Peninsula Man To Compete On 'Survivor' Next Season

SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CA — A Los Altos man who beat 19 other contestants to win the 13th season of "Survivor" nearly 15 years ago will return to the show this season, competing in an "ultimate battle" against other past winners.

Yul Kwon, 44, won the Cook Islands season in 2006. The Concord native graduated from Stanford and now lives in Los Altos with his wife, Sophie, and their two children.

The new season, called "Winners at War," will premiere Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. PST on CBS. It marks the reality show's 40th season, and will be filmed in the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji, the network announced.

Since August 2018, Kwon has worked for Google as a senior director of product management, according to his LinkedIn profile. He previously spent more than five years at Facebook.

Before he was recruited for "Survivor," Kwon had graduated from Yale Law School, worked at multiple law firms and had begun working at Google.

The long-running show, celebrating 20 years on the air this year, has been credited with popularizing the reality show format in the U.S. A group of strangers are left stranded in an isolated place, where they must fend for themselves and gradually vote other contestants "off the island."