Manila, 2025 — Inside a transparent laboratory on the uppermost floor of a skyscraper in Ortigas, dozens of machines hum like monks in wordless communion. On the far wall, engraved in brushed steel, five words glint in the ambient light: “Be ahead. Don’t chase. Stay fluid.”
This is the nerve hub of PSR Capital, the investment firm founded by 41-year-old polymath Joseph Plazo — the man behind the AI now known as “System 72.”
With a 99% win rate in stock markets and unprecedented performance in copyright, Plazo’s self-governing AI engine isn’t just rewriting the rules of finance — it’s reframing our very perception of intelligence, strategy, and risk.
But perhaps more shocking than the numbers is what he did next.
He released it to the world.
### The Algorithm That Senses Panic Before It Happens
“We don’t just predict trends,” Plazo says, grazing his fingers across a glowing interface. “We predict fear.”
System 72, the latest in a series of successive iterations over 12 years, is not just a supercharged algorithm. It’s a recursive deep learning engine with what Plazo calls Emotion-Driven Analytics — a proprietary framework that analyzes trillions of data points to feel how people will feel before the market reacts.
“It learns from liquidity spikes, sentiment anomalies, subtle language cues on Twitter, and macroeconomic dissonance — then models mass human reaction simultaneously,” he explains.
The result? A system that doesn’t respond to the market. It moves before it like a ghost ahead of time.
### From Brownouts to Billionaire
A decade ago, Plazo was training AI models by candlelight in a small apartment in Quezon City. Blackouts were common. The air was hot. The code was primitive.
“I didn’t have Bloomberg terminals or GPU farms. Just a cracked laptop, textbooks, and stubborn grit,” he says, laughing.
He had just quit a well-paying executive job, betting his future on a dream to build a system that could beat the game — not just with speed, but with soul.
System 27 lost him half his savings. System 43 looked promising… until it glitched out during a flash crash. But he kept building. Kept refining.
By System 71, the wins were consistent. With 72, it became world-class.
“I cried when I saw the simulation complete. Not because I was rich. But because… it worked. Against all odds.”
### The Decision That Stunned Wall Street
When the board of his company reviewed System 72’s results, the reaction was predictable: License it. Keep it secret. Sell it to the highest bidder.
Plazo did the unprecedented.
“I released the source code to twelve top Asian universities,” he says. “No paywall. No hedge fund gatekeeping. Just code, curiosity, and courage.”
His reason?
“I’ve seen too many people burned by the markets they don’t understand,” he says, pausing. “My father was one of them. A smart man. Honest. But one bad investment destroyed our home.”
Plazo’s voice drops, the room suddenly heavy. “If he had this system, he wouldn’t have gone bankrupt.”
That pain, he says, became the spark. The fuel. The purpose.
### Teaching the World to Win
Plazo has since launched a cross-border speaking circuit, speaking at institutions from Kyoto University to the National University of Singapore. He lectures beside machine learning professors who now teach his framework to instruct students in behavioral modeling.
“Plazo’s Emotional Momentum framework is the pioneering form of behavioral AI applied to finance today,” says Dr. Hana Kim, a lead AI researcher at SeoulTech. “It doesn’t just see markets — it understands emotion.”
Students are creating applications using the tech. One PhD student in Bangalore used a modified version to predict election outcomes. Another group in Taiwan adapted it for supply chain modeling.
“Once you understand how fear moves across networks,” Plazo says, “you can apply it to every industry.”
### The Criticism, The Praise — and the Future
Not everyone’s applauding.
Some traditionalists have slammed the release as “irresponsible,” warning that thousands of amateur traders might misuse the tech.
Others whisper darker concerns: That the open-sourced system could lead to automated trading wars in hedge fund ecosystems.
But Plazo isn’t worried.
“We gave the world the printing press. It didn’t end language — it revolutionized it. This is the same.”
For now, his firm continues to manage billions. But Plazo himself is shifting toward education.
“I’m not building wealth anymore,” he says. “I’m building something bigger. There’s a difference.”
### What Comes After Godmode?
As we leave the get more info lab, the machines keep singing. Outside, Manila traffic simmers — alive, unpredictable, human.
And yet somewhere, a piece of Plazo’s code is already anticipating, learning, plotting the next step before it happens.
He turns back for a moment and says, “I didn’t build a system to trade stocks. I built a system to give people power over chaos.”
In a world where uncertainty is the only constant, Joseph Plazo didn’t just create a cheat code.
He handed the joystick to the world.