law/science/bible

Briefly, I am an IP attorney gone astray 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 most prominent Institute of Theoretical Chemistry in China. I continued the study of science at University of Washington, but left for law school before finishing my PhD.

After the 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), specializing on building global IP portfolios and commercialization of IP, and advised clients ranging from Microsoft Research, Alibaba Group to tech startups.

Working with innovative tech startups, however, changed my career path. I grew increasingly unsatisfied with how legal services were rendered. Working in a profession which generally would recognize “never make the client’s problem your own problem” as a wise mantra, I found it more and more difficult to compartmentalize my mindset and skills, and 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 a cofounder, advisor, strategist, entrepreneur-in-residence, executive-in-residence, and investor.

As a result, I have grown a 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.

Among all these roles, however, I remained a master builder and originator of IP with deep insights of the codependent and interactive nature of IP driving and being driven by both business and technology.

During the course of this strange 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, semiconductor, electronics, EDA, MEMS, imaging, medical and biotech.

On the formal education side, I hold a Juris Doctor (JD) from The University of Wisconsin Law School. I was honored as a four-time winner of the “Highest Achievement Award” by the State Bar of Wisconsin and the Law School. Before law school, I was a PhD ABD in Physical Chemistry from University of Washington. I also hold an MS in Quantum Chemistry from Jilin University, and a BS in Physics with a top 5% distinction from Lanzhou University.

I am a registered patent attorney at USPTO (#51718).

I am also a registered investment banking representative, with FINRA registrations Series 82 and 63.

Others call me “interdisciplinary,” but I do not fully agree with the characterization. I never consciously wanted to be “interdisciplinary.” I just wanted to understand how innovation-driven economies and businesses actually 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.”

In the midst of these things, it has become a passion for me to try to bring comprehensive understanding as a “glue” to a project and bond things together, as such is necessary for any effective collaboration. Because collaboration is based on communication, and communication in turn based on understanding, it is the “understanding” part that often lacks. 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 others to understand what Satoshi invented and envisioned has not only resulted in inactions, but in fact also wrong actions which took Bitcoin into ruinous directions and created a counterproductive crypto world as we have today.

My career goal for the next decade is to contribute my knowledge and skills to Bitcoin & Blockchain, however small my portion of the contribution might be, 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. For this is God’s plan: God started from nothing other than 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 in order 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 but my own weakness in the flesh, but I 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 (married young, not knowing anything, but what a blessing!), currently in Southern California. I have few hobbies and enjoy few luxuries, and therefore can be boring unless we are talking about some of the subjects that I understand or at least can learn to understand.