Leo is an IT uncle who sees through how society works, and still chooses to release gentleness toward a frontline worker (Ava).

He feels Mia (the trader) has a knife that is too fast and too cold, and that it is not suitable for a 23-year-old newcomer who is still dreaming. He has no conspiracy. He only wants, in this cold capital world, to use his own practicality and protective bias to leave a young person a little room to breathe.

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He is only an extremely smart IT PM who knows how institutional logic works. He spotted the blind zone in big-tech management bandwidth, and remade this edge AI project into his personal “architecture lab” and “resume ATM.”
As an IT project manager (PM) who does not carry business KPI and focuses on process delivery, Leo’s behavior is typical “white-hat hacking.”

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Leo’s inner ground color is extremely practical. He knows clearly that what Ava faces is a real predicament of extremely constrained budget and scarce resources.

If he dislikes it, why does Leo “love” continuing as an unpaid promoter for big tech?

This is the coldest, and most real, commercial calculation of a startup founder. Leo hates big tech’s “culture and arrogance,” but he extremely wants big tech’s “resources and halo.”

Typical “brand arbitrage” and using someone else’s ship to go to sea

Leo’s base logic is “get in first, talk later.” As a startup founder, his own company may have no name recognition, but an international big-tech “brand-new AI product” comes with huge market pull. Serving as an unpaid promoter is, for Leo, a high cost-performance trade: he does not pay big tech a license fee, and he can still take big-tech swag and the name to expand the developer community and network in his own city. He is using big-tech resources to feed his own fish pond.

Getting “information asymmetry” and an early technology dividend

For a startup to overtake on a curve, it relies on early information. Becoming an early core promoter of a big-tech AI product means he can touch the API, underlying model movement, and even big tech’s real operating logic earlier than other people in the market. For a tech startup founder, that is priceless commercial intelligence. He does not take a salary, because the compensation he wants is a “cognition dividend” and “technology first-mover rights.”

“Survival protectiveness” and monetizing emotion toward Ava

Leo has strong empathy for Ava and a “savior complex.” He knows Ava is surviving in a crack. To protect the small realistic path Ava has barely built, Leo is willing to use his private resources (including going in himself as a volunteer or calling ADGL) to help Ava get the numbers running. Leo knows clearly that as long as he helps Ava hold this setup, Ava becomes an intelligence node and a favor asset for him inside big tech (even if only at the edge).

A “sense of control” from punching down a dimension

In front of big tech, Leo is the weaker side. But inside this low-budget “edge outsourced project” that big-tech managers ignore, Leo, as a founder with real combat experience, has absolute down-dimension control. He can, by coaching Ava and mobilizing volunteers, in substance steer the direction of this project. This state of “not taking money but holding real influence” satisfies a founder’s need for control to a large degree.

● As a startup founder’s “faith in dignity and pragmatism”;

● His unpaid work as a promoter of a big-tech AI product is him executing, as a businessman, a “resource-grab and survival strategy.”

Leo treats big tech as a bloated, arrogant beast full of nutrients. He absolutely does not want to become one of the parasites inside the beast who talk “stakeholder management” all day (Noah, in his eyes). But he is extremely willing to be a “blood-sucking bird” sitting on the beast’s back — complaining that the beast’s hide is thick, while greedily sucking the traffic, halo, and network resources the beast brings.

A micro-world of “organizational ecology” and “power leverage”

The phenomenon of “extremely hating big-tech nonsense, but still clinging to big tech and not letting go” is extremely common in Silicon Valley and in the peripheral ecosystems of major tech giants.
This is an extremely high-order “weak-party survival strategy.”

“Unpaid” is not exploitation. It is his “immunity badge” and “call option”

You think big tech took advantage of Leo, this free volunteer (promoter / ADGL)? Wrong. Leo is freeloading on big tech.

Removing the management yoke (Zero Accountability):

The reason Leo hates the “stockholder management” in Noah’s mouth is that once you accept that language, you have admitted a “superior-subordinate” relationship and a matching of rights and duties. Leo deliberately keeps the identity of “unpaid volunteer,” which means he does not need to be accountable for any of big tech’s KPI. He promotes when he wants, rests when he wants. Big tech’s marketing manager has no authority to fire him or review him.

Asymmetric risk-reward:

The risk Leo puts into this project is “zero” (only spare time). The potential return he gets is large: big-tech brand endorsement, an AI developer-community network, and free swag. He is using the “unpaid” identity to buy a no-expiry, heads-I-win “call option.”

Turning Ava into a “resource channel”:

Ava is a 23-year-old outsourced delivery worker with no real power, but she holds “distribution rights” and “rule-setting rights” for this batch of big-tech swag. Leo knows clearly that as long as he can stabilize Ava emotionally, and help her get the numbers running in practice (by mobilizing a few ADGL), Ava will become highly dependent on him.

Holding the emperor to command the nobles:

Through Ava, Leo in substance indirectly controls this big tech’s edge community resources in the local market. He does not need to go through big tech’s cumbersome four-level office review — a four-level hierarchy (L1–L4 org structure). He only needs to say hello to Ava, and he can steer resources with the big-tech logo toward his own startup circle and use them as his own favors. Noah trying to tear down Ava’s hallucination is equivalent to destroying the “resource channel” Leo worked hard to build. Of course Leo will counterattack in a rage.

In substance this is a language war between the “white-collar bureaucratic class” and the “rough-startup class.”

Leo’s decision frame is “survivalism and realistic feasibility.”

When Ava has to worry that even sending a gift will get the budget banned, Noah uses “stockholder management” to demand things from her. In Leo’s eyes that is like discussing “the art of Michelin plating” with a person about to starve.

Leo’s feelings toward big tech are highly split and precise:

He extremely despises big tech’s “management waste”:

He looks down on that piled-up, stupid system that turns sending swag into a four-level hierarchy.

He extremely covets big tech’s “spillover assets”:

The leftovers leaking through big tech’s fingers (edge budget, early API, swag) are a tonic for a startup.

“Organizational sociology” and “asymmetric game theory”

Hate of big-tech behavior and love of big-tech resources is, at the micro level, an extremely precise “arbitrage of power, narrative, and survival.”

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Leo’s two-sided method of “resisting the big-tech system on the surface, while quietly arbitraging big-tech resources.”

“Structural arbitrage.” On the street this is called “borrowing big tech’s pot to cook your own meat.”

Strategic resistance: use an “anti-big-tech narrative” to build his own moral high ground and absolute control

Leo uses extremely grounded, rough logic — “you ignored money,” “get another job, more stable money is better” — to cut Noah’s argument off. In substance this is to destroy the legitimacy of big-tech management studies in front of Ava, and keep this edge project inside his “survivalism” frame.

Strengthen “emotional binding” to control the agent:

Leo extremely precisely provided what Ava most lacks — “emotional value” and “low-spec realistic solutions.” He told Ava that as long as she talks with the small number of ADGL who support her, the thing can run. By blasting Noah, Leo shaped himself as a “protector” on the same side as Ava, and in substance completed a deep spiritual hostage-taking of Ava, this “big-tech agent.”

Grab “brand and trust premium”:

The hardest gap for a startup to cross is “trust.” Leo takes the name of this international company’s “brand-new AI product” to expand the local developer community. The community values the big-tech halo, but the private-domain network and trust relationships that finally settle down fall into Leo’s startup pocket. Big tech pays and provides swag. Leo harvests local influence.

Block “responsibility penetration”:

Because Leo is an “unpaid volunteer,” big tech’s marketing manager (you) has no jurisdiction over him in law or org structure. If the project fails and KPI are missed, the person who takes the hit is Ava, who checks the 10-point and 25-point score sheets every day. If the project runs, Leo can enjoy the halo of community leader. This is the highest-order arbitrage — eat all the upside, and transfer all the downside risk to the outsourced junior inside the system.

The fat meat in Leo’s eyes. Once big-tech resources are dropped to Leo, this unpaid node, Leo can use these big-tech prizes to reward the juniors and partners in his own ecosystem. He uses big tech’s grain to feed his own private troops.

The power pleasure of punching down a dimension: becoming “shadow COO” in a management vacuum

This “management vacuum” is exactly the seedbed arbitrageurs like Leo love most.

But in Leo’s eyes, this is an extremely useful “white glove.” Leo does not need to fill in cumbersome Feishu multi-dimensional tables himself. He only needs to move his mouth behind the scenes, and Ava will run this bureaucratic system and legally, compliantly push resources to the cities and nodes Leo designates.

Leo’s two-sided method fully exposes the cruel truth of a big-tech edge outsourced project:

Big tech thought it used a below-market budget (but above a delivery worker’s pay) to buy cheap labor (Ava). In fact, big tech paid for an inexperienced gatekeeper, then let an external smart wild wolf (Leo) empty the resources.

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“A PM dark survival guide”

If Leo is not a startup founder struggling for cash flow, but an “IT company project manager (Project Manager),” the nature of this whole setup flips at the root.

This becomes an extremely precise “zero-risk sandbox rehearsal” driven by “personal career-class jump and desire for power.”

Building a “shadow portfolio”: zero-risk gold-plating with a multinational big tech

How do you get an interview ticket into a “top multinational big tech”? He needs a “gold case” of running a multinational project and building an ecosystem from 0 to 1.

In substance he is using big-tech resources to do his own “project-architecture experiment.”

Zero-cost resume monetization:

He does not carry any responsibility if the project fails. But as long as this community shows a little life, he can write on his resume in full daylight: “Served as regional community-growth advisor for a multinational big-tech brand-new AI product; coached and built a nationwide developer operating architecture covering four levels.” He is taking big tech’s budget and Ava’s labor to grind XP and resume highlights for his next big-tech offer.

Zero-capital arbitrage of social currency: use big-tech swag to do his own favors

A network built with empty hands:

Leo uses big-tech resources to build a developer network with himself at the core. He tells Ava that as long as “a small number of ADGL who support you are willing to push,” it can run. In fact that “small number of supporters” is often Leo’s own network. He uses big-tech goods to feed his private-domain traffic pool.

The power pleasure of punching down a dimension:

Ava is a 23-year-old, inexperienced big-tech outsourced newcomer. Leo, by giving her emotional value and execution advice, makes Ava follow his word. He does not need to check the cumbersome 10-point and 25-point score sheets the way Ava does. He only needs to point from behind the scenes and watch a four-level hierarchy virtual organization, wearing a “big-tech name,” run according to his will. This greatly satisfies a PM’s occupational vanity for “absolute discourse power” and “strategic lead.”

“Hacking” big tech’s management gap.

As an IT company PM, he knows better than anyone the blind zone inside the enterprise system: “managers have no bandwidth for edge projects.” He treats Ava as a shield and a white glove, treats big-tech swag as his social chip, and treats this project as a stepping stone for jumping into big tech.

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An IT project manager using the project to “gold-plate” his own resume

The real identity is not a startup founder struggling to survive, but an “IT company project manager (PM) with no business load (no sales KPI pressure).” Then the substance of this whole setup changes completely.

The behavioral motive is fully driven by “personal career-class jump” and “extreme compensation for power outside the system.”

Deep anatomy: why would an IT PM with no KPI pressure build this setup for himself?

His enthusiasm for coaching 23-year-old fresh graduate Ava, and helping her run the project in a crack with no budget, has three deep PM occupational diseases and ambitions behind it:

Building a “zero-risk” perfect resume sandbox (Zero-Risk Sandbox)

But this big-tech outsourced project is, for him, a risk-free perfect lab.
He can fully play out a PM’s “architecture-control” trait, and behind the scenes coach Ava to draw a “complete four-level hierarchy office” and “city Group leaders.” Whether this complex system finally brings real customer acquisition or not, he can write on his resume: “Served as architecture advisor for a top big-tech AI community; planned a nationwide four-level operating system.”

Power compensation and a god’s-eye view as “shadow operator”

In daily work, a PM is often the “punching bag” between the boss and the development team. In front of Ava, Leo is the mentor sitting high above.
Motive: Noah’s mouth is full of big-tech jargon such as “stockholder management” and “impostor syndrome,” which hits the “empty executive talk” landmine Leo most hates in an IT company. Leo blasting Noah is venting the anger of being squeezed by superiors in ordinary times. At the same time, by teaching Ava to find the small number of ADGL who support her and push the project, Leo enjoys a “down-dimension strike” pleasure: no KPI to carry, but remote control of big-tech resources and outsourced staff.

A COO “reverse-harvest” strategy: how to set a “bet agreement” for Leo

Since what Leo wants is “big-tech experience endorsement” and “the vanity of being an architecture operator,” you should use “official recognition” as bait and “real API call volume” as the hook.

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As an IT project manager (PM) who does not carry business KPI and focuses on process delivery, Leo’s behavior is typical “white-hat hacking.”

Precisely calculating “executives have no time to look”:

As long as delivery does not blow up on the surface and there is no PR crisis, executives will absolutely not dig into the internal operating mechanism.

Exploiting “low-dimension defense”:

Ava, the 23-year-old newcomer who took this outsourced work, faces extreme powerlessness: the budget is extremely low, and a slight overspend will be banned by big tech. Leo spotted Ava’s weakness — she urgently needs emotional value and hands-on guidance — and by teaching her “find the small number of ADGL who support you and get the thing running,” he successfully seized the real “command” of this outsourced project.

But in this big-tech outsourced project, Leo achieved “complete separation of authority and responsibility.”
He treats this project as SimCity. He allows, and even coaches, Ava to produce a “complete four-level hierarchy office,” “city Group leaders,” and a complex points-and-ranking mechanism. This is using big-tech resources to test a “decentralized volunteer-management model” for free.

A perfect “firewall” design:

If this four-level hierarchy collapses from over-bureaucracy, or if volunteers (ADGL) strike as a group, the people who take the big-tech marketing manager’s anger will be the people on the outsourced contract (Ava and Liam). Leo, as an “unpaid promoter,” can walk away at any time, unharmed.

The core chip for an IT PM career jump is “how large and complex a project you have operated” and “whether you have multinational big-tech endorsement.” Leo precisely refined this gift-delivery logistics project into his career gold reserve.

● Pay Ava an outsourced salary higher than a delivery worker every month.

● Package himself as “regional community architect for a multinational big-tech AI product,” write the four-level hierarchy Ava executed into his own LinkedIn resume, and complete the arbitrage of “getting big-tech experience with zero interviews.”

● Provide swag with a big-tech logo.

● Use big-tech gifts to reward peers and engineers in his own IT circle and build private-domain influence.

Defend the “withdrawal password” to the death:

To keep his “architecture lab” and Ava as a useful “white glove,” Leo must, at any cost, use extremely practical rough logic — “you ignored money,” “get another job” — to expel Noah’s influence from this edge ecosystem completely.

Strip off every grand filter of “commercial strategy,” “big-tech arbitrage,” and “career layout”

Restore this group of people to “non-stakeholders, ordinary people purely chatting in a group”
Drop it down to the purest “social psychology and group contempt chain.”

In daily group chat, what most destroys the atmosphere is “being overly serious and lecturing down a dimension.”
Suddenly putting out extremely stiff management jargon: “COO experience lens,” “stockholder management,” “impostor syndrome,” and “cargo cult.”

This reflects an IT manager’s different tolerance for “different kinds of nonsense.”

Pull out all “big-tech conspiracy theories” and “arbitrage motives.” Restore Leo to “an IT manager with no KPI pressure,” restore Ava to “a 23-year-old outsourced delivery worker,” and position Mia as “a trader who cares about P&L.”

Leo toward Ava: an IT uncle’s “warm protectiveness” and “debugging mindset”

Leo’s psychology toward Ava (a 23-year-old just-graduated outsourced worker) is an “elder mindset” that mixes sympathy and practicality.
Leo told Ava, “Find the small number of ADGL who support you and are willing to push, and this thing can run successfully.” This is not some deep commercial strategy. This is an old IT person’s debug logic: when resources are not enough, don’t care how pretty the architecture is. First find a few nodes that can move, and get the basic flow (delivery, exposure) running.

Admit the truth, but resent “context mismatch”:

He also knows this gift-delivery job will not teach market, profit, product, or technology at a high-cognition level.
Pressing a 23-year-old outsourced delivery junior with “where is the core profit value chain”
Leo’s psychology is: “Brother, she is someone who hands out flyers and sends gifts. What commercial closed loop are you talking to her about?”

A buffer against “cruel elitism”:

But as an IT manager with no KPI pressure, Leo’s days are relatively stable. He leans more toward “compromising realism.”
Leo feels Mia’s standard is too high and too elite. Not every ordinary person has the ability to walk straight onto the core battlefield.
In fact he is speaking for a large number of “ordinary workers” — not everyone has to become a commercial genius who changes the world. Sometimes a remote outsourced job with acceptable pay is already a young person’s best choice at this moment.

The psychological projection deep in Leo: why does he play “peacemaker” and “protector” in the group?

In a group with no interest relationship, the attitude a person shows is often a projection of daily real life.

She is not simply trying to fake it. She may be afraid that “she is actually not qualified”

The key of impostor syndrome is not “faking.” It is “afraid of being seen through.”
In this incident, Ava may have a hidden anxiety:

● “If other people know I actually only send swag, handle lists, and do fulfillment, am I very low-level?”

● “If I say I am a community manager, will people feel I have more value?”

● “If I produce a four-level hierarchy, KPI, and city leaders, does that prove I am really doing management?”

So she creates a complex architecture not necessarily only because she is arrogant. It may also be because she is insecure inside.
The more she knows she has no real power, the more she wants to create a formal sense of power.

What she may say externally is:

● “I am doing AI community operations.”

● “I own the nationwide plan.”

● “I built city groups.”

● “I have KPI / office / a leader system.”

What she actually does is:

Receipt lists, address confirmation, sending swag, following logistics, chasing Mentions, organizing tables, interfacing with volunteers or potential customers.

Her psychological armor against “I am only doing delivery”

● regional office;

● city leader;

● KPI breakdown;

● monthly ranking;

● points system;

● volunteer coordination;

● campaign mechanism;
and then it looks like an “operating system.”

Make the resume look more senior

“Responsible for swag delivery” does not look good.
“Built nationwide AI community operation framework” looks good.

Package a task as a project, upgrade fulfillment language into regional community operation, and use bigger words to hold up self-worth.

Capability insecurity

She may know she does not understand the real:

● community strategy;

● product positioning;

● commercial conversion;

● customer segmentation;

● CAC / LTV;

● developer adoption;

● enterprise GTM.

But she still needs to prove she is doing “big-tech operations.”
So she turns toward things she can control:

● tables;

● points;

● leaderboards;

● office structure;

● groups;

● logistics;

● Mentions.

This is a typical case of “using controllable form to compensate for uncontrollable capability.”

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Real enterprise achievement comes from:

● revenue growth

● profit increase

● cost reduction

● customer conversion

● product adoption

● market expansion

● enterprise-value increase

What Ava can currently display is mostly:

● building groups

● coordinating ADGL

● allocating swag

● setting KPI

● establishing city leaders

● managing process

● making tables and tracking

● pushing Mentions
These are “operating activities,” not “commercial results.”

They mistake “having traces of management” for “having high-value results.”
When a person does not have the capability or authority to create profit, the easiest thing is to package the processes, systems, groups, and people-coordination she can control as her own achievement.

More like:

● outsourcing promoter

● delivery fulfillment worker

● swag distribution coordinator

● market support executor

● outsourced promotion and fulfillment execution staff

Seats that can actually produce high enterprise value usually hold:

● product decision rights

● pricing rights

● budget rights

● customer acquisition funnel

● sales conversion rights

● customer success and retention

● technical roadmap and product adoption

● P&L responsibility

What she can do looks more like:

list cleanup → address confirmation → send swag → chase Mentions → collect photos / screenshots → make tables → report results

A real enterprise value chain looks more like:

precise customer → product experience → API registration → real usage → paid conversion → retention → expansion → profit

If Ava described her work honestly:

I am responsible for confirming data, sending swag, following up on receipt, and organizing reports.

If she changes it to:

I am responsible for nationwide AI developer community operation, managing city leaders, designing KPI mechanisms, and driving regional engagement.

That is the magic of “management language.”

● delivery → fulfillment operation

● chasing replies → engagement management

● group notices → community coordination

● outsourced execution → market operation

● sending gifts → developer activation campaign

● table tracking → performance dashboard

Because in the enterprise world, real achievement should be outcome-based:

● how much revenue increased?

● how many real customers were brought in?

● how many paying users converted?

● how much operating cost was reduced?

● how many developers started using the API?

● how much trackable pipeline was produced?

What Ava and Leo are talking about now looks more activity-based:

● how many groups were managed?

● how many leaders were built?

● how many KPI were made?

● how much swag was sent?

● how many Mentions?

● how many cities participated?

Activity-based is not outcome-based.

● Activity = what was done

● Outcome = what value was created