STUDENT OF TRUTH. 

science/law/bible

I am an IP lawyer who got into the business of building companies.

In my early years, I majored in physics, excelled in quantum mechanics, and later studied quantum chemistry at the prestigious Institute of Theoretical Chemistry in China. I continued the study of science in the United States at the University of Washington but left for law school before finishing my Ph.D.

I hold a Juris Doctor (JD) from The University of Wisconsin School of Law. I was awarded the “Highest Achievement Award” four times by the State Bar of Wisconsin and the Law School. I also hold an MS in Quantum Chemistry from Jilin University and a BS in Physics with a top 5% distinction from Lanzhou University.

Before law school, I was in the Ph.D. program in Physical Chemistry at the University of Washington, where I passed all candidate qualifications, but quit prematurely in order to attend law school.

After law school, I worked as an IP attorney and was last employed at Lee & Hayes (ranked No.1 globally in “patent quality” by Intangible Asset Management), where I specialized in building global IP portfolios and commercialization of IP. I advised clients ranging from Microsoft Research and Alibaba Group to tech startups.

Working with innovative tech startups, however, changed my career path. I grew increasingly dissatisfied with how legal services were rendered. Working in a profession that generally followed the wise mantra “never make the client’s problem your problem”, I found it increasingly difficult to compartmentalize my mindset and skills and even harder to detach myself from the underlying goals of entrepreneurs and inventors. So I decided to give in and gradually phased out of the law firm into tech startups, taking on various roles such as co-founder, advisor, strategist, entrepreneur-in-residence, executive-in-residence, and investor.

As a result, I have developed full-stack “Company-as-a-Product” (CaaP) expertise encompassing ideation, formation, innovation, intellectual property (IP), economics, finance, business strategy, corporate structures, and operations. In fact, I coined the term CaaP and defined it as a holistic cross-function discipline in converging intersections of business strategies, law, technology, and financing.

During the course of this unusual career, I also acquired knowledge of a broad range of technologies, including Bitcoin, blockchain/DLT, smart contracts, legaltech, fintech, edtech, enterprise IT, AI, cloud, fog and edge computing, IoT, Internet, e-commerce, search tech, semiconductors, electronics, EDA, MEMS, imaging, medical, and biotech.

Some call me “interdisciplinary” but I do not fully agree with that characterization. I never consciously wanted to be “interdisciplinary”. I just wanted to understand how innovation-driven economies and businesses work. To me, it is a coherent fabric in which technology, law, economics, and enterprise are combined in a way that is far deeper than what people usually call “cross-disciplinary collaboration”.

Amid these things, it has become my passion to try to bring comprehensive understanding as a “glue” to a project and bond things together. I believe this is necessary for any effective collaboration because collaboration is based on communication; communication, in turn, is based on understanding, but it is the “understanding” part that is often lacking. Today, people collaborate a lot and communicate even more, but true understanding rooted at a “first principles” level is scarce.

The history of Bitcoin is a vivid illustration of this condition of human understanding. Since Bitcoin’s original release by Satoshi Nakamoto (Dr. Craig S. Wright) in 2008, a nearly universal failure by people to understand what Satoshi invented and envisioned has not only resulted in inaction, but also in erroneous actions which took Bitcoin in ruinous directions and created the counterproductive crypto world we have today.

I recently wrote a two-volume book “Bit & Coin: Merging Digitality and Physicality” to deposit some of my thoughts about Bitcoin and blockchain.

My career goal for the next decade is to contribute my knowledge and skills to Bitcoin and blockchain to help move the field in the right direction.

/personal life/

Outside of work, I am a student of the Bible. I purpose myself not to be a biblical scholar in an academic sense but rather approach it with total humility and utmost sincerity for the true meaning of life because I believe the Bible is the Word of God revealing Himself and His Master Plan for the universe. According to the Word, God started from nothing but Himself and made the Original Creation, which subsequently fell and became the existing universe (the divine permission of the fall being a part of the mystery to be revealed), but God has prepared Redemption. God has been working on a New Creation different from the old to usher in the ultimate state of the universe. The New Creation is born from the Spirit rather than made by the hands of God and will lead the redeemed and renewed Original Creation into eternity, all through and in subjection to Christ the Redeemer, and all onto God.

I desire to let the divine plan guide my life, for I believe it is far more than just a philosophy or a lifestyle. In this regard, I have nothing to boast about myself, but can only thank God because the spirit is never tired, the light has never dimmed, and the revelation never faded.

I live with my beloved wife of over 30 years in Southern California. I have few hobbies and enjoy few luxuries, and can be boring unless we are talking about subjects that I understand or at least can learn to understand.