[6][7] Kim grew up in poverty and funded his college education by working as a private tutor and sometimes skipped meals to save money.

[8][9][7] Kim moved to Silicon Valley, California in 2005 and created IWILAB, an incubator for Korean entrepreneurs in Mountain View, in 2006.

[2] On July 16, 2024, the Seoul Southern District prosecutors' office revealed that an arrest warrant was sought against Kim on stock manipulation charges which were related to price-rigging that took place in 2023 during a bidding war over SM Entertainment.

[13][12] Kim is one of the richest men in South Korea, with Forbes estimating his net worth at around $4.7 billion in December, 2023.

NHN decided to comply with the prosecution's warrants requesting monitoring of chatting records, a reversal from its earlier stance.