Gurhan Kiziloz doesn’t describe himself like most founders. He doesn’t talk about “missions,” “visions,” or “ecosystems.” He talks about war.
“I’m at war,” he said in a recent interview. The phrase wasn’t metaphorical. It was his unfiltered answer to a question about how he handles emotions as a founder. Kiziloz isn’t one to dress up his answers. In fact, the combat language recurs frequently when he describes how he builds Nexus International, the digital gaming company he founded and grew to $400 million in revenue in 2024.
That wartime mentality runs deeper than mere rhetoric. It’s a reflection of how Kiziloz approaches decision-making, risk, and scale. Nexus operates without venture capital, without a board, and, by his own account, without strategic timelines. The company, now aiming to hit $1.45 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2025, is not just fast; it is lean, centralized, and, in many ways, exposed.
This intensity, rooted in pace and personal control, gives Nexus its speed. It also creates tension: what does it mean when a $400 million company is led like a one-man command center?
A Language of Urgency
The language Kiziloz uses isn’t accidental. When asked how he handles failure, he said: “I get dressed up, I get a haircut, I go to the gym. And I’m like, come on, bring it on, motherfuckers. It’s on.” The tone is consistent. So is the underlying logic: forward motion beats over-analysis. Conviction trumps committee. Emotional resilience is less about reflection and more about defiance.
Where many founders measure decisions through strategy decks and investor updates, Kiziloz cuts through with instinct. “We move fast. Really fast,” he said. “No approvals, no politics, no waiting. If something makes sense, we go.”
This model allows him to scale in ways that are structurally impossible for companies encumbered by multiple stakeholders. In a traditional boardroom, such speed would be flagged as a governance risk. In Kiziloz’s world, it’s a core competency.
Inside Nexus, that tempo becomes culture. There is little room for slow deliberation. Kiziloz is clear: “Not everyone is designed to take a ride in a rocketship.” The implication is not just about speed, it’s about stamina and alignment. Teams are expected to match the founder’s velocity or fall behind.
This culture creates cohesion, but it also carries risks. Without institutional checks, the company’s direction, whether a pivot or an aggressive expansion, is contingent on one person’s instincts. And while that instinct has built a $400 million business, it also means the company’s risk surface is unusually concentrated.
Still, Kiziloz is unbothered. “If it fails, I start again,” he said, when asked about the burden of full responsibility. This is not resignation, it’s design. In his view, the privilege of freedom includes the cost of total accountability.
The Trade-Offs of Total Control
What Nexus gains in speed and autonomy, it forgoes in insulation. Kiziloz doesn’t take investor money. He said it plainly: “I’m too proud to borrow money. If I can build it myself, I will.” That pride has financial implications. With no capital buffer, every bet is personal. Every misstep hits the founder’s balance sheet, not a portfolio.
It’s a structure that mirrors the high-risk, high-reward logic of war: the spoils are yours if you win, but there’s no backup plan if you don’t.
For some founders, this would be untenable. For Kiziloz, it’s the only way that makes sense. “I don’t want anyone else’s fingerprints on this,” he said.
The question is not whether this model can work. It already has. Nexus’s $400 million revenue in 2024 proves its viability. The question is whether it can hold.
As the company expands into new markets and navigates increasingly complex regulatory frameworks, speed alone may no longer suffice. There are signs that Kiziloz is aware of the trade-offs. He delegates operational execution, though decision-making remains centralized. He avoids the trappings of corporate structure but embraces performance metrics and market responsiveness.
Still, the architecture of the company remains thin. There’s no board to absorb strategic misfires. No investors to provide shock resistance. No formal planning processes to safeguard against blind spots. Nexus is structurally fragile by design, high speed, low redundancy.
The Future of Founder-Led Scale
What makes Kiziloz’s case especially notable is not just the financial outcome, but the method. In an ecosystem dominated by venture-backed scale, Nexus represents a return to raw entrepreneurial instinct. It’s not a replicable model for everyone, but it’s a signal that alternatives to institutional capital are viable under specific conditions: high conviction, market clarity, and relentless drive.
It also raises a larger question for the broader tech economy: as more founders question the trade-offs of dilution and external control, will we see a resurgence in self-funded models? Or is Nexus a one-off, an anomaly powered by a founder willing to absorb risk that others outsource?
Kiziloz has turned combat into an operating principle. Whether that approach can weather the complexity of a billion-dollar scale remains to be seen. But for now, Nexus International offers a clear lesson: speed can be strategy, conviction can be structure, and in rare cases, a war room can outperform a boardroom.
