Gary Sheng & Tim Joo Strategic Intelligence and Moral Leadership Discussion

Date: July 22, 2025
Participants: Gary Sheng, Tim Joo
Context: Tim sharing intelligence from Gauntlet leadership and philosophical discussion on business ethics

Alpha Organizational Intelligence from Gauntlet Leadership

Arthur Michel - Organizational Taboo

Tim reported that when discussing Alpha's organizational issues with Ash Tilawat and Austen Allred at Gauntlet, Arthur Michel became an untouchable topic:

"I asked them something about Arthur and then they both looked at each other and they were like, no comment. And I was like, oh wow, this must be, this is, you know what I mean? This is something, a sore subject that they don't wanna talk about."

Gary's direct assessment: "Arthur's just a coward and a snake." He described Alpha as operating like a "negative trust society" due to dishonest leadership that "doesn't believe in anything" and lacks accountability.

Jason Applebaum Termination Confirmed

Multiple sources confirmed Jason Applebaum was fired from his Alpha Marketing Director role:

• Timing: Early July 2025, coinciding with Joe's Time Back bounties push
• Concurrent Firing: Joanna also terminated at same time
• Joe's Control: Joe Liemandt taking direct ownership of Alpha marketing
• Strategic Shift: Moving away from previous agency model to direct management

Gauntlet Graduate Professional Conduct Crisis

Hiring Partner Complaints: Ash revealed significant feedback about Gauntlet graduates' professional behavior:

"Basically, Ash was like, yeah, they are complaining about like our emotional, what are intelligence quota, emotional quota, our EQ... people don't really know how to conduct themselves professionally."

Specific Problems:

• Roger identified as primary issue: "And he was like, that's why at Gauntlet, with this new cohort, they've been doing behavioral interviews to try to catch people that are fucking emotionally retarded... he was like, well, it's because of one person. I was like, who? And he was like, Roger."
• Multiple organizations affected: "we're not the only org that where management has complained to Ash and Austin about it"
• Systemic screening: New behavioral interviews implemented to prevent similar hires

Joe Liemandt's Expensive Dev Agency Model

Major revelation about Joe's inefficient business operations:

"Joe has a lineup of dev agencies that he contracts for multi-millions of dollars a year that have been building all of his software for time back and two-hour learning, which is why it's all shit and which is why we all have to rebuild it."

Gauntlet's Purpose: Cost optimization strategy rather than educational mission:

"Joe basically went to Austin and was like, yeah, I'm paying way too much for these agencies. So I'd rather just fund and get like 10 Gauntleters, right?"

Tim's Business Critique: Questioned fundamental tech company management:

"But here's what I don't understand. Like you own a tech corporation. Why would you be contracting outside dev agencies to build you stuff? That doesn't make any sense to me."

Strategic Positioning and Personal Development

Tim's Evolved Alpha Strategy

Tim articulated clear strategic disengagement from Joe Liemandt despite continuing employment:

"even if I had a billion dollar idea, I don't know if I'd want to do it with Joe. You know what I mean?... if that's the case, then okay. My strategy here is to do just the average. So I don't fall in the bottom of the pack, get paid to learn, get paid to... my goal is to become really good at marketing, AI marketing."

Survival Mode Philosophy:

"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."

Educational Vision Independence:

"I still want to do the school stuff, but like also I think I can itch my education, whatever wants or desires without having to have it be aligned with like the alpha school, right?"

Gary's Miami Opportunity with Lyell

Gary revealed upcoming business pivot to work with scientist "Lyell" in Miami:

• Intelligence Assessment: "He's definitely a genius" with superior collaboration style
• Comparative Leadership: "more amenable to listening to your advice than the other guy, right? Joe"
• Strategic Alternative: Represents Gary's exploration of alternatives to Alpha ecosystem

Philosophical Discussion on Moral Leadership

Personal Accountability and Male Leadership Crisis

Extended discussion on leadership accountability and societal breakdown:

Gary's Framework: "you can't really help someone be better if you're not better, right?"

Tim's Self-Awareness: Acknowledged personal struggles and growth:

"I have been punished multiple times for sure. But I guess I'm kind of stupid like that where I'm stubborn and it takes me a while to learn, but I'm starting to get around, you know, starting to figure it out, right?"

Demon Management Philosophy:

"demons, everyone's got it inside. As much as everyone has divinity inside... you either gotta cage that demon or that demon cages you, but you gotta choose, right? And by you not choosing, by you not choosing, you're choosing to be caged, right?"

Male Leadership Vacuum and Responsibility

Gary's Analysis: Male leadership failure created societal problems:

"The way that women are today is should fall in our responsibility to them because we created a power vacuum. We created a leadership vacuum, right?... Where women broadly did not feel like they could be feminine and just trusting God, right? Because the men that are supposed to reflect God's image were not creating order in society that felt good, right?"

Tim's Agreement: "We abdicated our responsibility for sure. Yeah. 100%. That's what it is."

Power Structure Analysis and Truth-Telling

Gary's Direct Assessment: "we're basically controlled by Jewish satanic pedophiles."

Tim's Enthusiastic Response:

"No, I fucking love it, dude. I love it. Cause like, dude, honestly, like leading up to this point, like I have very few friends that share that belief too. So it's like to hear that from you, I'm like, man, I fucking love it."

Strategic Information Diet: Gary described filtering approach:

"I've muted the words, Israel, Palestine, Jew, Netanyahu. Like I've literally muted all those words on Twitter... I don't need any more news. That's like, oh, we're still controlled. Like I don't need this constant reminders of that."

Business Success vs. Moral Character

Gary's Critique: Separation of business achievement from moral worth:

"I'm tired of people associating business success with morality... Even though, well, I mean, you just can't, I'm tired of it... Because Elon is gonna make a bunch of money addicting people to waifu. Absolutely. But is that a good thing?"

Faustian Bargain Analysis: Discussion of Sam Altman and Silicon Valley morality:

"you can literally sacrifice a child for your earthly empire... you can literally sacrifice young people to the altar of your Tower of Babel and you will still lose to other earthly powers... Satan is not like actually an enemy of God. He's like, he's just an agent of God. That's like prodding, testing, tempting... he's not gonna allow you to have spiritual peace and he's not gonna be able to let you get away with it at the end of the day."

Strategic Intelligence and Future Planning

Gauntlet as Intelligence Source

Tim identified value in ongoing Gauntlet relationship:

"I think I'm gonna go to Gauntlet more and lean on Ash and Austin just to like spit stuff off on them. So that way, you know what I mean? Cause they have a bigger picture of, you know what I mean? They've worked with Joe and Alpha and Trilogy before for longer than we have, right?"

Industry Context Understanding

Silicon Valley Comparison: Austen Allred's analysis of Alpha's unique dysfunction:

"in Silicon Valley, the enterprise tech code base is shit too. It's just the differences in the Valley. They have enough top tier world-class engineers to throw at any problem to fix it when it comes up... But like, do these organizations have like really good communication outlets and clear hierarchy and stuff like that? And they were like, yeah, they probably do, you know? And I was like, well, we don't have both either here."

Key Strategic Insights

1. Alpha Organizational Decay: Multiple confirmation points of systemic dysfunction across leadership, marketing, and talent management
2. Arthur Michel Toxicity: Reached levels where even external partners avoid discussing him
3. Joe's Business Model Inefficiencies: Multi-million dollar waste on external agencies reflects poor operational management
4. Gauntlet Graduate Quality Issues: Professional conduct problems requiring systematic screening changes
5. Strategic Disengagement: Both Gary and Tim exploring alternatives while maintaining current positions for learning and resource access
6. Moral Leadership Development: Shared commitment to personal improvement and truth-telling as foundation for effective leadership
7. Intelligence Network Value: Gauntlet leadership providing crucial organizational intelligence and industry context

Conclusion

This conversation demonstrated the deepening strategic partnership between Gary and Tim, characterized by:

• Tactical Intelligence Sharing: Tim providing crucial organizational insights from Gauntlet sources
• Strategic Alignment: Both exploring alternatives to Alpha ecosystem while maximizing current learning opportunities
• Philosophical Convergence: Shared worldview on moral leadership, personal accountability, and societal power structures
• Mutual Support: Gary mentoring Tim's leadership development while Tim providing operational intelligence and moral support for Gary's strategic transitions

The conversation reflects both participants' evolution from enthusiastic Alpha collaborators to strategic survivors focused on skill development and alternative opportunity identification while maintaining honest assessment of organizational and personal realities.