Chieh Huang is an American tech entrepreneur who is co-founder and CEO of Boxed, a wholesale shopping app.

Huang was born to Taiwanese immigrants and grew up poor.

His mother worked in as a grocery clerk in Baltimore. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in economics and later Fordham Law School with a law degree.

After graduation he taught English in Niigita, a Japanese tiny town.

Later, he went on to work for a top law firm in New York.

After leaving the firm, Huang with two high school friends founded Astro Ape, a mobile games company.

This venture was able to receive almost $1 million in early backing from a gaming company in Japan led by a CEO who hailed from Niigita, where Huang had taught English.

Huang calls the coincidence a "massive stroke of good luck" that allowed him to get funding to build the company which was eventually sold to Zynga.

After leaving Zynga, Huang and 3 techie friends gathered around a rec room table in Manhattan in April 2013 to brainstorm the next big idea to pursue.

They considered the immense popularity of warehouse deals in contrast to the struggle to "stuff that 100-roll pack of toilet paper into your trunk" and so decided to develop Boxed, an app that allows users to buy goods in box club store quantities by online delivery.

At first the co-founders stored goods from their parents' garage and packed in living rooms in New Jersey.

However, within 90 days the app grew by word of mouth at lightening pace with Huang commenting in a profile by *Fast Company * that the company went from being able to ship in "two states, to being able to fulfill nationwide, across the 48 contiguous states in another 90 days". The same profile was titled "Is Chieh Huang Costco's Worst Nightmare?", making reference to the warehouse store company that is the second largest retailer in the world.

He drew attention in the media in 2015 when he pledged to personally pay for the college tuition of the children of workers of Boxed with "no strings attached".

In an interview with *Forbes * he says he came up with the idea after hosting a celebration opening the Atlanta fulfillment center. When few of the warehouse's employees showed up he found own that many didn't own cars or lived far away or in unsafe neighborhoods. Huang decided to help with the college education of his workers' children as a way of solving the problem of social mobility. Huang plans to establish a non-profit foundation in which he will contribute at least 10% of his interest in the company to pay for tuition. As Boxed is a startup making the stock largely illiquid, Huang plans personally to pay up front cash for the tuition of the children.