While Liu is deeply entrenched in the tech world, he says he never imagined working in this space when he was younger. A self-proclaimed “tech geek”, he was fascinated by the access technology could provide; the first time he ever had broadband was in college. However, with a degree in economics from Harvard University, he considered himself more of a “business generalist”. 

“It was both luck and desperation,” he says, on how he landed his first role in the tech industry as a senior operations associate and analyst of inside sales at Google in 2007. Shortly after graduating from university, he married his girlfriend, now wife Katrina. “This was right at the start of the global financial crisis and there were no jobs. After many months of searching, I found a job at Google,” Liu recalls.

His time at Google showed him how a top-tier tech company functions—a guiding “North Star” that he continues to pursue throughout his career. “I joined Google three years after its IPO and only seven years after its founding. It was still a relatively young company which innovated very fast. The company culture was different from every other working culture. The office looked different—it was still cool back then to have an open office with a pool table, ping pong table and free food and drinks,” he says.

After spending two years there, Liu moved on to lead business and sales operations and strategy at other tech companies, including New York-based marketing software company Clickable and online services provider AOL. 

In 2011, he took on the role of global director of ad product strategy at streaming giant Spotify—and experienced a career low. 

As a Taiwanese-American working in the US tech industry, his yearning for recognition consumed him. “I was always one of the youngest people and Asians in the room. I always thought if I was not heard, that meant I did not exist or had no value,” he says.

This mindset prompted him to make what he calls “a major mistake” during a client meeting. “I spoke up when I shouldn’t have and didn’t know the answer. The reason I spoke up was pure arrogance; I thought that my point of view was worth a lot more than what it actually was.” 

Due to this incident, Liu was benched for more than a year, but it taught him a valuable lesson that he remembers to this day: “I focus on creating value by actually creating value, by building things that transform industries and companies, not by just being heard.”

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In 2017, at 33 years old, Liu was asked to run the Alibaba-owned SCMP—an offer he accepted. “It was a once-a-lifetime opportunity. When you find one of these [opportunities], try to say yes, even if you’re scared. I was so scared because I had no idea whether or not I was going to be successful in that job. But I said yes,” he recounts, adding that he wasn’t familiar with Hong Kong or the traditional media industry at the time. 

He accepted the challenge anyway because he resonated deeply with the media outlet’s mission to show the world what is happening in Asia through an Asian perspective, to minimise conflicts and misunderstandings between different cultures. “As an Asian American, I did not want to live in a world that [was fractured], and I did not want my future children to live in a world [of that reality],” he says.

To amplify the Asian voice, Liu spearheaded the digital transformation of the traditional news media. His strategy was driven by a technological overhaul that enabled the management team to gather and analyse real-time data, turning their insights into projects that enhanced its branding, operations and products. This included new initiatives ranging from redesigning its logo to launching new brands. He also moved the company into a new office at Times Square, a luxury shopping centre and office complex in Causeway Bay, and decked it with Google-inspired facilities such as a pool table and table tennis table.

While unforeseen events like the anti-extradition law protests and the Covid-19 pandemic posed challenges, overcoming people’s resistance to change was one of his toughest hurdles on the job.

How did he persuade more than 1,000 employees to buy into his vision? Liu says there was no straightforward answer. He and his team invested significant time in crafting a sound and effective strategy. They involved different departments in shaping the strategic direction, which helped foster a sense of ownership among staff. The final piece of the puzzle was communicating transparently and consistently so everyone could grasp where the company was heading and why its evolution was crucial.

“I think this was the most important thing I did,” Liu says. “It was so meaningful to me personally and I know that the work we were doing was meaningful to the world.” According to the World Association of News Publishers, the outlet’s global reach has increased eightfold since it began its transformation process—largely due to Liu’s efforts.

Despite the role’s significance, Liu decided to step down in 2022 after serving more than five years. “I believe I was the right leader for SCMP during its initial transformation period. After the successful transformation, there was a whole set of goals for the news organisation, and I genuinely believe that somebody else would be better at it than me,” he explains.

As these thoughts took shape, he began to envision other projects he could pursue.

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Liu first learned about blockchain technology in 2015. “[It was] super complicated,” he recalls his first reaction. “I heard about it and I didn’t understand it,” he says, adding that he was relatively late in discovering the technology given that the Bitcoin White Paper was released seven years prior. This groundbreaking document, released under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, introduced the world’s first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and explained the foundations of blockchain technology that could bring it to life. 

Liu later began exploring blockchain further after some friends got involved in related projects. He had an idea to use the technology to archive the content published by SCMP over the last century. Although this idea never came to fruition, it deepened his fascination with blockchain.

In 2021, a year before leaving SCMP, Liu launched Artifact, a side project to turn a selection of the company’s media assets into non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. This initiative allowed SCMP to securely preserve its content on the blockchain while generating revenue through merchandise sales. The inaugural drop, featuring archives from the year when the British government returned the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China, was a success, selling out in just 2 hours.

The NFT business eventually became a spin-off company called Artifact Labs, which Liu helmed as CEO after the newspaper appointed his successor. As he delved deeper into the Web3 landscape, he launched Terminal 3 while remaining on the board of Artifact Labs in 2023. 

“Those of us who believe in the future of Web3 understand that scaling it is not about explaining it to a billion users. It’s about making Web3 technologies so easy to use, so seamless that people don’t even know they are now on Web3,” Liu says.

Web3 startups have raised over US$5.4 billion in venture capital during the first three quarters of 2024, according to data from Crunchbase’s Web3 tracker. While there has been a growing interest in its platforms and applications, critics see Web3 as a breeding ground for crime like hacks and scams.

Cryptocurrency also poses environmental concerns due to its high energy consumption; according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), crypto mining and data centres collectively accounted for 2 per cent of world electricity demand in 2022. A recent IMF working paper also found that crypto mining could generate 0.7 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions by 2027.

Liu acknowledges that while Web3 technologies are still in their infancy, they have matured significantly over the years. He believes that, despite valid concerns, the industry is progressing towards addressing them in various ways. “In the early stages of any technological era, there is a mix of good and bad actors. The good actors are there because they believe that the new technology will improve the world, so they want to be here to contribute. The bad actors are there [to manipulate] the new technology [due to] all of its holes,” he says. 

As one of the industry’s “good actors”, he is the founding chair of a non-profit organisation Web3 Harbour, which aims to promote collaboration within the community and provide policy feedback to the authorities. This October, it launched Blocktober 2024 by coordinating a series of events hosted by Web3 industry leaders throughout the month focusing on decentralised technology.

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Going from a 1,000-strong company to a startup with only 18 employees, Liu says the muscles he has to flex, the focus of its strategy and the speed of its daily operations are completely different.

He hopes to instil a company culture that celebrates freedom and ownership in Terminal 3, just like he did at SCMP.

Terminal 3’s office is located in an industrial building in the residential and business district of Quarry Bay on Hong Kong Island. A third of its staff previously worked with Liu at the newspaper, and every Friday, the team—including those based outside of Hong Kong—would get together virtually at 5 pm for happy hour and play online games together. 

After a career devoted to driving growth for various companies, Liu takes a moment to ponder when asked about his personal ambitions. “I have great aspirations for the company but not so much for myself,” he says. “I want to work on something that I believe in and find meaningful, with colleagues that I love to be around and with enough balance in my life that I can go home to my family and be a good husband and father,” he says.

“I believe in another ten years, I will still be in this industry. We may not even be calling it Web3 at that point, but I will still be pursuing a more equitable digital future.”

Read more: What’s in store for the next ten years? Experts predict the future of tech, health, entertainment–and how to ride this disruptive decade

We ask Liu a series of quickfire questions to learn more about his views on technology and Web3.

What is the most common misconception about Web3? 

Gary Liu (GL): My problem with the term “Web3” is that it is a catch-all term that people use interchangeably with crypto, blockchain and NFT, but they are not the same. So the primary misconception about Web3 is its definition. 

What is your favourite NFT?

GL: My favourite is Moonrunners. The NFTs feature wolf [characters] from different packs and clans that would come together to create a story. So you own a piece of the storyline.

How will you educate your kids about technology?

GL: My son just turned four, but I will say this: I’m very concerned about what it means for him to grow up in this specific digital age. [There is] so much exposure and pressure because of the constant bombardment of content. We know the ills of social media and they are only getting more acute. 

You hosted a podcast called Web3 & Whiskey. Is whiskey your favourite drink?

GL: Scotch specifically. Not only is the making of Scotch a millennia-old craft, but it is also an equal mix of science and art. I believe Scotch is deeply connected to the history of Scotland, which I find to be the most tragically romantic or romantically tragic place in the world. This liquid feels rich because it connects to Scotland’s history, stories and people. 

This article is part of Founder Stories, a series dedicated to discovering the untold stories and challenges of today’s entrepreneurs on their climb to the top.

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