Speaker 3 0:04

At six Lin's world was uprooted as his father rushed him to flee what was becoming communist China. At 16, he was left to start over in a new country with just$600, but what he built from there is extraordinary.

Speaker 0:24

This is the Your Next Success podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Caroline Sangal I'm a life first career coach and strategist on a mission to normalize questioning your career because I believe each of us is made on purpose for a purpose only we can fulfill. The longer we live out of alignment with who we are, what we do best, and why we are here, the more we miss out. And the more the world misses out on what only we can give. The Your Next Success Podcast is where we explore how to build a career that truly fuels your life. We talk about self-discovery, smart job, search strategies, professional growth, and you'll hear stories from people who have navigated big career transitions themselves, so you can create a life, first career and become your own version of authentic success.

Speaker 3 1:21

My guest today is Lin Wu, author of Destination Silicon Valley from Broom Shop to Supercomputer. Lin worked his way through school, studied engineering, went on to help build some of the fastest computers of the early Silicon Valley era. Later he founded a company that was acquired by Toshiba and navigated multiple reinventions, including four retirements. In this episode, you'll hear Lin's story, beginning with his childhood shaped by sudden displacement and continuing through decades of rebuilding, discipline and deliberate decision making on his way to his authentic success. We follow Lin's path through engineering school, early industry roles, Silicon Valley startups, leadership transitions, and repeated reinvention. We also explore how he approached planning across seasons of life. Why he chose industry over academia, how he moved from technical work into management, and how retirement became something he entered, exited, and redefined multiple times. This is a conversation about building a life through focus, endurance, and clear-eyed choices.

Caroline Sangal 2:37

Welcome Lin to Your Next Success. I am so very excited to be speaking with you today.

Lin Wu's IPhone 2:45

Thank you. I'm happy to participate. I've been looking forward to this as well.

Caroline Sangal 2:50

Awesome. Well, we are gonna get into a lot of amazing things about your journey. You've written this awesome book, I devoured it over the weekend, and I'm so excited that you have documented a lot of your story. It says, Destination Silicon Valley from Broom Shop to Supercomputer. So we're gonna get into all this amazing parts of the conversation and I am just thrilled that you shared your story with such detail. I've got lots of questions and I'm looking forward to hearing even more about it

Lin Wu's IPhone 3:26

That sounds good.

Caroline Sangal 3:28

Okay. So let's go way back at the very beginning. tell us where were you born? Where would, where did you first start out, in life and how was that for you?

Lin Wu's IPhone 3:42

Well, I was born in Beijing, that's the capital city of China. I was born in 1942. In 1949, the communists come in and we were, uh, considered to be wealthy people. My father was a very famous doctor, he was a first man that brought X-ray, to China, and that really, uh, helped him to get his business going. And he saw so many patients with tuberculosis. He helped them and he grew the business, so he actually owned two hospitals.

Caroline Sangal 4:20

Wow. One in Beijing, one in Tianjin and it was at that time I was about six, uh, to 7-year-old when the communist start coming in from Nigeria and they're going to be coming in to Beijing just within days. My father, one day just decided that it's time that he takes me away and ran away from the attack of the Communist Liberation Army. So, he took me and his youngest, wife, who is the number three wife, and I was born by number two wives. So he, my own mother did not get to come out. My dad took me and the youngest wife to Taiwan. I was in Taiwan for about 10 years until I was 16. So that was what was happening and all that happened so quickly. When I left Beijing, I had no idea where we're going, what, what's gonna happen, whether I'm going to ever see my mother again and as it turned out, I, uh, lost track of her communication for 29 years. Wow. Wow. Okay, so but pre six years old, before you left, what was your life like?

Lin Wu's IPhone 5:37

I was this young kid, but I was, you know, doing well. But then, um, I had asthma, the northern wind in China was very severe and my asthma was very serious since my father was a doctor, so he moved me into a, uh, obsolete operating room so that it has the right air filter and temperature and everything that's, I stayed there for about nine months, uh, like a long-term patient. I could not come out the room because I would wheeze when I come out, so I was seriously under asthma attack. And, and then, um, when my dad decided to take me out of there to leave, um, I still had asthma with me, so everything has to be very, very careful. I can't stand any cold weather or any, uh, rigorous movement.

Caroline Sangal 6:29

Wow.

Lin Wu's IPhone 6:30

I was a pretty sick child.

Caroline Sangal 6:34

When you were in that, uh, operating room that had been converted into being your room and, you're not allowed to leave the room, but what did you do were you just in the room by yourself or,

Lin Wu's IPhone 6:47

No, we, we actually, my, my dad actually had a, uh, male nurse who kind of take care of me, he basically lived with me 24 hours a day. Mr. Wong, he was probably in his late twenties and, he take care of me and at that time, I'm most interested is listening to books. Sometime I learn how to read a little bit, but I don't read very well yet, so he reads a lots, a lot of, uh, novels to me, and I was fascinated with it. I always ask him to read me more.

Caroline Sangal 7:20

Interesting. What kind of stories did you like the best?

Lin Wu's IPhone 7:23

Well, it's, it's mostly about a Chinese Kung Fu master about, you know, what they do, uh, different kind of, uh, parties fighting with each other and all the intricate stories, uh, between them. So I was fascinated by them.

Caroline Sangal 7:41

And I, I wonder even at that age, did you ever think you're gonna write your own book of your own story?

Lin Wu's IPhone 7:47

No way.

Caroline Sangal 7:49

Okay, so then all of a sudden you just are told that you are leaving?

Lin Wu's IPhone 7:56

Well, just this one morning in January, it was probably a sub-zero temperature. So cold, you know, Beijing is kind of like, uh, Montreal in in Canada. It's so cold. And my dad just came in the room one day and, uh, he says, uh, think called my full name Chun Lin it's time to get up, I'm gonna take you away, we're going to the airport. He told Mr. Wong, he says, um, he called him Wong, uh, dress Chun Lin warmly and cover his mouth and give him this warm leather hat and we're gonna go to the airport. So that's what happened, so I didn't know where we're going, and Mr. Wong dressed me and then, uh, Mr. Wong carried me, to a shelter car was waiting for us outside and then my dad sit next to me and then, uh, we, we finally, uh, went pick up a couple more people. One of them was my third mother, the youngest mother, she was very, very young, she was a, a nurse, training nurse in the hospital. She was very beautiful and then my dad fell in love with her. So, uh, he decided that he wanted to take the youngest wife and the youngest son, son is more important than family and I was young because, you know, it's easier for me to adapt to what's going on. So, uh, the two of us and then there also brought another young girl, sort of like being on my companion. She was two years older than me, her name was Yu-Shiu. So the three of us, um, you know, went with my dad and, uh, that was my new family, but I, I didn't realize that until I was on the road after a while trying then when I finally figured out what, this is gonna be my family probably for a long time, uh, and of course I was scared.

Caroline Sangal 9:59

Absolutely. And now, had you ever been on an airplane before?

Lin Wu's IPhone 10:02

No, it was a, it was a, a military airplane. It was gray and, uh, they don't have that much accommodations in there, just seats there in, in two rows. They strapped you in and then take off, it was the old propeller.

Caroline Sangal 10:20

And was it bumpy? Yeah.

Lin Wu's IPhone 10:22

Yeah, it was bumpy but I was, I wasn't that afraid.

Caroline Sangal 10:28

Wow. Okay. And so when did it sink in that you weren't going back?

Lin Wu's IPhone 10:35

Well, slowly as we go a long way, we went to one, one city, which is Tsingtao. It's about two hours flight from Beijing near the seaport and then we stayed there for about a month and we went to Shanghai. We stayed there for a couple more months and finally we went to Taiwan, where the, which is really our destination.'Cause Taiwan is an island. Once you're there, it's very hard for a communist to attack, so the nationalists all went to Taiwan and the rich people all went to Taiwan, the highly educated people also went there. So I think somewhere along the way I kind of figured out this is my new family. Uh, I never asked my dad since it was in my family tradition that, uh, you just don't ask, you know, you do whatever your parents tell you. So I never really asked him what's going on, I kind of figure out slowly that this is my new mother, this is my new sister, and you know, that's, that's it.

Caroline Sangal 11:42

Yeah. And, okay, so then in Taiwan, how was that as far as like, what did you, did you get to have fun or was it just only studying? What, what happened there?

Lin Wu's IPhone 11:51

Well, so I had asthma, so I start attending first grade, but after a month I had to quit because my asthma was still very serious then, uh, I went back again second grade, I didn't make it either, so I was basically, uh, disabled until about the third grade and then I start going back to elementary school and uh, my asthma slowly was getting better. Taiwan is a much warmer place. It's a, it's an island in the subtropical area, so, uh, it was, it was very pleasant and asthma, you know, breathing is easier, we don't have big winters. So by the time I got to fifth grade, um, I was start, start developing into puberty and my asthma seemed to be getting behind me. So I start playing ping pong and start playing basketball and by time I got to sixth grade I was a, a pretty good athlete in terms of playing balls, basketball. So, uh, I was a pretty healthy, then we have to take a national exam across Taiwan, trying to figure out what's the best school you can get into and I, I was kind of self-study quite a bit also, and I got into the, uh, finest public high school. It's really a junior high then it moved us into senior high, so from seventh grade on, uh, it was probably the golden years of my life, I loved the school, I loved the sports, and I, uh, even participated in a 800 meter race for all school, um, in ninth grade and I ended up winning the, uh, top prize. So I become, I become an athlete. It was from, uh, you know, asthma boy to to be an athlete, that was quite a story.

Caroline Sangal 13:45

and it was like you observed, this is, this is so fascinating about you. So you, realized that you're kind of growing outta asthma and then you just decided you wanted to try this race, try this new thing out. You observed some of the other people running and then you just kept doing it. I think you talked about, uh, different practice times people like to do and then when you, uh, did it. But tell a little bit more about that'cause I was, there's just so many fascinating parts of your memoir.

Lin Wu's IPhone 14:14

So, we have kind of a, a, a very special coach. He teaches running and he go and pick out the kids in the school and make them the track team and one of the kid, his name is, Little Bear. He's a very tall kid and his brother was a basketball star in the school, so they're all traditionally athletes and, um, I wasn't thinking about running at all, I was just playing basketball all the time, but because I played a lot of basketball, I think I in pretty good condition. So I kind of said maybe I should try to run. So then I watch Little Bear how he practices, he had no idea I was watching because I was not part of the team and then at night I would go and buy some track shoes, I go to the, uh, athlete field, I would start trying to do some running and practice, I do that every night about two months before the track meet and finally, you know, the meet came, he was clearly the favorite, you know, heavy bets was on him. And I, there's a whole bunch of kids were all running. I just kind of follow him, and then I decided if I can just follow him to the end, I at least get a number two. So, but then in the end, I just start taking off and I beat him right to the line, so everybody in the school was shocked, so am I, that was what happened.

Caroline Sangal 15:50

maybe that was one of the first times that you realized I can set a goal, I can be curious and see how it goes, and if so long as I keep going, I will win.

Lin Wu's IPhone 16:02

Well, I, I guess I continue my bloodstream that I, I was pretty competitive. I didn't know until at that point and after that I was, uh, into a lot of sports, school was important, but I was living a pretty balanced life. I was into sports, I went to writing, I went to a lot of extra curriculum activities, I was also into broadcasting.

Caroline Sangal 16:27

Oh, that's cool, and then what happened?

Lin Wu's IPhone 16:31

Well, when I was 16, one day my dad just talked to me, he says, you know, it's time I'm gonna bring you to the United States. So, uh, I had no idea that it's gonna happen and my dad's always, he make a decision, he wanna make it happen right away. He doesn't really tell anybody else. So he says, you're gonna leave in three days, I already got the tickets here, I'm gonna bring you to USA, um, have Yi, my number three mother, uh, I call her Yi, help you to pack, make it simple. You can only just bring a small suitcase, we're gonna leave in three days, so, uh I was really shocked because at that time I was a teenager, I have a lot of friends. I have three other boys who are very, very close, you know, knitted with me as a group and I, my dad told me not to tell anyone. He said, Yi will go to the school officials and tell them that you are quitting, quitting school, withdrawal and then, uh, but I secretly went to my three friends and I told them that I'm leaving for United States and they were all very sad, but they kind of, they recovered a little bit and one of them said, well, when you go, make sure you write to us, we wanna see that in Chinese and then you put the stamp on there. So, uh, we know we get a letter from you, it'll be stamped already from USA, those stamps are very rare. Another kid says, well, after two years, you're gonna have an American girlfriend and, and we wanna see if you can prove it. So you take a picture with her holding her hands, the picture. So that was the last thing I remember that I laughed in tears with my friends.

Caroline Sangal 18:31

Did you send them letters? Did you ever get that opportunity?

Lin Wu's IPhone 18:33

Yeah, we, we keep track of each other quite a bit, later on, one of those three actually came to USA many, many years later, like 20 years later, and stay in my house for three months.

Caroline Sangal 18:46

Oh wow.

Lin Wu's IPhone 18:47

And I saw a second one as well later on in Taiwan, but when you really keep up, uh, all the time, it's kind of lost track of each other after so many years.

Caroline Sangal 18:56

I mean, and it wasn't as easy But still, it's amazing that you were able to keep up with some of those formative friendships. Okay, so you're told you're gonna go to the US and now your dad had gone to school here?

Lin Wu's IPhone 19:11

Yeah, he actually, has a master degree, well, he has an MD in China and then got his master degree later on at University of Chicago and then he also went to, uh, Switzerland, Zurich, he was in a medical school over there for postgraduate, so he's all over the world and he speaks several languages fluently. German, English, Japanese, and Chinese fluently. So he just brought me to LA and, you know, I, I, when I first got over here, I couldn't believe how clean the streets are, how it just, all cars, there's no, there's no bicycles, no ped, no nothing, just automobiles and I, I love it and, but then, uh, about a week later, um, my dad took me to see a guardian, Dr. Nelson. She's, well, she was old friend from, we attended WHO, World Health Organization. I don't think they know each other well, but my dad did get them to agree that they'd be my guardian. So, then my dad just left me there with, uh, Dr. Nelson and his wife, Dorothy and he left and he gave me$600 in US dollars, six$100 bill. He says, you know, this is for you to spend, I did not know if that was the last money I'm gonna receive, he did not tell me anything. Uh, so from that point on, it's the start of my journey in America, and I really started my memoir from that day on, then I went back and I write all the rest because a lot of people read my stuff. This is, I don't wanna know what happened in the past, so I did that. But my journey really started, the exciting part was when I arrived in the United States at 16, I was an immigrant, I had, I really ended up with no money, I have no family, no friends, no language, but it worked out okay.

Caroline Sangal 21:22

Well, it did. It really did. But I think that's, I don't know, perseverance, luck. I mean, in one part you say you thought maybe some of this stuff was predestined, you just had to be open to the opportunity, but it, it was fascinating, right? Because I think, I recall Mrs. Nelson, uh, was a Seventh Day Adventist, very religious, and then they didn't eat meat also. So you're in a new country, new cultural, new food, and that change was, uh, significant for you, but then somehow she had connections at a high school that was also, uh, run by the Seventh Day Adventist. So tell a little bit, uh, more about that part of your story.

Lin Wu's IPhone 22:07

So when I got to Los Angeles, Mrs. Nelson, uh, was a wonderful lady. She started teaching me English and I started working in the summer, uh, getting a summer job. I had no idea what, what working was like, I always know how to study, but I didn't know how to work. Dr. Nelson found me a job to be a dishwasher, and I did that job and, and, uh, I survived, saved a little money, then in September they put me into a Seventh Day Adventist school, it's called the Newbury Park Academy. It was in, um, just little bit south of, uh, Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. It's a beautiful school. We have 500 acres of land.

Caroline Sangal 22:53

Oh wow.

Lin Wu's IPhone 22:53

We have a farm and a, uh, poultry, and there's like, uh, 500 kids there. It's a boarding school, boys and girls. So, uh, they took me there and then, uh, quickly they let me there basically, nobody said I was really on my own, but I guess turned out I was, um, within a month or two, my money was running out because the school charged me$200 per month for the tuition, room and board. And I thought maybe after I pay a month or two, my dad would send more money, he never did send me money and I thought maybe Dr. Nelson would help me with connecting with my dad, they never call me and tell me anything, I was afraid to ask, I was a little embarrassed to ask, maybe that's more that and so I had to figure out what to do. I do have a kind of a part-time job, clean the bathroom and the chapel and all that stuff, but they only pay 50 cents an hour, I figure out I need to make$2 an hour working 20, 30 hours a week to make ends meet. Otherwise, I would run out of money, there's no nothing in the school that would pay that much. So I wander around and around and finally find out that there's a broom shop. That's why the name of my memoir, there was a broom shop that's basically they only hire grown up people, turned out they were all illegal immigrants from Mexico. Mexicans come in, man in their 25, 30 range, big guys, they work in the broom shop, they make brooms. So finally I got myself into the broom shop, um, by navigating myself, uh, from the beginning as a, a person washed the corn and dyed the corn, and finally end up as a broom stitcher that paid by piece time, which means it depends how many broom I make instead of by the hour. So I was able to become a very skillful broom stitcher, I, uh, on the ladder, uh, every week they post like, how many broom you stitch, where you are in the ladder. I finally made number three out like 20 stitchers, and I was making two dollars an hour, so by then I know I was home free because I could afford everything for the tuition, room and board and I could just get to high school. So, uh, that was kind of the struggle phase.

Caroline Sangal 25:37

It's amazing though, because you, and you also had to end up taking classes that were not only in a foreign language, but foreign concepts, right? Because you had talked the math came easy to you because you had already had, so much schooling, so much math, but English was a different language and then, religion class since it was part of this Seventh Day Adventist, but this was all new for you. So, I'm curious, did you have, did your family have a faith tradition in China and in Taiwan? Like how different was this Seventh Day Adventist experience for you?

Lin Wu's IPhone 26:19

My dad did not have any religion, he would go to a temple once or twice a year. we worship our ancestors during New Year time, but basically it's more of a tradition rather than a religion, so we were pretty non-religious. So Newbury Park, Seventh Adventist was a very new experience. Uh, it was in fact shocking, uh, our Sabbath is from Friday evening to Saturday evening, in that 24 hours, in my memoir, I stated there were seven worship different things.

Caroline Sangal 26:53

Yeah.

Lin Wu's IPhone 26:54

You go to the seminar, you go to, the big open worship hour and, and all that. There's seven different things basically. Uh, it was, we were just overwhelmed. Well, I was overwhelmed with religious activities and then we also, of course, have to take, uh, a lot of religious classes. We cannot dance, we do roller skates, we cannot see movies, we have the vegetarian food. So they're just very different than what I was used to. So when I graduated, I decided that, you know, I don't really want to stay in the Seventh Adventist track. If I wanna be in medicine, I could go to Loma Linda eventually, but I decided I, I always wanted to go to Princeton. So I decided I need to get, become a, a bigger fish in a bigger ocean to slip the Seventh Adventist environment, it's too narrow.

Caroline Sangal 27:52

How did Princeton come on your radar?

Lin Wu's IPhone 27:56

Oh, actually it was sort of like a dream because when we were in Taiwan, I was in a really good school, all the kids talk about, uh, going to university and then eventually come to graduate school at the Ivy League school, so the top ones were Harvard, Yale, Princeton, then I studied a little bit on my own. I love the location of Princeton, it's in New Jersey, it's in the country, and they're surrounded by forest, they have beautiful highways and hindsight was teaching there, have a great science school. So, uh, it's just like a dream if I would, could attend Princeton. So I just kind of decided I want to go there. Of course, I never made it there.

Caroline Sangal 28:43

But, and then how did you decide, because you applied to another school as well, so how, how did that other school come on your radar?

Lin Wu's IPhone 28:51

Uh, I really didn't have any choices because I, when I graduated from Newbury Park Academy, nobody, there's no counselor advisor help me to apply to a college, all they said was, you can go to the Seventh Adventist track. There were three, La Sierra College, Pacific Union College, and Walla Walla College, they're all in the west coast. Um, if I don't wanna go there, nobody talks to me. It was kind of sad that nobody really advised me about my career opportunity in their school. So I did all that by myself, but then I had Princeton, I applied, didn't make it, and then, um, my dad's friend told me there's another school called Drexel there in Philadelphia. It's a kind of a second tier technical college. You know, I, I figured maybe I have a better shot at it. So it was the only college I applied and they took me, so that's what happened.

Caroline Sangal 29:54

And not only did they take you, they gave you a full scholarship.

Lin Wu's IPhone 29:57

They did, they gave me a full scholarship. I actually, I actually graduated pretty good in Newbury Park. I think I was on the top, uh, 15% or something, out of a hundred kids. So, um, they gave me a scholarship and I went to Drexel, the reason I went there is it is a co-op program instead of college for four years, it's five years. So, uh, I would study six months and go to work in the industry for six months. So, uh, that would allow me to make money when I work for the industry to come back for the pay for the school that would more in school we don't have to work as much, that seemed like a really reasonable thing for me. So, uh, I applied to Drexel, they took me, so that's how I got in.

Caroline Sangal 30:46

Yeah. And it was amazing and then the full scholarship, of course, uh, you found, didn't pay for the, the rooming didn't pay for books. So then all of a sudden you're having to take this broom shop money that you had earned and start applying it right away. But then even when you got your co-op job, you are quite fortunate because you ended up working for, uh, Kodak at the time, right? And so you had such a fascinating experience to get to see inside some of the largest companies of how they work, but tell a little bit about your Drexel experience and then the, the Kodak times.

Lin Wu's IPhone 31:29

Well, at Drexel, like we first year we're freshmen, we just study. Uh, of course I didn't have enough money. So I end up working in the, as a waiter in the girls dormitory waiting on, uh, girls tables. There's a very beautiful girl's dormitory, so the girls, uh, lived there. They, the room and board. So they, uh, I applied for a job there just to be a waiter, and I took the, they took me so we would serve the girls their breakfast and dinner, and in lieu of that, we get two big meals. We get to eat breakfast and dinner. It was just delicious because I, living Newbury Park, I was vegetarian for so many years. When I got over there, I, I can smell the food, I can smell the, the roast chicken, the turkey, and it was just such a wonderful time, working was nothing, I mean, easy to serve the girls. So I learned that very quickly. So year two, we start going to an industry. Most of my friends are going to RCA, General Electric, or Westinghouse within 20 miles, but I was not a citizen and you cannot go to those electronic companies that have a lot of security clearance situations. So, uh, the dean of the school, decided to send me to Kodak. He asked me whether I wanna go to Kodak, it's 400 miles away. I said, why come 3000 miles from, from the west coast and 10,000 miles from China? Of course, 400 miles is nothing. So I end up in Kodak and it was an eyeopener, Kodak. Kodak at the time was, you know, Fortune 500, probably top 100. They have 50 big buildings, they have a railroad going in there connected to the Lake Erie and they have underground, uh, paper pulp factories there. The whole building's underground is basement. It's all full of paper pulps, it's so huge, it's like 10 sides of a Olympic swimming pool. And I was just fascinated by what's going on. So I was lucky to work for Kodak.

Caroline Sangal 33:51

And then tell a little bit about the job that you, that you had there.

Lin Wu's IPhone 33:55

The job was pretty simple, just help the engineers to do experiment in the dark room, printing, duplicating. Later on, got a, uh, a job we're trying to, compete with Xerox, uh, but using Kodak's wet chemistry. It never worked. You know, a lot of the Xerox stuff were done by laser later on, so Kodak was a kinda wet chemistry. It just did not compete, but we were kind of bullhead and they really wanted to compete. So, uh, they used me as, uh, like a technician doing all the experiment in the dark room. I didn't learn very much, but in the evenings I had a lot of time. So we have a Kodak works that do the camera. So I learned a lot about photography on my own. It's kind of an employee benefit. I went to take classes and then I bought cameras there and took a lot of pictures, then I, I learned how to make movies, so, uh, that become very interesting.

Caroline Sangal 34:59

And a fun hobby too, right?

Lin Wu's IPhone 35:01

Pleasant rest of my life. Yeah.

Caroline Sangal 35:02

Yeah, and that served you well a couple years after that if I, if I recall to, to have that experience of photography, the experience of, uh, movies. Okay. So you're at Kodak, for your co-op, and then you come back, I think you had two, co-op, times there at Kodak.

Lin Wu's IPhone 35:22

Yes, two, six months.

Caroline Sangal 35:24

Yeah and then you decided to leave Drexel and go somewhere else. How did that thought even come into your universe?

Lin Wu's IPhone 35:37

Well, Drexel was, uh, kind of a, i, I, I hate to use this word, but kind of like a second tier middle Atlantic school. All the kids are around the East coast, you know, from New York down to maybe Maryland. It's not international, so, uh, it doesn't have the reputation like an Ivy League school. I still wanna go to Princeton. I didn't get into Princeton, uh, but third year I decided I should try something else. And my dad, so coming back to United States, he actually was in New York again, so I said maybe I should try this other Ivy League school, it's called Columbia University. It was everything, Columbia was everything Princeton is not. It's in the middle of the city, it's in Manhattan. The campus is right next to Harlem. It was just lots of building there, although the campus itself was quite nice, so I tried it, but by then, um, my, my grades were very, very good. I had a very good, studymate, Steve He and I studied together and we were really, really good partners. So we were like close, he was almost like the top of the class number three or number five out of 800 kids and I was probably number 25. So by then my school, my grades were so high, I walked in Columbia and they interviewed me, they took me right away and they gave me another scholarship. So, after third year, I transferred to Columbia, I finished there and uh, then I went on to get a master's degree as well then in Columbia.

Caroline Sangal 37:21

and along the way I think you ended up well wait, was it at Kodak? That you got a car somewhere? You got a car from, from somewhere.

Lin Wu's IPhone 37:28

I got my first car in Kodak, it was my first year there. I've always wanted to buy a car. Okay. I mean, I mean, all the young kids, you know, you wanna have your own car. Uh, so I was probably 19. Um, I got paid after the first month, I figured out that I need to put away so much money, uh, for tuition, but whatever money that left, which isn't a lot, I said I could just go ahead, learn how to drive a car. So I decided to go into the yellow page and find out private teachers, um, you know, we don't have high school education at that time, teacher all to drive, so do my own. So I hired myself a coach. So I met Mr. Fan and, and he had an old Buick. So he says, I'll teach you for six hours, I believe you will get a license. So, uh, every Saturday after work, I would go meet him in downtown Rochester and he would teach me how to drive, so after six hours, he's asking, you are ready. So I went to take the test and I passed. So, uh, I said, well, maybe it's time I should get a car while my class, uh, roommate, uh, office mate, approach me quietly says, I have a second car, Lin. His name is Joe, he says, if you're interested in, I'll show it to you. So he showed to me in the parking lot, it was a 55 Ford. Uh, I didn't realize it was a stick shift, but as it turned out it was, and I didn't know how to, I didn't learn how to do that. So he drove the car to my apartment and left there on the street and he says, okay, here it is. So, uh, next day I tried to drive the car, I couldn't do it because that stick shift. So I slowly had to learn that on my own, but I, you know, I did it. So that was my first car.

Caroline Sangal 39:35

That's amazing though to, to just a, again, you, you kind of like made a decision. You reached that, you find the, the tools to be able to help you do that, and then you just do it maybe kind of like your dad a little bit. You make a decision and now you're just gonna go take the action

Lin Wu's IPhone 39:51

Yeah. Yeah.

Caroline Sangal 39:52

Somewhere along the way, and I, I forget exactly when it lined up, but you were invited to go to take this like European trip and they wanted you to be the driver and to take the photographs and, and some movies of that when, when was that time? Is it right around like the Columbia time? Right?

Lin Wu's IPhone 40:15

Yeah, it's right around when I graduated, uh, when I ended up third year in Drexel transferring to Columbia. It was that summer before I started in Columbia, I went to New York to meet with my dad and, uh, my stepmother also came to US around that time as well and they have a friend who lives in Brazil. He was a publisher of the China, uh, news. A very big large publishing company. And he has a son and a daughter that are going to a school in Berkeley about my age. So Mr. Yao decided that he wanted to take his family, uh, his wife, two kids, and invite me to join, uh, to go to Europe and he wanted to pay for all the expenses. So, uh, it was an opportunity, I had a whole summer free before the school starts, but he had a few things he asked me. He want me to help them to drive a car if we need to rent a car, because none of them drive, his two kids don't drive, he want me to take all the, uh, all the movies and, uh, all, all the slides, at that time we do a lot of slideshow with the carousel, you know, projection. We take a lot of pictures of that, uh, for the trip. And he will also ask me to help them to do all the coordination of applying for visas of different countries. Those are three pretty easy jobs, they're fun jobs, especially the driving, I love to drive. So, uh, I accepted right away, but actually underneath that, I didn't really write in my memoir. He really want me, he interested in having me marry his daughter.

Caroline Sangal 42:05

Oh, there was a, there was another layer there.

Lin Wu's IPhone 42:07

Right. But that just didn't happen. Yeah, we, we didn't really get along that well, but I on that trip we had a good time. It was wonderful.

Caroline Sangal 42:17

And so then you come back to, Columbia and you start there and, and then what happens?

Lin Wu's IPhone 42:24

Well, uh, it's a different ball game, the kids were all international and they were all kids from the, uh, also alumni children. They are very smart and so I met my competition. They were all very smart and so I, I had to study a lot, but fortunately by then it was mostly engineering classes. There were no, uh, you know, non-science classes. So, uh, I did okay, then I met my future wife and she become the love my life. So, uh, her name was Ann and, uh, she was born in Hong Kong, she went to England when she was 12, then comes through from England to US when she was 16, 15. So, uh, my dad was a doctor, her mother was a nurse and then they got together and decided that maybe they should have the children to meet and see if they could introduce, uh, us to each other. So, uh, I met her and nothing happened during the first meeting that we met because I was very, very shy and then she, uh, was very outgoing, but at a party there were just a lot of boys that kind of surrounded her. All these boys are from South America and there were just layers of kids, I was very intimidated. So, the date never really happened. We just all in this big party together and then a year later, I got a phone call, Ann says wanna invite you a school ball, called the coronation ball, in New Jersey. She was attending a high school there. I was, in Columbia and I've never been to a ball. I don't know how to dance but then, I remember her as a very, very beautiful girl, so I accepted, then I had to rent a car. I had to get a corsage, I had to get a tuxedo and shoes and all that. I went over to see her, and she grew up in one year. She just beautiful and she was very sweet and very intelligent. And, uh, after that, you know, I started wanting to see her as much as I can. So that was the beginning of our romance. And eventually we married.

Caroline Sangal 44:58

It's quite beautiful though. And, and so she was still in high school, you're in college in very tough, uh, courses and now, but, and yet you still find a way to be excelling in your classes and making time for your life and to spend time, uh, with her.

Lin Wu's IPhone 45:16

I didn't have a lot of money at that time either, so, uh, I wasn't sure if I could afford a car, so, um, I become a tutor, tutoring kids in Columbia for high school kids, but then I found out that I don't make very much money there either. Uh, but then, my dad knew someone who knew the, the headmaster of the Hewitt school in Manhattan, that's a private girl's school, and they were looking for a tutor to go to the school after a school hour and tutor the young girls. They were all girls from like 14, 15, 16-year-old. It's like, algebra, geometry, very simple math and then they asked me if I want to take the job. Somehow I got the job and they were paying large amount of money. So, uh, from that I started making pretty good, uh, spending money. So I could afford a car again, I could afford to go to see Ann in New Jersey, so you really worked very well. I was just lucky to have that job.

Caroline Sangal 46:24

Well, I, I think things end up coming in your path and you just seize the opportunity and, and do them.

Lin Wu's IPhone 46:29

They're just coming. Yeah. I, be turning better and better. Yeah.

Caroline Sangal 46:35

I know even though a lot of opportunities were coming still, you had some discernment because I, I believe there was one time where, maybe it was your dad, but somebody knew the, uh, the head of a very large chemical company, of course that guy meets you and then here's the story, people meet you and they want you to work with them. You know? Um, but yet you were discerning because you were thinking, wait a minute, I've been studying all this, engineering principles, electrical engineering. If I went and studied chemical at a chemical company, then what am I doing? I don't know that that's what I really want. And so you, you kind of, you have opportunities coming to you, but you also had a little bit of a, a discerning compass inside that you paid attention to. You didn't just go with what somebody suggested. You found out on your own

Lin Wu's IPhone 47:23

Yeah, you're very perceptive. Uh, that's exactly what happened.

Caroline Sangal 47:29

Yeah.

Lin Wu's IPhone 47:29

Mr. Wishnick was the chairman of Witco Chemical Company, he's amazing because he lost an arm in the army, during Second World War, he still was able to found the company and become chairman and the company become a billion dollar trading on New York stock. And he did offer me, uh, he was a patient of my dad, and so somehow we got connected. So he invited me to summer intern and then work there, but they're chemical, I'm electrical. They're very different, so I decided to turn them down, even though it was, it was very good opportunity. It wasn't on my track.

Caroline Sangal 48:11

I like that you did that. because so many times, younger people, they, they don't have a strong enough sense of what they're truly wanting or listening to that internal voice or, or realizing the kinds of things that are fascinating to them versus the kind of things that they could do, but they don't really enjoy. And it just sucks a lot of time, effort, and energy for no benefit for them or the world. So I liked that you, you had that discerning voice and you followed that and you made the decisions that were not just the quick one in the moment, but the one for a longer future that you were aiming, aiming to find. Okay. And so then Ann becomes significant part of your life. You guys then end up, um, making it so that you're going to be closer to each other, and then you graduated, right? Uh, you ended up.

Lin Wu's IPhone 49:06

I graduated, then I, I got my master, and I wanted to start studying to, uh, to end and don't wanna go to industry. I, I was really a fork. A lot of my colleagues, friends wanted to go get a PhD, others have to go to industry. So

Caroline Sangal 49:27

Yep.

Lin Wu's IPhone 49:28

I decided to go to industry because I just don't want to, you know, be, uh, in the school track and publishing and topic seminars and all that, and doing the research. I want to be industry, be productive in the commercial world. I also, back then I decided I really wanna go into management track. I'll become a manager, rather become a, a individual contributor.

Caroline Sangal 50:36

And some of the things even in that, you also were realizing about yourself that you wanted to be like close to and working with something that you could like touch tangibly, like you wanted to do those things too, versus just a concept or testing something somebody else made. So even, even in that, I was so impressed to be reading because of the things that I'm trying to do now is, yeah, I help people mid-career later on decide like, who are you? What do you do best? How do you want your, your life to be? But I also want to be able to go back to those younger ages, the 15 to 18, to 22, 26 and it really helped people decide with some data, you know, what are your natural abilities? What are your interests, what are your goals, and how can you align? And you were doing that on your own, realizing where some of your fascinations were, where some of your passions were, the things that you really, truly loved and you were modifying in real time using more information than many people do. So I was just like fascinated and and impressed Okay, so tell about when you chose your industry job, how that came about, and then how you chose, because even that I thought was also quite amazing because within the company you joined, they gave you choices. And then you made a very educated, informed decision.

Lin Wu's IPhone 52:02

Yeah. I think those are very statistical decisions in my life. I was accepted by Bell Lab, which is really a research institution company. They have lots of patents, they probably have the number one patents in the world, but it was all research writing papers, and the people interviewed me, were all PhDs. Um, I feel pretty dropped by their knowledge. On the other hand, I said, do I really wanna be one of them? Just publishing research? Not really. And I was interviewed by another aerospace company, as well. I didn't like there either. So, uh, the other one was IBM. They were kind of the really, the future, the state of the art. The computer would just becoming, you know, to be the, the thing to do and so, uh, I applied to IBM and I was accepted. They offered me four different jobs to choose, that was really interesting. So I had to choose the right one. I get rid of two right away because one was quality one was testing, they're not in the main line. I wanna be in design, in development, so development logic or development memory circuits. It's just two different type of circuits, could have choose one or the other. I choose the one I thought that has more diversified. It interact with a lot of users, so I took the circuit design group and turned out that was, uh, a good decision for me. And, uh, I joined IBM in the as a circuit designer.

Caroline Sangal 53:44

And then as you're there, you start realizing and wondering,'cause I, I thought it was interesting, even like first day of going and seeing like, okay, this is where your office is gonna be, you had these fleeting thoughts like, wait, what tell a little bit about, uh, those thoughts that first came, and then of course you, you squashed them for a while and just got really busy with your work. But those, those first thoughts of seeing your office at IBM.

Lin Wu's IPhone 54:10

Well, again, I had no idea what industry was like. So when we start, the first day I go in there, I sign in, I get all the education and tutorial about the company. Then I met my boss and he took me to our office. I had a roommate, Mukesh Patel from India. It just two desks, coat hanger and a couple cabinets and a chair and I, I said, wow, this is gonna be terrible for me to spend the rest of my life, just look at the walls. But as it turned out, the job was so exciting that I never looked at the walls again ever, ever. So that was interesting.

Caroline Sangal 54:52

But even, but you had this experience of like, man, will I ever get a window? How would I ever get to, you know, have the corner office, how would I ever get to see outside? So even though your work became so fascinating, you didn't think about it again, still there was like some seed planted, like, oh, I think what I'd really love is a window or a, or a maybe the corner or something to be able to see a little bit more. And then you start also noticing, because IBM's, such a huge company and they had very interesting structures because you explained that they were a vertically integrated company. So I don't know that many people even understand that, that concept. But help us understand a little bit more like what was a vertically integrated company and then what did you notice about some of these, uh, management structures and your thoughts about them.

Lin Wu's IPhone 55:50

Vertical integration in the computer industry means that the, the company wants to produce everything they needed to make their computer valuable, cost effective, and reliable. So they wanna make this, you know, the semiconductor, which is the heart of the machine. They might want to make the circuit board, they wanna make the frame, the cable, the heater, the everything to do with the computer and all the critical component going there. Of course, they won't make the screws or you know, the small wires, but they make all the so-called critical components that they won't be in control of the quality of the performance and then hopefully, if they make enough of it, they control the cost. So IBM would become very ambitious. They said we wanna be vertical integrated so when our computer goes out into the marketplace, it's the best, it's the best in performance and it's best in quality and will compete in price. And they were dominating in the marketplace. They had 70% of the marketplace, uh, over all the rest of the computer companies out there. So when they become vertical integrated, they have a huge volume. The volume could come back and help them to drive the cost down so they could be afford to be a vertical integrated. Of course that last only 20 years, well, which is a long time. They were very successful as a vertical company. Eventually, IBM has to give up a lot of component vision such as semiconductor.

Caroline Sangal 57:37

And then the management structure that you started looking at and realizing, okay, beyond your job of what you were supposed to do, but how that was fitting in and how you were reporting and, and the efficiencies or the inefficiencies, or the way that you thought people were being good managers or where there was room for improvement. Tell a little bit about those things.

Lin Wu's IPhone 58:02

You know, in IBM there were many layers. I think from the bottom layer to the chairman of the board, Tom Watson Jr. in Armonk, it's probably eight to nine different layers.

Caroline Sangal 58:16

Oh, wow.

Lin Wu's IPhone 58:17

You know, you, you started the, at the bottom, a junior engineer, then associate engineer, uh, then engineer, and then advisory engineer and senior engineer and you can do the management, director, vice president, and senior vice president, president, chairman. So you can, there's so many layers in there. It is very ineffective because if you're a layer five, you cannot put somebody in layer four. Uh, you have to, you can only talk to the layers you're directly reporting to. So, uh, you know, the top one cannot talk to the bottom one. It's very ineffective the more better structure is less layers each person have more people reporting to them. Of course, there's a maximum you can handle the bandwidth, maybe one person can manage 10 people, but not 20. So there's some rules there, you know, the balance. But IBM was all vertical integrated. It's all one or two, two or three kind of thing. So, uh, that was not very effective.

Caroline Sangal 59:28

And you notice that some managers, there were some managers that just kind of shut their door and stayed on their own. Uh, and then there were other managers that were bringing in other people to have discussions and communications. But still, it was only, like you're saying, you, you, it wasn't like you weren't invited to the meetings, but some other people that you were working with very closely were in those meetings. And so it was like you start noticing these things about communication and what's really driving results and driving progress, you're observing these experiences from inside one of the best companies in the world at, at that time. Okay, so Ann is, you know, kind of progressing along with her school and then you decide that you guys do wanna take it to the next level. So you're, you're getting engaged and then you're going to get married. And now Ann my understanding is she, uh, came from a faith tradition of Catholic being very devout Catholic, Catholic high school, had you embraced then a different faith tradition or like how is that Catholic exposure developed of, of your own, uh, faith tradition and, and beliefs?

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:00:46

Well, I think, I was pretty open. I was so much in love with Ann that I would go to church with her, would do things that, you know, she wants to do. But, uh, also we, you know, we were getting married so we, uh, we had a family right away and we have a son, so the family become more of the center of activities. So religion, I think, uh, activities really took on a back, back seat. So it really, there were not a lot of conflict, but the wedding itself was very, very, challenging because, um, Ann wanted to have a full Catholic, uh, nuptual mass. So the people have to kneel down on the floor and up and many times and stand up. And my dad decided he wanted to invite several hundred doctors from the hospitals. Uh, and they were all Jewish people, so that didn't mix very well. So we had a lot of, uh, discussions and figure out. Finally we decided, let's put a note on each seat. Tell them that if in your religion you don't feel like to go up and down, if you want to keep sitting, it will be okay. So that's, uh, that's how the wedding went. Say everybody came and some got, some went through the rituals, others didn't, didn't do it, but we still had a full nuptual mass for her wedding.

Caroline Sangal 1:02:19

I love that, being inclusive of other people's views and things were part of your, foundational union Okay. So you get married, you end up welcoming your, your beautiful son newly into your marriage, your career is booming and there were a couple times along the way that you mentioned like your own father was very busy with working and you didn't get to see him much. There were like pretty rare times that you actually got to spend time with him and then there was a time one summer you were tutoring somebody else's family and same thing, you're noticing this dad is very busy with the work, but not having the opportunity to interact much with his children. And I'm curious'cause it was like those things were noted and then you were wildly successful, at IBM and even some of the other companies that, that you went on to after that, but like how did that workout in your own situation with your own children? Were, was there more of a, trying to do both things or did you find yourself in that same thing of work, work, work, work, work, you love your children, but you didn't see them very often? How, how did that work?

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:03:37

Um, since we have a very small family, we didn't have a big family with just me, myself and, and Ann and our son David. It was very small and we were very close. We do a lot of things together and we go picnicking and cooks and, and we go, on trips, we were very, very, very close, so it was I think it's very, very different as it turned out later on in life. Um, I think my wife basically raised the, the two, two kids together. She, uh, I have a son, a daughter, and, and she basically spent all her time in the first 10, 15 years just raising the two children, support me and the family and really she was also my advisor, uh, during my job, a lot of times I problems, I talk to her, I would get real counseling from her. If I don't make a presentation, I worry about people don't understand it. I would pitch to her first and she would react to us. She says, I don't understand any of this stuff. Let's try again.

Caroline Sangal 1:04:44

I loved that.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:04:45

And, I would try again. She would just tell me the way it is, you know. so we're very, very close. It's very different than the model, uh, of, uh, my dad and me or, uh, this other family. They were, I think they're Persian, the father and the children are very far apart. I mean, we take the kids to swim lessons, we go to their concerts, uh, we go to their place. So we're pretty much integrated. Of course, my wife is doing a lot more than I do. At one point, at Amdahl, I had to work 12 hours a day. At those times, I was basically dedicated to build this fastest computer in the world. Uh, but other than that, in general, over the lifetime, I think we spend a lot of time with our children. We still do as much as we can, as much as they want to.

Caroline Sangal 1:05:36

Yes.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:05:36

But the kids grow up, they don't wanna be with you as much anymore.

Caroline Sangal 1:05:40

we were talking about, Ann, a little bit. And it reminded me that I, I loved one of the first things you were talking about after you and Ann started becoming an item and you said'Ann knew how to treat everyone as if they were the most important person in the world', she had a unique talent. I loved that comment, like, what better compliment could anyone receive, than that? And then that stayed throughout your marriage and all of the parties and the, uh, hosting and the different skills that she developed along the years. I, I thought that was just such a beautiful testament to your relationship and to your love.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:06:26

That's very, very true because she just happened to be a very natural, very warm and an extrovert and she is good with people. She's very curious about people, she know how to talk to people and, and ask questions, get them to feel comfortable. Uh, I think that's just a great asset. I don't have near as much. Um, I learned that from her. So when we go out together, uh, she's the diplomat. When we go take a cruise on the ship, she's the one that organized parties and, uh, funding and then I have a launch party recently for my book, and she's the one that organize a party for the launch. We actually invite a hundred people and we, instead of just reading my book, she organized the activity to be, you know, there's, there's a reading, the introduction, but there's also, we have many, many games in there. One of them she organized was called Trivia, people just loved it. So I think she's my partner and she, uh, really was, you know, where she was really my true partner in terms of getting along and help with the family and with my career as well.

Caroline Sangal 1:07:43

And she's quite spectacular because of even like the problem solving well, like in your phases of your career where you had to work so many hours, she had a unique solution to get a babysitter to watch the kids while she came and brought dinner and would eat with you and help you with some of the things that you were doing. I mean, even that is like phenomenal and fascinating in the same breath. I don't know how many other people would've, would've even thought to do that, and, and yet she did, and was, you can just tell the respect that you have, the love you have, that both of you have really was shining through even though it wasn't, you know, the main part of the story, but that's definitely an underlying theme that you both were making each other

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:08:29

Yeah, absolutely. Those were the days that we, uh, I was working very, very hard in the company and I had to go in and, uh, after dinner to work until midnight. Ann decided that she could just bring dinner, uh, have a babysitter at home and come and have dinner with me and then I would ask her to help me with some of the, the counting work counting chips, which one's bad, which is the tabulate test results, just so we can be together and those were the very fun days to remember.

Caroline Sangal 1:09:05

That's awesome. Okay, and so now let's catch people back up. Okay. So you started your, career after graduation at IBM. You're doing really well, working as the wiring guy to come up with a lot of the, the rules for how these things were going. And you're starting to have this desire to want to pursue something beyond just the individual contributor technical role and yet you find yourself bumping up against this, uh, invisible glass ceiling if, if you will, for some of the things. Let's talk a little bit about that and then what started you even thinking, Hmm, maybe IBM is not where I want to stay. Let's, can we catch up on those things?

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:09:51

Actually, that was the only time in my life that I felt there was a glass ceiling. I started working, I was doing well, I have colleagues, we work together, we build a new designs and, uh, I got a roommate, office mate, and he, uh, came in from graduate school. I think IBM shipped him out to study and then brought him back. Uh, at that time there were rumors that they kind of decide who is gonna be on the fast track, who's gonna become a manager in the future. So they send them to school and then they bring them back and then so they can put them in the right track. None of us knew for sure, but you know, my friend Paul came back and, uh, I was more senior already, uh, in the department. I had more contribution, was a leader of the project, and my boss liked me. I was getting promoted, I really wanna be a manager, I don't know why, I just wanted to, I wanna be the top of the company. And, um, so one day my boss called everybody together says, uh, we're gonna have a new group under me, and Paul is gonna be your manager. So I was kind of shocked, came home and talked to Ann, I said, I'm just shocked. You know, I think they passed me by without even talking to me. So, um, that's why I start thinking maybe I should look for other opportunities, maybe this company is just too, too much blue collar, too traditional, too much into whatever they believe in finding the people they wanted to. And, uh, maybe ethnically I was just not a good fit, but that was the only thing ever happened to me. I feel like being, uh, passed on the rest of my life, nobody ever did that to me.

Caroline Sangal 1:11:43

And yet that also propelled you forward because although it was like, wait a minute, this isn't fair, is there something else going on here? Because clearly it's not just merit that this decision is being by, maybe there's something else. And yet that while you didn't get that promotion, that then provided the opportunity that when some other opportunity came onto your radar, you thought, well, maybe so, maybe, maybe I'll go. And this is the thing, sometimes, you know, you can be inside a really great company. It can be amazing for the chapter that you're there. And yet if you start feeling like maybe I'm made for more, maybe there's something else out there for me. I don't understand why or how I didn't have this opportunity I wanted, and yet then something comes on your radar and then it gives you the ability to, to launch beyond what you had originally expected. Okay. So this happens to, you didn't get this promotion, uh, this guy Paul, less experienced than you does get it. And then was that opportunity that then came on your radar and, and how did you.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:12:48

We're in the middle of Poughkeepsie, Poughkeepsie, New York along the Hudson River has nothing around there. It's, it's just IBM by itself, so there are no, no opportunities at that time, this is so different than what we have now in Silicon Valley. There's hundreds and thousands of opportunities, uh, and all here. So, uh, nobody leaves IBM mother IBM, as it turned out, there was one guy that used to, uh, work with me. He was my senior, he was my mentor, Charles Alan Peace He graduated from Princeton before, he was on the wrestling team. He was, I just admired the guy. I mean, he taught me a lot of things. He left there to join a company back in the west coast, in the San Jose area and then one day we just got a letter from him, he says, you know, uh, I wanna invite you to come look this opportunity in California, it's sunshine, it's beautiful and you should bring Ann and the little one. And they give us three first class ticket, I think they kind of, uh, rifle shoot to find the right person. I just happened to have the right background, the right, uh, right experience in that field. Also, Alan, trust me, because I worked for him before he was my senior. So, uh, they spent the money invite us of there being a first class ticket coast to coast. So we flew out California, for the job and everything was fine then. So we took the job.

Caroline Sangal 1:14:25

Yeah, and, and everything was looking amazing until,

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:14:30

Everything was amazing. We come out and then, uh, I joined the company and then I, I did my job eight months later company, uh, went in bankruptcy, they run out of money, so, uh, shock we had, I have a, a month of salary to last us and after that will be starting, we don't have a job. So, um, fortunately, um, I was in the field, I guess that was in the embryonic, the early days, formative of the days of Silicon Valley. I think, uh, there were several startups that were interested in what I was doing. So I got three, four offers. So, uh, I decided to join this little startup, it's called Amdahl Corporation. Dr. Amdahl was IBM's scholar and a fellow who was an architect of the IBM 360 system. He's the chief architect for the entire system. The feature of the system is that is compatible across many different machines, so it makes very interchangeable and they can all go online. So, uh, he designed that system and, and left IBM and because he wasn't happy, so he started his company Amdahl corporation, and then they came to our little company. They, he cherry pick that engineer they need from this little company called Mascor to Amdahl. And they picked me as one of the engineer to join. So I started there as a, uh, young engineer, head of day one as a, one of the founders.

Caroline Sangal 1:16:10

And then that ended up being a pivotal and amazing experience because you started as an engineer and then after some time you were given that opportunity to start doing this management that you had wanted and, and then what happened?

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:16:26

Uh, I was there maybe for a year or two as a design engineer, we were designing the fastest computer, LSA semiconductor circuits in the world. We wanna compete with IBM. I had a boss, Fred Buelow you know I was his protege. He likes me a lot, He's kind of a scholar and a professor, he doesn't really like to manage that much, so a lot of time he would just go into his room, close the door and design, and if there's a lot of things going on in the company that needs to be managed. And Fred start training me to be a manager and one day he called me in, he says, Lin, you're gonna be uh, a first line manager. now here's three uh, requisitions you can hire one technician and two engineer. I was so delighted. So I took the job right away, that was my first management job.

Caroline Sangal 1:17:25

Yeah. And then it worked quite beautifully for you, and then you kept having more and more opportunities. And then I don't know what happened because like is there gonna be another book? Because there's a lot of years still to catch up from then to now.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:17:40

Yeah, it's, there is a book two, a volume two. The first book carried me through Amdahl and then, I was, uh, in 1978, I went back to see my mother and then we got a reunion. So I thought it's good stop. The book two is, start from there, until end of my career. It's been audit taped, but I haven't written yet. I have a very bad back, so it's very slow. I don't know how long it's gonna take me to do that, but, yeah, that's why I been, there's, there's two volumes there. There's a,

Caroline Sangal 1:18:13

I'm excited about it, I'm excited. Let's tease it a little bit because at the very beginning of the book, reading part of the, the Forward written by your son David, he talks about how amazing you are and how such a great storyteller you had been and he also said something like in his four retirements. And I was like, wait, what? Four retirements? I just got to the good part where yes, David beat Goliath, you know, Amdahl made the computer that was very successful and, and that's awesome. And yes, you went to and were able to see, uh, your mother in China, but, but then quickly give the overview of, and then what happened, like what's gonna come in volume two, because

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:18:59

The Amdahl lasts about eight to 10 years. By then I was director of the technology division and, I was being sought after at that time for many, many big jobs. And I wanna be a vice president, I was a director, I wanna be a vice president in charge of all development. So there were several companies that looked for me and I was recruited by STC, which is storage technology. They were in Boulder, Colorado. They were competing with IBM as an add-on, disk drives tape printer. They don't have add on CPU and Jesse wants to start a CPU business. So, he started along with, with, Fred Buelow computer division from scratch and they, Fred decided I really should be the guy that runs the overall development operation, that would include the software development, which isn't a allowed'cause IBM compatible. But all the hardware design, all the semiconductor, all the computer design tool, it was a huge job. And I took the job and then we did well, but three years later the company ran out of money because STC ran out of money. They went into bankruptcy, the project put on a halt and stopped. The project never got finished, even though we built the computer prototype already, that was my first, my first retirement involuntarily. And I was really devastated because, you know, it was just really bad experience. It was such a huge job. And then, um so I in incubated for a while, then come back and started finding my own company, which is called Integrated CMOS. And we were building an industry data arrays to, uh, sell to different kind of a computer company to custom design their computer, for example, one of the big computer companys called Apollo here in, in Boston and they would come and buy four different chips from us, big chips, big, I mean, in, in terms of density, not the size.

Caroline Sangal 1:21:20

Yeah.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:21:21

Four of them, which nowadays all four could go into a microprocessor. But the time four chips is a lot of integration, a lot of density in there. My company would do those design, I would sell to Apollo and the company was quite successful and in, 1991 we were acquired by Toshiba Japan. I had to build over the years a big relationship with the Japanese companies. So, uh, it was a good acquiring, all the venture capital people get to exit and, the company become eventually under Toshiba. So it was a good sale and after that, I retired and I really didn't wanna work that much anymore because I was, I was pretty burned out. I also, I wanted to take a break, so I decided to take a ballroom dancing with Ann and,

Caroline Sangal 1:22:16

Wow.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:22:17

So we, we started doing ballroom lessons and we become pretty good ballroom dancers, later on, we, when we go on cruises, we're one of the best couples on the ship. But Silicon Valley were not, the young people are much better. We're not competitive, but we're good. So we start enjoying that, that was my second retirement. Um, and then, I come back and start working for, Tandem, Compac, Hewlett Packard it's a series of buyout every four years, uh, we got buy out by a new company and that I end up as a vice president of technology at Hewlett Packard. But then Hewlett Packard had two, uh, two had they're own vice president of technology and they said we don't really need another vice president of technology. So, I become a vice president of sales. Uh, was I was shipped to a Asia Pacific managing sales in Shanghai, Tokyo, and Korea. I was managing 16 countries over there for sales of mainframe computers. So we lived in, Ann and I moved to Shanghai. I lived there for about four years, that was my last job. After that, I retired again for good, but it was in my early sixties. But then quickly, I got bored again, so I started my own consulting business. I decided I wanna do something totally different. So I joined a water company and then, they work, they do the water filter machines. So I wanted to start a new business for do Asia Pacific and uh, so I wrote the business plans, I wrote the marketing plans and the strategic partner plans. So I did that for a few years, and then finally I says, okay, I will retire. So that's the four times.

Caroline Sangal 1:24:15

And then you decide, when did the idea to write a book come up?

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:24:20

Much, much later, it was about 10, 12 years ago, we were on a cruise. I was fully retired, I was in my seventies and uh, there were a memoir writing class and the teacher says that kind of teacher said, just start writing something interesting but you wanna write about your life, so I started writing about the broom shop.

Caroline Sangal 1:24:44

Yeah.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:24:44

And I give the manuscript to a friend, uh, a lady who's also in the seventies. She was a, uh, caucasian English teacher, she read it, she told me I couldn't go to dinner until I want to finish your reading, your book. It's so interesting, where is chapter two? So I started writing chapter two and chapter three and later on they come back and says, what happened before that when you in China? So I started writing the beginning. So that's how it got started and it last off and on for 10 years.

Caroline Sangal 1:25:19

That's amazing. I loved it. I'm telling I stayed up way past my bedtime almost like I was a teenager again, but just really enjoying all of the details that you put in, sharing your story. I'd like to know how do you define success now because you've had so many different successes, but for you, what is authentic success for you in this moment? How do you define that?

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:25:46

Well, it is getting, getting, you know, what you set out to do and then you get rewarded for being able to do it. So I'm a very focused person, so, I sort of like ignore other things if I decide to do something I really wanted to do, I give a lot of my energy and a love to it. I guess that's what what I define success is to, to do what I really wanted to do and achieve it at all costs, as long as within reasons, of course.

Caroline Sangal 1:26:24

Yes. Yes. Well, thank you again for all of your time and your wisdom and for sharing your journey. It's truly been an honor and a pleasure.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:26:34

Thank you, Caroline, that's wonderful. Thank you. I'm grateful.

Caroline Sangal 1:26:38

I appreciate you.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:26:39

Good luck, Caroline.

Caroline Sangal 1:26:40

Thank you so much, Lin. Again, thank you for your, just your perseverance, your tenacity, your awesomeness. I'm just so appreciative and inspired and I wish you amazing long beautiful health, amazing continued family relationships.

Lin Wu's IPhone 1:26:57

Thank you.

Speaker 3 1:26:57

Lin, thank you for sharing your story with such clarity and precision. Your journey shows not just the American dream, but how disciplined thinking, long-term focus and intentional decisions compound over time.

Speaker 2 1:27:12

Thanks for listening to Your Next Success with Dr. Caroline Sangal. Remember, authentic success is yours to define and includes aligning your career to support the life you want.