Christina Qi

Intro: (00:00:00) Hey guys, welcome to Asian Hustle Network Podcast! My name is Bryan and my name is Maggie. We interview Asian entrepreneurs around the world to amplify their voices and empower Asians to pursue their dreams and goals. We believe that each person has a message and a unique story from their entrepreneurial journey that they can share with all of us.

Maggie: (00:00:00) Today we have a very special guest with us, her name is Christina Qi and she is the founding partner at DomeYard LP, which she had started when she was back at MIT. She is also the CEO of Databento. Christina, welcome to the show.

Christina: (00:00:23) Thank you so much for having me. I’m honored to be here.

Maggie: (00:00:26) We’re very happy to have you part of the show. We would love to start and know a little bit more about, you know, your upbringing and you know, where you were born and you know, what kind of family where you grow up with?

Christina: (00:00:38)   That’s an awesome question. So, I was born in China. When I was three, my family immigrated to Utah, America for those who aren’t familiar. A really small town in Northern Utah and they were waiting tables at restaurants, washing dishes and stuff, and making a dollar an hour.

It wasn’t a lot even back then, I grew up relatively poor, I guess and that you know, you don’t notice that environment, I think until certain things happen to you and you’re surrounded by certain people and so for instance, like I just remember back then I would have to after school because I was an only child, I would go to the restaurant after work and like literally just hang out in the restaurant.

Some people would be like, who is this poor kid you know? And there’d be older guests who would give me like a quarter so I could buy you know, those like candy items from the candy machines at the restaurant and stuff and so just remembering the times when like, even a quarter meant so much to me which is ironic because, you know, when, these days my hedge fund, like when we get a $10 million investment, I’m just kind of like, oh, it’s just 10 million, you know?

Like, it’s just crazy how your life changes. And so, I think it affected though when I was growing up that way I kind of had this a wrong impression that pursuing money was what mattered. And just because it just felt like, you know, the more I had, the more I was able to accomplish things I wanted to and buy the things I wanted to buy and, you know, very selfish, things like that.

And so pursued money above all else started the hedge fund and suffered the consequences of that as well, in terms of realizing, oh, you know, I made it to top of the totem pole and finance, but not much, you know, what have I gained in terms of being happy and things like that, you know, just really made me reflect on like, Is there more to life than money and there absolutely is.

But yeah, I’ll think about actually when I was in preschool as well one of my core memories from when I was like, you know, four years old was I had just moved to America. My parents would pack like, you know, Chinese lunch boxes for me for lunch. And I’m sure this is a story that’s heard across a lot of immigrant children, you know, all immigrant children experience at some point.

But I would bring these lunches and you know, with like stir-fry or shrimp or I don’t know, stuff like that. And my classmates would be like, eww you know, typical like gagging reactions. And like eww it’s gross. It smells bad, you know, making fun of my food and I would throw it away or I would dump it in the trash or take it home.

And my mom would be like, you didn’t eat your food, you know? And I would be like, well, I want, you know, to make my French fries and chicken nuggets right. A lot of kids go through that and I demanded French fries and chicken nuggets. And then it’s just ironic is I had a scene in, in college.

You know, after getting became fully American, whatever, you know, going to college, eating my French fries and chicken nuggets at lunch. And then I see my friends next to me, they’re all eating Chinese food and I just thought, wow, how ironic all my white friends are eating Chinese food. They’re taking photos and posting them on Instagram.

Like it’s the coolest thing and I was, you know, my whole life, I was ashamed of my heritage and my food. And I thought about my mom and like how, how bad I felt like, you know, rejecting my parents’ cooking and their love for me and how they express their love right. Was through food and so yeah, just memories like that, that are kind of bittersweet, but helps you learn your identity and you know, what you go through as shared experiences. I think that we all kind of go through as kids.

Bryan: (00:04:07) It is a very powerful story for you and me, to relate to. My parents and I also grew up in a very humble background. My dad would tell me his hardest job ever was working at a car wash place and wiping down the cars. And that’s the reason why we, every time I go to a carwash place, we would tip the person so much, so much money because like my dad’s like, this is the hardest job I’ve ever had.

You know, it humbled me up and that’s kind of a similar background. I felt too, you know, and just spending a lot of time sitting around watching my parents, doing hardly labor work because they couldn’t speak English that well. And similar to you, my pursuit out of college was to make a lot of money.

That’s the only thing on my mind. After all, I’m like, wow, like, because I think you can relate to because we both live in the 08 crash, my parents made something, then they lost everything. That’s around the time that I was in college, I’m like, oh man, like money was all, always problems. So very similar after college, I’ve gone to software engineering and then real estate.

And when I made a certain level of success in real estate, my mental health started hurting because I’m like, wait a minute. Why am I selling? Not happy though. Like, what’s wrong with me? You know and you realize that that’s the best form of happiness by giving, in my opinion, other people only relate to that side.

My, questions for you are what was granting Utah lifelike, has it shaped your Asian identity, and how it made you make it seem like I want to be more white than Asian. There are a lot of people that we hear stories about when the Asian Hustle Network, we’re only up to our Asian heritage right now, and we’re proud of who we are and where we came from. And I want to, so we want to know, like what kind of effect did that have on you growing up in Utah?

Maggie: (00:05:50) Yeah, and on top of that, you know, a lot of Asians in America, face this identity crisis because they don’t feel they know their place where, you know, if they belong in America, because going back to let’s say China or Asia, they also don’t feel in place there either right because it’s like they have their own culture and like being simulated into America, it’s changed a lot, you know? And so, yeah. Would love to know, you know, how you were able to kind of situate yourself in Utah and, you know if you ever went through like an identity crisis or anything like that.

Christina: (00:06:22)  Absolutely, so Utah, my town’s population is 99% white, pretty much, and 99.9%, a very, very conservative Republican and so the political leanings and also the beliefs of the people it’s very, it’s called Mormon country also what you toss referred to just because it’s very religious as well. So, yeah, growing in the environment I was affected in certain ways, in terms of like, obviously the first thing is never feeling like, I quite belonged in certain ways and I didn’t realize it until again, like being like my lunch box being gagged at, you know, or in like, I think in elementary school we were like, there’s like a school play type of thing, or like a ballet type of thing that we did.

But one of the teachers had selected me as one of the main characters in the ballet and the play and then another teacher said, no, no, no, we need, you know, Claire needs to be white because that’s who she is, traditionally. We can’t have like a Claire with black hair, you know, it needs to be like a blonde white girl.

And I was like, I didn’t realize at the time what that meant, I went home, told my parents, my parents were like, wait, like that’s you know, wrong and I, they were upset and I was like, okay. So, I should be upset too you know? So just small memories like that were back then when you were so young, you don’t realize like, why am I not in this role?

Why did I get cast and then get not cast again, you know, and all, all these opportunities are taken away, just because of things like hair color? I did dye my hair blonde for the longest time. You know, I went through that whole, I guess ABGs that they call it now. I was in a little phase, you know, red hair, blonde hair, or whatever hair like I did everything to try to fit into that environment.

So, yeah you know, affected the way that I kind of grew up and stuff and then had to kind of learn over time to be proud of my culture, my heritage. What helped a lot was also because I’m an entrepreneur now, you know, going back to China sometimes and doing business in China has helped open a lot of just open my eyes in terms of like, even the way that they view me.

They’re like, oh, she’s American, you know, they call me American. Yeah, and then I, in America, they call me Chinese. They’re like, you know, go back to, you know, especially during COVID right. You probably, a lot of people get like, or your friends might have gotten like go back to your country or, you know, microaggressions and stuff like that too.

So yeah, it’s an interesting time, but I don’t know how to describe it. I think it’s a constant process, you know, I’m still constantly trying to find myself. It’s not, I can’t, I wish I could constantly or confidently tell you guys like, oh yeah, I know who I am. I know, you know, like I have a place in this world.

Yeah. We all do. But like, I think it’s still a constant process and educational experience for me even, you know, during this time when for instance during the whole Black Lives Matter thing right. I think that was a big learning experience for everyone here. Like how do you be an ally and how do you also recognize?

Yeah, there are a lot of like people who mentioned black on Asian crime. People mentioned all these other, oh, what about all the looting? What about all the police, you know on all sides. Yeah, that’s true. You know, but like how do you be a proper ally and how do you support your friends through, through all these different things?

So yeah, those are all been kind of really big learning experiences and I think we’re all kind of constantly, and that’s the great thing is, you know, it’s okay to be wrong because it shows that your learning is, it shows that you’ve changed your mind on things. You know, when I was growing up, I’ll tell you like in a Mormon country here, conservative land, you know, one of my teachers in high school, he said, okay, who you know, who is against gay marriage?

And every single person raised their hand in class, because back then. You know, only 10 years ago, people were still very anti LGBT, you know, gay marriage, gay rights, and now if that I’m sure if that same teacher asks a question, you know, everyone is like, oh, I’m all for gay marriage now.

And now our high school has an LGBT club, but back then, you know, there was no, they didn’t even have cultural clubs or any kind of minority clubs. Cause it just wasn’t allowed. So, I think times are changing hopefully for the better, in many different ways, despite all the pushbacks we face constantly.

Bryan: (00:10:22) Yeah, we appreciate it your honesty too and state that, hey, you’re still figuring yourself out and you’re still learning, you know, and coming from you and how much you achieve and you know, in such a short amount of time, that’s amazing to hear that honesty, you know, you’re still learning.

You’re still growing. As you can already tell this is just the beginning for you too wait and see what you want to accomplish in the next five, 10, or 20 years now. Definitely. Yeah. Fast forward a little bit. And so, you grew up in Utah and now you’re moving on to college, and MIT what was that transition like?

Like when you first you’re like, oh my God, I’m leaving Utah. This is where I’m going. Like, what is that pressure on you to achieve academic success growing up like?

Maggie: (00:11:06) Yeah and did you know that you wanted to go through, you know, the FinTech route or did your parents have any plans for you? Like, did they want you to go through a specific route?

Because in Asian culture, a lot of our parents immigrated here. They want a future for their kids and they have a set plan. Like you have to be a lawyer, you have to be a doctor. Right. That’s how, as a set of plans for you or where you were, they pretty like relaxed and chill about what you wanted to do for your future.

Christina: (00:11:30) It’s a great question. I think they were pretty in between; I would say they’re not like the crazy tiger mom level of like, not letting me have any fun, but also, they were still like, you know, don’t go crazy and still try to be a good person and do what’s right and stuff like that. I don’t know, it’s hard to describe, but like for a lot of parents in East Asia and other countries in general, I think those cultures where education was like back then for them, right?

The only way out of poverty was education, the only way out of poverty is you take a test. They’re the Chinese version of the SAT or the Indian version of the SAT, you know, whatever it is and you get like the best grades and then you get into school, and then, you know, that’s your way out of poverty but you know, in America, the hardest thing for Asian parents to realize was like, that’s not, we don’t even have SAT this year.

You know, I think my brother’s a junior in high school and they canceled as he went to the SAT testing site in, I think March and they all sat down and they were like, guys, this test has been canceled by and then they just all got up and left again. Yeah. So, there’s not even a SAT anymore, you know?

So, like for my parents to be like, oh my gosh, now, now what? And I’m like, yeah, exactly. You know, college is a lot more holistic here right. I would hope it’s becoming a little more holistic and hopefully fairer I don’t know but you know, it’s, it’s a different process than in other countries.

So, like for me, I would say, you know I think of what got me into MIT. It’s hard to describe, but I was really into anime. I still am. So, I was really into anime growing up. I did a lot of cosplay and I did write a lot of my essays on doing cosplay, being kind of weird. I was a homecoming candidate for my high school and I represented science clubs.

Every candidate has a club that they represent and so I had the science club stash, but then instead of wearing a dress, I wore like a lab coat and I had like goggles and like a beaker and I looked super nerdy, basically like, you know, just kind of not caring and so I just wrote about it. As say something like, you know, like that’s okay and I think all the moms, there’s a lot of pageant moms in Utah. They were really upset seeing me go down the walk down the aisle like that when their daughters were all dressed in like, you know, fancy dresses and stuff but all the emo kids were proud of me. They’re like, oh my gosh, look at all the rebellious kids.

Just experiences like that. I think we’re very eye-opening to me, but also hopefully help me in a sense too I think I got in because of that because afterward one of the admissions counselors. Oh yeah. You’re the girl who wore the lab beaker down and then you remembered my essay. So, but anyway, so getting in was, is different from it’s a lottery, right.

And that’s why I say to everybody as you apply to wherever you can, but like if you don’t get in, look, it’s not the end of the world right. Like have I’m the only one in my family who has ever gone to like a good school and my other, like my parents, went to a state school, Utah state university, you know, like it’s great.

And they had a really good life and a really good path for them opened as well and so it just doesn’t matter. I know a lot of parents stress that all the time that you must get to Harvard, but to be honest, like my friends go to Harvard and they failed that it’s nothing that they’re failures, but just, they’re not happy right and I think that that’s an indicative indicator of like success in a certain way. So, yeah. Anyway, so than getting into MIT, getting out of MIT was more difficult in terms of, I was a failed student by all means in terms my first exam in MIT was physics. I got a 21.5%, which is like really, you know, in high school you’re used to getting like the eighties and nineties or whatever.

And then I got 21% and my friends, I remember one of my white friends down the hallway. He was like, you had a 21%. I’m like, I got 41.5%. I was so angry. Just barely making it through and then on that same white friend, he introduced me to Boba like, you know, bubble tea Boba. I had never heard of Utah again, growing up in the middle of the countryside.

So yeah, he was like, you never how are you even Asian? You know, I don’t know, never heard of it before and so, and then I had Korean food from her saying Indian food for the first time, you know, Ethiopian food and everything in Boston. So, it was just a. eye-opening experience. I was a mediocre major.

I declared I’m the easiest major at MIT, which was called management science and everyone was, what’s that? And I’m like, I don’t know how to explain it either guys. You just take, it’s a couple of like introductory accounting, finance, and like marketing, basically all into like operations management.

But anyway, so I barely was able to graduate and felt lucky for that and then yeah, and that, that was about it, but you know, it’s like once you enter school, doesn’t mean that your life is all set at a good college. It’s like, I still have to work my ass off, sorry for swearing worked my butt off.

And they had to go through a lot during that time and didn’t think I would get a job or anything out of school. So yeah.

Bryan: (00:16:24) Wow. That’s amazing. It sounds like you did a lot of self-discoveries during that time, too, in terms of like discovering other Asian cultures as well. 

Maggie: (00:16:34) We would love to know it, you know, we know that you started dome yard while you’re back at MIT. I’m very curious to know, you know, how that idea transpired and, you know, we know that it started in your dorm room right and we hear, you know, stories of that, you know, ideas transpiring in your dorm room.

And you’ve been working on dumb yard ever since that time, you know, would love to know like how the idea came about and where you’re working with other people on that. You know, how did this all kind of transpired.

Christina: (00:17:02) Yeah, that’s a great question. I feel like ideas come from like good ideas come from bad experiences for the most part. And so, you know, I wish I could just tell you, oh, I just had this genius idea that just came up, and then I decided to hustle and do it and the reality is I had a really bad, really, really bad experience. That was an internship at a big financial bank on wall street and it was kind of like, I guess when people ask what it was like, it was like Wolf of wall street but like in modern times and I was, we, I worked like 15, 16 hours a day. Usually, I was a zombie in terms of like my social life and my like mental health. I didn’t have much time for anything. They made me, they call me the, there are only two women interns. I was the other tough part was like, maybe there are two female interns.

And they would call me the coffee girl. Cause my job was to grab a coffee every day and pay for it by myself. I had to pay out of my own money, grab coffee for whoever wanted on the team, you know, do the rounds every day for coffee, two or three times a day, and then they call me the, they call me the shitty coffee girl.

Sorry for that. Literally what they call me the bad coffee girl, the shitty coffee girl, because the other girl was better than me at grabbing coffee and I was like, oh my gosh, they’re going to put us against each other and make the two girls like the enemy, you know, tried to pairs against each other.

And she’s in my book that I’m writing as well, by the way about my experience. They tried to put us and make us into enemies by making us grab a coffee and do all these competitive things and we ended up becoming really good friends. So, I was grateful for that. But yeah, so I had that experience and then during my final internship presentation, well, first off throughout the internship, my boss’s boss, not my direct boss, but the boss above him was abusive to me.

Like he would sometimes like grab my shoulder and be like, don’t talk to me ever again, you know, because I always got on his bad side for various reasons. I had to say good morning to everyone who walked through the door. Cause I sat next to the door and one morning, you know, he noticed he’s like, you sound like you fake, you need to like cheer up, you know, be like a better cheerleader for the team.

And I was like, like, no, I don’t owe you any smiles you know? And he was upset by my reaction, which I understand like I was a bad intern, but anyway, so then on the last day of the internship I presented my final presentation and his response was, and I’m thinking, I don’t want to swear, but he said.

What the F was that? He, that was in response after I had spent the whole summer preparing this and I had run it through my boss and other people on the team and it was his boss’s boss that he was just so angry at me and then he like started yelling at my boss and stuff during the presentation and then I just, I started gagging.

So, it was like, I started to like having this gag reflex and I was like, shit, I’m going to throw up and so I like to run out of the room. I’m like throwing up in a trash can. I’m like, that’s how traumatized I was from that whole like, experience. So anyway, after that I was known as the girl who threw up on her boss during this, summer internship on wall street.

And then I was lost. I didn’t, I couldn’t find a job. Other people who I interviewed at other companies, would be like, oh yeah, I’ve heard about you and I’m like, no, I know how they heard about me. It was probably caused by words spread around about there being a bad intern and so anyway then I said, well, you know, why not just try it on my own?

And so, you know, with nothing else to do. I was trading German markets at like 2:00 AM going to class during the day and this was my senior year and decided, well, he might’ve just made this into a real company. It’s not like I had much else to do anyway with my life at that point and I felt completely lost and confused, to be honest, and felt like nobody wanted me on wall street.

Yeah, so I guess it’s like these ideas, you know if I looked at also the stats about hedge funds or startups, right? Startups rarely succeeded. I think it’s like less than 10% or something and for hedge funds, it’s even lower, like these things rarely succeed and if I have did the analysis.

I would never have started it, but it’s kind of like, I think when you start a company when you start an idea, you’re driven by passion, right? It’s like, it’s just like, what wakes you up in the morning? And even if, you know, you’re not going to succeed, if you know, you know, you don’t know that your future reality, you don’t know your fate, but like, even so, it’s like so long as you wake up and you’re excited and you’re pumped to go to work right like that’s the feeling that I craved and for the first time, I had that feeling by starting my own company and so I just kind of went from there and you know, made a bunch of a ton of mistakes, which I talk about in the book, but also did a couple of two or three right things.

I would say and then those things I did, right. Hopefully helped in terms of growing the fund into kind of the $7 billion, you know, trading volume fund that we do now. So yeah, but it was a long, kind of a stressful process throughout exciting and stressful.

Bryan: (00:21:48)  I’m sorry to hear about your experience. I’m really happy that you turn a negative into a positive and that you kind of sort of accept the positive mindset throughout everything that’s going down, you know, instead of just being yourself on it, or maybe I’m not fit for this girl and just giving up right there, you didn’t give up, you look for a different way to succeed.

Yeah. I think every bad situation is always something positive that comes out of it and it also makes more sense looking back now, I had these things never happened. You wouldn’t be where you are right now if you have been like a great intern. You probably have it on wall street now. You’re probably just as wealthy still, but you’ll be working for someone else. 

Christina: (00:22:38) I was going to say in my book, I do talk about, because the other girl during my internship, she was more like. She was known as a goody-two-shoes on the team. She was like, perfect and grabbed a coffee, and then she took over my coffee duties eventually. Cause I was so bad at my job.

But then she ended up doing very well. So, she got her traditional job on wall street and I’ve had a lot of, and we became really good friends, thankfully. So, throughout time, we’ve had a lot of ironic experiences. I’ll tell you one bad decision I made and how it relates to her, which is funny.

Which was throughout, like when we first started a company, I was like, okay, well I want our hedge funds to have the same culture like Google or Facebook, which is, you know like you imagine like slides in their office and like beautiful map rooms and primary colors and like, I don’t know, free food right all the perks and stuff that you guys have out west and so I did that and we decided let’s be flat, let’s call everyone a partner in the company, finance partners, the highest title you can have basically unless you want like managing partner or something. I was don’t know, but partners were already extremely high.

So, we call everyone a partner, including myself. I just went by, I used to just go by the partner title, and then what happened was we had a couple of employees who abused this or try to abuse the policy. So, for instance, we hired someone who is an office manager. Her job is just literally cleaning the office, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning the sink, you know, organizing the space, getting some supplies, you know, all the basic stuff right, and she came to me and she’s like, well, you know, I want a promotion and also, can you give me the title of managing partner? And I was like, you know, I’m a partner right and I started this company and she was like, yeah, but like, you know, I still want this promotion. And like I noticed I’m being paid a lot less than the software engineers, you know, can you raise my salary?

And I was like, yeah, you know, maybe. If you work hard and meet these goals, we’ll give you 70,000, 70,000 right. And she was like 70,000 per month and I was like, really like no per year right. But she was expecting like half a million-dollar salary to clean the office and she wanted a managing partner.

So, we had a couple of employees who were like that as well, who wanted like, even better titles of like managing parts. I told her, no, you know, she gets really upset and left the company pretty shortly after but then that night I went home and I talked to Lexie, who was my friend during the internship process.

And she was working, she’s already working at a big bank and doing well and she’s like, Christina, guess what? I got promoted to associate analyst to associate and she was so happy and I was so happy and we like celebrated and I was so happy for her and, you know, she’s like drinking and whatever.

It just was so ironic because the difference of like working on wall street, it’s like analyst, associate VP director, managing your department, you know, partners like up here right and that same day, like literally, our office manager was telling me, I want managing partner and irony of the experiences of doing that.

The mistakes I made, you know, those are it’s my fault at the end of the day, as a manager for not setting the right kind of culture, you know, with those, with my own company and my employees. So, I do blame myself for those types of behaviors and crazy stuff that happens, and the difference of, you know, if I had taken the wall street path, maybe I would today be if I’m lucky a VP, I think I’d be very lucky to be a VP.

But you know, the difference again, of like, oh, now, you know, people in my company are like, you know, they don’t even want to be a partner anymore. So, we actually, ended up getting rid of titles or no, sorry, getting rid of the partner title and giving people proper titles, like a software engineer or, you know, or whatever. So, like that way people you know, feel like it’s more appropriate for their job.

Maggie: (00:26:26) It seems like there were a lot of learning lessons, you know, and it’s all perspective, right? Like your friend who went from analyst to associate seems like she was very grateful for that position for that, you know, that escalation. So, I loved seeing those different perspectives.

Bryan: (00:26:42) We do want to hear more about it. What your mental health was when you were going into your internship. It’s one topic that, you know, as Asians, we don’t talk about that topic at all. It’s swept under the rug remember I talked to my mom before telling her I was extremely unhappy as a software engineer.  

She’s like, son, we try so hard for us to come to America, you want to wipe down cars with your dad. He’s like, I was like okay. All right and then she gets, we just slept on the rug, but your talented plan. It kind of got to me, you know, I wasn’t happy or majored in engineering because at that time, the way I saw it was getting out of poverty quickly, without much schooling, I was like, oh yeah, engineering engineers make like 150, 20K a year in Silicon Valley. I’m going to move there and make that happen and have money. I never realized how much I hated my job.

 

Christina: (00:27:37) Oh, yeah, I know what I mean, and also, like, I think in Asia, the Asian stereotype is like mental health doesn’t exist in India, any country out, down there, you know? But it’s so true though. It’s something that a lot of folks, unfortunately, don’t recognize and thus, you know, like suicide and stuff like that happens as a result because people don’t know how to take care of themselves, which is, I’m glad that, you know, it’s talked about a lot more these days, even in America, like I think growing up, there’s a meme I saw on some, one of those groups on Facebook that was like saying how you know 20 years ago, right. People would be like, guys, guess what? Like, you know, like she’s seeing a therapist, you know what I think a bad thing.

Maggie: (00:28:17) Yes. We talk about that all the time and like, you know, there’s such a bad connotation for someone to see a therapist, but we honestly feel that. It shows a strength of like power or strength that you are seeing there is to improve on yourself right, I think back then, it’s like very people saw it as like something bad right?

Bryan: (00:28:36) Do you have any practices for your mental health? You meditate. We talk to your friends; you call your mom?

Christina: (00:28:42) I think for me the best therapy is I’m trying to talk to and talking to friends and even just posting on Facebook or LinkedIn, especially Facebook, like my darkest moments I posted on Asian Hustle Network, two moments when I felt like I was being discriminated against because of something like gender or race or age, when I post about it and people either, you know, they offer either tough love, which I deserve or advice like, hey, I’ve been through that too.

And you know, here’s what you can do next time and so, even just empathy of like, I’m sorry you went through that, you know, like. So much to just know that you’re not alone or that people are listening and there for you when, when you need them to be and so I do appreciate that. So, my experience of starting the fund did come with a bunch of both physical and mental health issues unfortunately, I think the biggest one was a developed PTSD from a variety of experiences with investors. I’ll tell you some funny investors I met and maybe this will help give you guys a sense of, the world of billionaires here. So, all of our investors a lot of them are billionaires.

And I’ve met all kinds of crazies, I guess. One of them was one of the richest guys in Asia and he’s in Hong Kong and this was, I just started the fund. I was living in a shack, like sleeping on a couch in Boston. I was dirt, poor didn’t have any money and this guy flew me out to Hong Kong in his private jet and then had a show for like, with me the entire time.

And he put me on the top of the Ritz, Carlton is like a hundred and 50th floor of like this building and I was in this huge suite and I was like, oh, like, I was like, hyperventilating, what is going on? I took a bunch of stuff, all my friends because for me that was unbelievable. And then he had dinner, we had dinner downstairs and like in one of the restaurants at the hotel and he brought his wife and daughter and I was like, wait, I thought this was like a business meeting, you know, between the two of us, maybe some of your colleagues.

Right but he’s like, oh no, no, no. I’m, you know, I just want you to give my daughter advice on how to get into Harvard and I was like, wait, so you’re investing $10 million into my fund. Not because you think we’re going to succeed, but because you want me as a woman role model for your daughter 13 years old or whatever. I was like, oh my, I couldn’t eat. How do I respond? You know, I didn’t know what to do. Fancy dinner, you know, we all just like food and stuff, and then afterward at night, and I was like, I mean, I talked to the show for a guy because he was just sticking with me the entire time and he was like, Christina, you’re so lucky, you know, to do this and to be able to be here and stuff, I’m like, yeah, but you’re so lucky too, you know, you worked for the richest billionaire in Asia. And he was like, oh no, no, no, no, no. I’m not, I was born in and I was like, wait, what? Whoa and he said, okay, I’m the bastard son of Leonard, who was the who’s the billionaire guy.

And I was like, what? So, he’s a bastard, some of them, the investor and he’s like, yeah, my job is to serve Leonora. Who’s the daughter, the main daughter who was at the dinner. So, she’s like the mainline, the main family line and he’s like one of them, the branches and I’m like, is this like game of Thrones, modern-day? And he’s like, yeah, I never went to, they never put me in school. I never had a proper education. I’m, you know, I was you’re a modern-day slave. That’s what it is. You know, it’s like the modern-day game of Thrones level, like craziness here going on and you know, like, those are the types of people who I met through my experiences.

And then, so that was fine but then one of the investors I met, I still don’t know like how much I’m allowed to reveal about those kinds of stuff. Cause there’s a lot of still going on, but you know, one of our investors was Jeffrey Epstein and so you guys, all, I can say this cause he’s dead now.

So, I don’t can’t get sued by him by his ghost, but he had come after me when I had given his name to the FBI at one point in time, Yeah and so I had some really bad experiences there and so developed a bunch of mental health issues, I think as a result of being. I was paranoid. I was anxious.

And you know, just all kinds. We were sued by a lot of our investors, not a lot, sorry. A couple of our investors who were kind of bad people like that yeah and so, you know, but I am really lucky today to be away from all that I’ve survived, the lawsuits, I’ve survived, all the FBI stuff. I’m free and clear.

I’ve never gotten into any trouble. I’ve never been arrested. I’ve never liked, had anything like that happen, but I’ve gotten close and that getting so close to that and wondering if I would get arrested, you know, was a traumatic experience, but seeking help again, like rec even my colleagues recommended Christina, you look like, you know, crap, go and get some help and, you know, get, take some rest and do what’s best for you?

That’s been nice too. I think also quarantine has been good for me in terms of, I mean, good and bad, right? It’s bad for everyone but pivotal for everyone, I guess, but good in a sense that you get to reflect on like, okay, well, you know, what do I want to do in my life? What do I care about?

What are my values and what do I want to do after this is all over? So that’s, it’s just been such a great time to be able to reflect and have some time for me. So, yeah.

Maggie: (00:33:57) I mean, we read your, your posts, your Facebook posts on the Asian Hustle Network, Facebook group and, you know, I can see that inspired a lot of people you talked about, you know, all those days where you were super stressed out and getting sued, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs go through speed bumps like that, but yours is like next level, you know, that fear of going to jail, it must be extremely scary.

You know, also I remember in your post on AHN, you talked about, you know, the gender inequality, right and you were about to get your speech at an event, but someone had told you to clear their plate right and you know, this also goes back to when you were at your internship where you were called a coffee girl.

You know, I think if someone were to be called that today, like that would create such a fire, you know, but this was a while back and so my question is, were you facing any challenges as a female in this industry and you know, how are you able to respond to those challenges and those remarks and comments like that.

Bryan: (00:35:03) We want to hear more about your non-profit investment to invest in girls as well?

Christina: (00:35:08) Awesome yeah, definitely. I think you know, there’s, there’s everything, every kind of ism racism, age-ism sexism, they’re all pretty prominent in pretty much every industry and one of the things you kind of learn about is how to deal with that when it happens and so for me like if I’ve learned, especially through my colleagues, like if I dwell on these negative thoughts, which I tend to do, by the way, I tend to like, be very sensitive.

So, I dwell on negative thoughts all the time and let them like really trigger me down into this path of depression and I try my best to be, you know what, like it already happened. I just teach them a lesson, get it over with and that’s it right. So, I’ll give you another example, like besides the waitress story, which that’s actually how it ended was after I gave my speech, that person came up, found me again after the talk and was like, wow, you know, I’m so sorry that I will never do that ever again.

And they were super apologetic. They’re like, let me treat you to dinner. I was like, don’t, don’t worry about that right. Just promise me, you’re not going to do that again right, and that you’ve learned your lesson here clearly. So at least like that person learned by just, he’s like, I’ve just never seen a minority woman on stage, you know, I’m sorry.

You know, and I was like, that’s, that’s fine pattern recognition. We all have pattern recognition, right? Like we all have our own biases as kids, there are studies on like four-year-old kids who have biases of like us versus them based on what they see. So, my bias was like growing up. I’m a bad driver.

My mom’s a bad driver. So, I thought all Asian women are bad drivers, you know? And then when I get it, it was when I got an Uber driver for the first time who was a woman, I was like, oh, no, like she’s going to be so slow. I need to do the air for, you know, and she was great. She was fast and I was like, oh, maybe I’ve been just biased my entire life.

And I’ve just never, I rarely seen a female Uber driver. So, I just never really knew. So those biases come across everywhere in life, including myself and, you know, I just learned to correct them over time and that’s fair and fine. So yeah, it does happen quite a bit. I had, we were interviewing a board member as well, a couple of years ago for a board seat in our fund.

And this guy is like the CEO of a big company and so he came in and he said, he was on a call and he’s, oh yeah, yeah, sorry. I’m meeting with these kids right now. I’ll call you back later. And he called his kids and it was very subtle, but he kept on saying stuff like, oh, you kids are so smart these days or, you know, whatever it is.

And he means them as compliments. But to me they’re more like microaggressions because I’m calling you first off, I’m the chair of the board in this situation. I’m not his daughter, you know, I’m the chair of the board and I’m interviewing him for a position and he’s calling me a kid, he’s interviewer is a kid, you know?

And there were so many other things he could have called me, including by my name, which he didn’t and I just thought, wow and so I said something like you said your kids are so smart these days. I’m like, thanks, dad and he was like, whoa, whoa. You know, and it made him realize, oh crap, sorry that just slipped out of my mouth.

I didn’t realize I was calling you that, you know, I was like, yeah, exactly. You know I’m the chair of the board. You can just call me Christina. That’s fine, you know, but other, you know, it depends on the context as well. If it was my dad’s colleague’s friend, right and we’re at a social event, like sure. You can call me a kid, I get it. You know, I’m my dad’s kid and whatever but if it’s at an event or I’m an interviewer here, like, you know, that kind of stuff is inappropriate during an interview. So, or like what else was there? Oh, I got another one I get is like. Your parents must be so proud of you. I don’t think there’s ever get that. It’s usually said towards young people who they think of,

Bryan: (00:35:03) We get that a lot actually, on a daily basis.

Maggie: (00:38:34) I think their perspective, they don’t mean any harm, but then in a sense that it is a little bit belittling, you know, like if it’s in a business setting, like why can’t we be on the same level? Just talking to each other as like partners, you know?

Christina: (00:38:45)  Yeah, exactly. So, I got that a lot too. It was really sad cause my co-founder, his dad had just died and so for him to hear, oh, your parents will be so proud of you. Yeah, don’t say that, right? You don’t know if I have parents and he doesn’t get along with one side of his family.

So, you know, you don’t, you can’t just assume that we all have parents who we get along with and who are proud. Some of our parents are proud of us for being an entrepreneur, you know? So that was another thing that really, so I’d be like, thanks, Dale, your parents must be proud of you too, you know, and he kind of makes Dale do like a double-take.

Okay maybe I shouldn’t say that anymore but just kind of using humor along the way, or like, if they ask you a lot of our investors are old school money and they’re like, oh, where are you from? Where are you? I’ve been to China once, you know, the usual like kind of a pattern of where you are from and I’ll be like, oh, cool.

Where are you from? You know, and be like, oh yeah, I’ve been to Switzerland, you know, once or twice and I love, you know, your food and your culture just kind of make the same types of comments back to see how they react. Maybe they’re proud of it too and I’m like, okay, if they’re happy about it, then I’ll be happy about it too, you know?

But yeah, just kind of keeping an open mind and having a sense of humor about stuff, um, makes my job a lot better. I would say in terms of the people I deal with on a daily basis.

Bryan: (00:40:04)  I’m glad you found different ways to heal yourself from using, these types of situations. You know, a lot of microaggressions out there though. You can either deal with it, you know, you can, you know, take it personally or you don’t, you know, you have to understand, like, what is your intention behind this? Is it negative? Is it positive or just, they’re just ignorant? And that’s going to be a common theme that I feel I won’t go away for a long time.

Christina: (00:40:31)  Yeah, exactly. I mean, I still get bothered by it. It’s not like, I wish I could just tell you, oh, I get over it easily. Like everyone else does. I don’t. I mean, I still, sometimes I screenshot a message and I’ll post it on my face and be like, look what this guy said and people feel like, wow, what an asshole or whatever.

Sorry, I keep saying, you know what I mean? Like, you know, there’s sensitive conversations like that, that I do have with my friends as well, where I just opened up to them and it helps me a lot to just cope with issues where you know, I don’t want to face them alone sometimes. And I need someone to pull me up out of bed and be like, you got this, you know, and, and that’s okay. And I’ll do that for my friends any day as well. If someone needs me to be there for them and to help them navigate some kind of situation like that. So, yeah.

Bryan: (00:41:12) We know that you’re extremely successful, you know, just to give you guys some perspective on how successful Christina really is I think last, the last podcast we listened to is last year. And you said that you’re making a billion dollars and trade per day, has that number increased a year ago?

Christina: (00:41:31) We are we’ve we’re at 7.1 billion right now per day. So yeah, we got very, you know, again, like it’s a combination of luck and skill right. Being in the right place at the right time. If it wasn’t for those initial investors, I met including that crazy guy from Hong Kong right. I definitely wouldn’t be here with those, even those small investments, you know I call it small there. They were big to me at the time but let’s just like, you know, with those investments, it kind of compounds over time, and feel very lucky to have this chance.

And they indeed gave me that chance to succeed, you know, so I am grateful to them for that, but, on other things like when it came down to like even Black Lives Matter, I sent an email to our investors about urging them to, you know, rethink their HR processes, you know, reasonable things, right?

I don’t why they don’t need a quota, just get rid of biases in your hiring process right and stop asking discriminatory questions to people during the hiring. That’s easy to do for anyone. And I got a lot of backlashes from investors, which I was just so disappointed on, but just people being like, oh, you know, like racism doesn’t exist anymore.

We’re in 2020, comments that you know, we all know from our personal experience as we’ve experienced it firsthand, but they don’t. Well, Dale, you’re a billionaire. You’ve been born into wealth. You’re from, you know, we get people from the Carnegie families from the Schwarzman family, like all the big, you know, families and I get it, you know, you’re born into that.

And so, you don’t see it but we do. So, it’s that, it’s really hard for me to kind of educate and tell, but you know, that success again, it’s not a solo project type of thing that success that, you know, I’ve experienced is just it’s oh, to everyone around me, including my friends who dragged me out of bed during like the worst days of my life and support me, you know, when I was interrogated by the FBI, I went home crying that day.

And felt depressed for like a whole week after. Cause I knew they were after me. I just didn’t know what they were trying to get and I didn’t know how I was in trouble when I did wrong. I had no idea and so just having friends who trusted me to believe my story, believe that I was innocent and that I didn’t do anything wrong.

You know, that meant a lot because it’s true that no one had any information. I didn’t know what I did wrong. So, yeah, just even that kind of stuff, having people around you, it meant the world to me, including the Asian Hustle Network that we’re going through. Remember I posted my first post in Asian Hustle Network was when I was complaining about, there was an investor who I think either, I think tried to like reschedule my phone call like six or seven times, and I was in the hospital and just kind of treated me like crap during the entire time.

And I took a call at 6:00 AM for them in the hospital and they ghosted me. They didn’t even take the call and I was so upset because I had gone through so much, there are so many hurdles for them and you know, they had treated me like crap and lots of random behaviors like that and I discovered this because I’m a woman, you know, and I just didn’t like that feeling.

So yeah. You know, having a group like AHN has been a huge part of this as well, so I’m super grateful to you guys.

Maggie: (00:44:37) Yeah. We’re very grateful to have you. I love how open and transparent you are, right? You know, the whole situation about, you know, the social climate, and we faced similar issues within AHN as well. I think right now, a lot of people’s emotions are very high and strong right now.

Bryan: (00:44:52) We have a lot of angry messages all the time.

Maggie: (00:44:55) Whatever you say, whatever you put out into the world during this time, you know, you’re bound to get some people who disagree with you and with the whole Black Lives Matter movement.

You know, we always feel that it’s better to say something than to be silent. As soon as we say something, you know, there’s always going to be people like, oh, they alluded our scores and stuff like that. Why aren’t you?

Bryan: (00:45:16) We’re really what we think is right and wrong. The people that we kind of wear our emotions on our face, but feel like a certain way we have to take action. You can’t sit back and just be silent about this, you know? And I’m kind of curious too because you did come from a very humble background. A lot of people look at you right now and be like, wow, she must be born in some sort of superpower. She has to be God-given, you know, knowledge or strength and whatnot, but we all know like success is built on small actions every single day.

How do you view success and failure? And this is important for our listeners to hear too because a lot of people when they hit a speed bump because you give up. In your career path, you hit a lot of speed bumps, and yet you never gave up. How do you view success and failure?

Christina: (00:46:04)  I think I’m in college, I had a friend who said something that was inspiring to me. He told me, success is the number of hours you can afford to play video games during the day and I was like, oh, that’s a great point you know, it’s like the number of hours you can afford to truly do what you want to do during the day without suffering consequences or guilt or whatever it is and I thought that’s such a great point because you know if you’re. Like I have friends who work in investment banking for 40 years, you know, 18-hour days, and they never really had a life and then they look back and they’re like, what have I done? You know, I couldn’t do the things I wanted to travel, never got to travel.

You know, I wanted to have kids never got to have kids right or do those things that they wanted to do and I realized, wow, that’s, that’s a great point because even though they made a lot of money you know, have they achieved success? I don’t know right and same with me as well. Okay maybe if we need a lot of money, but have I gotten to do the things I want to do kind of yes and no, it depends but there are still a lot of things on my bucket list. Places I want to go, people, I want to meet that I haven’t gotten to do yet or friends. I want to take care of that I haven’t gotten to do that but I want to do it during the day. So, I think, I still have a long way to go there, but, and I was going to say what you said about, you know, the whole Black Lives Matter movement, you guys made such a great point about, you know, it’s tough to stay silent right during this time.

And I think it’s good to speak up the thing I did want to talk about that was you know, you can support a movement without supporting a hundred percent of every part of the movement right and I think that’s important to understand same with like you know, there’s a lot of other political issues, right?

Like, I don’t know, like LGBT stuff, LGBT movement. Yeah. You can support the movement without having to support every single one. You know, an organization out there, every single part of that movement, who, some of them are on different parts of, you know the political spectrum or whatever it is right and like, that’s fine.

You don’t have to support every single one of them and that’s okay. So, I think that was important for people to distinguish because like you know, maybe for instance, like someone like me, I don’t support small businesses being looted because there are small businesses that are owned by immigrants right, and it just is so non-American to me personally but that doesn’t mean that I don’t support the Black Lives Matter movement as a whole right and so, yeah, that was and also, I was telling you guys, like, I feel like moderation is a thankless job. You guys have such, an amazing and thankless job, and I’m so grateful that you guys are here to, you know, comment on every post to support everybody through this process and to support everyone’s ups and downs through their journeys.

I can’t even tell you how much, your comments mean a lot to me, but also to everyone in the group as well. So, thank you, from the bottom of my heart and I’m sure from everyone else, like, you know, your job is very important. It’s thankless people will always complain and criticize, but that’s the whole point is, you know, to get people to talk. So, yeah, thank you.

 

Maggie: (00:48:58)      Well, I just wanted to say thank you for, you know, doing the honors of sharing your story, because, you know, we’re trying to break that mental barrier within the Asian culture. And in the beginning, it was very hard for Asians to share their stories and a lot of people, Brian and I talk about it all the time. And, you know, there will be people who said, oh, if you had $50,000, how would you know, use that money? Or how would you invest it? And a lot of people said, you know, if I told you my idea, well, how do I know you’re not going to steal it? You know and that was the whole mental barrier that we were trying to breakthrough.

And just, you know, having you, Christina, share your story and being so open and honest, with, you know, putting that story out there and allowing, you know, 60,000 numbers to see it. That means a lot to us.

Bryan: (00:49:43) That’s a huge prop for you too because I share my story, with 300 people. I couldn’t sleep that night. And I was like, man, I’m the first story to share. All right, I’ll do it. You know, we do this because it’s not about making money or making a lot of money. We do this. We want to make the world a better place than we do this because we feel like there’s a need for us to own our heritage for now. It’s making sure. It’s not the money resources like this out there at all.

Christina: (00:50:18) Yeah, you’re already doing that. You’re already making such a big difference out there. So yeah, kudos to you guys, for all that work and stuff. I know you guys mentioned the point about competitions with that was interesting and my personal view on that is like, we befriend our competition.

That’s like the one thing that, again, like, you know, competition, if it keeps you up at night, then just become friends with them everyone’s human at the end of the day, my biggest competition, my biggest rivals in the hedge fund industry, you know, we’re all really good friends now and I think that’s awesome because when they go through the trouble, I help them.

When I go through the trouble, they help me and so that’s just been just such an incredible barrier. Once I kind of went through that mental barrier in my head and realize it’s okay to have competition and it’s a good thing to have competition, in fact, and even though daily, we might trade against each other sometimes, you know, or do things against each other in the markets at least.

But we know that at the end of the day let’s grab a drink, let’s relax and just chill and talk about our day, you know? And, and that’s okay, too. So yeah, life is too short to, you know, be worried about that kind of stuff. Just like, yeah. Going for your ideas and just doing it is the best thing to do out there.

Bryan: (00:51:25) How do you want to make the world a better place? And what kind of legacy do you want to leave? Like the next in your life?

Christina: (00:51:32) Yeah, I guess you know, for me, I’d always wanted to help the community around me and you know, it doesn’t necessarily mean to eliminate, you know, eliminating poverty or disease, right? Those are groups, those are country, you know, cross nationwide efforts, right.

That is big but I was thinking like, even if I can make one person’s life better, if I can just inspire one person to choose a good career path or to, you know, find a better solution to a problem, they’re looking for whatever it is. I think that’s all that matters to me is just, you know, making sure that someone’s life is better because they had read my story or because they had heard about this person who was in the hedge fund industry, you know that’s what I care about these days.

I do like to help a lot of underrepresented minority groups and women, especially in terms of, you know, the chair of the board of invest in girls, which is a nonprofit. So, we help high school girls give them financial literacy education and bridge the gap because a lot of boys get that education and they learn how to trade on Robin hood, you know, in college.

Right but a lot of girls don’t do that. It’s just not something that a lot of girls do at that age and so just kind of making sure we can teach people how to have the financial skills and to have that freedom and independence to manage their own money is really important as well. Yeah, so we do stuff like that.

That’s been great, I think so now that I’ve actually in the process of stepping away from the hedge fund right now and so I’ve been working on Data bento, which is like helping to decrease the barrier to entry for our industry. So, like giving data for a huge discounted price compared to other vendors.

And then also I’m writing the book and then we might, I’m working with a couple of friends on some initiatives to figure out if we want to do like a nonprofit to help underrepresented communities in this space and to help them rise in terms of, you know, socioeconomically but as well as just in terms of their overall wellbeing. So, yeah.

Bryan: (00:53:35) Definitely loved the initiative. It’s stuff like, like what you’re working on has affected my life as well. You know, for me, the reason why I got in the math and science and thought the resource I need was there. There’s a nonprofit Honey Escalante in LA, they back to lower-income students who want to specialize in math and sciences.

And it’s also founded on thoughts before like tech founders you know, in the past. So, it’s stories like this. You may not see the fruits of your labor immediately, but it does work and then I wish that I can meet the person that helped me like 20, 25 years ago. You know they helped me get to the place I am today. So, your work is impactful, very positive, and like to see how your legacy continues to move on.

Christina: (00:51:32) Thank you and you guys too, this is, it’s just been such a pleasure to be a part of the Asian Hustle Network, and looking forward to seeing all the other awesome things that you guys are planning on doing.

Maggie: (00:54:41) I do have one more question, I would love to learn from Christina and you know, what is one piece of advice you can give to an aspiring entrepreneur who is trying to enter into the field of hedge funds or you know fintech?

Christina: (00:54:55)  Oh wow. I guess, there are a couple of pieces of advice I got that made me start taking the weight basically out of a position of having no money and no connections or credibility. So, one was kind of this quote like you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with and I was like, oh, that’s so true.

And I looked around my internship desk at these people who were being kind of abusive and crazy and you know, making me grab a coffee and I’m like, do I want to be the average of these people? You know, maybe not right and I realized like I wanted to create those high people around me and to kind of have control over, you know, the type of person who I want to become like.

And so, so that inspired me as well and then another one was like, imagining you’re like a hundred years old, you’re in your deathbed and you’re reflecting on your, the timeline of your life right and thinking about like, what would you want that timeline to look like at every point, every step of the way and realizing for me, like, you know, what I feel happy working with.

I don’t know, a large bank for 40 years. Personally, no, but that’s just my answer again, like if you know, it’s okay, if your answer is I want to do that, or my, maybe your answer is I want to be a mom for, you know, my life. That’s great. There’s nothing wrong with any path you take, but just for me as an exercise, I’m like, oh yeah, you know, I would like to be an entrepreneur.

I would like to do this and it’s never too late to kind of start that now you know when it doesn’t matter, you know, I think there’s never really a time to be ready, to be honest. Certainly, people always imagine I’ll be ready later. Like once I have, you know, I need like this much money in my bank, or I need to have, you know be at a stable place in my life or be in this city or whatever it is.

But you realize at some point, like, you know, that’s, you’re probably either never going to happen or, you know, life is full of so many surprises and detours like coronavirus now, like my plan everyone’s plans have been derailed. So, then you realize like, well, this is no better time to start it than just trying to start it and then going from there, going for it.

And you know, and if people ever need advice from me, you know, welcome to contact me. But hey, I remember getting a lot of pushbacks from people like a lot of older people who started hedge funds. They’re like the old folks in Boston. They’re like, oh, you know, get an MBA first, a Ph.D., you know, get some, get some years of experience.

And I’m like, that’s great you know if you can do that and afford that. But for me, I was too poor and too desperate. So, I just started and also, because I was known as the girl who threw up on her boss already. So, I had this bad reputation on wall street. So, I was like, okay, well I might as well start it now.

And so, you know, there’s no right time. It’s just whatever you think is right and so if you need someone to just tell you, just go for it, then just go for it. You know, I’m I can be that person to tell them. Go for it and I also like nobody very, really like few people I know, tell me, oh, Christina I totally regret starting a company. You know, I regret becoming an entrepreneur or starting a company. Right like that you hear that because even if your company fails, you find so many opportunities after, and sometimes it’s, it’s the third, you know, it’s the third, time’s the charm or whatever right your third company succeeds, you just never know. So, I absolutely, I would just say, just go for it and you know, have faith in yourself. If you want to start a company or if you want to go into a new field or find another job, whatever it is, you know, just have faith in yourself that you can do this. And that things will be okay in the end and all that matters.

 

Maggie: (00:58:17) It’s amazing, that’s really good advice. Thank you so much, Christina. So, for our listeners, how can they learn more about you and when can we know more about your book?

 

Christina: (00:58:28) I have LinkedIn I’m just Christina Qi on LinkedIn. So, you guys are welcome to add me there. What else is there? I do have a Twitter as well. I’m kind of obnoxious on Twitter, but follow me on Twitter and then in terms of my book it’s scheduled to be published around December of this year. So, I will try and make an announcement when the time comes closer to that. I hope you guys will enjoy the book. It talks about some of those experiences. I mentioned the modern-day slaves, you know, the Jeffrey Epstein’s of the world, and what’s scary is that these are true stories that happened. so, I just wanted to kind of tell people what it’s like to make it to the top and finance.

Who I’m working for at the end of the day, which is kind of scary. So, just wanted to kind of tell that experience into the open and if anyone’s considering a career in finance or is already in, or just wants to learn about the industry I’m hoping that this will be a really interesting guide for folks out there.

So, yeah, I’ll let you guys know in the group as well and make an announcement. When, when it’s published on Amazon and stuff.

Maggie: (00:59:36) That’d be great.

Bryan: (00:59:38) We are there to amplify your voice and support you along the way.

Christina: (00:59:40) Thank you so much.

Maggie: (00:59:42) Well, thank you so much, Christina. It was wonderful hearing your story. I’m sure the viewers and listeners would think the same but it was great interviewing you. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Bryan: (00:59:52) Yeah, thank you so much!

Christina: (00:59:53) Thank you both, it’s been a pleasure to be featured in this podcast and I’m looking forward to everything you guys will be doing in the future.

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