Who is Anna Delvey’s techno-bro beau based on in ‘Inventing Anna?’

Scammer Anna Delvey is notorious for swindling the New York elite out of tons of of 1000's of dollars. And in “Inventing Anna,” the brand new Shonda Rhimes Netflix present about her, she has a ridiculous tech entrepreneur boyfriend.

On the sequence, which stars Julia Garner within the title function and is out Friday, Anna’s on-screen love curiosity is Chase Sikorski (Saamer Usmani, “Succession”). Chase is launched to the viewers in episode 2, when he’s giving a Ted Discuss concerning the potential to “cloud supply” your goals. A tech entrepreneur, he has an app known as “Wake,” that by no means will get off the bottom, and he makes use of the cringeworthy slogan, “everybody else is Woke however Chase is Wake.” 

As he explains in his Ted Discuss, goals are full of “that means and magic” however once we get up within the morning, “All of that information simply dissolves … Think about, what if as a substitute of shedding that point, you possibly can faucet into it? May we be extra linked?” 

Anna Delvey and rumored former boyfriend Hunter Lee Soik.
On Netflix present “Inventing Anna,” out Friday, Anna Delvey dates a technopreneur futurist obsessive about goals. So who’s the actual man who wooed the grifter?
NY Submit picture composite

The sequence seems like a satire of Silicon Valley tradition, and it’s true that Chase and his thought to “cloud supply goals” are fictional. All episodes of “Inventing Anna” start with the identical disclaimer: “This story is totally true. Aside from the components which can be completely made up.”

However Chase has roots in actuality.

Giudo Cacciatori, Gro Curtis, Giorgia Tordini, and Anna Delvey, right, in 2014 before the conwoman was caught.
Giudo Cacciatori, Gro Curtis, Giorgia Tordini, and Anna Delvey, proper, in 2014 earlier than the conwoman was caught.
Getty Pictures

Within the 2018 New York journal article about Delvey that impressed this present, her beau is talked about simply briefly, unnamed blind-item model, as a futurist “on the TED-Talks circuit who’d been profiled in The New Yorker.” In response to the profile, Delvey “ran round with him” for some time in 2015. “Then it was 2016. The man, whose app by no means materialized, moved to the Emirates, and Anna got here to New York on her personal.”

When that profile when viral, web sleuths honed in on two males who match the invoice. 

Julia Garner as Anna Delvey and Katie Lowes as Rachel on "Inventing Anna" take a selfie together outside.
Julia Garner as Anna Delvey and Katie Lowes as Rachel on “Inventing Anna.”
Netflix

“anna delvey’s futurist boyfriend is sort of actually both shingy or ray kurzweil however BOTH (surprisingly?) have new yorker profiles AND Ted Talks,” one Twitter consumer speculated, whereas a 2015 Slate article concurred that these had been the probably candidates.

Let’s break it down.

Julia Garner as Anna Delvey in "Inventing Anna."
Julia Garner as Anna Delvey in “Inventing Anna.”
Netflix

David Shing, aka “Shingy,” was described as “AOL’s Digital Prophet” in a 2014 New Yorker profile. He’s an Australian advertising exec who labored at AOL, has an eccentric sense of favor, and a TED Discuss wherein he talks about how “linked” this technology is — which is analogous to what Chase says in his TED discuss in “Inventing Anna.” He’s at present 50 whereas Delvey is 31, however a 20-year age hole isn’t out of the query. 

In the meantime, futurist Ray Kurzweil, who was profiled by the New Yorker in 2012, has written books on AI and transhumanism. However, he’s at present 73, making a match with Delvey much less probably.

Futurist David "Shingy" Shing
Futurist David “Shingy” Shing was rumored to be Delvey’s real-life boyfriend in 2015.
John Lamparski

Nevertheless, there may be one different man who checks each bins — after which some.

Hunter Lee Soik, 40, is a Korean-American futurist who received a 2013 profile within the New Yorker, really created an app involving goals, and lived in Dubai. Amongst different endeavors, he was a inventive advisor on Jay-Z and Kayne West’s “Watch The Throne” tour and for Italian Vogue.

Anna Delvey in court being led by police officers.
Anna Delvey in courtroom throughout her 2019 trial.
AFP by way of Getty Pictures

“He spent a number of months studying Freud and Jung and Allan Hobson on goals, ‘simply to determine everybody’s place,’ and studying about researchers in Japan who're mapping the neurological processes of goals,” his 2013 New Yorker profile says. “What would occur if we created an area the place goals had been organized?” Soik poses within the story.

A 2014 Quick Firm profile explains that “Soik lives out of briefly rented properties in Berlin, San Francisco, New York, or Los Angeles — usually discovered by way of Airbnb — and wears solely black.”

A Kickstarter for his app, known as Shadow, has a video of him proposing to create the most important “dream database” on the earth. 

The real Anna Delvey in 2019
Faux heiress Anna Delvey dated a mysterious tech entrepreneur obsessive about goals, as present on “Inventing Anna.”
AFP by way of Getty Pictures

The clincher? He’s additionally talked about in a 2014 publish on Delvey’s Instagram. It’s a photograph taken from far-off of somebody lounging on the deck of a ship on the ocean. Within the caption, Delvey wrote, “#Ibiza to #Formentera final days of summer season with @jaymacardoso @hunterleesoik.”

Neither Delvey nor Soik responded when The Submit reached out for remark.

If social media is to be trusted, the connection didn’t final.

Whereas Delvey was in jail in 2021, she posted on her Instagram that she is “on the lookout for a boyfriend.” 

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