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100 Facts you did not know about Yu-kai Chou
Chou Musings

100 Facts you did not know about Yu-kai Chou

<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://yukaichou.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/chou19.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-187" title="chou19" src="https://yukaichou.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/chou19-300×199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a><a href="https://yukaichou.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/chou19.jpg"> </a></p> Since my co-founder <a href="http://www.junloayza.com/just-for-fun/for-my-100th-post-100-facts-you-did-not-know-about-me/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jun Loayza wrote a post</a> about the same topic, I figured I need to write one too just to be cool. I mean, people have a lot of different opinions about me, but few can deny that I'm a pretty unique/weird guy, so I'm sure I can beat Jun in being more interesting: <ol> <li>I can write different things with both hands at the same time</li> <li>I have a scar with 26 stitches on my lips because it split in two when I ran into a metal trashcan at the age of 3</li> <li>My father has been a diplomat for Taiwan for over two decades</li> <li>My mother has Master's Degree in Chinese literature</li> <li>I was born in Taiwan, but grew up in South Africa (6 years), Taiwan (7 years), Kansas (5 years), and California (5 years)</li> <li>I started my high school chess club and I spent 4 hours a day learning so I could coach the team</li> <li>My high school chess club won the State Championship in my Junior Year, and won the championship for the next 5 years. They also finished strong nationally.</li> <li>I secretly admire my girlfriend's workaholic discipline and how everyone likes her (schools, jobs, guys)</li> <li>I tutored chess, violin, Chinese, English, and Math to over 12 students between the ages of 8-20</li> <li>I can play the violin at the back of my head</li> <li>I can beat many of my friends in chess without looking at the board (shout the moves)</li> <li>When I was little, my dream job was to be a factory worker in a ramen factory</li> <li>When I was little older, my dream job was to be either an actor/singer, or a professor at anything</li> <li>I thought I was going to be a Biochemist during high school. I applied to schools with chem majors</li> <li>In South Africa, my favorite pet dog is named Icy</li> <li>Icy was smart enough to press the doorbell when she was locked out of the house on accident</li> <li>Before I was 17, I was constantly working to be accepted by others. I was a pushover</li> <li>When I was small, I felt that I had an obligation to be happy because people around me are sad. When I cry, I do it secretly and shamefully</li> <li>A huge chunk of my education was derived from business podcasts</li> <li>On my iPod Nano, there are no music but 4 gigs worth of podcasts</li> <li>I graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Economics in 3 years while running my businesses to save my parents money</li> <li>I became a devoted Christian when I was in 10th grade, after rejecting a church invite from a friend six times.</li> <li>I brought <a href="http://junloayza.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jun</a> to the Way of the Sub</li> <li>I once lost 13lbs in 3 weeks after declaring that I wouldn't shave until I lose 10</li> <li>I am a co-founder of Bruin Consulting from UCLA</li> <li>I once rejected sex from one of the most attractive girls I know</li> <li>I became an entrepreneur when I was 18</li> <li>My first business was on eBay, when I "coincidentally" won 2 football tickets by drawing myself from a raffle</li> <li>I started four businesses, one non-profit, and one student organization before I was 22</li> <li>My goal in life is to make people around me successful</li> <li>I can beat Jun at Super Smash Bro Melee</li> <li>I used to be called Eric</li> <li>My best friend when I was in South Africa was called Luwazi, although I don't know how to really spell it</li> <li>I put ice cubes in my fried rice</li> <li>I have eaten an eight-by-eight at In'N'Out and thought it was nothing</li> <li>I met my girlfriend at Aikido Class</li> <li>In middle school, I was obsessed with martial arts and would spend hours a day practicing/reading about it</li> <li>I was a heavy Starcraft and Diablo II player</li> <li>There is nothing in my life that I truly regret up to this point</li> <li>I have about 1500 friends</li> <li>I am heavily involved in the green/sustainability movement</li> <li>I was one of the 100 young leaders in California that was invited to the <a href="http://site.governorsglobalclimatesummit.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Governor's Global Climate Summit</a></li> <li>I took a dump in a bush outside my college apartment once and wiped with leaves because I lost my keys</li> <li>I look smarter than I actually am. I was impressed by a guy when he said he is as smart as I seem to be.</li> <li>I had the worse phobia for earrings until I wanted to prove to my girlfriend phobias can be overcome by love</li> <li>I joined the debate team the first year I came to the states. Got slaughtered without knowing much English, but made it to varsity my junior year</li> <li>I literally eat four times faster than some of my friends</li> <li>I used to write string quartet music and perform in a group call BoPo MoFos</li> <li>My first relationship was opposite attract. She was pessimistic with low self esteem</li> <li>I have global expansion plans: LA, SF, Shanghai, Beijing, Taiwan, London, Argentina, Brazil, Dubai</li> <li>I used to be addicted to this online pure text strategy game called <a href="http://games.swirve.com/utopia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Utopia</a></li> <li>I have very awkward body language</li> <li>My violin's name is Marian. I named her after a Danish girl I liked in high school.</li> <li><a href="https://yukaichou.com/my-epiphany-from-diablo-ii-that-started-my-entrepreneurial-life/">I had one of the most important epiphany's in life from Diablo II</a></li> <li>My favorite movie is Brave Heart. It made me cry ever watching it the 4th time.</li> <li>I think I am pretty impressive for my age, but am always shocked when others think I'm impressive</li> <li>I created a business analysis system in college called <a href="https://yukaichou.com/fds-business-analysis-system-octalysis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Octalysis</a></li> <li>I prefer living in a triple than a double. I would pay a bit more for a third roommate</li> <li>I have never smoked cigarettes or done drugs</li> <li>I can only bend down to touch my knees</li> <li>In South Africa, my family received a certificate from the government, stating that my family is honored as the equivalent of white people. Maybe not so honorable.</li> <li>When I was in 5th grade, I led a team to clean the restrooms used by kids with special needs. I can confidently say that I was the No 1 poop cleaning expert in my school (being a pushover in everything else)</li> <li>I feel that a leader should take care of the grunt work while the team focuses on what they are best at</li> <li>I can make a strange eagle cry noise that no one I have ever met can reproduce</li> <li>One of my new hobbies is to hulahoop and DDR at the same time</li> <li>I can beat the entire <a href="http://videogameworkout.com/2005/09/mocap-boxing.html">Mocap Boxing</a> game in arcades within 2 tries</li> <li>When I was younger, I was obsessed with ninjas</li> <li>My brain makes connections between things that most people think are random</li> <li>So far people seem to think that I'm a good leader</li> <li>I realized that Twitter has the potential to take over my life</li> <li>I swam varsity for my high school team</li> <li>I shaved my head twice, one for swimming, the other because of girlfriend</li> <li>I have a $8 budget a day for food until my startup generates good revenue</li> <li>I took Spanish for three years, but didn't learn much</li> <li>I am trying to really learn Spanish</li> <li>I am into promoting acupuncture</li> <li>I love my girlfriend a lot and am stunned by how beautiful she is over and over again</li> <li>I am not a sentimental person. I only look forward, not back</li> <li>I am trying to lose 20 lbs. I starve myself sometimes for that</li> <li>The first thing I check out when seeing a girl is her hair</li> <li>The most important physical trait of a girl to me is her eyes</li> <li>I look for non-emotional girls who share the same interest as me</li> <li>I am a co-founder of <a href="http://futuredelivery.tv/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Future Delivery TV</a></li> <li>I have my own reality show called <a href="http://livingthestartuplife.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Living the Startup Life</a></li> <li>I speak in explanations, not in sentences</li> <li>Jun says I look like a Panda, but I think my animal would definitely be Dolphin</li> <li>I do not care about living a luxurious life, but I want to make the largest impact possible</li> <li>I think it is better to live in a small house and eat well if I did become wealthy</li> <li>I often needed to do penalty problems till 3AM in the morning when I was in third grade because I just moved from South Africa to Taiwan</li> <li>I have about 7-8 best friends in this world, all separated by geographic area</li> <li>I made hundreds of people motivated and level up in real life</li> <li>I wrote a Chinese novel that is 190,000 words with three years of effort, and only 20% done</li> <li>My dream vacation is to fish and play chess at the same time with an attractive and smart woman</li> <li>I am a typical O blood type Taurus</li> <li>I once faced death and smiled, thinking that I lived a good life</li> <li>I like to sing, but sing horribly</li> <li>The worse drink that I ever had was a Durian Smoothy</li> <li>I believe that one day I will be the leader in one or more industries</li> <li> I am appreciative of my teammates: Jun, Jason, Alesha, Jason, Joseph</li> <li>I'm not sure if creating this list is a good return on investment in time or not</li> </ol>

Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai ChouCreator of the Octalysis Framework · cited in 3,700+ academic papers
Published
Updated
10 minRead time

When my co-founder Jun Loayza celebrated his 100th blog post by publishing 100 facts about himself, I knew I had to write my own list just to stay competitive. What followed became one of the most personal things I have ever published: a hundred confessions covering my childhood across South Africa, Taiwan, Kansas, and California, the chess club I coached to a state championship, my ability to play the violin on the back of my head, the ventures I started before turning 24, and a few stories I probably should have kept to myself. It remains the fastest way to truly know me, and a lesson in why self-disclosure builds trust.

⚡ Speed Run Notes

  • A “100 facts” list is a masterclass in trust-building because it trades legibility for authority. Authority is opaque; people trust experts they cannot fully see. Legibility is transparent; people love people they feel they know. The list traded a small amount of the first for a large amount of the second.
  • Self-disclosure at scale is Core Drive 5 (CD5): Social Influence because it makes readers feel they've entered a friendship. A reader who knows 100 facts about you will talk about you as if they know you. That parasocial familiarity becomes distribution. Writers who never disclose stay respected and under-shared.
  • The trick is choosing which facts to include. Too trivial and you look unserious. Too deep and you look desperate. The right mix is slightly embarrassing but not humiliating — a calibration most people get wrong in either direction.
  • Personal facts lists age better than professional bios. A bio needs updating every year as achievements change. A list of personal facts is close to evergreen. It compounds as an introduction for a decade.
  • The deepest move is the implicit invitation: “if you made it this far, we're friends now.” The reader who finishes 100 facts has invested attention, and the attention becomes a commitment. That commitment is the single most valuable asset any creator can cultivate.

Table of Contents

Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou

Yu-kai Chou — creator of the Octalysis Framework

Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.

Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.

His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.

The 100 Facts

[Original Viddler/Flash video — embed retired (2010–2014 era). Framework explanation preserved below.]

Since my co-founder Jun Loayza wrote a post about the same topic, I figured I need to write one too just to be cool. I mean, people have a lot of different opinions about me, but few can deny that I’m a pretty unique/weird guy, so I’m sure I can beat Jun in being more interesting:

    1. I can write different things with both hands at the same time
    2. I have a scar with 26 stitches on my lips because it split in two when I ran into a metal trash can at the age of 3
    3. My father has been a diplomat for Taiwan for over two decades
    4. My mother has Master’s Degree in Chinese literature
    5. I was born in Taiwan, but grew up in South Africa (6 years), Taiwan (7 years), Kansas (5 years), and California (7 years), and Vancouver Canada (1 year)
    6. I started my high school chess club and I spent 4 hours a day learning so I could coach the team
    7. My high school chess club won the State Championship in my Junior Year, and won the championship for the next 5 years. They also finished strong nationally.
    8. I married an amazing women who is quite a bit older than me
    9. I have records of gaining 15 lbs in 2 weeks as well as losing 15lbs in 2 weeks.
    10. I can play the violin on the back of my head
    11. I can beat many of my friends in chess without looking at the board (shout the moves)
    12. When I was little, my dream job was to be a factory worker in a ramen factory
    13. When I was little older, my dream job was to be either an actor/singer, or a professor at anything

    1. I thought I was going to be a Biochemist during high school. I applied to schools with chem majors
    2. In South Africa, my favorite pet dog is named Icy
    3. Icy was smart enough to press the doorbell when she was locked out of the house on accident
    4. Before I was 17, I was constantly working to be accepted by others. I was a pushover
    5. When I was small, I felt that I had an obligation to be happy because people around me are sad. When I cry, I do it secretly and shamefully
    6. A huge chunk of my education was derived from business podcasts
    7. On my iPod Nano, there are no music but 4 gigs worth of podcasts
    8. I graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Economics in 3 years while running my businesses to save my parents money
    9. I became a devoted Christian when I was in 10th grade, after rejecting a church invite from a friend six weeks in a row.
    10. I made enjoy Subway
    11. I enjoy sleeping in my jeans and button ups
    12. I am a co-founder of Bruin Consulting from UCLA
    13. I once rejected sex from one of the most attractive girls I know from high school
    14. I became an entrepreneur when I was 18
    15. My first business was on eBay, when I “coincidentally” won 2 football tickets by drawing myself from a raffle
    16. I started four businesses, one non-profit, and one student organization before I was 24
    17. My goal in life is to make people around me successful
    18. I can beat Jun Loayza at Super Smash Bro Melee
    19. I used to be called Eric
    20. My best friend when I was in South Africa was called Luwazi, although I don’t know how to really spell it
    21. I put ice cubes in my fried rice
    22. I have eaten an eight-by-eight at In’N’Out and thought it was nothing
    23. I met my wife in a Chinese church in Fremont California
    24. In middle school, I was obsessed with martial arts and would spend hours a day practicing/reading about it
    25. I was a heavy Starcraft and Diablo II player. Then I became a slightly heavy Starcraft II and DIablo III player
    26. There is nothing in my life that I truly regret up to this point
    27. I have over 2500 real friends (if you count friendly acquaintances too)
    28. I was heavily involved in the green/sustainability movement
    29. I was one of the 100 young leaders in California that was invited to the Governor’s Global Climate Summit
    30. I took a dump in a bush outside my college apartment once and wiped with leaves because I lost my keys:(
    31. I look smarter than I actually am. I was impressed by a guy when he said he is as smart as I seem to be.
    32. I have the worse phobia for earring. I can’t even stand paperclips on ears.
    33. I joined the debate team the first year I came to the states. Got slaughtered without knowing much English, but made it to varsity my junior year
    34. I literally eat four times faster than some of my friends
    35. I used to write string quartet music and perform in a group call BoPo MoFos
    36. My first relationship was opposite attract. She was pessimistic with low self esteem
    37. I have global expansion plans: LA, SF, Shanghai, Beijing, Taiwan, London, Argentina, Brazil, Dubai
    38. I used to be addicted to this online pure text strategy game called Utopia
    39. I have awkward body language
    40. My violin’s name is Marian. I named her after a Danish girl I liked in high school.
    41. I had one of the most important epiphany’s in life from Diablo II
    42. My favorite movie is Brave Heart. I have watched it over 30 times, and it made me cry even watching it the 4th time.
    43. I think I am pretty impressive for my age, but am always shocked when others think I’m impressive
    44. I created a business analysis system in college called Octalysis
    45. I prefer living in a triple than a double. I would pay a bit more for a third roommate
    46. I have never smoked cigarettes or done drugs
    47. I can only bend down to touch my knees
    48. In South Africa, my family received a certificate from the government, stating that my family is classified as “honorary whites”. Now you know why I am so well-respected.
    49. When I was in 5th grade, I led a team to clean the restrooms used by kids with special needs. I can confidently say that I was the No 1 poop cleaning expert in my school (being a pushover in everything else)
    50. I feel that a leader should take care of the grunt work while the team focuses on what they are best at
    51. I can make a strange eagle cry noise that no one I have ever met can reproduce
    52. One of my new hobbies is to hulahoop and DDR at the same time
    53. I can beat the entire Mocap Boxing game in arcades within 2 tries
    54. When I was younger, I was obsessed with ninjas
    55. My brain makes connections between things that most people think are random
    56. Sometimes people seem to think that I’m a good leader
    57. I realized that Twitter has the potential to take over my life
    58. I swam varsity for my high school team
    59. I shaved my head twice, one for swimming, the other because of a girlfriend hear cut mistake
    60. I had a $8 budget a day for food when I was bootstrapping my startup
    61. I took Spanish for three years, but didn’t learn much
    62. I am trying to really learn Spanish
    63. I am into promoting acupuncture
    64. I started doing Gamification stuff since 2003
    65. I am generally not a sentimental person. I only look forward, not back
    66. I am trying to lose 20 lbs. I starve myself sometimes for that
    67. I’ve been an entrepreneur for so long that joining a corporate job is the scary leap of faith for me.
    68. The most important physical trait of a girl to me is her eyes
    69. I cannot write short blogposts even when I try
    70. I have my own reality show called Living the Startup Life
    71. I speak in explanations, not in sentences
    72. I tend to over explain things.
    73. Some people say I look like a Panda, but I think my animal would be more like a Dolphin
    74. I do not care about living a luxurious life, but I want to make the largest impact possible
    75. I now reside in Fremont, California
    76. I often needed to do penalty problems till 3AM in the morning when I was in third grade because I just moved from South Africa to Taiwan
    77. I have about 7-8 best friends in this world, all separated by geographic area
    78. I made hundreds of people motivated and level up in real life
    79. I wrote a Chinese novel that is 190,000 words with three years of effort, and only 20% done
    80. My dream vacation is to fish and play chess at the same time with an attractive and smart woman
    81. I am a typical O blood type Taurus
    82. I once faced death and smiled, thinking that I lived a good life
    83. I like to sing, but sing horribly
    84. The worse drink that I ever had was a Durian Smoothy
    85. I believe that one day I will be the leader in one or more industries
    86. I recently stepped down as CEO of my startup
    87. I’m not sure if creating this list is a good return on investment in time or not







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