Feb 27, 2026 · 47m · more-or-less
Apple, OpenAI & Why Nobody Makes Money in AI | The SaaS Apocalypse · More or Less Podcast
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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, hosts Brit Morin, Dave Morin, Sam Lessin, and Jess Lessin debate how AI is commoditizing software and impacting tech profit margins. They also analyze the tight venture capital fundraising climate, potential M&A scenarios like PayPal acquisitions, and contrasting hardware strategies from OpenAI and Apple.
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 83.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 7.0 Guest teaching 3.7 Guest disagreement 2.8 The hosts pushing back 3.2
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 42:12 Jess dismisses CEO antitrust risk
Jess directly rejects Sam's premise about M&A creating personal headaches for founders, claiming that VPs of policy take the heat during congressional hearings rather than executives.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 42:15 Sam rejects the VP testimony loopholeSam flatly refutes Jess's framing that corporate leadership escapes congressional testimony in massive monopoly deals, bluntly telling her that is not how high-stakes DC politics work.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 43:25 Jess breaks scoop on OpenAI hardware teamJess educates the room by dropping an exclusive reporting tidbit that Eddy Cue's son is leading OpenAI's secretive smart speaker initiative.
The host holds their own ▶ 8:23 Brit explains the institutional venture freezeBrit displays deep industry knowledge by outlining the structural LP denominator effect freezing university endowments and forcing funds to close early.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront Summit Report & The Tight LP Fundraising Climate | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Brit and Dave report live from Upfront Summit, detailing the drop in LP attendance, the denominator effect freezing university endowments, and shifts toward Middle Eastern capital. Jess mainly probes as interviewer, offering a minor clarification on Saudi PIF versus UAE liquidity. | |
| The Debate on AI Commoditization, Defensibility, and Pulsia | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3 | Hosts Sam, Dave, and Brit debate whether agentic software collapses enterprise margins to zero using portfolio company Pulsia as a case study. Jess functions as moderator and synthesizer, asking whether VCs are bypassed and noting that productivity gains do not equal profits. | |
| Productivity vs. Profitability and The Economist AI GDP Chart | 8 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Sam articulates how AI strips away Silicon Valley's comparative advantage in raw code production, comparing it to legacy EHR software monopolies and quoting The Economist's GDP projections. Jess keeps the hosts focused by asking them to distinguish economic value from entertainment. | |
| PayPal M&A Speculation and Agentic Commerce | 7 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Jess prompts a discussion on PayPal acquisition rumors, pushing back on Sam's dismissal of PayPal's brand value. Sam demonstrates domain expertise by analyzing Stripe's regulatory window under the Trump administration versus long-term antitrust political liabilities. | |
| Discussion on PayPal, AOL Email, and M&A Scrutiny | 6 | 5 | 5 | 6 | The hosts mock Jess for actively using PayPal logins and compare it to using AOL in 2002, but Jess defends her consumer behavior. She challenges Sam's claim about congressional scrutiny by suggesting policy VPs testify instead of CEOs, prompting an immediate rebuttal from Sam. | |
| OpenAI Hardware and Smart Speaker Rumors | 6 | 6 | 3 | 3 | Jess educates the hosts with reporting from The Information, revealing that Apple executive Eddy Cue's son is working on OpenAI's smart speaker project. She playfully calls out Sam for claiming to hate Apple despite purchasing massive numbers of MacBooks. |
Statements from this episode (21)
Sam Lessin: AI is driving all software profit margins to zero
“You know, AI is taking all of the software margins to zero, so now we do meat.”
Dave Morin: Upfront Summit has many GPs but very few LPs
“The vibe is a lot of GPs and not very many LPs.”
Brit Morin: Upfront Summit charging limited partners caused many to back out
“The LPs , they finally started charging some LPs that were getting a free ride, and then a lot of them backed out.”
Brit Morin: VCs are calling funds early and closing wherever they are
“People are calling their funds early and just like closing up wherever they're at.”
Brit Morin: Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive are raising from the Middle East, not universities
“Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive are raising from, like, the Middle East, and not necessarily, like, universities at this point.”
Jess Lessin: Saudi PIF is dry of capital, but the UAE is not
“Specifically, PIF is dry. PIF. But the UAE is not dry.”
Sam Lessin: AI models will commoditize and price at energy cost
“The, you know, the original narrative was someone would get to AGI and then that would be the end of the game is not how this is playing out. Everyone's gonna get to the same shit. It's all commodity. It's all getting a price to the cost of energy. And it's al…”
Sam Lessin: Software and technical difficulty are no longer defensible business moats
“Being hard is not a moat anymore. Software is not a moat anymore.”
Brit Morin: Solo-founder AI company Pulsia hit $700K ARR in one week
“This founder is a sole founder. He has no team. He just booted up all these agents to build this business. And if you go to polsia.com slash live, it's the agents running the business in real time, showing you everything they're doing. And this company has gon…”
Dave Morin: New website creation is up 40% and iOS apps up 50%
“New website creation is up 40% year over year. New iOS apps are up 50%. GitHub pushes are up 35% in the US, 30% in the UK. These metrics were flat for years before late 20, 24. And we're now seeing like jumps in the production of all kinds of different softwar…”
Sam Lessin: AI-driven loss of meaning will push people toward extreme cults
“AI is only going to accelerate that because people's sense of meaning goes away. So the market draws us towards cults and community, right? In these extremes and weird shit in order to like create a sense of purpose and meaning.”
Lessin: Scarce, non-digitizable compounding assets will thrive in AI economy
“If you own something that is fundamentally valuable and compounding, you're gonna do great, right? If you own scarce assets that are not digitizable or replaceable, you're gonna do great.”
Sam Lessin: AI wealth concentration will lead to economic revolutions
“The latter is gone and the value doesn't get shared, which is how you're going to end up with revolutions”
Sam Lessin: AI eliminates Silicon Valley's advantage over New York finance workers
“I'd actually argue the average person in Silicon Valley is not as smart as like the average person in New York finance, right? They're not the best marketers. They're not the best at anything. The advantage in Silicon Valley was actually knowing how to write t…”
Sam Lessin: Software workers will be eviscerated and potentially replaced by nothing
“I actually think of anything like a lot of people who like had a skill that was valuable, and allowed them to a lot of comfort and like to feel like they had a role economically or whatever are just going to get eviscerated. And it's very possible it gets repl…”
Sam Lessin: Current administration is Stripe's only window to acquire PayPal
“It's like, this is the one chance for Stripe to sneak through becoming effectively a U.S. Monopoly on payments.”
Sam Lessin: 'Login With OnlyFans' Might Be the Future Given Their KYC
“Login with OnlyFans actually might be the future, because I gotta tell you, the OnlyFans has incredible KYC, so I actually think that is a real thing.”
Jess Lessin: Rumored PayPal acquisition won't happen due to trial balloon leaks
“My spidey sense of why it won't happen is just the, it's the nature of the leaks have been like trial balloons galore.”
Jess Lessin: OpenAI is developing a family of hardware devices
“No, there's a whole, there's a family of apps, a family of devices here.”