Raised in a rough neighborhood of Chicago. Surrounded by people from all nationalities. Roots in Toyama. His father ran a Japanese restaurant in America. Through his father's restaurant, Japan felt like a familiar, faraway place. "Make money" — that's what his parents always told him. Without realizing it, he grew up believing he had to achieve something big and vague.
Drawn by a childhood fascination with Japan, he joined Nomura Research Institute as a new grad. The way young people today idolize Silicon Valley, Japan back then felt like the most innovative country in the world — the top of technology and culture. But growing up with too much freedom in America left him completely out of step with Japanese corporate culture. He quit after one year. Back in the US, he realized what he had always wanted was to start something. He earned a master's degree at business school, but had the drive without a destination. At the Boston Career Forum, he met the president of BEENOS, was drawn to his entrepreneurial mindset, and began working as his right hand in the executive office. Operating in an environment well above his level, he gained experience launching new ventures and working as a VC associate sourcing and supporting portfolio companies. The urge to build something of his own became impossible to contain. He left BEENOS, studied programming at General Assembly, and finally founded his first company — a bento delivery service he shut down after foreseeing Uber Eats' expansion. He then co-founded a matching app with a former NRI colleague, in a space still viewed with suspicion at the time.
Behind "I want to start something" was always a deeper hunger: I want to succeed. While running his own ventures, he began working with Coincheck — still just a handful of people. The founder, Wada, was an exceptionally talented engineer. The account sign-up UX was simple and user-friendly. When the market moved, this would win — he shut down his own services and went all in. As the second hire, he led international business development, marketing, HR, and web. Every day was a tightrope walk. An endless mountain of tasks, processed like a machine. Cryptocurrency had been called a scam until just before. Yet by selling nothing but electronic data, the company began earning hundreds of millions of yen a day. This will grow forever — senses went numb. Then ¥50 billion vanished overnight. While leading the international coordination to trace the stolen funds, one question kept circling. We had only been chasing our own success. Was there any happiness in it for users or team members? Was I myself ever happy? I left after the acquisition. When the illusion of money fell away, all that remained was the question.
After the illusion of money fell apart, I wanted to meet people working for something larger than themselves, and crossed the ocean to Silicon Valley. Studied product design and management at Tradecraft and supported startups in the US and Japan. But what I actually saw was a world where money — wrapped as "success" — mattered more than meaning. Funding rounds, inner circles, valuations. Everyone said "make the world better," but the underlying structure was the same: making money came first. It was, at heart, the same scenery I had seen at Coincheck. What does it actually mean to do good? Is making money the right answer? I had lost interest in growing companies altogether. What drew me was a different question: how do people become happy? I never found the answers — only the questions kept growing deeper.
I set down both the illusion of money and the yardstick of success. I focused on what I actually wanted to do. I even released music on Spotify. There was no set path anymore. I did everything I'd ever wanted to do. Maybe happiness isn't something measured by external validation or numbers — maybe it lives inside you. That thought took root, and I began devouring books on philosophy, the cosmos, psychology. What struck me most deeply was the Buddha's meditation practice. I wanted to experience "enlightenment" for myself.
Still searching for meaning, I went to Dhamma Dicchā for a 12-day Vipassana meditation retreat. In total silence, I observed only what was happening inside me. I had let go of the illusion of money. I had set down the yardstick of success. I had even chased every desire. And still I wasn't full — because the reason lived deeper. What had been driving me was a feeling of fear and anxiety: "I have to succeed or I won't be valued." Wealth, fame, approval — everything my twenties self had craved. I felt it all drain away, quietly. I thought I had released the external standards, but inside, the fear was still there. From now on, I want to move forward in the feeling of love. That realization was the gift of those twelve silent days. An hour of meditation every day — still my practice.
Walking forward in the feeling of love, I launched Well-being AI products at ExaWizards and went through its IPO from the inside. I wanted to enrich the hearts of everyone involved. To build systems that exploit no one. No matter how fast a market grows, the mindset of the people building it determines the product's true value — that was what I believed. Alongside meditation, I began studying coaching as another path to consciousness transformation. I joined to solve social problems. But before I knew it, I was being pulled by the gravity of capitalism. The tension between meaning and money that I had only watched from the outside in Silicon Valley — now I was living it from the inside. And I noticed one more thing. Behind the goodwill of "solving social problems" sat a self that wanted to be recognized. Through being someone doing meaningful work for society, I was reaching for approval. That wasn't the love I had touched in Vipassana.
Coaching kept teaching me one thing: by the time someone arrives at coaching, they have already stepped onto the path of transformation. The real question was about everyone before that step. How do you invite consciousness transformation in people who haven't entered the path yet? The answer I arrived at was comedy. I entered Titan's school and performed as comedian Kagayakiman. People notice the moment things tilt slightly off-center — and they laugh. Laughter is a small noticing, a small transformation. Its reach is vastly wider than meditation or coaching. The widest mouth of the same funnel, pointed at the same place.
In a cutting-edge legal consciousness-altering program, I had a near-death experience. What I saw at the border between this world and the next was emptiness — kū. Money, success, meaning, recognition — I had let go of each thing I had been chasing, one by one. And further down, I let go of my body, even of breath. In a world that was nothing but consciousness, everything was there, and nothing was there. When I came back, the ordinary in front of me was a miracle. To breathe. To have family. There was nothing but gratitude.
After seeing emptiness, the place I returned to was the everyday. I want to protect the ordinary for the next generation. Consciousness transformation is the doorway. So that even one more person might notice — everything I do moves on that axis.
My wife and I run ao. inc., which operates 9 beauty salons. No matter how far AI advances, the experience of being cared for by another human can't be replaced. Facing the person in front of you, with the hospitality that makes them more beautiful — as technology accelerates, that value only grows. That's why, in the age of AI, beauty salons are a growth industry, not a declining one. We're building a hospitality-driven business with our hands, together, as a family.
I host multiple podcasts. Stories, consciousness transformation, post-capitalism — the themes vary, but all of them are about delivering the moment a person changes, through voice.
Founder and Director of WA108 Inc. We run STORYS.JP — a platform for telling, preserving, and delivering the stories behind people's lives, ideas, challenges, and work. In the age of AI, what holds real value is primary information grounded in human experience. Through deep interviews, we capture moments of transformation and map them to spark the next person's shift.
STORYS STAND — a 108-member personal media hub with podcast studio, shared bookstore, and coworking space. Starting in Ikejiri-Ōhashi and Okinawa, expanding nationwide. Rebuilding mutual aid and the old culture of neighborhood connection. Cultivating bonds in daily life to be ready when it matters. A story infrastructure where reading, listening, telling, preserving, and connecting circulate.
SHINDO — co-creating a form of agriculture that grows a thousand-year forest. Joined as a zeroth-generation partner. Clothing, food, shelter, community, energy — producing it all ourselves. Practicing sustainable post-capitalist daily life, one harvest at a time.
Meditation sparked my wish to deliver consciousness transformation. But meditation isn't the doorway for everyone. Dialogue lets people change on the extension of daily life. Because I once ran on fear and anxiety, noticed the ego, and returned to the feeling of love myself, I can sit with another person's inner transformation. Coaching is the quietest path to consciousness transformation — one person at a time. ICF-certified coach (ACC). 160+ cumulative clients, 500+ cumulative session hours (as of 2026-03-15). Past clients: seed–Series B founders / social entrepreneurs / former foreign-firm Japan CEOs / student founders / former PMs at big foreign IT firms / big-firm consultants / startup executives / CMOs of fast-growing startups / design-firm CEOs / design-firm executives / managers at big foreign entertainment firms / beauty company CEOs / engineering leads at mega-ventures / business leads at mega-ventures / freelancers / professional coaches / career counselors / comedians.