Michael Peres sits down with Leo Wang, Vice President of Capital Markets and Corporate Development at Canaan Inc., where he leads investor relations, capital markets strategy, and strategic transactions for the publicly listed Bitcoin ASIC manufacturer. From growing up in a small city in China to earning law and economics degrees at Peking University, passing the New York Bar after Columbia Law School, and working on cross-border deals in Beijing, New York, Hong Kong, and mainland China, Leo has built a career at the intersection of law, finance, and deep tech.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
• How Leo’s early fascination with financial law and economics at Peking University set the foundation for a global capital markets career
• What he learned working at major U.S. law firms in Beijing, New York, and Hong Kong on public transactions, VC, M&A, and capital markets deals
• How a move into smart home electronics – with R&D in China and brand/marketing in the U.S. – exposed him to the realities of hardware, cloud services, and early “connected” products
• Lessons from trying to take a Chinese electronics company public and later overseeing public companies listed across three different exchanges
• Why he chose to leave a senior capital markets role to reunite with his family in California during the pandemic
• How that decision led him to Canaan and what it actually looks like to run capital markets and corporate development inside a Bitcoin ASIC manufacturer