Background
Ieiri was born in Fukuoka Prefecture.
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Kazuma Ieiri
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Career
He stood for election as governor of Tokyo in 2014, running an online campaign and obtaining 1.8% of the vote. He dropped out of high school after less than a year and became a "hikikomori" (shut-in), teaching himself computer programming and socializing on a bulletin board system using a computer he received as a middle school graduation gift. After working various jobs including delivering newspapers and graphic design, he started his first company, a web design and server rental firm called "paperboy & company"
By the age of 27 he had built the company to have 72 employees and 850 million yen in annual revenue.
At the age of 29, he became the youngest Chief Executive Officer to have a company listed on JASDAQ when Paperboy went public (JASDAQ: 3633).
Ieiri resigned as a director of paperboy in March 2011. Ieiri branched out into several new businesses following the paperboy IPO, establishing a restaurant and cafe and setting up the "liverty" group of online content creators.
In May 2012, at the request of two Waseda University students, he established an online platform called "studygift" to provide crowd funding for individuals" educational expenses. The site was quickly criticized by online commenters for its lack of clarity regarding the use of donated funds, the activity of the students listed on the site and the possibility that they would not actually return to school.
In 2014, Ieiri announced his candidacy for governor of Tokyo.
Ieiri ran an unorthodox campaign by Japanese standards, in which he raised .2 million in campaign funds by crowd funding and conducted live streaming of his campaign headquarters. Instead of proposing his own policy platform, he set up an online platform to gather policy ideas from his supporters. He obtained 1.8% of the vote.
