AI is everywhere—on slides, in pitches, in every “next big thing.” But while the world chases shiny demos and fast hype, Robert Huỳnh, co-founder and CEO of Reforged Labs, is focused on building something simpler: AI that works.
What makes that approach stand out is the story of a Vietnamese American whose identity and experiences across the U.S. and Vietnam quietly shape not just who he is, but how he builds.
Where Identity Becomes A Strategic Advantage
Born and raised in Texas to a Vietnamese family, Robert’s first taste of business came from helping run his family’s frozen yogurt shop outside his high school.
“If I made the cups in the self-serve frozen yoghurt bigger, like 10%, our customers would still fill it up by 10%. And that's an automatic 10% increase in revenue,” said Robert.
That wasn’t just a pricing trick. It was a crash course in human behavior, choice architecture, and data-driven thinking, long before the spreadsheets came in.
Robert would later go on to work at companies like Google and Microsoft—names that often top the dream list for engineers. But the further he climbed, the more he felt disconnected from the very qualities that made him who he was: practical, adaptable, and deeply rooted in Vietnamese culture.
So when it came time to launch a startup, he didn’t stay in Silicon Valley—he came back to Vietnam. His first startup there, a job platform for blue-collar workers, grew fast but didn’t last.
“I was so cocky. I realise that I can't just take an idea from the US, I was copying something I saw successful in San Francisco and I was just gonna carbon paste it here in Vietnam.”
That experience taught him the importance of understanding local culture before building anything meaningful and became the foundation of Reforged Labs—an AI startup with a tighter scope: AI-powered data tools for game marketing teams. Rather than compete in generic AI tools, Reforged Labs built a specialized product to help marketers handle complex data from platforms like Facebook, Google, and TikTok.
After just one year, Reforged Labs is already working with two of the top 10 game studios in the world, along with 10 other major clients.
AI As An Analyst, Not A Buzzword
When meeting the team behind Candy Crush, Robert discovered many top game studios spend 90% of their budgets on advertising, yet most marketing decisions still rely on gut instinct.
That gap is where Reforged Labs steps in. Their product acts as an AI analyst, digesting massive datasets and offering clear, strategic suggestions tailored for marketing.
Unlike many startups simply repackaging ChatGPT, Robert and his co-founder Oscar have built something deeply focused and painfully practical.
AI Shouldn’t Replace Human Judgment
Robert isn’t an AI purist. His perspective is grounded in lived experience—both the prestige of Big Tech and the failure of copying Silicon Valley too literally. He sees AI as a powerful assistant, not a silver bullet.
And he’s wary of what he calls “vibe coding”, when developers blindly trusting AI code suggestions without verifying or understanding them.
"You can build an Airbnb or a Grab-like app over the weekend," he says. "To productionize that thing, you're going to have to undo all the spaghetti code that you just put together. And that's going to take like at least six months or a year."
For him, the value of a developer isn’t just technical skill. It’s knowing what to trust, what to challenge, and how to integrate AI into a system intelligently.
At Reforged Labs, this mindset drives product design. They build for specific use cases, not generic audiences. Starting with game studios, they’re now expanding into e-commerce and multi-platform retail.
From Vietnam, For The World
From a yogurt shop in Texas to an AI lab in Ho Chi Minh City, Robert’s journey shows how personal identity and practical experience can lead to products that stand out.
Reforged Labs isn’t just about building AI but about building useful, human-centered technology.
Vietnam still has its hurdles—regulatory ambiguity, risk-averse workplace culture, and a gap between global ambition and local execution. But Robert stays. Not just to reconnect with his roots. But because he believes in Vietnam’s long game in five years, ten years, even twenty.
Vietnam’s game industry already has global traction, with hits like Flappy Bird and Axie Infinity, now ranking #3 worldwide in mobile downloads. That momentum could turn tech and gaming into the country’s next big export.
If that happens, Robert Huỳnh won’t just have predicted it. He’ll have helped build it.