BREAKING

TRUNG PHAN POSTS AGAIN • 725K FOLLOWERS AND COUNTING // SATPOST DROPS EVERY SATURDAY • YOUR INBOX WILL NEVER BE THE SAME // GREAT-GRANDSON OF VIETNAM'S GREATEST REVOLUTIONARY CHOOSES MEMES INSTEAD // SMART THREADS. DUMB MEMES. TOTAL DOMINATION. // BLOOMBERG COLUMNIST • WORKWEEK CREATOR • BEARLY AI CO-FOUNDER (RETIRED) // TRUNG PHAN POSTS AGAIN • 725K FOLLOWERS AND COUNTING // SATPOST DROPS EVERY SATURDAY • YOUR INBOX WILL NEVER BE THE SAME // GREAT-GRANDSON OF VIETNAM'S GREATEST REVOLUTIONARY CHOOSES MEMES INSTEAD // SMART THREADS. DUMB MEMES. TOTAL DOMINATION. // BLOOMBERG COLUMNIST • WORKWEEK CREATOR • BEARLY AI CO-FOUNDER (RETIRED) //

Person / Creator / Author

Trung
Phan

Smart threads. Dumb memes. One newsletter to rule them all.

The Canadian writer who turned business analysis and internet humor into one of the most followed brands in independent media. Author of SatPost, former Bloomberg columnist, and the only person whose great-grandfather helped liberate a nation while he writes about McDonald's real estate.

725K+ Twitter / X

10+ Years Writing

52 Issues / Year

SatPost Author

The Man Behind Saturday Mornings

Trung Phan does not write about business the way a consultant does. He writes the way someone does when they find a story genuinely funny - and they want you to find it funny too. His newsletter, SatPost, lands in inboxes every Saturday carrying the same proposition: here is what happened in tech and business this week, and here are the memes that make it make sense.

The formula, deceptively simple, has earned him 725,000+ followers on X and tens of thousands of Substack subscribers. It has put him in the company of Bloomberg Opinion columnists and Workweek creators. And it has made him, by most accounts, one of the more readable voices operating at the intersection of business intelligence and internet culture.

He describes his own content strategy in five words: smart threads and dumb memes. That's either the humblest possible pitch for a media brand, or the most accurate. Probably both.

You'll probably get your lunch eaten if you're just sharing straight information.

- Trung Phan

Phan is based in Canada and is of Vietnamese heritage - though "heritage" undersells it. His great-grandfather, Phan Boi Chau, is one of the most consequential political figures in Vietnamese history: the man who tried to overthrow French colonialism, built alliances with Japan and Sun Yat-sen, and ended up under French house arrest in Hue for the last fifteen years of his life. Streets across Vietnam are named after him.

Trung Phan writes newsletters and posts memes. The family branch took a different road.

Trung Phan - SatPost Author & Workweek Creator

The man who made Saturday newsletters cool.

The Long Way Around

Trung Phan did not become a writer by deciding to become a writer. He became a writer after failing at everything else he tried first - and the list of failed attempts is long enough to be its own podcast episode.

He studied History and Sociology at McGill University, which is a perfectly good education for someone who wants to spend decades never finding a job. After graduating, he moved to Vietnam, where he worked as an equity analyst at an asset management firm with over $3 billion under management - a firm connected to his family's historical roots in the country. He returned to Canada for an MBA at the University of British Columbia (2013-2014), then moved to Boston to join fintech company Kensho Technologies, a data and AI research firm later acquired by S&P Global, where he spent four years as a research analyst.

During this stretch, he also did three other things: passed all three CFA exams (and then stopped paying the annual dues), sold a comedy film script to Fox, and appeared in a TV pilot that never aired. He tried to become a doctor and quit after one semester. He tried to teach English in Vietnam and was rejected because, as he later put it, "Asian parents don't want other Asians teaching their kids English." Each failed path left something behind: a curiosity about finance, an instinct for storytelling, a taste for absurdity.

Origin 🎓

McGill + UBC

BA in History and Sociology, then an MBA at University of British Columbia. The foundation of someone who was going to spend a long time figuring out what to do with all that reading.

Finance Days 📈

Vietnam & Kensho

Equity analyst in Vietnam, then research analyst at Kensho Technologies in Boston (2015-2019). Four years deep inside financial data analysis - learning to find signal in noise.

The Pivot ✍️

The Hustle

Joined The Hustle as lead writer in 2020 - a business/tech newsletter with 1.5 million readers. The first time Phan discovered what it felt like to write for a crowd that actually wanted to read.

Breakout 🚀

2021: The Year

Grew Twitter from 10,000 to 300,000+ followers in a single year. The strategy: post the funniest or most insightful tweet about the top story of the day, every day. Simple. Brutal. Effective.

The Name Carries Weight

Phan Boi Chau, 1867-1940

Trung Phan's great-grandfather is not a footnote in Vietnamese history - he is the headline. Phan Boi Chau led the anti-French independence movement at the turn of the 20th century, built alliances with post-Meiji Japan and Sun Yat-sen, and organized armed resistance against colonial rule. The French eventually charged him with treason, planned his execution, then reconsidered (martyrdom being bad for optics) and instead placed him under permanent house arrest in Hue. He spent the last fifteen years of his life under surveillance. His name is on streets in nearly every Vietnamese city.

Trung Phan wrote a piece reflecting on this legacy in relation to Spike Lee's film Da 5 Bloods - thinking through what it means to carry that kind of family history into the present.

There is something both funny and genuinely interesting about a man descended from a nationalist revolutionary who chose to become an internet writer. Trung Phan is clearly aware of this - it surfaces in how he approaches his work, with a historian's appreciation for context and a comedian's sense of timing.

His content is not accidentally good. He spent over fifteen years reading - history, economics, business, culture - before most people knew his name. The memes are the delivery mechanism. The research is the substance.

I think AI will create a deluge of content, and a lot of it will be crap.

- Trung Phan

The SatPost Universe

SatPost is not just a newsletter. It is a model for what independent business media can look like when you stop trying to be everything and start being very good at one specific thing: taking complicated business and tech stories and making them worth reading on a Saturday morning.

Each issue mixes deep-dive analysis - the kind you'd find in a Bloomberg feature - with memes, visual humor, and cultural references that make the finance-averse feel welcome. Phan publishes through Substack and operates under the Workweek creator network, which provides guaranteed income while he retains editorial control. Bloomberg Opinion ran his columns from 2022 to 2023. He co-hosts the Not Investment Advice (NIA) podcast with Jack Butcher and Bilal Zaidi.

Newsletter

SatPost on Substack

Published every Saturday. Business, tech, and pop culture delivered with research, wit, and the strategic deployment of memes. Tens of thousands of subscribers and growing.

Twitter / X

@TrungTPhan

725k+ followers. The daily engine: viral threads on business history, company strategy, and pop culture - backed by hours of structured research every morning across 50+ sources.

Podcast

Not Investment Advice

Co-hosted with Jack Butcher and Bilal Zaidi. Business, finance, and blockchain discussion that does exactly what the name promises: offers no actual investment advice whatsoever.

Bloomberg

Opinion Column

Wrote for Bloomberg Opinion from February 2022 to March 2023. Topics included Bitcoin's use in gas flaring mitigation and Apple's potential as a crypto hardware wallet - before that was a mainstream conversation.

Startup

Bearly AI

Co-founded with Parham Negahdar in October 2022. An AI-powered research and writing tool for content creators. Departed in mid-2024 after roughly two years building it.

Creator Network

Workweek

One of Workweek's original creators when the network launched. The model: guaranteed income, editorial independence, and a platform built for the creator-as-brand era of business media.

Career Timeline

c. 2012

Graduated McGill University (BA, History & Sociology). Moved to Vietnam to work as equity analyst at a Vietnamese asset management firm with $3B+ AUM.

2013-2014

Completed MBA at the University of British Columbia. Passed all three CFA exams.

2015-2019

Research Analyst at Kensho Technologies, Boston - an AI and data analytics company later acquired by S&P Global. During this period, also sold a comedy film script to Fox.

2020-2021

Joined The Hustle as lead writer (1.5M+ reader newsletter). Launched SatPost. Grew Twitter from 10k to 300k+ followers in 2021 alone.

2022

Left The Hustle. Joined Workweek as creator. Began writing Bloomberg Opinion columns. Co-founded Bearly AI with Parham Negahdar.

2022-2023

Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering crypto, AI, and emerging tech. Wrote about Bitcoin mining, Apple's crypto potential, and more.

2024

Departed Bearly AI after two years building the AI research tool. Continued SatPost on Substack through Workweek. Twitter following crossed 700k.

2026

Posted viral satirical tweet claiming Anthropic had acquired Meek Mill's AI startup for $1B - sparking a public exchange with the rapper and renewed attention on his commentary style across business media Twitter.

What He's Built

Built Twitter/X following from zero to 725,000+ organically
Grew 30x on Twitter in a single year (2021) - one of the fastest organic growth stories in business media
Co-founded Bearly AI, an AI research tool for writers and creators
Former lead writer at The Hustle (1.5M+ readers)
Bloomberg Opinion columnist (2022-2023)
Co-host of "Not Investment Advice" podcast with Jack Butcher and Bilal Zaidi
Sold a comedy film script to Fox
Passed all 3 CFA exams
One of Workweek's original creator partners
SatPost: tens of thousands of Substack subscribers and growing

My job is to write the funniest or most insightful tweet about that top story.

- Trung Phan, on his daily content strategy

What makes the follower count impressive is not the number - it's the method. No paid ads, no viral stunts, no algorithm gaming. Just consistent, well-researched, well-timed content published every single day for years. Phan spends approximately 30 minutes each morning working through a structured reading list of 50+ newsletters, Reddit threads, Quora posts, and major publications - then turns that input into output that feels effortless.

Seven Stories Worth Knowing

He tried to become a doctor. One semester in, he walked away. This is not unusual. What's unusual is that he has been remarkably candid about it, treating the failed attempt as data about himself rather than a source of shame.

He tried to teach English in Vietnam after college and was rejected. His explanation: "Asian parents don't want other Asians teaching their kids English." The line is funnier than anything he probably wrote in the rejected application.

He sold a film script to Fox. A TV pilot featuring him as an actor was also produced. Neither project made it to air. The comedy industry's loss was the newsletter industry's gain.

He passed all three CFA exams and then stopped paying the annual dues required to actually call himself a CFA. A small act of financial irony from a man who now writes about finance for a living.

His great-grandfather is Phan Boi Chau - Vietnam's leading anti-colonial revolutionary, whose name appears on streets in almost every Vietnamese city. Trung has written about this legacy publicly, connecting his family's history to conversations about colonialism, identity, and the long arc of resistance.

Reddit comments are his primary creative inspiration. Not headlines, not press releases, not analyst reports. Reddit threads - because that's where actual people say actual things about why businesses do or fail to do what they do.

In 2026, he posted a satirical tweet claiming Anthropic had acquired Meek Mill's AI startup for $1 billion. Meek Mill responded publicly, calling it dismissive. Phan clarified - arguing Meek actually had strong ingredients for an AI play: brand, domain expertise, and audience. It became a proxy debate about who "belongs" in tech.

In His Own Words

You'll probably get your lunch eaten if you're just sharing straight information.

I think AI will create a deluge of content, and a lot of it will be crap.

My job is to write the funniest or most insightful tweet about that top story.

Smart threads. Dumb memes.

Facts That Land Different

His great-grandfather Phan Boi Chau is considered one of Vietnam's founding revolutionaries - a figure whose influence rivals that of national heroes in any country. Streets named after him appear in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and dozens of other cities.

He grew his Twitter following 30x in a single year (2021) - from 10,000 to 300,000+ - without a viral stunt, a TV appearance, or a paid promotion. Just daily posting with discipline.

SatPost is intentionally published on Saturdays - a deliberate inbox positioning strategy. Most business newsletters arrive Monday through Friday. Saturday inboxes are quieter. Phan claims the territory.

He structures his morning research routine into 30 minutes across 50+ sources. This is not multitasking - it is a practiced editorial triage system built over 15+ years of daily reading.

He co-hosts a podcast called "Not Investment Advice" - a name that is both legally protective and philosophically accurate. No one on the show has ever claimed otherwise.

He spent several years working in finance - including at Kensho Technologies, an AI and data analytics firm that S&P Global eventually acquired. He has seen AI from the inside, which informs his skepticism about AI-generated content.

What Drives Him

Trung Phan is, by his own description, genuinely obsessive about research. He reads not because he has to but because he finds it interesting - which is either the best quality a writer can have or a mild compulsion, possibly both. He has spent over fifteen years building the knowledge base that makes SatPost feel effortless to read, even though the effort is anything but.

He is self-deprecating in a way that is clearly calculated but also clearly sincere. The jokes about his failed career paths - the doctor, the English teacher, the TV actor - are delivered with the ease of someone who has made peace with a winding road and found the journey more interesting than a straight line would have been.

His aspiration, as far as it can be read from what he has said publicly, is to build a media brand that proves two things: that depth and entertainment are not in conflict, and that the best business writing should make you both smarter and slightly more amused with the world. SatPost is the argument. Every Saturday, a new edition of the evidence.

He is also, somewhere in the background, still thinking about AI - having co-founded Bearly AI and then stepped away. The Meek Mill episode in early 2026 suggests he has not stopped watching that space, even without a stake in it.

Personality

How He Works

Self-deprecating. Research-obsessed. Culturally omnivorous. Plays Twitter like a game - each tweet is a move, each thread is a position. Prefers Reddit comments over press releases as primary source material. Considers humor not decoration but architecture.

Aspirations

What He's Building For

A durable media brand at the intersection of business intelligence and internet culture. The kind that ages well because its foundation is actual knowledge, not trend-chasing. He has been building it, one Saturday at a time, since 2021.

TrungPhan