Jason 🧠 Shen

AAPI professionals in corporate leadership? The numbers are bleak.

We're the least likely group to be promoted to management.

That's not just unfair. That's a massive waste of talent.

Enter Lunar Accel.

They're not waiting for permission to fix this. They're building the solution themselves.

- Mentorship for early career Asian American professionals
- Inspiring the next generation of AAPI leaders
- Leadership development that actually works
- Started… Show more

AAPI professionals in corporate leadership? The numbers are bleak.

We're the least likely group to be promoted to management.

That's not just unfair. That's a massive waste of talent.

Enter Lunar Accel.

They're not waiting for permission to fix this. They're building the solution themselves.

- Mentorship for early career Asian American professionals
- Inspiring the next generation of AAPI leaders
- Leadership development that actually works
- Started in NYC, expanding to major cities

Young team. Scrappy as hell. Punching way above their weight class.

And I get to be one of the gray hairs in the room.

Offering wisdom. (Questionable at times, but hey - that's part of the deal.)

Cheering them on. Watching them build something that should have existed decades ago.

This is how change happens.

Are you an Asian American 2-6 years out of school? Apply for the next cohort.

Have 7+ years of experience? Sign up to mentor a fellow.

20+ years in and ready to really give back? Come speak at a cohort or make a donation.

It's time to crack the bamboo ceiling. Show less

Finding great engineers for your startup is hard enough.

Finding ones who are smart, emotionally intelligent, AND can mentor your junior team?

That's like finding a unicorn riding another unicorn.

Here's what most companies do:

- Post on job boards. Wait. Hope.
- Pay recruiters 15-20% of salary
- Interview dozens of candidates
- Still end up with someone who does nothing more than ship average code.
- Rinse and repeat in 6 months

I would know, I… Show more

Finding great engineers for your startup is hard enough.

Finding ones who are smart, emotionally intelligent, AND can mentor your junior team?

That's like finding a unicorn riding another unicorn.

Here's what most companies do:

- Post on job boards. Wait. Hope.
- Pay recruiters 15-20% of salary
- Interview dozens of candidates
- Still end up with someone who does nothing more than ship average code.
- Rinse and repeat in 6 months

I would know, I founded a company to address this gap nearly a decade ago.

Scout is continuing that vision, in a smarter way.

That's why I invested =)

Kirk and Randy have built a private network of remarkable software engineers.

A community built on mentoring early-career talent.

Drawn from some of the most successful tech companies in the world, big and small.

Not just coders. Scrappy, thoughtful technical leaders.

The best part for you? No double-digit recruiter fees eating your budget.

Scout's model means you get top-tier talent without the traditional markup.

Need engineers who can actually lead?

Want to build a team that grows together?

Ready to stop gambling on hires?

Check out Scout and see the difference a curated network makes. Show less

Delightful government software? Sounds like an oxymoron.

Imagine how much better digital government services could be if it was built by people who actually cared about technology and user experience.

That's what the team at FSH is doing.

Building affordable, genuinely delightful workflow tools for schools, courts, municipalities, and more.

I wrote a tiny check to support the team years ago.

But honestly? That's not the contribution I'm most proud… Show more

Delightful government software? Sounds like an oxymoron.

Imagine how much better digital government services could be if it was built by people who actually cared about technology and user experience.

That's what the team at FSH is doing.

Building affordable, genuinely delightful workflow tools for schools, courts, municipalities, and more.

I wrote a tiny check to support the team years ago.

But honestly? That's not the contribution I'm most proud of.

Both cofounders were interns and early hires at my last startup.

If I had any real impact, it probably was in those early days - giving them room to grow, and showing them what it means to build something ambitious and new.

I've seen firsthand how hard it is to bring innovation to government.

Over a decade ago, I spent time doing exactly that through a presidential fellowship.

What Lilly and Johnson are building at FSH is precisely the efficient and high impact innovation that government needs now. Show less

April 2020. COVID lockdowns everywhere.

My best friend Bilal Mahmood and I had just exited our tech startups.

People were struggling. Communities were struggling. Businesses were struggling.

We felt like we had to do something.

Here's the thing though...

We'd both started non-profits before. We'd donated to plenty of causes.

But this time? We wanted to do something different.

We still believed in entrepreneurs. We believed in taking bold, risky… Show more

April 2020. COVID lockdowns everywhere.

My best friend Bilal Mahmood and I had just exited our tech startups.

People were struggling. Communities were struggling. Businesses were struggling.

We felt like we had to do something.

Here's the thing though...

We'd both started non-profits before. We'd donated to plenty of causes.

But this time? We wanted to do something different.

We still believed in entrepreneurs. We believed in taking bold, risky bets that could have outsized returns.

Something you rarely see in most giving campaigns.

So we created something we called "angel philanthropy."

The concept was simple:

- Identify important challenges in our cities (New York and San Francisco)
- Dig deep. Interview experts in the field
- Select a scrappy organization with promising results
- Scale them up with a significant donation

We put in our own money first.

Then rallied our communities to chip in.

The result?

Nearly $250,000 raised.

- Small businesses in San Francisco
- Fighting anti-Asian hate in New York City
- Digital access for children of Chinatown

While this project is on pause for now, we've each continued our social impact work.

Bilal is now an elected official in San Francisco.

I'm the founding board member of Lunar Accel, an AAPI leadership development nonprofit.

I'm grateful to have friends who are so invested in making impact and doing good in the world.

This was a lot of fun. Show less

The Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) program was established by the White House in 2012 to attract top innovators into government, capable of tackling issues at the convergence of technology, policy, and process.

The PIF Foundation is a 501(c)3 organization established to support and advance the PIF program, drive innovation in the US government, and connect our 100+ alumni. Board members are elected by members to 2-year terms.

The Asian American Man Study a national survey of the experiences and beliefs of American men of East, Southeast, and South Asian descent. Our findings have appeared in The Atlantic, NBC Asian America, Vox, and Quartz, and has reached over 100,000 people on Medium. Over 1000 Asian men have been surveyed since our founding in 2015.

Jason has shared his research and personal experience as a first-generation Asian American at Amazon, Pinterest, Proctor & Gamble, and Nielsen.

Midgame is an intelligent voice assistant for gamers and esports teams. We worked with dozens of leading collegiate and professional gaming teams and enhanced the gaming experience for players.

Investors include Betaworks, Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Techstars, and the former head of Microsoft Cortana. Acquired by Facebook in 2020

Headlight is a performance hiring platform. We develop software, assessments, and tournaments to help employers find, screen, and recruit talent. Headlight was acquired by Woven, a developer hiring platform.

Re-examining how we identify and cultivate human potential with The Talent Playbook (http://talentplaybook.co)

The TED Residency program is an incubator for breakthrough ideas. Residents are chosen via a semiannual competitive application and spend fourteen weeks at TED headquarters in New York City, working on their ideas. Although some may produce an artwork, a manuscript, or an amazing theorem, each Resident will also develop a TED talk and deliver it on a TED stage.

Build products to support & grow the 1.5M active sellers on Etsy's global marketplace. Projects included Shop Updates (marketing tool to connect customers with the human side of sellers), Sell on Etsy mobile app on Android, iOS, and Inventory Management (massive overhaul of seller tooling to support professional seller needs around variations and structured data).

Percolate is a technology company building the system of record for marketing. Founded in 2011, we serve scores of Fortune 500 clients around the world and are backed by Sequoia and First Round Capital.

I build compelling technology and lead-gen products to drive awareness and adoption of our world-class marketing platform among our enterprise and midmarket clients.

The Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) program was created by the White House under the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and pairs top innovators from the private sector, non-profits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate during focused 6-13 month “tours of duty” to develop solutions that can save lives, save taxpayer money, and fuel job creation.

– Selected by the White House out of to serve high-impact “tour of duty” at federal agencies
–… Show more

The Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) program was created by the White House under the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and pairs top innovators from the private sector, non-profits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate during focused 6-13 month “tours of duty” to develop solutions that can save lives, save taxpayer money, and fuel job creation.

– Selected by the White House out of to serve high-impact “tour of duty” at federal agencies
– Led product management, usability research, and community engagement of crowd-sourced transcription site
– As of 2019, more than 13,000 users have transcribed 450,000 pages of transcription
– Proposed, designed and launched feature that doubled transcription activity per visit
– Led cross-museum working group meetings, managed external marketing and communications
– The Transcription Center has been featured on the Wall Street Journal (print), PandoDaily, and FOX 5 News Show less

Ridejoy was a community marketplace for long-haul rideshare.

We helped over 45,000 people share city-to-city rides across the US and Canada and to great events like Coachella, Maker Faire, and Burning Man. Deeply involved in product, user acquisition and partnerships.

Ridejoy was cofounded by myself, Kalvin Wang and Randy Pang, funded by Y Combinator in Summer 2011 and raised $1.3M in seed funding from Freestyle Capital, SV Angel, Founder Collective and some other great… Show more

Ridejoy was a community marketplace for long-haul rideshare.

We helped over 45,000 people share city-to-city rides across the US and Canada and to great events like Coachella, Maker Faire, and Burning Man. Deeply involved in product, user acquisition and partnerships.

Ridejoy was cofounded by myself, Kalvin Wang and Randy Pang, funded by Y Combinator in Summer 2011 and raised $1.3M in seed funding from Freestyle Capital, SV Angel, Founder Collective and some other great investors.

We were written up in Vanity Fair, TechCrunch, and The New York Times. Apple selected Ridejoy as a featured iPhone app multiple times in the App Store. Show less

isocket is a technology platform designed to simplify guaranteed media sales, and one of the first companies to facilitate the programmatic buying of direct, guaranteed display ad inventory. It was acquired by Rubicon Project in 2014.

I headed our customer acquisition efforts and grew our publisher base by 16.6x and total revenues by 10.5x through in person / phone sales, email marketing campaigns, PPC advertising on Google & Facebook, custom landing pages, display ads & video… Show more

isocket is a technology platform designed to simplify guaranteed media sales, and one of the first companies to facilitate the programmatic buying of direct, guaranteed display ad inventory. It was acquired by Rubicon Project in 2014.

I headed our customer acquisition efforts and grew our publisher base by 16.6x and total revenues by 10.5x through in person / phone sales, email marketing campaigns, PPC advertising on Google & Facebook, custom landing pages, display ads & video marketing.

I also was involved in customer support, product development, and social media (blogging & Twitter). Show less

Started a nonprofit with some friends at Stanford. Our mission was to engage students with microfinance and entrepreneurship to help fight global poverty. Ran entrepreneurial competitions at dozens of high school and college campuses, helped fund over 800 microfinance loans to members of the working poor in developing nations. Caught the startup bug and met some of my best friends and future collaborators.

I worked full time to manage the staff, operations & financial performance ($740k revenue in ‘09) for Stanford's independently incorporated newspaper.

We battled an economic downturn and brutal industry-wide revenue declines by overhauling financial operations, restructuring the sales team, launching print and email marketing campaigns and building sales partnerships. In 12 months I was able to stabilize the serious revenue decline while avoiding major cuts to the core business.

I… Show more

I worked full time to manage the staff, operations & financial performance ($740k revenue in ‘09) for Stanford's independently incorporated newspaper.

We battled an economic downturn and brutal industry-wide revenue declines by overhauling financial operations, restructuring the sales team, launching print and email marketing campaigns and building sales partnerships. In 12 months I was able to stabilize the serious revenue decline while avoiding major cuts to the core business.

I developed & launched our Daily Digest email, which grew from 0 to 260+ subscribers and our Twitter feed (0 → 1140+ followers) in only a few months.

As Treasurer for the Board of Directors, I prepared and presented financial statements and guided the board on key strategic & financial decisions at monthly meetings.

I also began and continue to direct The Stanford Daily's efforts to digitize and make available online the entire span of Daily papers (over 35,000 issues over 118 years) - a six-figure project coordinating between multiple external vendors and various departments within Stanford. Show less

Captain of the 2009 Division 1 NCAA championship-winning team - our first title in 14 years. Was a recruited scholarship athlete and trained over 20 hrs/wk, year-round.

Achieved 9th place ranking in the all-around in 2006. Suffered a total knee dislocation that required surgeries in 2007. Made a huge recovery and team reached #1 ranking in 2008 and closed the deal in 2009.

I've been doing gymnastics since I was 6 years old and competition nationally starting at age 11. As a young… Show more

Captain of the 2009 Division 1 NCAA championship-winning team - our first title in 14 years. Was a recruited scholarship athlete and trained over 20 hrs/wk, year-round.

Achieved 9th place ranking in the all-around in 2006. Suffered a total knee dislocation that required surgeries in 2007. Made a huge recovery and team reached #1 ranking in 2008 and closed the deal in 2009.

I've been doing gymnastics since I was 6 years old and competition nationally starting at age 11. As a young gymnast, I earned a spot on the US Jr National team in 2002 and placed 4th in the 2004 Junior Nationals. I have competed in several USA Championships against World Championship and Olympic team members. Show less