#157 — OpenAI Offered the Government a Stake. Is This a Distress Signal?
July 10, 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: Sam Altman trying to give 5% up to the government for regulatory capture and all this politics is so bad, right? Because all of a sudden it makes the game not a fair and open game that at least you can play with rules. It becomes a game of politics where people feel gated out or gated in, and that is like the worst scenario for the long-term success of the country. I think it's just, like, we should just buy sports teams and, you know, real estate.
Jessica: That's what Josh Kushner's doing. He's buying more sports teams.
Brit Morin: Turns out the most prolific video gamer is a 37-year-old man. It used to be much younger, like kids and teens, and now it's 37, insinuating that video gaming has actually not stayed as popular as it once was with our generation.
Guest: More or less. Is it no or is it yes? We'll debate the tech that's best. Will 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. How was everyone's Fourth of July?
Sam Lessin: So good. Love 'em.
Dave Morin: Another year America turned 250.
Brit Morin: I love this holiday. I think it's a great holiday.
Sam Lessin: It's the best holiday.
Brit Morin: I think it's, like, an under-hyped holiday, actually. Like, I feel like it might be third place.
Dave Morin: Could not agree more.
Jessica: Okay. Say more, Brit. Say more. Third place?
Brit Morin: I mean, obviously we have Halloween and Christmas, so those, like, steal the show, but I feel like Fourth of July is third.
Dave Morin: No, Fourth of July is better.
Sam Lessin: No, no. Fourth of July's way better. Fourth of July is the only holiday we all celebrate.
Dave Morin: Yeah, and let me tell you about what Fourth of July in Montana is like. It's like this-
Jessica: Oh, I bet it was epic
Dave Morin: ... it's like this unbelievable display of American pure, unbridled competition. Who can shoot off the most ridiculous fireworks? It's amazing.
Jessica: Does everyone have their fingers?
Dave Morin: There's no rules about fireworks in Montana.
Brit Morin: There's no laws. There's no, like, places you can do fireworks. You just do them anywhere. And also, there's a bull in the parade. Like- ... there are, like, w- wild animals coming through the downtown parade, and, um-
Jessica: That's so good
Brit Morin: ... yeah. It's definitely not a California parade.
Dave Morin: It was interesting. They had like four guys guarding the bull as if, like, they were gonna stop the bull if the bull got in trouble. Yeah, it was pretty hilarious.
Brit Morin: I love that.
Sam Lessin: We got only hellos and merry Fourth of Julys from people in Jackson Hole, which I thought was telling. We weren't there, but it was like 100%-
Jessica: Everyone we knew in Jackson wished us happy Fourth of July. No one else wished us happy Fourth of July.
Sam Lessin: We were in Tahoe, which is, I actually think, the most American place to do the Fourth of July. It's like, it... I love all these places, but, like, Tahoe is pure America, is like max America.
Jessica: There were no bulls, though. I think we missed out.
Dave Morin: Yeah. That's because you haven't been to Flathead Lake yet, Sam.
Sam Lessin: Ironic since we own the land there, but, like, it's true. The big problem with Tahoe this year was one of the best parts of Fourth of July in Tahoe is the military hardware that comes out and buzzes the lake.
Dave Morin: Mm.
Brit Morin: Yeah.
Sam Lessin: 'Cause there's so many mil- And it... I have to assume it was just all repositioned to either fight wars or Washington, DC displays 'cause I only saw one F16 all day, as opposed to, like, usually get the s- the big C1-240, C140. You get everything, and I feel like there was very low military presence in Lake Tahoe on the Fourth.
Dave Morin: It was all in DC, let's be clear.
Jessica: Yeah. I think that's what happened.
Sam Lessin: We... Guys, you wouldn't believe this, and this was the best part. It's like we woke up for the Fourth of July, and of course had our children saluting an American flag 'cause that's what you do. And you know what flew by? A fucking bald eagle flew right by- ... and landed.
Dave Morin: That's awesome.
Sam Lessin: And it was, like, a beautiful-
Dave Morin: That's epic.
Brit Morin: Wait, I saw a bald eagle on the Fourth of July, too.
Sam Lessin: It was b- a max bald eagle.
Brit Morin: Same.
Dave Morin: That's amazing.
Sam Lessin: And it was, like, great 'cause I... It, it basically photobombed my flag shot and then landed in a tree, and I'm like, "This is a sign from God."
Brit Morin: No. I think it's a sign that Sam should be a politician like we talked about in the last episode.
Jessica: No. Brit, you gotta drop this. No one ran with it, so you're not running with it.
Sam Lessin: We- We'll see. Life is long.
Brit Morin: Um, he said we'll see. The door's open, Jess.
Jessica: Life is long. I like that. Life is long. I like that very much. Okay. So America celebrated.
Brit Morin: Taylor.
Jessica: We, we celebrated Taylor. We can circle back to this.
Sam Lessin: I, I got a repositioning 'cause I have a cleaning service.
Brit Morin: Oh, that's what the noise is behind you.
Sam Lessin: I... Well, I don't know. The 5:00 PM is an interesting, uh, uh... I'm not gonna comment.
Jessica: We can cut this part.
Sam Lessin: No, it's fine.
Jessica: Uh, you know, this is life.
Sam Lessin: You can leave it. I'll just go to a different room.
Jessica: Okay. But meanwhile, back in the land of technology, I'd say it was a light news week.
Sam Lessin: Oh, they're not done here either. Where am I supposed to go? I'll go to bathroom?
Jessica: Sam, you can shut off. We do not need to hear this. Go into Lion's room.
Sam Lessin: This is ridiculous. It's like w- w- w-
Jessica: Go into Lion's room. There's a desk in there.
Sam Lessin: Who starts cleaning-
Jessica: Good golly
Sam Lessin: ... at 5:00 PM?
Brit Morin: People that have multiple cleaning jobs during the day.
Jessica: Okay. So what's happening in tech land? We have more AI models coming out, but actually, I think where we sh- we should start, but Sam does have interesting points of view on this, but we don't have to start, is this idea is building steam that the government should take stakes in technology companies directly. We've talked a little bit about this. The latest headline, which I think is directionally right but specifically wrong, is that OpenAI offered the government a 5% stake. I think things are way more fluid than that, but generally under discussion. What do you guys think? This is a big... Speaking of America 250 Is America 251?
Dave Morin: What an abject failure of our capital markets that because these companies have not gone public and the American public has no ability to buy into the equity of these companies and participate in the wealth creation. Instead, we have to have the US government buy a position in order to give people a stake. Like, that's ridiculous.
Sam Lessin: No, they're not gonna buy it. They're being given it.
Jessica: Yeah, that's even worse.
Dave Morin: It's ridiculous.
Sam Lessin: It is ridiculous, and I, we did, I did CNBC on this last week. It's, it's the most un-American thing for the Fourth of July you can imagine. But here's the thing-
Jessica: Sam, you don't need to be explicit that the More or Less readers are getting your CNBC hot takes a week later. So give us something else you didn't say on CNBC- ... 'cause come on. Come on.
Sam Lessin: My kind of personal take on it is, like, it's a complete fuck you to capitalism in a way that's awful. But here's the interesting thing. What I said is, "You can't hate the game..." Uh, I'm sorry, "Don't hate the player, hate the game." 'Cause here's the thing. The real story of this-
Dave Morin: Or just get rid of the bad laws.
Sam Lessin: It's not about the laws. This is a situation where you have two things going on. One, you have companies, i- OpenAI being the poster child, who are pretending that a commodity is not a commodity and they're fucked, right? And, like, if you think about it, it's like... And the only way... It's like basically-
Jessica: Say more. Like, unpack that for people. You basically mean whose business margins are gonna go to zero 'cause they'll be commoditized. That's what you mean?
Sam Lessin: This is, the business is multiplying large numbers. It's globally liquid. There's no natural barrier to it. It's not even... Energy has more barriers than this 'cause it's hard to ship energy, not hard to ship multiplication output. Uh, same, on top of that, there's no regulatory framework, right? Whereas, like, you know, PG&E is a regulated monopoly. So the only way that these companies survive is by embedding themselves and trying to create regional monopolies, right? So that they can charge more money for multiplying big numbers, right? Like, that's the only way they survive. And it's the most cynical thing in the world to say to the government, "Hey, like, here's 5%." Which by the way, the idea that, like, that is somehow a dividend for America is, you're like, "Thanks. This is 100 bucks per person at a tr-..." It's like, it's a r- it's a g- it's, like, a travesty. It's like, well, it's like it's a classic pirates splitting the booty. It's like, "I'll take 95%. Here's 5%. Congratulations." It's, like, ridiculous.
Dave Morin: It's not even 5%. It's .00000000005%.
Sam Lessin: Whatever it is, it's ridiculous. But the basic point is, like, I do actually have to give Sam Altman some credit, not as a business person, but as a politician, because I do think this is, if you're in his position, where one, you're trying to sell a commodity. You're, you're set up where you have to have premium prices on a commodity and you're screwed. And then two, even within the set of AI companies, let's pretend the polit- political winds shift where this becomes palpable and, like, gets done. Of course, Sam Altman's the one out promoting it because he's, he has the least to lose. He's not a real company like Google or Open- or, uh, Meta or someone where actually 5% is meaningful, and he's not even winning the pure AI race. Anthropic is. So if your competitors are gonna lose more by having to give up 5% of the government than you are, then, like, hog wild, right? So it is one of those things where, like, very cynically, I think it's a very, very smart strategery politics move, but the problem is-
Dave Morin: I think you're overcomplicating it, man.
Jessica: Go, man. Dave, give it to us. Give it to us.
Dave Morin: I just think it's way more simple. AI is less popular in the United States than-
Sam Lessin: Than Jeffrey Epstein
Dave Morin: ... than Jeffrey Epstein.
Sam Lessin: It's literally less popular than Jeffrey Epstein. That's the most amazing part.
Dave Morin: We've talked about this before, but this is, like, a, an, an incredibly serious problem. And in fact, by the time, uh, this pod comes out, we will have announced the Open Claw Foundation.
Jessica: Yay, congrats.
Dave Morin: And the Open Claw Foundation is explicitly making its literal mission to bring people closer to AI, not to drive them further apart. And I just think that that's the simple thing here, which is that AI is less popular than ice and Jeffrey Epstein. And so it doesn't matter if you're OpenAI, Anthropic, or any other frontier lab, you have to do everything in your power to do marketing things that could possibly improve this. And that's the only explanation for this. Like, the only explanation for doing this is so you can have a nice press headline that everybody in America gets a piece of the AI stuff. And so therefore, you should care about it and not hate it so much. Like, I, I just think it's that simple.
Sam Lessin: I don't know. I think this is more about, like, getting your models re- I hear you. I, look-
Dave Morin: 'Cause there's no other rational reason to do it. Like, it just doesn't make sense.
Sam Lessin: Mm, I mean, I kinda like the Trump accounts.
Jessica: Yeah. S- fill people in on the Trump accounts, and then I wanna get to Brit on her thoughts.
Dave Morin: I think Trump accounts are amazing. The other problem in the United States is that people hate capitalism. Like, ca- both capitalism and AI are extremely unpopular with certain parts of the populace.
Sam Lessin: I don't hate capitalism.
Brit Morin: Definitely here in Montana.
Sam Lessin: Wait, Montana hates capitalism?
Jessica: No, Montana loves freedom.
Sam Lessin: Montana loves freedom.
Dave Morin: What are you talking about, Brit?
Brit Morin: I mean, like, tech- I feel like technology, venture capital, like, they're, they're anti.
Jessica: No, but that's different from capitalism. Okay, Dave, give us the Trump accounts 101, 'cause there was big news on this front this week too.
Dave Morin: Trump accounts are, uh, the idea is to give every child born in the United States a stake in the American capital economy. So you get a Trump account upon birth. Uh, there's some, you know, g- guardrails around this, like ch- children born in a certain window, and then everyone after that.
Sam Lessin: Well, it's also zip code based, I think. It's, like, for poor kids.
Dave Morin: No. You, any kid born b- in a certain window, Sam. And I believe it starts with $1,000 that has been, uh, put into your account by the US government. And then you have private individuals such as, you know, Michael Dell and his wife, and several others who are giving, you know, $250 to every stu- every, uh, uh, kid in America. Interestingly, like, people like Cardi B, who are giving, you know, $250 to everyone in her hometown and certain ZIP codes around it. So there's, like, a lot of people contributing to these Trump accounts, uh, which, you know, give kids a stake in the capitalist economy of the United States. So that's the idea.
Sam Lessin: Well, which basically, in a world where, like, entitlements and, like, effectively, you know, retirement plans are decimated and not gonna exist for them, the idea is, like, let them benefit with the market and the investment, which I think is great. It makes a lot of sense.
Brit Morin: And I think, I think I read that, like, if you keep compounding these over time, theoretically by the time you're 55 you would have $13 million.
Sam Lessin: Right. But this is also, like, the same math that goes on TikTok of people being like, "You can compound your way to hundreds of millions of dollars by saving lattes." So it's like, it's not really... I would... That's with a caveat. Like, basically, if they've compounded-
Dave Morin: You can get into millions in 20 years.
Sam Lessin: If Trump accounts compound to millions in fl- in nominal, then we are in a very rough spot, right? Is what I would say. Like, that's not gonna actually happen.
Jessica: And a couple more just factual details. So Brad Gerstner of Altimeter played a big role in establishing this with Michael Dell. And also what you can do is they, Brad and Michael are c- are trying to get people like Gwynne Shotwell, the COO of SpaceX, to donate some of their equity directly, and you can kind of do it by ZIP code.
Dave Morin: Which she did, I believe.
Jessica: And she did, and she donated hundreds of millions of dollars in SpaceX, uh, to Trump accounts.
Sam Lessin: So what's the deal on that, Jess? This is a great question, 'cause Gwynne Shotwell by all accounts is amazing.
Jessica: Are you asking what the tax treatment was? 'Cause I don't know.
Sam Lessin: No, no, no. Well, I mean, well, that is interesting, but I was gonna ask you your take on, like, her doing it and not Elon, right? 'Cause clearly that was, like, it was like, "Okay, I'll do this." You know, n- like-
Brit Morin: Yeah, why hasn't Elon donated to the Trump accounts?
Dave Morin: Maybe he will.
Sam Lessin: Like, what, what do you think the, what do you think the vibe is?
Jessica: I think that's interesting. So my account is actually-
Dave Morin: Seems like it's just kind of gaining momentum, and people are doing it because they want to. I don't know.
Jessica: I think that's right, Dave. I also think Gwynne has been really interesting. She's maintained a pretty low profile for, I think, such a accomplished CO, especially a woman. I've only interviewed her once. I've tried to interview her many more times. And I think she's just been very, you know, under the radar. Obviously has a busy job. And, you know, wh- it was very clear that it was sort of with her husband, too, that they did it, and so I think it was just a very personal thing they wanted to do, honestly, and I think when you come into, like, that much wealth all at once, you're obviously think deeply about what impact you wanna have too. So I don't think there was much strategy between her or Elon.
Sam Lessin: Really? I th- I bet there was strategy.
Jessica: I don't know. I thi- I think she just really, really wanted to do it.
Dave Morin: It's probably just simple strategy, actually. Just that it just went public, now the stock's liquid, and so now start donating, right? Like, a v- that's a pretty typical thing to do.
Jessica: I can see why it's a really appealing option for someone who j- you know, just came into, like, that much money as well, and who wouldn't... You know, there are a lot of philanthropic options, but I, this seems like a really cool one.
Sam Lessin: Well, I do think, I do think the contrast of that versus the, you know, the, the, yet again, another uproar about Mackenzie Scott Bezos, right? And, like, people kind of being upset about how she's treated philanthropy is, like, quite interesting.
Jessica: Well, I think people have to shut up about judging how Mackenzie Scott Bezos has done her philanthropy.
Dave Morin: Or anyone.
Brit Morin: Ooh, why?
Jessica: To be honest. Like, I really do. And like, Sam, I saw one of your tweets that irked me, because you were like, you know, "Have any of these organiza-" Y- I know you have, you, you think nonprofits don't make sense as a structure, and one could have an interesting argument about that. But m- and I don't know what's public or not, but Mackenzie Scott Bezos has supported in a super meaningful way so many organizations in a truly meaningful way. She just doesn't, like, go around and do podcasts about it, and I think that's really admirable, and people don't have to make the same choices themselves. But, like, why on earth? And if any other man was just doing this, to be honest, it would not even face an iota of the criticism that she faces for, like, living her life. No, I, I totally agree with that.
Sam Lessin: Look, she can do whatever she wants. Capitalism says she can do whatever she wants.
Jessica: I mean, if Taylor Swift gave away that much money in that way, like, haters gonna hate, but, like, no, e- everyone would be like, "Oh, awesome. Taylor Swift." Like-
Sam Lessin: I don't know. I think effective altruism is stupid, because I think that they have a really false sense of how they can calculate.
Jessica: She's not any, Mackenzie Scott Bezos is not an effective altruist at all.
Sam Lessin: No, no, that's someone's making, this is the point I'm gonna make.
Dave Morin: If anything, she's, like, the anti-effective al- altruist.
Sam Lessin: Oh, that's, that was the point I'm gonna make, which is, like, I would say there's effective altruism on one end of the spectrum, which I'm sympathetic to the idea. I just think those guys are, like, smoking crack when they do their calculations, right? And then there's, like, and, like, what their assumption is of, like, how they can model the future. And there's Mackenzie Scott Bezos, who is literally the opposite.
Dave Morin: It's also become kind of a runaway ideology, so.
Sam Lessin: Of course. It's ridiculous. But, like, the point is, like, they're just very extremes. Like, extreme one is, like, I'm gonna try to calculate for maximum impact everything and pretend like I can do that, and like, and, like, do that well, which you cannot. The other extreme is like, I'm just gonna write checks. Fuck it, right? And I think, like, I, you know, like, and I do agree with you, Jess. Like-
Jessica: First of all, w- we have no idea how much research she puts in or doesn't. Just because she doesn't talk about it, how do you know, Sam?
Sam Lessin: Well, you know, I've heard a lot of things.
Jessica: I've heard a lot of things.
Dave Morin: Can we get back to Trump accounts?
Sam Lessin: The speed at which she's gone from, "Here's an idea," to, like, "Here's $100 million," it does not give him face-
Jessica: This will shock you, but not everyone knows what they're talking about. This will just shock you. Trust but verify.
Brit Morin: I think Sam's just reading TikTok and Instagram.
Jessica: I have been on the board of a nonprofit she has donated money to, and there was a process. Let's just say that.
Dave Morin: How long was that process?
Jessica: Well, I, I'm not... It's just not... I mean, it was- It was no shorter than the process that other big name philanthropists who have foundations next to their last name go through. So, like, people's gotta stop judging. Like, aren't there more important questions in the world than, like-
Sam Lessin: Well, when you give away $26 billion really quickly, and the question is, that's, like, a reasonable thing for society to ask.
Jessica: But is it? Like, the, uh, who cares? Like-
Dave Morin: Yeah. Is it? Sam, you could give it away however the hell you want.
Sam Lessin: Oh, no, to be clear, I'm not saying she can do whatever she wants.
Jessica: Yeah.
Sam Lessin: I'm just saying, I, I'm, like, not j- I'm a free... Go nuts. Like, do whatever you want, but I don't think-
Dave Morin: This is fucking America, man. Free country. Donate your money how you want.
Sam Lessin: The part of the freedom is to have opinions about everything.
Dave Morin: We know you have opinions about everything.
Jessica: Sure, you can have opinions. I have the freedom to not think they're interesting, but yes, you could have opinions. Okay, let's go back to this government thing. So we can agree that we don't feel great about the government taking stakes in tech companies. Well, uh, Sam, you made a point, too. Th- this does happen, but it happens in distressed bailout situations, right?
Sam Lessin: Yeah, well, this is my... The point I made is, like, the only time, if you look at the history of America, we have taken positions in companies historically.
Dave Morin: Hmm. I see. So that's, that's the argument you're making.
Sam Lessin: Well, this is a, it's a distressed company.
Dave Morin: This is a distressed buyout.
Sam Lessin: It's a distressed company. It's just a... We're, they're basically putting-
Jessica: It, it doesn't think it's a distressed buyout.
Sam Lessin: But they're ac- And, like, this is the thing, is, like, if you look at history, and people are really mad about this. Like, you know, go back to '08, people were like, "Let the banks fail." But, like, in history, there have been several episodes where, like, the US has taken stakes in companies, the government.
Dave Morin: Mostly banks and airlines and car companies, right?
Jessica: Well, there's also Intel, Intel more recently.
Sam Lessin: To inject cash to bail them out because they're important, right? And, like, this is funny because, like, there's no cash being proposed. There's no, there's no... But it is also, like, one of those things where, like, the only time we do this is for distressed situations. It's crazy for us to not do this. So they're, they're distressed. They're distressed.
Dave Morin: If this was cash, your argument would, would fly, but because it's not, I think the only real argument is this is marketing to try to make AI have a better brand and give everybody a stake.
Sam Lessin: Well, I just think the question is marketing to who? I think it, it's marketing to Donald Trump, and it's marketing... It's not marketing to, like, Joe Schmo is my view.
Brit Morin: I don't think normal people know or care is my take.
Jessica: Yes. No, Brit, I agree. Brit, I agree.
Dave Morin: I actually think that about the Trump accounts too. I actually think that the Trump account thing is completely disconnected from society.
Sam Lessin: Well, I hope that changes though. I actually like Trump accounts. I'll say it again.
Dave Morin: No, I understand that you like them. I like them too. I actually do question whether or not anybody knows or cares.
Brit Morin: I would love to see the engagement metrics of people who have been to the Trump accounts website or who have read any of this news about the government investing in these companies.
Dave Morin: I do think it's cool that Robinhood built the app for them. Like, that's kinda cool.
Jessica: So Brit, what would you do, uh, both economically and also from a brand perspective? And then we can move on 'cause we have talked about-
Brit Morin: If you're America?
Jessica: Yeah. No. I- y- yeah, if you're AI companies wanting to move up and maybe be more popular than Jeffrey Epstein, is there an economic solution to doing that or not?
Brit Morin: I mean, I... An economic solutions to it, meaning, like, how do you get more capital in people's hands for using AI more?
Dave Morin: No, she's asking purely brand.
Brit Morin: I've heard her say both.
Jessica: I'm sort of asking both. Well, I think let's take the economic first, because I'm inundated with op-eds from people who think they have ways to reform the tax code or reform this or that to go-
Sam Lessin: No, we're fucked. We're fucked. We're, we're fucked. It's like-
Dave Morin: Wait
Sam Lessin: ... it's really s-
Dave Morin: Reform the tax code for what, Jess?
Jessica: To share the wealth of AI more broadly across society, in part to change the perception of AI.
Dave Morin: Here's an idea. You already have a pretty amazing business in selling tokens and, you know, like, taking a rake on your tokens. Stop building apps to compete with everyone in your ecosystem and start building a developer ecosystem that's actually healthy. Simple. Nobody wants to do it.
Brit Morin: Well, that's what I was gonna say. People hate AI because they're afraid it's gonna take their jobs and their opportunity away from them.
Sam Lessin: Well, because the big open, we've been telling them it's gonna take their jobs from years now. Like, that's why they're, like-
Dave Morin: Then the double whammy is, oh, and by the way, if you build anything on top of our tokens, we're going to watch what you're building, and then we're going to directly compete with you and destroy you. And it's really not s- it's really not complicated. These businesses are already making so much money.
Sam Lessin: No, they're not. They're losing so much money. They're, they, they... Let's be clear.
Dave Morin: Sam, they're both making and losing money. Like, they are also making an enormous amount of revenue.
Jessica: One is net losing, one appears to be net making.
Sam Lessin: The one who needs a government bailout.
Jessica: Maybe it is a bailout. But Dave, let's pick up on this, okay? Because, A, I see what you're saying, but B, all the great platform companies I can think of also have owned and operated apps. Take Apple.
Dave Morin: That's fine. They weren't growing this fast, and the revenue curves were not growing like this. Like, this happened in under three years.
Jessica: How are you gonna convince a company to make more money, especially one that has CapEx estimates in the trillion... Uh, how are you gonna convince them to make less money when their CapEx forecasts-
Dave Morin: I'm not trying to convince them to make less money. I'm saying empower your developer ecosystem to make maximum amount of money.
Sam Lessin: It's not enough people to matter.
Dave Morin: I don't agree. Every business on earth is using these tokens right now.
Sam Lessin: Here's my macro narrative, is if- America was very, very blessed for a few hundred years with terra nova. And sure, we stole it from the Indians, right? And sure, it wasn't quite truly terra nova.
Jessica: I didn't think we were gonna get into terra nova in this pod, but here we go.
Sam Lessin: No, but this is it. Like, we- what did we do?
Dave Morin: Sam, speak English. Nobody knows what you're talking about.
Brit Morin: I don't know what terra nova is, but I am part N- Indian.
Sam Lessin: Okay, we're 200 years old. We just landed.
Dave Morin: Brit's part Comanche Indian, so if you fuck this up, Sam, you're in real trouble.
Jessica: No, she's sh- he's, he's honoring you, Brit.
Brit Morin: It's already been fucked up, Dave.
Sam Lessin: I'm honoring your land, Brit.
Jessica: In a convoluted way. Just roll with it.
Sam Lessin: Here's the deal. It's super simple. It's like America loves capitalism. Why does it love capitalism? Well, we basically had this amazing immigrant punt for 200 years. We said, "Hey, come hang out over here, your most driven, most interesting people who wanna, like, make lives for themselves. And good news, we did the Louisiana Purchase. We got all this new land for you. Don't worry about the Indians. As long as you have a shovel and can work pretty hard, you can go west and make- do really well." You know, 20 acres and a mule style, right? And so that was great for a super long time. Then we got industrialized, and it worked again. Then in our generation, you wanna fast-forward, like, the internet was a huge boon for us because it was digital terra nova, right? That we could col- colonize, become important, get rich on, et cetera. And the problem is with each successive wave, the number of people, the number of humans you need to dig shit who can- and share the wealth goes down. It's like when you have- when you build a railroad, you need a fuckload of people. All those people get paid. When you build internet companies, you don't need as many people. Fewer people get paid. AI, you have even smaller teams. So the, the reality is, is like you have more wealth, but fewer humans who are dealt into it, right? And that is just, like, what is happening with technological leverage. And so there is... Like, I'm quite sympathetic to the fact, as much as I love capitalism and I'm hyper pro-capitalist, these proposals where it's like, oh, if only we change the tax code, there's, like, some massively... I don't think so. I think the only thing you can do is have a real meritocracy and say, "Look, it's not all gonna work out for everyone, but if you work really hard, you're gonna have a shot," right, is, like, the upshot. And, like, that is why I'm so obsessed with meritocracy and its combination to capitalism and, like, what, and freedom. It's like freedom, meritocracy, capitalism. Like, is- that's the trifecta, right, that we have to protect because the world is otherwise gonna get more unequal and more fucked. And the reality is when you start chipping at capitalism, you chip at freedom. And people are gonna do that if they feel like the, if the game is rigged or unfair, which is why Sam Altman trying to give 5% of the government, to the government for regulatory capture and all this politics is so bad, right? Because all of a sudden it makes the game not a fair and open game that at least you can play with rules. It becomes a game of politics where people feel gated out or gated in, and that is, like, the worst scenario for the long-term success of the country.
Jessica: You need a free press to have those three things, just so you know.
Sam Lessin: Free speech is critical, and it, i- I think it'd be very hard for anyone to argue I don't support the concept of a free press. I just think it needs to be pow- for it to be powerful, it needs to be profitable. You can't have a free press on principle. The free press needs to, like, be a good enough business to defend itself.
Dave Morin: What does this have to do with, like, these frontier labs being good platforms and being companies that share the wealth with their developers? Like, that, that's what I'm, like, actually trying to get at here, which is that these companies have become enormous faster than any organization in history, right? And they claim to have altruistic, they're PBCs. You know, they want to, uh, do the right thing, keep everyone safe. Why aren't they saying the same thing about their platform partners, right? Why aren't they actually, why aren't they actually giving more to their ecosystems so that their ecosystems can participate?
Sam Lessin: Any capitalist enterprise that claims to be doing good or have a double bottom line is, like, always gonna be deeply suspect, right? Like, that's, like, the biggest trick the devil ever pulled.
Dave Morin: Sam, I'm not asking about double bottom line. I'm saying, like, these companies are making enormous amounts of revenue.
Sam Lessin: Sure.
Dave Morin: And they could share a larger percentage of that with their partners.
Jessica: But they're not making enormous amount of profits yet, Dave.
Brit Morin: Yeah, I agree with Jess.
Jessica: Their sustainability is their profitability.
Dave Morin: I understand, but, like, the cost of these models, like, everything is moving quickly the other direction.
Sam Lessin: Uh, look, I think it goes a little bit back to the thing we've talked about many times on the pod, which is, like, look, is everyone a developer or no one a developer? Is everyone a platform partner or is no one a platform partner? Like, from my perspective, the problem is, like, I have all sorts of software running just for me on these stuff. I wouldn't consider myself a platform partner. Like, I wouldn't even consider myself a developer on them. I'm literally just, like, making the shit I want. And, like, it's really, really hard to see, like, what that ecosystem looks like because it really does mean that these developers are just consumers, right? And if they're just consumers, then, like, how do you deal with... Like, what are you gonna deal in everyone, then you just don't charge them? Like, what does that even mean?
Brit Morin: You're not making any money off of any of these apps yet, are you, Sam? So it's not like they can do, like, a profit share or something with you.
Sam Lessin: I mean, I make tens of dollars. There are several people who have subscribed to my children's podcast that is all AI generated.
Jessica: So I, Dave, I'm, I'm really intrigued by your comment. I ha- I haven't thought, like, I, I think it's really interesting about the developer ecosystems, and obviously you're just, like, in the center of that, so no one has a better point of view. My sense is that these companies-
Dave Morin: Even if I weren't, this would still be my point of view, right?
Jessica: No, I know. I'm not, I'm not... I, uh, that wasn't meant to say that, like, you have a bone to pick. It was meant to say, like, I, I think you, you s- see this i- in a smart way. My sense is that they're moving in the other direction and working to go even deeper in terms of acquisitions, owned and operated building You know, to control way more of, of the software application side.
Dave Morin: I think it's a foolish strategy.
Jessica: Uh, but I think they're going in a big... I mean, they're, uh, not- nothing that we can obviously confirm, but, but hearing about a lot of things. So that, that's interesting. Uh, why d- are they doing that? They think that's where they'll capture the most economic value? Or it seems to me defensive.
Dave Morin: I think to Sam's point, like, I think they have no idea what to do, and these things do need to make meaningfully more profit in order to fly on the public markets and continue to attract capital, et cetera. However, uh, you can do that two ways, right? Like, we've seen this with companies, I don't know, like, there have been many internet pro- you know, platforms over the years where you've seen both regimes play out, right? Where you have, uh, you know, a developer-friendly regime and a non-developer-friendly regime. And it... I think in the long term, if you can make your developer ecosystem make more money than you do, you are in a much better position than you are taking all of the profit for yourself over the long term, and it's a, it's a, it's an actual choice.
Sam Lessin: Who do you think has, like, legitimate developer platforms in 2026?
Jessica: Apple.
Sam Lessin: Apple. Who else?
Jessica: Goog- Google.
Brit Morin: Google.
Sam Lessin: Google. Just, let's be clear, like, what is Google's developer platform?
Jessica: They have Android.
Brit Morin: Android.
Dave Morin: And, and Search.
Sam Lessin: But they're chipping away. They're taking that away. They're taking that away.
Dave Morin: But people make a lot of money on the other side of Search.
Sam Lessin: They used to. They used to.
Jessica: We should talk about Xbox, by the way. Let's return to that, Vivian.
Sam Lessin: I mean, Meta does this, but as an ads platform. Like, I, I just think it's, like, it's an interesting question. People like to talk about-
Dave Morin: I don't know. I, I don't think you can argue that Meta's a good platform.
Sam Lessin: Oh, I think it is for advertisers.
Dave Morin: They take most of the, they take most of the rents. They don't distribute them.
Sam Lessin: Small business advertisers?
Dave Morin: Yeah.
Sam Lessin: I don't know. It's an interesting question, though.
Jessica: I think we have pretty good... I mean, Google's our best performing ad platform, but Meta's pretty good, so, um, that's our experience.
Brit Morin: Yeah, but ad platforms aren't developer platforms.
Dave Morin: I think we'd have to look at an economic analysis of, like, both.
Sam Lessin: I mean, the easy point is, like, when it comes to technical platforms that are, like, they... I mean, are, you can kinda talk, you certainly can talk about Apple, but they also take most of the rents off of the App Store, right? At least used to, until they've been fight, fought out of it.
Dave Morin: That's not true.
Sam Lessin: They're going down. They're going down.
Jessica: It's not technically most of. It's less than the majority.
Brit Morin: 30%. It's a third.
Jessica: It's massive. I, but, but no one's gonna-
Sam Lessin: Profits versus revenue, they, they take a big chunk of those profits.
Dave Morin: People build enormous businesses. Like, it's a super healthy developer ecosystem.
Sam Lessin: On iOS?
Dave Morin: Yeah. There's, like, a lot of amazing businesses.
Sam Lessin: Like, really? People have bi- apps. W- what's the biggest truly business built on top of the App Store, really?
Dave Morin: Life360, great gaming businesses galore. Like, there's, like, amazing businesses in the Apple developer ecosystem.
Brit Morin: Spotify.
Sam Lessin: Pre- preexisted the App Store, but predated the App Store.
Dave Morin: Look, I just think you can make a choice, right? Like, you can make a choice. I, I wish that the AI companies would make the choice to empower developers, because I think that would be better for the world and better for humanity, just like keeping these things safe. I think that people would be a lot more excited to participate, right? Like, I don't actually think they have to onboard all of these applications. I think they can actually build enormously large businesses by just deeply empowering their developer ecosystems, but it's just a choice. What they're... It's hard either way, right? Like, you either have to onboard, acquire a bunch of these businesses, compete with everybody.
Sam Lessin: There's a good question about business strategy. I don't think that empowering some developers fundamentally changes the political narrative.
Dave Morin: No, but I, I think these are different things. Like, uh-
Sam Lessin: Yeah, they might... A few people might.
Jessica: Well, also, as we've, as we've talked about, right, like, if you don't empower developers, developers are gonna go to all these other alternatives, right, uh, as well.
Dave Morin: Which is, again, like, Jess, earlier you said, "I have a bone to pick." I, I, like, don't care anymore.
Jessica: No, I said you don't have a bone to pick.
Dave Morin: No, I know. But, like, I, I legitimately don't care anymore, because the availability of amazing open source models is so good. And, you know, OpenClau is growing right now at, like, 5 million claws a week. Like, we're gonna have a billion claws by the end of the year. And the amount of open source activity is just enormous. And so it, it actually doesn't matter, but I do think that they would be better off if they-
Sam Lessin: But this is the point. This is why these are actually distressed companies, Dave. This is my point about, like, OpenAI's political play. We'll see what Anthropic does. These are, like, threatened-
Dave Morin: I agree, Sam. I don't think you're hitting Anthropic hard enough, 'cause I think it's equally as distressed if, like, this is actually true.
Sam Lessin: They might be, but they might be, but for now at least, it feels like OpenAI is the weaker and the more distressed of the two, and that could just be narrative.
Brit Morin: I think this is just a loop, like I said in a past pod. This is, like, I think it's changing every few months. We're gonna see them shift gears.
Sam Lessin: Yeah, for... But if, and, and if that's true, Brit, that means they're all fucked. Like, basically it means there's no compounding advantage.
Brit Morin: I agree.
Sam Lessin: Yeah, like, that's the question of the year is, is there a compounding advantage against... I mean, it's ir- ironic, 'cause, like, Mark was all about open source early, right? And it, he, I think, is strategically right. It just turns out maybe to not be Meta's open source.
Dave Morin: He should have kept going.
Sam Lessin: But he was right thematically and strategically.
Dave Morin: But he should have kept going.
Jessica: They could, they could go back to open source, no?
Dave Morin: They should go back.
Jessica: Yeah, I don't know how these-
Sam Lessin: They, I mean, yeah. I mean-
Dave Morin: They should absolutely go back. Like, in my view, Meta should go back to open source, rent their cloud to developers. They should've been in the cloud business all along. We actually considered being in the cloud business back when we launched Facebook platform in '07. And, like, they waited way too long. They've got all this inference. Just, like, rent it to developers. Build an enormous cloud business, and ship amazing open source models. Empower developers. Like, it would be great for Meta to do that. Like, it was the right strategy. I don't know why they swift- switched.
Jessica: Yeah. We'll see. I don't, I, I think they're throwing a lot of things against the wall, and I think it's unclear that is a Ooh, it's unclear what they're gonna do. Time will tell. Switching gears a little bit, who has an Xbox?
Brit Morin: I mean, I feel like we do. Do we not have one? I feel like we have every gaming device.
Dave Morin: No, no, we've never had one. We only have Nintendo.
Jessica: Sam, do we not have an Xbox? We have-
Brit Morin: We have, no, we have PlayStation.
Dave Morin: No, we don't. We got rid of the PlayStation.
Brit Morin: Oh.
Dave Morin: We briefly had an Xbox because we bought a house from an Apple executive who had the most beautiful rack of every single gaming device in history that we bought.
Jessica: That's funny.
Dave Morin: So we did briefly have one, but no, we've never, I've never bought an Xbox.
Brit Morin: Wait, y- you included all of his devices in the house acquisition?
Dave Morin: It was, like, it's so deeply wired into the infrastructure of this house that we had, like, like, literally, like, the most beautiful Apple exec route.
Brit Morin: These are things that only happen in Silicon Valley.
Dave Morin: Um, and it had an Xbox built in. Um, but no, we have... I've never bought one. I mean, lots of people do. It's a thing people do. I just-
Jessica: Well, Xbox has gone through a major restructuring, guys. Apparently-
Brit Morin: A lot of people laid off, right?
Dave Morin: Didn't they restructure it a few-
Jessica: Twice
Dave Morin: ... Sarah Bond was running it for a while. She was amazing, and she left, and then-
Jessica: Yep, now Asha's running it-
Dave Morin: Okay
Jessica: ... who was doing AI, and she's, like, totally overhauled the strategy, jettisoned a lot of studios.
Brit Morin: Why? What's happening? Are people not gaming?
Dave Morin: Are they using the Xboxes to mul- mult- multiply numbers and, like, putting them in a cloud?
Jessica: No, I think basically they just faced, obviously, more and more competition, um, and in gaming and entertainment and, um, also, like, in non-console based gaming because there's things called the internet and so forth.
Dave Morin: It's like they're losing to OnlyFans. That's what's really happening.
Brit Morin: Well, and did you know, I was reading an article about video gaming, and it turns out the most prolific video gamer is a 37-year-old man. It used to be, like, younger, much younger, like kids and teens, and now it's 37, insinuating that video gaming has actually not stayed as popular as it once was with our generation. And the only boom, the only blip of a boom in it was in 2020 'cause everyone was stuck at home. But even still, like, teenagers these days have kind of, like, found other things.
Dave Morin: What do they do? They're not having sex. They don't play video games.
Brit Morin: I think they're just on social media.
Jessica: They're not drinking.
Brit Morin: Watching YouTube and TikTok.
Dave Morin: It's really not good. I will say, I really like, Dave, you, I gotta give you credit. You mentioned offhand this Nex device-
Jessica: Oh, yeah
Dave Morin: ... which is awesome, and, like, we immediately bought it, and, like, it's great.
Jessica: It's so fun.
Dave Morin: It's great.
Jessica: We-
Dave Morin: Literally, we have it with us. We travel with it.
Brit Morin: W- It's so little. I'm like, "Why wouldn't we bring it with us?"
Dave Morin: We also have a travel with ours. It's the easiest thing to travel with. I literally, it's, I don't do this, but I also-
Jessica: Explain what it is, Sam. There is some context required when you're taping a podcast.
Dave Morin: Is there, really? I feel like that we're taping for people who are in the know, and we don't care about other people.
Jessica: I, not, not if you're introducing a new device you just learned of. Fair enough.
Dave Morin: Look-
Jessica: But-
Dave Morin: ... it's, I didn't learn. Dave, Dave should explain it. In all honesty, I'll give full credit. This was a complete Dave Morin offhand as I do my online shopping while we talk, and this one was great.
Brit Morin: You should've got an affiliate link, Dave.
Dave Morin: Nex is, like, the second coming of, uh, you know, Xbox deserves some credit here. Of Kinect. Of Kinect. Of Xbox. Of Kinect. Xbox deserves some credit here because theys, you know, they, they were the ones that started the Kinect, with the Kinect thing, which was kind of a response to multi-touch, right?
Jessica: Where it's, like, more inputs besides the controller, right? That's what Kinect was?
Dave Morin: Yeah. You could, like, dance in front of it, and it used, I think, LiDAR or, I don't know, some kinda depth sensing in order to get input for the video game. And so Nex just kind of took a look at that and said, "We can make this even more family-friendly." Well, and cheap as shit 20 years later.
Jessica: Yeah.
Dave Morin: Yeah. It's, it's low cost, um, and the games are really fun because they're multiplayer. I think that's the key thing, and they get you moving, and so it's pretty cool. You can play basketball and tennis, and a lot of things, you know, that we had on the Wii and Xbox with Kinect and all that kind of stuff. But you just need this one little cheap box, and the whole family can play. And it, I think it's cool because it, it's, it's a video game that gets kids moving, which I think is really actually one of the main things that's the best about it.
Brit Morin: And it's, like, the size of a Rubik's Cube. You can throw it in your bag.
Dave Morin: Yeah, it's great. I will say, my kind of big thing is for years I was looking for, like, a kids version of Beat Saber 'cause I think Beat Saber's an amazing game, but, like, I don't want them in VR. And I also think the number one problem with Beat Saber is, like, you go to play it, and you, like, disappear into the metaverse to play. But it's a great game. And so, like, they basically have, like, non-VR multiplayer Beat Saber, which is just, like, that's all I need.
Jessica: It's really wild. It, kids become, like, they master it so fast, and you're like, "What is going on?" Okay, that's a good rack.
Dave Morin: You know, there's some amazing people working on Nex as well, some great, you know, great, great product designers. But Dave, are they building an ecosystem or just a- Are they building an ecosystem?
Jessica: Oh, my God, Sam, you're something.
Dave Morin: I think they are, actually. They're, they've got a lot of great games. But are they taking too much of the profits? I'm kidding. I'm just fucking with you. Uh, you know who's involved there was Alex Wu, who was on the original Facebook product design team. Like, he's one of the founders. So props to Alex Wu. Um, and he was a, I always loved working with him. Great colleague.
Jessica: Just to wrap Xbox, so the other question is whether Microsoft will eventually sell Xbox. What do you guys think?
Brit Morin: To who?
Dave Morin: To OpenAI, of course.
Brit Morin: There's, like, th- two people to sell it to.
Jessica: To EA. I don't, I don't know.
Brit Morin: I know. That's, like, one of the two.
Jessica: I mean, to other people, but-
Dave Morin: Oh, yeah. I mean, sell it to one of the gaming companies.
Jessica: Like, Microsoft is sort of the only of the big tech stocks that is, like, down. Like, the investors are not happy with the strategy over there. There's a lot of big questions.
Dave Morin: The narrative shift on Microsoft in the last year is, like, wild to me. It, it, like, went from, like, they could do no wrong to, like, they're the worst. I, I just love, we really do just trade-
Sam Lessin: ... narratives and not reality. It's just wild to me to, like, come to... This is my, like-
Dave Morin: Yeah, 'cause it's an enormously huge business.
Jessica: At some point, SpaceX has come back down to Earth, kind of.
Sam Lessin: It's-
Jessica: Kind of.
Sam Lessin: Has it?
Jessica: Kind of.
Sam Lessin: I mean, look, I, I just think it's a fascinating... I, I'm very cynical, but this is kind of my, like, 2026 takeaway, is just, like, extreme nihilism, where, like, all we're doing is trading narratives. And the interesting thing is, like, it's only getting more intense as the children, like, get obsessed with this, like, scared permanent underclass thing, where they're just so transactional, right? Like, and, like, everyone's just, like, the, like, always... There's, the level of cynicism is wildly high right now, from my view, which is kind of an interesting match with all this-
Brit Morin: Across everything, or what?
Sam Lessin: I think in, like, especially youth culture, but, like, a lot of what's going... It's, like, this crazy moment where Silicon Valley is, like, so gaga optimistic, but then there's, like, extreme cynicism, right, about the markets, and value, and politics, and everything. It's, like, and it's a really weird disconnect.
Dave Morin: Yeah, I mean, Sam, in a weird way... Not in a weird way, but the, the stuff you were working on with your Harvard project, was it two years ago now?
Sam Lessin: More.
Dave Morin: Was kind of a predecessor to this in the, in the broader-
Sam Lessin: To the extreme nihilism?
Dave Morin: Well, just the, the sort of, the message that was coming out of that and what the work you've done to try to reform, you know, the education environment there. Like, that seems to have broadly sort of distributed across society now. Yes?
Sam Lessin: I mean, I think, look, I was talking to one of our founders earlier who works on, uh, our MeritFirst testing platform. And, like, it is interesting how that, like, let's just drive hard on meritocracy, and, like, the best people should have it, open competition, et cetera, went from being kind of fringy to, like, completely mainstream. As part... I think we just have this, like, separation. We have, like, Mondami, nihilism, socialism, and then we have, like, a bunch of people that are in the minority numerically, but maybe not in terms of wealth and power, who are just like, "No, like, we want freedom, and capitalism, and meritocracy." Like, that's the trifecta. And so I just think that the world's very split, um, and that's what's making it super interesting. History says we're all about to get guillotined, but we'll, we'll find out.
Dave Morin: Why?
Sam Lessin: Uh, because, like, the minority of the people who, like, have the money, and people are mad, and that's what happens. I don't think we'll actually get guillotined. Instead, because, because of, like, Foucault, we've moved on.
Dave Morin: But again, like, aren't you trying to figure out if that's actually true with Vox Americanas? Like-
Sam Lessin: Yes. This is my big thing. Vox Americanas has been very fascinating. It's going well. By the way, I now have the Vox Americanas app. It's great.
Jessica: Did you let me unsubscribe from post notifications yet? Because I'm getting every time anyone comments on any post. And I hate to say, but you're violating some laws here.
Sam Lessin: No, I'm not. No, I'm not. It's good growth work.
Dave Morin: That's good growth work.
Jessica: You need to unsubscribe. You need one.
Dave Morin: That's respectable growth work, Jess.
Sam Lessin: No, no, no, no. To be clear, you don't need to unsubscribe. You need to cancel account, which we have.
Jessica: Mm-hmm.
Sam Lessin: So if you want out, you're welcome to be out. Now, I will say, Jessica did give me my only negative user feedback, which about notifications I've gotten so far, and I did immediately actually create a notification center so you can unsubscribe from those post notifications.
Jessica: Thank you. Thank you, Claude.
Sam Lessin: But, um, it's actually quite, it's quite a bit of Claude work. Claude was like, "Ah, this is gonna be a lot of work."
Brit Morin: Was Fable on that?
Sam Lessin: Now, here's the funny thing, guys. This is, like, my personal take on this AI stuff and Fable. Pretty sophisticated user to this stuff. They're aboard, but, like, pretty sophisticated. I don't even care. Like, I actually literally don't know what Claude I'm using. I'm sure it's fine.
Brit Morin: Well, I think they default make it Fable so that you spend the most money.
Dave Morin: I think this is actually an important take right now, and Peter and I at OpenClaw talk about this a lot, which is that these things, like, at fi- you know, whatever, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, these things are all so good that the only thing holding you back now is attention and, like, time and creativity. Like, you don't need mu- like, it's already so powerful that it doesn't really matter.
Sam Lessin: We're so past... Yeah. I, so for me, it's, like, people are like, "What are you using?" Like, I honestly don't care, which means these companies are all fucked.
Brit Morin: Can I just say I'm a little bit bored?
Dave Morin: Hey, Sam, are these companies fucked?
Sam Lessin: So fucked. But, like, they're great.
Brit Morin: You wanna say them?
Sam Lessin: I love using them. And, like, and for me, like, the reality is I, I couldn't agree more, Dave. It's like, it's wild to me how quickly and well you can build stuff.
Dave Morin: It's only creativity now.
Sam Lessin: Well, no, it's cr- it's, it's also attention. It's also attention.
Brit Morin: I think people are gonna tap out a little bit. Like, I feel like here's what's happening. I was thinking about-
Dave Morin: Britt had a hot take on this.
Brit Morin: Well, I'm just a little bit bored of AI right now, and I wonder if the people will agree with me.
Jessica: Guys, short. Short the sector.
Brit Morin: Okay. I've got, like, all my agents in place. I have cron jobs that run daily. I do a bunch of things with AI, like, on a regular basis. But my, my, like, creative instinct to just wanna, like, vibe away all day long like I had three months ago is not really there as much anymore. Like, and it's just not as novel, like, when I do. It's just like-
Dave Morin: Why do you think that is?
Brit Morin: I just feel like it was so interesting and cool, and all the... I had these, like, all these ideas that I had always wanted to do, and I, like, built them all. And now, like, one will come up every now and it's fine, and we're like, we're planning a, a friend trip in August, and I'm like, "Okay, I'll just make the website and, like, automate a bunch of shit to, like, plan it all and find-"
Jessica: You make websites for your friend trips?
Brit Morin: Yes. Yes, 'cause we need to get RSVPs and there's activities.
Jessica: I've never been on a friend trip with you where you've made a website. Now I'm feeling a little-
Dave Morin: It's a new thing, Jess. It just started a few weeks ago. You, trust me, one, one will end up in your inbox, trust me.
Brit Morin: Part of it is that, like, I think I've, like, automated a bunch of things, and I don't need to automate that much more. Part of it's, like, everything feels, like, slightly, slightly better. There's a slightly better model. There's a new agent messenger. There's a new what- There's, like, so many things that are, like, incremental, and I'm like, "I don't care. It's fine." 'Cause it's already good. And then part of it's, like, I don't know, the, like, novelty of all that creative stuff has just worn off a little bit.
Sam Lessin: Yeah. Short creativity. We're done with creativity.
Brit Morin: I'm not short creativity.
Dave Morin: Brit Morin is short creativity?
Jessica: No, she's not. She's saying the opposite. She's saying she's not engaged.
Dave Morin: She's saying that, like, this is just an uncreative, it's an uncreative medium.
Brit Morin: I'm just saying it's evolutionary, not revolutionary at this point. It's linear, not exponential.
Jessica: So what's the next thing?
Dave Morin: So this actually goes to something that I've been thinking about a lot. I've been hearing a lot of fellow GPs, uh, that are working on new funds talking to me about this idea of that they're going to, they're gonna make their new fund about the post-AGI world.
Jessica: Oh, God. Yes.
Dave Morin: And that that's their whole thesis. And if Brit's right that we're in an evolutionary moment and there's no revolution co- revolutionary thing coming, then that means that AGI's not here, and it's not coming for a while. And so if you're building your strategy around this, it might not be the best idea.
Brit Morin: Well, I think a lot of people are talking about physical AI now. Like, we've kind of, like, gotten to, like, the best we can do in digital AI, sure, we're gonna make it better a little bit, prices are gonna drop, blah, blah, blah. But, like, now how do we automate the world around us and, like, how do we get data across, like, every offline industry, and then figure out how to build robots and automate systems. And fine, that might be interesting. Maybe that, that's the revolution? I don't know.
Sam Lessin: I think it's just, like, we should just buy sports teams and, you know, real estate.
Jessica: That's what Josh Kushner's doing, he's buying more sports teams.
Sam Lessin: I know. I'm very well aware of that. I mean, that's the, that's the irony, right? Like, that's exactly what Josh is doing. I, like-
Dave Morin: Isn't it only sports teams because it's the only thing that causes people to be live? Like, how fun has the World Cup been, by the way?
Brit Morin: I'm so into the World Cup, you guys. I'm like, ooh.
Dave Morin: I'm s- I'm shockingly into it.
Jessica: We're going.
Dave Morin: Oh, that's-
Jessica: We're very excited. Tomorrow.
Dave Morin: I'm jealous.
Brit Morin: Ooh.
Jessica: Which will... Concerts, too. Benson Boone's on tour again, everybody. I would just like everyone to know that.
Brit Morin: I have 10 concerts booked for the rest of the year. Don't worry.
Sam Lessin: 10? Oh.
Jessica: What are you looking forward to? Sam is so not interested in concerts. Brit, I need to go with you.
Brit Morin: Well, we're, like, country and pop and rock people, so Garth Brooks just announced a tour today that's happening. We've got Post Malone, Chris Stapleton, Teddy Swims, The Chicks, Dan + Shay. There's some bands you probably don't know. But yeah, no, a lot of, a lot of concerts.
Dave Morin: I'm excited to see Teddy Swims again. We saw Teddy Swims at Stagecoach and he was amazing. He's, like, truly great in person.
Brit Morin: Yeah, live music, sporting events, real estate. I'd love to see how the World Cup fan viewership and data from this World Cup is different than the last one, for Americans specifically. Minus the fact that we hosted.
Sam Lessin: That's the key. Like, th- th- that is the key. Like, that's, you just explained the entire thing.
Dave Morin: Explained what? That we hosted?
Brit Morin: We hosted, so obviously we're going to more events. But does that also make us more interested?
Dave Morin: I think so, 'cause it's like, it's in all the stadiums that people are used to watching NFL games. Like, it, it, like, carries that kinda vibe, right?
Jessica: Renamed, though. Renamed. Yeah.
Dave Morin: It carries the vibe of college football, NFL. Like, all these stadiums are stadiums that are, like, beloved by Americans, right? And so I think that matters.
Jessica: Also, isn't soccer just getting more popular, too?
Brit Morin: Slowly. Very, very, very slowly. No, I don't know. I just think, to your point, like, sporting events, sporting leagues, like, all of these offline communal activities are gonna keep growing and growing, so I'm long. Long offline.
Jessica: Well, we should, we should make a nod to the Wimbledon also happening. Some good storylines there. The, a wild card is in the semifinals, Arthur Fils, just so you know, which is, like, kind of wild, doesn't usually happen. And yeah, any other parting thoughts before we let the people go back to their moment of non-AI conversation? Or probably more AI.
Brit Morin: I just wanna lick the cookie on one, on one PCC Pop Culture Corner.
Jessica: Lick it, Brit.
Brit Morin: I called that Taylor Swift wedding strategy from day one. That's all I'm gonna say.
Jessica: She had, she didn't have all her friends perform. She had, like, two of her friends perform, and then they did-
Brit Morin: No, you don't know what happened.
Jessica: That's true, I don't know then.
Dave Morin: Stay tuned.
Brit Morin: People performed- ... and I was right.
Jessica: Stay tuned?
Brit Morin: And I was right without having insider info. And then I got insider info to confirm that I was right.
Jessica: Well, but then there was the karaoke part.
Brit Morin: Yes, but a lot of that was planned.
Jessica: No, of course it was planned. Of course it is.
Brit Morin: So it wasn't just random, like, "Let's do karaoke."
Dave Morin: Look, I have a hot take. I have a hot take that's unrelated to inside info, which is-
Jessica: Am I gonna watch this wedding on a streaming platform?
Brit Morin: N- no documentary.
Jessica: When am I getting photos of the dress?
Brit Morin: I think in, within the next 72 hours. Within a week of the wedding.
Dave Morin: I do think that there is something going on with Madison Square Garden Group. That's my real theory. That's my, like, hot take, is that there's a-
Brit Morin: Dave thinks Taylor's gonna announce a Sphere residency.
Dave Morin: Yeah, I think there's gonna be a huge Sphere residency.
Jessica: There, I read a headline saying that The Sphere and MSG are competing.
Dave Morin: Uh, they're the same thing. The Sphere is owned by MSG.
Jessica: Oh. Well, the, the two venues are... But that it could be a billion dollar residency.
Brit Morin: Don't we know people there?
Jessica: I mean, it's all fake news.
Brit Morin: Can't we call our person that we know? Can we have a guest on the pod next week?
Jessica: We can add that to our list. In fascinating times, we should thank the dear listeners for sticking with us. You got the full quad here.
Sam Lessin: It's like we can't thank sponsors- ... so we have to thank the listeners.
Jessica: Guys, we can, guys, we can thank our sponsors. We have decided not to monetize this podcast for some insane reason.
Brit Morin: We should rethink that, by the way.
Jessica: Capitalists that we are.
Dave Morin: Yeah, let's, let's go f- let's actually turn over a new leaf after 4th of July. We're gonna go full capitalist this fall.
Sam Lessin: I think we should call the labs and see if they'll sponsor us.
Jessica: You know, I don't think they will. I don't think they will. We're gonna have to go with, like, beverages, creatine, peptides.
Brit Morin: MSG.
Sam Lessin: Oh, guys.
Dave Morin: Oh, yeah.
Sam Lessin: Peptides.
Dave Morin: Peptides.
Sam Lessin: I'm now, I, I started the peptides.
Brit Morin: Wait, I have a lot of peptides questions. Can we do a special episode on peptides?
Dave Morin: We'll, we'll take money from Matt Mazzeo's peptide company.
Brit Morin: Can we have Matt on as a guest next week and h- talk about peptides?
Sam Lessin: Oh, he would love that. He'll just show us his arm.
Brit Morin: I am a total noob. I need to know.
Dave Morin: All right, Mazzeo, we're coming for you.
Sam Lessin: I'll shoot some peptides live on air.
Jessica: I've lost control. I'm trying to end the episode, dear listener. Okay.
Brit Morin: Wrap it up.
Jessica: We will wrap it up. We will take next week planning to the thread.
Sam Lessin: Next episode is all about peptides.
Jessica: And if Sam looks extra glowy, we'll know why. Thank you, be safe. This is not an endorsement of peptides. We are not doctors.
Sam Lessin: Or safety.
Jessica: And have a great week. We'll see you back here next week for another episode of More or Less. Bye.
Brit Morin: Bye.
Dave Morin: See you later.
Guest: If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a virtual high five by rating it and reviewing it on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Find more information about each episode in the show notes, and follow us on social media by searching for @moreorless, @davemorin, @lesson, @jlesson, and as for me, I'm @brit. See you guys next time.