Strategic Transition: Alpha to Tulsa Conversation

July 5, 2025

Setting and Context

Location: Austin tea house with vinyl record collection Duration: Extended afternoon/evening conversation Atmosphere: Casual but substantive catch-up between friends Weather: Heavy rain causing flooding throughout Austin

Opening: Sam Altman and Leadership Critique

Sam Altman Sociopathy Analysis

Gary opened the conversation discussing a YouTube video about Sam Altman and a book featuring 250 interviews with people who worked with him.

Core Assessment:

"The lady interviewed 250 people that work with Sam Altman... her assessment is that Sam is a sociopath basically"

Behavioral Pattern Recognition:

"Sam Altman will tell you exactly what he knows you need to hear to be on the team... people that have worked with him for years will say, I have no idea what Sam believes"

Connection to Joe Liemandt:

"That's exactly how I feel about Joe... beyond the fact that both Sam and Joe want to make infinite money"

Strategic Warning:

"Don't think that anything that they say is what they will stick to in two days or less... Or literally the next conversation they have may be completely different"

Scarcity as Control Mechanism

Wealth Concentration Reality:

"The people that controlled like the world, they just have entire caves full of gold. Entire caves... Like they could pay out the debt anytime they want. But they're not gonna do it"

Motivation Through Understanding:

"It's very motivating, honestly... God has given us the opportunity to see it unfold"

Alpha Schools: Detailed Operational Critique

Fundamental Disorganization

Gary's Strategic Withdrawal:

"I stopped, I stopped even pushing... And I think that's the right move. I brought a couple people in that are experiencing the friction for me"

Ron's Ongoing Situation:

"I brought one guy that and I are grown. Ron? Ron, yeah. He's still not settled. Wow. That's how shitty it is... They gave him like a 30 day contract"

Jonathan Stewart Power Consolidation

Event Cancellation Incident:

"This one guy... I was planning this event for June 14th... this guy, Jonathan Stewart... he was aghast that I exist... in the three days since he met me virtually, he consolidated authority under him everything that I wanted to do and canceled my event"

Systemic Leadership Issues:

"That shows the kinds of people that Joe hires and empowers... He basically created a role for him where he doesn't do much work, but he judges other people's work and consolidates the power for himself"

Missed Opportunities and Incompetence

New York Jewish Community:

"I brought the New York Jewish community to Alpha. So it's like, that's kind of infinite money if they want it, if they can competently even assume that opportunity"

Prison Reintegration Program:

"I brought them an opportunity to do recidivism... The First Step Act... Hundreds of millions of dollars budget"

Core Infrastructure Problem:

"If you don't have an incompetent operational infrastructure, all the opportunities in the world can't even be executed on... I wouldn't even trust them... I stopped bringing them opportunities"

Capital Factory Presentation Disaster

Predictable Last-Minute Scrambling:

"They ended up doing what I told them to do except two days before... the capital factory presentation thing for the kids. So they ended up doing it anyways, but just half-assed because it was the right thing to do"

Image Protection Motivation:

"The number one thing is it's an image protection thing... they're gonna look like a scam... so they ended up just staffing a couple people the week before to like fix some shit, but it was still shitty"

Technical Leadership Absence

Outsourcing Without Evaluation Capacity:

"Joe outsourced the rebuild of Two Hour Learning System to an agency. It finally got shipped a week ago... It's so important to have like a deeply technical founder... even if you're not writing code, you can evaluate whether a technical person is bullshitting you"

No Demo Access:

"They don't let anyone demo their phone... they would have to give me their login... I've never seen Two Hour Learning... their answer: they think that it would be underwhelming"

Wrapper Technology Concern:

"Part of it is 'cause they're a wrapper of free tools... They don't want people to come to a conclusion that it's an overpriced wrapper"

White House Trump Invitation: Strategic Leverage

High-Level Political Access

Major Opportunity Presentation:

"I got the opportunity to invite Joe to meet Donald Trump... at a high net worth business summit... That's gonna happen in July. So I'll be there. I'm bringing Zach Levi and then Joe"

Strategic Positioning:

"Joe doesn't even have to accept, but that's just like a giant fucking flex. 'cause the email that's getting sent to his inbox is gonna come from the fucking White House... it's gonna be because of me"

Performance Evaluation Framework

Engineering Metrics Absurdity:

"They're looking at the line number of lines of code I've shipped... I'm letting them come to their own conclusions about how retarded these things are"

Value Demonstration Strategy:

"It is kind of like a work of art for me myself... letting them come to their own conclusions... especially once the invite from the White House comes... about what kind of role I should be playing"

Exit Strategy:

"I'm also not gonna proactively quit... there's an automated payment happening every week. I'm gonna take the payments 'cause I know what I'm doing... I'm putting it in their court"

Lael Alexander Partnership: Strategic Pivot

Divine Intervention and Reconnection

Spiritual Mentor Introduction:

"We met through a spiritual mentor of mine three years ago... genuinely believe this last year God smoked him... he had a heart issue that basically hospitalized him"

Pride and Correction:

"I think he was too prideful... was not applying his gifts that were God given in the right thing... he enjoys it when people talk about his intelligence a little bit too much"

Reconnection Process:

"A friend who was working with him closely... felt a calling to connect me with him again... he drove up... gave him the phone, and we just... Lael was like, come to Tulsa... how about tomorrow?"

Trust Building Through Understanding

Mutual Recognition:

"He felt how much I understood his story and his potential... when I interviewed him on stage, he was like, wow, you really understand me"

Alpha Integration Attempt:

"I was earnestly trying to help Alpha by plugging his genius into Alpha. But again, they were not ready to do that. But I'm again, so grateful that Alpha existed for me to even earnestly have that excuse to reconnect with him"

Commercial Capabilities

CES Award-Winning Innovations:

"He has some crazy... he won some awards at CES for like breakthroughs and refrigeration and microwave. Like he's a quantum genius... he hasn't brought those to market really. So I'm helping him with that"

Quantum Computing Breakthrough:

"He is also inventing breakthrough in quantum computing, like the next generation. And so that's gonna be its own process to commercialize that"

Reindustrialization Vision

Shenzhen Development Experience:

"I believe that he is gonna be critical to the reindustrialization of America because he just has a unique skillset that he helped build Shenzhen... We don't have Shenzhen here. We should"

Freedom City Concept:

"Really liked Lucky's proposal of doing it in... Freedom City... regulation free zone... if you get there and you wanna work, like there's a job and it's just like build"

Timeline and Transition

Immediate Plans:

"I think I'll probably be like full time fullish time in Tulsa by the end of the month... ramped down or in agreement that I'm not gonna do much day to day at Alpha but they're still gonna pay me"

Zakk's Current Projects

Vibe Workers with Nate

Educational Platform Development:

"He and I are working on... he launched something called Build Your Own Apps... we're calling it Vibe Workers... The idea is he already has a course. We'll launch other courses"

Day One Academy Alignment:

"He's very like adjacent from Day One Academy... marketing, sales general"

Financial Planner Database with Chad

Market Opportunity:

"Chad and I are working on a financial database for financial planners... Database for people who prospect them... all of the data on all the 401k plans in the country"

Competitive Analysis:

"There's a couple of other apps that are doing what we're doing. They're very expensive. One of them is like $3,000 per person"

Strategic Advice from Gary:

"Go to these conferences that they go to... they will tell you what newsletter they read... that's like your user research"

Joe Hudson Executive Coaching

Connection Course Experience:

"Joe Hudson is an executive coach... I did one in December... the course that I took was called Connection. It's all about how you build and maintain connection"

Practical Tools:

"Eye contact with someone... just breathing and trying to manage your nervous system... Enjoy over manage... how can you enjoy whatever, anything 10% more?"

Investment and Community:

"The class was $6,000 but it's like 10 people, 12 weeks... you meet some good people... it's full of people that understand the value of things"

Austin Life and Dating Philosophy

Geographic Advantages

Community and Density:

"Austin is most like that [European city life] with maybe like Brooklyn being a close second... Austin is the most affordable version of that that I've seen in the US"

Serendipitous Connections:

"If I go to an event, I'll probably bump into [people I know]... it was like comical. We all sat in the same row... Everyone did [come alone]. Like alone or in smaller groups. But it was like, we all knew, had no idea"

Marriage and Relationship Vision

Black Music Culture Connection:

"They have to love music. Love music... They have to love gospel music too... being able to go to church, listen to great gospel music and them loving it. Really feel something from it"

Athletic Compatibility:

"Someone who is really active... I go crazy if I'm not working out... I gotta be in the gym like an hour a day, otherwise I'm gonna drive myself crazy"

Faith-Based Introduction:

"What I suspect is I'll be introduced to my wife through like a spiritual mentor... like a Baptist leadership conference... multiple women in their like fifties are on the lookout"

Quality Standards:

"I want someone that grew up in a god loving household that has a good set of principles... the top of funnel's solid"

AI Industry Analysis Through Karen Howe Interview

Resource Consumption Crisis

Environmental Impact:

"Based on the current pace of data center and supercomputer expansion... we would need to add around half to 1.2 times the amount of energy consumed in the UK annually to the global grid in the next five years"

Water Consumption:

"These data centers need fresh water to cool... most often these data centers actually use public drinking water"

Business Model Skepticism

Microsoft Pullback:

"Microsoft has recently been pulling back their investments in data centers... Satya Nadella has been quite skeptical of whether or not this race to AGI was productive"

Ideological vs. Financial Motivation:

"You can't actually fully understand it as just a story about money. It has to also be understood as a story of ideology... people who genuinely fervently believe... we can fundamentally recreate human intelligence"

OpenAI Evolution

Nonprofit Origins:

"OpenAI started as a nonprofit... positioned themselves as the anti-Silicon Valley, the anti-Google... completely open, transparent, and also collaborative to the point of self-sacrificing"

Talent Acquisition Strategy:

"Part of the reason why they started as a nonprofit in the first place is because it was a great recruitment tool... They could not compete on salaries with Google. But they could compete on a sense of mission"

Personal Development and Running

Joe Hudson Techniques in Practice

Present Moment Awareness:

"For that zone two, it'll be like low zone two for first half... focus on enjoying... enjoying the breeze, enjoying the sunlight... as opposed to whatever's intrusive"

Emotional Processing:

"For the threshold portion, I'll get really angry... because then running really fast, so just like get really angry about something... run really hard"

Emotional Integration:

"A lot of the communities struggle that we have with emotions is really resisting... I can enjoy anger... Enjoy grief"

Processing Past Trauma

Professional and Personal Losses:

"Getting let go from my last job... back in February... my dog died back in August. I took her to an emergency vet... They didn't honor"

Anger as Fuel:

"I was angry about the guy that canceled my event... then I enjoyed the positives of it... gave me more time to spend with Lael... ultimately led to us wanting to work together... I'm honestly grateful"

Community and Nostalgia Analysis

European vs. American Social Structure

Density and Regularity:

"Europeans don't have this context of being an empty nester because... you just buy your house or your apartment in your city... you just live your whole life there"

American Suburban Isolation:

"There's something like really desolate about default suburbia when you're an empty nester and there's nothing there... the way we've structured houses and roads and everything is not conducive"

Nostalgia vs. Dynamism

Toxic Rumination:

"If [nostalgia is] not paired with dynamism towards the future, it's totally toxic... you can't think that the past has been the best... you become really resentful and pessimistic"

Community Purpose Crisis:

"When your community doesn't have something immediate that it can be prideful and also bring in abundance... then you become like a vassal state... there's no pride"

Reindustrialization Need:

"My insight... what a community needs is something to be proud of. It's not just nostalgic... there are worse things than death"

Church and Faith Community Exploration

Multi-Denominational Approach

Sunday Plans:

"I'm probably going to check out an LDS church tomorrow... Not because I'm gonna join, but because I get lovingly invited by people"

Denominational Philosophy:

"People ask me what is my favorite denomination? And I'm like, they all have great fruits, as in people"

Church Growth Observations

Red Rock Church:

"They opened up a year and a half ago and pretty popular now, but they're outgrowing their temporary space... The church is five years old... pastor's in their thirties, very young"

Logistics and Community:

"Get there early, so like 9:30, 9:45... the lobby's nice. There's lots of space... parking is the challenging thing... really outgrowing the space"

Record Collection and Cultural Appreciation

Vinyl Gift Exchange

Historical Music Education:

"This is the godmother of rock and roll... She invented a bunch of ways of playing the guitar that Eric Clapton and then all the people brought up"

Catholic Choir Recording:

"I think this is a Catholic choir. Men's choir... from the sixties... This is newer, but for you. Love this"

Audio Equipment Appreciation

Zakk's 1959 Setup:

"I have a pretty nice record player at home... 1959, designed by Dieter Rams... it has the original speakers too... it's a real piece of art in itself"

Cultural Value Recognition:

"A lot of this stuff is not on streaming services... it could digitally create versions obviously, but..."

Strategic Insights and Future Positioning

Expect the Unexpected Motto

2025 Outlook:

"What I feel like the right motto is expect the unexpected this year... this next 12 months... I don't think that people expected this to be a rainforest today"

Investment and Partnership Philosophy

Cabin DAO Lesson:

"They dissolved the treasury... what they should have done is just given it back to the investors... They distributed it to everyone in the community based on holdings... the investors got screwed"

Long-term Relationship Value:

"He's gonna have a really hard time raising [money]... you gotta play the long game... there's gonna be karma for that"

Technology and Human Connection Balance

Instagram Critique:

"Instagram was so trash... It's terrible"

Physical Space Appreciation:

"This place is great... it's like such a big place... feels like a very important fixture... it's like an OG Austin. That's awesome. It's important to keep these places around"

Key Themes and Strategic Implications

Professional Transition Management

Gary demonstrated sophisticated management of his Alpha Schools exit while building his Tulsa partnership, using strategic leverage (White House invitation) while maintaining financial benefits during transition.

Values-Based Partnership Selection

Clear preference for working with people who share spiritual values and demonstrate genuine capability over pure financial opportunities, evidenced in his choice of Lael Alexander over continued Alpha frustrations.

Cultural and Community Analysis

Deep understanding of the importance of community density, purpose, and pride in creating sustainable social structures, informing his reindustrialization vision.

Personal Development Integration

Seamless integration of spiritual growth, physical health, emotional processing, and professional development through running, executive coaching, and faith community engagement.

Technology Skepticism with Strategic Awareness

Maintaining critical perspective on AI industry hype while staying informed about developments and their implications for his own work.

Notes

This conversation reveals Gary's sophisticated strategic thinking as he navigates a major professional transition. His ability to maintain perspective on Alpha Schools' dysfunction while building alternative partnerships demonstrates mature leadership during organizational challenges.

The integration of personal development (running, dating, faith) with professional strategy (Lael partnership, Austin community building) shows holistic approach to life design during a pivotal period.

His analysis of broader cultural trends (nostalgia vs. dynamism, community purpose, AI industry dynamics) provides context for his own strategic decisions and partnership choices.