Feb 14, 2025 · 1h 2m · more-or-less
#86: Elon’s $97B Curveball For OpenAI · More or Less Podcast
Jessica Lessin · 20m spoken Sam Lessin · 18m spoken Brit Morin · 9m spoken Dave Morin · 8m spoken Intro Singer · 9s 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 More or Less, hosts Jessica Lessin, Sam Lessin, Dave Morin, and Brit Morin analyze major shifts across the tech landscape, highlighted by Elon Musk's hostile $97 billion bid for OpenAI and federal efficiency initiatives. The panel also tackles the return-to-office debate, everyday AI productivity tools, the TikTok divestment, and innovative creator-venture funding models.
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 5.3 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 2.2 The hosts pushing back 2.4
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 16:39 Dave shuts down AI agent landscape pitch
Dave bluntly rejects Brit's thesis on mapping and evaluating AI agents, interrupting to state that none of them are investable because they are all thin wrappers on top of OpenAI.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 47:40 Brit and Dave push back against top-co identity dealsBrit and Dave refuse the romanticized framing of life capital, recounting how a venture investor previously attempted to lock up their family name and digital identity in a predatory term sheet.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:01:35 Dave educates Sam on Crip walk originsWhen Sam naively inquires whether the dance was linked to actual street gangs, Dave clearly explains that it originated with the Los Angeles Crips in the 1970s and spells out the word with footwork.
The host holds their own ▶ 23:30 Jessica details OpenAI nonprofit conversion mechanicsJessica displays definitive expertise by explaining how Musk's bid establishes a nonprofit baseline valuation that disrupts equity distribution, complicates California regulatory approval, and exposes Sam Altman's messaging flaws.
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 Title Sequence and Theme Song | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | Casual introductory banter focusing on Sam's new tailored wardrobe, towel sport coats, and jokes about opening an office on Sand Hill Road. There is no substantive technical debate or friction. | |
| The Great Return to Office Debate: Signaling vs. Remote Work | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | The hosts debate return-to-office mandates, with Sam arguing that physical office attendance acts as costly signaling comparable to foot binding. Dave counters by pointing out that Linux and major software stacks were built remotely. | |
| Chief Productivity Officers and Testing AI in the Workplace | 5 | 2 | 4 | 4 | Brit suggests startups need Chief Productivity Officers to optimize AI agents, which Dave and Sam dismiss as redundant or repurposed DEI roles. Dave flatly asserts AI wrapper agents are uninvestable, while Brit defends founder testing needs. | |
| Apple Intelligence Failures and Broken Google Maps Routing | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Jessica vents about inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries, and Sam launches into a long-standing grievance regarding broken Google Maps routing along Highway 92 on the Peninsula. | |
| Analyzing Elon Musk's $97B Bid for the OpenAI Nonprofit | 8 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Jessica demonstrates strong journalistic reporting on Elon Musk's 97 billion dollar bid for OpenAI's nonprofit arm. She details board fiduciary limits, the valuation problem for for-profit conversion, and critiques Sam Altman's public messaging. | |
| DOGE Government Reforms, Payment Tracking, and Workplace Metrics | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | The group discusses DOGE's audit of Treasury payments, outdated government do-not-pay registries, and translates the concept into funny startup workplace metrics like auto-reply tracking. | |
| Negotiating the TikTok Sale and Potential Suitors | 6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Jessica shares insider updates on TikTok divestiture talks involving JD Vance and recounts attending Bill Gates's memoir launch. Dave introduces an emotional anecdote from the memoir about Gates's childhood collaborator dying at seventeen. | |
| Slow Ventures' Creator Fund and the Life Capital Model | 7 | 4 | 3 | 5 | Sam pitches his newly closed 60 million dollar Slow Ventures Creator Fund based on his life capital concept. Brit and Dave challenge the model, comparing it to music industry 360 deals and sharing a past predatory experience where an investor sought rights to Brit's personal identity. | |
| Decoding Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl Halftime Performance | 7 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Dave walks Brit, Jess, and Sam through the artistic layers of Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime show, detailing the Uncle Sam framing and anti-establishment themes. Dave also educates Sam on the historical origin of Serena Williams's Crip walk. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Sam Lessin: Having a Sand Hill Road office is counterculture
“I really want to get a Sand Hill Road office. I think it'd be so great. It's so counterculture.”
Lessin: Slow Ventures is hesitating to fund a startup for being remote.
“There's a startup we're looking at that's that we like, but it's remote. And we're like, eh, we don't love what they're about.”
Lessin: Working in-office is a costly signal comparable to Chinese foot binding.
“It's kind of like you just demonstrate seriousness by all being in the same place and willingness. Like in some ways there are things in life kind of like Chinese foot binding where like, The value is the signaling, right? As much as anything else. And I do th…”
Sam Lessin: Best Performing Companies Stock-Wise Strongly Bias Toward In-Person Work
“If you did the analysis of like, Time in office to stock price. I bet what you'd see is that actually the best performing companies are all the ones that are biasing towards deeply in person, and the worst performing ones are the ones that are biased towards n…”
Sam Lessin: Venture Capital Shows Almost Zero Correlation Between Hours and Outcomes
“Venture capital is one of these things where like, The relationship between the work you do and the outcomes is like- The smack talk never ends. Is like almost non-existent. Like it is not an input to output business, right? Like it is, and so I think it's lik…”
Jessica Lessin: Companies Are Not Optimizing by Working Remotely
“It's still hilarious to me that everyone's convinced themselves that we're optimizing by doing this remote thing, and we're just not.”
Morin: AI agent startups are uninvestable because they just wrap OpenAI.
“You don't need to look at it. None of it's investable. It's all just built on top of open AI.”
Sam Lessin: Google Maps routing and ETAs are broken across Bay Area
“There's something fundamentally wrong with Google maps and how they're routing. Like their ETAs are off dramatically. The routing is off dramatically all over the Bay area.”
Lessin: Elon Musk does not genuinely want to own the OpenAI nonprofit.
“Elon doesn't actually want to own the OpenAI nonprofit.”
Lessin: OpenAI's board decided to reject Musk's $97B bid
“What we did also break was that the board had decided to reject the offer.”
Lessin: OpenAI pulled a bait-and-switch on the spirit of its nonprofit mission.
“I also like kind of am sympathetic to Elon on this one, because I also kind of believe setting aside the letter of the law, which again, I don't know, it's not my place, but like the spirit of the law, I do think there was a bait and switch by open AI in terms…”
Lessin: Sam Altman cannot match Elon Musk in public PR battles.
“He's a great marketer, but he's not as good as Elon at this tete-a-tete.”
Lessin: A top-20 tech CEO is the first to open The Information's evening email
“Actually there's one CEO of a top 10, 20 market cap tech company who's basically the first person to open our evening briefing every night.”
Lessin: JD Vance has been deputized to organize TikTok's new investor group.
“I think the state of play is that, in particular, JD Vance. Vance has been deputized to do this. Is trying to figure out what group of investors broadly, including strategics, can own what parts of TikTok and satisfy you know, the law.”
Lessin: The TikTok deal will resemble an expanded Project Texas, not a sale.
“Yeah, but I don't think it'll be a straight sale. I think it will be something that kind of resembles this Project Texas data deal they did with Oracle, but more than that”
Lessin: Journalist Rob Guth ghostwrote Bill Gates' official memoir trilogy.
“I should shout out that my good friend, one of my mentors, Rob Guth, was the writer behind the book. So Bill has his name on it. Pretty sure Rob wrote the book, but that's the partnership there.”
Lessin: Walter Isaacson's biographies are compromised by access, reading like extended interviews.
“Also those were that the Isaacson books are awesome, but they're very colored by like the access. So they're much, they're sort of in between like a real retelling of history and sort of a interview plus.”
Lessin: Slow Ventures closed a $60M creator fund backed by MIT.
“We closed our creator fund, sixty million dollars of institutional capital from really serious people like MIT and Michigan and Rutgers”
Lessin: Entrepreneurship Now Starts With Niche Community Before Product
“There's a new pattern of entrepreneurship, which is, it's not build product, then build community and trust. It's build community and trust in a niche you care about, and then layer products on top.”
Lessin: Slow Ventures avoids investing in mass entertainers like MrBeast.
“We would not invest in general entertainment is too competitive, right? Like I actually wouldn't invest in like beast or things like that. It's much more about these are like niche communities. It's like aviation is a great area to look into or like lawn care …”