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Lessin: AI is not disruptive and incumbents should broadly win

Sam Lessin · The Truth About AI: Sam Lessin’s Contrarian Take · Joe Lonsdale · May 17, 2025 · at 17:44

Slow Ventures GP Sam Lessin explains his contrarian perspective to Joe Lonsdale on why AI favors existing large tech incumbents over startups.

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“You know, I'd actually argue that AI is kind of like mobile. It's not disruptive. It's great tech to be clear. It's important, but just as the internet, I would say that just as like mobile was just More internet and pervasive internet. AI is just like more technology. It's like more cloud. It's more the same. What that means is that by default, the incumbents broadly should win.”

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