Night of the Notables: An Wang

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“Success is more of a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.” This is something that has struck me my entire life, that through good work ethic and keeping rational, one can succeed in life. I didn’t get to college with genius, or start a company with it. Only by keeping myself intact was I able to grow my company, and make sure it never hit rock bottom (At least while I was head of the company).
I believe that without my inventions, we could have been behind in the development of memory in computers. I also made calculators and word-processors commercially accessible for the first time. This may also have taken longer without me. I broke the ground for Asian-Americans to start their own companies and get heavily involved in the development of products and computers.
I guess I should introduce myself. Hi, I’m An Wang. I’m an electrical engineer who created the first kinds of computer memory without the need for mechanical parts. After that, I started my company, Wang Labs, and I became an entrepreneur in word processors and desktop calculators, both of which were very new at the time. If you didn't know, word processors were primitive computers that could only be used to write.
I liked math and science, and was very proficient at them when I was in grade school and barely bothered with the other classes. I even skipped them sometimes, but I always got an A on the exams, which got me through with higher grades. I even liked science so much, sometimes after school I would to the library and read the biographies of western scientists like Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, and others. I’ve always had trouble with rote memory, or learning through repetition, which made things like writing and concentration especially ...

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...ican who started a large business in the american tech industry. Many of my fellow asian colleagues warned me otherwise, saying it would be wise to stay out of the white-dominated field. I did just the opposite, and after seeing my success many asians proceeded to make their own companies, and further diversify the workforce.
In the end I sum up with something I said in my autobiography, “My education, my research … and my career … have all been enormous fun. My days are spent doing the things I really want to do. The satisfaction of turning an idea into something real never diminishes.”- An Wang

Works Cited

Lee, John A. N. Computer Pioneers. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society, 1995. Print.
Morey, Janet, and Wendy Dunn. Famous Asian Americans. New York: Cobblehill, 1992. Print.
Northrup, Mary. American Computer Pioneers. Springfield, NJ: Enslow, 1998. Print.

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