Chapter 1【Origin】

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[The Origin and Today of James] Chapter 1 - Origin (01/17/2022)

I am an engineer. I studied EE electronic engineering in school and entered the product design and development department of Acer. I remember that I had just retired from the army. It was September when the last pre-service officers of the year were discharged. Many companies had already filled up their new hires in July and August. My principle when looking for a job was that I wanted to be an R&D person, and my job location was in Taipei. I got my wish at that time. Acer has a design department in Taipei. After taking the exam and After the interview, I finally got on the last bus of the year and entered Acer. This was also the beginning of my happy life as an engineer. I remember riding the bus very happily every day from Wanhua to Songjiang Road, walking through Jinzhou Street and arriving at the company building. The sun was shining brightly along the way, accompanying me during my two years of working in Taipei.

I remember that in the first month, the new employees were taught how to design the PC architecture by the senior assistant manager assigned by the manager. Less than a week after my training, I was transferred out by the manager to start designing the system. This was an exciting moment. At that time, Acer's design department and testing department were very small. I remember that there was only one person in the testing department doing testing. After we completed two machines, I moved downstairs to help the engineers in the testing department do testing. Although I was a new engineer, I could direct all the company's engineering-related departments and the writing of technical manuals, from circuit board design engineers, test engineers to factory production lines. At that time, I really felt the courage to command thousands of troops. This taught me that as long as you are willing, people who do great things do not necessarily need to be high officials. As long as you are willing to pay for the company, pay for the products, and concentrate on your work, no matter you are the vice president or the factory worker, you will be the one you communicate with and command.

While working at Acer in Taiwan, one thing had a deeper impact on me and my understanding of Taiwan's industrial development. Although I was a small engineer at the time, I saw that CD ROM music CDs could store so much digital data. Although it was music, it was digital. 500M, why don’t you use this as a storage? I remember I reported to the superior and made suggestions, but the answer I got was that we can make money by making PCs, and the investment in other R&D is not worth it. This surprised me very much, and I also found that the entire industry in Taiwan is actually just making plastic flowers, although now there are protection TSMC in Guoshenshan, but many Taiwanese high-tech companies, in the past 30 years, have only been making plastic flowers. Many companies only buy external production machines without doing research and development themselves. They just take other people's patents and pay high royalties to manufacture plastic flowers in Taiwan and produce high-tech plastic flowers for export.

During my engineering design career at Acer in Taiwan, I helped Acer design and manufacture the best-selling 710, 510+ 915V 915P and other PC systems. At that time, I received excellent performance from the department for two consecutive years, and was quickly promoted to section chief. I often contacted foreign customers, so I felt that in Taiwan, I could have a good international outlook. The then Vice President Shi Chongtang It was suggested that I go to the United States for an expatriate assignment. I felt that it was not necessary because I could still contact many brands in the world in Taiwan, so I did not accept the suggestion of an expatriate assignment at the beginning. However, due to internal work in the company, there were no new cases for a period of time, so I felt that it would be better to be assigned to the United States. So I accepted the expatriate assignment to the United States. I originally planned to be assigned for two or three years, but it turned out to be a lifelong assignment. This is a critical moment that changed my life, so if there are young people who have the opportunity to be assigned abroad, I definitely strongly encourage you to be assigned to the world. Only birds that can fly will grow into a giant, and life will be wonderful. Therefore, I recommend young people to experience more places around the world. Your vision and life will definitely be different from those of young people who have stayed in Taiwan.

I remember very clearly that the flight date for my overseas assignment to the United States was November 5th. It turned out that my daughter’s birthday was also November 5th. I often told people that my daughter followed me across the ocean to the United States and became my daughter. Things like fate are very special. At that time, the company allotted me an apartment and a car. It was the rainy season in the western United States, and the autumn scenery was quite beautiful. I started a wonderful working life in the United States, but being away from home in a foreign land was not something that ordinary people could understand. Especially my English skills at the time were not very good. Sometimes I had to listen to the phone messages four or five times before I could finish them. Although it is a new environment, a new job, and new people, it is definitely a beautiful color in our lives.

On the first day I arrived in the United States, I entered the laboratory and started my work. Suddenly, an American rushed into the laboratory and warned me very sternly not to touch things. This made me feel racial discrimination for the first time. I have lived in the United States for nearly 30 years, and racial discrimination occasionally occurs. This is not just what everyone talks about. Racial discrimination is a real thing that happens in the United States, and it happened to me. In fact, human nature is not just in the United States. Human nature is the same. No matter what race you are, it is common for a strong culture to discriminate against a weak culture. It is also difficult for humans to change. Racial issues are the biggest problem in any country in the world. The purpose of sharing my experience is to let everyone know that many things are not just rumors from the outside or that you can believe just by telling them. Only after your own experience and thinking can you truly understand the truth or falsehood of everything.

from 1990 to 2000 In the ten years before I was transferred back to Taiwan, I participated in the Acer Multimedia Laboratory and led the hardware system department. All research and development in the United States started from scratch. This made me experience that the United States is powerful for a reason. When a country is innovating for the purpose of improving the lives of all human beings, all technologies are original. Therefore, it is very difficult for emerging countries to surpass the United States. First, they must get rid of the habit of plagiarism. Secondly, many technologies must be rooted in their own roots, like Elon, the boss of Tesla. From electric cars to outer space, we all start with the first law of physics. This is originality, and this is the basic factor to become the world's number one. It is not difficult to understand that the United States can become the most powerful country in the world.

During my multimedia experiment at Acer in the United States, we jointly established the multimedia MP-1 architecture with Microsoft, and also developed the multimedia computer system Acer PAC. At that time, it was the first computer to be able to make calls, send and receive faxes, answering machines, radios and other multimedia functions. It was also the first to integrate radios into computers.

In addition, in order to achieve the function of answering calls immediately and answering calls, and the computer immediately answers the call and records within four ringtones, we obtained an important patent for quickly starting the computer after sleep mode (Hibernation sleep mode). This patent is very powerful. Now all computer and mobile phone products use this patent. Later, I helped Acer defend against many patent lawsuits. Even five years ago, I was still in court to testify for Acer, proving that this powerful patent was my personal invention patent of Acer. The court certification at that time took a whole day of questioning and answering, and finally helped Acer win these difficult lawsuits.

When Acer officially expanded in the 1990s, many people were expatriated to the United States. Everyone started playing golf when they had nothing to do on holidays. At that time, they felt as if they were about to be promoted to the ranks of high-tech aristocrats. Instead of just the Japanese, Taiwan had begun to enter the world stage. This was really a rhapsody for a little person. In fact, these are all illusions. External embarrassment is definitely not a necessary condition for success in life. The necessary condition for success in life is your strength and your unique thinking ability.

I met a friend, Frank LEE, by chance while playing golf. He called me very enthusiastically on a Friday and asked me if I was free. When I said I was free, he drove over to pick me up and took me to Charles Schwab. He gave me some information about fund investment (mutual funds selecting list) and asked me to go home and read it.

A week later on Friday, Frank called me again and asked me if I had read it. I said I hadn't read the fund information yet, and he asked me if I was free now. I said I was free, and he drove me to Charles Schwab and told me to open an account first. So I opened an investment account. At that time, the funds were very small. I only had $2,000, which was the capital I started investing.

Another week later, FRANK called me again and asked me if I had started investing. I said not yet. He said, are you free now? I said yes, so he drove to my office and took me out, explained to me one or two funds, and told me to buy these two funds first (the performance of the funds was good at first, but looking back later, the active funds were really bad.). It was 1990, so I listened to his words and bought them first. After a week, I found that my investment started to make money, which opened my eyes. The door to investment, I knew at that time that I should be able to make money from investment and retire early. From that time on, I began to independently study investment, whether it was technical analysis of financial reports, etc., I bought shares of a funeral company, and stumbled until today. You can see that my investment philosophy has been tempered for more than 30 years. I am very grateful to FRANK for leading me into this investment path. Because of my gratitude, I am also willing to share my investment experience with all those who are destined to do so, so that everyone can lead a rich and happy life like me.

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