2025-06-23: Gary Sheng & Gary Gugino - Dunkin Donuts Summerlin Conversation

Date: June 23, 2025 Location: Dunkin Donuts, Summerlin, Las Vegas Participants: Gary Sheng, Gary Gugino Duration: Extended conversation (approximately 1+ hours) Context: Follow-up meeting to discuss business opportunities, education, and technology

Key Themes

1. Strategic Business Partnership with Dr. Lael Alexander

Gary's Positioning of the Opportunity:

"Imagine you were able to build trust with someone who is kind of like a mix between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. Both very able to commercialize with the right support inventions, but also do some of the most advanced, like next level science and tech research."

Alexander Sheng Company Formation: Gary explained that when he asked Dr. Alexander what their company should be called, Alexander immediately responded "Alexander Shang," which Gary found significant - questioning why his name would be included.

Gary's Role Recognition:

"What I realized is the business world is so full of vultures. And my people that will say one thing, do another thing, fuck you over, especially if you're a nice, smart guy. But I think he just found me a sense of breath of fresh air."

Strategic Support Function:

"I need to live up to the expectation of being a reliable support person that can find other support people, basically create a support infrastructure to enable him to do his thing."

AGI Analogy:

"I'm basically trying to figure out how to use AGI. Where he's the AGI. That can use advanced AI tools itself, right?"

2. Nevada State High School Educational Model Deep Dive

Gary Gugino's Detailed Explanation:

"They aren't online. They're all courses that they go to CSN or UNLV to take. They're taking college courses in college with college professors. And they're getting dual high school and college credit."

Program Structure:

• Target Population: Juniors and seniors only
• Locations: 5 locations around Las Vegas, plus one in Reno
• Duration: Operating for 12-15 years
• Outcome: Students can graduate as college sophomores or juniors
• Funding: Receives same per-pupil state funding as traditional public schools
• Athletics: Students remain tied to their zoned high school for sports eligibility

Gary Gugino's Assessment:

"Well, it is [genius], because you could be... You'll be a rising junior in college by the time you graduate high school. Think of the money you save. Because, again, the state picks up the money."

Expansion Interest: Gary Sheng expressed strong interest in replicating this model in Tulsa, leveraging his connections to local universities and the mayor.

3. Educational Philosophy and Generational Concerns

Gary Sheng's Generation Assessment:

"The assessment of my generation is that we are like the failed lab experiments. You have people that are not getting married, not having kids, they're depressed, generally useless. Until they realized they couldn't, everyone wanted to be an influencer, including me."

Technology's Impact on Skills:

"We don't know the trades, don't know how to change a tire, don't know how to do this, don't know how to do that. Gen Z's like two-thirds of it is screwed because it's basically like a spillover."

Educational Priorities: Gary Sheng emphasized the importance of hands-on learning:

"I think everyone should learn, every man should learn woodwork. Because it humbles you as soon as you create a structure that doesn't do its job."

Base Reality Connection:

"Never lose touch with base reality and your ability to construct a home, right? I feel like there's become so many layers of abstraction from the bare metal, bare metal, bare wood, bare soil."

4. Technology Philosophy and Future Vision

Gary Gugino's Practical Technology Enthusiasm:

"At my age, you really, you really appreciate in a place you don't know, you know, the car navigates" (regarding Tesla self-driving)

VR Educational Applications: Gary Sheng proposed immersive historical education:

"If you had smell, touch, and vision in a 3D interactive world that you really couldn't tell from the real world, It would be great to go back and do some of these things."

Gary Gugino's Response:

"That would be the way to scale doing something as unscalable as having every kid have the opportunity to learn how to do something."

Neuralink Implications:

"I tell you that the sleeper to me is Musk's Neuralink... if you can do that with your brain, it's only a matter of time until they know how to manipulate the memory or reload or impose exterior scenarios into your brain."

5. Business Strategy and Market Philosophy

Gary Gugino's Key Business Insight:

"It's much better if you find something that people need. Give me a handshake. Thank you so much. Because I think I just needed a little bit of a nudge away from that direction."

Blue Ocean Strategy:

"If you find something people need, and you fulfill that need, especially if it's like Blue Ocean, you can be like a monopoly for a while. You can print money."

Software Development Critique:

"So I think writing really good software is really difficult and it's such a, you have to be all in on it... What I was previously miss Undervaluing was people that actually have good ideas of what to build, that are actually valuable society problems, as well as QA."

Gary's Role Clarification:

"I'm leaning towards, so I have AGI, that my job is basically to enforce More than anything it's like I think it's like almost like a It's very egoic to be an ideas guy and then feel like you need to be that. I think I'm just the discipline guy, where I'm enforcing discipline around what ideas we pursue."

6. Family Dynamics and Personal Growth

Gary Sheng's Family Challenges:

"I just cannot be around fearful energy... it's hard to be around them day to day because they are not thinking big at all. They don't believe in big things being able to happen."

Cultural Context:

"They grew up in a very impoverished society in China. Basically grew up in a slum. Their job is not to have that optimism that I have."

Gary Gugino's Perspective on Parent-Child Relationships:

"I'm pretty much sure that it's built into every human being that at a certain point with your parents, there's got to be a break. You're your own person and you got to have the independence."

Natural Evolution:

"There's an evolution between when you are responsible for everything they do and they got to listen to you. And in that point where all of a sudden they don't have to listen to you because they got a car."

Wisdom on Relationship Management:

"if you want to still love each other, don't piss each other off. By defaulting to old relationship dynamics that are no longer real."

7. Mining and Capital Generation Strategy

Gary's Strategic Approach:

"For example, one opportunity that I'm exploring for us is a mining opportunity. Not Bitcoin mining... I think it's gold. I'm not sure which one. I'm learning more about it."

Efficiency Focus:

"If you can make mining operations 30% more efficient, you can get so rich so quickly."

Capital for Impact:

"I'm basically trying to get out of the need to rely on anyone else's generosity to do impact-focused work... you need to be able to pour significant capital to even build one school."

8. Future Planning and Geographic Strategy

Gary's Multi-City Vision:

"if I live in three places, it would be Austin, Tulsa, and Shanghai. It's kind of interesting, right? Or Tulsa and Shanghai. Or Tulsa."

International Considerations:

"Obviously, there's a big time commitment to flying, and there's political risks. It's not an obvious choice at all."

Shanghai Government Engagement: Gary mentioned being asked by the Shanghai government to think about systemic differences and approaches.

9. Information Quality and Truth Assessment

Gary Sheng's LLM Critique:

"What LLMs honestly are, is that all the world's propaganda has a thing or two... The default is you're publishing just what you want to publish, right?"

Truth vs. Propaganda:

"I just want to make sure that we're distinguishing between truth and propaganda... if you're not practicing the ability to discern what is true and what's not, and also, you can't even determine what's true, right?"

Gary Gugino's Societal Concerns:

"The scientific fact is no longer a scientific fact, it's an opinion... People are getting measles when the vaccine has been tested for forever. And polio."

10. Entrepreneurial Mindset and Risk-Taking

Gary Gugino's Background:

"My wife is so supportive. God bless her. We've been in a lot of businesses. Some made money, some didn't make money. And I'm always trying to do something."

Childhood Conditioning:

"Every time I had an idea, he [father] was like, here's why it won't work. That is so stupid. You're going to lose all your money. You can't do that."

Gary Gugino's Retirement Philosophy:

"I would like to do something that made money and made a difference. Whether it was, hopefully it would be a big difference, but if it made something more convenient or more normal or better for a large population, even if it was a small thing, and I made a couple of bucks, that would be great."

Strategic Insights

Educational Innovation Opportunities

1. Nevada Model Replication: Strong potential to expand the Nevada State High School model to other states, particularly Tulsa
2. Vocational Integration: Interest in adding vocational school credits to high school curriculum
3. VR Historical Education: Innovative applications for immersive learning experiences

Business Development Priorities

1. AGI Support Infrastructure: Gary's role as "discipline guy" rather than ideas generator
2. Mining Operations: Immediate revenue opportunity through efficiency improvements
3. Educational Technology: Long-term vision requiring patient capital development

Relationship Dynamics

1. Trust-Based Partnerships: Emphasis on reliability and mutual support
2. Generational Understanding: Recognition of natural family relationship evolution
3. Energy Management: Importance of surrounding oneself with growth-oriented people

Action Items Identified

1. Educational Collaboration: Phone call with Judy Gugino to discuss Nevada model replication
2. Tulsa Expansion: Research Tulsa Community College dual enrollment programs
3. Mining Opportunity: Continue due diligence on gold mining efficiency improvements
4. Technology Applications: Explore VR educational content development
5. Dr. Alexander Integration: Continue building support infrastructure for collaborative projects

Notable Observations

• Gary Gugino demonstrated remarkable openness to new ideas despite being 77 years old
• Strong alignment between both participants on educational innovation priorities
• Clear recognition of each other's complementary strengths and perspectives
• Practical business wisdom balanced with visionary thinking
• Mutual appreciation for hands-on, real-world skill development

Relationship Dynamics

This conversation revealed a mentoring dynamic where Gary Gugino provided practical business wisdom while Gary Sheng shared innovative technological and educational visions. Both participants demonstrated mutual respect and genuine interest in collaboration, with Gary Gugino offering concrete assistance through his wife's educational expertise and Gary Sheng providing strategic vision for scaling proven models.