Dec 15, 2023 · 53m · more-or-less
#27: Make Number Go Up, and The Problem with Nonprofits · More or Less Podcast
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In this episode of More or Less, tech founders and journalists Jessica Lessin, Sam Lessin, Dave Morin, and Brit Morin unpack venture capital year-end trends, dissect the structural flaws of non-profit governance, and debate the merits of metric-driven corporate accountability. Blending incisive Silicon Valley analysis with domestic banter, the hosts explore everything from OpenAI and Harvard board drama to offbeat hardware gadgets and marathon mishaps.
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 99.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.3 Guest teaching 3.4 Guest disagreement 3.2 The hosts pushing back 2.8
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 29:44 Sam's direct attack on the existence of nonprofits
Sam rejects the premise of charitable tax exemptions entirely, asserting taxpayers are forced to subsidize private ideological agendas.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 27:25 Dave rejects Jessica's characterization of MuskDave explicitly counters Jessica's framing of Musk acting as an erratic geopolitical campaigner, citing advertising meetings and commercial discipline.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 43:46 Jessica informs Sam about Chinese state board seats in ByteDanceJessica reveals to Sam that her reporters uncovered hidden Chinese government board representation in ByteDance entities, catching him uninformed.
The host holds their own ▶ 6:58 Dave explains two-sided LP market mechanics to JessicaDave counters Jessica's internal GP carry dispute theory by systematically detailing LP portfolio limits and vertical fund financial engineering.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year-End Check-In and Acronym Banter | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | Jessica Lessin opens with casual banter about holiday parties and pod origin stories. Dave and Sam playfully dispute founder advice analogies about aiming for the moon versus deep space. | |
| The Farmer's Dog and Pet Industry Boom | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Jessica reports on The Farmer's Dog hitting $800M in revenue from The Information's reporting. Sam Lessin brings up the $40B total pet food market context and jokes about demographics driving the trend. | |
| a16z Vertical Funds, SPVs, and Year-End VC Slowdown | 7 | 5 | 3 | 4 | Jessica brings up a16z's vertical fund strategy and theorizes about GP carry disputes. Dave Morin counters with the LP allocation perspective, and Sam explains SPV economics versus fund carry. | |
| The $4,000 Mystery Hardware Guessing Game | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Sam initiates a guessing game for a $4,000 moisture-extracting machine he bought. Brit and Dave guess biofeedback chairs and cold plunges before Sam details the atmospheric water generator. | |
| Pool House Soft Serve Machine | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Sam and Jessica show off the commercial soft serve machine delivered in a wooden crate to their pool house. Sam describes inventing a fictional company cafeteria to secure wholesale supplier access. | |
| Institutional Governance: Harvard, OpenAI, and Musk | 7 | 5 | 5 | 5 | Jessica draws parallels between the OpenAI board crisis and the Harvard Corporation controversy regarding Claudine Gay. Dave challenges Jessica's reading of Elon Musk's Twitter management, arguing he is fundamentally capitalistic rather than politically motivated. | |
| The Problem with Nonprofits and Tax Subsidies | 6 | 6 | 7 | 6 | Sam forcefully argues that 501(c)(3) tax exemptions should not exist because taxpayers subsidize subjective agendas. Dave pushes back with historical context on Puritan charitable roots, while Jessica defends philanthropy. | |
| 'Make Number Go Up' vs. Mission Constraints | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | Sam articulates how 'make number go up' creates clarity and operational freedom in scalable organizations. Dave counters that reducing organizations to a single metric damages society and ignores essential mission-driven constraints. | |
| FTX Collapse and Common Sense in Crypto | 8 | 5 | 6 | 4 | Jessica cites Alameda/FTX and ByteDance reporting, pointing out that Chinese state board representation was uncovered by her team. Sam reacts strongly, insisting TikTok represents an existential national security threat that must be banned. | |
| Non-Profit Spotlight: Supporting The 19th News | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Jessica gives an earnest spotlight to The 19th News and offers a $10,000 matching grant. Sam mentions their foundation had separately gifted funds, resulting in collaborative support. | |
| Sam's Marathon Feat and Hertz Rental Ordeal | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | Sam shares his sub-3:10 marathon time achieved without formal training using yellow gauze, goo, and ketones. He concludes with an amusing rant against Hertz after a flat tire in Tucson. | |
| Upcoming Plans: Gender Equity Summit and Winter Travel | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Brit previews her upcoming attendance at the Governor's Mansion for the Gender Equity Summit. Jessica and Dave wrap up with winter travel notes and standard sign-off housekeeping. |
Statements from this episode (9)
Sam Lessin launches write-in campaign for Harvard Board of Overseers
“Can I jump in here as someone who's now running as a write-in candidate for the Harvard Board of Overseers to try to fix some of this stuff?”
Sam Lessin: Sam Altman emerged stronger from the failed OpenAI board coup
“Sam Altman is stronger as an executive having effectively left Rome and then having everyone vote him back in with their feet as employees and the board caving, right? He's now stronger than he's ever been as a leader because he basically is at the head of an …”
Sam Lessin: America's tax-exempt nonprofit model was a mistake
“Given the incredibly broad swath we have on these nonprofit ideas and how much money gets stuck in this industrial complex, I think it's, like, pretty reasonable to just say that, like, it was a mistake.”
Sam Lessin: The world's most scalable organizations are metric-optimizing machines
“The most scalable successful orgs in the world largely are number go up machines. Wall Street is a number go up machine. Social media, or like I said, media in general. One of the nice parts about it, like, is you just A, B, test your way, and a number go up, …”
Sam Lessin: Ultra-wealthy institutions use massive endowments to ignore external feedback
“The problem is these organizations say, no, no, no, our mission is X. So we will take no external feedback, right? And we can afford to not care about you donors, right? And I actually think that in their minds, I totally get it. They're saying we're independe…”
Dave Morin: Fragmented internet subcultures perpetually disrupt top-down corporate alignment
“As the internet has kind of become like, I think we can safely say in 20, 24, the internet has become culture worldwide. Like you have this, Splintering of cultures, right? Where every person in an organization pays attention to a different sub graph of some c…”
Jessica Lessin: Expect more structural corporate collapses similar to FTX
“And like, I think we just, everyone should be on the lookout for more of these things to kind of fall. And it feels like the beginning of something more than the end is sort of what I feel.”
Jessica Lessin: China holds a board seat in a secretive ByteDance subsidiary
“I thought of this because the reason the world knows that actually the Chinese government owns ByteDance is because Of some of the great reporting of my colleagues in Asia that actually broke the news of not just this idea that Chinese companies are controlled…”