Story cofounders just followed the same playbook of startup → exit → shutdown 1. S.Y. Lee > 2021: Exited Radish, a web novel platform, at a $500M valuation (annual revenue was ~$20M) > 2022: Said he’d stay post-acquisition, but left within a year > 2022: Cofounded Story Protocol with Jason Zhao > 2025: Cofounded another project, Poseidon > 2025: Radish shut down💀 2. Jason Zhao > 2022: Cofounded Story Protocol with Lee > 2025: $IP TGE > 2025: Within 6 months, went from cofounder → “strategic advisor” > What’s next? > 2026: fully out within a year > 2029: Story shut down too, not even clear what it is doing now
Jason Zhao
Jason Zhao16.8. klo 12.46
After 3.5 years building Story from scratch, I’m stepping out of my full-time role. I’ll stay closely involved as a strategic advisor. While incubating Poseidon, I rekindled my original passion from my DeepMind days: applying AI to frontier industries like science and space. It's time for me to fully pursue this path. I believe we’re approaching a crucial inflection point in humanity’s arc as an industrial society. Language generation is just the initial wave of a cascade of abundant intelligence across fields like robotics, biopharma, and space that, if successful, will constitute a new Industrial Revolution. Looking back, building Story has been the most meaningful experience of my life. What began as a whiteboard sketch when I was 22 turned into more than I could have imagined: a network supporting IPs from Balmain to BTS, with millions of transactions and $130M+ in backing from partners like a16z. Now, Story enters Chapter 2 with SY at the helm, Andrea as our new CPO, and Sandeep as Chief AI Officer. And as I embark on my next venture, I won't be going far, as Story plans to partner and invest. To our investors, partners, and nearly 100 incredible teammates: thank you for an incredible ride!
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