The word “Silicon” in this book’s title does not refer to Silicon Valley, as one might first assume. My entire American career unfolded in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area — Long Island, New York City, and above all the New Jersey towns of Norwood and Closter.
“Silicon,” then, is not a place I traveled to but a metaphor for the world I spent my life in. It carries several layers of meaning.
First, silicon is the material of computing. It is the element from which semiconductors and computer chips are made — the physical foundation of every machine in this story. The first job I held after university was at Gold Star Semiconductor in Seoul, so my career began, quite literally, in silicon — in the semiconductor industry. This book traces a lifelong relationship with the machines built upon it, from punch cards and CP/M terminals through DOS, Windows, and SQL Server.
“Silicon” also stands in for the world of computing as a whole. As the subtitle, A Life in Computing, suggests, it represents not any single region but the entire era and culture of technology that I lived through and helped my clients navigate.
The journey “from Seoul to Silicon” is therefore symbolic rather than merely geographic. It runs from Seoul — where I learned to “think like a computer” by writing code on paper for punch-card operators — to a life devoted to the technology built on silicon. In a single phrase, the title holds both the arc of an immigrant carried to America by his parents’ sacrifice and the arc of a technologist across more than four decades.
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