Sam Lessin on Technology Trends

Essays

From the Podcast

I do think that my understanding of the Salesforce... I mean, Marc Benioff clearly is, like, it's in- he's an interesting character 'cause in my head he's, like, not a technologist, but he's, like, an incredible salesperson, right? Like, is the interesting thing. Like, so the story I've heard, and someone can correct me in comments, I'm sure someone will, is that when he started Salesforce, it was billed as, like, this cloud CRM and this platform, but it was total bullshit. He basically went to a bunch of people and sold them each individual CRMs that were completely unintegrated, right? And they were just, like, one-off software builds, right? And, like, it was just all sales tactics, right? And so, like, it's interesting 'cause, like, in this technology world you have a bunch of people like the founders of Google or whatever that are like their resume or, like, is as engineers or as builders, right? And then you have Benioff, again has been unbelievably successful, but he's not an engineer, he's not a builder, he's a sales guy. Has the interesting distinction of being in it, but he's always getting criticized 'cause he's, like, among all the founders. He's sold stock, like, every day of his life, right? So you have these guys who, like, are like, "I'm in it. This is, like, I'm playing for keeps. I own my company." Benioff is, like, the constant sock, stock sales guy, gets shit on the internet for it. He's just a very different beast, right, than, like, a lot of what the valley is, and yet it's a really interesting s- to see him operate and still care at his age. I'm not sure I'll be caring when I'm his age.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 165

But it doesn't matter. You just do it yourself. There's no technology to it.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 165

I think this is good. Can I embrace and extend? So one, interestingly, I think if you gave everyone, you said, "All your software is now customizable," the humans will be like, "More boobs." Customizable software is not gonna be, lead to restraint. The people are gonna be like, "I want more powerful marijuana strains." Like, they don't want less powerful shit, right? And so, like-

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 164

Which has been like hilariously down constantly 'cause it can't keep up with all the bot traffic. Here's the funny thing to me about that. It's a great example. Like if you said, "Hey, I'm gonna launch a GitHub competitor," that used to be like a hard thing to do. Now, it's like three people like sitting somewhere in Elon's office or something or some office around. They're just like, "Yeah, like we're just gonna like..." I just think that just changes the world so dramatically when all this stuff, you're just like, "I don't care." There's no software lock-in, right? Like it, it can be distribution. It can be anything about... Like you... But you're like, "Oh, I'm like angry that GitHub is down." It doesn't matter. It's so easy to replace.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 163

I gotta actually start playing with these things again, 'cause I just like have gone down my own like crazy version of this, where I don't use any of the software. I feel like I should... If you guys think it's this good, I'll actually spend time going back to use some of the software.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 163

It's just, like, a marketing and, like, endpoint that got popular, and for instance, OpenClaus, et cetera, helped get popular, and that's useful. It's distribution in, like, a very technical zone. There's no technology that matters.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 163

One of my favorite companies ever is Constellation Software, right? It's a fucking beast.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 161

I mean, sure. Dave, but, uh, I think Dave was my second on the deal, but, like, we had Howie over, we loved the software, that we were literally, when we were building Fin, we were using Airtable. I was like, "This product's sick. We need to invest in it. Who's behind it?" Turned out it was Howie at Etax from back in the day. I knew him from his first startup. So we put 3 million bucks in at 90 post, which Dave did support me on. It was very rule-breaking for Slow at the time, 'cause it was too far along.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 161

It's the most competitive. Like, basically, the West Coast is where technology starts and moves east. All culture and, like, culture trends start i- east and move west.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 159

Uh, look, I think it goes a little bit back to the thing we've talked about many times on the pod, which is, like, look, is everyone a developer or no one a developer? Is everyone a platform partner or is no one a platform partner? Like, from my perspective, the problem is, like, I have all sorts of software running just for me on these stuff. I wouldn't consider myself a platform partner. Like, I wouldn't even consider myself a developer on them. I'm literally just, like, making the shit I want. And, like, it's really, really hard to see, like, what that ecosystem looks like because it really does mean that these developers are just consumers, right? And if they're just consumers, then, like, how do you deal with... Like, what are you gonna deal in everyone, then you just don't charge them? Like, what does that even mean?

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 157

Ironic since we own the land there, but, like, it's true. The big problem with Tahoe this year was one of the best parts of Fourth of July in Tahoe is the military hardware that comes out and buzzes the lake.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 157

I, I'm like un- I'm completely, I'm completely uninterested in hardware. I like my iPhone. I think it's fine. I like my Garmin watch. I could imagine putting a button on my Garmin watch with a microphone. That would be kinda useful.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 158

But it i- but the problem is, it's, like, kinda like being like, you're talking about the, the stuff as though any one company can control it or any one country can control it. You can acknowledge the fact that giving technical, enormous amounts of technical leverage on all sorts of things has, could be bad for biological weapons or, like, this is, like, the... You can do all sorts of bad stuff with technology. You can do all sorts of good stuff with technology. You can do all sorts of bad stuff with technology. That's what technology is. If we had a monopoly on technology in the US, that would be different. We obviously don't, right? And so in some ways, like, having a, like... It's like all this stuff about global warming and the environment, where, like, one country can take action, but it's completely irrelevant because we live in a connected globe. So it's a dumb thing to do, right? Like-

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 158

The fact that, like, the AI war thing will not be decided by, like, technology. It won't just happen naturally and occur naturally by the laws of economics, which gets you the best product at the cheapest price. People are making plays which are political, not business, right? If that makes sense.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 158

Yeah, exactly. So I, I don't know. I mean, like, I just... I don't know. My, my thing more is just, like, I'm just depressed about the entire thing. I have... I offer no advice. Like, I think, I think this has gone... Like, all of AI, these AI wars are, like, politics and not business or technology at this point, and, like, that's a bummer.

— Sam Lessin, More or Less Ep 158

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