the Create the Future Summit held at Werqwise in vibrant downtown San Francisco brought together innovators and visionary leaders in a remarkable gathering. On August 14th, in the heart of summer, passing through an interview room uniquely named Angel Island, four words hung on the expansive stage with commanding presence, instantly capturing the attention of every attendee. Create the Future. This phrase seemed to perfectly encapsulate in one concise sentence the shared aspirations and goals of the hundreds of creative minds assembled there.

For many attendees, those words might have been perceived simply as the event's title or a polished marketing slogan. However, through James Lee's rich life journey, diverse career, and our in-depth conversation, this core phrase revealed meaning far beyond mere coincidence. Upon closer examination, his life itself served as vivid proof of an ongoing process of 'creating the future.' Every path James Lee has walked, every critical decision he has carefully made, and every innovative product he has passionately developed has been consistently infused with bold pioneering spirit and clear vision toward the future.

There exists a distinctive commonality in James Lee's career that sets him apart from others. While most in the professional world prepare résumés, search for companies, and strive to earn opportunities, James's pattern was the complete opposite. He never followed the traditional approach of seeking out companies and submitting applications. Remarkably, companies consistently reached out to him first. Pioneering leaders looking to bring innovative products to market took notice of his capabilities and vision, extending direct proposals, and through these offers, James carved out his next career journey. Behind this unique phenomenon lay the special talent that these companies needed to breakthrough innovation barriers and discover new possibilities—talent that resided in James Lee.

During his successful career at Microsoft, Samsung recognized his potential and innovative mindset, persistently working to recruit him for an impressive nine months. After this sustained effort, James finally joined as the seventh employee and founding member of Samsung's newly established innovation office in the heart of Silicon Valley, San Francisco. While external observers might have seen this simply as a job change from one company to another, for James Lee this decision held much deeper significance. For him, this was the starting point of another creative journey to imagine, design, and actually implement innovative products that didn't yet exist in the world.

Samsung's San Francisco office was originally a place that remained within research and proof of concept. The office's primary mission was limited to exploring innovative ideas and testing experimental technologies. However, James Lee was not satisfied with such a constrained role. He envisioned going one step further from simply proving concepts to creating finished products that consumers could actually use in the real market. He proposed an ambitious commercialization-focused project model to headquarters, but Samsung headquarters' response was a firm "no." Surprisingly, this rejection didn't end with just once—it was repeated an astonishing seven times.

Yet James Lee's persistence and conviction remained unshaken in the face of these consecutive rejections. Based on deep faith in his vision, he refused to give up and continued challenging. After refining and resubmitting the same core idea from various angles seven times to headquarters, his tenacious efforts finally bore fruit. He secured project approval from headquarters, enabling him to actually develop and successfully launch Gear IconX, an innovative product, to the global market.

Even during development, his dedication and user-centric thinking became more prominently evident. James didn't stop at just creating the product—he chose a special approach to most accurately understand the actual user experience. He decided to become a user himself and experience every aspect of the product. For an impressive six months, rain or shine, he consistently went running every morning while directly testing the IconX prototype. This dedicated effort held meaning beyond mere job performance. His sincere words—"I wanted to directly experience and confirm what inconveniences users actually face and what exactly needs improvement in the product"—clearly demonstrated his fundamental philosophy about products and user experience, going beyond simple professional duty.

His next turning point was Lucid Motors. The automotive industry is generally known as a closed field with high barriers to entry for outsiders. Particularly, automotive manufacturers tend to strongly prefer talent with extensive industry experience and expertise. However, James Lee entered this industry through an extraordinary path that overturned such conventional wisdom. Through a chance visit to a Lucid Motors open house event, he opened doors to new possibilities with his unique perspective and approach. While most visitors were captivated by the vehicle's flashy exterior and design elements, James showed different interests. He focused intensively on the car's internal infotainment system for an unusually long time, engaging in deep observation and analysis. This distinctive behavior and passionate attitude were clearly captured by Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson, leaving a profound impression. Ultimately, despite having no career or professional background in the automotive industry, James earned the remarkable opportunity to join Lucid Motors as Head of User Experience (UX).

James Lee's concept of automobiles was fundamentally different from the industry's traditional perspective. For him, cars were not simply mechanical devices for reaching destinations or engineering achievements. He reinterpreted automobiles as emotional and experiential 'products' closely connected to human daily life. From this perspective, he presented the insightful prediction that traditional concepts of car ownership and usage would fundamentally change in the near future due to technological advancement and social transformation. This new paradigm he proposed perfectly aligned with the innovative direction Lucid Motors sought to pursue, enabling James to once again embark on 'the road less traveled'—pioneering a new territory that others had not explored in his career.

Currently, James Lee actively shares his rich experience and expertise by providing professional consulting to various startup companies and mentoring passionate students. Particularly, his emphasized advice to "execute quickly and don't fear failure" is not merely empty encouragement. This represents genuine lessons and wisdom derived from valuable experiences he gained through direct confrontation, challenges, and occasional failures throughout his diverse career journey.

James Lee accurately summarizes the essence of his complex and colorful life with two core words. First is Conviction—meaning the driving force that continuously challenges and moves forward based on unwavering belief in unknown territories and new possibilities. Second is Compassion—reflecting his fundamental philosophy that even in the journey toward success, one should genuinely understand and empathize with the needs and emotions of surrounding people, and that technology and innovation should ultimately contribute to improving human life in better directions. These two values represent the most concise yet essential expression for understanding the complex facets of James Lee as a person and his unique life trajectory.

The four words seen at Angel Island — Create the Future — perfectly aligned with his life. His journey is perfectly reflected in this concise phrase. However, to express James Lee's path more personally, from a more internal perspective, it could be summarized as follows:

"Create my future."

His life has been a dynamic process of not passively waiting for the future, but actively designing and steadily creating it himself. It was a journey of finding his own direction amid uncertainty, and maintaining the insight to view unexpected challenges and obstacles as doors to new possibilities. And he continues, in this constantly changing world, to creatively envision and passionately create his next future.