My name is Albert Chang.
I am the co-head of television and chief operating officer of Amazon Studios.
I was born in Honolulu Hawaii a long time ago.
When I was trying to decide between what colleges I wanted to go into,
My dad said: "well, if you don't know what you want to do,
you might as well go to engineering school.
Because if you didn't like it, at least you have an engineering degree.
But if you want to go into engineering later,
you're gonna be way behind then... you kind of start all over again.
So I did that. and as I'm going through MIT
I enjoyed MIT immensely. It's not... it was pretty punishing...
But, as much as I could do the work, it just wasn't interesting to me.
And trying to explain that to my parents was very difficult, because there was high expectations.
They were, you know, obviously writing big checks to a very expensive school
And you know as any Asian parent would, it's very concerning that you know -
"Hey, Albert has gone to four years of engineering school,
and he doesn't want to be engineer. What are we gonna do?"
I personally didn't have a real answer for that
either because I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
And so I just sort of went along and just went and did my one engineering job.
I worked as an engineer for Boeing,
and was a materials engineer for the military airplanes division
Doing black lab Department Defense work.
But I hated it. I really did. I was horrible because you felt guilty in that role.
And you know, at that point, when your parents are hearing this, they want to help.
But I think my interest started to go beyond their ability to really provide any substantive advice.
I'm pretty sure my parents were not entirely pleased with that route.
I don't think it was coming in from a place of "Albert needs to fit in the box,"
but it was more about like "how do I make sure that my child has a solid future?"
And they only knew certain career paths got them there. And I just happened to buck that trend.
During the dot-com sort of boom, a lot of people had left Disney to pursue startups.
And so what happened was it created a void in their sales and distribution leadership.
And they needed someone to come and help rebuild the team.
During that time at Disney, it was really a way for me to also explore how to create new things
And one of the things that I asked my boss at the time was:
"what about all this digital stuff that's happening?"
And he said: "okay, well, no one's doing it, so you should figure it out!"
And so from there, I really focused on how to make digital products in
the cable industry, like video on demand.
And so, that move then also putting streaming on abc.com.
You know we're big huge industry firsts,
created a lot of disruption, but it also created a whole new opportunity for companies to find
Ways that viewers can get access to their favorite shows.
A lot of the things that we enjoy now, the Netflix or Hulu, or even Amazon,
came from those first steps and moves in industry
When we put Lost, and Desperate Housewives, and Commander-in-Chief on ABC.com.
It's probably the most thrilling part of my career, even when I look back,
it was just really fun to wake up every day and go into the office and
Watch all these amazing engineers come up with the most amazing things
And just when you think that it couldn't be done, they were able to do it.
I think the future for media is really gonna be fascinating, for how it changes society.
We've already seen the early days of digital, it completely democratized it.
I mean, anyone can make content and find an audience.
Before, your ability and someone's ability to create content and distribute
that content was very limited to sort of big big massive media companies.
But now, you can upload something, and if you're savvy enough on digital, you can find an audience.
Either through social platforms or on YouTube. And
so I think it creates the ability to say something and find a voice
Where in the past it had been very difficult to do that on a large scale.
And so for Asian Americans, and you saw that with YouTube,
which I think was probably a really good test
Of how Asian Americans found their voice and how they found an audience.
And I think right now it's great because that voice has
translated into sort of mass media or big media.
People are acknowledging that there are other voices that need to be heard,
And there is a business model around that and it all started with digital, because without digital,
There was no evidence of that. it's hard. Like it's clearer in digital platforms.
There are voices that are not being addressed by the larger mainstream media.
And I think that actually paved the way for the idea that diversity is super important.
Very soon there'll be more minorities in the majority,
And I think that acknowledgement means
more opportunities for people of color. Asian Americans for sure.
I think that's an opportunity for a community, such as ours,
to create things that people haven't seen before and find a way to reach audiences.
And we just want to find people who can create those stories.
And that's a thing that I think we need to start investing in more of and supporting, which is -
We have the creativity who have the talent in
great storytelling and support them to create content that will speak to
Not just the community, but to the world at large.