Let me just save that. Let me ask a little bit about the US political system a little bit more. How long did you spend in the US?

It’s contemporaneous with the period that you’re in Germany. It’s not necessarily something you’re learning from the people that you’re father’s interviewing?

Back to Germany for a second. You’ve said that you began to get involved in hacking culture there, in Germany, among exiles. Can you talk a little bit...?

What program is this that you’re using?

Why do you think the law is silly?

You do?

After your stint in public sectors?

Would you ever start another business after you get through? I read somewhere it said you consider yourself retired, but could you see yourself going back into consulting? You don’t do any consulting right at this moment, do you?

You said you wrote some pieces of software for them for...

What was the name of it?

On the publishing house that you’re involved in from ’95 to ’97, you mentioned it started with publishing books, and then became publishers for software.

Not in US dollars?

In one of the interviews somebody said something about you being a millionaire. You said, "Well, not if you calculate it in Europe. If you calculate it in dollars."

I read you got paid a Bitcoin an hour. Is that true?

[laughs] Got you. Of the startups that you were involved in, which was the most lucrative? Was it Socialtext, in the end?

You were 15, right? I wanted to double‑check the age when you started the search engine for Mandarin lyrics.

If there was somebody, let’s say there was a kid, a 12‑, 13‑year‑old kid said, "I want to do what Minister Tang’s doing," you would recommend the same path?

You don’t have a diploma from either one?

Let’s talk about school a little bit more. Any regrets about not finishing high school or that process of dropping out of school? Do you feel like it was a good way for you to learn?

Is that the thing that struck you most about their stories, or was there something else?

Which is a illusion?

In what way? What were the lessons that you took away from it or the things that you learned from it?

How formative an experience was that, listening to the exiles?

In the living room, and people came in and talked...

Where did these conversations take place? Is this at home?

Yeah, I see what you’re saying. At 11, you’re in Germany. Can you talk a little bit more? I wanted to get a little bit more detail about the process of listening to the exiles that your father was interviewing from Tiananmen.

Can you walk me through a little bit of the specifics of what that involve, what that means? I can’t quite picture about what you mean when you’re talking about programming.

Maybe we can talk a little bit about a couple of biographical follow‑ups from some of this. You said at age eight you’ve talked about how you were doing programming on paper. You’ve talked about this in a bunch of interviews.

I see what you’re saying.

Because you feel it hasn’t been clearly articulated, or because you haven’t...?

You think he’ s a good communicator. What about policy? What about policymaker?

You did? Like what?

[laughs] He’s good at using Twitter. You think he’s an effective communicator?

What do you think about Trump in general? What are your impressions of him? Supporter, not supporter?

You never talk about politics?

But your friends care, and you’re talking to people. You’re out to dinner with people.

In an abstract sense you’d care?

As a citizen, as an observer of politics in general, you don’t care one way or another?

As a conservative anarchist you care about the existing system, right?

You don’t care about...?

You don’t talk to anybody about it?

In the wake of the reaffirmation of the One China Policy from President Trump, among people that you talk to here, has that felt like a betrayal?

I mean as a citizen, as a person.

What do you think about the call itself and the reaction to the call? Was it successful diplomacy, do you think?

[laughs]

I wanted to ask a little bit more about politics and diplomacy. What did you make of President Tsai’s call with Trump during the transition period?

In terms of redacting the names?

I’m not an expert on this particular issue, but as I understand it the counter worry is that it would affect the privacy of victims, the privacy of, maybe, former security officials, or things like that.

You think if that passes, that will make things easier?

I know some friends who are historians have complained. They said they’ve been somewhat disappointed about ‑‑ they’re talking about writing about transitional justice issues ‑‑ getting access to some of the early materials. They haven’t had the access that they’ve wished.