More or Less

While Jess is off being “Davos-famous,” the squad kicks things off with the classic California vs. New York debate. From there, it’s straight into AI and VC chaos: absurd mega-seed rounds that break portfolio math, why even a great early bet like Anthropic wouldn’t return a seed fund, and a revisit of Sam’s view that there are only two ways to win right now—(1) have a real secret and stay capital-...

AI, AI, and more AI. Do you even live in Silicon Valley if you’re not talking about it every episode? This week, we go deep on how open-source vibe-coding tools are starting to replace the need for traditional SaaS contracts. Dave shows (and tells) how he used the open-source “Claude bot” to reverse-engineer his Mural photo frames and spin up a better web UI in under 30 minutes. Brit test-drives A...

The squad is back for 2026 with updates: Dave’s Montana “Snow Report” (spoiler: none), Brit’s contrarian love letter to CES, and Sam’s new “serious 40-year-old” fashion era. We go rapid-fire through the biggest headlines from the past few weeks we were offline—OpenAI’s health app, China cutting off the H200, and a wave of 2026 liquidity from SpaceX and AI that could mint centi-billionaires, or eve...

The pod signs off for the year with its final episode—a sharp, chaotic recap of last year’s predictions and a fresh round of hot takes for 2026. Sam and Dave, unsurprisingly, wing it: Sam calls a single $500B+ IPO (SpaceX), Google up, NVIDIA down, and Meta hitting new highs on AI-powered ads. Jess warns that AI-driven efficiency will fuel layoffs (especially in journalism) and that CapEx hype is o...

This week’s a big one: the squad kicks it off with Starlink on planes, Zoox vs. Waymo, and YouTube’s skinny bundle before taking the big swing — data centers in space as the emerging SpaceX-IPO narrative. Sam and Dave break down the real entrepreneurship skill: tell the huge story, earn the trust multiple, and consistently deliver “20 cents on the dollar” to keep the flywheel of cash spinning (re:...

Bitcoin’s down, so the Lessins turned down the heat and pulled out their winter gear. The More or Less squad jumps from SF’s drone-powered crime-fighting memes (Daniel Lurie’s “no drugs” moment) to how creator-content strategy now drives real deal flow. Jess says 2026 will split the AI tide (we unfortunately did have to touch on AI), with Meta’s missing enterprise story dragging its CapEx dreams,...

Pre-Thanksgiving chatter from the Lessins’ Surf Shack: Jess, Brit, Dave, and Sam pinball from holiday-card automation to trillion-dollar AI geopolitics. Brit trades Minted for Canva+GPT, Jess admits to maintaining a 600-row address spreadsheet, Sam unveils Slow’s Etiquette Book, and Dave still can’t believe we can’t pay in USDC. Don’t worry this year's Thanksgiving edition will live up to its...

Jessica kicks things off with Brit’s five-hour Brit-chella extravaganza—red latex, Light Balance blackout choreo, Ke$ha surprise, and more. The crew checks in on Jessica’s IG detox, TikTok's new "self control badges", ChatGPT launching group chats, Google Gemini taking the lead, and why “just be Google” might be the winning AI brand strategy as AI melts into UX. Sam calls 2026 OpenAI...

The squad is complete again! We get into AI wearables: rings, necklaces, even earrings, after Dave hints his stealth ring startup is almost ready. Waymo quietly rolls out SF–San Jose service (still no freeways), while private-jet owners email senators about the shutdown. The squad goes over Andy Rubin’s humanoid robotics launch, Sam’s backwards Panopticon sign, Apple’s Issey Miyake iPhone “sock/po...

It’s Etiquette Finishing School Day at Slow Ventures, Sam dials in from the Four Seasons in a Brioni suit to recap Slow’s first-ever Etiquette School—covering caviar bumps, sommelier tips, and the “low heart rate” approach to leadership. The crew argue that etiquette now matters in tech because trust is scarce and “PMF-only” is an outdated YC-era story. Jess also unpacks details from Apple’s Gemin...

With Jess running The Information's massive WTF conference and Sam off-grid on a mountain, Brit and Dave hold down the fort with Stuart Landesberg, CEO of Seneca, a Slow- and Offline-backed startup building autonomous firefighting drones. Between deep tech inside jokes, Stuart coins pro-America tech and breaks down how Seneca’s five-drone strike teams deploy 500 lbs of foam across 30 square mi...

The gang is back with a spicy opener: Brit calls out Dave for dismissing her “AI-assisted” doc as work slop, while Sam argues lowbrow culture now imitates machines and highbrow culture resists them. We break down OpenAI’s early, hallucination-prone Atlas browser and debate whether it’s a real agent platform, just memory capture, or total $$$ burn. Sora hype is cooling as TPUs rise—with Jessica not...

Jessica and Dave dive into the messy intersection of AI, culture, and the next wave of consumer tech. From the rise of “AI slop” to whether founders should build apps just for themselves, they debate what survives the model wars and what gets eaten alive. Along the way: 2025 Silicon Valley weirdness, $1B AI comp with no products, GLP-1 memes, kids treating Fortnite like the new social network, and...

This week on More or Less: Jess drops The Information’s scoop on Oracle’s shaky GPU rental margins and how it spooked markets, while Sam insists AI workloads will soar, even if profits don’t. Dave crunches the numbers: an “Apollo program every 10 months,” data centers now powering half of U.S. GDP, and capital getting sucked from factories into GPUs. On the culture beat: Google’s Zeitgeist goes no...

Never a dull moment with the More or Less squad: Jessica questions whether Sora is just a novelty or the start of an AI-native social economy, arguing OpenAI needs its own device to escape current platform limits. Brit calls it “Vine meets MySpace,” highlighting its cameo mechanic as a creator tool that could outpace Meta’s AI video. Dave says Sora only needs to be entertaining and pitches OpenAI’...

No Morins this week—just Jess and Sam, trading Gossip Girl “dear listener” asides for a tour of tech’s new power map. From Meta’s in-store glasses push to Apple’s “Find My” doubling as Gen Z’s stealth social network, the real story is how distribution and lock-in shape the future. Sam frames “mercantilism 2.0,” where global trade routes of capital now run through Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, and Riya...

The More or Less team go deep on the rumored TikTok deal: licensing the algorithm vs. owning influence, who actually controls the For You page, and why data localization misses the point. We debate A16Z’s evolving role, Sequoia’s must-have-access imperative, and what a “TikTok US CEO” would really do. Chapters: 00:48 - Intro + Ty Haney’s crypto-invisible loyalty rails 02:38 - “Do the weather” for...

Apple ships hardware while everyone else ships AI press releases. The MOL quad debates whether Apple’s “ignore the hype” strategy wins, why YC is full of “made-to-chart” AI startups, what unique conviction really means for investors, and how meme warfare is becoming the new GTM. Chapters: 01:02 – “Ozempic iPhone” and why “thin” might be back 10:06 – Market reaction: “Not enough AI,” money flows to...

Another busy week in tech and your favorite quad are back! We go over: Google’s antitrust “win,” AI M&A mania, Anthropic’s stay-private debate, why lawyers out-earn bankers now, and the barbell reality of internet businesses. We also unpack creator vs algorithm dynamics, the rise of Ozempic, and Sam’s wild “AI petty-lawsuit bot” idea. Chapters: 02:07 – OpenAI’s $300k copywriting hire → AI not...

In this episode of More or Less, Brit Morin and Dave Morin sit down with legendary VC Tony Conrad (True Ventures) for a candid conversation on the state of venture capital, the real impact of AI, the death of social media, and why non-attribution and EQ matter more than ever. Chapters: 01:30 – The Power (and Rarity) of Non-Attribution in Venture 04:00 – Building Culture After the Dot-Com Crash 06:...

This week on More or Less, the crew dives into the shifting narratives around AI (Finally everyone is getting on Sam's wavelength), the reality of LLM business models, and why infrastructure may not be the gold rush everyone thinks. We debate the hype cycles, the authenticity crisis in startup pitches, and the pitfalls of meme coins in the creator economy. Plus, is Burning Man over, and what c...

This week, the team dives into more meme capitalism, the AI hype cycle, and why San Francisco is still the epicenter of tech ambition (and some very odd real estate choices). We debate the real value behind Perplexity, the future of Chrome, and the myths founders tell themselves about trials and second chances. Plus: Taylor Swift, conspiracy AIs, and the ultimate contrarian takes for VCs and found...

This week on More or Less: Jessica Lessin, Dave Morin, Brit Morin, and Sam Lessin dive deep into the surprisingly busy summer of venture capital, the impact of AI on startups, and the changing rules for founders and investors. From Figma’s IPO and the rise of meme-driven investing to the challenge of diligence in an AI-saturated world, we tackle the uncomfortable truths and new dynamics shaping Si...

What happens when VCs are called the least sophisticated financiers, AI researchers get billion-dollar paydays, and outrage becomes the new marketing? This week on More or Less, the full crew breaks down the state of the AI talent wars, the power of meme-driven marketing, and whether hope (not financial literacy) still drives Silicon Valley. Chapters:01:15 Jersey Shore, Laundry, and Marital Advice...

This week on More or Less, Sam Lessin, Brit Morin, and Dave Morin dive into the startup world and how today's founders need to bring fun back into the ecosystem, why most public policy around AI is just noise, whether Apple’s best move is to simply not care about AI hype, and the business model reckoning for OpenAI. Stay till the very end for a sneaky savage moment from Brit! Chapters: 02:00 –...