More or Less Podcast

Sam Lessin — Selected Quotes

Well, I think it's longer. mean, this has been, we've talked about this a bunch of it's like, it's really the 7 % GDP thing. Like you really want to go what's going on here without the AI story. We've been a very weird place economically. Trump wants 7 % growth because that's what you need to get out of the debt overhang. We're not going to get 7 % growth. Maybe get four with AI. Like it doesn't hurt. Right. So basically there's all these incentives starting from our kind of new mercantilist system.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 122

Talk about high tech, low tech. You guys are running your self-driving Teslas. I had to go to the Mazda Miata dealership twice this morning because no one in our house can drive stick but me, and I had to get it serviced. So while you're doing that, I'm, like, going to the Mazda dealership.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 172

It's an everything app. To me, I'm kind of on the fence about it. Like, I, I really think that Jess is right. Historically, in a lot of categories, it's way easier to go de novo, especially when you have, like, humans and, like, all these p- like... But in certain things, like, there are just, like, dating... I actually backed this very small dating, agenticy dating startup, like, a year ago with a tiny angel check just to... It was a cool idea, and the... Getting traction's so difficult, right? And the reality is that, like-

— Sam Lessin, Episode 171

I don't know. I just don't understand these, like, tech people are like, "I spent $30,000." You're like, "Doing what?" I mean, I guess you could screen the entire stock market continu- Like, there are ways I could invent to just blow that level of tokens, but it's very hard to think. I mean, I spend a lot of time thinking of ways to burn tokens, and it's, it's just very impressive.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 149

It's also like guys, is not like infrastructure. You don't make money in infrastructure. Even the railroads made money through real estate. Like there's no, is not, I don't get it. But you know, oh

— Sam Lessin, Episode 113

And it, some parts are a little, like, on the nose and, like, very much AI. Like, it, sometimes it feels, like, a little bit close to my day job, but I'm really enjoying it, and I don't wanna give too much away. But anyone who wants to discuss either Culpability or Yesteryear, which turned really dark-

— Sam Lessin, Episode 154

So like, it's not like in some ways the competition shifted, right? Or like put differently, like in digital land, in digital land, like we still are stuck with fucking Tom Cruise, who by the way, loved the Olympics stamp and loved, who doesn't like Tom Cruise's idea, but like, he's like a hundred years old and like digital and like digital tech means that like celebrities of yore have captured that forever. Like Hollywood was supposed to be the place young people always get to dominate because they're hotter. But if old people stay hot forever.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 60

Look, as someone who produces a high volume of content, the second you release 32 songs, you're already in trouble. I can just tell you that. It's like you made no choices, and clearly no one is telling her no. She's like, I'm going to put out 87 songs. And everyone's like, Taylor, you can do whatever you want. You're all going to sound the same. Great. No anthems. Totally fine.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 44

I don't know, Jess and I are not price sensitive when it comes to Airbnbs for things. And I will tell you that like every time I stay in them, they have some gimmicky, chincy thing to make them cool. And the actual experience, I'd so much rather stay in a hotel.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 99

Sure, but war is kind of a cheating answer, Dave, because it's a war of attrition. No, I'm not saying it's not. I'm just saying it's not like a fun... War doesn't make humans better. It's a war of attrition by definition where you have to spend a lot of money on it, but it's not better for humans. It's just more spending, right? So it's like...

— Sam Lessin, Episode 90

But if so, then we're sitting in this, like, local blip. Because it's like you gotta project out. If you project out N years, like, almost certainly we all have neural links or equivalents, like, plugged into our brain. Like, we're only getting more and more connected and online. We're not certainly, like, moving away from that world anytime soon.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 169

Um, so I, I, yeah, we got, I'm not sure I've got, I've got some, I've got some VC deck to build tonight. I would like to watch it. I want to see, I've heard about the Mick. The Mick sounds great. That's from the, the woman from it's always sunny in Philadelphia. got, am I a racist? That sounds great. It's a movie. And then actually deep seat told me about deep seat told me about this thing, which sounds great called trailer park boys.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 84

I will say that I'm having some this week drama around mini fridges and small ice machines because in the pool house redux to be shown in the future, there's been, I made a major mistake, which is I did not really think through and push hard enough for my bar coffee area and it's causing a whole, it's gonna delay us by a week. It's a huge, it's huge, it's a huge oversight.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 106

That's, that's insane. That's a huge national security problem. Like, talk about decentralized versus centralized compute. If we're like, where else do you put $200 billion of capital in, like, one place, right? That's, like, 10 battle- that's 10 aircraft carriers. And so this is interesting. Like, I'm very curious how the security, because the other thing that's gonna be really interesting on the security, that's insane, right? It's like that's literally like taking 10, 10 aircraft carriers, lining them all up, sticking them in one place in, like, one center. That seems like a huge security problem. Like, what, what type of missile defense are these things gonna have?

— Sam Lessin, Episode 149

It's like, think that going, the idea that a centralized platform, centralized social network would be in the business of fact checking was always one of the most dangerous and worst ideas imaginable. And I was very unhappy when the company went in that direction over time, because it's not complicated. It's just incredibly ill-advised because it's impossible to do well at scale.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 81

I like the human agency thing. Like, I love this stuff as a user. I use it so aggressively. I'm, like, really happy with what I have my infrastructure for lots of self-actualization. So I'm in. I just think it's like, it feels very much to me like the old argument about who owns my data. Remember that, like, 10, 15 years ago, the... Everyone was obsessed with, "Well, I own my data, so it should be on an API, and if I wanna take it with me, I should take it with me." And then all these were like, "No, privacy and security. Like, you should not be able to do that. It's not your data." And then Europe decided we're gonna have this ridiculous download your data thing, which download your data is fine. Downloading your data from Europe is, like, the saving grace because if you didn't have that, if... I make Eur- a lot of fun of Europe, and the right to be forgotten is the dumbest law ever written. But the download your data forcing, right, which is like you get to get co- like, is pretty critical. Like, you'd be very sad. We'd be all be very sad and locked into things we don't like if it weren't for that, right, backdoor out. And so it's just an interesting... I feel like now we're in the inverted thing where like on the one hand, if I'm a company, like, the whole value is the relationship with the customer. It is the brand, it is the trust, it is the loyalty. The second you become a commodity in a market, you're worthless, right? That is the zero case.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 170

Why would number go up? Like, this is like, you know what it is? It reminds me of, like, the Bill Gurley thing. You know how Bill Gurley always likes to talk about how bankers rob startups because they under, they, for the pop and ba, ba, ba, ba, ba?

— Sam Lessin, Episode 161

Wow, we could go in a really dark direction. look, I actually think that is the, I love the dream of liquid tokens on asset. I mean, it's awesome dream, but it's actually not a hundred percent clear to me as much as I love that intellectually and in like the common framework, if that's actually where we're going versus a lot of this stuff end up being like just community meme driven as opposed to real world. I want it to be real world assets because like I went to Harvard and I think I'm an adult and serious person, but like.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 83

And here's the reality is that the S &P 500 Halal edition slightly outperforms the actual S &P because it ends up overweight like medicine and media and tech, right? Which actually outperforms. There's other things like the Mormon index or different versions of indices. Long-winded way of saying.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 101

You know what I want to do? I want to hire someone that when I have a question, I email them and they ask all the AIs and then synthesize the answer for me. I needed a human AI proxy assistant.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 84

I'm investing, but you know what, Dave? You and I have not made gajillions of dollars because we're not trading on AI. Like, we're doing fine.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 167

Oh, that's actually a great, that's a, for what it's worth it is, that is a fabulous idea. No, no, if you just had a LLM that you tuned and its only job was to come up with conspiracies, that would be extremely popular. You just tune that, where you're like, look, here, I'm gonna give you a person and some random facts. I need you to make compelling conspiracies for it. No, but it's not, they're just, they don't own it.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 112

I am Oh, yeah, I should be like on a blessed list of people who are allowed to have technology, you know, delivered to their house. Yeah, I agree with that.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 118

Ah, so you own a luxury venture firm. But the basic point is, like, that is the status symbol is I don't need to be online all the time.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 169

It just isn't clear to me that this creates a whole bunch of new use cases or the fact that now a million times more people develop software means we develop anything that doesn't already exist. just, I'm an under on it, right? Doesn't mean there isn't some improvement. I just don't think it's like, I don't think it's a Cambrian explosion. I don't think it's a major unlock. I think it changes the business. I think they will, but I don't think it matters.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 67

from a cultural narrative perspective at the heart of Silicon Valley, not necessarily global, not necessarily the world, not necessarily like taste making and everything, but for like the beating heart of like tech and venture capital, it's unbelievably dominant. I think it's more dominant now than it was a year ago or two years ago. And so it's a really interesting, I mean, in some ways, Elon really has pulled off the kind of truth socially, like what does it mean to be an individual influencer and control?

— Sam Lessin, Episode 78

No, well, look, I'll admit that I canceled a few meetings this morning that I actually did want to do because the snow was too good. And it's interesting question about whether to lie or not. Cause my first instinct is be like, I'm sorry. And like, and like it's true. We've been hosting a conference, Jess and I were like, I'm so behind, then I'm like, I can't, I just have to own it. It's like the snow is quite good. Um, and it hasn't been good all year. And you know, there's a reason that I'm a seed stage venture capitalist and not.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 136

I love it because it's like, if you were writing like a satirical science fiction, this is exactly what I would release. It's like, hey, you know, we should really like badge. We're to like give people cocaine and then like release badges for having cocaine on your nightstand, but not taking it.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 126

I think are much better. They're the new Viori short for men. No, but we're past the soft era. I feel like all the high-end clothes have gotten scruffy, but they're very good. I quite like them. so that's my pop culture. The pop, yeah, exactly. The fashion pendulum has swung towards burlap.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 81

Here's the funny thing. So I now have my Sam bot infrastructure, has the ability to run Twitter ads for me. So I messaged it. I was like, "Hey, I had all these guests on. Pull some good quotes from them and, like, just spend 500 bucks and promote it on Twitter." And it's really funny because my totally automated pipeline for doing this did a very good job, but it actually confused the Scotts, right? So it basically put the picture in a thing of Scott Belsky, and then had a quote, uh, from Scott Stanford. So you're not alone.

— Sam Lessin, Episode 163

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