Greetings Steemians & Keep Steemrollin!
Just wanted to officially introduce myself. My name is Jun.
As a natural introvert I've been a bit reluctant to write about myself, but hey if I get rewarded both Steem Dollars and Steem Power the cost/benefit decision is a pretty easy one. So if you're like me come join the party! I also realize in the business world it's important to be public and open. Lastly I'm much too old to get embarrassed.
What I Do
I'm the founder & CEO of Bitcash, a simple USD digital cash wallet provider, and MegaX a decentralized blockchain-based Bitcoin and digital asset exchange. They're both powered by Bitshares technology, another one of Dan Larimer's inventions. We hope to bridge Steem dollars with Bitcash so that you can go back forth between the two seamlessly. We also want to find ways to work closely together with Steemit technology. You can follow our company blog at @officialbitcash.
How did I get involved in Steemit?
As an Austrian School of Economics goldbug I dismissed Bitcoin and digital currencies early on, but after reading Erik Vorhee's blog post I changed my mind and started following Bitcoin from mid-2012 on. I also followed the Ripple & Stellar ecoystems because I liked the potential of digital money based on credit & local exchange trading systems (LETS). Then I moved my main attention to Bitshares because Dan Larimer and the gang created a way to create counterparty-free US dollar digital assets. I think that is one of the keys to going mainstream!
I had the inside track to Steemit since I was part of the Bitshares community. I thought about participating during the mining phase, but was too busy to learn all the technical details. I just waited until people were able to sign up from Facebook so I could contribute with some writing. I knew Steemit had great potential for mainstream adoption because 1) people would earn digital assets instead of having to buy it and 2) it's dollar-based! I'm happy and lucky enough to have jumped in early and was even able to get some bots to follow me for a while because I built a decent track record! This is me a couple days ago:
About Me
I'm 41, but oftentimes I look and probably act a lot younger. Ethnically I'm a mix of Japanese & Vietnamese. I guess that combo makes me look Korean. I was born in Okinawa, Japan and immigrated along with my family to San Francisco when I was about a year and a half. I grew up in the Sunset neighborhood near Ocean Beach.
Computers
One of my first experiences with computers was playing the Atari 2600 at a friend's house weekly for hours. PitFall was one I remember well. Track & Field too. You would have to find creative ways to move the joystick back & forth as fast as possible to make the athletes run faster. Our first family computer was an IBM clone called the Leading Edge Model D dual 5.25 inch floppy computer. It was before the model had a hard drive and the 3.5 inch floppy drive! All the cool kids soon got ones with hard drives and 3.5 inch drives, but we never upgraded. I dabbled with computer stuff on and off and when I was a bit older put together a few computers from parts, but never got into programming aside from a couple courses in college and until very recently helping out with some frontend coding.
Education/Jobs
I went on to UC Berkeley to get a BS in Mechanical Engineering. I struggled through the program and was just going through the motions because it was the practical thing to do. Going through the motions pretty much reflects my whole experience in public education. I got my first job as an outside plant engineer at AT&T/PacificBell and was responsible for helping provide & maintain service for half of the city of Mountain View. It was essentially planning and diagramming work to keep enough copper pairs connected from the telco's central office of switches to cables that went underground to poles overhead all the way to homes and businesses. It was a fun job, but realized we had to depend on management for the strategic directions of our group so I felt I needed to learn more about management to have a bigger impact. I always wanted more responsibility and self-determination. I lived in SoCal for a few years to get my MBA at UC Irvine and had another telecom job, but later came back to the SF Bay Area. I currently live in the East Bay. During business school I realized my natural talents are in the realm of business, finance, economics and investments. The last 10+ years I've been an independent financial advisor/consultant really just scraping by. I was disillusioned with the economy for many years, but the financial crisis in '08/'09 made it even more clear to me how vulnerable it is. When I realized that Bitcoin & blockchain tech could change the world I switched over to work on blockchain tech startups.
Hobbies
In the past one of my main hobbies was libertarian politics, mainly for Ron Paul, between '07 and '12. I even formed a SuperPAC. Promoting truth, peace and freedom was my main motivation for the activism. In the past few years I turned my attention towards voluntaryism and try to promote freedom and create change through business activities.
Blogging
I'm most comfortable with business, finance, investments and startups so I'll write about those topics. Most of my writing thus far was been about Steemit marketing because it's critical for success yet underemphasized in most tech companies in Silicon Valley, especially in the Bitcoin/Blockchain space.
Reading
I enjoy reading more of the philosophical, spiritual and metaphysical posts on Steemit. I also get excited about world changing technologies like Bitcoin & blockchains.
A list of topics I read:
Bitcoin/Blockchain
Technology
Startups/Entrepreneurship
Philosophy/Spirituality
Voluntaryism
Sustainable Living
Alternative Health
Sports
Life & Goals
I've been a loner most of my life. My goals? I can probably walk the earth aimlessly and be fine with that or try to help change the world. I chose the latter because it seems to be much more interesting. I can always fall back to the former down the road.