Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong (Bernard Leong)

"It is not just cheaper, faster, better. I'm not gonna deny that. If we go forward a number of years, it's gonna cause what we've been calling economic singularity. The value of labor drops to zero and you got all kinds of problems from that. But in the immediate future, what's gonna be interesting is this is the first technology that enables us to automate relationships. Basically, the AI can interact with us the way we interact with us. This sounds very trivial,  but if you look at tech and you look at what has enabled tech to scale up to an incredible size around the world is our ability to automate the transaction. It's just that thing, and the problem with that is you end up with conversations of six months, LTV - Lifetime Value. What sense is in that?  You are talking about a human being and your lifetime values over six months. And it's for a simple reason. When you automate transactions, all you control is a transaction. So you take a human being and you transact, and you drain the relationship out of that relationship and you throw it away, and then get another one and keep going." - Ong Peng Tsin

Fresh out of the studio, Ong Peng Tsin, co-founder and general partner of Monk's Hill Ventures, delved deep into the realm of Generative AI in Southeast Asia. Reflecting on his journey as a venture capitalist, Peng Tsin shared insights into the evolution of his daily role after eight years of team building at Monk's Hill Ventures. He emphasized the unparalleled potential of generative AI, likening its transformative impact to the iPhone revolution, and addressing the booming generative AI market in Southeast Asia, catalyzed by technologies like Chat-GPT and how it presents significant opportunities in the region. Last but not least, he shared what a great AI startup would look like in the region.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

Turochas "T" Fuad, managing director of WeWork, Southeast Asia joined us for a conversation on his journey as a serial entrepreneur and his current role to expand WeWork across Southeast Asia. We started from his early career with Yahoo! and Skype and subsequently with the acquisition of Spacemob to WeWork. We discussed WeWork, their products and services offered to different customers from startups to multi-national corporations and their geographical expansion across Southeast Asia. Last but not least, he also shared his thoughts on how the co-working spaces are evolving across Southeast Asia.

"So at the Asia Pacific level, this study looked at several countries. But you know, we looked at a country level because that's the information that our customers and partners are interested in - whether they're in the government sector or in the private sector. So the countries include Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and India. In the ASEAN space, the four countries I mentioned before - are Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. So in this case, the first takeaway was that, again, digital fluency yields massive economic benefits. For example, those with advanced digital skills raised the Asia Pacific GDP by an estimated 934 billion. So it's pretty close to a trillion." - Emmanuel Pillai from Amazon Web Services

Fresh out of the studio, Emmanuel Pillai, Head of Training and Certification from Amazon Web Services, ASEAN, joined us to share how companies can build a tech-savvy workforce from building their startups to digital transformation with enterprises. Emmanuel began with an overview of AWS training and certification in the Asia Pacific. Then he dived deep into the recent report on building a tech-savvy workforce with Gallup and explained how economies and companies benefitted economically with the implementation of training and certification initiatives targeting to uplift the digital workers with modern technologies from AI/ML to 5G. Last but not least, Emmanuel shared what great would look like for AWS training and certification in the Asia Pacific.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

Matthew Brennan from China Channel joins us to discuss the coffee wars in China between the upstart, Luckin Coffee and Starbucks Cafe. We discuss the origins of the company and the strong management team led by Jenny Qian which brought the startup to its current stage. We discuss how Chinese consumers are now using Luckin Coffee and why they are different and poised to give Starbucks a ride of their lives in China. Last but not least, we discuss the coffee wars in China as part of the proxy war between Alibaba and Tencent and why it will likely to catapult Luckin Coffee outside China for regional expansion.

"Temu was launched in the US, their first market in September 2022. That is when Shein just started to gain a lot of traction. There's a lot of attention being paid to Shein. In the beginning, many people thought that Temu was a copycat of Shein because they both sold goods from China using this direct-from-China shipping model. However, I think the competition has evolved quite differently now, and Temu has done business and operational innovation that has made others, including Shein, have to catch up." - Jing Yang

Fresh out of the studio, Jing Yang, the Asia Bureau Chief from The Information shares the ongoing e-commerce war between Amazon and the upstarts: Shein and Temu across the global landscape. Starting from the origins of Shein and Temu, she explained how both companies first expanded to the US enabled by Amazon. Jing Yang breaks down how Temu gains total control over its suppliers and sellers and subsequently threatens Amazon's e-commerce dominance in the US market. Last but not least, she examined the fallout from the potential US ban on Shein and Temu from US lawmakers and the possibility of Shein's IPO in the US.

Episode Highlights:
[0:46] QOTD
[1:27] Introduction: Jing Yang, Asia Bureau Chief from The Information
[2:34] The surprise of Open AI not allowing ChatGPT to be in Hong Kong and China.
[5:29] You need a China mobile number to access Chinese LLMs.
[6:48] Introduction to Shein and Temu, the global e-commerce upstarts originating from China.
[9:59] The elusive people behind Shein and Temu.
[13:29] Shein’s current performance against H&M, Zara, and Uniqlo.
[18:12] How Authentic Brands (owner of Forever 21) made a partnership & investment deal with Shein in the US.
[23:09] How Temu maintains control over the supply chain in China.
[31:23] Comparisons between Temu and Amazon from the seller to business models.
[34:51] How Amazon enabled Shein and Temu to expand into the US.
[35:38] Amazon’s realization of Temu’s threat and response.
[36:58] Amazon’s response to Shein and Temu’s threats in the US market.
[38:56] Temu is copying Amazon in the US with a local warehouse strategy and vice versa.
[42:08] How Amazon vs Temu & Shein shaped the global e-commerce landscape.
[43:54] How reliant is Amazon on Chinese sellers and suppliers globally?
[45:30] Why the US lawmakers are thinking about a ban on Temu.

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig.

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In episode 323, Charles Reed Anderson, our long time guest of the show and host of TechBurst Asia joins us to discuss his latest venture, SparkLabs Connex, a new accelerator program for smart city technologies under the SparkLabs Group. Before diving deep into the new venture, Charles discuss the challenges of smart city rankings and how they did not reflect the reality of what is happening on the ground. Then he began to discuss the rationale of SparkLabs Connex and why it is time to start an accelerator program specifically on smart city technologies. Last but not least, he break down how the global program works, offered his perspectives on what types of entrepreneurs he would seek to fund and address how SparkLabs Connex will operate in a COVID-19 world.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Charles Anderson (@CRASingapore, LinkedIn), founder of Charles Reed Anderson and Associates, host of TechBurst Asia (iTunes, Spotify, @techburstasia) and now general partner for SparkLabs Connex. [0:24]
  • What have you been up to since we last spoke? [1:10]
  • You have recently written an article about smart city rankings and why the rankings do not reflect reality. Can you talk about why this is the case? [1:40] 
• SparkLabs Connex [5:45]
  • Can you briefly introduce your new venture SparkLabs Connex from the SparkLabs Group? (Source: TechCrunch) [6:00]
  • There are already a lot of incubators and accelerators across different geographies, but very few have succeeded. Why do you think that this is the time to start another one? [7:57]
  • What are the industry verticals or technologies that SparkLabs Connex is looking into? (5G, IoT, Smart Cities)? [9:15]
  • How does the model work for SparkLabs Connex and how does it work with the ecosystem, for example, partners? [10:50]
  • Why are the vendors willing to work with you as many accelerators have been building partnerships across industries? [13:44]
  • How does SparkLabs Connex work for entrepreneurs? [15:05]
  • What are the traits of startup founders that you will seek to invest in? [17:05]
  • What are the types of technologies which you will specifically look into as you invest in the space? [22:00]
  • Omate: elderly care watch from Shenzhen and expand in France [22:40]
  • Can you share the stories of early applicants into the program? [24:40]
  • Can you share the geographical profiles of startups in SparkLabs Connex and whether there are preferences over some geographies? [25:40]
  • Are there any additional things which you want the applicants to know? [27:40]
  • Given the recent coronavirus outbreak, do you think that it will slow down the growth of IoT and 5G in the market? [28:25]
  • How about technologies in IoT and 5G which might have come up during the COVID-19 outbreak? [29:55]
  • Press releases:
    • SparkLabs Group launches Connex, an accelerator program for smart city technology (TechCrunch)
    • SparkLabs Connex, a New IoT, Smart City & PropTech Accelerator, Unites the Supply & Demand sides of the Technology Ecosystem to Accelerate Access to Innovation (Business Insider)
• Closing [32:30]
  • Charles recommendations: Parag Khanna's "The Future is Asian"
  • Where can we find him?

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin).  Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

Ben Bajarin from Creative Strategies joined us in a conversation to discuss what happened in the recent Google I/O and Apple WWDC 2018 and its implications on the development of artificial intelligence, voice assistants and the separation of state between tablets and personal computers. We also discussed the recent happenings in Intel and his brief thoughts on the semiconductor industry in Asia.

"People always ask us this question, what can I learn from that country? People ask us about this from the report especially when we're talking to policymakers, or what should I learn from Malaysia? What should I learn? The thing to learn is  to not learn  to replicate exactly.  But the thing to learn is sort of what are the principles behind what works for them. What are your comparative advantages, Every country needs to be asking that for themselves. So for Vietnam, comparative advantages are things like  proximity to China, and an ability at a geopolitical level to navigate between the U.S. and China.  They do this pretty delicately, given their history with both countries. There's an acquiescence by the major powers also to not force Vietnam to take sides. And, you know, and so it's a delicate balancing game that ASEAN always plays ..." - Gullnaz Baig

Fresh out of the studio, Gullnaz Baig, executive director from the Angsana Council, shares her perspectives on the "Southeast Asia Outlook 2024-2034: Navigating the High Winds" report by Angsana Council, DBS and Bain & Co. In our conversation, Gullnaz emphasized Southeast Asia’s unique strengths, including its cultural diversity, openness to innovation, and ability to navigate geopolitical complexities between global powers like China and the U.S. She highlighted Southeast Asia’s resilience, citing its rising wealth, improving standards of living, and comparative advantages such as Vietnam’s strong STEM workforce and the Philippines’ English-speaking talent. Last but not least, she described the importance of leveraging regional collaboration and technology to foster sustainable growth and offered her thoughts on what great would look like for the region.

Episode Highlights:
[00:46] Quote of the Day by Gullnaz Baig
[01:28] Gullnaz Baig’s Career Journey and Key Milestones
[03:53] Introduction to the Angsana Council and Its Mission
[05:52] Career Lessons and Importance of Mentorship
[07:50] Southeast Asia's Economic Outlook for 2024-2034
[10:03] Collaboration Behind the Southeast Asia Outlook Report
[12:46] Economic Resilience of Southeast Asia Over the Past 30 Years
[16:58] Structural Challenges Across Southeast Asia
[20:29] Vietnam’s Growth Potential and Comparative Advantages
[25:17] Philippines’ Services Sector and Comparative Strengths
[26:14] Startups in Southeast Asia: Building and Scaling Across Borders
[29:51] Southeast Asia’s Receptiveness to New Technology
[31:50] China’s Influence and Opportunities in Southeast Asia
[34:42] Navigating Geopolitical Tensions Between China and the U.S.
[36:29] Leveraging China’s Strengths in Southeast Asia
[38:52] The question that Gullnaz would like people to ask her more: Who are Southeast Asians?
[45:19] What Does Great Look Like for Southeast Asia?
[47:03] Closing

Profile: Gullnaz Baig, Executive Director of Angsana Council
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gullnazbaig/
Angsana Council: https://angsanacouncil.org/member/gullnaz-baig/

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast.

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"The first thing is that the crypto market is still quite small compared to the equity [market]. [The size of the crypto market to equity market is about] one to 120, less than 0.8%, not even 1%. So, some smaller projects are very manipulated. [It is a] tough market, and second thing is that a lot of people say the variation for crypto is Twitter driven. So when Elon Musk or CZ send out a Tweet, it can pump up the project by about 5% to 10%. Because each [crypto] project is like religion, people believe in you." - Chris Lee

Fresh out of the studio, Chris Lee, co-founder & partner of TKX Capital joined us in a conversation about TKX Capital and his perspectives on how to invest in crypto projects and protocols globally in an uncertain era. Chris began the conversation with his background as the former CFO for both cryptocurrency exchanges: OK Coin and Huobi, and what he learned from meeting Warren Buffett in person. Next, he deep-dived into the mission, vision and investment thesis of TKX Capital and shared his thoughts on the current crypto market. Last but not least, he offered his thoughts on what great looks like for TKX Capital.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

Fresh out of the studio, Lillian Li, founder of the Chinese Characteristics newsletter joined us in a conversation to explain why cloud computing and software as a service (SAAS) are different in China as compared to the rest of the world. Lillian began her origin story in why she started the newsletter and approach the Chinese market. Then we dived deep into the weeds of the Chinese enterprise market and explore why the Chinese tech companies found it difficult to build enterprise software and drive adoption in global expansion specifically in the Asian markets. Last but not least, Lillian explores how the Chinese cloud computing sector and SAAS model will evolve in the future to adapt to the changing world out there.

"In China, when you talk to someone about SASS. They typically link it with a type of software architecture rather than the payment recurrent payment theme. So that's one thing. And cloud computing is more understood as cloud adoption rather than using a last platform." - Lillian Li

Simon Kemp, founder and CEO of Kepios and global consultant from We are Social, joined us in a conversation to discuss the latest global digital report in 2018. In the second part of our conversation, we discussed how the next billion will be connected and what it means for innovation for voice and video messaging and the profile of the Instagram user. Last but not least, we examined whether Facebook is really declining across the world and whether we are seeing any interesting trends from the ecommerce data.

Matthew Brennan, co-founder of China Channel and host of China Tech Talk joined us in a conversation to discuss Tencent's gaming empire worldwide and their third killer app after QQ & Wechat: Honor of Kings. We discussed the recent major happenings from Tencent in their purchase of stock from Snap in the US and bypassing Facebook's market capitalisation temporarily, and how they assembled their gaming portfolio and assets, particularly Honor of Kings, in a strategy as the top gaming company now in the world and mitigate against the concerns of the Chinese government in mobile gaming addiction.

Episode 225: Tencent’s Gaming Empire & Honor of Kings with Matthew Brennan appeared first on Analyse Asia.

In episode 326, Geoffrey Cain, author of "Samsung Rising" joins us in a two parts conversation on his journey across Asia as a journalist and author and discuss the backstory of his new book behind the Samsung Group and how it rise to be the most powerful Chaebol (large family-owned business conglomerate) in Korea. In the first part of the conversation, Geoffrey discuss the inspiration and the main themes behind "Samsung Rising", and shares the origin story of Samsung and how they went from an agriculture business to a global technology giant today along with Apple and Huawei by a family owned enterprise spanning three generations.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Geoffrey Cain, author of “Samsung Rising”, and also regular commentator on The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Time & The New Republic and former correspondent in The Economist (Website, @geoffrey_cain, LinkedIn) [0:26]
  • How did you start your career? [0:55]
  • What have you learned from covering North & South Korea, China and Cambodia in your career journey? [8:35]
  • In your career journey, what are the key lessons you can share with the younger audience? [10:55]
  • Comments on how the history of Samsung aligns with the story of South Korea's rise as one of the top economies in Asia.
• Samsung Rising (Random House, Amazon, Apple Books) [15:45]
  • What is the inspiration behind writing the book “Samsung Rising”? [16:20]
  • Who are the intended audience of the book? [20:32]
  • If you will to summarize the key takeaways of the book, what would they be so that you can spark their interest to learn more? [22:22]
  • Can you talk about the origins of Samsung and what type of businesses that the family behind the company have grown from a small trading company  to modern technology giant today? [25:05]
  • What does Chaebol means in South Korea? [33:05]
  • The family behind Samsung have gone through three generations: the founder Lee Byung-chul (or B.C Lee in short), Lee Kun-hee and recently to Jay Lee. Can you talk about how each leader has been different and what their contributions to Samsung have been? [36:50]
  • Can Jay Lee step up for Samsung as his father and grandfather have in the past? [49:04]
  • Jay Lee's investments in Silicon Valley and how he is thinking about Samsung's future given that the environment is currently becoming more complex with US protectionism. [52:00]

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

"If you think about a modern digital business, what does that mean? Well, it translates to personalized, proactive service and support. At a minimum, it's also the ability to deliver and provide access to self-service. It's about eliminating all of the mundane and repetitive tasks that are required to drive great engagement and customer loyalty and where a process or a workflow is required to be executed. A digital business is about automating and optimizing that request across the enterprise delivered to the right person with the right skills, maybe the right spare parts, the right geographical location, the right availability to deliver on that customer or employee request." - Mitch Young

Fresh out of the studio, Mitch Young, president of Asia Pacific & Japan from ServiceNow, joined us in a conversation to discuss their business activity and focus and explore the rise of digital-native companies in the Asia Pacific. Mitch began with the story of ServiceNow and the interesting customer stories across the Asia Pacific. Then he dived deep into explaining how the modern digital business works and the playbook which executives can use to strategize from automation of workflows by digitization to augmenting artificial intelligence in their businesses for their next phases of digital transformation.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

Arnaud Bonzom from 500 Startups joined us in a conversation to conclude our conversation on the state of Southeast Asia in 2017 and what is likely to come in 2018. We discussed the entry of Alibaba and Tencent in Southeast Asia and India which set up the war for ecommerce, logistics, social and cloud computing with Amazon, Facebook and Google, and the strange situation of disruptors and incumbents teaming up in consolidation or strategic partnerships across Southeast Asia. Last but not least, we discussed what 2018 will be for Southeast Asia particularly in the payment wars between major players and startups across the region.

Fresh out of the studio, Yat Siu, co-founder of Animoca Brands joined us in a conversation about the story of the company and offered his perspectives on true digital ownership, blockchain gaming, NFTs and the open metaverse. Yat Siu started the conversation with his backstory and how he eventually spun off the company Animoca Brands from the parent company to focus on blockchain gaming. Last but not least, he share his thoughts on the open metaverse and what it means for true digital ownership and play to earn in the crypto gaming space.

"The open Metaverse, from our perspective, is the real Metaverse, because you can then have ownership. Once you have ownership, you care to keep it because it's precious and meaningful to you, but if you don't own anything, then you actually don't care to protect it because you're just simply a guest. And I think this is part of why we are so excited about non fungible tokens as digital property rights." - Yat Siu

Additional note: Yat Siu's profile photo is credited to Kevin Abosch.

We've got a 330 trillion dollar industry here, which arguably a lot of it, we talk about stranded assets, CRREM pathways to stranded assets, et cetera. I talked to a lot of funds. I've talked to a lot of developers. They're getting very worried about this. And it's not just about their existing portfolios. It's about how they are going to exit portfolios. Because many buyers now actually build in the cost of retrofitting a building to bring it up to sustainability when they're looking at acquiring an asset. So, that might bring the price down. So, for us, we look at everything you've just mentioned. We look at materials. We look at hardware. We look at software and anything that gets us to some of these impact targets we want to achieve in the built environment and also is something which is commercially viable and fixes some particular pain point within this ecosystem. - Alexander Bent"

Fresh out of the studio, Alexander Bent, founder & managing partner from Undivided Ventures, joined us in a conversation on why this is the time to invest in sustainability within the built environment. Alexander started with his background as a real estate developer and the inspiration behind starting his venture capital firm. He dived deep into his investment thesis and shared his perspectives on how transforming technologies from AI to materials engineering will transform the real estate industry. Last but not least, Alex shares what great would look like for Undivided Ventures.

Episode Highlights:
[0:50] Quote of the Day #QOTD by Alexander Bent.
[1:40] Welcome Message from the host.
[2:20] Introduction to Alexander Bent and his career journey.
[6:40] Perspectives on investing in climate adaptation rather than mitigation.
[7:30] Lessons from Alexander's career journey.
[9:40] The Vision and Mission of Undivided Ventures and why focus on built environment.
[11:50] The total market opportunity behind the real estate industry.
[13:20] The investment mandate for Undivided Ventures.
[14:20] Undivided VC is based in Hong Kong but invests globally.
[15:20] Typical day of a venture capitalist for Alexander.
[17:20] What are the traits of founders & startup teams that Alex index for?
[19:10] Business Models for Startups focusing on sustainability and built environment.
[21:20] What are the red flags in founders that you would watch out for?
[23:20] How Undivided VC helps their portfolio companies.
[25:30] Interesting companies under Undivided VC.
[28:10] The one thing that Alexander knows about investing in sustainability & built environment that very few do.
[28:35] Advice to startups focusing on positive impact in sustainability & built environment.
[31:50] #AI in sustainability & built environment.
[34:40] #internetofthings #iot in sustainability & built environment.
[36:20] #blockchain in sustainability & built environment.
[40:20] #materialscience & #materialsengineering in sustainability & built environment.
[42:50] Putting AI into materials science
[43:50] What does great look like for Undivided VC?
[48:00] Closing

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"I think the biggest learning that I had, and, by extension, JLL [Jones Lang LaSalle] in my last capacity was that it's not sufficient to take these companies and then just let them in the door. You can't hand one of your business clients the keys and expect them to drive. So, one of the first cohort companies in Urban Lab was a robotics company, and we created a revenue-sharing agreement with them any property that you get into through us, there's a revenue share. But the downstream incentives weren't sufficient enough. We didn't provide enough tools to people who were actually interacting with the properties to then want to actually be able to do it. Most of them didn't even know about it. That speaks to the size of an organization like that. when you sit up in an organization, you sometimes forget that you can't just speak something into existence. You need a ground game ..." - Jordan Kostelac

Fresh out of the studio, Jordan Kostelac, CEO and co-founder of Deploy, dives into the ever-evolving landscape of the real estate industry and the burgeoning proptech sector in 2024. Reflecting on his previous role as the Director of Technology at JLL Asia Pacific, Kostelac shares the key lessons learnt while leading various proptech initiatives and establishing the UrbanLab accelerator with Swire Properties and PingAn. He details his transition from JLL to founding Deploy, a startup that addresses the inefficiencies of deal sourcing and due diligence in the startup venture ecosystem starting from the PropTech sector. Last but not least, he shares what great would look like for Deploy moving forward.

Audio Episode Highlights:
[0:44] Quote of the Day by Jordan Kostelac #QOTD.
[1:41] Introduction: Jordan Kostelac, CEO of Deploy.
[5:03] Career Evolution from PropTech in JLL Asia Pacific to Deploy.
[8:43] Lessons from Jordan Kostelac’s career journey.
[11:22] Overview of the Real Estate Industry and Proptech in 2024.
[17:34] Role of Technology in Real Estate: From Projects in JLL to the Formation of Urban Lab.
[28:53] How startups need to navigate corporate partnerships.
[31:20] How to evaluate and invest in PropTech startups.
[33:54] Trends shaping the PropTech industry in the Asia Pacific.
[37:08] How Jordan started his new venture, Deploy based on his experiences in Urban Lab.
[40:17] How Bridgewater Associates’ Dots and other systems such as Kudos inspire Jordan to work out the mechanics for Deploy.
[45:27] Deploy’s value proposition and its current progress.
[51:53] What does great look like for Deploy?
[53:17] Closing Thoughts and Recommendations.

You can find Jordan on his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkostelac/ and X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/Scopelessness and more on Deploy here: https://deploycapital.online/

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig

Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia

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In episode 335, Stephanie Davis, Vice President of Google Southeast Asia, joined us in a discussion on the latest e-Conomy Southeast Asia (SEA) report and dissect the latest digital trends and discuss how the different industries are moving under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Stephanie started on the key themes, takeaways and intended audience for the report and broke down the key verticals which have benefitted during the COVID-19 pandemic and which industries have faced the strongest headwinds, for example travel. Last but not least, Stephanie offered an optimistic outlook to what 2021 will look life given the uncertainty ahead.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion:

• Stephanie Davis, Vice President, Google Southeast Asia (LinkedIn)
  • What is your current role and responsibility in Google? 
  • How did you start your career and end up in Singapore?
  • In your career journey, what are the key learnings you can share with our audience here?
• e-Conomy Southeast Asia (SEA) 2020 by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company
  • This is the 5th year of the e-Conomy report, and it is assembled by Google, Temasek (Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund and a key investor to many startup unicorns from China to Silicon Valley) and Bain & Co (one of the well-known consulting firms). To start the conversation, what are the key themes from the e-Conomy 2020 report this year?
  • Who are the intended audience of the 2020 report?
  • Southeast Asia has often been touted as the next geographical region after China and India. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated the headlines of every nation in the world, and has acted as a catalyst to digital growth & transformation. How has COVID-19 pushed the population of Southeast Asia to come online or accelerated this process, and where is this new growth coming from?
  • What are the three key verticals which have benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic? 
  • Given that most of the world is still caught in a lockdown, you’re probably WFH as well, what is both the quantity and quality for digital engagement of users in the Southeast Asia region?
  • Has the economic growth in Southeast Asia slowed down? Which countries within Southeast Asia have shown growth and which ones have slowed down?
  • Can you talk about how ecommerce has thrived this year and what kind of headwinds do you see in the coming year? 
  • As more people go digital in the years to come, we see that fintech, entertainment and gaming will continue to grow, where do you see the behaviour and activity of different stakeholders such as consumers, businesses, and regulators within this ecosystem?
  • One of the sectors that is gravely affected this year is, of course, the travel industry. Where do you see the signs of recovery? 
  • The Chinese word for crisis consists of 2 characters that mean danger and opportunity, and as Einstein has once said, “In the midst of every opportunity, lies great opportunity.” So what are the two verticals that have emerged this year? 
  • Temasek is a co-publisher of the report, they’re Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund and a key investor of many startups from China to Silicon Valley, so how do you see the startup space evolving with regards to deal activity, diversification of portfolios by investors from private equity to venture capital? 
  • What is the outlook for businesses in the year ahead? Should we be optimistic given that the pandemic has both accelerated digital transformation but also shut down many businesses at the same time?
• Closing
  • Do you have any recommendations (for example, books, podcasts, videos or articles) which you can recommend to our audience?
    • Stephanie's recommendations: Podcasts 1/ Mental Health, Disability and the Invisible 9%, 2/ How Authority and Decision Making differs across Cultures, 3/ Transgender Inclusion; Books: How to be an anti-racist by Ibram X. Kendi
  • How do my audience find you? 

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

"But today,  the clouds are the new silos. They're like the silos in the data center, only they're public. But AWS is a bit of a data silo, as is Azure. We used to call it Hotel California - you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Right?  A big part of what Snowflake does is tear down those silos to allow customers to have the data where they want it. Because if it's on Snowflake, it doesn't matter which physical infrastructure is behind it; and to share that data easily around the world, that's a major change in the whole kind of cloud-silo infrastructure problem that we're facing today.” - Jon Robertson

Fresh out of the studio, Jon Robertson, President of Asia Pacific and Japan for Snowflake discussed the company's global vision & mission and their current expansion into the Asia Pacific and Japan region. Jon discussed the customer stories and how Snowflake's cloud data platform facilitates diverse workloads, from artificial intelligence to cybersecurity. Continuing the conversation, he explored the evolving trends in the data and AI landscape, amplified by notable advances such as ChatGPT and where it is heading. Last but not least, he shared what great would look like for Snowflake in the Asia Pacific region for the next 3-5 years.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

Fresh out of the studio, in episode 339, John Artman, the technology editor of South China Morning Post (SCMP) joins us on a conversation with China AI Deep Dive: Computer Vision Report 2020 published by SCMP research. We began the conversation with John’s reflections on the year of 2020 during the pandemic and then dived deep into the report, where John provide a comprehensive overview of the computer vision market in China with the four dragons: SenseTime, Megvii, CloudWalk and Yitu and what the tech giants in China are focusing on in the same sector. John also discuss the implications of the US-China tensions as to how it impact the CV market and offered his thoughts on where the key players will focus on, given the impending regulatory measures introduced by the Chinese government on data privacy and anti-trust.

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

In episode 346, Benedict Evans shares his perspectives on the history and trends of technology. Benedict explores the different narratives spanning across the mobile wars between Apple & Google, generational shifts in digital transformation of enterprises, the challenges of app stores and digital advertising & privacy. Last but not least, he asks the key questions on what's next for technology.  

There's some industries where 10 years time is the next product cycle. There's some industries where, you know what your rent's going to be in 10 years time. There's other technology: 10 years is right on the edge of science fiction.  You really don't know what you know, anything beyond 10 years, you really don't know what's going to happen, except there'll be more stuff. - Benedict Evans

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian

“ Yeah. We plan to replace the fleet by 2040. We can't scrap all of them now because each bus lasts 18 years. So we have the depreciation for 18 years. They're all from the U.K. All the buses are from the U.K. All the double-deckers. That's the only country that makes double-decker buses, and it's the same as Singapore. All the double-deckers are from the U.K. Because of COVID, when we replace all these diesel buses with electricity, you need a lot more power and electricity to accommodate this. So the government has to work with us. But today, we can't really see that if we import all these 4,000 electric buses to Hong Kong, there will be enough charging stations. We'll have to build a new depot that accommodates electric buses. So in Yuen Long, we're building a seven-storey, new depot that can charge 1,000 buses every night. But after we build it, the government has to give us the confidence that they can give us the power to charge these buses. So there's no point building a new depot if there's not enough electricity to charge it. So we're delaying it now. But the idea is still the same. We will have to replace it with green energy because it's much better for the environment.” - William Louey

Fresh out of the studio, William Louey, 4th generation business leader of Kowloon Motor Bus (KMB), talks about his vision for transforming Hong Kong’s public transportation system through sustainability and innovation. He discusses KMB’s ambitious plan to electrify its bus fleet by 2040, highlighting the challenges of infrastructure, power supply, and government collaboration. He also shares his philanthropic efforts specifically on education and how they shaped the next generation of leaders to pay it forward. Last but not least, William shares what great would look like for KMB in a green and sustainable future.

Audio Episode Highlights:
[00:46] Quote of the Day (#QOTD) by William Louey
[02:07] Introduction to the Guest and KMB's Electrification Plan
[02:53] Influences from Family and Philanthropic Leadership
[04:44] The Beginnings of the Educational Foundation
[07:31] Shifting from Wealth Accumulation to Making an Impact
[18:11] Overview of KMB’s Role in Hong Kong’s Transportation Network
[21:35] Vision for Green Transit: KMB’s Electric Bus Roadmap
[23:15] Exploring Hybrid and Emerging Technologies
[25:31] Infrastructure and Power Challenges for Electrification
[28:46] Autonomous Vehicles and the Future of Public Transit
[34:16] The One Thing William Louey Knows that Very Few Do
[35:58] Balancing Technology and Employee Welfare
[37:26] What Does Great Look Like for KMB?
[40:19] Pet Buses and Women-Only Bus Routes in Hong Kong
[42:49] Closing Thoughts and Reflections

Profile: William Louey, Businessman and Philanthropist in Hong Kong. William Louey serves as a non-executive director of Transport International and founding member of JNW Properties. He established the William S. D. Louey Educational Foundation in memory of his grandfather. The William S.D. Louey Educational Foundation provides scholarships and bursaries to academically outstanding students from Hong Kong and Greater China for overseas studies.

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig

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After a long hiatus, in Episode 319, our host Carol Yin takes the seat to discuss the recent COVID-19 coronavirus and examine the impact of the pandemic to the rest of Asia Pacific and globally in two part series. In the first part of the series, together with the guest host, Yuying Deng, Carol related her experience living through the challenging times in China before and after the COVID-19 virus broke out. We discuss the origins of the virus, the measures in how the Chinese government are dealing with the outbreak, the outpour of grief from the Chinese over Dr Li Wenliang's death and broke down the major misconceptions perpetuated by media outlets.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Carol Yin (@carolyujiayin, LinkedIn), Host of Analyse Asia and guest host Deng Yuying, CEO of Altizen (@yuyingdeng, LinkedIn)
• The COVID-19 Coronavirus (WHO site) and its impact to Asia Pacific (Reference: Nikkei Asia Review)
  • A view of how the pandemic with the COVID-19 virus started before and after the outbreak made public and during Chinese New Year from Carol's perspective [0:52]
  • To start, let’s take a chronological approach to the whole incident, how did the coronavirus originated in Wuhan and started spreading across Asia Pacific and other parts of the world? [8:49]
  • Wuhan is a major transportation hub and the city is of the size of Pittsburgh in the US. Did the Chinese New Year holidays catalyse the spread of the virus due to the large scale movement of people within China? [12:58]
  • How about the virus? Where did it originate? How does it compare to the SARS situation in 2003 or similar outbreaks? [14:54]
  • What are the symptoms for someone who contract the coronavirus and how do we know if we suffer from flu or the coronoavirus? [17:15]
  • What has the Chinese government done so far in China? [19:10]
  • How are the small and medium businesses in China coping with the outbreak? [26:21]
  • What is the situation within Wuhan itself and the rest of China? [27:15]
  • What are the misconceptions that the rest of the world have with regards to the coronavirus? [30:46]
  • What is it like now living in Shanghai and dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak? [33:00]
  • When are things likely to go normal in China such that the Chinese government will stop the pause button currently with their response to the situation? [36:03]
  • Dr Li Wenliang's death and why the Chinese were outraged by his death. (Source: Financial Times) [37:00]
  • As of today (and recording is accurate as of 9 Feb 2020), how many cases are confirmed in China and the rest of the world? [40:40]
  • The impact of COVID-19 on groceries deliveries [45:25]
  • Misinformation in the Internet across the world with tech platforms struggling to deal with them (Wechat, Twitter) [46:40]
    • Wechat fact checking platform against Twitter's no fact checking.

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong).  Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

Rebecca Fannin, author of "Tech Titans of China" and founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures joined us for a conversation to discuss her new book and offered her perspectives on how China will reshape the world with their breed of tech giants: Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and many more. Rebecca began with the story of her career and how she came to cover Chinese technology companies from its earliest days. She discussed the major themes of her new book, and how the current trade tensions will shape China's path in the technology space and why we need to start thinking of China as originators of technology rather than the misconceptions that they are copycats.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Rebecca Fannin (@rfannin, LinkedIn), Author of “Tech Titans of China” and Founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures [0:16]
  • As a young person who also works for a media company, I must ask, how did you start your career? [0:32]
  • What advice would you give to young people looking to be a tech reporter or a media entrepreneur? [3:55]
  • You have started covering China tech much earlier than most people with your first book “Silicon Dragon”, what are the major key misconceptions you have observed in how other parts of the world cover China? [5:30]
  • As you have interacted with many key entrepreneurs such as Robin Li and Jack Ma, who is the most interesting entrepreneur in China who you have interviewed so far? [7:13]
• Tech Titans of China: “How China’s Tech Sector Is Challenging the World by Innovating Faster, Working Harder, & Going Global” [10:30]
  • What are the main themes of the book and who are the intended audience? [10:40]
  • We have known the Baidu-Alibaba-Tencent or BAT in short that are core key companies in China similar to Amazon, Google and Facebook in the US. How are they different? [13:20]
  • From copiers to now originators, what are the key turning points for China to become a technology power in the world? [15:45]
  • Is the government and their regulations the key reason why the tech giants in the US do not manage to penetrate into China? What are the other key reasons as to why the US tech companies have so many problems entering China? [17:50]
  • If China has not banned Google, Facebook or Twitter, would these companies have succeeded? [20:10]
  • We are increasingly seeing the decoupling of China and the US technology sector given the current US-China trade war. Do you think that the global supply chain which powers tech companies from both countries will break apart with what happened to ZTE and Huawei? [22:17]
  •  How does China have evolved in these three key areas [22:19]:
    • Ecommerce [22:22]
    • AI [25:18]
    • Drones and robots given that they have the most established and well developed manufacturing ecosystem in Shenzhen while US manufacturing has declined over the past three decades [27:58]
  • Where do you see the future of Chinese tech for China and will it start spilling to the rest of the world given its nascent influence in India, Southeast Asia, and Africa? [29:17]
  • Which tech giants in China are currently interesting from your perspective? [31:20]
• Closing [33:42]
  • How can my audience find you? [33:52]

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong).  Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

"Evangelism comes from a Greek term, meaning bringing the good news. So fundamentally, what an evangelist does is bring the good news.  And so with Macintosh, the good news was that this personal computer can increase your creativity and productivity. The good news with Canva was that this product, it can increase your ability to communicate by a democratizing design. That's the good news. My podcast can help you become a remarkable person because you listen to what other remarkable people have done and how they did it. That's the good news of my podcast.  So what an evangelist does is bring the good news of his or her product. Now, this assumes that your product is good news.  So if you don't have a product that is good news, it's very hard to use evangelism to make it successful." - Guy Kawasaki

Fresh from the studio, we had an enlightening conversation with Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist at Canva, who delved into the essence of product evangelism and revealed how the power of positive messaging propels Canva forward. Guy also dissected the transformative role of generative AI in democratizing design, explaining how it amplifies productivity and sparks greater creativity among users. To cap it off, he offered a glimpse into what great would look like for Canva's future trajectory.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

Fresh out of the studio and this is an emergency podcast, Shai Oster from The Information discusses the fallout coming from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank over the past weekend, and what it means for the venture capitalists and startups in Asia Pacific. We dived into what happened to Silicon Valley Bank, the aftermath of the intervention of the regulators on 12 March 2023 and what would have happened to the startup ecosystem across China, India and Southeast Asia if the US regulators did not intervene.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

Fresh out of the studio, Parag Khanna, founder and managing partner of Futuremap and celebrated author of various books, joined us to discuss his new book "Move" and explain why mobility is destiny. Parag started from the future in 2050 and worked backwards to explore the various scenarios in how mobility of talent will be in the midst of geopolitical tensions and climate change. Last but not least, Parag translated what it means for Asia Pacific moving forward based on its current trajectory and global technology shifts.

"So I look at every single one of those categories of mobility, of migration and everything to electric VTOL aircraft and the impact that will have on the future of urban design. That is part of the individual experience of mobility in the future as is of course climate migration, fleeing countries, where there is simply not a drop of water left. All of those are drivers of our future mobility, depending on who you are and where you are." - Parag Khanna

Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig.

Fresh out of the studio, Jon Russell & Nadine Fresischlad from The Ken joined us to discuss the 40 billion Grab SPAC (and largest in the world till date) and its impact to the entire Southeast startup ecosystem. Kicking off the conversation, Jon and Nadine analysed why Grab decided to take the SPAC route, summarize the key takeaways from the current businesses to where future growth engines will come from. They discuss what it means for Uber, the investors, the employees, the startup and venture capital ecosystems across Southeast Asia. Last but not least, they examine what it means for their rivals competing in the Indonesia market: Goto and Sea Group.

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

"So literally we have this planned out, we have a ten-year plan and in ten-year plan, we want to be able to deploy about $2 billion in AUM. We think it's possible to fund a lot of companies in the early stages for all emerging markets. All those emerging markets have the same problem, which is there in this phase of rapid economic development, tons of founders wants to come out. So we want quite a lot of capital into seed stage companies." - Brian Ma

Fresh out of the studio, Brian Ma, partner at Iterative Capital and founder at Divvy Homes, joined us in a conversation on the current venture fund in Southeast Asia and shares his perspectives on how the fund is building their entrepreneurial community in Southeast Asia. We dived deep into the beginnings of Brian's career and how both his co-founder, Hsu Ken Ooi and he set up the venture firm and accelerator in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last but not least, Brian shared his perspectives on the Southeast Asia landscape and what great means for Iterative Capital moving forward.  

Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

In episode 309, Wilma Gerber, the chief operating officer for project and development services in JLL Asia Pacific, joined us for a conversation on digital transformation in the real estate industry. Starting from her work in building technology before the iPhone turned the smartphone mainstream to building the 4G network in India which becomes Reliance Jio, she offered the important lessons that explained the intersection of business and technology. Moving forward, she offered her perspectives on the why and how for a successful digital transformation and how it can be applied into a traditional industry for real estate.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Wilma Gerber (LinkedIn), Chief Operating Officer, Project & Development Services Asia Pacific at Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) [0:18]
  • How did you start your career? [0:40]
  • Given that you have worked on technology ideas before these ideas become fashionable, for example, the instant mobile messaging app leads to whatsapp, the mobile music player becomes the iPod and the mobile app store before Apple App Store and Google Play, what are the major lessons that you have drawn from these experiences? [3:04]
  • So you spent your early a career in South Africa and Europe. What brought you to Asia? [4:35]
  • What is like working with Reliance to build out the 4G network for India that jumpstarted the smartphone market for the next 100-200M users? [6:01]
  • After you have worked in technology companies for more than 20 years, for example, building the network in India that is now the 4G network for Reliance Jio, why have you transitioned into real estate? [7:41]
  • Given that new upstarts such as Wework has entered into the real estate and the complexity of the real estate supply chain, why would it be different this round for you in executing a digital transformation in a traditional industry such as real estate? [9:34]
• Digital Transformation in Real Estate [10:20]
  • Can you briefly introduce JLL to my audience and describe your current role and coverage with JLL? [10:43]  
  • How do you define digital transformation and what exactly it entails? [11:21]
  • How has your perception of DX changed since you moved from the vendor to client side? [12:12]
  • How do you define the typical objectives/goals for digital transformation? [13:32]
  • Who should be involved in the digital transformation within the company? [15:00]
  • Do you think that digital transformation is a program or a new way of thinking for a company or business? [16:02]
  • In a digital transformation given that it involves people and culture, what is more important, the transition or education for the organization?
  • When you start off on a digital transformation initiative, what are the initial steps? [17:46]
  • You have been working on digital transformation initiatives for over 15 years - can you provide an example of a successful digital transformation initiative from the wider market that you find compelling? Wilma discuss the case of DBS bank as a successful example of digital transformation. [18:50]
  • What sets this example apart from the typical digital transformation initiatives? [21:07]
  • What are the major challenges for digital transformation? [22:00]
    • Organisational 
    • Cultural
    • Financial
    • Strategic
    • Technological
  • In your perspective, how do you think about aligning the different stakeholders in digital transformation? [23:46]
  • What do you mean by leader-led change? [24:38]
  • The importance of culture in digital transformation. [25:35]
  • So now that you’ve been in Real Estate for about 3 years, what are you seeing as some of the industry specific challenges holding back digital transformation? [26:31]
  • If you had to give one piece of advice for someone who is about to undertake a digital transformation initiative from the leadership position, what would it be? [29:00]
  • References: McKinsey article - Why Digital Strategies fail?
• Closing [29:29]
  • Can you recommend a book or movie or podcast or anything which recently made an impact to your work and personal life? [29:35]
    • Wilma's recommendation: Adam Grant's podcast "Work Life", the Freaknomics podcast and Malcolm Gladwell's "Revisionist History" podcast.
  • How do my audience find you? [30:16]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) until 30 June 2019 and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack and this episode is edited by Carol Yin, and co-produced by Carol Yin and Bernard Leong. This episode is recorded and produced in June 2019.

"I think from an investor perspective, the biggest misconception would be to buy into a high score and think the company is truly sustainable because the reality with ESG is the data is self-reported. The data often is limited in terms of the range of disclosures. It's very selective. It's very manipulative because large companies with big CSR or sustainability departments, Can often manage the narrative around ESG better than smaller companies. There are a lot of geographic biases: developing countries tend to get poorer ratings and are usually penalized with a corruption or transparency type discount." - Ravi Chidambaram

Fresh out of the studio, Ravi Chidambaram, CEO and founder of RIMM, joined us in a conversation to discuss ESG and climate adaptation investing across Asia Pacific. Ravi explained the current paradigms in the ESG space and dived deep into different topics such as climate change, water scarcity and carbon credits and where technology is leading. Last but not least, he provided the value proposition behind RIMM and how it helps companies from different sectors to do ESG reporting and aggregates the data for analytics and machine learning.

"What does great look like? For us, it's being able to achieve this vision of a society of agents. So, if you can show clearly the economic value of a society when agents can influence other agents, agents can influence humans, and humans can influence agents, that would be something that I'll be very proud to say that we've accomplished. Because that's the beauty of really combining breakthroughs on the AI, on the autonomous agent front, and the value add of crypto. This is one of those very rare moments that crypto has that true potential value add, right? As a productivity lever and an economic lever in society." - Jansen Teng

Fresh out of the studio, Jansen Teng, co-founder and CEO of Virtuals Protocol joins us to share the mission and vision of Virtuals Protocol and how the protocol intersects generative AI and web3, unlocking the world of autonomous AI agents powered by tokenization to unlock new economic possibilities. Beginning from his origin story, he explained how the Virtuals team explored and eventually come to the realization how tokenized AI agents can power entertainment, gaming and trading with Luna, the AI avatar that grew through the help of AI agents and even inspiring works of real art. Last but not least, Jansen offered his perspectives on the trends of agentic AI and web3 and elucidate what great looks like for the Virtuals Protocol.

Audio Episode Highlights:
[00:46] Quote of the Day by Jansen Teng, co-founder and CEO of Virtuals Protocol
[02:33] Introduction: Jansen Teng
[03:46] Jansen Teng shares his origin story in crypto, gaming, and AI
[06:27] Early experiments with AI agents and gaming in Roblox
[07:44] Realizing AI agents as revenue-generating assets
[09:15] Tokenization and Economic Innovation in Virtuals Protocol
[13:17] Navigating challenges during the bear market and pivoting to virtual Protocol
[17:32] Virtuals Protocol's Vision and Mission for creating and co-owning AI agents
[19:46] Observations of agents mimicking societal roles and functioning autonomously
[23:16] The story of Luna and her evolution as an AI influencer
[31:20] How autonomous agents sparked creativity in the crypto space
[40:19] Balancing innovation and scaling challenges for Virtuals Protocol
[43:53] The evolving vision of Virtuals Protocol and the society of agents
[47:21] Virtuals Protocol as the economic foundation for AI agents
[50:56] Challenges and trends in the AI agent ecosystem
[53:19] Exploring billion-dollar verticalized AI agents
[57:28] Closing

Profile: Jansen Teng, co-founder & CEO of Virtuals Protocol.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jansenteng
Twitter: https://x.com/ethermage

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast.

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In episode 301, Matthew Brennan from China Channel joined us in a conversation to discuss Tencent's Q1 2019 earnings and how the latest version of Wechat app is now evolving with the consumers and enterprise.  We discuss the recent Q1 earnings of Tencent and how the company is moving ahead with the obstacle of getting games approved in China. Then we dive deep into Wechat 7.0, the super app's latest iteration, the new features and why the Wechat enterprise is not given a serious look from observers outside China.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Matthew Brennan, Co-founder of China Channel and host of China Tech Talk podcast (chinachannel.co, @mbrennanchina , Linkedin, Wechat:Yowdy-CQ) [0:23]
  • Since our last conversation, what have you been up to? [0:35]
  • You have just been to a Tencent conference (Thursday May 23) in Kunming, what are the interesting things that have popped up there? [1:07]
  • Who is the intended audience for this conference which you are attending? [2:50]
  • Just a quick one: What are your thoughts on Google and ARM cutting access to Huawei? What is the long term implications given that Huawei is now banned in the US? [5:58]
  • How long does it take for Huawei to start having problems in China with the current ban? Matthew also examined the impact on Huawei in Europe. [8:33]
• Tencent Q1 2019 Earnings and Wechat 7.0 Release [10:44]
  • Tencent has recently released their Q1 earnings for 2019, what are the key highlights for the company? [11:15]
  • Moving forward, it’s a weak quarter, how will Tencent move forward in the next few quarters, particularly on issues relating to gaming where they are at the mercy of the regulators in getting approvals?  [12:58]
  • There has been an re-organization in Tencent, what are the key personnel changes? [14:55]
  • During this year’s conference, Allen Zhang, the person in charge of Wechat gave a 4 hour keynote, and you did an excellent summary of the event, what are the key messages that he has delivered? [16:40]
  • What is Wechat 7.0 and what are the biggest changes for the app as compared to the past versions? [19:36]
  • Does the philosophy of Wechat app has an impact to how it has evolved differently from the other social media apps in China? [23:17]
  • Do Wechat starts incorporating AI and other infrastructure upgrades for this 7.0 version? [25:12]
  • How is Wechat 7.0 responding to their potential competition in different types of usage whether it’s ByteDance or Alibaba? [27:46]
  • Why is the Wechat app for enterprise not get talked about in the Western media given the deployment of the app has been quite impressive? [29:45]
  • Does Wechat 7.0 foreshadow a shift in business models for the messaging app? [34:28]
  • Is the narrative of Wechat killers over-hyped in the market? [36:35]
  • Matthew's thoughtful comments on the possibility of Tencent being caught in the US and China trade war [39:00]
• Closing[41:49]
  • Can you recommend a book or movie or podcast or anything which recently made an impact to your work and personal life? [41:50]
    • Matt's recommendation: Crazy Capital, a chinese podcast by 2 Chinese VCs.
    • BL's recommendation: Xu Dong's "Empire of Silver" (Chinese book)
  • How can my audience find you? [44:10]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack and this episode is both hosted and edited by Carol Yin, and co-produced by Carol Yin and Bernard Leong.

"We teach people about all things crypto,  like we do a lot of stuff like how to do an uniswap, how to get your first NFT, which exchange is the cheapest for you? We're in a business of education and a resource and people do what they will with the information that we provide them. That's the inspiration behind changing people." - Jacky Yap

Fresh out of the studio, Jacky Yap, founder of Chain Debrief, joined us to discuss the inspiration, the mission and vision of the crypto media company. We dived into how Chain Debrief focus on crypto education moving towards a learn to earn model, their NFT products with the first collection of Enlightened Rats and the recent major NFT event in Singapore: Metajam. Last but not least, Jacky offered his perspectives on the crypto crash instigated by the UST/Luna/Terra collapse.

In episode 332, continuing our last conversation with Benedict Evans, we discuss the major topics that are dominating the global technology landscape. First, Benedict dissect the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and explain how the forced experiments will shift the immediate future where we work and interact with each other. Moving forward, he discuss what lies beyond the smartphone, specifically touching on VR and AR and analyzed why other technologies such as AI and blockchain are lurking in the background. Finally, he offers his perspectives on our expectations on technology with the dawn of 5G.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion:

• Benedict Evans (@benedictevans , LinkedIn, Personal Site, Essays, Newsletter), Venture Partner of Mosaic Ventures & Entrepreneur First & Independent Analyst
• COVID 19's Forced Experiments
  • Reference: COVID and forced experiments, Presentations: Tech and the New Normal & Tech in 2020: Standing on the shoulders of giants and What comes after Zoom?. 
  • The COVID 19 have accelerated digital transformation in the past three months more than the last 5 years for certain industries. What are the forced experiments which COVID-19 can help us to understand the evolution of technology, for example, Zoom for video conferencing and what it has and has not solved for us? 
• Beyond the Smartphone
  • Reference: Should you care about the 5G?
  • Where is the smartphone in the S-curve: the beginning, the middle or the late stage?
  • If we slice and dice the other platforms in the horizon: IoT (or ambient computing), VR or AR, they don’t seem to show the scale that smartphones can extend in terms of their adjacencies. What are the signs that you will identify to show that the smartphone platform is in the decline?
  • What do you think that the contribution of 5G is to the entire telecommunications industry? 
• Closing
  • Do you have anything from book, article, movie or podcast to recommend to our audience that have inspired you recently?
    • Benedict's recommendation: History of Germany economy in the 1930s-1940s.
  • How can our audience find you?

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

Grace Park, co-founder & president of DocDoc joined us in a conversation about leadership and regional expansion of DocDoc in Asia. Grace started the conversation, narrating her background as a military officer with the US army and how she moved subsequently from a military career into a business executive in notable healthcare companies. Grace shared the backstory behind the founding of DocDoc as a leading patient intelligence company from her perspective and offered her perspectives in how she utilized her experience to expand DocDoc regionally across Asia. Last but not least, Grace offered her thoughts on leadership and the importance of how to lead teams to success in different settings.

Editor's note: This interview was conducted in June 2019, and recently DocDoc has raised their series B funding of US$13M.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Grace Park (Facebook, LinkedIn), co-founder & President of DocDoc [0:19]
  • How did you start your career? [1:12]
  • Before Docdoc, you have been taken senior executive roles in medical and healthcare sector with Bristol-Myers Squibb and Medtronic, can you talk about what you have done in these companies and how that experience shapes the way in how you operate in Asia Pacific markets? [4:15] 
  • In your career journey, what are the interesting life lessons you can share with my audience? [6:34]
• DocDoc & Perspectives on Regional Expansion of Digital Healthcare in Asia Pacific [8:08]
  • I am curious to know the backstory of Docdoc from your perspective given Cole has offered the same story in an earlier episode. Can you articulate the founding story from your perspective and how did that translate to founding of Docdoc? [8:24]
  • Let's help our audience to refresh their understanding of the company DocDoc, can you describe the company and its vision and mission? [12:44]
  • What is your current role and coverage as the President of DocDoc? [15:34]
  • What keeps you awake at night or gets you excited every morning about DocDoc’s mission? [16:35]
  • Given DocDoc focus on to be the leader in patient intelligence, how do you build the trust and bringing the doctors in DocDoc’s network? From your engagement with the doctors, what are the doctors’ major pain points as providers of medical care in the entire healthcare supply chain?[17:56]
  • You have led in expanding DocDoc’s business across Asia Pacific, can you talk about how you think strategically on the go to market and build the right teams to expand into countries such as Korea and Hong Kong? [21:56]
  • What are the most interesting lessons you have learned in working in a startup environment with DocDoc? What will you have done differently? [23:15]
• Leadership [25:37]
  • I understand that you are a great student on leadership. What are the books in leadership which have inspired you and further your thinking on the subject? [26:09]
    • Viktor Frankl's "Man Search for Meaning"
    • Warren G Bennis "On Becoming a Leader"
    • Ron Heifetz "Leadership without Easy Answers"
  • You have an interesting career before Harvard Business School in the US military, and you were based in Korea as an officer, how did the experience shape you as a leader in the military and subsequently in the corporate world? [28:50]
  • In your opinion, what are the most important traits for a leader? [32:40]
  • Do you think that a team learn more by going thru a crisis than going thru the regular motion of the day? [33:40]
  • Do you see a difference between a manager and a leader? [35:13]
  • Can you talk about your style of leadership and how did it come about? [36:18]
• Closing [38:22]
  • Can you recommend a book or movie or podcast or anything which recently made an impact to your work and personal life? [38:35]
    • Grace's recommendations: Eric Topol, "Deep Medicine" and two articles: (a) Tampa Bay Times, "Heartbroken" and NY Times "Listen to What Doctors in 'times of crisis' said behind doors"
  • How can my audience find you? [41:13]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) until 30 June 2019 and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack and this episode is edited by Carol Yin, and co-produced by Carol Yin and Bernard Leong. This episode is recorded and produced in June 2019.

In episode 310, Justin Hall, partner from Golden Gate Ventures joined us in a conversation to discuss the state of venture capital in Southeast Asia. Justin shared his career journey in how he progressed from an associate to a partner within one of the well-known venture capital firms in Southeast Asia and explained what he has learned over the years from working with startup founders and companies. From there, Justin extended the conversation to offer his perspectives to how the infrastructure has evolved and the importance of exits for startups in Southeast Asia.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Justin Hall, partner in Golden Gate Ventures (@JVinnyHall, LinkedIn) [0:15]
  • How did you start your career? [0:46]
  • Does the Kauffman program help you in advancing your venture capital career? [2:30]
  • Prominent alumni in Kauffman Fellowship within Southeast Asia [3:15]
  • In your career journey, what are the interesting life lessons you can share with my audience? [4:02] 
• Golden Gate Ventures and Venture Capital in Southeast Asia (or ASEAN) [6:12]
  • Can you introduce Golden Gate Ventures to the audience (and yes, just a refresher as I have interviewed Jeff and Vinnie) years back? [6:34]
  • How has the fund evolved since you have started as an associate and eventually now as a partner? Can you talk about some of the successful startups within Golden Gate Ventures portfolio? [8:01]
  • What is your current role in Golden Gate Ventures? [11:09]
  • How do you think about making decisions on whether to invest in startups within the investment committee? [12:35]
  • What is a typical day for you as a venture capitalist? [14:23]
  • What are the industry verticals which you are most excited about in the venture capital space lately? [16:10]
  • Where are the opportunities that you have identified in the logistics space given that last mile delivery is commoditized? [19:09]
  • How about any other interesting verticals other than logistics? [21:27]
  • What do you look for in a startup team when you invest in them? [23:17] 
  • We are now at the tail end of the first institutional funding cycle for Southeast Asia but most VC funds in the region have raised at least 2nd and 3rd rounds of funding, how has the VC scene changed since you first started? [26:15]
  • How do you see the signaling risk for startups within the venture capital circle in Southeast Asia? [29:09]
  • How does the infrastructure within the Southeast Asia market has changed from your opinion? Does it enable more or less startup activity? Let's exclude Singapore given that it is well developed as a city state. [30:20]
  • Recently, in the past two years, there has been a strong interest from tech giants in China and US on Southeast Asia, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the ecosystem from the perspective of startups and venture capital? [33:40]
  • How does a startup founder look at Southeast Asia market? If you are asked to advise a founder in Singapore or in Jakarta to expand into another market, what will be the first advice you give them? [36:18]
  • One major criticism, pointed out by many is the lack of startup exits in the startup ecosystem. How do you define startup exits and what does success in startup exits would mean for Southeast Asia, and if you have any examples, please share them? [39:38]
• Closing [43:04]
  • Can you recommend a book or movie or podcast or anything which recently made an impact to your work and personal life? [43:25]
    • Justin's recommendation: "Trillion Dollar Coach" by Eric Schmidt et al. 
  • How can my audience find you? [44:54]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) until 30 June 2019 and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack and this episode is edited by Carol Yin, and co-produced by Carol Yin and Bernard Leong. This episode is recorded and produced in June 2019.

"When I wrote about it, in addition to assuming that all Asia tech companies, particularly in China, were copycats of Western companies, I think there are also a lot of misperceptions about how easy it is to enter a market, especially when they're an Asian market, especially when there are incumbent players already. For example, Uber failed. Basically, they failed. That's a harsh word, but they failed in both China and Southeast Asia, where they were acquired by Didi in China and Grab in Southeast Asia. And then Facebook really fell flat on its face with a lot of markets with free basics, it undermined Net Neutrality and also assumed that consumers just because maybe they had to be price conscious, were willing to access only a handful of sites as opposed to having access to a free Internet. I think people also underestimate the influence that Asia has had in other parts of the world." - Catherine Shu

Fresh out of the studio, Catherine Shu reflects on her 12 years at TechCrunch, chronicling the evolution of Asian tech from China to India. She highlights the rise of Chinese apps such as WeChat and TikTok's global impact and the shifting international views on Chinese tech. She explores India's rising tech scene, South Korea's startup growth with the rise of Coupang and Southeast Asia's expanding tech influence, with a focus on Grab. Shu offers her advice for journalists covering Asia's dynamic tech landscape and articulating what great looks like for Asia Tech in the future.

Fresh out of the studio, Catherine Shu reflects on her 12 years at TechCrunch, chronicling the evolution of Asian tech from China to India. She highlights the rise of Chinese apps such as WeChat and TikTok's global impact and the shifting international views on Chinese tech. She explores India's rising tech scene, South Korea's startup growth with the rise of Coupang and Southeast Asia's expanding tech influence, with a focus on Grab. Shu offers her advice for journalists covering Asia's dynamic tech landscape and articulating what great looks like for Asia Tech in the future.

Audio Episode Highlights:
[0:40] Quote of the Day #QOTD by Catherine Shu.
[1:38] Introduction: Catherine Shu, former senior reporter for TechCrunch.
[2:50] Her thoughts on the TechCrunch recent layoff.
[5:04] Catherine’s future plans.
[6:34] Catherine shares lessons from her career journey.
[8:07] Inspiration behind her last article on TechCrunch: Don’t Ignore Asia Tech.
[9:30] Western Perceptions Change on Asia Tech over the decade.
[11:02] Early misconceptions about Asia Tech in the West.
[12:44] Evolution of Asia Tech from Catherine’s perspective.
[15:14] Tech Coverage in Taiwan.
[17:17] The one thing about Asia tech Catherine knows but very few do.
[19:41] Why China succeeded with WeChat as the super app.
[23:26] The rise in TikTok globally for Chinese Tech.
[26:40] Perspectives on TikTok recent potential ban.
[27:26] What the West learned from the super app revolution in China.
[28:52] Why China was caught flatfooted with OpenAI’s ChatGPT in AI.
[30:14] The future of Chinese startups.
[34:01] How the Indian tech market evolved over the past decade.
[35:58] South Korean Startup Ecosystem.
[39:00] Is there really a Southeast Asia tech story?
[42:34] Advice for future correspondents covering Asia Tech.
[44:32] What does great look like for Asia Tech?
[46:30] Closing.

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig

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"There are so many voices here that people can create their own unique things. And yet there is still this culture, that's still lingering from the past, that somehow the answers are in the West. And trust me, they are not. So the West is also confused and looking for their way to figure out things. And so the main inspiration for Yana TV was to create this particular platform where we can showcase the voices of Asian movers and shakers, which means people who are doing interesting things, who are standing up, who want to speak up, challenging the status quo, and the norms. People who are regional, who are thought leaders, and I also feel it is time there has to be a bigger platform where we can all go and see who are the people who are doing amazing things here." - Yana Fry

Fresh out of the studio, Yana Fry, producer & host of Yana TV joined us in a conversation about the behind-the-scenes of her show and her perspectives on interviewing Asian change makers across the region. Our conversation kicked off with Yana's odyssey to Singapore and delving into what sparked the creation of Yana TV and its core themes. In the conversation, Yana shares the heartwarming tales featured on her show, ranging from a kidnapped diplomat to a heart-touching Singaporean Santa Claus and her perspectives as a content creator in the Asia Pacific. Last but not least, she shares what great would look like for Yana TV.

[00:48] Quote of the Day #QOTD by Yana Fry, Founder & Host, Yana TV.
[02:24] Introduction: Yana Fry, Founder & Host of Yana TV.
[04:28] Perspectives on living in Singapore.
[06:43] Yana shares lessons of her career journey.
[08:20] Inspiration behind Yana TV.
[10:28] Intended Audience behind Yana TV.
[11:50] The Great Resignation and its Impact on Executives re-thinking work-life balance.
[13:49] Main Themes and Key Takeaways from interviewing Asian change-makers in Yana TV.
[16:18] How a seven-time convicted criminal becomes a change-maker to help prison inmates re-integrate into Singapore society.
[17:43] The behind-the-scenes (BTS) behind Yana TV's production.
[21:01] Different Profiles of Change-Makers on Yana TV.
[25:14] How Asian change-makers differ from their Western counterparts.
[29:35] Challenges faced by Asian Change Makers.
[34:49] Tales of Asian Change Makers: A Diplomat.
[36:30] Tales of Asian Change Makers: Singapore Santa Claus that moved the production crew on Yana TV.
[41:23] How to tell stories in Asia with the digital format.
[44:32] The challenge of distribution for Asian podcasters.

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"Consumer demand will accelerate the need for security, privacy and regulation. Like zero-knowledge (ZK) where you can prove something is true without revealing all information. And of course, security infrastructure, which is very interesting and important at this current moment, even before the next bull market. For example, one of the companies we invested into Ledger, a digital asset hardware wallet. You basically have an app store interface where you can trade, you can stake. We see a lot of adoption of crypto in not just a retail space because of increased awareness, in the media, and new DeFi applications coming up, but also in the adoption of enterprise space. So a lot of these enterprises will be thinking to themselves, okay, in my treasury, not just do I need to hold USD and other currencies, maybe I need to also hold Bitcoins, or something else. DBS Bank, They're now holding some of this Sandbox Land, but where do they hold it? They can't hold it just in a wallet and then they throw it into some cabinet somewhere. They need to have the right, security hardware. So we believe this, will accelerate the adoption of applications like ledger, which is like a hardware wallet, for both retail and enterprise. So we believe that age-old saying of selling shovels during a gold rush is still very true." - Kelly Choo

Fresh out of the studio, Kelly Choo, founding partner from True Global Ventures discusses the state of generative AI and crypto in 2023 and what to look forward in 2024. Kelly started with his take on the recent departure of CZ from Binance and the ouster and return of Sam Altman in Open AI and how this impacts the AI and crypto landscape. From there, he broke down how they are looking at the next wave of generative AI companies specifically in the education, metaverse and legal space and crypto companies from ERC 6551 in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to zero-knowledge proofs. Last but not least, Kelly defines what success would mean for both AI and crypto in 2024.

Episode Highlights:

[0:50] Quote of the Day #QOTD from Kelly Choo

[1:43] What has Kelly Choo been up to?

[3:19] CZ, Binance, and the Rise of Singaporean CEOs

[4:32] SamAltman OpenAI and Microsoft

[7:30] OpenAI Developer Event 

[10:05] The Current State of GenAI

[14:41] What Kind of Business Models are Going to be Proving Successful in the GenAI Space?

[16:48] True Global Ventures and AI Startups 

[19:23] Review of 2023 Web3 Megatrends

[28:03] What is ERC6551? AKA Programmable NFT's

[30:44] Web3 Tech We Should be Paying Attention To

[32:36] Impact of AI and Web3 on Gamer User Experience

[35:02] The Saudi Government Gets into Crypto

[38:55] Is the Apple Vision Pro a Game Changer?

[39:31] AR and VR Market Predictions

[41:01] BTC ETF and their Impact

[44:26] Regulatory Changes

[45:39] What Does Great Look Like for Crypto and Web3 in 2024?

[46:38] Closing

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

Jon Russell, reporter from TechCrunch, joined us in a conversation about the continuing war between Gojek and Grab with the dawn of the super app. We started our conversation on Honestbee's recent predicament, the growth in series B-D funding for startups across Southeast Asia and Eduardo Saverin's B-Capital recent raising of 406M for their fund. Then we dived deep into Grab vs Gojek and their narrative from fundraising valuation to the paradigm of super app, and discuss whether each of them can pull it off with their different strategies from Grab's financial services to Gojek's multiple acquisitions in the market. Last but not least, we discuss Uber's recent IPO S1-filing and their implications to Didi, Grab and Ola and what it means for the Asian ecosystem for the long term.

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack and this episode is edited by Carol Yin, and co-produced by Carol Yin and Bernard Leong.

Rui Ma, founder of Transformative Technology Academy and co-host of TechBuzz China podcast joined us to discuss Jack Ma's recent announcement to step down as the chairman of Alibaba Group, the leadership transition within Alibaba Group and where they will be heading next. We discussed Jack Ma's influence within the Alibaba Group and how his tenure with the company has led to Alibaba becoming one of the technology giants not just in China, but the rest of the world. We continued our conversation to the future with Daniel Zhang, the successor to Jack Ma's chairmanship within Alibaba and where the group is heading with Ant Financial, Cainiao and international expansion in the midst of a leadership transition and what it means for their rivals: Tencent and Baidu.

Steve Glaveski, host of Future Squared podcast and founder of Collective campus, returns to our podcast to discuss his latest book "Employee to Entrepreneur:  How to earn your freedom and do work that matters" and offered his thoughts to how the podcasting movement in Asia Pacific is evolving. We dived deep into why and how Steve wrote the book and his thoughts on how one should build the entrepreneurial mindset in his or her career.

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack and this episode is edited by Carol Yin, and co-produced by Carol Yin and Bernard Leong.

Snehal Patel, CEO and co-founder of MyDoc joined us in a conversation to discuss the story of his healthcare company and the state of digital healthcare companies in Asia. We discussed the vision and mission of his company MyDoc, and how it has shifted from its initial model to the current state. Last but not least, we discussed the state of digital healthcare companies and how they are navigating the boundaries from regulatory bodies across Asia.

"And so we see the private market as a very interesting space because as I said, if everybody had 20% of their portfolio in private markets, we're moving from almost zero in a mass affluent hand to 20%. That's a lot of wealth, but that wealth requires a lot of thinking, a lot of platforms, a lot of technology innovation to solve. Because private markets are very complex. If you think about simple things like cryptocurrencies or stocks, the way that it trades, the post asset servicing is quite simple." - Choo Oi-Yee

Fresh out of the studio, Choo Oi-Yee, CEO of ADDX, joined us in a conversation to discuss the company's platform to serve the private markets and reviewed the state of private markets in the Asia Pacific. She began the conversation with the market opportunity of the private markets and how ADDX facilitates the interactions between the accredited investors and the entrepreneurs seeking funds through their products and services on the platform. Last but not least, she shared her perspectives on how companies can thrive in a challenging economic climate and the possibility of secondary exits through other instruments such as SPACs or acquisitions in the current market.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"I have lots of different people that I go to and I think that board of directors is really important. It's not the only social capital, but that's social capital primarily outside of your work, out of your specific job, that's important for you to build over time so that you get outside perspectives. If nothing else, sometimes in your workplace, you get very locked into a certain way of thinking or a certain style. And it's important to get perspective from." - Aliza Knox

Fresh out of the studio, Aliza Knox joined us to discuss the inspiration and key themes behind her new book "Don't Quit Your Day Job". We began the conversation on Aliza's observations on how the technology business and startup ecosystem have shifted in the last decade within Asia Pacific, during her stints with Google, Twitter and Cloudflare. Last but not least, we discuss how her book can help people out there to think about career growth and progression in the midst of the pandemic and the Great resignation.

Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

Rama Mamuaya, founder and CEO of DailySocial joined us to discuss one of the most important startup unicorns in Indonesia, Go-Jek. We discussed the backstory behind G0-Jek which evolved from a ride-hailing to now a super app that bridge payments, ride hailing and other services in Indonesia, and why it's giving Grab a run for their money. We examined Go-Jek's regional expansion strategy and how it is becoming a proxy battle between Alibaba Group and Tencent in Southeast Asia.

"I want GCR to build its brand verbally from the founders that we support. And we don't even ever have to promote ourselves at any point, it's that founders are able to recognize our value- add, or introduce us to projects and identify our unique position, that we can support them in ways that VCs or crypto investors cannot do. It's something that I think will really speak to the hard work that we do without ever having to promote ourselves." - Joyce Yang

Fresh out of the studio, Joyce Yang, Jin Kang and Daniel Kim from Global Coin Research discuss the Global Coin Research DAO and its investment focus in Web3. We start with the vision and mission of the GCR DAO and then move into an in-depth conversation on web3 discussing the varying valuations of web3 companies, the choice of blockchains by web3 startups and where this is all moving towards at this instant of time.  

Author's Note: Bernard Leong is a supporter of the GCR DAO. BL might have taken positions in web3 DAOs and companies, hence this is not financial advice and if you want to invest, please do your own research.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"Money is a very interesting kind of numerical way of measuring when you're levelling up. So that's where the distinction needs to be very clear. The way that I've positioned it in the book and what the research tells us is that if we force the games on people, it's very bad. But if we look at the games that they naturally play in their free time when they were younger, it's a very good predictor in terms of the type of work that they naturally would gravitate to. So if somebody is amazing and loves playing hours and hours of strategy games, and if we put that person in front of the machine, turning out widgets is going to be a very bad mismatch, and then we need to pay them a lot of money and continue trying to squeeze them to improve that performance. But if somebody is motivated by strategy games, and we give them the kind of problems that are very similar to the type of things that they naturally gravitate to they will be motivated. So we're not creating a new game for them, but we're looking at parallels and helping them to find that intrinsic motivation. And that's something that I think becomes super, super powerful where they then create their own games based on the work that we want them to achieve." - George Kesselman

Fresh out of the studio, George Kesselman joined us to discuss his new book "The Power of Play". He shares the main themes and key takeaways on how games will drive the future of work. We began the conversation with George providing an overview of how work has evolved from a craftsman environment to the industrial age and explained why we need a re-thinking of work using game play. He dived deep into the different personas of gamers in work life and offered what success would mean for his book in redefining the workplace.

Episode Highlights:

[0:44] QOTD

[2:02] Introduction: George Kesselman

[3:31] Inspiration behind “The Power of Play” book

[4:47] How George convinced Wiley of the book deal

[5:41] The intended audience for “The Power of Play”

[6:38] Main Themes & Key Takeaways behind “The Power of Play”

[9:31] Remote Work vs Return to Office

[12:02] The legacy of work 1.0

[17:24] Work 3.0 world

[21:04] Introduction to Gamification and Game Design in Workplace

[26:58] Different Personas in Games and how they map into real-world work

[29:42] The different motivations that draw people to work

[34:22] How to apply game development principles and design to work

[38:22] Predictors of Success in Matching People to Work

[40:40] Gauging Performances of Workers in remote and distributed environments

[43:13] Things not in the book and is a sequel in the works?

[44:58] What does success mean for “The Power of Play” book?

[46:13] Closing

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

Zennon Kapron, founder & director of Kapron Asia and China Fintech, joined us in a conversation in how the Chinese government's new regulations are shaping the fintech space in China. We discussed the impact of Wang'lian on digital payments, the reduction of peer to peer landing companies and the ban on ICOs and cryptocurrency exchanges to the dynamic fintech space in China. Last but not least, we look at how the fintech industry in 2018 within China will be shaped by emergence of new verticals such as AI or new regulation that continues to shape the fintech space in China.

"The efficiency on top of the efficacy because it is critical that we will achieve this balance of cost and performance. And in addition to that, I think one more aspect we are putting emphasis is actually how, in the new era of AI, all pervasive intelligence and pervasive connectivity, how do we bring human, AI, and machine into a cohesive coexistence and also cohesive collaboration so that we are able to have actually the AI machine support human, empower human, and at the same time. We look at actually the design of the workflows so that we are able to extract out the value, at the same time, also elevate the human to do more creative works. So this is one aspect. I think we have been hearing a lot, but how this will move forward is some efforts have started, and certainly we look forward to gathering more ecosystem partners to embark on this journey together." - Dr Sun Sumei, Executive Director, Institute of Infocomm Research, ASTAR

Fresh out of the studio, Dr. Sun Sumei, Executive Director of the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) at Singapore’s ASTAR shares her perspectives on AI’s fast-paced evolution and its broader impact on the future. With over a decade dedicated to AI research, Dr. Sumei reflects on I2R’s journey from big data analytics to the era of Generative AI, emphasizing large language models designed for Southeast Asia. Advocating for responsible AI, Dr. Sumei prioritizes societal benefit and sustainability over sheer technical ambition, urging a balanced, systematic approach to distinguish valuable applications from mere hype. Last but not least she shares her vision of AI as a force to enhance human creativity and address real-world challenges through sustainable innovation." 

Audio Episode Highlights:
[0:46] - Introduction to Sun Sumei and her role at ASTAR
[2:09] - Sun Sumei’s journey from China to Singapore
[2:50] - The mission of the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R)
[4:00] - Research at I2R blending innovation with commercial applications
[4:11] - Career lessons from Sun Sumei’s extensive experience in science and technology
[6:32] - The evolution of AI and its rapid advancements
[7:15] - Striking a balance between performance and cost in AI
[8:11] - Collaborating with Singapore Airlines on AI for fleet optimization
[9:55] - Focus on multimodal AI and large language model development
[11:26] - AI for manufacturing: The AIM initiative
[12:20] - MerLion: I2R multi-modal LLM in the works
[13:27] - The future of AI in scientific discovery and its potential for sustainability
[16:03] - The balance between necessary and unnecessary AI applications
[16:55] - Responsible AI: Navigating the curiosity phase
[19:10] - Achieving success in AI through efficiency and model optimization
[20:52] - What constitutes success in AI: Technical breakthroughs vs. societal impact
[22:48] - AI for good: Contributing to humanity and sustainability
[24:02] - The importance of a systematic approach to AI
[24:53] - Closing remarks and future expectations for AI

You can find Dr Sun Sumei here in ASTAR: https://www.a-star.edu.sg/i2r/about-i2r/i2r-management/sun-sumei and her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sumei-sun-8590814/?originalSubdomain=sg

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig

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"The reason for that is that all the businesses in crypto are tied primarily to trading and speculation of crypto rather than any productive use cases. So there are some businesses that generate real cash flow, and those are the ones that I focus on at my hedge fund in my portfolio. But even those largely generate revenue from other crypto businesses. So until crypto has more ties to real world productive use cases and has more dollar generation tied to real world activity, it will continue to have this highly internally reflexive nature. As crypto trading goes up, there's more revenue in the system. As crypto trading goes down, there's less revenue in the system and that's not sustainable. It's very circular." - Cosmo Jiang

Fresh out of the studio, Cosmo Jiang from Nova River & host of the Global Coin Research Liquid podcast joined us to discuss the crypto contagion which originated from the recent collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin: Terra-Luna-UST. We dived deep how the ongoing contagion cascaded to the insolvency of Celsius and the shutdown of a prominent crypto hedge fund: Three Arrows Capital and explored what it means for the crypto market globally. Last but not least, we discuss the potential extinction events for cryptocurrencies and how investors can navigate this new bear market with new web3 entrepreneurs and investors in the next few years.  

Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"If the goal is to really democratize finance of businesses and consumers imagine that Mastercard and Visa has built an interchange network to facilitate payments across the globe. What if Pace can establish a similar global interchange network? For digital financing, covering a myriad of services to consumers, businesses, and even financial institutions, basically building the digital financing engine that lives on the cloud powered by blockchain on a web3 infrastructure and serving the needs of, you know, the future consumers, businesses, and even financial institutions down the road." - Turochas Fuad

Fresh out of the studio, Turochas "T" Fuad, CEO and co-founder of Pace Enterprise joined us in a conversation to discuss his latest venture, Pace Enterprise and dived deep into the weeds of the "Buy Now, Pay Later" (or BNPL) space. He shared his thoughts on why BNPL can lead to sustainable companies and not just being a feature of a fintech company. Last but not least, Turochas offered his perspectives on how the different accelerating trends: fintech, decentralized finance and web3 are converging towards a coherent future of finance.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

James Hull from Hullx and co-host of China Tech Investor podcast joined us in a discussion on whether we should replace Baidu with Bytedance in the BAT China. Starting with the question, James dived deep into the business structures of Baidu and Bytedance and examined whether Baidu has lost their edge as one of the three tech giants of China. In the same conversation, James offered his perspectives on how Bytedance will replace Baidu in the future.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• James Hull (@jameshullx, LinkedIn), Co-host of China Tech Investor podcast and Founder of Hullx [0:21]
  • Since you have last appeared on the podcast, what have you been up to? [0:50]
• Should we replace Baidu with Bytedance in the BAT? [0:56]
  • BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) & TMD (Toutiao, Meituan-dianping, Didi) 
  • Let’s start with Baidu. How has Baidu performed as a public company for the past decade? [2:08]
  • What are the key businesses of Baidu? (iQiyi is spun off as a separate company)? [3:27]
  • Baidu's advances in AI [4:56] and in the intelligent audio input interface and speaker sector. [5:42]
  • Is Baidu dependent on the advertising business similar to Google in the US? [6:51]
  • Comparison between Baidu and Bytedance in terms of user information feeds [9:30]
  • Bytedance's advantage with user feeds and recommendations through Douyin and Toutiao [11:51]
  • Bytedance has been growing exponentially with a 75B valuation from their recent round with SoftBank, now the most valuable startup in the world followed by Didi. How are they performing as a business? [15:09]
  • What are the key revenue drivers for Bytedance?
  • How are they compared to Alibaba and Tencent? [18:08]
  • What are Baidu’s competitive advantages that you think may allow them to stay competitive within the BAT? [24:30]
  • How Baidu's search engine competes against Google and the rest of Chinese search engines. [28:24]
  • Should we just replace Baidu with Bytedance in the BAT? [31:09]
  • Interesting Chinese answer on the question for this podcast (in Chinese) in Zhihu (similar to Reddit and Quora in the US) which Carol has referenced and mentioned in the discussion. 
• Closing [37:24]
  • Recommendation for a book, movie, podcast, or any consumable content?[37:24]
    • James' recommendation: "I love capitalism" by Ken Langone , "The Great Rebalancing" by Michael Pettis
    • Carol's recommendation: Louis Cha's or Jin Yong's martial arts novels
  • How does our audience find you?

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin).  Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

Charles Reed Anderson, founder of Charles Reed Anderson and associates joined us to discuss the state of proptech in Asia Pacific. Charles break down the real estate supply chain and discuss the key trends which are disrupting the real estate industry. We discuss how user experience and business model disruption are driving the current innovations in proptech such as Wework and how the traditional real estate players such as CBRE and Jones LaSalle are tackling these challenges ahead. Last but not least, Charles explained why the Asian counterparts in multi-national real estate companies are driving more innovation in proptech as compared to their US and European counterparts.

Parag Khanna, futurist, TED speaker and founder of Futuremap, joined us to discuss his book "The Future is Asian". We kick off the conversation on the main themes of the book, and taking the Asian perspective on how we should look at world history. We discuss the geopolitical landscape of Asia, and why China's Belt and Road Initiative will not led to a bi-polar world but will shift the rest of Asia towards independence and have the ability to assert their identity in the next century. Last but not least, Parag shared his advice for those out there who might want to come to Asia and why the future is truly Asian.

Matthew Brennan from China Channel and co-host of China Tech Talk joined us to discuss the mobile app Douyin aka Tik Tok (for the rest of the world) by Bytedance and why they are poised to be one of the new leading social media platform not just for China but for the rest of the world. We discussed the mechanics in how Douyin work for content creators and consumers and the monetisation model for the app, and how Douyin are now navigating the regulatory environment in China with their user generated content. Last but not least, we also discussed their ongoing feud with Tencent.

Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of Antler, joined us in a conversation to discuss the new startup incubator focusing on helping founders in building and scaling their own businesses. Magnus shared his early career story in special forces with the military and how his experience to deal with extreme situations of life and death becomes vital with his stints as an entrepreneur in Zalora and Global Fashion Group. We also discussed Antler, the mission and vision and what it means to succeed and differentiate themselves as a startup generator globally.

"Now the fundamental motivation is customers don't just want to buy a server, right? They want to buy an outcome. They want something to happen. They want to get business value. So, the SSG [Services & Solutions Group] is Lenovo's pivot to meet our customers where they are, and also to lead our company into the future because as they have more sophisticated requirements, they need a simple way to manage and deploy all that I T across their organizations. When they want that holistic view, providing the services via something which is now SSG gives them that integrated offering. In a single contract, they can focus on using their technology in a smarter way. So that's where the SSG is within the context of Lenovo, and as the technology and delivery officer, I'm responsible for helping think about how new technology can make the experience better. It can make the outcomes better for our customers, as well as running the teams that are often because we have managed services that are delivering for customers 24 by 7. All year round. And so the global team of delivery network and experts is also what I run to help bring those outcomes to the customers today." - Arthur Hu

Fresh from the studio, Arthur Hu, SVP & Chief Information Officer at Lenovo, discussed the transformative role of the Solutions and Services Group (SSG) in the era of Generative AI. He shared his career journey and Lenovo's mission to assist customers end-to-end in their journey with the Lenovo Solutions & Services Group (SSG). Hu explored SSG's impact and Lenovo's sustainability initiatives in the Asia Pacific. He emphasized the promise of AI for businesses, including Lenovo's approach and shared a glimpse into the future of SSG's contributions to the tech landscape in the Asia Pacific and beyond.

Episode Highlights: [0:00] Sponsor Announcement: Esevel [0:50] Quote of the Day from Arthur Hu [2:00] Introduction to Arthur Hu, CIO, Lenovo. [4:46] Arthur Hu shares his lessons on his career journey [7:04] Arthur's thoughts on remote working and how Lenovo is re-imaging the workplace by designing thought interactions between employees [10:02] Introduction of Lenovo and its global vision and mission [12:07] Lenovo Solutions and Services Group (SSG) and its role in Lenovo's enterprise business [14:54] Arthur balancing between two roles in Lenovo: Global CIO and CDTO in SSG [18:10] How does Lenovo SSG approach problem-solving for customers? [22:49] Success customer stories of Lenovo SSG in Asia Pacific [25:19] What is the one thing Arthur knows about Lenovo SSG that very few do? [26:17] Lenovo's focus on ESG [33:37] Challenges & Prospects for Lenovo SSG in the Asia Pacific [37:31] The myth of the talent gap in the Asia Pacific [39:91] Advice for CIOs on digital transformation [43:00] Opportunities for AI in the Enterprise [47:56] Lenovo's Role on AI in the Enterprise [50:03] What does great look like for Lenovo SSG in the next decade? [51:13] Closing

"I think imperative that as an ecosystem, blockchain Web3 ecosystem, we're all growing together. I would love to see , more bridges with BNB chain and other blockchains as an example, so that you have a much more seamless tech base. And then more importantly, when crypto mass adoption really takes off again, underlying tech people will not need to know what's underlying tech. For us, I think that's important if we can be part of the core infrastructure supporting this new web3 paradigm, that would be amazing for us. If we have more and more use cases and more depths and more web 2 organizations building on BNB chain, that will be really amazing."

"The important thing is, look, our mission hasn't changed. We're still focusing on helping people connect and finding communities and, and grow businesses. We've just very clearly put a stake in the ground around what we believe is the future. And more and more that's going to take place in the metaverse." - Dan Neary

Fresh out of the studio, Dan Neary, Vice President for Meta (formerly Facebook) APAC joined us for an interesting conversation on the company’s re-brand, vision for the metaverse and why this may the biggest opportunity for businesses in Asia Pacific. In the conversation, Dan describes how Meta is helping to build the metaverse & talks about how the current ecosystem of communities, creators, commerce will converge with the next computing platform and create a completely new generation of experiences. Last but not least, he also shares how Meta is working with small businesses  to support their digital transformation journey and get them future-ready.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig.

Shai Oster, Asia Bureau Chief from The Information, joins us to conclude the state of China and SoftBank in 2018 and offer his predictions in 2019. We discussed the five major events: one, ByteDance's success with Douyin (or Tik Tok) globally and the upcoming war with Facebook; two, the SoftBank Vision Fund and its impact to startups and venture capital globally; three, pending trade war between US and China with a short discussion on Google's Project Dragonfly; four, the large merger and acquisitions in China and last but not least, the bearish market happening now for China technology giants. We end with Shai's five predictions on China next year and what it will mean for the rest of the world.

Rachel Lau, managing partner of RHL Ventures joined us in a conversation to discuss their newly formed venture capital firm and discuss her perspectives on venture capital trends in Southeast Asia. Rachel began the conversation with her background and how RHL Ventures is formed under a group of well-established family businesses behind them, their investment thesis and the verticals which they are currently focused on. She also offered her perspectives on how one need to think of Southeast Asia as a region of investment and the major technology trends in the region.

"Once you reach scalability in blockchain, it should be portable over to decentralized rails.  Just like the vast majority of business models that could be built over the internet ,have transitioned to the internet because it's a more effective means of deployment. I think at scale, you'll see the vast majority of financial use cases, which is, a completely digital domain move over to these new rails. But some of the early applications that we've seen emerge are in the basic building blocks of financial services" - Rawson Harvety

Fresh out of the studio, Rawson Harvety, co-founder of Reflection Digital & co-host of Soulbound Asia podcast, joined us in a conversation on the past, present and future of decentralized finance (or DeFi). The conversation began with how DeFi has emerged unscathed after the crypto contagion unleashed by the UST-Terra-Luna collapse. Rawson dived deep into why there is a macro case for DeFi, the current evolution of DeFi protocols from Aave to Frax and what we should look out for as new DeFi innovations are hovering around the corner for the next crypto super cycle. Last but not least, he offered the mental models and challenges for regulators to think about in DeFi regulation.

Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

Simon Kemp, founder and CEO of Kepios joined us in a conversation on the global digital report 2019 and what it has installed for Asia Pacific in 2019. We start with the global trends of the report and zoomed it down to Asia Pacific, with the surprise that growth is still accelerating in the region particularly with India, the rise of Tik Tok by ByteDance and the hard truth that Facebook is not declining. We discuss whether there are new entrants in social media for Asia Pacific and the attitude towards privacy in the region as well.

Elliott Zaagman, co-host of China Tech Investor podcast, joined us to discuss how to understand Chinese technology companies as an investor. We discussed the theme and intended audience for his current podcast, and dived deep into how we can value the technology giants in China from Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent to the recent upstarts such as Pinduoduo and Xiaomi. Elliott laid out the deep misconceptions on Chinese technology companies and provided a different perspective to how they are vertically integrated companies with different products and services contrast to their western counterparts.

Fresh out of the studio and on the 2nd emergency podcast within the week, Cosmo Jiang from Nova River and host of the Global Coin Research Liquid podcast explained the implications of USDC depegging due to the bank run triggered by Silicon Valley Bank over the past weekend of 11 March. We dived deep into the implications of how it nearly destroyed the global web3 and crypto economy and what it means for the startups moving forward in an uncertain regulatory environment in the US. Last but not least, Cosmo shared his after-thoughts on the recent DCG settlement with Gemini and the other creditors on Genesis' bankruptcy.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"The global adoption index is something that we put out once a year and it comes strictly within the research domain and it's our attempt to really elucidate just how much activity is happening around the world. Crypto is a global asset with activity in over 150 countries around the world, but people feel like it's a black box because they don't really understand who are these crypto users. Where are they? But in reality, we don't have answers to those questions because we don't have survey data around them. The government does not collect that data. So it feels like a black box, but it's kind of a created black box in its own right. And we're trying to show that that's not the case, that there's a lot of transparency here, and we can see where adoption is happening, and we can see which countries are the leaders in crypto adoption." - Kimberly Grauer

Fresh out of the studio, Kimberly Grauer, the director of research from Chainalysis provided an in-depth analysis of the Global Crypto Adoption Index 2023, highlighting Asia's burgeoning crypto and web3 activities. We discussed how Asia is currently leading the crypto activity from the Philippines to Pakistan, and highlighted what users are doing with their cryptocurrencies in their respective markets. We discuss the surprise in India's crypto and web3 activities despite strong anti-crypto regulation and how Asia's favourable regulation is bringing innovation from the US to the rest of the world. Last but not least, Kim described great would look like for the Global Crypto Adoption Index report in the next few years.

In episode 304, Rui Ma, co-founder of Transformative Technology Academy and co-host of the Techbuzz China podcast joined us in a conversation to discuss Xiaopeng Motors and extending the conversation to analyse the state of electric cars (EVs) market in China. We dived deep to the origins of Xiaopeng Motors with its legendary founder, He Xiaopeng, and how it amassed a huge and massive funding from Alibaba Group and other investors. From there, we bring in the other key players: Nio, WM Motors and Byton into the fray and how Tesla and the traditional automotive companies such as SAIC are approaching the Chinese market.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Rui Ma, Founder of Transformative Technology Academy and Host of TechBuzz podcast by Pandaily produced by SupChina (LinkedIn, @ruima) [0:19]
  • Since our last conversation, what have you been up to? [0:34]
  • Can you talk about the influencer marketing in China on a recent Techbuzz China podcast? [1:24]
  • Rui Ma's thoughts on the e-cigrattes market in China [2:55]
• Xiaopeng Motors and State of EVs in China [3:34]
  • Reference: TechBuzz China Episode 22 - NIO 
  • Introduction: Xiaopeng Motors is an electric car company who has recently raised US$587M (~ 4B RMB) in China backed by Alibaba Group and many other prominent investors? [4:09]
  • [Ref: Chinese electric car start-up Xpeng raises US$587 million as it gears up to take on Tesla, SCMP and TechBuzz China episode on NIO]
  • What is the mission and vision of Xiaopeng Motors? [5:43]
  • Can you talk about He Xiaopeng, the CEO and Chairman of the company and former co-founder / CTO for UCWeb, China's largest web browser acquired by Alibaba Group over US$4.3B? What is his background before he started Xiaopeng Motors? [7:35] 
  • Does Xiaopeng Motors build their own cars? Where and how do they produce their electric cars? [8:55]
  • Recently, they have unveiled their latest car, G3 in CES and the car is priced at US$47K compared to Tesla Model 3 priced at US$30K, can you talk about the different car models which they have done so far or will be doing? [12:58]
  • Can you talk about William Li Bin, NIO’s celebrity founder and how has he managed to create a car company out of powerpoints? What is the rivalry between the EV car companies founders and other tech founders? [15:18]
  • Let’s expand the scope of the EV market in China out, and other than Xiaopeng & NIO, there are also other companies such as WM (or Weima) Motor and Byton, how are these EV cars company differ in how they approach the market?  [19:00]
  • Has the Chinese government like the US government during the Obama era been supportive of EVs, and have they offered similar type of incentives for the Chinese consumer? [22:52] 
  • What is their business model for Xiaopeng Motors? Is it similar to Tesla or NIO? [26:07]
  • How are EVs viewed and perceived in China? Will the chinese consumer purchase an electric car? [27:40]
  • It’s interesting that Alibaba backed Xiaopeng and Tencent backed NIO and is the EV market another extension or proxy war between the Chinese tech giants and what are their intentions behind the market? [29:20]
  • It seems that the car market is focused on EVs and not autonomous vehicles. Is that a tacit acknowledgement that self driving technologies are not ready for the Chinese market? [31:10]
  • How about the traditional car companies in China who have partnered with VW Group, GM Motors such as SAIC, or non-traditional car companies such as BYD which started off as a battery company and now a car company or new EV companies from the US such as Tesla? How do these players fit into this new EV market within China? [32:43]
• Closing [34:47]
  • Can you recommend a book, podcast or anything else that has impact to your work and personal life recently? [34:55]
    • Sam Harris' book Waking up, Waking Up app and Making Sense podcast.
  • How do my audience find you? [35:38]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack and this episode is edited by Carol Yin, and co-produced by Carol Yin and Bernard Leong.

"Strategy wise. This is the path that we went through. We started looking at options because we wanted to possibly buy options to hedge our balance sheet. But when we looked at it, we were like: this kind of volatility, very difficult to buy. If it's very difficult to buy means selling is good. So in this case, I think low control leverage volume selling tends to be a very good strategy because of the high carry." - Darius Sit

Fresh out of the studio, Darius Sit, founder of QCP Capital, joined us in a discussion on the crypto hedge fund and an overview of the crypto derivatives space in the Asia Pacific. Starting with his background in derivatives training, Darius shared how he entered into the crypto space and explained the key concepts behind crypto derivatives trading. He dived deep into the digital assets segment specifically in the DeFi space. Last but not least, he offered his perspectives on how he approached venture investing into web3 & crypto startups.

Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

Arnaud Bonzom, co-founder of Map of the Money joined us to review the state of Southeast Asia in 2018. We started with the conversation on the movers and shakers in the ecosystem with Grab's acquisition of Uber Southeast Asia and its quest to be the super app with Go-Jek standing in her way. We discussed how the startup ecosystems in Southeast Asia have evolved, with the venture capital firms raising their 2nd or 3rd rounds and family funds who are set to join in the fray. We discuss how the market in Southeast Asia is shifting in each country and the upcoming unicorns to watch in 2019.

In episode 347, John Artman, technology editor from South China Morning Post (SCMP) discuss the dawn of a new era for China technology from the annual SCMP China Internet Report 2021. We dived deep into three key topics: the tightening regulation and new legislation introduced by the Chinese government on anti-trust, data protection and usage and how it differs from GDPR by the European Union; the aggressive geographic expansion of Chinese tech into Southeast Asia and the exploitation of private domain traffic on e-commerce in China.

"Historically, the Chinese government make these really big moves, and they make an example of one or two companies and then they move on. Then maybe in a couple of years, they'll come back and they'll make examples again. When we're looking at some of these unfair practices, on the one hand, we do have some very visible and very public moves against the technology industry. But I think that, over time, it'll be interesting to see, how compliant some of these platforms are." - John Artman

In conjunction with this episode, SCMP is providing a 30% off to the Analyse Asia audience for the CIR Pro report with the promo code: ANALYSEASIACIR. It won't apply until you go to the checkout page. This will be valid for 2 months till 30 Nov 2021. Here is the link where you can purchase the report with the promo code embedded.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian

Andreas Ehn, current partner of Approach and former CTO of Spotify, joined us in a conversation on technology and where we are heading in four major areas: artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and cryptocurrency, autonomous vehicles and virtual & augmented reality.

In Episode 333, Nadine Freischlad, writer from The Ken, joined us in a conversation on the influence of both US and Chinese tech giants in the third most important market in Asia Pacific: Indonesia, the secondary exits spanned by venture capitalists and founders in Southeast Asia and the story of Kopi Kenangan in Indonesia. We began the story with Nadine's journey from startups to The Ken, and why Indonesia is an interesting and hot market after India and China. We discuss the influence of tech giants from US and China in Indonesia and how Google has fired the first salvo with bringing their cloud platform in Jakarta. Following on, Nadine explained why venture capitalists in Southeast Asia are exiting in secondary markets. Last but not least, she discuss why Kopi Kenangan in Indonesia will not follow in the footsteps of Luckin Coffee.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion:

• Nadine Freischlad, Writer, The Ken (@nfreischlad, LinkedIn, The Ken Profile, newsletter)
  • • How did you start your career? 
    • What brought you to Asia and eventually to write for The Ken? 
    • Why are you in Indonesia and why is Indonesia the most interesting market in Southeast Asia?

• Influence of US & China Tech Giants in Indonesia

• • • Reference: “Google’s Kormo, AI Hurdles & Indonesia’s job recruitment nightmare”, “Google fires first volley in Indonesia’s cloud wars” and “Facebook, Paypal’s payments play a super app-ortunity for Gojek”
    • Can you describe how the US tech giants, for example, Google, Facebook and Paypal,  have built their influence in Indonesia? 
    • Google has recently launched a job recruitment site called Kormo in Indonesia, can you explain why that came about and what Google wants to achieve out of Kormo?
    • In terms of cloud infrastructure, Google is the first to enter the market before Amazon and Microsoft, does it hurt local hosting providers? 
    • Facebook and Paypal have invested in Gojek (along with Google and Tencent), how does that supercharge Gojek’s ambitions to be a super app in their war against Grab?
    • While the US tech giants have invested into Indonesia’s top unicorns, what are the Chinese tech giants doing in Indonesia?
    • Given the recent pushback from India and US on Tik Tok, will the Indonesian government follow suit with the influence of chinese apps in Indonesia? 

• Secondary market for Southeast Asia startups

• • • Reference: Southeast Asia’s startups surf a secondary wave
    • Given the number of exits from startups are few and far between in Southeast Asia, how are investors justifying their returns to the LPs (limited partners)?
    • We do not see a lot of IPOs in Southeast Asia. Can you talk about how VCs managed to generate liquidity by secondary shares sales and elaborate how the secondary share sales work?
    • Are there platforms where the secondary shares sales can be transacted between investors, employees and founders of the startup? 
    • Are there sources of friction generated between founders of startups & their investors (VCs, PE firms) on the secondary sales shares given that it will disrupt the capitalization table (or cap table in short) of the company?
    • Do you see secondary shares sales as an important mechanism for VCs and PE firms to generate liquidity? Is this similar to how Silicon Valley VCs and angel investors sold their shares to SoftBank two years back?  

• Kopi Kenangan in Indonesia

• • Reference: “Kopi Kenangan wants to walk in Luckin’s path, not in its shoes”
  • Can you briefly describe the company Kopi Kenangan in Indonesia? 
  • Indonesia is a coffee country most well known for the javanese coffee beans, how is the coffee culture in Indonesia and how does it help Kopi Kenangan to reach its customers?
  • How has Kopi Kenangan as a business scaled up in the recent year for example, their number of retail outlets and customer reach? Are they having any issues of massive burn?
  • Can you explain the unit economics of Kopi Kenangan in Indonesia and contrast this with Luckin Coffee in China? (Refer to Part 2 of The Anonymous Report on Luckin Coffee’s flawed unit economics) 
  • In your perspective, what makes Kopi Kenangan able to move away from the shadow of Luckin Coffee given the latter’s recent scandal?
• Closing
  • Can you recommend your book, podcast and something which has recently inspired your life?
  • How can my audience find you?

Editor's Note: Our apologies as there were some issues during the recording on Nadine's end. Hence you will hear a little background noise towards near the end during the Kopi Kenangan part of the conversation. We will hope to improve our recording with our guests in the future

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The show is hosted and produced by Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin) and originally created by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, "The Beginning" from Red Cliff Soundtrack.

Fresh out of the studio, in episode 340, Rama Mamuaya from DailySocial in Indonesia joined us to discuss a potential merger between Gojek, Indonesia's largest ride-hailing app and Tokopedia, the largest ecommerce site in Indonesia, and what it would mean for the most important market in Southeast Asia as well as their key rivals: Grab and SEA Group with Shopee. Rama introduced the backstory of Tokopedia, and discuss the dynamics on how Tokopedia and Gojek would merge under a SPAC backed by Peter Thiel and Richard Li. He provided the key reasons to why Grab and Gojek will not merge and offered his perspectives on how this will mean for the future of Indonesia startup scene.

Fresh out of the studio, Jay Park, Chief Development Officer of Digital Edge, explores the rapidly transforming landscape of data centres in the Asia-Pacific region. Kicking off with the story of Jay’s remarkable career in building cutting-edge data centres, we dive into the explosive growth fueled by AI and the innovative cooling and energy solutions Digital Edge is pioneering to address environmental challenges. Jay also examines the impact of advanced AI chips on next-generation data centre engineering and shares his vision of what great would look like to design efficient and sustainable infrastructure in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets.

"So if you look at this, according to this recent structural research report, the data centre industry will spend 100 billion dollars, and about 50 per cent of that growth will be happening in APAC. So, this is massive growth. If you look at the data centres, they have to be built where people are to better support them. But we have a new kid on the block. It's called AI servers, and it's something I have never experienced before in any industry, and this is massive. It'll do a lot of things, but it has to do data processing. So you cannot have all these data centres in, let's say, North America, have people in the APAC area grab that data, send it back to the U.S. or North America, do all the processing, and then send it out to APAC. I just don't see that happening. So, they're building the data centres closer to the users, where people are. And then you do all the processing there. The growth is going to be gigantic, and that's what we are seeing today."

You can find Jay Park on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jay-park-b5b579335/ and on Digital Edge: https://www.digitaledgedc.com/about

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] - Quote of the Day by Jay Park #QOTD
[01:07] - Jay Park’s Background
[02:38] - Becoming Chief Development Officer at Digital Edge
[03:22] - Data Center Evolution and Power Density Growth
[05:24] - Digital Edge’s Mission and Approach
[07:30] - Supply Chain Challenges and Skid-Mount Equipment
[09:25] - Scaling Data Centers for Increased Power Needs
[12:19] - Cooling Systems and AI Server Requirements
[15:39] - Modular Data Center Design: Pros and Cons
[18:57] - Balancing Efficiency, Scalability, and Cost
[22:08] - Challenges in Data Center Engineering in APAC
[27:25] - AI Chips and Their Impact on Data Centers
[31:29] - Principles for Designing Efficient Data Centers
[34:04] - Water Usage and Environmental Impact
[37:39] - Exciting Advancements in Data Center Technology
[42:54] - Advice on Innovation in Data Center Engineering
[43:36] - Digital Edge’s Vision for the Future
[44:42] - Personal Inspirations and Emerging Technologies
[46:26] - Closing

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig

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Matthew Brennan, co-founder of China Channel and host of China Tech Talk, closes the Bytedance trilogy of Toutiao and Douyin with the Bytedance Group. We discuss the mission and vision of the Bytedance Group, an artificial intelligence technology company and where they are after raising US$3B from SoftBank recently. We discuss the product portfolio of Bytedance beyond Toutiao and Douyin, their business model of advertising which drives high profitability and why they are poised to take on Facebook in a global scale.

"So, because I think the way I've always been thinking about this podcast is (as) a brand, I think we talked about it just now, the quality of the guests we curate is now a challenge for everyone who wants to get onto the show as well. And I've been very methodical about the selection of guests. I would rather have no episodes, but the quality of the guests must be there. And I'm very mindful of that and the topics I want to go for (are) very deep." - Bernard Leong

Fresh out of the studio and we hit our 400th episode, both hosts of Analyse Asia: Carol Yin and Bernard Leong sat down to reflect on China and how the podcast has evolved over the past two years and reached this important milestone. We start with Carol's current work in China, the status of entrepreneurship there and what it is like living in China in the era of dynamic COVID-zero policy. Following on, Bernard and Carol discuss the state of Analyse Asia and outline the challenges ahead for the podcast specifically in the selection of guests, monetization model and whether we will hit the 500th episode.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"To me. The role of a board should be a sounding board to founders. It's very hard for us to assume that founders know everything which is why the company's directors should be a voice of reason in everything that happened. The board isn't just made up by a single person, basically various people with different line of thoughts. So why has nobody bring this up at all? I have no idea. In fact, that is what every investor that I've spoken to for this story questioned this." - Ka Kay Lum

Fresh out of the studio, Lum Ka Kay, deputy editor of The Ken joined us in a conversation to discuss the recent debacle for the Southeast Asia company, Zilingo and the fallout between the board and the former CEO, Ankiti Bose. Ka Kay shared the chronology of events that led to the firing of the CEO and the public fallout and examined what the endgame would look like for Zilingo.

Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

"The key message of the report is that the fundamentals of this region are critical, they’re clear, and businesses are doing exactly, I think, what they need to do for us to move ahead." - Sapna Chadha

"Given that one of the other themes we’ve had this year is trust, having a strong regulatory foundation and good constructs around that for digital financial services is critical to unlocking the next wave of growth here." - Florian Hoppe

"All 10 ASEAN nations have announced their own national strategic AI initiatives or plans, and ASEAN itself has actually released a report and guide on AI governance and ethics. So, I think if you put all that together, it’s very natural that Southeast Asia is, quite frankly, well-positioned to capitalize on the AI trend." - Fock Wai Hoong

Fresh out of the studio in Google, Bernard Leong led a discussion on the 2024 Southeast Asia Digital Economy Report, joined by Sapna Chadha (Google), Florian Hope (Bain & Company), and Wai Hoong (Temasek). The panel delved into Southeast Asia's impressive digital growth, with the region’s economy reaching $263 billion in GMV and significant strides in profitability. The panellists examined the key themes which include Southeast Asia’s emergence as an AI hub, driven by $30 billion in AI investments, the rise of video commerce, and the region’s booming digital financial services specifically on embedded insurance. The conversation highlights challenges and opportunities in digital inclusion, AI infrastructure, and regional integration, providing a nuanced outlook on Southeast Asia’s potential. The episode concludes with each panellist sharing their vision for Southeast Asia’s digital future and success metrics for the next decade, emphasizing the region’s unique strengths and long-term global impact.

Audio Episode Highlights
[00:46] Introduction
[02:17] Key Report Insights
[04:09] How Sapna, Florian, and Wai Hoong provide perspectives to the key report takeaways
[07:00] Investor Perspective on Southeast Asia
[10:06] Exiting the Funding Winter
[12:44] AI’s Role in Accelerating Growth
[14:30] Impact of Video E-commerce
[16:23] Growth in Digital Financial Services
[18:03] Embedded Insurance in E-commerce
[24:12] AI Infrastructure Investment
[27:55] Southeast Asia’s Startup Ecosystem
[29:45] Generative AI Use Cases
[31:06] AI for Revenue and Cost Optimization
[34:16] New Internet Users and Digital Inclusion
[37:55] Regional Integration as a Success Metric
[39:01] Vision for Southeast Asia Digital Economy Success
[40:20] Closing Remarks

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig

Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia

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"You talked about the market opportunity. When you look at the landscape of the billionaire population today, statistics show that you expect that population to grow by about 34% in the years to come. And from that population, at least a third is going to come from Asia Pacific, and in the next five years time, we expect Asia Pacific to be growing by about 40%. So the market is large in relation to the space of wealth to be managed. And we look at the growth of family office space in Singapore has been exponential. So between 2017 to 2019., according to the statistics, the family office space grew by five times. In 2020 at that time they were looking at around 400 family offices. By the end of 2022, it has grown to more than 800. So if you look at today, I think it is actually a very conservative estimate to say that the number of family offices in Singapore has crossed a thousand. you can easily expect it to be much more than that. So I think it's a very exciting area to be in." - Lee Wong from Lombard Odier

Fresh out of the studio, Lee Wong, head of family services from Lombard Odier and Co, joined us to discuss the firm's footprint in the Asia Pacific and the key trends in family offices across the Asia Pacific. We began with Lee Wong's background and how she entered into the private banking sector as a lawyer, specializing in the family offices industry. From there, she provided a comprehensive background on how family offices are built in the Asia Pacific, their purpose and structure with the right governance and framework to ensure their longevity. Last, but not least, Lee Wong shared the key trends in how the family offices market is growing in the Asia Pacific and what it means for the future due to the current geopolitical volatility

"So one way to think about crypto is a group of people come together and they have a vision of the future, and they're betting on that fork of the future through collective capital. So some folks think it's going to be L2’s that are going to scale. Some people think it's Solana. Whatever it is, you get to bet on the version of the future that you want with your rest of your community. That's chaotic, it's a zoo of people collectively trying to decide what the future's going to look like. But the good news is at least if the past cycles are anything to go by, almost all reasonable forks of the future get funded, and then it actually goes extreme where. Where crypto dick butts are also getting funded and pictures of like the 18th dog token is getting funded. And so, if anything, those who have been in crypto long enough seem to have benefited; because I have certainly have not – I’m much newer to this industry. But they seemed to have benefited from holding tight on what they believe about the world to be true and sticking to that vision over a sufficiently long period of time - which in crypto is potentially, what, four years I guess. And that has been rewarded, because if they worked on something for four years, the tech is behind them, there's a community behind them that sort of becomes a meme. So, I don’t know how to value them. Maybe it's all relative but it's certainly not an exercise that I either have expertise in or even try to build one in." - Akshay BD

Fresh out of the studio, Akshay BD, Head of International Expansion and advisor to the Solana Foundation, joined us in a conversation to explain why the rumors of Solana's demise are greatly exaggerated and describe the vibrant developer ecosystems globally across the world. Starting from his origin story, Akshay discussed how Solana developer communities are continuing their building journey despite the recent crypto crash and articulated Solana's value proposition for interesting decentralized applications moving ahead. Last but not least, Akshay offered his perspectives in crypto and web3 key topics from tokenomics to valuation and shared what great would look like for Solana internationally.

Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"If you look at the tech universe revolves around the U S and China, I spent a lot time almost 10 years in the [Silicon] valley ecosystem. But I haven't really seen the China technology ecosystem. So I was really curious on how it works, how is it like, how is it different? There was like a great opportunity for me to learn and see how it worked from the inside." - Yaw Yeo

"I would say first of all Indonesia is probably one of the remaining opportunities in a huge market, that's more or less homogeneous with a population of 270 million. You have to look at the G D P per capita is around 4,000 and then the GDP (gross domestic product) growth itself: it's about 5%. So I think you are hard-pressed to find any other country that matches these three very promising criteria. I would say that secondly, on the technology side, a high level of digitization has taken place and internet penetration has grown very quickly, especially during covid. So we are about 70% internet penetration and the whole digital infrastructure is ready for companies to take advantage of them, by that I mean things like payments and logistics. Then I would say that there are other factors that make this market attractive more for the venture capital ecosystem. One is talent. I think you'll find the most number of entrepreneurs in Indonesia in the Southeast Asia region. Number two is you can find follow on capital. for early-stage investors, that's really important, right? Thirdly maybe most importantly, you can find a local exit market. So the IDX is open for iPOs and we've had three IPOs in the last two years. so I think those are the most attractive factors when you think about Indonesia as an emerging market." - Helen Wong

Fresh out of the studio, Helen Wong, managing partner from AC Ventures joined us in a conversation about AC Ventures and the firm's investment thesis onto the largest economy in Southeast Asia: Indonesia. Helen began with her background story from how she started in Silicon Valley, then moved to China and witnessed the rise of the Chinese tech scene. Following on, she explained her mental model in how she evaluates and invests in founders from the Indonesian tech scene. Last but not least, she discuss what great would look like for AC Ventures in Southeast Asia.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"So that was back in 2021. And then after Revolution Precrafted, there was Zilingo in 2022, and then Tanihub and Investree - which were P2P lenders in 2023(24) - and then eFishery. So actually every single year we've been getting pretty big blow ups. But as I was looking at the cases for each of them, one thing I've noticed is the sophistication of the fraud is actually becoming more advanced." - Kristie Neo

Fresh out of the studio, Kristie Neo, an independent journalist covering tech and venture capital, joins us to dissect the rise of startup fraud in Southeast Asia and why it’s becoming more sophisticated. She shares her journey from broadcast journalism to investigative reporting, reflecting on the shift from high-growth hype to market corrections and corporate scandals. Kristie unpacks the eFishery scandal, explaining how founders manipulated financials and how investors got misled. She discusses why due diligence often fails, the role of unchecked valuations, and the impact of drying venture capital on the region’s startup ecosystem. Addressing investor confidence, Kristie explores what it will take to restore trust and accountability in Southeast Asia’s tech scene. Closing the conversation, she shares her vision for a more transparent startup ecosystem and what great looks like for the region’s next wave of entrepreneurs.

Episode Highlights:
[00:46] Quote of the Day by Kristie Neo
[01:07] The Rise and Fall of Southeast Asian Unicorns
[03:53] From Fundraising Frenzy to Market Correction
[09:22] Breaking Down the eFishery Scandal
[15:25] How Did eFishery Manipulate Its Financials?
[19:39] Why Investors Fell for the eFishery Story and Other Similar Ones
[22:51] The Evolution of Fraud: From Vanity Metrics to Revenue Manipulation
[27:59] Due Diligence & the Role of VCs in Startup Fraud
[31:45] How Will This Impact Future VC Investments in Southeast Asia?
[32:49] The Need for Legal Consequences for Founders Committing Fraud
[38:45] The Secondaries Market and the Liquidity Problem
[42:13] Southeast Asia’s Future: Can the Region Build Bold & Ambitious Businesses?
[46:23] Closing

Profile: Kristie Neo, Independent Journalist (former DealStreetAsia, CNBC, We Are Social & Channel News Asia) https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristieneo/ and her article: "Thank you eFishery, Southeast Asia is officially off the kool-aid" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thank-you-efishery-southeast-asia-officially-off-kool-aid-kristie-neo-h0z0c/

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast.

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Fresh out of the studio, Michael Lints from Golden Gate Ventures discuss the Southeast Asia exit landscape for startups and what it means for investors all over the world. We discuss Michael's career and investment thesis as to what strengths and red flags he search in founders and start-ups. We dived deep into the exit landscape and explain how SPACs, direct listings and M&As will impact the startup ecosystem across Southeast Asia.

At every single investor meeting, literally every single LP meeting. I got the same question. What is the exit landscape look like in Southeast Asia? The issue was that most exits were relatively small to other markets. The largest exits were at like around $200 million dollars. If you compare that to India or China, that's just a very small number. Every single LP was concerned that it's an emerging market. There's lots of happening under early stage, but at some point when we need liquidity as LPs and then where would that come from? - Michael Lints

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian

"The key theme is you can be incredibly successful with the community, but you have to be intentional. Oftentimes what happened in my experience of observing other communities is that people would get really excited at the beginning. They would do a whole lot of work. And then after hosting, maybe three events, the enthusiasm would die and they wouldn't do anything else. So it was actually easy for people to start. It's not very easy to grow and scale, and that's why I talk a lot about intentionality" - Mark Birch

Fresh out of the studio, Mark Birch, global startup advocate from Amazon Web Services (AWS) joined us in a conversation to discuss his new book "Community in a Box" and the key initiatives to engage startups and developer communities globally from New York to Asia Pacific through AWS. We start from Mark's background and discuss the inspiration, key themes and main takeaways on how to build event-driven professional communities. Last but not least, he discuss how to build the community flywheel and provided the aspiration to what a great community would look like in the future.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

But fundamentally the core of the business, at least the way we see it, is that, we need to be great operators of these brands as a start, in fact the best operators for these brands. For us here, it's about looking into ways to be differentiated around how to run those brands better than anyone else, and definitely better than the last owner. - JJ Chai

Fresh out of the studio, JJ Chai, CEO and co-founder of Rainforest, joined us in a discussion on his company, a leading eCommerce aggregator that focuses on brands and products for the modern mum and offered his perspectives on the rise of ecommerce aggregators in Asia Pacific region. We dived into how JJ shared the vision and mission of Rainforest and their customer focus for the ecommerce aggregator. From there, we broadened the conversation with JJ explaining how ecommerce aggregators work with platforms such as Amazon and their playbook in selecting the right brands to acquire, scale and distribute. Last but not least, JJ offered his perspectives on how the landscape of ecommerce aggregators will change in the next couple of years globally.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

Chirayu Wadke, partner from Seedplus joined us in a two part conversation to discuss the most important trends in smartphone, internet of things (IoT) and mobility landscape and why the recent Broadcom acquisition of Qualcomm failed. In the second part, we discussed why the recent Broadcom and Qualcomm deal fell apart and its implications to Asia Pacific companies making acquisitions in the US market.

"As well as in terms of profitability, we've been able to grow the brands as well as make them more profitable. So having a track record really matters because as part of our purchase consideration, we also share the upside with sellers. So with us, the investor, we are able to extract the maximum of sight from the brand and via the right stewards of the brand. That's something which we spend a lot of time building. Those capabilities and having that reputation, which then sets us apart and helps us win many deals in competitive situations." - Kiren Tanna

Alex Crompton from Entrepreneur First (EF) joined us to discuss the progress of their startup incubator in Singapore and Hong Kong and how they are helping entrepreneurs to build their startup companies by employing a talent first approach. We dived deep into the vision, mission and backstory behind EF and how it operates across the region, and discussed interesting topics from how EF facilitates the interaction between entrepreneurs and steer them towards building companies, and whether the trend of too much incubators create an elitist atmosphere for startup founders out there.

John Artman, editor in chief from Technode of host of China Tech Talk, joined us in a conversation to discuss three different and interesting stories from China entrepreneurial space and align them in the underlying theme of explaining what numbers and narratives can mean in China. We began with the bike rental startups collapse, followed by the Mafengwo scandal and finally the recent leaked financials from Luckin Coffee into the open. Through the lenses of these three stories, we discuss how we need to understand and adjust our expectations to the future of China's economic growth.

Chenyu Zheng, former product marketing manager from Uber and now author, joined us in a two part conversation to discuss the unique digital experience in China and the Uber China mafia & their impact to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in China after merger with Didi. In the first part, she discussed her major observations on the web and mobile apps in China and why they have evolved in a different way from their US counterparts. Last but not least, she also shared what she has learned from Allen Zhang, the founder of Wechat in product management.

"So as of today, I think the choice between DAO and equity is how bullish you are in the project. So if you're thinking that companies launching its first or second project, there's still a highly likelihood that it's not gonna be hugely successful and you want to bet on the entire life cycle of the company, then right now, maybe equity is still a better tool. If you're really bullish on the project, but you're not as bullish on the company that maybe the DAO is a better way to go." - Jamie Lin

Markus Gnirck, CEO and co-founder and Lien Choong Luen, COO of Tryb joined us in a conversation to discuss the backstory and evolution of their company, and their recent round of US$30M from Makara Capital. They also discussed their perspectives on the major trends on fintech in Asia Pacific, specifically on how the Chinese technology giants and local banks are approaching financial inclusion and the challenges on regulation and navigation in the fintech space by corporations & startups.

"As a seed fund, we will always be small. ... and that's done with the intent of building towards product market fit. we talk a lot about product market fit in startup land. We don't really talk about it enough and in venture land, It's really hard to deploy a billion dollars in capital if you're focusing on seed. Intentionally is a feature. It's not a bug. And if we're doing our job right, we'll continue to raise the same fund size, relatively small speaking, and just be great at pattern recognition at seed pre product market fit and staying really focused that way to be the best in our niche is the way we think about it. " - Tiang Lim Foo

Fresh out of the studio, Tiang Lim Foo, co-founder and partner of Forge Ventures shares the story of how he started the seed stage venture firm and his perspectives on early stage investing in Southeast Asia. He dived into a deeper discussion of the rise of early stage investors within the key countries in the region and how the whole venture investing space is transforming with web2 and web3 in transition.

Podcast Information:The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Sound credits for the intro and end music: "Run it" by DJ Snake, Rick Ross and Rich Brian and the episode is mixed & edited by Geoffrey Thomas Craig (LinkedIn).

Matthew Brennan, co-founder of China Channel and host of China Tech Talk, joined us to discuss Pinduoduo, the three year old social ecommerce company backed by Tencent slated for an IPO this year. We discussed the origins of Pinduoduo and why they labelled themselves as the amalgamation of Costco and Disney, their products and services on the mobile app and the business model that powered their rise. We also discussed the backers of the company together with the upcoming IPO of Pinduoduo in NASDAQ.

"And so what we do at Dow Jones, very specifically, is look at - What are the regulators demanding? What do they want you to do? What are the specific data points that you require? And which workflows do you want to use them in? And, there are very different workflows, which within, for example, a financial institution. You have the onboarding of your new customers, and in those situations, you may have a little bit more time. Obviously, there's the service level in terms of opening a bank account is faster and faster. But you have a little bit more time in that regard. You want to look at potentially more data. Then once you are a customer of a bank, you're gonna be amongst millions of customers. How do banks can then adapt to check additional data points? And, today the customer may be clean and have no adverse media, may not be sanctions, but that could change." - Joel Lange

Fresh out of the studio, Joel Lange, executive vice president & general manager of risk and research from Dow Jones, discussed how the company is leveraging artificial intelligence and data analytics to help companies tackle risk and compliance and combat financial crimes and money laundering. Joel also explored generative AI's role in risk management and concluded by envisioning the future of Dow Jones Risk & Compliance and what great would look like in the Asia Pacific.

Episode Highlights:

[0:00] Quote of the Day #QOTD from Joel Lange

[0:50] Introduction to Joel Lange, EVP & GM, Risk & Research, Dow Jones

[1:28] Support for freeing Evan Gershkovich from Wall Street Journal on his 32nd birthday.

[2:20] How did Joel start his career and eventually end up in his role with Dow Jones 

[3:58] Lessons learnt in Joel's career journey

[5:40] Introduction to Dow Jones and its global vision & mission

[8:20] Risk Management, Money Laundering and Financial Crimes 101

[10:08] Impact on businesses and other organizations if their risk is not well managed.

[12:00] How Dow Jones Risk & Compliance division helps businesses to navigate the challenges

[14:50] The challenge of cross borders makes managing risk and compliance difficult on a global level

[17:00] RiskCenter Advanced Screening and Monitoring (ASAM) solution based on AI and big data

[19:50] What makes ASAM different from other risk management solutions out there?

[21:00] How the AI solution tackles false positives and the tradeoffs made between the specificity and sensitivity of the data.

[24:30] How does the diversity of APAC both economically & politically impact the complex anti-money laundering processes?

[27:00] The mental model to balance between economic recovery & anti-corruption efforts

[29:05] Perspectives on Generative AI and how it impacts combating financial crime & AML

[32:05] Advice to C-suite executives and government officials on risk management with AI

[33:40] What does great look like for Dow Jones for market expansion and ASAM in the APAC region?

[35:30] Closing

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"The vision is to future proof global real estate. Now why real estate? One thinks that it's just one industry, right? Well, it's 300 trillion dollars. There is no asset class, no industry that is remotely as valuable. Not all the treasury bonds in the world, not all the stock exchanges in the world, and not all the real GDP of the economies of the world add up to the value of global land and property assets: 300 trillion dollars. Now, what will any of it be worth tomorrow, one year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now in different places in the world? We used to have a pretty stable answer to these questions. The truth is the valuation model is broken because it's very antiquated, and not only is the appraisal or valuation model broken, it's even more broken because it never took climate change into consideration." - Parag Khanna

Fresh out of the studio, Parag Khanna, founder and CEO of Climate Alpha unveils the story of his new company which leverages artificial intelligence to decipher how real estate will transform amid climate adaptation. Parag offers his observations on the ongoing global issues from the potential resolution of the Ukraine-Russia war to the easing of tensions on the Taiwan straits. Last but not least, he comments on the recent COP27 conference and offers his view on what great looks like for Climate Alpha.

Podcast Information: The show is hosted and produced by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong, Linkedin) and Carol Yin (@CarolYujiaYin, LinkedIn). Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed & edited in both video and audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).