2025-06-27 Conversation with Chris Clavio (Tulsa-Bangkok)

Participants

• Gary Sheng (Tulsa)
• Chris Clavio (Bangkok)

Overview

Long-form reconnection conversation between Gary and Chris, covering Gary's current work with Dr. Alexander on manufacturing/industrialist vision in Tulsa, Chris's process automation agency in Bangkok, and potential collaboration opportunities around immersive entertainment and advanced manufacturing.

Gary's Current Situation and Dr. Alexander Partnership

Alpha Schools Experience

Gary described his consulting work with Alpha Schools (AI-integrated education) and corporate politics challenges:

"I got brought on board to help with this AI first school called Alpha Schools. And I just saw a lot of gaps. I couldn't help but notice. I think that's also what I'm probably good at is like, identifying ways that something can be better. And I think I just naively didn't think about the corporate politics here."

Impact on relationships:

"I'm in a very positive impression on a lot of people very negative on some people because they felt like I was threatening their job because I was."

Dr. Alexander Introduction

Gary introduced his primary collaborator with enthusiasm:

"maybe this smartest man on earth is a friend I've known for three years. He's 50, I think he's 52 years old, eight kids. He helped Shenzhen become Shenzhen. He helped it turn from a fishing village into a manufacturing powerhouse of the world."

Dr. Alexander's Background:

• Victim of 2017 trade war, moved operations from China
• China gave him perpetual tax waving on China side in gratitude
• Maintains factories in China while building US operations
• Has team of developers in India ("created his own gauntlet")

Tulsa Vision and Capital Access

Gary described unprecedented opportunity in Tulsa:

"there might be like, basically, like, uh, arts and cultural vehicle that we are entrusted with, that allows us to do things like amazing immersive experiences. In Tulsa. Like, so imagine, imagine you were talking to the. This is actually not about metaphor... Imagine you were talking 20 years ago to like the Austin Texas Illuminati, right?... And then they were like, okay, make Austin the hotspot, right?... And they're just like, ah, we have, you know, tons of capital to play with."

Philosophy on talent density:

"we believe in the power of building talent density and just creating a sufficient amount of exciting things in one area before kind of spreading sauce too thin."

Chris's Current Business and Background

Professional Evolution

Chris described his transition from immersive entertainment to process automation:

"I left, you know, I play everything I had into One World, and I, you know, aim out of that at the end of last year. Pretty disenchanted and sort of bummed that, like, it just felt like the rest of the world wasn't ready for what I had."

Learning from Experience:

"I listen to this back last night and the guy was talking about the number one success factor of a startup is timing. And then the team. And then the idea. So, when I listen to that, I was like, oh, my God, yeah, just like, it wasn't the right time."

Technical Philosophy and "Vibe Coding"

Chris positioned himself as creative technologist rather than traditional developer:

"I designed and dealt the entire software back-end for One world... I'm not a full stack developer. I don't have a traditional software background, but I'm I've always went I was I learned how to code in art school as a creative technologist."

His approach:

"I can take existing code and modify it and make can do what I want. And then guess what? Welcome to vibe coding. And now I am like a fierce fucking vibe cer because I understand the syntax."

Rick Rubin Analogy:

"I don't know if you heard that analogy Rick Rubin made about vibe coding, but he was like, oh, yeah, vibe coding is punk rock, you know? He used to have to study at the conservancy, and then you could get a job... Well, you know, when you're a punk rock, you know, you learn three chords and boom, you have a fucking band."

Education Philosophy and AI Impact

Current Education System Critique

Both shared strong views on educational inadequacy:

Chris on factory worker education:

"our current school system, hammers creativity out of you. It was built for factory workers. It was built to teach people how to be great on a production line and do your job and wrote memorization, right?"

Gary's response:

"Bro, I disagree. I think that we're not even producing good factory workers. You think that the average American student has any discipline?"

Chris's agreement:

"No, yeah, you're dead on. You're right. Because the problem is the system was designed for that, but now it's still operating under those pretenses, but the world is so infinitely different that, you know, it's not even like the needs of needs for the output of that system are are so different now"

AI and Human Creativity

Chris emphasized creativity as the remaining human advantage:

"I think we need to reintroduce people to their creativity, because the real value is going to be in creative thinking, because a lot of the like, you, hard process work is going to be done autonomously, whether it's, you know, in the world of bits or the world of atoms."

On human nature:

"I think it's I think it's, you know, the value of humanity is in our creativity, and in our ability to be social beings, right? It's in our innate, sort of human qualities, which are that wildly creative and they're wildly social."

Manufacturing Automation and "Dark Factories"

Future of Manufacturing

Chris provided perspective on automation timeline:

"we are, we are five years out from, like, dark factories, everything, fully autonomous, production chains, you know, like anybody in the U. US right now who's like, wants to get into U.S. manufacturing, I would just invest in like, you know, again, not to sound Black Mirror, but there's not going to be a lot of humans working in those factories."

Dark Factory Concept:

"I don't know if you've heard or seen about the dark factories in China, but it's like, you just don't even need lights because the robots can work in the dark."

Gary's Manufacturing Integration Vision

Gary described Dr. Alexander's approach to end-to-end process ownership:

T-shirt Manufacturing Example:

"yesterday, we were with a a guy that's in the clothing world and who knows a lot about like, you know, T-shirt printing and stuff and we were like designing entire end to end t-shirt manufacturing processes that are cut out a bunch of middlemen."

Complete Automation Vision:

"I mean, you have the whole part line all the way from, hey, I have a t-shirt idea to, okay, great, let's develop the ideahically. Okay, you have an agent that works with the end user to develop their graphic vision... Agent hands it off to the next agent, which is manufacturing process. Now we have our whole, you know, M and&R fucking screen printing set up, you have Tesla robots or whatever the other alternative is."

Immersive Entertainment and Capital Requirements

Chris's Experience with Capital Needs

Clear perspective on immersive entertainment funding:

"You just can't do it on a shoestring budget. Yeah. Unless you want a shoestring experience, you know?... when you're building a immersive entertainment, like, you have to have a facility and you need to build, you know, unless you're going to do a temporary, you know, it requires like a building and a lease and tenant improvement and like infrastructure"

Even Temporary Installations:

"even if you're doing it to be temporary or to be a pop up, even that takes a ton of money because then you got to design it to set up and break down and travel"

AI-Enhanced Immersive Entertainment

Chris's vision for combining technologies:

"You integrate AI with immersive entertainment and you have like, like literally what feels like magic... So you combine AI, an immersive entertainment, dude, and you just have fucking magic."

Reference to Clarke's Law:

"Something about how technology is magic, a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable for magic"

America 250 and World's Fair Opportunity

Missing National Celebration

Gary expressed disappointment about America's 250th anniversary preparations:

"I did quite a bit of sleuthing through like talking to people well connected in like DC and like really does not seem like there's anyone working on an impressive World's Fair type thing... part of me is accepted that we were going to, as a country drop the ball on the two 15th anniversary."

DC Intelligence:

"So I've asked, well-connected people in D.C., and no one has any idea of anything that's impressive that's happening... it's not like people in D.C., if it's something like this, that they would be able to keep their mouths shut. So... They would be ringing the bells all day on that."

Collaboration Framework and Team Building

Gary's Team Assembly Philosophy

Gary described his approach to building high-caliber teams:

"I'm basically trying to assemble, you know, super teams for the future of civilization, essentially... We are just, we have the highest possible standards for the kinds of people that we bring involved, that can g gel together, right?"

Learning from Previous Collaborations:

"I'll just give one example of one way that a project can fall apart. With Janine and Edge City. She needed to be the leader. And I didn't know that... I just like, oh, okay, well, this is how it is. Okay, cool. I don't need to be part of this."

Vision for Collaboration:

"if you can see yourself as part of something that's like the biggest thing ever, like I'm not saying to shrink within a minuscule operation. I'm saying, like, play your part in a epic historical hive mind movement thing, right?"

Chris's Receptiveness

Chris expressed strong alignment with the vision:

"I love that. the immediate near and long term potential that you're describing there. I, that sounds super cool. And it's right up my alley... I still have my wild enthusiasm and desire to help, you know, civilization level change"

Personal Synchronicities and Divine Timing

Gary's Morning Inspiration

Gary described his early wake-up pattern:

"Like, I think part of why God woke me up at 330. This happens, like every, this happens in sprint cycles, basically for me. Every so often, like, I'm just, like, in a, like, divine. divinely inspired, like... I don't even need an alarm because I just wake up, right?"

Mission Statement:

"I'm trying to figure out is basically. how to create like an endless flywheel for inspiration and democratizing human flourishing, right?"

Video Synchronicity

Chris discovered Gary through Palmer Luckey's livestream:

"I was watching, I don't know if you saw Palmer's live stream on X on Monday, but he essentially walked through the gauntlet... And then I looked at the Gaauntlet clearitter account and watched that video and you were in it, and I was like, dude, no way! So talk about synchronicity."

Practical Next Steps

Immediate Actions

• Gary to introduce Chris to Dr. Alexander when he wakes up
• Chris available during Bangkok morning hours (aligns with US afternoon)
• Discussion of specific project opportunities

September 2025 Plans

Chris outlined travel timing:

"I have I'm working on a a trip end of August, beginning of September to uh I'm going to hit LA and then New Mexico. And so I could probably that's that would be a good time, probably sometime in September to come to Tulsa"

International Connections

Potential Thailand opportunities:

"My buddy who can't wait to go back to Thailand soon, he got connected with the royal family of Thailand. So maybe you could do some cool shit. They really care about legacy preservation. So I feel like you could create like a high tech museum for them."

Key Themes

1. Timing and Readiness: Both recognize importance of right timing for ambitious projects
2. Capital Requirements: Shared understanding that transformative projects need substantial funding
3. Education Transformation: Agreement on need for completely new educational paradigms
4. Manufacturing Renaissance: Vision for AI-enhanced, end-to-end process ownership
5. Immersive Entertainment: Potential for AI-enhanced experiential projects
6. Team Chemistry: Importance of finding people who can work together on epic scale projects
7. Divine Timing/Synchronicity: Recognition of meaningful coincidences and timing
8. Civilization-Level Impact: Shared desire to work on historically significant projects

Follow-up Potential

• Immediate introduction to Dr. Alexander for technical collaboration assessment
• September 2025 Tulsa visit for in-person project development
• Potential Thailand royal family immersive legacy project
• Integration of Chris's process automation expertise with Dr. Alexander's manufacturing vision
• Large-scale immersive entertainment projects with proper capital backing