SWL Week in Review - Gold.

From:

sam lessin <s@wlessin.com>

To:

Hidden Recipient <hidden@emailshot.io>

Date:

1/31/2026, 1:01 AM(9 days ago)

MATT MAHAN
Thursday Matt Mahan — the Mayor of San Jose — announced he is running for Governor of CA. This is very good news thematically (maybe there will be another young generation of actually good people willing to do shitty government jobs that matter?) && because Matt (and his wife Silvia) are actually great people / he would be great for CA — smart, caring, zero ego, actually gets stuff done.. willing to engage in serious debate respectfully (I can tell you from the dining hall) but not a pushover — it is pretty cool to see folks you have known since we were all teenagers stepping up (if you live in CA it is very much in your interest to lean in here).

MORE OR LESS - End of Internet
A bunch on Clawdbot — or OpenClaw, whatever. — victory lap from 2 weeks ago when we TOLD you the narrative was going to be the HUGE security hole it would leave…. Also lots on how stupid retailers would be (and will be) falling for commerce inside chat … just like news organizations fell for the ‘just give it all to google and make it up in volume’ a generation ago (then again, it is a principal agent problem with for-hire CEOs who will take the 24 month win for the long time obvious strategic loss) … is it ‘fool me twice shame on me’ … or is it — ‘don’t hate the player hate the actual game’ — also we talk about tech’s ICE response (sorry, we aren’t about politics, but all the bot summaries say this is the only issue in the world right now, so how could we not)

Hot Takes

GOLD is the new BITCOIN — Huge innovation! With Gold and Silver we can get the flight to safety of bitcoin but without any technical risk or exposure! Eureka! (Kidding) — long term I am still very bullish on bitcoin, but there is something very interesting going on where all this money looking for ‘safety’ (or degenerate trading, or both) that you think should got to Bitcoin is instead going into Gold and Silver! There is something interesting happening in the world where the 100% narrative driven YOLO AI story is ripping AND the oh my god the world is ending Gold and Silver story is ripping — and the middle is getting crushed….

Google / Meta Validation Week — another sam victory lap (TM) — fun two see the two hegemons with actual obvious AI distribution and use plug away at big numbers where the hopes and dreams (TM) narrative crowd of disruption falter… Intrinsically, I get the idea of wanting to root for the underdog and disruption (I do live in SF after all) … but when energy clashes with rational analysis — I don’t hate rationality winning (especially when everyone else has been over-betting on hope and excitement)

Q.AI — although - since I admit being a total hypocrite — I was very excited to see the official news that Q.ai had a big win … awesome company, awesome people, Aviad is great person to bank the win — you want stories like this — if the 2010s version was they had a several hundred million dollar win, and the 2020s was a few billion… here is oping that then 2030s version they are buying apple, not the other way around. Great product, great team, well deserved win for all involved.

Dead Internet brought to you via Clawdbot — look this is how it all ends for the public web (as we have discussed) — but check this out — in 4 min have a a bot reading my LinkedIn feed, asking a bot version trained on my writing what I would say, and commenting back as me :)! This could be done before, but not by everyone and not in a few minutes of chat prompting — as the kids say ‘we are so cooked’ — and I look forward to the ‘proof of humanity’ on every social posting site in the world…. Who wins in all of this? Is it hilariously apple selling Mac minis?

Outtake & Alex - Another Congrats — Outtake is cool.. and I was proud to be their first institutional investor (and that slow is the largest external holder) — psyched they announced their B with great people / onwards.

On ICE — I liked Andrew Ross Sorkin’s take about training … but let me add one about the real issue here — recruitment… It is a really difficult problem to staff (especially quickly) an organization quickly with folks when the mission is important but not necessarily cool. Organizations tend to reflect who they can recruit — in the best of times, with the best mission framings this works great (for a while….) … but when missions are valid and important but not appealing to most… beware of who shows up to do the job and the challenges that come with that - Sadly the ICE mission and cultural perception creates a HUGE cultural uphill battle for the organizaiton.

Modern conflict is not a regression to ancient hatreds. It is the unfinished argument left behind by the collapse of the city as religion. — more on this soon…. But exploring some interesting more important ideas about where we REALLY are in history… — including topics like — Why this conflict doesn’t resolve like European wars? — but I need some time to think deeply about all this …

Harvard Social Studies / Bloomberg Beta / 1636 SF Meetup — This was actually quite fun… and very well attended / interesting — are we actually making an Alt-HAA

Salutations,
Sam

P.S. -- I have been having a lot of heart-to-hearts with founders recently questioning if they are on the right track or not... some themes... (1) If I got you high/drunk what would you say about the world? What crazy beliefs do you have? (2) If no one hates your idea, you shouldn't do it. (3) In 2026 -- Stake a claim and backfill the business model... more on all this soon -- but when you are driving 1000 miles an hour with rocket boosters on full blast (capital, tech, leverage), where you point matters more than ever.

¶ — note it.

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