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Founder Reality with George Pu. Real talk from a technical founder building AI-powered businesses in the trenches. No highlight reel, no startup theater – just honest insights from someone who codes, ships, and scales.
Every week, George breaks down the messy, unfiltered decisions behind building a bootstrap software company. From saying yes to projects you don't know how to build, to navigating AI hype vs. reality, to the mental models that actually matter for technical founders.
Whether you're a developer thinking about starting a company, a founder scaling your first product, or a technical leader building AI features, this show gives you the frameworks and hard-won lessons you won't find in the startup content circus.
George Pu is a software engineer turned founder building multiple AI-powered businesses. He's bootstrapped companies, shipped products that matter, and learned the hard way what works and what's just noise.
Follow along as he builds in public and shares what's really happening behind the scenes.
New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
George Pu (00:00)
Welcome to another episode of the Founder of Reality Podcast. I'm your host George Pu. And today I want to talk about a topic that's, you know, near and dear in my heart. And that topic is freedom. And personally, I think freedom is important because for me as a founder entrepreneur, freedom is something that I pursue and that's the number one matrix above everything else. And I think many other entrepreneurs, including Navelle, Ravi Khan has said something similar as well. Freedom is our number one north star. But looking around my life and looking at people I know personally, and also people I don't know.
by hearing their stories, I think a lot of us are actually still optimizing for something else other than freedom. And of course there are two sides of the coin. So let's dive into it and see why people do make mistakes when they are trading freedom for money ⁓ and you know, what you can do to optimize it, right? So that you do not just leave both sides of the coin.
So a lot of my friends, know, like looking back in my journey, I graduated my bachelor at the University of Waterloo. And then I also talked to a lot of founders who are, you know, from Waterloo. But more importantly, University of Waterloo is a school that has a lot of computer science talent, right? It's one of the best schools for computer science in Canada.
But what happens after is that most of my classmates actually move down to the US, right? Because US basically means Silicon Valley, New York, people pay a lot more, employers pay a more, a lot more benefits, and most importantly, they're paying USD. So those are all the good things I think are pretty important, very attractive to people. But I've already seen my friends who are spending the past three to five years working at a company they don't necessarily like. So one of my friends actually works at Microsoft.
And you know, he's getting paid a handsome salary for his age, right? I remember it was like 250,000 base, which is a lot of money, but he basically said he does not feel motivated about it anymore. And that's why he has actually quit his job and moved to Pinterest, where as a startup company where he felt like they have more things to do and he's more excited. So that's just even for people who are, know, similar age to me, which is like, you know, in the mid twenties to actually feel something like this.
When I was in Silicon Valley, would say two years ago, the last time I was in Silicon Valley, I met with actually a lot of people who had worked with Google and Meta for a long time. was, I was with a friend who was in his like fifties, I guess. And then, you know, obviously his friends in the Valley are all in his fifties. And the thing is like, they have already worked in Meta and Google for over 10 years. Right. And I remember their salary was around $500,000 and some of them were making $600,000 as managing directors. So the thing is.
When I was talking to them, I can feel that they have already given up in their careers and they were looking for retirement already. So this one person, his name is Sha, he has worked at Google for the past 15 years. 15, 1, 5 years. And he has finally made it as a managing director of Google. But he told me that there's too many office politics. It's actually impossible to get things done for his job. And it's basically impossible to be overly ambitious because there so many bureaucracies.
So he said he just basically give up in life and he's just collecting his paycheck and taking care of his family, wife and friends and kids obviously. So, and he thought, I remember he said he would have done something like a startup in his 20s, but his main thing is that he didn't have enough money back then. So working on Google is something that seems pretty important for him. And he was an immigrant from India at a time. So obviously money played more important role for him at a time.
However, I've heard of these stories over and over over again, right? And including seeing my friends, some of them actually graduated went to an investment bank and basically they were paid $90,000 and I still bother with my head. You know, it's not, it's not even a quick, like that amount of money, right? But I also have friends who are studying business at University of Waterloo who graduated and had to basically work like 90, 100, 110 hour a week for the first, like, I don't know, for the first many months. And I think some of them are still doing that.
as investment bankers. Coming from tech, I obviously don't understand why you would be so busy working that, but I know that they do not have any freedom and they're basically spending their time as coffee boys or spending their time napping at the office at night. And you know, I can already see where they will be in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, right? Or even a few years, they will be burnt out and in 10 years, they will be hating their lives and whatever money they think they have, which is tied into bonuses, would that still be worth it? So I think that's the most important question.
that we should all ask ourselves. So for my other friend who's like working in finance, he can actually take more than a week off without significant pushing back to his employers. He checks his emails at 11 PM every night. And sometimes when he wakes up in the middle of the night, you know, to take, to go to the washroom, he actually has to check his emails as well. And he can now move cities because of office politics, even though they're like a multinational conglomerate, they have all the offices in major cities in the US and Canada and
He basically feel like he's being handcuffed, right? Because there's deferred compensation and there's unvested stock and that company actually recently has become massive restructuring and also layoffs. So he has personally shared with me he's really afraid of being laid off and basically having his job taken away from me. So after taxes, this person makes around $400,000. That's great money, but he can't quit. He can't move. He can't even make take a real vacation. And he works 80 hour weeks on average, I guess, sometimes even a hundred.
110 hours, like I said. So for this person, yes, he has a great BMW convertible. He has a nice apartment in the city, but he did not like freedom. He did not buy freedom. And that's the point of misery. last year, remember sometime last year he came to me asking about startups and just like what I've heard from the friend at Google, he said the same thing. I should have done my startup 10 years ago. That's what he said. And then I asked him, why didn't you do at a time? He said, I thought I needed money first. So the same story across two different industries.
in two different countries, 6,000 kilometers apart, know, same stories. So I think both of them have the backwards and that's the sad thing about giving up your time, know, giving up your time for money. I think before I go any further, I do want to address that. Yes, money is very important. So we all always talk about, you know, having money versus having goals in life, you know, and I think
Obviously, when you're just starting out, it's very important to take care of yourself first. So for this like Google friend who has been working at Google for so many years, he started out probably on H1B visa and coming to Google. That was like 15 years ago, right? Obviously, he wouldn't have any money in his pocket when he just moved to America. He has a title of his employer. So everyone's situation, of course, is different. And I'm not saying that when he come, he should have as soon as he came, he should have found a way to start his own business. He should have been an entrepreneur at the very start.
you he should give up his salary for like $200,000 or whatever. I'm not saying that at all. Everyone needs to find that survival base or even like the comfortable base. I'm not saying that everyone should take a significant swing of risk and take that risk. However, when you have that significant base, which I do think both of those friends I mentioned have, it's probably important to think about how they can actually move forward and how it's a time to slowly trade a little bit more freedom and start to make a little bit less money to start
and eventually work towards that goal of freedom. And my question, my problem with my two friends who I like is that they're actually not taking that decision. So I think the core of the story is not many people choose to be entrepreneur because they think it's not the right time. What I'm saying is, yes, there's not probably not a right time, but there's always right balance time where you start transitioning from a full-time worker to something more compounding.
For example, moving more investments to something that more compounds, right? Doing something on the side, a little bit more compounds. And eventually maybe that thing you're doing on the side eventually becomes a business and eventually makes more money than what you're making or even like half of it. And then you can decide whether your lifestyle is more free and move to that lifestyle. You know, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. So, um, with that, also want to share a little bit more about my personal story about where I thought even as an entrepreneur, there are cases where you ended up working for someone else.
And for my mistake was that I actually had this like corporate partner who I've been working with for the past two years. Basically there was a partnership and that's not like another partnership in the early days where there was a possibility of working with, you know, this, this big giant bank in the U S and, know, after passing a due diligence, we were on track of potentially making $300,000 per year. Right. And that is, you know, of course, looking very good for a company that's just starting out. That doesn't have anything going on at the time.
It was obviously tempting and my co-founders and I were kind of have considered this deal and it was really, really attractive for someone just coming out of college, $200,000 a year is a lot of money, but the partnership comes with lot of caveats that I have, you know, realized the more times I reviewed it. So obviously we need to have a weekly status call with their engineering team and also with the corporate team and sometimes even with legal. Right. So every week we to have those like mandatory calls for many, many years of this partnership.
And that is not negotiable because we need to integrate something in there. We need to integrate something in their work suite. Right. So that's not, that's not really negotiable. And the second thing is that we need to give, they need to give us the approval. Sorry. They need to give us the approval for the product roadmap decisions. And I think that's something I do not agree on. I think it's a little bit, it'll be weird. Even though, yes, we were working on the same product together. We're working on a product specifically, why labeled for the bank.
However, they have to approve for all the major product roadmap decisions, including our own product, the one that's not white labeled. So that felt a little bit weird. And there's also other exclusivity clauses that mean other partnerships. There's also response time, SLI, service agreements that would have dedicated my schedule a little bit as well. So at the end of the day, I think this is more about trading freedom for predictable money, right? So even though I am a so-called entrepreneur at a time and a founder,
I feel like I was actually trading money and freedom. You know, I was trading my freedom, my team's freedom to work with the bank and for predictive money. So eventually we didn't pursue with that partnership just because it didn't feel right. But I think, you know, combined, that's also something I resonate with myself. I asked myself, should I make that money or should I just quit my job right now? Quit being an entrepreneur and go get a job at Google? You know, I can make more. I can make significantly more. I start up, I can make significantly more somewhere else. So why would I waste my time?
doing this for just one corporate banking partner. It doesn't make any sense. I want to control my time. I want to build what I want. I want to decide what I want to pivot if I do have to pivot, you know, so all those things, you know, like the money itself is not buying freedom. was basically to me, it was just bad buying high paying job with a fancy title. So I have a framework I do want to share with you guys. The framework I use basically has this title called, you know, spend money to buy freedom.
and don't spend freedom to make money. So ⁓ that's because like money is replaceable. When you have enough to sustain yourself, when you have enough to survive, you can always make more money. Right. However, time is something that you cannot make more. You cannot make more years. Right. And that's why my investment banking friend and Silicon Valley friends do regret at the end of the day, they cannot buy back the decades they spent asking permissions from managers. But
I think people do get it for backwards and people think, okay, let's trade freedom for money first and then we'll try to use that money to buy freedom later. But the problem is that by the time they have enough money, they have already built a lifestyle that requires keeping with the job. So that's another trap that we've seen all the time. People have built their lifestyle, they build a family's lifestyle and quitting that job all of a sudden in pursuit for startup that has like so uncertain, it's significantly, significantly harder.
adding mortgages on top, adding some duties on top, adding your car payments on top, adding HOA payments and all that, it's just impossible, right? So the 800k salary funds 600k lifestyle and traps them forever in their 800k job. So that's not a mistake I see a lot of people make. So I do think let's ask the wrong question versus the right question. Let's do an exercise at this. So the wrong question is how much money is enough? I ask myself this question all the time as well.
And I didn't realize I do not have an answer for that because it sounds very arbitrary. Because and also like if you think about it, there's no correct answers. No answer satisfied this. If you have a million, obviously you want to make two, you want to make five, you want to make 10. If you have 10 million, same cycle repeats, right? The target keeps moving. There's never the right number. When you reach your target, you always feel like there's more to gain, you know? So you're always optimizing for the wrong matrix. For myself right now,
I try to ask myself, I'm still young obviously, so I cannot just be like, know, 100 % freedom, you know, I don't care about money. I think that's being disingenuous. So for me, I do ask how much money is enough for my age at 27, right? And I can feel my heart is saying all of it, all of the freedom is worth it. Being free is worth it, even though that means making less money. So I do make a lot of decisions in my life where I told clients I'm not going to work with them. I told people I'm not going to work with them and
I do that quite a lot because I think first of all, do make significant more time by not working with people who are problematic and companies who are problematic. And I do think I can take those time to work with people I do love and enjoy working with. So in long-term, I'm actually happier and work on clients who are happier and working with companies who are happier. And at the end, this is creates a significantly more value for everybody. Right? It's a measurable success. You make trade-offs obvious. So no matter what's your age, ask yourself how much freedom is enough. ⁓
10%, start with 20%, start with 50%. Right? If you have a job, obviously, yes, you have to do your nine to five, you have to do that. But on the other side of that, eventually ask yourself how much freedom is enough, you know? And I think that's very profound. that's like the first framework, second framework. Think about this, the three types of work relationships, right? If you're an employee, you ask for permissions, you trade your time for money for someone else's terms. You can be fired at any moment, right? And your income stops when you stop working.
And you do have limited leverage on your time or earnings, right? For example, like you can tell your boss, I want to get paid as an LLC and see how that pans out. Right? So also, know, freelancers or like part-timers, right? This is the time where if they say you are working full-time and you're trading a little bit time for money as a freelancer. So you do have more autonomy than employee. However, you're still trading your hours for dollars and your income stops when you stop working. Right? So you're slightly better than the full-time worker.
But you do have fundamentally the same problem, right? And eventually what is good is the entrepreneur because they can own the outcome of what they do. Right? So for entrepreneur, they can build assets that compounds, they can build potential long linear returns and they do take more risks upfront. Obviously as any entrepreneur, but at the end of the day, and the more stress as well, by the of the day, they have more freedom on the long-term. And eventually, most importantly, you'll never all say the same thing as well. You can own something that can work right? When you don't.
So that's the most important thing as well. As an entrepreneur, think obviously it's the easiest one to go, but I think the goal is not to demonize employment, right? Employment is important. I had a job and you know, obviously everyone needs to have a job to get to their strategic position and having a job could be a right strategic move, right? And most of us do have a job and that's okay. But I think about being honest about what you're trading, like, are you happy at your job? Are you happy at your positions?
You know, everywhere I go, see people miserable at their jobs, but they just needed that money, right? And that's specifically true for my friends because obviously I'm in my 20s, so I know people who are in their 20s, but I also see people in their 30s and 40s and 50s who are struggling, who are struggling with their mental bandwidth because they don't like what they're doing and they're just counting towards retirement. What kind of life is that? You know, that's not life of freedom. That's a life of enchains. That's a life of prison. So I don't like having that sort of lifestyle. I don't like seeing people being trapped in that lifestyle as well. So my point is being honest about
where you are and what you're trading. You're trading ownership and long-term freedom for of course, short-term stability and predictive income. And that's an important thing. However, as I mentioned before, there's not just two sides of the coin. It's not just either being an entrepreneur or being an employee. There's always a middle ground, right? So as I mentioned in my last episode, I'm actually writing an e-resource that basically talks about when you're starting a startup, don't start as a startup company in terms of product sense, right? Tech sense.
Start a company that does consulting first, providing a service, right? And that is something you can do while you're working full time as well. And using that consulting revenue to build up to $10,000 per month in recurring revenue, in contract revenue. And that's the beginning of how it can be free. So like I said, not just two sides of the coin. There's always another coin that you can do. And if you're interested in that ebook, be sure to check the show notes or go to founderreality.com for more where I do share it for free. And also.
I do have four questions, right? I do have four questions where I ask myself quite a lot. And I think it's important to be asking you the same question as well. The first question is, can you quit your job tomorrow? You know, and it's not should you, I guess it's like, can you, could you financially survive? Do you have like six to 12 months of runway saved if you your job tomorrow? Right. And do you have the skills that needed generating income quickly? Because a lot of people are not finding jobs after being laid off because of AI. So that's the first question, right? Think about again, can you quit your job tomorrow?
Second, can you move anywhere next month? And I think geographical freedom is the same as any other freedom. If you don't like your city because it's like high crime rate, if you don't like your country, if you don't like anything for your own reasons, can you move anywhere next month? Can you move to another city? Can you move to another country? Are you tied down by lease, office requirements, obligations, mortgages? Can you work anywhere you want if you want, if that's your goal? Second question is, can you move anywhere next month? Third question is, can you say no without financial stress? And I think this is like the
hardest thing. Can you turn down, can you afford to turn down bad opportunities? Can you walk away from toxic clients or toxic employees, employers? Do you have the F you money, even though it's short, right? Do you have the base for yourself for security? Last but not least, can you choose your own daily schedule? Do you control your calendar? Can you work when you're most productive? Can you take Wednesdays off without asking for permissions? So all the four questions, let's go back again. First, can you quit your job tomorrow?
Second, can you move anywhere next month? Third, can you say no without financial stress? And four, can you choose your daily schedule? So see where you are, zero to four. Most people check zero boxes. Some people check one and very few people check all four. But that's the problem, right? All of us have optimized for income, but not for independence. And I think that freedom eventually should be probably the goal of where you are going to be lending yourself. And I do think
Many of us in our lives, like we read all those books and resources, the podcast, and actually not many talk about freedom. So I think it's important to have that framework and also seeing exactly what you want to do in your life, which is super important in our society. Of course, values things differently than freedom. We value a net worth, we value job title, we value salary level type of house type of car. But you know, for founders who pursue freedom for myself, I have these things instead I
ask myself, do I control my time? Can I say no to the things I don't want? Am I building something that compounds long-term? Do I own assets and not just income streams? Those are basically, if you think about it, those are completely different games. They're completely different. And the rules of playing those games are different as well. And most people are unfortunately running the wrong game. And when they do realize it's too late to change to another game, least in your life, it's impossible. So I think that's a takeaway that all of us should have in our lives.
So to close on this episode, I do know people who with five million dollars of net worth who feel trapped. I know people who had five hundred thousand dollars or even a hundred thousand dollars to feel free. And the difference is in the money is a relationship with money and your relationship to freedom. If you don't know what you want, more money cannot solve that. You just basically build a more expensive prison for yourself and for your family for that specific regard.
So to close, think obviously choose freedom as much as you can. Freedom should be the north star of your goal. Even though if you're working, you know, no matter if you're working, no matter if you're still in school, no matter if you're just starting a startup like me, you're founder, startup entrepreneur, there's always going to be these decisions, no matter who you are and where you are in life, to make a judgment on freedom. And I think ask yourself these questions I mentioned in the frameworks and see where you're at currently and ask yourself, is there a way that I can basically build more freedom? No matter who you are.
I always think there's more ways to do it. And to recap, I really don't think there's only two sides of the coin. And even if you're an entrepreneur, there are also many, many times where, you know, a very difficult client, difficult outcome that ties you up to basically be working for someone else in your own regards. And there are all those prisons that we build for ourselves and try, try to be free. So thank you so much for this episode. I'm your host, George Poo. If you like the show, obviously check out our blog and fundareality.com. And also you can find me on Twitter at the George Pu.
Let me know in the comments, show it's no below comment on what you feel about this episode. Tell us also where you are from zero to four in the, in the metrics. And I'll see you next episode. Thank you.