Jing Kuang, Founding Partner of Y+ Ventures

When I was nine, I discovered something quietly powerful: if I ranked first in my class, I could watch TV whenever I want. Or skip PE when I felt like reading. That’s when I first realized: excellence is leverage—and leverage gives me agency.

That lesson never left me.

In a world where many followed scripts, I chased my own questions. While others around me pursued the expected path—finance roles, as a finance major at Peking University—I chose branding at P&G. Not because I wanted to rebel, but because I was curious. I wanted to understand what fueled the numbers—the people, the motivations, the vision behind every data point. How do you make people care? How do you build something that not only grows, but genuinely touches lives and improves lives everyday?

That one choice—seemingly off-track—took me everywhere.

From inside the boardrooms of global giants to the garage offices of early-stage startups, I found myself again and again drawn to people with conviction. Founders who dared to name their truth. I launched my own brand consultancy to help them sharpen their voice. Their why.

Then came a moment I’ll never forget: a stakeholder saw something in me while I was still an MBA student at Stanford. She handed me the reins to a mergers and acquisitions firm under the top 4 private financial group in China—and trusted me to lead it as CEO.

Eventually I turned the firm I led into the firm I owned—spinning it out to build something with my name on it. It was a turning point.

I began creating agency not only for myself, but for others—for my team, my counter parties, and the people we backed. I learned what it meant to be responsible not just for outcomes, but for people’s growth. Their risk. Their dreams.

But the most radical decision I’ve ever made? Moving my family across the world from Beijing to Palo Alto.

No safety net. No three-generations-deep connections. Just belief: that agency isn’t handed down. It’s built. And this—this was the place to build something from everything I’d learned. I wanted my kids to grow up in a world where ambition wasn’t a risk to hide from, but a responsibility to live up to. And I wanted to build a life where bold ideas open doors—and where the future is shaped by those brave enough to try.

In a way, my story is simple: I go where the questions are. I choose the harder path if it leads to more clarity. I surround myself with the best people who want to challenge the status quo and be challenged. People who trade certainty for potential.

Agency has always been my compass. Excellence, my language. And reinvention, my rhythm.

Every chapter—student, brand builder, founder, CEO, immigrant, investor—is not a switch, but a layering. A sharpening. A deepening of a truth I’ve always known:

We don’t get to choose where we start.
But we get to shape everything that comes next.