Betting on the future: Early internet entrepreneur Ben Sun creates UMSI scholarship fund

Ben Sun applied to the University of Michigan on a typewriter, using Wite-Out to correct his mistakes. Six years later, he would create one of the first social networking sites. 

From a lower-middle-income family in Queens, New York, Sun was exposed to a business mindset from a young age. His father was a serial entrepreneur who started more than 20 businesses, among them restaurants, a print store and a produce stand. While most “failed fabulously,” and his family often struggled to make ends meet, he got to see up close the curiosity and gumption required to launch a venture. 

He graduated from U-M in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and followed in his older brother’s footsteps, taking a job in investment banking for Merril Lynch’s tech division. This was the beginning of the dot-com boom. He remembers, when Netscape launched, asking a friend, “What’s a web browser?” 

Watching commercial internet companies take off, Sun felt inspired. After two years, he completed his analyst program and decided to pursue an idea of his own. 

“I think Michigan made me more well-rounded and intellectually curious,” he says, “and then I found this opportunity of saying, let me bet on myself. Let me try to start this company. That’s what set me on the entrepreneurial tech path.”

That leap of faith led him to co-found some of the earliest online communities designed for people of color: AsianAve in 1997, followed by BlackPlanet in 1999 and MiGente in 2000. These platforms made space for identity-based connection, moving real-world communities online and amassing millions of users. 

Mark Zuckerberg was still in high school. Facebook wouldn’t launch for five more years. “It was the dawn of the commercial internet,” Sun says. “It was such an exciting time.”

Then the dot-com bubble burst. Investments dropped off, and tech entrepreneurs had to pivot their strategies in order to survive. But this is what a Michigan education helped Sun develop: not just ambition, but agility. 

His sites added a subscription-based dating component in 2001, fueling further growth. Sun sold the company in 2008, just ahead of the global financial crisis. 

In 2015, he and a friend co-founded Primary Venture Partners, where he serves as general partner, with the goal of supporting early-stage startups. Forbes’ Midas List now ranks him as one of the top 100 tech investors in the world.

“For me, being involved in tech has been an incredible opportunity,” he says. “That was a big driver in why I wanted to get involved with the school.”

Sun joined the School of Information’s advisory board in 2024. He made that commitment after meeting with Dean Andrea Forte, who shared how UMSI is preparing students for a world, and workforce, increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. 

“As someone who is a father of three kids, it has become top of mind for me,” he says. “AI presents incredible opportunities, but there's going to be a lot of transition for people entering the workforce. It’s really important to think about how, as an institution, we prepare our students for that transition.”

The next generation

Among the students who will be arriving at U-M this fall is his son, Odin. 

“I wasn't pushing Michigan on him, but I've basically been brainwashing him since birth,” Sun admits. 

He’s excited for Odin, who grew up sleeping with a Michigan teddy bear and watching every game on TV, to make the same journey he made from NYC to Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Sun’s college journey was only possible with financial help, including his older brother chipping in to pay for his tuition. But his experience at Michigan set him on the path he leads today.

“I got to work in a job that I probably would never have even dreamed of,” he says.

This is the inspiration behind his gift to establish the Sun Family Scholarship Fund at UMSI, which will prioritize low-income students who qualified for U-M’s Go Blue Guarantee as undergraduates. 

Sun and his family hope the scholarship fund not only eases a burden for students with financial need but also helps them choose a UMSI education at a pivotal time. 

“The whole world is going through this big transition with AI, and if you have students that can be perceived as having expertise in it, they're going to have such amazing opportunities in front of them,” he says. 

The invitation of the Sun Family Scholarship Fund is to take these opportunities and run with them. 

“Hopefully with their own ambition and smarts and determination, they'll get to pursue what they would love to pursue,” Sun says.