More or Less - Capitalism at Work Collapsing Margins to Zero
We discuss Stripe / PayPal (the only question is regulatory / do collisions want to be in front of congress for years once administrations change over)… and spend a lot on this big question of what happens when building software goes the way of typing or writing (from a job to a widely accessible skill). IMHO it is capitalism working for software to become commodified and margins on pure software to go to zero. That is how it is supposed to work…. And it just means that business builders need to focus on non-commotiziable assets / levering software as disposable in order to build a defensible compounding asset vs. trying to pretend that ‘hard’ is a moat. p.s. if all this adds up to the ‘hard weighty software isn’t defensible’ anymore and EHRs get crushed, good riddance (though don’t hold your breath, levering software to build regulatory capture is a great business!). Also lots of good yelling on this one! enjoy!
Hot Takes
- Coding is Fully Roblox for Adults — Be Careful You Are Working & Not Playing Video Games All Day— last summer coding was pretty fun game… now it is a GREAT really fun game and everyone is doing it. They are playing this game all day when they should be working… they are playing the coding game in evenings instead of watching TV! It is fine, just recognize when you catch yourself effectively playing candy-crush with a cover story during work hours (maybe NYT should acquire cursor!)
- This is the chart — Not mine… and I hesitate to share it because it is pretty norm-core got pretty wide distribution on the internet… but 1000x yes. Own copper, own gold — but the idea of trying to guess the marginal growth rate when everything is in play is a fools errand and explains perfectly how markets are behaving right now (and people!)
- Speaking of People / Workers… The market clearing price for hiring talent is INSANE right now… — because everyone is just having too much fun building their own stuff… this is showing up everywhere… it was always hard to hire good engineers without a boat-load of cash (literal boat load) when they can all just start their own companies… but now? Everyone is having so much fun playing the vibe code game and the dream of solo billion dollar companies is so real (if unrealized) … that talent is impossible unless you are literally the best of the best in terms of oppy. The market is split, the middle (even good companies) just can’t hire anyone worth a damn.
- Even things like Harvey — remember them? How are they supposed to be able to hire or retain talent … and yes, VC cash incinerator goes whhhrrrr…
- More or Less Chat AI Live - Putting Myself Out of My Podcast Job — This took under an hour to build… start with our personalities from transcripts / data sets… build the flow off of news of the day - launch a website. Literally an hour of partial attention work with Claude… and so so fun. Also I think next week’s actual podcast we will just generate this way + 11 labs — why not..
- Be Degen + Intellectual… Not the Middle — The Bell Curve Meme — This week was a week of unlicensed psychoanalysis with a bunch of founders questioning life (some we have invested in, some not) — the upshot — certainly what I believe — is you basically want to look for opportunities that are simultaneously degenerate AND intellectual. So many great companies start this way — Facebook for sure, google, Microsoft was full degen + intellectual… things like memlord… etc. basically the degen side feels dangerous and interesting and fun and can be explained in a word and get a laugh … the high brow part has to be the ‘but wait’ in service of something that is actually really important and matters. Don’t be degenerate, don’t be intellectual — certainly don’t be mid — be degen+intelectual and have a ball.
- Shorsey — Degen + Intellectual Media — if you want to understand the modern male… this is it. It is a fully degenerate fun show at first pass… but if you really get into it / and think about it — it speaks to me / I think modern male identity like none other… it is exactly the non-middle curve game all things should be.
- —dangerously-skip-permissions — speaking of getting back into Claude code after a detour through openclaw… I just love this flag. And am proud to now own the domain.
- Stop Asking ‘Customers’ What They Want & Building ‘Companies’ Based on Their Wish List — this came up as well a bunch this week — for the love of g-d stop with the ‘customer research’ — user research was always a very very suspect discipline BUT now? Asking some manager at a company ‘what they want’ and then building it in software for them is awful business.. you MUST have a non-software compounding advantage… and customers don’t think about any of that. Some other shmo or bot will just solve their problem for them. Midwit companies and people running around with the ‘solve the customer’s problem’ playbook in software were already in a tenuous position… but now they are going too e crushed.
- “hold on let me kick out this notetaker” — I use em,… and granola with Claude on top is great… tells you a lot BUT it is just funny that every modern zoom starts the same way in 2026…
- Intelligence is not your differentiator, hard is not a moat— HARD is not a moat. And NO MORE SLOPPY STRATEGY. You can’t get away with just outworking people, the elegance and strategy of your business actually now really matters in a way you could squint before… and again, this is capitalism working
- Christian’s AI Paper — ok so I haven’t read this yet… but I skimmed it and it is good AND Christian said in DMs I helped inform some of the thinking… so as an egomaniac I have to share it :) — congrats C — lots of cool insights here. You smart.
Best,
Sam
P.S. — The most important thing I have learned this week… Amazing.