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Forty Under 40

Forty Under 40: Yu-Han Chang


Yu-Han Chang is passionate about his work in artificial intelligence and spatial temporal analysis, but his career really took off when he left academia for an industry in which everyone else shared his enthusiasm: sports.

The co-founder of analytics software marker Second Spectrum, Chang recalls what it was like when he and partner Rajiv Maheswaran presented at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in 2012. The company was still nothing more than a research paper.

“In academia, you’re going out there, you’re presenting, most people are looking down at their laptops. At Sloan, everyone was listening with rapt attention. We were mobbed,” he said. “People care a lot about sports, and the fact that people are into it is really exciting for me.”

In less than three years, Second Spectrum has signed 15 NBA teams, ESPN and Fox Sports as clients. Their software translates data about where players move on the court into easily actionable analysis for coaches and TV commentators, and they’re working on a direct-to-consumer product too.

Former ESPN CEO Steve Bornstein invested in the company last year. “I’ve been around the sports world and some really smart guys now for I guess 40 years, and Yu-Han is one of the greats,” Bornstein said. “He’s a level-headed guy, quite bright, has a love of sports, and enthusiasm for business.”

But Chang isn’t content to let the software speak for itself, Maheswaran said. Looking for every edge, he spent nearly eight months researching how values and corporate culture influence the path of a startup. Maheswaran said Chang’s infectious enthusiasm and kindness permeate the business. “In cricket terms, he’s an all-rounder,” Maheswaran said. “He can pretty much do every single job that anyone can do. He can do engineering, operations, business, everything.”

— Ben Fischer

Yu-Han Chang

Second Spectrum | Co-founder and COO
Age:37
Where born: Taipei, Taiwan
Education: Harvard University (A.B., mathematics and economics; S.M., computer science), MIT (Ph.D., electrical engineering and computer science)
Family: Wife, Tracey; children, Alexa (7), Brett (6)

Advice I’d give to my younger self: Follow your passions; work on what you love.
2016 will be a good year if: We not only teach machines to understand games at the level of a

professional coach, but that those machines then help to teach us, the average fan, more about the game we all love.
Person in the industry I’d like to meet: Gregg Popovich.
I’d like to change jobs for a day with: President Obama. It would be cool to see what it’s like to be the leader of the free world for day. But it would only be cool for about a day and no longer.
Causes supported: Environmental causes.
Most thrilling/adventurous thing I’ve done: Kayaking sea caves in Thailand at night.


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