About Leaving The Matrix
A data-driven
investing community.
We teach the institutional research framework — quality, valuation discount, smart-money confirmation — and apply it to retail accounts. Education that goes deep, research you can actually follow, and the tools we use on our own desk.
Most "stock-pick" services fall into one of two camps: hype machines that vanish when a trade goes wrong, or expensive black-box subscriptions that teach you nothing about how the call was made. We built something different.
Leaving The Matrix is a community that operates the way an engineering team operates — every decision documented, every thesis written down, every closed position reviewed honestly including the losers. Members range from beginners learning DCA to advanced traders running options strategies. The marketing anchors on the disciplined, research-grade end because that is the lens we run.
Markets are only one piece of the picture. The community covers the unsexy work too — frameworks for managing debt, thinking long-term, and the discipline that separates investors from gamblers. Educational content only. We're not financial advisers; we don't make personalized recommendations. We share how we think and what we do. You decide what fits your situation.
The framework
Quality.
Discount.
Smart-money.
One disciplined lens applied to every name we cover. The same framework Nova uses to score every ticker on the watchlist.
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Quality
Is this a good business?
Forward P/E, revenue growth, margins, debt, weighted return across 3y / 5y / 10y. ETF expense ratios where applicable.
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Discount
Is it on sale right now?
Current P/E vs the ticker's own 5-year median. Proximity to the 200-day and 200-week moving averages.
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Smart-money
What are insiders, congress, and 13F filers doing?
SEC Form 4 buys and sells, role-weighted. STOCK Act PTRs from Congress. Quarterly 13F filings from tracked funds. Options unusual flow.
Powered by Nova
The trading copilot we built for our own desk.
Nova is a screener, a scorer, and an explainer that mirrors what billionaires, insiders, and Congress are doing on every name we cover. Thirteen institutional indicators condensed into a single Nova Score (0–100), built on the same lens we use everywhere on this site.
Red Pill members get Nova Fund (a live AI-managed portfolio with weekly memos), the Smart Money dashboard (insider buys, congressional trades, 13F flows), Luke's auto-tracked portfolios, sector exposure, and a vs SPY benchmark with dividend reinvestment.
Read the Nova dev blog →Nova Score zones
- ● Selling 0–33
- ● Distribution 33–45
- ● Neutral 45–60
- ● Accumulation 60–70
- ● Buying 70–100
Layers without data abstain. The score is descriptive curation — not price prediction.
Engineering rigor, applied to markets
Why this works.
Nova exists because we wanted research-grade tooling for our own desk — something that mirrored institutional process: data sourced from the SEC, FINRA, congressional disclosures, and 13F filings, scored consistently, and explained in plain English. No black box, no vibe-trading.
Every position we open inside the community gets a written thesis. Every position we close — winner or loser — gets reviewed honestly. The framework is the same one Nova uses to score every name. The discipline shows up in the receipts.
About the founder
Luke Vasilion
Senior software engineer. Founder. Lifelong markets student.
I'm a software engineer with more than a decade building products that matter. Right now I'm at a.i. solutions, working on the frontend for FreeFlyer — astrodynamics software powering missions like the International Space Station, the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's Artemis program, and the Lunar Gateway. Before that I led front-end work at Salamander Technologies (a platform used by 1.2 million daily users, including first responders), built a legislation processing system from sprint zero for the State of Michigan Senate, and shipped products at General Motors and Allstate.
Outside of the day job, I run Unyx Web Solutions — custom web development and hosting for 25+ clients. I'm building Nova, the trading copilot that powers the research surfaced inside Leaving The Matrix. And before any of that, I was an All-American sprinter at Grand Valley State and a 2021 Michigan District 14 motocross state champion. The competitive instinct and the engineering rigor end up in the same place: working systems that hold up under pressure.
Elsewhere on the web
Career timeline
Where I've built.
- Current
a.i. solutions
Senior Space Products Frontend Engineer
Building the frontend for FreeFlyer, an astrodynamics suite powering missions for the International Space Station, James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's Artemis program, Lunar Gateway, and Dream Chaser.
- 2022 – 2025
State of Michigan, Senate
Full Stack Developer
Architected Eva from sprint zero — a legislation processing platform streamlining bills, amendments, and resolutions. Lead front-end developer on a team of ten.
- 2020 – 2022
Salamander Technologies
Software Developer
Led front-end development for Salamander LIVE, used by 1.2M+ daily users including first responders. Shipped the v66 release: 138 features, zero post-release bugs.
- 2019 – 2020
Allstate
Software Developer
Built a secure agent portal in React, replacing the legacy system to meet modern compliance requirements.
- 2017 – 2018
General Motors
Software Developer
Worked on the Next-Gen Vehicle Configurator, the Marketing Admin CMS, and GM Brazil's Shop Click Drive platform.
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Come trade with us.
All the work above ends up inside the community, every day.