OK, great!

Maybe ask some questions around... Can I get a picture with you? Is it possible?

Thank you so much for your time. Actually I’m heading to InnoVEX right now, but I’d love to keep in contact.

What are these other cruises called?

Pursuing, OK. Even the people who are now involved in our STEEP community, a lot of them have previously participated in programs like these. That was the reason why they fell in love with Taiwan in the first place, and then they’re still really actively involved. So something like that ...

Yeah.

Is there something similar like that for tech? Attracting back-tech talent, coming back to either mentor, advise, or even explore Taiwanese ecosystem.

That’s cool. I think I am running out of questions. Have you heard of a program called Love Boat?

Fascinating. This is the opposite of what I originally had in mind, which is getting a bunch of successful entrepreneurs who write letters to their younger self to inspire future generations. This might be much more interesting read as well or both can work, yeah.

Circling back to how people who may not be first entrepreneurs or people who are highly successful, they can come and experiment their ideas in Taiwan.

In a while. This is common in different countries?

That is the coolest thing I’ve heard.

"A new twist on the Ponzi scheme."

Sweet.

What is a sandbox act?

Just a lot more content generation, the more easy access?

What is everyone’s role? Obviously, the Taiwanese mafia resources capital connections, but people who are first-time entrepreneurs or people who are just working, how can they contribute to making Taiwanese innovations and entrepreneurs much more connected, and accelerate their path?

I’m absorbing. [laughs] I think that’s understandable. There’s a really large focus right now, I guess, on Southeast Asia, as well. I want to circle back to my point earlier about everyone on the spectrum of the diaspora that wants to help.

Because there’s a lot of data needs in these traditional semiconductor firms.

That’s why I asked that question. Do you think there’s interesting sectors that Taiwan has that has that competitive edge or?

I guess the point of my question really is to find an area of focus that Taiwan can excel at, compared to rest of Asia, rest of world, where they can compete and win. It seems like the similar model would be like Ireland or Israel, where the population size ...

Why couldn’t they hire that under their original NGO?

It seems like the likelihood for global businesses for Taiwan will be dependent on how advanced the technology is of a company because Taiwan is so small? Do you agree or disagree?

...or LinkedIn. They can categorize my location, which is super easy. I remember only seeing 900 startup companies. That just can’t be real. Do you know how many startups are or technology startups are in Taiwan?

That’s cool. Last time I searched AngelList or Crunchbase, I forgot which ones...

In the US, we have Crunchbase or an AngelList, where every and all the startups are on. Is there a push to encourage Taiwanese startups also to get on to those platforms?

It’s just a matter of finding more of those, I suppose.

Built a product that was cool and then realizes his weakness was language skills and being able to sell his company. He found a co-founder that was doing that exactly. They were able to do well.

I agree. Language definitely is one of the biggest issue that we run up against whenever companies are pitching in the US. I saw one team do this pretty smartly. One of the original founder is Taiwanese genius coder essentially.

There’s really a lot of incongruence and...

Sorry, can you say that again?

Just because it’s entirely different market, entirely different language, culture, etc.

That’s true. From interacting with a lot of Taiwanese startups is it seems like the highest chance for success for a company from Taiwan to migrate to the US is they would need to find a really solid partner in the US, and then tackle the US market together, versus ...

Yeah. That’s interesting. Then you have to...claiming to be Taiwanese is Taiwanese, then there’s not necessarily the cultural ties, unless you just suddenly assume all of those identities.

Yeah, I was going to say, it’s a very philosophical question.

Self-identified Taiwanese person.

Which is?

Is there a place for every single person on the spectrum, do you think?

There is a whole spectrum of different types of people who want to be involved. There is, "The Taiwanese Mafia" in Silicon Valley, who are very, very impressive and has all the resources connections. Then, there’s people who are first time entrepreneurs, the people who are working in industry and ...

All right, what we’ve done, obviously, is raising a fund, we’re investing in companies. We’re creating opportunities for entrepreneurs with similar cultural backgrounds, so you could get in touch with each other, so that they can share resources.

Yeah, OK. That’s just my naming problem. [laughs]

Yeah, so I’m segmenting my Diaspora, too, yeah.

We could include that.

Or Singapore, yeah, that’s true. I don’t really know how to address this question either. I’m asking you. Obviously, my starting angle is supporting this community, but adding the business angle complicates a lot of things because we want to maximize ROI. There’re various factors that is very close and ...

It’s interesting, one question that I always come up against when I talk to people about STEEP is how do we navigate the political context of if you’re only supporting Taiwanese entrepreneurs, and you’re like closing off a lot of business opportunities, potential business opportunity for us as a fund, ...

This is similar. Yeah.

Just people who have been there long enough.

You mentioned there are different groups in Silicon Valley, the Silicon Valley Angels. Who else is doing something similar and what is kind of like...?

I think across all those communities are potential people that could be cofounders or the first one or two hires of some of these Taiwanese companies that are coming. We’re really trying to cultivate a space where people know that this is where they can go to actually get resources, ...

I am thinking about this as a possible platform to also congregate all the Taiwanese American entrepreneurs to really help foster unity. It seems like our Taiwanese American communities are many of many. There’s a lot of different pockets of community organizing.