"Everybody is struggling to figure out a way to develop Web publishing into a business," Ma says.

Although his experience in journalism is primarily with magazines, Ma is not a novice in the area of information technology.

After leaving law school, Ma spent two years working as a telecommunications lawyer for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Ma's work at the FCC in 1978 and 1979 came in the midst of telecommunication deregulation and AT&T's break-up.

Ma says that events during this period led to the development of the Internet.

"The whole explosion of communication services...all comes out of telecommunications deregulation," Ma says.

In addition to his work with the FCC, Ma is also the co-author of Teleshock (1985) and The Practical Guide to Practically Everything (1995), two books which deal with information technology and the telecommunications industry.

Although he was one of the few Asian-Americans in the industry when he became a journalist, Ma says that race was never a tremendous factor in his career.

Ma adds that the industry is gradually becoming more diverse.

"The Asian-American community has always been more attracted to technical fields than to liberal arts and publishing," he says. "But if you look at the rise in the last decade of Asian-American novelists, you'll see that really beginning to change."

Reflecting on his effort to succeed with his career and his family, Ma finds himself in the same situation as many of his classmates.

Ma says that many in his class may have started out with lofty aspirations to reshape the world, but that they have gradually learned to reconcile these with more humble and personal goals.

"When we were students, we were going to change the world," he says. "With the benefit of some perspective, family and community have naturally come to the fore."