Call Summary: Intro Call with Jordaaan Hill

Overview

First introductory call between Gary Sheng and Jordaaan Hill, facilitated by Michael Daigler's introduction. The conversation revealed strong alignment on both applied AI education and Christian faith, leading to potential collaboration on events and cross-promotion in 2025.

Key Topics Discussed

Jordaaan's Background & Journey into AI

• Meta Hackathon Origin: Met Michael Daigler at Meta Hackathon last year; this was his introduction to the AI dev world and Austin startup scene
• First AI Job: Landed first AI engineering contract in April 2025 using Claude desktop and MCP configurations: "If I can do this, I know I can kind of teach people the way that I was able to do this without having a deep coding knowledge base"
• Consulting Experience: 10 years as a consultant, comfortable with contract work: "I'm used to the contract grind. Most of the time they last... three months... six months, a year, two years. Just depends on the situation. And I usually juggle multiple at a time."
• Technical Marketing Background: 8 years in technical marketing on the data side before AI pivot

Organized AI & Vibe Coding Focus

• Teaching Philosophy: Focuses on "AI native" non-technical people who can skip traditional coding and jump into AI
• Learning While Teaching: "While I can, because eventually I'm learning right now, and eventually I won't have as much in common with complete beginners. But while I do, I want to show people how to cross that chasm of vibe coding and getting into legit engineering"
• Organized AI Marketplace: Tools coming online from Organized AI codebase
• Marketing Agency Deal: Recently entered licensing agreement with marketing agency to build marketing-related AI tools
• Walking Coding Events: Experimenting with walking events showing people how to use Claude Code web on mobile as a monitoring device

Gary's Vision & Applied AI Society

• Applied AI Society: Gary shared the website for his January launch; Jordaaan confirmed alignment with practical, non-hype approach
• Throwing Down the Ladder: Gary's philosophy on helping people learn opportunities: "I'm totally someone that likes to throw the ladder down and explain how things are done"
• Rostam Connection: Gary mentioned helping Rostam land early contract work for building agents; Jordaaan had met Rostam at first Nvidia Hackathon and discussed consulting collaboration
• Event at Antler: January 29 Applied AI Society event discussed; Jake offered use of Antler venue

Faith Alignment - Deep Resonance

• Gary's Journey: Explored Christianity for 5 years, found a pastor this year, baptized two months ago in Liberty, Texas
• Open Source Faith: Gary shared his GitHub repository documenting his faith walk: "I basically open source documenting my faith walk... more than anything is for myself to just organize my thoughts around what I believe"
• Vatican Experience: Gary attended faith and AI conference at Vatican City in October; standing at St. Paul's tomb shifted his perspective on Catholicism toward alliance-building rather than criticism
• Jordaaan's Journey: Long-time Christian reconnecting with obedience: "Getting back, reconnected into the obedient side of it rather than the 'hey, I got all the knowledge, hey, I'm doing Bible study'... What is it like to actually live this, though?"
• Shared Philosophy - Applied Christianity: Both agreed on "applied AI and applied Christianity" - minimal preaching, maximal walking the walk
• Gary's Articulation: "For me, it's applied AI and applied Christianity as almost minimal amount of preaching as possible. And just like maximal walking the walk"
• Jordaaan's Agreement: "Bingo. That's it, man. Nail on the head"

Boldness in Faith in Tech World

• Austin as Hub: Gary shared his perspective that Texas is "where ambitious Christians unite" but even there, people are surprised to meet someone openly Christian and competent in tech
• NYC Experience: Gary noted that in NYC it "didn't even cross my mind that I could be a Christian. Such a stifling culture there"
• Jordaaan's Take: "You don't have to play a character to be a real Christian... The AI community, the startup scene is welcoming and open to people who are loud and proud about it"

Job Board Initiative

• Ghost Job Problem: Jordaaan launching job board to help Austin business owners hire from pre-vetted talent pool: "Ghost jobs are a big, big issue, and I want to help people"
• Spotlighting Builders: Mission to spotlight hackathon builders regardless of placement: "If you build something cool, the world needs to know that"
• Gary's Offer: Offered Jordaaan a slot at the January event to present the job board

Potential Collaboration

• January 29 Event: Jordaaan interested in collaborating; will dig into event details
• Virtual Hackathon Cross-Promotion: Jordaaan planning late January virtual hackathon with live stream and "commercial" slots for promoting upcoming events: "Maybe that'll be a good fit for you"

Key Quotes

On Teaching AI to Non-Technical People:

• "If I can do this, I know I can kind of teach people the way that I was able to do this without having a deep coding knowledge base"

On Living Out Faith:

• "My whole thing is, I can just live it and then hope that people can see the proof in my actual life and what I'm doing"
• "What is it like to actually live this, though?" (on obedience vs. knowledge)
• "More importantly, it's how do you actually live it versus just talking till you're blue in the face"

On Applied AI & Applied Christianity:

• Gary: "For me, it's applied AI and applied Christianity as almost minimal amount of preaching as possible. And just like maximal walking the walk"
• Jordaaan: "Bingo. That's it, man. Nail on the head"

On Authenticity in Building:

• "Are you actually building, or are you just recycling talking points from Twitter or YouTube?"

On Faith in Tech:

• "You don't have to play a character to be a real Christian"

Action Items / Takeaways

• Jordaaan to review January 29 Applied AI Society event details and confirm participation
• Gary offered slot for Jordaaan to present job board at January event
• Jordaaan to potentially include Applied AI Society promo in virtual hackathon "commercials"
• Gary to send Jordaaan the open-source faith documentation GitHub repo
• Stay in touch for 2026 collaboration