Affirmative Action and How Asians Are Split l The Best of OZY

At OZY’s Take On America in San Francisco, we tackled affirmative action, Hollywood beauty standards and the ethics of tech.

Eddie Huang got beat up so many times as a kid, he still struggles with his masculinity today. Growing up in Orlando, Florida, Huang, whose parents are immigrants from Taiwan, was one of the only Asian students in his school.

Many of the other 100 Asian-American millennials in the audience for OZY’s innovative town hall series Take On America could empathize. They were also ostracized and “othered” by their White peers throughout childhood. But it’s a double-edged sword, emphasized Huang, an author, chef and restaurateur. “If you didn’t grow up around other Chinese people, you weren’t Chinese enough,” he said.

During the fourth episode of our show, filmed in San Francisco, many could relate to feeling uncomfortable with an Asian identity.

From smart cyberattack saviors to a new buzzy booze, here’s the best of OZY this week.

This week we learned some troubling news about the world’s oceans: They are absorbing up to 60 percent more heat than previously thought, which means the planet is warming faster than expected. A happier sea story? The largest-ever octopus sea nursery — a “shimmering” garden with as many as 1,000 brooding females — has been found 2 miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California. The footage captured also showed some octopus embryos in their mothers’ arms.

It’s a busy time, even if you’re not a scientist trying to save the world or a new octo-mom. It’s time for some you time. Grab a comfy chair and enjoy some of our favorite stories on OZY this week.

Cyber storm chasers combine artificial intelligence and human skills to battle data theft and privacy violations.

Employees at FedEx in the U.S., Telefónica in Spain and the National Health Service in the U.K. opened their work computers one day in May 2017 to find they no longer had access to thousands of crucial documents. A message appeared demanding payment in bitcoin to have them restored. The ransomware attack known as WannaCry afflicted more than 200,000 people in 150 countries, according to Europol, and was the largest of its kind in recent history. The threat of this sort of crippling data security breach has tech giants turning to artificial intelligence for solutions.

As online hackers increasingly use advanced technology for penetrative attacks, the companies that host our private information also are engaging the most advanced systems available in a bid to protect us. Microsoft, IBM and Cisco are among the many technology companies depending more than ever on machine learning and AI to defend their customers’ identities and data, around the clock and in real time.