I started with a chart that made no sense. Over five years AppLovin is up more than 750% and Snap is down about 89%. Both make money the same way — selling ads inside mobile apps. So why did one go vertical while the other collapsed? The whole thing turns on Apple's 2021 App Tracking Transparency rules. Snap set its record high near $83 that year, then fell apart. Apple's change made it much harder to track people across apps, which was exactly the data Snap needed to sell the highly targeted ads that paid its bills. It never found a replacement. In 2025 it lost $460 million, dragged down partly by roughly a billion dollars a year in stock-based comp that dilutes shareholders even when the business creeps forward. Its revenue per user was around $2.87 against Meta's $11.89. Snap owns the 18-to-24 crowd advertisers want, and still can't monetize them the way Meta does. AppLovin walked into the identical wall and got over it. In 2023 it shipped an AI ad-targeting engine, Axon 2.0, that used its own data to match ads instead of relying on the device tracking Apple had just switched off. That's the hinge. Last quarter its revenue grew 59% to $1.84 billion, net income more than doubled, and it threw off enough cash to buy back a billion dollars of stock in a single quarter. What I came away with: the Apple change wasn't the cause of the split, it was the test. Both companies got the same problem on the same day. One rebuilt its targeting from scratch, the other absorbed the hit and kept limping. Five years later that one decision is most of the distance between the two charts. Worth flagging the other side — even AppLovin bulls now call its growth 'mature,' and the stock swings hard, so five strong years back don't promise five more.
AI Stack
GitHub
Article·2d ago
Same industry, opposite charts: AppLovin and Snap
Article·4w ago
My AI Stack
Here's my current stack: Building web apps: Figma Make, Claude Code Image generation: ChatGPT (I like ChatGPT over Nana Banana 3) Video generation: Higgsfield AI (with Seedance 2.0 model) Writing: ChatGPT (at this point it has enough context about me..) Updating Notion: Claude Cowork Meeting scheduling: Blockit (the single most productive AI product for me!) Meeting notes: Granola (I like their MCP connection that allows me to update on Notion docs) Voice agents: ElevenLabs Slide decks: Claude Code This stack changes almost every month, but these are the tools I currently find myself using the most.
Article·1mo ago
I built University Rankings using Lovable
I built University Rankings. Highlights: It's not easy to see the ups and downs of university rankings over the years Most ranking sites (eg US news report) shows that year's ranking, but it's not easy to see the historical ranking changes for each university I used multiple data sources from multiple news outlets
Q&A
Article·4w ago
Founders and ADHD
It feels like almost every founder I know has some level of ADHD. I'm certainly no exception. I'll be halfway through one task when I suddenly open another tab, check my phone, or start working on something else. My understanding is that ADHD is, basically your brain constantly searching for the next source of dopamine. So if I feel the urge to switch tasks, it might be because my brain has decided that whatever I'm doing right now isn't interesting enough. Work isn't always exciting. Sometimes the job is simply to sit down, push through, and finish what's in front of you. So what's the solution? I don't think there's a magical productivity hack that solves this. What I've been trying instead is simple: whenever I catch myself wanting to start something new, I consciously remind myself to finish my current task first. I use two monitors and use the main monitor for whatever current task, and push all other tasks to the second monitor. It helps as well. But I'm all ears - if you've found something that works well for you, I'd genuinely love to hear it!
Post·1mo ago
One of my superpowers is finding signal in the noise. I'm an ENTJ, and one pattern I've noticed about myself is that I enjoy making sense of messy, unstructured information. I love taking hundreds of disconnected observations, organizing them into patterns, and extracting the bigger picture. Whether it's startups, product strategy, hiring, or investing, that's often where I add the most value - helping people see the underlying pattern that isn't immediately obvious.
Post·2d ago
I've been trying to use X more lately. I've been turned down by so much "shitpost" but I found my hack: curate my follow list so that it's centered around one single theme, not all over the place.
Article·1mo ago
Power of coffee chats
One of my favorite ways to learn something new is through coffee chats. Of course, I do my homework first. I'll read articles, watch YouTube videos, listen to podcasts, and go through books. But nothing beats talking to people who are actually in the field. Sometimes they're people I already know. More often, I reach out to someone new on LinkedIn. A cold message, a quick introduction, and a coffee chat. Most people are surprisingly generous with their time and knowledge. I also try not to make it one-sided. Even if I'm the one learning, I always look for ways to help them in return. Many of the biggest insights I've had didn't come from books. They came from conversations. The internet might be great for learning facts; coffee chats are great for learning judgment.
Video·4w ago
Experience
S
Angel Investor
Self-employed
Jan 2008 — Present
Link·1mo ago
Volunteer - Chief Strategy Officer
United Korean Founders (UKF)Jan 2026 — Present
Volunteer as part of the leadership committee for UKF (United Korean Founders) - the leading community for Korean and Korean American founders
Link·4w ago
UKF — United Korean Founders
UKF — The Global Hub for Korean Founders
Directory and membership platform connecting Korean and US startups, investors, and supporters.
Open link
Member
PEF CommunityMar 2023 — Present · Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
Post-exit founder community
Recommendations
I've had the privilege of working under Chang at Saywise, and his clarity of vision is rare. He carries a founder's instinct built over decades — from growing Tapas into a profitable $38M ARR business to shaping products at Google — and brings that same conviction to Saywise daily. He trusts his team, moves fast, and keeps both the big picture and the details in focus. Any team would be lucky to have him at the helm.