Sep 12, 2025 · 53m · more-or-less
#116 iPhone Air or Pro: Apple Ignores AI and Wins? · More or Less Podcast
Sam Lessin · 16m spoken Dave Morin · 15m spoken Jessica Lessin · 9m spoken Brit Morin · 5m spoken Intro Singer · 12s 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, Sam Lessin, Brit Morin, and Jessica Lessin analyze Apple's latest hardware lineup, debating whether the company's deliberate refusal to chase generative AI hype represents a winning strategy. The discussion extends into an incisive examination of venture capital dynamics, shifting startup valuations, and the psychological mechanics behind internet memetic warfare.
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 99.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.9 Guest teaching 4.1 Guest disagreement 2.9 The hosts pushing back 2.8
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 25:03 Sam challenges Khosla's valuation premise
Sam forcefully rejects the premise of Vinod Khosla's op-ed, contending that price insensitivity is reckless and that genuine venture success demands non-consensus conviction rather than blind faith in high valuations.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 10:05 Jessica defends Apple's pragmatic ecosystemJessica counters Sam's cynical dismissal of Apple by challenging the tech bubble narrative that hardware and app ecosystems will immediately be displaced by experimental AI form factors.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 35:36 Dave explains macro asset allocation and ratesDave reframes Jessica's question about venture FOMO by explaining how Fed interest rate policy and Treasury yields fundamentally dictate LP capital allocations and fund structures like Sequoia's.
The host holds their own ▶ 1:17 Jessica recalls historical Blackberry interviewJessica showcases her journalistic depth by recalling her on-the-record interview with RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie on the Motorola Razr to contextualize the historical risks of prioritizing thin hardware.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Hardware Launch: iPhone 17, Air, and Pro | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Dave provides hands-on technical analysis of the iPhone 17, Air, and Pro lines, detailing internal component packaging and thermal vapor chambers. Jessica enriches the discussion by recalling her past Wall Street Journal interview with RIM's CEO regarding thinness as a competitive advantage. | |
| Wall Street Reaction and Apple's Defiance of AI | 6 | 4 | 5 | 5 | Sam aggressively pans Apple as a company built on marketing rather than substance while cheering their dismissive stance toward the AI hype cycle. Jessica offers a strong counter-thesis, arguing that Apple's measured approach and app store dominance may outlast flashy AI hardware experiments. | |
| Consumer Reception and Sam's Anti-Screen-Time Heavy Case | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | Dave contrasts Apple's product craft with Y Combinator startups building generic AI vertical software designed solely to chart. Sam wholeheartedly concurs, critiquing accelerator founders who spend a decade solving enterprise problems they have no authentic passion for. | |
| Steve Jobs' Passion Principle, BitRig, and Creator Startups | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Dave shares a personal story about Steve Jobs counseling him on obsessive passion before his departure to Facebook, surprising Jessica with the anecdote. Sam aligns with the sentiment, connecting authentic obsession to the rise of creator-led businesses. | |
| Investor Conviction and Vinod Khosla on AI Valuations | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | Jessica introduces Vinod Khosla's opinion piece urging investors to ignore valuations in favor of pure conviction. Sam directly pushes back on this framing, arguing that sustainable outperformance requires unique, non-consensus conviction rather than price insensitivity. | |
| Matt Mazzeo's Seed Bets and Venture Return Timelines | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Dave highlights Matt Mazzeo's seed investments in Cognition, Supabase, and Replit to emphasize that venture reputations cannot be measured in the short term. Jessica offers an outsider journalistic perspective, remarking that LP gossip often presumes VCs have no idea what they are doing. | |
| The Serious People List and Silicon Valley Term Limits | 7 | 5 | 4 | 4 | Jessica asks why private tech markets remain flooded with cash despite institutional LP caution, suspecting widespread FOMO. Dave and Sam push back against this reading, explaining that macro liquidity is driven by Federal Reserve interest rates, asset management mandates, and macro nihilism. | |
| Digital Subcultures, Marin Dad, and Memetic Warfare | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | The hosts break down internet subcultures, analyzing the 'Marin Dad' videos, private newsletters, and meme literacy among younger demographics. Dave and Sam explore the tactical evolution of memes from simple jokes to instruments of digital influence. | |
| Evaluating the Klarna IPO and Fintech Valuations | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Brit leads a discussion on Klarna's compressed IPO valuation relative to its 2021 peak, comparing it to public market peers like Affirm and Chime. Sam transitions the topic into a detailed deconstruction of memetic warfare, explaining how to seed editable templates that empower audiences to spread ideas for social validation. |
Statements from this episode (27)
Lessin: Jim Balsillie told WSJ 'thin is not a comparative advantage'
“Yes, Jim Balsillie, the one who talked to people. And he said, and you can find this quote in the Wall Street Journal, as I did, thin is not a comparative advantage.”
Morin: iPhone Air electronics fit entirely behind top camera bump
“I mean, this thing is like mostly battery. The craziest thing about it is that the phone part, like the electronics all fit in the very top and like the top 10th of the phone, like right behind the bump that the camera's in and the rest of the phone is just ba…”
Morin: iPhone 17 Pro features 48MP cameras and 200mm telephoto lens
“I like the pro it's got a great new camera suite. All three cameras are 48 megapixels and Sam, you'd probably appreciate this, but the Telephoto lens on the pro is now 200 millimeters, which is pretty insane.”
Lessin: Spent $100,000 on Apple products despite disliking the company
“Despite spending easily a 100,000 dollars on Apple products in my life, I don't like Apple, if you didn't know, if you're not, if you're a new listener to the pod.”
Lessin: Apple's refusal to engage with AI hype is a great vibe
“But the basic point is like, I just kind of like the vibe of Apple just being like, fuck all of you. Like, this is all stupid. And we're just gonna make more iPhones and lots of money. Like, I love that as a vibe.”
Lessin: Jony Ive and Sam Altman's secret hardware device will fail
“That's definitely what's gonna happen.”
Lessin: OpenAI pushes 'Apple is doomed' narrative to raise $1 trillion
“You know, it is very easy for the people who need to raise a trillion dollars, by the way, so they need to have a narrative of why Apple is doomed, aka OpenAI, right?”
Lessin built an ultra-heavy phone case to reduce screen time
“I literally made a case that is as heavy as possible for this exact thing.”
Morin: YC Demo Day featured three separate AI fishing startups
“Almost everything was AI plus vertical of some, you know, sort of AI plus this vertical. And there were actually three AI fishing startups yesterday, but only one of them had somebody who had grown up in a fishing family”
Lessin: Incubator methods trap founders into a decade working on disliked problems
“There are all these smart people in teams that like follow this like incubatory, listen to your customer, customer research, like iterate, solve a problem for demo day. And what they don't realize is they're signing themselves up for like a decade of working o…”
Morin attended YC Demo Day specifically to meet app BitRig
“The reason that I was at Y Combinator yesterday is because I found a startup four weeks ago that I fa I found it on like the design internet. Like it wasn't even, I didn't even know it was a Y Combinator company and I started using it and I just fell in love w…”
Lessin: Indexing all Y Combinator companies historically yields strong returns
“It turns out that if you look historically, well, almost all YC companies fail. If you index all the things that come through the front door, they've done fine, right? They've done pretty well.”
Vinod Khosla: The majority of current AI venture investing will fail
“Bottom line, bargain hunting will be a poor bet in AI, but firms putting money to work who invest in all high valuations indiscriminately will do poorly, and that is the majority of the investing that is happening.”
Morin: Matt Mazzeo invested in seed rounds of Cognition, Supabase, and Replit
“He goes, I was in the seed round of cognition. I was in Supabase and I was in Replit and I was just sitting there. I'm like, dude, you're a legend. You know, like he actually like hit all of the three most important startups that are being talked about right n…”
Lessin: LPs call several times a year asking if VCs are 'serious'
“But people do call me. LPs call me all the time, and they're like, is this a serious person? That is a question I get several times a year about venture capitalists from LPs.”
Morin: Some people have expired in Silicon Valley and should exit
“I think some people have expired in Silicon Valley, and they should exit.”
Lessin: Sequoia previously passed on OpenAI before returning to invest
“You have investors like Sequoia, who sat out OpenAI rounds three cycles ago, and many other VCs, they're not alone, just saying OpenAI is no longer a venture returns business, who came in three weeks ago or three months ago.”
Morin: Sequoia is a large asset manager, not a VC fund
“The reality of, like, Sequoia is, like, not a venture capital fund. They're an asset manager these days. Like, they're a very large-scale asset manager.”
Lessin: A total wipeout is coming for subscale seed investors
“There still is a wipeout coming for, like, subscale, like, seed investors, right? Like, all the little guys are getting fucked, and they're not raising more funds.”
Morin: A new breed of LPs exclusively seeks micro-funds
“When we did our last raise, there are a new breed of LPs that just want the micro funds, the like, 75 and 50 and under, because statistically, apparently they return the best multiples.”
Lessin spends tens of millions annually operating The Information
“I spent tens of millions of dollars a year to give you better emails.”
Klarna priced its IPO at $15 billion, down from $45.6 billion
“And they priced the IPO at fifteen billion, but its twenty-twenty-one price valuation was 45.6.”
Lessin: Bankers should price IPOs on memetic hype, not fundamental value
“The problem is bankers are still just pricing based on what things are worth when they should be pricing based on, like, mimetic warfare and, like, community shit to get the bump and let the degens pay the price, right, for their silliness.”
Lessin: Memetic warfare succeeds via customizable templates for user validation
“Mimetic Warfare is about having an idea that you want promoted broadly, and you don't actually tell people the idea. But you give them a template and then show examples why if they copy and extend the idea easily and give them the tools to do that, they can ga…”