Sam Lessin (1:36)

Nine names ago. He's the. I, I installed that with him on the line. He gets my shout out for my, my patient zero for this stuff.

Jessica Lessin (1:43)

Okay, do. Are we going to identify him by anything other than his initials or is

Dave Morin (1:48)

it Michael S. Galpert?

Sam Lessin (1:50)

He's gone by MSG since the early New York days.

Dave Morin (1:53)

Although I was making the T shirts for tonight and he wanted his full name. Sam.

Jessica Lessin (1:58)

Oh yeah.

Brit Morin (1:59)

The founder of OpenClaw will be there and the waitlist is like thousands of people long and they keep having to like move venues to make it bigger. Like all the Silicon Valley people are coming out for this tonight.

Jessica Lessin (2:13)

I just so couple thoughts. First, I like that we're using the phrase meet up again. It feels so OG this is a new thing.

Sam Lessin (2:20)

It sounds a different scale. He definitely has run meetups on this already. And it's a Scott Heiferman reference because we were back in New York in the old days with the meetups.

Jessica Lessin (2:29)

Sam had a lot of meetups.

Sam Lessin (2:30)

I did.

Brit Morin (2:31)

Oh yeah.

Sam Lessin (2:31)

That's how, how he recruited.

Dave Morin (2:33)

Yeah. I mean I think one of the most interesting things going on is that the open class stuff has really differentiated between who in the ecosystem is technical and who is not correct. This is a meetup that is about sharing things that you've made, the things that you've built. It's very traditional, old school Internet. It's how the city used to work. These kinds of things don't happen as much anymore. So it's been pretty fun to work on one. It gives me a lot of memories of the old days when Silicon Valley had technical people running around in it all of the time.

Sam Lessin (3:06)

So now the technical people are just actually doing work as opposed to sharing all this shit on the Internet.

Dave Morin (3:11)

I don't know about that.

Jessica Lessin (3:12)

This feels very Foo camp to me.

Dave Morin (3:14)

Yeah, it's very Foucamp. Same era and you know, we used to do a lot of this stuff at Facebook in the early days. And you know, I think that meetups and developer things have gone on throughout the open source community over the last many years. But I think this is one of the first things that's animated people the way that it has in a really long time. It's so fun. Yeah. So I'm psyched to be co hosting it with msg. And we've got Peter Steinberger coming. I got Susan Kerr, the famous icon designer from Apple.

Jessica Lessin (3:45)

I swear she was at foocamp too.

Dave Morin (3:47)

She. She was.

Brit Morin (3:48)

People are flying in for this, Jess. This is like a really big deal. Okay?

Jessica Lessin (3:53)

I hate to tell you, people are flying into the Bay Area for something else right now. It's not open clock. Okay, Definitely superfall week in the Bay Area. So excited. But you know, we can give open call, some love to or Claude, whatever it's called. Who knows?

Dave Morin (4:09)

It is funny, Jess, to see all of these people, like all of these like NFL influencers taking videos of like, oh my God, Northern California is so beautiful.

Jessica Lessin (4:18)

It's like, yeah, guys, I got an ice cream today. It is gorgeous. It is like 67 degrees here on the peninsula.

Sam Lessin (4:27)

Six, seven.

Jessica Lessin (4:28)

Oh, it's brief. Freaking you two. We are going to talk about the merger to maybe end all mergers with SpaceX and Xai. Is Tesla next? Okay, we're talking about that.

Sam Lessin (4:40)

Of course it's next.

Dave Morin (4:41)

For sure it's next.

Jessica Lessin (4:42)

Then let it be known we're going to have to talk about the bloodletting of a third of the staff of the Washington Post going and what Bezos needs to do about it. And we're going to talk about AI fatigue. We can get claudebot in there and then we're going to have the pcc, the pop culture corner to end all pop culture corners. So who wants to take SpaceX bot XAI rescuing an Elon company that was going to have to struggle to raise a lot of capital going forward. I was the first to report the price. 250 billion valuing SpaceX at around a trillion in the exchange. Okay, take the ball, Sam, what's your hot take?

Sam Lessin (5:25)

Look, these are all narrative assets, right? And Look, I love SpaceX. I think SpaceX is an incredible narrative, an incredibly powerful company. I think everyone on the SpaceX side is kind of peeved because they're like this Xai thing is not worth a quarter billion dollars or the numbers are all funny money anyway. So really the way to think about it is like it's not worth a fifth, right? It's not worth 20% of my SpaceX.

Jessica Lessin (5:49)

Like really not like that's a point worth underscoring.

Sam Lessin (5:52)

No SpaceX investor thinks that, that it is worth that. But on the flip side, it's good to remember that a year ago SpaceX and Funny Money Land was worth $200 billion. And there was a story that maybe, maybe by 2030 be worth a trillion in Elon's world. And because we live in relativist Funny money land, you know, you're like, well, don't be too upset. You bought into the, into the narrative game and you know, yeah, you're down 20% on a made up number. That's huge. So it's like, it's the whole thing. Everyone was at dinner last night was trying to quote to me that the Twitter price, like, ah, Twitter is now what a great trade. I'm like, it's all just percentages. Like it's just, it's just the reconstitution of the Elon narrative into one mega narrative. And look, the problem is that SpaceX doesn't have anywhere near enough revenue or profit to subsidize the money losing of xai, right? So it's like, I think it's the right mentality.

Brit Morin (6:45)

What are the numbers there? Do you know? Or app around?

Jessica Lessin (6:48)

They're in the information, let's pull them up.

Sam Lessin (6:51)

It's like not that much revenue and a few billion in profit now. It's a great story. It's like one of the best stories.

Dave Morin (6:55)

So like, so great story, not great company.

Jessica Lessin (6:58)

No.

Sam Lessin (6:58)

SpaceX might someday be when he's just like, the numbers aren't that big.

Jessica Lessin (7:01)

Well also remember, speaking of narratives, this is on the eve and time to exploit a capital raising event that PURSU presumably could help close this goal, right?

Sam Lessin (7:12)

And in fairness, I mean, like, look what Elon has done with this Merger is he took one of his toys and combined it with the other toy. So that good news. It now has more revenue, I think it's than open AI and certainly more profit. Right. If you don't count all the money losing.

Jessica Lessin (7:27)

Oh, this is definitely Elon being like, Sam, you think you can get to the public markets first to get a premium? Not so fast. I'm going to jettison my. What would have been the third or fourth place in this war in terms of timing and appeal to the public market, and I'm just going to literally strap them to this rocket ship to a rocket booster.

Sam Lessin (7:48)

That's great, Jessica.

Jessica Lessin (7:49)

Like, I know this. Pay me the big bucks. And then I think, Sam, you nailed the point about how investors are feeling about it.

Brit Morin (7:57)

I know.

Jessica Lessin (7:57)

Who are very happy. Which Xai's investors.

Sam Lessin (8:00)

Because they just got tossed a lifeline.

Jessica Lessin (8:04)

Yeah.

Brit Morin (8:04)

So why didn't Tesla get rolled into this? Is that.

Dave Morin (8:07)

That's definitely what's going to happen? It has to.

Brit Morin (8:10)

Okay. It is just more complicated to do that now.

Sam Lessin (8:12)

It's already public. Blah, blah, blah.

Jessica Lessin (8:15)

Yeah, it's much harder.

Dave Morin (8:16)

It's also clear that the narrative is shifting. Like they. They shut down the production of the Model S and the Model X. Yeah.

Sam Lessin (8:22)

They don't do cars anymore, but somehow the number go up.

Dave Morin (8:25)

Yeah, Exactly. In favor of the optimist thing. And Elon's entire public narrative has become about Karsh, Kev, two civilizations and we need to take advantage of the sun's energy. And so it's clear that the whole narrative is shifting towards let's leave Earth and send the optimist robots to Mars and build structures around the sun. And that's where we're going next with this narrative. It's super cool.

Sam Lessin (8:49)

I gotta say, the thing that I think people miss about this entire entire Elon arc. Right. Which it's. I was joking the other day that like, in some ways Twitter, which I called a vibe buy, like that instead of vibe coding. It's a buy. A vibe buy on Elon's part that he then tried to get out of.

Jessica Lessin (9:05)

So, like, I forgot he tried to get out of the deal.

Sam Lessin (9:08)

He got dragged out of the deal. But like, the vibe by. Of Twitter is going to turn out to be accidentally probably the most brilliant thing he ever did. Right. Because the reality is he always had a good presence. But as this becomes a total narrative warfare game, even I. And I'm like, you know, again, like, I. I'm very conflicted about how I feel about Elon, but the fact that I see all the influencers basically just see what he thinks all day long. He just injects it everywhere and has that direct pipeline. To the extent that this is about narrative shaping and narrative assets, it's amazing because he can basically sit there and just completely iterate the narrative through influence. And the influence, it doesn't matter. It's for a small. It has like all the VCs and whatever on it. It's like a wildly powerful thing. Right. As a tip asset, effectively not financially, it's a disaster financially pretty much. Well, it's not a disaster. It's not great. But like, my God. I actually think all of this gets done because of the narrative edgy has in storytelling. And none of it really makes sense from a DCF perspective. But that's not the world we live in anymore.

Jessica Lessin (10:08)

I'm going to briefly share the financials. This was a crash. Graphic everybody here so you can see SpaceX 16 billion in revenue to 210 EBITDA 8 billion NA pre profit.

Sam Lessin (10:20)

That's a very generous way to put it, Jessica.

Jessica Lessin (10:22)

I know this was not. I mean, I'm going to change pre profit. Pre profit is not a concept that.

Sam Lessin (10:28)

That's a very optimistic way to frame it.

Jessica Lessin (10:30)

Guys, we were crashing this out. Breaking news, first draft of history. The numbers are right though. And then you've got cash. SpaceX with 1 to 2 billion. Remember this. What's booing the SpaceX numbers is Starlink.

Brit Morin (10:44)

Right.

Jessica Lessin (10:44)

So that's really important. And then you have burning nine and a half billion in X AI, to

Sam Lessin (10:51)

be clear, is the large link training is not the primary driver. That's the primary cost. That also should change.

Dave Morin (10:56)

Why is it worth 1 trillion on 2 billion in free cash flow?

Sam Lessin (10:59)

Because narrative Dave, that's like the whole point. That's what we've been talking about.

Dave Morin (11:03)

I get it. I'm just staring at it and I'm sitting here going, yes, this is why

Jessica Lessin (11:07)

these are good numbers.

Brit Morin (11:07)

Actually burning nine and a half billion.

Dave Morin (11:10)

Met is doing 80 billion free cash flow. Yeah, I know. And free cash flow. Yeah.

Jessica Lessin (11:14)

The steps that got us here are logical. I think what happens next is going to be fascinating. I mean, I still think you probably have a monster IPO.

Dave Morin (11:23)

What does monster mean? What percentage does number does 1 trillion go up at an IPO here?

Jessica Lessin (11:29)

20%. I don't know. I mean, I'm making things. I don't know and this is not my area of expertise.

Sam Lessin (11:34)

What's Bill Gurley going to say if it goes up 20% of the IPO?

Jessica Lessin (11:37)

Oh no, that's different. No, I wasn't saying pop on opening day. It wasn't a 20% pop for an IPO. Like this would be a disaster. Well, not a disaster, but not, not,

Brit Morin (11:46)

not ideal to add Tesla to this, they're losing 6 billion per year. So Tesla negative 6 billion. Xai negative 10 billion.

Jessica Lessin (11:56)

I don't know what the call she odds are, but I put them at 90%. I don't know for Tesla, like over some period of time.

Sam Lessin (12:03)

I asked Koshi to run that because I really think they should run that. But here's the thing. I just think we have to accept the fact, which is very dangerous by the way. But it's just where we are. You know, in the area of mass media, there weren't that many narratives of what's valuable. Everyone kind of agreed it was a DCF and maybe there's like a multiple on revenues or profit, really not even that profits. And it was kind of a proxy for dividends. That is still a highly liquid narrative. Like if you find something that or like the cash flows justify the price, everyone will buy it. Like that is globally accepted narrative. But what you have now is basically cults that the Internet connects of people that don't have to actually be that big, right? They need to be big enough, but not too big that can just buy from each other and drive these economies around these stocks. And the thing about Elon is he has even this XII move. Here's the real story of the XAI move is if you give me money, I will get you paid. I'm going to use every tool in the book, including mergers with other things and all sorts of crazy shit, but I will get you paid. And if you are consistently known as the guy who, if you give them money, you're going to get paid on it, then you get more money.

Dave Morin (13:07)

I mean, isn't that the grand rule of capitalism? Sam?

Sam Lessin (13:11)

It's basically, it is. I mean I've been saying this for many, many since the clubhouse days, right? Like this is like, this is the world we live in of like cult capitalism. And it, it, it feels very unstable. But also to Jessica's point, like every step is logical enough, right? And like that the, the party will

Jessica Lessin (13:31)

probably continue and it's happening at epic levels, right? Like you can have cult capitalism and like, you know, Jack Dorsey merging his startups or whatever. Or who. Evan Williams, like who. You know what, I don't.

Sam Lessin (13:42)

This is where we are.

Jessica Lessin (13:43)

Yeah, and this is where we are literally in multi trillion dollar deals. I mean it makes me a little nervous. Makes me a little nervous.

Dave Morin (13:51)

Is it. Is there a premium on, like, on inspiration? I mean, is the narrative so inspiring that it. It makes this possible? Is that. Is that where the premium comes from? Like, the difference between. Jess, to your point, like, Jack Dorsey merging his two things, which are minuscule compared to this, and this is, like, the inspiration of all humanity. Like, we're going to the.

Jessica Lessin (14:15)

It's a positive way to look at cult leadership.

Dave Morin (14:18)

I'm just saying to, like, bring another. Like, what creates the premium really? Is it that people are so inspired by this vision and the actions towards the vision that that's, like, where the premium comes from?

Sam Lessin (14:29)

I think that a lot of it has to do with the Peter Thiel mentality of, like, monopolies and winner take all capitalism. I think people have, like, deeply, like, deeply internalized this culturally, this idea that, like, if you could own space and maybe they can own space. Like, is that a thing? And, like, what is that worth? Is worth infinity? Or like, bitcoin infinity? Or, like, so. And I think what people have also internalized is the idea of owning a normal stock and compounding 10% a year, net of taxes, net of inflation ain't so good. And so they're like, okay, well, I can't own normal things, and I can't feel good about owning normal things because of the cost of living, because of compounding, because of taxes. So basically everyone is in the Hail Mary for infinity ball game. Like, and that's why at the same time, all these SaaS stocks are getting crashed and, like, Figma's in the toilet and everything, because it was like, this is, like, who. This seems risky without reward.

Dave Morin (15:23)

But these are sophisticated opinions, Sam. And we're sitting here commenting on this as it's about to go to retail, right? Like, do you think retail investors really think about owning space as Infinity? Like, I don't think so.

Jessica Lessin (15:35)

Maybe some of them do. Okay, I want to. We do have a packed agenda, so I want to keep us moving. And I think this will not be the only time we talk about SpaceX. Brit, does this raise any. You're like, you got. Your IPOs are coming. That's the theme. Brit, what else jumps out at you about this?

Brit Morin (15:49)

Is wondering if. Segue to the second topic. Jeff Bezos should buy some smaller social media platform to inflict his narrative.

Dave Morin (15:59)

Talk about buying the wrong media platform, like Snap.

Brit Morin (16:02)

Does Bezos buy, like, Snap or something? And then they merge and then he can sell the narrative and all the influencers.

Dave Morin (16:12)

He's Retired. It doesn't care.

Jessica Lessin (16:16)

Jeff is not retired. Jeff is not retired.

Dave Morin (16:18)

He's pretty retired.

Jessica Lessin (16:20)

He is leading a rocket company. He really is. He really is in. In the way that.

Brit Morin (16:24)

Right, so he's jealous of Elon right now. That's my point.

Dave Morin (16:27)

Most of the news about him is partying.

Jessica Lessin (16:29)

You know, it turns out that billionaires also go to fashion shows. But let honestly and I have information about this. Jeff is running Blue Origin. Jeff really, really believes in Blue Origin. Now I think. I think I'm really interested to look at when he goes out and raises some other capital because I think if you're going to have your larger competitor hit the public markets, like, it might be a good time to at least not keep funding the thing yourself. So I. I think that's interesting. But guys, we really have to tell Jeff Bezos it is time to sell the Washington Post.

Sam Lessin (17:04)

Who knows why?

Brit Morin (17:06)

Why? Yeah, who would buy it?

Dave Morin (17:08)

Yeah, talk us. Talk us through this.

Jessica Lessin (17:09)

And to be clear, not me. This is not just what happened.

Dave Morin (17:12)

I actually didn't know the news that you're talking about.

Jessica Lessin (17:14)

Okay, so the Washington Post today laid off about a third of its editorial staff, which is a massive number because of AI. That's the question. There is no message.

Dave Morin (17:24)

What's interesting about this, Jess, that you bring this up like Washington Post has definitely become my go to between like the New York Times. I just don't. I just don't trust anymore.

Brit Morin (17:33)

Really? That's so weird.

Dave Morin (17:35)

I just find the Washington Post like much more. I just find it better.

Jessica Lessin (17:38)

Jeff, listen to this. Because you have an uber fan who will help you find the core of your differentiation, which no one else has been able to do.

Dave Morin (17:46)

I'm happy to be on that board.

Jessica Lessin (17:48)

Oh, they don't say that. Dave, you were going to get a text in 20 seconds, but no, look, Jeff, I think bought the Post for really important reasons. He believed in the journalism it was doing and the attempt to help it grow its audience. And we are just at a point now where I think. And you nailed it, Dave. This devastating number of layoffs is part of this tragedy. But to me, the other part of the tragedy is that there is no vision. There is no. And now we're doing X. There's no meaningful story. And I really think if you look at the news organizations at scale, they're thriving today. Pick the Wall Street Journal. Pick the New York Times. They are run by somewhat not rational people who deeply love the news business. They run by the Murdochs and the Salzburgers. And I don't think that means they have to be run badly or they can't be run with people with business acumen. But you need that level of religious zeal for news to weather endure and lead in news today. You just do in the same way we talk about this with AI and. And kind of the zeal and religiosity of it. And I think it's really clear that Jeff is focused on space, which is also really cool. But it's very sad to see it's turned into. You know, I agree, Sam, that no one is really clicking on too many headlines about newspaper layoffs except journalists or. So that point's taken. But it's kind of exploded because the former legendary, Pulitzer Prize winning, busting the Catholic Church for child abuse editor Marty Barron, he did that when he was at the Boston Globe, however, came out with a very long memo, sort of taking Bezos to the woodshed. I think he raised a lot of interesting points. I also just like, don't. I have to think about what the value of just sending those memos from the sidelines is. I'm not. I think they have some value, but they also are just sort of like, dude, so what are you going to do about it?

Dave Morin (19:56)

But.

Jessica Lessin (19:56)

So it has filled one level beyond your typical media story.

Brit Morin (20:00)

But, Jess, what do you think the reason is? Do you think it's AI or just cost cutting or.

Jessica Lessin (20:06)

None of this is AI. Right. Like, I actually, I've.

Dave Morin (20:09)

Is it the same story that's been going on for 10 years since like basically 2016? Didn't he buy this in 16?

Jessica Lessin (20:15)

Yeah, I don't even know now.

Dave Morin (20:17)

I thought he bought it right after Trump. He bought it. Right. And switched it to Democracy Dies in Darkness. Right. Like that was 16.

Jessica Lessin (20:23)

Yes. He. And this was Marty Barron's point that Jeff stewarded it through an era where he did have more of a vision, in Marty's opinion, and he did stand up to the administration more.

Dave Morin (20:34)

Yeah. But you also have to throw into the timeline 2017, which is the year that Facebook meta destroyed the media business by changing the algorithm and put everybody out of business.

Jessica Lessin (20:44)

I'm sorry, Dave, but we could. The media business was destroyed long before the algorithm.

Dave Morin (20:49)

I understand, but that was a massive acceleration.

Jessica Lessin (20:52)

It was for publications that had no focus and no unique business model. Sure. But it wasn't for publications that did. And I think, you know, the Washington Post has always been straddling. Are they the paper of record for DC which they kind of seeded over more than a decade now, that to Politico and others. Right. They didn't hold on to that firmly. The Politico founders, who are now the Axios founders, came from the Washington Post, I think. Yeah. But also they tried to be more things to more people. You know, there's been this huge debate around how many people they're sending to the Olympics, which is honestly like the most hilarious debate, like why are they sending people to the Olympics? You know, so it's really this question of who's their audience and how did they own that audience. And so many news publications have tried to be all things to all people because that is kind of inherent in the scale and reach and they're having a really hard time and it's hard to right the ship. If they were telling a narrative now of writing that ship back towards being the voice of Washington, all these things, I don't think it would make some of this outcome any less tragic, but it would just sort of explain it. But it's a real mess and it's a real mess that journalists like to talk about. And I think if we are to tie it to Elon Musk, I do think you can expect Jeff to go bigger and bigger with Blue Origin. I mean, they're having success on the technology front and no one, even Elon, doesn't want space to be winner takes all because then he's going to get busted up. So that is my plea for the Washington Post, Jeff. Give it up. Focus on space. And I hope there's someone who wants to lead it. Okay, we got to get to AI now. From news to AI, our team's favorite pivot. Before we get to claudebot, some other facts of note. First of all, Google earnings crushing it. Cloud soaring. I want to say up 48% but that's a number I should check before

Sam Lessin (22:47)

I those guys and I'll do my bit. I always do. At least the stock isn't ripping today on the news. It was priced into some degree because it's going to be for the next year. I'll be saying, remember what I said I should buy Google stock and didn't.

Brit Morin (22:59)

Literally every episode, Sam, every episode for

Sam Lessin (23:02)

the next two years.

Dave Morin (23:05)

I mean, the market's a mess today,

Sam Lessin (23:06)

but I'm still unable unwilling to take the macro bet because I'm so nervous about the macro market and I'm just not quite smart enough to construct the trade I would do.

Jessica Lessin (23:16)

I think you are believe in yourself. That doesn't constitute a buy or sell opinion. That's just a wifely support. But here's what's top of mind for me guys, because another big narrative now has been OpenAI is pushed into the enterprise, Meta's pushing to the enterprise. If you think about it, Amazon is the OG followed now by Google. It's very hard to have consumer and enterprise DNA. And I am old enough to remember when the information reported more than a decade ago or ish that if Google Cloud wasn't going to hit some revenue milestone, Larry was going to kill it. Like Google Cloud was like a 20% project turned into now a business growth up front from 33% to 48%. We can find the absolute numbers, you know, it's just really cool. And I also wonder if we're seeing the consumer and I think consumer and enterprise are hard to pull off and I think a lot of the companies trying to should pick a lane. But clearly Google Cloud is going up because everyone's talking about Gemini.

Brit Morin (24:17)

I don't think you can. OpenAI has to play both sides of this. They have to compete.

Sam Lessin (24:22)

This is the open air. I'm gonna say be the same broken record.

Brit Morin (24:26)

Sam's so short. OpenAI well, I have been for the whole time.

Sam Lessin (24:30)

They're just incredible narrative warriors. But like here's the thing guys. First tech boom. Everyone was B2C, then it was B2B. Then it was B2B2C. Like this is like, this is like this was. I mean I'm just old enough and was just aware enough to remember this

Jessica Lessin (24:45)

trend which is like B to A, B to agent.

Dave Morin (24:48)

Now with agents we're going B2B to B2C again.

Sam Lessin (24:52)

You can be so excited about AI as a technology and prob. Probably a deflationary one in a big way. There's clearly disruption. But the reality is when you break down to it again to be the broken record, you can own Meta, you can own Google, everything would have huge profit machines. Maybe you can now own SpaceX if you really believe and I really hope that xai doesn't drag SpaceX down. But it's just these business, these are hard, not good businesses to be in as a startup and the search for revenue and profit is going to just be like real because it's like the numbers you need to come up with and pull out of a hat, they're hard to find, you know, and OpenAI is crushed on early subscription revenue, but just you know better than anyone else that like at that scale you get all your subscribers up front and then the growth gets really hard because you already got like anyone who's going to subscribe to OpenAI is kind of Already subscribed to it. Right. Like, so it's like that gets hard, then you get, you just. You're going to get in this like crazy goal seek for where the hell are we going to get paid on this? Right? Is my view.

Jessica Lessin (25:53)

Well, our business drew 24% last year, so. Well, it's not.

Sam Lessin (25:56)

No, no, it did. But I'm saying, would you, would you at least agree that like the thing in subscription or most business models is the cheapest customer to get as the first.

Jessica Lessin (26:04)

Yeah.

Sam Lessin (26:05)

Right. And that it gets harder and harder and harder every year? Because that's just how. Because you already have penetrated the easy. People think CAC goes down. CAC always goes up.

Jessica Lessin (26:14)

I agree with that. Yes. There's like execution that changes that.

Brit Morin (26:17)

But they have business lines that, that haven't yet penetrated into lots of different markets.

Sam Lessin (26:22)

But this is why they're like, well, we're going to have an app business. Yeah, but this is like hard to execute 75 business models at the same time.

Brit Morin (26:28)

Well, fair, but like, I think there are probably five to 10 that are possible and they're still growing into that.

Sam Lessin (26:34)

What big companies have more than two important revenue lines?

Brit Morin (26:39)

Microsoft, but they don't have consumer. Amazon, Google, Meta.

Sam Lessin (26:44)

Meta has one business line.

Jessica Lessin (26:46)

Meta is one business line. And Google.

Brit Morin (26:47)

Well, I guess Oculus doesn't count. It also depends.

Jessica Lessin (26:51)

Is advertising a business or is search ads different from display ads?

Sam Lessin (26:55)

I'm just saying I think most companies end up with one or two dominant business models.

Jessica Lessin (26:58)

I'm agreeing with you.

Sam Lessin (26:59)

And like everything else is a rounding error.

Jessica Lessin (27:01)

Well, here's the follow up question. To find that business model, is it like lightning in a bottle that grows or can you throw spaghetti against the wall to find the business model?

Sam Lessin (27:10)

What companies in history have thrown spaghetti until they found it? I don't think.

Jessica Lessin (27:14)

I don't know. But that is what OpenAI is doing.

Sam Lessin (27:16)

I agree.

Brit Morin (27:16)

Well, they're certainly trying to do it faster than ever before because they have to. Because the competition is like so huge, which is why they're raising a shitload of money, hiring a shitload of people trying to.

Sam Lessin (27:26)

I mean, this is the thing about narrative hopping though. I think the thing like, look, Elon, this is the whole thing about why you, why you need to own Twitter. Maybe Sam is at a huge disadvantage because Sora is not a thing. Is like Elon, it takes SpaceX. There's been like four major narrative shifts, right, to get to where it is. First we're putting a greenhouse on Mars, then it's starlink, now it's data centers in space, whatever. Tesla is like six business model, six narrative shifts. And so because Elon gets people paid, they buy into the next narrative. And he's such a great storyteller, you just kind of iterate the narratives. The problem with OpenAI has been this, like they had a really powerful narrative initially, which was we're going to be the first to AGI and whoever gets to AGI first wins and everyone. And we will become the monopoly to end all monopolies and everyone. That's it. And like that's been chipped away at. Right. And then it's like, oh well, it's the ChatGPT consumer thing. Oh well, wait a minute. No, it's the enterprising, like it's been very schizophrenic about the narrative evolution of why it's super valuable. Right. And I just. Maybe it becomes a hey, it cents on the dollar on power. Like there's a lot of places it could go, but it does feel like spaghetti against the wall goal, seek without. Whereas, you know, even Elon's only iterating the narrative once every few years, not every three months.

Jessica Lessin (28:34)

Yeah, I think those are fair points and I think I just. Enterprise businesses are so different from consumer businesses in like in every way. And I think AWS is a remarkable story if you go into all the details. Like a lot had to go. Right. They also had a certain type of leader and then Andy Jassy at AWS who, you know, sort of brought that to life. I mean, Thomas Kurian came from Oracle, I think. Where did Kurian come from? Who runs Google Cloud? Like, I mean he was. They imported real enterprise DNA and. But I think it's more than just like hiring a fancy leader of it. Yeah, he was president of Oracle, so we'll see. I think both that you have to recognize that Google's done it and Google has a flywheel with the consumer business that like is pretty damn impressive. And they sort of have marketing for their cloud business. Right. Every time Gemini leapfrogs in some capability. That's TPUs, that's Google Cloud. Right. Like we're now going to see, I think OpenAI meta others try and build it. But speaking of OpenAI and Claude, so we're entering super bowl ad mayhem territory. Really just a great expensive press release. Have you guys seen the Claude ads?

Brit Morin (29:53)

I haven't seen it, but I heard that Sam Altman saw it and had some remarks about it. And now it feels like, tell me if this is right, anthropic and OpenAI are kind of like dueling it out a bit. He said it was a creative ad, but like the, it's like false claims. It's definitely like not true, basically.

Jessica Lessin (30:10)

And if you go back, I mean, you go back, the Anthropic co founders were at OpenAI, right. So yeah, the rivalry is as deep as it goes left because of what they felt were unethical decisions. Right. In their words, not mine. And then now you've just seen like anthropic getting like testier with its advertising. Like they, I forgot a campaign, the print campaign they did maybe half a year ago that took aim and this one is taking aim at no ads. Sort of like Google was Demis.

Sam Lessin (30:40)

And so I just like that there aren't even in ads in OpenAI. It's like this is a classic. Like the narrative front runs reality.

Jessica Lessin (30:49)

Yeah.

Sam Lessin (30:49)

It's like this is like the moment you live in is just. You got to keep remembering that narratives move faster than reality and people trade the narrative. Right. And like, so I think it's actually pretty hilarious to do like a anti ad thing for a thing that doesn't have ads in it. Kate o', Neill, who's great. I, I saw this because of her tweet. Sorry, Kate Rorsch now. Yeah, I was going to say wrong, wrong last name. Great human. Old dorm mate of mine. Great human. But I, I actually saw this whole thing because of her tweet, responding to it, which was quite strong.

Jessica Lessin (31:20)

Kate's been doing that lately. She's. She's sort of think she's speaking truth to power. I'm kind of not sure who some of these people are speaking to when they think they're speaking truth to power. Like, this is another theme. As a quick aside, Oracle gotten some hot water this week because it started tweeting in defense of clients like OpenAI, thereby piling on fears about these clients that they're, I mean, bank run style. Like, we have no concerns about the ability of. If you fill in the blank, everyone's instantly going to have concerns about the viability of fill in the blank. So I think people have lost the plot in X a little bit. I don't know, maybe these cloud ads make a difference, maybe they don't. Tech journalists love them. I just got to think they don't make a difference. I also got to say we can lay out all these things we see as strategic challenges for OpenAI. I think it's true. I use it 22 times a day, you know.

Brit Morin (32:15)

Only 22. Yes.

Jessica Lessin (32:17)

And I also Use Gemini.

Brit Morin (32:18)

And have you set up your Open Claw yet?

Dave Morin (32:21)

Yeah. You haven't switched over Openclaw yet? I have. I haven't used ChatGPT in a month.

Sam Lessin (32:25)

I did use it yesterday. I asked it whether I should eat green turkey. It said no.

Jessica Lessin (32:29)

I keep asking Sam, maybe Sam, tonight's the night you can set me up on Open Claw because I just.

Sam Lessin (32:34)

I love it. I got a whole stack of Mac minis for you. I. I've got my favorite Open Claw and I am having a blast with it. It's great. It's exactly.

Jessica Lessin (32:41)

Now we can talk about Open Claw.

Brit Morin (32:43)

Thank God we're finally here. The grand finale of the episode.

Sam Lessin (32:47)

It's so fun. I have it doing all sorts of things for me. I have it reading my list. I had it build for me a list of all the American politicians that matter and then it can.

Jessica Lessin (32:55)

Assuming not everyone's a ninja. What you're doing is you're building agents or you're. You're using other agents that have been shared socially to do these.

Sam Lessin (33:04)

I don't use those. Those seem dangerous to me.

Jessica Lessin (33:06)

Okay.

Dave Morin (33:07)

Nobody's using that.

Sam Lessin (33:08)

The unwashed Internet is a great way to get computer STDs. I've built a. A bunch of stuff that is running on traditional servers and like does traditional database stuff. But there's always like shims you want it like little like projects you want done. And the thing about Open Claw which is just so great is I have it set up in Telegram. Sit it on my phone at 2 in the morning when I can't sleep.

Brit Morin (33:27)

Telegram.

Jessica Lessin (33:28)

I've got to use this thing through Telegram.

Dave Morin (33:30)

You don't have to. You can use any messaging. You can use Discord. You can use Slack, you can use. You can use imessage for me.

Sam Lessin (33:38)

Telegrams that just sits there in Telegram and I'm like what's the news? And I have it trained to go read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the information, everything just give me a great summary. I have it trained to continuously update. I have a list of. I had to build a list of the hundred elected officials that matter in the US and the. And I have the tech people like what's the vibe? It gives me the Democrat vibe. It gives me like all those things saves in the postgres for me, posts them on Twitter, does all these little shim activities. The best shim I have though, and I love it is I basically set it up so it continuously reads LinkedIn for me. Picks based on themes. I like posts that I Might care about it. Then asks another bot I built called Sam Bot, which has all of my writing in a vector database and it asks what my opinion would be, edits it, and then posts comments as me all over LinkedIn responding to the posts. And the funny part is, guys, one, they're pretty fucking good. They're not perfect, but they're pretty good. And two, the amount of engagement, it's off the charts.

Brit Morin (34:39)

But is this kind of illegal for LinkedIn's terms of service? Because I actually tried to do this and my bot was telling me that I shouldn't do this.

Sam Lessin (34:48)

What did you tell your bot?

Dave Morin (34:50)

Why would you.

Sam Lessin (34:50)

Why would you ask your boss to read the terms of.

Jessica Lessin (34:52)

It is so obvious you didn't write these posts. Look at the punctuation. There are commas, there are periods, there are apostrophes.

Brit Morin (35:00)

I, as Brit responded to a post that Sam also responded to, and I, I'm pretty sure it was his bot. But then, so then I drafted off of what Sam had told me a few days ago about this. And so then I had my bot, okay, which is not posting directly for me because that might be illegal. I'm pull all my connections, sort them by their number of followers, and then prioritize the top 10% that I should be commenting to.

Sam Lessin (35:27)

Smart.

Brit Morin (35:28)

And so guess, guess who my connection with the most followers is. So far I've only, like, downloaded 20% of my connections because LinkedIn's data export takes time. John Steinberg, the former founder of Cheddar. He's got millions of LinkedIn followers.

Sam Lessin (35:44)

That's his jam.

Brit Morin (35:46)

Everyone should just start commenting on John Steinberg.

Sam Lessin (35:49)

I'm just going to tell it to comment on John Steinberg now. This is great, actually, I will say I woke up this morning and Clawbot had actually written me. I also have it writing posts on LinkedIn. It wrote me a post that I thought was so good, I basically have it read Twitter and then summarize Twitter and post on LinkedIn a summary of what I said on Twitter. And I liked it so much, I took it and I posted it back on Twitter. So it's like, it's great. The funny part about all this is like, it's pure dead Internet theory. Like, if you didn't believe the Internet was going to die before, you're just going to die now, right? Because, like, now this was already happening with bot farms, but now, like, I just sit in Telegram all day long and dispatch agents spouting my bullshit all over the Internet. So I literally like my most recent LinkedIn post, which I didn't even moderate, just got posted.

Jessica Lessin (36:35)

Capitalism doesn't serve people, it serves dollars.

Sam Lessin (36:38)

A3000 is 21 likes a long comment thread. People. People are like, sam, I agree. Mega companies there have. People have these long conversations with literally a derivative of a derivative of something I said.

Brit Morin (36:50)

So if everyone starts doing this.

Jessica Lessin (36:52)

Yes.

Brit Morin (36:53)

Yeah, you're right. Sam is dead. Like social media and all of these platforms.

Sam Lessin (36:58)

That's why Jelly Jelly will rise. This is like my whole thing. I talk ikram about this. I'm like, you gotta pivot. Jelly, Jelly. The greatest social network to be like, only humans. Like, totally. You know, like, there's no like, I think the only human network is the next obvious step.

Dave Morin (37:14)

There's. There's just a lot of people talking about that vibe coding or agentic engineering is so much fun that people just go too long, too hard, don't sleep, you know, and that it's actually much worse than it used to be.

Sam Lessin (37:29)

Totally. If I were not married, I would 100% be there. Yeah, 100%.

Dave Morin (37:33)

But I agree.

Brit Morin (37:34)

But I think it's that. And I also think so you know, when Dave started Path, he drafted the like, number of friends you can have based off of Dunbar's number, which is about how your brain can only control so many different social nodes in your life. And there's all this stuff about productivity and multitasking. Right. About how much you can actually do at one moment.

Jessica Lessin (37:53)

And.

Brit Morin (37:53)

And so like, even today I was in a Zoom meeting for like a board I'm on and I had five Claude tasks, open claw tasks, doing things in the background during my meeting. And I was also thinking of new ones I wanted to boot up after the meeting. And like, I don't think my brain can manage this many AI agent nodes.

Sam Lessin (38:12)

And so you need an agent to manage it.

Brit Morin (38:15)

So what I've been hearing From Heinrich, the LinkedIn posts, Sam, that I commented on, that your bot also commented on is from Heinrich Werdel. And he was talking about having a chief agent instead of like a chief of staff who manages all your agents and sort of like you train to be like as directive as you. So this is a new thing that maybe people.

Sam Lessin (38:35)

Look, it's just dead Internet theory, the whole thing going to fall apart because like, like, you know, I'm just. Right now, Brit, I'm just instructing my cloud bot to start commenting on all your posts on LinkedIn just from now on.

Brit Morin (38:44)

So just look forward for that raise their engagement since you're going to have so many followers soon.

Dave Morin (38:49)

It's kind of sad, you know, I saw this post from our good friend Aditya that he posted yesterday on Twitter and he was talking about how he'd spent the weekend building stuff with Claude code. And he had this, like, simultaneous realization of how much fun it is on the one hand, but on the other hand, that he'd spent 20 years of his life becoming a great craftsman, you know, a great engineer at writing code, and he now knows that his skill set is completely invalid and doesn't matter anymore. And that, like, why would anyone. He phrased it in a cool way, I'd have to go look it up. But he just was like, why would you write the code when you don't have to anymore? You know, and that he was both sad, but he actually ended the piece by saying he's, like, profoundly sad, which I think is kind of interesting. Sam's case in point. Like, what are we going to do? Like, I'm actually seriously wondering, like, what are we going to do? Is the Internet just, like, not fun anymore?

Sam Lessin (39:46)

Like, so fun. It's kind of like this blaze of glory of maximum fun until it fucking collapses into a black hole.

Brit Morin (39:54)

I've had multiple founders today, like literally just today, who are building AI companies who have come to me and be like, oh, I need to start building my, like, agent version of this, where I don't even have a front end, you know, Claw or OpenAI can just connect into me, like, all of that. And they're actually, like, starting to rethink about that. And I feel so bad emotionally for especially the, like, pre2022 founders who didn't start off building an AI company, realized in the last year or two they had to pivot to, like, have an AI narrative and now are like, what the fuck? Now I also need, like, an agentic narrative and I have to shift everything in my company again. And I think that's where a lot of people's brains are going, Jess.

Sam Lessin (40:35)

Guys, you gotta embrace it.

Jessica Lessin (40:37)

I actually, Sam. We won't say the company is. Sam sent me a portfolio company to potentially invest in that I thought was amazing today. I'm so excited about it.

Sam Lessin (40:46)

It is amazing. I'm glad you brought it.

Jessica Lessin (40:47)

It is amazing. I'm thrilled to invest. Lesson Media is thrilled to invest. It just does one thing exceptionally well that's really important. And if it's an agentic UX that you access this information from, or an app that you. Or a live event where you. It doesn'.

Sam Lessin (41:05)

Well, it does matter because the business model has to shift yeah, no, no, that's true.

Jessica Lessin (41:08)

We talk. But the point being they have so many options and it's a founder who's just laser focused on solving that problem really intelligently and who's built a community around it and a real track record. And I think if, I mean, yes, you have to think about all the UX stuff and all of that, but we can't just lose sight of like building something that solves a real problem that people need. That's still, that still works. It still works. And if you're sitting there just without that and worried about hitching at this moment. Exactly. A ride to this trend or meme. I don't think you guys are going to invest in those kinds of companies because you're going to see 20 of them a day. So it's.

Sam Lessin (41:51)

Yeah, but it just changes a lot of patterns. Like for instance, you can't. I just have started deleting all of the emails and decks I'm sent because I'm just like at this point in history, if you can't show me bits like, I don't even want to talk to you. Right. Like, it's just like I just can't deal. It's too easy to write these decks so I can't read them because I don't know what the hell there is. Like, there's no. I don't know. So there's a lot of patterns that change. But I do think it's. Look, I'm very net negative on AI's impact on society in the biggest, biggest picture around meaning and things like that. I think it's a real problem. But as purely as a. It's fun to build things like it's never been a better time. You might not make money, but you have a lot of fun.

Jessica Lessin (42:28)

Where it's headed, Dave, is where you've been smartly telling our viewers we've been headed all along, which is comed community and in person and like as I was saying before I was interrupted and

Sam Lessin (42:40)

maybe the creator, maybe my creator fund, maybe.

Jessica Lessin (42:43)

But guys, the person running Disney, the network of Mickey Mouse is the person who runs the live people stuff, the parks, you know, that is the person leading this company because that is the company Disney has become. Always was too.

Sam Lessin (43:02)

Iger dumped the IP to OpenAI, shot the bed on the quarter and handed it to Tom.

Brit Morin (43:11)

But isn't parks and experiences only like a third of their revenue? I've. Disney was one of my investors.

Jessica Lessin (43:17)

No, but it, it's actually more, it's a lot more than I thought When I looked at the thing, the thing, the numbers. But also it makes perfect sense. What's Netflix trying to do?

Brit Morin (43:28)

Bridgerton Live well, and they're doing the Netflix movie theaters. Okay, it's 38% of their total revenue, but it's not the majority.

Jessica Lessin (43:37)

But you're putting that person in charge for a reason, right? Who you choose as your next CEO especially. I mean, if people don't care about Washington Post, they probably won't care about this either. But you had a head to head battle with the creative studio director Dana Walden and the experiences guy, Right? So it, it's a right in the face statement about the future of the company. I think that's where we're going. We're going to be back to connecting with people and trusting the things that come from those connections. And the rest is going to be cloudland.

Sam Lessin (44:11)

You know, for the Claude bot, by the way, I did love the Rent a Human. You guys see Rent a Human, someone booted like, it's like the most sand lesson thing ever. Where basically the cloud bots can look at. It's basically an API. I haven't played with it too much yet. Where people can put themselves up to do tasks for the cloud bots. The funny part about all this stuff is there's almost no code behind any of it. It's just like post APIs with funny interfaces. But that's the cultural moment we're in, right? But it is funny. I was actually thinking of using it in some places where the browsers are annoying to deal with. To like be like, oh well, I'll just punch out to. To Rent a Human, you know, to like make you click on a button because blah, blah.

Jessica Lessin (44:48)

To end the AI portion before we bring you guys to a rollicking pcc. By the time you listen to this, it will be too late to attend Dave's meetup this evening. But Dave, maybe you can debrief us next week. Okay, Brent, there's a lot happening. I'm going to go over to you first, but I'm going to come back to tennis because tennis deserves its seat in the pcc.

Brit Morin (45:08)

Tennis, okay, it's the week of football. Just finisher. We'll talk about tennis.

Sam Lessin (45:14)

He probably hates all of it.

Brit Morin (45:15)

There are like 500 events happening.

Jessica Lessin (45:18)

There are a lot of events, a lot of concerts. Concerts and the super bowl are apparently related.

Brit Morin (45:22)

We are going to some concerts. I'm very excited about them. The Budweiser horses ran by the Golden Gate Bridge this morning and did this amazing Instagram and I was like, our city's cool for a hot minute. It's like we're like LA or New York, but we're not. So I'm excited about that. The football game will be fun. The ads will always be fun.

Jessica Lessin (45:43)

And that's.

Brit Morin (45:44)

That's basically all I got for super bowl week.

Sam Lessin (45:47)

How are you? You wanting a car or, like, you taking the train? Because I'm, like, worried about training camp.

Jessica Lessin (45:51)

Thinks you should take the train to the super bowl, guys.

Dave Morin (45:53)

I mean, driving's not that bad. Sam. Like Levi's. The same side Super Bowl. Been to a lot of things at Levi's that are huge. And it's not that bad.

Sam Lessin (46:02)

It's pretty bad.

Dave Morin (46:03)

I just thought it'd be worse.

Jessica Lessin (46:04)

There can't really be that many more people than a typical game sold out

Dave Morin (46:08)

because the Taylor Swift concert was as big as this.

Jessica Lessin (46:11)

Like, you know, Sam and Jessica don't like traffic. This is like an important thing.

Sam Lessin (46:16)

It's a trigger for both of us. It's one thing we know to avoid for the sanctity of our marriage.

Dave Morin (46:22)

You should just not go and watch it from the comfort of your own home.

Jessica Lessin (46:25)

That's horrible. Someone actually just invited me today and I was like, that's a last minute

Sam Lessin (46:30)

invite to the Super Bowl.

Jessica Lessin (46:32)

Yeah. And asked me if I wanted to bring two people. I was like, wait a second.

Dave Morin (46:39)

Yeah, Jess, pass that invite to us, Jess. And now we'll go.

Brit Morin (46:42)

Okay. Yeah. Guys, screw the traffic.

Jessica Lessin (46:45)

It's only for women. It's only for women. I'm happy. I will, happily.

Sam Lessin (46:50)

It's California. I can say I'm a woman. If I show up, they're not gonna be like, you're not a woman. It's still. We still live in the Republic of California.

Jessica Lessin (47:00)

Wow. I didn't know you felt this strongly, honestly.

Sam Lessin (47:02)

Okay, we can find that means a lot of money. Follow up, guys, I have to drop. I have a special guest before we go.

Jessica Lessin (47:08)

Cameo. Welcome to the Cameo.

Sam Lessin (47:10)

This is going to be a cameo for the future.

Brit Morin (47:12)

Okay.

Sam Lessin (47:12)

This is not a man that's known to our podcast, but come say hi. This is. Hey, guys, how's it going? This is Idan.

Brit Morin (47:18)

Hi.

Jessica Lessin (47:18)

Idon.

Sam Lessin (47:19)

Introduce yourself.

Brit Morin (47:20)

What is this?

Sam Lessin (47:22)

A black pearl. Let's go. And, you know, just. We'll look back on this in six months. This is what I'm going to give you.

Jessica Lessin (47:29)

Go do your meeting. Okay. We got rid of Sam. What else do we have? We have the Grammys. Were the Grammys a big deal?

Brit Morin (47:37)

Meh. Like, okay, here's the thing.

Jessica Lessin (47:39)

I did not Adore the fashion.

Brit Morin (47:41)

Best new artist, Olivia Dean. I love that decision.

Dave Morin (47:44)

Yeah, she was great.

Brit Morin (47:45)

She's incredible. She's also going to be in San Francisco this week. Everyone should listen to her. Brina Carpenter didn't win anything. Taylor wasn't there because little did you know, to be part of the Grammy potential nominees, you have to have an album released between August 30, 2024 and August 30, 2025, and her album came out in October, so she'll be up for 2027.

Jessica Lessin (48:07)

Didn't she go to an after party?

Brit Morin (48:09)

I read that she did go to an after party. Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny won some awards. That was great. Lady Gaga and our friend Michael Polanski were there. She won some awards. And my favorite part of the whole thing actually was Cherry got the, like, lifetime achievement award. And she's now, like, 80. She was just a hot mess on the stage, and I felt really sad for her. But also, she's iconic, and I kind of loved it because she just, she Cher, and she just laughed it off and she was saying all the wrong things. She walked off the stage at the wrong moment at one point, before she had actually even given the award. And everyone was kind of like waiting for who the winner was. So you got to love live TV and not AI stuff. And Cher really brought the power to the Grammys this year.

Jessica Lessin (48:56)

There you go. That recap was all I needed. All I needed. Dave, any pop culture tickling your interest these days, or is it all agents?

Dave Morin (49:08)

No, I've just been getting a kick out of all of the. Like I said earlier in the episode, all the NFL influencers like, being aghast at how beautiful Northern California is. Like going for walks on the beaches. I guess the weather's showing off this weekend, which is helping. So everyone's going to leave going. San Francisco is not as bad of a place as I heard it was. After all these years of everybody being down on us since COVID it's kind of nice to see people coming and realizing why a lot of us choose to live here. It is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Jessica Lessin (49:40)

Wealth tax, smelt tax. No one's talking about it this week. Okay. Dear viewers, thank you for tuning in to another episode of More or Less. We'll be back here next week, and until then, have a good weekend.

Brit Morin (49:55)

Bye. If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a virtual high five by rating it and reviewing it on Apple Podcasts, 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 for or less avemorin essonlesson. And as for me, I'm Brit. See you guys next time.