Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong

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.

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.

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.

Jessica Lessin, CEO and founder of The Information joined us in a conversation to discuss the news media site and its current focus in Asia. Jessica began the conversation on why she was inspired to set up The Information, and offer the vision and mission of her company. Continuing the conversation, she shared her perspectives on growing a media business, the cultural differences and innovation between US and Asia technology companies and why a good product is not enough for a company to be great. Last but not least, she discuss where The Information will go and relay her thoughts on the future of media companies.

Federico Ast, co-founder and CEO of Kleros joined us in a conversation on how to do an ICO, and the story behind his blockchain project, Kleros. He shared the backstory in how he put together a global team to build a blockchain dispute resolution layer, the decision process in doing an ICO and at the same time, explain how to engage a cryptocurrency exchange to list the token for his project. Last but not least, Federico shared his impressions on his recent trip in Asia and offered his perspectives to whether Asia is leading the blockchain space globally.

Dr Wolfgang Baier, group CEO of Luxasia Group joined us in a conversation to discuss the corporate transformation of the company and its current business footprint across Asia Pacific. Wolfgang shared his background as a consultant in McKinsey from Europe till his former role as Singpost CEO and narrate the backstory how he brought Alibaba Group to invest into Singpost. He also discuss the current trends of ecommerce, logistics and retail across Asia and shared how young millennials are valuable and can help in any company transformation.

Shai Oster, Asia Bureau Chief from The Information joins us in a conversation on why Chinese technology companies are frantically going IPO this year and what it means for the Chinese market and the rest of the world. We begin our conversation with the upcoming subscriber event from the Information in Asia on Nov 12,  the recent news on the prominent Google mafia in China and the state of Chinese electric cars market. Shai shared his thoughts on why Chinese technology companies are now rushing to take themselves public and how the recent trade war coupled with the recent dumping of technology stocks may change their calculus in the short term.  

Santitarn Sathirathai, group chief economist of the SEA group joined us in a conversation to discuss the key digital trends that drive the growth of Southeast Asia. We began the conversation with the SEA Group and their current mission, vision and coverage across the region, and discuss their key products: Garena, Shopee and Airpay. Continuing our conversation, Santitarn offered his perspectives on the major digital trends specifically on ecommerce in Southeast Asia and the development of super app, and how the current escalating trade tensions between China and US will influence where the major economies within Southeast Asia will be heading in the future.

Charles Reed Anderson, founder of Charles Reed Anderson and Associates joined us to discuss the surprises that emerge from the IoT industry in Asia Pacific. We discussed why China has emerged the surprise winner of leading the IoT deployment race and whether it will lead the rest of the world in IoT technologies. In the same conversation, we dived into the current status of 5G across Asia Pacific, specifically in Japan with what Rakuten and Softbank are thinking about MVNO, and last but not least, we also discussed how the new SIMs technology are going to disrupt the telcos in the near future.

J D Sherman from Hubspot joined us in a conversation to discuss Hubspot in Asia and his perspectives on how to scale companies across the world. We started the conversation with JD sharing his background and introduce the backstory, vision and mission behind Hubspot, a developer & marketer of software products for inbound marketing and sales. JD discussed the products, services and geographical footprint of Hubspot in Asia and how they are localising their products for the local market. Last but not least, he shared the lessons of how to scale companies globally.