00:17:44 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:17:44] S0: So it's like the time, you know, like in late nineties. [00:17:47] S1: Yeah. Yeah. It's not like today. Right? Today is nothing. And I didn't really had spending money, like, when I grew up, so I don't really need money. I had... I don't... I can't really conceptualize money, I think, when I was 13, 14 years old. [00:17:59] S0: Wow. That's so good. [00:18:00] S1: And when I... I remember when I went to to Melbourne, afterwards, I I I lost financial support from my parents when I was 16. I couldn't even afford to buy a $2.50... $2.50 chocolate in seven Eleven. [00:18:13] S0: Why did you stop pushing financial support? [00:18:15] S1: You know, my my dad just lost his his job. I think it was a year before I went to to college in Melbourne, you know, they just lost all the money. [00:18:24] S0: So it was more because they actually couldn't afford it versus Yeah. [00:18:28] S1: Yeah. They they basically couldn't afford it. And my mom resigned from her full time job in a bank, which is a very good decent job, but not making enough money to become entrepreneur. So she started, like, a telecom business just to try to support me. [00:18:41] S0: Oh, wow. [00:18:42] S1: Yeah. So that was that was very tough. [00:18:44] S0: And how was the conversation? Was like, hey, Jack. Like, so we have no more money, so figure it out?
00:18:44 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:18:44] S0: And how was the conversation? Was like, hey, Jack. Like, so we have no more money, so figure it out? [00:18:49] S1: No. They actually never told me until the the school holiday after my year 12, and I basically just went back to China. I have, like, a driver from age of four. And all of a sudden, no one picking me up in the airport. And then when I went home, I just saw my dad is smoking, which my dad is not a smoker. And they just told me, like, they can't really support me anymore. [00:19:13] S0: And how did it feel? [00:19:15] S1: It feels a bit hopeless. It's like, how do I survive? I mean, you know, I'm an international student, so I'm paying $24,000 tuition for my college, and I have to pay, you know, living expenses. I pay around like a 50... You know, 40,000 to $50,000 a year Australian dollar. I mean, that's a lot of money. You know, I was like, how do I even figure out to pay for this stuff? [00:19:41] S0: So, like, you felt like, oh, fuck, what do I do? [00:19:44] S1: Yeah. I mean, like, I thought, oh, if I have to leave Australia, come back to China, I've already left China for more than two years at a time, and academically, I'm not able to compete anymore because you know, it's a very intensive competition And I couldn't get into the best college anymore, so what do I do? So the only way is to figure out a way to leave, I guess, myself in Australia and just work. [00:20:07] S0: And how did you do? What did you start doing?
00:20:07 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:20:07] S0: And how did you do? What did you start doing? [00:20:09] S1: I initially started in the kitchen, so working in a Chinese restaurant and just washing dishes and stuff, but I just hated that Chinese restaurant. I quit it in a week. Then I started working in an Aussie restaurant, just like the kitchen hand and washing dishes Oh, wow. From like four p. M. To 11:30 p. M. [00:20:27] S0: But that doesn't seem like enough money, right, like washing dishes? [00:20:29] S1: No. So I then, during the holiday, I went to work in this lemon factory. [00:20:34] S0: Lemon factory? [00:20:35] S1: Yeah, in a far sort of the countryside of Victoria in Melbourne. [00:20:41] S0: How much were you making at this point? [00:20:43] S1: I was making $14 an hour, but I... Because the job I did was not 100% legal because, you know, I only can work twenty hours a day, so it's like basically... [00:20:54] S0: A day or a week? [00:20:55] S1: A week on sort of... You know, that's sort of taxable hours, and that's what my visa allowed, but I can't survive with that. So I worked this cash job in this lemon factory. So I basically wake up at five in the morning every day to take the earliest trend from like 05:30 to this countryside and take a bus at 07:30 and then work for another thirty minutes to get to work about 08:30. But then where is school on this? This is holiday. It's during a holiday. [00:21:25] S0: Oh, this is during [00:21:25] S1: a holiday? Like a a three three and a half months holiday. [00:21:28] S0: And then during your school?
00:21:28 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:21:28] S0: And then during your school? [00:21:28] S1: I basically just work, like, twelve hours a day in the lemon factory and every day. [00:21:32] S0: So you were able to make enough money from that to pay for, like, living expenses? [00:21:35] S1: A bit of that. And and, obviously, my my mom still, you know, like, he's... He should start a company, so she's still supporting me for part of my my my tuition and expenses, and I was making that. I was working in a computer shop, assembling computers. I work in a supermarket, like a petrol stationsupermarket, do like a night shift. So I work till between sort of 12AM to 8AM. So I get, like, $34 an hour. [00:22:04] S0: Oh, because it's a night shift? [00:22:05] S1: Yeah. It's a night shift. [00:22:06] S0: Oh, wow. [00:22:06] S1: And then between sort of four to 11:30, I work in... Later on... I mean, it was started, like, as a kitchen hand, but then later on, I upgraded my job, so I become a bartender in in Westing Hotel. [00:22:18] S0: And when you're, like, going through this, did you think, like, fuck. I just need to get out of this thing?
00:22:18 · Henrique Dubugras, Jack Zhang
[00:22:18] S0: And when you're, like, going through this, did you think, like, fuck. I just need to get out of this thing? [00:22:22] S1: Or Yeah. That's all all I'm thinking. I'm like, I I just need to really get out of this thing. And I remember I was in work... Working at Westing, and people were, like, getting married there, and they probably threw in, you know, $500,000 or whatever, like this ultra luxury wedding. And I saw these conferences, like, you know, Goldman's conferences or PwC's conferences. Everybody wore a suit and stuff. I'm like, I really need to get a real job. And that's for the first time. I was like, okay, maybe work in banking is... You know, it doesn't matter. I don't really care what job I do as long as I get paid the most. [00:22:55] S0: And as long as I get paid and I can get out of this, like, eighteen hour shifts of, like, restaurant work or, like [00:23:01] S1: Yeah. Like, sixteen hours. Yeah. And then you have to study, you know, this all that work in sixteen hours. [00:23:06] S0: And then you got into college in Australia. Yeah. Was it hard to get into college or no? [00:23:11] S1: For me, it was no. I I didn't really study that much in Australia because I accumulated so much academic kind of, you know, skill set of doing exams and stuff in China. [00:23:21] S0: Oh, okay. So for you, it was, like, easy to, like, go Australia and stuff? [00:23:23] S1: Very easy. And [00:23:25] S0: And the English didn't matter. I got into [00:23:27] S1: I got into Colombia in The US as well, but I couldn't afford it, so I didn't go.
00:23:27 · Jack Zhang, Henrique Dubugras
[00:23:27] S1: I got into Colombia in The US as well, but I couldn't afford it, so I didn't go. [00:23:31] S0: Oh, there's no financial aid that you're able to get? [00:23:33] S1: No. I didn't get a scholarship. So [00:23:34] S0: And, like, do you have to choose your major before in Australia or, you know, like, for example, in Brazil, you choose engineering and then you go engineering all the way. In The US, you can kinda flip around. Is that... How how is it in Australia? [00:23:47] S1: I did finance and software engineering. [00:23:50] S0: But do you have to choose that when you applied? Or [00:23:52] S1: Yeah. So that was the case when I applied, but later on, they changed it. [00:23:57] S0: Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, interesting. So you you just said finance and stuff, but is it two majors? Like... [00:24:02] S1: Yeah. So it's, two degrees, but I didn't finish finance, and I ended up just doing three and a half years of college, and I wanna start working earlier than making money. And then during college, were you still working? Yeah. I worked like... Basically, the stuff I talk about is all throughout the college. [00:24:16] S0: Oh, throughout college. [00:24:17] S1: It's like... Yeah. I work fifteen, sixteen hours a day. [00:24:19] S0: And then you were, like, studying software engineering? And finance. And finance. Yeah. [00:24:23] S1: Yeah. Which I didn't finish. [00:24:25] S0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then... But, like, as you were studying software engineering, did you, like, know enough to go get a software engineering kind of job?