Hyphen Nation with Dave Lu

Most leaders overlook the power of storytelling—until they realize it’s the secret to inspiring trust, driving change, and embracing leadership authenticity. Neela Montgomery’s journey from a small town near Manchester to leading global brands like Crate and Barrel, CVS, and sitting on the Logitech board reveals how mastering storytelling shaped her rise through some of the toughest markets and in...

Grant Lee is the CEO and Co-founder of Gamma, an powerful AI tool to design presentations, websites and more. In November of 2025, Gamma raised $68 million at a valuation of $2.1 billion. With a team of less than 50 people, they were generating over $100 million in annualized revenue with over 70 million users. They have continued to grow their revenue and customer base, because people love their...

In this episode of Hyphen Nation , Dave sits down with Caroline Tsay —Silicon Valley operator-turned-entrepreneur and board director who has served on four public company boards , including The Coca-Cola Company and Morningstar —to demystify what it actually takes to land a corporate board seat. Caroline breaks down the biggest myths (like “you must be a CEO to qualify”), and explains how her firs...

Pixar director and Oscar winner Domee Shi joins Dave to share her journey from drawing anime in Toronto to becoming Vice President of Creative at Pixar . Domee opens up about the real inspirations behind Bao and Turning Red , why good storytelling requires emotional vulnerability, and how a side project changed her entire career. She also takes us inside Pixar’s story process, from pitching boards...

Founder and CEO of Tatcha Beauty Vicky Tsai joins Hyphen Nation for one of the most powerful conversations we’ve had yet. Vicky opens up about her childhood in Texas, the racism and sexism she endured across Wall Street and corporate America, and the personal trauma that shaped her path. She also shares the origins of Tatcha—from a stressful career that triggered acute dermatitis to rediscovering...

Former Tinder CEO Faye Iosotaluno joins Dave to talk about her unlikely path from growing up in West Covina to leading one of the world’s biggest tech brands. She shares her family’s immigrant story, her dual finance and English background at Penn, and the career leaps that took her from Merrill Lynch to Viacom, SoundCloud, and ultimately the CEO seat at Tinder. Faye opens up about navigating male...

In this episode, I sit down with Manny Maceda , the former Worldwide Managing Partner and CEO of Bain & Company , and now Chair of the firm. Manny’s story is one of resilience, reinvention, and leadership across cultures. Born in Boston and raised in the Philippines under a dictatorship, Manny’s family fled to the U.S. after his father, then a senator, was forced into exile. What began as a vi...

Ju Rhyu is the founder and CEO of Hero Cosmetics , the company behind the cult-favorite Mighty Patch that redefined acne care and became one of the most successful K-beauty exports in America. Born in Korea and raised in Seattle, Ju’s story spans continents — from her father’s entrepreneurial journey in the logging business to her own winding path through Brown, an NGO in Kenya, Kraft Foods, and S...

A lot of people are in the job market right now and not sure how to differentiate themselves. On this episode, I talk to my dear friend Lisa Chang, the Global Chief People Officer of The Coca-Cola Company. We talk about growing up in the South as the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants and not really embracing her Asian identity until she was in college at the University of Virginia. She has literall...

Congressman Ted Lieu joins me for a powerful conversation about his journey from immigrant beginnings to becoming one of the most outspoken voices in Congress. We discuss his family’s pursuit of the American dream, his years of service in the U.S. Air Force, and how those experiences shaped his commitment to public service. Ted shares candid insights on what it means to run for office as an Asian...

Today’s guest is Hans Tung, Managing Partner at Notable Capital and one of the most influential venture capitalists in the world. Hans has appeared on the Forbes Midas List for 13 straight years—landing in the top 10 five times—and has backed iconic companies including Airbnb, Coinbase, Slack, Affirm, Peloton, Poshmark, Xiaomi, Meituan, and Flipkart. In our conversation, Hans shares his journey fr...

Most of us grew up believing that if you work hard, keep your head down, and deliver results, success will follow. But my guest today argues that’s one of the biggest myths in business. Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, from Stanford Graduate School of Business, has spent decades studying power and leadership — and his research shows that visibility, influence, and networks matter far more than raw perfo...

David Liu’s story is anything but predictable. Born in Queens and raised in Westchester, he went from being one of only a handful of Asian kids in his school—navigating racism in 1970s New York—to studying film at NYU, launching CD-ROM projects with the Smithsonian, and co-founding The Knot , one of the first big internet media brands and taking it public right before the dot.com bubble burst. In...

Mike Lee is the co-founder and former CEO of MyFitnessPal , the world’s leading nutrition and fitness tracking app that helped millions of people transform their health. Mike grew up in upstate New York, studied economics at Princeton while playing Division I volleyball, and started his career in consulting before making the leap into Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom. After stints at startup...

Jane Wu — visionary director, martial arts enthusiast, and one of the creative forces behind the Emmy Award-winning animated series Blue Eye Samurai from Netflix. Her credits read like a greatest hits of blockbuster movies: Guardians of the Galaxy, The Avengers, Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Mulan and more. She was the one responsible for choreographing the iconic Battle of Ne...

Albert Cheng is one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. Albert runs Prime Video US & Global for Amazon and is responsible for critically acclaimed hit shows such as Fallout, Rings of Power, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and The Boys among others. Albert has made it in an industry where there are few Asian American executives in power, by rising through the ranks at Disney/ABC for close to 1...

Debby Soo grew up from humble beginnings as the only daughter of immigrants from Taiwan living in a two bedroom apartment in San Francisco with her parents, aunt and uncle, and her parents. She would go on to graduate from Stanford, even though her father had not graduated from college. Her dream was to one day become a CEO. She started her career in investment banking and ended up in Hong Kong. S...

Most people don’t even know that an Asian American woman founded the clothing brand that most Americans have worn. And even fewer know her story. Jenny’s family fled communist China to Macau when she was a baby and she immigrated to San Francisco at the age of 9. She graduated from San Jose State with a home economics degree thinking she would become a teacher. She would end up working at Mervyns...

Ken's story started in China before he immigrated as a little boy that grew up in Las Vegas. Like many new immigrants, his parents hustled and worked multiple jobs at casinos and restaurants to make ends meet. Ken was entrepreneurial at an early age and started selling greeting cards as a kid. He would go on to college at Boston University, where he now sits on the Board of Trustees. After graduat...

Deb Liu (Former CEO of Ancestry , author of "Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work", Board Director at Intuit, creator of Facebook Marketplaces and Facebook Pay, and co-founder of Women in Product) and Dave explore the significance of executive coaching, the impact of cultural identity on personal and professional growth, and the importance of soft skills in achieving succ...

Dave Lu, Silicon Valley tech veteran, startup founder, investor, activist, and Emmy Award-winning producer, is launching an all-new podcast, Hyphen Nation with Dave Lu. He will be talking to influential leaders in the Asian American community and beyond. His intimate conversations will dive into their journeys and explore how they got to where they are today, including all of the challenges and tr...