Writing
The quieter half of the work.
My essays are long. They are about consciousness, love, impermanence, the founder's interior life, and the math problem I keep cracking in my spare hours. They are the part of the work I am most proud of, and the part that makes the rest of the work make sense.
I publish across three places. Pick the one closest to your curiosity.
Written here · newest
The Climb Up Cringe Mountain.
Essay · on the unglamorous middle
The Climb Up Cringe Mountain
The long, unglamorous middle nobody posts about. On being visibly bad in public for years, why the cringe is the tuition, and how to keep climbing without turning into a brand.
In progress · the longer work
Three books I am writing.
Book · drafting
Going Home
The math, the philosophy, and the Santana Principle. Sufficient awareness guarantees return. A long investigation of the Collatz Conjecture, framed as the cleanest mathematical statement of a thing I have always believed. Not a proof. A careful study of what nobody has yet proved.
Book · drafting
A Letter to My Parents
The book I am writing to them, not for them. On gratitude, distance, and what gets passed down whether anyone asked for it or not.
Book · drafting
Thank You For Your Honest Work
On building teams that ship. What years of multi-company operating and a thousand decisions about people taught me about the work of leading other people's work.
Start here
The three essays I'd hand a stranger.
The Consciousness Series · 01
I Had a Deep Conversation with an AI. It Changed How I Think About Consciousness.
25,000 words from one night at 2 AM, three million in debt, asking real questions for the first time. The closest thing to my interior life on the public record.
The Consciousness Series · 02
Love as a Fundamental Force: From Physics to Philosophy
What if love is not sentiment but structure.. the tendency of things to bind into greater wholes? The argument I've been making in private for years.
The Consciousness Series · 03
The Hard Problem of Consciousness: Why Science Still Can't Explain Experience
Chalmers, Dennett, Penrose. Why subjective experience remains unsolved.. and why the people who think it's solved are usually selling something.
The Consciousness Series
What minds are, and what we still don't know.
The AI Consciousness Debate: Can Machines Think, Feel, or Experience?
Chalmers vs. Dennett. IIT, GWT. Why confident dismissal of AI consciousness is unjustified.
Impermanence in Philosophy and Technology: What AI Teaches Us About Letting Go
Buddhist philosophy meets AI architecture. Impermanence is not tragedy.. it's the texture of existence.
Simulation Theory: Are We Living Inside a Computer?
Whether reality is a simulation.. and why the question matters even if the answer is no.
Digital Belonging: How Virtual Communities Are Redefining Human Connection
On virtual spaces becoming genuine sites of human connection.. and what that asks of us.
Operator Notes
Lessons from the work.
Private Equity Is Buying Up HVAC: Why We Stayed Independent
Private equity is rolling up home services at record pace. What the roll-up quietly does to your bill and your service.. and why The Cooling Company chose to stay family-owned in Las Vegas.
Entrepreneurial Journey: Key Lessons Learned
Pokemon cards in second grade. Backpack candy in fourth. Apple at sixteen. The pattern was always the same.
Sustainable Management: The Art of Profitable Responsibility
Balancing profit with purpose. Foundational to how GGI operates.
Commercial Real Estate: Beyond the Fundamentals
Strategic real estate from the perspective of a multi-company operator.
Mathematics
The problems I work on for fun.
More incoming
The next essay always sits a little longer than I want it to.
When the newsletter is wired up at me@tiagosantana.com, that's where the next one lands first.