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Today is January 30 and my name is Sarah Kong. It is around um three o'clock right now and we are interviewing Dr. Stephen Wong for the Houston Asian American Archive. My partner is-

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Chelsey Wen. Chelsey, nice name. Thank you. We'll get started. So, when and where were you born? When and where were you born?

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Hong Kong, yeah. Can you describe the community that you grew up in and like what values your family raised you with? What values? Yeah, so like— Okay, my life history.

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So, I born in Hong Kong but I'm not Cantonese. I'm a Fujianese. In fact, I speak Taiwanese. I grew up I–I–I speak Fujianese—the type from Minnan—that's the Taiwanese

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local language. And I grew up Hong Kong in the area called North Point. That's a centralized of the lone Cantonese community which is mostly Fujian and Shanghainese.

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And in fact, funny Cantonese is my third language. I speak Fujian first and then I went to a- my parents sent me to a Mandarin speaking only school in Hong Kong. So, I grew up speaking Mandarin first and,

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and that's a community it’s quite interesting and—during my entire elementary I went through the riot in Hong Kong in 60's. Hong Kong, the riot, the Hong Kong riot.

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These days is nothing compared to during that time. Yeah, bombs all these things, it’s serious. This was during the Cultural Revolution period. They almost went over so, it's quite, it

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makes quite an impression on me on that part. And my father actually is from Philippines—Filipino-Chinese community. They immigrated to Philippines hundred years ago, my great grandfather there and

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-for the reason because Philippines at that time— remember America had this Asian Exclusion Act until ‘621, Philippines similar until 1973— Marcos abolished the act that Chinese not allowed

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to bring their wives over at that time because my—is the traditional way right, the Chinese principal went back to the old village, found maid, married them, but they could not bring it back, they only bring their son back.

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So at that time we settled in Hong Kong, both of us, our father had business on both sides. So, we in Hong Kong a little bit so. So in that sense, so I

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went to Philippines quite frequently—I speak Tagalog a little bit, and I went there. I love Southeast Asia. So that’s what I grew up with. And actually the

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elementary school I have actually, is run by actually very Taiwanese setting. Actually it’s a, they form a— Taiwanese a lot of 苏州宁波 , I don’t know if you have heard about that. 苏州浙江2 that’s the two

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provinces. There is a 同乡会 and that’s all these rich tycoons from China they–they– they left some of the ship—made all the rich guys there, they all go together to form.

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So Shanghainese and the area is actually help Hong Kong start their commerce. Hong Kong at that time is just a fish port. But Hong Kong benefits from riots of China. Unfortunately, during the Second War and then these

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Communists took over, and all these things. And that’s where I started. Actually my education in the secondary school is in a Catholic school, a missionary

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school. All boys school, no girls. It is one of the oldest Christian Schools is a Salesians for a Salesians school. And I- my education is in an English-

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speaking school also. Also it's funny, I never in a Cantonese speaking school, but I learned Cantonese later on. And that's what I have grown with the background is a mixture. My mother is actually is a very

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devoted Buddhist. And my father is a kind of Buddhist, but he’s not that devoted, and, but I converted to Christianity during my high school, secondary school.

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You said you were in the Philippines for part of the time during your secondary school? Oh yeah, elementary, secondary, summertime would go on and on. Actually, I spent one year, one full year there.

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So I'm not quite sure if you're familiar Hong Kong system at the time. It’s a, it’s a British system. So we have these five years secondary school, and then two year matriculation. You

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don't have it here. So five years you are considered a high school graduate. And you have these two-year college, which is pre-college in the same school matriculation before you go to university. University’s only for three years.

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So I took actually what people finished in five years—I didn't go to the matriculation, they called it Form 6, Form 7, or Upper Sixth, or Lower Seventh—or this thing we called Form 1 to Form 5 at our school so I took one year off in Philippines running around,

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doing nothing but just to live in the country, get quite fun, and then get bored and came back to study in the last year; I jumped the queue—I studied the last year of the matriculation and then went to Australia for college,

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yeah. How did you decide to study electrical engineering in Australia? That's a very interesting question actually. I got in—I actually I was accepted in—I used to do

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biology by the way. My matriculation is in biology. And I got in Hong Kong University as a biology major but found it boring, and then went to change completely to

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electrical engineering—something different, something technical. As you know a boy school tends to be very science and engineering- oriented, right?

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Typically, so either you go—at that time it’s two routes, one was to go biology route the other is math around. So I went to Australia. They looked at me, doesn't matter, your score is good enough so—they let me go into electrical engineering.

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I found interesting. Really I was young and I really had no clue. I just wanted to do something not biology at the time. Funny thing I'm doing biology now

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actually it’s short. And it’s fun at that time I was going to Australia... Australia was very nice at that time. They have their free education.

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I went in their quota—I think they give 200 put in Hong Kong quota, 200 Singapore, 200 Malaysia, something. So their free education so you’re going there, now they charging you an ounce I think to go in to study in Australia but at that time was completely

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free. In fact, they “forced” me to work on the summers, so actually it's good times, good fun because I enjoy I see a lot of different Australia countryside, I worked in an engineering firm in a mining town thing.

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It’s enjoyable, get a lot of exposure. To say the truth, I just don’t want to do it, biology, that’s the reason why I go into electrical engineering. How was adjusting to living in Australia for your undergraduate degree coming from Hong Kong?

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Uh, let me think. I'm really lucky because… God's blessing, I went to Australia. I lived in the Jesuit college.

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Australia is a very British system, university in the daytime and then you live in the college. The college life is not like dorm here. They actually have full fledge of student activities.

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They have tutors, they have canteen, you live there for four years, okay. And then we had six colleges, I think. I went to University of Western Australia in Perth all the way down there okay. It's the most isolated cities, and I

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lived in the Jesuit college. And I also adjusted quite well. And they have and actually, I do a lot. In fact, I was pretty active.

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I adapted quite well actually. I was in the social committee chair. I was the head of the college photographer. I was also the head of the tennis, table tennis, and captain

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also in the basketball teams. Actually, I don’t think I spent much time studying, you’re right. I had a good time in Australia, yeah. They are very easy going people. I enjoyed this. The adaptation is not that much problem.

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I'm lucky in a sense I lived in college. Most overseas students, they don't live in colleges tend to be more expensive. Actually, I’m also very lucky, consider myself very lucky.

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I, they- because the engineering students had to work the summertime. In summer, I can get the whole year’s paid already. So, I never asked my family for money.

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Yeah, yeah, so in fact I had money enough to buy elsewhere. So I lived in college for four years. I lived a lot of lifelong Australian friends I still in contact with them, actually. I enjoyed there, actually, I miss a little bit, but not

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much a problem with adaptation. And remember Hong Kong is kind of a mixture. It’s a East-West mixture, and because I’m an English

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school graduate and also came from a Catholic background, I went to Catholic college, same thing, it’s not too much a problem at all. And so especially when you are sporty. I was much thinner at that time,

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okay, yeah, sporty. When you're sporty, you make friends easily. So how did your- parents feel about you moving to Australia? A- actually at that time they were not happy to say the truth-- I

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actually, accepted into King's College in Cambridge. Okay. And--at that time, you’re too young to know, Margaret Thatcher—they changed the rule—tuition.

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Overnight they changed the rule- increased the tuition by 10 times. So, I looked at it, and I don’t want to ask my parents for money. I mean they had it, but I don’t want to ask it. And you know when you’re young you’re rebellious, right?

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You guys at that age I mean you understand what I talk about so I applied there 300 pounds but there suddenly is 3,000 pounds. I’ve only been serious—at that time Margaret Thatcher changed the rule for that year.

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They make the British education as an export business. In fact, it started from there, all the tuition go up. US go up, Australia go up, everybody followed this to make money, so I decided and went to Australia because it's

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free. That's the only reason. And, and they think I'm stupid because—but it's okay, who cares? Australia is one more year, and you know, when you're young you,

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look back you may be stupid but I mean, I agree but life is what you take. And when you're young you make decisions, you move forward. So, they weren't happy, to put it this way.

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They weren't very happy when I decided to go to Australia, not go to England. Okay. What were the demographics of your peers, were they mostly like white or did you mostly have Asian friends or?

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I think most of them were Asian but not necessarily Chinese. I actually lived in Singapore. After Australia, I went to Singapore. So in fact I was there for officially four years, I worked for Hewlett-

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Packard. Yeah HP Singapore. And when I was young I tend to have a tendency when I change a job I change a country, it was quite fun. When you're single it is easier, my wife complaining, so I went to

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Australia because about in engineering one part of my class are Malaysian Chinese or Singaporean Chinese- Australia has a large influence in these Southeast Asia at that time.

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They gave a lot of scholarship. So there are a lot so we have a good time, and when I graduated, they say do you want to come over here, have fun. So I come over here. In Singapore, at that time in the 80s—you haven't born yet, don’t worry. In the 80s, they are just

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improving. Singapore was actually very far behind in Hong Kong at that time, even though pace was unbelievable at that time, they’re just catching up. Hong Kong took off -in 70s.

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Singapore had really took off in the 80s, behind Hong Kong for 10-15 years. So, easy find job, and I went there and enjoyed it there. I like the Singaporean culture a lot.

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First of all, they're still very majority Chinese but they are also a mixture of the Malay. 9% Malay—16% Malay, 9% Indonesian—Indian, mostly Tamilese, I think, and the

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Southern Asian and then the others and, I learned the culture and most of the Chinese because they are mostly from Fujian. They speak the language, it’s Mandarin. I enjoyed a lot and my friends are a mixture,

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I think my peers—I think still a lot of Chinese, but I think a lot of Asians, Caucasians, yeah, a lot of Indian—actually quite a lot of Indian friends, Caucasian friends and yeah.

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There is a mixture, I think is, I would say probably 50% Asians maybe, less than 50% Asians, the rest is mixture. And- how was working for Hewlett Packard in Singapore? It's quite fun actually. I made all kinds of mistakes they still tolerated it.

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It's a great company. I mean, this is my first company. This is the original Hewlett-Packard, not the current Hewlett-Packard. When Hewlett-Packard—when the founder was still there.

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I was in Singapore and Palo Alto. I was involved in the printer project, the first inkjet printer, and the automation project. So we were traveling both places and you can see at that time HP the culture is very

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open, HP way. And the CEO has no offices, no executive offices, no executive lounge, nothing like that, everybody just equal. HP that time is

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a small company, is around $5 billion only. But -it's a great company. They really, hired fresh electrical engineers, it’s bias okay. Electrical engineering top five-ten percent of the top

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students and groom them for life, that's the culture at that time. I enjoyed it a lot yeah and, yeah. After you worked in Singapore- you moved to America, correct?

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Yeah, I got recruited by Bell Labs. Yeah. How was moving to America and the immigration process or? They took care of everything, I just show up. I actually am considered lucky, I never worry too

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much about immigration because they just shipped me over there and worked well. You know the history, you know the Ma Bell system right, the original? You're too young for that.

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Before AT&T, it's called Ma Bell system. The AT&T was a headquarter company, and all the Baby Bell company. It's only one company at that time.

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Okay, besides outside Pentagon, the whole world controlled by the Ma Bell—all the communications. Maybe that's the reason Uncle Sam decided to break it. So, they broke it in late 80s,

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80 something. And then they started to be more competitive, and they hired the best- the Bell Lab at that time was a heyday. Bell Lab's great, the heyday of Bell Lab at that time 20,000 people, half of them had

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PhD—get the brightest kids. At that time, we did not even care about Stanford, Harvard, they are nothing. I'm serious. Because at that time it’s so rich. And all the inventions—in fact, today, if you look carefully, a lot Silicon Valley

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inventions you can trace back to Bell Lab's inventions. That is a national treasure of US, and they called, they gave me offer, they came back and looked at HP.

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The director, the president came by, they're very impressed with HP, and the next day I got a call, say they want someone like me. So, when you're a young kid, Bell Lab calls you, you show up right.

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In fact, this turned out to be one of my mistakes. I should stay in HP. All the peers who worked on inkjet become rich and famous. I went to Bell Lab, I lost opportunity.

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I work at group project at that time. You never know when you're young. Right? And at Bell Lab, I have a good time. I see all the top people.

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It's a different culture, very open. Very, very proud of their work. Very professional. I enjoyed. How was -adjusting to Florida?

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And was it like different from Australia or your experiences in Singapore? I never had a problem adjusting anything. Hong Kong people tend to be very flexible. That’s the culture there.

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Yeah, I enjoy Singapore, actually I still have friends. I try to go back every year. Yeah, yeah. I still collaborate, I still have some collaborators there. Yeah, I have been there last year, and I still review their research grants,

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yeah. And then- after Orlando um you wanted to go back to- Actually Jersey, I went to Jersey first. And, and, Bell Lab headquarters in Jersey, and they- that time AT&T just Sprint there’s a company their

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manufacturing arm called Western Electric—you've probably never heard of it. It's the original arm of semiconductor, the first semiconductor was making in Western Electric manufacturing.

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Anyway, they tried to automate and- long- long story short, they became so competitive they need to find Bell Lab people to help them to automate the wafer fabs. Orlando at that time is opened up with a new $5 billion—in fact if you went to Orlando

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there's a parkway called John Young Parkway. Orlando city opened their parkway in order to lure AT&T in to the park. And then we were shipped there to help them to automate the wafer fab. We were assigned

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chips, all these things. I was working on semiconductor, yeah. I had a good time in Orlando, you can tell. Better than New Jersey, I'm telling you, yeah. What piqued your interest to go back to school for computing after

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that? Actually, this is this is after Fort. Actually it’s a funny story, actually it’s real. I always kill my career all the time. The AT&T, at that time is Sprint, and we doing manufacturing.

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But still all the smart accounting corporation say they figured out no matter how good you automated, you still could not compete overseas, so they started moving the manufacturing overseas, that's why AT&T go overseas for the first time.

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They went back to Singapore, Thailand, Barcelona, and I'm helping them to move because we decided the same thing. And I know the Asian culture really well, so Thailand and Singapore and

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Barcelona even over—in fact at that time a whole bunch of Spanish engineers on our team , these guys, - they eat at 9 o’clock and go to dance and finish at midnight, come back start working at 7 o’clock. What energy! I don’t know.

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And then, and after I moved the thing over, the head of my boss boss boss say, we want to move you there to become a plant manager in Thailand. I tried to explain to him Thai and Chinese are very

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different. But not very successful. And I, so being young you know, at that the time you don't care, I mean, actually. And so, I walked over

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to Western Electric main plant is Allentown—very boring place in Pennsylvania this is the first thing. Back then, Allentown. And I I I walked over to the university over there called Lehigh- Lehigh University. I knew them very well because I helped them a little bit, and I

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talked with the Dean say I want to come here to study, he said well why not come over. And so, I came over. And I didn't get my GRE.

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They said get in first, you could take your GRE later. And that’s the reason I went back to study... In a way, if you ask me is it a career sacrifice? Yes, I think if you look back at this age, at that time

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young. My parents weren’t there or if someone advised me you should go to Thailand because it's a career for you. And Asian people scratch their head. The director said what’s wrong with this guy.

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Alright. I never—you can tell right by now—I don't really care too much about my career. Right? Okay after Thailand, um you worked in Japan, right?

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Oh, this after that. I went to Lehigh and I I I found electrical engineering boring because after list- listening, gee well after Bell Labs you looked at this guy talk about things more than 20 years ago, I get very bored nothing to learn.

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So I switched field. I changed to computer science, different department so I I I changed to computer science. And then after computer science, I finished a PhD in computer science. I finished a qualified PhD master in computer science, and

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lo and behold, I got a letter from Japan. Invitation say they invited me to do research over there. Japan during that time is heyday. Top, right? Try

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to count... They came in, they bought Rockefeller, Pebble Beach. They created this culture by expensive paintings Van Gogh’s sunflowers and followed they set up a $905 million stipend at that time they set up a record, not become a competition.

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They are the one who set it up at that time. And I just got married. I told my wife you want to extend the honeymoon in Tokyo, why not? And Japan at that time heyday.

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So, they said Japan there’s a lab called MITI , you know MITI, you’re familiar with that, right? So Japan -MITI has this 10- yearlong project—10-yearlong theme, they have very long term.

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So at that time they looked at steel 10 years plan, they looked at car automobile 10 years plan, they looked at consumer TV 10 years plan. And at that time, they have no computer science.

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Now you think Japan is very strong. That time, nothing. So this 10 year plan of supercomputing, AI, artificial intelligence, they set a 10 years plan. And then there's a

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billion dollar project in the 80s. And then told their big eight manufacturing companies say, send the kids less than 33 years old to come here to work for country for 10 years. They do actually.

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So I went to Japan for two, yeah, for a couple years. Was that the the I-C-O-T Oh, ICOT, yeah. Can you explain to us a little bit more about that? So ICOT is this $1 billion, 10-years long project.

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Have uh have 3 or 400 the brightest kids in Japan sent by Kaisha—sent by Kaisha means the company, corporation. The brightest kids in Japan he’s known for university actually work for company.

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It’s a different thing and and and they focused a project to, basically using AI, artificial intelligence. We talked about AI now. Not much advanced that time. And they, in- 10 years they do supercomputing, massive parallel computing,

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all kinds of cool stuff. The people loved it, all employees, and tons of money. And the culture is very Japanese they at that time they hated being labeled a copycat.

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So they reversed, they don't copy US anymore, they copied Europe—big big mistakes. Okay, actually at that time to copy whatever AI you will fail anyway. U.S. at that time we called it symbolic processing, symbols.

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AI symbolic processing—logic—symbolic processing. MIT, Stanford - all these things. It’s persistent, that’s US style, and in Europe that’s a reverse.

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Europe, there’s something called deductive reasoning—you probably don't understand, it’s a logic, it’s deductive logic, and then they do—someone out there? Oh yeah, you can get my laptop.

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Go ahead. They started on a new project massive parallel computing, doing from the chip onward to the operating system to software using logic programming concept.

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And that’s what I do for 10 years. They're very dedicated. I'm very I’m very impressed with with the dedication of Japanese when they set a goal. It’s amazing. Unfortunately the whole world changed direction by the time the project

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finished. Computer science changes really fast, but -yeah. I had a good time in Tokyo actually. You think about Tokyo very clustered, this thing is not true.

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I lived in the area like suburb. In the middle of the Tokyo, okay. Tokyo is an old town by 226 cities all tied altogether.

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So, I lived in areas no high rise, it’s just all the two or three apartments for each story mansion kind of things. If you lived in the suburb, very nice, very quiet. No high-rise building, enjoyed a lot, I made a lot of friends.

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And learned a lot about Japanese culture and also the way they do business. I still have a lot of friends in Japan right now. In fact, their project, America say failed. But in reality, in those 10 years they trained about

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500 or 600 people like me, and half of them actually, after their freedom that that project was using U.S. style, freestyle research; it’s not a top-down Japanese boring research, to lead freestyle from the top, all these thing, open area.

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So, a lot of them have a freedom they decided not to go back to the Kaisha. They went to Harvard University forming a lot of computer science departments—actually a lot of them were started from that group. So in terms of infrastructure, if you ask me whether

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spending a billion dollars is worth it, I think it’s worth it. It created a whole generation, that’s very valuable. I had a great experience. I came back -the reason is my son is about to give birth. And I didn’t do think Tokyo was a

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good place to stay forever. They allowed me to stay—actually, I got a lot of offers. And the funny thing is, I was there for two years the second year the market collapsed. I saw the peak and the bottom but still a lot of jobs for me for some reason.

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They are a lot of job. Talk, Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi, they all have job for me. But- we decided to come back here, and my wife family's here in Virginia Beach that’s the reason we

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decided to come back here. And the funny thing is that time—I'm from Hong Kong right, so I Hong Kong at that time has three universities. I got job offer for all three universities- University of Hong Kong,

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Hong Kong Chinese University, and Hong Kong UST. They all gave me very good offers, wonderful offer, and I–I should go back actually. But it's too late, and at that time I'm very eager doing research, and

00:28:34.260 - 00:28:46.530

I feel Hong Kong is very business-like, so I -they give actually highest salary to lure me, so I went back. Actually I never applied jobs in US—by the way I never apply job until—I only applied jobs when I first graduated.

00:28:47.870 - 00:28:59.370

Afterwards it’s just happened accidentally. You will see a lot when you're in your career. You see a lot—you never apply jobs. I don’t even have a CV, a proper CV, only academic CV.

00:28:59.370 - 00:29:09.960

You ask me if I have a CV, I didn’t have any job CV. Academic CV because we renew every years. So, I just stop offer to one of friend of mine in NSF.

00:29:10.370 - 00:29:24.770

So I went to Japan also under the auspice of National Science Foundation. That time they had a Japan program, I was chosen they also supplemented some fellowship for me. So the program director asked me

00:29:24.770 - 00:29:39.640

stop by UCSF, gave a talk, and lo and behold I gave a talk at UCSF and the chairman of the radiology, the Dean say, Steve, I wanted you and I said I knew nothing about medicine. I really knew nothing about

00:29:39.640 - 00:29:49.540

medicine back then. But I'm interested in medicine. My wife, when gave birth, some complication, and I start feel very helpless. So I want to learn a little bit more about medicine so I’m interested but I told him

00:29:49.950 - 00:30:04.070

I had about four or five offers already and they said how long I could wait, I said three months. So I set a record the fastest faculty hire for UCSF at that time, I think the Dean told me they went through seven committees in three months.

00:30:05.890 - 00:30:18.010

The dean pushed it all the way through -the dean and the chairman. So, I joined UCSF. That’s why by accidental. It wasn't planned at the time I also want to go back to Hong Kong already.

00:30:18.880 - 00:30:33.840

It’s a very good offer, attractive. In the hindsight, I should go back. It’s too late anyways. Life is like that, you move on. Yeah. Was adjusting to UCS- or working at UCSF and Tokyo as well both easy for

00:30:33.840 - 00:30:45.580

you? Fit right in. Especially in San Francisco you feel you are majority. You don't feel minority at all. So USCF is a great place, I enjoyed UCSF.

00:30:46.890 - 00:31:01.120

We, yeah, we built a system. They want me to build a—help them to build a—you know the radiology now; they are using computers to look at the images. We built the first one in the country called PACS, picture archive and

00:31:01.120 - 00:31:11.860

communication systems. Yeah that's the reason they need people like me, the computer guy, know what this thing how to link them together, then able to share information. Now you become nothing but that

00:31:11.900 - 00:31:22.270

time everybody has a stack of frame and it’s taking down from the X-ray–—that’s the old days, we just fully automated the whole process at UCSF. It’s quite fun, yeah.

00:31:22.270 - 00:31:33.940

I also see that you contributed to like other universities, like centers as well like Harvard's functional molecular imaging center. Oh. You jumped a little bit.

00:31:35.280 - 00:31:51.350

After UCSF my second kid born. UCSF is great but they are very cheap. They don't pay well living in San Francisco. So I love research, but I

00:31:51.350 - 00:32:05.630

can't let my family suffer so I decided to find a job, so and Philips offered me a job—I did not decide they just come and talked to me. Being in a big place on UCSF you will get offers when they'll

00:32:05.630 - 00:32:18.790

always say “hey you want to come and work with us.” So, and so, they they created a multimedia center at in Palo Alto. Philips wanted a presence—is an old Dutch company, they wanted a

00:32:18.850 - 00:32:32.190

presence in Silicon Valley. And basically, multimedia should be something to do with medicine. Okay, my other background is hardware chip design. So, I don't want to go there. And at the same time the UCSF chairman worried about it.

00:32:32.550 - 00:32:44.410

They worried about this guy build the system he disappeared. What happen to the system? So surprisingly they allowed me to stay to a half-time position.

00:32:44.990 - 00:32:58.310

Why? Working half-time means half-time you have Bona Fide faculty of at UCSF. You can supervise PhD students, and you can get grants for your lab. In fact, I run the UCSF lab for 10 years, officially, but only three years full

00:32:58.350 - 00:33:11.570

time, 7 years out. I got worked two jobs. And until later and the PACS systems go went commercial they didn't need me. But I was still running a lab, I still with lots of students, there, I mean, I still

00:33:11.570 - 00:33:19.690

running your lab no one know I left, but actually full time working in… The problem is after working with Philips for a while, the Dutch figured out I know medicine.

00:33:21.000 - 00:33:31.170

At that time the medical system headquarter was in Best, south of Amsterdam, around the area of Holland, so they shipped me over there. So I went there. My family decided not to live in Holland.

00:33:31.170 - 00:33:42.160

I mean it’s no problem in San Francisco, why you want to go in somewhere else—and they not even in Amsterdam, in fact some of the, not yet South, now you go to or something far away you know.

00:33:42.990 - 00:33:52.960

And they resided in San Francisco I traveled a lot. At that time all Philips at medicine for one. Yeah. I was traveling in Europe for a couple of years, quite fun.

00:33:53.530 - 00:34:08.060

Yeah. So and after that you asking a question why I go to Fra—so before that I got tired, I solved one problem— and this is a story, it’s a real story is—I solved the major problem of France and originally

00:34:08.060 - 00:34:22.930

supposed to one, two days, it’s not even my job, I tried to help and I go there I solved the problem, the French people lock me in for six weeks until I solve everything. By the time I came back, and my kid, my

00:34:23.490 - 00:34:37.660

younger daughter looked at me over the door and cried and ran back. I said forget it, I want a new job. So I, I sent an email out to Stanford alumni, I’m an executive programs MBA at Stanford Business School,

00:34:38.420 - 00:34:51.320

so I have alumni network. So I say I wanted a job, conditions: no travel, single, and lo and behold, someone sent an email say he needs someone to build a website. Will you build a website?

00:34:51.320 - 00:34:58.040

Chuck. I say well I know nothing about finance though. He said no problem. You know how to build website right? That’s easy, piece of cake.

00:34:58.230 - 00:35:09.780

That’s the reason I went to work for Charles Schwab. Well Chuck is Charles Schwab himself. He's an MBA graduate from Stanford and he’s in the alumni network. So, I end up to be

00:35:09.780 - 00:35:23.500

a stockbroker for a while, and quite good experience, actually. That’s completely unplanned—accidental. I look back—if you asked me, I shouldn't do that but having fun actually. I having fun though.

00:35:23.500 - 00:35:38.990

So I do that for two years and then dot-com came, the dot-com bust showed up and we -everybody didn't know what to do, I feel, I kept on laying off people, I got tired. And you’re the guy you’re the managers.

00:35:38.990 - 00:35:50.850

You didn’t need to lay off people, but you laid people off. It’s not a good feeling and -I decided went back to academia, so that’s the reason for my second career. I told

00:35:50.850 - 00:36:06.900

Chuck say ah you don’t need me. So I went back to uh back to medicine I love to– I still think, I enjoy doing what I learned to do medicine, more rewarding, so I went back in a second. I consider this the second half of my career.

00:36:07.450 - 00:36:22.480

So, I went back to Harvard, become a professor. So that's why I started at Harvard, yeah. In fact, it’s a funny story again is—because remember I still had lab in UCSF, so I just showed up and the Dean called me up and say Steve, I heard that you want to

00:36:22.480 - 00:36:34.560

come back to academia, I have a job for you. Right, yeah, again the same story and I said, well, but I told him I knew nothing about genomic, I knew nothing about Alzheimer’s.

00:36:34.560 - 00:36:47.380

He said, no problem, come here, we can figure out. He was the Chancellor at UCSF. He still remembered me; I build the PACS for UCSF. So, remember do good work people remember you even after ten years.

00:36:48.560 - 00:37:02.650

The world is very small. And that’s why I went to Harvard, and original is go to this uh—Fidelity at that time give a big chunk of money to gave to Harvard to do neurodegeneration, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Multiple Sclerosis, and so on.

00:37:02.650 - 00:37:16.040

I doing all this bioinformatics which I knew nothing about in realities. Yeah funny, they should have hired expert, they hired me that I don’t know nothing in charge of it. It’s quite fun, I learn a lot. And this is a good project because I worked in, training at two

00:37:16.040 - 00:37:24.370

hospitals, together all the people. I enjoy it. I enjoy a lot at this experience. Pretty much I know every neuroscientists, neurologists,

00:37:25.590 - 00:37:40.790

and neurosurgeons in Harvard system at that time, it’s a good system and, but—and then the Brigham and Women, this guy knows that I know imaging. And the chairman pulled me in half-time to help them to

00:37:40.790 - 00:37:53.560

build the cyclotron, that’s a molecular imaging. The radiology imaging center, it’s exactly the same copy that I make there when I came here. That’s why I I I built cyclotron, imaging center, all these

00:37:53.560 - 00:38:07.380

things for them, yeah. And then how, out of all the countries that you've worked in Japan, Singapore, US, Australia, do you think you would have like a favorite country that you've worked at/with?

00:38:10.700 - 00:38:23.960

It's hard to say oh a lot of people asked that question. I don't think it’s a right or wrong answer. My... I think US did the best if you ask me. Okay, I enjoy US best.

00:38:24.410 - 00:38:34.350

I came back here the third time we came to this country. So you can tell, I think it’s the best. US is very open. I think –the reality you know—no matter what it’s no fair world out there.

00:38:36.000 - 00:38:48.820

But relatively it’s still a relatively open system. -I think it's a one of the few countries embrace immigrants to come into the country. Now, the other countries are not bad actually.

00:38:49.200 - 00:39:00.040

The -I think the all of them are very good. Once you know how to speak the language. Why? You are able to speak the language, you start feeling the society.

00:39:00.570 - 00:39:13.220

Every society, I mean as long as you not in the war zone, you are okay. Everybody, I mean, a lot of people have fun, I enjoy life. So if you asked me again, yeah I still would pick US to stay.

00:39:14.160 - 00:39:23.620

And the second choice maybe going back to Asia–Southeast Asia, something. So that’s all it is. Yeah, Australia is not bad.

00:39:23.690 - 00:39:37.350

But yeah, maybe, Australia maybe also—actually they all very good. Yeah. And then how did you move back—move to Houston? Oh, it’s also accidental, remember people calling already.

00:39:38.810 - 00:39:47.930

Someone, friend of mine, I worked with a collaborator. He's the head of radiology at NIH. And he said he called me up, Steve, I'm

00:39:47.930 - 00:39:56.380

moving down Houston I want to create new department in radiology, would you like to join me? And I said why not, quite fun actually. Sounds like very good, talk, they came down and talk, you would like it

00:39:56.430 - 00:40:10.920

here. And I first came in as the vice chair of radiology we started a new department and all these thing. Then we get the cyclotron going all these things. And that’s why I came down. Yeah, but he left after five

00:40:10.920 - 00:40:25.930

years. I've been researching since, yeah. Going back to the very beginning of this interview when you talked about how like the riots in Hong Kong like made an impact on you, what kind of impact did it leave you?

00:40:26.080 - 00:40:40.130

There are a couple of things, I think I think the if you asked me, I think the education especially the secondary education, which you move in your personality, I think the priests actually made an impact.

00:40:40.840 - 00:40:53.650

These priests were missionary. All these are foreign priests. There are none of them are Chinese. A lot of them are in fact some of them are kick -kicked down from the old days, were from the mainland China, kicked them down.

00:40:53.710 - 00:41:09.830

They came to Asia, at the age of teenagers some of them. They are Irish, there's Italian, they are British, they are Yugoslavians whatever. And one thing is a there are a couple of ways—I

00:41:10.040 - 00:41:30.920

mean I think the Catholic or Jesuit and Salesian type of education imprint on me is a principle in life -that you have a baseline and you need to upheld, –it's not worth to sacrifice your principal in life to get

00:41:30.920 - 00:41:48.120

something back. And that is –that is–that's a very important system, very important. The other way they gave it to me is the... the empathy and the contribution back. I think that is something that if you look at

00:41:48.200 - 00:42:00.300

them, think about it. A person outside their country, learning your culture. They transplanted themselves, came here, dedicated their whole life, some of them they will die in the nation okay.

00:42:01.660 - 00:42:10.050

This is the type of commitment, now these people look at them, stupid right? Why do you want to do that? But they do it,

00:42:10.050 - 00:42:24.230

they're educated people. They are very talented. A lot of them have PhD some of them actually, and they could easily make money elsewhere. They choose this career, come to a foreign country, dedicate

00:42:24.230 - 00:42:38.920

themselves to the belief they believed in. So I think the imprint on me is believe in something and persistently doing it– with value, I think this is something that–that's very good. I think this is a lasting

00:42:39.530 - 00:42:56.950

value, adding to your principle in life. Some will say it's maybe shaping your character, I think. They do. I mean they put their part. Nowadays a

00:42:56.950 - 00:43:08.980

lot of people unfortunately, we are measured too much by materialistic—well, it's important, don't get me wrong. But just like Maslow’s triangle, when you reach a certain level, you're looking for something else. If you're still looking for basic needs, I think it’s sad.

00:43:10.320 - 00:43:20.490

I mean then you still in this circle. In the Bible you says that God give you more, right? It's something I'm paraphrasing in the way pretty much it was saying

00:43:20.490 - 00:43:39.530

that, for those who given more, you should give back more as a return. So I think that has a lot of impact on me. You know this is the emotional part because there's no rational part. That's when you are— teenager is a time that we form our character.

00:43:40.010 - 00:43:49.380

It's a huge impact. I'm glad that my parents sent me to a Catholic school. They really do something good actually, it's not as bad as people say.

00:43:49.380 - 00:44:01.810

And also in the college the continuation I think I—and also is the best thing priests there talked the talk and right? They actually they walked the walk, you see their life dedicated. They were not just talking, they actually doing

00:44:03.760 - 00:44:16.200

it. So that’s a lot impact on me. Maybe that’s influenced me, have think about—a lot of my friends think I'm stupid to come back here. I have a 50% pay cut when I came here–come back to academia, so my

00:44:16.200 - 00:44:25.580

wife—well my wife is happy. My wife's okay, she said well we’re not starving, in fact, we have overweight problem. So this is not an issue, right? So it’s important.

00:44:25.580 - 00:44:34.780

I think, unfortunately I think people here, we— The culture is getting to win, win, win. American culture tends to be very performance driven.

00:44:35.470 - 00:44:47.710

We measure, we love to measure, we love to ranking, we love measurement because we want to seek success. This is American culture. And, sometimes, maybe be a balance. Because at the end of the day, you can

00:44:47.710 - 00:45:02.690

ask yourself what you’d like, it’s not what other people think–right? So able to answer to your point you want, and and do it. I think that’s… that is not easy but I think that’s

00:45:03.310 - 00:45:11.230

driven me a lot. This is a very blessed countries, by the way. I'd been around I see rich country, poor country. I mean America is really

00:45:12.070 - 00:45:30.460

blessed a lot of resources, stable –no matter what you complain all these things you still very stable, very safe, and also very good quality of living; yeah, comfortable. If you go outside—I mean I've been

00:45:30.980 - 00:45:45.740

Philippines, I've been other part of the Asia country. I mean, you can see the comparison a lot. I was in China also. During Cultural Revolution period I was staying couple months because my grandmother was

00:45:46.720 - 00:46:00.290

sick, she wanted to see… you know, Chinese want to see the eldest whatever grandson, so I showed up, I took half a year off of for the school. And in fact, I have a one year job because of that.

00:46:00.900 - 00:46:20.300

But at that time I didn't know there were young 1969. This was at the trail end of Cultural Revolution end- started 1966 heated up to 69 and -I was lucky to see that and go back see a lot of things that you shouldn't

00:46:20.300 - 00:46:40.490

see and so it’s a good experience, or good-bad experience but I think, overall life is tough, but I think in this country we are blessed and I think I will get them in position right now is I can do what I

00:46:40.490 - 00:46:54.520

like; sometimes too much people don’t like it, but that's the way of academic, right? You try to contribute back what we have-what society has been giving us, I think this is a blessing. Able to give is a blessing.

00:46:56.050 - 00:47:10.390

Yeah, so that’s my belief. So importance is really the education, the principle in life, the way to give it back. The giving back not be—in the sense that is, part of your whole

00:47:11.040 - 00:47:21.740

total value system, not just sake for giving back. Chinese tend to give anonymously; this is our culture. I think I like that culture better. Yeah anyway, this is what I

00:47:21.840 - 00:47:36.080

think the Hong Kong education giving to me. I gave a couple years ago I went back to my old school, 150 years old school. And -I gave a –I was a guest, I was on the guest to give a speech day.

00:47:37.240 - 00:47:57.000

I delivered a singular message to the group saying, life is what you make to and you answer to yourself, and have empathy on the way, that’s all it is, and failure is good. I mean fail is tough, no one likes to fail, but

00:48:00.320 - 00:48:12.180

every lesson you learn something, depending on how you look at it, okay? This is easy to say. When you’re failing, it’s tough. I know it’s tough. Life is tough. But look, in life is very simple if you know you're—

00:48:12.720 - 00:48:28.590

I'm not being pessimistic but if you know your life on the earth is only that time, say, you can walk it back, and you can prioritize your life. Reason what is important, not important, right?

00:48:29.320 - 00:48:39.980

Anyway. That's a too serious look. So, did you feel any pressure from your parents when you decided to convert since they were

00:48:45.260 - 00:48:54.720

both Buddhists? My father doesn’t care, really, he didn't care much. My mother did. Yeah, she did. Did she try to stop you or?

00:48:54.720 - 00:49:10.820

Tried, yeah. Yeah I'm quite a rebellious type when I was young, so I did it anyway, so, yeah. After all they're the one who sent me to Catholic school , yes, but they still have belief I

00:49:10.820 - 00:49:27.750

mean— remember Buddhism is not a religion. Buddhism is a philosophy, it's a philosophy of life, right? In fact, if you look at it, all the Eastern major religions are not religious, all about philosophy of life. Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism,

00:49:29.220 - 00:49:42.350

they never claimed their god, they never claim a way, they just say this is a way of living. And in the Western philosophies, Western religion is a meditation religion. They may have it top down right?

00:49:42.350 - 00:49:56.430

If you look at the major Western religions, it’s really come from Judaism, Judaism, Judaism spreads out–Catholicism, Ortho-Orthodox, Christianity mostly. But the beginning

00:49:56.430 - 00:50:10.730

there’s a god–is a premises, very different. It’s very interesting if you look at the East and West religions. Eastern religions is a man seek God. That's the reason we better ourselves.

00:50:10.730 - 00:50:21.610

We look at these monks, they go to the forests to meditate all these things... Try to and Western religion pretty much is God seeks man.

00:50:23.420 - 00:50:36.600

It's a very different philosophy yeah. Can you talk more about what made you interested in medicine? I think you mentioned some... in medicine? I think you mentioned something about your wife.

00:50:36.600 - 00:50:47.840

Yeah, my wife some complication keeping the firstborn, –my son, and then I felt very hopeless. I was a very confident person, I thought I knew everything, then suddenly I know nothing. This area I

00:50:47.840 - 00:50:58.340

know nothing, better to know something. The best thing is just goes to the medical school. That's why I want to know some culture, so I went to live in that country, that's what I do. And I want to know

00:50:58.340 - 00:51:11.770

this field I go to study. What’s best faculty in the medicine, the best medical school, that’s where you’ll learn a lot, right? And instead of studying, I normally work. So the best thing to learn is to work on the

00:51:11.770 - 00:51:26.940

project, not studying. Yeah solve a problem, then in the process you learn. That's the best way to learn. The didactic type of learning is a necessary evil because there's resource limited, so set up that way.

00:51:27.580 - 00:51:41.860

You have a choice, pick a project find someone interesting to work with you learn a lot. Always, I learn a lot of projects, my most of my learning is from solving a problem, doing a project.

00:51:42.560 - 00:51:58.840

That’s the best education, and that’s the reason the education is lifelong, when people say lifelong education for that reason, not because it gives you a PhD, give you an MD, and then you stop learning. Right this the—PhD, MD, or

00:51:58.840 - 00:52:12.230

other—this is the basic entry criteria that society recognizes you has a credential, but life has so much we don't know you keep on learning. So I enjoy learning so that's the reason I came back to academia,

00:52:12.270 - 00:52:24.770

learning, doing research, yeah. How was your experience teaching others as a professor at Baylor and Rice? I don't teach that much these days.

00:52:24.770 - 00:52:39.670

I used to teach a lot when I was UCSF and even at Harvard a little bit. I taught at UC Berkeley, Stanford, UCSF. I enjoyed teaching. Even some of the students better than me in terms of getting research grants these days.

00:52:39.670 - 00:52:51.560

Some of them actually richer than me, some of them become IPO, these things. It's mixture when this also part of learning.

00:52:52.530 - 00:53:10.700

The best learning is teaching people… Yeah. When I was at Bell Labs there's a guy called Hamming—you probably don't know him— the all these encryption codes is—he is the father of them,

00:53:10.750 - 00:53:22.430

okay? But everybody is father at that time and and everybody is nothing, in the table, and then I asked at that time he was very famous already oh who cares everybody was famous, so I talked to him and say, you know, you told

00:53:22.510 - 00:53:38.620

me something very nicely, he said, the best thing you want to learn something? He write a book, yeah, and then he write a book and learn a lot. As for me, teaching people, first of all,

00:53:38.620 - 00:53:50.070

is rewarding, okay. But secondly, actually, you will benefit yourself. I always believed that the ability to give—remember able, if you are not able, don't try .

00:53:50.200 - 00:54:03.620

Able to give but itself is a blessing, and you will be rewarded by your giving, right? Yeah. So I always find teaching—learned a lot from my students, my postdocs, even my faculty.

00:54:04.470 - 00:54:12.670

I learned a lot and as they are brighter than me. In fact, a lot of them are actually a lot better than me right now these days. I'm very happy, yeah.

00:54:14.600 - 00:54:31.960

What do you find most rewarding about doing research? Oh, real research ability to explore unknown, itself. I mean there are two types of research, so I started my career as an engineer, so it's engineering research.

00:54:31.960 - 00:54:44.580

Engineering research is very different from scientific research. When I joined Harvard, the dean announced me to the faculty , I'm a hybrid scientist. Harvard a whole bunch of scientists, right?

00:54:44.950 - 00:54:57.750

A hybrid scientist? What that means is—engineers tend to be doing, we do research in engineering, but engineering is more like building a product, building a model, building a computer, building a car, an automated car, this type of research is

00:54:57.830 - 00:55:13.530

more enterprise side, right? And the scientific research—I’m more and more becoming a scientist more. It's in this way you could argue that you are from trade promoter to art, this is how you say it, okay? Be

00:55:13.530 - 00:55:30.090

careful what engineer think. So I'm more interested in knowing something, discover something that is rewarding, so I wholly enjoy but I’m also a very pragmatic engineer at heart.

00:55:31.150 - 00:55:50.320

After knowing it, I want to apply it, and this is what I'm interested. I think able to be the first one to discover something itself is a reward on its own. Once you graduate, you will understand what I mean.

00:55:50.360 - 00:56:00.350

Right now, you're trying to finish your exam. I mean forget about exams, I never care about exams actually, not too much, and yeah exams you are testing your old

00:56:00.350 - 00:56:19.260

knowledge, and the ability to discover something new, ability to find something that, that no one knows and in that actually is quite interesting. We the nature has a lot of things—besides, the

00:56:19.350 - 00:56:35.850

nature, human nature, and—even the physical nature of life or these things, it's rewarding in terms of able to do research, discover something new, being the first one who discover it, and also the first one who makes it working, helping other people.

00:56:36.900 - 00:56:47.290

I think its intrinsic value is very high. Of course, the extrinsic value comes with it you get an entrepreneurial mindset, there's a different side of things. I will enjoy it, I think.

00:56:48.060 - 00:56:58.120

A lot of people do research, I think they do that. Unfortunately, the more and more I see in a lot of countries, research is becoming a job, unfortunately.

00:56:59.680 - 00:57:15.580

It's good, I mean you need a job to be –to have secure income. Remember scientists wasn't paid until recently, right? I mean, old days, you know, Pascal -all these people, because some rich people said, hey you're smart, and

00:57:16.450 - 00:57:27.420

I gave you money to do something for me. Beethoven, all these things, right? You know, artists. There's no professional, now we turn into professional, yeah. The government decides we have value, so so value because you

00:57:27.790 - 00:57:40.250

create something, you find something. We can apply this knowledge to to to create some products that can have economic impact to the society and can feed you. So scientists become a job and the more and more so,

00:57:41.490 - 00:58:01.560

take away the fun of it, sometimes. Yeah. So, research is from what I see of it, it's really repetitive and it's a lot, or like just doing experiments, right? But

00:58:02.160 - 00:58:20.530

Well, every value is different, how can it be repetitive? Oh, I mean just there's a lot of failure that can happen in your journey to like finding something so how do you deal with those moments? Just deal with it, that's life, right?

00:58:21.010 - 00:58:33.280

That's all, right? You cannot be lucky, sometimes you spend your whole life, you fail, fine, tough luck. Remember luck is very important in life. You cannot be say I want to be successful, work hard, smart and you will be successful.

00:58:34.740 - 00:58:51.060

I mean I'm sure the thousands of people as bright as Jeff Bezos—I mean he's the only guy who actually make it, right. In fact, there's a funny story—

00:58:51.060 - 00:59:07.860

you know Facebook, right? So when I in U.S., before I decided went to Harvard, a Silicon Valley venture firm, , one of the first VP they talked to me, they help, they ask they they they start a company—whole bunch of young kids, bright, from Harvard, Yale, all kind of

00:59:07.930 - 00:59:22.770

thing, twenty something years old, and -they working on a project, and they wanted to do something. I don't know what they do—they wanted to do computers, networks or this thing. And they interviewed me, you know, it's

00:59:22.820 - 00:59:42.050

funny, just like you guys interview me and and that time, I talked to them, and I gave them the idea exactly what Facebook's about. Yeah, and and that time they loved it, the VP, we loved it, and that's

00:59:42.510 - 01:00:00.550

2000 or year 20017 about how the Facebook guys started their idea. So, the story is, we know information is so widespread and in fact, everybody

01:00:00.920 - 01:00:13.140

have almost equal ground. If your idea in the area, everybody have the idea-have the idea also. And they gave me an offer actually, and I didn't take it. I went to Charles Schwab, it's one of the big mistakes

01:00:13.980 - 01:00:25.090

actually. I don't know. If I took it, probably just another company competing with Facebook and fail. I don't know, you never know. But—my point is, I really think idea is cheap—it's hard to say,

01:00:25.320 - 01:00:37.300

but I think idea is really cheap. Now the information is so exposure and easy to get. Smart people everywhere, everybody educated, and you have good idea, but good idea is a dime a dozen.

01:00:38.130 - 01:00:51.790

How to turn your good idea into a real-life product? That become an Amazon, become Facebook, that is a long process. That, that requires persistence, creativity, all kind of things, that's not easy to do.

01:00:51.790 - 01:01:06.440

It's not just you work hard, that requires a lot of luck. Yeah sometimes, it's quite interesting actually. I still, yeah yeah at that time maybe I should just joined the startup company instead of working for a stockbroker.

01:01:08.190 - 01:01:22.420

Mm, but anyway, life is like that. Yeah so, yeah it's interesting. You never think of it, you see you think of other questions, yeah. So, can you talk about some of the community organizations that

01:01:22.470 - 01:01:36.810

you're involved in? I did a lot of, in the past, I did a lot with my church. Yeah, I did a lot of church and I was a choir leader, I was a translator. And since I speak multilingual I involved a lot

01:01:38.350 - 01:01:48.650

of Chinese churches. There a lot of immigrants, they came with different dialects, I helped them. I do a translation. In fact, I was the president of Bible study group at the graduate school.

01:01:49.170 - 01:02:02.140

And also the president for the, actually, for the whole graduate student council at Lehigh, besides Bible study, the whole graduate school- engineering graduate school. And, and over the time I became

01:02:03.130 - 01:02:17.290

less involved in the community, not these types, but I give a lot of free time when people ask for help. So I'm consulting a lot of—I’m on quite a number of nonprofit board—nonprofit organizations.

01:02:17.290 - 01:02:29.250

I'm helping as an advisor free of charge—sometimes they paid my money to go there. Enjoy it. I have enjoyed Rice. You have a —I was on the advisory

01:02:29.370 - 01:02:42.230

board, free. And I find it is interesting. It is good to have—I don't know why they ca—I mean all of them are business guys I don't know why they called me up, I'm an academic guy. If I am the only Chinese

01:02:42.230 - 01:02:54.200

there, probably, besides Frank Liu. And I help them. I'm involved in these kinds of community. I love— and I also, a lot

01:02:54.200 - 01:03:07.370

of community, of universities, I was on their advisory board—UT Health , all these things. This is not for career, at my age, by now you can figure out I don't really care about my career, right?

01:03:08.030 - 01:03:22.390

So I'm just involved because I think it's enjoyable, and I don't take too much for profit boards startup or these things because I was there and they have different thinking.

01:03:23.580 - 01:03:37.940

I am on AMA startup, some of the medical association creates a venture, actually, a digital health venture and I'm on their advisory board. I told them, the time I talk to you as a consultant as advisor, actually I'm

01:03:37.940 - 01:03:55.310

losing money, because you pay me less than half what I earn even here, this is low enough already , but I think it's good to do it because I think this country I believe the digital health will transform the country—a lot of ideas, a lot of people talk about innovation

01:03:55.310 - 01:04:10.700

all these things, a lot of paying lip service, and, and not many people really make it happen, and I'm out there I see what things happen really, and so I like to involved, give advice, express—the AMA is a

01:04:10.870 - 01:04:26.940

great influential type of organization, so I showed them voice. They may ignore my voice but anyway I'm part of it, I can voice my concerns, it's fine, and give them some advice on it.

01:04:26.940 - 01:04:41.740

So I involve—basically I as I say, my limited contributions based on my limited knowledge. I contribute out, that way, and expertise, mostly in the nonprofit world, and actually I, in fact, I do

01:04:41.980 - 01:04:58.690

a lot of free consultation and research review for European, Canada, Mexico, Asian countries a lot of the time. Sometimes I take my own airfare to go there. Yeah. So I think there's a part, I think enjoy doing.

01:05:01.730 - 01:05:16.990

Actually, I think about it, I should stop more community work, but I think you're getting older you tend to be more focused. So right now, I'm not as involved as before, I used to do a lot yeah.

01:05:16.990 - 01:05:28.930

So, what else do you do in your free time? Free time? Do I have any free time? What do you mean by free time, actually? When you're not working?

01:05:30.720 - 01:05:43.520

For me this is not work though. It's huge difference. For me this life, when I look at it, this life I don't consider this is work.

01:05:43.870 - 01:05:59.070

But well—my wife takes away a lot of my time, and her three dogs also. We go to church sometimes and church time a little bit, friends, traveling. I do a lot of reading.

01:06:02.120 - 01:06:13.310

I have a very good gym class, gym group. We were in a gym—people at my age, not your age, okay now this is the same level of metabolism thing—we go to gym class a little bit.

01:06:13.530 - 01:06:22.490

I play a lot tennis. I'm a level 4 player, used to be in. Yeah, yeah, and I used to play a lot of squash now this cannot run further.

01:06:23.110 - 01:06:35.840

So now tennis a little bit. Yeah. And this pretty much life is—but I think I read a lot. I enjoy reading and reading, not

01:06:35.880 - 01:06:50.100

acquiring knowledge. I just enjoy it. Reading not for the sake of reading only, not for the sake of getting something out of it. For me a a good book is a conversation with the author, in regardless of space and

01:06:50.200 - 01:07:04.820

time. The person might be 1,000 years old, when—so all my books I cannot resell it because I put all the notes there is all dirty all kinds of things, for me is a conversation. For me reading a book, I enjoy reading a book.

01:07:06.440 - 01:07:23.010

And for me it's an enjoyment to talk to someone that—for the book, a good book, a lot of junk book, unfortunately a lot of books published these days are junk book, yeah, especially business books. I really love business books by the way, very few good business

01:07:25.000 - 01:07:39.180

books. Yeah, yeah, business is basically is a modern art of philosophy. You know the whole idea of philosopher MBA, you know, if you—Peter Drucker, right? You don’t know him right, don’t worry.

01:07:40.620 - 01:07:56.920

He's a journalist. He practically created the whole MBA philosophy. He's a Jewish guy in Austria, came to this country. He passed away about 108 years ago, but he practically put some scientific rigor into MBA, into

01:07:56.920 - 01:08:15.380

the business school. In the past, people will look at business just where a whole bunch of people talk about business of you know, he he he supplanted it into a more, more, more scientific academic discipline. So I like reading, I do exercise, I play tennis, I go to church, quite boring

01:08:15.550 - 01:08:30.440

it is, with my family, that's all. How did you meet your wife? Oh, I met her in a conference, in a Christian conference in

01:08:31.200 - 01:08:43.260

Washington DC there's a university for the underprivileged called Gallaudet, you've never heard. It's for the deaf and dumb people. So one year,

01:08:43.310 - 01:08:57.180

we we there's a conference there, and I went there. Actually I was in in in Pennsylvania studying at that time, I went back. She was from Virginia.

01:08:57.360 - 01:09:10.780

We just happened to be in the workshop and then, continue. So half of my time in my PhD I'm not even studying, I just I went back—I drove to Virginia all the time so I knew it, yeah.

01:09:10.780 - 01:09:29.240

So that's how I met my wife, in a Christian conference, yeah. Long time, during 1987 so long time actually, now that I think about it. Kind of love at the first sight, it's going ongoing.

01:09:30.080 - 01:09:43.000

My professor complaining. I’m lucky I went back to Lehigh also, National Science Foundation gave me a fellowship. So I didn't need on people's stipend, I have my own money I do whatever I liked, I

01:09:43.000 - 01:09:51.000

enjoyed that lifestyle, so I traveled a lot. I finished my PhD in two years, very short time. Yeah, because I need to get married.

01:09:51.000 - 01:10:08.660

So I told my professor I want to get married, so I want to graduate, and it’s done . And I went to Japan, so that's how it is. Yeah, yeah life has a lot of unexpected culture— everyone has a story you can meet together it's quite fun, yeah.

01:10:08.660 - 01:10:23.440

We -my wife and I came from the same culture she's from Hong Kong. In fact, we are in the same year of high school, same year, yeah same year graduate, but the difference is after her high school graduation

01:10:23.970 - 01:10:38.600

they immigrated to the United States. I went all over the places but we came here same year. Y—you somehow meet someone with your same culture, same belief, same common language, it

01:10:39.050 - 01:10:55.240

clicks, that's all it is. So how did you balance your work life and your family life? I told you, oh family life? Mhm.

01:10:55.240 - 01:11:10.230

Especially with your kids growing up? Oh, I'm not that busy, in academic life you work hard but you have better control on your life. As long as your funding is strong, otherwise I mean you practically

01:11:10.230 - 01:11:24.860

get no support. Academic one advantage is, if you don't want to play politics, you have funding, you can lock your door, your ideas, do your own thing, fine, go home. You want to do more, than you more fighting, all this things, it's your

01:11:24.900 - 01:11:41.420

choice. Academia - I still think academic research life is a one of the best professions. The money may not be as good, to be fair, okay, if you want money, and I was out there, money is much better—much better. But

01:11:41.760 - 01:11:59.990

you lost nothing, and end of the day, it depends what you make is financially secure. I think this country everybody—if you ask a teenager, I feel, maybe ask you guys. Well, what you think, if

01:11:59.990 - 01:12:19.470

you're financially secure, what will you do? If I didn't have to work? Yeah you don't have to work, at least you don't have to worry too much about money. I would probably paint murals on the

01:12:19.470 - 01:12:29.260

walls Paint murals on the walls of buildings. Painting or what, graffiti? No not graffiti, I mean, kind of… It’s like, the, the large artwork—

01:12:29.650 - 01:12:43.110

It’s a mural, yeah, I know what you're talking about. That's good, that's interesting. How about you? I would want to travel, travel the world but, yeah. Well travel, after a while you get bored.

01:12:43.660 - 01:12:57.500

Traveling actually my my my personal experience, travel don't let you see the world, you need to live there, that's the reason. That's why every time we change— my wife complaining, say we're going to marry and finally say, don't go anywhere,

01:12:57.770 - 01:13:10.430

so I stay here . Since she married to me, we went to Japan, and then go to California, and then go to Boston, and then come down here finally, and then here we settle down and research is more

01:13:11.070 - 01:13:20.770

more focused, but it's good. Everybody in life–I think a lot of your generation, especially you're in a capitalist country, the most important is you want to be financially secure.

01:13:22.210 - 01:13:31.560

Don't undermine it you have all these ideals, but financial security I think is very important. Depends on how financially secure you are, right? You can drive in

01:13:31.560 - 01:13:43.230

Rolls-Royce, flying in the–in the first class, but this life, you don't worry about a roof at the top I mean you—and then you have decent living, it's not that hard to achieve. But once you achieve that, you can do

01:13:43.230 - 01:13:55.450

a lot of things, life is short, shorter than what you think. Working for money is tough. I mean the best money is inherited, right? The question is, I'm a rebellious guy and never took money

01:13:55.510 - 01:14:06.670

from my parents, even if they were to give it to me I'd say turn it away. I after–now it's stupid, now that I think about it. But anyway, it doesn't matter, right? You have a way to do it, an everybody live a living.

01:14:08.640 - 01:14:20.770

But I think I am in a fortunate situation, at least more or less I'm kind of okay, if I don't have a job today, I still can survive. I don't need this job to pay my bills.

01:14:21.910 - 01:14:35.120

How's that? That's very important. Once you have that freedom, you can do a lot of things. And a lot of them we are limited. And also, a lot of my

01:14:35.330 - 01:14:52.560

financial friends, I still have a lot of contact, if you look at them, I look at them, Jesus, why you want to keep on working. They are hundred million dollars’ worth. They said, "Steve, I have a bungalow in South beach, I

01:14:52.560 - 01:15:05.960

have yacht over there, my wife’s, my kids..." I just look at it, right? They said are–they say they are–they say you are lucky, you come here to do research, do what you like. I say, you can also if you want a pay

01:15:06.160 - 01:15:19.290

cut. And no one shows up. It’s a–it’s a choice, I mean, in the lifestyle— In fact, yesterday–two days ago, you see the big news of the Harvard professor? Was got arrested, you

01:15:19.290 - 01:15:36.680

know that? One of the department chairman of the—don't quote–don’t quote me in there, but just uh a side issue. I actually–a friend of mine, collaborator, he's at Harvard, he's the chairman of the bright, bright—he's a top chemist, literally top, ranked number one in

01:15:36.880 - 01:15:51.750

citations, okay, and he's a chairman of chemistry, and he got arrested by FBI because he has some he is a neuro electronic guy he has some connection with China, he has a lab with them.

01:15:51.900 - 01:16:05.390

Chinese gave them—you know the Chinese- American things now are very sensitive, and he lied to the Defense Department say he don't have it, in fact it's passed, and they arrested him. And then, now he is on administrative leave.

01:16:05.430 - 01:16:18.450

He's a top in the field—he’s a National Academic member, and all kind of thing. And I know he's already rich, by the way. He's 10 times richer than me, I'm not rich at all, he’s 100 times richer than me. He had couple company startups.

01:16:18.900 - 01:16:30.760

I scratch my head. Chinese gave him a couple million dollars 4-5 million dollars for the pocket. Well you may look at number—this guy is rich, he has startups, you know all kind of thing. I just don't want this. I scratch my head, why?

01:16:32.370 - 01:16:46.210

Why you want to do that, I mean? Listen if every time you say you get money money from from China said, yes, I return the money to you, I didn't know that I could not take it– he can’t afford it. Right, now, he’s completely ruining his career—he’s at my

01:16:46.210 - 01:16:57.390

age actually, just my age, he used to have a lot of future still. He’s still young, he still has a lot growing, now he's dead. No one touch him. So life is funny thing you look at it, but as

01:16:57.810 - 01:17:11.590

financial security is important to reach a certain standard. Your generation you don't have to worry too much. When you have a family, have a mortgage, your wife, kids—my kid’s still going through the tuition of Baylor–Baylor, Baylor in Waco,

01:17:11.590 - 01:17:21.840

in law. That’s expensive, a few hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, it’s okay, so… yeah, if you financially secure, you can

01:17:21.840 - 01:17:36.700

do what you like. I think that's a very important, I think people need to be pragmatic about it. Unless you your family is well off, you can do something, you also can—it's more fun if you fight for yourself and

01:17:36.750 - 01:17:50.540

become financial secure the–the confidence and the joy is different from inherited. My father is a merchant, I never took any money from him. You spread out to someones else.

01:17:50.910 - 01:17:58.570

I I I live a certain style. I don't like it. I never take the money from him. So–so I'm not that bad off...

01:17:58.690 - 01:18:10.980

I think this is something that you because the thing about it… I enjoy my life, and I mean we have more or less I can afford to do this things, pretty much I'm relatively okay.

01:18:11.730 - 01:18:24.800

I'm not starving, even I don't have this job. Right? But isn't it? Yeah, it's important, otherwise you don't want—we're in a materialistic society, so

01:18:24.800 - 01:18:42.160

financial burden has a certain condition on you. Yeah. Coming from people from Hong Kong, you should know that. Hong Kong is very–my generation of Hong Kongers have a can-do spirit, which is

01:18:42.230 - 01:18:53.480

missing in this generation; when I went back to Hong Kong recently, it is completely changed. Can–do spirit means that you set your mind that you can conquer anything, and in reality you have to because in

01:18:53.480 - 01:19:11.480

Hong Kong, you don't have anyone look over your shoulder, you are on your own. It's a bare rock by the way, but the British took it over, it's a bare rock. They building the financial centers, so everybody's on their own, but you still a rule-based society because the British actually sets

01:19:12.450 - 01:19:22.070

really good culture and system over there. It's much better than mainland Chinese. Your parents from mainland Chinese or Taiwan?

01:19:23.140 - 01:19:40.640

Mainland, right? Mainland is tough, I think the–if you look at China today, it's really a new China, it's really starting 1949, only seventy years old of history. You don't have the old culture of Chinese because the communist came in, took it over.

01:19:40.980 - 01:19:58.480

In fact, the China today, is a completely western country. No, not the way they dress, thinking. Karl Marx was a Westerner. You talk communism, the concept is a western concept, nothing about Chinese coming from

01:19:58.480 - 01:20:16.380

there. It's a foreign contract forced implanted on China, and completely lost a generation about the old Chinese culture–the Confucianism, Taoism, all these philosophies, all these things so the thinking is very different–but anyway this is, you guys born

01:20:16.410 - 01:20:29.090

here, you never feel it. Your parents understand where there is a big gap, and it was very poor when I was, I still remembered when I was young as a kid, you go to the store. Literally the big stores only had two or three things there,

01:20:29.090 - 01:20:43.660

very poor. And everybody's nothing. And in the village, people didn't need to lock their door as there's nothing to steal. I'm serious. But now it's changing–I've been worried about the long

01:20:44.480 - 01:20:57.600

term—this generation is much better. I start knowing the younger generation, they become getting back now–the culture try to get it back. They know those big abrupt changes, the cultural revolution all these things have

01:20:57.770 - 01:21:11.490

been a lot, determining the effect, devastating effect on lots of people. Now the younger generation is starting to pick it up better, it's always improving. But remember China today is a new China.

01:21:11.640 - 01:21:24.200

China today is not China, in a way, in a way we think about this thousand years ago China. In fact, I venture say that Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore all be carrying a lot of Chinese culture better than mainland China, the

01:21:24.200 - 01:21:41.350

old, the traditional one, and researchers leave that alone, right? They come here just want to take money, they don't care what you do, right Singaporean. Yeah. You run out of questions?

01:21:42.290 - 01:22:02.210

No, so you were talking about um how about how the current—sort of about your friend, and how there's more tension between researchers in the US and China for example— Yeah this is very political drive, right?

01:22:02.340 - 01:22:20.380

This is kind of a McCarthyism a little bit. Bear in mind, I think, US still a very fair country, so so so many countries I went through, I think this is still the best country. I read the mind of the original founders of this country, they really set up

01:22:20.490 - 01:22:35.260

the right constitution, although it's eroding a little bit. And in fact, it's dangerous, don't quote me, U.S. becoming, in danger of becoming ultra-imperialism, that's very danger, going that

01:22:36.310 - 01:22:47.700

way. Remember we–the U.S. successful, is to make sure people trade, and we also make sure we are at the top of the food chain, during trading.

01:22:49.620 - 01:23:03.830

And because of that, based on these premises, you will make sure that other countries are rich enough that they can trade with you, but not create another ecosystem that can compete with you. There's the tension

01:23:03.830 - 01:23:17.170

coming along. It's also China similar in the past, they don't like—for example, U.S. won't like German to be united, they didn't like EU to be formed. They don't like the South East Asia , China is strong, very simple, out here.

01:23:17.330 - 01:23:30.100

Because the whole concept is based on, we export our philosophy, we export our way of living, we export our trading to partners, if other people as strong as you create their

01:23:30.250 - 01:23:50.810

own ecosystem, suddenly they destruct the balance of it. We don't want fully united integrated ecosystem, and there's the problem. There's a reason why you ask us why Cold War is finished. After post-Cold War we still have to spend so much money in defense.

01:23:52.470 - 01:24:01.590

It's not-nothing to do with Cold War. It's about keeping these ecosystem intact. And that's what the tension is—China right now challenging them.

01:24:02.980 - 01:24:15.200

Because I'm young, you know, 60—when I was in the primary school, I saw bombs everywhere. We walked down the street, there's bombs, people died, in front of you. When you listen to the clap boom

01:24:15.750 - 01:24:32.020

something got in the window and then and and and you can see the corpses of all these, all these young kids, they fought each other, you see the corpse without heads, without things flowing down from the . It's really a large impact on you, and–but

01:24:32.680 - 01:24:48.570

that's one yeah that's—I don't know this is a long history it's dangerous to say, but you know, but I think this tension becomes an issue here because China is very strong. Chinese are very hardworking, this is the Confucius culture, and under the

01:24:48.570 - 01:25:00.760

right leadership they can move very fast. They–when they said–look at them, the recent coronavirus, they built hospitals in ten days. Think about it–a hospital in ten days!

01:25:01.350 - 01:25:14.930

We don't even get our phone call in ten days in this country, how can you compete with that type of productivity? If they want to set their minds they can do it. This generation, in my years in the United States, I do see

01:25:15.930 - 01:25:30.980

the younger generation getting lazier though. Not lazier, getting smart lazier, there's difference. In my generation, when I first came to this country, I found a lot of Americans are very proud of their work, are very dedicated.

01:25:33.100 - 01:25:49.290

I'm very impressed they have value. And they put in hard work, but now they are found the smartest guys, trying to go to the Wall Street… and make big bucks to secure, financially secure, the philosophy I'm telling you.

01:25:50.160 - 01:26:07.410

So people find, but when the country start thinking about get a fast shortcuts, and the problem is the smartest guys taking the shortcut. In fact, I think the brightest guys, not many brightest guy is science or

01:26:07.490 - 01:26:20.040

engineering, compared to when I go to Wall Street, I really see a lot of very, very smart guys. But in reality, in finance you don't need that many smart guys. Finance the idea is to create systems to allow

01:26:20.400 - 01:26:35.030

people to start innovate–secure system, financial system to build a product company. You don't want to be too creative, you're causing a lot of problems, that's the reason we are prime in 2008 with these problems, you will see another problem coming up, sooner or later, the way it is going.

01:26:35.320 - 01:26:47.320

Because these guys, very smart guys, nothing but to make money off it. It’s dangerous, so there's a huge difference, I'd be worried about this tension, China is really coming, China of course they have their own problems, overall, they are still poor country.

01:26:48.060 - 01:26:59.660

But I think U.S. government will not like people to challenge that. But overall, we are very open, because we are very confident, we are the best, you come here to learn, you want to take something back to your country?

01:26:59.800 - 01:27:11.480

Go ahead. Until you start becoming strong enough to challenge my status quo, and that's what happening. Within two years, China, the GDP total will be equal to the United States. First time in history, okay.

01:27:14.100 - 01:27:32.880

And then that will be a very interesting thing to see. I think these, I don't know, I'm a scientist I shouldn't talk about political scientists, but I–these things will keep going in the systems, the current system mindset is not,

01:27:34.070 - 01:27:50.510

cannot be a second, cannot be equal sharing, because we believe that we need to export our idealism, export our trade to the whole world. Then definitely, we want to maintain one single economy system and this is just pure economic point of view.

01:27:51.840 - 01:28:07.890

You guys will figure it out, you have plenty of time. I think, so far the system is still fair. I mean, if you play by the rules, I think you should not get into trouble, but but at the same time it is that the

01:28:08.310 - 01:28:21.520

atmosphere is not helping you to move forward, and that is of some concern actually. I will say some concern too idealistic. We'll see what happens over time and a

01:28:21.590 - 01:28:33.810

lot, a lot of scientists have become very careful these days. You know, you know the science is the problem has a science culture supposed to be very open. After all, science has no boundary or term, right?

01:28:34.470 - 01:28:44.280

We are talking about cure diseases. Why should a boundary this, oh by U.S. on this, doesn't make any sense right. But now they unfortunately all our scientific discovery

01:28:45.450 - 01:29:02.850

can turn the economic value or even military power. Then, becomes a concern for the the country. For Chinese origin, the problem is they they they they indiscriminately look at you all

01:29:02.950 - 01:29:19.910

Chinese. They don't think about you as overseas Chinese, American Chinese, or really Communist Chinese, Taiwanese Chinese, Chinese origin… There's a concern. And and the reality to be it is also the problem with the United States is they they moved

01:29:21.050 - 01:29:39.960

half of the people from—if you look at the graduate schools today in the science, half of them are Chinese probably. Right? In science field, people then they go back to the American system, you should ask them, ask the leaders,

01:29:40.620 - 01:29:53.720

you're the one created the situation because you are the brightest kid in this field but you don't pay people, you found the brightest local people, why should I go into this field? I go to finance. I go into investment banking—my son is studying

01:29:53.720 - 01:30:07.730

law, by the way. I mean, he’s a science major he got top honors in Austin. He said why should I get a grant writing it–so enemy become a lot of foreigners, right? We've all come to this

01:30:08.040 - 01:30:23.140

country—I'm different. I'm kind of willing to come back here. I’m stupid. It's fine. The other people, they come here, they they they have no connections, they have no networks, they don't even graduate from this–from United and that–university, and they're bright,

01:30:24.370 - 01:30:41.270

and they work hard. They write grants, they do research. You enter the workforce from there, and they don't pay well relatively. Okay. If they are intelligent, the same people, Chinese people have a chance go back. They probably won't do the same job, they become the other entrepreneurial businessmen

01:30:41.330 - 01:30:52.710

or these thing these things is are other conditions. So, the one thing to avoid this problem, completely, it's a dilemma, right? It’s not good, these are restrictive at the same time all the U.S.

01:30:52.710 - 01:31:01.650

workforce half of them are IC–Indian Chinese, IC stands for, okay? So, what do you do with it? But the Chinese part is growing, they have a choice, suddenly you scared.

01:31:02.070 - 01:31:16.390

But the only thing you can avoid, get more local Americans, Caucasians, Indians, Hispanics, increase the compensation to the scientists. There's a simple solution. Are they willing to? It's very simple, if these countries money right, you double the salary, see

01:31:16.390 - 01:31:31.920

everybody show up, all the bright kids show up. I mean, when I first came in to this country a lot of people still doing, Americans—in Bell Labs, in fact, very few Asians, very few Chinese. And also, if you look at the academia, now you have foreign speaking people with accents

01:31:31.920 - 01:31:45.180

teaching your kids, right? It's very simple you ask ask yourself you pay them well—pay professors well—I'm sure a lot of American will show up. If you go to Hong Kong or graduate students from Mainland China, Hong

01:31:45.180 - 01:31:55.290

Kong people, who will want to study graduate school. Why you want to do that? Same thing right? If you pay well, you just have to change the system. I think they do increase the research funding.

01:31:56.140 - 01:32:09.090

You guys are bilingual right? Yeah. I always get my kids to speak Chin-Mandarin but they cannot. Bilingual is an advantage actually I think. Yeah, I'm studying Chinese right now, to improve my Chinese.

01:32:10.210 - 01:32:25.340

Bilingual, I think Mandarin is essential, I think, Mandarin—Southeast Asia, if you speak Cantonese, we–or Fujianese, you will be good, it's a different culture. But biling–I was in Europe, Holland.

01:32:25.340 - 01:32:38.050

I spend some time in Holland. Holland right? Dutch people average speak four languages after university, right? So they can survive. I think language is very important.

01:32:38.320 - 01:32:50.350

I see a lot of opportunities in Pacific, that's all it is. It's definitely growing in that area you cannot stop, right? You try to stop, it's hard. Honestly what happen. No one knows,

01:32:54.970 - 01:33:11.140

yeah. So, what do you think your greatest accomplishment has been? Oh, so far none yet. So far what do you think?

01:33:11.140 - 01:33:26.890

I haven't died yet, so how do I know? Or something that you're really proud of? Not that much actually, in reality. If you talk about work, I do quite a bit.

01:33:28.360 - 01:33:39.550

I change fields so often people forget what I'm doing anyway. So but I do–I do help. I am lucky–I involved–I built the first print

01:33:40.250 - 01:33:54.310

jet project in the world. I built the first–I help–I was team, not I built—part of the major team of only few people, major team. Also I was involved in building the first VLSI chips,

01:33:54.800 - 01:34:11.160

1MB chip DRAM, in the world, also help to building the first PACS system, digital radiology imaging system in the world. Also building the largest, massive parallel database in the world.

01:34:12.570 - 01:34:27.990

And I helped Harvard build their first cyclotron, bring up, I set it up the molecule imaging. I also build the first web trading site for Charles Schwab, which is

01:34:28.140 - 01:34:42.880

actually as I looked back is bad, basically the biggest Casino in the world. So everybody can can can gamble online right? That's what it is, it’s a web trading? Here–actually it I came down here we do some

01:34:42.880 - 01:34:56.840

drug repurposing and I changed field again, I stopped doing cancer more, and I'll try drug development. We have a couple of drugs right now I tried to push it in. Biology takes longer time, much longer than computer.

01:34:58.920 - 01:35:10.710

Computer is very fast, you see results very quickly. Biology takes time because clinical trials take 17 years. 17 years–by that time I retired probably I see my drug passed. So this is the work related accomplishments

01:35:12.840 - 01:35:28.510

when I, I think I enjoy it but I, never look at this enjoyment. A friend of mine he gave a talk in Cambridge University, and the guy actually a

01:35:28.510 - 01:35:39.510

professor, chair professor he say, he made a comment say, people who have these types of accomplishments should retire many times. I told him I'm still alive I'm not a legend . So, but my

01:35:39.510 - 01:35:56.680

point is, for me, I have a different philosophy. I have done that, been there done that, I don't count it already, finished. For me it's finished. I–I think the bigger accomplishment is—I able to do I want to

01:35:56.950 - 01:36:15.450

do in life. I may not be consistent, but when I want to do something, I am able to have freedom say I want to do this, and I think able to do what you want to do in life is uh, as a free man,

01:36:17.100 - 01:36:29.740

as a—who's the philosopher— Emerson, used to say, self-reliance. He has a large influence on me actually, his philosophy.

01:36:30.180 - 01:36:41.960

He's one of my favorite philosophers. I think this is my biggest accomplishment. So you–I don't really care about too much about career, although it sounds like I a lot of careers.

01:36:42.240 - 01:36:51.850

But if you really look at it, I really don't care, because if you want a career you stay in one field–keep going up. I keep changing field you don't have career. People never figure out who you are.

01:36:51.850 - 01:37:07.210

Every time you change field you lost your seniority. I only advise people to figure out what to do, but able to do what I feel like to do I enjoy doing, and I think this is the biggest accomplishment, that means I enjoy what I'm doing.

01:37:07.320 - 01:37:18.500

That’s biggest accomplishment so far. I can afford to enjoy what I'm doing, that's- be careful what I say. I can afford to. I still can afford to. I think this is better than other accomplishments and the other–the other

01:37:19.280 - 01:37:35.440

successes all these things is not my effort. I mean no one succeeds because of oneself, it's the whole team, the whole environment, you just at right place right time. People just full sometimes, too full

01:37:35.440 - 01:37:44.110

of themselves, they think they are the ones who make it happen. I never believe in that. This whole bunch of people. Success of CEO is not because of CEO.

01:37:45.780 - 01:37:57.400

Because the whole culture, the people, the environment, the channel, the market all these things so. I think I did a lot of projects, I just happened to be at the right time, be there, the person who did the work, enjoyed it, and I

01:37:57.720 - 01:38:09.320

already got my enjoyment out of it, I think these are accomplishments, so for me, those are not really accomplishments, I think, but able to and to afford to do what I think I'm interested to do, I think it is.

01:38:09.880 - 01:38:18.450

So far in my life I can still do that I think this is my accomplishment, and not starving. At least I'm not an artist. A lot of my friends are still artists right

01:38:18.530 - 01:38:34.820

now, tough, sometimes but I also donate some money to them. Tough for them, they they are a lot of passion. And my classmates he has been—I don't know what happened, I lost track of him—but he want to be, he say is a university graduate, he wanted to be a, not a

01:38:34.820 - 01:38:44.760

movie star, he just want to be play. I think he tried Broadway all these things, I don't think he still made it. I don't know what happened I lost track of him. I used to find him a lot.

01:38:44.780 - 01:39:02.710

I have two classmates ended up to be becoming missionary, I also supporting them, yeah they–I think able to do what you believe is important and you like to do, you sell, and you can afford to do it I think is the biggest accomplishment, for me

01:39:02.710 - 01:39:16.120

anyway. But the time, put it this way, all the titles you have in the world, but you left a building, you are just an ordinary citizen, doesn't count. Isn't it?

01:39:17.510 - 01:39:33.810

Right? I mean a CEO, I mean a senior VP or C something up in a very low engineer, but doesn't matter, when you left the company, it's just you. The title doesn't count, right? So I think this is

01:39:33.810 - 01:39:49.000

the–this is what I think is important. Do you have any more questions? No, good thank you. Thank you so much. Don't quote me about the American politics part.