Tech Leaders' English #0001 | Come full circle—Standing back at the starting point after a long detour

This series, "Tech Leaders' English (TLE)," delivers business English phrases born from English interviews with founders and executives of overseas startups. Through these phrases, I hope you will also take away the mindsets of these tech leaders.

What I am delivering is English that is actually used in the field, not what you find in textbooks.

For example, one founder who has walked a seemingly disjointed career path—from medicine to energy, robotics, and environmental sensing—reflected on their life and said this:

"That's kind of how it came full circle to now be working in this industry."

What does this mean, and why did I choose this phrase as the title for this series? Before I talk about that, let me start at a venue in Boston nearly 30 years ago.

1997, Boston

It was about 30 years ago.

At the time, I was an editor for a Mac magazine, and I went to cover the MacWorld Expo held in Boston, USA. It was that day when Steve Jobs, who had been ousted from Apple, returned, and Bill Gates of Microsoft was projected onto the screen.

The venue was ecstatic. However, for me, having entered the computer world through the Windows 95 boom, Jobs was still "a guy who is amazing but I don't really get." Even though those around me worshipped him like a god or a rock star, I couldn't understand the meaning of that intensity. However, I remember trembling when, at the climax, Gates—whom Mac users despised—appeared on the big screen, and I honestly thought, "Jobs called him? That's incredible."

After returning to Japan, I thought, "I need to get serious about English," so I bought a TOEIC study guide and took the test. The result was 460 points. A crushing defeat. The style of reading books to memorize things didn't suit me at all. Since then, English was never a necessity, my motivation to learn dropped, and it was shelved for a long time.

The circle of tech, English, editing, and reporting

Here, I will look back on my own career a little.

I am a graduate of the electrical engineering department of a technical college. I was terrible at science and math, but for some reason, I was head and shoulders above the rest in English (though perhaps the English level of those around me was just low). I moved to Tokyo, joined a job information magazine company, and learned how to make magazines from scratch in the editorial department. After that, drawn by Windows 95, I changed jobs to a computer magazine publisher and became a Mac magazine editor, then moved into the world of web production during the internet boom. After working as a content director for i-mode, I founded the editorial production company Angie in 2005 and have built my career around corporate blog construction and article production.

It feels like I have been going around in circles, connecting tech, English, editing, and reporting.

The man who took my job opened the door

Going around, going to different places, and coming back again. A major fluctuation in that circle came in 2007. The arrival of the iPhone.

At the time, our company's mainstay, site production using Flash, gradually and then all at once disappeared. It was the wave that Jobs set in motion. The person I reported on at MacWorld had reset my work more than a decade later.

However, that same iPhone opened a different door for me this time.

In 2018, when my child said they wanted to aim for a foreign language university, I thought, "Then I'll do it too," and started studying for the TOEIC again. This time, it was an English app on my smartphone using AI. As soon as I solve a problem, it returns a predicted score. I was arrogant enough to think I could easily get around 800 points, but it didn't improve much. But because the results come back immediately, I end up trying again and again.

The feedback loop started spinning at high speed. It was the sense of "high-speed iteration" that people at software startups were all talking about. Fail, fix immediately, and try again. In 2019, I exceeded a score of 850, and in 2020, I reached 905 points. It wasn't that learning only from books was bad; it just didn't suit me.

A middle-aged man whose job was taken by the iPhone has turned English into his weapon thanks to the iPhone. The image of Jobs I watched in 1997 without understanding its meaning has come back around, carrying a different significance here.

A phrase that appears repeatedly in my interview notes

Since 2021, I have been in charge of English interviews with founders and executives of overseas startups. Over five years, at a pace of about 50 people a year, I have conducted over 250 interviews. The starting point for this TLE series was the notes I took on phrases I thought were excellent during those interviews.

When digging into a founder's career or background, or asking about the path that led to their startup—that was when the phrase "come full circle" appeared repeatedly.

This series is taking those notes and shaping them through a back-and-forth with the generative AI, Claude. Claude acts as the interviewer, helping me recall my memories from that time and weaving them into English explanations mixed with personal anecdotes. It is a way for a cyborg geezer born in 1969, who will turn 60 in 2029, to utilize AI.

The context in which the founders used "come full circle" varied. They started a business on the "opposite side" of an industry they had been in for years, and that experience became their strength. They returned to a field they had given up on as too difficult when they were young, but this time with different weapons. They ended up solving the same technical problem with a different architecture as times changed. A problem they discovered about themselves only after living abroad became the origin of their product—.

Even though the contexts were different, the feeling that "when I came full circle, I had grown" was common to all of them.

come full circle | Returning to the starting point after a long detour

Meaning: After many twists and turns, you find yourself back at the starting point.

It happened when I asked a startup founder about their career path. They came from an engineering background, starting with medical research, then moving through renewable energy, robotics development, and environmental sensing. Looking back at a career that seemed disjointed at first glance, they said this:

They were not originally from that industry. These are words from the moment when dots connected in an unexpected place.

When talking about your career or the progress of your company in a business setting, "come full circle" is an expression that can convey the nuance that "after a long detour, everything has connected" in a single phrase.

Using this when introducing yourself or during a pitch to connect dots in your career that seem unrelated at first glance adds depth to your story.

I want you to keep spinning your wheel

I placed "come full circle" at the foundation of this series because I have walked a career path that embodies those very words.

I have been spinning the wheel of tech, English, editing, and journalism for decades. It may look like I am going around in the same place, but every time I complete a circle, I emerge at a slightly higher level. It feels like a spiral staircase.

I believe everyone has a wheel of things they love and are good at. If you keep at it within that wheel, you will eventually come full circle and return to where you started. But by then, you will surely notice that the world you see has changed.

TLE is a series for people like that. In this prologue, I focused on a single phrase to explain the concept of the series, but from the next installment, I will present three phrases layered with episodes of the tech leaders' behavior that I felt during the interviews.

I am an editorial reporter, not an English expert. My pronunciation is not perfect, and I cannot explain grammar in detail. However, as someone who has conducted interviews, I can convey the words that tech leaders actually used in the business field. I hope this series reaches those who are interested in 'usable English' that functions in the real world.

You can memorize these English phrases and apply them to your business. You can also think about the mindsets of these tech leaders and apply them to your own work. I would be happy if this could serve as fuel to turn your own wheels, even just a little.

Author: Hidenobu Mori (Tech/Business Editorial Reporter / Self-proclaimed Cyborg Geezer). Born in 1969 (turning 60 in 2029). Started studying for TOEIC at 49 and scored over 900 at 51. Since then, I have interviewed over 250 overseas business professionals in English over five years. In the 'Tech Leaders' English' series, I introduce practical phrases encountered in the field of interviews and the thinking of entrepreneurs and executives.