Thread by @RoseHorowitz31

Rags to riches? Yes.

A short 🧵 on @JQT_web3vc's story of becoming a millionaire by age 25 or 26.

After the Fall of Saigon, Jenny Q. Ta’s mother wanted to escape. She exchanged her only valuable possession, her wedding ring, for 3 spots on a boat of 30.

#WomenToFollow
1x

In distress, the boat was rescued by a cargo ship.
Ta lived a few years in Hong Kong before she immigrated with her mother & brother to live w/ an uncle in California’s Central Valley.

“We were on welfare. I had second-hand clothes,” Ta says.

#WomenToFollow
2x

By 20, Ta finished college w/ a Bachelor's degree in information systems.

She landed a job as an account clerk at a big brokerage firm in San Francisco.

“I fell in love with the building. When you walk into the lobby, you feel rich.”

She made $10 an hour.

#WomenToFollow
3x

A big broker who had observed Ta working long hours asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“I want to be as rich as you are,” she said.

He told Ta to quit. Why?

“You have the traits of everything that's against what this industry is about."

#WomenToFollow
4x

The traits?
-she was a woman
-she was Asian
-her family wasn’t rich & she hadn’t attended a fancy school, he told her.

Ta moved to Los Angeles to join a small investment house. She took the exams to become a stockbroker. “It was like “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
#WomenToFollow
5x

Despite working crazy hours, Ta still wasn’t making big money. She says the firm would take money off commissions she earned to pay for the desk, phone, & other things they provided.

“I learned quickly. I said if this is how that world is, then I’ll quit.”

#WomenToFollow
6x

Ta worked at a dozen brokerage firms but was not happy.

A Vietnamese businessman offered her a job.
Ta set two conditions:
• move the dingy office to a skyscraper
• a good job title

“I went from making 10 bucks an hour to being senior vice president.”
#WomenToFollow
7x

The new boss asked her to recruit brokers for the firm.

“I knew I could do it,” says Ta, who was the only women broker. “I brought in at least 100 guys.”

The firm was profitable. But the owner wasn’t paying her the share of what he had promised, she says.

#WomenToFollow
8x

.@JQT_web3vc's next move?

“I said if this idiot Joe (a pseudonym) can do it, why can’t I? Which means owning my own brokerage firm.

I went and learned how to own a stock brokerage firm.
I took more securities exams - I needed at least 6 or 7 licenses."

#WomenToFollow
9x

"I founded my own firm, Vantage Investments.
I was the only woman." -@JQT_web3vc.

Ta also hired a woman to help her in operations.

"In the dozen firms I worked for, I was the only Asian woman."

Most of the brokers were white men, she says.

#WomenToFollow
10x

“This is when I became the Jenny Q. Ta I am today.
I have to be tough because the world is tough, Wall Street is tough, venture capital is tough."

When you work in predominantly male industries, you have to pretend you’re one of them."

#WomenToFollow
11x

How to succeed in a male-dominated world?

“If they cuss, you cuss. You have to act like them, talk like them, think like them.

My mom didn’t teach me because she didn’t grow up in this world. And my father? I didn’t grow up with him.”
-@JQT_web3vc

#WomenToFollow
12x

Moving piece by @JQT_web3vc:

"...he didn’t get killed in a war, but as Saigon fell...many, like my papa, were taken away as POWs. For the next 13.5 years, Papa lived in the torment of a prison cell, while Mum took on all the roles..”

medium.com/@JennyQTa/mum-…

#WomenToFollow
13x

Join us tomorrow for a talk w/ @JQT_web3vc:

Tues., July 26, 8 pm ET / 5 pm PM

Sponsor: @WITI
Producer: @SpinItSocial

Q's?
Tweet me. Ask live.

I’ve interviewed more than 25 trailblazing women🔥

Watch: Twitter, LI, FB, YT

Link:

#WomenToFollow💃
14x