Jeremy Lin - Asian American Male Of The Year

It's about that time again where we start anew, but before we do, I want to give an Asian American Male of the Year award to the one and only Jeremy Lin. What Lin accomplished this year alone is truly remarkable. To go from being an NBA player who nobody had really heard of outside of the Asian community before his breakout game against the Nets, to a megastar athlete in a span of a few months calls for a resounding applause.

Far too long have Asian American men had been desperately seeking an Asian male role model to look up to outside the relic of Bruce Lee, though an unadulterated actor, fighter, philosopher and legend by anyones standards, Lin on the other hand has graced the front pages of major newspapers, magazines, mainstream media and entertainment outlets. Most Asian American parents that I knew of growing up didn't encourage their children to go into professional sports. The main focus has always been studying, which isn't a always a bad thing, but Lin achieved more than that. As a Harvard graduate, Lin not only turned the conventional wisdom surrounding Asian American men on its head, that of course being strictly academic, un-athletic and feeble, but also made up for the lost time and painful setback by the American idol reject William Hung.

Asians Majority of Silicon Valley Workers

San Jose Mercury reports that Asians are now the dominant workforce in Silicon Valley. Is it really surprising though? I guess, but when did Asians not dominate math, engineering and sciences? Its been going on for the last several decades unless you've never met an Asian person in your entire life. What I would prefer to see though is more Asian college graduates pursuing sales and marketing roles that require a different skill set and prepares for senior management.

Courtesy of San Jose Mecury

When one looks at most company management teams, the majority is still predominantly white. I don't have a problem with it personally as long as everyone has a fair shot at making it to the top. The way I see it is that Asian Americans are always hustling. As you can see from the pie charts above, it took a decade for Asians to increase their footprint in Silicon Valley by 12%. That's some impressive growth numbers and it just goes to show you that hard work and persistance pays off. 

Naturally, this can create stereotypes and lead to an imbalance where one ethnic group dominates a particular sector leaving other hidden talent to be overlooked. I believe this is unhealthy for the same reasons many Asian Americans argue for greater diversity in other arenas. For instance, blacks dominate 78% of the NBA. Yes, the same one that overlooked Jeremy Lin. And we all know whites dominate Hollywood. This infographic below says 70% of casting calls show preference for white actors.

That said, pursuing an engineering career for Asians is the perfect ice breaker for the world of technology and business, but can be limiting when there's a desire to climb the corporate ladder. The beauty of this country is that if you don't like it, you can do something about it by starting your own company as long as you have the right idea and the balls to risk everything for a shot at tremendous success. 

Take entrepreneur Brian Wong for instance. He's not based in Silicon Valley, but he is a business development techie. This guy is a smart mothafuckin' hustler i.e. a sales guy. At 21 years old he already has his own company, Kiip, that offers embedded rewards for mobile gaming apps. Okay, so he looks a tad dorky but he is only 21. Remember what Larry Ellison looked like when he founded Oracle? Look at him now: CEO, Playboy, Business Tycoon Extraordinaire. If Brian becomes a multi-millionaire or even more so a billionaire, which is highly probable, I don't think he'll have any trouble finding a hot date. 

He better watch out for gold diggers though. Yikes! 

Tony Hsieh: The Asian-American CEO of the Year

Tony Hsieh may not be the Asian-American man of the year but he is definitely a legitimate candidate. Yahoo! published a story on their website not too long ago which really sparked my interest, because yes he is Asian-American, a male at that and in a high profile position that most Asian-Americans aren't exposed to in their careers. Whenever I read up on financial news or stories on successful business leaders, rarely do I see an AA male in the limelight. So to see Tony sitting in the drivers seat and consistently winning the online shoe business race for a renown company like Zappos, man that shit is inspiring!

Amazon purchased his billion dollar company last year and left him as CEO. He is getting paid a measly $36,000 annually to run the business which he made even prior to the acquisition. His only requirement, that he would get to run the company as a separate organization from Amazon maintaining the corporate culture he and his team nurtured. That culture is based on Happiness. He applies it across the organization, top-down to bottom-up.

If you haven't noticed already Tony has a different philosophy as a business leader than many other corporate executives that I've read or heard about. Most of the them numbers driven. How can we lower operating expenses? How can we drive revenue and increase that top line growth? How can we reduce labor costs?

The fact that he cares about his employees' well-being is a powerful statement in today's world of business. I've noticed more and more these days that the happier employees are at their company, the more likely it is to flourish and succeed regardless of the economic times. Zappos is a prime example of employing this ideology. How many times have you been disenfranchised or detracted from working at your current gig simply because you weren't happy with the way they were treating you? I bet everyone who reads this knows what I'm talking about. Even within the first year of employment, the value of a high salary may diminish very rapidly if you don't like being where you're at. 

For instance, your boss is a slave driver. He is always overworking you and demanding more without commensurate reward or recognition. Any suggestion you or your team provides goes in one ear and out the other. He just focuses on the day-to-day and never looks at the whole picture. Strategy is just a word he utters as opposed to an actionable item. Career development? Ha! Forget it. No time for that in this corporate setting we have work to do!

Then there's communication. It is lacking so much that you don't know when you're getting product and service updates until you're sitting down in front of the customer asking yourself, "When the fuck did they change this?" One of my favorites though would have to be when management establishes some sort of business objective for the year and the boss doesn't translate what it actually means to the team on a working level. How does it affect the working modus operandi? Best of all, there's the annual "Ra-Ra" cheerleading speech and presentation the executives give once a year where instead of talking about how they're going to grow the business, they yap about how they need people within the organization to "step it up". Newsflash guys, but you can't pull out the "step it up" card at every all-hands meeting and expect it to be effective. After a hearing it for the fifth time, it just becomes noise and we know the imaginary bonuses you speak of are nothing but lip service. 

This really makes me think about my current gig. My company could learn a lot from Tony...