Conversation with Kaijie Chen: The Gen-Z Founder Who Pivoted Three Times to Build the World's First Personal Agent

Is the World's First Personal Agent Here?

Born in 1997, Chen Kaijie has spent seven years as an entrepreneur across three pivots. During his two years at Duke, he started a tech club that drew over 200 applicants, worked in labs, appeared on variety shows—essentially exploring every fresh experience campus had to offer. So he made the decisive call to take a leave of absence and see what lay beyond.

From smart home robots to a GPT-2-inspired game, to MidReal—an AI interactive storytelling platform with 3 million users and 300,000 monthly actives—each pivot found him preemptively hunting for the highest-leverage direction, the next bigger opportunity.

Now Chen returns with Macaron (macaron.im), what he calls the world's first personal agent. He doesn't want to build another productivity tool. He wants it to blend into life like the pastry it's named after, to reach every household like Apple's Mac. Even if Macaron meets you at this particular inflection point, it's designed to stay with you for the long haul.

First violinist, Bilibili creator with 110,000 followers, serial founder—in every creative pursuit, Chen's focus on the individual shines through. To him, building products is deeply personal: a cross-temporal, one-on-one conversation with users mediated through UI. A hint, a line of copy, a reward—any of these might be what moves someone.

In this episode, Yuan Liu sits down with Chen to unpack seven years of entrepreneurial thinking: Why does context matter above all in building a personal agent? Is observation more important than expression in product work? How do you manage a distributed team? And what's the overlooked value of pivoting for founders?

Three Entrepreneurial Pivots, Each Closer to the Right Answer 01:03 From high school physics competitions to leaving Duke: the starting point of three ventures 02:58 Was dropping out a hard decision? Leaving is easy; returning is harder 05:37 First venture: smart home hub robot, reached 10 million RMB annual revenue 06:57 Second venture: two years ahead of its time, a Westworld-style AI game built on GPT 09:18 MidReal, an AI interactive storytelling platform 11:33 If you're not building on the platform with the greatest technical leverage, your product won't be the most transformative 14:02 Every pivot brings you closer to the right answer

Macaron Wants to Be More Than a Productivity Tool 16:30 Macaron is a personal agent that helps you live better 17:28 Real-life use cases: newer, more personalized ways to record your life 19:08 Users don't directly express their needs; Macaron senses them proactively, like a friend 21:35 From free e-book readers to robot vacuum games: relatively converged user demands 24:06 Why is penetration low for personal scenarios? The core missing piece is context

Making the Agent Understand You Better and Work Better 27:21 Vertical vs. general: why build a general life agent instead of a single-vertical product? 28:44 Understanding sub-agents: small tools with shared memory and data, invoked by the main agent 30:43 During onboarding, how do you establish the right product mental model for users? 31:34 From model training to memory algorithms: technically, how do you make the agent understand you better and work better? 34:07 The uniqueness of memory tokens: evolved from scenario needs, not pure academic innovation 35:24 The earliest target users: people experiencing change in their lives 36:48 Why Macaron? A sweet vision starting from Apple's Mac

From Technology-Driven to Demand-Driven 38:25 How to resolve disagreements? Weighted opinion mechanisms and open discussion 40:00 The team's evolution from technology-driven to product-oriented 42:26 Core members have collaborated for over five years; trust is the key to distributed work 43:48 Mobile agent is a relatively blank space close to life scenarios 45:08 Quitting is the hardest part; persisting can feel like taking the easy way out

A Grand Social Observation Called Life 47:32 Insights on human nature 50:39 Is observation more important than expression in building products? 51:45 Two superpowers: observing and anticipating early, and the ability to mobilize teams 53:43 Success is just a combination of elements—execute them well 54:31 Abandoning a product is painful, but old accumulations nourish new life 55:28 Building products is like making music; the underlying pattern is conflict and resolution 57:38 Young founders and their engagement with ZhenFund 58:45 What kind of success is desired? Through products, building deep connections with people and the world

"Other AI makes you work. Macaron makes you live better." Macaron is the world's first personal agent—one that truly cares about your life, develops a unique personality through character testing with Deep Memory, and creates genuinely usable life tools.

Executive Producers: Xin, Neya, Cindy

Post-production: Yanaego

"For Real" is a general business podcast produced by ZhenFund, where our investment team shares the latest trends and industry insights with leaders across fields.

Founded in 2011, ZhenFund is one of China's earliest angel investment institutions. Since its inception, ZhenFund has been actively seeking out the most outstanding entrepreneurial teams and era-defining investment opportunities in artificial intelligence, chips and semiconductors, robotics and hardware, healthcare, enterprise services, new energy, cross-border expansion, consumer lifestyle, and beyond.

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