Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong

"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).

"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 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).

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).

"What if you could just outsource your disputes to Kleros? Whenever users have a dispute on your platform, Kleros will select a jury to analyze the dispute. They're going to see the evidence, see the agreement between parties, and they're going to make a decision about who is right, and then Kleros informs you of the decision on your platform. And then this is enforced by the smart contract and the money. Let's say Alice wins. So she's reimbursed the money that she would pay Bob for this. So this is one example in the freelancer (space). But imagine all of these platforms that just connect to Kleros through some pipes and send disputes - and Kleros sends back decisions. So this is the vision of what Kleros is going to build. This is why we call it "Decentralized Court" for all of the Web3 ecosystems." - Federico Ast   Fresh out of the studio, Federico Ast, founder of Kleros returned to the podcast to share the story of Kleros over the past few years and where it is heading as a decentralized arbitration service in the web3 and crypto economy. He dived deep into the concept of proof of humanity and how it helps to resolve identity verification and explored the implications of how Kleros has transformed the legal landscape from a landmark case in Mexico resolved by the protocol to advising the United Nations. Last but not least, Federico shared the new use cases relating to tokenized physical assets with Kleros and shared what great looks like for Kleros in the future. 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 media have been feeding us this fake news story about the death of social media. There is absolutely nothing in the data - regardless of what data points I look at, there's nothing in the data that supports the idea that social media is dying. It's the complete opposite. Social media users are growing. The time that we spend using social media is increasing. There is no evidence of the death of social media. So that was a big surprise in there. When you start looking at things like streaming, there are obviously some really interesting conversations there about the overall time we spend streaming TV content versus how that splits across different companies. So Netflix versus Disney plus versus whatever else. Search behaviours. I'm sure we're gonna unpack that later on, but that is another one that is evolving quite rapidly. And how people find what they're looking for on the internet is evolving rapidly. That's got implications for everybody. It's not just a business conversation. That's anybody that is wanting to reach and influence audiences on the internet." - Simon Kemp   Fresh out of the studio, Simon Kemp returned for the 6th year to break down the key digital, mobile, and social media trends in the annual Digital Report 2023. Simon began with the first surprise that social media is not dying from Meta to Twitter, and debunked the myth propagated by social media on the war between Instagram vs Tik Tok. He highlighted the key trends on how the shift from pandemic to endemic will impact the streaming wars, and the fallout on cryptocurrencies and NFTs after the crypto crash in 2022. In the same conversation, Simon discussed how generative AI inspired by ChatGPT and Midjourney will upend digital advertising and marketing and what it means for brands moving forward. Last but not least, Simon offered what great would look like for the digital report in the next decade.   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).

"You're right. Now the US is trying very hard to get TSMC to move to the US and they're throwing money out - TSMC is going to Arizona. The CHIPS Act has been passed. That'll throw a lot of money around, but that won't be enough. In the currently announced plans - just purely what's been announced so far - I ran the numbers and estimated that TSMC's global capacity, only less than 5% would be in the US based on the currently announced plans. Now, I expect those plans to expand and broaden. They seem to have enough land and the possibility of up to four factories instead of two. They could even go to six, who knows? But even if they were to expand to the maximum of what might be possible in Arizona, I think still we'd get maybe 7% of global capacity in the US may be up to 10%. And it won't be the leading edge. The leading edge will still be in Taiwan. And that's not just for protection reasons. I think a lot of people think that all the Taiwanese don't wanna have the best in America because they're trying to hold onto it for themselves - which is true - but it's also an issue of practicality." - Tim Culpan   Fresh out of the studio, Tim Culpan, the Bloomberg columnist, joined us to discuss how the tech giants from China (Huawei, YMTC) and Taiwan (Foxconn, TSMC) are navigating a fragile global supply chain. Starting our conversation, Tim examined how Foxconn and TSMC are making key moves to ensure the resiliency of the global supply chain from contract manufacturing to semiconductors. As we moved on, Tim provided a glimpse into how the Chinese tech giants, Huawei and SMIC are addressing the same challenges and examined the key strategy for China to develop its own semiconductors. Last but not least, Tim broke down the amount of money that Warren Buffett from Berkshire Hathaway had left on the table after retreating from his recent position in TSMC. 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 the audio format by G.Thomas Craig (@gthomascraig, LinkedIn).

"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).

"Mapping the world is really an infinite exercise. We're on this journey to create this digital representation of the physical world - buildings, places, things, everything. This is going to be very critical. And that extra precision, that greater resolution as we support businesses to comply with all sorts of things - be it even new regulations ... And then of course, the other key trend is the ongoing rise of AI and automation. And as you have better insights and location, that will support better optimization of supply chains and those smart cities and all sort of stuff that will lean on location technology." - Jason Jameson   Fresh out of the studio, Jason Jameson, general manager, and senior vice president for Asia Pacific in HERE Technologies discussed the company's focus to broaden the location intelligence across the Asia Pacific and talked about the key trends in the digital map-making space. We start off with Jason's background from IBM to HERE Technologies and then dive deep into the current developments in the region. Last but not least, he shares where the digital map-making industry will be heading and how it will impact autonomous driving and smart cities in the future. 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).

"I think there are three main things. The first is the continuation of the strategic investments that we are making across the regions in the markets that we serve. The second one is an acceleration of our ecosystem, because our partners play such an important part in the success of our customers and also themselves and us as well, and the third one is really innovation. The constant innovation on our platform is critical and there is no sign of that slowing down as we look forward to 2023 and beyond." - Brigid Archibald   Fresh out of the studio, Brigid Archibald, managing director in Asia Pacific and Japan, Qualtrics, joined us in a discussion on the business footprint of the experience management company and the key trends in the region. We started with Brigid's background and her experience in B2B sales and then proceed into how Qualtrics is working with companies to improve their customer experience. Last but not least, she discuss the key trends in the experience management space & advised what the potential call to action are for executives.   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).