Sam Eng

San Eng is a first-generation immigrant who came to the United States from China at age 9 into a family he describes as "dirt poor" and heavily in debt — a background he credits for his lifelong focus on money and financial independence. He earned a Bachelor of Science from The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and an Executive MBA from Duke University, and has since taught investing as an adjunct professor and served on the boards of educational institutions.

His operating career began in the 1990s dot-com era, when he co-founded oCen Communications, an Asia-focused internet telephony (VOIP) company where he served first as CFO and then as CEO. The firm grew to roughly 150 employees and raised approximately $60–65 million across six rounds (Series A–F) in about 2.5 years; Lehman Brothers was preparing a dual NASDAQ/HKSE IPO before the 2008 market collapse, after which Eng exited. He went on to found and lead, as CIO/CEO, one of the earliest and top-ranked venture and private equity funds in China.

In June 2000, at the height of the dot-com bubble, Eng founded Skytian Capital, a multi-strategy investment holding company operating across North America and Asia since 2001. Over more than two decades Skytian has deployed an estimated $500–700 million of capital across technology, infrastructure, consumer, blockchain, agriculture, and real estate, with a current emphasis on North American multi-family residential real estate. Eng has described his time allocation as roughly 70% family real estate, 15% blockchain/crypto, and 15% growth capital.

Eng co-founded Digital Alchemy Holdings ("dAlchemy"), a blockchain-focused investment and advisory firm based in Toronto, Los Angeles, Taipei, and Hong Kong that, since 2013, says it has invested in, advised, or accelerated 80+ technology projects — roughly 50 of them in the blockchain space. He is also the co-author of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller *Ten Commandments of Investing: Guiding Principles from the Greatest Investment Wizards* (with Tim Eng and Oia Eng), and the founder of the Wizards Institute, an investing-education platform companion to the book. Most recently he has launched AI-focused ventures, including WorkOptional.ai (an AI research and investment platform) and SabaiHealth.com (an "AI care companion"), and now describes himself as a "Global CIO & AI Investor."

• Multi-strategy, long-horizon capital: Through Skytian, Eng runs a "multi-strategy investment holding company" with no fixed exit plan — explicitly a long-term family vehicle intended to be passed to his children rather than wound down.
• Blockchain value accrues to protocols and platforms: His core stated thesis is that, unlike the internet, in blockchain "value creation concentrates at the protocol and platform layers (captured through tokens) rather than applications or equities." He therefore advocates investing across the entire ecosystem — infrastructure providers, exchanges, and wallets — not just in tokens.
• Technology-adoption framework: Drawing on the internet bubble, he argues transformative technologies first attract quality entrepreneurs and investors, then a flood of speculative capital, and ultimately only the strongest ventures survive — so he prioritizes understanding the underlying technology and mapping the future ecosystem before investing.
• Discipline over hype: "The check comes when greed overcomes fear" — a recurring line reflecting his contrarian, fear/greed-aware approach.
• Operational readiness: He counsels that founders "should always be prepared for an exit," and identifies poor organizational systems as the primary reason deals fail; he cites a "lucky number 150" employee threshold — small enough for personal relationships, large enough to install real systems.
• Stated sectors: technology, infrastructure, consumer, blockchain/crypto, agriculture, and real estate (now anchored in North American multi-family residential), with a growing AI focus.