In October Kakao merged with Daum, South Korea's second-largest online search company, to form the $7.4 billion (market cap) Daum Kakao. They're platforms for selling all kinds of lucrative services such as games and virtual goods such as coupons and stickers. was the follow-up and introduced to the world the big insight that messaging apps can be far more than chat. It later merged with a search company to form what's known today as Naver, or South Korea's answer to Google. His first venture, Hangame, started as an Internet cafe business before becoming an online game developer. Kim has created not one but two tech industry mainstays from scratch. The quiet 48-year-old Kim is the most successful Internet entrepreneur South Korea has ever produced, a rare feat in a business culture where power and wealth are dominated by chaebols-family-controlled conglomerates like Samsung and Hyundai. Three-fourths of the nation's 50 million people use Kim's creation monthly, along with another 10.8 million outside the country. Its free messaging service has effectively replaced SMS texting, transforming the way people communicate in South Korea. KakaoTalk is the most popular mobile app in a country obsessed with mobile apps. To be fair, Kim's StarCraft reflexes have waned as he's spent most of the past decade building a different type of empire. "I'm losing because I'm doing this interview," jokes "Brian" Kim Beom-Su, as his online kingdom burns down.
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