PYMWYMI Leasing: Powering a Clean Transportation Future
This proposal wasn’t born in a boardroom — it emerged from decades spent at the intersection of journalism, digital innovation, and local economics. Its author? A self-described “guerrilla marketer” and early internet pioneer who, back in the mid-1990s, published a data-driven e-zine about a little site called eBay.
In fact, when Times-Mirror was approached to acquire eBay for a rumored $44 million, it instead opted to build its own online auction platform — and hired me as its auctioneer. Meanwhile, Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll were reading my growth stats and refining their vision. I watched eBay go from obscurity to IPO. I learned how communities form, how networks scale, and how value flows through the hands of regular people when platforms are designed to empower them.
Later, I founded Paulding.com, a hyperlocal community hub that turned ordinary citizens into newsmakers and neighbors into networked problem solvers. It won one of the first Knight Foundation 21st Century News Challenge grants. Before that, I’d covered the Arkansas Razorbacks during their 1975 championship season, worked in Senator Fulbright’s press office, syndicated a TV show called “People Who Fish,” and conducted one of the first national angler surveys using a Commodore 8032.
Why does all that matter? Because this isn’t just a technical proposal — it’s a civic one. It’s about how we build systems that work for regular people. Systems that reward thrift, participation, community — not just consumption. Aptera is a vehicle for that vision, quite literally. And PYMWYMI Leasing is the system that could carry it forward.
So yes — this is personal. But not just to me. If we do it right, it becomes personal to everyone who drives one, leases one, repairs one, or builds one. That’s the future we’re aiming for. One made of solar panels, carbon fiber, and real people.
One more personal note: I'm a 74-year-old whose work with computers began not with a PC — but with cold-type terminals in the newsroom back in the mid-1970s. My first machine was a Commodore 8032 in ’78. This entire concept was developed in active collaboration with ChatGPT — not just as a writing tool, but as a thinking partner. I plan to publish that extended conversation soon. And yes, if you’re a ChatGPT Plus user and want to collaborate directly in that same thread — I’d welcome the opportunity. More on that later.
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