SWL Week in Review - Top?

From:

sam lessin <s@wlessin.com>

To:

Hidden Recipient <hidden@emailshot.io>

Date:

8/22/2025, 10:06 PM(6 days ago)

More or Less :: Top?

Hit the breaks, they fly right by... now that the whole More or Less team is calling top-of-hype-cycle into AI trough of server-melting computer-v-computer SLOP... it is time for me to be the contrarian optimist. Sure the AI AGI mania is that, mania -- but people need something to be manic about or this whole house of cards starts to look really shaky. We can only bully rate cuts so many times, the people need something to believe in... Elon had a few shots on goal (put a greenhouse on mars!, tunnels!) ... but without those & acknowledging most people can't be as excited as I am about the forever wheel of ads optimization.

Hot Takes:

Time Magazine — We are the 170th Best Venture Capital Firm in the Country... I didn't even realize there are 170 firms — I have to say whoever executed this time list just crushed it — they understood the ‘outrage marketing’ assignment.. If they had ranked slow 30th.. meh, but 170th is gonna get some distribution — same with First Round (174 - hilarious), Sequoia (just missing - the greatest joke), and who the hell is WestWave Capital? Anyway, you might just think this list is random… but this looks like an amazing use of AI to generate the best possible ranking of VCs for maximal distribution :) - someone needs a promotion.

OpenAI’s Narrative Challenge, What You Do AFTER You Market Your Way to All The Money to Pull Up The Ladder — they need to keep up the AGI schtick (especially for their Microsoft negotiation) … but at the same time now that they have collected all the money they can from investors, their correctly run strategy is to pull up the ladder behind them so one one else can raise and throw water on the literal money fire…. But it is tricky… the trick of ‘AI is going to end the world we are your saviors and AGI = no employment’ shift to ‘meh, it is good pretty / useful low-margin general infrastructure’ is hard enough alone.

Outrage Marketing for Elites? Alan Dershowitz & The Pierogi Saga is the real story… Sidney might be the mass market version … but one of the funniest things I heard this summer is that the Alan Dershowitz / Pierogi spat was insanely good for the ‘Good Pierogi’ sales / lines around the block (farmer’s market). The only thing that would make this better is if it turned out AD actually had a deal on the backend with the Pierogi slingers…. Honorable mention in outrage marketing to Cracker Barrel and Sachia Vickery(I am telling you guys OF is path to total social acceptance.. if only I could figure it out!).

Podcast with Ryan Hawk on Life — despite my personal ‘wing it’ thing… I do appreciate when someone does homework and hosts a thoughtful and introspective podcast — Ryan Hawk asked me interesting questions about life and investing…

The Tower of Babel 2.0 — is my favorite analogy for the internet — I have been using it as the best way to understand what is going on for YEARS (2,846 days ago)… but AI, yah that is the cherry on top of ironic destruction of meaning and our ability to communicate with each other… maybe I should read the Bible, because I don’t remember what happens next?

Your podcast studio is now a red-light therapy room— when jess and I moved into hour suburban home, we ripped out the ridiculous wine cellar (complete with faux Italian trappings) and turned it into a ‘podcast studio’… We came home from summer travels and now it is a red-light therapy room. Which feels 100% on-time for silicon valley.

The Whole Foods ribeye that came back dirty for plastic chemicals & Anti-Plastic Coffee Machines—For the last year the health story has been about micro-plastics … this is a disaster — the most diligent (read extreme) people I know have been working to figure out how to make coffee with no plastic parts, etc… but now I am getting Facebook ads for plastic-free coffee machines… so it must be a thing.

Author / Private Detective / Mommy Influencer — and people wonder why no one takes CNN seriously… I bet she came up with that title herself! You learn amazing things walking down the aisle on a united flight!

AI Experimental Budgets are the experimental money they give to corporate misfits who for some reason still work at the company...— Now that MIT said it — we can be even louder because hashtag data — but these enterprise use cases for AI just ain’t working the way people want… I learned this lesson watching early days in FB and Snap… both got tons of experimental budgets from companies … that money was cheap and easy… but only one of the two actually graduated and delivered ROI. Cheif Innovation Officers are the most randomizing people in the corporate world... because what actually good innovation person wants to work at a big company (that is where you stick the guy/girl who isn’t so good with numbers)

Opportunities : Requests for Projects & Jobs + Events & New Sources

[new] Foundation Farms ‘Field Notes’ Newsletter — The foundation farms team has a new newsletter if you care about food / not feeding yourself poison — for now you can sign up here to hear from the team as we build this thing… and in particular from Matt Wadiak (co-founder blue apron, Jason Bade - chair of Alice Waters Institute, and Matt Davis - founder of Mosaic Foods)

[new] In The Bay and Interested in learning more about Hamas operations in the US? — I may have something you might be interested in… feel free to reply.

[old but still] Slow Creator ‘CEO Summit’ Event — This is going to be really good — and I Gotta say, this week I spoke to more serious creators than I have in a long time — the kids are gonna be OK (and do some awesome stuff from cleaning, to CFO-ing, to the wheel of fish).

[old but still] Franklin Forum for Penn — Getting going — and if you are a Penn alum who cares about the university and putting academic excellence first .. subscribe.

[old but still] Lettermeme — you probably know I am having a lot of fun with this — building my own ‘smarter’ view on what the intelligent world is paying attention to — if you haven’t you should sign up — while still evolving it is getting good && the cartoons the AI is now generating are IMHO a hilarious summary of the day.

[old but still] Engineers for Duolingo for Religion — still looking for folks interested in working on this - obvious market need short term around conversion (converting for my wedding / partner, need to learn this religion — just like language) — longer term lack of meaning / search for community on red alert — priority on people who can code/build.

[old but still] Entrepreneurs for LLM Output Betting Markets — I am really hot to trot on this theme / idea… the problem with prediction markets on real world events is they are too constrained and too slow for good high-frequency trading… But betting on LLM model output (on x date the answer to y query without context will be Z) — is absolute jam. High frequency ready, oracle problem solved - and actually in an interesting ‘markets are information’ sense really quite an interesting angle on model quality and accuracy. HMU on this.

[old but still] Radio Stations keep coming up... I am not done with this at all... I am also not done with The Ruck Rock by Chiseled

Sam

P.S. I am just time-stamping the next Chamath SPAC — if all my material positions weren’t zero basis, I really would be rethinking the market… but since they are I guess I am in for the roller coaster.

P.P.S. Pinning this ‘anti-harassment’ training thing I have to do — because without public accountability there is no way I am going to motivate to comply with this. Feel free to shame me into doing it, and if you have media recs LMK… I am however confused how this protects me legally since I am a GP / co-owner… isn’t my liability here “six of one, half a dozen of the other”

P.P.S. G-d bless the internet... oh and ricky, I am probably not posting a NL next week hashtag proximity newslettering

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