Builders of the Silicon Dream

- [Announcer] This program was made possible by: Synopsys, Our Technology; Your innovation Freshfields global law firm.

(bright music) - [Narrator] In 1972 as Apollo 17 made its way to the moon, the astronauts took this photo of Earth.

Back then, it was an amazing technical achievement.

Now in the 21st century, everyone can not only view the Earth, but interact with it with just a few mouse clicks, thanks to tech companies like Google, which is just one of many that are clustered around a special place called the Silicon Valley.

Nestled into Northern California, it is the place of innovation for creating new technology, new leaders.

Some are famous, had movies made about them.

(gentle music) There's even a popular TV show to capture the startup spirit.

Yet you rarely hear about the entrepreneurs or leaders that look like this popular character.

Their stories are equally impressive, inspiring.

These men against all the odds have also shaped this valley.

How did they get here?

Where did they come from?

What did they leave behind?

Let's find out.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) How did Silicon Valley become the place for Asians to fulfill their American dream?

To get that answer, let's head up the road and over the Bay.

(gentle music) - I have been a professor at UC Berkeley for over 30 years.

I came here with an interest in studying Silicon Valley.

Prior to 1965, Asian immigrants were really shut out from the US.

One of the big triggers for the the change in Silicon Valley was that US immigration policy changed.

- [Narrator] In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act would forbid Chinese from coming to America.

In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson changed all that.

The Immigration and Nationality Act abolished quotas, opening the doors to those who can contribute most to this country, to its growth, to its strength, to its spirit.

- First wave, I think of Chinese that came to the US were mainly from Taiwan.

(bright music) - Taiwan's government's policy was to transform its primarily low-cost labor and farming industry into the high tech sector led by Li Kwoh-Ting.

They sent their best engineering graduate students to study in the United States.

As word of their success made its way back to the island, other students decided to follow in their footsteps.

- So the early students often, especially the early students from Taiwan, were poor.

They came from a very poor country.

- [Narrator] Dr.

Ta-Lin Hsu was one of those students.

The company he founded, H&Q Asia Pacific is recognized as a pioneer of Asian venture capital.

- We actually lifting the southern part of the Taiwan, called Pingtung.

That's all farm land.

Even though it's relatively poor from a material point of view, but very hopeful.

Like any of these inspiring people, I dreamed a lot.

I was a 12-year-old boy that actually could go walk to the school.

I went through the rice paddies now becoming a yellow bed of grain.

Sundry, radiant with a yellow bright color.

While I was walking in the paddies, I just cannot avoid singing, just an expression of joy and hope for the future.

At that time, I was simple.

I had no idea what's physics, what's chemistry, what's the Nobel Prize.

Anything like that.

And I also got exposed to two scientists, Lee Tsung-Dao and Yang Chen Ning.

They got the first Nobel Prize for Chinese.

At that time, I wanted to follow their footsteps, so I had a dream, a dream that I can be just as successful.

My high school in Pingtung, however, tranquil and nice, statistically, you won't be able to get there.

So I need you to know that I have to go to to United States.

(bright music) (Ta-Lin singing in foreign language) - [Narrator] Back in the 1850s, the Gold Rush encouraged so many Chinese to cross the ocean to come to California, come to San Francisco.

Even after the Gold Rush slowed to a crawl, and laws were passed to exclude Asians from coming here, San Francisco's Asian community continued to thrive.

It's no wonder that others would also come here and eventually shape Silicon Valley.

- There was a lot of funding for engineering graduate education in the US at the time, and it really did attract, especially these Taiwanese in the early days.

- [Narrator] As co-founder of Innolight Technology Corporation, the "San Jose Mercury News" described Mr.

Kung as one of Silicon Valley's most understated power brokers.

Before he could earn that title, he first had to immigrate to San Francisco from Taiwan.

- I was born in the mainland China.

Family went to Taiwan when I was one years old, so basically I was educated, raised in Taiwan.

Come to United States in the 1967.

First stop I arrived is in the San Francisco.

- [Narrator] David Tsang from Liaoning, China, would become one of the most successful, pioneering Chinese American entrepreneurs in the United States.

He also came to San Francisco around the same time.

- He never officially retired.

Up to his very last days, was very active and involved.

(gentle music) "Reflection on memories of the years blowing in the wind, by David Tsang.

We are all travelers of our time.

We all have our unique experiences and stories of growing up."

- [David] In the summer of 1962 and at the age of 20, I boarded an ocean liner to sail from Yokohama, Japan, to San Francisco.

I immediately took a train to visit an acquaintance of my father's in New York.

The cross country journey was an eyeopener.

I stayed with an American family in Idaho Falls and worked in a potato processing plant to earn living expenses.

After two months of hard work, I saved up enough money to attend BYU.

It was with the help of these kind-hearted people that I was afforded the opportunity to study.

These experiences had greatly broadened my outlook on life.

- [Narrator] America has been a place for opportunity, and for so many Asians, there was always one key opportunity they could not resist.

- Typical trajectory of immigrants, especially in this period in the sixties and seventies and eighties, was to come to the US to go to graduate school.

So they were often studying engineering and they wouldn't go necessarily to Stanford and Berkeley.

- [Narrator] Born in China, then raised in Hong Kong before coming to America, Ken earned the nickname Dr.

DNA by starting Clonetech, a company at the forefront of gene splicing technology.

He knew his path to success to the American dream was to keep moving forward in education.

- When you were in Hong Kong in the '60, you actually did not plan to go to college.

When I came to the United States, you can go to a college, you can go to junior college, you can go to a second tier college.

So those opportunity that you can actually take, I took the opportunity, first the City College and then San Francisco State.

When we were at that kind of a age, right, and you graduated from college, it's a very linear path.

I came here as a immigrant.

I get a benefit of getting higher education in America.

Decided to go to get a advanced degree with a PhD, and I got accepted to several colleges, so I ended up in Indiana University.

After that, I want to get a PhD, so there is a path that I can choose.

- Most of the student in the engineering or science usually come to the United States to pursue advanced degree.

Then I went to the University of Texas for my master degree for two years.

After I received my master, then came back to the Bay Area, to the UC Berkeley to finish my graduate degree.

And I never imagined I spent my whole life in Silicon Valley, yes.

- Berkeley is considered a top university, so my goal becomes focusing on getting there.

And I've been very lucky.

- I mean, when you are from another country, you have no other choice but to work hard to make it happen.

Otherwise, you know, you go back to your country and then what are you gonna do?

You know?

Yeah, so.

- $50,000 for the whole thing.

(colleague speaking in foreign language) (colleagues laughing) - He said, "If oil company want to buy a house, there's oil underneath."

- But I'm not an oil company.

- No, you are Gavin Pearson.

- Oh, so you do know who I am.

- I'm smart.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] The rise of Silicon Valley began when William Shockley, the co-inventor of the first working transistor, moved from New Jersey to Mountain View.

Unlike many other researchers who used germanium as the semiconductor of material, Shockley had a vision to use a new material.

- I think a geographical region also has a certain culture, certain traditions that can make one stand out from the other.

There are a few companies that started.

People often refers to Hewlett Packard as one.

Schottky semiconductor is another.

Good to have a community where people are doing similar things.

Being a growing technology offered opportunity for people with a passion to do big things.

- But when they graduated, saw the growth that was happening in Silicon Valley and they were sucked into the ecosystem.

Even if they came and studied in Massachusetts, a large majority of them came to the Silicon Valley - After I graduated from the UC Berkeley, very lucky I find a job in the Hewlett Packard.

When I walk into Hewlett Packard, a new company, a very good company, I want to be a good engineer.

I want someday I can sit in the corner office, become the R&D manager.

- I think in the early days it was just these companies like Intel and Hewlett Packard were growing very fast, and so they attracted people from all over the country with the jobs.

But very soon it became known that this was an open place.

It was a happening.

It was a dynamic place.

And so I think it became very attractive.

Silicon Valley, I actually believe that the openness of information sharing and the informal culture, the lack of hierarchy in Silicon Valley, made it very attractive.

- [Narrator] Remember the Gold Rush days?

Back then, the immigrants were cheap labor.

With the new generation, they capitalized on the opportunity for better education, so now they can compete in the marketplace.

This new generation of immigrants embraces a new challenge, something that wasn't taught in schools: how to assimilate and excel in the workplace that was evolving and expanding right before their eyes.

- Hewlett Packard at that time is one of the early company, successful company, in the Silicon Valley.

The more important is Hewlett Packard have so-called HP Way.

They really try to promote this innovation to give the company, the employee will have the innovative idea, you have to give the employee freedom.

HP Way eventually become the culture of the Silicon Valley, in the Hewlett Packard.

They also very care about the community.

Company is very successful, is in the community, and because that, I think it somewhat influenced me later, I get more involved in the community work.

- In IBM, I did very well.

I entered as a staff engineer.

I end up put in charge of the entire corporate researchers.

In my department, the heart is right, one of the most important sector of the computers that the IBM and the most admired the company in the United States.

It helped my character building.

We emphasize respect for the individual.

- And it was a meritocracy.

Silicon Valley really welcomed anybody who could contribute.

Anybody who had the right technical skills and wanted to contribute was welcome.

It didn't matter what the color of their skin was, it didn't matter, you know, what they wore, the language they spoke.

- I did a lot of research using some of the material I clone.

That means that in the old day, you wanna study some genetic material or genes, you have to clone the gene.

After you clone the gene, then you have to study what the gene is, you know, is for, and maybe study the function of the gene.

I was very good in actually providing those two for a researcher.

Then I realized that, wow, maybe I'm not good in making tools for other to use to do basic research rather than myself doing basic research.

- [Narrator] Silicon Valley started as the birthplace of technical invention, a feeding ground for innovation.

With all roads eventually leading to entrepreneurship, having earned success in their various companies, it was time for these immigrants to get a slice of that American pie.

- You know, Silicon Valley have this kind of the entrepreneur environment.

Gradually, you want to get little bit more in the business.

- I like to say they marinated in this environment, which is very different than where they came from.

And then they learned about entrepreneurship and became either entrepreneurs or investors or other kinds of professionals in the ecosystem.

- After nine years, I got an opportunity to be a funding team of a new startup.

- [Narrator] Hsing Kung's SDL company is integral with the advancement of fiber communication, bandwidth, the principle technology that enables data and computers to interact.

- Because the bandwidth increase, they bring the internet.

- [Narrator] The company's vision to increase and maximize bandwidth, ushered in the super information highway and changed how we live, how we work.

All these devices, apps, websites we use every day evolve because of bandwidth.

- And that's really changed the world.

That's something we never imagined it happened that way, but this is a good story.

- Oh, very much.

I think it was because he came during a time where, and this is something I'm not quite clear about, why so many Asian engineers were, you know, here working at Hewlett Packard and why they all decided, many of his friends, they decided, oh, I'm gonna start my own company.

I think they did help each other out.

Why they started out on their own, I remember him saying once, "I could do it better if I do it, you know, with, you know, someone I know.

We could do it ourselves," right?

- I spent 12 years here, and that's 12 years exposed me to the early stage of venture capital.

I am the investor of David Tsang's three company and Hsing Kung's two company.

In the whole game of venture capital, you need to take your risk.

You need to take a risk.

- I remember him saying he was very lucky.

He considers himself very lucky.

He said, "Yeah, there were so many smart people."

He said, "So many people smarter than me."

It was that timing and that he had, you know, the idea that he had and that he met the person that he had met, that created what became his company, right?

"I have lived in Silicon Valley since 1968 when I started a job in Mountain View.

This is the starting point of my family and my career in America."

- [David] In 1974, I audaciously joined some colleagues at Hewlett Packard to start a business.

Since the startup couldn't afford to pay salaries in the first year, my wife took up babysitting to help pay the bills.

- [Narrator] Cathy and David met when both were going to high school in Japan.

They came to America and were married here.

She has always been the backbone of support.

David also loved steaks and opened the famous Alexander's Steakhouse.

Cathy doesn't babysit this iconic restaurant.

She's the CEO.

(Cathy speaking in foreign language) - "All together, I was involved in the founding and development of three companies.

Our products included storage systems and semiconductor systems.

With a little bit of luck, all three were successfully listed on Nasdaq and our partners were able to reap the rewards."

- [David] For more than 20 years, I worked long hours to establish and grow various companies.

It was a contest of physical strength as well as the will to persevere.

During this period, cash flow problems caused me great pain.

Thinking back, some of the experiences still haunt me.

(Cathy speaking in foreign language) (friend speaking in foreign language) (Cathy continues speaking in foreign language) - [Friend] Exactly.

(laughs) (Cathy speaking in foreign language) (friend speaking in foreign language) - He told me about this on next day, yes, he cannot pay payroll.

Then he told me many, many, many occasion, he said, "It's yours.

It's yours.

It's not yours.

It's not yours."

He always tells us.

Said, "Don't look back."

(Cathy laughing) "Just try your best."

- Yeah.

- Amen.

Energy energy does not need to be show is strong enough, does not need be hyper.

But think of him, you think of this enduring calm energy.

That's amazing.

Truly amazing.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Another important component in the advancement of digital technology is according to Google, 6,147 miles from Silicon Valley, Taiwan.

Before the 1980s, Taiwan was known as the island state for exporting low-tech products such as fruits, shoes, and umbrellas.

The transformation of Taiwan into a semiconductor powerhouse is remarkable.

In 1976, the government convinced the RCA company to transfer semiconductor technology to Taiwan.

Under the direction of Tsung-Tsong Ko, the government appointed the Industrial Technology Research Institute to lead the development of the industry with an emphasis on developing commercial products rather than pure scientific advances.

By achieving higher yields than RCAs fabs in the US, Taiwan unveiled its potential to the world.

Needless to say, there is advantages and opportunities for understanding the culture of both Taiwan and the Silicon Valley.

- You know, there were two big things that I observed.

First was that they were generating wealth and jobs for the whole American economy.

The second was that they were going back to their home countries.

So there were people that were going back and starting companies that were based partly in Taiwan and partly in Silicon Valley.

So you might have chip manufacturing in Taiwan and then the design in the US.

This was very profitable.

- The good things about working in Silicon Valley, we are at the forefront of the technology, but we are also in the forefront of many of the trends.

The United States (indistinct) has to go to Asia.

The US is big company cannot survive.

The General Motor pays $30 an hour.

In Taiwan, one hour is $1.

We specialize in the high tech in our schooling so that we happen to be in the middle of there.

Usually the United States, you get two weeks vacation.

Then I use every means to get the opportunities to go to Asia to formulate and participate their plans of advancing the economy - And you had a whole new group of sort of transpacific entrepreneurs and engineers who really helped build, say the Taiwanese economic miracle alongside the Silicon Valley miracle.

So you saw the growth of Hsinchu and Taipei as really important centers for semiconductor, and they really became the hub, the world hub really, for manufacturing electronics hardware.

- At that time in 1998 or 2000, seems it's so easy to start a company.

Once the bubble burst, then that everything becomes so difficult.

Of course, all the company, I co-founded also struggle.

And very glad with a group of the Chinese engineer.

The company moved to Taiwan.

Moved to Taiwan and suddenly the expense of the company, probably only 20% of the expense in the US were able to go through that difficult time.

- The way that Silicon Valley has grown is by absorbing new people, but then those people take things and they form it out to other parts of the world.

So they're expanding a network of sort of global regions.

So in Taiwan, they became very good at manufacturing and that flow allowed both Silicon Valley and Taiwan to grow.

They both benefited from that relationship.

Taiwan demonstrated that you can move up the value chain very quickly.

You can start out being a place where low-cost labor helps you grow, but very quickly they learned how to design and manufacture electronic systems and components.

It is very clear that in these cases you're seeing mutual benefit and growth that self-reproduces, and really important enhancing of the whole world economy by learning here and then building bridges that allow them to continue to contribute to both places.

In some ways information flowed more quickly between Taipei and Hsinchu and Silicon Valley than it did between Silicon Valley and other parts of the US.

- In the tech world, immigrants play a crucial role.

Morris Chang, of course is foreign born.

- [Narrator] Jobs, Zuckerberg, Musk, now add Chang.

Morris Chang is the man behind TSMC, one of the world's most dominant and impactful semiconductor companies.

Founded in 1987, Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company, TSMC, is a dedicated independent semiconductor manufacturing foundry based in Hsinchu, a science-based industrial park.

Born in China, Chang spent his primary school years in British Hong Kong.

During the time of war and occupation, Chang moved all over China.

Finally, in 1949, during the height of the Chinese civil war, he moved to the United States where he attended Harvard, MIT and Stanford.

He began at Texas Instruments, developing their transistor technology.

He rose up in the ranks to become the group vice president responsible for TI's worldwide semiconductor business.

- When Morris Chang was passed over for the CEO job in Texas and was looking for something else to do he had really built the chip industry himself.

He was approached by the government of Taiwan.

- [Narrator] Hitting a bamboo ceiling, Chang moved to Taiwan after 25 years at Texas Instruments.

There the government asked him to create a Taiwanese semiconductor company.

Chang consulted his friend Ta-Lin Hsu, who was working with Li Kwoh-Tin and Bob Evans, the vice president of IBM, as the leading expert in Silicon Valley as the country's tech consult.

Working with Ta-Lin, they recruited Silicon Valley's best to build Taiwan's semiconductor industry.

In the nineties, the US manufactured one third of world's chips.

Today, none of the advanced chips is made in the USA, all of the world's largest tech companies from Apple, Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, Nvidia, Huawei and Tesla rely on TSMC because they make the world's most advanced chip.

- One has to ask oneself if Texas Instruments made that decision on a rational basis.

He'd already established a formidable reputation for his meticulousness.

He was a perfectionist, which you have to be in this business.

Why do you think he didn't get the job of Texas Instruments CEO?

- One, some people suggested is because he was Chinese.

- [Narrator] Despite being in America for over a hundred years, Asians are always perceived as perpetual foreigners.

- [Speaker] Call for the evacuation was upheld by the Supreme Court.

And if you wanted to carry out racism, it can be done.

- [Narrator] While Silicon Valley has thrived with the spirit of openness, old stereotypes remain.

Cultural bias and discrimination remain constant barriers.

- [Reporter] Detroiters were invited for 50 cents a smash to take out their anger on Japanese cars.

- That type of resentment and blame turned to violence and eventually culminated in the murder of Vincent Chin.

A Chinese American man who was beaten to death by two white men who blamed him for what Japan was doing to the US auto industry.

- [Robot] (indistinct) Kung flu.

(beeps) - We have lots of Asian here that's become the target of the hate crime.

- [Narrator] The pandemic revealed the fragility of the American dream.

For immigrants, all the hard work, the commitment and the pursuit of freedom, happiness, and prosperity can be so easily erased and washed away by xenophobia.

- I don't think it's anything new.

Each chapter is unique and different, the forces at played on us.

But it all stems from hatred of people who look different.

- You spend all your time traveling, facing that 14 hours to fly across the ocean.

There's a great sacrifice in terms of family life, in terms of children growing up without seeing father around.

- "I also regret that I was not able to spend more time with my family nor to fulfill my responsibility as a father."

- [David] After the children grew up, they would on occasion mention that they had visited few places, participated in few activities, or spent too little time with me.

Fortunately, all of them took the right path in life to build a bright future and have become productive citizens of society.

- From eulogy, we learned that my father's so great.

He didn't have time to spend with us and so we actually did not know any of the very many of the things you talk about.

And I felt so bad because I was one of those few people that spent 11:00 PM 12:00 PM with him.

He on average works 17 hours a day.

- I don't know what to expect either, you know, I didn't know that I would make it, but that's what I would like to do.

Also, I don't have any other choice, you know?

So this is the only choice I have.

So when you have this passion and you know that this is the only choice you have, you work very, very hard on it.

- So this was the product of my early research on immigrants in Silicon Valley.

I started by interviewing immigrants who had started businesses in Silicon Valley.

A large proportion were of Chinese extraction.

The more that I interviewed them, the more I realized how significant they were as contributors to the ecosystem of Silicon Valley.

Immigrants were making a significant contribution and they were adding economic value.

- Particularly for people like us immigrants that we entered into United States with nothing.

Today, anything we have is God given, plus of course, our hard work.

- In a lot of company right now have the presence of Indian American, have the presence of a Chinese American and other people from all over the world.

That really is the basis of success in this country.

Drawing talent from everywhere.

The immigrant class in this country really make America unique and also make America as good as it is.

You have not been able to find another location in the United States, or maybe for that matter in any part of the world that are as innovative or as successful as Silicon Valley.

I believe that the immigrant class had a lot to play with the success of Silicon Valley.

- Yeah, I mean, I think that the openness of the US in the post-war period, you know, sixties, seventies, eighties, the openness to immigrants with skill and the openness of the culture, the welcoming nature of the culture made such a difference.

And I think that the more recent decades as we've seen policy closed down, there was a significant change after 9/11 in the US.

Policy became more suspicious of outsiders and we began to, we changed our immigration practices, became much less welcoming to immigrants.

And that has continued.

- When we were not successful, when we are out of a job, when we are not as successful as those that maybe immigrant, we have to find a scapegoat.

That's not the way we should conduct ourself.

A lot of this kind of thing have to do with the immigration policy by our government.

We should never hesitate to put a good policy together rather than, you know, fighting about who's right or wrong.

At the end of the day, I'm almost everyone is immigrant.

The only ones not immigrants is the Native Indians.

- I'm on the phone with the bank and they say they need an extra form for your payroll because of your visa.

- What visa?

(beeps) citizen.

- Oh, I see.

Bertram Gilfoyle is the foreign national.

A citizen of Canada.

- You're a Canadian?

- But I prefer to think of myself as a citizen of the world.

- Didn't know I was working with an illegal.

- The irony.

- The number of visas granted has stayed very low and a certain amount of hostility towards immigrants has really, I think been very detrimental to the American economy, certainly to Silicon Valley.

But I also worry about the standoff, the confrontation between China and the US.

America very easily falls into a xenophobia.

We've seen it historically and I fear that it will happen again.

And that would be really destructive.

- If you actually born in this country, you automatically want to be accepted as American.

And if you feel this kind of a, you know, subtle kind of a discrimination, you feel totally unease.

I have less a problem.

I'm immigrant.

So I have less of a problem.

But I don't want anyone to tell me I'm less American.

- "Because I was born in China, I have always lived in a Chinese dream.

My values and principles were firmly instilled in my mind since I went to school in Taiwan in my formative years."

- [David] In spite of having received a higher education in America, the feeling of being a stranger in this country is deeply ingrained in my subconscious mind.

I have drifted overseas for over 50 years to make a living.

I have realized my American dream.

I am grateful to America for the opportunities extended to new immigrants.

At the same time, I have the utmost respect for the rule of law, social justice, patriotism taught in public schools and the sense of social responsibility in this country.

- I am Congresswoman Judy Chu from California.

(everyone applauding and cheering) And I'm proud to be the first Chinese American woman ever elected to Congress.

(everyone applauding and cheering) - We're thinking that time some of us of get together, feel we need to get out to vote.

- [Narrator] The American ideal, while not perfect, has a foundation: democracy.

As leaders, they have built companies and forged Silicon Valley.

As visionaries, they realize to shape a better future.

The answer was not innovation, but participation.

- Because that is the principle of the democratic society.

That's what unites for some of us starting to get involved.

Generally Chinese culture doesn't want get in the politics and once you have some candidate, people are started get involved.

- [Narrator] There is a famous proverb: a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Hsing Kung's introduction to the political arena was to run for the school board in Cupertino.

- During the campaign.

I met a lot of people in the mainstream community.

I realized it's not that many Chinese American.

So after that I participated more in the community.

- I never saw any role models of this sort.

The people that were Asian American women that were running for office.

I had never even contemplated this.

This was the furthest thing from my mind.

- "In addition to managing businesses and caring for my family, I am also involved in community work for the purpose of fighting for the rights of Asian Americans.

I encourage younger Asians to do grassroots work or to enter politics as part of the long-term community development strategy.

- Chinese American, Asian American needs to be active in the public affairs, so that from very beginning we worked very closely to help finance those willing and wanting to go into the political careers.

- Growing up, my parents wanted me to become a doctor or an engineer.

- Those are good careers.

- I am a product of the incredible investment, hopefully the good return on investment, their ROI of so many of the forward thinkers, entrepreneurs Hsing Kang, Ta-Lin, David Tsang, who have helped invest in our community has been critically important.

And of course they were visionaries.

Getting involved in politics or civic engagement was not something that was common in the Asian Pacific Islander community in Silicon Valley.

So much of it was to focus on becoming an engineer, a scientist, a doctor, a lawyer.

But we also understood the importance of being involved in our community.

And round applause to our mayor (indistinct).

(everyone applauding) - Our American community, they just don't know about Asia, they don't know about us.

Once they know you and you sincerely tell them you are contributing, you are working hard, you work with them, you have to work for the greater good.

- But we must be proactive and get into the arena and get engaged in our civic engagement and also participation.

So it's not by coincidence that I sit here before you today.

It has been decades in the making.

When I first got engaged or exposed to politics close to 20 years ago, there were so few of us that were participating and involved.

Equally important is that we see Asian Pacific Islanders not just in government but also in the highest levels of corporate boards and also sports, entertainment, Hollywood and everywhere in between.

- As an immigrant, I got a lot of benefit from what America has to offer.

For the Asian American, I always tell them that you might look like Asian, slightly different color, but you are Americans.

You're American, you should get all the right as an American.

You should deserve everything, you know, given in the Constitution America.

- President Joe Biden has signed into law a COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act.

It's aimed at protecting Asian Americans who've suffered a surge in racist attacks since the pandemic.

- And so once I start teaching, I find out there's a lot of different ethnic group in a school.

There's no Asian really as dean.

In my faculty that they're all white.

I don't think they see me as Asian woman only.

They see me as a contributing, hardworking, a good leader, a good communicator.

Doesn't matter my English still have accent.

But I believe it's not how you say it, is what you say, what you feel.

And so I think we are very fortunate we are involved in Silicon Valley.

- What's better than octopus recipe?

Eight recipes for octopus.

My grandmother gave me a family recipe.

- We knew Jen Yang's app was in the food space, but we assumed that it was camera-based.

You take a photo of food, the app returns nutritional information.

- You speak Mandarin.

Anybody?

(colleague speaking gibberish) - That's not Mandarin.

No, my app is a Seefood, like a food that you can see.

- S-E-E food.

See food.

- Now that we like.

- See for (indistinct).

- [Narrator] In Silicon Valley, anything is possible.

Some technology like one inspired by grandma's recipes.

- Okay, let's start with a hotdog.

- [Narrator] May not change the world.

We know of the ones that already have.

- And we're calling it iPhone.

(everyone applauding and cheering) Today- - [Narrator] Now recent advances bring us to the edge of the new frontier.

That can be promising as well as intimidating.

Even as innovative technological advances are endless, the same biases and attitudes that limited Morris Chang's opportunities in the eighties are still prevalent today.

- We have some new statistics that are truly hard to believe.

White men have a 260% advantage over Asian women when it comes to getting promoted to executive.

- [Reporter] Asians may dominate the workforce in Silicon Valley, but you don't find a lot of them rising to the top.

- And it doesn't surprise me.

- [Narrator] For these builders of the Silicon dream who found success rooted in the foundation of their immigrant experience, they will always be guided by the timeless principles that brought them here.

- So far we've been talking about the very old-fashioned Silicon Valley stories that has been repeated many, many times by many, many people, but they did not catch what we are trying to catch here.

The spirit to help the humanity.

We should spread the benefit to all people because that's the basis of the democracy.

- You too.

And you three are the really the mentor in, you know, being in this community of being so successful.

And what suggestions you can give to us?

- I think give them the suggestion and after that- (everyone laughing) - I follow you.

I think what we like to refer to the chancellor- - Chancellor.

- Suggestion.

- Asian family value, you are always loyal to what you do and always build the trust.

- They are not necessary smarter than the rest of us, smarter than I am.

(everyone laughing) But they are more assertive.

I think this is an ingredient that is lacking in Asian American, 'cause all of us have been taught to be humble.

Now Chinese American have been successful in their own right, but they are not successful in the corporate structure.

They are successful in being the pioneer, you know, such Hsing Kung here and Ken.

- We have no choice, but to take our responsibility from here, not only belong to America, but the lead.

- We have to assert the fact that we belong here.

We do not come here to get a free ride.

We're going to tell the Asian American stories.

- Want to go Taiwan to the best university and then graduate and then come to be a graduate student.

Of course we are more successful, but we have to be cognitive the next generation may not be.

- I don't have problem getting a B because he took my A, you know?

- I did not.

(laughs) - So, but it's okay.

Right?

I mean.

Probably I would continue to be a mentor because what I would like to do is to make those entrepreneurs successful, the younger, you know, generation entrepreneur and they would in turn help another generation entrepreneur.

- As an immigrant, come to the United States.

I think when we arrive in the United States, we always so-called melt into the this mainstream society.

Once you get involved in the community, we are trying to melt into the mainstream.

We also need to influence them.

Very diverse community.

Understand all the culture is a better community.

- My grandparents came from Armenia.

All four of them came from Armenia, and you know, they had to work, you know, in low skill jobs.

And then my parents' generation went to college and that allowed me to be where I am today.

You know, that's one of the great things about America.

- I think with all the abundance we have in that country, as long as we are given the, what I call the equal, level playing field, you should have as much opportunity as anybody else, including immigrants.

(Cathy speaking in foreign language) - You know he used to work at the country club back east.

- The Los (indistinct) country?

- No, Los (indistinct).

No, 'cause he went to school back east initially before going to BYU.

He actually had to earn.

Yeah, he had to earn his own tuition.

And so he would just go around telling people that he could cook even when he couldn't.

- He'd just show up and be like, yes.

- He's like, "I'm applying for this position."

And I remember why go was saying like, "Oh, I didn't have any experience," but he's like, "How do I gain experience except to do?"

He was fired, right?

He was fired.

- He got fired.

- 'Cause he actually couldn't cook.

You know, he just learned and eventually he actually got a job that he kept- - The second one.

- The second one, yeah.

So that just speaks to kind of, you know how Michael does things.

It's like, it's okay to fail, right?

You just have to keep trying and just keep doing it, yeah.

- 'Cause my mom talked to me, she told me that she told Michael not to open up Alexander's.

- No, (speaking in foreign language), I remember (speaking in foreign language).

Like, why would you do that?

You have no experience.

Why would you even begin to think you want to invest in something like this?

It's so hard to open up any kind of restaurant.

- What separates dad from everyone else?

He was a real risk taker.

Most people are not risk takers.

Like, you know, Mr.

Tsang was.

(gentle music) (Cathy speaking in foreign language) - Yeah, but you know, he did everything he wanted to do.

So he was happy.

I mean, of course he would spend more time with you because he lived his life always, you know, with his own purpose and you always support him so he can spend his time doing all the things he loved.

Today, I'm sure he's, you know, looking down very content.

"Life is a learning process that doesn't end.

- [David And Elain] It is a blessing to be able to absorb new knowledge and accept changes at an old age.

- [David] And at the same time remain cool, calm and collected while the world around you is changing.

Be content with what you have and you will always find happiness.

These words of wisdom are easy to understand, but hard to put into practice.

I often thought I knew myself well, but found myself unable to perform up to par.

In the end, I was not able to strip off the cover of hypocrisy.

- "Self-realization is not easy to achieve, but it is even more difficult to act on one's awareness.

I wish to share with students this revelation of mine.

- [Crew Member] Wow.

- [Ta-Lin] Even at my age, I encounter adversity all the time.

I never lose the drive to fight, to endure, not to give up, because I remember that little boy in Pingtung who still believes in a brighter future.

Let us build a future where we use technology to enhance humanity rather than diminish it.

Success or failure on life is not measured by how much you wealth you generated.

It is on how much you have impacted the world.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by: Synopsys, From Silicon to Software; Freshfields global law firm.