Kenneth Jeng
Making Sense of What’s Shaping Asia’s Tech Future
Meet Kenneth Jeng
Making Sense of What’s Shaping Asia’s Tech Future 🔎
Kenneth Jeng has built his career around understanding how technology, business, and policy evolve across different markets. His experience spans early-stage startups, venture investing, product development, and community building across the U.S. and Asia.
That career has also meant constantly switching contexts. Kenneth has worked across Taiwan, Thailand, Mongolia, New York, Washington D.C., Tokyo, and San Francisco, often moving between different markets, industries, and ways of thinking. Japan became one of his longest chapters: after first moving to Tokyo in 2017, he later returned from 2022 to 2026, with those four years marking the longest he had stayed in one place since turning 18.
Most recently, Kenneth relocated to San Francisco to join Octen AI as Chief of Staff, continuing a career that has kept him close to emerging technologies and the people building around them.
What are you currently building?
Kenneth spends much of his time experimenting with AI and using it to explore questions he's interested in. Through vibe coding and data visualization, he's building projects such as maps of the AI supply chain and databases examining the personal, professional, and educational backgrounds of unicorn founders. His newsletter, Chinoiserie, which explores technology and policy across China and East Asia from a perspective outside the typical Silicon Valley and Washington D.C. lens, is currently on pause.
Across these projects, he enjoys taking large amounts of information, identifying patterns, and turning them into something easier to understand.
What excites you about Japan?
The possibility that some of Japan's biggest challenges could become catalysts for change. Japan's declining and aging population is often viewed primarily as a negative. Kenneth is interested in what happens when demographic pressure pushes society, businesses, and institutions to adapt, creating room to experiment with different approaches and perspectives already emerging elsewhere in the world.
For him, the coming decades could be an especially interesting period for seeing how Japan responds to major social and economic change.
A risk that changed your trajectory?
Moving to Japan for the first time in 2017. With a background in International Relations and graduate degrees in international affairs and public policy, Kenneth initially imagined a career in policy or consulting. Instead, moving to Tokyo brought him into an early-stage startup as its fifth full-time employee, where he helped the company grow through Series A.
That experience became an entry point into startups and eventually led him across operations, product development, venture building, investing, and community building. His relationship with Japan wasn't one continuous chapter either: he left in 2019 before eventually returning from 2022 to 2026.
A habit that has had the biggest impact?
Consuming information deeply and talking to as many people as possible. Kenneth is constantly reading and researching across technology, policy, business, and whatever else captures his attention. Just as important is talking with people who bring different experiences and ways of thinking.
Having spent so much of his life moving between countries and communities, he values direct conversations that challenge his assumptions and help him understand a subject from more than one angle.
Advice for your 20s?
You really can just do things. It's easy to let imposter syndrome convince you to wait until you're qualified or have permission. Kenneth believes there's enormous value in simply starting, creating something, and putting it out into the world.
At the same time, he believes action is more useful when you understand the system you're entering. Building mental models, studying how industries work, and practicing structured problem-solving can help you move with greater clarity once you decide to act.
Favorite spots in Tokyo?
Kasiki in Yoyogi, for ice cream made with local ingredients and unexpected pairings with coffee, wine, and other drinks.
La Pita de Maison Cinquante-Cinq, for pita bread.