Gian84 Visited AKMU's Self-Run Company and Couldn't Stop Asking About the Salary

Half the staff came from YG Entertainment. Every employee holds the title of "Inspiration." And nobody works Fridays.

Those are the actual facts from the company AKMU's Lee Suhyun co-founded with her older brother Lee Chanhyuk after the duo parted ways with YG Entertainment at the end of their contract. The sibling duo named the company Yeongam-ui Saemteo (roughly "Spring of Inspiration"), and Gian84 got a full tour of its offices on a recent episode of his YouTube channel Insenng84.

Gian84 asked a staff member why they chose this company. The answer: "We were all scouted." When he pushed further and asked whether the team had come from YG, Suhyun confirmed that about half of them had made the switch. "They all changed jobs," she said plainly. Gian84, not one to let a salary question go unasked, pushed for compensation details. Suhyun shot back: "Why are you so obsessed with pay?" His response was fair: "Everyone's going to want to know."

The bigger reveal came from the employees themselves. When Gian84 asked what made the company worth working at, one staff member said the office runs on a four-day workweek. That alone would turn heads. But Tuesdays are specifically designated as exercise days, and that time counts as part of the official workday. Paid gym time, built into the schedule.

The hiring system is equally eccentric. Every employee's title is simply "Yeongam" (영감, meaning inspiration), and they're distinguished only by their family name: Son Yeongam, Kim Yeongam, Noh Yeongam, Ko Yeongam, Hwang Yeongam. Suhyun noted, with apparent seriousness, that no two employees can share the same surname. Gian84 asked if they literally hired based on last names. "It matters," Suhyun said.

Suhyun also shared a personal update during the visit: she's lost 30 kilograms through a health-focused regimen she credited largely to Chanhyuk's encouragement, and she's set her sights on losing another 7 kilograms. The timing is suspicious only in that she looked completely unbothered delivering all of this on camera while Gian84 processed the exercise-day-as-work-hour policy in real time.

For a company built by two artists who spent years inside one of K-pop's biggest labels, the culture at Yeongam-ui Saemteo reads like a deliberate correction. Whether the policy holds as the operation scales is a different question, but right now, the staff seems to like it.