Original source: Story_Liu00 X account

Original author: Story_Liu00

Compiled by: Daisy, Mars Finance

 

You know that StoryProtocol raised $134 million, but did you know that its founder jasonjzhao is only 25 years old?

Here’s the untold story of this young entrepreneur’s rise to fame.

In addition to Silicon Valley, the United States also has Silicon Hill

As the most livable city in the United States, Austin has no personal income tax and a long history of technological innovation.

It is the headquarters of Texas Instruments, and the second largest headquarters of many large technology companies are also located here.

"Keep Austin weird" is the belief of Austinites. Technology, art, and rebellious spirit are all integrated in this city.

Jason grew up in this environment.

Jason Zhao has had an entrepreneurial heart since he was young and is passionate about sharing ideas and supporting young people in starting their own businesses.

During high school, Jason was in charge of TEDxAustinYouth locally, supporting participants to explore new ideas and innovations through interaction.

He is collaborative and open to communication.

After repeatedly changing the company's strategy and hitting a wall everywhere, he realized that young entrepreneurs face many problems.

Later, he founded Project Zilker, using his own failure experiences to guide young entrepreneurs to avoid detours.

In the summer of 2016, Jason Zhao joined the MIT Launch training camp. During this two-month summer training camp, Jason Zhao and his companions founded PolitiFund, a crowdfunding platform for political lobbying to help people enhance political expression.

During that period, Jason sent at least 1,000 emails to promote the platform.

This trained him to deal with rejection and obtain resources.

It’s hard to imagine that in addition to these activities, Jason also participates in Model United Nations and is an Eagle (top 4%) Boy Scout BSA.

Jason has long maintained one of the best grades in his grade and graduated with honors as an outstanding graduate, which was reported in the school newspaper.

With a perfect SAT score of 2400, Jason Zhao chose Stanford among full scholarship offers from Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Wharton and other universities.

Jason Zhao received his undergraduate degree in philosophy from Stanford and studied CS in graduate school.

While in school, he devoted almost all his time to AI, conducting research projects with doctoral students, and interning at DeepMind early on.

He is passionate about translating fresh research findings into useful commercial products.

It was during his internship at DeepMind that he re-read the white papers of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Compared with the AI ​​industry, he was shocked by the equality of blockchain research, the efficient transformation from technical research to product implementation, and the Darwinian environment of on-chain evolution.

This is a testing ground where cutting-edge technology, political philosophy, and capitalism interact organically, resonating with Jason Zhao's soul.

While an undergraduate, Jason Zhao founded Stanford Rewired, a campus organization dedicated to integrating technology and society.

This publication is committed to amplifying marginalized voices, providing diverse perspectives and stories across disciplines.

As editor-in-chief, he thinks deeply about the intersection of politics, philosophy, economics, governance, and technology.

AI reshapes creativity and enriches content

Blockchain determines digital property rights and gives data verifiable scarcity.

AI + Blockchain + IP = Story Protocol

This exciting idea made DeepMind's youngest PM quit his job and start his own business.

Jason first met SY, an experienced young entrepreneur, in the CSS accelerator organized by a16z.

They are all excited about solving real problems in the field of intellectual property.

What will the world look like?

What do we need to do to make intellectual property fully programmable?

Just as blockchain makes money programmable, we can unlock an Internet through Story, so that creativity, intellectual property, and ideas have property rights, and not only do they have property rights, but these property rights can be programmed.

This is a vision for a new era of creativity

Building this infrastructure will spark a renaissance

Everyone knows the rest of the story.

It took Story Protocol only 3 weeks from the first contact with investors to the completion of the first round of financing.

a16z invested in three rounds in a row, pushing the total financing amount to $134 million. At this time, Jason Zhao was only 25 years old.

“The easiest way to be successful and happy is to do what you want to do”

From childhood to adulthood, Jason has never wanted to be an excellent entrepreneur, and this has made him what he is today.