Feb 21, 2025 · 1h 2m · more-or-less
#87: SKIMS To Revive Nike? AI Drama & The Satoshi Mystery · More or Less Podcast
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In this episode of the More or Less podcast, co-hosts Jessica Lessin, Sam Lessin, Dave Morin, and Brit Morin debate Nike's high-stakes partnership with SKIMS, the practical limits and sycophancy of frontier AI models, Apple's hardware ecosystem, and digital minimalism.
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 100% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.3 Guest teaching 2.5 Guest disagreement 3.8 The hosts pushing back 3.8
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 44:50 Sam eviscerates Humane and HP's acquisition
Sam forcefully rejects any positive framing of Humane, labeling it the most predictable startup failure and questioning who would pay $160M for it.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 59:08 Sam and Jessica reject the Dorsey Satoshi conspiracyJessica and Sam immediately dismiss Brit's theory that Jack Dorsey created Bitcoin, pointing to Dorsey's self-promotional nature and early Twitter's reliance on a Mac mini.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 28:40 Dave explains ByteDance's ML PhD strategyDave educates the panel on the structural transition of social media by quoting Jonah Peretti's direct conversation with ByteDance's founder about leveraging massive ML talent.
The host holds their own ▶ 51:48 Jessica breaks down Humane's Series C cap tableJessica pulls up reported deal specifics, listing the exact strategic and institutional investors in Humane to counter speculative claims about who financed the company.
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 Podcast Animated Opening Title Sequence | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | The hosts engage in casual, humorous banter about skiing in Tahoe, body soreness, and Jessica hiding in the closet to foam roll. The exchange is lighthearted domestic and lifestyle chitchat with minimal friction. | |
| The Macro-Historical Debate on Yoga and Stretching | 4 | 2 | 5 | 4 | Sam provocatively asserts that stretching is bad for health and macro-historically leads cultures to be conquered. Dave and Brit push back, citing thousands of years of historical martial traditions and yoga practice. | |
| Elon Musk Trolls The Information with Grok 3 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Jessica details Elon Musk's screenshot trolling The Information via Grok 3 and demonstrates how the actual output differed completely when prompted neutrally. Sam corroborates with live prompt tests confirming Grok's sycophantic persona. | |
| Benchmarking AI Coding Capabilities and Human Task Runners | 6 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Dave cites OpenAI research showing LLMs complete only 40% of Upwork coding tasks and struggle to find bugs. Brit shares concrete benchmarking data comparing architectural budget quotes across Gemini and Claude. | |
| Grok Persona Mimicry, Data Privacy, and DeepSeek | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Sam demonstrates Grok 3 adapting its tone when instructed to roleplay as Elon Musk, prompting Jessica to highlight the societal risks of AI-driven confirmation bias. The group pivots into banter about Chinese hardware data collection. | |
| Apple's Contact Glitch and the DOPE Phone Idea | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Jessica vents about an iOS bug that stripped contact names from her iMessage conversations, sparking jokes about Apple Intelligence purging contacts and Brit's mock concept of the DOPE phone. | |
| Dave Morin's Digital Detox: Quitting Social Media Like Alcohol | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | Dave shares his experience quitting social media, comparing it to giving up alcohol in 2015. Sam teases him about relying on peers for updates, but Dave defends the creative and mental clarity gained. | |
| The Dumb Phone Concept and TikTok's Addictive Architecture | 7 | 3 | 3 | 3 | The panel debates minimal distraction hardware like Daylight and Light Phone before Dave analyzes ByteDance's video algorithm strategy, citing Jonah Peretti's memo regarding machine learning PhDs and Musical.ly. | |
| Building Brands Through Word-of-Mouth versus Algorithmic Feeds | 6 | 3 | 4 | 4 | Dave argues that enduring brands rely on word-of-mouth and superior products rather than social feeds. Brit adds a nuanced counter-framework distinguishing fast-metabolism brands from slow-growth, high-retention brands. | |
| Analyzing Nike and SKIMS Brand Strategy | 6 | 4 | 5 | 5 | Brit highlights the Nike x SKIMS partnership as a historic brand lockup, which Dave questions by pointing out prior collaborations like Tom Sachs. Jessica counters Dave's defense of SKIMS by comparing its fast-iteration cycle to Zara rather than premium apparel. | |
| The Humane AI Pin Fire Sale to HP | 8 | 4 | 6 | 6 | Sam aggressively derides HP's $160M acquisition of Humane and mocks AI in printers, while Dave offers an insider defense of the founders for landing the plane and delivering an acquihire rather than letting the company become a zombie. | |
| Meta Smart Glasses and Host Corner Banter | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Brit reports Meta's milestone of two million smart glasses sold with plans for ten million. Dave shares an anecdote about Tokyo police suspecting the glasses were spy gear, and the hosts playfully assign show corner titles. | |
| Debunking the Satoshi Nakamoto Conspiracy Theory | 7 | 2 | 6 | 7 | Brit brings up an online theory alleging Jack Dorsey is Satoshi Nakamoto. Sam and Jessica forcefully dismantle the claim, citing Dorsey's personality and Twitter's brittle early architecture as technical counter-proof. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Sam Lessin: Grok 3 Gives The Information a Glowing Review Despite Musk Post
“I just did it again on Model Three. What Model Three? The information is a respected technology business news outlet founded by Jessica Lawson. It's known for its in-depth investigative reporting about the tech industry, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's glow…”
Sam Lessin: LLMs Don't Tell Truth, Only What You Want to Hear
“And I think that's, like, kind of the reality of all these LLMs to remember is that they don't actually tell you truth. They just tell you what you want to hear.”
Dave Morin: OpenAI Study Shows LLMs Complete Only ~40% of Upwork Tasks
“OpenAI put out a new study about software engineering tasks and whether or not LLMs can pick up random software engineering tasks off Upwork, and what percentage of them can they complete? And it's only something like 40%, and crucially, LLMs can fix bugs, but…”
Dave Morin: OpenAI 'Crushes All of Them' on Deep Research Mode
“I've been testing all of them on, ah, deep research mode, and OpenAI by far crushes all of them.”
Sam Lessin: Displaced Customer Support Agents Will Become 'AI Task Runners'
“This can be people's new jobs, the AI task runner. It's like, you don't have a job as a customer service agent anymore. Instead you work for me, I pay you whatever a month and you just type things in and edit them for me.”
Dave Morin: Gemini Is Consistently the Best LLM at Numbers
“That's been the consistent answer, actually. Gemini's best at numbers.”
Jessica Lessin: Personalized AI Models Will Drastically Worsen Filter Bubbles
“This is a really, really key point with these models and services, because we're already in filter bubble land is society and culture and everything else. And this just takes it to the nth degree.”
Jessica Lessin: Alibaba and Chinese Government Proposed Investing in DeepSeek
“The information did break the news today that Alibaba and the Chinese government are proposing that they invest in DeepSeq.”
Brit Morin: Apple introduces update bugs around phone launches to drive upgrades
“I think they do this anytime a new phone launches because they just want you to get rid of your phone and update it no matter what, so you can fix all the bugs.”
Morin: Devices like Light Phone and Daylight are downgraded 'diet smartphones'
“Light phone, daylight, all of these things are like a less good
Smartphone that also, it's like a diet smartphone rather than being something that's like much, much better.”
Morin cites Peretti: ByteDance founder planned addictive service using ML PhDs and Musical.ly
“He talked about how he was talking to the founder of ByteDance in 2017, and the founder of ByteDance said, China's going to graduate more machine learning PhDs in one year than America will
You know, graduate maybe ever.
And so all I need is a lot of video c…”
Lessin: Morin and I spent a year looking to invest in digital drugs
“You and I have, we spent a whole year looking for digital drugs to invest in when the biggest one was staring us in our face the whole time.”
Brit Morin: Nike gained 9% post-SKIMS announcement; SKIMS valued at $4B
“Their stock, since the announcement, their stock is up nine percent, and off of like a hundred and thirteen billion dollar market cap, it's like, what, ten billion dollars? Like, so, like, and SKIMS is valued at four billion dollars right now.”
Jessica Lessin predicts Nike-SKIMS partnership will fail within 24 months
“I think this won't end well. I, I'm predicting, you know, the 24 month information expose on what went wrong.”
Lessin: Humane was the most predictable startup failure imaginable
“It was the most predictable startup failure you could imagine.”
Morin: Apple-style product launches cannot work in the social media era
“You can't do Apple style launches in the social media era.”
Brit Morin: We lost about $100,000 investing in Humane
“But we lost like a hundred K, like not like a lot of.”
Lessin: Startups take strategic and hedge fund money when real VCs pass
“Then you have a bunch of strategics and family offices because no smart people would invest in this, right? Like that's like how you end up with strategics and like hedge funds is when like the serious venture people are like, absolutely not.”
Brit Morin: Meta Sells Two Million Smart Glasses, Ramping to Ten Million
“News of the week also, and a tangent is that Meta has now sold two million smart glasses and they're ramping up their production to push ten million this year.”
Sam Lessin: Meta Engineered Smart Glasses to Brick If Recording LED Disabled
“They spent so much time trying to figure out how to engineer it so that it would brick it if you try to disable that LED for exactly that reason. Like it's a wild, the amount of engineering that went into that, like, make sure the LED cannot be disabled for ex…”
Sam Lessin: Jack Dorsey Lacks Technical Chops to Have Created Bitcoin
“Jack Dorsey does not have even close To the actual technical chops to have come up with Bitcoin. Just like, there's no chance.”