More or Less · Topics · Episode #165

Google Pix vs. Canva — and the LLM Wrappers Quietly Crushing It

From #165 — AI Agents Are Going Rogue. Should We Be Worried? · September 4, 2026 · 5:30 min · Jessica Lessin, Dave Morin, Brit Morin, Sam Lessin

Clip from the full recording, 53:48–59:18 · download mp4 · watch at this point on YouTube

Google launches Pix, aimed straight at Canva, and the table splits on whether the IPO darling survives. Sam's counterintuitive data: the fastest-growing AI companies he's seeing are unglamorous LLM wrappers for middle America — and customer service, not tech, may be the moat.

Brit’s story of the week: Google launched Pix — Gemini and Workspace-integrated design tools aimed, without saying so, straight at Canva, the perennial IPO-darling. Her worry is real because she was the target user and is already using Canva much less. Sam holds both sides honestly: from first principles Canva has to evolve (why drag elements around a screen when an AI makes and runs the ad for you? — the same existential question facing Figma, per a young founder who told him “we just use paper”), but empirically his kids genuinely love Canva and aren’t touching Photoshop or Google anything. The TAM is ‘everyone on the internet who needs to make anything,’ and in a market that size his bet is on founders who “can win a knife fight” — which Cliff and Melanie have proven for a decade, compounding basis points against tens of billions in revenue.

Then Sam drops the segment’s best data point: he’s met two startups this week that nobody in Silicon Valley has heard of — honestly, LLM wrappers for middle America — that are crushing it on growth and revenue via affiliate programs and small-business distribution. His insight: customer service might be the moat. Anthropic can run at twelve-employees-per-billion scale precisely because power users never want to talk to a human — but most humans, “like your mom,” will choose and effectively pay for the thing with a relationship and support behind it. Sticky beats sexy: unlike Sam, who swaps models the moment one annoys him, these customers stay. The segment closes with the Bill Tai appreciation society — first checks into both Canva and Zoom, sourced from a kiteboard — and Sam’s straight-faced analysis that kitesurfing was a genuinely smart sourcing filter: risky, high barrier to entry, selects for the right people. Jessica did it to try to run into Larry Page, until she got dragged across a beach.

Key points

• Google Pix: Gemini- and Workspace-integrated design tools, an unannounced but unmistakable shot at Canva.
• Sam's split verdict: first-principles says Canva and Figma must evolve past drag-and-drop; empirically, his kids love Canva and won't switch — and the youth may simply carry the IPO.
• The market is 'everyone who needs to make anything,' so the bet is on knife-fight founders — and Melanie Perkins has a hundred-year plan she once showed Jessica.
• Sam's data point: two no-name LLM wrappers for middle America are crushing growth via affiliates and small-business distribution — no Silicon Valley heat required.
• The moat thesis: customer service. Anthropic scales with ~no support staff because power users hate phones; normal humans pay for relationships — and stay.
• Bill Tai wrote first checks into Canva and Zoom sourced from kitesurfing, which Sam defends as a legitimately smart founder filter: risky, expensive, self-selecting.

Where they landed

Quotes

“They're kind of just LLM wrappers for middle America... and they're crushing it on growth and revenue.”— Sam

“When something breaks at Anthropic, there is never gonna be anyone to call. It's why they can have twelve employees and get to the scale they're at.”— Sam

“In these cases, you just want a founder who can win a knife fight — and Cliff and Melanie have shown they can dominate in a knife fight.”— Sam

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