I had the opportunity to talk about my experiences in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature at the Ohio State University, as well as my career after graduating. The event was called Alumni Voices and it brought together many excellent speakers from universities in Ohio offering a major in Japanese.

1. BA, Japanese 1999
The Ohio State University
Ray Grieselhuber

2. • BA, Japanese 1999
• One year exchange in Toyama, 1997-1999
• BS, Computer Science 2001
• Moved to San Diego, CA 2003
• Worked as a software engineer
• Traveled around the world for one year 2005
• Joined a startup 2006-2008
• Moved to Japan again 2008-2010
• Founded company Ginzamarkets, K.K.
• Moved to Mountain View, CA for Y Combinator 2010
• Launched GinzaMetrics 2010
• Advising startups / building new products all the time

3. A random book at the library…and serendipity

4. Learning Japanese
taught me how to learn

5. How life would have been different without Japanese

6. Interesting things about Japan right now
•Strong international influence
•Lots of startup activity
•Japan is regaining cultural and business influence
•Lots of challenges too: declining birth rate, financial troubles
disappearing middle class, China, etc.

7. Japanese is a major
that demands initiative
(Advice)

8. Two things to remember…

9. Most jobs are going away

10. Most jobs are going away
The middle class will be gone

11. Financial independence and Japanese go well
together

12. Three paths to independence:
• Ownership
• Sales
• Specialization (you’ll need more than just language skills)

13. Stay in touch:
@raygrieselhuber