173+ Essays

Essays

Deep thinking on building businesses designed to own forever. Not how-to content. Decision logs, frameworks, and pattern recognition.

George Pu
George Pu
$10M+ in businesses built. Zero VC.

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Nostalgia Is Not a Strategy
George's Takes

Nostalgia Is Not a Strategy

Most people are living in the past while the world accelerates into the future. COVID changed everything. AI is changing everything. Geopolitical chaos is changing everything. And still, the most common response I hear is: "I just want things to go back to normal." There is no normal. There's only adaptation. Here's why nostalgia is the most dangerous delusion of our time—and what to do instead. The Nostalgia Epidemic Every social media scroll reveals the same pattern: The housing compla

·11 min
Trust But Verify — What 6 Years of Partnerships Taught Me About People
George's Takes

Trust But Verify — What 6 Years of Partnerships Taught Me About People

Weeks after I cut him off, blocked his number, and swallowed a financial loss I couldn't afford — he emailed me asking for referrals.

·6 min
My First Boss Told the University I Was a Disappointment. He Never Told Me.
George's Takes

My First Boss Told the University I Was a Disappointment. He Never Told Me.

Part 2 of my job journey — what my first real work experience taught me about feedback, fear, and the slow burn toward doing my own thing.

·5 min
What I Will and Won't Do
Announcements

What I Will and Won't Do

I've watched enough people I respected turn into people I don't recognize. Not overnight. Gradually. One justified compromise at a time.

·5 min
The Audience Is Developing Antibodies
George's Takes

The Audience Is Developing Antibodies

A guy polls his followers on whether he should launch another financial vehicle. 55,000 people vote. Over 70% say no. He launches anyway.

·9 min
Hiring for People, Not Roles: The Relationship Revolution
George's Takes

Hiring for People, Not Roles: The Relationship Revolution

The best hire I ever made didn't match the job description. Posted for "Senior Marketing Manager with B2B SaaS experience." Hired someone with zero marketing experience and zero SaaS background. Two years later, she's running customer success, product marketing, AND business development. Revenue she's directly influenced: $2.8M. Here's why hiring for people instead of roles isn't just better—it's the only sustainable approach when work itself is constantly changing. The Death of Static Job

·11 min

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The Timing Premium: Why When Matters More Than Where
Founder Mobility

The Timing Premium: Why When Matters More Than Where

Everyone obsesses over WHERE to move. Dubai vs Singapore vs Portugal vs Estonia. The multi-million dollar question isn't WHERE. It's WHEN. I've analyzed 47 founder relocations over 5 years. The timing of the move determined 73% more of the financial outcome than the destination itself. Here's why when you move matters more than where you move—and the strategic timing frameworks that capture the timing premium. The Geographic Timing Paradox Most founders think about geography like real esta

·10 min
The Identity Crisis No One Talks About
George's Takes

The Identity Crisis No One Talks About

You're not your job. But try telling that to someone who's been "a founder" for six years. The moment I deleted "Founder" from my Twitter bio, I felt naked. Exposed. Like I'd removed the most important thing about myself and had nothing left to show the world. That discomfort was the beginning of freedom. Here's the identity crisis affecting millions of professionals—and what you discover when you finally drop the label. The Professional Identity Prison We build careers like we're building

·11 min
Why I Will Never Charge For Content
George's Takes

Why I Will Never Charge For Content

The internet is full of people who got rich telling you how to get rich. I'm not one of them. I run two companies. Neither makes a dollar from content. I have no course. No paid community. No newsletter behind a paywall. No "free webinar" that's actually a 90-minute sales pitch. No lead magnet designed to harvest your email so I can sell you something later. Everything I publish is free. Everything I will ever publish will be free. This is not a phase. This is a permanent decision, and this

·6 min
I Failed On That Podcast
George's Takes

I Failed On That Podcast

The Moment I Knew "Oh, you're the guy from that Bitcoin show." A friend said this to me at dinner last year. Casual. Not meant as an insult. Just a statement of fact. But it hit me like a verdict. I'd spent three years co-hosting a podcast called Quarter Life Capital. 35 episodes. Crypto, AI, markets, careers. And somewhere along the way, I'd become "the Bitcoin guy" — without ever believing in Bitcoin. That's when I knew something had gone fundamentally wrong. What We Were Supposed to Bu

·9 min
The Constraint Advantage: Why Easy Mode Kills Entrepreneurs
George's Takes

The Constraint Advantage: Why Easy Mode Kills Entrepreneurs

AI would have ruined me at 19. Not because it's bad technology. Because I was a bad entrepreneur-in-training. AI accelerates you toward wherever you're already going. At 19, I was going nowhere original. AI would have made me extraordinarily efficient at building generic startups that nobody wanted. Here's the paradox of entrepreneurial development: The constraints that feel limiting are actually formative. Remove them too early, and you optimize for the wrong things. The Easy Mode Trap Wh

·8 min
The Great Sorting: How AI Divides Workers into Creators and Commodities
George's Takes

The Great Sorting: How AI Divides Workers into Creators and Commodities

AI isn't coming for your job. It's coming for your lack of original thinking. The panic about AI replacing workers misses the real story. AI isn't eliminating roles—it's revealing which people in those roles were already commoditized. The great sorting is happening now. On one side: people who use AI to amplify original thinking. On the other: people who get replaced because they were already doing work that AI can do better. Here's why most career advice about AI is wrong, and how to end up

·9 min

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