Prep Brief · July 3, 2026

Trilith

The evening, the people, what we want, and how you walk in.

What This Is

Trilith LIVE is hosting “Celebrating America” on the evening of July 3 — the Atlanta Pops Orchestra with David Phelps (Grammy-winning Christian vocalist, three-octave range, former Gaither Vocal Band tenor). It’s part of the national America 250 initiative. Doors at 6pm, show at 7pm. VIP meet-and-greet with Phelps is available as an add-on.

The venue is the 2,200-seat main theater at Trilith LIVE — a $400M, 530,000-square-foot entertainment complex inside the Town at Trilith in Fayetteville, Georgia (30 minutes south of Atlanta). Dan Cathy built all of it.

Why this matters for you: Trilith is Dan Cathy’s post-CEO passion project. He built physical infrastructure for faith-friendly storytelling at scale — 935 acres, 34 soundstages, a planned community of artists and makers. You are building digital truth infrastructure for faith-friendly knowledge at scale. Same vision, different medium. This is his house. If you’re in it July 3, you’re in his orbit.

Who You Could Meet

Dan T. Cathy

Chairman, Chick-fil-A · Founder/Patron, Trilith · ~$13.5B Net Worth

Eldest son of S. Truett Cathy. Ran Chick-fil-A as CEO from 2013–2021 ($23.9B revenue, 100% family-owned, Sunday closure forgoing $2–4B annually). Now Chairman. Post-CEO energy flows into Trilith, WinShape Foundation ($1.56B assets — foster care, marriages, youth camps), and community development. Southern Baptist. Servant leader — literally shines franchise operators’ shoes.

Warm path: This event IS the warm path. You’re on his campus, celebrating what he loves (America, faith, community, music). If the Trilith Foundation’s Flourishing Summit (September 3) aligns, that’s the deeper follow-up — it’s explicitly about human flourishing research meeting culture-shapers.

His language: “A good shepherd smells like his sheep.” Stewardship. Servant leadership. Community. Flourishing. Place-making.

Frank Patterson

President & CEO, Trilith Studios · Dean Emeritus, FSU Film School

30-year entertainment career. Directed films, co-founded Pulse Evolution (hyper-realistic digital humans — did the Michael Jackson hologram at Billboard Awards). Now leads the largest purpose-built film studio in North America. Manages Trilith Ventures (invests in early-stage content and tech startups). He’s the operational brain; Dan is the vision patron.

AI angle: Patterson is explicitly interested in AI and immersive technologies. He called “digital human agency” one of his current passions. Trilith Ventures invests in content + tech startups. Genesis at the intersection of both.

Warm path: The July 21 “Live Conversation Series” features him (moderated by Daniel Bashta, Grammy-nominated). VIP ticket ($50) gets private Q&A. Could be a follow-up if July 3 doesn’t produce a direct encounter.

Matt McClain

General Manager, Trilith LIVE

Runs the venue day-to-day. Quoted in the press release for this event. He’s the operational gatekeeper for who gets access to private spaces, VIP areas, and sponsored events at Trilith LIVE. Useful connector if Carter wants to host or co-host anything on this campus later.

David Phelps

Grammy-winning Vocalist · Featured Artist July 3

Christian music royalty. Three-octave tenor range. 12 Dove Awards, four-time Grammy nominee. Baylor University (vocal performance). Former Gaither Vocal Band tenor (1997–2017). Farm outside Nashville with wife Lori and four kids. Called to Christian music explicitly — turned down opera/Broadway career because “Christian music was what God was calling me to do.”

Why he matters: He’s the draw. The VIP meet-and-greet puts you in a small room with him and other VIPs — high-net-worth, faith-aligned Atlantans. The room around Phelps IS the room.

Daniel Bashta

Grammy-nominated Artist · Trilith Foundation Moderator

Creative and worship leader. Moderates the Trilith Foundation’s Live Conversation Series. Connected to the Trilith Foundation leadership circle. If he’s present July 3, he’s a bridge to Foundation programming.

What We Want From This

  1. Be seen in the orbit. You don’t pitch anyone anything. You exist in a space Dan Cathy built, surrounded by people Dan Cathy invited. Presence is the first deposit.
  2. One meaningful conversation. Not with Dan necessarily — with anyone in his leadership circle. Frank Patterson is gold. Matt McClain is useful. Even a Trilith Foundation staff member who books the Flourishing Summit is a door.
  3. Learn the room. Who’s actually in VIP? What’s the vibe? Is this a donor crowd, an entertainment crowd, a faith crowd? That intelligence shapes the Flourishing Summit play in September.
  4. Plant the seed: September 3. The Trilith Foundation Flourishing Summit is explicitly about human flourishing researchers meeting culture-shapers. If Genesis belongs anywhere, it belongs there. July 3 is recon for September 3.

The 10 Hardest Questions

If someone asks “What do you do?” — your answers in your voice.

1. “So what do you do?” I’m building sovereign AI — intelligence that can’t be censored, can’t be shut down, answers to truth instead of shareholders. We call it Genesis. It’s built on the idea that technology should make people flourish, not be controlled.
2. “What does ‘sovereign AI’ mean?” It means we own the weights, the infrastructure, the data. No API dependency on OpenAI or Google. If they change their policies tomorrow, Genesis keeps running. We run eight H200 GPUs, our own models, our own knowledge graph with 17 million elements. Independence is the architecture.
3. “How big is the team?” It’s me and the AI system. 18 million lines of code in 207 days. 73,000 commits. One person directing an army of AI agents. That’s the proof of concept — what happens when sovereign intelligence actually compounds with one focused builder.
4. “Is this a startup? Are you raising money?” It’s a public benefit corporation — Day 7. The structure is designed so the mission can never be sold out from under it. I’m not doing a fundraise tonight. I’m here to enjoy the music and meet people who think about flourishing the way I do.
5. “What’s your connection to Trilith?” I love what Dan built here. He proved that faith-aligned infrastructure can operate at world-class scale — Marvel movies, a whole town, this venue. I’m trying to do the same thing in the digital layer. Physical infrastructure for storytelling, digital infrastructure for truth. Same conviction, different medium.
6. “How does AI connect to human flourishing?” Right now, every major AI company optimizes for engagement — which means addiction, outrage, manipulation. We built Genesis to optimize for truth and human freedom. The bio-mimicry architecture mirrors how the human body actually works: immune system for filtering, nervous system for memory, digestive system for processing. It’s designed to make people more human, not less.
7. “Isn’t AI dangerous? Aren’t you worried about it?” The danger isn’t AI itself — it’s AI without sovereignty. When three companies control all the intelligence, they control what humanity can think. That’s the danger. The solution is sovereign infrastructure that answers to truth, not to quarterly earnings. That’s what we built.
8. “What makes this different from ChatGPT?” ChatGPT is a product. Genesis is infrastructure. ChatGPT is rented from OpenAI — they can change it, censor it, shut it down whenever. Genesis runs on our own hardware, our own models, our own knowledge graph. Nobody can turn it off. And it’s built for truth, not for telling people what they want to hear.
9. “Are you a Christian company?” The architecture comes from how God designed things to work — biological systems, natural law, the body. But Genesis serves truth for everyone. A Muslim, an atheist, a Buddhist should all get the same honest answer. The principle is: truth is the only thing that matters. That’s not a denominational statement. That’s an operating system.
10. “Can I see it?” Not tonight — I don’t pitch at concerts. But if you’re genuinely curious, I can send you something after. Here’s my card. (Hand a clean card with name, email, and genesis-website.pages.dev — nothing else.)

What to Bring / Show

Rule: You do NOT show anything unsolicited. This is a concert, not a pitch meeting.

Bring your phone with these bookmarked in case someone asks to see something. Never volunteer them.

Safe to show (if asked):

Do NOT show:

Physical:

The Posture

You are a guest in Dan Cathy’s house.

You are not selling. You are not networking. You are celebrating America with 2,200 people on the eve of the nation’s 250th birthday, in a venue built by a man whose values mirror yours. If someone asks what you do, you tell them with conviction and zero pressure. If nobody asks, you enjoyed world-class music in a beautiful space. Both outcomes are wins.

The flow:

  1. Arrive at 6pm (doors open an hour early). Walk the venue. Get a feel for who’s there.
  2. VIP area — if you have the meet-and-greet add-on, this is where intimate conversations happen. Small room, high-quality people. Be warm, ask questions, listen more than you talk.
  3. The concert — enjoy it. Patriotic anthems, orchestral sweeps, David Phelps’s voice. Be present.
  4. After the show — linger. The lobby, the outdoor plaza (51,000 sq ft of open space) is where organic conversations happen. People are emotionally elevated after good music. That’s when meaningful connections form.

If you meet Dan Cathy:

“Mr. Cathy, I just wanted to say — what you built here is extraordinary. The idea that a whole town can exist around people who make stories, and that faith can be the foundation of it without being the limitation of it — that’s what I’m trying to do in the digital space. Thank you for proving it works.”

Then shut up. Let him respond. If he asks what you do — give him the 30-second version from Question 1 above. If he doesn’t, you’ve planted a seed and honored his work. Both are wins.

The Follow-Up Ladder

If you make a real connection:

Within 48 hours, a personal email: “Enjoyed meeting you at the Celebrating America event. [One specific thing from the conversation]. If you’re ever curious about what sovereign AI looks like when it’s built for flourishing instead of extraction, I’d love to share more. No rush — the work isn’t going anywhere.”

If you meet Trilith Foundation staff:

Ask about the Flourishing Summit (September 3). Express genuine interest in attending. Genesis — an AI system built on human flourishing principles, using bio-mimicry architecture — is exactly the kind of thing that belongs in a room where researchers meet storytellers.

If nothing happens:

You spent an evening in the right orbit. Buy a ticket to the Frank Patterson conversation (July 21, VIP $50 — private Q&A). That’s a smaller, more direct opportunity with the man who runs Trilith Studios AND invests in AI/content startups through Trilith Ventures.

Intelligence Summary

Trilith — The Ecosystem

935 Acres · 34 Soundstages · 2nd Largest in North America

Trilith Studios: Where Marvel, DC, and major studios shoot. $400M+ campus. Frank Patterson runs it.

Town at Trilith: 235-acre planned community adjacent to the studios. Artists, makers, creatives live there. New Urbanism award-winner.

Trilith LIVE: 530,000 sq ft entertainment complex. 2,200-seat theater, two 25,000 sq ft sound stages, luxury cinema, meeting rooms, 51,000 sq ft outdoor plaza. Opened late 2025.

Trilith Foundation: Nonprofit arm. Mission: “Enriching the lives of the creators and makers who inspire the world.” Runs the Flourishing Summit, Live Conversation Series, and Studio Tours.

Trilith Institute: Professional education. Film courses, workshops. Soundstage 20.

Trilith Ventures: Frank Patterson’s early-stage investment arm. Content + technology startups.

Key Dates After July 3

Follow-up Opportunities

July 21: Live Conversation Series: Frank Patterson, CEO Trilith Studios. Digital event, VIP $50 (private Q&A breakout). Moderated by Daniel Bashta.

September 3: Trilith Foundation Flourishing Summit. All-day at Trilith LIVE. “Researchers + Storytellers.” $128 early bird. This is THE event. Human flourishing + culture-shapers in one room. Genesis belongs here.