Welcome to this weeks’ Insane Founder Edition.
This week’s quote: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." — Kurt Vonnegut
Strategic self-scripting: How founders can master the Bill Gates interview trick
Bill Gates said in his memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings, he approached each Ivy League schools interview as a performance, adjusting his persona based on the interviewers and their expectations. His experience in a drama club, which he joined as a hobby outside of programming, helped him feel more confident and free in expressing himself. For each application, he adapted his character, highlighting different academic interests while ensuring his real experiences supported his choices.
"As I learned in drama class, each was a performance — one actor, three characters," he wrote.
This isn’t about being inauthentic—it’s about Strategic Self-Scripting, a concept rooted in impression management and situational adaptability in psychology.
Illustration: Todd St. John
What is strategic self-scripting?
Strategic self-scripting is the conscious process of adapting your communication style, focus, and energy to align with the audience’s expectations and values while staying true to your core identity. It’s a mix of:
Self-Monitoring Theory (Snyder, 1974): High self-monitors adjust their behavior based on social cues to optimize interactions.
The Looking-Glass Self (Cooley, 1902): We shape our self-presentation based on how we believe others perceive us.
How entrepreneurs can use strategic self-scripting
Know your audience before any key interaction
Research potential investors, partners, or stakeholders.
Identify what they value (vision, execution, numbers, or storytelling?).
Tailor your delivery while keeping your core message intact.
Develop multiple 'scripts' for different scenarios
Pitching to a VC? Focus on numbers and scalability.
Talking to press? Emphasize mission and impact.
Hiring top talent? Show leadership and vision.
Rehearse like an actor, adapt like a founder
Don’t memorize word-for-word; instead, rehearse different ways to explain your business that fit different audiences.
Practice through mock interviews and feedback loops.
Use emotional contagion to influence perception
People mirror the energy you give off.
Adjust tone and body language to match the setting while staying confident.
Leverage the power of storytelling
Gates refined his “persona” based on what resonated most.
Share different angles of your journey depending on the audience's emotional triggers.
In the last issue, we covered Zuck 3.0 and how Mark Zuckerberg’s latest reinvention signals a deeper strategic shift for Meta. But he’s not the only founder who has leveraged Strategic Identity Shaping to his advantage. Bill Gates applied a similar tactic when he adapted his persona for each college application, proving that identity is a fluid tool for positioning and influence.
The key takeaway? Entrepreneurs aren’t just building companies—they’re shaping narratives. Whether it’s adjusting your personal brand to match your company’s evolution or strategically presenting yourself in high-stakes situations, the ability to refine and adapt your identity is a competitive edge. After all, perception isn’t just about how the world sees you—it’s about how you position yourself to win.
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The rise of Deepseek founder : What you didn’t know about Liang Wenfeng
Liang Wenfeng isn’t your typical AI founder. He didn’t come from Silicon Valley or cut his teeth at a U.S. tech giant. Instead, the Chinese entrepreneur built his empire from a background in quantitative trading, leveraging machine learning long before AI became a global arms race. Now, as the founder and CEO of DeepSeek, he’s positioning China as a serious competitor in the AI space—and he’s doing it with a leaner, more cost-effective approach than his Western rivals.
Photo: Rachel Mendelson / Getty
🚀 From trading to AI: Liang’s unconventional path
Studied engineering at Zhejiang University, where he first explored machine learning.
Co-founded High-Flyer, a hedge fund that used AI to optimize trading strategies.
In 2019, pivoted to AI research, launching High-Flyer AI, which later evolved into DeepSeek in 2023.
🎯 The strategic bet that changed the game
Acquired 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs before U.S. sanctions tightened chip access—an early masterstroke.
Built DeepSeek-R1, an open-source AI model boasting 671 billion parameters—a fraction of the cost of its Western counterparts.
DeepSeek's AI chatbot surpassed ChatGPT as the most downloaded free app on the U.S. iOS App Store in January 2025.
💰 A global AI disruptor, but not without controversy
As DeepSeek grows, data privacy concerns and China’s AI ambitions are under scrutiny.
U.S. regulators are watching closely—will they see DeepSeek as competition or a threat?
Liang stays unfazed. His belief? China has the talent—it just needs the confidence to organize it effectively.
🔥 Why this matters: Liang isn’t just chasing AI dominance—he’s rewriting the AI startup playbook. While OpenAI and Google pour billions into R&D, DeepSeek is proving that strategic resource allocation and timing can be just as powerful.
Whether DeepSeek continues its rapid rise—or faces regulatory roadblocks—one thing is clear: Liang Wenfeng is now a name the AI world can’t ignore.
In the news: Amazon’s AI move
Amazon plans to invest over $100 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives in 2025, marking a 35% increase from its 2024 spending. This substantial investment underscores Amazon's commitment to enhancing its AI capabilities across various sectors, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and retail operations.
In comparison, other tech giants are also significantly boosting their AI expenditures:
Microsoft: Announced plans to allocate $80 billion toward AI data centers in its fiscal year 2025, ending June 30.
Alphabet: Projected to spend $75 billion on capital expenses in 2025, with a substantial portion dedicated to AI development.
Meta: Committed to investing $65 billion in AI and data center infrastructure in 2025.
Collectively, these four companies are expected to invest approximately $320 billion in AI and related infrastructure in 2025, reflecting a significant increase from the $230 billion spent in 2024.
This surge in AI investment highlights the intensifying competition among tech giants to advance AI technologies and infrastructure, aiming to maintain and enhance their positions in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Top updates
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