The Man Who Sold His Company for $4 Billion, Back at the Crossroads | A Conversation with Justin Yuan: Entrepreneurship, Life, and Those "Useless Things"

🧨 Happy New Year, friends!

🚥 Last year, Justin Yuan visited Crossing, and we recorded this episode: "After Selling a Company for $4 Billion: A Founder's Past, Present, and Future Plans | A Conversation with Moonton Co-founder Justin Yuan". The comments were overwhelmingly positive, with one highly upvoted remark standing out: "This guy's loaded but still so human—what kind of demon is he really?"

A year later, Justin is back at Crossing.

P.S. This episode is a crossover with Justin's own podcast, Just ing | Illuminating Work and Life—feel free to check it out and follow! Justin was previously co-founder and CEO of Moonton. After ByteDance acquired the company for over $4 billion, he started fresh with a new venture, Pilot—a "business company for game makers."

Before the New Year, Justin and I recorded this episode. We didn't talk much about business or AI. Instead, we talked about life: How did he spend this past year? Has he found the "work-life balance" he was after? Why has he become obsessed with "useless things"?

This year, he got a dog, organized camping trips with friends, almost opened a small bar, traveled to Scandinavia, attended the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, and hosted cooking competitions at home... Meanwhile, his new company Pilot also hit its first milestone: its debut game, The Hanged Woman, launched its first beta test on Steam to positive reviews.

Justin says he no longer chases "goals." Instead, he's building a "Life OS"—a system that lets him work comfortably for 20, 30 years.

This episode is different from other Crossing content. It may not have much "useful" AI-related information or insights. But I believe that for anyone out there grinding away, watching someone who's "already reached the summit" choose their path down is inspiring in itself.

🧨 Finally, wishing everyone a happy New Year—and happy ordinary days too.

🎬 Our video podcast is now live on Koji Yang Yuancheng's WeChat Channels, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, YouTube, and other platforms.

📒 The transcript will be published on the Crossing WeChat official account.

🟢 00:50 A Relaxed Chat Before the New Year

Finding a state where I can work for 20 years. This second time founding Pilot, I gave myself one constraint: it has to be a life state I want for the next 20, 30 years. Not enough time, the "wanting everything" life state—finding that balance.

🟢 03:02 Two Kinds of Daily Routines

Workdays: office, workout, meetings, lunch and chats with colleagues, then dinner with friends in the evening. Days off: go to a coffee shop to zone out, see which friends are awake, walk the dog, organize camping or Werewolf games.

For my 10 years at Moonton, even if I wanted to change my work state, it was hard. But later I made a hard cut between work and after-work hours.

🟢 05:52 Koji's Share: From "Chasing KPIs" to "Believing in Compounding"

"Found an unprecedented work-life balance." Be a friend of time, keep doing the right things repeatedly, and compounding will happen.

The happiest thing is: believing I can keep this state up for a long time. I used to wonder what I'd be doing at 50, 55. Now I feel I can do this until 65, 75.

A business system needs a massive, hanging high goal—fall short and anxiety breeds. But the day-to-day state, for me, is more comfortable.

🟢 14:30 The Value of "Useless Things"

When you stop pursuing efficiency and meaning, more things actually flow in.

Last year I said I wanted to do more "useless things"—camping, getting a dog, cooking. After doing them, curiosity flooded in. It was like a switch flipped.

Before, if you asked me to cook at home? Too tiring, why not just order delivery? I couldn't imagine wanting to make myself a dish.

I get especially inspired in the shower—things click, epiphanies happen.

People have two states: when focused on solving problems, only a few neurons fire at high speed; when relaxed or creative, neurons all across the brain open up.

🟢 20:37 "He Gets Me. He's My Kind of Person."

After Pilot's first game The Hanged Woman launched, what made Justin happiest was something else.

We came from commercial games, and at one point assumed the first project would definitely be a tuition fee. But The Hanged Woman's demo performed better than expected on Steam.

What made me happiest: our producer "Daoshi," in an interview, shared creative philosophies that basically aligned with what I wanted Pilot to be.

They were genuinely moving in this direction step by step, and I was so happy for them. This validated that the path of "a business company for game makers" can work.

🟢 22:36 The Pilot Method: From "Assigned Topic" to "Semi-Assigned Topic"

Before, making commercial games was an "assigned topic": market analysis, target breakdown, hire and execute.

Now it's a "semi-assigned topic": we set the budget, but what matters most is—does the producer themselves want to do this, do they feel like doing it?

I later realized that the parts players now love and resonate with are precisely what the team themselves wanted to express.

🟢 29:21 How to Build a System That Births Good Games?

I've always deeply respected NetEase's game division. They can birth different projects, different studios, across so many genres.

What's their secret?

Their project greenlight mechanism, review mechanism, resource allocation, incentive mechanisms—there's a lot I've learned from them.

🟢 32:31 People Selection Philosophy: Passion, Will, and Resilience

What's most important in a producer? Passion. Do you really love the direction you want to go? And this passion can't be too short-term.

If we abstract it, passion is "will." Even if you say "my will to make money is strong," "my will to become famous is strong"—as long as that will is strong enough, firm enough, lasting enough, that works too.

It should be something inside you, not something calculated in your head.

The game industry has a very low success rate. What if you fail? A producer needs to be very resilient, like a founder.

🟢 35:48 Wanting to Open a Small Bar

"Emotionally initiated, rationally filtered."

I wanted to open a small bar 500 meters from home, wooden, full of life, where friends could gather anytime without planning dinners. The image was beautiful.

But as I got into it, I found Pilot had more unexpected difficulties than anticipated.

I decisively gave it up: all offline things are on hold, prioritize Pilot first. Life is long, there will always be chances.

Once Pilot is doing a bit better, I want to make the work environment feel more like the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka.

🟢 41:17 Justin's Annual Books, Film, and Music Recommendations

Books: Hideo Kojima, The Creative Gene—he shared two to three hundred cultural genes that influenced his creation, like a treasure trove. Yui Yoshikawa, Tokyo Eight Square Meters and Extraordinary Ways of Living—made me think about another way of life.

Film/TV: The Studio, Adolescence, It's All Her Fault, and the new series Hot Spot from the director of Brush Up Life.

Games: The Sultan's Game, Death Stranding 2.

🟢 52:35 People-Pleasing Personality

"I've been a people-pleaser since I was a kid."

Advice one for people-pleasers: Cherish the things you still want to do even when there's no output—that's the useless thing your heart truly loves.

Advice two: Find the "minimum loop of security." You need a space, a routine, a professional skill you believe in, so that in any city, at any company, you feel "I'll be fine." Don't get trapped by the middle-class three-piece set.

Advice three: Choose your environment. At key decisions, tilt 10 degrees, 15 degrees toward yourself—day after day, you'll drift closer in that direction.

🟢 59:48 Spiritual Item of the Year

Bicycle (or shared bike): Feel the world with your own feet, don't stay inside a shell. Walking that stretch, driving, walking, biking—the feeling is completely different.

Cups: When traveling, if I see a cup I like, I buy it. When drinking tea, thinking "this is where I bought it," that travel memory comes back.

🟢 01:03:07 Hopes for 2026: Happy Ordinary Days

Hoping Pilot has projects launched, generating positive cash flow. At that state, I can be lazier.

This year there didn't seem to be a highlight moment, but every day was evenly fulfilling. Actually, this kind of day might be better.

Koji recommends a Stefanie Sun song called "Happy Ordinary Days"—not wishing you happy birthday, not happy New Year, just happy ordinary days. This might be the most valuable blessing.

🟢 01:11:17 Bonus: 10 "I Am..." Sentences

• I am a small-town youth from Changzhou, Jiangsu, who tested into Shanghai
• I am a sports lover, into soccer, basketball, esports
• I am a game company boss, an entrepreneur
• I am a stand-up comedy fan
• I am a film and TV enthusiast, subscribed to Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Amazon, iQIYI, Youku, Mango TV, Bilibili—all of them

...The last 5 are even better, listen to the podcast. Welcome to subscribe to Crossing:

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👦🏻 Host Koji: I founded Crossing, started AI Hacker House—a community space for a new generation of AI entrepreneurs—and serve as Venture Partner at ZhenFund. I believe technology, especially AI, is the greatest value creation opportunity of our generation. Koji's Jike, Koji's website

👧🏻 Host Ronghui: I co-founded Crossing, worked at a dollar-denominated VC, and spent five years as a Silicon Valley correspondent, following tech development and business stories. Feel free to chat with me and exchange ideas. Ronghui's Jike