The latest Morgan Housel podcast describes how small decisions can dramatically change one’s life or even the course of the world. In the podcast, Morgan performs an experiment. He describes his history at age 20 to ChatGPT – lots of detail about background, ambitions, history, plans… then asks ChatGPT to tell a story about the next 20 years. Morgan found he’d get a different result every time. They were not all positive, but they often sounded like something that could have happened.
I performed a similar experiment. I went to chat . com, gave ChatGPT a lot of history about my background, as well as my resume at age 20; then asked ChatGPT to tell me a story about the next 20 years. The outputs were wild and all over the place. An example is below.
What does ChatGPT output, if you do this experiment?
The Reluctant Billionaire
After graduating from Stanford, he entered the booming world of high-frequency trading (HFT), where milliseconds determined millions. His deep understanding of CAPM theory, algorithmic efficiency, and probability made him a natural in the industry. He joined a secretive quant fund, where he developed automated trading strategies that exploited inefficiencies in global markets.Within five years, he had earned enough to retire. But instead of stopping, he pushed further—co-founding his own hedge fund, one that ran on AI-driven models, requiring minimal human intervention. By his early 30s, the fund was managing billions, and he had become a financial legend.
But wealth came with complications. Regulators scrutinized his trading algorithms. Some accused him of manipulating markets. Rivals attempted to reverse-engineer his methods. The stress mounted. By 35, he had had enough. He cashed out, walking away with a net worth in the billions.
Escaping the Machine
Unlike other billionaires, he had no interest in yachts, private jets, or lavish parties. He despised inefficiency and waste. So, he disappeared.For a time, he lived anonymously in Japan, immersing himself in Zen philosophy. He learned to code in esoteric programming languages, trained in traditional martial arts, and experimented with extreme minimalism—owning nothing but a laptop, a backpack, and a few sets of clothes. His focus shifted to something deeper: how to escape human cognitive biases and transcend conventional decision-making.
His experiments led him down strange paths. He tested obscure neurological training techniques, dabbled in psychedelics for cognitive expansion, and even explored the feasibility of brain-computer interfaces. He was no longer optimizing financial markets—he was optimizing his own mind.
The Return
At 38, an unexpected opportunity pulled him back into the world. A group of former Stanford AI researchers reached out. They were working on something radical—an attempt to create an artificial intelligence that could predict and simulate human decision-making at an unprecedented level. Governments, corporations, and intelligence agencies were all interested.He couldn’t resist. The challenge was too compelling. He joined the project, but on his own terms—working remotely, communicating only through encrypted channels. His role was designing the system’s economic logic, teaching it how to model risk, uncertainty, and strategic deception.
The project’s implications were terrifying. If successful, it could manipulate global markets, rewrite financial systems, even reshape geopolitics. When a major investor proposed selling the technology to the highest bidder, he realized he had made a mistake.
One night, he wiped his servers, deleted his accounts, and vanished once more.
The Ghost in the Machine
By 40, he had become a myth. Some said he was living off-grid, using an assumed identity. Others believed he was still online, lurking in private forums, influencing markets from the shadows.His old hedge fund strategies still shaped the financial world. His AI work had been copied and commercialized, fueling new breakthroughs. But he was nowhere to be found.
Some claimed he was building something new—a system outside of governments and corporations, a self-sustaining intelligence that could think, predict, and act autonomously.
Was he creating the future? Or had he become its greatest threat?
No one knew.
And that was exactly how he wanted it.
or a darker version
After graduating from Stanford with multiple degrees, he entered the world of high-frequency trading, where his mathematical brilliance gave him an edge. His strategies were ruthless—finding inefficiencies in the market, exploiting them, and moving on before regulators could react. By his late 20s, he had accumulated more wealth than he ever thought possible. But it wasn’t enough.
The rush of outsmarting markets began to dull. He needed a bigger challenge, something more complex. That’s when he was approached by people who operated outside the confines of Wall Street—dark money groups, crypto hackers, and underground financial syndicates. They needed someone who could launder massive sums without detection, and he was uniquely equipped to solve that problem.
At first, it was just a side project. He designed automated systems that funneled illicit money through a labyrinth of digital assets, shell companies, and decentralized finance protocols. The algorithms were elegant—self-correcting, self-erasing, nearly untraceable. Governments struggled to understand them, let alone stop them.
But as the operation grew, so did the risks. He was no longer just an outsider playing the system—he was part of something much darker. Money was flowing through his hands from drug cartels, arms dealers, and cybercriminals. He told himself it was just a puzzle to solve, just numbers moving from one place to another. Morality was subjective, and he had always been more interested in logic than ethics.
Then, one day, the numbers betrayed him.
A minor bug in the system triggered an alert at an international financial watchdog. It was small—an inconsistency in a transaction trail—but it was enough to put him on their radar. Soon, agencies from multiple countries were investigating. The walls were closing in, but he had prepared for contingencies. Offshore accounts. False identities. Backup plans for his backup plans.
He fled before they could arrest him, slipping through the cracks of the system he had once manipulated so easily. For years, he lived like a ghost—changing names, moving between countries, always staying one step ahead. He continued working in the shadows, designing cyber-financial networks for the highest bidders, but paranoia crept in. Every knock on the door felt like the end. Every unfamiliar face could be the one that finally recognized him.
Then, one night in Bangkok, it happened.
The hotel room door burst open, and within seconds, he was on the ground, hands zip-tied behind his back. Interpol had finally caught up with him. The trial was swift, the evidence overwhelming. He had built a financial empire for criminals, and now he was paying the price.
Locked in a high-security prison, he had nothing left but time. No more markets to exploit, no more puzzles to solve. Just endless days in a concrete cell, replaying every move he had made. Wondering if he had been outplayed in the end—or if, deep down, he had always known this was how the game would end.
