More or Less Podcast

Founders Beware: Illiquid Valuations vs. Real‑World Taxes

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Summary

At-a-Glance

  • Verdict: Skim
  • Core thesis: A proposed California tax on fortunes above $1 billion could create severe liabilities for founders whose paper wealth comes from illiquid, aggressively valued startup equity, while AI-driven software commoditization is simultaneously shifting durable value toward distribution, trust, data, and real-world assets.
  • Why it matters: The discussion connects startup valuation practices to personal tax exposure and argues that AI is rapidly weakening software itself as a moat, two issues that directly affect founder domicile, financing, company design, and venture underwriting.
  • Best use: Use the video as a source of provocative investment and operating hypotheses to test with tax counsel, founders, and market data rather than as authoritative legal, fiscal, or technical analysis.

Executive Summary

The most concrete argument concerns a proposed California wealth tax described by the speakers as a 5% levy, paid over five years, on people with more than $1 billion in liquid or illiquid assets. They focus on the mismatch between private-company valuations and realizable wealth: a founder can cross the threshold because an investor marked a financing round at a high valuation, then owe tax even if the company later exits for far less. The hosts cite recent moves or office openings by Peter Thiel, Larry Page, and David Sacks as evidence that the proposal is already influencing domicile decisions, although they acknowledge that they are not tax experts and disagree about the relevant residency date.

The broader investment thesis is that 2026 will be shaped by three mutually reinforcing forces: narratives that alter behavior before the underlying facts are settled, a U.S. debt problem that makes AI-led GDP growth politically important, and technology plus financial leverage producing unusually concentrated outcomes. In this environment, the speakers expect liquidity from companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, ByteDance, Canva, and Discord, along with large acquisitions, to create wealth and second-order effects at a scale markets may be underestimating. Their venture implication is a more top-heavy return distribution in which companies need an expansive, credible story rather than merely a plausible path to a modest software exit.

The strongest operating discussion argues that Claude Code and similar tools have made ordinary software features rapidly reproducible. A calendar interface created by an individual was quickly recreated by others and incorporated into 37signals products, illustrating how fast features can diffuse. The hosts therefore propose that trust, proprietary networks, business development, community, brand, distribution, and other scarce assets are replacing engineering execution as the primary differentiators. The claim that software has ceased to be a good business model is intentionally sweeping and not supported with pricing, retention, or margin data, but the underlying warning about shrinking feature-level moats is useful.

The final relevant thread is health AI. The panel sees OpenAI's health product as a logical response to existing user behavior rather than a breakthrough. Its potential advantage would come from becoming the first persistent repository for data from devices and services such as Oura, Eight Sleep, Prenuvo, Function, and medical charts. They also see possible enterprise demand from health systems and insurers, while noting competition from Google, Apple, Anthropic, and clinician-focused OpenEvidence, as well as the historical failure of earlier Google Health efforts.

Key Takeaways

  • Claim: Taxing illiquid private-company holdings at their latest financing valuation could leave founders owing cash against wealth they cannot sell and may never realize. | Evidence: The speakers describe a California proposal covering fortunes above $1 billion in liquid or illiquid assets, with a 5% charge paid over five years. Their example is a founder holding 10% of a company marked at $10 billion who later sells the company for only $2.5 billion but, according to their interpretation, still owes tax based on the earlier valuation. | Implication: Ken should treat paper valuations, tax residency, liquidity rights, and founder-level cash obligations as connected diligence issues rather than assuming a financing valuation is harmless until an exit. | Caveat: The hosts explicitly say they are not experts, disagree about the applicable domicile date, and do not provide the proposed law's text or explain valuation adjustments, payment relief, constitutional challenges, or treatment after a down round.
  • Claim: The proposed tax may change behavior before it is enacted by encouraging wealthy founders and investors to establish residency or operations outside California. | Evidence: The panel points to Peter Thiel, Larry Page, and David Sacks opening Austin offices and says the proposal has become a recurring subject at Silicon Valley coffees, dinners, and cocktail parties; they also report that prediction-market odds of passage had risen. | Implication: Location strategy may become a recruiting, governance, and fundraising variable for California companies, particularly when founders are near the threshold because of concentrated private equity. | Caveat: The discussion does not establish that the cited moves were caused solely by the proposal, and prediction-market pricing is not evidence that the measure will survive a vote or legal challenge.
  • Claim: A large 2026-2027 liquidity cycle could produce unusually concentrated wealth and reshape capital formation, taxation, acquisitions, and politics. | Evidence: The speakers cite prospective liquidity involving SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, ByteDance, Canva, and Discord, note Anthropic's discussed $350 billion valuation, and reference continuing multibillion-dollar acquisitions. They use a hypothetical $1 trillion Elon Musk fortune to illustrate that one person could represent roughly 1,000 separate billion-dollar fortunes. | Implication: Investment planning should account for second-order effects from concentrated liquidity, including angel activity, fund formation, acquisition budgets, labor mobility, real estate demand, and policy backlash. | Caveat: Several examples are forward-looking private valuations or possible listings, not realized proceeds, and the discussion does not adjust for ownership dilution, lockups, taxes, or market conditions.
  • Claim: Narrative strength is becoming more important to venture outcomes because beliefs can change hiring, investment, and career behavior before technology has delivered the predicted result. | Evidence: Sam argues that widespread belief that AI will drive the value of white-collar labor toward zero may discourage people from building careers or hiring, helping make the prediction self-fulfilling. He contrasts merely adequate billion-dollar software outcomes with the expansive stories attached to SpaceX, Anduril, OpenAI, and Anthropic. | Implication: Ken should evaluate whether a company's narrative is supported by compounding technical, distribution, regulatory, or data advantages rather than treating attention itself as defensibility. | Caveat: Narrative can attract capital without producing durable economics, and the speakers do not offer a framework for separating credible category creation from promotional momentum.
  • Claim: AI coding tools are turning many software features into quickly copied consumables, shifting defensibility away from implementation and toward scarce complementary assets. | Evidence: The panel credits Claude Code with accelerating the change and cites a yearly calendar view that was posted online, recreated by multiple people, and rapidly integrated by 37signals into Basecamp or HEY. They argue that if all 1,000 people with an idea can now build it, the differentiators become trust, network access, business development, community, brand, and distribution. | Implication: For agent and SaaS investments, Ken should discount feature novelty and demand evidence of workflow ownership, proprietary context, distribution leverage, trust, or infrastructure that remains difficult to reproduce. | Caveat: The example is a relatively simple feature, not a complex enterprise system; the discussion underweights integrations, security, reliability, proprietary workflows, switching costs, regulated deployment, and operational execution.
  • Claim: Health AI may become sticky through longitudinal data aggregation, but OpenAI's announced direction appears to be table stakes rather than a clear standalone moat. | Evidence: The hosts describe users combining Oura, Eight Sleep, Prenuvo, Function, medical-chart, blood-test, and image data in one model. One speaker reports receiving reasonable image-based guidance and follow-up branches from ChatGPT, while another says clinician-focused OpenEvidence has materially changed a physician relative's practice. | Implication: The durable layer in health assistants may be trusted longitudinal context, interoperability, clinical workflow integration, and institutional distribution rather than the conversational model alone. | Caveat: Personal anecdotes do not establish diagnostic accuracy or clinical safety, and the panel notes strong competition from Google, Apple, Anthropic, and OpenEvidence plus the difficulty of importing and moving health histories between models.

Detailed Brief

AI growth as a macroeconomic and political imperative

  • Claims: Sam frames the AI buildout, the U.S. debt burden, and the need for GDP growth as a de facto coalition: policymakers and markets need AI productivity gains to support growth sufficient to manage the debt trajectory.; He compares the AI capital cycle to a version of China's housing boom, implying that it can function as an economy-wide investment and confidence engine even before all promised productivity appears.; The panel expects execution and opportunistic action to outperform rigid long-range planning because technological and financial conditions are changing too quickly.
  • Evidence: The speakers call AI-led growth the largest narrative in play and describe unrelated geopolitical or resource opportunities as potential GDP 'sweeteners.'; The internal memo discussed on the show opens with the view that 2026 will reward 'doers and the seizures of opportunities' rather than planners.
  • Caveats: No debt figures, productivity estimates, capital-expenditure forecasts, or causal evidence are supplied, so this remains a macro thesis rather than a demonstrated economic model.; The analogy to China's housing cycle also implies risks such as overinvestment, distorted incentives, and reliance on asset appreciation, but those risks are not developed.
  • Implications: AI infrastructure may receive continued policy and capital support even when individual project economics look stretched.; The macro narrative could sustain investment longer than bottom-up cash flows justify, making timing and exposure concentration as important as directional conviction.

Technological determinism, agency, and embodied countermarkets

  • Claims: One side of the debate argues that society is largely downstream of technology: once a low-friction capability becomes possible, broad social adoption is difficult to stop through preference or policy.; The opposing view is that increasingly abstract digital life raises the value of embodied experiences, small trusted networks, physical places, nature, craft, and genuine human connection.; Agency may itself become scarce as automation expands; the enthusiasm around AI coding tools partly reflects people's desire to regain the ability to make and control things.
  • Evidence: The panel contrasts always-available AI companions with costly and imperfect human relationships, using social feeds as precedent for people choosing convenient digital 'sugar.'; Counterexamples include demand for nature-oriented travel, longevity and health practices, intimate communities, and tools that let non-engineers build software directly.; The speakers characterize AI as an amplifier: curious or productive users can do more, while addictive or destructive patterns can also intensify.
  • Caveats: The debate is speculative and relies on analogies to social media, travel trends, and entertainment rather than longitudinal adoption evidence.; Digital convenience and embodied demand can grow simultaneously, so the discussion's either-or framing may obscure hybrid products and behaviors.
  • Implications: Products that combine AI leverage with user control, trusted communities, or real-world delivery may be more resilient than purely substitutive digital experiences.; Human connection, verification, and physical presence could become premium goods as synthetic content and companionship become abundant.

Geopolitical and platform signals mentioned in passing

  • Claims: AI-chip trade remains subject to political reversals even when U.S. export policy permits sales.; Consumer AI hardware and connected toys are emerging, but the panel distinguishes interesting products from venture-scale opportunities.
  • Evidence: The hosts say the Trump administration allowed Nvidia H200 sales to China with the U.S. government taking a percentage, Jensen Huang reported strong orders at CES, and China subsequently told domestic technology companies not to buy H200s, at least temporarily.; CES examples include Lego's Bluetooth-enabled smart brick, which can detect nearby pieces through a mesh network and trigger lights or sounds, and an AI companion displayed in a small physical object.
  • Caveats: The geopolitical account is presented as breaking news without policy documents or subsequent confirmation.; The CES discussion is anecdotal and explicitly framed by the hosts as mostly outside traditional venture scale.
  • Implications: Model and agent infrastructure plans should avoid assuming uninterrupted access to a single accelerator geography or policy regime.; Physical interfaces may broaden AI adoption, but compelling interaction alone does not establish a scalable business or defensible distribution channel.

Notable Concepts & Terms

  • Illiquid valuation-tax mismatch: The central founder risk: a private financing mark can create taxable paper wealth without producing cash to pay the liability.
  • Narrative-driven self-fulfilling prophecy: Beliefs about AI, labor, or company potential can alter hiring and capital allocation enough to help produce the outcome being predicted.
  • Story of infinity: The speakers' label for a company narrative with open-ended strategic potential, exemplified by SpaceX, Anduril, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
  • Software as consumable media: The thesis that AI makes software features easy to generate, copy, modify, and discard, eroding scarcity and pricing power at the feature layer.
  • Hive mind: A concern that founders using the same models, transcripts, and digital discourse will converge on similar ideas and products.
  • Embodiment beats abstraction: The counterthesis that physical presence, nature, craft, and trusted real-world relationships become more valuable as digital experiences proliferate.
  • Agency as a scarce resource: As automation expands, tools that let people directly create, control, and understand outcomes may command unusual demand.
  • Longitudinal health-data moat: A health assistant may become defensible by accumulating persistent, cross-source patient context rather than through model capability alone.

Operator Notes / Why Ken Should Care

  • Ask tax counsel to model founder liabilities under multiple private-share valuation methods, down-round scenarios, residency dates, and exit outcomes before relying on the panel's interpretation.
  • Add domicile, personal liquidity, secondary-sale rights, and tax-trigger exposure to founder-risk reviews for highly valued private companies.
  • Require software and agent investment memos to identify a moat beyond code: proprietary data, workflow control, regulated trust, embedded distribution, network effects, or costly integrations.
  • Run a replication test during technical diligence: estimate how quickly a capable competitor using current coding agents could reproduce the product's visible functionality.
  • Track whether the anticipated private-company liquidity wave actually converts into IPO proceeds and secondary liquidity rather than relying on headline valuations.
  • For health-agent opportunities, test data portability, consent, provenance, auditability, clinician escalation, and cross-model export before treating accumulated context as defensible.
  • Monitor H200 and successor-chip policy changes as an orchestration and infrastructure continuity risk, particularly for systems with China-linked suppliers or customers.

Source/Metadata

  • Title: Founders Beware: Illiquid Valuations vs. Real‑World Taxes
  • Transcript words: 12396
  • Duration seconds: 3476
  • Timestamp note: No timestamps or chapters were provided. The transcript also contains multiple duplicated passages and likely transcription ambiguity around some company names.
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Full transcript 10767 words · 55 min read
0:00

SPEAKER_02

Grok, the AI platform, 85% of the images that it's producing right now are nude or sex related. Really? That actually sounds right to me. What else are you going to use it for? I use it for home design. Use Grok for home design? Are all the print, are the Grok prints all the naked women on sheets or something?

0:19

SPEAKER_03

No, it's men topless vacuuming in my new living room. That's what Grok is so deeply trained on that if you're doing home decor, that's what it's going to produce anyway.

0:26

SPEAKER_02

They all look a little like Elon too.

0:28

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] More or less.

0:32

SPEAKER_02

Is it no or is it yes? [SPEAKER_03] We'll debate the text that's best when we get more or less.

0:37

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] Dave and Britt plus Sam and Jess.

0:42

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_00] Put it all right to the test. More or less.

0:45

SPEAKER_00

Why hello friends, happy new year and welcome to More or Less. We missed you guys. Hey guys. Happy new year.

0:52

SPEAKER_00

[SPEAKER_04] We made it. We made it. [SPEAKER_01] How's 2026 going? What's the report? [SPEAKER_01] It's very warm and wet.

1:01

SPEAKER_04

There's no snow anywhere except Tahoe. I hear there's snow in Tahoe. The snow's coming, Dave.

1:02

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] We just do our snow dances. [SPEAKER_04] I don't believe it.

1:06

SPEAKER_04

Why don't you believe it? [SPEAKER_01] I've never seen 40 degree to 50 degree days in January in Montana and Wyoming. It was raining after the new year. It's pretty rare. Maybe 10 years ago was the last time I've seen it. [SPEAKER_01] I choose optimism. All right. Fair. [SPEAKER_01] We can do nothing about this. I'll ride that train.

1:16

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] It's an outlier year. Outlier year. So snow report, meh. How's the first week of January treating you? I see you're not at CES. No one here is at CES.

1:31

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_01] Well, I haven't been to CES since I worked on Google TV 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 stuff.

1:32

SPEAKER_01

Is it the takeover of the robots? I find that all boring and obvious. I'm interested in the Lego smart brick, the robotic turtle.

1:34

SPEAKER_04

The Lego smart brick is cool.

1:36

SPEAKER_01

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. CES is the anti venture scale conference. [SPEAKER_04] I know. Well, Nvidia, of course, always steals the show. And so I just disregard most of the headlines. But then I find the cool random gadgets and things that I think will help my life. [SPEAKER_04] Called the ISO, AISO, that has a camera and all the smart things inside of it.

2:11

SPEAKER_04

OK, fine. But Lego launched the smart brick, which is super rad. It uses Bluetooth technology to actually build a mesh network and understand other Legos around it.

2:12

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_03] It can light up, it can make noises. So if you build 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. 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. OK, so the winner of CES is Lego is what you're telling me.

2:25

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_03] From a consumer standpoint, obviously not venture scale. And this is why none of this matters.

2:35

SPEAKER_01

Well, I'll also tell you.

3:17

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_03] OK, you get one more CES point. [SPEAKER_03] OK, can I? [SPEAKER_03] Oh, I can only do one more. [SPEAKER_01] I'm so bored. [SPEAKER_03] You know what happens right after CES, I believe, is the adult entertainment expo.

3:49

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_03] Oh, OK, wait, this is OK. I'll do my one more for Sam. It's called AMI AMI. It's getting a lot of hype on the Internet. It's a little snow globe thing you can put on your nightstand or around your home and you can pick the character inside of it, a hot girl for you, Sam, or something. And then you talk to it all day and you can have it around your house talking to it. It's supposed to be your AI soulmate, but it exists with you. It's almost a wearable, but not quite.

3:50

SPEAKER_03

Sam wants to get on to his extremely pessimistic take on 26. No, I don't know. Although a lot of venture capitalists are emailing me that I've been very pessimistic. Listeners, here's what you're in for today. Buckle up. [SPEAKER_01] Sam dumped a missive on themes for 2026 that has gone viral. So we have to get to that. [SPEAKER_04] I'm not sure how viral it is, but... You know what? If three people emailed him back, who's to say that's not viral?

4:11

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_03] All I know is CNBC booked him before TITV booked him in response to this memo, guys. That is true. So take that, Andrew, or the other way around.

4:14

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] But then Information broke a story today about OpenAI's new health app. [SPEAKER_02] Is that Ashley Yuki's?

4:21

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_03] I've got a lot to say about that, too. We got to talk about that. I don't know if Ashley's... I think this is what Ashley's doing, but... It's got to be Ashley. Go Ashley. We love Ashley. 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.

4:23

SPEAKER_03

That is true. So take that, Andrew, or the other way around. [SPEAKER_02] But then information broke a story today about OpenAI's new health app.

4:28

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] Is that Ashley Yuki's?

4:28

SPEAKER_03

I've got a lot to say about that, too. We got to talk about that. I don't know if Ashley's... I think this is what Ashley's doing, but... It's got to be Ashley. Go Ashley. We love Ashley. 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 no one cares. [SPEAKER_01] Well, also, here's what we care. Remember when we were talking...

4:55

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] 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? [SPEAKER_04] He, of course, is going to... The US government is going to take a percentage of the sales.

5:01

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] 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 H200s. You may not buy H200s, 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 to 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.

5:05

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] 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. But anyway. Jess, do we want a cheese and charcuterie board or a sweet and treat holiday box from Greylock? What? 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. Okay, I'm going with the charcuterie board. [SPEAKER_04] I mean, guys, I know Slow Ventures didn't do a holiday gift for anyone. Did offline?

5:10

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Yeah, we absolutely did. We made our book. Oh, right. You have the etiquette book. I'm sorry. [SPEAKER_04] It's like you've forgotten already. I have actually. That was so 2025. I have ideas for big swag in 2026, but I got a cool wrap, cashmere wrap from 8 BC. So that was my nicest.

5:13

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] Oh, I got that too. That was a nice wrap. Is that a wrap or a blanket? Do you wear that? [SPEAKER_02] At first, I was wondering too, and I decided I'm going to make it a wrap. So thanks, Joe, in 8 BC.

5:20

SPEAKER_04

That was from, I didn't, they financed Quince?

5:22

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Quince, yeah, the huge apparel brand.

5:23

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] How does they do defense, they do defense and Quince? Confusing.

5:23

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Well, Quince did 2 billion in revenue this year. [SPEAKER_04] Quince is on a tear. [SPEAKER_04] I get it. They're clearly crushing. I just didn't know it was so right-wing coded. I'm surprised. [SPEAKER_02] What is Quince? I thought it was a restaurant in San Francisco.

5:38

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] Quince is think Zara meets cashmere? [SPEAKER_04] What? How is that? That's an oxymoron.

5:45

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Okay, Dave, reasonable prices for high-end textile apparel. [SPEAKER_04] Oxymoron. [SPEAKER_04] High-end. I mean, again, I love the blanket show or the wrap or whatever it is. It's actually good feeling apparel, but very basic designs. Like not, there's no art. [SPEAKER_04] Good feeling still falls apart. [SPEAKER_04] Exactly. You're not going to be wrapped in this come next January break. [SPEAKER_04] I don't know. We'll see. [SPEAKER_04] Were there any other, lots of wine, lots of wine. What else? I got a light up Christmas tree that I thought. [SPEAKER_04] Oh, I got puzzles. I got my the John Doerr annual puzzle. [SPEAKER_04] Oh, love the puzzles.

6:12

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] We got a lot of junky gifts from airplane companies.

6:14

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] I don't think most people got those. [SPEAKER_04] Oh, speaking of things no one cares about.

6:26

SPEAKER_04

So many water bottles. Okay. Yeah. Nothing that hit it out of the park. The gifting lane wide open in 2026. I called books in 2025. I'm not yet ready to call 2026. But it's coming, guys. Elon Musk is going to be a trillionaire. 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. On to Sam's dystopia. Here's the interesting thing. How many billionaires even are there in the US?

6:46

SPEAKER_02

I don't know, Sam. How many?

6:52

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] I don't know. I'm chatting in here. I think there's maybe a few thousand. Let's see. Let's see how fast ChatGPT is. So ChatGPT says globally, there's 3000. Let's assume that's probably dramatically low. I would say it's way more. 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 in, it is 3000. We're saying that you could add another third effectively, or a quarter of billionaires, just by dividing Elon Musk up.

7:19

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] That's an insane concept, just to put it in perspective. It's, I always visualize this stuff and thinking about exponential curves or a star blowing up. And then you end up with things at different velocities, right, that are at different acceleration rates. And you just end up with a solar system with these crazy outliers.

7:26

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] And that is just, it is, trillion is a word that's now in our lexicon, but a trillion is a really big number. That's my point of the day. Yeah. 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.

7:45

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] That's much, this is the, welcome to more or less podcast. We talk about what are big numbers, actually rich people. I think it's interesting. If you think about it, you know, there's been a lot of inflation in the world. It's a billion dollars today, especially pre-tax. You have to divide by two, right? [SPEAKER_02] This is where I get prepared to pull Sam's mic, everybody. Okay. I don't know where we're going. We could, I'm going to have to disown this really fast. Yeah.

8:00

SPEAKER_04

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.

8:09

SPEAKER_02

That's a much, this is the, welcome to more or less podcast. We talk about what are big numbers, actually rich people. I think it's interesting, if you think about it, there's been a lot of inflation in the world. It's a billion dollars today, especially pre-tax. You have to divide by two, right? This is where I get prepared to pull Sam's mic, everybody. Okay. I don't know where we're going. We could, I'm going to have to disown this really fast.

8:19

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] Is a billion, is $1 billion, just one. If you haven't paid taxes on it yet, meaning it's a liquid stock, but you haven't, 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 a wealth tax.

8:21

SPEAKER_04

Yes, Sam, it's a lot of money. Do you know how many people played the recent lottery that was worth a billion dollars? It was half of America. [SPEAKER_02] Divide by two, divide by two to 500 million for taxes. [SPEAKER_03] It's still a lot of money, Sam. [SPEAKER_03] But then remember that it's 2026, there's been a shit ton of inflation. So a billion dollars today is a quarter billion dollars post-tax from a decade ago or 15 years ago. It's obviously a lot of money, but it's not that much money. [SPEAKER_03] Okay, I don't know where this is going.

8:41

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] We're talking about Elon. Let's go back to Elon.

8:45

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_03] Yeah. Well, we can also talk about the wealth tax, which we should. So that, I mean, that's been another, sorry, guys, I decided I need two candles. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Aren't a lot of people moving out of California right now? [SPEAKER_02] Yes. [SPEAKER_03] They're all going to move. They're all going to move. [SPEAKER_03] Do they have to move? When do they have to move by? [SPEAKER_03] January 1st. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. It's how good is California at getting its money? [SPEAKER_03] Last October. [SPEAKER_03] Which of our friends have moved in the last two months? [SPEAKER_02] Well, let's do the TLDR on this.

9:22

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] Okay, but can we go, I want to go, I want to do the wealth testing before we go back to this. [SPEAKER_03] ChatGPT actually, again, it's wrong. It's way low, but it thinks there are 900 billionaires. [SPEAKER_03] That means that if you just divided Elon Musk into $1 billion allotments, he would double the American billionaires according to these numbers.

9:36

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] That's wild, right? Just when you think about how big a trillion is. [SPEAKER_02] Guys, I am definitely, I've been, I have to continue to beat this viral tweet thread. [SPEAKER_02] Can we still say X thread? [SPEAKER_02] I mean, I think that one of the risks, and this isn't to hype the AI bubble, but one of the risks is that we don't fully grok the order of magnitude of wealth and liquidity that 2026 slash seven are going to bring. [SPEAKER_01] And all the reverberations of that. [SPEAKER_01] What, because of SpaceX alone?

10:13

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] Just all the things happening. Discord's going public and ads. [SPEAKER_01] But it's really SpaceX. But it's really SpaceX.

10:28

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_01] SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI. Remember ByteDance? [SPEAKER_01] Anthropic's now a $350 billion company? That's wild. [SPEAKER_03] OpenAI, Anthropic. I mean, ByteDance has resolved one of the many issues. [SPEAKER_01] There are still a billion issues, but ByteDance is a meta. I mean, if you look at it, then you talk about Anthropic, Canva, I mean, all these other ones. [SPEAKER_03] Well, and all the acquisitions that are also going to happen are continuing to happen.

11:15

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] Grok, offline company. Well, not an acquisition, but sort of.

11:22

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_03] Ooh, congrats. Congrats. [SPEAKER_03] Wait, am I getting paid on that? Britt, am I getting some money?

11:36

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] It's an interesting one because they positioned it as a licensing agreement. [SPEAKER_04] So we're figuring it out, but potentially, yes.

11:58

SPEAKER_04

Anyway, but $20 billion. It's NVIDIA's biggest acquisition. We saw Meta acquire Manus over the holiday. It's just all of these multi-billion dollar acquisitions are also adding to the floodgates opening this year.

12:22

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] 20. So our reporters, this is how the wonderful news ecosystem works.

12:25

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] There's a big deal going down, right? [SPEAKER_04] So then we get in a conference room and we have every spreadsheet of every big company. Grok was not on, this is on us, was not on the $20 billion valuation trade. Well, the last round they raised, which was a few months ago, was at six. So this was definitely a premium.

12:51

SPEAKER_02

That's on us. [SPEAKER_03] But, okay, so let's just quickly address this.

12:54

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] I mean, we have not addressed this wealth tax issue. [SPEAKER_04] We can come back to it many times and will. [SPEAKER_04] It's so stupid.

13:00

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] Explain what it is for people who don't know.

13:04

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Yeah, let me just quickly explain, right? [SPEAKER_04] No one listening to this podcast doesn't know what it is.

13:08

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] What? [SPEAKER_04] Sam, there are a couple people.

13:15

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Proposal will be scheduled to go to a vote this year in California. [SPEAKER_04] Have more than a billion dollars in liquid or illiquid assets.

13:29

SPEAKER_02

Pay 5% over five years. Illiquid is the dumbest part. Right. Some people think if you're domiciled in California in January, some people think last October.

13:56

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] Anyway, this is why we saw Peter Thiel, Larry Page, David Sachs open Austin offices in the last 10 days or thereabouts. And it really is not an exaggeration to say this is the topic of every coffee, cocktail party, dinner party.

14:01

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] Right? It comes up.

14:05

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] 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. [SPEAKER_04] But there hasn't been as much attention. [SPEAKER_02] There's been attention on the Uber billionaires or whatever we want to call them.

14:14

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] But what about the startup founder who owns 10% of their company?

14:20

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] It's an AI company.

14:31

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] So its series B was valued by so-and-so at $10 billion. [SPEAKER_02] No, it's seed. [SPEAKER_02] It's seed was valued at $2 billion. [SPEAKER_02] It's Mira Mirati's company.

14:44

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

14:50

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] And I mean, this Mira probably falls into this bucket now and law passes as of date. [SPEAKER_02] You're a billionaire. But there hasn't been as much attention. [SPEAKER_02] There's been an attention on the Uber billionaires or whatever we want to call them. [SPEAKER_02] But what about the startup founder who owns 10% of their company? [SPEAKER_02] It's an AI company. [SPEAKER_02] So its series B was valued by so-and-so at $10 billion.

15:16

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] No, it's seed. [SPEAKER_02] It's seed was valued at $2 billion. [SPEAKER_02] It's Mira Mirati's company.

15:29

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

15:30

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] And this Mira probably falls into this bucket now and law passes as of date.

15:33

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] You're a billionaire.

15:36

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] You're going to own 5% over five years. [SPEAKER_02] And then surprise, surprise, you sell the company two years later for $2.5 billion. [SPEAKER_02] You still owe the money. [SPEAKER_02] So I think there are a lot of interesting things like that. [SPEAKER_02] And this isn't something we can have a debate about whether wealth taxes are good or bad or whatever. [SPEAKER_02] We're not really experts on that. [SPEAKER_02] I'm not sure you should. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, I tend to. [SPEAKER_02] I agree.

16:00

SPEAKER_02

But I think it's interesting to watch the on the ground conversation happening now with all these other fallout effects. Right. [SPEAKER_01] And also the one thing I'll say, too, is you talk to the people really affected by this. [SPEAKER_01] It's not just a one time tax. Right.

16:16

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] It's what it could represent.

16:26

SPEAKER_02

And I think that's also motivating people in terms of other random taxes. No one thinks.

16:27

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] So the proponents of it are saying it's a one time thing. No big deal.

16:37

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] But it seems like that's not how history works. [SPEAKER_04] So that's currently the state of play. [SPEAKER_04] The poly market odds of it passing have jumped significantly. It's hard to imagine Californians voting down something that appears on their ballot in this way. 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 have such awesome houses.

16:56

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_01] Oh, OK.

16:56

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] That's the wealth tax. [SPEAKER_03] We'll keep the conversation going. It's just an incredibly stupid move. [SPEAKER_01] Look, I do think California is going to do very well. This year is California's year. So if they can't balance the budget, if these IPOs happen, they're very bad. They should make so much money this year from the IPOs and people selling stocks. So good on California. [SPEAKER_04] This is your moment. [SPEAKER_04] If you push everyone out, though, which is what they're doing, then you get no soup. [SPEAKER_04] Right?

17:27

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] So the idea that you would want to kill the golden goose and say, all right, if anything, you should do the opposite. [SPEAKER_04] You could have a billionaire thank you rebate. [SPEAKER_04] Maybe billionaires pay lower taxes.

17:36

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] What is the golden goose? [SPEAKER_04] The golden goose is all the leadership. [SPEAKER_03] It's the leaders of these biggest, most important companies saying, we're going to be in California.

17:43

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] By the way, that means our entire management team needs to be in California. [SPEAKER_03] By the way, that means we need to have all this infrastructure and all our best engineers and people in California. [SPEAKER_01] It's insane that you do this. This is the dumbest idea. [SPEAKER_01] And the funny thing about it is, I think anyone smart gets that it's a dumb idea. [SPEAKER_03] Even I think Gavin Newsom understands that it's terrible for his political career.

17:54

SPEAKER_04

Because if this passes, he will never be president, which is clearly what he wants. It has little to do with him, though. [SPEAKER_02] And isn't that the real conversation here? [SPEAKER_02] Which is, why is this happening?

18:05

SPEAKER_02

Because some union proposed it because they're dicks. It's just an incredibly bad idea. He can't veto it? Come on, Sam. [SPEAKER_04] There's stuff in your document that refers to the actual real behind why this is happening.

18:22

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] That is fair.

18:23

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Let's go to Sam's document. [SPEAKER_04] Again, if you didn't get this document, you're not on the list.

18:26

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] I'm sorry.

18:29

SPEAKER_01

I don't know what to tell you.

18:33

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] It's not on Twitter? [SPEAKER_01] I posted it in tiny fonts on Twitter to annoy people. [SPEAKER_04] Okay, Sam.

18:44

SPEAKER_04

So we actually, our last episode of the year was a lot of predictions. [SPEAKER_02] You've built on that with some, what would you call them? [SPEAKER_02] Themes? Well, I would say we were flying back from vacation. And I was thinking, what is this year about? What is really happening? And so I sat down and wrote my stream of consciousness on it. [SPEAKER_03] And it starts with this point that reality no longer matters. [SPEAKER_03] What matters is perception and storytelling as much as anything else.

19:07

SPEAKER_03

So there are a lot of things going on where 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. [SPEAKER_02] So a good example is that there's a whole part about 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 don't want to hide.

19:19

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_03] There are all these talk on effects and it actually becomes true. [SPEAKER_04] It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy to some degree. [SPEAKER_04] So it's just a set of things.

19:31

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] It starts with what I call the collusion between the debt crisis, GDP growth imperative, and the AI build out.

19:36

SPEAKER_04

Where we need AI to have any prayer of hitting the GDP we need to deal with the debt problem, which I think is the biggest narrative going on. [SPEAKER_03] It's our version of a Chinese housing boom.

19:41

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] You know, things like Venezuela, which are kind of GDP sweeteners. [SPEAKER_03] There's all these talks on effects and it actually becomes true. [SPEAKER_04] It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy to some degree.

19:51

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] So it's just a set of things. [SPEAKER_04] It starts with what I call the collusion between the debt crisis, GDP growth imperative, and the AI build out. [SPEAKER_04] Where we need AI to have any prayer of hitting the GDP we need to deal with the debt problem, which I think is the biggest narrative going on.

19:56

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_03] It's our version of a Chinese housing boom. Things like Venezuela, which are just GDP sweeteners. If you just say, hey, all we really care about is our debt problem, right? Biggest, biggest picture.

20:07

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] And anything that can plug that hole, we're excited about. [SPEAKER_04] That's how you get there. [SPEAKER_04] And then to Dave's point, there is a bunch on the compounding impact of technology and leverage and finance. [SPEAKER_02] Where you do get a set of discontinuous outcomes, whether it's trillionaires or whatever, that are historically unheard of, right? [SPEAKER_04] But that's what technology and leverage does.

20:15

SPEAKER_04

And even in this doc, there is a section on wealth taxes. Everything is downstream of that fact, right?

20:20

SPEAKER_02

If you said there are only two themes that really matter or three, I'd say: [SPEAKER_04] One is that narratives matter now more than ever.

20:24

SPEAKER_04

They always matter. Now they really matter in terms of how the world shapes itself. Two, everything is about fundamentally the debt crisis we have in the U.S. and trying to figure out how to not fall prey to that. And three is the compounding reality of technology and financial leverage, which is getting more and more liquid and more frictionless.

20:35

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] There's a bunch of stuff that happens because of that. [SPEAKER_04] Sam, how does this affect what you're going to invest in? [SPEAKER_04] I think the most simplistic answer is twofold. [SPEAKER_04] One is stories always mattered in terms of great companies. [SPEAKER_04] But if you just believe that stories really matter now, I think that thinking about companies that aren't just great money-making machines, but have a fundamental story of infinity associated with them is extremely important.

20:55

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] Because if there are narratives that are discontinuous to the upside and limited, that's what matters right now. [SPEAKER_04] You look at these companies and everyone's like, yeah, it's a fine business.

20:59

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] It can do okay. [SPEAKER_04] Maybe it's a billion-dollar outcome. [SPEAKER_04] There's a version of seed investing in the world where doing a bunch of those is a good idea. [SPEAKER_04] But on the flip side, if Anthropic's raising a $350 billion valuation, it's even more top-heavy, right, than ever before in terms of what the outcomes look like. [SPEAKER_04] 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 how world-crushing can it be? [SPEAKER_04] It's why something like SpaceX or Andrel or OpenAI, they're great stories.

21:21

SPEAKER_04

That's one very practical implication. What else? What are the other implications? 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.

21:38

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] They're talking to the same models. [SPEAKER_04] Everybody is in this hive mind.

21:43

SPEAKER_04

Everyone's pretty mid. It's all collapsing into this AI-driven black hole. We probably need to fund some monks on hills. That's what I keep thinking about. There's a group narrative. Have you guys seen the TV show Pluribus? [SPEAKER_02] I've heard of it. [SPEAKER_02] I haven't seen it.

22:04

SPEAKER_02

We saw the first episode, Sam.

22:09

SPEAKER_04

I liked it. You... It's not my thing. [SPEAKER_02] It gets better. [SPEAKER_02] Keep going.

22:23

SPEAKER_02

Everybody that is working on anything in this town now is this giant hive mind, talking to the same AI, right?

22:27

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] And what does that mean for narrative, actually, Sam? [SPEAKER_02] I think it's a great question, Dave. [SPEAKER_02] But I do think the narrative is pervasive. [SPEAKER_02] Maybe this is a good thing, but I was speaking to a software founder this morning who's been successful. [SPEAKER_02] They've made money. [SPEAKER_02] They have an app. [SPEAKER_01] They have a company that's working. [SPEAKER_01] They're starting to tinker with apps. [SPEAKER_02] We're like, what should you do? [SPEAKER_02] Should you work on that? [SPEAKER_02] And here's what we kind of netted out on is if you're a founder, software is no longer any sort of differentiator.

23:07

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] Software is consumable. [SPEAKER_02] It's like a piece of media. [SPEAKER_02] You can't build a software company. [SPEAKER_02] I think this is new, though, Sam. [SPEAKER_01] Though we've been talking about this for two years on this podcast, I think in the last three months Claude Code makes it the final boss. [SPEAKER_01] It actually happened. [SPEAKER_02] So you can't build a software company. [SPEAKER_02] 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 do whatever you want, right?

23:33

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_01] And build cool stuff with the understanding it's all consumable and it will all be copied instantly. [SPEAKER_01] But you can still build a credibility in your own distribution and certain assets you can build around that. But how do you build a business? Well, that's the thing. If you're going to do that, you can do that. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_02] So it's just like you can't build a, quote unquote, software company. [SPEAKER_02] 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?

24:02

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_01] And build cool stuff with the understanding it's all consumable and it will all be copied instantly. [SPEAKER_01] But you can still build a credibility in your own distribution and certain assets you can build around that. But how do you build a business? Well, that's the thing. If you're going to do that, you can do that. Or if you're going to build a business, it can't be... [SPEAKER_02] If it used to be that there were a thousand people that had the idea, because no idea is actually that precious. [SPEAKER_02] But of those thousand, 990 couldn't write the software or build it. [SPEAKER_02] Now assume all thousand can build it, right?

24:23

SPEAKER_04

What is the differentiator? It is, I think, trust. I think it is... I think it's insight into the network. [SPEAKER_02] I think it's business development. [SPEAKER_02] I think it's community. [SPEAKER_02] There are things...

24:39

SPEAKER_02

The assets you start with, or the assets that are differentiating, are not your engineering team, right? Is almost the way I would look at it. Or are we oversimplifying this?

24:43

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] I was looking up the numbers yesterday that there was around 3 million software engineers building on the iPhone, another 6 million. [SPEAKER_02] Maybe there's some overlap between those two that build on Android. [SPEAKER_02] But there's somewhere between 3 and 6 billion people using software on mobile phones.

24:45

SPEAKER_02

And so the fact that the universe of people that could build for that surface was so small. And now, what's Cloud Code and all of the subsequent tools that are going to come out to make it easy to build stuff going to cause? Will it be 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? Or everyone just builds their own software. You can't, there's no pricing power in software because if I charge too much, you don't want to build it yourself.

25:03

SPEAKER_02

You'll use things if they're near free because why not? But it's just not worth it, right? You can't charge that much for software. It's all pretty mid, though, right? Don't you think?

25:14

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] Yesterday I saw on Twitter someone built something with a yearly calendar view. [SPEAKER_02] And then just after that, five people tweeted, replied, I made my own version.

25:17

SPEAKER_02

It was like... Yeah, and then I saw this morning that 37 Signals integrated that view already into Basecamp. I know. And then I saw Jason Fried write about, yeah, so we just integrated it into Hey, so... But that's not super 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 built it into their larger-scale SaaS app. Which they sell. That's a new thing that's not happened before. Well, the guy that made it initially did it for free, just tinkering with his calendar.

25:36

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] And yeah, so they took it, put it into their software that they sell. [SPEAKER_02] And is that fine? [SPEAKER_02] And also, does it matter?

25:46

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, he open sourced it. It's fine. It's just a feature.

25:59

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] It's fine. [SPEAKER_02] But if someone else were to do that, in a different way, I don't know. [SPEAKER_02] There's really interesting ethics around it.

26:09

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] I don't think there's ethics. [SPEAKER_02] First of all, there are no ethics. [SPEAKER_02] We just watched 1923. [SPEAKER_02] What's the miner's speech?

26:16

SPEAKER_02

He says, I am a businessman. [SPEAKER_04] There's no ethics. I have no morals.

26:30

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] Morals. [SPEAKER_02] What I'm saying, though, is... [SPEAKER_02] It's not ethics. [SPEAKER_02] It's there's a morality or something.

26:35

SPEAKER_02

That guy in particular was, I open sourced this. There used to be this idea of, you're granting permission for people to copy and add on to the thing you made. And now it's just, why do I need to ask permission? I'm just going to go. Because you're just overthinking this. Well, this is just hive mind, again. 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 spot these companies early.

27:14

SPEAKER_02

And that sounds like a whole different kind of challenge. But I just don't... I don't know. We're overthinking this. I mean, it is a serious challenge, Jess. If you were talking to venture capitalists even two years ago or any former entrepreneur, [SPEAKER_01] they would tell you that the greatest business model ever created is software [SPEAKER_01] and that you should spend most of your time investing in and building software [SPEAKER_01] because the marginal cost of replication is zero. [SPEAKER_01] You can make an enormous amount of money. [SPEAKER_01] And as I look back across the last 12 months,

27:58

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] there's a lot of people investing in SaaS still in the last 12 months. [SPEAKER_01] And Sam's right. [SPEAKER_01] You can just replicate this stuff now in less than a day. And that radically changes. [SPEAKER_01] Well, yes. [SPEAKER_01] But up until the last three months, software was the greatest business model in the world. [SPEAKER_01] And now it's not. [SPEAKER_01] And you have to figure out what is the next thing? [SPEAKER_01] Look, I think for me, this all speaks back to this whole broader theme of [SPEAKER_01] the ladder getting pulled up, right? [SPEAKER_01] There's a lot of people investing in SaaS still in the last 12 months.

28:42

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] And Sam's right. [SPEAKER_01] You can just replicate this stuff now in less than a day. And that radically changes. [SPEAKER_01] Well, yes. [SPEAKER_01] But up until the last three months, software was the greatest business model in the world. [SPEAKER_01] And now it's not. [SPEAKER_01] You have to figure out what is the next thing? [SPEAKER_01] Look, I think for me, this all speaks back to this whole broader theme of the ladder getting pulled up, right? [SPEAKER_04] Which is, you can't just be a software kid anymore and be I'm going to be fine. [SPEAKER_04] I'm going to make some money. [SPEAKER_01] My job is secure and I can always build something.

29:04

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] The dream changes, right? [SPEAKER_03] And so I think for me, that's the big social question. I think the big social question is there's this generational gap thing going on, which is going to be culturally really, really challenging. [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I remember, yes.

29:12

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] Or is it just simple, Sam, that we're going to go back to building things and building things in the real world?

29:13

SPEAKER_02

Things where... No, because people don't want the real world. They want a Brit's AI girlfriend orb. My AI girlfriend. Oh, yeah. I don't know. This is actually where I pretty strongly disagree with your take on this. I think actually... Yes, Dave, go for it. Give me the strong disagree. 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.

29:44

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] This was also one of the things I talked about in my predictions for next year, which is that smaller trust networks, embodied real world experiences, are going to matter even more as this plays out. [SPEAKER_01] So it's interesting. [SPEAKER_01] I think it's going to be a have and have nots. I mean, I obviously believe that small networks and trust matter in a normalness matter. It's creator fun, on board, believe in it, the whole nine hours. Here's my thing. Let's go back to it's hilariously a version of just extreme abstraction, this personal relationship thing.

30:04

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] And let's do the girlfriend thing because it's just obvious and an easy extreme to talk about. [SPEAKER_02] 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 it does all the things you want, [SPEAKER_02] is a perfect companion in every possible way, but is digital. [SPEAKER_02] 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 hours. [SPEAKER_02] What do 99.9% of people choose? [SPEAKER_02] They choose the easy thing.

30:26

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] It's sugar, right?

30:30

SPEAKER_02

I don't know that it's 99.

30:33

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] I think it's also short term versus long term. [SPEAKER_02] I think it fizzles out after. [SPEAKER_02] I don't know. [SPEAKER_02] Or just, think about what we know from social networks and friends. [SPEAKER_02] The original social networks, which we were all proud to be a part of and help, in a lot of ways. [SPEAKER_02] The whole theory was to push and create more human real world connection, to make social liquidity higher, help people meet you a whole.

30:52

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] That was fine. [SPEAKER_02] It turned out that through a bunch of generations, it's actually really hard to meet up with people in the real world. [SPEAKER_01] This is why everyone's always trying to make apps to hang out in real life and they never work, because the friction's too high.

30:58

SPEAKER_01

What's super easy is clicking stuff 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?

31:02

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] So you extract that out in terms of where it goes. [SPEAKER_01] And I just think it's very high-minded and true that actually real human relationships and facilitating those are what actually matter.

31:08

SPEAKER_01

And they're extremely valuable in the long run. But I also think in some ways they're 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, which, again, I don't have any fundamental...

31:17

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] I don't think it's fundamentally bad. I just think it's physics. People will choose the cheaper, more available option. 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 brands and other people and interests we follow. But what's happened now is we're all lonely. We hate the world. We don't want to be online, but it's sucking us in because it creates a chemical reaction. [SPEAKER_03] Oh, did you read my... [SPEAKER_03] It sounds like you're... [SPEAKER_03] It sounds like you buy my pessimism.

31:42

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] So we might have these AI companions and think we're happy in the short term and the long term. [SPEAKER_03] We're so upset and sad and lonely. [SPEAKER_01] And I think it's just another iteration of social media. [SPEAKER_03] I'm just with you, Britt, that I think, Sam, embodiment beats abstraction. [SPEAKER_03] Physical presence, real places, the craft of building nature. [SPEAKER_01] If you look at the biggest trend in travel right now, it's people want to literally be as close to nature as possible.

32:04

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_03] It's tent hotels. And they literally want their body to be as close to nature as they possibly can. [SPEAKER_03] Health is exploding, right? [SPEAKER_03] People are obsessed with longevity, doing the right things to stay healthy.

32:22

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] The White House this morning literally changed the food rules for the country. [SPEAKER_03] Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_01] This was Joe Gabbia's first design. [SPEAKER_01] Oh, you haven't seen this? [SPEAKER_03] Oh, guys, the second grade food pyramid we all saw, right? [SPEAKER_03] Was it Reagan or Bush?

32:51

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_03] It's tent hotels.

32:59

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] And they literally want their body to be as close to nature as they possibly can. [SPEAKER_03] Health is exploding, right? [SPEAKER_03] People are obsessed with longevity, doing the right things to stay healthy. [SPEAKER_03] The White House this morning literally changed the food rules for the country. [SPEAKER_03] Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_01] This was Joe Gabbia's first design. [SPEAKER_01] Oh, you haven't seen this? [SPEAKER_03] Oh, guys, the second grade food pyramid we all saw? [SPEAKER_03] Was it Reagan or Bush? [SPEAKER_03] One of them, where carbs were the bottom. [SPEAKER_03] Those were the most important. It's flipped. Carbs are at the very top.

33:42

SPEAKER_02

Protein and veggies are at the bottom, except for it's an inverted triangle now.

33:46

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] And Joe Gabbia, remember?

33:50

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] What's his title?

33:51

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] Chief Design Officer of America. [SPEAKER_04] He clearly has Helvetica font. [SPEAKER_04] It definitely has the Joe Gabbia touch on it. [SPEAKER_04] No, it says that it does. [SPEAKER_02] It says designed by the Design Studio of America. [SPEAKER_02] I'm psyched for him because I think this was, I bet he was imagining when he was interviewing, he was thinking, all right, my first product will be the food pyramid redesign. [SPEAKER_03] Anyway. [SPEAKER_03] But wait, does it come with shifting recommendations or do we just shift the recommendations?

34:26

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] No, all the recommendations changed. [SPEAKER_03] Okay, got it. [SPEAKER_04] Just checking. What is it that plants crave? [SPEAKER_04] Look, there's certainly this is true, Dave. [SPEAKER_04] Everything you're saying, I believe.

34:51

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] What are we discussing? [SPEAKER_04] What are we debating? [SPEAKER_04] I've lost the thread. [SPEAKER_04] Embodiment beats abstraction. [SPEAKER_04] I think there is this thing, are you going to abstract into your mind living in digital space and your body living in meat space?

35:02

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] Or are you going to be able to be present with humans?

35:06

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[SPEAKER_01] And I think that there's one last thing, which is that beyond that, I think that agency in all of this is also the real scarce resource. [SPEAKER_01] People are afraid of automation.

35:17

SPEAKER_01

Sam, all the things that you're talking about.

35:23

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] But if you look at what happened in Silicon Valley over the holiday, it was this obsession with cloud code.

35:25

SPEAKER_01

What is that really?

35:31

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] People are trying to get control to build things, to actually have agency in this world where so much is becoming automated and abstracted. [SPEAKER_01] And so I think that you have counterbalancing forces. [SPEAKER_01] How's cursor doing? [SPEAKER_01] It's now cloud code.

35:42

SPEAKER_01

I've lost track. What's going on?

35:46

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] No, that's separate. [SPEAKER_01] Okay, and there's no cursor? [SPEAKER_01] We're short cursor? [SPEAKER_01] No, we're very long cursor.

35:56

SPEAKER_02

Short cursor. No, we're very long cursor. Especially now that I realize that I own a bunch of cursor stock. Very long cursor.

36:05

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] From who? [SPEAKER_02] I was surprised, too, Brett. [SPEAKER_02] But hooray. [SPEAKER_02] He really was. [SPEAKER_02] I was there when he discovered it.

36:14

SPEAKER_02

I was there, oh, I have to totally change my tune on cursor now. A few things.

36:29

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[SPEAKER_02] One is, look, there's always a culture counterculture, right? [SPEAKER_01] And I agree that there's a real-world counterculture thing. [SPEAKER_01] I agree that it's better. [SPEAKER_01] And so people are going to crave it.

36:37

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] And if they can afford it and can invest in it and deal with the pain of it, that's what they're going to want. That's what they should want.

36:38

SPEAKER_02

It's better for you.

36:41

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_03] It's just not the easy thing, what most people will choose. [SPEAKER_03] There's going to be weird, low-friction, super weird subcultures. [SPEAKER_01] Apparently, I saw... [SPEAKER_01] Do you guys get Vice Magazine? [SPEAKER_01] Do you follow them on Instagram? Wait, I thought they... Wait, Vice? [SPEAKER_01] The brand?

37:03

SPEAKER_01

I thought Vice went out of business. It probably... Yeah, but it's someone's still updating their Twitter. It's out of business, but someone's still... Someone's still saying smart Vice things. [SPEAKER_02] Someone's still saying Vice-y things on Instagram. [SPEAKER_02] Probably. [SPEAKER_02] But there was a thing that was on the top of my feed about how apparently in Los Angeles, there are all these random park sex parties going on now where people just go up and have sex in parks. [SPEAKER_02] Embodiment, Sam. [SPEAKER_02] They just want embodiment. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_02] There's this wild subculture going on.

37:45

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[SPEAKER_02] And so I do think that is people being, I'm so disconnected online. [SPEAKER_02] I'm just going to go to a park. [SPEAKER_02] Wait, what?

37:49

SPEAKER_02

I don't get it. They just go to a park like it's a random hookup? Yeah, it's really skeezy, right? But this is a thing, according to whoever's running the Vice social media accounts. But I think you can argue this is also happening in the digital, whatever, futuristic world. [SPEAKER_03] Grok. [SPEAKER_03] 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. Really? Yes. That actually sounds right to me. Of course it does.

38:07

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_02] What else are you going to use it for? [SPEAKER_02] I use it for home design.

38:13

SPEAKER_02

Use Grok for home design? Oh, I mean, I just use AI models in general.

38:20

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] Are all the Grok prints like all the naked women on sheets or something? [SPEAKER_02] What do they like?

38:26

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] For me, it's naked men. [SPEAKER_02] Fine. [SPEAKER_02] That still counts.

38:31

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] It's a penis clock. [SPEAKER_02] Men, it's actually, no, it's men topless vacuuming in my new living room.

38:32

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_02] What else are you going to use it for? [SPEAKER_02] Seriously. [SPEAKER_02] I use it for home design. [SPEAKER_02] Use Grok for home design? [SPEAKER_02] Oh, I mean, I just use AI models in general.

38:44

SPEAKER_02

Are all the Grok prints like all the naked women on sheets or something? What do they like? For me, it's naked men. Fine. That still counts. It's a penis clock. Men, it's actually, no, it's men topless vacuuming in my new living room. [SPEAKER_03] Because 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. [SPEAKER_03] They all look a little like Elon too, but I don't know what that's about. [SPEAKER_03] Okay. [SPEAKER_03] 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.

39:17

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but we're going to try to bet on it anyway. [SPEAKER_03] Nature camping.

39:29

SPEAKER_03

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

39:36

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] Oh, that's the 1923 you're talking about. [SPEAKER_01] Yes, you've got. [SPEAKER_01] I'm on land, man. [SPEAKER_01] Landman is so good. [SPEAKER_01] So good. [SPEAKER_01] Landman is the best. [SPEAKER_01] You know, what's his name? [SPEAKER_01] Harrison Ford. [SPEAKER_01] He's just sitting there in his Montana way of life, you know, without his electricity, without his refrigerator, without his car. [SPEAKER_03] He's just protecting the land. [SPEAKER_03] 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.

39:56

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] And he's like, you know, the way of life is changing. [SPEAKER_03] We're at the same point. [SPEAKER_03] It's true. [SPEAKER_03] But it does feel fair to ask the question, what kind of society do we want to live in? [SPEAKER_03] Right. [SPEAKER_03] These are enormous. [SPEAKER_03] AI is an enormous amplifier, right?

40:14

SPEAKER_03

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. All the things are going to happen, right?

40:24

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] Massive amplifier. [SPEAKER_01] It's a story of more. [SPEAKER_01] And back to what started this whole conversation, which was the wealth tax.

40:34

SPEAKER_03

What is underlying all of this? There's the wealth tax. [SPEAKER_04] Before that, it was mega.

40:45

SPEAKER_01

There's a real underlying malaise, disgruntled vibe. [SPEAKER_04] And there's a sickness in society, Sam, that I think you kind of detailed through in your thing. [SPEAKER_02] And we have to ask this question: what kind of society do we want to live in? [SPEAKER_02] And how do we want to use these tools? [SPEAKER_02] And it feels like that's the animating body politic question right now. [SPEAKER_04] But I also think here's the question. [SPEAKER_04] I had two comments, such questions I want to make. [SPEAKER_04] Probably one is: 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?

40:59

SPEAKER_01

I'd argue that society is downstream of technology.

41:08

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] We live in a physics to technology and what we can do and how we can interact. [SPEAKER_01] Society just comes from that. [SPEAKER_01] It doesn't dictate to that, right? [SPEAKER_01] And so the reality is, I just think the reason I'm kind of blase about so much, I'm, this is just what it is. [SPEAKER_01] I don't. [SPEAKER_04] But Sam, we do intervene, right? [SPEAKER_04] We do. That's why, I don't know, we don't usually talk about politics on this podcast, but a wealth tax or any tax or any policy move is an intervention. [SPEAKER_04] Sort of. [SPEAKER_04] But here's the thing about that.

41:34

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Even those are downstream, even those are downstream of technology. [SPEAKER_04] Part of the reason you could never have a wealth tax historically is you could never track anyone's wealth historically or track it all. [SPEAKER_02] It wasn't banks. [SPEAKER_02] It wasn't. You had no panopticon. [SPEAKER_02] So 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.

41:48

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] People were, you know what? [SPEAKER_02] So I think these things, everything is downstream technology, including policy options.

41:54

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] The question is then how do you deploy them? [SPEAKER_02] What are the results of those?

41:57

SPEAKER_04

And it is an interesting question about just how many degrees of freedom you have.

41:59

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] It's why I'm kind of a fatalist or technological determinist about all these things.

42:06

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] I just don't think there's that many surprises here. [SPEAKER_02] If it's possible, it's going to happen, right?

42:11

SPEAKER_02

Technology makes new possibilities or new configurations possible. I don't think that at a societal level, we have that many tools to push back against it. I think these things just run their course and you as a society run.

42:21

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] 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, or whatever played through. [SPEAKER_02] Here's the funny thing about 1923 from the Yellowstone universe: if you play it all the way through to the present day. [SPEAKER_02] The same family still owns the ranch, right?

42:27

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] So for all of the change, we already know where this goes, right? [SPEAKER_03] We're just landed gentry, hereditary control, right? [SPEAKER_03] Compounding assets, you know? [SPEAKER_03] And so. Well, I don't think you actually know where Yellowstone ended, but that's okay. [SPEAKER_02] We'll forgive you for not watching all. [SPEAKER_02] The futuristic version will be 2022, which is when GPT launched and then the whole world changed after that. There just better be a lot of cowboy hats. This is really. There's definitely going to be cowboy hats.

42:54

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] Don't worry. [SPEAKER_02] So for all of the change, we already know where this goes, right? [SPEAKER_03] We're just landed gentry, hereditary control, right? [SPEAKER_03] Compounding assets. [SPEAKER_03] And so. [SPEAKER_01] Well, I don't think you actually know where Yellowstone ended, but that's okay.

43:14

SPEAKER_02

We'll forgive you for not watching all.

43:17

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] The futuristic version will be 2022, which is when GPT launched and then the whole world changed after that. There just better be a lot of cowboy hats.

43:21

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] This is really. [SPEAKER_01] There's definitely going to be cowboy hats. Don't worry. [SPEAKER_03] I think cowboy hats are coming back. [SPEAKER_03] By the way, I love that Washington Post said that the cowboy hat should be the American hat. I agree with that.

43:38

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] It is the American hat. [SPEAKER_02] No, apparently it's not the official American hat.

43:45

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] The baseball cap is the American hat, obviously. [SPEAKER_01] No, because when they go to the Olympics, they send them with cowboy hats to walk in the stadium. [SPEAKER_01] Okay, Britt, you get your point. And then we're going to talk health for a second. [SPEAKER_03] Sorry. [SPEAKER_03] Okay. [SPEAKER_03] I have some health things to say too. [SPEAKER_03] I was just wondering, this might be a health thing. [SPEAKER_03] Everyone, a lot of people are talking about the 2030s being the era of exuberance. And it's going to be utopian, not necessarily AGI related. This is the internet.

44:19

SPEAKER_02

I dipped into the hive mind and all the hive mind are talking about the 2030s and how we're all going to be working less. We're going to cure all these diseases.

44:26

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] We're going to be healthier and happier. Please. This is every decade, every sci-fi book ever.

44:31

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_03] We're not going to have cars.

44:35

SPEAKER_02

Our autonomous cars are taking us everywhere. That one might be true. [SPEAKER_03] 2030s is going to be the 2020s of last, a hundred years ago.

44:43

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] So curious if anyone has thoughts on that. [SPEAKER_02] I love that Europe is, we will not have self-driving cars. [SPEAKER_02] Of course.

44:48

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] Well, they have cobblestone streets.

44:48

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_02] They don't want to destroy everything. Guys, self-driving cars are going to be everywhere.

44:55

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] It's just better. [SPEAKER_04] I'm in the real facts biz. These predictions are just too hard to know. I agree, Dave, we have to think about it.

45:01

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] But not venture capitalists. [SPEAKER_04] Because we have to form a point of view on what we want. [SPEAKER_04] We have values that need to be injected into these things or that can be fought over. I totally get that.

45:11

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] It's just too much is in flux.

45:12

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] For the first time I wrote, the information staff has requested more communication from me, which is somewhat unbelievable. [SPEAKER_02] So I now write a monthly email with my random thoughts. [SPEAKER_02] First installment, guys, very popular. [SPEAKER_04] Very popular. [SPEAKER_04] How do you gauge your popularity?

45:23

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] I want to see it. [SPEAKER_04] I'll send it to you, Davey. [SPEAKER_04] Is there anything proprietary there? [SPEAKER_04] I want to be on your list. [SPEAKER_04] I should probably actually include some other people on the distribution list of this. [SPEAKER_01] There's a whole section.

45:43

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] More or less listeners also get 50% off. [SPEAKER_01] Your team asked for a private newsletter and then you're just, wait a minute, this is really good. [SPEAKER_01] I should just sell it.

45:49

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] But if I make more money, then we hire more people and pay them more. [SPEAKER_01] So it's really a win-win-win.

45:53

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] Oh, we can't just make more money?

45:58

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] No, we can do both. [SPEAKER_01] No, we're going to be careful of the wealth tax stamp. [SPEAKER_01] No, we're not.

46:06

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] We're not worried about that.

46:07

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] I was saying that Jess actually might have...

46:09

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] No. [SPEAKER_01] Okay. [SPEAKER_01] There's nothing else I could do to stop it except stream, guys.

46:14

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_01] This is so scary.

46:16

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] We have editors, I suppose. [SPEAKER_01] I thought that was a good point.

46:21

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_01] My first point, you can make that point in a few years. [SPEAKER_01] My first point in this memo was that this year is not going to reward the planners. [SPEAKER_02] It's going to reward the doers and the seizures of opportunities.

46:30

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] There are so many paths.

46:33

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] Strategy is important.

46:35

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] But what's that phrase?

46:41

SPEAKER_02

Execution eats strategy for lunch or whatever. I think 2026 is really going to be about that. It's focused on that.

46:50

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_02] The second section, which I'm not going to reveal what I said, but I stumbled into was, if we're having coffee right now and you're in industry stores, here are all the things I'm asking you about. [SPEAKER_02] It was not these, often people want big themes and all that. [SPEAKER_02] The big themes are AI, enterprise, robots. [SPEAKER_01] But this was my list of things I'm dying to know. [SPEAKER_01] And if you happen to call me or cross me in the street, here's the set of questions that you're going to get as of. [SPEAKER_02] I want to know. [SPEAKER_02] I want this newsletter.

47:03

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] 2 p.m. on Monday. [SPEAKER_02] So that was good. [SPEAKER_02] And then I probably only heard from the people who enjoyed it. [SPEAKER_02] Let's be real. [SPEAKER_02] That's how it works. [SPEAKER_02] But I've been at this long enough to understand that. [SPEAKER_02] But it's coming every month. [SPEAKER_02] I don't know what to name it, though. [SPEAKER_02] My team has code names for it. [SPEAKER_02] I'm excited. [SPEAKER_02] Okay. [SPEAKER_02] Let's talk. [SPEAKER_02] Let's. [SPEAKER_02] Oh, I have to interview someone in three minutes. [SPEAKER_02] OpenAI and health. [SPEAKER_02] What do we think?

47:31

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] Are we as consumers bullish on this or we think it's going to help OpenAI's business? [SPEAKER_02] 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. [SPEAKER_02] But it's coming every month. [SPEAKER_02] I don't know what to name it, though. [SPEAKER_02] My team has code names for it.

47:44

SPEAKER_02

I'm excited. Okay. Let's talk. Let's. Oh, I have to interview someone in three minutes. OpenAI and health. What do we think? Are we as consumers bullish on this or we think it's going to help OpenAI's business? 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 two thumbs up on this. Okay. I found it to be meh.

48:19

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] Of course there's going to be a thing where it helps you connect all of your health data into one model. [SPEAKER_02] Gemini is going to do this. [SPEAKER_02] Anthropics is going to do this.

48:30

SPEAKER_02

We had also heard which company they were buying to do this. [SPEAKER_04] It's fine. [SPEAKER_04] I think it's how people are organically using it. [SPEAKER_03] So it makes sense. [SPEAKER_03] But it's not this huge breakthrough thing. [SPEAKER_04] No, it's just smart observation of data. [SPEAKER_04] It's clear this is an enormous part of their use case. [SPEAKER_03] However, whoever wins the ingestion of all the data first is going to have such a superior advantage. [SPEAKER_04] Unless you're Sam Altman and you think you can just export from one model to another, which I tried and it was very difficult.

48:43

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] Because if I have my aura ring and my eight sleep and my prenuvo scans and my function, everything, my chart, I just want to put it all in one place. [SPEAKER_03] And. [SPEAKER_01] But won't everyone just connect to it? [SPEAKER_03] Am I just going to do this for Apple and Gemini and GPT? That's what you're already doing. [SPEAKER_04] Well, I'm doing it because I'm weird and I test all the different models, but normal people are going to pick one and just stick with it. [SPEAKER_03] So I just didn't understand where their competitive edge came from, but it felt like table stakes they had to get to get this far.

48:52

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] 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 health systems, insurance companies. [SPEAKER_03] There is something there. [SPEAKER_03] I don't know what the business exactly looks like, but there's certainly something. [SPEAKER_03] But wasn't everyone going to compete for that? [SPEAKER_03] Maybe. [SPEAKER_03] Google health is probably going after that too, Apple. [SPEAKER_03] I think it matters more to OpenAI to get that enterprise business than it does to Google. [SPEAKER_01] Britt, I had total Google health vibes.

49:11

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] Were you at Google for the Marissa Mayer vault launch? [SPEAKER_03] I was at Google. [SPEAKER_03] My friend Missy ran Google health. [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. [SPEAKER_03] It was just so optimistic and then went exactly nowhere. [SPEAKER_03] This was one of those, and they just shut it down. [SPEAKER_01] Yeah.

49:27

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_03] Apple health, I would say has been the most successful thing so far, which is rare. [SPEAKER_03] Google doesn't even shut things down.

49:31

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] So when they shut things down, you're like, I'm not as into the integrating data and all of that, because honestly, you take a photo of your blood test results. [SPEAKER_01] And if you want to cross out your name, cross it out, and then put it in there.

49:35

SPEAKER_04

But I do think it is a really wonderful AI use case. [SPEAKER_03] And I do find when I text my doctor or I text OpenAI with a photo of something, I really trust the OpenAI advice.

49:40

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] It is similar to the doctors and it's reasonable and it outlines good follow-up, good branch paths.

49:45

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] And it will tell you if it take another photo from this angle and stuff.

49:47

SPEAKER_04

So I hope that it's something that's really helpful to people.

49:51

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] Yeah. [SPEAKER_04] And selling the doctor space, there's been some movement there, right? [SPEAKER_04] Well, I always forget.

50:02

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] We just broke the news of their fundraise, but what's the big kahuna in that space?

50:02

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] Open evidence.

50:04

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

50:07

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_01] They're crushing it. [SPEAKER_04] It's interesting how this interacts with Open Evidence.

50:09

SPEAKER_04

I was thinking about that.

50:12

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] My cousin, you guys all know, is a doctor and we spend time with him at Christmas and Open Evidence has dramatically changed his practice. [SPEAKER_04] And I was wondering, obviously they're doing something different, but this also points out that OpenAI is going in this direction as well. [SPEAKER_02] So how do those two interplay? [SPEAKER_02] Does it impact their business if it is successful at a massive scale? [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_04] Well, I wish OpenAI best of luck on this. [SPEAKER_04] I think it's a great tool.

50:34

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] I just think trying to integrate all these things that aren't really is a fool's errand, but there are pretty easy ways to import data into these. [SPEAKER_04] Okay. [SPEAKER_04] What else? [SPEAKER_02] Any parting thoughts? [SPEAKER_02] Pop culture corners?

50:48

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] What's coming up? [SPEAKER_04] The Golden Globes are coming up.

50:54

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] That's all I know. [SPEAKER_04] We're not going.

50:57

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_02] That's why.

50:57

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] What else? [SPEAKER_04] Did you want to go?

51:06

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] Really?

51:07

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] I did. [SPEAKER_04] I did want to go. [SPEAKER_04] You're welcome to go.

51:14

SPEAKER_04

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

51:25

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] So I will save my complaints.

51:29

SPEAKER_04

About Golden Globes? No, Davos.

51:33

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] I just have visions of me with a television studio that is mobile at this point. I'm not a television person. [SPEAKER_04] And so I'm literally on calls with production assistants.

51:45

SPEAKER_04

We're going to hand you a hard drive. I did want to go. You're welcome to go. No, I can't. 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. About golden globes? No Davos. I just have visions of me with a, I don't have a live television studio like that is mobile at this point. I'm not a. And so I'm literally on calls with production assistants.

52:18

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] They're going to hand you a hard drive.

52:19

SPEAKER_04

And I'm like, no, that's not going to work. Just for some of these interviews.

52:23

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] So anyway, I have an amazing team and we're going to crush it with content.

52:28

SPEAKER_04

And I'm really overall excited. We're deep in the sports realm over here at the Moron house. We've got college football playoffs.

52:43

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] We've got NFL playoffs. [SPEAKER_04] We've got Super Bowl coming to San Francisco. It's the warriors.

52:49

SPEAKER_04

I'm in the Giants last week. That was just a heartbreaking game. It was heartbreaking. Taylor Swift documentary.

53:03

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] Guys, it was a heartbreaking 49ers game.

53:07

SPEAKER_04

I said Giants. I'm so tired.

53:08

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] Travis Kelsey, maybe retiring, maybe not. [SPEAKER_04] We're waiting to hear. [SPEAKER_04] He's so retiring.

53:12

SPEAKER_04

He's so retiring and having a baby is my prediction. I don't know. You think he's going to retire?

53:14

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_04] I think he's still got it.

53:15

SPEAKER_04

We'll find out. [SPEAKER_03] This is exactly why people are listening to this podcast. [SPEAKER_03] But I'm with you. [SPEAKER_03] I'm with you very wrapped on the end of football season. [SPEAKER_03] And Benson Boone's coming back to town right before the Super Bowl, everybody. [SPEAKER_03] I know that I can be here as your official Benson reporter-in-chief because everyone's dying to know. [SPEAKER_03] And I think that's it. [SPEAKER_03] Okay, well, we set a tone for the year. [SPEAKER_01] I'm not sure exactly what tone was set. [SPEAKER_03] Perhaps the tone will try to bring. [SPEAKER_03] I had so many bullet points and all we brought was energy.

53:30

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_03] But hopefully this was an informative listen. [SPEAKER_03] So to our amazing listeners and viewers, thank you guys for following. [SPEAKER_01] Please check us out on YouTube. [SPEAKER_01] Love YouTube. [SPEAKER_03] It's really performing for TITV. [SPEAKER_03] So we're going to keep plugging YouTube. [SPEAKER_03] Guys, should we try to grow this podcast this year or just do it? [SPEAKER_03] I think we should. [SPEAKER_03] I think we should. [SPEAKER_03] Let's get after it. [SPEAKER_03] It turns out you have to grow things. [SPEAKER_01] To be clear, we're not going to do any work to grow it. [SPEAKER_03] I just, should we have a work vibe?

54:07

SPEAKER_02

[SPEAKER_03] A vibe?

54:08

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_01] Yeah. [SPEAKER_03] A growth mindset? [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, let's have a growth mindset. [SPEAKER_03] Manifest it.

54:15

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_03] I'm going to manifest.

54:17

SPEAKER_04

[SPEAKER_01] We're going to manifest people to listen to us. [SPEAKER_01] Okay. [SPEAKER_01] We'll try it. [SPEAKER_01] It'll be a story. [SPEAKER_01] Okay, friends. [SPEAKER_03] I think we haven't been manifesting hard enough. [SPEAKER_01] You're not embodied enough, Sam. [SPEAKER_03] Britt, can you bring us a vision board next week? [SPEAKER_01] Yes, I've got many. [SPEAKER_03] She'll vibe code one.

54:32

SPEAKER_03

She'll vibe code a vision board for us. Okay, I'm with us. That is great. I'm going to ask all the AIs to make me a personal vision board. [SPEAKER_04] Oh, gosh. [SPEAKER_04] What is Sam's vision board going to look like? Guys, we didn't even get into Sam's New Year fashion.

54:57

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] I hope he's wearing a colored shirt.

55:02

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] More importantly, I'm wearing deodorant. [SPEAKER_04] You're welcome, Jess. [SPEAKER_04] You've upgraded, Jess. [SPEAKER_04] This is 20 years of husband training.

55:16

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] I should have led with this. [SPEAKER_04] Yeah, Jessica just for the first time in a long time gave me feedback.

55:18

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] I said he's 42 and I thought it was time to wear real clothes. [SPEAKER_04] And I've been delighted ever since. [SPEAKER_04] I am looking forward to all the ways I can delight my wife in 2026. [SPEAKER_04] It's the year of wife delighting. [SPEAKER_04] New Year's resolutions usually fall off by February 8th, just so everyone's clear. [SPEAKER_04] To be clear, I need specific feedback. [SPEAKER_04] So a month from now, let's check and see if he's still wearing deodorant.

55:32

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] If I'm still delighting.

55:34

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Every day we get, every episode we start with, is Sam delighting his wife? [SPEAKER_04] What does specific mean to you, Sam?

55:37

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] Wear deodorant.

55:38

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] That's a specific request.

55:39

SPEAKER_00

[SPEAKER_04] I don't even think I asked for the deodorant.

55:42

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_01] It just came with the clothes. [SPEAKER_01] I did?

55:44

SPEAKER_01

Okay, great. I think you were very happy in that moment, but you definitely asked for deodorant too. For my mental health and for our listeners' mental health, I'm going to 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.

55:51

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Bye.

55:55

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] Bye.

55:56

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] Bye.

55:59

SPEAKER_01

[SPEAKER_04] See you later.

56:01

SPEAKER_03

[SPEAKER_04] If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a virtual high five by rating it and reviewing it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Find more information about each episode in the show notes and follow us on social media by searching for @MoreOrLess, @DaveMorin, @Lesson, @JayLesson, and as for me, I'm @Brit. [SPEAKER_04] See you guys next time. That is a great... I'm going to ask all the AIs to make me a personal vision board.

56:10

SPEAKER_04

Oh, gosh. What is Sam's vision board going to look like?

56:12

SPEAKER_03

Guys, we didn't even get into Sam's New Year fashion.

56:15

SPEAKER_04

I hope he's wearing a colored shirt. More importantly, I'm wearing deodorant. You're welcome, Jess. You've upgraded, Jess. This is 20 years of husband training. I should have led with this. Yeah, Jessica just for the first time in a long time 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. I am looking forward to all the ways I can delight my wife in 2026. It's the year of wife delighting. New Year's resolutions usually fall off by February 8th, just so everyone's clear. To be clear, I need specific feedback. So a month from now, let's check and see if he's still wearing deodorant.

56:52

SPEAKER_04

If I'm still delighting. Every day we get, every episode we start with, is Sam delighting his wife? What does specific mean to you, Sam? Like wear deodorant. That's a specific request. I don't even think I asked for the deodorant.

57:05

SPEAKER_01

It just came with the clothes. I did? Okay, great. I think you were very happy in that moment, but you definitely asked for deodorant too. For my mental health and for our listeners' mental health, I'm going to 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.

57:24

SPEAKER_04

Bye. Bye. Bye. See you later. If you enjoyed this show, please leave us a virtual high five by rating it and reviewing it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

57:38

SPEAKER_03

Find more information about each episode in the show notes and follow us on social media by searching for at more or less, at Dave Morin, at Lesson, at Jay Lesson, and as for me, I'm

57:52

SPEAKER_04

at Brit. See you guys next time.

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