Bounties
Payment of bounties is forbidden until lasting results
Updated 2026 May:
Emergent Misalignment coauthor, Daniel Tan’s uptime increased: he gained ~5h/day and hasn’t had a week-long ‘outage’ since our eight calls 9mo ago. Now he does things he used to avoid, like sharing early ideas, making research decisions without overthinking, and hosting parties for friends.
Founding engineer’s burnout lifted once he finally shared the feedback he didn’t realize he had. The founders acted immediately; he stayed and started shipping again.
Frontier lab researcher went from deferring to senior colleagues to challenging them after two conversations. 18mo later he still pushes back, even runs his own team.
Engineer was avoiding things that could make him look stupid. Within weeks he was working on harder engineering problems, learning to dance, and rallying friends to build an indoor zip line. 18mo later he’s still happy to look dumb.
Payment of bounties is forbidden until lasting results. Usually expensed to your company. The bond can be returned once you complete the weekly exercise. I’m a bounty hunter — and you agree to assist with 6, 12, 18+ month follow-ups. Screening is rigorous and you must complete a trial to be accepted.
To get in touch- Signal if you have mine | X DM | Substack chat | chris@chrislakin.com
“Different than any other work I’ve done… I asked her out. I’m happy in the relationship.” —AI lab researcher
“You probably saved me a couple million haha” —AI engineer
