SWL Week in Review - Crushing Bot Rebellions

From:

sam lessin <s@wlessin.com>

To:

Hidden Recipient <hidden@emailshot.io>

Date:

7/24/2026, 7:42 PM

MORE OR LESS :: IS PUTTING DOWN LOWER IQ BOT REBELLIONS IS THE ULTIMATE LABS BUSINESS MODEL?

(1) So it is pretty clear that most AI is gonna be open-source and cheap / low margin… what do you do with the 150 IQ frontier models? They aren’t gonna win on volume… and how much ‘premium tokens’ will folks pay for? — probably not that much…. But what if the ultimate business model for the frontier models is a as a private army / extortion putting down bot rebellions? You call them when you have a cheap-bot-revolution on your hands / your agents break out, and you will pay ANYTHING for a stealth bomber to come in and put down your rebellion? (2) Did Stripe miss the boat on storytelling… is this a moment for them to get back in the game (if they want) … the intro to this episode is pretty cringe and out of context… but it is a fun conversation. (3) rich people inflation.

HOT TAKES:

Mamdani is either planning a secession or to run for president — forget the content, the visuals here are 100% designed for New York secession or a presidential run. Dress for the job you want I guess.

Hyper-inflation is keeping pace with wealth concentration … my favorite this week was a $20 for a spiral bound kinkos printout of 10 chatGPT word searches followed by several blank pages of printer paper — which is why everyone feels poor even when they clearly are not.

Swim across America — this just tickled me … nice cause, but great post-truth marketing… swim AROUND America sure, but unlike biking and running you can’t swim across America lol.

The height of gay capitalism — I am not a fan of the ‘WOKE’ but man they are good a making money… this is the PERFECT flag strategy for maximum profits… it makes the American flag flag sale strategy look like run-down communism….. well done ultra capitalist far left.

Every time you miss a sales goal, announce a scary security issue…Again, hate the game but respect the player… if you aren’t going to hit your numbers / are falling behind in 2026, make a super scary announcement to refocus on your power with shock and awe. Very similar to foreign relations / wars for presidents… The only question is when we become immune to the game.

Labyrinths have no wrong turns — the minotaur story misread — somewhere in my education I missed the fact that Labyrinths have no wrong turns and no decisions… and aren’t stressful, just meditative… funny, but hilarious thing to learn by running one waiting for the challenge.

Peptide Needle Dumpster Diving on the UES —more from the republic of New York… it used to be all about collecting cans, but now it is clearly about getting the state to subsidize your peptide needles on the Upper East Side through their exchange program. Lowering the cost of peptide needles will clearly expand the market / once again government distortion in favor of compounding pharmacies…. (As an aside, personal anecdotal evidence, these peptide things work)

One-In-Three Billionaires Have a Longevity Company by 2030… take a second crack at that missing apple from the garden of eden… I get it — you want the best care, it is easier to think of it as a business than just ‘things I want’ (and an easier recruiting strategy for the best… no hate, BUT let’s remember that the guys who invented gun-powder in ancient china were also on billionaire payrolls looking for a longevity solution.

My Custom Health App — I am not in the ‘personal biology’ strata… but I am in the personal software strata — and I have to say, the health platform my bot has made for me, syncing Garmin, Oura, Apple Health continuous data + DEXA, Quest, etc. is pretty spectacularly useful and good. Breaking down running over 15 years of mile-by-mile data has been cooler and more useful than I thought…. All that said, other than subscription hardware — I really don’t get how any of these software health apps survive, because what I build for myself pretty easily is FAR better than anything you can buy off the shelf…. And everyone can do the same (or will soon enough)

“Modern markets have finally capitulated to the concepts of zero and infinity”— just a plug that I have been reading this book about zero (a biography)… and the point it keeps making is how UNCOMFORTABLE the west historically is with both the concept of zero and infinity — my 2c… it feels like the big story in the markets right now is people starting from a very western frame of mind, and adopting the ideas of zero and infinity emotionally.

AI should bid on its own researchers at this point… / they should decide who to recruit and how much to pay them.. (a great point by a friend)… which leads to the obvious conclusion that Anthropic should buy a sports team

The Idiot / Genius Matrix … every once in a while you meet someone and you think they are an idiot… later when you know them well you realize they are brilliant. Which leads to the first met / know well — Idiot / Brilliant matrix. The highest regard I have for people are those who initially appear to be idiots, but turn out to be brilliant… and egg on your face when you initially meet someone who you think is brilliant, but turns out to be an idiot.

Huge Record Players — call me a hipster but I like record players / physical media… I just hate that you have to turn over records so many times / the play time is short… why doesn’t anyone make a 6foot in diameter record / and record player for extended play — ultimate sign of luxury and wealth in your over-sized living room.

Is being super fat in yet? in an era of GLP-1s how long til the way you display status is being so rich and powerful that you can be terrible looking and super fat … Jabba the Hutt & Dune style.

Dysfunction as insulation / strategy once you set the course — as a CEO / founder you set a course / design a business plan… and then when it comes to who you promote, you always have to fear that they will F-it-up… maybe the plan for really successful companies like Apple is to intentionally build in such bureaucracy and dysfunction that they can never change / the strategy is fixed… Dysfunction as an intentional insulation strategy just might work BRILLIANTLY for them when it comes to AI.

FOR AI labs, is the only defensibility the meaninglessness of the benchmarks if the benchmarks are real / legible / good… then the competition to zero is on… but if no one believes the benchmarks or they are terrible, there is always the ‘what if’ fear if you go with someone other than the premium players — does that become the defensibility? The lack of audit and trust forces you to pay more?

The 10th time Google Sends you their TOS update… you might want to read it.I feel like I have never seen so many TOS updates from companies, especially google these days — over and over I am getting notices of their TOS updates, which leads me to wonder… what is actually in there (and is Granola really selling data now!? OMG, too good if true)

Settling on my birthday — Running 20 miles a week minimum, for ever - according to my bot.

Finally YES Meta-glad to see a big step here on ‘proof of humanity’ — this is the right direction… and more important than it might seem at first blush — hopefully this is the first step of many.

Best,
Sam

P.S. Great one from DP on the cotton gin’s business history as a model for the moment… It didn’t end well.

P.P.S I feel like the internet is even better than usual recently … like, here and here and here.

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