More or Less — From ClawdBots to Sauna Bros: Silicon Valley in 2026

Episode Date: Jan 23, 2026
Hosts: Brit Morin, Sam Lessin, Dave Morin (Jessica Lessin traveling)

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the latest trends and cultural quirks shaping Silicon Valley as we head into 2026. Brit, Sam, and Dave provide a candid, witty debate about the absurdities of startup valuations, the reality of investing in the generative AI gold rush, what’s actually happening with “agents” and AI assistants, and the relentless innovation (and self-parody) inside the technorati. Not to be missed: Why Apple’s rumored “AI pen” isn’t the revolution some hope for, how ClaudeBots are changing hacker culture, and why “Sauna Bros” are the new wellness meme.

Main Topics & Discussion Highlights

1. Debating AI Company Valuations & Seed Fund Madness

[00:00–11:15]

• The group opens with satire about the week’s “insane” seed rounds—like a company raising $480M at a $4.48B valuation.
• FOMO & Echoes of OpenAI/Anthropic:
  Dave and Sam stress that most investors regret missing out on AI darlings, but even a 25x or 80x outcome (as seed investors in OpenAI/Anthropic) wouldn’t return a typical seed fund.
  • Dave: “If you had invested in Anthropic ... it wouldn't have returned a seed fund. ... Like you make $80 million, that's great. ... But it was not ... I don't want to poo poo it.” [00:54, 10:11]
  • Sam: “You don't actually want to be in super capital-consumptive things as a seed investor. ... There’s only two ways to make money: have a secret, or own the narrative.” [08:56]
• Current AI mega-rounds are “about FOMO” and narrative ownership, not real returns.

Notable Quote:
“Everyone’s looking back to 2023 and saying, I wish I was in Anthropic and OpenAI ... dear God, I must do something to get this, you know, to get some of this. That’s what’s going on.”
— Dave Morin [08:10]

2. Turbulence in AI Founder Culture

[11:07–13:39]

• Huge seed rounds (e.g., Thinking Machines Lab) are losing executive teams as soon as the money comes in.
• Sam: “These are large co-founding teams ... co-founder title is thrown around loosely ... mercenary, sports-oriented. ... The opportunity cost is ridiculous given what people are getting paid. ... It’s understandable in context right now.” [12:07]
• No “real assets”—these AI companies are pure human capital.

3. Recursive AI & the “Claude Constitution” Paradox

[13:39–18:15]

• Dave brings up Anthropic’s new “Claude Constitution”—partially written by Claude itself.
• He wonders aloud: “Does this just become the recursive loop that we've all been afraid of over time?” [13:39]
• Sam: “Junk in, junk out.” [14:23]
• They riff on “AI slop,” human-in-the-loop, and whether AI-authored documents should concern us.
• Sam argues that the value of AI “is just advanced spell check”—unless you become a world-class prompt engineer.

Notable Quote:
“It’s how you ask the question that matters ... the human thing is you have to become the best questioner in the world.”
— Sam Lessin [17:17]

4. The Real Magic of Incantations, ClaudeBots, and Hacking the Stack

[18:38–25:10]

• Brit asks if anyone’s built anything new with these AI stacks or ClaudeBots.
• Sam describes a “first time I thought, oh, if I encant properly with weird ideas, [the model] actually gives me back other ideas that are interesting.” [18:46]
• Dave references “route,” a new recursive engineering method—AI breaks down and executes a large project by running against each PRD step in succession: “It’s like, please come back—talk to God and come back with a browser.” [21:30]
• The hosts agree that combining deep context, custom prompts, and chained actions is where true innovation (and competitive edge) is emerging.

Defining “ClaudeBot”

• Brit: “It’s not just like having an agent, it's having like an army of agents ... it has access to a bunch of things which ... is a big security concern.” [24:35]
• Dave: “Agentic is a misnomer ... what this thing is: like a computer version of AI ... where you have this ability to interact with your entire computer using it.” [25:13]

Notable Moment:
The hosts lament how hard it is to explain ClaudeBots—people who haven't tried them “want to try it,” but it's “quite technical” to set up. [24:49]

5. Apple’s Wearable “AI Pin” and the Inevitable Rebirth of Hardware

[26:36–31:32]

• Brit introduces The Information’s scoop: Apple is developing a wearable AI pin with cameras, speaker, microphones—think “AirTag-sized personal AI.”

• Skepticism:

  • Dave: “Look, the market already rejected this ... why are we doing this again?” [27:40]
  • Brit: “I think this is where everyone's going ... gone are the days of phones with glass on them.” [27:50]
  • Sam: “The phone format is getting tired, but it's also, I don’t think, going anywhere.” [28:26]

• Dave advances the “orchestra of compute” thesis: Now, you can hack any device, tie together APIs, and build “symphony experiences.” Hardware uniqueness is less important than it was.

  Quote:
  “We've assembled an orchestra of compute, but nobody's written a symphony.”
  — Dave Morin [29:07]

6. End of SaaS Lock-In? Business Models in the AI Scriptable Future

[31:32–39:59]

• Sam and Dave debate the “reversion to shrink-wrap software”—with ClaudeBots, every device and service is scriptable, private APIs cease to matter, and SaaS/subscription models break down.
• Sam: "Maybe devices get really expensive, and really open ... perhaps it's a dramatic shift because your business models don't work anymore."
• Specific examples:
  • Whoop and Eight Sleep depend on subscriptions, but could be “hacked”.
  • Apple’s subscription-ification of hardware is cited as an exception, as it continues to add value year after year.
  • Tesla moves autopilot to subscription (counterexample).

Notable Quote:
“Technology sets the table and then everyone figures out, given the new technical state, how to negotiate the world.”
— Sam Lessin [34:32]

7. Sauna Bros: Meme Culture & The American Wellness Quest

[41:00–44:39]

• Brit introduces a NYT article on “Sauna Bros”: Americans are “distorting” European sauna culture by making it about wellness metrics, wearables, and self-optimization rather than relaxation.
• Dave: “Why does the New York Times want to moralize and shame Americans for doing the most healthy thing you can possibly do?” [42:14]
• Sam (joking): “Are they calling it cultural appropriation? Because I appropriate the shit out of your sauna culture.” [42:03]
• Joking suggestion: Calculate the energy costs of “sauna bro” culture and blame them for melting the planet.

8. Closing Banter: Gender in Tech, Bro Events, and Old-School Networking

[44:39–45:56]

• The gang jokes about men-only and women-only conferences and bro trips (e.g., long-distance shooting in Montana).
• Sam unveils a tongue-in-cheek protest T-shirt: “No queens. Down with the matriarchy.” [44:10]

9. Super Bowl, Football Fatalities, and Media Habits

[46:18–48:19]

• Sam riffs on going to the Super Bowl despite not being a football fan; they share wild historical facts about college football deaths.
• Brit: “And today we don't kill as many people, but we definitely mess up their brains quite a bit, which is why our children will never play football.” [48:04]

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “If you had invested in Anthropic, it wouldn't have returned a seed fund. ... Like you make $80 million. That's great. ... But it was not ... I don't want to poo poo it.” — Dave [00:54, 10:11]
• “You don't actually want to be in the seed of OpenAI ... that's the irony ... the seed investors are sitting at about 25x.” — Sam [00:17, 08:26]
• “Technology sets the table and then everyone figures out, given the new technical state how to negotiate the world.” — Sam [34:32]
• “We've assembled an orchestra of compute, but nobody's written a symphony.” — Dave [29:07]
• “It's how you ask the question that matters ... you have to become the best questioner in the world.” — Sam [17:17]
• “Why does the New York Times want to moralize and shame Americans for doing the most healthy thing you can possibly do for your cardiovascular, mental, and metabolic health?” — Dave [42:14]

Essential Timestamps

• Seed fund madness & AI round FOMO: [00:00–11:15]
• AI founder turnover & “NFL culture”: [11:07–13:39]
• Recursive AI, Claude Constitution & human-in-the-loop: [13:39–18:15]
• ClaudeBots, hacking the stack, the age of incantation: [18:38–25:10]
• Apple’s AI wearable rumors, hardware as orchestra: [26:36–31:32]
• Business model shifts, end of SaaS lock-in: [31:32–39:59]
• Sauna Bros, moralizing wellness, meme culture: [41:00–44:39]
• Conferences, bro trips, gender in tech banter: [44:39–45:56]
• Super Bowl, football death stats, kids & sports: [46:18–48:19]

Tone & Style

The hosts maintain their trademark mix of irreverence, deep industry expertise, skepticism, and inside jokes. They lean on “riffing,” drop pop culture references (e.g., Love Island, Joe Rogan, The Simpsons), and frequently poke fun at both their own status in tech, each other, and surging trends.

Summary for the Uninitiated

This episode is a candid tour of Silicon Valley as only true insiders can deliver: cutting through AI hype, mocking and analyzing the investor “groupthink,” exploring how ClaudeBots and recursive AI are changing what it means to tinker, and questioning what happens to business models when everything is hackable. With musings on the future of hardware, privacy, wellness memes, and the “Sauna Bro” phenomenon, it captures both the excitement and the absurdity of tech in 2026.

Recommended for:

• Investors, founders, and tech enthusiasts curious about the reality behind the AI hype cycle
• Those interested in the next phase of hardware, agentic software, and the rapidly evolving Valley culture
• Anyone who enjoys whip-smart, snarky, deeply informed tech banter