Mar 7, 2025 · 53m · more-or-less
#89: America’s Crypto Reserve, Nvidia’s $600M Hit & Digg’s Comeback · More or Less Podcast
Sam Lessin · 17m spoken Jessica Lessin · 14m spoken Dave Morin · 8m spoken Brit Morin · 6m spoken Intro Singer · 6s 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, hosts Dave Morin, Britt Morin, Sam Lessin, and Jessica Lessin debate major tech and macroeconomic headlines, including Trump's proposed strategic crypto reserve, AI valuation turbulence, the resurgence of Web 2.0 platforms like Digg, and the evolving economics of live entertainment.
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 85.9% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.5 Guest teaching 2.7 Guest disagreement 2.6 The hosts pushing back 3.1
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 7:36 Britt directly combats Sam's live viewership narrative
Britt explicitly rejects Sam's claim that live events are dead, citing 20M Oscar viewers and substantial double-digit rating increases among younger demographics.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 42:54 Sam demolishes luxury robot massage unit economicsSam flatly refutes Britt's hotel spa comparison, arguing automation inevitably drives prices down to electricity costs rather than retaining human labor premiums.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 7:36 Britt educates the table on streaming-driven live broadcast growthBritt counters the conventional wisdom that younger audiences only watch clips by presenting specific demographic surges enabled by modern multi-network streaming.
The host holds their own ▶ 47:55 Dave calculates live viewer hours versus social media impressionsDave demonstrates deep analytical expertise by computing that a live game generates 4M viewer hours compared to merely 0.2M for millions of short-form social clips.
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 Opening Sequence | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Britt introduces her 'Brit brand theory' arguing brands built after 2014 struggle to survive while older brands enjoy resurgence. The hosts engage playfully, riffing on the recurring 'again' theme across tech and media. | |
| Media Conference Trivia: TikTok Songs and Nvidia's DeepSeek Drop | 6 | 2 | 2 | 3 | Sam runs a media trivia quiz on TikTok nostalgia songs and Nvidia's post-DeepSeek market cap hit. Dave demonstrates sharp recall of previous podcast market figures to accurately pinpoint Nvidia's multi-hundred-billion dollar drop. | |
| Live Sports Viewership Versus Short-Form Video and Streaming | 5 | 6 | 6 | 4 | Sam asserts that live broadcast viewership is completely dead compared to social media scale. Britt directly disputes the premise citing specific Oscar rating gains among 18 to 49 year olds due to modern streaming distribution. | |
| Sports Comedy Television: Running Point and Shoresy | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | The conversation shifts from TV shows to the return of Digg and early Web 2 nostalgia. Britt provides context on Kevin Rose using Reddit ads for moderator research and how AI allows lean teams to rebuild legacy platforms. | |
| Sam's Highway 101 Counter-Culture AI Billboard | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Sam explains the economics and strategy behind buying digital billboard slots along Highway 101 to poke fun at AI companies. Britt probes the media mechanics and costs behind programmatic roadside ad buys. | |
| Waymo Highway Testing and Kids in Autonomous Vehicles | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Jessica provides authoritative insider analysis on Wall Street Journal newsroom layoffs and the merging of the tech and media bureaus based on her experience as former deputy bureau chief. The room largely defers to her journalistic knowledge. | |
| Trump's Strategic Crypto Reserve and Market Volatility | 7 | 1 | 2 | 3 | The hosts delve deeply into Trump's strategic crypto reserve announcement and regulatory shifts at the SEC. Dave and Sam break down market mechanics, demonstrating significant domain mastery over crypto cycles and liquidity reactions. | |
| The 'Top Gun' Economic Theory and AGI Speculation | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | Sam outlines the speculative 'Top Gun' economic theory of intentionally compressing the economy before AI productivity takes off. Dave contributes macro parallels regarding debt refinancing and prevailing AGI rumors. | |
| CoreWeave Dealmaking and Emerging Tech IPOs | 6 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Britt highlights the investment round in the robot massage startup eScape, defending its luxury hotel unit economics. Sam vigorously rejects the premise, asserting automated services quickly commoditize to the cost of electricity. | |
| Jessica Recruits Britt for a Surf Trip Weekend | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | A friendly social interlude where Jessica lobbies Britt to attend a weekend surf trip. Discussion centers around wave difficulty, boogie boarding credentials, and weekend logistics with light reciprocal banter. | |
| Examining Live Sports Viewer Hours Versus Short-Form Clips | 7 | 2 | 2 | 5 | Dave presents a quantitative model refuting Sam's dismissive view of live sports by comparing aggregated viewer hours against short-form social video impressions. Sam and Dave debate whether concentrated live attention is an asset or a tax. |
Statements from this episode (24)
Sam Lessin: Tech is in a nostalgic "again" supercycle
“We're basically in the super cycle of again.”
Britt Morin: Lasting brands are nearly impossible to build since 2014
“Around 20 14 ish is when we hit critical mass of a billion people on social media and a billion people on smartphones. Since then, it's been really hard to create a meaningful brand that lasts more than like a drop in the bucket for a couple of years.”
Britt Morin: Pre-2014 non-tech brands can still flourish today
“Brands built prior to that era, especially in non-tech categories, so think CPG, beauty, retail, et cetera still can flourish. In fact, like What's old is new again.”
Sam Lessin: 20 of top 50 TikTok songs are over 5 years old
“No, I anchored you guys in a way that made you go too high, but 20 of 50, right, are older than five years, and a lot of them are super old because there's this whole super cycle around nostalgia going on, even in TikTok short videos.”
Sam Lessin: Nvidia lost $600M in market cap post-DeepSeek
“Our guess was 10%, and we guessed three hundred million. It was actually closer to six hundred million.”
Dave Morin: NBA regular season games average 1.6 million viewers
“An average of 1.6 million viewers per game.”
Sam Lessin: I built tasty.us as an AI-powered Delicious competitor
“I decided it was time to bring back delicious and we've created tasty.us or tastiest. And it's great. It's basically AI. It's AI delicious for saving bookmarks and groups and sharing them with.”
Sam Lessin: Relaunched Digg cannot sustain ads, will rely on crypto
“They're gonna be so subscale. They're not gonna have an advertising model. It's gonna be like some sort of fucking coin bullshit thing. Like there's, you can't build an advertising model.”
Sam Lessin: Highway 101 billboard cost low tens of thousands
“Oh, it's like barely in the low tens of thousands for a month.”
Jessica Lessin: Waymo could open its SFO passenger route any day
“There was no passenger because they're clearly testing, but I hear sources say any day they could be opening up the SFO route.”
Sam Lessin: Private schools use Waymos to drop off unattended kids
“Well, to be clear, I mean, we know for a fact that some private schools in San Francisco is going to have Waymo pickups and drop off for kids. Now, whether that's against the rules or not, I know for a fact that that has happened.”
Jessica Lessin: WSJ laid off most of its technology bureau
“Okay, so very sadly, the Wall Street Journal laid off its technology bureau. Like most of it.”
Jessica Lessin: Wired reassigned almost all reporters to cover DOGE
“So Wired, under Katie Drummond, who's awesome, has decided to put almost all their reporters on Doge. Smart move. Paying off.”
Jessica Lessin: Wired publishes unlabeled opinion pieces on its homepage
“They've also put what I think is flagrant opinion on the cover of the website and label, not labeled it as such.”
Dave Morin: SEC dropped Wells notices against Coinbase and major DEXs
“There's been no laws passed, but the SEC has actually changed their position and actually taken actions to, you know, remove Wells notices from Coinbase from several other major DEX exchanges”
Sam Lessin: Future Trump crypto tweets will have half the market impact
“The next tweet from Trump will have, if this Trump, if this one moved Cardano, 40%, because no one thought it was an important thing and it's not, but it happens to be heavily traded and whatever, like, Next time it will have half the effect, right?”
Sam Lessin: AI replacing customer service won't impact US jobs
“And for what it's worth, I do believe you, the thing I think you can fire all the customer service people. The only miscalculation is those people do not work in the US. You're going to fire all the people in Indonesia.”
Britt Morin: Discord will pursue an IPO in 2025
“Discord is now going to go out for an IPO this year.”
Jessica Lessin: CoreWeave is in talks to acquire Weights & Biases
“Well, CoreWeave is in talks to buy weights and biases.”
Jessica Lessin: CoreWeave IPO is a major barometer for AI sentiment
“So the IPO, which is pretty soon, they've done most of their filings is going to be a big barometer for how people feel about AI, how public investors feel.”
Dave Morin: Four Seasons plans to roll out Aescape massage robots
“Apparently Four Seasons is gonna roll it out.”
Dave Morin: Figure AI's valuation increased 15x in one year
“I believe it's called figure AI and these guys are up, you know, 15 X in a year.”
Sam Lessin: Robot massages will commoditize down to $12
“You are not going to charge versus a massage therapist for the robot massage. You're going to be able to charge for the cost of electricity, because it's not like everyone will fucking build them. And all of a sudden massage will cost 12 dollars.”
Sam Lessin: Social media platforms succeed by monetizing idle dead time
“The thing that the social media does is it monetizes like waiting in lines. It monetizes like, people are less angry at the airport because of TikTok. Right? Because they just sit in their fucking seats and, like, doom scroll, and then they're, like, not angry…”