SWL Week in Review - clawdbot

From:

sam lessin <s@wlessin.com>

To:

Hidden Recipient <hidden@emailshot.io>

Date:

1/20/2026, 2:01 PM

More Or Less — Clawdbot & the Personal Security Apocalypse

Clawdbot is incredible. It’s also the moment you should immediately realize: this is how it ends. Local permissions to your drive, screen, and windows are the cleanest on-ramp imaginable to a locked-down internet, hardened enclaves, and everyone retreating into increasingly armed little fiefdoms. That—and wealth taxes, plus a few more self-owns—on this week’s More or Less.

Hot Takes

CXU: Software isn’t a business anymore — We talked about it on the pod. The day it dropped, CXU was down another 4%. People hate hearing this, but the takeaway stands.

If you really want to build a software business, you have two paths: (a) know a secret, tell no one, and print money quietly; or (b) pick a massive narrative everyone believes and bludgeon it with capital, talent, marketing, and free tokens until consensus collapses. Nothing in the middle works.

Altmanheimer: “I Have Become Death” — Genuinely funny that NYMag ran the exact moniker AI “safety” circles have long half-whispered they want: “the Oppenheimer of our age.” A dark, aspirational myth—builders of an existential weapon, grimly resigned yet morally elevated—now fully public. A flawless PR landing (and bonus points if they actually convinced the writers this was a hard hitting framing vs. exactly what Sam wants to be known as!)

Lenny’s Podcast — How to Show Up in a Room — A really fun, surprisingly serious conversation about etiquette. I also did a venture-focused follow-up: How I Raised It on VC

More on Clawdbot / Claude Code — Still think it’s great. Still think this is how it ends. Also funny how we’ve looped back to old RSS-era arguments about open vs. closed systems. Deep dive.

Best & Worst of Times for Talent — The very best people are effectively unhirable. Everyone else is abundant. The only real edge is finding people who are still undiscovered—sometimes even by themselves.

Competitive Sleep — The last frontier of competition. Years ago I ran a Facebook group where we posted sleep scores. Now it’s mainstream. Prolon helped this week.

Prolon & AI Health — First time using ChatGPT to manage a modified Prolon fast, especially the ramp-off. Dramatically better experience than past attempts. Genuinely useful.

Industry (TV) & Narrative Power — The show is back and smarter than expected. Core theme: narratives rule everything. Dark, but uncomfortably accurate.

Meme Presentation — Gave a meme talk to a third-grade class about understanding 67. The kids are sharp—and excellent memers.

Themes for the year: food, money (how we trade), and companionship—the things that actually matter.

Hope you enjoyed the long weekend we all earned after two weeks of work.

Sam

P.S. From Ancestors to Algorithms — This didn’t really land on X, but it’s what I’ve been thinking about most. I suspect the internet’s shift is even more profound than we admit—no AGI narrative required. The real issue is that we’re ending up with a world that no longer offers a scalable form of purpose... You might all get a special edition on this -- feel free to unsubscribe anytime (but I am watching)

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