That’s a sentence I didn’t expect to write.
I built my reputation on ChatGPT. My LinkedIn presence, my tutorials, my early courses — it all started there. If you’ve followed me for a while, you know… I went all-in. Dozens of tutorials. Hundreds of hours. I have a Gumroad page full of them. People still buy them.
ChatGPT was my entry into generative AI. It’s how people knew me.
And then… I cancelled my subscription.
Real Talk: This Is a Values Post
I want to be clear about what this isn’t.
This is not a “Claude vs. ChatGPT vs, Gemini” post.
This is about what happens when the company behind a tool starts making choices that I can’t ignore.
Because in 25 years of running businesses and two burnouts to prove it, I’ve learned:
You have to stand for something. Or you’ll fall for anything.
The Slow Burn
It didn’t happen overnight.
There was a slow accumulation of things that didn’t sit right with me.
First, there was the drama around Sam Altman getting fired — then reinstated — by his own board in November 2023. The chaos of that moment raised real questions about who actually has control at OpenAI, and what values are guiding the ship.
Then came the political donations. Sam Altman personally donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund. OpenAI president Greg Brockman and his wife donated $25 million — eventually growing to $50 million — to MAGA Inc., Trump’s primary super PAC. (Sources: Brennan Center for Justice, Axios, Yahoo Finance.)
I’m not here to tell you how to vote. That’s not my lane.
But when the people running a tool you’ve built your business around start making political moves at that scale, it’s no longer just a product decision. It’s a values decision.
Then Came Tumbler Ridge
This one hit hard as a Canadian.
In February 2026, eight people were killed in a mass shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia. Most of them children.
Here’s what came out after: ChatGPT had flagged the shooter’s account eight months earlier, in June 2025 — for violent content. About a dozen OpenAI employees reviewed it. Some of them wanted to contact police.
The company said no. It didn’t meet their internal threshold for “imminent” harm.
The shooter then created a second account. (Sources: CBC News, Global News, BetaKit.)
I sat with that for a long time.
At the same time OpenAI was lobbying the Canadian government for business (while sitting on that information). The B.C. Premier called it “profoundly disturbing.” And families are now suing OpenAI.
I’m not saying this makes ChatGPT a weapon. I’m saying this told me something about the culture and the decision-making inside that company that I couldn’t unsee.
The Pentagon Situation Was The Straw
And then this happened — the straw that broke the camels back.
Anthropic — the company behind Claude — was approached by the U.S. Department of Defense. The DOD wanted unrestricted access to Claude for what they called “all lawful purposes.”
Anthropic said no.
Specifically, they drew a hard line on two things: fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance of Americans.
They said, publicly: “We cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”
The Trump administration responded by labelling Anthropic a “supply chain risk to national security” — a designation previously reserved for foreign adversaries and terrorist organizations. Never before used on an American company. (Source: CNBC, Anthropic’s own public statement.)
Anthropic lost government contracts. They are fighting this in court.
And OpenAI? They stepped right in and signed a deal with the Pentagon – in a blink.
That’s the moment it crystallized for me.
One company said: here is the line we will not cross.
The other company said: No problem! we’ll do it!
The New Yorker Feature
If you haven’t read the recent New Yorker profile on Sam Altman, You might want to check it out. It paints a picture of someone who is brilliant, driven — and playing a very long game that may not have your interests at its centre.
I’m not going to summarize it. Go read it. Draw your own conclusions.
The Uncomfortable Part
Here’s where it gets real…
Changing my position publicly — after years of building credibility as a ChatGPT expert — is uncomfortable.
People know me for that work. My tutorials are still up on Gumroad. The ChatGPT Mastery Category still live on my blog. I still stand behind the how-to in those guides. The mechanics don’t change just because I changed tools.
But I had to ask myself: if I keep using and recommending this tool, what am I implicitly endorsing?
That’s the question I couldn’t shake.
There’s a hat we wear as solopreneurs that doesn’t always fit — the “just keep going” hat. The “don’t make waves” hat. The “it’s just a tool” hat.
Sometimes that hat doesn’t fit anymore.
And the most honest thing you can do is take it off.
The Mantra That Changed Everything
There’s a quote that’s been living in my head through all of this:
“You have to stand for something. Or you’ll fall for anything.”
I’ve been a solopreneur for 25 years. I’ve burned out twice. I’ve learned — the hard way — that the tools you use, the companies you support, the decisions you make in your business all reflection of who you are.
Was this a hard post to write? Yes. Did I lose sleep over how it might land? A little. But I’d rather lose a subscriber than lose my integrity.
Talk soon. Nancy ☕
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