AUSTIN, TX — What started as a lonely epiphany during the early days of the pandemic has grown into a quietly radical experiment in empathy and micro-economics, powered by poker winnings and a quantum computer.

Andrew O’Brien, a professional online poker player and self-identified Indigo child, says isolation hit him especially hard in 2020. “I’ve always had a strange edge — like I can feel the next card,” he explained. “That helped me dominate at poker. But in real life, reading people is way harder. Once everyone started wearing masks, I felt totally cut off. No tells, no cues. Just silence.”

Cut off from meaningful human connection, Andrew began wondering: what if empathy could be incentivized — not symbolically, but with a quantifiable reward system?

That idea became Andrew Points, a tongue-in-cheek but deeply personal social platform where people earn points by being kind to Andrew. A wave, a lunch invite, asking how he’s doing — each act logs a new point. Those points can then be redeemed in the Andrew Marketplace for thoughtful gestures: a handwritten poem, a curated playlist, or a home-baked cookie.

The platform runs on a small quantum computer Andrew purchased using poker winnings. “Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to build this five years ago,” he said. “It’s only now that quantum-crypto-AI-SaaS computing has reached the point where an empathy market like this is feasible.”

Andrew built it all himself — a private site, no VC funding, no public roadmap. “It’s not a startup,” he says. “It’s a forcefield of intention.”

And, improbably, it worked.

Friends, strangers, even skeptics started logging kindness. Some aim to top the leaderboard. Others say it's changed how they approach social interaction altogether.

"It's weirdly brilliant," said Naomi Lee, a friend and early adopter. "It made me realize how transactional most friendships already are — but this just owns it, and flips it into something intentional."

Carlos Nguyen put it more succinctly: "Andrew Points is more than a SaaS platform — it's a lifestyle."

Asked if he thinks it'll scale, Andrew shrugs. "I don't know if the world's ready for kindness-as-currency. I just wanted people to have one more reason to see me."

He pauses. "Maybe we all just need a reason to be seen."