Zeshan Ali, also known by his pseudonym, Sass (shortened from his initial nickname No Sass), is one of the four co-founders of Yuga Labs, the company behind and responsible for the creation of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a non-fungible token (NFT) collection. ^[1][2]

Education

Zeshan graduated from the University of Maryland, studying Computer Science. ^[2][4]

Early Life

Zeshan Ali was raised by immigrant parents who originated from Guatemala and Pakistan. The two parents had met during English language classes and settled on the West Coast where Zeshan grew up. ^[3]

Zeshan Ali and Kerem Atalay's Story

Zeshan Ali and Kerem Atalay met when they were studying Computer Science for their undergraduate program at the University of Maryland. Kerem had gotten to know Greg Solano first, during his time at the University of Virginia and soon introduced Zeshan to him. When the two co-founders in charge of the creative side of the project, Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, had begun envisioning the ‘Bored Ape Yacht Club’, Greg reached out to Zeshan and Kerem for help. Greg had actually asked them if they could help them with Javascript which they quickly agreed to but almost as quickly noticed that Javascript was not used at all for blockchains. The two then learned Solidity which they stated was “the easy part” and had struggled with linking the website, smart contracts, and cryptocurrency-oriented spaces together. Since then they have been the leading developers on the technical side of Yuga Labs and all the projects that were born from the company. ^[2]

The doxxing

On February 4th 2022, Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow were doxxed by Buzzfeed where they were given less than 30 minutes to prepare for the interview. The two main developers of Yuga Labs had more time on their hands and decided they, "wanted to have a little bit more control over the narrative and make it more of a celebratory thing than it was for Greg and Wylie”. Kerem and Zeshan then doxxed themselves on February 9th 2022, just 5 days after Greg and Wylie. ^[2][6]

Zeshan posted on Twitter a photo of himself and his bored ape saying: ^[5]

"Welp, here we go... Hey, I'm Zeshan. Nice to meet y'all (: Web2 me vs. Web3 me"

Personal Life

Zeshan Ali is married to a freelance journalist from St. Louis.

In September 2022, Zeshan purchased a house in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California for him and his wife to move in to for $4 million. ^[7]