Podcast Summary: More or Less

Episode: Agentic AI Will Break the Internet (ClawdBot, OpenAI & the AI Demand Delusion)

Hosts: Dave Morin, Jessica Lessin, Sam Lessin
Date: January 30, 2026

Episode Overview

In this lively episode, the More or Less crew bounces between the revolutionary impact of agentic AI (AI that can act for users, like ClawdBot/Moltbot), the broken incentives shaping how businesses react to AI disruption (especially in tech and commerce), and the challenges facing both society and the tech industry amidst major political, cultural, and economic upheaval.

Expect wide-ranging and fast-paced discussion on:

• The explosion of open-source agentic AIs and what they mean for the future of the internet
• AI’s impact on commerce and the retailer dilemma
• Silicon Valley’s evolving response to political unrest and social issues
• The core role narratives and principal-agent problems play in tech and business decisions

Throughout, the hosts balance humor, skepticism, inside-baseball, and candid reflection on technology's place in society.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Agentic AI (ClawdBot/Moltbot) – What is it, and Why Does It Matter?

• What’s new:
  • ClawdBot (now renamed Moltbot) enables any user to let an AI agent directly control their computer, orchestrate tools via command line, and automate everything from coding to web navigation.
  • The hosts (notably Dave and Sam) have been deep in experimenting with these tools for both productivity and fun.
• What’s different:
  • Unlike past automation, these agents make it “unbelievably easy for literally everyone to do it”—drastically lowering the barrier for browser/surface automation, web scraping, content production, and more ([15:04–15:23]).
• Potential consequences:
  • The internet as we know it might “just go away” because actual human browsing becomes marginal: “websites will be gone because… it’ll all just be 100% bot traffic, right? And like then the economics of it break…” (Sam, [13:22]).
  • Dave sees “a new primitive to build on top of now... like people might build skills instead of websites.”
• Accessibility:
  • “When you make the barrier to doing this stuff truly zero… usually the Internet can’t survive.” (Sam, [15:04]).
• Memorable moment:
  • The team jokes that they were “two weeks ahead of this madness” in their predictions ([07:19]).
• Hands-on highlights:
  • Dave built an internal iOS CRM app in two hours with Moltbot ($150 in compute; massive savings over hiring) ([08:07]).
  • Sam set up a Telegram bot for custom news digests and contemplates automating his LinkedIn activity, seeing how easily these agents can manipulate social media for engagement ([10:52–11:52]).

2. The AI Demand Delusion / Infrastructure “Red Pill”

• Jessica recounts moderating a Davos panel with major AI infrastructure players (OpenAI, CoreWeave, G42, BlackRock) ([21:11]):
  • “Every single step function in the foreseeable future… will do nothing more than accelerate the business. Do you guys have a reaction to that?” (Jessica quoting CoreWeave’s CEO, [24:46]).
• Skepticism surfaces:
  • Sam: “World is ruled by narratives. Even if it’s wrong, if the narrative is strong enough … it will keep going and they will make a lot of money in the income for them.” ([28:19])
  • Jessica: “You can accept and embrace limitless demand… but it doesn’t automatically follow that that has a healthy profit margin.” ([25:11])
• Investment commentary:
  • “People are just playing two things. One is the asymmetry card… but if we’re right, it’s important… B is… if the narrative is strong enough… it will keep going…” (Sam, [26:11–28:19])
  • Market mania extends beyond tech: surging demand for “useless” metals like gold and silver, not just tech stocks ([27:07]).

3. AI Commerce and the Retailer Trap

• Discussion pivots to whether AI will “eat” online shopping and the implications for brands/retailers (Jessica & Sam, [52:25–53:55]):
  • Retailers fear chatbots turning them into faceless fulfillment pipelines, repeating the “Google vs newspaper” story, with chatbots as the new aggregator destroying margin and brand ([53:00]).
  • “This is exactly the same story once over again with retailers where the chatbot was like, oh, don’t worry, just let us front end you and you’ll have no brand. But don’t worry because you’ll make it up on volume.” (Sam, [53:11])
  • Warning:
    • “If AI-driven commerce takes off... it’s going to be the exact same story all over again if they fall for it.” ([53:55])
• Why do retailers keep falling for it?
  • Principal-agent problem: “People running these companies… want to be there for three years… get a short term revenue shot… and leave the companies in ruins.” (Sam, [54:01])

4. Culture, Politics, and Tech’s Response to Social Upheaval

• The hosts delve into the Minneapolis and ICE protest situation and Silicon Valley’s reticence to engage politically ([29:38–38:07], [43:58–44:45]):
  • Valley’s typical response:
    • “All of the business leaders in Silicon Valley... have tried to remove politics from the internal culture… just keep it out of the workplace and focus on the job.” (Dave, [37:12])
    • But pressure is mounting as employees and public opinion force leaders and VCs to take stands (Jeff Dean, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Dario, Tim Cook, and others move from silence to cautious public statements — [33:13–34:11])
  • Power in narrative:
    • “I do think the real underlying thing going on is fear, and people are afraid to speak because of what’s happening. And that’s how this works.” (Dave, [35:04])
    • “Once everyone acts, then everyone acts… but nobody’s going to be the tall poppy.” ([35:19])
• Fragmentation, misinformation, and deepfakes:
  • The information environment is so noisy and polluted, it’s “too expensive” for even savvy people to be genuinely informed (“I don’t know what’s going on in Minneapolis… there’s just so much noise.” — Sam, [40:16]).
  • Dave: “When you’re not exposed… you have no… like none of the message… is getting into your brain. And so it’s a really interesting thing to watch everybody else… get anxious.” ([38:10])
• Media and business model breakdown:
  • Traditional journalism struggles to pay for deep, trustworthy reporting in areas outside its economic niche—raises questions of democracy, truth, and the future of trustworthy media ([44:45–45:32]).

5. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“When you make the barrier to doing this stuff truly zero… usually the Internet can’t survive.”
— Sam Lessin, [15:04]

“Websites will be gone because… it’ll all just be 100% bot traffic, right? And like then the economics of it break…”
— Sam Lessin, [13:22]

“Doing cool shit that are calling cards with like little concern for what the business is... be memorable in this moment.”
— Sam Lessin, [17:28, 17:58]

“You can accept and embrace limitless demand and never-ending efficiency gains but it doesn’t automatically follow that that has a healthy profit margin.”
— Jessica Lessin, [25:11]

“World is ruled by narratives. Narratives... Even if it’s wrong, if the narrative is strong enough … it will keep going and they will make a lot of money in the income for them.”
— Sam Lessin, [28:19]

"This is exactly the same story once over again with retailers where the chatbot was like, oh, don’t worry, just let us front end you and you’ll have no brand. But don’t worry because you’ll make it up on volume."
— Sam Lessin, [53:11]

“It’s people talking about how capitalism is pretty bad at long-term planning... part of it is just the principal-agent problem. Like no one’s incentivized for long-term success and so they’ll fold on anything for a short-term hit.”
— Sam Lessin, [54:40]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00–03:45] — Light banter, Davos stories, sound baths, and personal highlights
• [06:23–17:04] — Hands-on with Moltbot/ClawdBot, agentic AI’s rapid evolution
• [17:28–19:18] — The importance of “memorable” tech projects; pranks and internet culture resurgence
• [21:11–28:19] — Inside the Davos AI infrastructure panel; investment, demand, and narrative skepticism
• [29:38–38:07] — The Minneapolis/ICE protest and Silicon Valley’s tough balancing act on politics
• [40:09–46:32] — The difficulty and cost of discerning truth in the age of noise, deepfakes, and narrative manipulation
• [52:25–55:14] — AI, commerce, the retailer dilemma, and the principal-agent trap

Tone & Style

Conversational, candid, skeptical, and sprinkled with both deep industry insight and irreverent in-jokes. The episode strikes a balance between high-level tech analysis, practical experimentation, and sociopolitical observation, with the hosts’ long history and close rapport providing color and context to every segment.

Takeaways

• Agentic AI isn’t just about automation—it will fundamentally challenge the business models of the internet, rendering many prior platforms and content strategies unsustainable.
• Narratives, not just technical progress, are driving both excitement and investment in the AI gold rush. The risk: hype can outpace substance.
• Retailers, like media companies before them, must beware being seduced by platforms that promise massive distribution while undermining their brands and margins.
• The principal-agent problem is alive and well in tech leadership, incentivizing short-term gains over long-term sustainability.
• Societal and political upheaval complicate both the risks and the responsibilities of big tech, while our information ecosystem makes basic truth a more precious—and less accessible—commodity than ever.

For more about the hosts or latest episodes, visit More or Less website or follow @moreorlesspod.

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