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How to American | Jimmy O. Yang | Talks at Google
1 hours 2 minutes 56 seconds
π¬π§ English
Speaker 1
00:08
All right, welcome everyone. I am Gretchen Howard. I am 1 of the partners at Capital G, which is Alphabet's growth equity investing fund. And I have the privilege and honor of introducing you to my friend, Jimmy O.
Speaker 1
00:22
Yang. Come on down.
Speaker 2
00:26
I'm going to give you a hug. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 2
00:28
Thank you.
Speaker 3
00:37
All right. Hey, gang. Thanks for coming out, everybody.
Speaker 3
00:41
I appreciate that. Is there a dog here?
Speaker 1
00:44
Yes there is. So Google has a dog open door policy. So Jimmy wrote a book recently.
Speaker 1
00:52
It's called How to American. We're going to have a little chat here, and then we'll open it up to questions. And just as a little incentive, if you don't have the book already, those who ask questions will be the first to get your very own copy of the book. Oh!
Speaker 3
01:08
So exciting. I'll be signing it, taking pictures afterwards. Exactly.
Speaker 1
01:14
Yeah. All right, so we're going to start in the beginning. You're born, hi. You're born in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1
01:20
Tell me about that. Let's start there.
Speaker 3
01:22
Yeah, I was born in Hong Kong, and I moved to LA when I was
Speaker 1
01:27
13.
Speaker 3
01:28
In 2000. In 2000. That was after the handoff from the British colony back to China.
Speaker 3
01:35
And I think there was a lot of worry there. It's probably 1 of the reasons why our family moved here. And when I first came, I couldn't really speak English very well, kind of like Jing Yang. And I'd learned English in Hong Kong how kids here would learn Spanish.
Speaker 3
01:52
So it's not very well. And I didn't understand the simplest slangs, like what's up, like they don't teach you that in school, like what's up. And eventually I learned a lot of English by watching BET Rap City. That was like my thing.
Speaker 3
02:11
So yeah, and then it just progressed from there.
Speaker 1
02:13
But even before you moved to LA, Let me see if I get this straight. Your parents were originally from Shanghai.
Speaker 3
02:20
That's true.
Speaker 1
02:20
So they spoke Shanghainese?
Speaker 3
02:23
We spoke Shanghainese back home. And then I learned Cantonese from school. So I speak Cantonese in school.
Speaker 3
02:30
And then I watched shows in Mandarin.
Speaker 1
02:32
So no wonder you were confused.
Speaker 3
02:34
Very. Yeah, and then English somewhere came along.
Speaker 1
02:37
So how did that even feel as a kid, even before you got to the US, not knowing how to speak really good English, just being in Hong Kong but having parents who came from the mainland?
Speaker 3
02:47
Yeah, I was kind of already the foreign kid. Because whenever I speak to my parents, they'll be like, oh, that's the Shanghai boy right there. There's like an internal almost hierarchy and a semi-racism within Chinese people.
Speaker 3
03:00
Like Hong Kong people always think they're better than other mainland China people. And so they always call me like the Shanghai boy. And so maybe that was like my first experience of assimilation, which really came in handy later when I came to America, when I was actually the foreign kid.
Speaker 1
03:17
Already sort of felt like an outsider in Hong Kong. OK, so you get to the US. You're in LA.
Speaker 1
03:23
What's your first day in the US? What happens?
Speaker 3
03:29
It was just complete culture shock. Because Hong Kong is like Manhattan. You've got buildings 25 stories high.
Speaker 3
03:34
It's a concrete jungle. And then you came to LA. The streets are like 6 lanes wide. Everything was just like a two-story strip mall.
Speaker 3
03:41
And you walk down the street, there's nobody in the street. So it's like, where am I? It was like, is this Mad Max or what's going on? And the first day my grandpa took us to his favorite American restaurant.
Speaker 3
03:54
We walked 45 minutes down the street. First of all, we passed by Pizza Hut. And that was my favorite restaurant in Hong Kong. Because Pizza Hut in Hong Kong is like a gourmet restaurant with like seafood pasta and like real like gourmet soups and stuff you know.
Speaker 3
04:07
And I saw the real authentic American version and it was just like a hole in the wall in an oven. Like What is this? How is the real version worse than the foreign version? I was panicking.
Speaker 1
04:22
So where did grandpa take you?
Speaker 3
04:23
And then grandpa, it was like, this is my favorite American restaurant. We arrived at the strip mall and It was El Pollo Loco. It was a Mexican fast food place.
Speaker 3
04:35
But it was amazing. And then it was like the first time I experienced like American freedom inside of El Pollo Loco. Because if you think about it, they give you so many choices. There's dark meat and white meat, which my grandpa was like, don't ever order the white meat.
Speaker 3
04:48
That's dry and rough. That's for American idiots, okay? You get the dark meat. There's corn tortilla and flour tortilla.
Speaker 3
04:55
You get the flour tortilla because the corn tastes funny. And then, you know, you get a glass of water and you can go to a soda machine and get whatever you want.
Speaker 1
05:04
It's not exactly how it
Speaker 3
05:06
works.
Speaker 4
05:06
And then you can go
Speaker 3
05:07
to the salsa bar and just get whatever you want. Get some onions and cilantro. You can go home and saute that stuff for some dish later.
Speaker 3
05:17
It's freedom, people.
Speaker 1
05:20
All right, so after you ate your little chicken taco, you go to middle school in LA. And you go to John Burroughs, right?
Speaker 3
05:27
Yes, John Burroughs. It's inside of LA unified school district, so it's very diverse. It's the first time I ever met a black person, a white person, a Latino person in real life.
Speaker 3
05:38
Because in Hong Kong, obviously, all you had was Chinese people in my school. And it was crazy, because I'd seen these different types of people on TV, but I never met them. And I was 13. I was about, I don't know, like 4'10, really scrawny little kid with glasses.
Speaker 3
05:53
And I just remember the first day, I was pretty good at basketball back home in Hong Kong. And then when I came, I was in eighth grade. This kid Marquise was like dunking. And I'm like, yo, this is what America's about.
Speaker 3
06:07
Like, it was crazy to me. And then I saw this Latino kid. He had a mustache. I couldn't even grow any hair at that point.
Speaker 3
06:16
It was complete culture shock. And I was just, you know, my English wasn't that good, so I was just trying to fit in.
Speaker 1
06:20
I thought you were a ping pong star back in Hong Kong,
Speaker 3
06:23
which
Speaker 1
06:23
is so stereotypical.
Speaker 3
06:24
Back in the day. I was very stereotypical growing up in Hong Kong. I played the violin.
Speaker 3
06:31
I was pretty good at math. And I played ping pong competitively. But that seems like a stereotype here. But in Hong Kong, you're just another dude.
Speaker 3
06:41
That's just what people do. It's like playing catch.
Speaker 1
06:45
Did you bring your skills, though, to the middle school? Did you show them
Speaker 3
06:47
off? No, nobody cared about ping pong. Maybe until college, when it became like a beer pong game. But that's a whole different skill set.
Speaker 1
06:55
We're not there yet.
Speaker 3
06:56
We're in middle school. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1
06:57
So middle school, is this when your BET love affair with television started?
Speaker 3
07:01
I think it started. I remember the first day of school, people were telling me to sag my pants. I'm in the locker room changing into my PE clothes and the kids are like, hey, hey, put your shorts down!
Speaker 3
07:12
And I'm like, oh my God, what is going on here? And apparently it's a culture of sagging your pants back in the early 2000s. You know, that looks cool. If you pull it all the way up, they call you John Stockton.
Speaker 1
07:25
So how far did you pull him down?
Speaker 2
07:27
Pulled him all
Speaker 3
07:27
the way down to my knees. And
Speaker 2
07:28
they're like,
Speaker 3
07:29
no, no, no, don't do that. And even just even underwears. There's different, like people wear boxers here.
Speaker 3
07:36
In Hong Kong, we wear like tighty-whities, and people make fun of me for that. So I learned a lot, not just about the language, but culture from watching BET.
Speaker 1
07:46
Right. And then how was it, sorry, your middle school, then you go to Beverly Hills High School,
Speaker 4
07:50
right?
Speaker 3
07:51
Yeah, my dad was a genius. He used a fake address
Speaker 2
07:54
for me to go.
Speaker 1
07:54
Jimmy's dad is right here. Stand up.
Speaker 2
08:00
Yeah, he's not just. Say hi to Jimmy's dad. Hi.
Speaker 2
08:04
Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
Speaker 2
08:04
Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
Speaker 2
08:05
Hi.
Speaker 3
08:05
Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
Speaker 3
08:06
Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
Speaker 3
08:08
Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
Speaker 3
08:09
Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
Speaker 3
08:11
Hi. Hi. Hi.
Speaker 2
08:13
Hi. Hi. Hi. Yeah.
Speaker 2
08:13
Yeah. Oldest Googler in the building. Yeah. And the subtitle of the book, well, the title is How to American an Immigrant's Guide to
Speaker 3
08:13
Disappointing Your Parents. So here we are.
Speaker 1
08:19
So we're going to talk about, you're still not quite in the disappointment phase in high school, right? That's more of college?
Speaker 3
08:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm still the good Asian kid then. I got to disappointing them later.
Speaker 1
08:30
So who did you hang out with in high school?
Speaker 3
08:32
It's a group of kids. I wanted to hang out with, I wanted to find a group of Chinese kids I can kind of really hang on to. When you don't really know the language, you kind of long for that, something that reminds you back home.
Speaker 3
08:47
But there wasn't really a lot of Chinese kids in high school. So I ended up just hanging out with a bunch of random misfits, right? Like I had a couple Persian friends, a friend from Bangladesh, and then a friend, 1 Chinese friend, and then a Korean immigrant friend. So it was a great group of different people.
Speaker 3
09:05
And we're never the cool kids, but we also weren't super lame. We just never fit in with any particular group. We weren't the skaters.
Speaker 2
09:12
We
Speaker 3
09:12
weren't the athletes or anything like that.
Speaker 1
09:14
But you started to find your people.
Speaker 3
09:16
I started to find my people, and I started a rap group. That's what happens when you watch too much BET.
Speaker 2
09:22
Can you
Speaker 1
09:22
do a little of that rap for us
Speaker 5
09:24
right now?
Speaker 3
09:24
No, no. I was horrible.
Speaker 1
09:26
Just a little?
Speaker 3
09:27
No. Well, what I did, I knew I was a horrible rapper, So I recruited my buddies who can rap, and I just made the beats. And that was my first creative outlet. It was me, my black friend Julian, and then my other friend Yuji, who was half black and half Japanese.
Speaker 3
09:45
So it was perfectly 1 and a half Asian guys and 1 and a half black guys. And we called the rap group the Yellow Panthers. It was very embarrassing.
Speaker 1
09:58
Did you ever sell 1 of your songs?
Speaker 3
10:00
I sold maybe a couple of bootleg CDs in school. Like, we would just burn CDs. You guys remember that?
Speaker 3
10:06
It takes 30 minutes to burn a CD. And then you sell it for like $5 to some kids.
Speaker 2
10:09
There
Speaker 1
10:10
wasn't like a porn site that bought 1 of your songs or something?
Speaker 3
10:13
What are you talking about? My first paycheck I really made in show business was from a website called FudgeStick.com. This is true, okay?
Speaker 3
10:24
Don't look it up. It's not a thing anymore. It used to be a site, a porno site, and I used to post my beats that I made online. And this guy called me 1 day, he was like, hey, are you Doc West?
Speaker 3
10:40
That was my beat maker name. Which is like the wackest name ever, right? Doc West, it's like from Dr. Dre and Kanye West, I just combined the 2 and called myself Doc.
Speaker 3
10:52
It's horribly hacky. And he called, he was like, hey, so are you Christian? I'm like, not really, why, what's up? He's like, well, so I'm in the adult entertainment business and a lot of Christian people aren't down with what I'm doing.
Speaker 3
11:08
And my name's LeBron James, that was his name. Not LeBron James. LeBron James. And he was like, I like 1 of your beats.
Speaker 3
11:19
And can I use it for a trailer for 1 of my pornos?
Speaker 2
11:25
So I
Speaker 3
11:25
sold it to him. My first paycheck.
Speaker 1
11:30
All right. So a little short-lived music career. You go to college, UCSD?
Speaker 3
11:34
UC San Diego. Woo!
Speaker 1
11:35
Oh, we've got some in
Speaker 2
11:36
the house.
Speaker 3
11:36
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2
11:37
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3
11:39
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2
11:41
1 of
Speaker 3
11:41
the most boring places I've ever been.
Speaker 4
11:45
Did you like it? I did. You did like it?
Speaker 4
11:47
Yeah.
Speaker 3
11:48
Oh, good. What did you guys study? Engineering, computer science or something?
Speaker 3
11:51
Science. Good. Oh, at least you guys studied something you guys liked. Economics!
Speaker 3
11:56
Yeah. How'd you end up here? Imposter. I'm kidding.
Speaker 3
12:03
I'm kidding. So am I. I study economics also. And here I am.
Speaker 1
12:10
But you didn't, is that what your dad wanted you to major in?
Speaker 3
12:13
He wanted me to, like, something legitimate, right? What Asian parents would consider legitimate is like engineering science so I went in as a mechanical engineering major and I realized I would never graduate so now I went into economics which is like the easiest major that is still approved by Asian parents
Speaker 2
12:33
right you
Speaker 3
12:34
know he was financial advisors you know that that's what it is And so I did it for 5 years. It took me 5 years to graduate with an economics degree, which is very sad. And I didn't...
Speaker 3
12:48
A lot of extracurricular activities? Yeah, you know, smoking a little too much weed my freshman year. I was just trying to not be grouped in, because There's so many Asian people in UCSD, right? It was like the first time I came to America that Asian was the majority once again.
Speaker 3
13:06
But now I have a different identity crisis because now I don't want to be grouped in as the other. Because I'm like, dude, I listen to Jay-Z, man. I'm Doc West, You know what I mean? Like, I don't...
Speaker 3
13:17
Like, you know, I'm cool. So when you're younger, you don't want to be grouped in with some... When you hit that age, that college age, you don't want to be grouped in. So I try to do other stuff.
Speaker 3
13:27
And for some reason, as twisted as this logic sound, it kind of made sense to me, was if you just smoke enough weed, you would transcend being just an Asian kid. You will be the stoner kid. You know what I mean? And for me in my mind, somehow that's better.
Speaker 3
13:46
Sorry dad.
Speaker 1
13:53
So did you not hang out with any other Asian kids?
Speaker 3
13:55
No, I did. I mean, that's my only option at UCSD, and it was fine.
Speaker 2
14:00
But it
Speaker 3
14:00
was like maybe other Asian stoner kids. I didn't know what I wanted to do. When I graduated after 5 years, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
Speaker 3
14:08
I just know I didn't want to do economics. I had an internship at Smith Barney that my dad hooked me up with. It was 1 of the really nice financial firms, I don't know if you guys know about this, Smith Barney. I mean, it just sounds nice.
Speaker 2
14:21
I think
Speaker 3
14:21
it's probably Morgan Stanley now or something. But I just, sitting behind a desk, I was just like, oh my god, I'm going to do this for the next 40 years, looking at some other people's mutual funds. I was having a panic attack.
Speaker 3
14:33
I mean, that actually sounds attractive to a lot of people, the safety of having a nice job like that. But to me, it just didn't appeal to me. So.
Speaker 1
14:41
But that's hard. I mean, your dad got you this job. He helped you go to college, right?
Speaker 1
14:46
He was there for you. He really raised you a lot through your teenage years, right, because your mom went back to Shanghai. So Papa over here, and all of a sudden you tell him you don't want to do the job that he got you. I mean, how did you?
Speaker 3
14:58
And that's when I disappointed him.
Speaker 1
15:02
How did you get up the courage, though, to have that conversation with him?
Speaker 3
15:06
It was hard, man. Because you don't ever want to disappoint your parents, especially if they've done so much for you, right? Like, they came to this country for you, for your education, got you in school, right?
Speaker 3
15:16
Faked an address to get me into Beverly Hills High School. I mean, come on. And then I'm going to tell them I don't want to do this job. And do what?
Speaker 3
15:23
I don't know. Like stand up? And it was hard. But I figured it was probably better to disappoint my parents for a couple of years than to disappoint myself for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3
15:36
So that's why I was like, I can't, dad, I can't do this. I don't want to do this job. And I went through a journey after that of finding what I wanted to do. I didn't think stand-up was going to be a career.
Speaker 3
15:51
It was just something I found that it was a friendship that I found in stand-up with other comedians and a camaraderie. And something to do, even, just a community, so I don't feel as stuck. But I tried other things. I got 3 jobs when I graduated.
Speaker 3
16:07
I sold used cars during the day. This was all in San Diego. And then I'll go to work at the Comedy Palace, work in the door collecting tickets. And then in exchange, I would get a couple minutes of stage time doing stand-up.
Speaker 3
16:21
And then at night, I became a strip club DJ. So that was
Speaker 2
16:28
my story.
Speaker 1
16:28
Let's talk about that, because your boss's name was Shooter?
Speaker 3
16:31
Yeah, his Shooter. I don't know why. Probably shot somebody.
Speaker 3
16:34
Who knows? It was a very gangster, seedy strip club. And when you're 22, you think working at a strip club is the coolest thing, right? Especially when you watch too much music videos.
Speaker 3
16:45
But it wasn't. It was like, I soon realized nobody in that strip club actually wanted to work there. They were there because they'd been to prison a few times and they have to work there now. And everybody got nicknames, like Shooter.
Speaker 3
16:58
The bouncer's name was Beast. He used to be in the Aryan Brotherhood back in prison, so he probably wasn't too hot on me working there. And yeah, it wasn't that great of an environment. But I try to be professional.
Speaker 3
17:11
You know? Sorry.
Speaker 1
17:15
That's all we're going to talk about. OK. But back to your stand-up.
Speaker 1
17:18
It sounded like when you were taking tickets at the door, you actually had some people who became really good friends and also advisors. So Sean Kelly?
Speaker 3
17:28
Sean Kelly, a good friend of mine. He kind of became my mentor. I think that's 1 of the most important things.
Speaker 3
17:34
It's finding a good mentor and not afraid to ask somebody to be a mentor and really, you know.
Speaker 1
17:40
How did you meet him? Who is he?
Speaker 3
17:42
Yeah, so he was the guy that started the Comedy Palace. He was like a businessman and a comedian. And everybody in San Diego was like, yo, if you want stage time, you need to talk to Sean Kelly.
Speaker 3
17:51
I'm like, who's Sean Kelly? Is that like Dave Chappelle's cousin or something? Like, I don't know. And he turned out just to be like this brilliant businessman that really helped me along my career.
Speaker 3
18:01
And yeah, he was the 1, I guess, in the beginning, he was like, man, you got such a unique story of immigration. And you're wasting your time talking about hacky masturbation jokes. Don't do that. Every other comic can do that.
Speaker 3
18:16
But you have your own story. You should develop this material. Eventually write a book about it. And then you can do talks.
Speaker 3
18:22
You can do whatever. Look. Look at me. And he was the 1 that talked me out of working that strip club.
Speaker 3
18:29
He was like, oh, Jimmy, You're funny, man. You've got to move to LA before this gets like a point of no return. So yeah, yeah, finding that mentor is extremely important.
Speaker 1
18:39
I love that he pushed you in that direction, because there's 1 part in the book where Terrell and Guam, who seem to be good friends of yours who were also
Speaker 3
18:45
just 2 comics.
Speaker 1
18:47
But it sounded like they had a more lively sex life than you did at this time. So they were incorporating all that into their stand-up. And you were like,
Speaker 3
19:00
I wanted to do that.
Speaker 1
19:01
Right. But it wasn't authentic, right? So Sean somehow saw that in you, and made you tell your real story. So how did that change your comedy?
Speaker 3
19:12
It's great. I think it's still evolving.
Speaker 2
19:15
When you first
Speaker 3
19:15
start as a comedian, you're not funny. Nobody's funny when they first start. You just try to do jokes that you've seen on TV and your own remix of that.
Speaker 3
19:23
A lot of, like I said, masturbation jokes. And then you graduate to some self-deprecating Asian jokes or something like that. And then eventually, you're able to become more vulnerable and talk about the immigration stories that I have, right? Like that I wrote in a book.
Speaker 3
19:39
And I'm really happy to kind of use some of that material. And that's material people can't even steal. And it's just your thing, right? So I think that's what I'm trying to strive to doing.
Speaker 3
19:51
Because that's what some of my favorite comedians did. Chappelle, George Lopez has great family stories, and him being a Mexican-American in America. So I want to do more of that.
Speaker 1
20:01
Right. So how did you then make that jump from doing stand-up to then going to LA, getting an agent? Talk me through that shift.
Speaker 3
20:09
Oh, man. I just wanted to do stand-up. My goal was to get a college agent.
Speaker 3
20:15
I can make like $2, 000 a week doing college shows, right? But then things started to unfold. And I went back to LA. I was living in this dude's living room from Craigslist for
Speaker 1
20:27
$300
Speaker 3
20:28
because I didn't want to move back to my dad's as a failure. So it was just struggling. I was just trying to make ends meet.
Speaker 3
20:39
I was hoping to book a commercial. Because a commercial, you can make thousands of dollars with 1 day of work with residuals. So that was what I was hoping for. So I signed up, put my headshots up on all those websites, like desperately seeking for an agent.
Speaker 3
20:56
And then the first agent I met with, a commercial agent, I was like, oh, man, this is going to be great. This is going to change my life. And I drove up. I pulled up.
Speaker 3
21:04
It was at an apartment rental office. It wasn't even an agency. I walked into an apartment building. And then he had me read the Staples commercial, right?
Speaker 3
21:13
It's like, oh, Staples, where all the folks are da, da, da. And I was so bad, the apartment rental agency rejected me. They were like, we're fine. We don't need you.
Speaker 3
21:24
And I was almost about to give up on that. And then I found another small agent that kind of took a chance on me. And she started sending me out on auditions that were beyond my goals at that time, even not just commercials, but modern family, just 2 lines here and there. And I couldn't, I guess I learned some timing from doing stand-up, but I'd never taken acting classes, so I wasn't very good.
Speaker 3
21:47
And then eventually, I spent a lot of money on acting classes. And I got my first part on 2 broke girls. It was just like 2 lines. And I thought that was like the epitome of acting.
Speaker 3
21:58
It was amazing. And then from then, the two-line part, and then I got another two-line part, got a part on Always Sunny with a few more lines.
Speaker 1
22:08
And what type of characters were you getting cast in?
Speaker 3
22:10
It's different. 1 of my favorite parts in the book is this audition log I have, right? It's the 101 auditions that I went on before I got my 102nd audition, which was Silicon Valley.
Speaker 3
22:24
So let me see here if I can find a good section. Where is that log? Oh, here you go. There's 100.
Speaker 3
22:34
It's all these auditions. I used to meticulously keep a log and I got on Silicon Valley, I'm like, okay, I'm fine. I don't need this. But it's a lot of stereotypical roles.
Speaker 3
22:46
Like my first few parts that I auditioned for, I didn't even get it, it's like, Lao Japanese host. Taiwanese 20, looks like 12, computer geek. Tucker, ethnic friend. Right, it's like these 2 line parts.
Speaker 3
23:06
This is 1 of my favorite parts, like looking at these parts, I'm like, oh my God. I used to dream about getting these roles, you know what I mean? And really, Silicon Valley started off as a two-line part also. It was when Jing Yang opened the door and was like, this is Pied Piper.
Speaker 3
23:18
That was the 2 lines that kind of started it. And then they wrote the fish scene after, and then something else. And then by season 2, I became a series regular. So I felt like I snuck in the back door, and It was just amazing.
Speaker 1
23:30
So even that first season, you were still trying to pay the rent, trying to make it work.
Speaker 3
23:35
I got paid $900 per episode. $900. That's a sag minimum wage, OK?
Speaker 3
23:41
That's the lowest they can pay an actor. And that's what most people get paid in Hollywood when you're just starting out. So I was in 3 episodes in the first season, and I had maybe like 5 words total. And I was paid, what, like
Speaker 1
23:55
$2, 700?
Speaker 3
23:57
With maybe residuals, 3 grand at the end of the day. And I was still super broke. I actually drove Uber between season 1 and season 2 of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 3
24:06
But nobody recognized me then. And I used that $2, 700 as down payment for a 2006 Prius. And then that's how I could sustain myself. And when I got a call to be a series regular on season 2, it was life changing.
Speaker 3
24:24
I knew that was the moment. I was like, oh my god, everything's about to change.
Speaker 1
24:28
Awesome. So let's talk about Mike Judd then, Because he's obviously been a big influence on you.
Speaker 3
24:32
Mike Judge, my guy who wrote the foreword on this book. Yeah.
Speaker 1
24:36
And the first time you ever heard him speak was besides Beavis and Butthead?
Speaker 3
24:41
It was at UCSD. Mike Judge was my commencement speaker when I graduated. How crazy is that?
Speaker 1
24:47
2009.
Speaker 3
24:50
He was the campus-wide commencement speaker. I was very hungover that day. I almost didn't go.
Speaker 3
24:56
And then my buddy convinced me. He's like, oh, come on, man. Just go. You know, like, He did like Beavis and Butthead.
Speaker 3
25:01
He's the Beavis and Butthead guy and the King of the Hill guy. I'm like, OK, whatever. I'll go. And then his story really spoke to me, because I was really lost at the time.
Speaker 3
25:10
And he was saying that he was a physics major in UCSD, and he was working in Silicon Valley in the late 80s making computer chips for fighter jets, I believe. And he said he just didn't like it. And eventually, he became a touring musician. And then from then, he found his passion and animated a studio.
Speaker 3
25:33
And that's how he made Beavis and Butthead. It was an amazing story. It was a story that I kind of never allowed myself to have growing up in an Asian family. My dad always told me that if you pursue your dreams, that's how you become homeless.
Speaker 3
25:52
Artists are homeless people. So I was never allowed to have that dream thing. That's a very American thing. And that's what a big theme in the book is.
Speaker 3
26:04
It's in Asian culture, you're supposed to be obedient, follow the rules, be a good son. In American culture, you're supposed to be an independent man, go pursue your dreams, pursue your happiness. So how do you kind of, you know, I'm sure a lot of Asian people here could relate to this, or even anyone. It's like, how do you, which side do I go to?
Speaker 3
26:21
Because they're exact polar opposites, right? And I think deep down, I always want to be that artist person. But I did go through the route, even throughout college, of trying to just be the good son. And then the Mike Judge speech really spoke to me.
Speaker 3
26:36
I'm like, man, this dude didn't know anything about Hollywood, but he was able to make it. So that kind of gave me a little extra motivation to go pursue stand-up and whatever I loved. And yeah, 5 years later, he had no idea I was sitting in the audience. I just went into an audition for the part, and I got the part.
Speaker 3
26:54
And the first day at table read, I told him, I was like, Mike, you were my commencement speaker, man. Thanks. So that was a pretty cool moment. And Mike's a very calm, quiet guy.
Speaker 3
27:04
He's like, yeah, cool. Yeah, OK. So how was it?
Speaker 1
27:08
He majored in economics, too, and he turned out all right. So I think you're fine.
Speaker 2
27:10
Yeah, yeah, you're fine.
Speaker 1
27:12
So OK, so now you're on Silicon Valley full time. How do you reconcile? You have your own sort of immigrant story, and then there's the story of your character.
Speaker 1
27:23
How do you think about that? How do you prepare for that? What do you draw from your own experiences? What do you draw from?
Speaker 3
27:30
Absolutely. I think it all came full circle that I'm able to use my past story into building the Jing Yan character, because he's basically a version of myself 15 years ago, kind of muttering around, can't understand a lot of things, and in a way, being bullied by TJ's character, Erlich. But he's not stupid. So he can kind of come back with some just really deadpan factual trash talk that you don't see coming.
Speaker 1
27:58
Do you have a favorite comeback line?
Speaker 3
28:01
Well, I remember when I was younger, when I first came here, people would talk trash to me, right? And when you're young, like when you're 13, people would be like, hey, your mom's fat, like, ha ha ha, whatever. And I'd be like, no, she's a skinny Chinese woman.
Speaker 3
28:11
Like, what? What? What? What?
Speaker 3
28:13
So that's a very Jing Yang moment, in a way. And I think 1 of my favorite things in Silicon Valley, there's so many favorite moments with me and TJ. I just love working with him. 1 of my favorite scenes, personally, is when we walk into the mansion party.
Speaker 3
28:29
We try to get into the Mirror Woods project. And we just constantly keep trying to throw each other under the bus. We did a ton of improv there, too. 1 of the things was when TJ was like, can we just go in and just take 1 quick lap?
Speaker 3
28:42
He doesn't even eat. And I said, yes, I'm very hungry. Stuff like that. And then there's another take where I just started naming off different food that I see inside.
Speaker 3
28:50
I was like, oh, Korean barbecue, like spaghetti meatballs. Just so much going on in that scene. That was the first time that me and TJ had the whole scene to ourselves, And the whole background and setting. So that was really fun.
Speaker 3
29:03
And I think that was the day that I would discover, I was like, oh, man, we do have something like, there's something special there.
Speaker 1
29:08
So in this season, obviously, TJ's not on, or we're not quite sure where he is. So how do you find your- Smoking
Speaker 3
29:14
opium in Tibet.
Speaker 1
29:17
How do you find your rhythm not having him to go back and forth with?
Speaker 3
29:21
Yeah, he's 1 of my best friends. I think him and Mike are my 2 best friends on the show. So it was really sad to hear him go.
Speaker 3
29:27
He called me at midnight 1 night, and he was like, I'm not coming back for the next season. And I was shocked. I'm like, oh my god. So that means whatever the last scene we did was going to be our last scene together.
Speaker 3
29:37
So I was really sad about it. But I think it turned out to be kind of a blessing in disguise. The writers have to think of more creative ways to build out the show without TJ. And also for me, I get to interact with some other cool people and kind of be a pain in the ass to other people, which is really fun.
Speaker 3
29:58
Yeah, so I'm excited.
Speaker 1
30:00
You're running the incubator now, right?
Speaker 3
30:01
Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm trying. I'm trying.
Speaker 3
30:04
We'll see how it develops. And yeah, I get to interact with a lot more people. And even, I think, 1 of my favorite actors, Matt Ross, who plays Gavin Belson. So I get to do some stuff with him.
Speaker 3
30:16
And it'll be fun.
Speaker 1
30:18
And another cool project, Crazy Rich Asians.
Speaker 3
30:22
Yes. Are you guys familiar with that? Have you guys read the book or anything? Yeah.
Speaker 3
30:28
So it was an international bestseller book. It's a satire on billionaires in Singapore and that culture. And they turn it into a movie. And it's the first studio movie in 25 years since Joy Luck Club that features a full Asian cast.
Speaker 3
30:43
So this is like our Black Panther.
Speaker 2
30:49
And.
Speaker 1
30:51
Not the Yellow Panthers.
Speaker 3
30:53
Not the Yellow Panthers. Well, basically the Yellow Panthers. Yeah, so we just shot in Singapore last year.
Speaker 3
30:59
It's coming out in August. And it's a really good movie. And the experience of that was amazing, because as Asians in Hollywood, I don't know, different art forms, a lot of times on any set, we're the only person on there. And now there's an added weight of like now the scrutinies on YouTube represent Asian people, right?
Speaker 3
31:21
And you're always looked at as the Asian dude, no matter what. It's always Asian dash something. You can be the Asian leading man, Asian asshole, Asian funny guy, or whatever, right? But shooting this movie, it was great.
Speaker 3
31:35
It was in Singapore, where the most talented, most beautiful, funniest Asian people are all in 1 room trying to make this movie. And the pressure is just kind of off of you. You're not just a token Asian dude on the set. You can do your job.
Speaker 3
31:53
Like me as the funny character, Constance Wu, Henry Golding as the lead character, the romantic lead. And we just kind of handed off the baton. And it was the first time in Hollywood that I felt white. And it felt great.
Speaker 3
32:12
It felt so good.
Speaker 1
32:15
Are we OK to open it up for some questions?
Speaker 3
32:17
Yeah, for sure. Let's get to some questions.
Speaker 1
32:18
We actually have a mic right there if you guys want to get. We're live streaming, so we're going to need you guys to talk into the mic so if you can line up back there. And we also have a Dory if you guys want to ask anything in the Dory as well.
Speaker 1
32:30
So just state your name and then the question.
Speaker 6
32:33
AUDIENCE 5 Hey, Jimmy. I'm Vince. Thanks for coming out.
Speaker 6
32:35
Writing that book, it's awesome hearing that story. I was curious, I love your role in Silicon Valley. And there are some cringeworthy, semi-stereotypical Asian moments. I'm wondering how you reconcile that with yourself having lived through that.
Speaker 3
32:48
Yeah, I think it teeters the line of being a stereotypical character and then portraying an immigrant character and humanizing it, right? I know a lot of especially American-born Asian actors that don't even, they wouldn't even audition for a part that has like an accent or something. And for me, I kind of disagree with that.
Speaker 3
33:10
Because I was the kid that was foreign. I was the kid with an accent. So my job is not to judge that, but to portray them in a humanizing, funny way to make them look better. I think that's more important than shunning those people out.
Speaker 2
33:24
Because 1
Speaker 3
33:24
of the most painful things when I first came here wasn't the fact that, say, black people, Latino, white people didn't accept me. Because I was a foreign kid. I expected that.
Speaker 3
33:33
But 1 of the most painful things was the American-born Asian people didn't accept me, because they didn't want to be grouped in as a fob, as the fresh off the boat guy. So I feel pretty strongly about that, where I want to make immigrants just as appealing, and just as sexy, and just as funny as a perfectly English-speaking person. And I think that's important. And I think that's important.
Speaker 3
34:01
And I think that's important.
Speaker 2
34:01
All right. OK. Thank you.
Speaker 6
34:03
OK. Thanks for wrapping
Speaker 2
34:04
the clubs. Thank you.
Speaker 1
34:05
We're going to alternate 1 live and 1 Dory question.
Speaker 3
34:07
OK, cool.
Speaker 1
34:08
All right. The next question is, do you have any thoughts on effect arts and artists, TV included, they have on the perception of the immigrant population?
Speaker 3
34:15
Immigrant population, that's kind
Speaker 2
34:16
of an interesting question.
Speaker 3
34:16
Especially in modern day US. Yeah. Anything else?
Speaker 3
34:19
What is your relationship like with Erlich, TJ Miller in real life? He's a good friend of mine. And we really got along. I think we got the same sense of humor and stuff.
Speaker 3
34:29
I felt pretty good about it. He said I was the first 1 he called when he decided to not do Silicon Valley. We hang out every now and then. He's in New York now, so we don't get to hang out as much.
Speaker 3
34:39
But I took him to a showing of Patriot's Day, a movie I was in. And
Speaker 1
34:43
The Boston Marathon.
Speaker 3
34:44
About the Boston Marathon bombing. And then after the movie, TJ was just standing up clapping. And then he just announced to the theater, he was like, guys, this is my friend Jimmy O.
Speaker 3
34:53
Yang. He was the kid in the movie. Please, everybody clap. So he got a big personality.
Speaker 3
34:59
He is kind of that guy in real life, but I love him. He's awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1
35:04
OK, go ahead.
Speaker 7
35:05
Thanks for coming out. As someone who's navigated that really complicated space of giving up the more guaranteed regular salary job to pursue something that could be a spectacular failure. What kind of advice do you offer or could you offer to someone trying to decide whether or not to take a chance on something that could not work out?
Speaker 3
35:27
Good question. I think for me like I just I almost couldn't live with myself not doing what I love. I always think it's better to try something and fail miserably than to have never tried at all.
Speaker 3
35:42
So if you sum it up in that sentence. And I talked to some startup people. I think those guys are really brave, and they're artists, too, right? Because they could be working somewhere for like $200 grand, but they decided to take a chance.
Speaker 3
35:58
And 1 guy told me, he was like, All you're missing is maybe 2 years of opportunity costs. But you can always go back to doing something safer. So yeah, you're just only losing a couple years. You're fine.
Speaker 3
36:14
Yeah. Thank you. Just pretend you're in a coma or something if it didn't work out.
Speaker 1
36:20
All right, next question. Are you experiencing any reverse culture shock now when you go back to China?
Speaker 3
36:27
Yes. Yeah, when I go back to Hong Kong and China. I went back to Hong Kong for the first time in 17 years last year, after I shot Crazy Rich Asians. And I couldn't find an ending for the book.
Speaker 3
36:36
And that trip gave me the ending that I needed for the book. It was culture shock. I'm so used to LA now. Now I'm not used to tall buildings and stuff like that.
Speaker 3
36:45
And the people, I'm like, oh my god, this is so anxiety-inducing. There's just people everywhere. But there is still a part of me that feels like Hong Kong is always home. Because when I went there, that was just, I don't know, I felt at peace at something.
Speaker 3
37:02
Because here, like we talked about, if I'm playing ping pong or playing the violin or just eating dim sum here, I'll seem a little stereotypical. I try. I dabble. But I'll be like the stereotypical dude here, right?
Speaker 3
37:17
But if I'm just eating dim sum in Hong Kong, reading a Chinese newspaper, I'm just another guy. I don't have to explain myself. So there's some kind of safety and a peace there. And it was good to know that there's part of the world that I can always feel that way.
Speaker 3
37:33
Because in America, like I just became an American citizen last year.
Speaker 1
37:35
Congratulations.
Speaker 3
37:36
Thank you. Still Asian, it's fine. It's fine.
Speaker 3
37:39
Because, like I joke about that, but it's true, right? Because nobody in any part of the world, not America, not Italy, not anywhere, not even Japan, will be like, oh, look, that's an American guy. No, no, no, because I don't have blonde hair, blue eyes, or like whatever, right?
Speaker 1
37:52
No, no, neither.
Speaker 3
37:53
OK, but you look way more American than I do, even though we're at the same level of American. So I think hopefully, you know, with movies like Crazy Rich Asians, more seeing Asians in media and seeing a more homogenized place like Google, like this, people will start seeing Asians as Americans more and more in the future.
Speaker 5
38:18
Hi Jimmy, first off I wanted to say it was really freaky looking over at your dad.
Speaker 3
38:24
Me too, yeah I agree.
Speaker 5
38:28
My dad is also a bald Shanghainese man with
Speaker 3
38:32
great glasses. JOSEPH CHENG
Speaker 5
38:36
Who gets up randomly to take pictures. So it's great to be here. Yes!
Speaker 5
38:42
Thank you.
Speaker 1
38:43
And my other.
Speaker 3
38:44
Does he also have a photo shoot whenever he goes to lunch or dinner.
Speaker 1
38:47
Exactly.
Speaker 5
38:50
And my question is about how you prepared for your role of Jing Yang. I think some people could say that you've been preparing for this role your whole life, being Chinese, being an immigrant. But did you do any specific immersive research in this area?
Speaker 5
39:08
For example, going to Stanford classes or immersing yourself in a hacker hostel? And if not, how did you best prepare
Speaker 3
39:16
and learn
Speaker 5
39:17
about the idiosyncrasies of this area?
Speaker 3
39:19
Thanks. So this past off-season, actually, I made HBO give me a tour of everything. So I talked to a lot of great consultants on the show. Dick Costello is 1 of them.
Speaker 3
39:32
So it's good.
Speaker 1
39:32
It's good to be a PM here, CEO of Twitter.
Speaker 3
39:35
Yeah, and then I visited Google this past summer. And I visited Facebook and more mid-sized companies like Lyft, which Capital G invested in, and a few places. And I learned a lot.
Speaker 3
39:50
And studying the characters there, it's really cool. And also, just for Jing Yang, the character, the immigrant character itself, whenever I drive to the lot, I listen to Chinese radio for like an hour when I'm driving. You know,
Speaker 1
40:03
1, 300
Speaker 3
40:04
AM, the Mandarin station in LA. That's my jam, you know? So it gets me kind of in that Mandarin mindset.
Speaker 3
40:14
And I also, whenever I, before I do a scene, I always kind of say this mantra to myself in Mandarin. I say, ζδΈη₯ι, ζδΈη₯ι, ζδΈη₯ι, which means I don't know in Mandarin. Which I think it helps me think in Mandarin, first of all, but also in a way, it kind of sums up who Jing Yang is as a person. Either he actually doesn't know about something, or he doesn't even care to know about it.
Speaker 3
40:42
So yeah, that would be, I guess, my preparation for it.
Speaker 5
40:45
Thank you. Thanks.
Speaker 1
40:47
OK, you mentioned before that stand-up isn't really a thing in Hong Kong. Do you have any plans to try doing stand-up there? And are you funny in Chinese?
Speaker 1
40:55
Ah.
Speaker 3
40:59
Yeah, stand-up is becoming a thing in Hong Kong now. There's a club that opened up called Take Out Comedy. That's the actual name of the stand-up comedy club.
Speaker 3
41:08
So I would want to go try some stand-up out in Hong Kong, maybe even in Mandarin or Cantonese or something. But it's not as easy as just literally translating my English jokes into a different language. It's more than that. It's cultural differences.
Speaker 3
41:22
They wouldn't understand a lot of stuff that we talk about here. So it'll be kind of a challenge. But maybe in the future, I'll be down to explore that.
Speaker 1
41:30
Does your dad think you're funny yet?
Speaker 3
41:32
Do you think I'm funny? Yeah, he's getting funnier and funnier day by day.
Speaker 1
41:37
Funny and funnier day by day.
Speaker 3
41:38
Still keeps me humble, but you know.
Speaker 1
41:42
Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 5
41:44
Thanks so much for coming today. I know you talked a little bit about your story getting into Hollywood in America, but is there any kind of specific occurrences that you felt really down or you got a lot of pushback, like racially or just not fitting into the role? And do you still face that moving forward today?
Speaker 3
42:00
Yeah, when I didn't get the loud Japanese host part, I was going to. I think 1 of the sadder things is a part perfectly describes you and you still don't get it. It's like short Asian Chinese with glasses and long hair.
Speaker 3
42:15
And you go in and you audition, you still don't get the part. You're like, wow, I'm bad. Like the open ethnicity part, I get it. There are plenty of options.
Speaker 3
42:23
But you know what? At the end of the day, I never try to blame it on the fact that I'm Asian, even though that might be true, even though people could be racist, or they're actually looking for a white guy, but they have to audition an Asian guy or something. But it doesn't give me, benefit me at all, if I try to blame that on me being Asian. So I just try to be better the next audition.
Speaker 3
42:43
If I'm not funny on stage, I try to write better jokes and come back the next day and not use being Asian as a crutch, even though it might be true sometimes. So yeah, that's how I look at it.
Speaker 1
42:55
Thank you.
Speaker 8
42:56
Thanks. Hi, Jimmy. I'm actually a really huge fan of yours. Other than Silicon Valley, I've actually gone through all the videos I can find of yours on YouTube.
Speaker 3
43:06
Wow, thanks, man.
Speaker 8
43:08
Yeah, I even checked your YouTube comments. It's kind of creepy.
Speaker 1
43:13
Cool.
Speaker 8
43:16
We'll keep him
Speaker 3
43:18
a safe distance away.
Speaker 2
43:19
Good guy.
Speaker 3
43:19
So I'm super excited to
Speaker 6
43:19
be here.
Speaker 2
43:19
My question
Speaker 8
43:20
would be, further in the future, would you more look into continuing your path as a comedian or doing both, comedian and being an actor in the show business? Yeah, I
Speaker 3
43:31
think both, and more writing, also, and creating my own IP. Because still, there's not a lot of material out there for Asians to do. You have to come up with your own stuff.
Speaker 3
43:40
So hopefully, 1 of my goals is turning this into a TV show. Maybe like a version of Atlanta, but our version of it, right? And that will probably reach a more mainstream audience. Because stand-up still doesn't translate to a lot of Asians, especially.
Speaker 3
43:55
Like, I never grew up listening, knowing what stand-up is. My dad didn't know what really stand-up was. So I think turning into a TV show or something would reach a broader, more mainstream audience.
Speaker 1
44:05
Didn't you think you did a talk show?
Speaker 3
44:07
Talk show? My dad still calls it a talk show. I'm like, I'm going to Laugh Factory tonight.
Speaker 3
44:11
He's like, what, to do talk show?
Speaker 8
44:15
Thank you. Sorry, 1 more thing.
Speaker 3
44:17
Yeah, sure,
Speaker 8
44:17
go ahead. I also have a question about the problems you mentioned about Asian being a minority in the show business. As you gain more popularity and influence to your audience, Is there something you want to do more about that?
Speaker 8
44:33
Like maybe what kind of actions you would take to change that kind of putting a great actor into a sort of a stereotypical role in a TV show?
Speaker 3
44:44
Yeah, I think what I can do is just creating my own material and putting myself in it, and giving myself jobs that maybe other people would have given to Scarlett Johansson or Matt Damon. So I think it's really important to create and do what you do best, right? Where it's right, do stand up, act.
Speaker 3
45:04
So I always just try to concentrate being the best I can. When there is an opportunity, I can nail it. Because there is a lot of groups out there like, you know, NAACP, CAPE, you know, for the Asian advancements and stuff like that. And they're doing a lot of groundwork in representation and make sure the right article comes out and there's no racist commercials or anything, or whatever.
Speaker 3
45:26
So they are doing their job, but that's not necessarily my job. My job is to really nail the opportunities that they create for us. And really, when I go into an audition room, not just being the best Asian actor, but being the best actor in that room so I can get that role.
Speaker 2
45:41
KATE LEAHY-TRAVIS,
Speaker 1
45:41
JR.: It is kind of amazing, though. In just a span of a couple of years, from literally sleeping on the couch, paying $300 in rent, scraping it together, driving Uber, to now having the weight of representing all Asians and what that means on TV and in film. And do you do parts with an accent or not?
Speaker 1
46:02
And how do you create opportunities? Like, how do you just deal with that pressure?
Speaker 3
46:05
You try to not think about it. And then you have a panic attack at 2 AM. No, I'm just enjoying it, man.
Speaker 3
46:13
This is really fun to see all of you guys show up. Like, I never imagined this would happen. Or I would imagine this happening in the future. But it's just great.
Speaker 3
46:21
I'm just trying to enjoy the moment. It's getting a little busy, but still. I never try to put the weight of representing Asians on my back, because that doesn't make me better at my job. So I just try to entertain.
Speaker 8
46:34
Thank you so much. Thank you. Great to see you in person.
Speaker 4
46:36
Thank you.
Speaker 2
46:38
Love this guy. You have
Speaker 3
46:38
to sign his book. Of course. Of course.
Speaker 3
46:41
Love this guy.
Speaker 4
46:43
Hi, Jimmy. So I think your story really resonates with me, because I dropped out of medical school and for like 2 years My mom was like, you know what you're never gonna get a girl to want to marry you if you're not a dog Under a lot of stress.
Speaker 3
46:54
Are you married now? No
Speaker 4
46:58
So maybe she's right So I got I got 2 questions the first question is if you never got the big break on Silicon Valley, you ended up being a miserable failure, like you said, what do you think you would have ended up doing? And my second question is, so do you have groupies now, now that you're like an Asian celebrity? The
Speaker 3
47:17
last guy. Well, yeah, the last guy,
Speaker 2
47:19
I guess.
Speaker 1
47:19
Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 2
47:19
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2
47:20
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2
47:23
I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 3
47:24
I don't know. If I didn't get Silicon Valley, I think I would still be working hard to try to get something, right? And I always try to have different things in the pipeline.
Speaker 3
47:36
Like, if maybe I never became a really good actor, I would have just tried to concentrate on stand-up or concentrate on writing or something like that. But I don't see there's a world where I would have went back to Smith Barney or anything like that. I think people have a misconception of Hollywood or the arts is luck, or it's nepotism, or something magical needs to happen for you to make it happen. But at the end of the day, if you work hard enough, and if you're good enough, it's going to happen, 1 way or another, right?
Speaker 3
48:12
Especially in the stand-up world. If you just get good enough, at least you can do some colleges. At least you can make ends meet, right? You might not be the next Dave Chappelle, but you can make it a job.
Speaker 3
48:22
So I think that's where to disconnect this with maybe the older generation and also how a lot of people think of the arts. Yeah. Groupies, I don't know. I still use Bumble sometimes.
Speaker 3
48:35
Thank you.
Speaker 9
48:37
Hi, Jimmy. My name is Zeng. And the other part of your story really resonated with me, the immigrant part.
Speaker 9
48:44
So as an immigrant myself who has been living in the US for almost 2 decades, 1 question really trips me up a lot. And it's, where are you from? So Jimmy, where are you from?
Speaker 3
48:57
It depends who's asking that question, right? If it's an Uber driver that I don't really want to talk to, I'll just say LA. And that's the end of that.
Speaker 3
49:07
And a lot of people like to ask you, no, no, no, where are you originally from? And people take offense to that. And I get it. I wish we don't live in a world like that.
Speaker 3
49:14
But I'm proud of where I'm from. Like, I'll tell people I grew up in Hong Kong, and then I came here. So if they want to hear the long story of that, I sell them a book. You know?
Speaker 2
49:23
I'll buy a book, yeah.
Speaker 1
49:25
You too can buy it on Google Play or at a bookstore near you, right?
Speaker 3
49:28
Yeah, exactly. Anywhere you want. Yeah.
Speaker 3
49:32
Thank you. Thanks, man.
Speaker 10
49:35
Hi, Jimmy. Hi. I was wondering if you're still keeping in touch with your high school friends, the Misfits, and other folks who knew you before Silicon Valley.
Speaker 10
49:43
And what are they up to now? And do they think you're funny?
Speaker 3
49:47
Yeah, you know what? They're still some of my best friends, man. My buddy Jeremy, Persian guy, he's in construction now.
Speaker 3
49:55
But he wants to be a writer, so we're actually writing something together, because he knows my life as well as I do. Yeah, and you know, my friend who lives in Irvine now, he came out to support 1 of my book signings. And it was really sweet to see that. And yeah, they still live pretty close to me and still some of my best friends.
Speaker 3
50:12
And it's good to have people like that to keep you honest, I think. Like, they'll check me, they're like, Jimmy, you're acting too Hollywood, man. You know? Why are you going out to buy a gold chain?
Speaker 3
50:22
What's wrong with you? So I stopped that 1 gold chain. Thanks.
Speaker 11
50:30
Hey Jimmy, my name's Tony, Big fan of the show. I'm excited to check out this book. Also being the child of immigrant parents, I'm curious to see how the conversations or process went with you talking to your parents about wanting to leave Smith Barney, disappointing your parents, you said, for a couple of years.
Speaker 11
50:50
What was that like talking to your dad? And how did that all go?
Speaker 2
50:54
JORDAN
Speaker 3
50:54
THIBODEAU-SCHRADER-FLECKER It's hard. I think also in an Asian family, we're not as open in a way like the Western family. Like in an Asian family, we don't necessarily say I love you or I'm proud of you, things like that on the surface.
Speaker 3
51:06
Whereas it's a very casual thing for my American friends to say, oh, I love you, I love you, I love you, right? Oh, thanks. So it's hard, man. I sought some therapy.
Speaker 3
51:20
And you have to kind of step up. You don't want it to be like a thing where you don't end up talking to somebody, right? So It's like an ongoing conversation. I think me and my dad now has a good communication where we talk all the time, even about stuff that I make him talk about stuff he doesn't want to talk about sometimes, like stuff from the book.
Speaker 3
51:43
And he read the book and stuff like that. So sometimes it's up to us to maybe force that conversation on him.
Speaker 11
51:50
Yeah. Was there a point that you felt you had to earn his acceptance at all, or was he kind of like?
Speaker 3
51:55
I'm past that. I'm past that now, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1
52:01
You got him to try acting, right?
Speaker 3
52:03
Yes. He's an actor. He played my dad in Patriot's Day. He's a pretty good actor.
Speaker 3
52:08
All right, thank you. Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 12
52:11
Hi, Jimmy. I'm Huang. My question is actually kind of similar to that last 1.
Speaker 12
52:15
But having Asian parents means that there are a lot of expectations. They expect you to go to a good school, get a good job, and then get married after school and have kids before
Speaker 1
52:23
30.
Speaker 12
52:25
Has their parents' expectation changed as your career grow, and how do you deal with those expectations, I guess?
Speaker 2
52:34
Huh. I think there are
Speaker 1
52:35
a lot of people feeling similar pressures. Yeah.
Speaker 3
52:38
Has your expectation changed, Dad? Do you want me to have kids soon? I would like you to apply for a job
Speaker 2
52:46
in Google. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Speaker 2
52:50
Ha ha ha ha.
Speaker 1
52:51
Does anyone want to hire Jimmy at Google?
Speaker 3
52:54
So there you have it.
Speaker 2
52:56
Ha ha ha ha.
Speaker 3
52:58
Yeah. I mean, Maybe there is, I think. I don't know. But I try not let it get to me.
Speaker 3
53:06
Thanks.
Speaker 13
53:08
Hi, Jimmy. I'm Shanling. Thanks for sharing the story today.
Speaker 13
53:12
So my question is, now you've gained lots of popularity and fame. But at what point do you think that you think you are actually going to be famous someday from TV show? And At what point do you start to actually believe that you know what you're doing and you're going to be good in acting and stand-up?
Speaker 3
53:41
I think being an actor and being a stand-up, you're always kind of insecure. And it's not like an absolute, like, oh, now I'm a good actor. I think I'm very confident in my abilities now, ever since a few seasons of Silicon Valley and other stuff I've done.
Speaker 3
53:54
But you always try to just get better, you know? And not suck. So I don't know.
Speaker 1
54:03
Was the process doing TV versus a movie different for you?
Speaker 3
54:06
Not too much, because Silicon Valley is a single camera, so it shoots like a movie. So I think that gave us a lot of practice. And Silicon Valley is like going to school for me, the acting school I never had.
Speaker 3
54:16
So that was awesome. So maybe 1 day I'll sell out. I don't know. We'll see.
Speaker 3
54:21
As the rappers would say.
Speaker 13
54:23
Were there nights when you cried in the evenings because you think that it's difficult?
Speaker 3
54:30
I cry in the evenings? I didn't know that.
Speaker 1
54:35
It's a question. Have you ever cried from the pressure or the fear of not making it?
Speaker 3
54:40
No, I don't think so. It wasn't like the fear. Like, I get anxiety from it, but it's never like crying.
Speaker 3
54:49
Like sometimes I cry tears of joy when I realize how blessed I am. That's when I cry. Thanks.
Speaker 14
54:59
Hi. OK. My question is, actually, I like Jin Yang this role very much, but I think it's very different with the guys I met in Silicon Valley. I think like me, I'm an Asian guy and a software engineer in Silicon Valley, but I think most Asian guys I met are very smart and they get things done, but Jingyang is totally different with that.
Speaker 2
55:29
Do you? As to say he's stupid. Yeah.
Speaker 14
55:34
Do you know that, I know the role is not decided by you, it's by director or some other guys, but I mean, do you know what's the true software engineer in Silicon Valley? The Asian software engineer. I think
Speaker 1
55:49
she's inviting you to do a Google engineering immersion first.
Speaker 3
55:52
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just Chinese folks asking a tough question, right?
Speaker 3
56:00
I mean, you got to still play the comedy of it, right? Like, if it's just a dude sitting in front of a computer making really awesome apps and really successful making 100. It's not funny. So it's, I think, funny to make it a satire of, you know, he has some of the mannerisms of the Silicon Valley people, but he still kind of has the balls and he's kind of, he steps up and he's kind of an asshole.
Speaker 3
56:28
And you know, he's kind of an opportunist in a way, you know. I think Jing-An can code pretty well. The not hot dog app, he just made it. You know?
Speaker 14
56:41
OK, thank you.
Speaker 4
56:42
Thank you.
Speaker 1
56:43
Maybe time for 2 more questions.
Speaker 15
56:46
Thank you for coming, Jimmy. My name is Vicky. I'm an ABC, American born Chinese.
Speaker 15
56:50
My parents are from Taipei. I grew up exactly kind of the similar path that you may have been. And until I got into Google, my mom was disappointed with me.
Speaker 3
57:02
What did you do before that?
Speaker 15
57:04
Well, I actually went through the recruiting program, university recruiting. So I actually went to UCSD and went through the Career Center and actually applied to work in AdWords.
Speaker 3
57:13
I never stepped foot in that career center.
Speaker 2
57:15
Ha ha.
Speaker 15
57:19
So it was my first job out of college. It was the only job I applied for. And I was like, I hope this works out.
Speaker 15
57:24
And my mom was like, you better hope it works out. So now to this day, even my grandparents are like, don't leave Google. Whatever you do, don't leave. And I don't think they even know what I do.
Speaker 15
57:33
So it's like there is an expectation. I totally understand kind of what a lot of us are going through. The question I had for you was around children, your future children. I have a child now.
Speaker 15
57:46
And I grew up going to Chinese school, doing all the traditional Chinese things we do. I find it challenging to figure out how to raise my child in America, and also instilling the basic cultural traditions I grew up with. And I feel like there's some responsibility on my end to do that. So my question to you would be, imagine yourself being your dad 1 day, having your own children.
Speaker 15
58:11
How would you go about making sure that your own children don't lose their own cultural identity, given that they're not from Hong Kong or Shanghai.
Speaker 2
58:18
Do
Speaker 3
58:18
you speak Mandarin?
Speaker 15
58:19
I do. I speak Mandarin.
Speaker 3
58:21
Oh, OK. So do you speak to your kids in Mandarin?
Speaker 15
58:23
So she's only like 14 months.
Speaker 2
58:26
Well, I
Speaker 3
58:26
mean, will you, you think?
Speaker 15
58:27
Yeah. No, I'm planning on sending her to Chinese school, which is what I'm used to.
Speaker 3
58:31
Yeah, I think that's very cool. Because your kid's going to learn. This is what my dad told me.
Speaker 3
58:35
Like, your kid's going to learn English in school. You might as well speak to him in Mandarin. Like, I see some of my relatives, like, they insist on speaking maybe English to the kids so the kid aren't going to be foreign like they were. But that kid's grew up in America.
Speaker 3
58:50
He's going to speak English. So I think the language itself is very important. I think everyone's trying to learn Mandarin now.
Speaker 1
58:56
FEMALE SPEAKER 1. BET still.
Speaker 3
58:57
Yeah, BET. Show them some BET. So I think, look, even people, actors and people in media, we're trying.
Speaker 3
59:08
So hopefully, as he or she, he or she? She. As she's grown up, there will be more material out there of a positive, cool Asian representation. Read her this book.
Speaker 15
59:21
I mean, we only have Ni Hao Kai Lan right now, but I'm sure there's more opportunities and things for her to learn from. But yeah, I agree. I think language is part of it, but also the traditional sense.
Speaker 15
59:33
I don't know if you plan on celebrating certain holidays with your future children and
Speaker 3
59:38
teaching them. Yeah, I would love to. But I'm not 1 to give parenting advice.
Speaker 3
59:45
Thank you, though.
Speaker 1
59:45
Thank you. You and your dad could write children's books, though.
Speaker 3
59:48
No. That'd be cool. No, let's not. Let's not do that.
Speaker 3
59:51
Let's not do that.
Speaker 1
59:54
All right, last question.
Speaker 16
59:55
I feel so incredibly grateful. I'm the last 1, so I made it.
Speaker 3
59:59
This better be Good.
Speaker 16
01:00:00
Yeah. It's going to be a long 1. First of all, hi, dad. I didn't get the hot dog signature on the book, but that's not a complaint.
Speaker 3
01:00:08
There's only 1.
Speaker 16
01:00:09
Right, yeah. Kudos to your comments on the crazy rich Asians being the Black Panther for Asians. I really strong.
Speaker 16
01:00:16
I feel strong about that, too. This is about thought leadership. So I'm also 1.5 generation Asian Canadian and went to Canada when I was 14. My voice might be shaking right now, sorry guys.
Speaker 16
01:00:27
Too excited.
Speaker 3
01:00:28
You're good.
Speaker 16
01:00:31
Yeah, thought leadership. I also really like how you were saying the difference between ABCs here and the 1.5 generations. I see there's a change of ABC tolerating 1.5 generation more as Asia is rising, specifically in China after 2005.
Speaker 16
01:00:48
There's still more to be done. And the thought leadership part is, I don't want to divide anyone with all these labels. Also, diversity is a talk in Google globally. But how do you just tell people, we're just the same, and we're all immigrants, and you should be proud of who you are without, if they haven't been to your shoes?
Speaker 3
01:01:10
Yeah, I think it's hard to tell people that. I think even if you turn on the TV, like something like the immigration issue is so politicized. There's 2 sides, and there's 2 people arguing, and they never get anywhere.
Speaker 3
01:01:21
And that's why I kind of wanted to write a book like this, where it's just me telling my story, and hopefully it humanizes the immigrant experience. And so maybe people can see it from my point of view and in a kind of humorous, lighthearted way and really understand what it was like to be an immigrant. It's not always sob stories like, oh, whatever. But in a real way, like as if this is a real person.
Speaker 3
01:01:47
So I think that's important to me. And it's hard to convince people, but sometimes it's easier. It's like pitching jokes to the writers room. You don't want to tell them, hey, this is the joke I want to do.
Speaker 3
01:01:57
But you want to kind of make them think they came up with that idea. You should do that with your bosses. You should make them think it's their idea. And how do you do that?
Speaker 3
01:02:08
It's maybe by telling them a story through different mediums, stand-up books, or just in person telling them a story. And just showing them who you are, letting them know you as an immigrant. And I think that does more work than arguing with someone and shoving a point down their throat.
Speaker 1
01:02:29
I think we're all very lucky that we get to hear
Speaker 3
01:02:32
your story in writing, on
Speaker 2
01:02:33
TV, and in the meat. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
Speaker 2
01:02:35
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 2
01:02:56
You
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