Call Summary: Neural Fabric Exit, Vatican AI Leadership, and Educational Revolution

Overview

Mark Baciak provides comprehensive update on Neural Fabric acquisition completion, revealing significant cap table manipulation while confirming his strategic pivot to direct Vatican collaboration. The conversation reveals Pope Leo's unexpectedly radical technology agenda, Mark's leadership in transforming the Vatican Academy of Sciences from "tourist attraction" to active technology leadership, and his vision for revolutionary changes in education and political accountability through AI.

Key Topics Discussed

Neural Fabric Acquisition Completion and Lessons

• Exit Confirmation: "Fully closed. In fact, if you go out to NeuralFabric.AI it says now it's a Cisco company"
• Cap Table Manipulation: Discovery of last-minute share reallocation schemes: "There was like three and a half million shares that were unaccounted for... at the last minute, literally an hour or a day before the deal closes, they basically put in an amendment"
• John Devidos' Deception Scale: Had 36% of shares (not 3% as claimed), supposed to distribute but kept all for himself
• Severance Package Games: Insiders giving themselves severance packages for an acquisition where they weren't being severed
• Philosophical Choice: "I'd rather walk off with dignity and hold my head high... at least I'm doing the right thing"
• Character Insights on Change: "The only time I see people fundamentally change is that they have a catastrophic thing happen to them. They lose a child"

Vatican Academy of Sciences Transformation

• Confrontational Awakening: Mark challenged the Academy: "When's the last time you think the Academy of Sciences was even relevant? Could you name the century?"
• Tourist Attraction Reality: "You've become a tourist attraction. You're literally a living museum"
• Holy Warrior Transformation: "They went from way over here, and I thought I could push them to here to then way the fuck over here, and they are fucking holy warriors now"
• First Technology Engagement: "For the first time ever... actually engaging in technology"
• New Mission: Academy will produce evaluation benchmarks, host science, and physically engage across the technology ecosystem
• Vatican AI Evals Vision: "Imagine when you're going through your evals... here's how we scored on the C valve eval. And this is how we scored on the Vatican evals"

Pope Leo's Radical Technology Agenda

• More Radical Than Francis: "Everyone thought Francis was radical. After what I'm seeing, I think Leo is way more radical"
• Action-Oriented Leadership: "Unlike Francis, where he was afraid to actually do things, Leo doesn't have that. He has got no compunction whatsoever to tread on people's feet"
• Excel Pope Irony: "They call him the first pope who can actually use Excel. I'm like, great, Excel. So you're using a 1980s technology"
• Sovereign AI Under Pope Leo: Not yet fully briefed on previous work but showing strong technology interest
• Strategic Opportunity: "Once we get this up and running and we actually show that it's not only possible, but we're now directly impacting the nature of the technology"

Educational Revolution and Factory Model Critique

• Industrial Education Attack: Mark's speech for Vatican: "Various systems of mass education that spread across the world in the wake of the Industrial Revolution were deliberately modeled on the factory itself. Prussian origins, exported globally. Children sorted by age, moved by bells. Taught to obey and repeat"
• 2025 Reality: "This factory model remains the dominant architecture of schooling in 2025"
• Danish Folk School Alternative: "A luminous European alternative arose... centered at the living word, residential community dialogue, critical thinking and personal awakening without exams or grades"
• Civil Rights Connection: "That tradition later bore extraordinary fruit at Highlander Folk School, where Rosa Parks, MLK Jr and others forged the moral strategies of the civil rights movement"
• Human Skills Focus: "Critical thinking skills and basically things that make us truly human, which is to think, to process, to analyze, to humanize, to empathize"
• Work Bot Training Critique: "For the last century and a half, we've been trained to become basically work bots for the Industrial Revolution"

Political Accountability Platform - "Charlie Kirk Model"

• Arbiter of Truth Concept: "If you can argue things on its merits, if you can come with receipts... Here's what the numbers say, here's what the claim sets are"
• Real-Time Congressional Monitoring: "Using AI to audit, to monitor and see what they're doing in Congress and see if the laws that they're supporting... are contradicting what they have ever said"
• RNC Two-Year Exclusive: Platform being developed for both parties but with RNC getting exclusive US access initially
• Fact-Based Discourse: "The problem is, one side or the other, they don't agree on the facts. Or they don't even try to have a fact based conversation"
• Representative Accountability: System to hold politicians accountable in real-time against their campaign promises
• No Knowledge Graph Exists: "There is no knowledge graph for political science. It doesn't exist. So we have to build one from scratch"

Matthew Sanders Continued Deterioration

• Fundraising Struggles: Scaled down from $100M to $15M raise, still having issues
• Vatican Conference Reality: "Everyone comes here, takes their picture and then they walk home. It's a very expensive sightseeing tour"
• Ideas Without Credit: Matthew pitched Mark's new direction in Silicon Valley without attribution or compensation
• Gatekeeper Delusion: "You're not the Vatican. Literally, you're not the Vatican. So you can't say that you are"
• Vatican Archives Takeover: Mark planning to "take over the Vatican archives program from Matthew"

EKTA Progress and Team Dynamics

• Core Team Success: Operating with Tom Slushe and Tondi: "There's no games. There's no politics. We work cohesively as a team"
• Roku Return: Major customer returning, meeting with CEO Anthony scheduled
• Swiss Government Contract: Potential win for all Swiss government AI
• US Government Fast-Track: NASA and intelligence community fast-tracking GSA Schedule 70 and other contracts
• Medical AI Demonstrations: First AI to accurately perform medical differentials
• Team Approach: "Every time there was a problem, we approach it like a team"

Character and Trust Insights

• Money as Truth Elixir: "I used to think it was the root of all evils, and now I'm starting to realize that it's kind of like almost like an elixir of truth"
• Cisco Offer Rejection: Turned down tens of millions signing bonus: "If I would have taken the Cisco one, tens of millions of dollars right there on signing, no questions asked. But then I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing right now"
• Behind-Scenes Preference: "I don't need to be in front of an audience... that's another thing that I didn't like about the job opportunity"
• Trust Circle Reduction: "I had a handful of people that I had reliability to. And that number has gotten way shorter. Now it's on one hand"

Vatican Historical Context and Church Technology

• Knowledge Monopoly History: "Their hold on society wasn't actually education, it was actually knowledge. And they actually locked up a lot of the planet for years by having this huge... moat around knowledge"
• Gutenberg Press Lesson: "Once that was reversed by the Gutenberg Press... they lost the narrative because they didn't embrace the technology"
• Centuries of Irrelevance: Church became irrelevant by not embracing technology while "all these other cultures, all these other societies embraced the technology"
• Cardinal Red Symbolism: The red represents blood - "That's your devotional life down to your death"
• Holy Warrior Awakening: Cardinals "putting back on the red cloak and realizing their vows that they took, and they're taking them seriously"

Upcoming Milestones

• Slovakia Presentation (Monday): First trial balloon for Vatican's sovereign AI and education initiative
• World Economic Forum (January): Co-presenting with Vatican
• Global AI Conference (February 2026): In India, presenting Vatican AI initiatives
• Bloomberg House Historic Visit: "We're going to have the Vatican then go to Bloomberg House for the first time ever"
• Vatican Archive Digitization: "Right now we're actually digitizing the entire Vatican archives as we speak"

Key Quotes

• "Welcome to swimming with sharks. Learned a lot from that deal. Who to trust, who not to trust. Expensive learning"
• "When you turn down money... when you turn down all these things... which one has more effect? Which one is the more righteous path?"
• "You're the Academy of Sciences... You guys always try to entreat your walls with all the Nobel laureates... Nobel laureates have only existed for a little over a century anyway"
• "Get angry, get mad. Take back your legacy. Take back what you guys can do there and being part of society"
• "Billions of people throughout time have devoted, have died, have literally shed blood and died for this. How are you paying homage to that?"
• "I will never claim to be like an ultra religious person, but what I will say, at least when I say something, I believe it. And I'll fight for it"

Action Items / Takeaways

• Slovakia presentation on Monday launching Vatican's sovereign AI and education initiative
• Vatican Academy of Sciences now actively engaged in creating AI evaluation benchmarks
• Taking over Vatican archives digitization program from Matthew Sanders
• Building knowledge graphs for both political science and Catholicism
• RNC political platform with two-year US exclusive in development
• Direct Vatican collaboration bypassing Matthew Sanders entirely
• Gary to stay informed on Vatican developments and potential contribution opportunities

Strategic Implications

Mark's transformation of the Vatican Academy of Sciences from passive observer to active technology leader, combined with Pope Leo's unexpectedly radical agenda, creates unprecedented opportunity for Catholic Church technology leadership. The vision extends beyond technical implementation to fundamental societal transformation - from dismantling 150+ years of factory-model education to creating AI systems that enforce political accountability. Mark's rejection of corporate comfort for mission-driven work, despite significant financial sacrifice, positions him as the architect of a potential religious-technological renaissance that could reshape how institutions engage with AI and modern technology.