Remembering Jin Yu: A Clubhouse Icon
He believed in us far more than we believed in ourselves
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August 10th 2022 marked the anniversary of Jin Yu’s passing.
A ubiquitous force on the social audio app Clubhouse, he was instrumental in the growth of the category with his unique brand of kindness and enthusiasm. He affected every person he met, and truly made us understand we were capable of far more than we believed.
Sadly the very pandemic which gave him his voice, took it away on August 10, 2021.
Jin was memorialized last night by a Twitter Space hosted by Time Magazine’s Keith Grossman, and I was honored to speak for a few moments.
If you knew him in real life, he was exactly the same person you’d talk to on Clubhouse.
I met him a few years back at a friend’s party in Hollywood. Amongst all the VCs, company founders, social media giants and celebrities at the party, Jin settled on me. We must have spent an hour talking to each other!!!
And during that time, he wanted to know everything about me. He was utterly captivated.
He wanted to know all about the book I was writing, so I busted out the outline, right at the party!
“Wow — each chapter title is like a movie title!” He said.
I never forgot that.
But here we were. All these amazing people at this party… and Jin chose to spend that time with ME. I was humbled, and believed at the time he may have mistaken me for somebody else — somebody of far greater importance.
Fast forward a couple years.
It’s January 2021, and the world is starving for connection, having been stuck in isolation as a result of the pandemic. Enter Clubhouse.
Jin reached out to me and gave me an invite (back then you could only get on if you got invited).
He’d host the most amazing rooms, and with such spirit and enthusiasm. He was friends with everyone. Grant Cardone, Pamela Anderson, Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Adrian…
