Jun 26, 2026 · 49m · more-or-less
Chinese AI Model GLM 5.2 Beating Frontier Models | Meta Glasses, Polymarket Scandal, AI Talent War · More or Less Podcast
Sam Lessin · 15m spoken Jessica Lessin · 13m spoken Dave Morin · 9m spoken Brit Morin · 6m spoken Podcast Intro Singer · 14s spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of the 'More or Less' podcast, co-hosts Dave Morin, Britt Morin, Sam Lessin, and Jessica Lessin analyze key technology and venture capital developments, ranging from consumer adoption of Meta smart glasses and prediction market controversies to open-source AI performance and public market valuation dynamics.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 85.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.8 Guest teaching 3.2 Guest disagreement 2.7 The hosts pushing back 3.2
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 8:23 Dave rejects Jessica's claim about Meta and Ray-Ban
Dave bluntly denies Jessica's premise that Meta dropped Ray-Ban, pointing out that Luxottica manufactures both from the identical facilities.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 38:12 Sam challenges Dave's anti-prediction market stanceSam forcefully confronts Dave for demanding earlier public listings while hating prediction markets, noting both fundamentally rely on unregulated speculative trading.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 8:25 Dave schools the room on Luxottica manufacturingDave corrects the entire panel on eyewear industry mechanics, explaining Luxottica's private-label model and shared production lines.
The host holds their own ▶ 21:02 Jessica exposes Polymarket's fake influencer marketingJessica brings deep journalistic authority to break down Polymarket's unethical influencer campaign fabricated trades, cutting through abstract platform praise.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Host Welcome and Niche Recognition Banter | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Hosts Jessica Lessin, Sam Lessin, and Dave Morin casually joke with guest Britt Morin about niche podcast fame in Zurich airport and set up the agenda topics. There is zero adversarial dynamic and only light, friendly peer banter. | |
| Meta Smart Glasses, Snap Spectacles, and Wearables Fashion | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | Jessica suggests Meta dropped Ray-Ban, but Dave immediately corrects her that Luxottica owns Ray-Ban and manufactures both. Britt then pushes back forcefully on Dave interrupting her and insists these new styles represent the watershed moment for women adopting smart glasses. | |
| Real-World Experience with Meta Glasses and AI Recorders | 5 | 3 | 2 | 3 | The hosts share firsthand anecdotes using Meta smart glasses in the Vatican, Toronto Space Needle, and the Tetons, assessing camera quality and AI object recognition. Britt questions Meta data tracking and asks about audio recorders for model training, which Dave points out Sam is investing in. | |
| Prediction Markets vs. Youth Sports Gambling and Trading Cards | 6 | 4 | 4 | 5 | Dave criticizes prediction markets and sports betting as toxic addictions for young men, while Sam Lessin counter-argues that Hayekian information markets are useful. Britt brings up demographics, arguing that prediction markets can expand to women if integrated into Instagram for reality TV betting. | |
| Polymarket Controversy and Influencer Marketing Scandals | 7 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Jessica Lessin breaks down Polymarket's illicit influencer marketing scheme, criticizing them for paying creators to fake trades and earnings. The rest of the panel listens and quickly agrees with her journalistic perspective. | |
| AI Talent Wars and Investor Valuation Models | 6 | 3 | 2 | 3 | Jessica and Sam explain why tech public markets swing wildly on engineer poaching news, diagnosing that AI valuation models only contemplate binary zero-or-infinity outcomes. Dave chimes in that massive venture capital risk commitments drive the underlying panic. | |
| Testing Chinese Open-Weight AI Model GLM 5.2 on B200 Hardware | 7 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Dave Morin shares technical benchmarks from testing open-weight GLM 5.2 on a rented 8x Nvidia B200 rig running 150 tokens per second, questioning the durability of closed frontier model labs. Sam interrogates Dave on why his team specifically needs that much compute. | |
| AI Agent Loops and The Information App Redesign | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Britt details her automated recurring AI agents that evaluate meetings and content, while Jessica details The Information's new app rollout. Sam provides direct product critiques, requesting full vertical story-flipping rather than traditional text scrolling. | |
| Public Listings, Valuations, and Early-Stage Investment Dynamics | 7 | 4 | 4 | 5 | Dave cites Michael Dell's IPO tweet to argue for reviving early tech listings so retail investors can share upside. Sam pushes back sharply, showing Dave's contradiction in supporting deregulation and early IPOs while opposing prediction markets, and points out how private lockups accidentally make employees rich. | |
| Cannes Lions Festival and Corporate AI Messaging | 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Britt and Dave debate whether Cannes Lions was ever relevant, with Britt defending its advertising creative heritage before big tech turned it into a boondoggle. Jessica analyzes AI PR messaging from Google and Meta at the festival aimed at counteracting regulatory fears. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Sam Lessin: The future of media is highly relevant micro-communities
“This is the future. It's all about having your community, which is very small, For which you are relevant.”
Sam Lessin: Prediction markets must use real money to matter
“Well, we've talked about this like six times, and it has to be real money. It's not a thing if it's not real money.”
Morin: Meta's new glasses are still manufactured in Luxottica factories
“It's all Luxottica, right? Luxottica owns Ray-Ban. They just made their own label. Right? So it's all the same, same. It's just that they've got their own label now, but they're manufacturing it in the exact same factories.”
Lessin: Snap is a $7B company and completely irrelevant
“Guys, Snap is a seven billion dollar company. It's completely irrelevant what Snap does.”
Britt Morin: Latest Meta smart glasses are a watershed moment for female buyers
“Finally, this is the watershed moment of women buying smart glasses. Mark my words. Saying it now. That's all. So yes, I do think it was a big deal.”
Morin: Prediction markets and sports betting cause significant harm to young adults
“It's just doing quite a bit of damage to kids in their twenties. Like they're very addicted. They're very addicted to sports gambling.”
Lessin: Highly unlikely a big platform successfully launches prediction markets
“I agree that it's extremely unlikely that a enormous company platform will successfully launch something as avant-garde as a, it's not impossible, but very unlikely.”
Britt Morin: Women represent less than a quarter of Kalshi and Polymarket users
“Women are only like Less than a quarter of Kalshi and Polymarket right now really hasn't like struck with most of the women I know.”
Britt Morin: Prediction markets will succeed with women if built into Instagram
“I actually think it's going to hit on with Meta if they do this and they build it into things like Instagram, because I think these things are already at large scale.”
Lessin: Polymarket directed influencers to fake trades and earnings
“But Polymarket has been directing influencers to make fake videos about fake trades and reporting fake earnings for their influencer program.”
Sam Lessin: AI valuation models are binary bets on infinity or zero
“Everyone's model looks like this infinity or zero and probability of infinity.”
Morin: GLM 5.2 on B200s achieves 150 tokens per second
“And we got this thing up and running and out of the box, it's doing a 150 tokens per second, which is like 10 times what you get out of frontier models.”
Morin: GLM 5.2 is as good or better than frontier models at coding
“I was testing it, doing the exact same coding tasks that I'm doing with frontier models. It's like as good or better.”
Morin: Huge investment positions in frontier AI labs look shaky
“So like, what does that mean for all of these enormous positions that are out there in these frontier labs? I think it's kind of shaky.”
Morin: AI agents grade my external meetings with LPs and founders
“I have my agents now. When I have an external meeting with like an LP or a founder or something, I get graded on how the meeting went for me, for them, the whole meeting.”
Lessin: Product designers should never give users choice
“No, never give users choice. You have to tell them what to do.”
Lessin: Anthropic employees will make fortunes simply because they could not sell
“There's a bunch of people who are gonna make a ton of money on anthropic purely because they didn't have the time To sell.”
Britt Morin: Cannes Lions jumped the shark like South by Southwest
“And then big brands came in. So of course, Google and every big tech brand comes in and then the whole thing does the same as South by Southwest did, which is jump the shark. And you have like Pepsi booths and all kinds of things.”
Jessica Lessin: Davos is an effective boondoggle that drove business
“I am now on record as a fan of the boondoggle known as Davos. Because I did a shit ton of business there this year. So I am like, I was so productive in those three days. That I said, I helped so many parts of my team by being there for three days.”