Ping Fu, author of Bend, Not Break, founder and CEO of Geomagic, and incoming chief strategy officer at 3D Systems (DDD 0.93%), tells of her journey from being a penniless newcomer to the United States to an incredibly successful CEO.

The following transcript is lightly edited. 

Brendan: You sit on President Obama's National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. What kind of things can we do here in America to encourage more innovation and entrepreneurism so we have more stories like yours?

Ping: Yeah, I think America is the most inventive country, and there is a lot of advanced technology invented here. Sometimes people say innovation is imagination applied. We're also a very good nation to apply inventions, but ... the quarterly earnings reports and the way we set up our financial systems sometimes discourage innovation. And we all need to be mindful about it. Instead of taking our inventions and going to other countries and making the product and selling it back to us, why don't we make it here?

We need to look at areas where we can keep innovation here.

Brendan: It's an incredible book, Bend, Not Break, and you have a remarkable life story. Thank you so much for your time, Ping Fu.