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 25 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
Ritesh Agarwal: Projecting confidence without knowing what comes next is entrepreneurship's top skill
“This is the number one competency in entrepreneurship that you have to be confident no matter what, but really you have no idea what's going to happen next.”
Ritesh Agarwal: The concept of legacy is inherently flawed
“You do the best you can, but the concept of legacy is flawed inherently. I think I fully agree with that.”
Agarwal: Indian companies cannot achieve an A credit rating due to sovereign caps
“So if you are an Indian corporation, you may be like any big company, you don't get a rating because your sovereign itself is not rated that.”
Agarwal: 10% of OYO hotels on minimum guarantees drove most losses
“90% of our hotels were revenue share hotels. 10% were minimum guarantee. Those 10% hotels drove most of the losses and 90% of them were highly margin accretive always.”
Ritesh Agarwal: Bangladesh per capita income is highest in South Asia
“The per capita income of Bangladesh is probably the highest in South Asia.”
Agarwal: Team sports athletes make better hires due to competitiveness and collaboration
“The first is, especially we would like to get people from team sports. So we believe that their ability to work with other people and make sure that the team wins rather than individual is better. Pursuit of excellence. Because in sports, you are competitive. …”
Ritesh Agarwal: Lightspeed invests in only 3 to 5 companies annually
“They call themselves as a high conviction investor. So they say that we invest very little, like they would invest in a year, like four, five companies or three, four companies, but in the ones they believe in, they'll move very, very quickly.”
Agarwal: Business is 70% repetitive operations and 30% excitement
“Businesses are inherently boring at some level, right? So you have to make sure that there's a 30% excitement, which is solving a new problem creating a product feature or one of those things. But 70% of it is just ops, right? Like doing the same job a little …”
Agarwal: Thiel Fellowship grants $100k to dropouts with lower acceptance than Ivies
“So Thiel fellowship is one, which is a program started by Peter Thiel, where he gives a 100,000 dollars to 20 people earlier. It used to be age limitation under the age of 20. Acceptance rates are lower than Ivy leagues, but there's one condition. You have to …”
Agarwal: OYO lost 65% of revenue overnight during COVID
“With COVID, 65% of your revenue overnight evaporate.”
Agarwal: OYO is now comfortable growing at 30%
“I think now we've become very comfortable being a 30% growth company. We are happy about it.”
Agarwal: Masayoshi Son's telecom business is probably Japan's most profitable
“Built his own telecom business, which is now probably the most profitable business in Japan and one of the most profitable telecom business in the world in terms of construct.”
Agarwal: Masayoshi Son is fundamentally an entrepreneur first, not an investor
“I think the one unique takeaway that I have personally about Sonsan that I think most of the people have not talked about is people see Sonsan primarily as an investor, financial investor, so on. I think he's at his heart, an entrepreneur first and an investor…”
Ritesh Agarwal worked barefoot in the office until recent years
“I used to at work take off my shoes and go inside for the longest time. And I, at some point of time I changed it, I think three, four years back, but for the longest time people used to sort of, there used to be a joke that, you know, he's at work by just not…”
Agarwal: I never sold secondary shares in OYO for personal liquidity
“I never did secondaries because the purpose and the enthusiasm was so exciting that nothing else mattered in terms of context.”
Agarwal: I have tried to model my business persona on Uday Kotak
“I think as a business person, somebody who at least over the last five years, and I said that I tried to transform myself, especially with the onset of COVID or around that period, four years maybe. I think that is Uday Kotak.”
Agarwal: Naropa Ritesh Fellowship gives equity-free grants to graduates
“And what I have done with them is started a Naropa Ritesh fellowship where we basically, these are mostly hilly terrain kids gotten out of college, want to do something new. So I give them equity free debt free grants because the Thiel fellowship changed my li…”
Agarwal: No Asian resident was selected for the Thiel Fellowship before him
“I think fundamentally post those questions, there was no other Asian resident who had become a fellow before me.”
Agarwal personally handled customer support calls after raising VC funding
“So we had a call center, like most companies, and I used to be the call center person who would pick up calls. That's one call. I make the booking and I still love it because you speak to customers directly. Such an amazing job, right? So even after they inves…”
Agarwal: Lightspeed invested ₹3.5 crore in OYO at an ₹8 crore valuation
“Lightspeed invested, I think, 3.5 crores at a eight crore valuation back then.”
Agarwal: OYO manages 150,000 vacation homes across Europe
“Just in Europe, we managed 150,000 holiday homes. So we have a fairly large business in Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, and few of these geographies.”
Agarwal: OYO raised close to $1.5 billion in total capital
“Yeah, we raised close to a billion and a half dollars.”