My son Henry took this photo shortly after dawn on our last morning in Paris.
He’s 14, and he shot and edited it himself.
(Proud papa over here.)
Henry and I share a lot of things.
A love of soccer…
An intrinsic drive…
And a weird connection with numbers.
In fact, if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while…
You might remember [Issue #041] where we explored something psychologists call “Hyper-Associative Numeric Imagery.”
A strange condition some people have where every number evokes an image (something I’ve experienced since childhood…)
So when I sat down to write Issue #089 from our Paris hotel, my brain did what it always does.
It went straight to 1789.
The year of The French Revolution.
Of course, here I am in Paris. Writing to you from the same city where in 1789, an entire social order collapsed…
The gap between those in power and the people they were supposed to serve became too wide to sustain.
And now…
What’s unfolding as we speak made the coincidence impossible to ignore.
Because what’s playing out right now…
First in Silicon Valley, then in Washington, and now in a much bigger way on the world stage…
Felt less like the week’s business news and more like the opening chapter of a revolution that’s coming…
1 | Let Them Eat... Code?
We were quite literally the first people in line to get into the Palace of Versailles. With hundreds in line behind us, we had to sprint to get a near empty shot of the iconic Hall of Mirrors, where Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI would host opulent parties in the years leading up to their beheadings in 1793.
On Thursday, Jack Dorsey announced that Block (the parent company of Square and Cash App) is laying off more than 4,000 employees.
This represents nearly half their entire workforce. Gone.
How did the market respond?
Block’s stock soared as much as 24%, naturally.
In other words:
A company fires half its people, and the market throws a parade.
Dorsey was pretty blunt about it:
In his letter to shareholders he wrote that “AI tools have fundamentally changed what it means to build and run a company.”
(Basically smaller teams, fewer layers, more automation.)
And he predicted that “within the next year, the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”
Andrew Yang called it the largest percentage layoff in S&P 500 history.
The market reacted by cheering over this proverbial bloodbath.
No Reign of Terror here.
But the question is:
When the market rewards the removal of us pesky humans from the companies we work for, what does that say about what the system really values?
And more importantly:
What does it say about what we should be building in response??
BTW – That photo of the empty room above? The “Hall of Mirrors” at Versailles, is one of the craziest, most over-the-top rooms ever built…
Literally hundreds of mirrors reflecting light back and forth, creating the “illusion of infinite space and infinite power.”
It’s worth reflecting on the fact that the very aristocracy with “infinite power” who built that room believed they were untouchable too…
Before the guillotines came crashing down, that is.
2 | "We Cannot in Good Conscience Accede."
Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People at the Louvre. Painted in 1830, it remains one of the most iconic image of revolution ever created. Looking through the photos I took on my iPhone this week, the painting feels less like an historical artifact and more like a reflection of what’s unfolding right before our eyes…
While one company was being rewarded for cutting humans loose, another was taking a very different stand.
On Thursday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly refused the Pentagon’s ultimatum to remove safety guardrails from its AI system.
The Pentagon had given Anthropic a Friday deadline: agree to allow unrestricted military use of your AI, or lose a $200 million contract.
Amodei’s response: “We cannot in good conscience accede to this request.”
His company drew two lines it refused to cross:
- No mass surveillance of American citizens…
- No fully autonomous weapons making targeting decisions without a human in the loop…
The US Government response was pretty swift.
Defense Secretary Hegseth labeled Anthropic a “supply chain risk” and President Trump ordered all federal agencies to phase out Anthropic’s products.
Within hours, OpenAI announced it had struck a deal with the Pentagon to fill the gap, with CEO Sam Altman claiming the department agreed to the same safety restrictions Anthropic had been fighting for.
(Whether that’s actually the case remains to be seen.)
And then, as if to underscore the stakes of everything we’re watching unfold…
Shortly before our plane took off to return stateside on Saturday morning, the following headlines showed up:
We learned that the U.S. and Israel launched major military strikes on Iran, with explosions across Tehran and multiple Iranian cities targeted.
A joint operation that has been apparently building for weeks.
I’m not going to wade into the politics of any of this.
(People way smarter than me on these issues will debate the merits and the implications for years to come…)
But here’s what I will say:
We are living through an extraordinary moment.
A moment where AI companies are going to war with the Pentagon over safety guardrails, while the Pentagon is simultaneously going to war with a foreign nation using the very weapons this AI technology enables.
The technology being debated in boardrooms during the week is quite literally the same technology being deployed on battlefields over the weekend.
1789.
The Iranian Revolution of 1979.
And now 2026?
This story is developing in real time as I write this.
But it’s worth noting that in a few months…
July 4th will mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.
Nations rise.
Nations fall.
But no nation in the history of humanity has lasted forever…
3 | The "Scenario" That's No Longer a Scenario.
This was one of the most advanced pieces of technology when it was crafted in the 18th century. So much so that it was regarded as the crown jewel of technological achievement for its predictive capabilities.
If you haven’t come across the “AI 2027″ project, it’s worth knowing about.
Especially in the context of everything going down this week…
Published in 2025 by the AI Futures Project (a team that includes former OpenAI researchers and top AI forecasters…)
It lays out a month-by-month scenario for how AI could reshape civilization over the next few years.
The New York Times covered it. JD Vance reportedly read it.
What’s so scary about it, is how accurate its predictions have been…
The project tracks a progression that starts where we were as of April 2025 and accelerates through a series of inflection points:
AI that can code better than humans…
Then AI that can improve itself…
Then a critical branch point where institutions either slow down to ensure safety…
Or race ahead without guardrails.
This video here that summarizes the study is very much worth watching if you haven’t already seen it.
A central tension in the scenario is the arms race dynamic.
Governments demanding unrestricted access to frontier AI. Companies being forced to choose between contracts and conscience. The pressure to drop safety measures.
This is no longer hypothetical.
This is literally the moment we experienced this week.
Which brings me to one of the most striking things we saw at Versailles (the photo of the golden clock above.)
At the far end of the palace…
There’s an astronomical clock built in the 18th century that tracks the movements of the planets, solar eclipses, and the phases of the moon…
It’s calibrated to remain accurate through the year 9999.
Built by human hands, it was impossibly advanced for its time.
And it was designed by (and for) people who could not fully comprehend the technological forces they were harnessing…
Sound familiar?
4 | Return to Real: So Where Does Does This Leave Us?...
With everything unfolding in the world, it can sometimes feel like there’s little we can do with forces much bigger than us shaping our future…
But we have far more agency than the headlines would lead us to believe.
As the Olympian Eileen Gu shared in her response to a question she was asked by a journalist earlier this week:
“You can control WHAT you think. You can control HOW you think. And therefore you can control WHO you are.”
In deciding who I wanted to be this week…
I made a deliberate decision to step away from the manuscript of my upcoming book, Return to Real, for a few days.
I promised myself no edits or rewrites (as tempting as it was to sneak back in.)
Because I wanted to be fully present for this trip.
(i.e. to actually be in Paris, not just write about being in Paris.)
But it wasn’t a week off from living the philosophy and core thesis that’s at the center of Return to Real.
If anything, it was a week of living it more fully than I have in weeks (as I’ve found myself in front of the screen for more hours than I care to admit to get my book manuscript over the finish line…)
This week was refreshingly (almost) screen-free
It was a week filled with…
Real food.
Real connection.
Real conversations.
And zut alors, I even bought a Real French Hat!
(Funny enough, the moment I put it on mid-trip like that photo above, people started speaking to me en français like a real Lévesque!)
This trip left me more convinced than ever…
That what will increasingly matter over the next decade…
As we face more corporate layoffs, more geopolitical tension, more uncertainty…
Is a return to what’s really important in life.
A return to what’s real.
That’s what’s really at stake.
That’s the REAL revolution.
So my call to arms today is this:
Put down the phone…
Put on the ridiculous hat…
And remember (always and forever) to hug the ones you love.
Until next week…
Vive la Révolution.
Ryan :-)
P.S. One last thing before we wrap for the day…
While I was in Paris this past week…
I managed to set one day aside to get together with a client who flew into the city to meet with me for a private 1:1 VIP Day at the hotel you see in the photo above…
While together…
We spent the day designing her Category of One market positioning…
We fine-tuned her pricing strategy and offer stack – uncovering a critical gap in her business in the process.
We worked out the deal structure for a strategically-important partnership in her business that she is executing this week.
And we even uncovered what might be the biggest untapped opportunity that nobody in her marketing is pursuing…
The reason I mention this?
Is because in two weeks…
I’ll be traveling again.
This time to Austin, TX.
Where I’ll be speaking on stage with another client of mine, Mike Kim, at SXSW.
And the reason why I’m sharing this is because…
When I get into Austin, TX, I have (for the moment) one open day on March 12th the day before I speak.
After mentioning the 1:1 VIP Day in Paris a few weeks ago…
I’ve had a few people email in asking when the next opportunity for something like this would be available stateside.
I’ve been making available roughly one VIP Day like this per month…
But demand has picked up considerably since I started offering these days last year…
And right now, my next opening isn’t until June 2026.
Since I’m traveling and have an open day in my schedule…
I’ve decided to make March 12th in Austin, TX available for a 1:1 Day…
AND…
Because this is kind of last minute…
I’m offering up the day at a significant discount.
Normally I charge $25,000 (plus travel expenses) for 1:1 day like this.
But because this is only two weeks away and I know timing is a bit tight…
I’m offering it at a significant discount at just $15,000 for the day.
And on top of that…
You’ll also get to join me as a guest to my SXSW talk I’m delivering the next day, along with a super-exclusive mastermind and dinner I’m part of…
So in other words:
$15K buys you a 1:1 day with me on March 12th….
Access to my SXSW session as my guest…
A seat at a super-exclusive private mastermind the following day (March 13th)…
AND access to a private, invitation-only dinner as my guest that night…
This is a crazy good opportunity.
I’ll be sending a dedicated email about this tomorrow…
But I love rewarding my most dedicated readers…
And if you made it all the way here, that means you :-)
Please Note: This is a first-come, first-serve opportunity and I only have one spot.
So what that means is this:
If you are interested in grabbing this spot…
Please SHOOT ME AN EMAIL (asap) to let me know you’d like to be considered for for it, along with a short note on what you’d like to focus on covering during on our day together…
If I’m able to offer you the spot…
You’ll be asked to put a $500 deposit down by credit card to hold the day, and will owe the $15K balance (less $500) by wire within 48 hours.
Make sense?
Okay, awesome.
If you’re interested in the spot but have questions, please just let me know…
Otherwise have a GREAT rest of your day and I look forward to connecting soon.
All my best,
Ryan :-)
