2025-07-10 Conversation with Nait Jones

Overview

A profound two-hour conversation between Gary Sheng and Nait Jones at a coffee shop in Austin, covering faith, entrepreneurship, education reform, family, and the intersection of technology and ministry. This was their first in-person meeting after being connected through Richie Cruz via Kenneth Ng from the Ethereum Foundation.

Key Themes

Alpha School Experience - A Cautionary Tale

Nait shared his deeply troubling experience with Alpha School, where his children were part of the first cohort of the high school program. His account reveals systemic issues within the organization:

The Bait and Switch: "The sales pitch was like, boom, nailed it. Dream idea. Intuitively, I understand this. This is how learning should be done. Where do I sign?"

Operational Chaos: Nait described constant changes to metrics and learning objectives: "They kept changing the equation, and kept changing the way they measured success... Kids are confused. No one knows what success means. Parents are super confused."

Favoritism and Exclusion: "There's this kind of in-group of kids that get to do these things and those things, get invited to special trips with the higher-ups... And it just so happens, all of the in-group people are very close friends of Arno's kids. Or literally his kids. Or McKenzie's kids."

Accreditation Fraud: When Nait asked about transferring credits if they left: "What you learned this year means nothing to the state of Texas. You basically wasted a year because nothing we did was practical... If you don't stick with alpha, you're kind of screwed."

The Expulsion: His daughter was expelled mid-year with the explanation: "We just don't think she's an alpha type of person... there's a certain type of person we're looking for here."

Image Exploitation: After expulsion, Nait discovered his daughter's image being used in Alpha School's SXSW EDU diversity marketing: "My daughter sends me a text... they have a big banner talking about the diversity of their school. Who do they have pictured on the banner? My daughter."

Faith and Ministry Philosophy

Nait shared his journey from ordained minister to marketplace ministry, emphasizing key spiritual principles:

On Evangelism: "The conversion isn't your conversion, bro. It's mine. You don't need to see anything... You plant, you plant, you plant. God brings it to the masses. Not you, God."

On Obedience vs Results: "You go plant where I tell you to plant. Until I tell you to stop planting there, don't worry about the results. Just go plant. I'll handle the rest."

On Ego vs Faith: "Our ego is in a constant battle against our faith. Because we want to control... We want to be able to say, I did this, I achieved this."

Daily Surrender: "Every day you get up you're like, what am I going to do? You are going to do nothing. I'll tell you what to do."

Business and Character Insights

Nait provided sharp observations about patterns in leadership and business:

Pattern Recognition: His assessment of Joe Liemandt - "Right observation, wrong conclusion. Right observation, education is broken. Wrong conclusion, I should fix it... He's a classic example. Spot on observation, bad conclusion."

On Manipulation in High Places: "I've seen shit you can't even imagine... unreal levels of manipulation, trickery, dishonesty... and rewarded for it. We're absolutely rewarded for being tough people."

On Discernment: Emphasized the critical importance of being able to discern character and motives in business relationships.

Personal Transformation and Forgiveness

Nait shared powerful stories of choosing forgiveness over revenge:

Family Background: He described protecting his mother from domestic violence and ultimately choosing to bury and eulogize his abusive stepfather when the man's own family rejected him.

Core Philosophy: "All the grace and mercy that God's given me directly related to my ability to forgive grace for other people. So that's been a compounding interest throughout my life."

Alpha School Response: Despite having a public platform to expose Alpha School, he chose restraint: "I could have made a huge deal of it. I've got a profile. I could have made a huge deal of it. I didn't."

Current Projects and Vision

Tea House Concept: Nait described his vision for creating sober, immersive social spaces: "I want to build something... where you can get adaptogens, things like that... beautiful visuals... immersive... The environment attracts the person that you may want to date or not date."

Men's Ministry: He runs a WhatsApp group for high-achieving men: "It started off with 7 people, it's now 25 people... recently, it's become more clear to me... this is your ministry... I didn't want to tell you up front because you would have made it weird."

Dr. Lael Alexander and Tulsa Vision

Gary shared his belief about Dr. Lael Alexander being "the smartest man in the world" and the potential for Tulsa's transformation:

Alexander's Background: "He met his wife like in literally like middle school... got an engineering oil and gas job... got A&R'd essentially by this DECA millionaire oil and gas guy... They fly him out to a fishing village called Shenzhen. He makes Shenzhen, Shenzhen. Black guy. He's the guy."

Current Opportunity: "He has a crazy deal that just came in that's from black historic wealth where he has unlimited capital in exchange for profit sharing... they wired him $60 million just to be like, this is not a scam."

Vision for Comeback: "Manifest the greatest comeback story for Black people, for Tulsa, for Oklahoma, for the South, for America, for humanity. It's the time, right?"

Personal Updates and Miracles

Mother's Recovery: Nait shared about his mother's miraculous recovery from a massive stroke: "They told me three weeks ago, put her on hospice, let her die. Next day after they said that, she wakes up... The odds for her injury... 4%."

Life Season: "22, 25 years... this is already a great year... God's like, it's time for a return, a return to greatness... Start stacking wins."

Connection and Chemistry

The conversation revealed immediate spiritual and intellectual chemistry between Gary and Nait:

Unique Gifts: Nait brought vinyl records as first-meeting gifts, including gospel music and civil rights era broadcasts, demonstrating his thoughtful character assessment.

Mutual Recognition: Gary observed: "I feel like you're one of the only people on this earth that understand what it's like to be a smart black guy in tech that also loves culture and has dealt with a lot of serpents and has not cracked."

Divine Timing: Both acknowledged the spiritual significance of their connection timing, with Nait noting he wouldn't have been responsive during his mother's health crisis just weeks earlier.

Key Quotes

On Education and Systems

• "It's a borderline cult" (describing Alpha School)
• "You change one, you tune one, you tune the other, but completely overhauling both things, and it was weird"
• "So they made the switching cost almost impossibly high, which is infuriating because you don't know what you're getting into"

On Faith and Ministry

• "You don't own the Word. You get to choose who gets the Word? No"
• "When I wrote the word, I didn't say co-author with Nathan Jones"
• "It's not for you, it's not about you. That's the thing you got to remember every day"

On Character and Leadership

• "These are satanic people. When you're young, you don't understand"
• "You can't really reform a cause. Something has to happen to them... They literally have to go road to Damascus"
• "Pride is the... Every single day. And that's the fear. That's the fear you have to have"

On Business and Opportunity

• "Right observation, education is broken. Wrong conclusion, I should fix it"
• "You're not the guy, bro. You're not him"
• "Classic case of right observation, wrong conclusion"

Action Items and Future Collaboration

1. Tulsa Visit: Gary to organize a tour of Dr. Alexander's facilities for trusted individuals including Nait
2. Network Introductions: Nait to introduce Gary to his Tulsa connections
3. Tea House Development: Potential collaboration on creating faith-centered community spaces
4. Men's Ministry: Possible integration of Gary into Nait's ministry network
5. White House Faith Leaders Conference: Gary considering attendance at upcoming event

Significance

This conversation represents a significant connection between two faith-driven entrepreneurs who share deep concerns about authentic Christian leadership in business and ministry. Their mutual experience with questionable leadership (Alpha School for Nait, various tech/ministry contexts for Gary) creates a foundation for potential collaboration in building more authentic, God-centered business and ministry initiatives.

The discussion of Dr. Alexander and Tulsa suggests potential for a new model of faith-driven economic development that could serve as an alternative to the ego-driven, manipulative systems both men have encountered in their careers.

The timing of this connection, during Gary's transition period and Nait's "return to greatness" season, suggests divine orchestration for future kingdom work that honors both excellence and authentic faith.