Sep 15, 2023 · 53m · more-or-less
#14: The Apple Episode (Carbon Neutralish) · More or Less Podcast
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Co-hosts Jessica Lessin, Sam Lessin, Brit Morin, and Dave Morin dissect Apple's Wonderlust keynote, debating whether the company's carbon-neutral initiatives represent authentic sustainability or performative greenwashing. The panel evaluates slowing smartphone innovation cycles, the brutal economics of physical hardware startups, and the emerging frontier of spatial computing.
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 99.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 4.9 Guest teaching 4.9 Guest disagreement 4.3 The hosts pushing back 3.8
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 9:15 Sam rejects carbon neutrality as pure bullshit
Sam immediately interrupts to call Apple's carbon neutral announcements and recycled cobalt commitments marketing bullshit and economically hollow.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 9:51 Dave pushes back against calling Apple's efforts bullshitDave firmly confronts Sam's stance, arguing it is intellectually dishonest and unfair to dismiss the massive supply-chain work Apple is executing.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 26:15 Sam dissects the Cambrian explosion analogySam tears apart Dave's thesis by showing that a Cambrian explosion represents decentralized open biological evolution, whereas Apple represents a vertically integrated, top-down closed monopoly.
The host holds their own ▶ 25:00 Jessica grounds Apple's stock headwinds in proprietary reportingJessica leverages her reporting at The Information on China's government iPhone restrictions and US semiconductor assembly bottlenecks to explain why markets are skeptical.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opening Title Sequence and More or Less Theme | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | The segment is an informal opening banter discussing Mario Kart with kids, hair styling, and personal anecdotes before introducing the episode. There is negligible pushback or domain conflict. | |
| Inside Apple's Keynote, Mother Nature, and Carbon Goals | 6 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Jessica brings her reporting background covering Apple for the WSJ to frame the keynote, while Dave provides detailed insider details from sitting in the second row at the Steve Jobs Theater regarding video formats, acoustics, and recycled cobalt. | |
| Debating Carbon Neutrality, Greenwashing, and Upgrade Cycles | 5 | 6 | 7 | 6 | Sam aggressively dismisses Apple's carbon neutrality efforts as performative marketing and bullshit, while Dave defends the genuine supply chain shift as admirable and Jessica counters on marketing incentives. | |
| Device Innovations: Camera Optics, Haptics, and Bullish Poll | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | The group debates device iteration versus actual innovation, with Dave explaining the technical mechanics of the 5x periscope telephoto lens and watch haptics while Sam mocks Samsung's moonshot AI trickery. | |
| Sam's Printer Obsession and Cynicism Toward Big Platforms | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | Sam leans into his contrarian habit of using hardware printers and faxes to bypass spam, expressing cynicism about big tech subscription lock-in, while Brit and Jessica try to steer him back to evaluating Apple's trajectory. | |
| The Cambrian Computing Epoch vs. Hardware Brutality | 7 | 7 | 6 | 6 | Dave proposes that computing is experiencing a Cambrian explosion brought together by Apple, but Sam strongly objects to the metaphor by pointing out Apple is a top-down closed walled garden rather than open evolution. Jessica adds sharp reporting on China trade tensions. | |
| Mill Composting, Food Waste, and Steve Jobs's Printouts | 6 | 6 | 3 | 3 | The discussion turns to physical hardware investing, highlighting the Mill composting bin and the difficulty of consumer hardware startups, capped off by Brit recounting her days printing press clippings for Steve Jobs. | |
| Spatial Computing, 3D Capture, and the Walled Garden | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | The co-hosts explore spatial video recording and 3D reconstruction before debating whether Apple's strict privacy rules and vertical integration will suppress broader industry AI innovation. |
Statements from this episode (16)
Jessica Lessin: Incremental iPhone releases have made Apple events lose luster
“Now, I personally think that, like, we're on iPhone gazillion, and these events have lost some luster”
Sam Lessin: Tech brands using recycled materials yields zero climate impact
“Pay a little more for it, put a nice sticker on it, but it's not like you are actually having an impact from a climate perspective, right? Like we still need a bunch of rare metals.”
Dave Morin: Apple's massive supply chain shifts will have environmental impact
“Like they're trying to take an enormous supply chain and move it in a better direction and it will have an impact.”
Jessica Lessin: Camera quality is the only feature driving smartphone upgrades
“Like literally the only way to get someone to buy a new phone right now is like the pictures taken on the iPhone or the pictures taken on the other phone improved by the Android phone.”
Brit Morin: Apple Vision Pro will not be the next iPhone
“And you could say it's Vision Pro, but I don't think Vision Pro is the iPhone.”
Brit Morin: The transition away from smartphones is ten years out
“I'm tired of this phone interface, and I think like, I guess my question is just how many years, I think it's like a closer to 10 year out, like transition, not five years out, but that's just my intuition.”
Sam Lessin: Apple and big tech launches do not matter anymore
“Look, I just don't, I just think like at this point, Apple and the really big tech platforms are such incredible machines that like, it's really like none of these launches matter, right? Like they just churn shit out and it's fine and everyone buys it. And li…”
Dave Morin: Apple is the only company unifying ambient computing
“And Apple's really the only company that I see kind of taking this Cambrian computing and trying to put it all together into one big vision, and I think that's pretty powerful.”
Dave Morin: On-device transformer models will radically improve Siri within years
“I think what they said yesterday is we've now put Siri on device because of our silicone. It has transformers in it. That points towards an investment in Siri. That means that within a few years, that's going to be radically different.”
Jessica Lessin: Apple's U.S. chip manufacturing requires final assembly in Taiwan
“We reported the information that their big bet on, like, US semi-manufacturing actually has this wrinkle that final assembly still happens in Taiwan.”
Sam Lessin: Slow Ventures' profitable hardware startups were saved by acquisitions
“And like, the reality is, of the hardware companies, even that we've made money on, it's mostly because someone big bought them because the product was so good, and one generation later, it would have died, right?”
Dave Morin: Hardware is entrepreneurship on expert mode, bad for first-timers
“Well, I think that hardware is it's like entrepreneurship on expert mode, right? Like it's a very bad thing to try to do if you're a first time entrepreneur.”
Dave Morin: Most hardware startups die with unsold inventory on pallets
“Like most hardware companies actually die with a bunch of stuff on pallets still in China or Vietnam or wherever they're being assembled.”
Sam Lessin: GoPro sucks at software while competitor Insta360 excels
“The GoPro sucks at software, and Insta. Is really good at software.”
Sam Lessin: Apple's data and privacy architecture will hinder global innovation
“I think the bigger honest possible case is that Apple will, because of their data structures and how they've approached privacy and much of other stuff, at a pretty deep level, hold back the world's innovation on this stuff, right?”
Jessica Lessin: Journalists cheering at Apple events is unusual and uncomfortable
“It always made me as a journalist somewhat uncomfortable to be part of like seeing like just journalists, like standing up and cheering. Not that people can't acknowledge the company, but it's very unusual. People don't cheer at press conferences.”