The Old Benny
From low tech to high tech, Benny Xian grew up in a family-owned business and ended up working with some of the smartest in science and technology. Benny is a second generation entrepreneur who grew up watching his parents building the family furniture business from scratch, immigrating the whole family to America, and growing it to one of the largest in Florida. Through a number of technology ventures, he worked intimately with many brilliant minds in launching world-changing ideas from process simulation (in search of global maxima through algorithms), microprocessors (redefining the line between hardware and software), operating system (redefining the OS industry), to predictive analytics (in search of patterns out of chaos). In technology business, one of the most challenging tasks is not developing the technology, but, creating the environment where geniuses can thrive and collaborate together. While we have the knowhow to build high performance organizations in Silicon Valley, how do we build high performance organizations with high trust? It is because of this pressing question that led Benny on the path to study people and our mind, which is the driving force behind what technology we create, what kind of people we bring, and what type of company we build. It is also the impetus behind the AI and Compassion Project where we believe technology without human values and compassion is meaningless.
Benny is also the founder of VOYADI with the mission to help people connect and experience the world through inspirational insiders. Benny has always been involved with innovative technology ventures from hardware, software, advanced/predictive analytics (AI), consumer, to enterprise. A number of which focused on disruptive innovations as studied by Clayton Christensen at Harvard. Previously, he has played key roles from product engineering (Actel), product (Transmeta IPO: TMTA), to operations (Midori Linux developed by Linus Torvalds), to co-founding and investing (BeyondCore – acquired by SalesForce). to founding Banian Labs. After more than ten thousand hours of building technology companies, he recognizes technology by itself isn’t enough. It is what inspired him to design thinking and the need to focus on human experience and human values. He graduated from Stanford University with a MS in electrical engineering and a BSEE with high honors from University of Florida. He enjoys contributing to the local community, whether it is mentoring (Stanford StartX, GEM, Singapore NUSEA), advising technology startups (Lawgives, Mindsumo), or giving times to help others in the community. Recently, he finds inspirations from interviewing some of the brightest high school students applying to Stanford.
Benny was born in China, educated in Silicon Valley, worked in US, Japan, Taiwan, and China, and lived in Florida, Arizona, Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Benny loves the intersection between technology and humanity. It is through the journey of technology ventures where he gets to work with many amazing people and make many friends from around the world. I welcome you to join us in the journey of entrepreneurship, travel, and life.