Gary Sheng & Keith Halterman Discussion - May 21, 2025

Participants

• Gary Sheng
• Keith Halterman (Media/Content Professional)

Summary

This conversation between Gary Sheng and Keith Halterman covered several major topics, including Gary's role at Alpha Schools, his vision for educational reform, media creation opportunities, and large-scale project concepts like the GODWAVE festival and "Trump World" development. They also discussed innovative funding models for content creation and potential collaborations.

Key Topics Discussed

Gary's Role at Alpha Schools & Education Vision

Gary shared updates about his recent onboarding at Alpha Schools following his performance in the Gauntlet program:

• Initially tasked with creating "a non-evil Davos World Economic Forum in the United States, where education is one of the focuses"
• After exploring the organization, Gary believes Alpha Schools could become "one of the most impactful and largest movements the world has ever seen"
• Mentioned Alpha's founder, Joe Levant, is focusing significant capital on "the K-12 revolution" with plans to expand into higher education

Gary shared his perspective on education's broad impact: "Education touches literally everyone, one way or another. I mean, the consequences of a bad education is why we can't find enough doctors and nurses and plumbers. It's also why Elon can't find enough rocket engineers."

He reflected on his own higher education experience at Duke University, noting the value came primarily from:

• Connections
• Learning to work with diverse people
• Mentorship

Gary envisions future education being "a lot more modular, a lot cheaper, but also just a lot more directly to exactly what you need."

Organizational Challenges & New Initiatives

Gary mentioned he's creating a new department:

• Described as a "strike force department under me"
• Addressing gaps across multiple areas of the organization
• Implementing "AI-first" thinking across departments
• Identified specific organizational challenges, including leadership that "has no idea what marketing is" and lacks basic metrics

White House & Government Connections

Gary shared that he's been:

• Invited to the White House, partly due to his previous advisory work with the Catholic Church
• Asked to serve as "a youth in schools and innovation advisor for the White House Faith Office"
• Building valuable networks through government connections

Media & Content Creation Opportunities

A significant portion of the conversation focused on media opportunities:

• Discussion of a concept called "Activation TV" with innovative funding models
• Keith mentioned experience with "pre-filming the crowdfund model" and "The Chosen's" pay-it-forward approach
• Gary expressed a desire for faith-based media to pioneer innovative approaches before secular platforms

Gary shared his perspective on faith-based media innovation: "I don't want this to be pioneered by Netflix first. The secular thing that keeps pushing, you know, dating, like very lustful dating reality shows... They're not going to apply it to like, 'Oh, you know, there's this hyper effective, you know, drug rehabilitation center, faith-based in Wichita, [that] got a million dollar grant.' They're not going to prioritize that. We will, though."

Large-Scale Development Concepts

Gary outlined ambitious development concepts:

1. Trump World:

   • Described as "a destination for seeing the future of manufacturing, but also sports, entertainment, and education, and just life in general"
   • Potential site for 250th anniversary celebration or world's fair
   • Vision to "massively outrival Disney World itself"
   • Potential for multiple international locations: "In the Middle East, in Africa, in like, you know, in Japan or China"

2. New Cities & Master-Planned Communities:

   • References to concepts like "The Villages in Florida" and Singapore
   • Discussion of charter cities and startup cities
   • Emphasis on the importance of attention: "there's a power law with what startup cities can succeed. And it's like, has everything to do with attention"

GODWAVE Festival

Gary mentioned his plans for a GODWAVE Festival:

• Still in planning stages
• Next step is meeting with "the Green family, that does the Jesus..." (likely referring to the Green family that owns Hobby Lobby and founded the Museum of the Bible)
• Mentioned needing to secure location and "anchor super sponsor"
• Already has "the people that would actually execute the festival"

Philosophical Perspectives

Throughout the conversation, Gary shared several philosophical viewpoints:

• Self-identifies as a "crystal futurist" (described as a "neologism that I created as an identity term")
• Believes the next 25 months "are going to be some of the most interesting times in human history"
• Emphasizes the importance of media: "Every company is a media company now. Every company at least needs to partner with a media company from day one, if it wants to be massively successful."

Next Steps

1. Gary plans to meet with the Green family regarding the GODWAVE festival
2. Gary mentioned needing to secure location and major sponsors for the festival
3. No specific collaboration next steps were established, but Gary expressed desire to "keep an open line" with Keith
4. Gary indicated more "interesting stories at this scale" would be coming into his orbit

Key Quotes

• Gary on Alpha Schools' potential: "Within a few weeks I started to really believe that this is going to be one of the most impactful and largest movements the world has ever seen, with exception to, you know, the one that Jesus Christ created 2,000 years ago."

• Gary on the educational crisis: "We have a leadership crisis in the country... we haven't really trained character. We also haven't trained technical skills in the bits or atoms."

• Gary on faith-based media innovation: "I don't want this to be pioneered by Netflix first... They're not going to apply it to [meaningful projects]... We will, though."

• Gary on modern business: "Every company is a media company now. Every company at least needs to partner with a media company from day one, if it wants to be massively successful."

• Keith on supporter acknowledgment: "Thanks to these people... they made this vision possible."