John S. Kim

Sendbird / Valon Capital

Startup founder, investor, and community builder

I’m John S. Kim, Co-Founder/CEO of Sendbird, the first startup in history to originate in Korea, move to Silicon Valley, and become a unicorn.

I also operate Valon Capital/ASQ as a General Partner, investing in startups focused on AI/productivity, deep tech, healthcare, and fintech.

As an engineer, I am interested in the brain, artificial intelligence, deep tech (space, bio/longevity, energy, robotics), productivity, and complexity science.

Learn more

“Someone once told me the definition of Hell: The last day you have on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.” – Anonymous

Our mission is to
build and invest in organizations that drive the positive future of humanity.

Sendbird

Sendbird is the world’s most useful omnichannel AI agent platform for delightful customer service. Today, we power over 300 million monthly active users who engage in conversations on our platform. To date, we have raised over $220 million from leading investors, including ICONIQ Capital, Tiger Global Management, SoftBank Vision Fund, and Y Combinator.

Valon Capital/ASQ

The mission of the fund is to invest in the future of humanity by partnering with founders who are changing the trajectory of human civilization for the better. We primarily focus on investments in AI/productivity, deep tech, healthcare, and fintech.

COMMUNITY & VOLUNTEERING

I host events for entrepreneurs to build a community of like-minded individuals who are on a mission to drive a positive future for humanity. I have advised three Presidents of South Korea and have guest lectured at Stanford University, Wharton MBA, and Seoul National University.

Recent Notes

These might be a bit more
random than you expect

The Adventure of a Fool

Recently, I went on a business trip to South East Asia to meet with some of our customers. There I visited a more developed country like Singapore, and then traveled across a city in one of more developing countries like Indonesia. Jakarta was full of surprises, an eye-opening experience, similar to the feeling I had…
A Leadership Lesson from Stand-up Comedies

I enjoy watching stand-up comedies. People like Louis C.K., Dave Chappelle, Mike Birbiglia, Trevor Noah, Ryan Hamilton, John Mulaney comes to mind. I’ve been watching the shows to learn English (great teachers, I know) and pick up some useful dialog patterns to use during sales calls. I think there’s something magical about stand-up comedies. There’s a great balancing act…
On Problem Solving and Not Giving Up

* This is a letter to my family. I’m not sure if the internet we are using today in 2017 will still be the same by the time you are an adult, but because of the internet, you will be exposed to far more information and stimulants than a single person’s brain can process and handle.…
On Self-Esteem

* This is a letter to my family. You should take care of your self-esteem. It is different from being merely confident. Self-esteem, backed by strong resilience, can take you far beyond what’s believed to be possible, over come difficult struggles in life, get through deep loneliness, find the right partners for your endeavors, avoid…
On Life’s Framework

There are a few useful algorithms to help you make life’s decisions, especially around prioritization and pruning, and also the timing of it. From my childhood days, my tendency was to make decisions quickly. I’ve never really felt much difficulty in picking my choices. It’s not because I was good at it, but probably due…
The Accountability of a Leader

When I was young, I’ve fantasized about the Wall Street and its masculine bossy cultures. I’m not sure if I admired it, but it was fun to watch in the movies and I felt the catharsis of running a fast-paced organization full of workers doing homogeneous jobs, with the boss being the absolute best at…