Today, my primary client and de facto employer, J. Galt, announced its shutdown. It was sad.
The company suffered a mass defection. I was the first person recruited by the primary defector, who gave me 10% ownership of his new companies and the roles of CAIO and CTO. When it began, it was with the permission of J. Galt’s CEO and was planned to be an AI marketing side-business. His plans quickly shifted to directly copying J. Galt, stealing its data, staff, and clients.
My ethics required me to report to Galt’s executives that I was asked to steal company data. This cost me my roles at the new company. Sadly, Galt’s owners pulled out and despite valiant efforts by Brandon Lewis and Jay B. to persist, the company rapidly shut down.
If you’re a former J. Galt owner, employee, or partner you may contact me for free leads, and you have my best wishes and continued support. I also want to recognize the insanely great Summer data science interns Kuang Hsuan (Jack) Lee, Jash Dharia, Shubham Gaikwad, and Sunwoo Kim.
It’s easy to kick myself for trading in the (arguably) best opportunity of my career for “doing the right thing” and loyalty to a company that perhaps didn’t value data science, tech, or the tech guy’s input as much as I’d like—but that’s overcomplicating something simple. To quote the great philosopher Leonard Peikoff:
“Principles make it simple.”
Keep being John Galt!
