"Father of BTS" BANG SI-HYUK Has a Cousin Dubbed "Korean Steve Jobs"

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Bang Si-hyuk, the CEO of BigHit Entertainment and the "father" of BTS, has a cousin dubbed the 'Korean Steve Jobs.'

From rags to riches, the Bangs are building an empire of their own.

Four years older than Bang Si-hyuk, Bang Jun-hyuk, the chairman of the mobile-gaming company Netmarble, is a legendary figure in the mobile gaming industry. Going from rags to riches, some equate Bang and the American entrepreneur Steve Jobs.

Dropping out of high school to support his family, he grew the once small start-up to South Korea's largest mobile-gaming company.

Bang founded Netmarble with just 100 million won (a bit over 90,000 dollars) in seed money. All games released were an instant hit, including 'Everybody's Marble' and 'Lineage 2: Revolution.' Netmarble now generates 2 trillion won (1800 million dollars) in annual sales. Netmarble placed third among the world's mobile publishers with the highest revenue in 2017, just after the Chinese online service Tencent in the first place and NetEase in the second.

According to a website releasing the net wealth of Korean chaebols (conglomerates), Bang Jun-hyuk, the biggest shareholder of Netmarble, has 3.7935 trillion won (over 3.574 billion dollars) in stock value alone.

His cousin, Bang Si-hyuk, produced BTS, who blaze a trail for K-pop artists in the hostile U.S. market. BigHit Entertainment, founded in 2005 by Bang Si-hyuk, is only a step away from issuing its initial public offering, and buyers are anxious for the launch to happen.