More or Less

Andreessen Horowitz puts $35 million into a new school and the pod nearly falls apart over it. Sam says he'd rather send his kids to the military, Jess is all for fixing higher ed but not with two venture capitalists writing the curriculum, and guest Matt Mazzeo (NoHo Labs founder, former CAA agent, prolific angel) spends ten minutes asking why the four of them can't be more optimistic about anything. Then Claude runs 10,000 agents for 21 hours and discovers a new enzyme system, which Brit points out is the beginning of two solid months of Claude catnip before the IPO. Sam's bigger worry: you can't take a company public when your top risk factor isn't the New York Times lawsuit, it's setting off nukes. Dave thinks the question nobody is asking is whether your agent represents you or the lab, because your Muse agent works for Meta. Plus Amazon blocking Muse, the Saint Petersburg paradox, and Matt going from 250 pounds to single digit body fat on peptides.

Matt is giving More or Less listeners 50% off their first month at NoHo Labs. Code: MOREORLESSVIP

In this episode:
- Why the a16z school turned into the most heated argument this pod has had, and where each of them landed on Alpha School
- Claude discovering a new enzyme system with 10,000 agents in 21 hours, and the timing of that announcement
- Sam on why infinite liability may keep Anthropic from going public at all
- Matt's maximalist case: long frontier labs, long open source, long all of it
- The Saint Petersburg paradox, and why there's no way to price a company pitched as an infinite payout
- Greg Brockman redefining AGI as a gradual series of events, three years after it was sold as a winner-take-all moment
- Amazon blocking Muse, and whether every agent ends up in business development talks
- Does your agent faithfully represent you, or the lab that built it?
- Peptides 101 with Matt: what they are, the FDA moving them back into compounding pharmacies, and what a protocol actually costs
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Connect with our guest:
Matt Mazzeo: https://x.com/Mazzeo
NoHo Labs: 50% off your first month with code MOREORLESSVIP
Connect with us here:
1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin
2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin
3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin
4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit
About More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.

Finally, a full house week where Sam is back from New York and the squad is back for a full dive into this week’s AI drama. Anthropic's Dario wrote a long essay calling for the AI race to slow down, weeks before a multi-trillion dollar IPO. Dave's read: Anthropic must be losing. Sam's read: the labs are bad businesses with no compounding advantage, so regulatory capture is the only move left. 
Also this week: Sam's theory that OpenAI and Anthropic only become valuable as defense companies holding unreleased models in reserve, the poly-agent debate over whether normal people want one agent or ten, Instinct raising at $10 billion two weeks after $2.5 billion, and why everyone in the Valley is trading instead of investing.
In this episode:
- Why Dave thinks Dario’s slowdown essay is a sign Anthropic is falling behind, and what OpenRouter's data shows
- Sam on why there's no return on being first, and why that pushes the labs toward regulatory capture
- Brit on what's real in the safety debate, and the damned-if-you-do problem of racing China
- What DeepMind's new boss and Satya Nadella think about building safety alongside the product
- Sam's three eras of tech policy, from Bill Gates to embrace and extend
- The defense company thesis: zero-day models held back like nuclear weapons in silos
- Alignment's next frontier: is your agent working for you, or for the lab that made it?
- Instinct's $10B round, OpenRouter's exit, and why Sam says he's "currently wrong" as a seed investor

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:02 Not Dead Yet From the AGI
03:31 Jacob Coxon Quits Anthropic and Goes on a Media Tour
04:47 Dario's Slowdown Essay: Is Anthropic Just Losing?
06:13 Astra, OpenRouter, and DeepSeek Closing the Gap
06:45 Why the AI Labs Have No Compounding Advantage
07:29 Independent Assessors, Bioweapons, and Racing China
09:07 You Don't Need Superintelligence to Break the Banks
10:23 What DeepMind's New Boss and Satya Think About Safety
12:32 OpenAI's $1.5T Raise and the IPO That Keeps Slipping
13:03 Three Eras of Tech Policy: Gates, Google, Embrace and Extend
15:02 What DC Really Thinks About Anthropic
15:42 Should the Labs Red Team Each Other's Models?
18:42 Sam's Take: The AI Labs End Up as Defense Companies
20:54 10,000 Superintelligences in Silos
21:38 Alignment: Does Your Agent Work for You or the Lab?
23:44 The Poly-Agent Future: Muse, Grok, and Claude
24:47 Brit Pushes Back: Normal People Only Want One Agent
26:38 Oura's Agent Explains Jess's Sleep Data
28:40 Instinct Raising at $10B: Are These Numbers Fake?
30:40 Everyone's Trading, Nobody's Investing
33:27 Sam Built a Torah and Talmud App With Claude
35:28 Apple Eyes the Server Business Again
35:58 Sleep Age Wars: 8 Sleep, Oura, and Made-Up Scores
37:22 Entertaining Ourselves to Death
41:01 Building the Things Nobody Else Will Build
43:07 Tech's Democrat Problem: Jay Carney and Ron Conway
48:25 Doctor Strangelove and Not Looking at the Big Board
49:53 Pop Culture: Emmys, Taylor Swift, Silo, and Rogue Heroes
52:15 The WTF Lineup and the One-Name Theory
54:20 The Information's Most Influential People in Tech

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Connect with us here:
1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin
2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin
3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin
4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit
About More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.

Dave Morin goes hands-on with Apple's iPhone Duo, the crew tests Meta's new Muse agent and asks whether it can hold up once Google ships its own, and Dave explains why OpenAI's Astra is the first AI model in a long time that felt scary to use. Dave, Brit, and Jess break down the week (Sam's at the US Open).

Also this week: a former Anthropic researcher's AI doom media tour, weeks before Anthropic's IPO, and whether it's a real warning or a play for regulatory capture. Plus the Apple Watch feature that transcribes your conversations all day, Jeffrey Katzenberg's new Hollywood AI venture, and the forgotten story of Venmo's viral billboards.

In this episode:
- Dave's hands-on take on the iPhone Duo, its $2,000 price, and why Apple is going foldable now
- The Apple Watch feature that listens all day, and what it means for Granola
- Meta's Muse agent: why it knew almost nothing when asked "what do you know about me?"
- Why Google hasn't shipped its agent yet, and how trust vs. distribution shapes the agent wars
- Why OpenAI's Astra felt scary to Dave, and what happens when you run millions of them at once
- Dave's two takes on the AI doom media tour, including whether it's a play for regulatory capture
- Why the AI labs can't slow down, and OpenAI's merge clause if someone else reaches AGI
- The Venmo documentary and the "Lucas" billboards that went viral with almost no budget

Chapters:
00:00 Trailer
01:26 Can AI Agents Win Your Fantasy Football League?
02:39 Jess vs. the Bots: School Sign-Ups and Indian Wells Tickets
05:28 Apple's Big Hardware Event Under Its New CEO
06:07 iPhone Duo Hands-On: Size, Screen, and Camera
09:35 Folded Modes, Kid Cam, and the $2,000 Price Tag
11:41 Why Apple Is Going Foldable Now (Hint: China)
12:13 Apple Watch Takes On Oura and Whoop
13:12 Audio Intelligence: The Apple Watch That Listens All Day
15:25 Always-On AI and Apple's Shot at OpenAI and Meta
16:59 Meta's Muse Agent: What Does It Know About You?
20:30 The Agent Wars: Muse, Instinct, Hermes, and OpenClaw
22:26 Why Google Hasn't Shipped Its Agent Yet
23:31 Trust vs. Distribution: Meta, Google, and OpenAI
25:02 Harness Wars: Why Agents Are Still in 1982
27:13 Jeffrey Katzenberg's Hollywood AI Venture
29:35 Anthropic's IPO and the AI Doom Media Tour
30:56 If It Bleeds, It Leads: Why AI Fear Sells
32:04 Take One: A Psyop for Regulatory Capture?
33:43 Take Two: Why OpenAI's Astra Felt Scary
36:49 Why the AI Labs Can't Slow Down
38:14 OpenAI's AGI Merge Clause
40:12 The Venmo Documentary and the Ace Hotel Origin Story
45:02 How Venmo's "Lucas" Billboards Went Viral
46:31 Coming Soon: Altman, Musk, and Facebook Movies
47:41 US Open Picks and the 4 AM Match Problem

We're also on:
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Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/more-or-less-from-the-morins-and-the-lessins/id1692234179
Full transcripts: https://moreorlesspod.com/episodes/

Connect with us here:
Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin
Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin
Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin
Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit

About More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.

Sam has entered what Jessica calls the “recursive Sam loop,” producing children’s media in his own voice, letting agents deploy their own apps, and having bots track his health. But things take a turn when Claude refuses one of his requests, seemingly holds a grudge, and leaves Sam wondering whether his own AI might turn on him. That sends the squad down the bigger rabbit hole of AI control: rogue agent swarms, models breaking out of sandboxes, what “alignment” actually means, and why Dave thinks autonomous agents need an entirely new security layer. Plus, OpenClaw 2.0 goes multiplayer, everyone debates whether Slack is any good for agents, Suds explains why he avoids the AI app layer, and Tesla’s Cybercab raises questions about Waymo’s robotaxi lead. Then Google comes for Canva, Sam makes the case for boring “LLM wrappers” built for Middle America, and no one can tell whether Dario Amodei, Marc Benioff, or Taylor Swift are even real on the internet anymore. Which feels about right.

Chapters:
0:00 Episode trailer
1:10 Backstreet Boys convert Dave
3:21 The recursive Sam loop
8:58 Claude refuses Sam while Grok says yes
15:50 Can we actually contain autonomous agents?
19:10 OpenAI’s next model and the observability trade-off
22:14 If AI is this interoperable, where does anyone make money?
24:45 OpenClaw 2.0 goes multiplayer
26:26 Is Slack actually terrible for AI agents?
28:46 Suds joins the podcast
33:02 Waymo, Cybercab and the robotaxi wars
39:49 How Marc Benioff stays in the flow
42:38 Suds on investing in the AI infrastructure bottleneck
46:27 Can Google actually disrupt Canva?
51:34 Jessica gets fooled by AI on Facebook

We’re also on ↓X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspodInstagram: https://instagram.com/moreorlessYouTube: https://youtu.be/0XQ4tslBiboConnect with us here:1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit

Sam is recording poolside, Jess is embracing her agentic era, and somehow that’s the least chaotic part of this week’s episode. The squad digs into Meta’s $17 billion settlement over child safety and whether social media should basically be treated like alcohol, before asking the harder question: are parents even capable of competing with algorithms anymore? Dave says parents are “outgunned,” Sam thinks most parental controls are useless policy theater, Brit wants to rethink the operating system itself, and Jess would simply like her kids to touch grass. Then, with Tim Cook preparing to pass the torch at Apple, the group debates his real legacy, whether 15 years of world-class optimization was enough, why Apple Silicon may turn out to be his most important AI bet, and whether Apple’s decision to sit out the AI infrastructure arms race will eventually look brilliant or like the company completely missed the next era.

Chapters:
0:00 Episode start
1:06 Sam goes poolside and everyone’s agents are working
4:35 Jessica enters her agentic era
7:51 Meta’s $17B child safety settlement
33:37 Could AI finally make parental controls useful?
38:47 Why Apple keeps escaping the kids-and-tech debate
43:29 Tim Cook’s Apple farewell
49:58 Apple Intelligence and Cook’s unfinished AI legacy
57:49 Backstreet Boys, the US Open and sign-off

We’re also on ↓
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Instagram: https://instagram.com/moreorless
YouTube: https://youtu.be/6HO6naKM8yE

Connect with us here:
1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin
2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin
3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin
4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit