Ken Kashiwagi

Investor & Builder Across Music, Finance & Tech

Meet Ken Kashiwagi

Investor & Builder Across Music, Finance & Tech 🎧

Ken Kashiwagi has built his career across finance, music, and high-growth technology, often working at the intersection of strategy and execution. After beginning in corporate finance, he moved into the music industry, working across investments, M&A, licensing, and digital strategy at companies including Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment.

After spending much of his adult life in New York, Ken eventually returned to Japan. Today, he works at Mysten Labs, where he has helped build the company's presence in Japan from the ground up, developing partnerships and expanding its blockchain and technology ecosystem.

What are you currently building?

Professionally, Ken is focused on growing Mysten Labs' business and ecosystem in Japan through strategic partnerships, product integrations, and new market opportunities.

Personally, he's experimenting with AI and vibe coding to build tools around his interests in investing, real estate, and fashion. His investment background tends to influence how he approaches everyday decisions, whether he's modeling how much he can comfortably spend on a home or calculating the cost-per-wear of a purchase.

What excites you about Japan?

Ken sees growing opportunities at the intersection of Japan's traditional strengths and emerging technologies. Japan has long excelled in hardware, manufacturing, and robotics, and he believes AI can help overcome some of the limitations that have historically slowed its software ecosystem.

He's also optimistic about opportunities for bilingual talent and values the quality of life Japan offers. After years in New York, he's come to appreciate that choosing where to live isn't only about maximizing career opportunities, but also about the kind of life you want to build.

A risk that changed your trajectory?

Leaving a successful career and life in New York to move to Japan.

Professionally, it meant leaving a larger, faster-moving market and rebuilding his network from scratch. At Mysten Labs, he was tasked with developing the Japan business and has since grown its ecosystem and product partnerships significantly.

Personally, the move gave him something he hadn't had for nearly 20 years: the opportunity to live near his parents again. That experience has changed how he thinks about success, reminding him that career is important, but it's only one of the things worth optimizing for in life.

A habit that has had the biggest impact?

Learning to identify what he's actually feeling.

Rather than stopping at feeling frustrated or upset, Ken tries to understand the emotion underneath the reaction and where it's coming from. Getting to that root cause helps him respond more thoughtfully, find solutions, and better understand what he genuinely values.

Advice for your 20s?

焦るな。Don't rush.

Earlier in life, Ken felt more pressure to plan everything and know exactly where he was headed. Over time, he's learned that life rarely unfolds according to plan, and that status or recognition often follows naturally when you focus on doing meaningful work.

Know what matters to you, stay open to unexpected paths, and don't let age stop you from beginning again. As he puts it, today is the youngest version of yourself you'll ever be.