Stephen Chao was born in 1955 or 1956[1] to a Chinese American family, and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, moving to New Hampshire when he was eight years old.
[citation needed] His maternal grandfather was a prominent official in pre-revolutionary China, once serving as the nation's economic minister to the United States.
[1][3][citation needed] Between Harvard degrees, Chao co-wrote a Fodor's travel guide for Turkey, shoveled manure in France, and reported for the National Enquirer.
[1] He broke the story of O. J. Simpson's budding romance with Nicole Brown[4] and tracked UFO sightings throughout South America for three months.
Multiple rejections by the studios led him to New York, working in finance for movie producer Dino De Laurentiis.
The most talked about controversy surrounding the two individuals occurred when Diller became so enraged with Chao that he hurled a 3/4-inch videocassette tape across the room, denting the wall.
[4] The following year in 1987, Chao met John Langley who pitched a concept of following beat cops around Broward County, Florida.
In June 1992, ten weeks after taking position as president, Chao spoke at a management conference in Snowmass Village, Colorado, for Fox executives, board members and world dignitaries, including Rupert Murdoch and wife Anna Murdoch, and former United States Secretary of Defense (and future Vice President) Dick Cheney and wife Lynne Cheney.
[4] In February 1998, Barry Diller purchased USA Network and the Sci Fi Channel from Universal Studios, hiring Chao in April as president of programming and marketing,[10] working with such shows as the WWF, La Femme Nikita, Highlander: The Series, Baywatch and the Jerry Springer Show.