SWL Week in Review - Mercantilism

From:

sam lessin <s@wlessin.com>

To:

Hidden Recipient <hidden@emailshot.io>

Date:

9/29/2025, 1:32 PM

More or Less :: Tech Mercantilism & Trade Routes
Jess and I went deep with a particular focus on a ’trading’ between centers of capital, technology, and policy in a world which is less open, less law & rules based and more power (might is right) and opaque.

If we are in this ‘post open’ and to some degree ‘post market’ age of bilateral trade deals — there is new power in owning a trading route for moving capital, policy, etc… DOHA <> SLICON VALLEY… SILICON VALLEY <> DC. Etc. This is particularly interesting and relevant in two domains:

The last generation of tech companies (who were the most profitable in history of world)… had no need for trading partners / built no powerful alliances other than with the ‘small business’ word… but now is generating alignment through trades no one can afford to lose on / tied at the balls — its a brave new world / and a scary one when value (and power) isn’t just a matter of arguing over a DCF.

In a world where which is less open and less law-rules-based vs. power based… being a trusted intermediary between two spheres is once again a VERY valuable place to occupy on the chess board in a way it hasn’t been in a long long time of transparency, openness, and efficient markets — (see Squanto, Elon/Altman, and Sachs)

Hot Takes:

Tiktok for $14B — see above re: implications of post-rules, might-is-right, and why it is valuable to sit on a trade route.

Move the Farm not The Food — I never thought before of how fundamentally anarchist this is… but it is, and I am psyched for Area2… corporate anarchism is a whole new concept to explore.

Memetic Warfare is Serious Business— You know I think memes / templates for speech is the new most powerful form of speech… and building tools for the tip of the spear acknowledging ‘Sidney to the Sea’ — is high up my list of important things.

The Weakness of Being Too Profitable — When we all agreed globally in GAAP and the net present value of cashflows being the most profitable companies in history was good… but it did hurt with alliances because you didn’t need anyone / there was no way for others to align really… but now there is as tech companies need huge amounts of money, regulatory support, and are explicitly in the powerful alliance building business.

Voight-Kampff Companies — In blade runner… they have a hell of a time telling who is human and who is machine… This keeps coming back with more and more practical reality. There is huge business (and it is hugely important) to know what is real vs. not, machine vs. not — This is a hobby horse of mine from ages ago — but just keeps getting more and more practically relevant. How far are we really from this? Not far at all.

Everything Eventually Becomes a Bank — Even NVIDIA — see alliances, mercantilism, and also the path towards making financial accounting very very confusing.

Watches… great business. — on a lighter note… advertising works. First, our kids have been watching a lot of tennis… and now they want rolexes (they aren’t kidding, which is hilarious)… better than whatever junk they are getting sold on YouTube apparently… all this advertising also worked on me and I ended up buying a not-too-fancy-but-non-digital watch… and now EVERY ad on meta is now for watches… suggesting to me this is an excellent business for them to be able to outbid everyone else in the whole world for attention.

No ‘single person’ AI companies — Intellectually this should happen… and everyone keeps predicting it… but given capital intensity of ‘real’ AI + cost of hiring a few non-AI folks being basically zero, and the lack of defensibility of AI built things… don’t hold your breath practically

Economies are valuable not technologies… - meta is an economy of attention (and small businesses, maybe big ones two) — google same thing… etc. Important reminder / thought pattern that really almost no ‘technology’ is actually valuable (and all tech gets stolen / diffused quickly anyway) — want is valuable is using tech / a new change in patterns to capture and own economies.

American Platform for Founders, Pioneers, and Cowboys … this is what we are good at / the spirit of the US is with founders, pioneers, and cowboys — and good platforms / trust, etc. is actually what those people need to have the confidence to go out and cut their path … we need to think about the country and stability at a low level / in order to enable more of that spirit & madness at a high level.

Pro-Institution & Pro-West — what the dems should be… but are not. The far far right is anti-institutional… the far far left is anti-west… and what do we need? What we really need (and I ascribe to) is a party that is pro-west and pro-institution.

Tech leads to culture… culture to politics — as a technological determinist… this is the moment to meet in so many ways… it is important to study and understand the technology if you really want to command culture & politics is just a byproduct of culture.

Who on earth is instagram monthly but not weekly / daily — congrats to meta on passing 3B monthly active users — that is insanity actually… especially if you consider what the P37 global human looks like — it is everyone. That said, the most crazy thing to me is to think… who are these nuts who are monthly active on instagram but not weekly or daily active? In some ways the ultimate monk like constraint…

Winston — Last Lion — how should I feel about a several thousand word book review from a slow founder of 2,625 pages of content. (Quite good)

Harvard's "Triggering Events" Could Spark Years of Oversight - interesting / not shocking that the government has more tools (and standard ones) to oversee Harvard not just extraordinary splashy ones.

Opportunities for Greatness

Lawfare for everyone else (with AI) — petty lawsuits with tech to help people battle landlords, employment, etc. this theme continues to be really interesting with lots of good folks after great angles.

Prediction Markets — given South Park this week perhaps it has all gone too mainstream… but I still love / really want innovation around betting on the future results of LLMs (and search)… will the answer for X be Y on Z date in the future? No oracle problem, great for machine scale betting, etc. (and hilarious to bet on guess the next token)

Creators, Cults, and Religions — people need meaning, people need community - and with physical world shrunk to a pin… the way people will do that is with weirder and weirder culture.

Farms — my take on the good part of MAHA… look, our food stinks in the US & it is the basis of health… this isn’t complicated — everything was tooled for cheap calories very successfully last century, but that isn’t our world today.

Etiquette — YC founders who want / need help navigating the soft side of Silicon Valley apply here… upon completion you get a great certificate… everyone else is welcome to audit.

Shana Tova & Have an Easy Fast (for those who celebrate),
Sam

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