This is a little bit of a rant cause I can’t post these thoughts anywhere else. At least, I’m not ready to get publicly crucified yet, so… I cannot talk to almost anyone I know about ai. They have no idea what’s going on, or about the kind of stuff we do. It’s all doom and gloom. There is something that really bugs me about it, beyond the naivety and half-glass-full mentality. It’s that, gatekeeping does nothing for humanity and is a selfish mentality at its core. So ai has access to lots of data, and artists data. So what? If you’re really good, it doesn’t matter. Great products, great services, great talent all have one thing in common which makes them in-demand. They’re great. And greatness is witnessed by all the people who consume their work. There’s no gatekeeping because it’s literally on display. From Harry Potter to Michael Jordon, Disney to Taylor Swift, Steve Jobs to Crayola Crayons. If no one is trying to copy you, then your work isn’t loud enough. Either because it’s not good enough (yet), or because you’re hiding it away from the world out of fear. Bringing it full circle… Nobody lost money cause I finally had a tool that could do work for me for free. Rather, everyone in my companies will literally make more money because of massively efficient operations. It also means we’ll be able to afford remarkable talent with the extra profits we bring in due to that efficiency. I’m SO glad I have more options to take care of the people I bring into my sphere. One last thought… a little side quest here.. Whenever I ask people about why it isn’t a good thing that robots will be able to farm all the organic food we need at extremely low costs to produce compared to what we have now, no one has a good answer. I used to be of the mindset that really rich people should use their money to fix problems like world hunger. Then I actually looked at the challenge of getting the recipients to use money the way it’s intended, and crunching numbers to see how long they could solve it for, and full stop, it doesn’t work. Complex problems require complex solutions. A billion dollars solves world hunger for how long… a day? A week? A month? And then what?

🎟️ PRIZE: FREE SEAT IN THE LYCEUM 🎟️ Pick your cohort. Technical, Business, or Creator. Your call. ---- 🇺🇸 Quick note first. This post is going up Today because we took Memorial Day off yesterday. To keep things fair, you've got until Sunday May 31st at 12:00 PM EST to submit. Same week of build time, just shifted. ---- 📋 THE CHALLENGE Build a folder-based AI researcher for a specific topic or industry. You pick the domain. This week's deliverable is one researcher folder that someone could drop into a Claude project and use as their personal research partner for whatever domain you've built it for. ---- 🎯 PICK YOUR DOMAIN The domain is yours. Pick something specific. Pick something you'd actually use. A few sparks to get you thinking: - 🏦 M&A activity in one industry (fintech, healthcare, defense) - ⚖️ Court cases in one area of law (employment, IP, immigration) - 🧬 Scientific research on one health condition or treatment - 🏘️ Real estate market dynamics in one city or asset class - 🥊 Competitive intelligence for one product category - 📜 Historical research on one period, place, or movement - 📚 Academic literature in one specific subfield - 📋 Regulatory developments in one sector - 📰 Journalism research on one beat (climate tech, AI policy, biotech funding) The more specific, the better. "Research assistant" is too broad. "M&A research analyst for early-stage fintech deals in the US and Europe" is right. ---- 🗂️ THE METHODOLOGY If this is your first comp, welcome. Here's what you need to know: This week (and every week) you're learning interpretable context methodology. Folders as architecture. Each file does one job well. Your researcher is a folder with five things: - 📄 identity.md (who the researcher is, what domain they cover) - 📐 rules.md (how they research) - 💬 examples.md (what good looks like) - 📚 reference/ (frameworks, source lists, key concepts) - 📖 README.md (how to use it)