Burn the Ladder

Every number we use, and where it came from.

Career advice is full of statistics nobody can trace. A percentage gets quoted in a LinkedIn post, picked up by a blog, cited by a newsletter, and eighteen months later it’s a fact with no origin.

We don’t do that. Every figure in this product has a source, that source is linked, and you can go and check it right now.

192 citations. 108 sources. Every lecture that makes a factual claim cites it — 45 of 54. The nine that don’t are practice drills and templates that assert nothing.

Two checks, not one.

Anyone can paste a link. We check twice:

One — the link resolves. It goes somewhere, and that somewhere is the document we say it is. Every URL on this page was last checked on 24 August 2026.

Two — the source actually says it. This is the one that gets skipped. A link to a 40-page report proves nothing if the number isn’t in the report. Two links in our original research pointed at real documents that did not support the claim we’d attached to them. Both claims were cut.

Where we cite a statute, we give you the section number and the date it took effect, not a summary of what someone thinks it says.

Every source carries the date we checked it.

Pay law changes fast, and a lot of career advice is quietly out of date. Colorado’s AI hiring law was repealed before it ever took effect. The EU’s employment provisions got pushed to 2027. California’s definition of “pay scale” changed on 1 January 2026.

So every claim we make about a law gives you the section number and the date it took effect, and every source on this page carries the date we last checked it. If something below has gone stale, you’ll be able to see it rather than having to guess.

Found something we got wrong?

Send it. A link, a claim, and what’s wrong with it. If you’re right, we fix it.

report@burntheladder.org

108 sources behind the claims.

Plus 8 tools we point you at, which prove nothing and aren’t counted. Sorted by publisher.

Tools we point you at — not evidence

These are products we mention. They aren’t evidence for anything and they are not included in the 108.