Transcript Summary: Phone Call with Devin Poindexter (2025-05-12)

Participants

• Gary Sheng
• Devin Poindexter (Artist Manager, former Tour Manager for Tauren Wells)

Setting

Phone call to arrange a dinner meeting with Tauren Wells to discuss potential school initiatives with Whitestone Church.

Key Topics & Revelations

Professional Relationship with Tauren Wells

Devin shared details about his working relationship with Tauren Wells:

• Duration: "I've been working with Torin for about two and a half years."
• Meeting Context: "I met him out on the road. I was working with like other artists and stuff and he and I became close."
• Current Role: "I worked for Torin as kind of his tour manager slash assistant for a while. And then I started doing artist management... I'm pretty busy, just made some other arts and stuff like that, but that's to kind of help oversee his calendar and things like that."
• Industry Base: "I live in Nashville, Tennessee."

Alpha Schools & Whitestone Church Collaboration

Gary explained the potential education initiative with Whitestone Church:

• Initial Impression: "I literally like assumed it was a, like a high school or like a K through 12 or something already because of the amazing facilities... I'm sure that there's a good school attached to it."
• Church Response: "Talking to Torn and Kevin, they were like, no, but we have been in the plans, but we are, we, we haven't really overly prioritized it."
• Proposed Partnership: "I'm working with, this billionaire who is very interested in basically starting the best of many different kinds of schools."
• Personal Mission: "I have a mandate, but it's also part of I would believe my divine purpose to help amazing churches to start their own schools so that kids never have to leave that sort of values aligned nursery environment."
• Track Record: "Alpha Schools is the overall organization that has been doing its thing with K through 12 for about 10 years... taking kids that were like median test scores and taking them to top 1%, for example."
• Broader Vision: "Longer term, I don't know the answer to whether Torrin would want to see a Whitestone village or city, but that's totally something that could be done with the right people on the same page about things."

Meeting Scheduling & Logistics

The call focused on arranging details for the upcoming meeting:

• Available Dates: "That first week in June, he could either do Monday or Wednesday nights for dinner. Those look the best. June 2nd or June 4th."
• Selected Time: "Let's do June 2nd. And why don't we just say like 630 and then block off two hours."
• Location Considerations: "He lives in Georgetown. Um, I'm not sure exactly what part, but it's somewhere in Georgetown."
• Dietary Preferences: "He does like steak, but he also, like, he's always doing a different type of diet, so I'm not sure what he'll be doing at that point."
• Venue Preference: "I would prefer if we do something closer to downtown near the Alpha High campus... because I'd love to give him a tour of the flagship."
• Next Steps: "I'll follow up with Torrin and Dr. Kevin after this and just confirm that that date's good and looks wide open, but he'll hit me back quickly."

White House Connection

Gary mentioned an upcoming White House meeting related to faith-based initiatives:

• Upcoming Meeting: "I'm literally going to White House to meet with Paula White, who's Trump's top spiritual like advisor."
• Potential Funding: "Trump is trying to allocate DEI money that Biden allocated to faith-based initiatives."
• Application to Whitestone: "Could it be a good fit that we kind of bootstrap some really interesting, ambitious projects with Torin, including a school in the coming year? Like, I think totally."

Educational Philosophy

Gary shared his perspective on education reform:

• System Critique: "I believe that our education system is, we're basically paying taxes to miseducate our kids and kill their creativities."
• Teacher Support: "There's a lot of wonderful, heart-centered, God-led teachers out there. It's not about being against teachers at all."
• Systemic Issues: "It's about the system that is failing on every measure, I would say."
• Personal Mission: "I'm deeply committed to running a lot of amazing experiments to make sure that we never do that to our kids long term."
• Future Vision: "The future Torin Wells, the future Devins are never stuck in a classroom where they're like questioning whether they're valued or whether they should pursue their dreams."

Faith-Based Community Innovation

Gary briefly outlined his broader vision beyond just schools:

• Expanded Concept: "We should be running not just Faith-based school experiments. We should be running like faith-based community experiments that are highly innovative."
• Holistic Approach: "Leveraging all the best understanding of how to do city planning and also AI and just everything that we've learned and innovated on over the past, however many years."
• Austin Comparison: "Austin's great. But like if you were to redo Austin you do it totally differently. While keeping a lot of the best weirdest coolest elements, right?"

Interest Level

Devin expressed positive reception to the ideas presented:

• Personal Response: "That's amazing to hear and very powerful."
• Team Interest: "I haven't talked to Torrin just from what Dr. Kevin was saying. I know that Torrin and I are looking forward to chatting with you in more detail about everything."
• Enthusiasm: "I really want something to happen as soon as we can."
• Schedule Context: "I would give you a heads up, this client is just absolutely insane for him."

Concluding Arrangements

The call ended with plans for continued connection:

• Follow-up Plan: "I'll follow up with Torrin and Dr. Kevin after this and just confirm that that date's good... I'll let you know, we can figure out where that's at."
• Future Meeting: Gary invited Devin to meet when he's in Austin: "Let me know when you're in town because we can all just hang out." Devin responded: "Yes, sir. We'd love to."

Key Insights

1. Despite transitioning to primarily managing other artists, Devin maintains significant involvement with Tauren Wells' scheduling, suggesting a strong professional relationship.

2. The Whitestone Church has previously discussed starting an education initiative but hasn't "overly prioritized" it, creating an opportunity for collaboration with Alpha Schools.

3. Gary's vision extends beyond just a school to potentially a "Whitestone village or city" as part of a broader concept of faith-based community innovation.

4. The timing aligns with potential funding opportunities through Trump's reallocation of DEI money to faith-based initiatives, which Gary plans to discuss at an upcoming White House meeting.

5. Devin expressed enthusiasm for the initiative, though it's unclear whether this reflects his personal interest or Tauren's sentiment that he's relaying.

6. The dinner meeting is scheduled for June 2nd at 6:30 PM, with a preference for a location near the Alpha High campus to facilitate a tour of the facility.