Paul Orlando was born and raised in upstate NY, near Rochester. He attended Cornell University where he majored in History and studied Mandarin Chinese, leading to fluency after a study abroad program in China. He started a corporate career in telecommunications and then moved to consulting after getting his MBA at Columbia. He migrated to Hong Kong for a few years and ran a startup accelerator program there. He currently is a professor at USC and runs their Accelerator program. He has also been a published author with articles in The Wall Street Journal, The NY Times, Forbes and TechCrunch. He also hosts a blog entitled "Unintended Consequences".