More or Less · Topics · Episode #160

Tom Bombadil, Meta, and the Fight Over Who Gets to Hold the Ring

From #160 — Zuck says AI is for everyone, His Rivals Ask Washington To Slow it Down · July 31, 2026 · 5:00 min · Jessica Lessin, Dave Morin, Sam Lessin

Clip from the full recording, 24:08–29:08 · download mp4 · watch at this point on YouTube

Sam casts Meta as Tom Bombadil — powerful enough to wield the ring of power but choosing not to — while Dave steel-mans the case that a centralized, ad-dependent Meta can't really be trusted to hand power to the people.

Sam pushes the Lord of the Rings analogy further: every generation convinces itself it must seize the dangerous new power to save everyone, and the power always corrupts — except, he argues, Meta is the rare company powerful enough that it could easily “go dark” but instead chooses to wield the light side, like Tom Bombadil, who doesn’t need the ring at all. (Sam detours to declare Tom Bombadil his favorite Lord of the Rings character, annoyed that Peter Thiel named a company after him.) Dave grants Meta’s unique position — a founder-led company serving consumers directly at massive scale — but steel-mans the skeptical case: Meta still runs centralized infrastructure dependent on advertising, and whether it will actually hand power to people is unproven. He ties this to why he’s building OpenClaw: computing has to move out of the cloud and into people’s own hands, echoing how the 1980s personal-computer movement pushed back against centralized computing power like IBM’s.

Sam counters with the Star Wars endgame: decentralization is a great political movement — Bitcoin is a rare example that’s actually worked — but in the real story, the Rebel Alliance is losing badly and only wins because a singular Jedi shows up. Is a distributed, open movement really capable of beating empires, or do you need a Jedi? Dave answers that it’s not really about open versus closed to him — a company or an open-source project both work, what matters is the direction of travel toward individual agency.

Sam pushes back with Apple: its founding was itself a political movement for decentralization — the early machines were technically unimpressive, the value was political — and it still became “the most centralized company in the world.” Dave disputes the characterization, noting he owns his files and devices and can install anything on a Mac; Sam counters he still can’t put whatever he wants in the App Store. Jess eventually calls time on the tangent, noting Mark’s actual framing isn’t explicitly about open versus closed — it’s about putting technology directly in people’s hands.

Key points

• Sam: Meta is like Tom Bombadil — powerful enough to seize the ring of power but choosing to wield the light side instead.
• Dave steel-mans the skeptical case: Meta is still centralized and ad-dependent; whether it actually hands power to people is unproven.
• Dave: OpenClaw's mission is moving compute out of the cloud into people's own hands, echoing the 1980s personal-computer movement's reaction to centralized computing.
• Sam: in Star Wars, the decentralized Rebel Alliance is losing and only wins because a singular Jedi shows up — does an open movement really beat empires without one?
• Dave: doesn't care whether the vehicle is a company or open source, only that the direction is toward individual agency.
• Sam: Apple was founded as a political movement for decentralization and still became the most centralized company in the world — proof power corrupts the liberators too.
• Dave disputes it, noting he owns his files and devices; Sam counters the App Store is still totally locked down.

Where they landed

Quotes

“”— Sam

“”— Dave

“”— Sam

Suggested tweets

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