Dinner Conversation: Gary Sheng & Tim Joo

Date: July 17, 2025
Location: Japanese Restaurant, Austin, TX
Participants: Gary Sheng (@gary-sheng.md), Tim Joo (@tim-joo.md)

Key Discussion Topics

Time Back Website Project

Tim is working on a critical $100K bounty project to build the official Time Back website for Joe Liemandt:

• Challenge: "He wants it to be an ultra-responsive, serving hyper-personalized content in real time according to what the visitor... Like when the visitor goes on, they answer some questions, and based on how they answer, the site dynamically renders a hyper-personalized message just for that person"
• Team: Tim, Reese, and Alpha interns/college kids
• Pressure: Daily 10am demos required until completion, Joe "not very happy because no one's really demoed anything yesterday and today"
• Strategic Importance: "If I get this, if this works out for Time Back, like, that is a, it is a big rollout, right?"
• Survival Mode: "All this game is is stay alive. And me, I'm like, also, I'm thinking, like, okay, stay alive so I can do my own shit"

Alpha Schools Organizational Decline

Significant revelations about Alpha's deteriorating situation:

NextGen Academy Crisis

• Marketing Cut-Off: "NextGen... They got cut off from marketing completely... they found out, like, four days ago that they're completely cut off"
• Impossible Target: "NextGen has to have 50 kids by December. That's their, kind of like their deliverable. But I don't think they're going to get it"
• Resource Constraints: "They're just not equipped. I don't see them at meetups. I don't see them talking"
• From Kale: Information came from Kale who's been "trying to help them with their turnaround"

Broader Organizational Dysfunction

• Joe's Focus: "I think Joe's, like, razor focused on just alpha school. Like, I'm pretty sure NextGen is fucked"
• Marketing Director Uncertainty: Speculation about Jason Applebaum potentially being fired
• Growth vs Reality: Despite dysfunction, "Alpha has a bunch of new locations... like four or five schools"

Tim's Side Project & Career Strategy

LLM Content Optimization Tool: Tim developing "an app to help pull that information out for businesses and brands so that LLMs recognize that, like, oh, this is, this company does this"

• Problem: Social media content is "siloed" across platforms, hard for LLMs to parse
• Market Need: Help with "LLM search optimization" for businesses
• Motivation: "As much as I'd love to open schools, it's fucking hard"

Political & Religious Analysis

Trump Administration Assessment

• Gary's Perspective: "I'm pretty sure God used him to just get through to basically expose how fucked everything is"
• Religious Legislation: "He's doing a good job... churches can now endorse candidates. For example. He's powering up religious religion in America"
• Exposure Function: Trump as "an embodiment of corruption that reveals just how much we're captured"
• Divine Purpose: "Everyone has a role to play even if it's not the role that the ego wants to play"

Israel/Palestine Discussion

• Tim's Family Conflict: "my brother is super religious, but he's such a die-hard supporter. Of Israel"
• Church Manipulation: "these people actually think that you're a piece of shit and they're laughing at manipulating you"
• Gaza Church Incident: Referenced recent events where "they didn't even want to apologize until Trump made the call"

Societal Structure Analysis

• Decentralization Thesis: "I think maybe the answer is just hyper-decentralized ideologies, man"
• High-Trust Societies: "The only way to build a high-trust society is to be very small societies"
• Family-Scale Trust: "You basically have to feel like family with these people"
• Christian Foundation: "Even if you're not a full believer in Christianity, you have to endorse a Christian society"

Isaiah's Lebanon Journalism Trip

Major development with Isaiah McCall's upcoming dangerous assignment:

Trip Details

• Duration: "two weeks. Three, four" in Lebanon
• Funding: Gary helping pay for flight: "I'm helping pay for his flight to Lebanon"
• Purpose: Truth-telling journalism from war zone
• Local Support: "I have a really good friend there who can host it"

Strategic Significance

• Timing: "he's hitting it right now at the right time"
• Courage Premium: "The most powerful person in the world is willing to die. Willing to die. And actually has a just cause"
• Market Opportunity: "if he doesn't get martyred, he's about to be a millionaire this year"
• Content Differentiation: "everyone's commenting from the sidelines, aggregating news headlines from AP"
• Cryptocurrency Funding: "the main way he's going to get paid is crypto... The world's Christians and also allied atheists... pouring money into his accounts"

Risk Assessment

• Gary's Realism: "Incredibly dangerous" but "you gotta do it"
• Isaiah's Readiness: "He has no logical argument against it... And certainly no spiritual argument against it"
• Transformation Guarantee: "whatever happens, he's going to come out of there a changed person"

Gary's Tulsa Community Vision

Strategic positioning for sovereign community development:

Current Status

• Organic Alignment: "everything has organically lined up where I need it to be"
• Mission: "what we want to do in Tulsa is build a sovereign community"
• Challenge: "It's not going to be easy. It's going to be a prototype for the rest of society"
• Timeline: "joining a family trip of Lael to Miami next week"

Societal Context

• Collapse Preparation: "As the rest of society goes to complete shit"
• Individual Empowerment: "with the AI stuff you realize how much more powerful individuals can be"
• Community Leverage: "the small community that has has a lot more leverage"
• Exit Options: "Allow for more self-sovereign communities... becomes a powerful check on power because people can exit"

AI and Society Transformation

Technology Impact Assessment

• Individual Power: "The sovereign individual becomes much more influential with AI"
• Infrastructure Advancement: "Breakthroughs in energy systems medicine, plumbing, everything"
• Social Disruption: "A lot of mental illness, I think, is going to happen"
• Influence Economy: "the super superficial, like, influencer girls, they're being automated"

Human Productivity Decoupling

• Core Question: "If human productivity is about to get decoupled from labor because of these AI and robotics doing a lot of the majority of productive work, right? What is left for us to do?"
• Trust Building: Gary's advice: "I would encourage you to really hone your skill building trust"
• Community Brokerage: "Technology doesn't just end up in people's hands. It ends up in a lot of communities' hands without, like, a trusted broker"

Network State Critique

Tim's firsthand experience with Balaji Srinivasan:

• Direct Involvement: "I helped biology with the network state book. I was on midnight calls"
• Character Assessment: "I just realized he has no heart. There's nothing going on there"
• AI Worship: "These people venerate AI. Do you know why? Because they don't have any soul either"
• Missing Element: "they don't have any Holy Spirit for sure"
• Geographic Defeatism: "They've given up on America. They want to do it in other places like Nicaragua"

Cultural Philosophy

Christian Society Framework

• Universal Need: "Even if you're not a full believer in Christianity, you have to endorse a Christian society"
• Constructive vs Subversive: "You can't construct a society on subversion... what are they subverting? They're subverting the normal thing, which is Christian culture"
• Tolerance Structure: "a Christian society that's tolerant... but not pushover as well"
• Reproductive Purpose: "What are you building for?... Who are you leaving it behind to?"

Subversion Analysis

• Cultural Ownership: "who owns the porn companies?... Who owns the vices of the gangster rappers?"
• Strategic Brilliance: "They're funding the degeneration of our society... It's brilliant. Completely brilliant"
• Word Creation: Discussion of "anti-semitism" vs lack of equivalent terms for anti-Christian sentiment
• Power Recognition: "You gotta almost admire it from like a respect level. Power level"

Personal Philosophy & Friendship

Faith and Cynicism Balance

• Depression Prevention: "I don't know how people like us could wake up in the morning and not want to kill ourselves if we were just complete atheists"
• Hope Source: "That's up to God to produce a miracle that we're not fucked"
• Truth Revelation: "if you really want just human flourishing, this is ultimately just good. The truth is coming out"

Tim's Mission Clarity

• Core Drive: "I just want to inspire people... Just talk to people, make them see a vision greater than them"
• Individual Potential: "show them that someone thinks there is a greater version of them that can fulfill that greater whatever narrative"
• Monetization Question: "How can I monetize that? I don't know yet"
• Self-Development: "I gotta do it myself"

Friendship Dynamics

• Mutual Support: Tim offering "cover for as long as you need me to" for Gary's mission
• Collaboration Credit: "Gary and I are working on this... He's the whole reason why we have this program"
• Social Validation: "Gary has the most Twitter followers out of everyone. He already knows how to do this"

Weekend Plans & Social Context

• Christian's Party: Saturday 7-9pm with Cohort 2, at his "super nice place"
• Gary's Miami Trip: "you got Miami next week, right?"
• Korean Food Plans: Discussion of weekend Korean food plans
• Continuing Relationship: Regular meetup scheduling and mutual support

Key Quotes

On Alpha Schools

• "All this game is is stay alive. And me, I'm like, also, I'm thinking, like, okay, stay alive so I can do my own shit"
• "I feel like we're all just like drifters. Dude, you know what this is? This is like fucking you remember that comic Gilbert from back in the day? It's like fucking real life Gilbert 2.0, bro"

On Isaiah's Lebanon Trip

• "The most powerful person in the world is willing to die. Willing to die. And actually has a just cause, right? For sure. He has a giant microphone"
• "if he gets martyred, go straight to fucking heaven... if he doesn't get martyred, he's about to be a millionaire this year"

On Society and Politics

• "Everyone has a role to play even if it's not the role that the ego wants to play"
• "The only way to build a high-trust society is to be very small societies"
• "Even if you're not a full believer in Christianity, you have to endorse a Christian society"

On Technology and Future

• "The sovereign individual becomes much more influential with AI"
• "I would encourage you to really hone your skill building trust"

On Faith and Purpose

• "I don't know how people like us could wake up in the morning and not want to kill ourselves if we were just complete atheists"
• "I just want to inspire people... Just talk to people, make them see a vision greater than them"

Notable Mentions

• Reese: Tim's collaborator on Time Back website project
• Kale: Source of information about NextGen Academy's marketing cut-off
• Joris: "autistic fuck" German employee who "got fired... because he was, like, instigating"
• K: Turkish/Muslim contact who "sends me all sorts of shit all the time"
• Aureli: Restaurant server who provided 20% resident discount
• Christian: Hosting party for Cohort 2
• Lord Miles: British content creator who travels to dangerous places
• Eric Weinstein: "little fucking Jew" who recently endorsed Christianity as America's foundation
• Alex Jones: "national treasure" living in Austin
• Harvey Weinstein: Controversial commentary on Hollywood actress quality

Strategic Themes

1. Organizational Survival: Both participants navigating declining institutional environments while building toward independent futures
2. Community Building: Shift from institutional to tribal/family-scale trust structures
3. Individual Empowerment: AI enabling greater individual and small community capability
4. Truth-Telling: Premium on courage-based journalism and authentic communication
5. Faith Integration: Christianity as necessary societal foundation regardless of personal belief
6. Geographic Strategy: Focus on American renewal vs expatriation to other countries