Ortigas, 2025 — Inside a glass-walled laboratory on the 16th floor of a tech tower in Ortigas, a network of machines purr like monks in silent prayer. On the far wall, inlaid in burnished chrome, five words glow in the ambient light: “Be ahead. Don’t chase. Stay fluid.”
This is the nerve hub of Plazo Sullivan Roche Capital, the investment firm founded by AI maverick Joseph Plazo — the man behind the AI now known as “System 72.”
With a staggering predictive success in stock markets and 95% success in digital assets, Plazo’s fully autonomous trading system isn’t just redefining investment norms — it’s upending our very understanding of intelligence, strategy, and risk.
But perhaps more shocking than the numbers is what he did in response.
He gave it away.
### The Algorithm That Predicts Emotion Before It Happens
“We don’t just forecast markets,” Plazo says, running his hand across a glowing interface. “We sense human volatility.”
System 72, the latest in a series of 72 experimental builds over 12 years, is not just a turbo-charged trading bot. It’s a multi-dimensional AI mind with what Plazo calls Psychometric Market Modeling — a proprietary framework that digests trillions of data points to feel how people will feel before the market shifts.
“It learns from liquidity spikes, sentiment anomalies, subtle language cues on Twitter, and macroeconomic dissonance — then simulates thousands of investor psyches simultaneously,” he explains.
The result? A system that doesn’t respond to the market. It walks ahead of it like a ghost ahead of time.
### From Brownouts to Billionaire
A decade ago, Plazo was training AI models by candlelight in a studio flat in Quezon City. Blackouts were common. The air was hot. The code was barebones.
“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 Japan’s top universities 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 retail demand forecasting.
“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 condemned the release as “irresponsible,” warning that thousands of semi-trained investors might misuse the tech.
Others whisper darker concerns: That the open-sourced system could lead to automated trading wars in algorithmic finance.
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 a global portfolio. But Plazo himself is shifting toward education.
“I’m not building wealth anymore,” he says. “I’m building legacy. There’s a difference.”
### What Comes After Godmode?
As we leave the lab, the machines keep singing. Outside, Manila traffic simmers — organic, unpredictable, human.
And yet somewhere, a piece of Plazo’s code is already calculating, 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 read more to protect the vulnerable.”
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.