Below is the text of my speech given on
July 9, 2016 at a career development conference sponsored by Chinese American Semiconductor Professionals Association held in Santa Clara.
Good afternoon everybody. I
stopped going to work on a regular basis since 2008 (my ex-colleagues might even say it was
earlier than 2008) and I got off the board of a large cap, NYSE listed public
company in 2014. Other than writing occasional op-ed pieces for online Asia
Times, I am enjoying my retirement.
We live in America, a society
where old soldiers are quickly forgotten. So this is an unexpected surprise and
pleasure to be invited to speak before you today.
Fortunately for me, we
Chinese respect our elders and presume that they have grown wiser from the
accumulation of life experiences and thus they are not to be quickly put into
the dumpster. Also fortunate for me, I know Simon Ma and he invited me. So,
thank you Simon.
I have lived in Silicon
Valley practically before there was a Silicon Valley, since 1971, and I am
delighted today to share with you some of my lessons learned.
My talk today is roughly
divided in four parts. First as brief as possible I need talk a little about my
career to put what I have to say in proper context.
I certainly am not about
suggest that what I have to say is the only path to enlightenment but I hope
you could better understand my remarks in light of the life I’ve had.
Next, taking advantage of the
vantage point of a senior citizen, I am going to tell you some stories of some of
the Chinese America pioneers that broke the glass ceiling and pave the way for
succeeding generations such as you folks in the audience to succeed.
I am honored and pleased to
say that these individuals are contemporaries and friends of mine.
Of course, there is a price
to be paid for success, whatever that might mean to each one of you
individually. Since the theme of this conference is how to succeed, I can
presume that you are all interested what that means.
So I plan to summarize for
you what I think are the essential characteristics for success in your
professional career.
Lastly, if you don’t already
know and feel it already, America is not a level playing field for us Chinese.
To have a successful career and not just a so-so career, you need to be
sensitive and aware of how the field is tilted against you.
As I have been writing my
autobiography for my grandchildren, I reflect that I have been lucky and
enjoyed the best of two worlds.
First, I finished 6th
grade in China and thus has a solid foundation in Chinese, which I was able to
maintain by avidly reading 三国演义 (Romance
of Three Kingdoms) and later on when I was in college, an endless supply of武侠小说 (martial arts novels).
Second,
I was fortunate to get a scholarship and attend MIT and got a quality
education.
Third,
I met May Jen who became my wife without her love and support, I wouldn’t have
a story to tell today.
I
won’t bore you with the details of my life or professional career, but just to
let you know that I started in a major American company, a predecessor of
today’s Honeywell.
I
was considered a rising star. The company did not have an organized education
assistance program in those days but the corporate vice president in charge of
R&D took me out to lunch one day and offered me leave with pay so that I
can complete my doctorate degree while keeping my position at the company.
My
Chinese language background, my technical background and my consulting
experience enable me to jump off the normal career path to become an advisor to
Corporate America on doing Chinese in China.
Thus
I had the privilege of a front row seat as I witnessed the rise of China.
My
China experience directly led to an invitation to serve of on the board of the
world’s largest integrated resort/casino company in the world.
Throughout
my working career I developed the knack to write clearly and succinctly. In putonghua,
we would call it 一针见血 style.
In
my retirement, I use my skill to become a regular contributor to online Asia
Times where I strive to present a point of view representing Chinese in America
and not the general mainstream public.
As
I said at the beginning of my talk, this—hopefully you would consider it as brief—self-introduction
is to give context to the rest of my presentation.
When
my family arrived as refugees from China in 1949, ethnic Chinese residing in
America make up around one tenth of one percent of this country’s population.
By
the time my wife and I immigrated to Silicon Valley from New Jersey, the
Chinese population in America has just about tripled, but still a relatively
insignificant number.
There
was no such place known as Silicon Valley, just fruit orchards in Santa Clara.
To buy Chinese groceries and have a dim sum lunch, we would need to drive into
Chinatown in San Francisco.
Today
we are around 4 million around the country. I can get groceries at Ranch 99 and
dim sum lunch in downtown Mountain View, both about 1.5 miles away from home.
Another
way of looking at the Chinese American influence in Silicon Valley is to trace
the formation of professional Chinese American organizations here.
The
San Francisco chapter of the Chinese Institute of Engineers has been around for
almost 100 years. My friend, the late Lester Lee, was a member, but I was not too familiar with this organization and their activities until today.
AAMA
was established in 1980 by a bunch of technical types that gathered in the
cafeteria of Lester Lee’s then company. The feeling that Asian Americans in the
valley needed a mutual support network was the motivation to start AAMA.
I
joined around 1983 and chaired a series of annual conferences on cross border
strategic alliances starting in 1990 and became the chairman of the
organization around 1996.
AAMA
started out as Asian American Manufacturers’ Association. Somewhere along the
way, the name was switched to Asian American Multi-technology Association
because we don’t manufacture anything anymore but there was value in keeping
the AAMA brand.
Ten
years after AAMA, Monte Jade Science and Technology Association was
established. It was the idea of Zhuang
Yi-der who was then head of Taiwan’s Science Division based in Silicon Valley.
To this day, Monte Jade has the support of the Science Division.
The
formation was a reflection of increasing presence of high tech companies from
Taiwan in Silicon Valley and increasing presence of ex-pats here from
Taiwan. At the beginning and for a long
time, the lingua franca at the dinner meetings was Putonghua. At AAMA meetings
English was always the spoken language.
Shortly
after Monte Jade, Chinese American Semiconductor Professional Association was
established. Again this was a reflection of the dominating presence of Chinese
engineers in the semiconductor industry both here in Silicon Valley and in
Taiwan.
In
fact some years later, Professor Annalee Saxenian of Berkley who studied the
impact of immigrants on Silicon Valley made the observation that in Silicon
Valley, IC stood for Indians and Chinese. Without these two groups of
immigrants, the valley would implode.
Ten
years after formation of Monte Jade came the formation of Hua Yuan Science and
Technology Association. This time the founders came from PRC and they
immediately became visible by hosting delegations from China to Silicon Valley.
)
The
most famous deal still talked about was struck between Jack Ma of Alibaba and
Jerry Yang of Yahoo at a golf outing sponsored by HYSTA. At the time, Yahoo was
the big brother and Alibaba the young upstart.
Last
year I spoke at the first annual conference of The Society of Chinese Physician
Entrepreneurs. The founder of SCAPE is a practicing physician affiliated with
Stanford and the organization was founded in 2014.
I
mentioned SCAPE just as the latest organization to be established in Silicon
Valley that I am aware of and is an indicator of how much we Chinese like
forming affiliations and associations, sort of professional 同乡会.
Now
I would like to tell you about some of the Chinese American pioneers that broke
through the glass ceiling in Silicon Valley.
The
earliest was David S. Lee (李信麟). In the late 60’s he started a printer company called Diablo Systems
that was acquired by Xerox. As soon as his company was acquired, Xerox replaced
him with a white guy because who have ever heard of a Chinese knowing how to
manage.
So
David left and started another printer company called Qume Systems. This was
before ink jet or laser printers and David invented a daisy wheel printer.
Qume
was acquired by ITT Corporation and this time, David was asked to stay and run
the computer peripherals division. When IBM rolled out the PC, ITT asked David
to lead the effort to compete with IBM.
To
gain a competitive advantage, David took the PC designed by ITT to Taiwan and
asked Acer and Mitac to make the PC as OEM supplier. That’s how those companies
got into the PC business, and David came to be known as the father of Taiwan’s
PC industry.
Since
then David has gone on to start and run other companies, served on the board of
many companies and on advisory boards of venture capital companies.
He also took time to serve as
chairman of CIE, AAMA and Monte Jade. Very early on, after his reputation as a
business leader was firmly established, he recognized the importance of being
part of the American political process.
He along with Lester Lee and
Stanley Wang, founder of Pantronix--one of your gold sponsors, would fund raise for political candidates.
They would actively encourage and support Asian candidates regardless of party
affiliation. Many others in Silicon Valley have since followed their example.
Because of his prominence and
activism, he was appointed to serve on the board of regent of the UC university
system for 12 years and he served on many presidential panels and commissions,
appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents.
After his PhD from MIT, David
K. Lam landed in H-P in Silicon Valley. One day he noticed that all of the
sudden, a white guy that used to report to him was made the manager over him.
David Lam resigned and
started Lam Research in 1980 and he became the first Chinese American to take
his company public in 1984. Those of you in CASPA would know that Lam Research
is one of the major semiconductor manufacturing equipment companies in the
world.
Similar to David Lee, this
David has gone on to start other ventures, advise still more others and sit on
board of some.
He also has sat in
presidential and state level commissions. In the early 90’s, his leadership
established AAMA as the preeminent Asian American professional organization in
Silicon Valley.
One of his smartest moves,
David convinced Pauline Lo Alker to assume the leadership of AAMA after
him, which she did for the next four years from 1991-94.
Pauline was charismatic and a
high-energy person. You would find it hard to say no to her. She got people
energized and engaged in AAMA and she began an active mentoring program for the
young professionals. Under her leadership, AAMA became known as the meeting
place for valuable networking and relationship building.
Pauline began her career
facing two handicaps. She was Asian and female. Even though she was trained in
computer programming, her first job was as a typist in the computer department
of GE.
Once given the opportunity to
show her ability, she moved up quickly and landed a job in Silicon Valley. From
technical positions she moved into sales and marketing and became the vice
president for a workstation company called Convergent Technologies, a rising
hot company in its days.
She then started a
workstation company called Counterpoint, which was acquired by Acer, the Taiwan
PC company. By the time she was leading AAMA, venture investors had recruited
her to turn around the fortunes of Network Peripherals. She did that and took
the company public.
At various times, Pauline has
received national recognition as one of the most influential woman executive
and role model for aspiring women in the high tech industry.
The above three individuals
achieve their success as hugely capable entrepreneurs. Because of their
accomplishments, Asian Americans are no longer perceived as just good
engineers.
Because of their prominent
success stories, the venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road no longer ignore
Asians with business plans. These firms even began to hire partners with Asian
faces.
I cannot begin to tell you
how different Silicon Valley was before and after these pioneers made their
mark. I honestly believe their record pave the way for all the others to
follow.
John Chen was different. More than a decade younger, he was not
an entrepreneur per se. Instead he showed that he knows how to manage and run
companies and can turn sick companies into healthy ones.
When he was asked to take
over Sybase in 1997, he already had a proven track record in senior management
positions. Sybase was literally on a financial death spiral when he took over.
He changed the company
business focus, returned the company to profitability and sold the company to
SAP for almost $6 billion thirteen years later. He is now trying to do the same
with Blackberry.
John sits on two major
corporate boards, Disney and Wells Fargo as well a bunch of high tech start-ups
and as trustee of a number of national NGOs.
He also led the fund raising
drive to build the library in honor of Chancellor Tien Chang-lin at UC
Berkeley.
Bob Lee basically climbed the corporate ladder within one
company becoming the Executive Vice President of Pacific Bell. He retired after
a 26-year career with the telecom company.
In his day, if you go by size of the company, he was the
highest ranking corporate executive of Chinese ancestry in the San Francisco
Bay Area.
He was chairman of the board
of Blue Shield of California, served on the board of numerous smaller companies
and non-profit groups. In particular he was active on the board of Asian
Pacific Fund and Youth Tennis.
Both Bob and John Chen had
served as past chairman of The Committee of 100, a national organization of
prominent Chinese Americans.
Like Bob, Albert Yu is
also a lifer who spent virtually his entire career in one company. In this case
it was Intel.
The difference is that during
his stint there, Intel grew from virtually a start-up to the leading
semiconductor company in the word.
Albert led Intel’s effort in
microprocessor development, the dominance of Intel’s microprocessor in the PC
industry was the reason for Intel’s success. He clearly played a major role in Intel's rise.
After 30 years, Albert retired
from Intel as their senior vice president. He wrote two books on management
Intel style along with many technical papers.
After retirement, he
continued to advise companies and sat on the boards of some of the companies in
the valley.
His passion was mentoring
Asian Americans. He organized mentoring sessions inside Intel and after his
retirement he was active participant of mentoring programs organized by Monte
Jade and others.
I save Ken Fong for
last on this list because he started a company in biotech when electronics and
semiconductors dominated the valley.
Secondly, like John Chen, Ken
is not retired but actively working. He sold his company to Becton Dickinson
for undisclosed hundreds of millions and he has been busy investing and
coaching young biotech startups, both here in the US and in China.
Ken has been very generous
with his wealth--not only writing checks for charitable causes, but he actively
supports Asian American candidates running for political office.
Because of Ken being
politically active, he was appointed to the board of trustees of the California
State Universities. He was the second Chinese American to serve in this
capacity. The first was Stanley Wang of Pantronics.
Ken and I are part of a team
organizing a public forum co-sponsored by the Commonwealth Club where we
present topics and speakers different from the usual American mainstream.
The topics involve sensitive
areas on US China relations that we believe important for the American public
to know more about. We have invited speakers from China and U.K. in this
endeavor and Ken has generously underwritten the expenses in bringing the
speakers over.
I have selected for
discussion today the glass ceiling breakers that I knew personally and are
friends of mine. I don’t claim this list to be all inclusive. I am sure there
are others worthy of mention.
My point is that by breaking
the glass ceiling, they made it easier for the many that have followed their
footsteps.
It should be obvious from the
success stories I just told you that there is no single route to getting there.
What they do have in common, however, is that they all gave back to their community
in one way or the other.
Now, I would like to share
with you what I think are essential attributes necessary to succeed. If you
think about it, these are really quite self evident, so I am going to go over
them quickly and we can always discuss any of them in depth during the panel
discussion.
But first, what do we mean by
success? It’s not the same for everybody. Some want to be famous. Others want
to be rich or powerful or both. Still others want to be comfortable in his/her
own skin.
Each of you has to decide for
yourself.
Know yourself. What I mean is that each one of you needs to take a
realistic look at yourself and have the ability to objectively identify your
strengths and your weaknesses.
Know others to me means that you have solid interpersonal skills,
you know how to establish rapport and empathy with others. You also know how to
size up others and decide if their skills complement yours.
Both attributes are, in my
view, important if you decide to start a new venture and need to build a team.
You can’t find a team with complementary skills if you don’t know what skills
you have and don’t know how to identify needed skills in others.
In America, everyone is
selling him or herself all the time. You are constantly being evaluated on who
you say you are. If you choose to be humble typical of a reticent Chinese; that
might be OK in China but here you are putting yourself on discount.
Of course, you will need
excellent presentation skills, verbally and also in writing.
Whether you are joining a
young startup or a giant corporation, you need to know how to be a team player.
Sometimes you are a member of the team and other times you might be leading the
team. Either way, you need to help the team move together. This means no back
stabbing, no forming factions, no acts of a lone ranger.
I might add that one of the
best places to practice team building is to volunteer, such as one of these
sponsoring organizations. Why? Because when everybody is a volunteer, there is
no command structure, as you would have in a company. To get anything done and
move together as a team, you have to have good persuasive skills.
To be a good leader, you must
be willing to lead the charge up the hill and not sit in the back and order
everybody else to face the enemy fire.
A good leader also knows how
to be decisive and know when a decision has to be made and move on. Sometimes
the timing is such that you are required to make decisions sooner than you’d
like, but you have to have the will and confidence to make the tough calls.
One attribute that will help
you being a decisive leader is the ability to think of contingencies. In other
words, for every critical decision, you will have thought of alternative
scenarios and what-ifs. In this way, if you make a wrong call, you will be in a
position to know how to rectify the situation.
Last but not least, I believe
it’s important to give back for several reasons. For one, you will feel better
about yourself and that will show when you interact with others. For another,
others have helped you on your climb to the top and you have a moral obligation
to do the same.
This is my last slide and I
have two thoughts to leave with you.
Contrary to common wisdom,
America is not a level playing field. Yes, America is the land of opportunity
for anyone willing to work hard, but it does not mean that you will be treated
the same way as the person next to you.
If you are Asian, if you
don’t speak accent free English and if you not the assertive type, you can
expect to put out 110% or even 120% of effort in order to get the same
recognition and respect as the white person.
This is just the way it is.
If you should be fortunate and work in a place where your race, accent and manner
is not held against you, so much the better, but at least you should be
prepared and ready to accept the bias as an added challenge.
Silicon Valley is more likely
to be equitable than elsewhere in the United States. If you ever relocate to
other parts of the country, you should be prepared to over come hidden and
unconscious bias.
An even more insidious form
of racial bias that you must be aware of is the U.S federal government
considers each and every one of you a potential spy for China just and only
because you are Chinese.
I am part of the task force
in the Committee of 100 that goes around the country giving half-day workshops
on how to avoid being a victim of racial profiling. We don’t have time to go
into this today.
For the purpose of today’s
discussion, let me simply give you some practical advice.
If you work in high tech or
in government labs or even in academia, you should assume that someone is
reading your email and listening in on your telephone conversation, and I don’t
mean hackers from PRC. The initials I am thinking of are FBI, CIA or NSA or ATF
or DEA.
I just heard on the public
radio that since 9-11, we now have over 40 government agencies that are running
undercover investigations. Not all of them are concentrating on Chinese espionage—thank
goodness--but a sobering thought nonetheless.
You don’t want do anything
that can be misinterpreted as something unsavory.
Just keep in mind that our
law enforcement agencies are quick to jump to conclusion and in cases where
national security is involved, you are presumed guilty and it’s up to you to
prove that you are innocent.
If the FBI breaks down your
door and want to question you, just remember that you have the right to remain
silent and to legal counsel. Don’t make the naïve mistake of thinking that if
you cooperate, you can extricate yourself and convince them that they have made
a mistake.
When they come to see you,
they are already convinced that you are guilty of something. Your agreeing to
talk to them will simply give them additional opportunity to find flaws in what
you said and accuse you of perjury and other charges. The only protection for
you is for you to have your lawyer with you.
With that cheerful note, I am
finished with my presentation and look forward to a vigorous panel discussion.
