Oct 11, 2024 · 1h 2m · more-or-less
#68: Google's Antitrust Saga Continues… · More or Less Podcast
Jessica Lessin · 24m spoken Dave Morin · 20m spoken Brit Morin · 10m spoken Intro Singer · 15s 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 Jessica Lessin, Brit Morin, and Dave Morin evaluate potential Department of Justice antitrust breakups of Google, critique deceptive user defaults and rising screen fatigue, and examine the economic, energy, and API bottlenecks challenging the generative AI boom.
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 99.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.4 Guest teaching 3.5 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 ▶ 24:20 Rejecting the Mandated Feed Selection Premise
Jessica forcefully dismisses Dave's regulatory proposal to strip default algorithms from apps, asserting regular users do not want to configure their own algorithms.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 18:45 Pointing Out Startup Liquidity HypocrisyJessica directly challenges the tech industry contradiction of demanding competition while complaining whenever antitrust regulators block dominant tech firms from buying startups.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 11:55 Firsthand Account of Microsoft's Regulatory SlumpDave educates the panel with insider details on how Department of Justice oversight bloated Microsoft partner meetings with compliance PMs and stalled product velocity for a decade.
The host holds their own ▶ 49:05 Historical Precedent on Lowering Production CostsJessica pushes back on Dave's utopian coding thesis by applying media economics, arguing lower barriers to creation saturate ecosystems with junk while degrading business models.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "More or Less" Animated Title Sequence | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Introductory banter recapping Jessica's WTF conference and Marissa Mayer's comments on company breakups. The tone is relaxed and warm with no real conflict or technical debate. | |
| Google Antitrust Remedies and Historical Tech Precedents | 6 | 5 | 3 | 4 | The panel debates DOJ remedies against Google, with Brit pulling business revenue figures and Dave sharing firsthand historical context from early Facebook-Microsoft negotiations. | |
| The Impact of Big Tech Regulation on Startup Innovation and M&A | 6 | 4 | 4 | 5 | Dave argues that blocking Big Tech acquisitions freezes the startup liquidity ecosystem, while Jessica pushes back on the inherent tension between demanding competition and allowing tech giants to buy whatever they want. | |
| Power of the Default: Browsers, App Stores, and Security Ecosystems | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Dave introduces the importance of defaults across browsers and operating systems, prompting Brit and Dave to discuss Apple's Secure Enclave versus Chrome password vaults. | |
| Regulating Algorithmic Defaults and the Hidden Instagram Feed | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | Dave challenges the hosts to find Instagram's hidden chronological feed, but Jessica firmly rejects his framing, arguing regular consumers do not want to choose or manage their own algorithmic feeds. | |
| Digital Fatigue, Screen Time Limits, and Tech Detox Strategies | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | A collaborative exchange comparing screen times, sleep alarms, and habit-breaking rituals like doing NYT Connections before opening social media. | |
| Generational Longevity Debates and Amazon AWS Spinoff Speculation | 6 | 3 | 3 | 4 | The hosts touch on longevity claims before evaluating AWS spinoff arguments, noting AWS accounts for only 17% of Amazon revenue but generates most of the operational profits. | |
| AI Uncertainty, Compute Limits, and the Realities of Foundation Models | 7 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Jessica cites Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei questioning infinite scaling laws, while Dave explains how current LLM scaling hits physical boundaries like power grids and optical data transmission. | |
| The Personal Software Era: AI-Assisted Engineering and Collapsing Code Costs | 7 | 6 | 3 | 4 | Dave outlines his personal software hypothesis based on Claude Sonnet coding tools, while Jessica cautions that lowering the barrier to creation historically created a glut of low-quality content without viable unit economics. | |
| Consumer AI Bottlenecks: Prohibitive API Costs and On-Device Models | 6 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Dave highlights the economic barrier of billion-call API costs preventing consumer AI apps, leading Jessica to contrast cloud Gemini with Apple on-device models. | |
| OpenAI Infrastructure Diversification and Valuation Skepticism | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | The panel discusses OpenAI seeking multi-cloud independence from Microsoft and reports seed investors balking at a $100B valuation round. | |
| Pop Culture Corner: Taylor Swift's Glitter Freckles | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Banter covers Taylor Swift's glitter freckles and Wimbledon adopting automated line calling, with Jessica clarifying it is standard optical tracking rather than generative AI. | |
| The .AI Domain Name Rush and Bubble Indicators | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Jessica notes inflated .ai domain pricing, leading Dave to draw a parallel to peak web3 .xyz domain speculation as a contrarian short signal. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Brit Morin: Mobile created companies like Uber, but no trillion-dollar companies
“Mobile was like the next wave. That produced companies like Uber with like a hundred and sixty billion dollars in value, but not like trillion dollar companies.”
Dave Morin: Regulating Big Tech Directly Reduces Small Startup Acquisitions
“And what we do know is that more and more and more regulation of big tech equals less and less and less acquisition of small tech.”
Dave Morin: Magnificent Seven Acquisitions Are Now Scale-Equivalent to IPOs
“This is actually kind of my point, is that Magnificent Seven are now Actually kind of an IPO. Like the scale of the liquidity in these seven companies is so large that selling to one of these companies is as, you know, the scale of it is almost the same as, I …”
Lessin: Users will still choose Google even without pre-set defaults
“People are still gonna choose Google.”
Dave Morin: Regulators should target platform defaults rather than breakups
“The more we're talking about this, the more I believe that the thing that the that they should target is target the defaults. You know, like targeting the defaults is the thing that nobody talks about properly.”
Lessin: Ad companies bypassed Apple tracking and reached new highs
“And then they found other ways to track them and their market caps had fully recovered and surged to new heights.”
Dave Morin: A Google breakup spurring 1,000 Perplexities benefits Silicon Valley
“I mean, not just it, but for the ecosystem, right? Like seeing some, seeing like 1000 perplexities bloom would be actually very good for Silicon Valley.”
Dave Morin: Microsoft 'quite literally had to buy a nuclear power plant'
“Microsoft quite literally had to buy a nuclear power plant, right?”
Dave Morin: AI progress will probably plateau longer than people think
“A simple way to think of it is like, we're probably gonna be kind of where we are right now for a lot longer than people think. If the current architecture and the current energy and the current capital needs are the gating factors.”
Dave Morin: AI built an app in weeks that previously cost $1M-$2M
“I was able to build an app for myself using AI software engineering tools, which would have cost one to two million dollars in seed capital to build in five people and maybe one year to two year, maybe call it 12 to 18 months of time and one to two million dol…”
Dave Morin: Value of developing software is rapidly collapsing to zero
“One, the value of all software being developed is kind of rapidly going to zero right now because anyone can build anything that they want for any workflow in their business or their personal life very, very quickly and for very low cost. And so that means tha…”
Dave Morin: Tech is transitioning from enterprise SaaS to personal software
“And now we're shifting to the personal software era where people can build their own software for their own use case. They can build it for their friends, their groups, small groups, and you don't have to depend on an organization to build you everything anymo…”
Dave Morin: AI coding breakthrough wouldn't exist without Claude 3.5 Sonnet
“It was Claude Sonnet that caused this to happen. Like it was to put a fine point on it. If it were not for Sonnet, this software engineering breakthrough, I don't think would be happening right now. So you can like literally go to the day that model was publis…”
Dave Morin: Prohibitive API costs prevent consumer AI apps from emerging
“Right now you're seeing almost no consumer AI apps because it's so expensive to use the big models, right? Like if I were going to build a consumer AI app of any kind, call it, let's call it a social app of any kind. And I needed to call that API every single …”
Dave Morin: Path achieved one billion timeline views daily at peak
“The social network that I built, we were doing a billion timelines view a day at peak.”
Dave Morin: Consumer AI apps require Apple to open on-device APIs
“The answer is, well, you need to depend on Apple making their small models that are on device available via API, which they haven't yet, right?”
Lessin: Microsoft likely supports OpenAI diversifying infrastructure away from Azure
“And you know what? I bet Microsoft is all in favor of this too, because they don't want to have all their workloads either.”
Brit Morin: Seed investors said they would pass on OpenAI's round
“The last thing I'll say about this conversation we also had last night was that the Question was asked, like, would you have invested in OpenAI's hundred billion all around? And it was actually a resounding no. And like, you know, the tenor of these investors …”
Dave Morin: Surging domain prices signal when to short an asset class
“When an asset class is dot domain. So like, remember when web three was using dot X, Y, Z and dot X, Y, Z domains went through the roof. They were like, 10,000 dollars per domain. So like, when that happens, you know you should go short.”