Loading summary
Transcript358 lines
- [00:00]
A
Charles was hired at OpenAI from Instagram to, like, help build creator sort of love for OpenAI products. ChatGPT. They held a retreat in upstate New York. Creators were posting their, like, wildflowers and nature baths and things like that. And then all the new AI things they were learning. The Internet got real mad.
- [00:18]
B
The Internet got so mad. They were so mad.
- [00:20]
A
So mad. Like, AI sucks. Just, like, hating AI, you know? And, like, why would you take money and go to this $2,000 retreat when the world is burning and AI is taking up all this commercial? Elon Segway, breaking news. Nikita, head of product at X. Elon's company is leaving. What product?
- [00:38]
C
Oh, that's sad.
- [00:39]
A
What's going to happen to X, you guys? What's going to happen? Grip or salmon? Jesse put it all right to the test, More or Less. Why?
- [01:07]
B
Hello, friends. Welcome to More or less. I'm singing this week. We're singing the tech song.
- [01:15]
A
I noticed that. Can you give us a little more? Where did that come from?
- [01:19]
B
Well, I'm actually happy at the moment because I have a plan for this episode.
- [01:23]
A
Oh, we like plans. We like. I was gone last week. I noticed you tried to lead the horses to the water, and, you know, they went in their own directions.
- [01:32]
B
Also, guys, I was wrong. I was so critical of the setup of last week. Dave being in a car and Sam being on a porch. But it worked out really well. And so.
- [01:45]
A
Why do you say that? Did you get good feedback?
- [01:47]
D
We did get good feedback.
- [01:48]
B
We had such nice comments on the pod. People are like. They were like, it's my favorite podcast.
- [01:55]
C
We appreciate it, everybody.
- [01:57]
B
We really do. It warmed my heart, actually. I've got a little emotional. But it also encouraged Sam to literally do the podcast from the beach because Those watching on YouTube will notice our Boston Whaler behind him.
- [02:12]
D
That my original plan was to do it on the Boston Whaler, but it's a little too windy for it, so I'm just hanging out on the beach spying shit on Instagram.
- [02:20]
A
I thought Sam had a zoom background up, and then I noticed the water was moving.
- [02:25]
C
Sam, although that Boston Whaler that I found for you is pretty awesome.
- [02:29]
D
That is awesome. I might have to buy a red Boston Whaler. I have an extra mooring, so we can do double mooring. Boston Whalers here. Dueling whalers.
- [02:37]
A
Can the moorings go mooring with you? Oh, yeah, sure.
- [02:40]
D
I mean, my only problem for any listener. I do have a problem on the Boston Whaler, which is it's rained a lot here. Not now, but earlier and my AUX pump for pumping the water out of the boat is somehow the circuit's broken, so I had to bail it a little bit manually. So if anyone out there likes Boston
- [02:57]
B
Whalers, we had to change the battery on the boat.
- [03:00]
C
It's called a bilge pump, Sam.
- [03:01]
D
Thank you. My aux bilge pump. The main bilge pump seems okay, but the aux, which is supposed to always be on and just like didn't quite work. So I got a bilge pump problem.
- [03:13]
A
This is great. I love how Sam is bilge pumping on the east coast. And Dave on Friday went ranching and herded cattle here in Montana.
- [03:22]
B
Guys, no. Dave, which ranch did you go to? We have to compare notes. I'm planning a trip where I'm going
- [03:27]
A
to learn to barrel race, not Yellowstone Ranch.
- [03:29]
C
My lifelong best friend, Terrell Hibbard, who is both a rancher and a. I love that guy.
- [03:35]
D
The king of pastoral wrap.
- [03:37]
C
Yep, Pastoral wrapper. And he also makes single malt whiskey in Helena, Montana called Gulch Distillers. So this episode brought to you by Gulch Distillers. He's a fifth generation Montana ranch. They have one of the largest ranches in Montana ranching with him every summer.
- [03:52]
D
But he's a first generation pastoral rapper.
- [03:55]
A
Yeah, here's the deal. I just love how I was Hearing Dave on AI calls in the morning talking about like the open AI ecosystem, open source. And then he left at 4pm to a ranch with no service, brought his Starlink with him and then herded cattle on foot, even. Not even on horseback.
- [04:15]
B
Yeah, no, I. I've gotta, I've gotta get herding cattle. There's like a metaphor in here. I'm very excited by it.
- [04:20]
C
I got you. We will come to Montana. Anybody who's interested, we will set you up with the real experience. Not this dude ran.
- [04:26]
A
Wait, don't give everyone the invite, Dave.
- [04:30]
B
It's like more or less ranching or bilge pumping. Okay, guys, while we were ranching and bilge pumping, there was some tech news this week. There are actual things happening. We have an AI shakeup.
- [04:43]
A
What kind of summer is this?
- [04:44]
D
It's proof of AI because somehow the business continues while we're on the beach. So clearly the AGI has taken over. Okay. And that's the only reason. There's like the computers are just talking to each other on techmeme now.
- [04:57]
C
It's true. This is a good point.
- [04:59]
B
Some of us are working, but you know, there's also such thing as vacation. Some of us are vacationing, but we have A Google AI shakeup. We have the airtable acquisition. By bending spoons, we have some airtable investors to talk about this and what it portends for the industry.
- [05:16]
C
Indeed we do.
- [05:17]
B
We have a great story out of the information about Apple and Icloud and how it relates to the OpenAI lawsuit. And we have SpaceX earnings, SpaceX tanking, SpaceX lockup soon upon us. And we have some rants. So let's start with Google. Who paid attention to the news? Who needs a recap?
- [05:35]
A
I paid attention to the news.
- [05:36]
B
Okay, Britt, tell us what happened at Google.
- [05:38]
A
No, I mean, I feel like the information reported it better. I actually quantified. I was in the top 5% of all Google employees who joined Google. So which means they've had a lot of employees, but by.
- [05:49]
B
By time, by skin care, by what
- [05:52]
A
top 5%, like, number of employees. I was in the first like 5,000 employees of Google. So I feel not to imply it
- [05:59]
B
would only be by tenure. It could also have been by brilliance. Brent. I'm just trying.
- [06:02]
D
But Brett, didn't you also win the Google Award for like you like won the million dollar special Googler award when you were a child, right?
- [06:10]
B
She did.
- [06:13]
A
I mean, guys, I don't want to toot my own horn here.
- [06:15]
B
I just toot it. Brit, all people do on this pot is toot their own horn.
- [06:20]
A
I'm just saying top 5% early Googler.
- [06:23]
C
Yeah. Always give Brit an opportunity to say
- [06:25]
A
she got a straight A. I like to win things. I like gold stars. I'm going to leave it at that. My point being I was at Google when Jeff Dean was at Google because Jeff Dean's been at Google even longer than me, 27 years.
- [06:36]
B
Well, he's still at Google for like two more days, but yes, yes. Okay, I'll recap the news for everybody. So obviously the context has been there's always a lot of questions inside Google about their AI strategy. Are they falling behind? Is Gemini competitive? What's the strategy? They've had a lot of different leaders in typical Google fashion. And the latest iteration is that Demis Hassabis, who's been the leader, obviously the founder of DeepMind. As Sundar says, stepping up but really stepping back from the day to day management of Gemini and the AI efforts and taking on a broader AI research kind of role. Core. And I'm gonna get pronounced Kavaktulu. Kavaktulu. I'm gonna pronounce his name wrong. Who has been actually running Gemini and team had an awesome profile of him recently in the information is sort of the clear leader of the AI efforts. And then Jeff Dean, who was there when Brit was there, but also actually was in many ways the godfather of Google AI because he was led Google Brain, which was Google's AI effort until they bought DeepMind and then they were both their parallel AI efforts is going on to start something new. So Brit, what's your take? And I of course will offer mine as well, but I want to hear your.
- [07:57]
A
Well, my insider sources, because we are highly interactive with Google and DeepMind right now on a couple of fronts, claim that Demis really wants to focus a lot on Isomorphic, the sort of spin out of DeepMind that's doing a lot in the drug development space. So I think he's personally really passionate about that. He's still gonna continue to have.
- [08:17]
B
He also said that in a tweet, just so you. Not that your sources aren't. But this is.
- [08:22]
A
Yes, it's real is what I'm saying. It's not just like PR narrative. He's super passionate about it and he, you know, he'll stay involved at the
- [08:31]
C
high level and has been for some time. I mean that was the whole thrust of the Nobel Prize winning work with AlphaFold.
- [08:37]
B
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
- [08:39]
A
But I think like the macro points to like there are just shakeups happening at all these like frontier labs. I think a lot of Google employees might see this as a sign that maybe they should leave. Is it unstable? You know, I think anytime that just one, not only two leaders like this leave, it creates some instability.
- [08:58]
D
The world has changed a lot. Like you just think like these AI things and the types of orgs required to run them, the leaders required to run them has just changed a lot. Like, you know, a lot of these guys have been doing this a long time. They were great research leaders. They're not going to like be the operational leaders you need to do it. By the way, half of them are so fucking rich, they don't want to like lead some big team that sucks. Like they want to work on like frontier cool stuff, right, which is like health or things like that. So this is like we're in the cycle where especially at like big companies, the right people aren't the right leaders at different phases. And I think it's good and healthy to like recognize that and then reshuffle the decks when you can. Like the worst thing you want is to have some guy who's like the wrong leader for this phase. They're not in it because they're too rich and they Want to work on health. They're like an amazing research leader, but they don't care about driving some random metric up. Like you want to cycle people out in healthy Org. So I actually think turnover and these types of changes are good. Now the interesting thing, when you're at a really big company and you kind of keep people around because you can afford to. And so it is sometimes comp inefficient, you don't fire anyone. You're just like letting them get paid $100 million a year to do their pet project. But like it is an interesting thing.
- [10:09]
B
I mean Google, like not only didn't fire people, they created companies under their company for these people to keep them around. So Google is the OG of this strategy.
- [10:20]
D
Yeah, it's the OG of if you're a really, really, really. First of all, you don't want to put your talent back out into the world, you want to hoard your talent. And then two, it's much more pleasant. They built teams, there's loyalties or whatever to like let them have a bigger job somewhere else while recognizing the fact they're just not the right person probably to do the next phase of what actually has to be done for the business. Right. Is the way to think about it. Either because they actually would be great, but they just have no interest or they're just like the wrong person.
- [10:46]
C
The other take here is that if you believe that self improving AI is coming, the current model is going to raise the next model, that will raise the next model and that we're on to that pathway now.
- [11:00]
B
We should call it by its name, Dave.
- [11:01]
C
Recursive, self improvement, whatever the current marketing term is.
- [11:05]
D
I love recursion. Who doesn't love recursion?
- [11:08]
B
I mean, who doesn't?
- [11:09]
C
It's like none of this shit. I love this. It's like personal super intelligence, like recursive, whatever. It's like all just like marketing nonsense. The point is if these systems start improving themselves like less than two years from now. The more cynical take is that if you're one of the 1,000 people who have the most coveted of all skill sets, which is in training, pre training, the sort of raising of models, then you need to get out the door now in order to capture the capital and the resources and the mojo that you need to start up another one of these labs and you kind of see this happening like the last six months has just been lab after lab after lab after lab of people that were from one of the labs, right? And now they're going out to build their own version because Propic and OpenAI are worth a trillion dollars. And so I'm going to go try to get my trillion dollars. You kind of have, I think, an element of that going on.
- [12:04]
D
This is the era of bag securing. Everyone is trying to get their bag right now. And whether that's like a big amount of private capital or selling your company or whatever, everyone is a desperate. It feels like musical chairs. We're in a musical chairs era. Everyone gets it and everyone wants their bag. It's the line from I love. What is it? It's not the big short, it's the other 1. The CEO of the bank comes in. He's like, I'm not paid because I'm the smartest. I'm paid to know one thing, which is what music is going to play. And right now I hear silence.
- [12:39]
C
That's a good one.
- [12:40]
B
So I agree with all of that. I also think Demis has the same chance of being CEO of Google today as he did yesterday. So I don't think this is like he's going off on this parallel path to pursue unrelated interests. Right. So you can look at this news. And then because I'm a business journalist and I can't help myself, I'm like always, what does it mean for succession? What does it mean for success? Session? Not that this is imminent. Like, I don't think CINDER is going anywhere. So I don't mean to say that. But like it is a company where that's an open question that smart people have had for years. And again, it's not like a burning question. Considers and going anywhere.
- [13:19]
D
Why would he want to run Google?
- [13:21]
C
Do you mean what does it mean for secession, for DeepMind or for all of Alphabet?
- [13:25]
B
No, no, for Google. Who's going to be the next CEO of Google?
- [13:28]
A
There's probably a deep bench over there.
- [13:30]
D
Why does he want that job?
- [13:31]
A
What did Sam say? Who wants that job?
- [13:33]
D
No, seriously, like why? If you're him, why do you want that job? You know how many headaches and reports that is Sundar? No, Sundar is fine. Sundar is already doing the job. If you're Dennis, you're the forefront of AI. You're with like the future is no employees and you're self improving.
- [13:47]
B
Guys, it's time for a bet. It's time for a bet. Who wants to take the bet? I'm going to bet it's Demis. Who's getting against me After Sundar, it's Demis.
- [13:55]
A
You think? Yeah.
- [13:56]
C
No way.
- [13:57]
D
Why does he want that job? Like it's a terrible job. Like I don't. I literally am asking.
- [14:01]
A
Honestly, I'm going to ask Gemini.
- [14:03]
B
Oh, we should make a fun bet. To be clear, I obviously have no like reporting inside information, but I have for years believed and I don't think it's imminent. It's a race between Thomas Currian, who runs Google Cloud and demos, and the question of the next CEO of Google is really going to be a question of what type of company is Google. However, many years from now, when Sundar moves on and Google's enterprise business is growing, many tech behemoths have gone the enterprise direction. In which case it would be Thomas. But. But if AI in some form is still the prevailing dynamic, Demis is still the leader. And you know, I gotta tell you, there's multiple aspects to Demis and his leadership and personality that I think go unmist One, he is incredibly ambitious. You guys should read Sebastian's book about him that he just published. The takeaway from that book is this is not a guy who just wants to win another Nobel Prize. Okay, so why is incredibly ambitious?
- [15:02]
D
What is he ambitious for?
- [15:03]
B
Sam, some people want to run companies.
- [15:06]
D
Why?
- [15:08]
A
Okay, but they, why can't they just sit on their beach?
- [15:12]
B
You can feel that way. I want to let me finish my point because there will be a next CEO of Google and listeners of our pod may be interested in my opinion and other people's opinion on who that's going to be. Which again is grounded in reporting. When I saw Demis at Davos this year, he was talking like it was like a CEO road tour. Google was trotting him out to every publisher and he wasn't just talking about Gemini and he wasn't just talking about DeepMind, he wasn't just talking about Isomorphic, he was talking about Google Cloud, he was talking about regulation, he was talking about all of this stuff. So I don't say this with super high confidence. I think this is actually a really interesting and open question in the technology business right now about what path Google goes on. But I don't think people should read this as like Demis is totally out of that game. I think he is very ambitious. I think the platform of running what will be the world's most valuable company is interesting and I don't think it necessarily has to evolve. Like a lot of day to day management and people reviews which I don't think he's interested.
- [16:14]
D
Doesn't Sundar have like a hundred reports?
- [16:16]
B
Sundar has 100 reports. Because. Because every time someone Gets poached, they report to Sundar. But a new CEO could operate differently.
- [16:24]
A
What about the guy taking over DeepMind Coray?
- [16:28]
B
Corey is awesome, but he's very technical. I mean, he's a great AI leader.
- [16:32]
A
He's not like, he can't speak on, like, the world stage and run a business.
- [16:36]
B
I mean, he can't. He's a very impressive guy. I don't think. He's not usually mentioned in that context. It also could be unknown.
- [16:42]
A
Maybe Larry or Sergei comes back.
- [16:44]
B
This is Larry, like, is basically pulling all the strings he wants to pull, and that's just fine for him. Like, I actually think he's way more involved than people realize.
- [16:53]
C
I guess. Like, my response to all of this is that's how Google has always worked. You go back to that old funny org charts that were made in the 2000s about how all these companies work, and Google's always kind of worked like this. There's always been, like, an amalgamation of leadership. It's like this emergent organism thing that has kind of always been the way that that place has worked, even when you worked there.
- [17:16]
B
I mean, Sundar became Sundar by winning Game of Thrones with Andy Rubin. Sundar had Chrome. Andy had Android. Ultimately, like, there's going to be, like, some person had to run both of those, and it was a battle, and Sundar won, and. And he got his. Whatever Alphabet company he got until he had to leave for indiscreet reasons. Yeah, I mean, that's all reported in the information. There were some. Some issues, but I was there in
- [17:45]
A
that era, and Sundar was like, the more magnetic sort of personality internally. He could, like, lead a crowd. Head of business since, I mean, that's
- [17:54]
B
a little bit of rewriting history. Like, I'm a big fan of Sundar. I think he's actually been a much better CEO than people give him credit for. Magnetic is not a word I would use used to describe his personality.
- [18:06]
C
That was Britt's internal experience.
- [18:08]
A
Product managers loved him. My internal experience is, like, the employees loved Sundar.
- [18:13]
B
Okay, so he's magnetic. Internally.
- [18:14]
A
Employees thought Andy was, like, very technically interesting and smart, but Sundar had, like, a little bit more of the gravitas of a CEO.
- [18:24]
B
Well, it worked. Just my take.
- [18:25]
D
Okay, guys, I just think it's really funny. Jess knows it's my favorite Sundar story is that if you unwind tech history, like, 15 years, there was, like, this dinner we were invited to where, like, I was Sundar's like, peer at, like, the dinner. Like, we were put Together as like
- [18:40]
B
we were seated together.
- [18:42]
D
It was pretty funny because if you just like unwind history and you look at like divergent paths, I just always find that hilarious. That was where we were at whatever 15 years ago.
- [18:51]
A
That happened to me once with Adam Grant.
- [18:52]
C
Could have been you, Sam.
- [18:54]
D
No, it could not be me because I need the whaler and the beach. And I don't understand why you'd want to run Google.
- [18:59]
B
Sundar could buy more than a whaler, but yes. Okay. Okay, guys. So I like to end this point though. I like where you took it in terms of AI. The nature of this moment, the wealth attached to it, the predictions around the technology are actually driving really interesting personnel, structural, corporate changes. I mean that's one reason I actually continue to find this industry interesting is that each era like has common patterns, but then there's like totally new dynamics. And I think the wealth dynamic and the like technical race dynamic are playing out now in ways that probably aren't talked about enough. Brit, on the deal making front, you always predict more deals. Did you predict that bending spoons would buy Airtable for about a billion and a half dollars when it was once valued at $11 billion less than that one three.
- [19:52]
A
One two. Yeah, I think it was one two. Right. I wouldn't even round up to the half.
- [19:56]
D
Let me give some context. So I put a $3 million check into airtable at a 90 post in between rounds early on because this is now probably in 2012. Ish. Maybe that era.
- [20:07]
B
Is this a lick the cookie moment or like what should we prepare for here?
- [20:11]
D
Sure, I'll lick the cookie.
- [20:12]
C
I can like partially lick that cookie too.
- [20:15]
D
I mean, sure, Dave, but I think Dave was my second on the deal. But like we had Allie over. We love the software that we were literally when we were building Fin, we were using Airtables like, this product's sick. We need to invest in it. Who's behind it? Turned out it was Howie at Etax from back in the day. I knew him from his first startup. So we put 3 million bucks in at 90 posts, which Dave did support me on. It was very rule breaking for slow at the time because it was too far along. And what's kind of amazing, too far
- [20:41]
C
along, way too big a check.
- [20:42]
D
But we did it anyway. The good news is we made a bunch of money on it because we did take a bunch off the table throughout the round. It is an interesting one because you think about all the dilution that's gone on between that 90 million dollar valuation and like kind of the ultimate bending spoons exit. And it's pretty rough math on the core product. Now the good news is Howie's a great leader and a great thinker and has an AI play that's coming next. I don't know that much about it. So it's a split thing where it seems like the air table, like legacy business is going to bending spoons, which is, by the way, I love bending spoons. I actually bought stock at IPO in bending spoons. I love bending spoons so much. So I'm like big bending spoons fan.
- [21:16]
A
Why do you love bending spoons?
- [21:18]
D
Oh, it's like it's exactly the type of Sam thing with love where it's like take valuable Internet assets that people are mismanaging and like buy them and then operate them properly and make shitloads of money. So like I'm very pro bending spoons as a company because they're bottom feeders,
- [21:33]
A
but aren't they taking the heart out of these companies? It's very PE esque.
- [21:37]
D
There's no heart needed. You take Vimeo, you buy it, it's a great business if you operated it properly. You like buy it cheaply, you consolidate customer service, you make a shitload of money. Right? It's awesome. I do think that SaaS is crushed. It's cool they've negotiated this out. I actually don't know the details. I haven't spoken to Howie about it at all. My sense is, is that how he gets to go operate the AI company he actually wants to operate? And as a bending spoon shareholder, I'm very happy. Now as an airtable shareholder, the write down from where everyone had it marked, the big fancy people, is pretty brutal. And I'd also say that like the amount of capital it took them to get to this outcome is not my favorite because there's a lot of dilution. But you know, it's something.
- [22:16]
A
Wasn't this scene. I mean the perception was pretty negative, right? Like this is like the SaaS Apocalypse playing out in real time. These companies are all dead. They should exit now. At least you have an opportunity, even if it's just returning investors capital. Like that was what I was picking up from across the web.
- [22:35]
B
Yeah, no, this is not good.
- [22:37]
D
But guys, it's also a people thing. It's like Howie wants to work on AI because AI is cool. You're saddled with a thing that has hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue but is clearly like a SaaS business. And like, like, let's fix it, let's just Clarify this. Call a spade a spade. It's painful, but you're not in a place you can IPO it. I don't know, you clear in the decks and you let the people. This is so human driven, right? Like what people want to work on, what teams want to work on. Bending spoons will pick it up and make a lot of money on it. So God bless.
- [23:06]
A
What will bending spoons do with it, do you think?
- [23:08]
C
If anything, this is the right way to go about things? When the dynamics that Sam has described have played out and oftentimes founders don't try to pursue a split kind of. I don't know what to call this, a split landing. One where you're landing the former product in a home that is as good of a deal as you can find. But then you're keeping your team together, your core creative team together to go pursue the new opportunity and giving your investors upside in that. And that's the other thing going on here, which is, as I understand it, investors are going to get a piece of hyper agent. Maybe not the same piece that they had, but something.
- [23:43]
D
Well, but Dave, I mean, if you want to be cynical, because we got to be cynical a little bit here, here's the other way to look at it. The reason this never happens is because big fancy investors, not us lowly seed investors, but big fancy ones, have no interest in the write down, right? It's a massive write down, right, for them and they'd rather just stick it on their books and pretend like it's worth something. It's not until the last possible moment, the fact that they can get rid of it, get a little bit of cash back and then turn around and say, oh, no, don't worry, we still have our AI upside. That's kind of what allows it to happen. So as much as it's a split landing and it's good for the team, it's also a thing. And big fancy investors who don't want the write down can look at and be like, all right, well, we can tell everyone that we took a write down, but not really because of AI. I say that having not read the docs, to be clear, but that is certainly part of the dynamic.
- [24:32]
B
This is like CYA all over it, but for sure.
- [24:35]
C
But I mean, I think that's what a split landing is like. You have to be able to land the investor aspect of this in a way that's reasonably appetizing to everyone, right? Otherwise this just doesn't happen.
- [24:48]
A
Wait, so Sam, do you get to invest in hyper Agent. And what is hyper agent?
- [24:52]
D
I think we get some tiny piece.
- [24:54]
C
No, we get some kind of ownership in it.
- [24:56]
D
It's like something tiny. This is like, literally, because we're seed investors, we have no information rights on this. Our firm thread yesterday was like, hey, airtables being whatever. It was like air tables being sold. I saw it in a tweet. What's it worth? I don't know. This guy tweeted this. What's going on with the. I. Like, we don't fucking know. Like, we're like, we're so out of the information flow, but I assume at some point we get some bending spoon stock.
- [25:16]
B
Do you guys think there's more of this to come? Were you looking at the SaaS in your portfolio?
- [25:22]
A
For sure. That's what I'm saying. I think this is SaaS apocalypse.
- [25:25]
D
That's why I'm a big bending spoons fan. I think bending spoons is like so well positioned with a public currency to pick all this shit up for cents on the dollar.
- [25:33]
C
I think it would be intellectual malpractice to call this a blanket statement about SaaS. The reality of Airtable and tools like it is that AI has made it. You know, there's like other businesses that were really, really flying, like in the airtable days, like retool and these kind of lightweight UI layers that made it easier to interact with databases or build your own CRM. Like all these types of tools that were big in the 2010s, they no longer are needed anymore when you can just build whatever you want using AI. And so you've got like a category of SaaS that's in trouble and is going to have to look for exits like this that doesn't apply to everything, right? Like, is, I don't know, is rippling at risk? No.
- [26:19]
A
Well, some people would disagree with that.
- [26:21]
D
I think a lot is. I mean, like, my favorite. Oh my God, everything's at risk actually happened this week with this game that our kids play. This like, block matching game. It's actually a fine game.
- [26:30]
A
Our kids play that game too.
- [26:32]
D
It was so annoying because, like, it turns out I was like, I hate the game ads. I don't want my kids ever seeing a game ad. And there's literally no way to buy your way out of them that I could figure out. So I asked my bot. I was like, hey, bot, can you find me a version of this game? It's pretty popular game that just I can buy so that the kids don't have ads. And unprompted My bot responded, it was like, look, I looked into it. There's one that's like 14 bucks a month. That's too much. I just built it for you. It's deployed and here's an iOS version. I think that's like another example. Like casual games are just going to get demolished because forget just like connecting to a database, I'll just build my own games. Like, I don't need the stupid ads anymore.
- [27:09]
A
Right, Dave, we should make our kids pick their top three games and then rebuild them as their remainder of summer project.
- [27:18]
B
So Sam Britt asked a good question, which I. You didn't get to answering, which is what is it that you think bending spoons is going to do to economically unlock more value from all these assets they're picking up dirt cheap?
- [27:32]
A
Well, from Airtable specifically.
- [27:33]
D
Oh look, it's easy. These things have big enterprise contracts. They're going to like milk those. They're going to like hack the cs, the customer support teams to zero because they can consolidate it.
- [27:44]
A
Yeah, but isn't that just like short term revenue? This isn't a long term viable product.
- [27:49]
D
I don't believe one of my favorite companies ever is Constellation Software. Right. It's a fucking beast.
- [27:54]
C
This is constellation 101.
- [27:56]
B
Didn't it tank? Didn't it go up and then down?
- [27:58]
D
Didn't it had one of the most beautiful public market stock charts in the history of companies until about a year ago. And then they had some transition problem and I think. And then there was like a bunch of issues with like. And then people just like lumped it as SaaS and like the stock got crushed. But they're so good at making money and like I just think that's the reality. Like I invested in like the Yahoo buyout, which has been like an incredible deal right, financially that Apollo did. And so like I just think there's all these ways, like these are big old Internet things that will continue to exist.
- [28:27]
B
Has it been. Has Yahoo had an exit? Like, what makes it an incredible deal?
- [28:30]
D
Like, because they sold off all the real estate and they got it for free. And so you can make a lot of money, like, and so it's just business.
- [28:37]
B
But have they made a lot of money or have they.
- [28:40]
D
No, they literally returned a bunch of money and like they're going to. So like the basic point is that if you take out the tech people and their lattes and their $100 million comp packages and you're like, how about we just make a lot of money with this huge revenue stream, there Are these awesome bottom feeding business organizations that can do it. And people have tried Evergreen funds and tech people have tried this 15 times. But there are these operating groups that will just do it. And I think bending spoons is a great example of one.
- [29:07]
A
I'm agreeing with bending spoons. I just don't see why people are using airtable in five years. Like and haven't gone full agentic.
- [29:14]
D
Because they're thinking. Because they type A on their keyboard and it autocompletes to airtable.com and so they will keep using it. Like why do people like Yahoo is still fucking huge. Huge. Yahoo's huge. Like why is Yahoo huge?
- [29:27]
A
The people that use airtable are not the same people that use Yahoo. Like mass normies use Yahoo.
- [29:33]
D
You'd be surprised.
- [29:35]
A
Okay, Yahoo Finance maybe. I know a lot about Yahoo. Like there's a lot of mass normies that use Yahoo and there's a lot
- [29:42]
D
of mass normies who use airtable.
- [29:44]
B
I occasionally use Yahoo Finance.
- [29:46]
A
All right, well I'll be the less on this one you guys can be, the more. Let's check in. In five years what I will say
- [29:51]
D
that the, the basically 10x write down from max airtable value to now with all the dilution is brutal. Right? Is what I would say.
- [30:01]
C
Yeah, for sure.
- [30:02]
D
And it does speak to the fact that it's good to be a seed investor.
- [30:05]
C
And again, this is the next version of this is going to be the lab write downs.
- [30:09]
B
Oh snap.
- [30:10]
D
Bending Spoons is buying OpenAI.
- [30:13]
B
Ooh snap. The open source AI guy thinks the labs are getting written down. Say more, Dave.
- [30:20]
C
No, I mean I think you have a similar dynamic playing out as the SaaS world in the 2000s. Right? Like the, in the 2000s when capital was cheap and ZIRP was all just flooding the market with capital. You had an sort of infinite recursion loop creating SaaS startup after SaaS startup all throughout the 2010s. Right now that is coming home to roost and you've got the same thing going on. It's a different dynamic this time around. It's more the narrative capitalism thing that we've been talking about. But it's the same thing where everybody's trying to go get their bag and create an entire set of these lab companies which they're not all going to work. We do need to do this important research. Right? LLMs are only going to carry us so far into AI. But all of these labs are not going to find product market fit and business value. Like it's just not going to happen.
- [31:11]
D
All right, so, Dave, here's the funny thing. One, it is narrative capitalism, because the SAS thing was a narrative, right? The narrative is you acquire user once and they'll pay you forever. So it's an infinite LTV. And that was the narrative of the SaaS era, which collapsed.
- [31:26]
C
OK, fair. The capital markets were different.
- [31:28]
D
I'm not done. I'm not done. Here's even one part. Do you want to be really mean? Can we be mean for a second?
- [31:34]
C
Oh, God. It's the same.
- [31:35]
D
What did you say? It's the same investors. It's exactly the same cap tables.
- [31:41]
B
He's just so excited and I don't
- [31:43]
A
know why he loves it. He loves it so much.
- [31:47]
D
Like, literally, it's the same cap table.
- [31:49]
C
That's a good point. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's true.
- [31:52]
B
Okay, guys, I want to mention another quickly. We can end with SpaceX, but everyone's been paying attention, of course, to the Lawsuit Apple suing OpenAI about employees who've gone to OpenAI and allegedly taken trade secrets. And the information had a great story this week pointing out that one of the key issues is icloud and it's shitty syncing. So specifically, what's happening is that former Apple employees are still getting corporate documents synced to personal devices via icloud. And I just think this is very interesting and probably a broader example of the leakiness of information throughout Silicon Valley, but OpenAI is now saying these employees didn't even want to get the updated versions of these documents that were being synced to their iclouds. I thought this was funny, maybe because I've had some icloud syncing issues. But what do you guys think?
- [32:53]
A
I feel like it's only getting crazier now. We have like a million MCTs connected into stuff. Like, when an employee leaves an organization now, you don't just turn off their email. You have to turn off like all these connectors and all kinds of things that they might have had access to.
- [33:08]
C
I mean, it's even worse than that. It's like all of these new models can just hack everything. So, like, nothing's secure anymore. So, like, I mean, it's like, what is document security in 2026?
- [33:19]
A
It like doesn't exist, ceases are freaked out everywhere.
- [33:22]
D
I think both are almost certainly true in that I am sure that it is true that people lifted a bunch of IP out of Apple on their way to OpenAI. I am also 100% sure that it's the equivalent of like continuing to FedEx all your employees, all your internal documents when they're no longer employees. And like Apple, like, it's so leaky. Right? So, like, both are true. Both are true. It's a great defense. I didn't even ask for this file.
- [33:48]
B
I believe OpenAI also responded to the lawsuit saying your own employees at Apple reached out to their former colleagues for help understanding how some of these things worked. And you were like, asking for documentation, like them to look at documentation and act because they like, forgot how things worked with the people gone now at OpenAI and they showed some text messages that are actually pretty convincing of that.
- [34:15]
A
So you're leaning towards who to win this.
- [34:17]
C
Well, that means they're being highly effective in their court case of public opinion here, right?
- [34:22]
B
Yeah, I actually have not engaged in the legal merits of either side. And I assume this sort of gets resolved and, you know, OpenAI launches its, like, HomePod, AI Siri Alexa device. And I think this sort of gets resolved. But like, yeah, it was sort of interesting.
- [34:42]
A
I don't know.
- [34:42]
B
I like, sometimes I turn on a new device and all these little icloud things come in and icloud photos, groups I've shared on, and icloud sync that. I'm just like, what is going on? So apparently that is also an experience of former Apple.
- [34:58]
C
We could get into a technology discussion.
- [35:00]
D
On the flip side, I need that because I don't think I remember my core Apple password anymore. So my only saving grace is I have like 10 Apple devices and just keep syncing them off each other.
- [35:09]
B
Not knowing your Apple password is pretty risky like that. You should know that that's like one of the only ones that.
- [35:15]
D
I'm not thrilled about that, but it is true. If it weren't for my face id, I could not get apps.
- [35:20]
A
Wait, can we talk about OpenAI's Creator Summit that they hosted?
- [35:24]
B
Oh, yes, let's talk about OpenAI's Creator Summit. Give us the lowdown. Set the scene.
- [35:29]
A
Sam might just take this. Would you like to take it?
- [35:31]
D
You can set the scene, but my number one question is, apparently they helped a $2,000 a night resort thing on the East Coast. My number one question is, what resort do I not know about that charges $2,000 a night on the East Coast? Because I'd like to attend Wildflower Farms.
- [35:43]
A
It's in the Hudson Valley.
- [35:44]
B
Sam, I would like you to know that upon reading this article, I cut and paste the name of the hotel and put it in my places to maybe take Sam for his birthday on the east coast in future years folder.
- [35:56]
D
Perfect.
- [35:56]
B
So rest assured, I am on this for you because I agree. We have searched the east coast far and wide for luxurious, celebratory birthday excursions.
- [36:06]
D
For places we can spend too much money per night.
- [36:09]
B
It can't be that good. Because I have done exhaustive research on ChatGPT on this topic, and this resort never popped up, so. But, Brit, go ahead.
- [36:20]
A
Oh, my God. First of all, I need to correct you. This resort is, like, classic. A lot of people talk about it. I am going there next year for a different event, and it's in upstate New York. It's part of the Auberge collection, blah, blah, blah. Fine. Okay, here's the scene. So we all know AI has a branding problem, right? People hate AI. Most people are, like, not even using AI. And of course, OpenAI has its own branding problem, so they wanted to change this. So our friend, actually, Charles Poarch, gathered a bunch of creators and influencers.
- [36:50]
C
This was an Instagram Creator Summit, but OpenAI version.
- [36:55]
A
Yes.
- [36:55]
D
Wait, we love Charles. Don't use Charles name. Leave Charles out of this.
- [37:00]
B
Sam, Charles is at the center of this. He has to be. We have to put him at the center of this.
- [37:05]
D
I know. Of course he is, but we don't have to say his name like, just say a person.
- [37:10]
B
Of course we do.
- [37:12]
C
Yes, we do, Sam. This is open AI.
- [37:15]
D
We like Charles.
- [37:16]
A
I'm not saying this is a bad move, Sam.
- [37:19]
B
Charles just did a Vanity Fair story about himself in this new role. We're good. We're good.
- [37:26]
A
By the way, I like Charles.
- [37:27]
D
Okay, for the record, I understand that it's obviously Charles. I was just saying we can skip.
- [37:33]
A
You call out people. We can call out people, Sam. Anyway, I understand why he wanted to do this.
- [37:38]
B
I get the brand is not doing
- [37:40]
A
well, specifically with the Matt masses. Charles was hired at OpenAI from Instagram to, like, help build creator sort of love for OpenAI products. ChatGPT. They held a retreat in upstate New York. Creators were posting their, like, wildflowers and, like, nature baths and things like that. And then all the new AI things they were learning, and the Internet got real mad.
- [38:03]
B
They just started so mad.
- [38:05]
A
They were so mad. So mad.
- [38:08]
C
Like, describe the nature of the mad.
- [38:10]
A
Just, like, taking down these influencers. You AI people. Like, this isn't AI sucks. Just, like, hating AI, you know? And, like, why would you take money and go to this, like, $2,000 retreat when, like, the world is burning and AI is taking up all this compute and it's tone deaf. All the different things. So anyway, it backfired on OpenAI.
- [38:32]
C
So a very much a threads response
- [38:34]
B
kind of actually, but more, more like a little bit but like kind of nastier to be honest.
- [38:41]
C
Was Twitter pissed about this or this or. Sorry, this was an Instagram. That sounds like an Instagram response to me.
- [38:47]
B
No, Twitter. I saw it on Twitter.
- [38:49]
A
TikTok, Twitter and Instagram, all social media. By the way, Sam Lesson here on our podcast hosted a similar creator retreat in San Francisco, not at a $2,000 a night hotel. And I think the creators liked it. Yeah.
- [39:03]
D
Oh, you're talking about school. Bot school is the opposite of it. This bot school was in like a dingy basement and we taught them how to like use AI to like crush things and we actually had them use Claude. Not any OpenAI stuff. I think was the opposite. It was like literally we got them like shitty bagels and we, we, we neg to them and taught them how to use GitHub and DigitalOcean.
- [39:25]
A
Well then I guess the moral of the story is take people to lesser known places. Take.
- [39:30]
C
Yeah. If they had done it that way, would it have been better? I guess they should have asked them to not be posting on Instagram.
- [39:35]
A
The whole point is that they're posting. That's like the whole point of the retreat. They're teaching them how to use AI. They want them to post about their experience with AI. They do. And then all their fans hate them.
- [39:46]
D
I actually just would be curious if the curriculum was. Because I bet it wasn't that good. I think that's the real problem is like I can teach you a great how to be a creator and leverage these tools to make tons of money and like build apps and stuff. And I just am not convinced that you can do that at a farm. I think you do that in a dungy basement and teach people at DigitalOcean and GitHub and how to run an instance of Claude in the cloud.
- [40:07]
A
They were learning how to make websites and all kinds of things.
- [40:10]
C
The nuance here is that are you going to this event to learn how to use AI to make your creator business better, or are you going to this event because the AI company wants you to do influencer things about your company? These are very different things.
- [40:29]
A
They were sponsored posts, so that's why it got shat on.
- [40:33]
B
And also it's very in line. Like this is OpenAI bought TBPN to try not to like recreate a media company because of with technology, but to basically like counteract just to have Talking heads who are pro AI.
- [40:52]
A
The moral of the story to me is the masses continue to hate AI
- [40:56]
B
and like, yeah, they do, then this is not gonna go away. This isn't something you throw a retreat at. Not that OpenAI would have assumed this retreat would have single handedly changed the. I'm sure they didn't do that. And at some point you, if you're gonna have a creator strategy, you have to start doing things with creators and give them some room. But this is a really, really tough one in terms of brand positioning. And you're gonna go into epic wealth generation, anthropic ipo, which isn't going to help the issue. And then same for Open AI. So I don't know how you fix the image.
- [41:30]
A
I'm like trying to think about what should you do? Okay, you're the head of anthropic or OpenAI or anything that's trying to make the brand of AI better among the masses, especially Gen Z.
- [41:40]
D
Don't even worry about it. Just do your thing. Just be honest.
- [41:43]
B
I think being honest is a really good approach.
- [41:46]
A
Be honest. But like, I mean, I think you have to lean into all the ways that you know, drug development, saving lives.
- [41:51]
B
If you cure cancer, that will help. I think you try to cure cancer. I think that's what you do. Because like, that would be great. That would be awesome.
- [41:59]
C
I mean, that's pretty cynical actually. That implies that there is no way to make the current form of AI universally useful to all the people of the world and that everybody is moving on to try to cure cancer in order to get some redemption. It's like the same thing as like I made $100 billion and now I'm going to spend and do all this stuff for philanthropy to fix my brand. Like that's the cynical take here, is that everybody's moving on to what was
- [42:29]
D
the brand of dynamite. Because like dynamite is super useful. You need dynamite. It also is pretty bad for wars. And then Nobel had to create the Nobel Prizes. So like isn't like what's the dynamite History to learn?
- [42:44]
C
Nobel created dynamite, right?
- [42:45]
D
Yeah, yeah, that's my point. Ultimately the redemption was or like for steel, Carnegie built a bunch of libraries. Like you generally have a redemption work, but like the thing you do is disruptive, right? Like what? You know, that's how it always works.
- [43:00]
B
It's a great question, Dave. And I think I'm thinking about it because obviously I am a passionate user of AI and think it is useful. I think it comes back to what is AI? An AI Search result in your Google search that appears like another Google search is very different. And I do think the popular population will obviously be using AI more and more. But I am struck by like, I'm just seeing like now like smart people I know telling me or posting on the Internet. We don't need AI. It's wild.
- [43:32]
D
We don't need AI. We like AI.
- [43:35]
C
I think people are getting extremely sick of consuming AI slop in their work days. You hear this refrain is really starting to kick up. Do not send me work slop. I literally don't work with humans so that like the human can talk to the AI and then copy and paste what the AI said to me. There's like, those conversations are happening more and more and more and. And I would actually say like, just like people, as we used a lot of social media, people started to really have an intuition about their feed being influenced by this influence or that influence, or people started to get more smart about it. Like it seems like that's also what's going on here, which is that the work slap isn't actually adding enough value to our daily lives and people are just getting sick of reading the AI rather than, you know, what another human wrote. And so there's like this undercurrent of that going on too, I think, which is much more simple than agents or any of the really sophisticated stuff that we talk about all the time.
- [44:35]
B
I'm going to move us to our last topic because we've done a nice job of not going all AI, but I also think we can't forget David, like, AI is just being demonized as like the source of every political problem in America and wealth. Like, so there's that as in addition to like what you're saying. But OpenAI, perhaps have your next creator summit, I don't know, online, virtually in a basement. Well, in a basement, in a bunker. Don't ask them to post and don't.
- [45:01]
C
Yeah, Sam's happy to host it for you, Charles.
- [45:05]
D
Charles and I do different styles of
- [45:07]
B
work that Sam will be on the last people Charles would turn to. But guys, the SpaceX lockup is upon us. Let's see by the time this posts.
- [45:19]
D
Yeah, so I will tell you, I'm getting SpaceX shares out of the woodworks.
- [45:22]
B
Some will be free by the time you listen to this pod. Yes, Sam, go lick the cookie. Do what you gotta do.
- [45:28]
D
I'm learning about all these extra SpaceX shares I have from random funds. Everyone had SpaceX.
- [45:33]
B
Okay, that's not really helpful to this conversation, but Guys, it's not going so well. They keep spending more money, which keeps taking the stock price or saying they're spending more money. And the shares have been drop, drop, dropping.
- [45:47]
D
They're fine. They're doing exactly what you expected them to do.
- [45:51]
C
Yeah, like the curve looks identical to what I think anybody would expect.
- [45:55]
B
People expected them to be below ish their IPO price. I don't know exactly where it is as of the taping.
- [46:00]
A
I think their IPO price was also just too high. They're just getting back to normalcy.
- [46:05]
B
Is this what we should expect with anthropic and OpenAI?
- [46:08]
D
Yes, probably.
- [46:09]
B
Guys, we have some big proclamations here. Yes.
- [46:11]
D
Why would number go up? Like this is like. You know what it is? It reminds me of like the Bill Gurley thing. You know, Bill Gurley always likes to talk about how bankers rob startups because they under for the pop and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- [46:23]
B
Yes, his direct listing that did not take off, but yes, blah, blah, blah.
- [46:27]
D
It's silly, but the point is that like this is just like the opposite of it, which if you're Elon, you're going to price to perfection because you can. You're going to like get the headline number the trillion number you wanted. You get a bunch of money for the company, I guess. Or that at a high price, and then who cares what the stock trades? Within reason. It's fine. He got everything he wanted. He bailed out his XAI people. He bailed out his Twitter people. He bailed everyone out. Right. So Elon gets to be the guy who makes everyone money. And if you're a SpaceX shareholder, you're like, whatever. You kind of got robbed on a few things. But number big.
- [47:04]
B
Well, what if you're a SpaceX shareholder who like bought on day two and is now down 33%?
- [47:09]
D
Well, that was a very silly thing to do. Like, that was like, that was. That was a silly thing to do. Honestly, those people who bought on day two are Elon cult boys.
- [47:21]
B
Yeah.
- [47:22]
D
And they'll be fine because, like, eventually he'll figure out a way to make number go up for them. Because that's the cults until it's not right.
- [47:28]
C
Yeah. The one liner was that they have now moved. What? They've moved up one year. Their $1 trillion revenue number. That was the kind of funny Elon quote from the earnings call that things are going so well that they're going to hit 1 trillion one year early.
- [47:47]
B
I know how you do that. You buy another company that has a lot of Revenue. That's how you do that.
- [47:52]
D
That's exactly right. And that's how he gets his comp package, too.
- [47:54]
A
It starts with a T and ends with an esla. Wait, segue. Elon Segway. Breaking news. Nikita, head of product at X. Elon's company is leaving.
- [48:06]
C
What?
- [48:07]
A
A salt product?
- [48:08]
C
Oh, that's sad.
- [48:09]
D
I saw that on tvpn.
- [48:10]
B
You guys just gave him so many props last week. He got all the flowers.
- [48:15]
A
What's gonna happen to X, you guys? What's gonna happen?
- [48:18]
B
What's Nikita gonna do? I haven't even seen this news.
- [48:21]
D
Good for Nikita.
- [48:22]
A
Listen to this. Nikita says, in the last 400 days, we've built almost every aspect of X. The timeline, Android app, onboarding, notifications, chat, and more. We launched 30 new products and they also rose by like 70 spots in the app store from this time last year. So, I mean, he did turn it around.
- [48:43]
C
He did a great job.
- [48:44]
B
This was our whole convo last week. X is kicking. X is kicking.
- [48:49]
A
But maybe it's not anymore. But he didn't name a successor because
- [48:53]
C
there doesn't need to be one.
- [48:54]
B
Maybe there does when shot.
- [48:56]
D
Well, I think Nikita played this brilliantly, personally, like, from a personal perspective. And I give him props for getting out and doing what he did. It's like, look, I think it's a brutal place to work. I think he worked unbelievably hard. If you looked at how he tweeted through the whole period.
- [49:09]
C
Totally.
- [49:10]
B
Yeah. It's gotta be brutal.
- [49:11]
D
The guy probably had about 400 days of focus in him on this. And he's built his brand ridiculously and he probably got a shitload of stock on. So good for him. In and out. Make it happen. Do the interesting stuff and let someone else guard in it. Either that or he really did go over the line when he started making fun of Mark a bunch. I don't actually know. That could be the other part of it.
- [49:31]
A
He's going to be an advisor going forward.
- [49:33]
B
So I don't think you get pushed out of an Elon company for making fun of someone.
- [49:37]
D
I think that's almost certainly true.
- [49:40]
B
I think if anything, it probably gives you a promotion. So.
- [49:43]
C
Yeah, I mean, that wasn't out of character, Sam. Those were classic Nikita trolls.
- [49:47]
D
I know it was. That was a little cringey. The stuff where he, like, kept banning spammers who were, like, interacting with him was very funny though. He's very good at media.
- [49:55]
B
Okay, maybe start a media company more and spring give us something to look for. Have you Guys, seen the Odyssey? Like, what's going on in your lives? We're almost back to school. What's happening?
- [50:04]
A
Travis Kelce is back on the field. Fall training has kicked off. That means the NFL is around the corner. Very much looking forward to it. I'm in like a sports drought right now between World cup and NFL season, so I know.
- [50:16]
B
I'm also between Wimbledon and the US Open. It's very, very tough period.
- [50:20]
A
So, yeah, it's sad right now.
- [50:21]
B
Yeah.
- [50:22]
A
Yeah.
- [50:22]
B
Guys, I have one rant. I just have decided this pod is a good place to rant. Last week I ranted about people who invite themselves to your just decided that conferences via their EAs months before they're actually invited. Maybe the morons can help me with this because Sam and I experience a lot of wonderful things together that we capture in photos. And my problem is Sam posts the 20 person IG carousel of these events while we're at the event. Before I get a chance to. We're doing something fun that we want to remember, we want to share with our friends. And this man is so trigger fast to posting. It leaves me with very little to share. I really want to know, like, what is the right etiquette here?
- [51:09]
C
Yes, you're playing that. You're playing it right. You need to show up in other people's Instagrams, not posts on your own. Way, way more powerful move.
- [51:17]
B
Well, no, they're for children mostly. I'm like an ancillary holding something occasionally.
- [51:21]
A
I think you and Sam need to have a strategic content conversation. Content strategy about, like, which topic areas does Sam get to own and which topic areas does Jess get to own? And you stay in your lanes. Can't cross post about the same thing. You got to diversify.
- [51:35]
B
But. Or can we collab? Do couples collab? Or is that not. Is that too weird?
- [51:40]
A
I know Dave is reposting so much on Instagram. Like, I don't repost. I don't know if you guys do this on Instagram. Like in the feed itself. Everything I'm looking at, Dave is reposting.
- [51:50]
C
I've been experimenting.
- [51:51]
B
I just wonder. And it's possible no one feels my pain here because this is a very particular situation.
- [51:57]
A
Right.
- [51:58]
D
I just norm core it. I just think you post the things that you see, you know?
- [52:02]
C
Yeah, Sam's totally norm coring it.
- [52:04]
B
So I just post what I want to post. You post what I want to post at. Our mutual followers get the same thing and they get it from me two days later.
- [52:10]
A
I do. I do get a Little duplicate. It's of you guys.
- [52:12]
C
It depends on who your audience is. Like, this is an audience problem. And this comes down to classic problems that we dealt with at Facebook and Path and all throughout over the years. Like, it's a classic audience problem. It depends on Sam. You've got, I think, if I remember correctly, like, a really narrow Instagram audience that's like mostly real friends.
- [52:32]
B
We have the same Instagram audience. I just think if you're doing another version of etiquette school, it's like Brit
- [52:38]
C
has an enormous Instagram audience, and so, like, she's got a totally different problem set.
- [52:43]
A
I wouldn't say it's enormous. I'm definitely a micro influencer.
- [52:45]
B
I think this should come up in etiquette school.
- [52:48]
D
My favorite audience I have is my threads audience, which I don't know how this happened, but is like raving left wing people. And so anything I post, they get so mad about. I don't know how I acquired this audience.
- [53:01]
B
You've talked about this before.
- [53:03]
A
My favorite audience is my Pinterest audience. I've got Middle American moms.
- [53:08]
B
Why have you relocated? Did it get breezy?
- [53:10]
D
Bayside, I'm just done. So I moved because I think we're about to end.
- [53:13]
C
Right.
- [53:14]
B
So you're literally walking off this pod. That is your level of interest in it.
- [53:18]
A
Okay.
- [53:18]
B
You just got it.
- [53:19]
D
No, no, I brought you with me.
- [53:20]
B
Well, I think with that, should we preview next week for the dear listeners and have them have something to look forward to? Sam, take it away. It can be a surprise, but.
- [53:31]
D
So I can't exactly preview it because my other phone that I was buying things on died. But somehow these silly people have decided that I'm going to do this pod alone. And so I have assembled six of the world's premier investors and we're going to do a Sam and Friends episode. And who knows what's going to happen, but I've got basically the founders of some of the best VC firms.
- [53:53]
B
Sam, you're cutting in and out. Say it again.
- [53:56]
D
I've got amazing people. It's Sam and Friends next week.
- [53:59]
A
Six seems like too many people.
- [54:01]
D
Well, you know what? You're not here, so I get to do what I want.
- [54:04]
A
Okay, I would advise you to cut it to three.
- [54:06]
D
Nope.
- [54:07]
A
Fair.
- [54:08]
B
Basically, the three of us have other commitments. We thought Sam should monologue for an hour, but then we also thought he should just phone a friend for an hour. So get ready.
- [54:18]
D
Next week there was a great SNL skit where it was like the McLaughlin Report where the moderator would, like, ask a question, and someone would monologue an answer, and then he would just say wrong, and then just give his answer to every question. That's basically what I'm gonna do.
- [54:34]
B
I mean, you do that already, but we don't put up with your shit, so. Okay. Dear listeners, we appreciate you. We hope you found this interesting. Sam and friends, we'll see you next week for another episode of More or Less. Bye.
- [54:49]
D
Bye.
- [54:50]
C
See you guys later.
- [54:51]
A
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 podcast. Find more information about each episode in the show notes and follow us on social media by searching fororless avemorin essenless lesson. And as for me, I'm Britt. See you guys next time.