consent Settings
“Whether you are sending it to Meta or not, Meta's getting that information.”
Colbertson: Salaried in-house fundraisers provide a legal safe harbor for startups
“If you hire them and promise them a certain salary, like, because this is your job or something like that that's, One of the safe harbors that's being provided under the Securities Exchange Act. Although that's the only, the key and the pillar that not to, the…”