Stuart Landesberg's Plan to Save the American West from Wildfires

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More or Less

Dave Morin, Jessica Lessin, Brit Morin, and Sam Lessin

126 episodes

16 hours ago

Dave Morin, Jessica Lessin, Brit Morin, and Sam Lessin have debated the future of Silicon Valley and tech as the closest of friends for the last 15 years. Now six companies, two venture funds and more than a decade at Google, Apple and Facebook later, they are opening up the debate. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures. Follow the crew: http://x.com/davemorin http://x.com/brit http://x.com/lessin http:/x.com/jessicalessin Follow the pod: https://moreorlesspod.com/ http://youtube.com/moreorlesspod https://x.com/moreorlesspod

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Stuart Landesberg's Plan to Save the American West from Wildfires

More or Less

42 minutes 42 seconds

2 weeks ago

Stuart Landesberg's Plan to Save the American West from Wildfires

With Jess running The Information's massive WTF conference and Sam off-grid on a mountain, Brit and Dave hold down the fort with Stuart Landesberg, CEO of Seneca, a Slow- and Offline-backed startup building autonomous firefighting drones. Between deep tech inside jokes, Stuart coins pro-America tech and breaks down how Seneca’s five-drone strike teams deploy 500 lbs of foam across 30 square miles in under ten minutes—even at night. Wildfires now drain over a trillion dollars a year from the U.S. economy, and Seneca’s model of detect early, respond fast, outperforms retrofitting homes or relying on pilots. With demand rising from cities, utilities, and insurers protecting $5T in assets, Stuart’s focused on building long-term enterprise value, not chasing the AI hype cycle.

Join the Seneca team: https://seneca.com/careers/

Chapters:03:28 Stuart’s path to Seneca and the wildfire problem10:36 The true economic cost of wildfires12:10 Prevention vs. suppression; prescribed burns and costs16:19 Exponential fire growth; strike teams and early knockdowns19:46 Autonomy + sensors; choosing actions in real time20:45 Five drones, 30 square miles, sub-10-minute response22:20 Night ops: why autonomy wins when pilots can’t fly25:42 Regulators, HOAs, utilities: who’s pulling adoption forward27:40 Capital, AI hype, and choosing long-term partners31:32 Founder advice; unexpected demand from private stakeholders39:38 Culture: Stoicism, Amor Fati, learning from crashes

We’re also on ↓X: https://twitter.com/moreorlesspodInstagram: https://instagram.com/moreorlessSpotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moreorlesspod

Connect with us here:1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit