• Young Chang had a comfortable career as a tech consultant at Disney and Warner Bros. • He decided to leave the corporate world to bring A-Sha Foods, a Taiwanese noodle brand, to the US. • Chang said lessons from his first job as a line cook to his consulting career prepared him to scale A-Sha.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Young Chang, the CEO of A-Sha Foods. It's been edited for length and clarity.

On paper, it made no sense to leave my well-paid corporate career — which spanned from Disney to Warner Bros. — to run a noodle brand. But trading studio lots for soy sauce has been the best move I've ever made.

By 34, I was a senior director at Warner Bros. Life was easy: great pay, a 401(k), total control of my schedule.

I'd already done stints across the Sou

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