“If we brought you $100M, would that change the pricing conversation?”

The silence in the boardroom was deafening.

I'd just pitched my vision for revolutionizing wealth management.

They liked the idea.

But when it came to what I was asking for—preferential pricing, revenue sharing, cutting their already thin margins—they weren't budging.

Their response was polite but brutal.

“We'd need to see significant volume before considering any pricing adjustments.”

Translation: Come back when you have leverage.

I walked out of that meeting with a harsh realization.

I was trying to fabricate leverage I didn't have.

Leverage Fabrication

Six weeks ago, I thought I could negotiate my way to success better than Donald Trump.

The Art of the Deal style.

Today I know better.

If you read last week's post, you know how chaotic those six weeks were.

What I didn't mention was the underlying mistake driving all that chaos.

I was trying to get permission before I had earned it.

I was asking for preferential treatment before I had anything to offer in return.

I was confusing confidence with leverage.

The wake-up call

That meeting wasn't an isolated incident.

Meeting after meeting with investment platforms.

Same pitch. Same ask. Same response.

“With more volume, anything's possible.”

It took me embarrassingly long to connect the dots.

My approach was backwards.

I was negotiating from a position of weakness and calling it strategy.

Defining leverage

Leverage is getting more output per unit of input.

It's the difference between pushing a boulder and using a crowbar.

But here's what I missed: not everyone gets the crowbar. At least, in the beginning.

Naval Ravikant breaks leverage into four types:

• Labor: People working for you (requires permission, messy to manage)

• Capital: Money amplifying your decisions (requires permission, hard to access)

• Code: Software that scales without you (permissionless, infinite potential)

• Media: Content that works while you sleep (permissionless, global reach)

The first two require someone else to say yes.

The last two? You can start building today.

AI: The final form of permissionless leverage

AI tools are permissionless leverage on steroids.

Think about what you can do now that was impossible a year ago:

• Build a functional app in a weekend using Bolt and Cursor.

• Generate personalized client proposals in seconds with Claude.

• Process your entire email inbox in minutes with Superhuman's AI categorization.

• Create content at scale with Grammarly and ChatGPT Canvas.

• Generate 10-page research reports with Perplexity Deep Research.

• Automate business workflows with Zapier's AI agents.

This isn't theoretical.

These are tools I use every single day.

They've become rocket ships for my mind.

The permissionless path

If I could go back to before those meetings, this is the path I’d advise myself to take.

But I had to learn that hard lesson.

The realization hit me like a tonne of bricks.

I was begging for leverage instead of building it.

But, the most powerful forms of leverage don't actually require anyone's permission:

• You don't need a corporate partner to approve your AI automation.

• You don't need a board of directors to sign off on your SaaS app.

• You don't need a committee to greenlight your content creation.

You just need to ship them.

Because at the end of the day:

• Money talks.

• Volume talks.

• Results talk.

• Promises don't.

• Potential doesn't.

• PowerPoints definitely don't.

You can't negotiate from weakness and expect to win.

You can't fabricate leverage out of thin air.

You have to build something tangible first.

Then the leverage follows.

The path forward

AI gives every founder access to unprecedented leverage.

You can build faster, think clearer, and scale further than any generation before.

But only if you stop asking for permission and start building value.

Got investors who want to see traction first?

They'll be interested when you prove the model works at scale with actual paying customers.

The market that seems too competitive?

It becomes less crowded when you deliver better service for lower prices through automation.

The lesson

Stop trying to negotiate your way to success.

Stop asking for leverage before you've earned it.

Stop confusing networking with building.

Start with permissionless leverage. Content, code, AI.

Start with AI tools that are available today.

Start building something so valuable that people can't ignore it.

The conversations change when you have something real to offer.

The partnerships happen when you don't need them anymore.

The leverage comes when you've built it yourself.

Questions

Where are you trying to negotiate from weakness instead of building from strength?

Would anything change if you focused on creating before seeking a partnership?

Which AI tools could give you permissionless leverage in your business today?

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? If you liked it, sign up here.

And, if you loved it, forward it to your friends and family.

Thanks for reading,

— Luca

P.S. Want to work together?

1. Get your free AI audit: If you’re still manually doing work that AI could handle in minutes, I'll show you exactly where you're bleeding time and money. In 25 minutes, I'll audit your current workflow and map out your personalized AI transformation roadmap. This is the same process I used to save 15+ hours per week in my own business. 🤖

2. See my complete tool stack: Beyond what I've shared today, I maintain a living document of every AI tool I test, why I use it, and which ones actually move the needle. Access my complete AI toolkit by reaching out here. 💼

That’s it from me. See you next week, Luca 👋

P.P.S Let’s connect on LinkedIn and X.