um Well, so I actually I grew up in Taiwan, and and, Oh, uh, I'll share a short version of the story. Ah, group in Taiwan and my brother and I I should moved from Taiwan to New Zealand and then to the US when we were about 13 years old and win university at Carnegie Mellon's that computer science and electrical electrical engineering. Um, this is, uh this is, uh, about late 19 nineties and a lot has happened since then. I would say I had a couple of different chapters of career. The very first chapter of my career was very much in the financial services this early 2000, and as an engineer coming out off school, I did not know. Honestly, why would you want todo on a professional level? I also had, uh, started out with some stuff on my own on the side before. Perspective didn't know, but I didn't know that I want to go to New York. I didn't know that I wanted thio uh, Thio be independent and expect experience as much as possible. Like many people in the twenties, So I spent the first chapter in front of services started on the I T side. I went through three different banks. Bank in your Melon to You Bs to City Smith Barney, which went to joint venture with Morgan Stanley. Becoming Morgan, says Barney, during the O a financial crisis. Through all the I did many jobs throughout those years off my t all to the business side. And when oh, it happened in the joint venture happened between Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley, I really realized just how quote unquote secure a place I find your services. It's really not secure it all, and so much of your life. You have to take into your own hands and see for yourself. Um, I went into a startup before at the time Is the start of the word startup differently? Quite exist in New York just yet, but it's a start up company media. Uh, and this was during Social one point out before LinkedIn even uh, I, p. O. Or or snapped and exist back then, I know it's hard. It's hard to imagine that world I went thio Buddy media, uh, let engineering for them and about two years later, that required by Salesforce and that started experience that it was very lucky to have landed in the company that was successful in the startup space in the Big E had entered a startup that failed. It might have deterred me from continuing on. Maybe I will come back to banking, I'm not sure. But because of that first good experience, I continued to explore the space and social media was just one off the many light on a marketing plan. Okay, next a time Social Media was very tiny light upon their today is about 90/90 percent of the market about this particular social, and I want to learn more about what else is, you know. Advertising was right next to it were competing with advertising quite a bit. So I went in at Tech, was recruited by the founder of a company called Apps Abby. They placed advertising and in social games like Zynga, which is still around today. But this is back in the social gaming days. I learned a lot about what it means to be how does that having space work? I learned about agencies. I learned about difference between sponsorships to brand placements to performance advertising, and we were building a very exciting platform that was all focused on how to optimize advertising performance based on user engagement. And this is this is new back then. But today that kind of opposition exists in pretty much all the platforms. But we're actually early, early to the market, and the upside experience was not didn't have a financial success at the at the end. You won't acquired by the company or big turnout our assets required by two different companies. A t end we people in between and I think we pivoted to early. We didn't establish new revenue lines. E had a lot of learnings there we didn't spend, you know, we didn't account for the amount of time that we needed to educate the market and so on, so forth. Anyway, so long story short. That was a a few dark months. It was exciting, the beginning with pivoted few dark months. And, uh, I went Thio. After that experience, I went to refine 29 which is a women's lifestyle media company, and that company this is doing probably 13 or so. This is the beginning. This is the height of the, uh I would say digital media boom at the time. A lot of the sea dollars airflow into it. I was there first, Chief Technology officer. I had the chance to rebuild the team from 12 and over the next three years. Rebuild it to about 50 people across Prod engineering, data building internal, you know, uh, Continental Systems Analytics. So it's very exciting time. There's also the same time that video was coming into focus in media. So the same time the staff was just rising at the same time that Facebook snark was launched. So there was a lot excitement really understanding how to marry analytics with content. How do you drive more loyalty? How do you have more commerce? How do you marry commerce and publishing at the same time? Uh, it was it was, ah, lot of fun, but also exhausting the same time. Uh, anytime this fast pace is probably combination off excitement and exhaustion. Also, let's just play fast forward. Today I am at buzzfeed, which is also known the media place. I think a lot of people probably buzzfeed us around. The world will be around for a good 13, 14 years, and we are the curator off the Internet in all the ways and we entertainment we have buzzfeed quiz. We have shopping. We have tasted the food vertical We also news but the news and it's the CTO. I came in earlier this year, actually February a month before Kobe on law has happened this year so far, and it was all pause there, so hopefully that gives you a brief, you know, uh, overview.

a number off. Let me talk about a few from different perspectives. One is the team's consisted of a couple disciplines. Project management, engineering. I think we need engineering. There's a few more sub disciplines to with this front engineering back in engineering, mobile engineering or Web data. A swell as, uh did us as well was designed, um, and the responsible decisions. A lot of decision to be made and the response is pretty broad. But I would say overall, my job's inshore, that our tech team, the way that the product road maps off the tech team that we deploy our resource is in the future we built is done in a way that optimizes for a successful business. Overall, it's very much how well aligned is technology with business. Things is also very interesting topic because I think depends on how mature and where you are in the business. The role of CTO is quite different, and I think right now where I am is quite a This is a very business centric CTO role, uh, and and that's how I see my role. One of my three top already is that's a hard one to say. uh, it changes over time. But given today is November 11 2020 I would say my top three parties Number one is we're gonna finish the year strong because the way you finished 2020 is where it becomes a starting point for 2021. And when I say finishing the year stronger means a couple of things, it means one that the teams feel especially given the year 2020 where a lot, you know, you could be very destabilizing for a lot of teams. A lot of changes happened. I want it seems to feel very stable. I want each of the teams to feel accomplished in their road maps, and we have probably around 13 product teams within within tech itself. We also want them Thio be able Thio have very clear vision for next year. So we're really working with the teams to establish her broke maps for next year as well was re sourcing, so they know they're set up for success. So that's that's very first thing. Make sure you feel great. The second thing I would say is working across the company to ensure that we are very much aligned with other business units, whether it's revenue team, whether it's the content team, which is the finance team that were all aligned in our goals. So it's the second priority because at the end of year, we're doing 20 planning. Andi, I think the third one, he is very much around, uh, the people itself on the team, you know, this is near the end of the year. Ah, what's happened this year? I want every single person on the team to feel whether it's from a compensation perspective with his career growth perspective that they feel they have accomplished, they're gonna write feedback. So we were I should just going through the promotional and composition process right now, So I wanna make sure that everyone feels like they are spending quality time here, but they're growingWell, you know, what's interesting is I'm actually calling from Southern California, but I worked East Coast hours, so I actually wake up. You know, I work around like 55 30 a. M to 3 38 PM or for 30 depends on depending, depending on the day. But it's not a typical like anyone else. Uh, of course, there's slack. There's email. There's a lot of different communication channels. It can be pretty overwhelming to trying to catch up between documents, lack channels and emails. Mhm.

actually someone who is new to the job to this particular job in less than 12 months in the year 2020 eso is little contextual job pain point is this, Um why don't we come in new jobs give to learn very quickly. I think the 1.1 major point of challenge will be how quickly can you absorb the information and the bigger the organization organization, like BuzzFeed, is about about 1000 folks. My team, you know, it's 1 50 or so and across a very broad product area with three different brands must feed, but the news and tasty. There's a lot of information to absorb, so that's like I quickly recognized this number one challenge. So I think approach is ineffective. I hope I'm effective in overcoming them. When I tried to dio I also I'm a much more visual learner myself, you know? So I actually, first of all, I break down a couple things. One is I break down my on boarding in approximately three stages. First I tried to learn as much about the people is possible the very first month. This is what I tried to dio and the way I learned about people is actually going through the entire work. And I should drawing the work chart by myself because by drawing out and filling out the names, that's how I can remember them on the relationship between different people, the titles, location, years and looking the photos. That's how I could visually remember who, where it is a process. Second is I opened up to I still have my calendar actually to afternoons for you can call them office hours. You call them, you know, meet and greet times for anyone in the organization. Thio book time on. So it's open for that. It was very effective at the beginning, especially for people to common. Talk to me because sometimes I don't know who to meet. I will let them to come and meet with me instead. Um, and after people, I often 2nd, 2nd 1 is actually products. I tried to learn as much about the product as possible, and this one here pending on the just like any broad product areas you can be experts in all of them on. Oftentimes you start to focus on the bomb areas first, so in school probably focus on the subject of your weakest you spend the most time on on the one is easiest last time, actually quite similar work. So we're trying to figure out where is the problem areas? How urgent is it? Um, I would say the trick is not a trick, but some golf, or sometimes the problem areas can suck in so much of your time. No different than a subject that you're not great at sucking so much of the time. It actually eats away at something you're good at. So I think somebody look out for to not let it suck up 90% of your time, but still trying Time box what you call time box in your effort. Eso gives you next month time on a particular area. Uh, and let's say the third challenge, I would say is, Gosh, I think this one is I don't know if I mastered it is time management overall, Uh, because besides learning about all the information and making decisions and meetings, writing documents and actually this job also requires me to be not only is making decisions but also communicating them both verbally and say an all hands meeting, grab the craft a narrative that is cohesive for the entire group but also in writing. But I know my personal weakness is, is writing if I need to sit down and write a. A narrative that sent over email sometimes could be very challenging, so I have to specifically called out time for that. But also, I have specifically prime my head. I know somewhere maybe artists do that. I'm like an artist. Maybe that's the case. I need to feel the subject. I need to think about it. And then then Aiken. Then it will flow anyway. So these are some of my challenges, Hopefully that residents with you guys.