Dear Starters,
This has been the year I spent the most time in front of a computer to learn a new technology. Since January, I have used AI every single day, in every part of my work. I built my own tools, wrote code, played with agents, read research papers, and gave AI talks inside and outside VNG. Together with VNG leadership, I pushed every business to apply AI and rethink how work gets done. And still, I always feel we are not doing enough. The tech industry is moving with breathtaking speed and unprecedented scale; just keeping up with what happens each week is exhausting. It is crystal clear that AI will be the technology that defines our lifetime, many times more powerful than the Internet and mobile, the two waves that carried VNG for the last twenty two years.
But on VNG's 22nd birthday, I want to talk about something else. Not how we use AI, but why we do it.
Throughout history, technology has been the fundamental way for humans to create wealth. More energy, more food, more things, more time. Every leap, from fire to steam to electricity to the Internet, was a leap in how much value one person could create and consume. AI could take this much further and create enormous wealth in the next 20 years. Those of us who spearhead AI and its applications will benefit hugely: a better house, a better future for our kids, more wealth. There is nothing wrong with that. It is a large part of why we work so hard in the first place.
The danger begins when we forget what wealth is for. Answering that question is an individual pursuit, and for me, what matters in my life is all about people: the people we love, the people we belong to, the people around us, and whether we helped them live a better life. When wealth becomes a sole purpose of us, we can achieve a great deal and still lose what matters most. And AI raises the stakes. It can amplify each person's capability a hundredfold, and it also can sit on the other side of a conversation and replace a real person. It can make us richer and lonelier at the same time; make us more capable, yet unsure about the meaning of our work.
That is why I chose Human² as our theme this year: when a human works with AI, the goal is to multiply our capability and our humanity at the same time. If only the first goes up while the second goes down, we will create a future that we don't want our children to inherit.
I learned this from our very first business. Twenty years ago people asked me why anyone would spend hours in a game, and my answer was simple: people play to connect and have fun with other people. They come for the gameplay, they stay for the friendships. Zalo is the same idea in a different form, a place where 80 million people talk to the people they care about, two billion times a day.
The same is true inside VNG. I believe our most important strength is how much people here care about their teammates. We have built a culture of people who argue, laugh, eat together and get through difficult things together. This is a big reason we have so many Survivors, people who have stayed for more than ten years. We stay because we want to show up for others, and we believe others will show up for us when needed.
So my hope for VNG 22 is that all of us go as hard as we can on AI. Learn it, build with it, let it do the work that machines could do. But be deliberate about what you do with the time and capability it gives you. Give some of that time to your team, your family and the people who use our products. Understand and connect with them better. And as we build with AI, keep asking: does this help people connect and live better lives.
VNG is my tribe. You are the people I trust, the people I want to build things and go on adventures with, the people who give my work its meaning. Let's make sure this tribe stays strong, stays prosperous, and always keeps its heart while we push into the age of AI.
Happy birthday, VNG. May Human × AI = Human².
9/9/2026
MinhLH
Founder & Chairman, VNG