Have you ever felt like you were totally in control of your own destiny?As a graduate student at UC Santa Barbara, whatever homesickness I had for my native China was completely overshadowed by a much stronger emotion—one that I didn’t quite understand. It felt great, though, so I decided to make America my home and got busy making a life.All the while, I thought about that incredible emotion I had felt as a graduate student.Even though I was happy to work for some great Silicon Valley companies, including HP and LSI Logic, I felt something was missing. I joined several really exciting start-ups, but still felt I had somehow lost something.It then dawned on me what was missing. When I had first arrived in America, I became filled with an incredible sense that I was at last in control of my own destiny. The emotion I felt was a thrilling combination of excitement, joy and boundless optimism.But that thrill was gone and I was figuring out why. Working for a large corporation, I never felt truly in control. The start-ups were exciting, but they ultimately failed because of a lack of control. We couldn’t control our access to potential customers.That was the inspiration for Voicent.I saw the throttle-hold that complex, proprietary technologies had on businesses—especially small and mid-sized businesses. I wanted to build a technology company that would free entrepreneurs and small-business owners from that hold, so they would really have control of their own destinies.I found people who shared my belief in the liberating promise of technology, and over the next 10 years we built a company to deliver on that promise.Today, that company—Voicent—is becoming the go-to technology company for businesses that want to stop being limited by technology, but use it to gain unfettered access to potential customers.We enable people to control their own destinies. It’s a pretty thrilling thing.