Welcome to Founder Reality
Here's what's new
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. DigitalOcean had the right gear in Toronto, but they were sold out. Conclu
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.
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
Free at the Base, Paid at the Frontier
Open source AI didn't die. It ran out of sponsors.
Read essayFrom the series · The AI Displacement Series
The 5 Layers AI Can't Eat
This is Chapter 4 of 7 in the AI Displacement Series.
More on Investing
Three essays from the archive on a different angle.
The Lie Every $997 Trading Course Sells You
What two years of quant trading taught me before I shut it down.
Read essayWhy 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 essayStraight 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.
AI Real Estate: From Apartment to Mansion
AI Real Estate: From Apartment to Mansion A $3,999 Mac Studio runs a 122 billion parameter AI model on your desk. Running the same model on AWS costs roughly $5 an hour. About $3,700 a month if you leave it on. The Mac pays for itself in five weeks. A $3,999 Mac Studio runs a 122B parameter AI model locally. Running that same model on AWS: $5/hour. ~$3,700/month if you leave it on. The Mac pays for itself in five weeks. I didn't think this was possible. Most people still don't. — George
Read this essay
I Almost Paid $4,000 a Year to Rent My Own Voice
I almost paid $4,000 a year to rent my own voice back to me. ElevenLabs. $330/month. The model that powers it? Open weights. The inference? Runs on 3GB of RAM. The voice cloning? A 30-second sample and a model you can download for free. The only thing between you and the exact same output is a setup guide nobody bothered to write. So I wrote one. Then I open-sourced it. The gap The gap between what AI costs to run and wha
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.