I'm Barry Kwok. Thank you for visiting and reading.
I first began building organizations in London before moving to San Francisco in 2007. I initially worked at Google before realizing the tech startup ecosystem was more my cup of tea and found myself at an early Y-Combinator startup called Scribd.
More recently, I built the engineering, product, and design function at Airbnb when the company was still in the apartment it was founded at 10 people. By the time I left, the company had grown to 500 people in 12 offices globally, and was valued at $1.3 billion.
I was subsequently approached by the CEO of Coinbase (an early engineer who I recruited to Airbnb) to join as the second employee, leading efforts in scaling the company to over 180 employees in four years with the company valued at $1.6 billion.
I currently take on select advising engagements alongside angel investing. When the time arises, I'm pursuing personal endeavors such as writing and journaling but publishing little of it; contemplating a podcast of my conversations with friends, fellow professionals, and acquaintances; the study of acting; learning to DJ; and riding a motorcycle, amongst a growing assortment of interests.
What will you find here?
My interests include but not exclusively: understanding people and systems, philosophy, psychology, parenting, football (soccer for the US) and how sports team function, acting and the process of film-making, travel experiences, trial law, tech, consumer products, venture philanthropy, and the industries that surround them.
This site is a collection of my personal thoughts, experience, and mental models I've applied in my journey of building startups, how my personal interests have informed my understanding of my profession, and at times how my profession in turn has informed my personal life. I hope my personal experiences can help you in navigating your journey in the startup landscape however little or much it is.
Where does the name 'Kwok Industries' come from?
During my university studies in Computer Engineering the dot-com crash occurred. Early on in the program, one of the required modules was Integrated Circuit design, which involved learning how to design silicon chips and actually produce one. It was hard to understand the rationale of how learning this would apply to one's software career. Graduating into a world where employment security was questionable, in London an epicenter for finance rather than technology, a pervasive disillusionment had grown in the student community of the engineering department at the time.
A running joke amongst my class (that became a beacon of humorous optimism) was if none of us were able to get jobs in engineering with our university degree, that we would at least be able to work on a factory line designing and building computer chips. One of us would open our own factory and call it '<surname> Industries' and employ the others. Fortunately, they're all gainfully employed now.
The name 'Industries' also reminds me of my working class roots where factories were common place in the town I grew up in. I even have fond memories of working at a factory when I was 15, albeit for three days, though that's a story for another time...