Feb 9, 2024 · 56m · more-or-less
#33: Yes/No, Vision Pro? w/Special Guest Brian Singerman, Founders Fund · More or Less Podcast
Jessica Lessin · 17m spoken Dave Morin · 13m spoken Brian Singerman · 12m spoken Brit Morin · 6m 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, Britt Morin, and Dave Morin are joined by Founders Fund partner Brian Singerman to conduct an in-depth hands-on review of Apple's Vision Pro, debate the future of streaming sports, and analyze venture capital hype cycles.
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 60.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.4 Guest teaching 3.1 Guest disagreement 2.2 The hosts pushing back 1.8
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 50:03 Brian dismisses AI labeling as nonsensical
Brian firmly rejects the premise of AI as a specialized venture category, arguing that founders shoehorning LLMs into every pitch deck within minutes was absurd hype.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 20:28 Dave pushes back on zero-sum VR headset competitionWhen Brian asserts consumers will not purchase both a Quest and a Vision Pro, host Dave Morin immediately counters that the market is expansive with completely distinct hardware paradigms.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 31:16 Brian explains the physiological cause of headset dizzinessWhen Dave admits confusion over why using the Vision Pro leaves lingering dizziness in his brain, Brian immediately clarifies the technical culprit regarding display frame rates not matching the eye's natural biological frequency.
The host holds their own ▶ 26:53 Dave cites Facebook Platform launch to explain Apple developer rolloutsDave Morin demonstrates insider operational authority by citing his firsthand experience building and launching the original Facebook Platform to explain developer adoption dynamics.
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 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | The conversation consists of lighthearted banter, introducing guest Brian Singerman filling in for Sam Lessin, and discussing recent skiing trips. | |
| Apple Vision Pro: Dave Morin's Hands-On Review | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Host Dave Morin demonstrates deep first-hand familiarity with Apple Vision Pro hardware and interface paradigms, comparing it to early Macintosh and Model 3 breakthroughs. Singerman briefly mentions Founders Fund's investment in Neuralink when hands-free control is brought up. | |
| Apple Vision Pro: Britt Morin's Impressions and Critiques | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Britt Morin details usability critiques including weight, lack of multi-user profiles, and social isolation. Brian interjects to ask about Apple's original marketing promises regarding outward eye visibility. | |
| Metaverse Evolution, Quest Competition, and Spatial Video | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Brian draws on his deep background investing in Oculus and working at there.com to evaluate spatial presence and Quest competition. Dave counters Brian's zero-sum view by arguing the hardware ecosystems are market-expanding rather than directly cannibalistic. | |
| Siri Shortcomings and Apple's Developer Strategy | 7 | 1 | 2 | 3 | Dave draws directly on his past career launching the Facebook developer platform to explain why Apple is releasing a pro-level device before knowing the breakout consumer applications. Jessica questions why the marketing feels heavily B2C despite this. | |
| Hardware Engineering, Discomfort, and Live Demo | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Dave explains hardware miniaturization and mentions experiencing residual dizziness after extended headset usage. Brian educates him on display refresh rates and why mismatched visual frame rates induce nausea. | |
| The Joint Sports Streaming Venture (Hulu of Sports) | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | The panel debates the newly announced sports joint venture between Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery. Brian points out the bundle remains incomplete without CBS/NBC and pushes back against stacking it on top of existing services like YouTube TV. | |
| Esports Stagnation vs. NFL and Fantasy Dominance | 6 | 5 | 3 | 2 | Brian explains why esports monetization and audience growth have stalled in the US compared to the NFL, rejecting Dave's hypothesis about visible facial expressions in favor of mass-market pop culture penetration and fantasy sports mechanics. | |
| Brian Singerman on Venture Capital and AI Hype | 5 | 6 | 4 | 2 | Brian challenges common VC prognostication narratives about paradigm shifts, asserting venture fundamentally remains about picking the very few outliers. He also rejects the label of AI as a standalone category, calling early pitch decks overusing it nonsensical. |
Statements from this episode (13)
Dave Morin predicts Vision Pro will spawn a new consumer device ecosystem
“I think you have to think of this almost like the new version of the Macintosh, and this will borne out its own versions of iPhones and iPads and watches, right? There'll be accessories that go along with this, and you have to like, think of this as like the t…”
Dave Morin: Apple Vision Pro has too much lag to safely drive with
“It's definitely not fast enough. There's definitely enough leg that you do not want to be driving a car.”
Britt Morin: Apple Vision Pro will remain a solo entertainment experience
“I do think it's a solo experience. I don't think people are going to walk around their house with these or the streets with these or the car with these, but I do think they're going to have solo experiences with these and the entertainment will be kind of the …”
Britt Morin: Apple Vision Pro will get bad early reviews over weight and isolation
“I do think it's going to get a lot of bad reviews in the early days because it's not the social experience everyone thought it was. It's heavy, you know and all of the rest of it.”
Brian Singerman says headsets need multi-user presence to be transformative
“For this to truly be transformative, it will have to start working in a way where you're either interacting with multiple people over a network who are wearing one, or even next to you and you're just watching different movies”
Dave Morin: Apple Vision Pro Expands Headset Market, Leaving Room for Meta
“I also think that it's market expanding, right? There's room for both. And there's going, just like in computers, you know, you needed Dell, you needed Microsoft, you needed Apple, right? There's a lot of different customers out there.”
Dave Morin calls Apple Vision Pro the pinnacle of human ingenuity
“The electronics development of this thing is, The pinnacle of human ingenuity right now in the world.”
Jessica Lessin says Hulu was always an utter and total business mess
“From a consumer side, the product is good, but from a business side, it's always been an utter and total mess, and the partners have been at each other's throats”
Brian Singerman says fantasy and betting ecosystems put the NFL ahead
“Fantasy does not really work well for other sports, and it works so well perfectly for football that it just gets people entertained and jazzed about the NFL who even otherwise wouldn't care about watching it, right? And I do think that, you know, the betting …”
Brian Singerman says esports business models only work for game publishers
“And that's why a lot of these esports things are pretty challenging other than for the game developers themselves, because they can sell a lot of copies of their games because parents buy kids games, right? But any other model in terms of the esports portion o…”
Brian Singerman says VC fundamentals don't change because few companies matter
“What we see though is no matter what the era, there's just very few companies that matter. And this is what all venture capitalists kind of have to try and figure out and make sure they see, pick and get into the very few companies that matter.”
Brian Singerman says early pitches were mostly social, local, and mobile
“It's not a category. I mean, I, I've said this stat a couple of times, but you know, when I first started doing venture capital, everything was social, local, mobile. It was like over 60% of the companies that I looked at, yeah, looked at in the first year wer…”
Brian Singerman says founders are moving past the AI company label
“For a while, I think the pendulum was already being on the shift, but for a while, it was close to 100% Of companies would say AI or LLM by, you know, minute two of the pitch or page one of the deck. And I think that that's changed. It's now just you know, a t…”