#145 — What Tim Cook’s “Executive Chairman” Move Really Means | Musk vs OpenAI, xAI and Cursor Rumors
April 24, 2026 · Listen · All episodes · Chat with the show's AI
Jessica Lessin, Dave Morin, Brit Morin and Sam Lessin debate the tech of the week.
Full transcript (AI-generated — may contain transcription errors):
Sam Lessin: Everybody was writing these articles that Tim Cook stepped down, when my framing for this is Tim Cook stepped up and, uh-
Jessica: That's exactly what Apple wants you to think.
Dave Morin: He's like, "I did really well. I created $4 trillion of value. I'm gonna kick myself up. Good luck with the AI problem." "If it goes badly, I'm back, and if you do it great, then wonderful."
Brit Morin: More or less. Is it no or is it yes? We'll debate the tech that's best when we get more or less. Dave and Brit, plus Sam and Jess put it all right to the test. More or less.
Jessica: Why hello, friends. Welcome to More or Less, full quad edition.
Sam Lessin: Good to be back.
Brit Morin: Sam, are you gonna tap out on us this week midway?
Jessica: Yeah.
Brit Morin: Are you here for the whole time?
Jessica: Morning, Sam. When does your next meeting start?
Dave Morin: No one... Who cares?
Jessica: Yeah.
Brit Morin: He's eating something, so we know we've got the real Sam back.
Jessica: We've got the real Sam back.
Dave Morin: Creatine chews. I've got Diet Cokes. I've got the Breakfast of Champions.
Jessica: You said the creatine chews didn't work. You told me not to eat them.
Dave Morin: No, no, these are... No, these aren't... Well, they're not chews. They're like the... They're, like, chalky. If you put the, the gummies are the ones that destroy the creatine.
Jessica: Oh.
Dave Morin: But they're like-
Jessica: Oh
Dave Morin: ... these are very good. These are the Momentous ones.
Jessica: They're pellets? Creatine pellets?
Dave Morin: They're very good. The lemon lime ones, you just snack on them all day long at your desk.
Sam Lessin: It's a lot of creatine.
Jessica: Are you keeping track of how much creatine you're ingesting?
Brit Morin: That's a lot of creatine.
Dave Morin: It's fine.
Jessica: Um, Brit, you have a furry friend next to you. Uh-oh, what is this? What's happening?
Brit Morin: I'm announcing I've become a furry. Just kidding.
Jessica: This is a proto-
Dave Morin: Well, that'll get people to tune in.
Jessica: This is a prototype that I'm only turning on for one second 'cause Dave doesn't like it when I turn it on. It's, it's an AI-enabled stuffed animal that is a baby deer, and when you hold its hand and you say, "Hello, Winter. How are you right now?" Then it will actually listen to it. And, uh-
Brit Morin: Hello, Winter. I'm good. Really good right now, especially since you're here. How are you doing, like, real-
Sam Lessin: Sam, it's Sam's vision come to reality.
Dave Morin: Well, this is like, I mean, Eric Antonow built this with my, my, my parrot, like, a year ago. Remember I had my parrot that went on your arm and, like, had a little Bluetooth speaker in it with ChatGPT?
Sam Lessin: This is the end of, uh-
Dave Morin: This is not a thing
Sam Lessin: ... Build-a-Bear. I don't know, man.
Brit Morin: Well, I took it home. I'm just... You know, obviously I got a pitch. I'm not gonna tell you what I thought about the pitch, but I took it home 'cause I was like, "My kids would wanna see this. This is cool." And I was right. They thought it was amazing. My three-year-old specifically was, like, all about it, wanted to sleep with it, like, talked to it for an hour. And then Dave was, like, panicking. He's like, "We don't need AI friends and stuffies in our house on our networks. Like, this is crazy."
Sam Lessin: This is the best cybersecurity attack ever.
Dave Morin: It's great. Like, our three-year-old-
Sam Lessin: It's like, "Take this home to your kid"
Dave Morin: ... loved, uh, the little stuffy we had with a mic, with the thing stuffed in it last time. It was, it was very funny. We were like, "Tell a pirate joke," whatever. It's just, like, one, no, I don't want them having that. And then two, I don't know. I just... I think... You know what it's kinda like? Do you, Dave, do you remember, like, back, like, when we used to work at... This was always shocking to me, at, like, places like Facebook and other big tech companies, there were, like, these plushes that some engineers would carry around for, like, safety.
Sam Lessin: I don't remember this.
Brit Morin: Like, their emotional support, like emotional support-
Jessica: Like emotional support fluffies, stuffies
Dave Morin: ... huge. And they'd, like-
Brit Morin: Yeah
Dave Morin: ... walk around to meetings with it, and you're like, "What the fuck are you?"
Sam Lessin: What? Really?
Brit Morin: That's because that's what kids do.
Sam Lessin: That was not what it was like-
Brit Morin: That's what stuffies are
Sam Lessin: ... when I was at Facebook.
Dave Morin: I don't know. There was this whole thing where people, like, needed their, like, emotional support thing to code, and you're just like, "Oh, man." Like, first of all, that's gonna be the real Chinese thing, is you get a bunch of engineers to be like, "You need this stuffy at your desk when you program all the time." This emotional-
Sam Lessin: Exactly.
Jessica: This... Like, did you guys have Teddy Ruxpins? Is that, like, a tie-in? Because-
Brit Morin: Yeah, you guys invested in Slow, uh, uh, Toy Bot? What was the company called?
Dave Morin: Toy Talk, a generation ago.
Brit Morin: Toy Talk.
Jessica: That was a different story.
Brit Morin: I don't know.
Sam Lessin: That was an AI project.
Brit Morin: I... This is an AI project, Dave.
Dave Morin: Well, and Toy Talk didn't work. It was, like, the right vision that people are now repeating.
Brit Morin: Well, you invested in it. Clearly you thought it was a good idea.
Dave Morin: Well, I don't know. I didn't write that check, although I do quite like the CEO. By the way, that was the CE- that guy was... He's awesome, ex-Pixar.
Jessica: Was he, like, Pixar? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam Lessin: He's the CTO of Roblox now.
Dave Morin: Yeah, great guy.
Brit Morin: Like, an Oscar award-winning team that's making this company. I, I think all the, like-
Dave Morin: Oscar award-winning teams generally win at technology products, so good luck with that one.
Jessica: Yeah, always. Speaking of, um, the Oscars, uh, Sam and I went to the science Oscars called the Breakthrough Prize-
Brit Morin: Ooh
Jessica: ... this last weekend.
Brit Morin: Who won? Who won? What, what new innovations?
Jessica: I gotta tell you guys, gene therapies like CRISPR, it's gonna be streamed next week on YouTube. The gene therapy world is really working, so there were amazing scientists.
Sam Lessin: I thought the CRISPR people already won the Breakthrough Prize. Like-
Dave Morin: They did, but it was, like, 10 years of, like, "This is gonna be awesome."
Jessica: But now the applications, yeah.
Dave Morin: But now it's like, "This works." It's... And, like, it actually... My analogy is it feels exactly like Waymo, where for 10 years people have been like, "CRISPR's awesome."
Jessica: Yeah.
Dave Morin: And you're like, it is awesome. It's very, very cool. But now it's like, "Oh, shit, it works."
Brit Morin: So what are we being able to do now? What kind of gene therapies? Are we curing diseases or what?
Dave Morin: It's like, you know what it means, Brit, is you actually will be able to turn yourself into a furry.
Brit Morin: Yes. So I can grow hair on weird, in weird places?
Jessica: We're curing blind- I mean, the basic thing is to be able to target really rare things, and, and you guys, uh, Baby KJ was there. This is a case that got-
Dave Morin: Everyone loves Baby KJ.
Brit Morin: Who's Baby KJ?
Jessica: But Baby KJ was a baby who had, I think it was a liver disorder, or just, you know, at birth was identified with something that, that really was a horrible, horrible prognosis. And two scientists fast-tracked with the FDA, like, a one of one drug, so a drug that was, like, totally targeted to KJ's condition, and basically cured it. And it's an amazing story too because, like, the FDA did the approval in, like, six weeks or something incredible, that I think it's one of the first uses of, of CRISPR in that kinda context. And then there was a similar case, though-
Dave Morin: Well, it's the one of... It's the one of one d- drug is, like, the-
Jessica: The one of one drug, right. Like-
Dave Morin: Yeah, where it's like you just edit one base pairing and you're like, boom, game on.
Brit Morin: Nice.
Jessica: And also this, uh, a similar u- use to cure, uh, essentially a young woman of blindness, um, who was also there. So that was my, my big takeaway.
Dave Morin: Hmm.
Jessica: Science is working. Science is cool. There was... I gotta say, there wasn't a ton of AI-ness. You know? Like, y- I'm sort of tracking-
Dave Morin: AI is being rewarded elsewhere
Jessica: ... the AI backlash, the, like, keep the AI at a simmer to not simmer up the protesting, I felt was, uh-
Brit Morin: Thank God
Jessica: ... was sort of in the air.
Brit Morin: We gotta get over this branding problem. What do you think is the answer to the branding problem of AI?
Jessica: This is not, like, a Brit, Brit... This is, like, a deep existential society problem, I think, honestly. Like, I don't think branding is gonna solve this.
Dave Morin: Well, no, there's two... So, so two things. One is you're saying whose brand fault is this? And it's like, actually, this was the entire marketing strategy.
Sam Lessin: Yeah.
Dave Morin: Right? Like, if you think about it, like, the AI is the whole thing-
Sam Lessin: This was the marketing strategy
Dave Morin: ... because everyone was like, everyone who says, like, well, your money-raising strategy has been to run around, including the places like Washington, and be like, "This is so dangerous."
Sam Lessin: Yep.
Dave Morin: Like, "This is so dangerous-
Jessica: Yeah
Dave Morin: ... and we're gonna win it, so you have to, like, do whatever we say."
Jessica: And I need a trillion dollars, yeah.
Dave Morin: And so when you do that, like, obviously the problem is, is like you leaned into it. Like, you literally took the knife and, like, stabbed yourself immediately, and so, like, of course you have a branding. The second thing is it is quite deep. I got a colonoscopy last week.
Jessica: Hmm.
Brit Morin: Congratulations.
Jessica: I'm glad. Sam-
Dave Morin: Quite deep
Jessica: ... will bring up any opportunity to mention this fact. It was very deep, Dave.
Dave Morin: I was about to go under, and the male nurse is there, and they're, like, checking me in. And he's like, "What do you do?" And I'm likeAh, I do technology stuff. And he's like, "Do you do AI?" And I'm like, "Honestly, no, not really."
Jessica: Good.
Dave Morin: He's like, "Good." He's like-
Jessica: Oh, my God
Dave Morin: ... "AI is bad." And I'm like, "Why do you feel that way?" He's like, "It's taking the jobs, it's taking the water, and its answers are bad." And I'm like, "Well, that's a very com- complete list."
Jessica: That's what everyone thinks. It's crazy. Reese Witherspoon put this thing on Instagram this week, which was just like, "Wow, I'm so interested in what's happening with AI, and women are pretty far behind on the learning curve here, and I'm, like, curious to help them," and she got so much backlash. It was like, yeah, and it... I'm like... So she, she responded well, I think, which was sort of like- What was the backlash? Same thing.
Dave Morin: All forms.
Jessica: "It's taking jobs," like, "You're behind all these companies. This, you're just speaking your own book," like, "AI is ruining the world," blah, blah, blah.
Dave Morin: The Cold Ask Me guy was resigned it was gonna happen anyway, though, so there was that.
Jessica: That's the thing. It is. And also, I think it is problematic for women, right? Es- and men, but a lot of women who Reese is just trying to, like, inform of what's happening, eh, are like, "No, I'm not learning. I'm against it." And, and, and I think just having an open mind right now is the only way to be.
Dave Morin: And, and, and experimenting, building your own stuff.
Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we- everyone knows where we stand on this question. Hello. But no, it's a, it's an important theme. Uh, we probably... I, w- I don't think it will... It won't be published by the time this airs, but we have a very well-known figure in the tech industry who's writing an op-ed for us, laying out an entirely new tax regime aiming to address this very issue, right? Aiming to compensate people displaced by tokens essentially. So I haven't read it in full yet, and I think it's gonna be complicated, but the fact you're seeing people now try and put these proposals into the ether.
Dave Morin: This, like, UBI-y type bullshit?
Jessica: Yeah. It's a little UBI. It's not that UBI, but it's a little bit UBI.
Dave Morin: This has been the answer for 20 years, is like the jobs will go away because of technology, and UBI is the solution, and I just, I so don't buy it. I think it fundamentally misunderstands how people operate, right? And like what people care about. Uh, the problem is meaning. As I, as I've shot my mouth off a lot online and says the problem is not basic income, the problem is meaning, right? You can't just, like, pay people and make them happy. They'll just be sadder.
Jessica: On that note, we have a lot of news, so I'm gonna shift to the news. But I would say congratulations to Yuri Milner and the whole Breakthrough Prize team. It is, like, a rare event where you can watch Jensen and Elon sitting next to each other just gabbing while, like, Sam Smith is just, like, belting it out.
Dave Morin: Well, my favorite is the-
Jessica: So I love it
Dave Morin: ... my favorite is the, the Elon and Jensen s- next to each other, both with their phones up recording the act. I always find that funny. I'm like, "Really? You have to record this? Why?"
Jessica: There's someone that can record it for you. Everyone's a human, man. You gotta give credit to Jensen for, he managed to create a prize in honor of the Vera Rubin, which is the his latest technology. Great marketer. He's a great marketer. Also, she was an amazing woman, but it- he got- Great marketer ... I mean, The Information also had ads in the Breakthrough Prize because we are proud supporters and run media from the event, but Jensen also got an ad in creating his Vera Rubin Award.
Dave Morin: So can I ask one question on this before we move on? My, um, news, one of my news systems that was pr- you know, that picked up this, like, Jensen losing his shit moment, what was that? What happened?
Jessica: Was this the podcast?
Dave Morin: Yeah.
Jessica: Yeah.
Dave Morin: It was a podcast interview.
Jessica: And he just completely lost it? 'Cause that's always fun. I don't know if he lost it, but the-
Dave Morin: He was angry
Jessica: ... take you wanna- Why?
Dave Morin: Well, he was, he-
Jessica: What made him angry?
Dave Morin: He gave a, he gave an interview. I didn't watch the whole thing.
Jessica: Dwarkesh.
Dave Morin: Dwarkesh. I don't even know what the question was that Dwarkesh asked, but-
Jessica: The question was about whether, how he felt about arming China with more chips, right? So it was sort of like a national security kind of argument. And Jensen responded with how he always does, saying something like, "Well, they already have 60% of the chips," or something like that, trying to say that, like, there's nothing new about selling into China. And Dwarkesh, who's a very smart person, pointed out they don't have that percentage of the flops. What... You know, so it, the, sort of the chips doesn't matter, the power of the chips, the computing is what matters, and he got frustrated. I didn't actually listen to it, so I don't know if that was the exact moment he got frustrated, but this is what people are talking about. And they're talking about the fact, which is fair, that how many times have people asked Jensen this very question? And if you're not sort of technical enough to push back on his answer, you don't get the, to the truth. And so it was held up as, I think, a very great example of how these interviewers need to be as informed as possible. And again, you'll have people who are technical experts, you'll have people who aren't, but Jensen wasn't used to getting that pushback. The thing that Sam's bot picked up, though, was this other thing where he said, "I didn't wake up a loser today."
Dave Morin: Yeah. What was that?
Jessica: Oh.
Dave Morin: That was quite a line.
Jessica: Sorry. Sorry. I'm out of touch here.
Dave Morin: Yeah.
Jessica: What is that from? That was the... I don't know what the question was, but you know, Jensen just said, "I didn't wake up a loser today. I'm not a loser," you know? It was like a, it was pretty intense. These folks are intense, and it's, you know, it's a tense time. It's an exuberant time. It's a tense time. So let's turn our attention to Apple because, as expected, as reported in The Information and Bloomberg, give credit where credit is due-
Dave Morin: Did you break it?
Jessica: We didn't break... Well, we- This has been going on for a long time ... let's just say The Information and Bloomberg both did what you call a, um, slightly cover your ass at the end of last year kind of reporting thing, where you know it's gonna happen, but you sort of write stories that hedge up the wazoo. So no, we didn't on, it, no one broke the news on the actual day, but we and Bloomberg had been reporting that this transition was transpiring likely in this timeframe. Although lately, for what it's worth, there was some sense maybe the timeframe was different. But I, the second Tim Cook went on, I believe, Good Morning America and said, "Apple will always be a part of my heart," or something to that effect, I'm like, "Oh, he's got a week or two left," 'cause there's no reason To do that
Brit Morin: That was just a misspeak
Jessica: But, no, no, it's the... No, it's, it's exactly what he wants because-
Sam Lessin: Or a tell
Jessica: ... No, it's all part of the plan because this is a transition plan with John Ternus, who we should talk about, taking over as CEO, and Tim Cook staying on as executive chairman, and Tim taking on some of the going to the White House, diplomatic kind of roles. And so I think it's exactly, you know, you never wanna look like your CEO's jumping ship, particularly as you face new challenges in the business ecosystem. So I think it was all part of this continuity of, "Don't worry, guys. Tim's upstairs. Tim's in the house."
Sam Lessin: I'm s- I'm glad you said that because-
Brit Morin: David and I have a bigger picture. We talked about it at date night last night.
Jessica: Okay.
Brit Morin: And you're-
Jessica: I wanna hear it, Lauren
Brit Morin: ... 'cause we're, like, the Apple people, right?
Jessica: I'm giving you the microphone.
Sam Lessin: Well, I think that it was interesting that everybody was writing these articles that Tim Cook stepped down, when my framing for this is Tim Cook stepped up, and that-
Jessica: That's exactly what Apple wants you to think
Sam Lessin: Well, but it's true, right? There was no-
Jessica: Dave, an exec chairman is nowhere clo- an exec chairman is someone who's gonna play a lot more golf, but is gonna show up, you know, a couple times a year for what's needed, and is gonna mentor the CEO in process. That's what an exec chairman is.
Sam Lessin: Yeah, but exec chairman and chairman are very different titles, and there was no exec chairman above Tim Cook. So I think that it's really important to look at this differently, that, you know, the CEO job that John Ternus is inheriting is not the CEO job that Tim Cook inherited. Like, this is more of an Alphabet moment, I think, for Apple. Like, this is a $3 trillion, $4 trillion company that is, you know, has an enormously important capital allocation function at the very top. I view this as, like, a, a bigger structural move for Apple than people are, are sort of writing about it. I think you're right. People are just, like, taking the exact line and message that Apple wants them to say. But this to me looks much more like what happened with Alphabet, you know, what happened with Meta, um, et cetera, in that Apple's actually sort of shifting into the scale that it actually has always been, but is going to do it more seriously now. And Tim would otherwise take the chairman title, and instead he's taking the executive chairman title, which implies-
Jessica: Well, do you think it's a function of Ternus not being ready?
Sam Lessin: No.
Dave Morin: Well, it's also just a way-
Sam Lessin: Not necessarily
Dave Morin: ... if he, if they get it wrong, then they can undo it, right?
Sam Lessin: Yeah. It's a big move.
Dave Morin: I mean, to me it's more... Like, the, the thing I would buy, Dave, is, like, they, he wants to be done. But to your point, it is a big transition. There haven't been that many in the history of the companies, and if you're executive chairman, then if shit goes wrong, you can step back in.
Sam Lessin: Yeah, it's not a, it's not a full transition. I think that's what's, it's very interesting. It's-
Dave Morin: Yeah. So Ternus has to perform
Sam Lessin: ... it's a very different... Absolutely.
Dave Morin: He's like, "I did really well. I created $4 trillion of value. I'm gonna kick myself up. Good luck with the AI problem. If it goes badly, I'm back, and if you do it great, then wonderful."
Brit Morin: That's what I was gonna say. I'm like, it went from 350 billion when he started to 4 trillion now. And, like, the silicone stuff, the wearables, and, like, by the way, I think-
Dave Morin: And inflation
Brit Morin: ... all the services. Apple TV+ is, like, really underrated, you guys. I think, I think that was one of Tim's best-
Dave Morin: I mean, that's at least a trillion dollars right there.
Jessica: You know how much money Apple TV+ loses, Brit?
Brit Morin: I don't care. It brings me happiness.
Jessica: And it is a money pit to end all money pits.
Brit Morin: And it doesn't matter 'cause they're selling so m- it's like so much of Google is money pits-
Sam Lessin: Who cares?
Brit Morin: ... but they, like, run ads. It doesn't matter
Sam Lessin: Everybody gets to have loss leaders. Like-
Brit Morin: Yeah. I'm just saying the quality of what he created is, and is actually quite high.
Dave Morin: I think that the real story in all this is we're just living in a totally post any sort of financial model reality, right? The markets and the economy are so fundamentally disconnected at this point. People are looking to stuff money in things, and they have theories on that, and, like, it's just kinda wild. So the through line of Apple being a $4 trillion company, which it is, it's an incredible company. Is it 10X better than it wa- That's the question, right? Like, that versus how you think about Tesla, which just reported, like, any of these things. It's just wild to me how disconnected sources of value are, right, where you stuff the money, versus, like, the economy right now, right? So-
Sam Lessin: But, uh, Sam, Apple sells a lot of computers.
Dave Morin: Yeah, yeah, it's a great company. It's a great company.
Sam Lessin: Yeah.
Dave Morin: I'm not, like... I mean, I'm surrounded by $100,000 of Apple products in my office. Like, I, like, I'm get, I get it. But, you know, uh, my only point is that when you look at, like, what's happened in the last decade of asset prices, yes, a lot of these companies got bigger and more successful, and the world's a really big place, but there's also just, like, this unbelievable asset tailwind completely disconnected from any sort of reality in the markets. And I'm sorry, in the economy.
Jessica: Also, so a couple thoughts about Ternus. So, you know, he has been VP for hardware engineering. He's been getting more and more responsibilities, including, like, taking over, like, the transitions of, like, key chips and architectures and that kinds of stuff. He's known as being way more, like, calm than some of the, like, other bombastic types, like Schiller-
Brit Morin: Bombastic
Jessica: ... and Eddy Cue.
Brit Morin: I like that word.
Jessica: Yeah. I mean, Apple's got a lot of sorta hotheads under the surface. But also, the reason I don't think, you know, the sense, and, and believe me, we talked, have talked to a lot of people over two or three years about this, is also that there was no one else. I mean, the other w- not that Ternus isn't great and was clearly anointed and put on this path. You could see him doing-
Sam Lessin: And he's a Marin boy
Jessica: ... you could see him doing more-
Sam Lessin: Grew up in Marin
Jessica: ... speaking engagements, like, all of that kind of stuff. But also, you know, Craig Federighi would have kind of been the other guy, has been, you know, much more overseeing on the software and AI and, you know, has his detractors, too. So I, I don't think Apple has a lot of option value here. They're not gonna run a search and hire a CEO from another company to run Apple, unless they're, like, covering their butts.
Dave Morin: I don't know. There's always Brett Taylor.
Jessica: And their fiduciary duty.
Dave Morin: There's always Brett Taylor.
Brit Morin: Hmm, okay.
Jessica: Okay, that was a, that was a stretch comment, but yeah. Um, so anyway, I, I think they're well set up. The other side of this is Tim had been telling everyone he knows how tired he is for years, and how he doesn't want the job anymore, and how exhausting it is. Many CEOs are prone to do the same thing. That does hardly make him unique. You know, this is... Uh, I think this is both a passing of the reins while keeping some adult supervision around, and I think that is specifically for continuity on some of these issues that are gonna be mega issues, relationship with the US government, relationship with the Chinese government. These are high, high, high stakes issues. I mean, Ternus, if he's CEO of Apple for a decade, a decade plus, is gonna oversee the, like, growing US-China tech war. You know, we like to talk about Nvidia being in the middle of that. Apple is in the middle of that. So that's a- actually my biggest question. Not, like, what does he think about AI. Like, yeah, maybe he'll decide to build an in-house model. Probably not. I think they've kind of set their course there. But, uh, I'm very keen, uh, and I think it will still be very much a Cook call, you know, how they're deciding what are they doing with their manufacturing, what are they doing with their China business, and how they toe, like, a shrinking tightrope there. But big transition. Big transition.
Sam Lessin: Yeah. I mean, Apple is a technol- well, Apple is a hardware company, and competitiveness in hardware is extremely difficult. Like, the, the timelines-
Dave Morin: I thought it was a TV company going to Brit.
Brit Morin: I didn't say it was a TV company. I said I, I enjoy the TV part of it. I just wanna give Tim cred. That's all.
Jessica: Margo's Money Problems, Brit. Started it. Thanks to you.
Brit Morin: It's good. By the way-
Jessica: It's very good
Brit Morin: ... by the way, does Sam watch? 'Cause OnlyFans is the center of this thing. It is all about OnlyFans.
Jessica: Sam has not. I've only watched one episode.
Brit Morin: Oh, wait till episode two.
Jessica: There are too many women in it for Sam. There are too many women in it.
Brit Morin: Oh, but he'll start liking it. There are boobs.
Dave Morin: I do love boobs. There's amazing how central OnlyFans is to culture right now in, in, like, six TV shows.
Sam Lessin: Euphoria's all about it. A whole thing.
Dave Morin: Industry. They're all about OnlyFans.
Jessica: It's not my culture. Not my-
Brit Morin: Sorry. I diaper adults
Jessica: Back to hardware. Hardware
Sam Lessin: Well, I was just saying that Apple... The hardware cycles are insanely competitive. Like, you have to-
Jessica: Yeah
Sam Lessin: ... stay on a extremely serious timeline in order to-
Jessica: Yeah
Sam Lessin: ... stay at the frontier of hardware and-
Jessica: Yeah
Sam Lessin: ... and silicon. And so I think that the, the, in that way, this choice is extremely obvious. Like, you can't, you can't choose the software people. They are not under the same timelines and same pressure that drive the fundamental business of Apple on a global basis. And so you, you have a very narrow set of internal choices that you can choose from, and I, I think people don't... Often doing analysis from the outside don't think about this. They think like, "Oh, the software guys could do it, too," and it's like, no, actually, the software guys are on a completely different schedule. Like, they make updates every few years. They do a release once a year, but they, they have a totally different set of competitive problems than the hardware guys do.
Jessica: Mm-hmm.
Sam Lessin: And the negotiation of the supply chain and the manufacturing facilities and the entire sort of global thing that makes the billion iPhones show up in people's pockets all over the world is, like, a pretty wildly competitive and insanely difficult thing to be good at. And so I think you have a pretty narrow, if not obvious, choice that you have to make here, um, if you're gonna do this internally, like you said, Jess.
Jessica: Yeah, I think the bigger... It's an excellent point, Dan, and I think the writings was really in the card when Dan Riccio, who had run hardware, kind of, sort of got pushed out, stepped aside after multiple in and outs a couple years ago, um, from a succession standpoint. So that is well said. Well, we will be watching. We will be commenting. John, you're welcome on the pod anytime.
Sam Lessin: I just love that he's a Marin guy, and he's, you know, I think it's pretty awesome that a, that a local Marin guy became CEO of Apple. It's pretty neat.
Jessica: That's quite a commute. If I were CEO of Apple, I'd not commute from Marin to Cupertino. Even though he grew up there-
Sam Lessin: He's not, I don't think he lives here, but he grew up here.
Jessica: Oh.
Sam Lessin: Yeah.
Jessica: Okay. Got it.
Sam Lessin: Yeah.
Jessica: That is cool.
Dave Morin: They'll claim him.
Jessica: We're gonna start to have, like, you know, Muir Woods operating systems or something.
Dave Morin: Ooh, yeah.
Jessica: I don't know.
Dave Morin: Yeah, he was definitely inspired by the Redwoods.
Jessica: Yeah.
Sam Lessin: Let's hope so.
Jessica: Okay, I wanna talk about this trial. We, if you've been under a rock or, or there has been a lot of news, you may have forgotten that this upcoming Monday is scheduled to be the start of the Elon Musk versus OpenAI trial, the central question of which was, did OpenAI have the right to convert from a nonprofit to a for-profit, and what should Elon be compensated as well, having been one of the backers of the nonprofit?
Dave Morin: So from a first principles perspective, I'm totally with Elon on this, for what it's worth.
Jessica: Yeah, but the law is a... Okay, say more, Sam, but-
Dave Morin: Well, like, this is one of the greatest tricks the devil ever pulled, right? Was basic- Like, and it's less about the money and more about kind of the whole stance of the industry, which is opening, this conversion of being like, "Oh, we're just doing a research project. Don't worry, we're scraping the entire internet, but it's just for good. It's just for a research project," and then flipping that into, "Oh, no, actually, it isn't," I just think was, like, an unbelievable bait and switch, right? And I think it's less about the money, candidly, and more about the fact that I think almost every rights holder, right, would've said, "No effing way," if it had been transparent what they were gonna do and they were gonna become a for-profit, whereas everyone kind of was like, okay, and looked the other way. It's the same thing with, like, a lot of the talent. I mean, I think, look, it's all worked out, but the pitch of Earl- OpenAI early to all these researchers was like, "Don't work at Google or, or Meta. Those are, like, dirty for-profit companies. Come here and work on research, and we'll support your research." This very, like, la-la, open-ended, good for the world thing, and that was a big part of the pitch. And then, like, switching it, I think, was very, very disingenuous.
Jessica: And, like, uh, uh, the dona- It was, like, what? 100 and, like, 30 or 50 million that they raised.
Dave Morin: That, that's, like, less... I mean, that, that is how this manifests, but I'm just saying, like, I, I think there's a question of what's legal and, like, what they did, and then there's a question of, like, the... I'm, like, less, I think the money is less important. I think it's more, like, the structural bait and switch and the data.
Sam Lessin: The promises made.
Dave Morin: Yeah.
Jessica: So some stuff has come out already in discovery, and OpenAI basically argues, like, "Look, we were m- multiple times, like, uh, you know, A, there was more optionality explored and even discussed with Elon back in the day, including making this part of Tesla and other things." So they are trying to establish that this was not a bait and switch and that they sort of always posited that there would be different potential corporate structures as they needed more capital, which w- was ultimately what happened. I mean, none of us are lawyers, but I can tell you both sides are definitely positing that they have bulletproof cases here. Still, and this is a dangerous thing to say because we're, we're taping sort of midweek ahead of Monday, but I think there is a greater than not chance that they settle before then or that they postpone-
Sam Lessin: I was gonna say, is this thing gonna even, is this thing even gonna get to trial?
Jessica: I mean, n- it, it, I, it, I don't kn- This is not a reporting. This is just purely a hunch, but I think that OpenAI can't afford the distraction. They can't.
Sam Lessin: And does it really just come down to money? Like-
Jessica: It, it, so it, what's happened through many twists and turns, and pieces have been thrown out and so and so, is that Musk has said he will donate the damages owed to him to basically, and it, it wouldn't technically be a donation, but to the OpenAI foundation So he is not, he is not asking to be left with, like, a piece of this operating company or, like, cash in his bank account. He is basically say, this is now a dispute over what percentage of the foundation which-
Dave Morin: It's power, and th- look, these guys are all rich enough. They don't care-
Jessica: And look, he just wants to-
Dave Morin: It's power-
Jessica: ... throw gears in the sand of OpenAI, so.
Dave Morin: And it's the MMA, it's the MMA theory of, or the WWE theory of Silicon Valley. This has nothing to do... Elon, if Elon were to take money from this, it's a bad look 'cause-
Sam Lessin: I think I've heard of that theory.
Dave Morin: Oh, yeah. The what? The WW- that's like half your theory. Are you kidding?
Jessica: No, he's joking.
Brit Morin: It's a joke. It's a joke, Sam.
Dave Morin: No, but it's like, here's the thing, it's like this is just characters playing a game, and like here's the reality. The irony is, let's pretend Elon got like a $20 billion or even $100 billion settlement. Elon's shtick is that he's so rich he doesn't care, right? And so to accept a settlement-
Sam Lessin: It's not just a shtick, Sam.
Dave Morin: No, no, but like, I mean, that's my point, is like the, the image has to be that I am so rich and powerful that I couldn't possibly care about this pittance from OpenAI personally.
Sam Lessin: So is it a moral point?
Brit Morin: I think it's just competitive Na- yeah, it's just taking their time and attention, the brand.
Sam Lessin: But, like, the money goes to the other side of the OpenAI balance sheet, like the OpenAI foundation d- number go up. Like, it's not up enough?
Dave Morin: It doesn't... All it i- it's just ego, and it's just people wanting to look more powerful and less powerful. It's like if Elon loses, the gamble for Elon is just an- is just like do you look less powerful, right? The gamble for Sam and OpenAI is, is the same, right? Which is like, and, and Sam, I think, and OpenAI want to-
Sam Lessin: But why does it even matter?
Dave Morin: What?
Sam Lessin: Why does it matter? Just gamesmanship?
Dave Morin: Because everything's priced to narrative, right? Like, that's the irony of the whole thing is like if Elon shows once again that Elon is bulletproof and what he says happens, right, then, like he can price Tesla at a $1.75 trillion, and he's like the bulletproof man. It has nothing to do with money. It has to do with narrative.
Sam Lessin: It's interesting.
Dave Morin: There's risk in that, and I think on the, on the OpenAI side, it's like kind of the same thing, which is like they set themselves up as the... This is my big thing of the moment for them is like they set themselves up as the far and away leader in O- O- in AI that no one can touch, and that's why Anthropic touching them on, and passing them potentially, if they haven't already, on revenue is such a big deal. It's not because OpenAI... It, it doesn't matter. The story is not, "Oh, someone passed you." The story is, "We've been telling this story that we're untouchable, and we're touchable," right? And like once you've been touched once, you can be touched again, right? And so the everything is... Again, I just think we have to embrace the reality, which is at this tectonic tech level, the highest end, the game doesn't even have to do with cash flow. It doesn't have to do with traditional business metrics. It is literally just like warring city states that thrive on narrative, right, and storytelling.
Jessica: Yeah, so, and I think Elon has to be able to declare a victory here in some way, shape, or form.
Dave Morin: Non... It's similar than Trump and Iran.
Brit Morin: And what happens if it, he doesn't get the victory? What, let's say it goes to OpenAI.
Jessica: He needs to find a way to claim it, and I think he'll be able to because I think it'll be in OpenAI's interest to give him something. You know, you don't want y- all these people taking the stand, although it's kind of funny to think of Elon taking the stand, to be honest.
Dave Morin: It's very similar to, like, the Iran situation. You get people who, like, brinksmanship them way into like a really tough place, right? And like one m- and like it's just they, you know, Iran can only end with a framework where Donald Trump can take, take a win. Th- it just can't end otherwise, right? And like it'll be the same with this.
Jessica: Yeah. Well, the other, I, and I think related to that is remember, Elon is about to pull off potentially the biggest IPO in history. The information reported this week, not only unsurprisingly is he getting super voting shares in the SpaceX IPO, but he now has a really aggressive comp plan as well that will give him tens of millions of shares if I, if I think the market cap goes to 6.6 trillion. I'm not exactly sure at this time, but-
Dave Morin: I have a question about that
Jessica: ... right.
Dave Morin: Can I ask a question? So because Elon also has this plan with Tesla, when they combine them, does he just get the double count?
Jessica: This is the great question. No, he probably will... This is probably the biggest proof that he'll combine them.
Sam Lessin: No way.
Jessica: But we'll, we'll have to read the fine print.
Dave Morin: Why not? If you're Elon, unless someone wrote into the contract being like, "Oh, you can't combine them," don't you get to hit both numbers by just merging them?
Jessica: I, I think you do. I, I think, I, I mean, I think that-
Dave Morin: I 100% think you do, and like what a play where you're like, oh, you like kind of get down to like the contract details matter. You're like, "Yeah, yeah, I need the market cap to hit this. I didn't say I couldn't get it by merging them versus together."
Jessica: Well, this was all in the confidential S1 that the information is reported on, and we will continue to. But also you have the news this week that xAI has bought the right to acquire Cursor for up to, for 60 billion or to do a partnership with them. Have we ever seen a company in the weaker position on the receiving side? I mean, what would... You guys are the deal makers here, but I'm like, you can't even sell yourself?
Sam Lessin: Wait, who?
Jessica: Cursor. This seems like weak sauce.
Brit Morin: I, I think it's a win-win.
Sam Lessin: Okay, hold on.
Brit Morin: Why, why isn't it a win-win?
Jessica: Okay, tell me.
Sam Lessin: This is-
Jessica: I think it's weak sauce
Sam Lessin: ... this is a big experiment.
Jessica: If you have to experiment when you're Cursor and we're gonna be the next gazillion dollar company, that's not good.
Sam Lessin: No, look, E- Elon and xAI have a extremely large data center. You know, I can't remember what they call it, Colossus.
Jessica: It's called Colossus.
Sam Lessin: Colossus, right?
Jessica: Yes, one and two.
Sam Lessin: So this thing's a really, really high density cluster of H100s that, you know, are extremely rare. Nobody has these things, especially at this size. And the biggest question in AI right now is can you train models which are good at both code and computer use that are competitive with the other models that are out there, i.e.-
Jessica: Yeah
Sam Lessin: ... the stuff that Claude's been doing, Codex, et cetera. And what Cursor has that nobody else has is an extremely large traces data set. Like they've got an enormous amount of developers using their, their software and a huge amount of traces, uh, from all of that, all that engineering. And so this is an experiment is the way I understand it, that if they are able to create a coding model which is competitive using Cursor's data set on the Colossus infrastructure, then they will pay 60 billion. If they cannot, then they will just pay them 10 billion in sort of consulting. You know, we did an experiment together, didn't work out. Thanks for letting us use your data. But if it does work, then the, the whole thing comes together and, uh, you know, to me, it's like that's, that's what's actually going on here.
Jessica: Elon gets to choose.
Sam Lessin: Yeah.
Jessica: Okay, so why wouldn't he just raid the talent, raid the data, and then not buy it?
Dave Morin: Because he can't get the data 'cause the-
Sam Lessin: Yeah, you have to have the data.
Brit Morin: There's probably some protections around it.
Jessica: For the data centers. I mean, I don't know. Like, we've been in this, like, talent-
Sam Lessin: The traces really matter. Like, it's, it, the whole battleground is the traces right now. Like, no, this is kind of a thing nobody's talking about.
Jessica: It's sort of like-
Dave Morin: Yeah, the best part is, is like you don't, Elon doesn't know, he has a year for, you know, SpaceX stock or X to, like, rocket, and then he has a cheaper currency to buy it with. I mean, like, you don't, like, I th-
Jessica: It's brilliant for him.
Dave Morin: Yeah.
Jessica: It's brilliant for him. It's like-
Dave Morin: I think it's a great deal for him
Jessica: ... it's a master deal for him.
Sam Lessin: But I also think they don't know.
Jessica: It's a shitty deal for Cursor.
Dave Morin: Cursor might be going to zero.
Sam Lessin: It's a great deal for Cursor.
Brit Morin: And yeah, I don't think it's a shitty deal for Cursor. I, Cursor was, like, totally on the way out, and what was their last valuation? 9, 10, something like that?
Dave Morin: No, I think it was, like, 20.
Brit Morin: Well, it was way overvalued for what it was bringing in.
Jessica: What if they turned down all that venture capital in their latest round instead, and then Elon's like, "No, I'm good"?
Brit Morin: It doesn't matter, they've just raised 10 billion new dollars. Like, if they raised 10 on 100 billion, that'd be the same amount of, like, a round.
Dave Morin: There's no scenario where Cursor is worth $60 billion anytime soon.
Brit Morin: I agree.
Dave Morin: Like, it's, it's in the opposite direction. And so here's the irony.
Brit Morin: Yes.
Dave Morin: Also, the flip side, do you think that in a year if Elon comes back and says, "Yeah, it's okay, I'll give you 30 for it," right? You think they still would take that?
Jessica: They're gonna- no one's gonna touch it.
Brit Morin: Well, no one's gonna touch it, but they would still take it. Thir- they would take 30, not 60, is what he's saying.
Dave Morin: But as long as Elon has all those leverage, it's perfect for Elon, 'cause Elon's not gonna pay. He doesn't pay 60. That's the high-
Brit Morin: It's also gonna be perfect for Cursor, 'cause this is, like, a great deal for them no matter what, I think.
Jessica: This is not a great deal for them. You guys forget-
Dave Morin: It is, though
Jessica: ... Cursor was on-
Sam Lessin: It's a crazy great deal for them.
Brit Morin: The three VCs versus the journalist.
Dave Morin: Cursor might be worth zero, right? It very likely might be worth zero.
Sam Lessin: And Cursor does not have Colossus. They do not have access to this level of compute.
Brit Morin: I was counting Cursor out as of, like, two weeks ago.
Jessica: No, but this is... We're saying the same thing. As of the situation they are in, this is the best they could expect, and the fact that a company that was the darling of Silicon Valley about six months ago was, you know, named as one of the only AI native companies, besides the big ones, that had a shot, is now in a position where the most powerful, enigmatic, n- you know, toughest negotiator on the planet gets to decide if he wants to buy them, I don't think is a great outcome. It may be the best outcome of this moment, but I think the arc of them, and if you only have to go back six months to seeing how they were the only company uttered in the breath of this coding disruption, how far they have fallen.
Brit Morin: But that's what's shifted.
Jessica: Yes, that's what's shifted.
Dave Morin: Two things I make. One is for the earl- I only care about the early stage investors, and God bless Neo Fund. The part... Ali's crushing it, right? Like, you know, like, so, I, and whoever, I love the person who picked up 200k of SBF stock. Do you, did you see this whole thing?
Brit Morin: Yeah.
Dave Morin: Some guy bought the, someone g- bought the SBF 200k from the original seed, and it's worth, like, $30 billion now. Like, once again, great investor, SBF. The early stage guys are fine. Look, the whole, my whole theme on the AI stuff forever has been, like, it's impossible to invest in, 'cause you're always, like, two seconds from getting swiped, and the incumbents are gonna win anyway. So forget everything. If you told me I-
Jessica: They got swiped.
Dave Morin: If you're, like, they got swiped from whatever narrative they were on six months ago, which is, like, as will Harvey and everyone else in the same story, right? But if you're just like, "Look," so I think all of this is why you can't invest in this stuff. There will be winners, but it'll be random. So you say, "Hey, you have an average company, it's like four years old. You basically just locked in 10 billion in cash," which is kind of the Facebook deal with scale, by the way. They're like, "Ah, we'll give you, like, about 10 billion in cash," right?
Jessica: It's a big number, you're right. That's a big number.
Dave Morin: It's a big number. It's half of WhatsApp, right? That's the low end, and then the high end is, who knows? We get to say a headline number, but Elon will pick the price later. You're kind of like, I don't know, I think that's fine. Like, I think that's a great outcome for a company that could be worth zero in six months.
Jessica: Do you think there's a scenario where Elon says, "No, thank you," they get the 10 billion, and then Amazon's like, "Oh, just kidding, we'll pay you 60 or 70," if Elon-
Dave Morin: No, but maybe, like-
Jessica: Yeah
Dave Morin: ... they'll pay, like, 2. They'll pay, like, 2.
Jessica: Yeah. So, but that's not good. Well, anyway, time will tell.
Dave Morin: It's fine. They get $10, $12 billion in outcome.
Sam Lessin: The company's not worth zero. The, so the thing is, the company's not worth zero because the data is extremely valuable.
Jessica: No one's arguing it's worth zero, but the fact that we're say, we're, the fact of your optimism is based on the fact it's not worth zero is not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Dave Morin: Well, it's also, but it's also, Dave, this is, it's, it's worth, it's not worth... The problem is that how many people is it worth anything to, right? It's a very small number of people who can... It's, it's a very small set of people for whom it's worth anything.
Sam Lessin: But it's worth a lot to this narrow set of people. I think you would've seen OpenAI or Anthropic buy it as well, like, or Meta.
Brit Morin: But they don't need it now, because people are-
Sam Lessin: Yes, they do
Brit Morin: ... those people are switching. A lot of the people are switching.
Jessica: Dave, give us, let's hear from Dave one more time what... 'Cause the conventional wisdom is that people are switching, and it doesn't have much that's unique, but you, you feel differently. So what is it that they have that can't be replicated?
Sam Lessin: You've got big foundation model companies are out there buying the Slack instances of failed startups to get more data.
Dave Morin: For, for not very much, but yes.
Sam Lessin: For not very much, right? But, like, the reality is, every single model company is out of data, and they need more human-generated data in order to make and improve their models. And specifically, we have seen Anthropic specifically in the last six months has, y- you know, we all know their revenue numbers. They've gone through the roof, and this is based on models that can write code and can use tools that code knows how to use, right? Unix, Bash, like, being able to generate software using the Unix operating system is, like, the whole thing driving the most value. It's the reason why I get a call, like, every other day from somebody, like, begging me to get into Anthropic s- you know, invest in Anthropic. Like, that is what is driving that. And they too still need more data to improve the model's ability to write code. The only place you can get that is from being in the work stream of software engineers, and specifically now it is in the what we call traces, uh, in the industry, which is the actual, like, what the software engineer used as their prompt, what the response of the model was. Like, there is a sort of private set of data that is extremely valuable to the model companies right now for improving the coding models, and Cursor has a huge one.
Dave Morin: So yes, for now, but the pro- the, so yes. The question is, but when you're selling companies for their data sets, you're selling them for scrap, right? Like, that's what it comes down to. And, like, you can do it, like-
Sam Lessin: But not in this category, Sam. Like, this specific category, it has extreme value.
Dave Morin: If you have a category that's evergreen, where people are using it more and more and more, so you have a compounding data asset that's always gonna be refreshed and be... If Cursor has zero users in six months, they still have a data asset that they can sell a few times. It's just not that val- it's like, it's not worth zero, but it's, like, it's worth a hell of a lot less than actually having a scaling thing. You know, the argument you-
Sam Lessin: Well, it's worth $10 billion. Like, we've, we actually have a price
Dave Morin: ... to Elon at, at a, at, with an unknown currency. But yes, yes, if you're gonna, if you can, i- the way I would frame it is it's worth whatever the division is of 10 billion over two trillion, right? Which is an infinitesimally small number, but I don't wanna do it in my head, right? Like, that's what it really is, 'cause it's all made up numbers.
Jessica: Can I share something? F- I just wanted to check that my memory of Anthropic's revenue, um, being at 30 billion is correct. So I just typed into Google, and first it funnily says, "Did you mean Anthropic revenue 30 million?" Like, Google cannot believe that billion is accurate.
Brit Morin: Why do you go to Google first and not-
Sam Lessin: Well, but that's because LLMs are bad at numbers, Jess.
Jessica: But the next, the first three entries are TITV videos. So way to go team on SEO.
Sam Lessin: It might be just because it's your computer.
Brit Morin: Yeah, it, Google has learned-
Jessica: Probably
Brit Morin: ... you and what you like in the algorithm.
Jessica: Well, it's still pretty good. It's still pretty good. And the next one is just the Anthropic webpage, so it also is a sign that Google likes video.
Brit Morin: And the nature of companies needing more data, Meta now tracking everything its employees do and all the keystrokes it do- they do on their computers.
Dave Morin: You're not doing great. No, it's fine. Yo, for what it's worth, again, I gotta say, this is... Can I do a, can I do a traditional Sam rant on this?
Brit Morin: Oh, my God. Fine.
Sam Lessin: This is a Sam, Sam's gonna bring us the, the Fin rant.
Dave Morin: Yep.
Sam Lessin: Like, I've heard this rant.
Dave Morin: David, you know me well. Like, we were doing this, like, 10 plus years ago. This is, like, literally what we did at Fin, is we basically built this human loop system with a queue, and then we tracked exactly what we were doing with full video as well as the full DOM click stream on everything, and we were using it. The irony, David, of datasets being valuable is candidly if you unrolled the Fin dataset from 10 years ago of operations agents clicking all this shit doing real human tasks for years for real people, that probably was worth a shitload of money, right? Like, so, but the answer is, like, obviously this is where you go. Like, this is, like, a total... And by the way, people were upset about this-
Brit Morin: Is every company gonna do this now? Like, is Meta setting a precedent?
Sam Lessin: Well, no, companies that need to train computer use models will.
Brit Morin: I know. Okay. Well, all the, I mean, those companies.
Dave Morin: But that's everyone. Like, like, the companies, first of all, companies already do this in, like, rudimentary stupid ways. Like, they do the th- in, like, where they do the thing where, like, you move your mouse to, like, is someone at their desk? The, the upper version of this, which is, like, and you're tracking the DOM if they're using the web. You're videoing them. We did that at Fin for our own teams. We did that for third parties like Airbnb and a bunch of other people and operations teams to start automating and streamlining work. This is an old playbook. It's just so funny because the traditional Sam rant is, man, we actually did have this right. We were just 10 years early.
Sam Lessin: It's still not great though. Like, it doesn't feel, it feels panopticon to me.
Brit Morin: It's a little creepy. I, I wanna know how the employees feel about it.
Sam Lessin: Do you wanna work under that? Like, would you-
Jessica: They, they do not feel good. I mean, they're, I've read articles saying that they're, some are not too happy about it.
Brit Morin: And they're doing all these layoffs in the same time. It's sort of like a big, a big blow up.
Dave Morin: What they're doing, they, like, what people already are doing, we know this, is, like, they're creating these sims and having people, like, make investment banking models and then watch them, right? Like, this is, like, literally like an-
Sam Lessin: What do you mean, Sam?
Dave Morin: What's that?
Sam Lessin: I think, explain this to the listener.
Dave Morin: So there, there's-
Sam Lessin: I'm not sure I understand
Dave Morin: ... like, real business. Like, this is what Garrett's company does, right, is they, like, they build up a simul- like, they build up a workspace for people with-
Sam Lessin: Garrett's company Han- Handshake?
Dave Morin: Handshake. And, like, this is what-
Sam Lessin: Yeah
Dave Morin: ... Scale did or whatever, is you build up, like, an environment, and you're like, "I need to figure out how investment bankers work. So I'm gonna hire a bunch of investment bankers, and I'm gonna have them do their job. I'm gonna say, 'Build models,' right? And I'm gonna watch them. I'm gonna, like, do the click stream, understand what they're doing, and that's how I create the dataset to then automate the shit out of it." And then they just pay the people to do it. All this is is the logical extension, which is, wait a minute, I'm already paying people all day long to do these things. Why would we not capture the data exhaust while we're at it to do the same thing, right? Like, so it's, it's, there's, there's, it's, it's a vanishingly small difference.
Brit Morin: I feel like the employees should get a cut of the ultimate value of the dataset.
Dave Morin: Well, but this is the problem, Brit, with all this stuff is, like, it's the same thing with if someone was like, if you go to an investment banker, right, and you're like, "Hey, I'm gonna give you an environment. I'd like you to build some models for me, investment banker, and I'm gonna watch you." That guy's like, "Cool, I'll do it for 100 bucks." By definition, they're, like, giving away the secrets of what they do and putting all their friends out of a job.
Brit Morin: But the problem is these employees were already hired at Meta, and they didn't, they weren't told when the time they were being hired, "And by the way, at some point we're gonna start tracking literally everything you do on your computer."
Dave Morin: But what, but it's like fundamentally the company's paying for their ti- I mean, I, here's an interesting argument. You know, there's this big argument in Silicon Valley for ages about whether most tech workers really should be paid by the hour versus salary, right? And the argument is that if you are not a manager, by, like, the letter of the strict law, you're supposed to be paid for your work by the hour, right?
Brit Morin: Mm-hmm.
Dave Morin: In, like, most legal frameworks. And so the argument has always been, well, these individual engineers or people doing stuff, like, it's, you know, they're salaried, they get stock options, but really you should just be paying by the hour legally. This might push in that direction where you're like, yeah, yeah, like, literally these people are just, like, training systems for you by the hour, so, like, you should just pay them by the hour for their work so that you're scraping it and building models off of it, which is what you're doing for the investment bankers anyway.
Brit Morin: I'm just saying, it, it feels weird.
Sam Lessin: I mean, the data's gonna have to come from somewhere. Like, computer use models are less than 40% effective right now, and the coding models use the terminal. They use Bash, and they're extremely effective. But it's like all of the computer use models are truly bad right now, so the only way we're gonna get there is with some kind of something like this sadly.
Jessica: So let's recap. We're gonna be telling people that, AI, what did your colonoscopy, uh, uh, attendant say s- about AI? It, it's not gonna be very good. It's gonna take your job.
Dave Morin: It's gonna take your job.
Jessica: It's gonna increase-
Dave Morin: It's gonna give you a little water
Jessica: ... your energy prices, and it's gonna spy on you. We have a problem. Houston, we have a problem.
Dave Morin: It is what it is. Like, this is what we signed up for. Like, what... By the way, the OpenAI story, I would argue this goes back to our s- where we started, which is the nonprofit thing, which is like, hey, if you told everyone on the internet, right, you publish all this content, you put stuff out there, and a group came and said, "Hey, we're gonna take it all and, like, remake a model so that we don't need to, like, use any of your images ever again. We can just create images on the fly, and we don't need to ever use your writing anymore 'cause we can just make it all ourselves," they'd be like, "Abso-fucking-lutely not," right? The bait and switch was they went out and said, "Well, we're just doing research, so don't worry about it. This is for the good of humanity," and they flipped it around, and I think it's exactly the same thing. If you said, if you said to them, computer workers, "Don't worry, we promise we're not gonna replace you. We're just doing research that's good for everyone," you'd be like, "Oh, well, maybe it's okay to watch me." If you're like, "Hey, actually, let's be honest, I'm, like, just gonna watch your click stream and then back you out of the equation in eight months," people are gonna be super pissed, right? So there's just, like, a level of honesty, I think, right, that you just gotta confront about this stuff.
Jessica: Yeah. The flip side would be that business, all businesses evolve, and you can't... Like, d- is it breaking the law to... Now this is a big pivot. I, I'm just arguing both. I'm arguing that side for the sake of it, not 'cause I believe one of these others. But, like-
Dave Morin: I think the problem is, is, like, a lot of stuff might not be technically breaking the law. It's just not, like, the law cannot keep up with reality. The law did not anticipate this, right? Like-
Jessica: The law did not anticipate this
Dave Morin: ... and that's kind of the issue.
Jessica: The law should have known, but, you know.
Dave Morin: No, the law never knows, and that's kind of the whole thing is you can-
Jessica: The law never knows. And it's probably gonna know less and less if we're on the current state and course of artificial intelligence. Friends, what's cooking before we wrap? What should we leave the, the people with this weekend?
Dave Morin: I gotta say, I had a great time with AI.
Sam Lessin: Yeah. I mean, I guess that's, like, the thing that Jess, you heard me give a speech last week
Jessica: Oh, I forgot to say how exceptional it was. Guys, Dave... I'm so glad you brought this up, Dave. You know, it takes a lot. Most times I step on stage, I'm interviewing someone or I'm being interviewed. Dave, at a, a, a very prominent event, just stepped up to the microphone and told the amazing story of where Claw is today and some of the origins. I was very proud of you, Dave, and you really-
Brit Morin: Aw
Jessica: ... commanded that room.
Brit Morin: That's so nice, Jess.
Jessica: And I think you should really... I know, like, it's not easy for anyone to do that, and Brit, I imagine you helped with some of the writing-
Brit Morin: We, we did some scripting together
Jessica: ... because it's also very good. But it was great.
Sam Lessin: It was crazy stressful.
Jessica: And I think it takes... And I presume you weren't even given a format, so you were... like, had a blank slate, and you created a great narrative, and I felt so proud, so well done.
Sam Lessin: Thank you.
Jessica: That was so long ago now.
Sam Lessin: Yeah. But you know, I guess, like, one of the things that I've been thinking about a- along the lines of all of this, and Sam, I, I read your essay about meaning, and I think that there's a counter-narrative that needs to emerge, which is that the, the thing that gives people meaning is agency, like, their ability to create what they want to create. And if you look at the sheer... like, the number of people that use software in the world right now, it's around, whatever, 6 billion, right? People are using software. There's only 50 million people that, that write software, uh, in the world. And the idea that AI is going to unlock tens of millions of more people, if not hundreds of millions of more people, to create software that the 6 billion people use, to me is, like, an incredibly powerful story. Like, and Sam, I know you've done some events recently to teach people that don't know how to, you know, use software and how to, how to make things with AI. You know, we had 3,000 students show up last week in, at the University of Michigan on Thursday night for ClawCon. Um, the University of Michigan is launching an institute for agentic computing. And you know, 3,000 students that feel deeply empowered by this new software called OpenClaw that enables you to build any software that you want for any reason. Like, to me, that's, like, really, really i- inspiring. And you know, I'm, I'm hearing stories now every day of people that, uh, have built a small business. Stuff that's, like, really basic. Like, we've got this guy in, um, Switzerland that used OpenClaw to brew beer, and then the, it built him a website, and it set up Stripe, and now he's got a lobster lager that he's selling on, you know, on the internet. And he doesn't care. He's, I think, 70. He doesn't care that any of this was written by code that he doesn't understand. He's just really psyched that he gets to have a relationship with the customers that are drinking his beer. And like, I think that's, like, really pretty inspiring, and like, the idea that this stuff, the, like, hard work of, like, using all the computers that people have done in these, like, big tech companies kind of starts to go away might actually be a really good thing, in that people can create what they wanna create. And I don't know. Like, I, I guess I'm just, like... I'm far more optimistic that, like, we may actually be at a local maximum right now, that, um, the inequality that we see in the Mag 7 and in the sto- software stocks in the market is so concentrated into this, like, priesthood of 50 million people that can write software today. The distribution of more people being able to write software is actually gonna be a huge bonus for meaning in the world. And yes, we might lose some jobs that were otherwise moving data around in spreadsheets, but like, I don't know. Like, I'm, like, much more optimistic about this than, than many-
Dave Morin: Look, I am very optimistic about the creators that we work with. I mean, like, that was one of the most fun I've had in a long time, was sitting with 30 of them for two days and teaching them how to, like, set up their own infrastructure and kinda do the last mile so they can actually enable themselves, and massively useful and valuable. So I'm, I'm all in on that. For me, the problem is, like, how consolidated or distributed is the meaning, right? And it is kind of the purpose. I don't... Like, Dave, if you have eight, nine-
Sam Lessin: If we give people more agency, like-
Dave Morin: But the, the question is how many and who? The question is the distribution of it, not, like, whether... The 1%'s gonna be fine, right? And by the way, 1% of, uh, eight billion people is still a lot of people. The question is, is it enough? It's a very different model than a model of, like, having a robust middle class that feels dealt into projects, right?
Jessica: Mm-hmm.
Dave Morin: Like, the world of, like, people who can be-
Sam Lessin: But they haven't. I guess that's the thing, is, like, they haven't felt... Like, you had to be able to speak this very esoteric computer language in order to be dealt in for the last 30 years.
Dave Morin: You get to be on the marketing team, right? You get to be on all these other things. It's not, it's not just a... Like, I agree that I love... Software's so fun, and like, it's never... Like, I'm having a blast. I'm literally... I spent six hours on a flight flying back to California today, coding the entire way, coding in quotes with... And I worked on, like, six things, and I got, like, six things done that are all awesome that I wanted, right? So like, I'm all in about the leverage and the tools. It is so fun. But I just, I think the problem is when you scope out, you do just have this fundamental problem, which is the fact that I can do so much more on my own and you can do so much more on your own just means we don't need to include as many people. We don't have to play nicely with others as much, right?
Sam Lessin: I don't know. Like, the, the speech that I gave was that, like, when I was seven, my grandfather put a Macintosh computer on my desk, and that computer cost $6,000 in, you know, in today's dollars, in the mid-'80s, and it took a very long time to get those computers to everyone, right? Like, it took the next 30 years to lower the price and make them more usable, more accessible. I guess my belief is that we're sitting here. These AI tools are still really complicated, very hard to use. Like, you've gotta put a room together to teach people how to use this stuff, right? You're right. Like, not very many people are gonna know how to do that. But the march forward is like, how do we make this cheaper? How do we make it actually easy to use for people and, you know, enable the most people to get access to it? And it's just like, to me, it's like that's what the personal computer was all about-
Jessica: Guys, I am going to-
Sam Lessin: ... and, like, we're in the second phase of this
Jessica: ... put a pin in this. I'm gonna put a pin in it 'cause it's been a long and great episode, and this topic requires even more revisitation. I don't know if that's a word.
Dave Morin: By the way, while we're talking, I'm building, I'm building my health strap right now.
Brit Morin: Stop talking, is what Jess is telling you b- you guys.
Jessica: Guys, we have to end-
Brit Morin: We love you
Jessica: ... the podcast when we have to end the podcast.
Brit Morin: We have shit to do, you guys.
Jessica: But with that, I think we covered- ... some excellent ground. We hit the highlights. We added some new flair. I hope that everyone enjoyed listening th- to this as much as we clearly enjoyed making it, and we will see you back here next week for another episode of More or Less. Bye.
Brit Morin: Bye.
Sam Lessin: Thanks, everyone.