How watching The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves, was ‘a mind-opening experience’ that changed the life of a Hong Kong biotech company CEO
- Ricky Chiu, founder of Hong Kong biotech company Phase Scientific, watched the hit sci-fi film while studying in the United States; it made him question reality
- The movie’s message ‘that you shouldn’t just follow what other people tell you’ inspired him to go into biotech when many of his peers pursued computer science
A classic of science-fiction cinema, The Matrix (1999), directed by the Wachowskis and starring Keanu Reeves, tells the story of a man living in a near-future society who discovers that the world he knows is a simulation created by machines to harvest humans for energy.
Ricky Chiu Yin-to, founder, chairman and CEO of Hong Kong biotech company Phase Scientific, a pioneer in diagnostic testing, including during the Covid-19 pandemic, tells The Post how it changed his life.
I have a very strong memory of that movie. It was one of the first movies I watched when I first arrived in the United States. I went there for college, to a community college in the (San Francisco) Bay Area.
It was the only option for me – the tuition at private colleges was too much for my family. I did two years there and then transferred to UC (University of California) San Diego.
It was a very foreign environment but I was also very excited because I had a lot of freedom after a childhood spent under my parents. It was new and, yes, it was lonely, but I felt like everything was possible. I didn’t always have to come home – I could stay out with friends.