Anna Sorokin, the main character in the Netflix miniseries “Inventing Anna,’ is depicted as being surrounded by a group of interesting, eclectic, and extremely talented individuals. Although many in her high-society social circle are superficial, she does know some very bright people.
The show, which is based on an article by Jessica Pressler that appeared in the December 2018 issue of New York Magazine, features a colorful cast of characters who are all based on real people.
Pressler’s article also mentions “the Futurist,” and since the show’s release, there has been a lot of speculation about who the tantalizing character might be based.
Some news accounts have suggested that Hunter Lee Soik is one of the tech entrepreneurs to whom the term “the Futurist” may refer. The information we have about Hunter warrants examination.
Who is Hunter Lee Soik?
Hunter Lee Soik was adopted by a couple from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin after he was two years old.
He was born in Seoul, South Korea. After high school, he moved to California and tried his hand at professional skateboarding before briefly enrolling at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara.
According to his New Yorker profile, Hunter also had a role in a Coke commercial and eventually started his own production company.
The Watch the Throne tour, featuring Jay-Z and Kanye West, employed him as a creative consultant by 2011.
An idea for the app that would become Shadow: Community of Dreamers came to the young entrepreneur around this time.
Wanting to store his dreams after some particularly long bouts of slumber during a much-deserved vacation, he realized there wasn’t an app for it.
Hunter devoted several months to researching different perspectives on dreams, reading everything from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to the work of Japanese neurological researchers.
By the time Fast Company published a profile on him in 2014, Shadow’s Kickstarter page had raised $82,500, and the app was purportedly slated to release in a few months.
The app functioned as an alarm that prompted users to immediately start recording their dreams (either verbally or in writing).
The ultimate goal was to compile extensive dream dictionaries based on user-supplied keywords.
However, it seems that Hunter left Shadow in March of 2016, joining the founding team of Dubai Future Accelerators, a platform for Futurist discussions with prominent speakers, and eventually becoming the platform’s Head of Program.
According to his profile on the professional networking site LinkedIn, Hunter also served on the advisory board for the massive Dubai Commercial City project.
Where is Hunter Lee Soik Now?
Hunter seems to have had a career across a variety of industries, with a particular focus in the tech arena.
A frequent entrepreneur, he is presently listed as the Founder and Executive Chairman of the ensō group, which is seemingly based in Hong Kong.
Concurrently, his profile also reveals that he is the Co-Founder and Interim Chief Operating Officer of TRADE X, a global B2-B automotive trading platform.
Though not much is known about his recent personal activities or family life, it seems like Hunter might be living in New York City currently.
Since the Netflix miniseries’ release, there has been increased speculation on whether Hunter Lee Soik is, in fact, “the Futurist” mentioned in Pressler’s 2018 article about Anna Sorokin.
In the series, “the Futurist” is reflected by a less-than-flattering character called Chase Sikorski, who is briefly Anna’s boyfriend.
Of course, there is also a possibility that the character could be based on another tech entrepreneur as well since there is no official confirmation about his identity.
