By Virginia Thomas
News Assistant
He re-routed the World Series from his TV to his laptop so he could watch it during statistics class. With the amount of computer networking knowledge he has, Spencer Kam could do a lot more malicious “hacking” than this, but that’s just not the kind of guy he is.
This Pepperdine junior would rather go out with his many friends, play beach volleyball or work on his business, Kameron Technologies.
He incorporated the company about a month ago. He and his 15-or-so associates produce “modified Xboxes.” Kam takes apart the video-gaming systems made by Microsoft and converts them into computers that run the Linux operating system. They come with a 160 gigabyte hard drive, and cost $300. The business did about $12,000 in sales in the past month, but he said it’s all gone back into the company.
Kam said he could make this a career, if the business is able to stop relying on Microsoft for the Xboxes, but he’s not KAM certain. He’s not sure what he’ll do with his business and economics degrees once he gets them, but he hopes to be able to afford to move back to his home state. Kam hails from the island of Oahu in Hawaii.
What was it like growing up in Hawaii?
It’s a lot more relaxed than living in California. The people are a lot nicer; it feels more like a family. Everything is slower and more peaceful, and nobody honks the horn when they drive.
What’s the best part of island life?
You can go surfing without a wetsuit. Here, the waves are too small and it is freezing.
Are you into any other sports?
I used to play baseball here. But it was really time consuming, and now I have a lot of time I can devote toward other things.
Like what?
Like the business, and I tutor in math, Japanese, physics, economics and accounting. Pretty much whatever the athletes need.
How did your business come to be?
The idea came just from fooling around with a computer. We saw what an Xbox was made of and what it could do. I took one apart and after a little trial and error, we figured it out.
What exactly did you figure out how to do?
What we do is turn an Xbox into a computer. With that computer you can type a paper, surf the web, it’s the cheapest computer you can have.
Have you had a lot of demand for them?
It’s really hot, everyone wants it so we’re always backed up for orders…If we had more time to devote to the business instead of school, we could easily fill 100 orders a day.
How do you get clients?
It’s word of mouth marketing. We have sales reps at ASU, USC, UCLA, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, MIT, RIT, UW and NYU. Those guys get the orders, and they refer them back to me and I ship them out.
How would you describe yourself?
I’m pretty laid back, for the most part pretty passive, I just like to have fun.
November 13, 2003
