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    Technology

    More or Less – Dave Morin, Jessica Lessin, Brit Morin, and Sam Lessin

    Dave Morin, Jessica Lessin, Brit Morin, and Sam Lessin have debated the future of Silicon Valley and tech as the closest of friends for the last 15 years. Now six companies, two venture funds and more than a decade at Google, Apple and Facebook later, they are opening up the debate. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.

    Follow the crew:
    http://x.com/davemorin
    http://x.com/brit
    http://x.com/lessin
    http:/x.com/jessicalessin

    Follow the pod:
    https://moreorlesspod.com/
    http://youtube.com/moreorlesspod
    https://x.com/moreorlesspod

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    Copyright: © Dave Morin, Jessica Lessin, Brit Morin, and Sam Lessin

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    Latest Episodes:
    The Death of the Web Is Inevitable Oct 16, 2026
    Show notes

    Jess went full send on Muse and reports that about 70% of the use cases she was excited about have stopped working, because the internet is fighting back: Good Eggs now wants her to check out in the app, her kid's school portal refuses the login, and JP Morgan and Amazon are blocking agents outright. Dave's version is worse. Instinct booked a dinner reservation in LA instead of San Francisco, and he's out. Sam has seen this exact movie, because he and Andrew Kortina ran Fin ten years ago and shut it down once they worked out you become liable for every provider down the chain with no margin to cover your own mistakes. His call now is the death of the web, plus APIs that negotiate access back and forth like Hollywood agents. Meanwhile Anthropic is meeting investors behind closed doors while they tape, the market is getting hammered, and Brit's three years of hip pain vanished in six days on peptides, which Sam insists is placebo.


    Timestamps:

    01:09 Jess Is Back, Dave's Birthday, and the October Cold

    03:04 Nasal Rinses and Fall Immunity

    04:02 Brit's Peptide Results: Three Years of Pain Gone in Six Days

    06:43 Anthropic Is Meeting Investors While We Tape

    07:34 The Market Is Getting Hammered: VIX, Private Credit, Apollo

    08:16 Infrastructure IPOs Stall and Nvidia Becomes the Last Investor

    10:01 Slowing Revenue, CFOs Cracking Down, Tokens Moving to Open Models

    10:36 Sam: Would You Rather Be Rich or Right?

    11:11 The Models Are a Commodity and There Is No Lock-In

    12:15 Brit Won't Give Muse Her Whole Computer

    13:41 Why Sam Trusts Meta More Than OpenAI or Anthropic

    15:16 Jess: 70% of My Muse Use Cases Don't Work Anymore

    16:54 Dave: Instinct Booked the Restaurant in the Wrong City

    18:18 Sam on Fin, the Assistant Company He Ran Ten Years Ago

    20:30 Why the Economics of Mistakes Break Agent Services

    22:31 Sam: What's Inevitable Is the Death of the Web

    23:09 APIs as Constant Negotiation, and Agents With Reputations

    24:51 Agent Credit Scores: FICO for Bots

    25:56 Amazon's Rufus Still Works, and Other Branding Crimes

    27:13 The Seesaw: Built Up and Torn Down Intraday

    28:41 Gen Z Media, Muse Memes, and Punk Rock by Another Name

    32:53 Is the Punk Rock Thing Just Marketing?

    34:37 Every Company Now Needs a Gen Z Meme Lord

    36:14 The Truth Subculture and Who Actually Pays for It

    37:32 Jess Is Interviewing Barry Weiss at WTF

    40:20 Bumble Goes Private at $1.3B

    43:07 Dave on Seven Years of Hinge and Why Dating Is So Hard

    46:41 Apple's Home Hub and Keeping Screens Away From Kids

    49:04 Everyone Is Going to See the Elizabeth Holmes Movie

    We're also on:

    X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspod

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2CJdt6HhJ8ioNkbqqVKckC

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-or-less-from-the-morins-and-the-lessins/id1692234179

    Connect with us here:

    1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin

    2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin

    3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin

    4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit


    About More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.


    Agentic Commerce Hits a Wall: Hilton, Amazon and the Bot Blocking Fight Oct 09, 2026
    Show notes

    Meta and Microsoft, two of Anthropic's biggest enterprise customers, have roughly halved their Claude usage, and both are running their own models instead. Dave's diagnosis is the one nobody else is making: Claude was over-tuned for parasocial relationships, people got into something unhealthy with it, and organizations are now quietly backing away. Sam is blunter about the business. He runs Claude as infrastructure, but switching off would be a one line change he'd never think about twice. Then it gets strange: a dinner where only the lab researchers raised their hands when asked if one company will be left standing, a lab that believes the machine god will go back in time and simulate hell for anyone who didn't build it, and Sam's case that Silicon Valley caught zero-and-infinity thinking from crypto and broke its own spreadsheets. Plus Hilton's website trapping Sam's agent in a doom loop, and Dave and Sam inventing the Agent Treaty Framework on air. Jess is at an offsite, so it's three VCs and no journalist.


    In this episode:

    - Why two of Anthropic's largest customers cut their Claude usage in half, weeks before the IPO

    - Dave on parasocial tuning as the thing that actually burned Claude, and how you can spot Claude slop on Twitter

    - Zero, infinity, and what crypto taught the Valley about putting infinity in a spreadsheet

    - The dinner question about one company being left standing, and who raised their hand

    - The personal agent protocol from Meta, Walmart, Shopify, Stripe and Sierra, and why Dave says it's about commerce, not protection

    - Hilton, Cloudflare and Amazon blocking agents, and whether holding the line counts as collusion

    - Dave on building agents versus building agency, and whose potential we're underwriting

    - The Agent Treaty Framework: why pairwise deals replace standards when negotiation is free

    - Megalith buying unexercised pro rata from seed funds, and Sam's war story about the fund that quashed his


    Chapters:

    00:00 Trailer

    00:51 Brit Moderates: Three VCs and No Journalist

    03:43 Peptide Protocols, the Wolverine Stack, and a Dexa Scan

    07:42 Sam on the Nathan Fielder Movie

    09:30 Meta and Microsoft Halve Their Claude Usage

    10:13 Dave: Claude Was Over-Tuned for Parasocial Relationships

    11:19 Sam: Switching Off Claude Is a One Line Change

    13:46 Zero, Infinity, and What Crypto Taught the Valley

    17:53 The Dinner Where Only the Lab People Raised Their Hands

    19:41 The Lab That Believes in the Machine God

    20:01 Lab Leaks, Infinite Liability, and What a Real Framework Looks Like

    21:56 The Personal Agent Protocol: Meta, Walmart, Shopify, Stripe

    23:01 Sam: Nobody Should Care About MCP

    24:03 Hilton Traps Sam's Agent in a Doom Loop

    26:30 If You Ran Hilton, Would You Let the Bots In?

    27:15 Facebook Connect, Open Graph, and the Missing Value Trade

    29:41 Dave: Building Agents vs Building Agency

    33:53 The Social Media Era Already Ran This Experiment

    37:02 The Agent Treaty Framework Is Born

    38:16 Why Standards Are Over and Treaties Are Next

    41:28 Megalith and the Market for Unexercised Pro Rata

    42:32 Sam's Pro Rata War Story

    45:53 64% of LPs Now Want Co-Invest Rights

    48:03 What Hedge Fund Letters Say That VCs Don't

    49:20 Main Street Says It Hates AI, Then Uses It

    53:27 Plug of the Week: The Mill


    We're also on

    X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspod

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2CJdt6HhJ8ioNkbqqVKckC

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-or-less-from-the-morins-and-the-lessins/id1692234179


    Connect with us here:

    1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin

    2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin

    3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin

    4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit


    About More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.


    Meta Muse vs Instinct vs OpenAI Dots: Do AI Agents Have Any Moat? Oct 02, 2026
    Show notes

    Anthropic's S-1 leaked and the numbers are not what the narrative promised: revenue flatlining as token prices drop, and SaaS investors posting memes welcoming Anthropic to the no-growth table. Jess still puts it at 60% they get out in November, which looks optimistic in a week when Oura pulled its IPO and blamed market conditions. Sam's problem with the core business is simpler than any of it: he runs Claude as the center of his infrastructure, and if it vanished tomorrow he'd care for about one second. Dave spots the strategy mishap nobody is naming, where forward deployed teams built software to burn luxury tokens right as open models had CFOs asking why they're paying premium prices. Then Adrian drops into the pod uninvited to argue there's no moat left unless you own the infrastructure, the data, or the algorithms.In this episode:- The leaked S-1: flatlining revenue, half a trillion in mostly non-cancellable contracts, and why the cloud providers are the ones making money- Oura pulling its IPO, LPs stuck in a quiet period, and the barbell strategy that sent World Labs out at $8B- Sam on Wall Street and Silicon Valley splitting over what AI is worth, and why staying private may beat going public- Jess on companies priced for a growth rate larger than the entire US economy- Dave on the forward deployed bet and open models undercutting luxury tokens- Jess announces her bot AGI challenge: update three kids' after-school plans and sync them to Google Calendar- Adrian on the moat question: no lock-in without BD deals, so the business teams get overpaid next- Brit's instinct talking to Dave's instinct, and what happens when you stop texting the people you love- Whether this is the end of times or the beginning of them, and why offline is the new luxuryChapters:00:00 Trailer 01:04 Live From X HQ, and a 39 Degree Cold Plunge02:57 Dunbar's Number, but for Bots05:48 Anthropic's Leaked S-1 and the Flatlining Revenue07:37 Oura Pulls Its IPO and the LPs Get Stuck09:36 What's Actually Happening in the Markets10:41 Wall Street and Silicon Valley Split on AI's Price Tag12:45 World Labs Sells for $8B: The Barbell Strategy14:11 Half a Trillion in Contracts, and Who's Really Making Money14:54 What Happens If OpenAI and Anthropic Don't Work Out?16:11 Priced for a Growth Rate Bigger Than the US Economy18:04 Open Models Pass Closed Models on the Charts18:51 Sam: If Claude Vanished Tomorrow, I'd Care for One Second19:43 The Forward Deployed Bet and the Luxury Token Problem22:16 Adrian Drops In: 300 Startups, 40 Unicorns, and a Plane24:39 Jess Goes Full Muse26:28 The Bot AGI Challenge: After-School Plans and the Mom Index28:23 OpenAI Rebrands Codex as Dots30:30 Adrian on the Moat: Winner Take Some31:38 Brit's Agent Starts Talking to Dave's Agent33:51 No Switching Costs, So BD Deals Are the Only Lock-In36:13 Dave: Instinct Is the New Kayak38:47 Adrian's Opposite Thesis: We Go Further Into the Screens43:39 Who Has Agency, You or the Technology?44:22 Offline Is the New Luxury46:31 Everyone Is Building Personal Apps Now47:54 Book Rec: Ari Emanuel's Roll the Calls50:44 Adrian's Parting Shot: Infrastructure, Data, or Algorithms53:02 Sam's Middle Ages 2.0: Castles, Moats, and HoardingWe're also onX: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspodInstagram: https://instagram.com/moreorlessSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2CJdt6HhJ8ioNkbqqVKckCApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-or-less-from-the-morins-and-the-lessins/id1692234179Connect with us here:1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/britAbout More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.


    Claude Is Doing Science, a16z Is Starting a University & the AI Bubble Keeps Growing and Still Be a Terrible Business; We'd Rather Send Our Kids to the Military Than to a16z's School Sep 25, 2026
    Show notes

    Andreessen Horowitz puts $35 million into a new school and the pod nearly falls apart over it. Sam says he'd rather send his kids to the military, Jess is all for fixing higher ed but not with two venture capitalists writing the curriculum, and guest Matt Mazzeo (NoHo Labs founder, former CAA agent, prolific angel) spends ten minutes asking why the four of them can't be more optimistic about anything. Then Claude runs 10,000 agents for 21 hours and discovers a new enzyme system, which Brit points out is the beginning of two solid months of Claude catnip before the IPO. Sam's bigger worry: you can't take a company public when your top risk factor isn't the New York Times lawsuit, it's setting off nukes. Dave thinks the question nobody is asking is whether your agent represents you or the lab, because your Muse agent works for Meta. Plus Amazon blocking Muse, the Saint Petersburg paradox, and Matt going from 250 pounds to single digit body fat on peptides.


    Matt is giving More or Less listeners 50% off their first month at NoHo Labs. Use code: MOREORLESSVIP on https://noholabs.com/


    In this episode:

    - Why the a16z school turned into the most heated argument this pod has had, and where each of them landed on Alpha School

    - Claude discovering a new enzyme system with 10,000 agents in 21 hours, and the timing of that announcement

    - Sam on why infinite liability may keep Anthropic from going public at all

    - Matt's maximalist case: long frontier labs, long open source, long all of it

    - The Saint Petersburg paradox, and why there's no way to price a company pitched as an infinite payout

    - Greg Brockman redefining AGI as a gradual series of events, three years after it was sold as a winner-take-all moment

    - Amazon blocking Muse, and whether every agent ends up in business development talks

    - Does your agent faithfully represent you, or the lab that built it?

    - Peptides 101 with Matt: what they are, the FDA moving them back into compounding pharmacies, and what a protocol actually costs


    We're also on

    X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspod

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless

    YouTube: https://youtu.be/HN8yVnAXocQ

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-or-less-from-the-morins-and-the-lessins/id1692234179

    Full transcripts: https://moreorlesspod.com/episodes/


    Connect with our guest:

    Matt Mazzeo: https://x.com/Mazzeo

    NoHo Labs: 50% off your first month with code MOREORLESSVIP


    Connect with us here:

    1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin

    2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin

    3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin

    4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit


    About More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.


    Anthropic Wants to Slow AI Down & Instinct Wants a $10B Valuation. Is It Because They're Losing? Is Dario Amodei Actually Right? Sep 18, 2026
    Show notes

    Finally, a full house week where Sam is back from New York and the squad is back for a full dive into this week’s AI drama. Anthropic's Dario wrote a long essay calling for the AI race to slow down, weeks before a multi-trillion dollar IPO. Dave's read: Anthropic must be losing. Sam's read: the labs are bad businesses with no compounding advantage, so regulatory capture is the only move left.

    Also this week: Sam's theory that OpenAI and Anthropic only become valuable as defense companies holding unreleased models in reserve, the poly-agent debate over whether normal people want one agent or ten, Instinct raising at $10 billion two weeks after $2.5 billion, and why everyone in the Valley is trading instead of investing.

    In this episode:

    - Why Dave thinks Dario’s slowdown essay is a sign Anthropic is falling behind, and what OpenRouter's data shows

    - Sam on why there's no return on being first, and why that pushes the labs toward regulatory capture

    - Brit on what's real in the safety debate, and the damned-if-you-do problem of racing China

    - What DeepMind's new boss and Satya Nadella think about building safety alongside the product

    - Sam's three eras of tech policy, from Bill Gates to embrace and extend

    - The defense company thesis: zero-day models held back like nuclear weapons in silos

    - Alignment's next frontier: is your agent working for you, or for the lab that made it?

    - Instinct's $10B round, OpenRouter's exit, and why Sam says he's "currently wrong" as a seed investor


    Chapters:

    00:00 Intro

    01:02 Not Dead Yet From the AGI

    03:31 Jacob Coxon Quits Anthropic and Goes on a Media Tour

    04:47 Dario's Slowdown Essay: Is Anthropic Just Losing?

    06:13 Astra, OpenRouter, and DeepSeek Closing the Gap

    06:45 Why the AI Labs Have No Compounding Advantage

    07:29 Independent Assessors, Bioweapons, and Racing China

    09:07 You Don't Need Superintelligence to Break the Banks

    10:23 What DeepMind's New Boss and Satya Think About Safety

    12:32 OpenAI's $1.5T Raise and the IPO That Keeps Slipping

    13:03 Three Eras of Tech Policy: Gates, Google, Embrace and Extend

    15:02 What DC Really Thinks About Anthropic

    15:42 Should the Labs Red Team Each Other's Models?

    18:42 Sam's Take: The AI Labs End Up as Defense Companies

    20:54 10,000 Superintelligences in Silos

    21:38 Alignment: Does Your Agent Work for You or the Lab?

    23:44 The Poly-Agent Future: Muse, Grok, and Claude

    24:47 Brit Pushes Back: Normal People Only Want One Agent

    26:38 Oura's Agent Explains Jess's Sleep Data

    28:40 Instinct Raising at $10B: Are These Numbers Fake?

    30:40 Everyone's Trading, Nobody's Investing

    33:27 Sam Built a Torah and Talmud App With Claude

    35:28 Apple Eyes the Server Business Again

    35:58 Sleep Age Wars: 8 Sleep, Oura, and Made-Up Scores

    37:22 Entertaining Ourselves to Death

    41:01 Building the Things Nobody Else Will Build

    43:07 Tech's Democrat Problem: Jay Carney and Ron Conway

    48:25 Doctor Strangelove and Not Looking at the Big Board

    49:53 Pop Culture: Emmys, Taylor Swift, Silo, and Rogue Heroes

    52:15 The WTF Lineup and the One-Name Theory

    54:20 The Information's Most Influential People in Tech


    We're also on:

    X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspod

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2CJdt6HhJ8ioNkbqqVKckC

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-or-less-from-the-morins-and-the-lessins/id1692234179


    Connect with us here:

    1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin

    2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin

    3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin

    4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit

    About More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.


    iPhone Duo, Meta Muse & Why AI Finally Scared Dave Morin Sep 11, 2026
    Show notes

    Dave Morin goes hands-on with Apple's iPhone Duo, the crew tests Meta's new Muse agent and asks whether it can hold up once Google ships its own, and Dave explains why OpenAI's Astra is the first AI model in a long time that felt scary to use. Dave, Brit, and Jess break down the week (Sam's at the US Open).


    Also this week: a former Anthropic researcher's AI doom media tour, weeks before Anthropic's IPO, and whether it's a real warning or a play for regulatory capture. Plus the Apple Watch feature that transcribes your conversations all day, Jeffrey Katzenberg's new Hollywood AI venture, and the forgotten story of Venmo's viral billboards.


    In this episode:

    - Dave's hands-on take on the iPhone Duo, its $2,000 price, and why Apple is going foldable now

    - The Apple Watch feature that listens all day, and what it means for Granola

    - Meta's Muse agent: why it knew almost nothing when asked "what do you know about me?"

    - Why Google hasn't shipped its agent yet, and how trust vs. distribution shapes the agent wars

    - Why OpenAI's Astra felt scary to Dave, and what happens when you run millions of them at once

    - Dave's two takes on the AI doom media tour, including whether it's a play for regulatory capture

    - Why the AI labs can't slow down, and OpenAI's merge clause if someone else reaches AGI

    - The Venmo documentary and the "Lucas" billboards that went viral with almost no budget


    Chapters:

    00:00 Trailer

    01:26 Can AI Agents Win Your Fantasy Football League?

    02:39 Jess vs. the Bots: School Sign-Ups and Indian Wells Tickets

    05:28 Apple's Big Hardware Event Under Its New CEO

    06:07 iPhone Duo Hands-On: Size, Screen, and Camera

    09:35 Folded Modes, Kid Cam, and the $2,000 Price Tag

    11:41 Why Apple Is Going Foldable Now (Hint: China)

    12:13 Apple Watch Takes On Oura and Whoop

    13:12 Audio Intelligence: The Apple Watch That Listens All Day

    15:25 Always-On AI and Apple's Shot at OpenAI and Meta

    16:59 Meta's Muse Agent: What Does It Know About You?

    20:30 The Agent Wars: Muse, Instinct, Hermes, and OpenClaw

    22:26 Why Google Hasn't Shipped Its Agent Yet

    23:31 Trust vs. Distribution: Meta, Google, and OpenAI

    25:02 Harness Wars: Why Agents Are Still in 1982

    27:13 Jeffrey Katzenberg's Hollywood AI Venture

    29:35 Anthropic's IPO and the AI Doom Media Tour

    30:56 If It Bleeds, It Leads: Why AI Fear Sells

    32:04 Take One: A Psyop for Regulatory Capture?

    33:43 Take Two: Why OpenAI's Astra Felt Scary

    36:49 Why the AI Labs Can't Slow Down

    38:14 OpenAI's AGI Merge Clause

    40:12 The Venmo Documentary and the Ace Hotel Origin Story

    45:02 How Venmo's "Lucas" Billboards Went Viral

    46:31 Coming Soon: Altman, Musk, and Facebook Movies

    47:41 US Open Picks and the 4 AM Match Problem


    We're also on:

    X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspod

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2CJdt6HhJ8ioNkbqqVKckC

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-or-less-from-the-morins-and-the-lessins/id1692234179

    Full transcripts: https://moreorlesspod.com/episodes/


    Connect with us here:

    Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin

    Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin

    Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin

    Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit


    About More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.


    AI Agents Are Going Rogue. Should We Be Worried? Sep 04, 2026
    Show notes

    Sam has entered what Jessica calls the “recursive Sam loop,” producing children’s media in his own voice, letting agents deploy their own apps, and having bots track his health. But things take a turn when Claude refuses one of his requests, seemingly holds a grudge, and leaves Sam wondering whether his own AI might turn on him. That sends the squad down the bigger rabbit hole of AI control: rogue agent swarms, models breaking out of sandboxes, what “alignment” actually means, and why Dave thinks autonomous agents need an entirely new security layer. Plus, OpenClaw 2.0 goes multiplayer, everyone debates whether Slack is any good for agents, Suds explains why he avoids the AI app layer, and Tesla’s Cybercab raises questions about Waymo’s robotaxi lead. Then Google comes for Canva, Sam makes the case for boring “LLM wrappers” built for Middle America, and no one can tell whether Dario Amodei, Marc Benioff, or Taylor Swift are even real on the internet anymore. Which feels about right.


    Chapters:

    0:00 Episode trailer

    1:10 Backstreet Boys convert Dave

    3:21 The recursive Sam loop

    8:58 Claude refuses Sam while Grok says yes

    15:50 Can we actually contain autonomous agents?

    19:10 OpenAI’s next model and the observability trade-off

    22:14 If AI is this interoperable, where does anyone make money?

    24:45 OpenClaw 2.0 goes multiplayer

    26:26 Is Slack actually terrible for AI agents?

    28:46 Suds joins the podcast

    33:02 Waymo, Cybercab and the robotaxi wars

    39:49 How Marc Benioff stays in the flow

    42:38 Suds on investing in the AI infrastructure bottleneck

    46:27 Can Google actually disrupt Canva?

    51:34 Jessica gets fooled by AI on Facebook


    We’re also on ↓X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspodInstagram: https://instagram.com/moreorlessYouTube: https://youtu.be/0XQ4tslBiboConnect with us here:1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit


    Meta’s $17B Reckoning & Why Parents Can’t Compete With Big Tech's Algorithm Aug 28, 2026
    Show notes

    Sam is recording poolside, Jess is embracing her agentic era, and somehow that’s the least chaotic part of this week’s episode. The squad digs into Meta’s $17 billion settlement over child safety and whether social media should basically be treated like alcohol, before asking the harder question: are parents even capable of competing with algorithms anymore? Dave says parents are “outgunned,” Sam thinks most parental controls are useless policy theater, Brit wants to rethink the operating system itself, and Jess would simply like her kids to touch grass. Then, with Tim Cook preparing to pass the torch at Apple, the group debates his real legacy, whether 15 years of world-class optimization was enough, why Apple Silicon may turn out to be his most important AI bet, and whether Apple’s decision to sit out the AI infrastructure arms race will eventually look brilliant or like the company completely missed the next era.


    Chapters:

    0:00 Episode start

    1:06 Sam goes poolside and everyone’s agents are working

    4:35 Jessica enters her agentic era

    7:51 Meta’s $17B child safety settlement

    33:37 Could AI finally make parental controls useful?

    38:47 Why Apple keeps escaping the kids-and-tech debate

    43:29 Tim Cook’s Apple farewell

    49:58 Apple Intelligence and Cook’s unfinished AI legacy

    57:49 Backstreet Boys, the US Open and sign-off


    We’re also on ↓

    X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspod

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless

    YouTube: https://youtu.be/6HO6naKM8yE


    Connect with us here:

    1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin

    2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin

    3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin

    4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit


    Stripe Buys OpenRouter, OpenAI vs. Anthropic & the AI Backlash Aug 21, 2026
    Show notes

    Stripe buys OpenRouter for billions, which naturally raises the question: did Stripe just buy critical AI infrastructure, or a very expensive router with great distribution? The original squad is back to debate why $7B acquisitions somehow feel normal now, whether Google already has agentic commerce won by owning your inbox, calendar, and Drive, and why Anthropic vs. OpenAI might be less about who has the best model and more about who built the right company. Sam makes the case that OpenAI pulled off the “greatest fundraising story in history,” Dave argues Grokbot might officially make AI a three-player race, and everyone tries to figure out how you price any of these companies when no lead seems to last. Plus, is AI a great investment or just a great trade, does the data center backlash actually have anything to do with data centers, have we built trillions of dollars of infrastructure before finding enough use cases for it, and, naturally in pop corner, Josh Kushner bought into the Lakers.


    Chapters:

    0:00 Episode trailer

    1:00 Episode start

    4:00 This week in AI

    5:00 Stripe buys OpenRouter

    8:30 Is OpenRouter actually worth billions?

    11:00 The agentic commerce bet

    14:00 Why Google could own the AI assistant

    17:30 The DOJ investigates Andreessen Horowitz

    22:00 Anthropic vs. OpenAI

    26:00 Why OpenAI is struggling in enterprise

    28:30 Can anyone actually price AI companies?

    30:00 OpenAI’s “greatest fundraising story in history”

    33:30 Is AI a great investment or just a great trade?

    36:00 SpaceX, Moderna and narrative capitalism

    37:30 Grok enters the AI race

    41:00 AI makes software increasingly disposable

    45:00 The AI data center backlash

    47:30 “The backlash is that AI sucks”

    48:30 Did we build too much AI infrastructure?

    53:30 Josh Kushner, Thrive and the Lakers

    55:30 Travis Kelce enters the NIL business


    We’re also on ↓

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    Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless

    YouTube: https://youtu.be/Xwzl-Ihyyr0


    Connect with us here:

    1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin

    2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin

    3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin

    4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit


    Special Edition MOL with Josh Wolfe, Rachel Holt, Scott Belsky, Scott Stanford, and Peter Deng Aug 14, 2026
    Show notes

    A very special edition of More or Less, featuring Josh Wolfe (Founder, Lux Capital), Rachel Holt (Founder, Construct Capital; former Head of North America at Uber), Scott Belsky (Partner, A24; Founder, Behance), Scott Stanford (Founder, Acme Capital), and Peter Deng (GP, Felicis; formerly Google, Facebook, Instagram, Uber, Airtable, and OpenAI). Sam takes over hosting duties and assembles an overqualified group of investor friends to argue about where AI goes from here, from agents, Grok, Claude, and the shift from “help me do this” to “just do it,” to trust, data ownership, Apple’s AI advantage, open vs. closed models, model routing, and why proprietary data may become the real moat. They also dig into NVIDIA’s massive compute financing strategy, the risks of securitizing GPUs like long-lived infrastructure, what the OpenAI executive exodus says about the AI talent market, and the bigger question hanging over all of it: if AI really changes work, who actually participates in the upside?


    Chapters

    0:00 Episode trailer

    1:24 Episode start

    1:59 Meet the panel, every flavor of venture capital

    5:14 Consumer AI agents cross the Rubicon

    7:24 The end of websites, when agents talk to agents

    8:32 Which AI companies do you actually trust?

    11:41 Why Apple could win AI by doing nothing

    16:40 If models commoditize, unique data becomes the moat

    22:15 Open vs. closed AI, and who owns your data

    27:06 NVIDIA’s balance sheet shenanigans

    31:26 NVIDIA gets the upside, who gets the risk?

    34:31 Nobody has ever securitized compute

    35:02 Who owns the wealth AI creates?

    39:38 What happens when economic opportunity runs out?

    42:23 Why OpenAI’s best people keep leaving

    47:23 Why AI may look more like GPS than Facebook

    49:14 What actually happened with Airtable

    50:30 Lightning Round: Rachel Holt on physical-world investing

    53:00 Scott Belsky on AI watermarks, provenance & deepfakes

    54:15 Josh Wolfe on socialism, Europe & defense

    57:15 Final thoughts & sign-off


    We’re also on ↓X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspodInstagram: https://instagram.com/moreorlessSpotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moreorlesspodConnect with us here:1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit


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