Nov 15, 2024 · 1h 1m · more-or-less
#73: Elon to Lead DOGE, Bitcoin Surges & the Trump Alliance · More or Less Podcast
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In Episode 73 of the More or Less podcast, hosts Brit Morin, Dave Morin, Jessica Lessin, and Sam Lessin analyze the technological, political, and financial fallout of Donald Trump's election victory, focusing on Elon Musk's DOGE appointment, surging crypto markets, AI scaling bottlenecks, and the reopening of venture capital liquidity.
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 99.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.2 Guest teaching 3.6 Guest disagreement 3.3 The hosts pushing back 3.3
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 50:22 Brit rejects automated AI creative control
Brit strongly dismisses the premise that enterprise brands will hand over messaging to black-box LLM systems without strict creative guardrails.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 11:26 Jessica rejects premise that Google antitrust is overJessica forcefully refuses Sam and Dave's assertion that the Trump win ends Google antitrust scrutiny, citing her own reporting that points to an impending mega-settlement.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 17:38 Sam explains executive divestment tax breaksSam informs the co-hosts about Section 1043 tax deferrals, explaining how senior government appointees legally avoid capital gains taxes through forced divestiture.
The host holds their own ▶ 38:14 Brit defends Life360 against Sam's dismissalBrit pushes back against Sam's attempt to minimize Life360's public market success, citing its 30% consistent year-over-year revenue growth and doubled valuation.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Podcast Opening Title Sequence | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | The co-hosts engage in lighthearted banter regarding Brit's new blonde hair, Sam's IV drip treatment, and colonoscopies. The tone is entirely friendly, conversational, and non-confrontational. | |
| Biohacking Plugs: Glucose Monitors and Biological Aging Tests | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Dave introduces continuous glucose monitors and the SUPAR biological aging test. The co-hosts compare personal health metrics and biological ages in a collaborative exchange. | |
| Listener Feedback, Fan Cookies, and Podcaster Journalistic Ethics | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Jessica highlights listener feedback and clarifies journalistic gift ethics when Sam receives listener cookies. Dave lightly prods Jessica on whether she acts as an active reporter during the recording. | |
| Google Antitrust Breakup Prospects Under the Trump Administration | 6 | 3 | 4 | 5 | When Sam and Dave flatly claim Trump's election terminates the Google antitrust case, Jessica pushes back with her direct reporting indicating a major financial settlement is more plausible. | |
| SpaceX Conflicts of Interest and the Tech Advisory Playbook | 6 | 5 | 3 | 4 | Brit raises SpaceX conflicts of interest in defense contracting, prompting Dave to frame Elon Musk's role as a VC board observer. Sam explains government divestment tax loopholes. | |
| Tech CEO Sentiment on Trump: Deregulation vs. China Tariffs | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Jessica outlines her reporting on tech CEOs' conflicted views regarding Trump, balancing excitement over deregulation against fear of tariffs. Sam corroborates with sentiments from his personal network. | |
| Bitcoin Surge to $100K and the Return of Crypto Momentum | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | Brit inquires whether Bitcoin will surpass $100K. Sam explains psychological resistance levels and retail trading habits, while Dave shares an anecdote about a co-investor's appreciation. | |
| The Macro Narrative Shift: From AI Hype to Trump, Infrastructure, and Defense | 5 | 6 | 4 | 3 | Sam articulates a macro thesis that Silicon Valley attention is pivoting away from generative AI towards Trump, infrastructure, and defense tech. Jessica questions the underlying drivers of these sudden shifts. | |
| The Pitfalls of Momentum Venture Capital vs. First-Principles Investing | 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Sam criticizes momentum venture capitalists who chase trending narratives without first principles. Dave reinforces the critique by pointing out how dangerous trend-chasing is for seed-stage fund returns. | |
| Brit Morin's AI Investment Thesis and Maturing Startup Pitches | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Brit outlines her venture thesis focusing on vertical AI applications with defensible proprietary moats. Jessica discusses her angel investment in Dynamo, a media venture led by Nick Carlson. | |
| Post-Election Venture Capital Sentiment and the IPO Window | 6 | 4 | 5 | 5 | The panel discusses the post-election IPO window and Lina Khan's FTC tenure. When Sam dismisses Life360's stock rally as a re-IPO technicality, Brit firmly defends its operational performance. | |
| Exploring Ad Models and Monetization Strategies in LLMs | 7 | 5 | 5 | 6 | Brit evaluates Perplexity's sponsored prompt questions. Dave and Sam debate whether LLM monetization requires new user vectors or novel ad formats, while Brit pushes back against brands yielding creative control to AI. | |
| Pop Culture Corner Mark Zuckerberg and T-Pain's Get Low | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Jessica introduces Mark Zuckerberg's acoustic cover of Get Low with T-Pain. Dave portrays it as an algorithmic pop-culture PR strategy, but Sam counters that Zuckerberg is simply having fun. |
Statements from this episode (30)
Dave Morin: Elective IV drips lack standardization and are dangerous
“Like, there's no testing. There's no standardization. Like, it's really dangerous.”
Lessin: Continuous glucose monitors offer little value for non-diabetics
“But figuring out, I feel like there's some athletic adaptation that would be cool, but they, for people who don't have diabetes, I'm less convinced.”
Morin: Continuous glucose monitor subscriptions likely face heavy monthly churn
“I hope this company doesn't have a subscription business model because it seems like the churn rates probably really high after it does like a month.”
Jessica Lessin: OpenAI and Google face slowdowns in AI model training
“The information has led the charge on reporting about how in particular OpenAI, but also Google now are reaching slowdowns in the rate of training their models.”
Sam Lessin: Google will not be broken up under Donald Trump
“That's not going to happen with Trump as president.”
Jessica Lessin: Google antitrust case will likely end in a major settlement
“Well, I think I, and I've actually started to do some actual reporting on this topic, and my strong hunch is a really, is a nice juicy settlement coming. Nothing imminent, but they're still waiting for courts”
Jessica Lessin: Elon Musk and Larry Page had a tremendous falling out
“Elon and Larry were quite close for some time and have had a tremendous falling out.”
Sam Lessin: Dogecoin is doing $28 billion in daily trading volume
“Well, it's doing twenty eight billion in trading.”
Jessica Lessin: Constitutional laws will prevent Elon Musk from slashing federal government
“Listeners of the pod should know that our very informed sources Don't think he will do the same to the federal government because the Constitution as well as many other federal statutes are very specific about how the federal budget works.”
Lessin: Musk sits in on every Mar-a-Lago meeting with Trump
“Elon is glued to Trump's hip at Mar-a-Lago sitting in on every single meeting and, you know, has uncle status according to his grandchildren.”
Sam Lessin: Ultra-wealthy use government cabinet positions to defer capital gains taxes
“There's this hack where some Goldman Sachs guys got cabinet positions and they're like, well, the reason they did that or like at some level of seniority of the government is because you are forced to sell, but you don't have to pay taxes on the sale. And so i…”
Lessin: Tech CEOs fear Trump tariffs despite excitement over deregulation
“So I think the mood I'm hearing, but I'm interested in what you guys are hearing, is more of like, okay, you know, yes, there's some very specific deregulatory things We can be excited about, but also a lot of concern about how the tariffs and other potentiall…”
Sam Lessin: Trump's ego tied to stock market is good for business
“And I think everyone has confidence that Trump's ego is very tied up in the economy going up. Which, you know, that alignment is, Probably good if you're in private business broadly.”
Lessin: Crypto rally demonstrates market previously suffered from regulatory overhang
“I do think, you know, it kind of shows there was real regulatory overhang where people were worried about kind of what that was going to look like”
Sam Lessin: Bitcoin will face major sell pressure at $100,000
“Look, I think there will be a lot of sell pressure, like just around a hundred K, just because a lot of people have been up and down and say that's a good number and I'm out.”
Brit Morin: Some LPs will return to crypto venture funds
“I think some LPs are gonna come back in though.”
Sam Lessin: Trump's victory will deflate AI hype in favor of infrastructure
“And I actually think what has gone on with the Trump thing is I think it's going to take some wind out of the AI story because the story is going to be about infrastructure and America and like all that type of stuff.”
Sam Lessin: Momentum investing fails at the seed stage
“The problem with doing it at seed is that the lead time from when you invest to the realization is so long that you might have gotten in front of the parade, but that doesn't mean you made any money. Whereas if you do it in the public markets, it's great, righ…”
Morin: VC funds have already staked their AI strategies and are deepening them
“I feel like a lot of funds have taken positions on the chessboard and have kind of like submitted their strategy and now they're sort of going deeper into those thesis areas.”
Nicholas Carlson launches new company co-founded with Henry Blodget
“Nick Carlson, who is the editor-in-chief of Business Insider, is starting a new company with Henry Blodgett as his co-founder.”
Sam Lessin: Tech acqui-hires and tuck-in acquisitions are rarely worth doing
“I think companies have learned that most of these tack on type things and certainly acquires just aren't worth it. Right. It's like better to double down on your core business. You can build whatever you want yourself.”
Jessica Lessin: The historical playbook for reopening tech IPOs is permanently broken
“The market has to be up a certain amount for a certain period and the IPO window opens. And this time is just breaking that playbook. That's just not happening. And I think there are a lot of reasons that are much more structural in the markets that aren't goi…”
Sam Lessin: Public companies valued under $10 billion no longer make sense
“Small companies don't make sense, right? Sub ten billion dollar public companies.”
Sam Lessin: IPO Window Will Reopen for the Biggest Private Companies
“The reason the IPO would know it reopen, and I think it will reopen for the biggest of the private companies would be that diversification wealth effect strategy. Whereas if the market runs enough and people are feeling rich, they're going to want to diversify…”
Dave Morin: LLMs must dramatically increase user interactions to build ad networks
“Like they need people interacting with it a lot more for a lot more reasons in order to build a good ad market. It's basically the identical thing we were working on at Facebook.”
Lessin: Monetizing LLMs through advertising requires inventing a new ad format
“The way I think it's similar to social media is that you need a new ad format that doesn't exist yet.”
Sam Lessin: Meta's true power comes from controlling the ad buying experience
“Why is Meta so powerful? It's as much because they own the buying experience for ads as it is because they own the engagement, right? It's very hard to break once you have it.”
Dave Morin: Politics and Entertainment Are Both Just WWF-Style Pop Culture
“It's like in both cases, whether you're in pop culture, Taylor Swift land, or whether you're in politics, they're both just American pop culture of different flavors. And it's all of this stuff is just WWF characters.”
Dave Morin: Zuckerberg's public pop culture stunts are driven by Facebook data
“All you have to do is look at Facebook's data set to know that like these types of pop culture moves are what drives engagement, right? Like MMA drives engagement. It just elected the president, like these types of things. T-Pain is having a huge resurgence in…”