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A year ago VCs were telling Parker Conrad that software engineering was months away from mass unemployment. His update: salaries are higher, the market is tighter, and a great engineer is worth more today than ever. The Rippling CEO joins Sam and Jess (no Morins this week) to argue that the only moat left in AI is seeing the problem before your customer does, that good gross margins are a sign nobody is actually using your product, and that Rippling isn't a software company at all. Sam counters with his own setup: a private notes file he hands to four different agents so they race each other to finish things he never asked them to do. Jess brings the mood from New York, where the money people think the $8 trillion CapEx bill doesn't pencil out and financing is about to get much harder. Plus Deel fighting a federal grand jury subpoena, Anthropic's IPO date, and Sam's plan to pay people minimum wage with a 5% shot at a million dollars. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:14 Parker Conrad Joins, No Morins This Week 02:13 Everyone Watched the Election on Prediction Markets, Not TV 04:09 The Blue Wave, and Why the Market Went Up Anyway 07:48 Hyperscalers, Data Centers, and Builds That Just Got Harder 09:27 California's Wealth Tax Fails 10:24 Why Paper Billionaires Can't Pay a Wealth Tax 12:17 The Financing Trick Where One Investor Sets the Headline Price 13:06 New York's Mood: AI Financing Is Drying Up 13:45 Sam: We've Run Out of Money in the World 15:09 Parker: Good Gross Margins Can Be a Bad Sign 15:30 Anthropic's IPO Date and OpenAI's Approach to Margins 16:44 Rippling's IPO Plans and the Public Market Retirement Community 18:26 The SaaS Apocalypse That Didn't Happen 19:00 "Rippling Is Not a Software Company" 20:29 AI for Boring: Government Forms, Faxes and Fraudulent Audits 25:36 The Only Moat Left Is Seeing the Problem First 28:01 Sam's Notes File and the Agents That Compete Over It 29:32 Instinct Keeps Asking Jess the Same Question 30:02 Today's Agents Are S****y Assistants 30:49 Permissions Architecture as the Real Advantage 32:21 Where Rippling Makes Margin and Where It Makes Zero 33:19 Usage Pricing and Deleting the Bottom Half of a Job 34:36 What You're Really Selling Is a Promotion 36:04 Software Written at Installation Time 37:26 Why You Shouldn't Vibe Code Permissions 38:07 AI Is Excellent at Using Software, Humans Are Not 39:42 Should an AI Negotiate Your Pay? 41:05 Rippling's $17M Seed and Two Years Before the Starting Line 42:07 Why Reversibility Decides How Fast You Can Move 44:52 The Deel Lawsuit and a Federal Grand Jury Subpoena 46:06 Sam: Your Job Doesn't Look Fun to Me 48:40 The Engineer Layoffs That Never Came 49:25 Random Reward Payroll, a Very Bad Idea 51:26 Overrated and Underrated in Silicon Valley 54:01 Sam's New York Marathon 55:14 Starting a Company: The Narrow Ray of Daylight 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 our guest: Parker Conrad, CEO of Rippling: https://x.com/parkerconrad 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.

Bing Gordon co-founded Electronic Arts, spent 18 years at Kleiner Perkins, sat on Amazon's board for 15 and is credited by John Doerr and Jeff Wilke with the idea for Prime. He also sat on Zynga's board, which is why it lands when he says players felt relief when they quit Farmville while retention and revenue were still climbing. So where's the line between good game design and gaming your users? Bing's answer takes in TikTok doom scrolling, WhatsApp as the rare product nobody complains about overusing, the sponsored products Amazon still shows Prime members, and ChatGPT ending every answer with one more question. Then Dave asks what the whole agent era keeps circling: what gets worse if your AI wins for you? Friction is what makes pearls, says Bing, and the next frictions will come from edge conditions nobody tested. Plus the wow/WTF scale he used to judge EA's Hall of Fame games, and the bet-your-job letter he kept in a drawer. Everybody Wins by Bing Gordon and Chloe Gordon: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/797436/everybody-wins-by-bing-gordon-and-chloe-gordon/ Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:02 No Lessins This Week: Brit and Dave Bring In Bing Gordon 02:42 Amazon's Board, Prime, and 18 Years at Kleiner Perkins 05:03 Disneyland Inside the Computer 06:51 The Classroom Question That Led to Electronic Arts 09:44 Raising $2M in 1982, Then Atari Collapsed 10:56 Vision, and Why People Think You're Stupid 11:37 Bathroom OKRs and Why Goals Beat Perfection 13:13 Word of Mouth, and Why Coin-Operated Hires Leave 14:44 "Can a Computer Make You Cry?" and Hiring on Mission 16:53 Why Games Retain: Where Everybody Knows Your Name 17:34 Which Social Network Did It Best? 18:36 LinkedIn Endorsements and Getting People to Come Back 20:19 Farmville: Players Felt Relief When They Quit 21:18 Growth Hacking Is Human Growth Hormone 23:04 Amazon, TikTok, ChatGPT: Who's Gaming Their Users Today? 24:21 What Gets Worse If Your AI Agent Wins for You? 25:03 Friction Is What Makes Pearls 26:30 Hugging Face, Cruise, and the Edge Conditions Nobody Tests 29:04 Writing Everybody Wins With His Daughter Chloe 32:19 The Visionary and the Operator 33:20 The Wow/WTF Scale, and How to Manufacture a Wow 36:08 Wow Moments in Games, Facebook, Instagram and Amazon 38:42 Creating Wow Moments as a Parent 41:28 The Bet Your Job Moment 42:23 You Only Got Fired for Blaming Someone Else 43:19 Good Risk vs Bad Risk 43:53 Invest and Express: Twitch, Chat, and Kids' Art on the Wall 45:59 Dave's Favorite Bing-ism: The Airplane Aisle Test 47:30 The Best Retention Hack Ever Made Is a Wedding Ring 48:01 Session Economics, Novelty, and Leveling Up 51:51 How to Gamify a Board Meeting 54:03 Why a Founder Who Loses the Board Twice Gets Replaced 55:23 Family Board Meetings and the Vice President of Fun 56:17 Lightning Round: Books, Heroes, Best Investment 58:41 Bing's P(doom): Boomers Are Gonna Doom 59:36 The Three Things That Make a Good Day 1:01:59 Dave's iPhone Duo Verdict 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 our guest: Bing Gordon, author of Everybody Wins (with Chloe Gordon), available everywhere including Amazon. Bing narrated the audiobook. X: https://x.com/bingfish 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.

Elon tells investors on an earnings call that SpaceX and Tesla should merge, and Sam has a theory he says nobody else has floated: there's an enormous SpaceX lockup cliff coming in the spring, and folding Tesla's retail shareholders into the denominator makes all that supply far easier to absorb. Dave thinks the rocket powered car demo was timed to justify the deal, Sam thinks two engineers got told to bolt rockets onto a car and it will never ship, and 83% of respondents in the Information's new Polls app say it's mostly about Musk control. Then OpenAI finds a web-wide PHP vulnerability and Sam's conclusion is blunt: all your regional banks will be hacked, the labs are centralizing profits while externalizing the risk, and they should be carrying hundred billion dollar insurance policies. Plus Google quietly telling Jess she's liable for everything her agents do, Netflix's content shakeup, Dave's theory of priority slop, and Brit's second week with no back pain. Try the Polls app out now: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-information-polls/id6814969991 Chapters: 00:00 Intro 01:04 Dave's Back, and the Nasal Rinse Discourse 02:06 OpenAI Finds a Web-Wide PHP Vulnerability 03:12 Sam: All Your Regional Banks Will Be Hacked 04:16 The Zero Days the Labs Are Quietly Sitting On 04:56 Dave on the Gap Between Frontier Models and the Public Ones 06:29 Why Labs Should Ban Their Own Teams From the Frontier 07:17 Pearl, Coinbase, and Bitcoin as a Byproduct of Compute 08:32 Can You Even Build a Cybersecurity Company in 2026 09:16 Cold Storage: Your Documents in a Mine Near the North Pole 10:22 Sam: The Labs Need $100 Billion Liability Policies 11:30 Google Says You're Liable for Everything Your Agents Do 13:55 How Many Teslas Have the Morins Owned? 15:05 Sam's Mazda Dealership Is Living in the Future 16:32 The Two Futures of Car Buying 17:14 SpaceX and Tesla Are Going to Merge 18:01 The Rocket Car Demo Was a Stunt to Justify the Deal 19:24 Elon Doesn't Control Tesla, and That's the Point 21:09 Why the Merger Needs a Narrative 22:25 The Information Launches Polls: 83% Say It's About Control 23:09 Sam's Lockup Theory That Nobody Else Has Said 25:36 Will Shareholders Approve It, and the SXSI Joke 27:29 Brit: Teslas Are Becoming Entertainment Vehicles 28:17 Dave on the Cyber Cab Experience 30:12 Jess's Enthusiasm Falls Back to Earth, and the Waymo Bug 32:33 Netflix: Content Shakeup and What They Should Actually Make 35:32 Dave's Viral Take: Content Slop vs Priority Slop 38:05 Sam Let His Bot Write the Entire AGM Deck 39:28 Dave's Broadsheet Newspaper for Offline 40:19 Internships for Teenagers, Run by Bots 41:30 Meta's New Voting Stock and the End of Capitalism 42:08 The Wealth Tax Debate 44:36 The Elizabeth Holmes Movie and the Surprise Q&A 49:28 Peptide Check-In, and a Necessary Disclaimer 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.

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. Interested in peptides? More or Less listeners 50% off their first month at NoHo Labs. Use code: MOREORLESSVIP on https://noholabs.com/ 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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 ↓ X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspod 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

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

Sam records from the beach while dealing with a broken bilge pump. Dave calls in after herding cattle. Fortunately, tech continues without them, which Sam takes as further proof that AGI is already running the industry. The crew unpacks Google's leadership shakeup and Jeff Dean's departure after 27 years, debates whether Airtable's sale to Bending Spoons is the blueprint for surviving the AI transition, and Sam argues that today's AI labs look increasingly like yesterday's overvalued SaaS companies. Along the way they explain why Sam's AI built his kid an iPhone game, why OpenAI's luxury creator retreat backfired, why Apple may have accidentally created its own lawsuit, and whether AI can ever overcome the growing public backlash against it. Chapters: 0:00 Episode Trailer 1:07 Episode Start 2:08 Sam's Boston Whaler Beach Studio 3:13 Dave Herds Cattle in Montana 5:31 Google's AI Shakeup, Jeff Dean Leaves, Demis Steps Back 8:57 Why Great Researchers Don't Always Make Great CEOs 10:48 Recursive Self-Improvement and the AI Talent Wars 19:41 Airtable Sells to Bending Spoons 25:33 Not Every SaaS Company Is Dead 27:50 The Constellation Software Playbook 30:05 The Next Big Write Downs Are AI Labs 31:59 Apple vs. OpenAI, Courtesy of iCloud 35:20 OpenAI's Creator Summit Backlash 40:53 Why People Still Hate AI 43:39 AI Slop and the Content Problem 45:11 SpaceX's Lockup and Number Big 48:00 Nikita Bier Leaves X 50:22 Jess's Posting Dilemma 53:40 Next Week on More or Less We’re also on ↓X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspodInstagram: https://instagram.com/moreorlessSpotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moreorlesspod Connect 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

New studio set up: the squad now records from a parked Tesla in the middle of a rainstorm while Sam is on the beach, and somehow it turned into one of our favorite episodes. We break down Meta's new AI campaign, Zuckerberg's vision for AI, why more than 1,000 frontier AI researchers are asking Washington to slow development, and whether fear has become the easiest narrative in tech. Then we get into China cracking deep ultraviolet lithography, what it means for ASML and the AI race, why AI demand still isn't slowing, Lilian Weng's move from Thinking Machines to OpenAI, and Sam's theory that Silicon Valley has developed an Oppenheimer complex. Chapters: 0:00 Episode trailer 1:23 Episode start 9:02 Meta's Ad Campaign Rejects The Doomers 11:14 Zuckerberg's Optimism Blitz Actually Lands 13:11 AI's Dark Side Raises Easier Money 15:04 Sam's Bot Read 4GB Of Dad's Journals 17:28 Nobody Wants To Be Anthropic 18:56 Anthropic Runs On Spite For OpenAI 21:10 OpenAI Was The Original Evil Empire 22:57 Meta Is Still A Centralized Ad Company 24:46 Decentralization Loses Without A Jedi 26:01 Apple Won On Politics, Not Technology 27:16 Meta Earnings Miss On Lawsuits And Severance 28:33 China Cracks DUV, ASML Takes The Hit 29:57 Execs Privately Reject The China AI War 32:39 The Compute Debate Gavin Baker Started 39:13 X Is The Tech Town Square Now 46:57 Lilian Weng Quits For Health, Joins OpenAI 53:50 AI Is A Crisis Of Meaning 54:57 Book The Conference Before You're Invited We’re also on ↓ X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspod Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless YouTube: https://youtu.be/PBGC6CjfdtM 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