RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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He’s marshaled Oscar campaigns, launched a venture fund and thrown some epic parties on his way to building Gold House, a formidable engine for AAPI power in Hollywood.
Having a conversation with Gold House founder Bing Chen isn't terribly dissimilar from taking an amphetamine.
In what feels like a single breath, he'll jump from the early machinations behind the creator economy to the exemplary world-building of the Pokémon universe to the virtues of The Cheesecake Factory's tome-like menu. You end up retaining a large amount of information in a short period of time, and, while you might not be sure how you ended up here, you do know that you had a good time getting there.
Chen, 38, isn't an agent, an executive or — at least until very recently — a producer. Yet over the past eight years, he has become an influential behind-the-scenes figure in Hollywood through Gold House, the organization he founded in 2017 to expand Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander influence across entertainment, business and beyond. The company has rallied support for films including Crazy Rich Asians , Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once ; advised studios on projects involving Asian characters, stories and talent; invested in companies founded by Asian and Pacific Islander entrepreneurs; and built a network connecting filmmakers, executives, investors and stars. And now, with the launch of Gold House Studios, Chen is moving from helping other people get their work made to producing films and television himself. Related Stories Movies Matt Damon in Talks to Star in Daniels' New Movie as First Plot Details Come to Light Movies Ryan Gosling Exits Daniels' Untitled Event Film at Universal Pictures
"All movements need an entity to point to so they know it's reliable, and that's what really pushed [Gold House] into becoming a thing. I really resisted for, like, over a year," says Chen. "I don't even remember when we thought, 'We need to actually formalize this,' but the thing that pushed us into the light is a really high volume of calls from all the studios that were like, 'You can make things successful.' "
Equal parts deeply ambitious and relentlessly earnest, Chen is the type of person who is entirely comfortable telling you his childhood heroes were Walt Disney, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa, in no particular order. He also happens to look like someone Hollywood would happily put onscreen — with an abdomen he displays on social media. His brand of networking involves an exhausting degree of personal attention. He introduces people, follows up, proposes dinners, sends more names, applies pressure then follows up again.
"It's overwhelming," says director Jon M. Chu, a longtime friend and collaborator. "Your bullshit meter goes up right away, like, 'This guy is not real, he is full of shit.' And then five years later, six years later, 10 years later, you're like, 'Wait, it's all genuine.' "
On a particularly warm evening in mid-May, downtown L.A.'s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the former longtime home of the Academy Awards, glows in shades of yellow and gold for the fifth annual Gold Gala.
The event, created by Gold House to honor achievement in the Asian and Pacific Islander community, has acquired the inevitable nickname the "Asian Met Gala," though unlike the actual Met Gala, the food is good. James Beard Award-winning chef Justin Pichetrungsi from L.A. favorite Anajak Thai is catering. The gift bag comes inside a Dagne Dover weekender stuffed with goodies including Marriott Gold status. Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Mindy Kaling, Charles Melton and Jet Li mingle inside. Saturday Night Live breakout Bowen Yang opens the evening by teasing Chen about his dating life. (Chen is bisexual, although only "on paper, not in practice, anymore," he says with a laugh.)
Watching Chen work the room, you can see up close his nearly superhuman talent for networking. He isn't really hosting the gala so much as conducting traffic. A filmmaker gets introduced to an investor. An actor to a showrunner. Somebody waves Chen over from across the room. Somebody else grabs him before he gets there. Every conversation seems to end with another introduction.
The introductions, of course, are kind of the entire point. Gold House markets movies, advises studios, invests in startups and now produces films and television. But underneath those increasingly varied divisions is a very analog Hollywood idea: Get the right people together so that they can actually make something.
The irony is that Chen didn't learn this in Hollywood.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Chen joined YouTube during the Great Recession. At the time, he says, the company believed its future lay in licensed programming and video rentals. Its creator program — the small corner of the business devoted to users making original videos — was still experimental enough that when Chen became one of its managers, he found himself with an unusual amount of freedom.
Today, Hollywood agencies, studios and streamers are tripping over themselves to sign digital talent. Fifteen years ago, YouTubers were mostly seen as hobbyists making videos in their bedrooms. They had audiences, to be sure. But what they lacked was legitimacy.
Even then, Chen understood the power of promotion. "We needed our Oscars," Chen recalls thinking. He persuaded YouTube to invest $250,000 in VidCon, then a struggling Anaheim conference devoted to online creators. Borrowing from the music industry and its framed gold records, he also helped launch YouTube's Gold Play Button, awarded to creators whose channels reached 1 million subscribers.
"That's really what made me from a business standpoint," he says of the YouTube creator initiatives. "You had a 25-year-old leading what became a $400 million and then $1.5 billion effort." By 27, Chen had landed on Forbes ' 30 Under 30 list alongside Ryan Coogler and Lena Dunham. His career appeared to be writing i...
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