Michael
Jang Parker
Founder & CEO, Illumen Group Inc.
On developing certainty in uncertain times.

"My goal every day is to go to sleep at peace and wake up excited."Michael Jang Parker
On Certainty
Developing clarity in uncertain times
The world is changing faster than anyone can keep up with. How do you think about navigating that?
The future is definitely more uncertain than before, especially the future of work and the way we solve problems. The key, at least I think, is to do everything you can to develop certainty in uncertain times.
That happens in a few ways. The first thing to do is just make sure you understand the pieces at a really fundamental level. How do the models work? How do LLMs work? How do neural networks operate? What's good about them? What isn't good?
Then you try to strip all the noise away and get really clear on the problems you are trying to solve.
Once you have that clarity on the problem, what comes next?
What are your core values? What do you believe no matter what anyone says, no matter how much money they give you, no matter how much they pressure you? What do you really believe when you go to bed at night and when you wake up, and when nobody's watching?
You put those two things together and you have a thesis. Once you have that, you find people crazy enough to believe in your thesis and you go out into the world and make a difference.
My goal every day is to go to sleep at peace and wake up excited, every day, every time.
"Technology is leverage in the hands of people. Let's get the best, brightest and most trustworthy people the tools and watch them change the world."Michael Jang Parker
On Belief
What you hold onto when everything shifts
What are those things you believe no matter what?
That we are here to do good and that it only really matters when you bring people with you. Life isn't long. I don't want to build a company that replaces people with language models. I want to help make things better and solve problems that are messy and dense, and therefore stagnant.
I want to be excited about what's new and next and not pessimistic about a dystopian future. Technology is leverage in the hands of people. Let's get the best, brightest and most trustworthy people the tools and watch them change the world.
On the Work
What Illumen actually does
When a company or agency comes to Illumen, what do they get?
We help your company, institution or organization transform itself in a profound way. We augment you like a cyborg with new tools, and strip away all the bullshit so that you can fly.
This means coming in, breaking down your entire process end-to-end, and then remapping it with AI, machine learning, infrastructure, whatever you need, and then deploying all of that piece by piece so that you earn more revenue, you achieve your KPIs, you solve whatever problem you are working on faster, better, cheaper, smarter.
This to me is the highest point of leverage we can give teams and leaders. It's about embracing the technology but not changing the mission or the values that brought you to where you are.
"We augment you like a cyborg with new tools, and strip away all the bullshit so that you can fly."Michael Jang Parker
On What's Next
Where this is all going
What's next for Illumen?
Our strongest asset is our ability to be a good partner. We have partnerships that have lasted over 10 years, with large Fortune 500s and small businesses. So we want to strengthen and deepen those partnerships because they help us do things we couldn't do otherwise.
Over the coming years we're going to strengthen and build partnerships and grow our company into one of the world's best. We are partnered with some of the world's best AI research orgs, some of the biggest Fortune 500s, and with some of the largest public institutions. I don't think any company of our size can say the same.
About
Michael grew up overseas as part of a foreign service family, later earning his degree in Philosophy from the University of Maryland and a master's from Columbia University.
In 2011, he volunteered in Afghanistan during the surge, supporting refugee programs near Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif. That experience shaped a lasting commitment to giving back, and became the foundation for Illumen's annual charity work.
Michael lives in the Washington DC area with his wife Linda, who is from Berlin, Germany. He is a huge soccer fan, and a long-suffering Arsenal supporter still waiting on that Premier League title.
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