Dinner Conversation with Jozef Gherman

This transcript captures a dinner conversation between Gary Sheng and Jozef Gherman (founder of StealthGPT) where they discussed potential collaboration on GODWAVE Schools and other initiatives.

Gary Sheng: You don't need to raise money, right? You're you're good.

Jozef Gherman: Well, we don't.

Gary Sheng: So, I can get you bundle from this guy better like super easily, I think. You know our pathway to do that? I have you do a fireside chat at the office. Let's do it like literally tomorrow, because you're so impressive, dude. And everyone's trying to figure out how to make money on education, but they're all fucking struggling with this. Also, do you have any time tomorrow evening? We do this.

Jozef Gherman: Have they been good at all? I mean, you're touching it. I'm trying to make actions like, you know...

Gary Sheng: I don't know, so we could do, uh... You connect to the Wi-Fi?

Jozef Gherman: What's the name of it?

Gary Sheng: 19608 or something like that. You live right to this place?

Jozef Gherman: I don't think there's a password actually. I live right here. Yeah, I live like right down the street, only five minutes away.

Gary Sheng: Is it an audio fireside chat or is it video?

Jozef Gherman: My dry cleaning has not been like, I have not done any laundry since...

Gary Sheng: We have similar size clothes. I can hook you up. I'll give you like a button up or whatever. It'll be great. We can literally go out to my room after this.

So, yeah, just to double check - we can even go for the first two hours of this, and we can literally do the fireside chat at 9:30. Because you know why? Because the billionaire always comes by, or not always, but like often comes by at like 10:30. And so afterwards, you could literally just meet him probably.

But I would make sure that he's aware of who you are. I'll CC him on an email saying a good friend of mine who is crushing it in edtech and blah, blah, blah. And then afterwards I'll recap, he's also raising money blah, blah, blah. Talk about your whole story, your path, iteration.

Jozef Gherman: Why do you think users beat me? Why do you think the right top?

Gary Sheng: I mean, I'm so good at this thing. We don't even need to prepare. I'm good like I don't, me and you could just riff, honestly. I think there'll be like a ton of questions.

No, it's... do you know what it is? It's a billionaire hired engineers that are all trying to figure out how to do edtech. So you basically will have these creators by the balls as like their gooroo. But then if you ever need to hire these people, like, literally you just have another network here.

Jozef Gherman: Yeah, so I wanna like, 9:30. So you've been, and where's the office now?

Gary Sheng: 1705 Guadalupe. Do you like mushrooms? I'll give you a bag of mushrooms as a welcome gift.

Jozef Gherman: No, uh I have capsules.

Gary Sheng: Yeah, dude, I'm basically on track to be like the CEO of this thing because of the lack of leadership, so basically I'm either gonna be the CEO or gonna compete with it.

But basically Joe Lamont, okay, he created this company called Trilogy, which buy SaaS and gut them scales. He did that for 36 years or 30 years. Two years ago, he was like, I think the biggest opportunity is in education for AI. Everything's about to be disrupted, to your point. He's pouring all this money that he's ever made into what he and his partners spent probably tens of millions of dollars. Mostly on these products of media, and also a very um an okay school system that I think I can defeat.

But he basically has a network of middle schools around the country that he and his partner have piloted for the last 10 years. They built some interesting tech, but it's honestly like not that great. And he completely lacks senior leadership that has strategy, recruiting ability, ability to give feedback on things, ability to hold leadership. Basically, he's missing like a CEO, because he's way too high level, he doesn't know what's going on. There's a lot of issues.

Basically, I've only been there for a month. There's no one better positioned than me to be CEO of this whole school system. If he's not willing to relinquish that, I'm gonna compete directly with this. And I'll have a directly "God focused" approach and raise a bunch of money from Christian billionaires that want to see education reimagined anyway.

So it's been a very interesting month of quickly showing my value and my capacity. And what I realized about billionaires is they're ruthless. They treat everyone as a human resource, and you have to treat them in the same way that they treat you, like an opportunity.

(conversation shifts to personal topics briefly)

Jozef Gherman: So what do you call it? Did Sam ever take that idea or what I called like William Academy or something?

Gary Sheng: I don't agree. We were talking about my edtech idea, like how I wanted to reinvent education. I'll go into it with you, I don't care. I have everything down.

Jozef Gherman: What about the physical space? That's the physical space.

Gary Sheng: Well, tell me about what this is - the digital, the technology.

Jozef Gherman: The technology kind of works like this. What I used to say was, the perfect school system, but I think we'd lose all those social skills and it's not like what I used to say was, "Oh, just put them in extracurricular activity." I don't think it's that simple, you know, to make up those skills that would be lost by being in a disconnected space.

The technology side would basically work like: you have the capacity for a very personalized curriculum. So you know like there are parents out there they're like, "Oh, I want my kid to be a doctor, I want my kid to be whatever," like, before the kid has really sunk in what they want to be. They want to put their kid on a track.

So I imagine a software that could get them on a track. You basically say: what is this kid? He's a male, 5 years old, I want him to be a doctor, whatever. We create a curriculum from that all the way up until college. We're gonna put them on the optimal track to become a doctor.

But now, say, for example, they're 12 years old and they discover they're an amazing musician. They're into classical music or something, and they change direction - they have no interest in medicine. Well, imagine if we could alter that route to now change the direction of where the student wants to go. The benefit is, we can start at four or five years old.

So now you can also tell the system that my kid is a visual learner, my kid runs better with this approach than that. And let the AI adjust for you. So you essentially have a curated curriculum with also an enumerated way of tuning it.

Right now, you can create, like, virtual professors where, for example, some people are visual learners. I'm a very big visual learner. We're at the place right now where we can generate video with AI - they create like videos around these curriculum modules as well. The curriculum would have its own quizzes, its own homework, all tracked in a module that learns from the user.

You know, this is literally what the billionaire has been voting for the last three years.

Gary Sheng: Pretty good, but like I said, I mean, you could build this in six months.

Jozef Gherman: No, no, I mean I think he would be happy to fund you to compete with himself. That's how like he's a strange guy. He likes setting teams against each other.

Gary Sheng: Bro, we're about to do some pretty cool stuff. I'm in competition. Bro, he... you might as well, like, you're gonna be his favorite person.

Jozef Gherman: No, I mean I'm not trying to...

Gary Sheng: No, I mean I'll be his favorite person cause I bring people like you in, seriously. I mean, I'm basically like I said, his delegated CEO that he needs to be more delegative to, but like we need more people like you that are like super high agency and understand the technology and have business sense.

Jozef Gherman: I have the way to get it done. The thing that I lack, honestly, is...

Gary Sheng: I mean it'll be so easy for us to get the bread going. Like, at this point, I've already had a web app, iOS app built, Chrome extensions built, we're building another iOS app for family offices and stuff like that - property for 500+ people. Imagine that I found this all from my vision. We can put this together and we can get it done so fast.

Jozef Gherman: So, you know what I want to do? I want to create a competitive school system that he helps fund.

Gary Sheng: I mean, he would love that.

Jozef Gherman: So the name I have is called GODWAVE school.

Gary Sheng: GODWAVE. DOG WAVE. That would be sick like the best dogs. That would actually work. You know how much people love their dogs.

(dinner prayer)

Thank you so much for connecting us. It is not an accident that Jozef moved to Austin right next to me, by the way, and has been thinking about a lot of the same things I've been thinking about. And I would guide us to surrender more and lean more into what I call a crystal futurist philosophy that leans deeply into technology while also staying very God focused. Thank you so much and bless the people that made this food and the food in front of us.

Jozef Gherman: I love that. I love it. You know, like you are saying this renaissance of like, you know I call it GODWAVE. It makes sense. But dude, this is like this could be so big, right? And like, I have incredible connections in entertainment, music, biblical studies, all the above, and so this wouldn't just be a school system. It'd be a movement.

Gary Sheng: So it would be an education system for everyone and everything. It's a full spectrum, beautiful propaganda, like old-school but also free thinking. It's a whole culture.

Jozef Gherman: It's a whole scale of a culture.

Gary Sheng: Did you say cold? Well, what's the root of culture?

(conversation shifts to theological/philosophical topics briefly)

Gary Sheng: The people on my team - are they in person or remote?

Jozef Gherman: Remote, but they're gonna come out if necessary. Very religious, very Christian, very often. So my whole team is missionary-minded. And even my ambassadors - I have three, and all conservatively aligned.

Gary Sheng: The other is not as much big power. So I'm going to the White House. I'm going to White House meeting with Paula White on Friday. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm not gonna mention Alpha Schools. I'm gonna mention our network that we're gonna build - GODWAVE Schools.

Jozef Gherman: So, how would that mean, like was a huge network that we get done?

Gary Sheng: It was actually insane. I worked that thing, I could easily sell this to someone else for number $50,000. It was like the most flawless UI you've ever seen, super well done, super polished. We got the design done and an MVP done for like 30k. I could easily sell it for 40 to 50, but my point was fire, we can get development done super quickly, super polished, super well done at a cost no one would expect. It's actually phenomenal.

(conversation about development resources and contacts)

Gary Sheng: You know, my network? The guy that has governed Kanye and...

Jozef Gherman: Oh, don't worry, I mean, you don't need to know that network, you can know mine. But I don't even know if we have all the pieces. We have all the pieces. I know the family that does the wife does the Jesus commercials from the Super Bowl. Like we have the body and we have the people.

Ultimately all we need is a flywheel, power and revenue. Do you know there are 30,000 churches in America just in Texas? And you know that they're almost entirely vacant through the school day? Imagine.

Gary Sheng: Yes, dude, and imagine the tech that you build as CTO of this thing being in thousands of schools in the next 12 months, and then we take over all these churches all across the country by creating a "My faith, my children, my choice, my faith, my choice" movement. Literally like "You're ruining my kid!"

(conversation shifts to politics/history of church involvement in politics)

Jozef Gherman: The way I'm envisioning these schools - and you can literally build this software - nonprofit or for-profit. Like Open AI.

Gary Sheng: Every school, every school. And you spin it up really quick. Clusters and micro-schools are sharing the same identity. Almost doesn't matter - these are minor details we'll figure out. Basically, they need land to incentivize people to build the schools.

Jozef Gherman: It also literally is just for all. I think a lot about architects and terrorists, the right school building tycoon. Could have multiple revenue streams - event space, sports stuff, performing arts stuff, everything. And so we're gonna bring some revenue to the churches.

Gary Sheng: So it's literally secure with security, right? A big fortress.

Jozef Gherman: Marketing right there. As in God we trust. Got a mom and dad doing a little, you know things they want until they have to do it, and then they're like "Damn, I gotta spend like seven hours a day." Shows beautiful.

Gary Sheng: We can make this an anti-cheat system, and that's what kids are looking for in education these days. So my friend raised me this very interesting idea. He said with AIs and all that, what his teacher started to do was give up more examination material that couldn't be tested with AI. Like, "Gary, explain to me what you learned over this semester. What about this concept? What about this? You're right in front of me."

Jozef Gherman: That's great. It's good. Here's the thing - they stopped doing that after one semester because it was too hard. We have hundreds of students to sit and talk to for an hour an hour. These teachers are lazy. AI all the way.

You have an AI that has a world context of its own and can evaluate unlike we are so benefited by the current system. The traditional schools are still in a position where they can't even deal with a modern day calculator or modern day computer. They don't wanna innovate - it's the union mentality.

Gary Sheng: So, you've thought about this so much. I resonate with everything.

(conversation shifts to politics/education reform)

Jozef Gherman: They want to block merit-based systems because they're sitting tight. They don't want accountability. They don't want any accountability.

Gary Sheng: This - we don't even have to deal with that. And we don't hire union teachers. Imagine that. You know what we can also make it? We can make the process of starting new schools a game where we pay out when you launch a school, and you are responsible for convincing the pastor to launch the school, we give you a payout. We'll give you a revenue share.

Jozef Gherman: We have where you share the reward. I share with my network, you get the credit for that automatically. We can pay out $5,000 a month in marketing commissions. And that represents 25% of the total that we're making. So you can imagine that we're making $20,000, and we're paying these guys $5,000 bucks. It's a pretty good margin.

Gary Sheng: There's one thing that at the end of everything is gonna be insane. I'm incredibly going to find enough people. And then if you deliver the solution, you would be my preferred partner. You're a builder with a mission, and you'd love being with us.

Jozef Gherman: Yeah, I mean, look, you have to be willing to take risks. That's my philosophy.

(conversation shifts to White House connections)

Gary Sheng: I'm gonna work on getting you an invite to the White House for something. So there is a technologist or something like that on AI. I got like four different pathways - you would be so good, bro.

Jozef Gherman: I remember my skill set beyond strategy...

Gary Sheng: Well part of why I'm... I'm gonna throw you in with very powerful individuals as they can tell I can help with that strategy. But I'm also like very charming with them as well. But my goal is for them to want to help me be as good of a spiritual leader as possible.

Do you know what they're doing with DEI money that was allocated by Biden? They've fully allocated it to faith initiatives, and they don't know where to spend it. We have the ideas.

Jozef Gherman: We got some ideas. Definitely have some ideas. Like I said, the door is so open. I've had a vision in my head for years.

Gary Sheng: I love it. The reason why I haven't dove in is I'm so busy with other things. I'm so busy with my team. I only have like 10-11 people on my team. It's not the biggest team in the world.

(conversation about other app Jozef is working on)

Jozef Gherman: So that's the big app that we're working on for the family offices and stuff, but we can manage like 100 people in one app and track their destinations and book their flights, book their hotels, book their cars, you can send up restaurant notifications, you can make fully encrypted group chats with people and stuff like that whole work app. It's like the app for group travel management, expense reporting, that kind of thing.

Gary Sheng: Beautiful.

Jozef Gherman: Yeah. So that that's for these multi-million dollar family offices, you know what I mean. I'm doing it as relationship building too, which has been awesome because the guy has a big family. So he's always like, "Hey, Jozef, hop on my private jet to Arizona." I'll meet this guy or that guy, so that's been a lot of fun.

(conversation shifts to politics/church organization)

Gary Sheng: I don't really care about denominations. I became so bullish on non-denominational churches. I believe God's real, I believe he's given us all a purpose. I'm strategically still working with the church on things, but I'm no longer needing to be the reformer inside of it. And in fact, I believe that competition is what stirs reform anyway, less so like internal entrepreneurship. Fear of loss from outside forces motivates people really well.

Jozef Gherman: It works for everything. So if the Catholic Church is losing momentum, which it has - they've accelerated, honestly - but also happy to work with Catholic churches, you know, to make money.

Gary Sheng: I have a church for you to try. I think it'll be your style. Austin Ridge at BK. It's the same church Joe Rogan goes to. His family goes there since December. Well, his family has gone there longer than him, but Rogan's been going since December. No one knows this stuff by the way because it's not public that he's exploring his faith.

I don't go there anymore because I found one that I like more, but I think that this would be a good church for you because it's a very powerful church. And it's good to at least try for one week. They need help with their tech - they have like really shitty tech. You could build it for them and establish a relationship. It's a powerful church.

(conversation wraps up with apartment hunting, upcoming DC trip, and exchange of contacts)

Gary Sheng: I'll take you home. I didn't see you earlier, so I was like, "Oh, you going to the bathroom," but I had to get my AirPods that fell.

(conversation about age)

Jozef Gherman: Oh, I was living in Denver, mostly Denver. I hosted this giant event 13 months ago.

Gary Sheng: How old are you?

Jozef Gherman: I'm 31.

Gary Sheng: You look younger than me, not a lot. I'm younger, right? He's like 27? You're 32, but also just very advertised about life, and I think that you age when you're not on your purpose.

Jozef Gherman: That's a good point. And I feel like you will not really age by working on your highest purpose.

(conversation about apartments, showing Jozef Gary's apartment view)

Gary Sheng: Look at his view, look at his place bro. Got a nice pool over here and everything, dude.

Jozef Gherman: Did you sign a 12-month lease?

Gary Sheng: No, I just got an Airbnb for months. Dude, the apartment right under us is available. The rent is so cheap, dude. This whole thing is $3000 - that's it. You should just get it for yourself.

Jozef Gherman: I definitely need a two-bed, like because I have a lot of people flying in and visiting me.

Gary Sheng: We talked about coffee. We talked about GODWAVE schools. He's a sick technical leader.

Jozef Gherman: I have a product called StealthGPT.

Gary Sheng: I was just looking at that actually.

Jozef Gherman: Really? Did you tell him about it, or were you just by chance?

Gary Sheng: Oh, no, I added it into an event for our fireside chat. If you looked at your email... By the way, this is my proudest kind of thing right now. Is it available, this apartment?

Jozef Gherman: Bro, let's see what we can get done. If you guys can get some contracts in place and get shit done over here, I see big value now. I'm definitely down to live here. I love this already.

(Gary gives Jozef mushroom capsules as a welcome gift)

Gary Sheng: What are the dates of the trip for DC? I think I'm gonna get there on Tuesday, but I think you and Sam should probably come on like Wednesday.

Jozef Gherman: Okay, let's coordinate that. I could still go to the conference and just fly out the second day.