Welcome to Founder Reality
Here's what's new

Sovereignty Is Not About Ownership
A vice-president at a Canadian university called me last month. Her president had told her the institution needed to be on sovereign AI within the year. The provincial government had announced a funding program. Other universities were already applying. She wanted to know what she should be evaluating. I asked her what sovereign meant in this context. She paused for a long time. Then she said, "I think it means the data stays in Canada." I asked what about it staying in Canada specifically
Read storyFounder Reality is written by George Pu — $10M+ portfolio built by 27, no investors, no co-founders.
Latest Essays
What I'm thinking about right now.

One Rack Is a Cloud
What colocation is, and why most AI founders have never heard of it
Read essay
You Want Out of OpenAI. Here's Where to Actually Start.
A week ago, I published AI Real Estate. The framing was simple: the AI you use today is rented — like an apartment. There's a ladder above it. Most people don't know the ladder exists. The response was the part I didn't expect. Dozens of people messaged me with versions of the same question. I read it. I get it. I want out. Where do I actually start? Some were lawyers. Some were founders. Some were accountants and consultant
Read essay
Three Kinds of Cloud (and Why Two of Them Keep Getting Confused)
I sat down with a Canadian university last week. They were trying to articulate to industry partners what their compute offering would be. They knew "sovereign" was the right word. They couldn't define it for a buyer. They couldn't tell me what a partner would actually use it for that they couldn't already do on AWS in Montreal. That's not the university's failure. The industry calls three different things "cloud" and lets two
Read essayMore on Investing
Three essays from the archive on a different angle.
Why I'm Open-Sourcing My Portfolio
What active thesis investing actually looks like — and why I'll publish every bet I make.
Read essay
Why I Sold My Index Funds in February
Why the index gospel was built for a world that no longer exists.
Read essay
The Lie Every $997 Trading Course Sells You
What two years of quant trading taught me before I shut it down.
Read essay
Straight from the inbox
The weekly newsletter — long-form, no fluff.
Latest Videos
Real talk. No script.
What you might have missed
Three things from across the site you may not have found yet.
You might not have read this
A couple of older essays we think are worth a second look.

Things You Can't Install From a Prompt
I killed most of my businesses in December 2025. The SaaS. The acquisitions. The MRR goals. The courses and playbooks. All of it was sitting in the kill zone - information products, tool products, advice products. Everything AI was eating for breakfast. A few years ago, you could build a business around knowing things other people didn't. You could package expertise into consulting engagements and courses. You could be the per
Read this essay
GPU Cloud Shopping in Canada: Three Weeks Later
Three weeks ago I wrote a post called GPU Cloud Shopping in Canada: What's Actually Available. The short version: I checked every major cloud provider with a Canadian data center, trying to rent a current-generation GPU to train AI models in this country. Google Cloud Montreal had chips from 2017. AWS listed the right hardware but wouldn't let me actually run it. OVHcloud's H100s turned out to be in France, not Quebec. DigitalOc
Read this essayRun the numbers yourself
Free calculators and assessments. No email wall.
Recent threads
The latest from @TheGeorgePu.
Canada's AI hardware reality check — what's actually available vs. what founders think they can buy.
GPU shipping is the tell. If you can't physically own the compute, you don't own your AI stack.
I only write code when it's 10/10 important. Slowing down is the real productivity move in 2026.
Mac Studio supply is crunched. Apple's quietly rationing M3 Ultra — AI builders feel it first.
The Newsletter
Real numbers. Expensive lessons. No performance.
Join 5,000+ people who'd rather own than rent.