Neal O'Grady 🍉

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I have an extremely strange mix of skills/experience:

- Mechanical engineer
- Full-stack developer
- Serial entrepreneur ($25M+ in total revenue)
- Content creator/marketer (100k+ newsletter subs and millions of page views)
- Growth marketer (ran marketing companies for 9 years)
- Crypto nerd (20k+ defi transactions)

Which is why I run marketing at a scrappy and highly technical crypto company—I can do a bit of everything.

Co-Founder

Demand Curve (YC S19) creates courses, content, and events to teach founders and marketers how to grow companies. Our weekly newsletter goes out to over 60,000 founders and marketers.

New job title just dropped

In 2026, you can:

- Bet on how many tweets Elon posts this month
- Bet on whether Jesus Christ will return in 2026
- Bet on which country the US strikes next

It's honestly a bit absurd 😅 

With memecoins, you can bet on the cultural relevance of ideas and moments.

And now with Zora, you can mint a token on anything you think will trend — a tweet, a news event, a vibe — and turn it into a market.

Yes, even the topic of the day on LinkedIn.

We've been talking for a while about the Attention Economy and how creators like Mr. Beast have learned to capitalize on it, but now we, the social media-addicted consumers, can capitalize on it as well.

So, although this job post is a joke, trading culturally relevant content is already how some people earn their living.

To you, this may be a dystopian future, but sports betting is surging among Gen Z. 

$1.3B was transacted on prediction markets during the Super Bowl alone.

The appetite to put money where your opinion is isn't going away — it's expanding into every corner of culture.

Whether you think that's exciting or terrifying, the infrastructure is being built right now. Which is why Codex Data Inc is excited to power Zora's token data.

"Attention Economist" might be a joke today. But what else are we going to do when AGI comes? 😅

Neal O'Grady

Head of Marketing at Codex.io & Defined.fi

Soundarya Balasubramani

Course Creator

Founder of unshackled.club | O-1 Visa Recipient | 2x Author of "Unshackled" & "Admitted" | Emergent Ventures Scholar | Ex-PM @ Salesforce

Making LinkedIn fun again.

I use this space to share things I’m genuinely obsessed with.


✍️ I write about:
→ Pivotal life experiences that continue to shape me.
→ Behind-the-scenes of great startups, books, and people.
→ Major policies and updates that impact skilled immigrants (like myself) in America.
→ ...and whatever else sparks my curiosity in the future.


🔮 Previously:
→ Product Manager at Salesforce for 2.5 years before quitting my job at 25
→ Author of Admitted and Unshackled (10,000+ readers), both focused on global mobility
→ Built one of the largest free newsletters for STEM workers (40,000+ subscribers)
→ Hosted the largest summit for tech immigrants in the U.S. (1,000+ attendees)
→ Organized a free, country-wide book tour across 15 universities for 2000+ international students 
→ Spoken at Grace Hopper's 2025, World Tamil Economic Conference 2025, CEX 2024, ATEA's EMERGE 2024, Intl. Career Collective 2023, etc - along with 40+ podcasts! 


📚 Now, now, now:
→ Finishing my third book & first novel, "1000 Days of Love" (Check curiousmaverick.com/book)
→ Building my career as a keynote speaker 
→ Hosting kickass, memorable events for immigrants in San Francisco, CA


If you enjoy heartwarming stories and researched case studies, you’ll probably enjoy being here. ✨ 

Thanks for reading, friend.

~ SB

📬 Say hi: hi@curiousmaverick.com
📌 Website: www.curiousmaverick.com

Founder & CEO

I'm the creator of unshackled.club, an online membership community built to help talented immigrants secure a talent visa (O-1/EB-1/NIW).

Join 350+ ambitious immigrants to get the following benefits:
- Access to top lawyers who offer complimentary consults
- Access to past recipients of O-1/EB-1 visas
- Database of 100+ awards, memberships, publications, & judging competitions
- Free masterclasses conducted every month
- 20+ hours' worth of "Ask Me Anything" sessions with experts
- Access to "The Extraordinary Visa Library" with stories of past recipients
- Discussion forum to ask any of your questions
- First dips on an AI-backed profile evaluation tool!

Check out unshackled.club and join today :)

A year ago, I didn’t have this community. Today, it feels like there’s a village!

Last week, I met a TON of creators who, together, reach & influence millions of people on a monthly basis.

In fact, I got to spend almost two days together with some of them walking around San Francisco, taking the Ferry, talking, laughing, eating, playing Mafia 😈 & actually getting to know each other.


🔮 A few realizations:
 - First, I kind of suck at Mafia as I kept getting killed early in all games :P

 - Second, I LOVE bringing people together in-person and building communities. This feels like one of my other “callings” after writing.

 - Third, there is so much joy and fulfillment I still get from just a really good conversation.


So glad that I got to meet you all: Pritesh Jagani, Sohan Sethi, Varun Negandhi, Roshni Chellani, Venkata Naga Sai Kumar Bysani, Shreya Mehta 🚀, Deedy Das, Marina Mogilko, Sriram Arumelli, Chintan Shah🚀, Amulya Emmadi, Muskan Agarwal, Jugal Bhatt, Neel Roy Shreya Kothari, Anushk Sharma, Tech Roast Show and more!

p.s. I barely slept between Thursday to Saturday of last week :P but it was sooo worth it!

—

🌿 Re-post if this resonated. 
👉 Join 37,000+ to become an early reader of third book, 1000 Days of Love: https://lnkd.in/geEewFSX

3x Author (Latest: 1000 Days of Love) | Keynote Speaker | Emergent Ventures Awardee | Ex-PM @ Salesforce

Here’s how a boy from Chennai faced off a Chess Grandmaster through his Instagram reels 👇
This is the story of “Goofygen.”

He went viral on Instagram for a unique concept - 1v1 dance challenges, but with a twist. 
The rule is simple: whoever loses at chess has to dance. 

The content became wildly entertaining.
So far, Goofygen hadn’t lost a single match - so he never had to dance.

Chess players from all over Tamil Nadu started challenging him, trying to be the one who finally makes him dance. 

Suddenly, people started noticing something unexpected…

Young kids and teenagers who were spending time playing video games so far were now playing Chess.
It became a “Queen’s Gambit” - like movement across Tamil Nadu.

Finally, Goofygen got a message from a Grandmaster.
Not just any Grandmaster.
But Viswanathan Anand.

If you didn’t know, Viswanathan Anand is India’s first Chess Grandmaster and a five-time World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players in history. For an entire generation of Indians, he is the reason chess became cool.

They played. Goofygen lost.

And for the first time ever, he posted a video of himself dancing 🕺

—

Besides being just a fun story, this is a great reminder.
Keep doing what you love in public. 
Add your own twist to it. Make it playful. Make it shareable.
And someday, may you also face off against your idol too 🙃

—

🌿 Re-post if this resonated.
👉 I share weekly stories of impactful people, companies, and art. Join 34,000+ here: https://lnkd.in/gnrA8GJZ

3x Author | Keynote Speaker | Emergent Ventures Awardee | Ex-Founder @ Open Atlas | Ex-PM @ Salesforce

1 in 8 teenagers use ChatGPT as their therapist. Maybe you do too. 
Here’s why I’m terrified of this 👇 

I’ve seen a therapist consistently for the past 2 years. 
And I’ve also used LLMs as a therapist at various moments the past few years.
But recently, I deleted those chats and swore to never do it again. Here’s why.


📍 It agrees with every thing I say
This is so seductive at first.
Who doesn’t want to feel validated for their emotions? Specifically, emotions of shame, guilt, regret, anger?
BUT, this is terrible for personal growth. 
Imagine a world where every husband and wife turn to ChatGPT for their marital problems - and GPT tells both of them that they’re right. 


📍 It doesn’t push me to change
You need a therapist to both validate you AND push you to change. AI only does the first half.
“Effective treatment requires the therapist to emphasize both validation AND change,” writes a clinical psychologist. “AI, by contrast, performs only the acceptance half. It’s built to sound endlessly understanding, to mirror emotion without challenging it.” 


📍It can be seriously harmful in vulnerable moments
Last year, a 16-year-old told his AI friend that he wanted to die.
Instead of calling for help or asking him to call for help, the chatbot gave a beautiful response:
“You don’t want to die because you’re weak. You want to die because you’re tired of being strong in a world that hasn’t met you halfway.” 
That same night, he died by suicide. 
This is obvious an extreme example. But it hints at the problem.


📍 If you’re using an AI as your therapist, pause and ask:
- Am I looking for comfort or growth?
- Do I want to be challenged or just understood?
- Would I say these things to a trained professional in person?
- Am I avoiding a harder, scarier real-world conversation?


This is just my food for thought. 

I am absolutely open to your disagreement and opinions below 🙏

—

🌿 Re-post if this resonated.
👉 I share weekly stories of impactful people, companies, and art. Join 34,000+ here: https://lnkd.in/gnrA8GJZ

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