Philosophy, business, and a life of inquiry.
Returning to political philosophy to ask what knowledge, reason, and judgment mean in an age of artificial intelligence.
The education that stayed with him.
Neil Sumaru is a political scientist by training, specializing in political philosophy. He studied under Professor Leon Harold Craig at the University of Alberta, where the study of enduring arguments was inseparable from the practice of questioning assumptions and following reasoning wherever it led.
These ideas remained a formative influence on how he examined competing arguments, approached business challenges, and thought about leadership and consequential decisions.
Alongside his intellectual interests, his professional career has spanned nearly three decades across entrepreneurship, international finance, technology, and business leadership. His experience includes serving as Americas CEO of Hong Kong-based Lotus Investment Limited and as an advisor to the CEO of CarsFast, a company that leveraged AI/ML technology to achieve a nine-figure valuation.
He also spent 13 years with Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), moderating executive peer forums, serving in chapter and regional leadership capacities, and participating as a member of an EO global subcommittee. These experiences gave him sustained exposure to the decisions and uncertainties facing founders, leadership teams, and institutions across different markets.
Same questions.
Different conditions.
After decades of experience in business and technology, the questions encountered in the works of Aristotle, Plato, Hobbes, and other political and scientific thinkers returned with renewed significance. How do we know? What makes an argument persuasive or true? What allows us to judge responsibly?
AI now enters activities that once seemed distinctively human: organizing evidence, generating explanations, shaping attention, and proposing reasons for action. This inquiry revisits the intellectual tradition that shaped his thinking and examines what its questions and arguments might reveal about these changing conditions.
Virtue Is Knowledge is the public home of this inquiry, expressed through lectures, essays, and conversation.