Trillionaires, SpaceX, and More AI: The 2026 Power Laws

Summary

Podcast Summary: More or Less

Episode: Trillionaires, SpaceX, and More AI: The 2026 Power Laws
Date: January 9, 2026
Hosts: Dave Morin, Jessica Lessin, Brit Morin, Sam Lessin

---

Overview

In this dynamic, wide-ranging roundtable, longtime friends and Silicon Valley insiders Dave Morin, Jessica Lessin, Brit Morin, and Sam Lessin debate the defining tech, economic, and social trends of 2026. The crew tackles everything from CES gadget fads and AI companions to the dawn of trillionaire entrepreneurs, IPO booms, and California's seismic moves on the wealth tax. With humor, insider perspectives, and plenty of disagreement, the group reflects on how storytelling, perception, and technology-driven power laws are reshaping the future of Silicon Valley and beyond.

---

Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. CES 2026: From Useful Gadgets to Perennial Fizzles

• Brit’s Take: Celebrates quirky, consumer-focused gadgets at CES (Lego Smart Brick, digital nail polish, robotic turtles), though acknowledges most never make it to market.
  • “I get really excited about CES… I’m like a Kickstarter maxi.” (02:47, Brit)
• Jessica & Dave’s Skepticism: Most CES “wonders” rarely go mainstream; the real action is now in bigger tech narratives.
  • “One to five gadgets from CES every year see the light of day.” (02:47, Dave)

Notable Gadgets Mentioned:

• Lego Smart Brick: Connects via Bluetooth, supports interactive play (03:31)
• Ami: An AI “snow globe” companion for your nightstand (04:28)

---

2. Trillionaires and the Wealth Explosion

• Elon Musk Trillionaire Narrative:
  • “All that matters in 2026 is narratives, not reality. And the narrative is he’s a trillionaire.” (09:58, Sam)
  • Vivid discussion on how Musk’s hypothetical net worth could double the number of billionaires.
    • “If you just divided Elon Musk into $1 billion allotments, he would double the American billionaires… That’s wild!” (13:11, Sam)
• Changing Definitions: The panel jokes that billionaire is now entry-level; mega-fortunes are the new normal.
  • “Billionaire isn’t the right word to use… there’s also a lot of hundred billionaires.” (11:23, Dave)

---

3. Wealth Tax and Mass Tech Migration

• California’s Wealth Tax Proposal:
  • 5% over five years for those with $1B+ in assets, including illiquid holdings (15:38)
  • Rush among tech elites (Thiel, Sachs, Larry Page) to establish residency elsewhere.
  • “This is the topic of every coffee, cocktail party, dinner party right now … what about the startup founder who owns 10% of their company?” (16:42, Jessica)
• Wider Effects & Fatalism:
  • Sam argues this will accelerate the exodus and that ultimately, “everything is downstream of technology” (22:21)
• Sam’s Blunt Critique: “It's just an incredibly stupid move… Even Gavin Newsom understands that, it's a terrible idea." (19:04, Sam)

---

4. 2026 “Power Laws” – Sam’s Viral Memo

• Three Overarching Themes from Sam:
  1. Perception Trumps Reality:
     • “Reality no longer matters. What matters is perception and storytelling as much as anything else.” (20:24, Sam)
     • Market narratives—especially about AI’s impact—are self-fulfilling.
     • Example: The widespread belief that “the value of white-collar labor is going to zero.”
  2. Debt Crisis Driving AI Boom:
     • U.S. GDP growth imperative is “creating an AI buildout” to keep up.
  3. Compounding Effects of Tech & Capital:
     • Hyper-leveraged, exponential outcomes (more “trillionaires”, outsized winners).
• Venture Implications: Only fund companies with world-changing, “infinite” stories—incremental SaaS is dead. (22:56)
• Jessica’s Reality Check: “If you were talking to venture capitalists even two years ago...software was the greatest business model in the world, and now it's not.” (29:56, Dave)

---

5. The Midness of Software & Rise of Narrative

• Software Differentiation is Over:
  • “Software is just like consumable… you can't build a software company. What you can do… is build a personal brand and trust.” (25:02, Sam)
  • AI makes replication instant: “Now assume all thousand can build it. What is the differentiator? It is, I think, trust." (26:11, Sam)
• SaaS & Features Have No Moat:
  • Example: 37signals quickly implements a feature demoed online. (28:14)
  • “Up until the last three months, software was the greatest business model… Now it's not.” (30:46, Dave)
• Monetization Moves to Community and Brand:
  • “You can still build credibility and your own distribution… the assets you start with… are not your engineering team.” (26:46, Sam)

---

6. The Embodiment vs. Abstraction Debate

• Sam’s Argument: Tech gives “sugar”—easy, digital substitutes for messy, expensive real-world relationships.
  • “Imagine you can have an AI companion… exactly what you want… But digital… What do 99.9% of people choose? They choose the easy thing. It’s sugar, right?" (32:19, Sam)
• Dave’s Pushback: Real-world, embodied connection and small trust networks become more valuable as digital abstraction increases.
  • “I think people actually dramatically do want the real world… embodied real-world experiences are going to matter even more as this plays out.” (31:45, Dave)
• Brit’s Perspective: Long term, people will seek actual connection as virtual “sugar” wears thin.
  • “We might have these AI companions and think we're happy in the short term. In the long term… we're so upset and sad and lonely. It's just another iteration of social media.” (34:51, Brit)

---

7. The Tech-Society Feedback Loop

• Sam's Tech Determinism: Society adapts to what technology makes possible, not vice versa.
  • “Is society downstream of technology, or is technology downstream of society?… I’d argue society is downstream of technology.” (42:21, Sam)
• Dave’s Counterpoint: Reminds that policy (e.g., wealth tax) can still shape tech’s trajectory.

---

8. Health AI: OpenAI’s Health App, Medical Data, and Use Cases

• OpenAI’s New Health Product: Spinning out health as a distinct app to aggregate and analyze personal health data (48:55).
• Mixed Reactions:
  • Brit: “It felt like table stakes. They had to get it… but it’s not like this huge breakthrough.” (49:11)
  • Jessica: “I do find, like when I…text OpenAI with a photo of something, I really like trust the OpenAI advice.” (51:12)
  • Dave: Predicts biggest value is in integrating with health systems/insurance, not just consumer (50:22).

---

9. Pop Culture & Closing Banter

• Discussion on Golden Globes, sports, Taylor Swift, and ongoing debates about audience and podcast growth (53:15).
• Brit on New Year's Resolutions: “New Year's resolutions usually fall off by February 8th. Just so everyone's clear.” (56:43, Brit)
• Sam’s Self-Improvement: “For the first time in a long time, [Jessica] gave me feedback. I said, he's 42, and I thought it was time to wear real clothes. And I've been delighted ever since.” (56:29-56:35)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trillionaires:
  • “A trillion is a lot of money. If you divided Elon Musk into $1 billion allotments, he'd double the American billionaires… That's wild.” (13:11, Sam)
• On Venture & Narrative:
  • “Stories always mattered… but if you just believe that stories really matter now, honestly thinking about companies that… have a fundamental story of infinity associated with them is extremely important.” (22:56, Sam)
• On Agency Amid Automation:
  • “People are trying to get control, to build things, to actually have agency in this world where so much is becoming automated and abstracted.” (37:40, Dave)
• On AI ‘Sugar’:
  • “People will choose the cheaper, more available option… It’s sugar, but it gives you some of the same dopamine hits at a fraction of the cost.” (34:31, Sam)

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:00–03:00: CES 2026 gadgets, “Kickstarter maxi” mentality, Brit’s favorites
• 09:58: Elon Musk and the meaning of “trillionaire” in 2026
• 15:38–19:39: California wealth tax, tech exodus, and Sam’s critique
• 20:24–24:06: Sam’s “viral” power laws memo and venture landscape
• 25:02–30:46: Death of software moats, rise of community/trust as business assets
• 31:26–37:40: Embodiment vs. digital abstraction debate
• 48:55–51:12: OpenAI’s health product reactions, Google & Apple context
• 53:15 onward: Pop culture, closing banter, and podcast growth dreams

---

Tone & Style

The conversation is fast-paced, irreverent, and candid, blending in-depth tech analysis with inside jokes and offbeat observations. While each host brings distinct perspectives (from economic doom to optimistic lifestyle hacks), the vibe remains that of long-time friends turning the insider debate inside out for listeners.

---

Bottom Line

If you want a raw, honest sense of what’s on the minds of tech’s inner circle in early 2026—the fears, the hype, the opportunities, and the sheer weirdness—this is the episode to catch.

---

For more: moreorlesspod.com

Transcript

[Brit Morin]

Grok, the AI platform. 85% of the images that it's producing right now are nude or sex related.

[Sam Lessin]

Really? That actually sounds right to me. Like, what else are you going to use it for?

[Brit Morin]

I use it for home design.

[Jessica Lessin]

Use Grok for home design.

[Sam Lessin]

Is it. Are all the print. The Grok prints, like all the naked women on sheets or something like.

[Brit Morin]

No. It's like men topless vacuuming in my new living room.

[Sam Lessin]

That's what Grok is so deeply trained on. That if you're like home decor, that's what it's going to produce anyway.

[Brit Morin]

They all look a little like elan too.

[Jessica Lessin]

Or less. Is it no or is it yes? We'll debate the text. That's best when we get More Or Less. Dave and Drip. Plus Sam and Jess put it all right to the test. More or less. Why? Hello, friends. Happy New Year and welcome to More or Less. We missed you guys.

[Dave Morin]

Hey, guys. Happy New Year.

[Brit Morin]

We made it.

[Jessica Lessin]

We made it. How's 2026 going? What's the report?

[Brit Morin]

It's very warm and wet.

[Dave Morin]

There's no snow anywhere except Tahoe. I hear there's snow in Tahoe.

[Jessica Lessin]

The snow's coming, Dave. We just need to do our snow dances.

[Dave Morin]

I don't believe it.

[Jessica Lessin]

Why don't you believe it?

[Dave Morin]

I've never seen 40° to 50° days in January in Montana and Wyoming. It's like it was like raining after New Year. It's pretty rare. Maybe 10 years ago was the last time I've seen it.

[Jessica Lessin]

I choose optimism.

[Dave Morin]

All right. Fair.

[Jessica Lessin]

We can do nothing about this.

[Dave Morin]

I'll ride that train.

[Brit Morin]

That's an outlier year.

[Jessica Lessin]

Outlier year. So, snow report. Ma, how's the first week of January treating you? I see you're not at CES. No one here is at CES.

[Brit Morin]

Well, I haven't been to CES since I worked on Google TV like in 2010. However, I get really excited about CES. I think I'm the only one that gets excited about it. Guys, I've tracked all the cool things. I'm happy to talk about them this episode. There's some really cool shit.

[Dave Morin]

Are there? Is it the takeover of the robots

[Brit Morin]

that, like, I find that all boring and obvious. I'm like, interested in the Lego Smart brick. The robotic turtle.

[Dave Morin]

The Lego Smart Brick is cool.

[Brit Morin]

There's this new digital nail polish thing that happened. It's not necessarily Venture Scale, but it's interesting for my lifestyle. So we can talk about it.

[Dave Morin]

It's ces Is the Anti Venture Scale conference.

[Brit Morin]

I Know, well, like, Nvidia, of course, always steals the show, and so I just, like, disregard most of the headlines. But then I find the cool, random gadgets and things that I think will help my life. So.

[Jessica Lessin]

But don't these cool, random gadgets, like, rarely see the light of day? I mean, I have only scar tissue from CES over the years, so I'm, like, the wrong person to speak to about this.

[Dave Morin]

Like, one to five gadgets from CES every year see the light of day.

[Brit Morin]

But I'm like the. I'm like a Kickstarter maxi. I'm like, always about trying the weird gadgets that will, like, never exist a year from now, just because I feel like I like to try to live in the future. And I feel like you can actually get a thematic understanding of what a lot of people are trying to work on. So, you know, different types of spaces that people are building in.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, so give us the trends in, like, 30 seconds, because it's all I can take.

[Brit Morin]

Okay, so obviously there's like, rollable screens, robots, smart lit, wearable tech, blah, blah, blah, like Pebble. Remember that brand, Pebble? It's back, by the way. They have smartwatches and rings.

[Dave Morin]

All the cool, 2010 companies are back.

[Brit Morin]

2010 companies are back. There's another smart. There's another smart oven that's not the June oven called the ISO aiso, that has a camera and, like, all the smart things inside of it. Okay, fine. But Lego launched the smart brick, which is super rad. It uses, like, Bluetooth technology to actually build a mesh network and understand other legos around it. It can light up, it can make noises. So if you build, like a car Lego, it can crash into things and actually make car noises. I think it's super rad. It's going to start launching this year.

[Dave Morin]

The minifigures are also. Can be activated somehow, I hope. What it is actually pointing towards is a broader ecosystem of cool stuff that LEGO is about to do.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, so the winner of is LEGO is what you're telling me from a

[Brit Morin]

consumer standpoint, obviously not venturescale.

[Sam Lessin]

And this is why none of this matters.

[Jessica Lessin]

Well, I'll also tell. Okay, you get one more CES point.

[Brit Morin]

Okay, Can I. Oh, I can only do one more.

[Sam Lessin]

I'm so bored. You know what CES happens right after ces, I believe, is the Adult Entertainment Expo.

[Brit Morin]

Oh, okay, wait, this is. Okay, I'll do my one more first. Sam, it's called ami. Ami. It's getting a lot of hype on the Internet. It's like a little snow globe thing you can put on your nightstand around your home. And you can pick the character inside of it, like a hot girl for you, Sam, or something like that. And then you talk to it all day and you, like can have it around your house talking to it. It's supposed to be your AI soulmate, but it. It exists with you almost like a wearable but not quite boring.

[Dave Morin]

Sam wants to get on to his extremely pessimistic take on 26.

[Sam Lessin]

No, I don't know. Although a lot of venture capitalists are emailing me that. I've been very pessimistic listeners.

[Jessica Lessin]

Here's what you're in for today. Buckle up. Sam dumped a missive on themes for 2026 that has gone viral. So we have to get to that.

[Sam Lessin]

I'm not sure how viral it is,

[Jessica Lessin]

but you know what, you can. If three people emailed him back, who's to say that's not viral? All I know is CNBC booked him before TITV booked him in response to this memo.

[Sam Lessin]

Guys, that is true.

[Jessica Lessin]

So take that, Andrew, or the other way around. But then information broke a story today about OpenAI's new health app.

[Sam Lessin]

Is that Ashley Yuki's?

[Brit Morin]

I've got a lot to say about that, too. We got to talk about that.

[Jessica Lessin]

I don't know if Ashley's. I think this is what Ashley's doing,

[Sam Lessin]

but it's got to be Ashley. Go Ashley. We love Ashley.

[Jessica Lessin]

And I got to say, this will be an opportunity for me to walk you all through my three boys. Three rashes, all correctly diagnosed by ChatGPT this break. So we can talk about that. I think those are our main agendas. We'll have some things on the side. The predictions, health. Let's wrap up CES though, because.

[Sam Lessin]

Because no one cares.

[Jessica Lessin]

Well, also, here's what we remember. We were talking. I know this is not this gang's favorite topic, but the trade war. The H200 Trump allowed it to be sold to China, but there's this big question of will Chinese companies buy it. He, of course, is going to. The US Government is going to take a percentage of the sales. Jensen on the stage at CES saying orders have been strong. We're optimistic about demand for this product and from China overnight. Breaking from the information, China has said to its tech industry, no H2 hundreds. You may not buy H200. No soup for you. It's a temporary thing in the sense that they could reconsider it. It was also kind of what was expected. But I got a Give a big, big shout out to our team that has really actually following from very difficult reporting in China what the reaction to this is. So it's very interesting because we have seen, I unfortunately think much like the story of TikTok and ByteDance, we will be talking about the US China tech trade war long beyond the lifetime of this podcast.

[Sam Lessin]

But anyway, Jess, we want a cheese and charcuterie board or a sweet and treat holiday box from Greylock.

[Brit Morin]

What?

[Jessica Lessin]

You know I won neither. If a VC is making you click a button of which holiday gift to accept, I say they didn't get the memo with all love for Greylock about what's latest in gifting.

[Sam Lessin]

Okay, I'm going with the charcuterie board.

[Jessica Lessin]

I mean, guys did what I. I know Slow Ventures didn't do a holiday gift for anyone. Did. Did all.

[Sam Lessin]

Yeah, we absolutely did. We made our book.

[Jessica Lessin]

Oh right, you have the etiquette book.

[Sam Lessin]

I'm sorry, it's like you've forgotten already.

[Jessica Lessin]

I have actually. That was so 2025.

[Brit Morin]

I have ideas for big. For big swag in 26. But I got a cool. I got a cool wrap. Cashmere wrap from 8 BC. So that was like my nicest.

[Sam Lessin]

Oh, that was. I got that too. That was a nice wrap.

[Jessica Lessin]

Is that a wrap or a blanket? Do you wear that or.

[Brit Morin]

At first I was wondering it too and I decided I'm gonna make it a wrap. So thanks, Joe. In 8 BC.

[Sam Lessin]

That was from. I didn't they finance Quince?

[Brit Morin]

Quints? Yeah, the huge apparel brand.

[Sam Lessin]

How does they do defense? They do defense and Quince. Confusing.

[Brit Morin]

Well, quints at 2 billion in revenue

[Jessica Lessin]

this year, Quince is on a tear.

[Sam Lessin]

I get it. They're clearly crushing. I just didn't know it was so right wing coded. I'm surprised.

[Dave Morin]

What is Quince? I thought it was a restaurant in San Francisco.

[Jessica Lessin]

Quince is like think Zara meets cashmere.

[Dave Morin]

What? How is that. That's an oxymoron.

[Brit Morin]

Okay, Dave. Reasonable prices for high end textile apparel.

[Dave Morin]

Oxymoron.

[Jessica Lessin]

High end. I mean again, I love the blanket show or the wrap or the whatever

[Brit Morin]

it is actually good feeling apparel but very basic designs. Like not. There's no art.

[Dave Morin]

Good feeling still falls apart.

[Jessica Lessin]

Exactly. You're not. You're not going to be. You're not going to be wrapped in this come next January break.

[Sam Lessin]

I don't know.

[Brit Morin]

We'll see.

[Jessica Lessin]

Were there any other. Lots of wine. Lots of wine.

[Brit Morin]

What else?

[Jessica Lessin]

I got a light up Christmas tree

[Brit Morin]

that I. I got puzzles. I got my. The John. The John Door Annual puzzle.

[Jessica Lessin]

Oh, love the puzzles.

[Sam Lessin]

We got a lot of junky gifts from airplane companies.

[Brit Morin]

I don't think most people got those.

[Dave Morin]

Oh, speaking of things, no one cares

[Jessica Lessin]

about so many water bottles. Okay. Yeah. Nothing that hid it out of the park. The, The. The gifting lane. Wide open in 2026. I get. I called books in 2025. I'm not yet ready to call 2026. But. But, but it's going to be. It's coming, guys. Elon Musk is going to be a trillionaire.

[Sam Lessin]

I was thinking about this the other day. Okay, so here's an interesting Elon Musk trillionaire point, since we've now embraced. Since all that matters in 2026 is narratives, not reality. And the narrative is he's a trillionaire.

[Dave Morin]

On to Sam's dystopia.

[Sam Lessin]

Here's the interesting thing. How many billionaires even are there in the U.S. i don't know, Sam.

[Jessica Lessin]

How many?

[Sam Lessin]

I don't know. I'm CHAT shipping, and here I think there's like, a few thousand. Maybe there are. Let's see. Let's see how fast CHAT GBT is. So ChatGPT says globally there's 3,000. Let's assume that's probably dramatically low.

[Jessica Lessin]

I would say it's way more.

[Sam Lessin]

I think it's probably twice that. Right. Is my bet. Right. But the interesting thing about that is that a trillion is a lot of money. So a trillion is a thousand billions. So if you took ChatGPT's estimate, which is wrong because it's probably wrong, at least by 50%, let's put it is 3,000, we're saying that you could add another third, effectively. Or like, let's say 1, like 1, like, 25 of billionaires. Just by dividing Elon Musk up. That's like, an insane concept. Just to put in perspective, like, it's. I always visualize this stuff. I think about, like, exponential curves or like, a star blowing up, and then you kind of like, have like, things at different velocities, right. That are like. Or different acceleration rates, and you just end up with a solar system with, like, these crazy outliers. And, like, that is just. It is. Trillion is like, a word that's now in our lexicon. But a trillion's a really big number. That's my point of the day.

[Jessica Lessin]

Yeah.

[Dave Morin]

I mean, that's why billionaire isn't the right word to use to describe this universe anymore. Right. Because there's also a lot of hundred billionaires, which 100 billion is extremely larger than a Billion.

[Sam Lessin]

That's a much. This is welcome to More or Less podcast. We talk about what are big numbers actually rich people. Like, I think it's like, interesting. Like, if you think about it, you know, there's been a lot of inflation in the world, like $1 billion today, especially pre tax, you have to divide by two. Right.

[Jessica Lessin]

This is where I get prepared to pull Sam's mic, everybody. Okay. Like, I don't know where we're going. We could. I'm going to have to disown this, like, really fast.

[Sam Lessin]

Is a billion. Is $1 billion just one if you haven't paid taxes on it yet. Meaning, like, you know, it's like it's a liquid stock, but you haven't. You know, it's just an asset base. And it's 2026. Is that even a lot of money? Because if you think about it, first of all, taxes makes it worth 500 million before wealth tax.

[Dave Morin]

Yes, it's a lot of money.

[Brit Morin]

Do you know how many people played the reset lottery that was worth $1 billion? It was like half of America.

[Sam Lessin]

Divide by two. Divide by two to 500 million for taxes.

[Dave Morin]

It's still a lot of money. So.

[Sam Lessin]

But then remember that it's 2026. There's been a shit ton of inflation. So like $1 billion today is kind of like a quarter billion dollars post tax, like a decade ago or 15 years ago. It's obviously a lot of money, but it's like not that much money.

[Brit Morin]

Okay.

[Jessica Lessin]

I don't know where this is going.

[Brit Morin]

We're talking about Elon. Let's go back to Elon.

[Jessica Lessin]

Yeah, well, we can also. We can also talk about the wealth tax, which we should. So that, I mean, that's been another. Sorry, guys. I decided you two candles.

[Brit Morin]

Yeah. Aren't a lot of people moving out of California right now?

[Jessica Lessin]

Yes, they're all going to move. They're all going to move.

[Brit Morin]

Do they have to move?

[Sam Lessin]

When do they have to move by January 1st.

[Dave Morin]

Yeah, it's like, how good is California at getting its money last October?

[Brit Morin]

Which of our friends have moved in the last two months?

[Jessica Lessin]

Well, basically, let's do the TLDR on this.

[Sam Lessin]

Okay, but can we go? I want to go, but I want to do the wealth testing before you ask this. ChatGPT actually, again, it's wrong. It's sure way low. But it thinks there are 900 billionaires. That means that if you just divided elon Musk into $1 billion allotments, he would double the American. American billionaires according to these Numbers. That's, that's wild, right? Just when you think about how big a trillion is.

[Jessica Lessin]

Guys, I am a. Definitely, I've been. I have to beat, continue to beat this viral tweet thread. Can we still say X thread? I mean, I think that one of the risks, and this isn't to like hype the AI bubble, but one is the risks is that we don't fight quite fully Grok the order of magnitude of wealth and liquidity that 20, 26, 7 are going to bring. And like the, and all the reverberations of that.

[Dave Morin]

What, because of SpaceX alone?

[Brit Morin]

Just all the things happening. Discord's going public now.

[Dave Morin]

But it's really SpaceX. But it's really SpaceX.

[Jessica Lessin]

SpaceX Anthropic. OpenAI. Remember ByteDance?

[Sam Lessin]

Anthropic's now a $350 billion company. That's wild.

[Jessica Lessin]

Like OpenAI Anthropic. I mean, ByteDance has resolved one of the many issues. There are still a billion issues. But ByteDance is a meta. I mean, if you look at it, then you talk about Anduril Canva. I mean like all these, these other ones.

[Brit Morin]

Well, and all the acquisitions that are also going to happen are continuing to happen. Like Grok, by the way, offline company, not an acquisition, but sort of.

[Jessica Lessin]

Ooh, congrats, congrats.

[Sam Lessin]

Wait, am I getting paid on that, Brit? Am I getting some money?

[Brit Morin]

We. It's an interesting one because they, they positioned it as a licensing agreement, so we're figuring it out, but potentially, yes. Anyway, but $20 billion, it's Nvidia's biggest acquisition. We saw Meta acquire Manus over the holiday. Like, it's just like all of these multibillion dollar acquisitions are also adding to the floodgates opening this year.

[Jessica Lessin]

20. So our reporters, like, you know, this is how the, the wonderful news ecosystem works. Like there's a big deal going down, right? So then we like, we get in a conference room and we have every spreadsheet of like every big company. Like Grok was not on this is on us was not on the 20 billion dollar valuation trade.

[Brit Morin]

Well, the last round they raised, which was a few months ago, was at like 6. So this was definitely a premium that's on us.

[Jessica Lessin]

But okay, so let, let's just, just quick. I mean, we, we have not addressed this wealth tax issue. We can come back to it many, many times. And will.

[Sam Lessin]

It's so stupid.

[Brit Morin]

Explain what it is for people who don't know.

[Jessica Lessin]

Yeah, let me just quickly explain. Right?

[Sam Lessin]

No one listening to this podcast doesn't know what it is.

[Jessica Lessin]

What Sam, there are a couple people proposal will will, you know be scheduled to go to a vote this year in California have more than a billion dollars in liquid or illiquid assets pay 5% over five years.

[Sam Lessin]

Illiquid is the dumbest part.

[Brit Morin]

Right.

[Jessica Lessin]

Some people think if you're domiciled in California in January, some people think last October. Anyway, this is why we saw Peter Thiel, Larry Page, David Sachs open Austin offices in the last 10 days or thereabouts. And you know, it really it is not an exaggeration to say this is the topic of every coffee cocktail party, dinner party. Right. It comes up and what I think is really interesting and listeners of the pod, if you have any thoughts on this hit me in the comments or my email. But there hasn't been as much attention. There's been an attention on the uber billionaires or whatever we want to call them. But like what about the startup founder who owns 10% of their company? It's an AI company. So it's Series B was valued by so and so at $10 billion.

[Brit Morin]

It's seed, its seed was valued at 2 billion. It's Mira Morati's company.

[Jessica Lessin]

Yeah. And I mean this mirror probably falls into this bucket now and law passes as of date, you're a billionaire, you're going to own 5% over five years and then surprise, surprise, you sell the company two years later for two and a half billion dollars, you still owe the money. So I think there are a lot of interesting things like that. And this is a, you know, we can have a debate about wealth. Wealth taxes are good or bad or whatever. We're not really experts on that. I'm not sure you should. Yeah, I tend to. I agree. But I think it's it, it's interesting to watch the on the ground conversation happening now with like all these other fallout effects. Right.

[Brit Morin]

And not.

[Jessica Lessin]

And also the one thing I'll say too is you talk to the people really affected by this. It's not just like a one time tax. Right. It's what it could represent and I think that's also motivating people in terms of other random taxes. No one thinks so. The proponents of it are like it's a one time thing, no big deal. But it seems like that's not how history works. So that's currently the state of play. The poly market odds of it passing have jumped significantly. It's hard to imagine California's if Californians voting down something appears on their ballot in this way.

[Sam Lessin]

But I'm just so excited because if you have mere millions of dollars, the amount of awesome real estate for sale, I mean, it's going to be great. We're going to get such awesome houses.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, that's the wealth tax. We'll keep the conversation going.

[Sam Lessin]

It's just an incredibly stupid move. Look, I do think California is going to do very, very, like, this year is California's year to, like, if they can't balance the budget, if these IPOs happen with, like, they're very bad. Like, they should make so much money this year from the IPOs and people selling stocks. So, like, good on California. This is your moment. If you push everyone out, though, which is what they're doing, you then you get no soup, right? And, like, so the idea that you would want, like, to kill the golden goose and be like, all right, if anything, you should do the opposite. You could have a billionaire. Thank you. Rebate, maybe Billionaires pay lower taxes.

[Dave Morin]

What is the golden goose?

[Sam Lessin]

The golden goose is, like, all the leadership is, like, basically the leaders of these biggest, most important companies being, like, we're going to be in California, by the way. That means our entire management team needs to be in California, by the way. That means, like, we need to, like, have all this infrastructure and all of our best engineers and people in California. Like, it's insane that this is, like, this is, like, the dumbest idea. And the funny thing about it is, like, I think anyone smart gets that it's a dumb idea. Even, like, I think Gavin Newsom understands that it's a terrible. It's also, by the way, terrible for his political career because if this passes, he will never be president, which is clearly what he wants.

[Dave Morin]

It has little to do with him, though. And isn't that the real conversation here? Which is like, why is this. Why is this happening?

[Sam Lessin]

Because some union proposed it? Because they're dicks. It's just an incredibly bad idea.

[Brit Morin]

He can't veto it.

[Dave Morin]

Come on, Sam. There's stuff in your document that refers to the actual real, real behind why this is happening.

[Sam Lessin]

That is fair.

[Jessica Lessin]

Let's go to Sam's document again. If you didn't get this document, you're not on the list. I'm sorry. I don't know what to tell you.

[Dave Morin]

It's not on Twitter.

[Sam Lessin]

I kind of post. I, like, posted it in tiny fonts on Twitter to annoy people.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, Sam, so we actually. Our last episode of the year was a lot of predictions. You've built on that with some. What would you call them? Themes.

[Sam Lessin]

Well, I would just. We were flying back from vacation and I was like, what is this year about? Like what is really happening? And so I sat down and wrote my stream of consciousness on it. And it starts with this point that like, reality no longer matters. What matters is perception and storytelling as much as anything else. So there's a lot of things going on where like, realistically they may or may not actually be happening right now or be completely true, but the fact that people believe them to be true is going to dominate how they behave and what happens. So a good example is that there's a whole part about like everyone seems quite convinced that the value of white collar human labor is going to zero or the value of labor is going to zero because of robots and AI and whatever this stuff. Regardless of whether that's actually true and on what timeline, the fact that everyone believes it to be true means no one's setting up their careers, means people like don't want to hire like all these like talk on effects and it actually becomes true. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy to some degree. So it's a set of things. It starts with kind of what I call like the collusion between like the debt crisis, GDP growth imperative, and the AI build out where like we need AI to have any prayer of hitting, you know, the GDP we need to hit to deal with the debt problem, which I think is like kind of the biggest narrative going on. It's our version of a Chinese housing boom, you know, things like Venezuela, which are kind of just like GDP sweeteners. Like if you just say, hey, all we really care about is our debt problem, right? Like biggest, biggest picture and anything that can plug that hole we're excited about. Like that's kind of how you get there. And then just like to Dave's point, there is a bunch on like the compounding impact of technology and leverage and finance, where you do just get like, you know, a set of discontinuous outcomes, whether it's trillionaires or whatever, that are just historically unheard of. Right. But that's what technology and leverage does. And so when you do that, I mean, you know, even in this doc we talk, there is a section on wealth taxes. Like it's kind of like this. Everything is downstream of just that fact. Right. So if you said there are only two themes that really matter on the year or three, I'd say one is that like narratives matter even now more than ever. They always matter now they really matter in terms of how the world shapes itself to everything is about fundamentally the debt crisis we have in the US and trying to figure out how to like not fall prey to that. And then three is just the compounding reality of technology and financial leverage, which is just getting more and more liquid and more and more frictionless. And like there's a bunch of stuff that happens because of that.

[Jessica Lessin]

So Sam, how does this affect what you're going to invest in?

[Sam Lessin]

I mean, like, like I, I think that the, maybe the most simplistic answer is, is twofold. One is, you know, stories always mattered in terms of, you know, great companies. But again, if you just believe that stories really matter now, I think that honestly thinking about companies that aren't just like great money making machines, but have a fundamental story of infinity associated with them is extremely important. Because if there are narratives that are discontinuous to the upside and limited, like that's kind of what matters right now. You know, you look at these companies and it was like, yeah, that's a fine business, you know, can do okay, you know, maybe it's a billion dollar outcome. There's a version of seed investing in the world where like doing a bunch of those is a good idea. But you know, on the flip side, if anthropic's raising a $300 billion valuation, it's even more top heavy. Right. Than ever before in terms of what the outcomes look like. Assuming capital efficiency, which is a whole other set of assumptions. You kind of just need to be very, very focused on the narrative and you know, how world questioning can it be? It's why something like a SpaceX or an Andrew or you know, OpenAI, like they're great stories. And so I think that's like one very practical implication. I don't know what else. What are the other implications?

[Dave Morin]

How hard is it to create great story in a world where at least in our ecosystem everyone is talking to each other digitally? They're transcripting everything, they're talking to the same models. Everybody is actually kind of in this.

[Sam Lessin]

Like everyone's pretty mid.

[Dave Morin]

Yeah, everybody's like, it's like all collapsing into this like AI driven black hole.

[Sam Lessin]

We probably need to fund some monks on hills.

[Dave Morin]

Yeah, I mean like that's what I keep thinking about is that like there's this like group narrative. I don't know. Have you guys seen the TV show Pluribus?

[Sam Lessin]

I've heard of it. I haven't seen it.

[Jessica Lessin]

We've saw, we saw the first episode, Sam. I liked it. You?

[Sam Lessin]

It's not my thing. Oh, that.

[Brit Morin]

It gets better. Keep going.

[Dave Morin]

It's Just that everybody, everyone that is working on anything in this town now is like this giant hive mind, like talking to the same AI. Right. And what does that mean for narrative? Actually, Sam, I think it's a great

[Sam Lessin]

question, Dave, but I honestly do think like, yes, like the narrative is pervasive. Here's. Maybe this is a good thing, but I was speaking to a software founder this morning who's been successful, they've made money, they have an app, they have a company that's working, they're starting to tinker with apps and we're like, what should you do? Like, like, you know, should you work on the company? Like what? And like, here's what we kind of netted out on is if you're a founder, software is no longer any sort of differentiator. Software is just like consumable. Like, it's just like, it's like a piece of media. Like, it's not like you can't build a software company.

[Dave Morin]

I think this is new though, Sam, though we've been talking about this for two years on this podcast. I think in the last three months,

[Sam Lessin]

Claude Code makes it the final boss.

[Dave Morin]

It actually happened. Yeah.

[Sam Lessin]

So it's just like you can't, you can't build a quote unquote software company. What you can do if you love building and tinkering and you have a great product mind, is you can build a personal brand and trust and just do whatever you want, right? And build cool stuff with the understanding it's all consumable and it will all be copied instantly. But you can still build like a credibility and your own distribution and like certain there's like assets you can build around that.

[Dave Morin]

But how do you build a business?

[Sam Lessin]

Well, that, that's the thing is like, if you're going to do that, you can do that. Or if you're going to build a business, it can't be. If it used to be that there were like a thousand people that had the idea because no idea is actually that precious. But of those,990 couldn't write the software or build it. Now assume all thousand can build it. Right. Like what is the differentiator? It is, I think trust. I think it is. I think it's insight into the network. I think it's business development, I think it's community. Like there are things, the assets you start with or the assets that like are differentiating are not your engineering team.

[Dave Morin]

Right.

[Sam Lessin]

Is almost the way I would look at it.

[Dave Morin]

Or are we oversimplifying this? That, you know, I was looking up the numbers yesterday that there was around 3 million software engineers building on the iPhone, another 6 million. Maybe there's some overlap between those two that build on Android, but there's like, I don't know, somewhere between what, 3 and 6 billion people using software on mobile phones. And so the fact that the universe of people that could build for that Surface was so small and now, you know, I don't know what, what's Claude code and all of the subsequent tools that are going to come out to make it easy to build stuff going to. Cause like, will it be, I don't know, another 10 million software developers? Does that really mean there's no software businesses to be made? Or does it just mean that more people can create software businesses and that there will be less large scale, super centralized software businesses?

[Sam Lessin]

Or just be like, everyone just. I mean, like, which we've talked about many times in the pod. It's like you, everyone just like build their own software. Like, you can't. There's no pricing power in software because it's charged too much. Someone to build themselves. Like, it's not like you'll use things if they're near free because, like, why not? But like, it's just not worth it, right? You can't charge that much for software.

[Brit Morin]

It's all pretty mid though, right? Don't you think? It's like the, like yesterday I saw on Twitter someone built something with like the yearly calendar view. And then like just after that, five people tweeted, replied, like, I made my own version. Like, it was like, yeah.

[Dave Morin]

And then I saw this morning that 37 signals integrated that view already into basecamp.

[Brit Morin]

I know. And then I saw Jason Freed write about like, yeah, so we just integrated it into. Hey, so like, but that's not super

[Dave Morin]

complex to pause on that for a second. I think that was a really important thing that happened this week. That 37 signals saw this thing happen on the Internet and instantly Vibe coded it into their larger scale SaaS app, which they sell. That's a new thing that's not happened before.

[Brit Morin]

Well, the guy that made it initially did it for free, just like I was tinkering with my calendar and now like, yeah, so they took it, put it into their software that they sell and is that fine? And also, does it matter?

[Dave Morin]

Yeah, I mean, he open sourced it. It's fine.

[Brit Morin]

It's just a feature. It's, well, fine. But like, if someone else were to do that, you know, in a different way, I don't know, there's like really interesting ethics around it.

[Sam Lessin]

I don't think it's ethic. First of all, there are no ethics. We just watched 16. Was it 1923. What's the minor speech?

[Jessica Lessin]

He says, I am a businessman. There's no ethic. I have no morals. Morals, morals.

[Brit Morin]

What I'm saying, though, is, like, it's not ethics.

[Sam Lessin]

It's like there's a morality or something.

[Brit Morin]

That guy in particular was like, I open source this. There used to be this idea of, like, you're granting permission for people to copy and add on to the thing you made, and now it's just like, why do I need to ask permission? I'm just gonna go.

[Jessica Lessin]

Because you're just overthinking.

[Sam Lessin]

Well, this is just hive mind again.

[Jessica Lessin]

There's always been a hive mind, or there's always been the version of the copycat thing that shakes out. And if you build a durable business, you build something unique that people need and has a business model around it. I mean, I don't know how. If I were in your shoes, I would sift through and, like, spot these companies early. And, like, that sounds like a whole different kind of challenge, but I just don't.

[Sam Lessin]

I don't know.

[Jessica Lessin]

We're overthinking this.

[Dave Morin]

I mean, it is a serious challenge. Jess, if you were talking to venture capitalists even two years ago, or any former entrepreneur, they would tell you that, like, the greatest business model ever created is software, and that you should spend most of your time investing in and building software, because the, you know, marginal cost of replication is zero. You can, like, make it an enormous amount of money. And as I look back across the last 12 months, there's a lot of people investing in SaaS still in the last 12 months. And Sam's right. Like, you can just replicate this stuff now in, like, less than a day, and that radically changes. Well, yes, but, like, up until the last three months, software was the greatest business model in the world, and now it's not. And, like, you have to figure out, like, what is the next thing.

[Sam Lessin]

Look, I think for me, this is all speaks back to this whole broader theme of, like, the ladder getting pulled up, right? Which is, like, you can't just be, like, a software kid anymore and be like, I'm gonna be fine. I'll make some money. Or, like, you know what I mean? Like, my job is secure, and I can always, like, build something. Like, the dream changes, right? And so I think for me, like, that's. I think the big social question is, like, I do think there's this, like, generational gap. Right. Thing going on. Right. Which is going to be culturally really, really challenging. I mean, I remember, you know.

[Dave Morin]

Yeah. Or is it just simple, Sam, that we're going to go back to building things and building things in the real world? Just like things where.

[Sam Lessin]

No, because people don't want the real world. They want to like they want Brits AI girlfriend.

[Brit Morin]

Orb my AI girlfriend. Oh yeah.

[Dave Morin]

I don't know man. This is actually where I pretty strongly disagree with your take on this. Like I think actually.

[Jessica Lessin]

Yes, Dave, go for it. Give me the strong disagreement.

[Dave Morin]

I think people actually dramatically do want the real world. I think people do want connection with other humans. I think that they are crying out for it and that the abstractions that they're dealing with are ever more in their way and we have to be even more intentional about it. Like this was also one of the things I talked about in my predictions for next year which is that smaller trust networks like embodied real world experiences like are going to matter even more as this plays out.

[Sam Lessin]

So it's interesting. I think it's gonna be a have and have not. I obviously believe that small networks can trust matter an enormous amount. It's creator fun on board. Believe in it the whole nine hours. Here's my thing. Let's go back to like, it's hilariously as a version of just like extreme abstraction, this like personal relationship thing. And let's do the girlfriend thing because it's just obvious and like an easy extreme to talk about. Imagine in the near future you can have an AI driven girlfriend, right? Boyfriend, companion, whatever. That is exactly what you want. But digital, always available, says that does all the things you want, is a perfect companion in every possible way. But is digital. And then contrast that with a real relationship which is in the real world that is expensive and mucky and not perfect. In the whole nine yards, what are 99.9% of people choose? They choose the easy thing. It's sugar, right?

[Dave Morin]

I don't know that it's 99.

[Brit Morin]

I think it's also short term or versus long term. I think it fizzles out after.

[Sam Lessin]

I don't know. Or just the. Okay, think about like, think about what we, what we know from social networks and friends, like the original social networks which we're all proud to be a part of and help, you know, in a lot of ways. The whole theory was to push and like create more human real world connection like to make social liquidity higher, help people meet you. That was fine. It turned out that through a bunch of generations it's actually really hard to meet up with people in the real world. This is why everyone's always trying to make like apps to hang out in real life and they never work because the friction's too high. What's super easy is clicking on TikTok, right? Or scrolling a feed or whatever. It's sugar, but it gives you some of the same dopamine hits at a fraction of the cost, right? So you extract that out in terms of where it goes. And I just think, like, I think it's very high minded and true that actually real human relationships and facilitating those are what actually matter. And they're like extremely valuable in the long run. But I also think in some ways they're like a very high class product because they're very expensive and they're very complicated and painful. And when presented with ever better online sugar, like, which again, I don't have any like fundamental. I don't think it's like fundamentally bad. I just think it's like physics. Like people will choose the cheaper, more available option.

[Brit Morin]

But what you're missing, Sam, is that again, on the time horizon, it all felt interesting and cool at first when we could not have friends and have like brands and other people and interests we follow. But what's happened now is like, we're all lonely. We like hate the world. We don't want to be online, but it's sucking us in because it creates a chemical reaction.

[Sam Lessin]

Oh, did you read my. It sounds like you're. It sounds like you buy my pessimism.

[Brit Morin]

So, like, we might have these AI companions and think we're happy in the short term. In the long term, we're like so upset and sad and lonely. And I think it's just another iteration of social media.

[Dave Morin]

I'm just with you, Brit, that like, I think, Sam, embodiment beats abstraction. Like physical presence. Real places, like craft, the craft of building nature. Like, if you look at like the biggest trend in travel right now, it's like people want to literally be as close to nature as possible. It's like tent hotels and like, you know, they literally want their body to be as close to nature as they possibly can. Like, health is exploding, right? Like, people are like obsessed with longevity, doing the right things to stay healthy. Like the White House this morning literally changed the food rules for the country.

[Brit Morin]

This was Joe Gabbia's first, like, design. Oh, you haven't seen this. Oh, guys, the second grade food pyramid we all saw, you know, was it Reagan or Bush? One of them, like where carbs were the bottom, those were, like, the most important. It's flipped. Carbs are at the very top. Protein and veggies are at the bottom. Except for it's an inverted triangle now. And Joe Gabbia, remember, he's like. What's his title? Like, Chief Design Officer of America.

[Sam Lessin]

He.

[Brit Morin]

I clearly. It's like Helvetica font. It's like, definitely got the Joe Gabbia touch on it.

[Dave Morin]

No, it says that. It does. It says, designed by the Design Studio of America.

[Brit Morin]

I'm, like, kind of psyched for him because I think this was, like. I bet I was imagining when he was interviewing, he was like, all right, and my first product will be the Food Pyramid redesign, anyway.

[Jessica Lessin]

But wait, does it come with, like, shifting recommendations, or do we just shift the.

[Dave Morin]

Okay, no, all the recommendations changed.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, got it. Just checking.

[Sam Lessin]

Is it. What is. What is it that plants crave? Look, I. There's certainly. This is certainly true, Dave, Everything you're saying, I believe.

[Jessica Lessin]

What are we discussing? What are we debating? I've lost the thread.

[Dave Morin]

Like, embodiment beats abstraction. Like, I think there is this thing, like, are you going to abstract into, like, your mind living in digital space and your body living in meat space, or are you going to be able to be present with humans? And, like, I think that there's, like, a lot of, like, one last thing, which is that beyond that, I think that, like, agency in all of this is also the real scarce resource. Like, people are, like, they're afraid of automation. Like, Sam, all the things that you're talking about. But if you look at what happened in Silicon Valley over the holiday, it was like this rabid obsession with Claude code. What is that, really? People are trying to get control, to build things, to actually have agency in this, like, world where so much is becoming automated and abstracted. And so I think that you have counterbalancing forces. Is the.

[Jessica Lessin]

What's cursor doing? It's now Claude code. I've lost track. What's going on?

[Brit Morin]

No, that's separate.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay. There's no cursor. We're short cursor.

[Sam Lessin]

No, no, we're very long cursor.

[Dave Morin]

Short cursor.

[Sam Lessin]

No, we're a very long cursor. Especially now that I realize that I own a bunch of cursor stock. Very long cursor. I was surprised, too, Brett, but hooray.

[Jessica Lessin]

He really was. I was there when he discovered.

[Sam Lessin]

I was like, oh, I have to totally change my tune on cursor now. A few things. One is like, look, there's Always a culture counterculture. Right. And I agree that there's a real world counterculture thing. I agree that it's, like, better. And so people are going to crave it. And if they can afford it for. In, like, can invest in it and deal with the pain of it, that's what they're gonna. That's what they should want. It's better for you. It's just not the easy thing, what most people will choose. There's gonna be weird, low friction, super weird subcultures. Like, apparently, I saw you guys let, like, get Vice magazine. Do you follow them on Instagram?

[Brit Morin]

Wait, I thought they. Wait, Vice, the brand?

[Dave Morin]

I thought Vice. I thought Vice went out of business.

[Sam Lessin]

It probably, yeah, but it's like someone still updated Twitter, you know, like, it's like it's out of business, but someone's.

[Dave Morin]

Someone's still saying smart Vice things.

[Sam Lessin]

Somebody still saying Vice things on Instagram? Probably, but there was a. There was a thing that, like, was on the top of my feed about how apparently in Los Angeles, they're like all these, like, random park sex parties going on now, where people just go up and have sex in parks.

[Brit Morin]

Embodiment, Sam. They just want Embodiment.

[Sam Lessin]

Yeah. Like, this is wild subcultures going on. And so, like, I do think that is people being like, I'm so disconnected online. I'm just going to go to a park.

[Dave Morin]

Wait, what? I don't get it. They just go to a park. Like, it's like a just random hookup.

[Sam Lessin]

Yeah, it's like really skeezy. Right? Like, but, like, this is like a thing, according to whoever's running the Vice social media accounts.

[Brit Morin]

But I think you can argue this is also happening in the digital, whatever, futuristic world. Grok. No Grok. The AI platform, not the one that Offline was part of, who just raised more money, by the way, 85% of the images that it's producing right now are nude or sex related.

[Sam Lessin]

Really?

[Brit Morin]

Yes.

[Sam Lessin]

That actually sounds right to me.

[Jessica Lessin]

Of course it does.

[Sam Lessin]

Yeah. Like, what else are you gonna use it for?

[Brit Morin]

Like, seriously, I use it for home design.

[Jessica Lessin]

Use Grok for home design.

[Brit Morin]

Oh. I mean, I just use AI models in general.

[Dave Morin]

Is it.

[Sam Lessin]

Are all the print. The Grok prints, like, all the naked women on sheets or something?

[Brit Morin]

Like, for me, it's naked men.

[Sam Lessin]

Fine, that still counts. It's like. It's like a penis clock.

[Brit Morin]

Men. It's actually. No, it's like men topless vacuuming in my new living room.

[Sam Lessin]

Because that's what that. That's what Grok is so deeply trained on that. If you're like home decor, that's what it's going to produce anyway.

[Brit Morin]

They all look a little like Elon, too, but I don't know what that's about.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, you guys have. Okay, this is obviously the fascinating debate, and no one knows what reality we're all going to be living in. Real or fake or.

[Sam Lessin]

Yeah, but we're going to try to bet on it anyway.

[Jessica Lessin]

Nature camping. But I also think. I mean, not to like, evoke the great Taylor Sheridan again, which we'll do. But, you know, 1923. And you've got.

[Dave Morin]

Oh, that's the 1923 you're talking about.

[Jessica Lessin]

Yes, you've got.

[Dave Morin]

I'm on Landman.

[Sam Lessin]

Landman is so good.

[Jessica Lessin]

So good.

[Sam Lessin]

Landman's the best.

[Jessica Lessin]

You know. What's his name? Harrison Ford. He's just sitting there in his Montana way of life, you know, without his electricity, without his refrigerator, without his car. He's just protecting the land. And, you know, the automobiles are coming, you know, like in the last episode. They took his horse post and put a parking space for a car there that we saw. And he's so. He's like, you know, the way of life is changing. We're at the same point, it's true.

[Dave Morin]

But it does feel fair to ask the question, what kind of society do we want to live in? Right? Like, these are enormous. Like, AI is like an enormous amplifier, right? Like it's going to radically amplify. You know, curious people are more curious. If you want to build more, you can build more. Addictive personalities are going to spiral. Like, all the things are going to happen. Right. Massive amplifier.

[Sam Lessin]

It's a story of more.

[Dave Morin]

And back to what started this whole conversation, which was the wealth tax. Like, what is underlying all of this? There's like, you know, the wealth tax before that, it was mega. There's like a real underlying, you know, malaise, disgruntled sort of vibe. And there's like a sickness in society, Sam, that I think you kind of just like detailed through in your thing. And we have to ask this question, like, what kind of society do we want to live in and how do we want to use these tools? And it feels like that's the animating body politic kind of question right now.

[Sam Lessin]

But I also think. Here's the question. I had two cons question on me. Problem one is, like, I think there's a big question you have to ask yourself, which is, is society downstream of technology or is technology downstream of society? I'd Argue that society is downstream of technology. Like, we live in a. Like there's a physics to technology and what we can do and how we can interact. Society just. It comes from that. It doesn't dictate to that. Right. And so the reality is, is I just think, like, the reason I'm kind of blase about so much, I'm like, this is just what it is. Like, I, like, I don't.

[Dave Morin]

But Sam, like, we don't. We do intervene, right? Like we do. Like, that's why. I don't know. We don't usually talk about politics on this podcast. But like a wealth tax or any tax or any policy move, like is an intervention sort of.

[Sam Lessin]

But here's the thing about that. Even those are down. Even those are downstream of technology. Like, part of the reason you could never have. You never had a wealth test historically is you could never measure anyone's wealth historically or track it all. It wasn't banked. It wasn't. There was. You had no panopticons. Like, even the mere idea of a wealth tax is actually a reverberation of technology because it literally was impossible to have had a conversation even 50 years ago. I would argue people like, you know what? So I think these things, everything is downstream technology, including policy options. The question is then how do you deploy them? What are the results of those? And it is an interesting question about just how many degrees of freedom you have. It's why I'm kind of a fatalist or a technological determinist about all these things is like, I just don't think there's that many surprises here. If it's possible, it's going to happen, right? There's in technology makes new possibilities or new configurations possible. I don't think that at a societal level we have that much many tools to push back against it. I think these things just kind of run their course. And you as a society now, I will say the second point and I'll be quiet is, you know, we talk about a wealth tax, we talk about the changes in the twenties and the great show, 1923 is it or whatever played through. Here's the funny thing about 1923 from the Yellowstone universe is that you play it all the way through the present day, the same family still fucking owns the ranch, right? Like, so for all of the change, we already know where this goes, right? We're just like landed gentry, hereditary control, right. Compounding assets, you know, and so.

[Jessica Lessin]

Well, I don't think you actually know where Yellowstone ended, but that's okay, we'll forgive you for not watching Ollie.

[Brit Morin]

The futuristic version will be 2022, which is when like GPT launched and then the whole world changed after that.

[Jessica Lessin]

There just better be a lot of cowboy hats. Like this is really.

[Sam Lessin]

There's definitely gonna be cowboy hats. Don't worry.

[Brit Morin]

I think cowboy hats are coming back.

[Dave Morin]

By the way, I love that Washington Post said that the cowboy hat should be the American hat.

[Sam Lessin]

I agree with that.

[Jessica Lessin]

It is the American hat.

[Dave Morin]

No, that apparently it's not the official

[Brit Morin]

American baseball cap is the American hat. Obviously.

[Sam Lessin]

No. Because when they go to the Olympics they send them with, with cowboy hats to like walk in the stadium.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, Brit, you get your point. And then we're going to talk health for a second. Sorry.

[Brit Morin]

Okay. I have some health things to say too. I was just wondering. This might be a health thing. Like everyone, a lot of people are talking about the 2000 and 30s being like the era of exuberance and it's going to be like utopian, not necessarily AGI related. This is the Internet. I dipped into the hive mind and all the hive mind are talking about the2030s and how like we're all going to be working less. We're going to cure all these diseases. We're going to be healthier and happier.

[Sam Lessin]

Please.

[Dave Morin]

This is every, every decade, every sci fi book ever.

[Brit Morin]

We're not going to have cars. Like our autonomous cars are taking us everywhere.

[Dave Morin]

That one might be true.

[Brit Morin]

2000-30s is going to be like the 2000s of last of 100 years ago. And so curious if anyone has thoughts on that.

[Dave Morin]

I love that Europe is like, we will not have self driving cars, of course.

[Brit Morin]

Well, they have cobblestone streets. It's like, you know, they don't want to destroy everything.

[Jessica Lessin]

Guys, self driving cars are going to be everywhere. I'm trying. Is this like not a.

[Dave Morin]

It's just better.

[Jessica Lessin]

I'm in the real facts business. These predictions are just too hard to. It's too hard to know. I agree, Dave. We have to think about it says,

[Brit Morin]

but not venture capitalists.

[Jessica Lessin]

Because we have to form a point of view too on like what we want. Like our. We have values that need to be injected into these things or that can be fought over. So I'm not like, I totally get that. It's just too much is in flux. Like for the first time I wrote the information staff has requested more communication from me, which is somewhat unbelievable. So I now write a monthly email with my random thoughts first installment. Guys, very popular, very popular.

[Brit Morin]

How do you gauge your Popularity.

[Dave Morin]

I want to see it.

[Jessica Lessin]

I'll send it to you. David, is there anything proprietary there?

[Dave Morin]

I wouldn't be on your list.

[Jessica Lessin]

I should probably actually include some other people on the distribution list of this. There's a whole section, more or less

[Brit Morin]

listeners also get 50% off your team,

[Sam Lessin]

like asks for a private newsletter and then you're just. Wait a minute. Like, this is really good. I should just sell it.

[Jessica Lessin]

But if I make more money, then we hire more people and pay them more. So it's really a win, win, win.

[Sam Lessin]

Oh, we can't just make more money.

[Jessica Lessin]

No, we can do both.

[Brit Morin]

No, we're going to be careful. The wealth tax stamp.

[Jessica Lessin]

No, we're not. We're not worried about that.

[Sam Lessin]

I was saying that. That Jess actually might have.

[Jessica Lessin]

No.

[Dave Morin]

Okay.

[Jessica Lessin]

There's nothing else I could do to stop him except stream. Guys, this is like, so scary. I mean, we have editors. I suppose.

[Sam Lessin]

I thought that was a good point.

[Jessica Lessin]

My first point. You can make that point in a few years. My first point in this memo was that this year is not going to reward the planners. It's going to reward the doers and the seizers of opportunities. And there are just so many paths. Strategy is important, but what's that phrase? Execution? Each strategy for lunch or whatever. I think 2026 is really going to be about that. So I was focused on that. The second section, which I'm not going to reveal what I said, but I sort of stumbled into, was like, if we're having coffee right now and you're in industry stores, here are all the things I'm asking you about. So it was sort of not these. Often people want, like, big themes and all, but like, the big themes are like AI, enterprise robots. But this was like, this is my list of things I'm dying to know. And if you happen to call me or cross me in the street, like, here's the set of questions that you're going to get as of.

[Brit Morin]

I want to know. I want this newsletter 2pm on Monday.

[Jessica Lessin]

So that was good. And then I. I probably only heard from the people who enjoyed it. Let's be real.

[Sam Lessin]

That's how it works.

[Jessica Lessin]

But I. I've been at this long enough to understand that. But. But it's coming every month. I. I don't know what to name it, though. My team has code names for it.

[Dave Morin]

I'm excited.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, let's talk. Let's. Ooh, I have to interview someone in three minutes. OpenAI and health.

[Sam Lessin]

Health.

[Jessica Lessin]

What do we think? Like, are we as consumers, bullish? On this or we think it's going to help OpenAI's business. Basically, they're carving out health features into a separate app, pushing more of the use cases and stories around how people are using it for health. I have a two thumbs up on this.

[Brit Morin]

Okay. I found it to be meh, like, duh. Of course there's going to be a thing where it helps you connect all of your health data into one model. Gemini is going to do this. Anthropic is going to do this.

[Dave Morin]

We had also heard which company they were buying to do this.

[Brit Morin]

We like, it's fine. I think it's how people are organically using it, so it makes sense. But it's not like this huge breakthrough thing.

[Dave Morin]

No, it's just smart observation of data. Like, it's clear this is an enormous part of their use case.

[Brit Morin]

However, whoever wins the, like, ingestion of all the data though first is going to have such a superior advantage. Unless you're Sam lesson and you think you can just export from one model to another, which I tried and it was very difficult because if I have like my aura ring and my eight sleep and my prenuvo scans and my function, like, like everything my, my chart, like, I just want to put it all in one place and.

[Dave Morin]

But won't everyone just connect to it?

[Brit Morin]

Am I just going to do this for Apple and Gemini and GPT, like,

[Dave Morin]

that's what you're already doing.

[Brit Morin]

Well, I'm doing it because I'm weird and I like to test all the different models, but normal people are going to pick one and just stick with it. So I just didn't understand where their competitive edge came from, but it felt like table stakes. They had to get it to get it this far.

[Dave Morin]

I mean, I think the answer to your business question, Jess, is that there's maybe a big enterprise thing here where this goes into, you know, health systems, insurance companies. Like, you know, there's like, there is a something there. I don't know what the business exactly looks like, but there's certainly a something.

[Brit Morin]

But wasn't everyone going to compete for that? Maybe Google Health is probably going after that too. Apple.

[Dave Morin]

I think it matters more to OpenAI to get that enterprise business than it does to Google.

[Jessica Lessin]

Brit. I had total Google Health vibes. I mean, you were you at Google for like, the Marissa's vault launch?

[Brit Morin]

I was at Google. My friend Missy ran Google Health.

[Jessica Lessin]

Yeah, I mean, it was just like. And it was so optimistic and then went exactly nowhere. Like, this was like one of those like. And they Just shut it down.

[Brit Morin]

Yeah. Apple Health, I would say has been the most successful thing so far, which is rare.

[Jessica Lessin]

Like Google doesn't even shut things down. So when they shut things down, like you're like, I don't, I'm not as into the like integrating data and all of that because honestly you take a photo of your blood test results and you know, if you want to cross out your name, cross them out, you know, and then put it in there. But I do think it is a really wonderful AI use case and I do find like when I text my doctor or I text OpenAI with like a photo of something I really like trust the OpenAI advice. It is similar to the doctors and it's reasonable and it outlines good follow up good branch paths and it will tell you if it take another photo from this angle and stuff. So I hope that it's something that's really, really helpful to people. Yeah. And selling a doctor space, there's been some movement there. Right? I always forget we just broke the news of their fundraise but what's the biggest kahuna in that space? Open Open something. Open. Open Evidence. Yeah. They're crushing it.

[Dave Morin]

It's interesting how this interacts with open evidence. I was thinking about that. My cousin, you guys all know, is a doctor and we spend a bunch of time in Christmas with him and Open evidence has just dramatically changed his practice. And I was wondering, obviously they're doing something different, but they, but this also kind of points at that OpenAI is going in this direction as well. So like how do those two interplay? Does it impact their business if it is successful at a massive scale?

[Jessica Lessin]

Yeah, well, I wish, I wish open I. Best of luck on this. I think it's a great, great tool. I just, I think trying to integrate all these things that aren't really is sort of a fool's errand. But and like again there's, there are pretty easy ways to like import data into these. Okay, what else? Any parting thoughts, pop culture corners? What's coming up? The Golden Globes are coming up. That's all I know. We're not going. That's why.

[Sam Lessin]

What else did you want to go? Really?

[Jessica Lessin]

I did. I, I did want to go.

[Sam Lessin]

You were welcome to go.

[Jessica Lessin]

No, I can't. I, I Guys, I don't want to be the person on here who complains about Davos for four weeks in a row. So I will save my complaints.

[Brit Morin]

Right.

[Dave Morin]

But like about Golden Globes, no Davos.

[Jessica Lessin]

I, I just have visions of like me with a. You Know, I. I don't have a live television studio. Like, that is mobile at this point. You know, I'm not a. And so I'm literally on calls with production assistants. Like, we're gonna hand you a hard drive. And I'm like, no, that's not gonna work. Just for some of these interviews. So anyway, I have an amazing team and we're gonna crush it with content. And I'm really overall excited.

[Brit Morin]

We're deep in the sports realm over here at the Morin House. We've got college football playoffs, we've got NFL playoffs, we've got super bowl coming to San Francisco. It's like the Warriors.

[Jessica Lessin]

I mean, the Giants last week. That was just like a heartbreaking game. It was just heartbreaking.

[Dave Morin]

Taylor Swift documentary, guys.

[Jessica Lessin]

It was a heartbreaking 49ers game. I said Giants. I'm so tired.

[Brit Morin]

Travis Kelce maybe retiring, maybe not. We're waiting to hear.

[Jessica Lessin]

He's so retiring.

[Brit Morin]

He's so retiring. And they're having a baby is my prediction.

[Dave Morin]

I don't know. You think he's going to retire? I think he's still got it.

[Jessica Lessin]

We'll find out. This is exactly why people are listening to this podcast. But I'm with you on. I'm with you. Very wrapped on the end of football season and Benson Boone's coming back to town right before the super bowl, everybody. I know that I can be here as your official Benson reporter in chief because everyone's dying to know, and I think that's it. Okay, well, we set. We set a tone for the year. I'm not sure exactly what tone was set. Perhaps the tone we'll try to bring. I had so many bullet points and all we brought was energy, but hopefully this was an informative listen. So to our amazing listeners and viewers, thank you guys for following. Please check us out on the YouTube. Love the YouTube. It's really performing for TI TV. So we're going to keep plug in the YouTube.

[Sam Lessin]

Guys, should we try to grow this podcast this year or just kind of do it?

[Dave Morin]

I think we should. I think we should. Let's get after it. It turns out you have to grow things.

[Sam Lessin]

To be clear, we're not going to do any, like, work to grow it. I just, like, should we have, like a work. Like a vibe?

[Dave Morin]

Yeah.

[Sam Lessin]

Like a growth mindset.

[Dave Morin]

Yeah, let's have a growth mindset.

[Brit Morin]

Manifest it.

[Sam Lessin]

I'm gonna manifest. We're gonna manifest people to listen to us.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, we'll try it. It'll be a story.

[Sam Lessin]

Okay, friends, I think we haven't been manifesting hard enough.

[Brit Morin]

You're not embodied enough, Sam.

[Jessica Lessin]

Brit, can you bring us a vision board next week?

[Brit Morin]

Yes, I've got many.

[Dave Morin]

She'll vibe code one. She'll vibe code a vision board for us.

[Jessica Lessin]

Okay, I'm with us.

[Sam Lessin]

That is a great. I'm going to ask all the AIs to make me a personal vision board.

[Brit Morin]

Oh, my gosh. What is Sam's vision board going to

[Jessica Lessin]

look, guys, we didn't even get into Sam's new year fashion. I hope he's wearing a colored shirt.

[Sam Lessin]

More importantly, I'm wearing deodorant.

[Brit Morin]

You're welcome, Jess.

[Dave Morin]

You've upgraded, Jess.

[Brit Morin]

This is 20 years of husband training.

[Jessica Lessin]

I should have led with this.

[Sam Lessin]

Yeah. Jessica, just, like, for the first time in a long time, gave me feedback.

[Jessica Lessin]

I said, He's 42, and I thought it was time to wear real clothes. And I've been delighted ever since.

[Sam Lessin]

So I am looking forward to all the ways I can delight my wife in 2026. It's the year of wife delighting.

[Brit Morin]

New Year's resolutions usually fall off by February 8th. Just so everyone's clear.

[Sam Lessin]

To be clear, they just. I need specific feedback.

[Brit Morin]

So a month from now, let's check and see if he's still wearing deodorant.

[Sam Lessin]

If I'm still delight. Every day we get every episode we start with, is Sam delighting his wife?

[Dave Morin]

What. What does specific mean to you, Sam?

[Sam Lessin]

Like, wear deodorant. That's a specific request.

[Jessica Lessin]

I don't even think I asked for the deodorant. It just came with the clothes. I did. Okay, great.

[Sam Lessin]

It was. I think you weren't very happy in that moment, but you definitely asked for deodorant, too.

[Jessica Lessin]

For my mental health and for our listeners. Mental health. I'm gonna draw this podcast to a close. So thank you, friends. We'll see you back here next week for another episode of More or Less.

[Brit Morin]

Bye. Bye.

[Dave Morin]

See you later.

[Brit Morin]

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 for at more or less Davemorin at lesson @jlesson. And as for me, I'm at Brit. See you guys next time.