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 essayFrom the series · 90-Day Action Plan to Surviving AI
The Commitment
After I started running experiments and having conversations, opportunities started appearing.
More on Own Your Tech
Three essays from the archive on a different angle.
One Rack Is a Cloud
What colocation is, and why most AI founders have never heard of it
Read essay
GPU Cloud Shopping in Canada: What's Actually Available
Availability and pricing in this post reflect what I found as of April 6, 2026. Cloud providers update their infrastructure regularly, and I hope some of this changes soon. If you find something different, I'd genuinely love to hear about it. This is a series of me publicly documenting my journey. The next post is me documenting the Three Weeks Later. I chose Canada. That might sound like a strange way to start a post about clo
Read essay
Your ChatGPT and Claude Conversations Are Court Evidence
Greg Brockman's journal became Exhibit 161 this week. The next chapter writes itself. Someone's ChatGPT history becomes Exhibit 162. That sentence sounds like speculation. It isn't. The infrastructure is already in place. The court orders are already in place. The only thing missing is a famous enough defendant for the headline to break the way Brockman's did. The court order most people haven't read In May 2025, Magistr
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.

Three Months of Killing Everything
I should probably feel behind. It's been three months since I killed the majority of my businesses. Three months of working 20 hours a week. I don't feel behind. I feel like I can see for the first time in years. The calendar My calendar went from six to eight meetings a day down to one. Sometimes zero. The meetings I do have aren't scheduled three weeks in advance — if I need to talk to my engineering team or my ops team, I
Read this 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 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.