The New Power Class
Every structural reset in history produced winners the previous era wouldn't have recognized. AI is the next one. The new power class isn't who you think.
Essay
Read essayFrom the field · Essays
Essays
Candid accounts of building, closing and rebuilding companies. Decisions, mistakes and changing beliefs, alongside essays on ownership and technological change.
George Pu
Founder of SimpleDirect, an independent Canadian AI lab.
Risk Tolerance Is Personal (No Right Answer)
Everyone wants to know the "right" level of risk to take. Should you quit your job to start a company? Should you move to a new country? Should you bet everything on one opportunity or diversify across many? There is no universal answer. My parents prove this. My dad is a massive risk-taker. My mom is deeply conservative. Both approaches worked for them, and both approaches have created fulfilling lives. Here's why risk tolera
Essay
Read essay
Trust But Verify — What 6 Years of Partnerships Taught Me About People
Weeks after I cut him off, blocked his number, and swallowed a financial loss I couldn't afford — he emailed me asking for referrals.
Essay
Read essay
My First Boss Told the University I Was a Disappointment. He Never Told Me.
Part 2 of my job journey — what my first real work experience taught me about feedback, fear, and the slow burn toward doing my own thing.
Essay
Read essay
What I Will and Won't Do
I've watched enough people I respected turn into people I don't recognize. Not overnight. Gradually. One justified compromise at a time.
Essay
Read essay
I Failed On That Podcast
The Moment I Knew "Oh, you're the guy from that Bitcoin show." A friend said this to me at dinner last year. Casual. Not meant as an insult. Just a statement of fact. But it hit me like a verdict. I'd spent three years co-hosting a podcast called Quarter Life Capital. 35 episodes. Crypto, AI, markets, careers. And somewhere along the way, I'd become "the Bitcoin guy" — without ever believing in Bitcoin. That's when I knew so
Essay
Read essay
The 14 → 5 Layoff That Taught Me About AI and Teams
Headcount is a 20th century metric. We got from 14 people down to 5 people in 2023. For the next two years, we basically have not hired. One of the most painful moments in my career. Also one of the most instructive. Here's what that layoff taught me about AI, teams, and why headcount used to matter but doesn't anymore—and what we lose when we optimize too hard for lean. The Historical Logic (That Made Perfect Sense) For mos
Essay
Read essay
Governments Are Preparing for the Wrong AI Timeline
The gap between what AI can do today and what most governments think it can do is the most dangerous information asymmetry of our time. I build in this. Here is what the people making decisions are missing.
Essay
Read essay
What Employment Actually Felt Like at 18
It was 2017. I was at the University of Waterloo, barely one semester into my CS degree. International student. Broke. My English was fine but my experience was zero. I had one semester of coding in an unfamiliar school system and absolutely no resume to speak of. The program required me to find an internship. That was non-negotiable. You either found a co-op job or you couldn't continue. I was terrified. The Advice Everyone
Essay
Read essay
I'm Done Pretending I Know My Net Worth
I put $10 million on my profile a month ago. It was technically accurate. Three million plus in revenue over three years times a 3-4x multiple. That's the math founders use when they want to feel rich without actually having money. I cringe at it now. I watched a founder claim a $35 million valuation based on a $1 million seed round. The math required for that to work requires assuming everything goes perfectly and nothing ever
Essay
Read essay
Bitcoin Is A Cult (And I Can Prove It)
I'm 27. I've spent three years afraid to write this post. Not because I don't believe it. Because I was terrified of what the cult would do. The Twitter pile-ons. The "have fun staying poor" responses. The being permanently labeled as a hater who "doesn't understand Bitcoin." But "Own or Be Owned" includes owning your mind. So here we are. The Narrative Collapse Gold just hit all-time highs. Bitcoin is down 40% from its peak
Essay
Read essay
Survival Mode
I told my team something last week that probably sounded nuts. We're in survival mode, but we're not broke. That's the part nobody talks about. Everyone glamorizes the "we have 3 months of runway" panic. The story where you're eating ramen and sleeping under your desk. But we're sitting on 2-3 years of cash. We're fine on that front. And somehow, that makes it worse. Survival mode isn't about money. It's about relevance. The
Essay
Read essayShowing 12 of 130
Open next page