Gene Yu is the co-founder and CEO of Blackpanda.
Provided by Gene U
46-year-old startup founder Gene Yu seems to have lived multiple lives at once.
Before founding his own company, he was a Division 1 tennis player, graduated with a degree in computer science from the United States Military Academy, commonly known as West Point, served as a “Green Beret” in the United States Army Special Forces, led the rescue of a family friend from a hostage situation, and wrote a book.
Currently, he is also the co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup Blackpanda, which has raised more than $21 million to date, according to the company’s official announcement.
He has undergone extremely rigorous military training, served on the battlefield and led major counter-terrorism missions, but said his toughest battles have been fought at home.
growing up asian americans
Yu was born in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was the only Asian child in town. He then moved to Cupertino, California when he was 10 years old.
His family background is unique and, in a way, famous. His uncle is Ma Ying-jeou, who served as Taiwan’s president from 2008 to 2016.
Growing up as an Asian man in the United States, he said he often internalized messages from society that told him he was inferior, unattractive, unwanted, and not equal. This hurt Yuu’s self-esteem.
This sense of inferiority was sometimes amplified within the family. He learned early on to prioritize accomplishment. “In Asian culture, what we learn is that performance equals lack of love, right? Even better, lack of performance equals lack of love,” Yu told CNBC Make It.
Yu says her childhood experiences led her to pursue achievement as a means of protecting her younger self. “It’s like a wounded kid wearing an Iron Man suit,” he said. “You are presenting yourself as a traumatized person.”
“I hated my identity because it hurt me, right? I wanted to create a new identity. That’s what the military does,” he said.
So after graduating from high school, he left home at the age of 17 and went straight to West Point, a prestigious and highly selective military academy. He then joined the U.S. Army Special Forces, serving as an officer and commander.
From high school to his time at West Point, he worked about 16 to 20 hours a day. That intensity shaped his work ethic, which he still carries today.
“At West Point, you wake up around 5 a.m. and get off around (midnight)…and school is six days a week and there’s no summer break,” he said. “So I definitely know how to work hard, and I definitely think that helped me with Black Panda.”
From special forces to startup CEO
Yu’s military career reached a crossroads in 2009 when his uncle Ma Ying-jeou was elected president of Taiwan.
“There was an investigation regarding the fact that my uncle is the current president of Taiwan. It happened while I was in the special forces,” Yu said. During this period, difficult questions arose about his future.
Eventually, Yuu made the decision to leave the army, which left him confused and ostracized.
“I lost a lot of my identity,” he said. “I was hit with a wave of deep survivor’s guilt, because I knew that I was in my prime as one of the best Special Forces captains in the U.S. Army, and that our sons were dying and fighting overseas, just relaxing.”
In the years that followed, he struggled to find a new sense of identity. He studied Chinese for several years and returned to graduate school at Johns Hopkins University, where he was hired as a stock trader at Credit Suisse.
Eventually, in 2012, he joined Palantir Technologies, which he loved, but was let go in 2013. “After Palantir laid me off…it was the most difficult period of my life, the hardest ever. And I was also broke…I was very financially stressed and I was couchsurfing,” he said.
Then a crisis involving a family friend named Evelyn Chan calls him back into action.
In 2013, Chan was taken hostage by the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group overseas. Yu helped coordinate the rescue, led a team to the Philippines, and rescued her 35 days later.
Notably, this mission was the inspiration for the idea for Yu’s company, Blackpanda, today.
He recognized that businesses and organizations facing cyber-attacks need the same kind of rapid 24/7 support that crisis insurance and services provide in the case of kidnapping and ransom demands.
“Therefore, we need to copy the same model in the digital world that is used in the physical safety and security world. That is what is missing in cybersecurity,” he said. He teamed up with several former Green Berets and they all started working on Blackpanda. This is an idea shaped by Yu’s unique background.
Today, Yu reflects and says that tying identity to accomplishments is a “rigged game.”
“Because every time you strive for the next accomplishment, you think…everything will be fine, right? But the problem is, if you don’t heal the wounds of the original trauma, someone can hurt you from a different angle,” he said.
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