Born in Seoul, Sam settled with his family in Brooklyn as a child. He won a scholarship to the prestigious Poly Prep Country Day School and later, Phillips Academy Andover. His early career plans focused on science until he realized life in a startup suited him better than life in a lab. After graduating from Columbia University, Sam worked at an incubator which taught him the foundational analytical and strategic planning skills that go into launching a business. When that company was acquired, he moved to Vietnam for the World Bank to learn about global business. He later started Edgepoint Group, a firm trading Vietnamese commodities in the U.S. market and his passion for building successful companies began. Sam later founded mobile ad company, The Mobile Majority (now Gimbal) and ESDF Management, a video game production and finance fund. While starting and running companies, Sam squeezed in getting an MBA from the University of Chicago. Sam is CEO at Lucidity, his 4th enterprise, which was named Blockchain Startup of 2018 at the Block Awards. Lucidity is a powerful blockchain platform that allows decentralized applications to be built quickly and cost-effectively.