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Summary of Conversation: Gary Sheng and John Montague (June 3, 2025)

This document summarizes Gary Sheng's side of a conversation with his corporate lawyer friend, John Montague, on June 3, 2025. The discussion centered on Gary's evolving vision for leadership, his frustrations with existing institutions and work environments, and his desire to create new, impactful ventures, particularly in education and new cities, with John's legal expertise.

1. Gary's Vision for His Own Leadership Role​

  • Embracing a Steve Jobs-like Role: Gary expressed a desire to step into a leadership position akin to Steve Jobs, focusing on maintaining a high vision, ethical standards, and ensuring excellence from his team. (Gary: "The role that I can see myself play is more the Steve Jobs-type role, where I'm just setting a high standard for everyone, and just keeping it up, and also a high ethical standard, really.")
  • Hiring Smarter People: He emphasized the importance of hiring people "way smarter than you, but that still respects your role in the company, which is to keep the vision."
  • Stepping Up to Lead: Gary feels increasingly "nudged... into being the leader that I have to stop expecting other people to be. So I'm done waiting for other people to live up to my own expectations..."

2. Frustration with Existing Systems and Call for New Ventures​

  • Critique of Current Institutions: Gary voiced strong disillusionment with established institutions, including elite universities like Harvard, Yale, and even MIT, viewing them as more status symbols than engines of true innovation. (Gary: "All of our institutions are fucked like Harvard's fucked Yale's fucked all these I'd say even MIT's just like status symbol...")
  • Ineffectiveness of Incremental Reform: He believes "band-aid solutions on top of these existing institutions is not gonna work. They also have no interest in reforming."
  • Challenges within Alpha Schools: Gary described his efforts to improve the Alpha Schools ecosystem but facing pushback from "antibodies" and "lazy fucks that don't do anything." This experience is reinforcing his desire to build new systems from scratch.
  • Critique of Current Political Leadership: He mentioned that current leadership (implicitly Trump) is "completely dropping the ball" on concepts like freedom cities and the 250th-anniversary celebrations for the USA.

3. Vision for New Ventures with Lael Alexander​

  • Educational Empire: Gary expressed a strong desire to create an "education empire" with Lael Alexander, whom he describes as "literally the smartest man I've ever met" with a "God-centered but also the most tech advanced shit in the world" worldview.
  • New Cities: He is "really interested in new cities" and sees an opportunity to create one with Lael Alexander.
  • Protecting Genius: A key motivation is to prevent brilliant individuals like Lael Alexander from suffering the fate of Nikola Tesla – "broke, misunderstood guy that didn't realize his potential." John's legal protection would be vital.

4. John Montague's Envisioned Role​

  • Foundational Legal Partner: Gary explicitly stated his desire for John to be involved from the inception of any new company he creates: "whatever I do, I'd want you to be helping me get this going, and also protecting me."
  • Strategic Legal Counsel for a New Empire: Gary envisions John evolving into a "legal sensei for like a big new empire," handling "complex legal structures and strategy art of war type stuff" rather than commoditized legal work.
    • Gary: "I think you shifting away as much as possible from the commoditized stuff to being like a super super frontier tech..."
  • Focus on Bigger, Fewer Battles: Gary encouraged John to focus on "fewer battles, but bigger battles," aligning with the ambitious scale of the ventures Gary is contemplating.

5. Urgency and Next Steps​

  • Timeliness of Conversation: Gary noted the conversation was "super timely."
  • Draft Review: He asked John about the timeline for a first draft of whatever legal documents or structures they might be discussing (details not captured).
  • Keeping John Posted: Gary promised to keep John updated as his plans with Lael Alexander emerge.

Key Themes​

  • Gary's Personal Evolution: A clear shift towards taking direct leadership and ownership rather than advising or waiting for others.
  • Building from Scratch: A conviction that new institutions and systems are needed, as existing ones are too flawed or resistant to meaningful reform.
  • The Importance of a Trusted Legal Partner: Identifying John Montague as essential for structuring and protecting these ambitious new ventures.
  • High Stakes & Grand Vision: The ventures discussed are at the scale of educational empires and new cities, requiring sophisticated legal and strategic support.
  • Protecting Innovators: A desire to ensure that brilliant minds like Lael Alexander achieve their full potential and are not exploited or mismanaged.

This conversation underscores Gary's readiness to embark on large-scale, transformative projects and his view of John Montague as a critical partner in these endeavors.