Dongjin Lee Technical Advisor
A 25-year engineer's view — a single company carrying every one of these layers is something I've never seen before
A 25-year engineer's view — a single company carrying every one of these layers is something I've never seen before
“Even after 25 years in big tech, I rarely saw a single company carry every one of these layers. Li.fizz carries them all.”
External technical advisor for Li.fizz. Former director of Samsung Electronics' ODD Research Lab, former CEO of Kinovention, and currently a professor at Hanyang University's Department of Convergence Electronic Engineering. Deeply involved in Li.fizz's in-house chipset and hardware R&D decisions.
Q. Could you introduce yourself?
I'm Dongjin Lee. I received the Technology Grand Prize at Samsung Electronics' DS Division ODD Business Unit, then served as director of the ODD Research Lab, then as CEO of a company called Kinovention. Now I teach at Hanyang University, College of Engineering, Department of Convergence Electronic Engineering. Along the way I received the IR52 Jang Young-shil Award, two Korea Multimedia Technology Grand Prizes, and the CES 2024 Innovation Award Advisor Recognition, among others.
I'm with Li.fizz as an external technical advisor. I advise on in-house chipset design, the direction of hardware R&D, and the broader technology roadmap.
Q. How did you and Li.fizz come together?
CEO Jungsoo Song graduated from Hanyang's Convergence Electronic Engineering program. I knew him from his student days, and watched him pass through InBody, LuaLab, and Rabino after graduation. One day he came to me and said, "Professor, I'm starting a kitchen automation company." Honestly, my first reaction was puzzled — "Why is an electronics person doing *kitchens*?"
But the picture Jungsoo showed me was real. "If existing robots cost 80 million won, take 60 seconds, and reach only 0.2% adoption, we'll build a 4.5-million-won robot that takes 3 seconds and reaches 100% adoption" — that was his line. And the way to make that possible — cloud robotics — was clearly laid out. Seeing that picture, I felt, "this will actually change an industry." That's why I joined as an advisor.
Q. What do you do as Li.fizz's technical advisor?
Three things.
First, advising on hardware R&D direction. Li.fizz isn't a company that just buys motors, mechanical parts, and circuits and assembles them. We're developing our own actuators — like the PCB Stator Motor — in-house. On these deep technical decisions, my 25 years of know-how can be useful. We decide together which parts to build in-house and which to source.
Second, advising on in-house chipset (L1 Chip) design. Li.fizz has built its own controller chipset optimized for beverage manufacturing. It's genuinely rare for a startup to go all the way to designing its own chipset. Since I went deep on chipset design during my ODD days, I help work through the details here.
Third, advising on next-generation R&D. Li.fizz is currently also developing a humanoid for kitchen automation. Beyond a robot that performs a single task, a humanoid that flexibly performs multiple tasks like a human. This could be a real game-changer, so we're shaping R&D strategy in that direction together.
Q. As an advisor, is there something that feels distinctly different about Li.fizz compared to other companies?
The depth and breadth of the technical spectrum. A typical IT startup deals only with software. A typical hardware startup deals only with hardware. But at Li.fizz — web, app, firmware, backend, infrastructure, mechanical design, circuit design, and even chipsets and actuators — all of it lives inside a single product. And we build every layer from zero to one, in-house. That's vertical integration.
Even after 25 years in big tech, I rarely saw a single company carry every one of these layers. Usually a company specializes in one layer. Li.fizz does all of them, and that creates a differentiator others struggle to imitate.
Q. Is there a side of the Li.fizz team that has impressed you the most?
Speed. In academia, a single piece of research takes one or two years to make it into a paper. Big tech is similar. But at Li.fizz, a decision today produces a prototype the next week. A month later it's running in a store.
This speed is possible because the team is genuinely small and tight. It's not a roster gathered on the basis of flashy academic backgrounds or careers. But each of them has a real conviction: "I want to solve this problem." That's an energy I haven't seen in 25 years, and I find myself stimulated every time.
Q. Who would you recommend Li.fizz to?
People who pursue technical depth. Circuits, firmware, embedded, cloud, AI, web, mobile — environments where all of this lives inside a single product are uncommon. I particularly recommend it to hardware engineers. Seeing a circuit you designed actually produced, and running in 1,400 stores, is an experience you can't easily get anywhere else.
And people who learn fast. At Li.fizz you'll touch multiple domains from the same seat. You might come in on firmware, and a year later you're also touching cloud, and two years later you're touching circuits. If that feels like an opportunity rather than a burden, you'll grow extraordinarily fast.
Q. A final word.
I tell my students, "Wherever you work, broaden your technical spectrum." But that's easier said than done. Most companies specialize people in one thing. Li.fizz is the opposite — it's an environment that deliberately broadens your spectrum. As an engineer of 25 years, this is a place I can recommend with confidence.