I did the one thing I swore I’d never do
When the line between visionary and unhinged blurs
It was one in the morning.
I was in bed, running loops through my head—markets, strategies, flipping variables.
I wasn’t tossing or turning, just wired, trying to see the pattern inside the noise.
I wasn’t chasing an answer so much as listening for one.
And then it hit me—an idea so wild it didn’t belong in a notebook.
I picked up my phone and texted my co-founder:
“You’re going to hate me. But you’re going to love this. Come over tomorrow.”
In business, you can often tell in an instant who’s ready—and who isn’t.
A few months earlier, I’d gone to a networking mixer and posted about it on LinkedIn. Unlike my usual feed, it attracted a new crowd—founders, operators, people who actually build things.
One connection request stood out. On paper, he was impressive: co-founder of a fast-growing platform I’d started seeing in ads and Reddit threads. The kind of pedigree that usually comes with a bit of gravity—investors, press mentions, panels, all of it.
So when he reached out, I thought, interesting—this could be worth a conversation.
Then I opened his message.
“Saw your post.”
That was it. No curiosity. No bridge. No invitation.
I actually went and looked him up again, just to make sure I wasn’t missing something—maybe he was busy, or there was context I didn’t catch. I read about his company, skimmed their case studies, looked at what they were building. It was good work. It made sense.
So I decided to do the decent thing. I wrote back. Not a throwaway line, but a proper reply—mentioned his company, what I’d been working on, and how some of our work might overlap. I gave him an easy opening.
His reply came quickly:
“Love to hear that.”
And that was it.
No follow-up, no question, no spark.
That’s when it clicked: he’s not ready for business.
Because business isn’t about status—it’s about curiosity.
The best operators I know treat curiosity like oxygen. It’s what keeps the conversation alive.
The moment it’s gone, the deal dies. And maybe that’s why the people who stay curious the longest start to look a little unhinged—because they’re still asking questions long after everyone else has moved on.
My co-founder came in the next morning.
He arrived, calm as always, and we went through the usual pleasantries. He walked over to the table where we usually sat and worked and pulled out a chair.
That’s when I stopped him.
“You’re gonna want the couch.”
I didn’t plan it. I just started talking.
Logic, trajectories, imagination.
Extrapolation, storytelling, conviction.
One idea unfolded into the next, each piece locking into place faster than I could process it. I wasn’t pitching anymore—I was building the thing in real time.
He just sat there, listening, nodding, occasionally throwing in a question or two—small objections, small pivots.
I was shocked at how long I’d been talking.
No one had ever just let me go like that before—just sit there and listen while I built an entire world out loud.
Maybe I was borderline manic, but I was convinced. I believed in this idea more than I had believed in anything else.
And that’s when I realized something else.
I finally understood what crazy was.
I wasn’t just the guy with the crazy idea.
I had become the crazy one.
Because I’d just done something I swore I’d never do.
A few years earlier, when I was briefly in real estate, I attended a Q&A session between the brokerage’s CEO and his chief of staff. They were trading stories about how they worked together—how they’d learned each other’s rhythms, how they’d built this shorthand you only get from running at the same speed for years.
At one point, the chief of staff laughed and said he used to get texts from the CEO in the middle of the night. Out-of-nowhere ideas. Half-formed strategies. Random flashes of clarity. Half the room laughed; the other half groaned.
I remember thinking: that’s insane.
But also… kind of amazing.
There was something about the rawness of it—the pure velocity of someone who couldn’t wait until morning to think out loud. I admired that energy. I thought, one day, I’d love to have that kind of fire.
But I also promised myself I’d never do that to someone else.
And then, years later, there I was—doing it.
Eventually, he bought in.
I don’t text him in the middle of the night anymore. That was a one-time thing.
But it taught me something. The people we call crazy are often just the ones thinking a few frames ahead—too fast for the rest of us to recognize the pattern yet.
The truth is, every industry has its version of that 1 a.m. glow—the moment when curiosity outruns consensus. Most people shut the laptop and promise to revisit it later. A few can’t. They chase it. And that chase is what eventually redraws the map for everyone else.
And if you’re lucky, every once in a while, you catch a glimpse of what they’re seeing.
Long enough to follow it.
Long enough to build it.
Long enough to realize that maybe being called crazy is just the cost of paying attention before everyone else does.
After all that, I finally asked my co-founder, “Am I crazy?”
He didn’t even pause.
“Yeah,” he said. “But in the best way.”