creator economy veteran @All_InVentures
New York City
Joined November 2013
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Hi my name is Bryan Jun and I've had a decently interesting career, here's my story.
After growing up as a Korean American in Southern California, I went to Washington and Lee University, which at the time was 87% Caucasian and had Robert E. Lee buried at the school. It has the highest concentration of Greek life affiliated students in the country and while not a target target school, is a hack for people trying to enter investment banking. I didn't know IB existed until I was 20 years old and had no problem getting a job. I learned southern hospitality and cocktail parties. Shoutout W&L!
One of my fraternity brothers (of course many years above me) was the founder of an investment bank, whom through networking thought highly of me. I interned there the summer of junior year. During that summer one of my fellow interns passed away on the job (due to unrelated-to-work health issues) and I called the ambulance. It changed how I viewed life forever.
7 months into investment banking I started a Youtube channel when micro-influencers barely started becoming a concept, recognizing that a normal dude in a hoodie telling you the realities of professional services would be enticing. I knew the rawness of the content would do well day 1. After 9 months of the hottest M&A market to date, COVID hit and Youtube-viewership and searches for jobs surged. I posted every single Saturday for four years without missing a week. My videos became curriculum at some investment banking programs in universities and I advised (and continue to!) hundreds of students and young professionals over the years.
After 2 years of misery, I left to go work for @travisk for a "stealth company" which recently became ATOMS, funded by @a16z. I worked specifically for the virtual restaurants division where I met two of the smartest people in my life.
9 months later, those guys asked me to join them in starting an NFT marketplace, at the time known as Solanalysis, which became Hyperspace. During the peak of the platform, I became the "#1 Web3 influencer" according to a plugin called NFTInspect in the "which influencer is followed by the most influential people" category. I do accredit much of that "fame" to our back and forth with @MagicEden - no hard feelings now.
Around that time, @thebrianlee found me on Youtube and advised me to start a TikTok channel explaining Korea to people, cutting out the BS. My first video was about the grandson of a president/dictator (depending on who you ask) exposing himself and his family few days after I attended a church retreat with him. It hit over a million views in 24 hours. That platform has grown immensely, often liked and commented on by Korean and non-Korean celebrities.
Unrelatedly, I was recruited to serve as a translator/local manager for the top KPOP group in the world when they come to NYC. They never asked me to sign an NDA for some reason - but the only hint I'll drop is this Behind-The-Scenes image of one of their solo concerts, which I'm probably one of 10 people on earth that wasn't on stage to have a picture of in Times Square.
After the downfall of NFTs (and building the platform across 3 major L1s) our team pivoted to creating on-chain synthetic perps for pre-IPO companies. That's a fancy way of saying, we allowed people to buy and sell OpenAI and SpaceX before they became public. It was a perfect culmination of my finance, content, and blockchain background as well as a hyper-focus on how to market startups properly in this saturated market.
As I enter the next phase of career, it's crazy to see how I've been fortunate enough to always be early to entire industries which at the time were just trends. Being somewhat successful across multiple niches shouldn't be a coincidence, but I still have massive imposter syndrome.
All glory to God!
When's the last time you actually enjoyed an IRL event?
Where you weren't checking your phone every minute because it was awkward or you didn't have anyone to talk to?
The last time you were coming home from the event thinking that was worth my money and time?
Where someone you met there actually became a beneficial part of your network?
And the event itself was educational? Comfortable? At least fun? As advertised?
1 month in Europe has taught me:
Asian food is the best
NYC is the best city in the world
Speaking English is such a privilege
Throwback to my first day at my first job after college vs. exactly 6 months in.
I remember making it into investment banking made me feel so sick until it really made me sick lol.
But looking back now it really laid the groundwork for my overall professional career and if I went back I would've tried harder.
I think we're often at burnout or "reality overshadows fantasy" periods in our careers.
However, during similar troughs and realizing how they contribute to the moments where fantasy becomes reality allows us to keep going.
Enjoy the troughs, they make the peaks higher.
When I worked in investment banking big tech looked good
When I worked in big tech startups looked good
When I worked in startups being a founder looked good
When I worked as a founder influencer looked good
When I worked as an influencer celebrity looked good
It never ends
Can't wait to run my Duet and Dot on my Duo
bryan retweeted
We brought the @cryptocom experience to Rome, Italy - tutte le strade portano a Roma!
"Community" gets thrown around as a buzz word, but crypto.com takes an immersive, tailored approach.
A special thanks to @AntoineBlanc and @aliciapeas for entrusting the All In platform and continuing to work with us to curate crypto.com's global presence.
A lot of us in our 20s have this ambition to do something on our own, have the talent and resume to do it, and now feel like we have no excuse to not execute on it because of AI.
It's a frustrating place to be.
But perhaps doing a decent job where you're at right now and leveling up a bit to be properly ready before you jump into something you actually want to build -
instead of building something just for the sake of building -
will position you in the best place when you look at the bigger picture.
Does "growth" at tech companies transfer over like other skills?
Because distribution/GTM/content seem to all be combining into one bucket for tech roles, the demand for growth roles seem to be higher than ever. It does beg the question - does being great growth at one company mean they'll do great at the other?
While the basic skills for growth could be transferred, many growth successes have been a combination of industry macro trends with luck and the company's product strength.
Have you seen anyone that have repeatedly crushed growth (not as a founder, but as an employee) across various verticals / industries regardless of team/product circumstance?
In a post-AI/content saturation world everyone will actively and subconsciously seek the following:
1. Raw - the yapper meta will only grow more. People are tired of high budget slop (yes that's a possible combination of words) as well as sophistication. They want a version of themselves (a normal person) that they vicariously live through to give them self-affirming opinions or suggestions. Someone that looks like them (both demographically and status/appearance level) or slightly above them that they want to achieve telling them things they already know or hope to use to resolve an inner problem. It's a dystopian combination of the modern day therapist and best friend.
2. Cringe - in addition to @Pedromiranda's posted quoted below, it's also because the peak content/consumerism generation right now is the half analog half digital generation (~us). We desire a return to the past but too "drugged out" to leave the digital platforms. Hence the cringey goods feels like an escape from the doom scrolling and the AI services we don't actually care about. It's no surprise @ToysRUs is making a comeback tailored towards adults.
We saw similar patterns in the early stages of Youtube where raw (first YT video being a day at the zoo) built up to high production (@CollegeHumor all the way to @MrBeast) and then to a hybrid of both (@Casey) and now back to raw.
With distribution being the primary issue and focus for most tech companies, we're about to enter an extremely fascinating era where media teams at such companies will have to somehow balance their product with professionalism while being raw and cringe all at the same time.
This will require stand out hires that understand this history and the essence of what makes people pay not just in $ but in attention.
The new dream job list for new grads:
- AI data broker
- AI company affiliate influencer
- X vague poster
- political content grifter
- HRT alumni
- celebrity romantic partner
So many corporate events are just a waste of time and money.
Properly event-izing a global brand like @cryptocom takes intent around:
- Making sure Crypto.com looks good
- Ensuring the attendees understand the platform and its products
- Ultimately guiding the audience to use Crypto.com after the event ends and they go home
- For everyone to have a good time
Most events nowadays aren't even focused on the events - they're to hit a KPI or for engagement from an outside-in look.
Ironically, focusing on such things actually results in losing out on everything. Actually caring looks like the below AND gets you the results you need.
shoutout to the legends @AntoineBlanc and @aliciapeas for actually caring.
Genuinely asking - why do you stand in flight boarding lines before boarding begins?
Like what's the psychology? What do you gain?
They're actually building the biggest data set for pizza preferences as people will order what they truly want since it's free and they're ordering through an agent.
We're giving away $1,000,000 of free pizza right now
Download and order from the Hark app: hark.com/download
Type "order a free pizza" in chat. It's first-come, first-served, delivered only in the U.S. (review details below)
Went to Madrid’s @museodelprado Museum and it made me realize how much AI is going to change CULTURE. Not tech, not finance, but culture.
For centuries, art was largely patron-driven. The church and the crown commissioned religious works and portraits. Artists needed wealthy patrons to fund their work, which inevitably influenced what got created.
But as commercial art markets developed, artists gained more ways to make a living without depending on a single patron. They could experiment, challenge convention, and express themselves on their own terms.
Funny enough, the modern era brought its own versions of the crown and church.
Entire narratives in culture, from movies to music, have been shaped by studios, record labels, advertisers, and other institutions with their own interests and narratives to push.
Even beyond money, the political and cultural leanings of those who control production have always influenced what gets made, distributed, and ultimately accepted as mainstream.
We saw this start to break down with the internet and the creator economy. With a phone and an internet connection, anyone could share their version of the truth, make someone laugh, or build an audience around an idea.
Opinions became more decentralized. But culture itself is still highly patronized. The cost of producing a movie, an album, or even a compelling piece of visual art remains prohibitively high for most people.
AI fundamentally changes this.
We're approaching an era where culture itself can be created by anyone:
1. Distribution is no longer the bottleneck. The internet has resolved this for over decades.
2. The cost of production is collapsing. Tools like @AdobeVideo, @runwayml, @higgsfield and generative music platforms are making it possible to produce images, video, sound, and entire creative projects without the traditional equipment, expertise, or teams. Adobe reported that Firefly had generated over 22 billion assets by April 2025. We're already seeing what happens when creation becomes cheap.
3. People increasingly see themselves as creators. Maybe this is circular logic, but it's also the strongest tailwind. When everyone has access to tools that let them turn an idea into something tangible, more people will try. And when more people try, more culture gets created.
Is this good? Unsure.
We'll probably get more slop, more noise, and more derivative content than anyone knows what to do with. And the platforms that control distribution will still have enormous influence over what gets seen.
But the underlying shift is hard to ignore.
AI could democratize the ability to create culture itself and that's the most consequential, least talked-about aftermath of a post-AI world.
Intimate IRL events will be the only credible form of user acquisition in this age of content saturation.
Hit @0xRoel and I up to curate genuine communities, not AI slop.
lol such a perfect example of modern day news cycle
1. Rumors spread of a fact
2. People rapidly puzzle together conspiracy theories
3. Conspiracy theories spiral as fact
4. Official claim comes out
5. Conspiracy engagement farmers eat off engagement, bare no responsibility, move on to the next
We put Solana on the big screen because that’s the big heart Solana has for the Chinese community, and that’s the warm welcome we are so thankful to feel from the Chinese community.
Due to the publicity, event registrations quadrupled overnight, far exceeding the event cap we had registered with local authorities, and we had no way to prevent people from overwhelming the venue.
So, in order to comply with local requirements, we are going to postpone this event for when we can better accommodate the breadth and scale of our community.
Apologies to everyone who came from near and far to come be part of Solana in Shanghai.
See you soon!
