Sam Lessin: Meta is in a perfectly hedged win-win position in AI
Sam Lessin · #84: China's DeepSeek Shakes the Tech World · More or Less Podcast · Jan 31, 2025 · at 50:37
Sam Lessin analyzes why Meta's stock rose following the market disruption caused by DeepSeek, contrasting Meta's business model with Google's.
0:00 / 0:50exact quote · 50.8s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“For me, the meta story is it's like in the perfect position. They have no liability around this stuff because they're not Google. They have no search business. Like they don't like, they have the perfect use case for AI, right? Which is Optimizing ads and attention. Like, that's what the newsfeed already does. This just, like, hypercharges it and hypercharges the ad market. And the really interesting part is they kind of win either way because if it takes a ton of energy and takes a ton of compute and dah, dah, dah, dah, they are a hyperscaler. They have the money to do it. And Mark keeps indicating their seriousness about it. Great. If it turns out that it's super cheap and everyone does it, the first thing they're going to do it for is to plug it into the ads API systems at Meta. To make everything, to make Meta more money. And so I actually think it's like the perfectly hedged position to be in, where like heads you win, tails you win in that scenario.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Sam Lessin
Sam Lessin: Elon Musk and Sam Altman deliberately lie to motivate followers
“I think that Elon and Sam Altman lie, right? I think they say things they know to not be true, to Get people to do things. Right. And like, go on like with them. I just believe that from what I've seen, like, I think they're both way too smart to believe what …”
Sam Lessin: A novel virus will definitely be invented using AI
“The main fear is that a novel virus is, you know, invented, and then crispered, and we have serious problems. Which will definitely happen.”
Sam Lessin: AI labs seeking regulatory capture is cynical and anti-American
“I think it's very cynical for these companies to even try to switch the field of play from business to politics, right? Like, I think that's a very cynical, anti-American thing to do, to be like, okay, we're not going to play and compete in capitalism in a fai…”
Sam Lessin: AI eliminates Silicon Valley's advantage over New York finance workers
“I'd actually argue the average person in Silicon Valley is not as smart as like the average person in New York finance, right? They're not the best marketers. They're not the best at anything. The advantage in Silicon Valley was actually knowing how to write t…”