Transcription
I reject the notion that all countries have to be democratic in the American way, but I do think that everyone should try and figure out how to be anti-fragile.
This is Hean Go, a Singaporean entrepreneur who founded the Asia Food Channel and later sold it for $65 million. And today, he runs a venture capital firm with a portfolio of nearly $1 billion. Hean shared whether Singapore can be a real bridge between America and China, why Singapore tends to be socialist on the inside but capitalist to the outside world, and how AI could make human relationships optional.
I'm Max Chernov, your Russian friend in Singapore. Let's go.
So, you went to this uh Bloomberg conference recently. You talk a lot about like the big shifts in the world, and I watched a couple of the videos from the conference. What do you think like the biggest shifts in the world will be within the next like maybe few years, and what's the role of Singapore?
I mean, this one is actually quite an easy one, I think, to answer, which is that the world is becoming multipolar. So, what I mean by that is not just one super cop like America dictating the agenda. India will be able to say something. Japan will be able to say something. The EU will be saying something. China will definitely be saying something. And in our neck of the woods, ASEAN is going to be able to say something. So, ASEAN is the association of Southeast Asian nations. So, it's like Singapore and Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, and Philippines, and forgive me for the rest of the other countries, right? So, as a result, I think things are going to be different, and that was uh very much discussed at the Bloomberg New Economy Conference, right? You know, a lot of times people are trying to pit America against China, China against America, like, you know, your YouTube videos have the highest when you do that, but again, it's not that simplistic. Everyone will have their one or two small pieces of leverage, and then, you know, we'll play that card, and then as a result, we get to shout for what we want, and let's go, a multipolar world.
Let's go deeper to the nuances. Okay, let's start with like US-China. What do you think like what spheres of influence will still US have, and what will China have?
I think you have to question the hypothesis of whether actually the rise of China and say, if China became a dominant force, is a bad thing. Like, we don't know, maybe it's a benevolent China. And George Yo, uh, who I deeply respect and I watch a lot of his videos, keeps on talking about that, that the Chinese are not in the business of, you know, being colonialistic. They've always considered themselves a nation, and all they're trying to do is to protect themselves. We've never seen a China being benevolent, like, not necessarily in my life, but it doesn't mean to say that it's not going to happen. There's also a theory, like you always hear about how China is going to invade Taiwan in 2027 or something like that. Have you heard that one?
Yeah, I have a lot of theories about that. First of all, I certainly think that that is one of the greatest single points of failure in the world. It's kind of like a Co moment if it happens.
Well, it doesn't even need to happen. If there is a threat of it happening, right? If people start to believe that it's really going to happen, supply chain start to move, everything goes berserk, and it's a Co moment, right?
Yeah.
But on the other hand, there's also, I've been told, like a lot of people are promoting that in America because defense budgets get bigger, and there's also agendas to have the uh positioning of two warring countries. There's no right answer to it. Uh, I think for us in Singapore and ASEAN, ironically, I think it's, it's net positive to us because now everybody looks to ASEAN and thinking maybe it's a safe haven. Singapore is now doing very well. So that's how I think about China and America. I don't see the two countries know, really hugging it out anytime soon. Uh, simply because there's this sense that what they're doing right now is sort of like a strategic timeout. Like, once in a while, you see Xi Jinping and Donald Trump sort of being buddy-buddy, that's just because everyone's like taking their breath, and then once they figure it out, they're going to go back at it. So I do believe that's probably true. Uh, so I don't believe that, you know, suddenly there'll be a change, even if there's a change of leadership on both sides. I think structurally, the two countries now want to feel like they have their own sort of positions of importance in the world.
So that's the realignment. You see that building there? So that is, uh, actually the piece of land that Alibaba bought, if I'm not wrong. Okay. And they tore down this very iconic building, the MAS building, the Monetary Authority of Singapore building, and it looks like a stack of coins. It's been torn down. Now Alibaba's bought that piece of land. And then China Harbor, you see Ch... is actually the construction company doing it. And probably about 15, 20 years ago, you'll see Korean and Japanese construction companies, uh, being the main contractor in Singapore. But now you see Chinese, and you see like how the difference in the world has happened, right?
Yeah.
And these are the subtle things that you pick up if you kind of keep an eye on on the world. You just kind of walk around and...
People kind of tend to say, "Oh, China's approach is the best. Democracy is falling." Like China's approach is the only one. Some people say, "Oh, China is the biggest threat in the world." So it's totally authoritarian. So for me, because you're like super smart person, one of the smartest ones I know, I'm very curious like what's your thought process about it and what's the nuances around it?
Yeah.
Well, first of all, democracy is actually the the new business model. You know, democracy has only been around for like, what, 200, 250 years?
Feudalism, by definition, has always been around since I don't know, the beginning of...
A long time.
A long time. I was in Istanbul. I I traveled around. Last time I met you, I went to Istanbul. Istanbul is an amazing part of the world. Everyone's run past Istanbul, right? The Romans, the Christians, the Muslims. It's always been feudal. And there's an argument that, you know, America is kind of feudal, right? Like the, actually, like China is a little bit more transparent because you know that it's run by a few bunch of people. Whereas America is like, we got democracy, but it seems like the same old people still get to get elected all the time, right? You know, so I like democracy because I think democracy is anti-fragile. In other words, it's very hard to, so far, it's proven to be very hard to to take a country to the brink and destroy it on on democracy.
Although having said that, I don't know whether... I don't know that... [laughter] I'm just thinking of other countries actually did that, right?
American democracy, right? So far, it seems to be anti-fragile.
And then you look at the Russian state, right? Remember in the 60s and 70s, America was really concerned because you charted the trajectory of socialism, you know, and and what Russia was doing and creating, you know, huge economies of scale. So I reject the notion that all countries have to be, uh, democratic in the American way, but I do think that everyone should try and figure out how to be anti-fragile, right? So you need to have institutions. So one of the things that I think people don't realize, this is a working theory, so I'll put it out there. I like to see what the comments are.
There's an argument that China isn't a one-party. The Communist Party of China isn't one party. It's actually two parties. It's the Shanghai gang and then it's the what they call the new, the youth faction.
Okay.
Right.
What's that?
So, oh, I'm gonna get this wrong. You're gonna, you guys gonna kill me on on YouTube. Please don't kill me. [laughter] No, there's the re-generally, there's this thing called the reformist and the hardliners. And it kept on swaying, right? So Mao Zedong was a hardliner, and then when he passed, Deng Xiaoping was a reformist, and Jiang Zemin became a hardliner. We had Tan Zemin, and then you had Hu Jintao, which was a reformist, and interestingly, Xi Jinping is actually a blend of both, I've been told, right? But there seem to be two factions in China that every 8 years they argue. One argues and says, "We got to open up to the world," and then the other argues, "We have to be pro-China." So these again, you know, I love this Hu Ping reference, these are subtleties that unless you watch like 12 hours of YouTube, including many, many conspiracy videos, [laughter] and then talking to friends in China, you don't realize, right? That America is not a democracy in its full-blooded way. Neither is China a completely dominated one-person autocratic state. These are living expressions of human interplay, right? They're both ice cream, but one is vanilla, one's chocolate.
So, I think that's how I look at the world, right? And it's fascinating coming to Singapore. This is my recent theory since I spoke to you.
I honestly do believe now that Singapore is truly a socialist country. And that's because communism, and I, and you're a Russian, so I love talking to you about this, like communism is, I think, only one flavor of socialism, right? I define socialism as a state of mind, in other words, the government feels that there is an obligation to take care of the people, but also the people feel that the government should take care of them. Like there's this, there's this social pact, right? So when something goes wrong in Singapore, like a lot of times Singaporeans, what do you think the government's going to do? And then of course, the government, when something goes wrong, the government goes, "Okay, here's what we're going to try and do," right? And they try and sell it, right? Like to me, that's socialism, right? As opposed to in America, it's really about free market. It's like the government's bad, and I don't want a government near me. I got my shotgun, I'm in Wyoming, you guys better get the heck out of here, right? Like, they feel like government is like an an unfortunate thing, right? And then the government is like, "Well, you know, we run a for free market principles," and so on and so forth. So Singapore, I've come to realize, it's truly a socialist, uh, construct, but they're trying to be super efficient.
So, I was in Budapest. I went over for the first time. By the way, Eastern Europe is like great. Like, how come I haven't been there? Like, Slavic people are good-looking, and you know, Budapest is like London without the crime. It really is. Have you been to Budapest recently?
Budapest? No. But I've been to like Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Czech Republic.
Great weather in the summer. It was just great. Eye-opening. But I had to go to Budapest to give a talk, right? I was invited to give a talk. So before I went there, I had to like go and watch a lot of YouTube videos about the Austro-Hungarian Empire and stuff like that. But Hungary is very interesting because Hungary's got 10 million people, but it's got a budget, a governmental budget of about a hundred billion US. That's roughly the same governmental budget of Singapore, right? So Singapore has got like, you know, also 100 billion. And then when you do more research, they say like 40% of GDP of Hungary is controlled by government entities, you know, like education, health, and so on and so forth. And then when I type in what about Singapore, Singapore is like 15%. And that kind of makes sense because our GDP is like 600, and then our budget is like 100, right? So then you could assume that Singapore is not really a socialist country because we don't really control that much of the GDP. But then I realized that there's also a lot of what we call government-linked corporations, right? You know, Capital Land doing the real estate. Yes. Uh, you have Singtel, you have DBS Bank, and these are companies that are majority owned or have a significant minority through Temasek or GIC, and in essence, the government has influence and sway. And I was wondering if we added all those government-linked corporations together, I suspect actually Singapore's GDP to government involvement is also around 40%.
So Singapore is a very structurally different country than many other countries in the world. Uh, but it took me going to Eastern Europe and doing some research to figure that out. The only difference is we're trying to run our services and our, you know, all our infrastructure as efficiently as possible through a capitalist capital formation, in a capitalist management technique, right?
So, it's kind of Singapore kind of pretend to be like capitalistic for the outside world, but... [laughter] at its core is like socialist.
Thank you. I was trying to say that. It's very... [laughter] good. Well done.
Yeah, it's very interesting. I think it's a quite the model that Singapore chosen, and that the model formed through the years. It was not like from the beginning, right? It was like maybe test, and like feedback loop, and then, okay, shall we do this, shall we do that, right?
Yeah.
So you think it's an anti-fragile model, like the economy and the model of Singapore right now?
No, I mean, you know, anti-fragile, which is a Nicholas Taleb concept, is like, is something there's no single points of failure. It is hard to say like if if somebody in Singapore got into power, we can't get rid of them. That's not anti-fragile. But I'll tell you this, we have free and fair elections every four years. If the People's Action Party cannot convince uh Singaporeans to vote their way, they're going to get booted out. And I think therefore, by definition, we are pretty anti-fragile. And I reject the notion that we're autocratic and authoritarian state, which like a lot of people like to talk about. And, you know, the PAP always says, "We can get booted out, we can get booted out." And nobody believes them. But I'm telling you now, they can get booted out, right? You know, I vote, and if I'm not happy, I'll I'll vote against them if I if I choose to. And I don't feel pressure not to. I have a lot of friends who go like, "This time around, I'm going to vote against them. I'm going to send a message," or that kind of stuff. There is no sense of pressure in that sort of authoritarian way. So there's a lot of KPIs. So maybe they are truly anti-fragile. Maybe we truly are anti-fragile.
People from the outside, they would say, "Okay, Singapore, they have you guys have elections, but you kind of don't let other parties like to form, like to start forming from the grassroots, and that's why it's kind of, it's a democracy, but it's not." So what would you say to them?
Every ruling, and by the way, this is what Lee Kuan Yew always says. I think he even said it again in Charlie Rose. He said, "Do you think I'm going to let an opposition party just come in and take me? I'm going to fight, and I'm going to use every technique." Right? And I think it's a fine line between using a technique and abusing your power. Right? [clears throat] So sure, right, a ruling party will do whatever it takes to stay in power. That's what it's supposed to do. However, if, and it's getting to a point now, right? Like you can see there are opposition parties that are formed, you know, like the Workers' Party and and so on and so forth. This election, I don't know whether you guys think it was not close, because Bloomberg keeps on saying it's not close and stuff like that. It was pretty close, at least in my opinion, right? And, uh, there's a lot of KPIs that are going to have to be, uh, met in order for the PAP to continue to rule. And so, yeah, I'm sure a ruling party will do whatever it takes to convince people, but I don't think it's unfair at this point of time. And I certainly don't think they think they get it in their bag every four years.
Singapore has a different way. It was like my first video, right? We complain, and then they listen, and then they have to like react very quickly. Speaking of the, the Bloomberg conference, what's like the, the biggest like topic or discussion that was there, like the context of the whole conference? What what people are on that level talk about right now?
I think, uh, not surprisingly, climate change and all these other things. But if it was the one thing that I think had the biggest disagreement, right, between, I think this is going to work or this is not going to work, was the rise of artificial intelligence. Yeah. And, uh, some people thought that it's going to be a game-changer. Other people were very vocal about it being a bubble and unsustainable.
Yeah.
So I thought that was a very interesting perspective. By the way, for your viewers, this is like, I don't know how to describe this. This is like, one of the prettiest streets of Singapore.
It's, you know, coming back to Singapore, this area here really can show you how multicultural the country is, right?
Yeah.
You got a Chinese temple, and then you got... Is that? That's the mosque there. Yeah, exactly.
That's why we decided to do the walking. Hey, I've launched this Telegram channel where I'll be sharing insights from my guests, travel tips around Asia, and also my thoughts about YouTube marketing, business, and even life. It will be cozy, personal, and free of charge. So, join me. Just scan this QR code on the screen or click the link in the description, and I'll see you there.
What do you think of AGI? When like for our viewers, maybe you explain the concept of AGI.
Yeah. And so when do you think it will be...
Funny? [clears throat] I was just having lunch before that, and literally my lunch guest asked me, right? I think that the current thing that is exciting everybody, large language models, mimics intelligence in the way that we think about it, right? But it's not really intelligence. So large language models are really a statistical output of the probability of what is the right next word you're going to talk about.
So I'm going to try to explain this to your viewers.
Yeah.
So, you know, you go like, "Tell me about Max Chernov," and then the computer will digest that and statistically think that the word that I need to say after Max Chernov is "a Russian," "Max Chernov is a podcaster," "Max Chernov is based in Singapore." Like, there will be three statistical probabilities of which is the right next word to use, and one usually becomes the most statistically correct, and they will output that. So, "Max is a podcaster" is more statistically correct than "Max is a Russian," or maybe "Max is a Russian podcaster" is the highest statistical thing. Literally, that's how large language models work. They, we do all the calculations, we come up with like five or six words that are statistically the correct answer, and we keep going. That a lot of people argue is not how your mind works, and not how my mind works. So large language models are very good at actually creating and processing information and coming up with knowledge, but it's not conscious. Even though it outputs words that make you feel like it's conscious. Like, "Oh, I hear you, Hean. That's a good answer." Here, I mean, tomorrow, if you told ChatGPT, "Stop saying these kind of words, and just give me it to me raw because I want to save tokens," they'll probably just do it. "Thanks, this is the answer." So the friendliness is built into the programming, but it doesn't really mean that there is a ghost in the machine. Other people argue that that is the ghost in the machine, but I am of the camp that I think what will happen is there will be a new way of doing, you know, cognition, and we will then suddenly have a breakthrough, and then you will then have like the beginnings of artificial general intelligence. And two interesting things are happening. One is that the large language model will create so much compute that actually, I think that when finally someone comes up with an approach for AGI, and there are a couple of people doing many different ways, but the one that actually works, I think we're going to snap over very quickly. And there is a non-zero chance that this is not Terminator, and Jeffrey Hinton's very concerned about it. There's a non-zero chance. However, I think human beings are anti-fragile, just like my earlier example, which we don't react to it until we see it. So I think the moment we see that the beginnings of that's happening, hopefully as a society, we react really, really quickly, and we avert, you know, nuclear wars, and we identify things which are existential in nature, and us as a society deal with it as soon as possible. But right now, we don't have to deal with it because we don't even know when it's happening.
Yeah. But you must believe that if it does exist, or we can see it with great certainty, that immediately we as human beings will flip into a self-preservation mode, and the reaction will occur.
Yeah. So they will, it will be like maybe next Co. So the conscious will need to act fast. Like, like if an alien appeared right now. Like, like right now, we don't. If an alien appeared, I'm sure all of us would be like, "Yeah, like we got to go fix aliens," right? Clearly in a Hollywood movie.
But no aliens. So you like, do you think we'll get together and be one global nation when the aliens appear? Like, I hope so. [laughter]
I don't know.
We don't know.
I believe so.
Yeah. For someone who is not into VC or not into AI, how the world will look like, you think, in 10 years with the all the influence of AI.
So, 10 years is very, very long. Uh, 10 years could really completely change everything. So if you look at it, when I started Asian Food Channel in 2004, by 2013, when I sold it, a completely new platform appeared, right? And and and YouTube didn't even exist before I started, uh, Asian Food Channel. So, so 10 years is really, really hard to predict. And you can make wild predictions in the 10-year time frame, like humanoid robots and stuff like that. So the way to think about it is not necessarily about what's happening in 10 years, but what is a certainty and what is not a certainty. So what do I mean? So I'll give you an example, right? So I, I'll give the the opinion, the probability of us having a humanoid walking robot today in the next three years is like 10%. So, as in, like the probability of like a humanoid robot just walking next to you as a companion. In 3 years, it's like 10%. In 5 years, it's probably 30%. In 10 years, it's probably like 70%. But in 15 years, I would argue the probability is 100%.
So it will be there for sure.
Yeah. Correct. So that's the important thing to understand that it's not going to go away, that it's there for sure, right? It's just whether it's like 3, 5, 10, or 15 years. And as a venture capitalist, if you know something is going to be there for sure, that's an interesting, uh, thing you cannot ignore.
So you can't just say what will happen in 10 years' time. You you try and figure out what are certainties that the world's going to happen. The other certainty for sure is that, uh, human interaction for my six-year-old is going to be optional.
Cuz if you don't believe that, you can watch Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. He didn't have many, he didn't have any male, like, like he didn't have many human friends.
Yeah.
The technology is going to be so good. Some people in society will choose not to interact with other humans. It'll be too painful.
They would. Yeah. It's actually, I I was in China like a couple of months ago.
Oh, yeah.
In Shenzhen. So I went to the store to some store to buy a bottle of water, and it was like, no, no, no cashier. And then it was like some machine for like self-scanning, but it was all in Chinese. So I needed to ask the guy, some physical person to help me. But all the rest, all the other people, they grab the stuff, they just self-scan, and then just go.
Wow.
And everybody is on the phones. I'm not like, don't want to be like, "Oh, I'm like an old grandma," like, you know, saying like, "Oh, before it was great, and the kids don't know anything." But it seems like it's an, it's a process that you cannot stop. People would less and less interact with each other, and you cannot, you cannot stop it.
Yeah, it, I think it's not that you cannot stop it. It's just the only debate you have is how fast is the change happening. But the change is happening. There's no stopping it.
How do you feel about it? You are like positive, negative, neutral?
Well, I'm, it is what it is. I'm unfortunately, my my brain is just designed that way so that I'm always positive about these things, right? And I always look on the brighter side of things. But I'm a realist. I know that we are going to have a lot of challenges structurally as a society. So I'll give an example, right? One of the things that I always talk about is there is going to be a need for regulation, especially if the ability to replicate your likeness becomes so good. People are going to abuse that, right? People are going to create like digital versions of you, and I think that should be really criminal if you make a digital version of somebody, uh, without their permission. So, it's not like you sue them, right? Like Scarlett Johansson sued OpenAI or something like that for using the voice and likeness, but really, it's actually criminal. And the reason for that is because it's going to be society very, uh, dangerous to have that, uh, technology out there without the repercussions of abuse. But laws are not going to be effective until something really bad happens.
So I'll paint the picture, right?
So say, for example, you have a digital likeness, right? You say, for example, I got, start again, right? Say, for example, you're like a 15-year-old high school kid, and you have like a girlfriend, and you break up with the girlfriend, right? And you're very sad, but now you realize, "Oh my gosh, I got my WhatsApps with her. I've got her pictures with her. I'm going to make like a digital version of her just in secret, right? Just in secret, because I love her. Just for myself, right? I'm not trying to abuse anybody, right? Just for myself." And then there's a service, and now it's so cheap, right? Like this is like 3 years from now. It's so cheap, right? Like, you know, $150 or whatever, right?
Yes.
And then now I'm having a good time. I'm WhatsApping her. She sends me pictures, you know, at night. I do some fun things like that. And I think that's okay, right? I don't tell her. Whatever. One day I leave my phone in the canteen or in the classroom, and then Max picks it up. "Ah, you're such a pervert. Look at you. You're doing this to what's her name?" Everything. Takes the pictures, sends it out, and embarrasses me. And one of two things happen. One is my ex-girlfriend commits suicide.
Yeah.
Or number two, the boyfriend comes with a gun and shoots me.
Cuz this is in America.
Yeah. And then Congress goes, "Oh no, this is bad. Oh my god, AI is bad. We suddenly have to like, you know, fix AI. You know, this is terrible. Suddenly become..." You're going to have to like that. And then there is a political will to actually do the laws and change the laws, right? Cuz imagine if you actually go now to as a legislator and say, "We got to fix this before it's broken."
Yeah. I mean, Max, no one gets credit for stopping the 9/11 crash that nobody knows about. And this is how society, a lot of times, works. It's reactive, right? So, you're going to have a situation where something bad is going to have to happen before change is justified. It's tragic, but I believe, I mean, what, mark my words, this is going to happen. I just, I just believe that's unfortunately how how the world works.
Okay. So let's say in 10, 15 years' time, you will have like a robot humanoid like as a companion. What else? What else will we have in 15 years?
So the other thing is that right now, we're all obsessed about this large language model and all this great technology because we're able to talk to our computers, and our computers are be able to talk back to us with knowledge. But I think what people don't realize is that that large amount of compute that is being created, that the technological advances that are being achieved because of the sheer brute force requirements of large language models, it actually also means that the cost to do other equally impactful things, uh, becomes really, really cheap. So, have you heard of this thing called AlphaFold? AlphaFold, you know, the Google DeepMind, they have this AlphaFold protein folding. So when you're doing drug discovery, a lot of it is about creating proteins, creating monoclonal antibodies that can lock onto things to disengage things. Like if you have high cholesterol, you know, you have a, you think you can lock it on, and then you can have a reduction in your PCSK9 molecules, and your LDLs and HDL levels become really, really good. A lot of it is about simulating what that protein looks like, right? And Google had, uh, a breakthrough. It's called AlphaFold. If I'm not wrong, they won the Nobel Prize. And like, this feels like all old news because this is like only 5 years away. But that was what AI used to be. It used to be self-driving cars. It used to be image vision recognition. It used to be things like protein folding. You know, the first few drugs that use synthetic protein, uh, modeling as targets, for, uh, you know, cancer or stuff like that. I've been told is only 3 or 5 years away from FDA approval. And so we keep on getting obsessed about LLMs and ChatGPT 5.1. So I think we have to remember that AI is greater than that, and actually a lot of drug discovery is going to come through at a faster pace, at a cheaper pace, because it's going to move from drug discovery to drug engineering. I can give you another 10 more examples, but all of this is driven by the fact that because now the industry is pushing, uh, a lot of compute, a lot of power, and the cost is dropping. I'll give you another example. You know, you like your drones, right? We all use drones and stuff like that. Well, drones are structurally not stable things. You need to have the four propellers, and you need to constantly have gyroscopes and stuff like that. It turns out that all those small little gyroscopes, all those silicon-made gyroscopes are a function of your mobile phone. You know, your mobile phone accelerometer, right? If we didn't have a billion mobile phones and the cost of that thing didn't come down, right, because of the manufacturing, drones would be like $10,000, not $1,000, not $100. And now so cheap. I feel like the same analogy can be placed to AI because, you know, large language model requirements, all these investments, they're driving matrix multiplication faster and cheaper, but there's a lot of knock-on effects into non-large language model applications like drug discovery, self-driving cars, many other things, which will be equally, and I would argue even more impactful than talking to your mobile. I know many of you are investing in stocks, so listen up. The next minute could introduce you to a company worth knowing about. Silver demand has been rising globally, and one of the best places for new discoveries is Nevada, also known as the Silver State. They are a silver-focused explorer in Nevada, a state known for some of the most productive and investor-friendly mining ground in America. They recently acquired the Trinity Silver project from Newmont, one of the largest mining companies in the world. And as part of the deal, Newmont even became a shareholder, which many see as a strong vote of confidence in the project's potential. The Trinity project has already produced over 5 million ounces of silver, and based on past data, there may be around 28 million more. Right now, Americanore trades below 30 cents, which is a big discount and a chance to get in early before the market catches up. If silver exploration in Nevada sounds interesting to you, you can check out Americanore Resources using the link below. I'll drop their website, presentation, and stock symbols there as well. And remember, no investment is guaranteed. Always do your own research before investing your hard-earned money.
What would people use in a daily life in 10 years? Like, robot, humanoid robot, probably. Or else, like, what will we'll be working with you in 10 years in Singapore? What will you see on the streets of Singapore that people do or people use or people people do something around it that we don't have now?
I just want to let your viewers know that we didn't prepare these questions. So this is, I should have had a good answer. Okay, let's try and figure this out. Let's take a benchmark. Okay, today is 2025. What was 2015 like? Right? And then maybe we go back to 2015. You look at 2015, right? 2015, what was happening in 2015? Mobile phones weren't that cheap, right? Yeah. And and it just had come down in cost. And now you can see TikTok and all these things didn't exist, right? So it's hard to say what's going to happen, but I think that if you extrapolate in 10 years' time, there may be a couple of things that, uh, that that might break through, right? So let's talk about one that is, I I always see which I find it really hard to invest in, and that's quantum computing, right? So, I've been told right now that if you get to a X number of qubits, you can actually break Bitcoin.
Yeah.
Right? So you can Google that. This is true. But in order to break Bitcoin, you need so many qubits. Right now, it's impossible. You know, the the current capabilities make it so hard to make such a big computer. And if you actually manage to do it, like breaking Bitcoin be so expensive. In the next 10 years, what we need in quantum computing is literally a material science breakthrough. So you make qubits from a completely different approach than what people are doing right now. Or maybe one of the approaches just has a 10x or 100x sort of improvement, and then all hell breaks loose. It's sort of this idea that computing initially was done with vacuum tubes. Yeah. And then when the transistor was invest in invented, originally it was more expensive than the vacuum tube, but because it had the potential to be miniaturized so quickly, it quickly became the thing that allowed, you know, digital computing to happen. And I think within the next 10 years, uh, the probability of that happening in quantum is very high. But I can't invest into something right now because I just can't see it. And I mean, it's hard to, maybe maybe one strategy is to invest in like 10 different things, make sure you cover everything, and hope that out of the, and one of them will be the breakthrough. But that is, I think, is a certainty. So then what we have to do is we'll have to definitely, uh, think about all the encryption capability. So that's one that's not AI, that's the thing I believe in. I think the other thing will be how technology sort of, uh, finds itself. It will be very, very subtle. There will be subtle ways of implementing AI. It won't be too dramatic, but over the years, you'll just suddenly realize, "Wait a minute, how come I use it?" So in 10 years' time, you could have a situation where your AirPods are in your ears, and it's constantly listening to you, or you have a thing here that's constantly watching you, and you're okay about it. You don't feel too invaded about it. And then from there, that becomes something that you can have a conversation with, and the cost of these things have dropped, and stuff like that.
That's actually a good one because maybe the fear of people about privacy would be less than now, and like less people would be arguing about it. So the industry will strive because of that.
Yeah. So psychologically, you're okay with that. I mean, one that's definitely for sure is that the ability to do autonomous car will be cost-effective and capable in 10 years. But the psychological change will be one day when you feel like, "I'd rather take a ride in an autonomous car because I feel safer than a human being driving it." Or like my six-year-old, who then becomes 16, goes like, "Daddy, you're driving the car yourself. That's not safe. Like, can you please don't do that?" You know, like that psychological shift, which takes a generation.
Those are the things that fascinate me.
It's not safe, and it's not cool.
Yeah. Yeah. What the, what are you doing?
Yeah. Like, what's going on here? Are you just trying to be like totally #vintage? [laughter]
Just tell the car where it goes, Dad. God, you're like, you're so old, right? Like, so that new generation might think. So that's, those are the things that are going to be very surprising in the next 10 years, but it's going to feel very natural. In other words, people are going to say these kind of things, and it won't feel revolutionary to them.
Do you know there is a Russian restaurant actually?
I've actually, I've actually eaten at a Russian. Do you think that, do you think that Russian restaurant is good?
Uh, so I'll say like, four out of five.
It's like Chinese restaurant in San Francisco.
I mean, it's [laughter] it's not it's not too bad. Like, some like some meals are actually legit. Some meals are quite off. But there's a lot of provincial differences which is very difficult to express in a single restaurant. Right. There's probably like Siberian version, or St. Petersburg version, or Moscow version. Right.
It's actually, to be honest, it's not, it's not that...
It's not that different.
Yeah.
You were in China, right? You could see the difference, right?
In China, yes. But somehow, I think it's because of the Soviet Union. So in Soviet Union, it was everything was kind of unified and centralized.
Oh.
For example, like my dad was born in Kazakhstan. So he's Russian, but he was born in Kazakhstan. And then he's a surgeon. He's a doctor. So after studying, after graduation in Kazakhstan, he was sent to Kuril Islands, which is next to Japan, basically.
Yeah. Holy cow.
Like, like I don't know, 5,000 or like 8,000 kilometers away. So he was sent there, and he he stayed there for like 5, 10 years, and then we moved to Vladivostok. So because of that, because of this distribution of talent after people graduated from university there, we don't even have like, um, accents. It's a slightly, the accents are very subtle, but it's more or less like unified in terms of the language. The the social integration became quite, uh, strong, just like Singapore HDB, where we have like Chinese and very multicultural.
Oh, I didn't know that. Cuz in China, it's still very regional, right? You can see...
It's very regional. Yeah. But in Russia, yeah, it's it's a bit different.
Should I go visit Vladivostok? I heard it's a pretty cool place.
Vladivostok is cool. I was there before Co, because I grew up there, and I was there before. But it's very unique place as well, because, um, all the signs on the streets, you'll see the sign. It's in Russian. And then the next language is Mandarin. It's in Chinese. And the next one is Korean.
Korean. Oh, I was going to say Japanese.
A lot of Korean. Like my school that my high school I went to is now is a bilingual Russian-Korean school. So a lot of influence of China, a lot of influence of Korea.
You see, that's the thing, right? Like I really feel like the new generation is very blessed because if you really wanted to learn the subtleties of Vladivostok, you just have to get on to YouTube and be curious, right? Coming back to the original core thesis that this generation has no excuse, no excuse to be completely intellectually curious and be able to fulfill that curiosity. Hey, how are you, brother?
Yeah. Just doing some YouTube video. YouTube video. Where you guys from?
Bangladesh, right?
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. I heard there's like a lot, like 100,000. I was like talking to like Bangladeshi embassy. Like a lot of Bangladeshis.
Yeah. You like it in Singapore or?
Yeah, Singapore. I like this country and very good at group regulator.
How long you going to be, uh, in Singapore?
Singapore, 4 years running.
4 years already.
You're not going anywhere else? Dubai or no?
No. No.
A lot of friends going to Dubai.
Yeah. Can go. So our company in house rules have something that's why you cannot go.
Abu Dhabi. Are they going to Abu Dhabi?
Yeah. Can.
No, but like more people going there or...
Okay. If you weren't in Singapore, where would you be?
Master Singapore. [laughter]
Okay.
You don't want to lose yourself.
No. Anyway, thanks a lot, brother.
You're very social and very like positive. I think it's that's why people are kind of easy to click with you because like you are quite positive guy. Yeah. You start talking, it's like, "Yeah, yeah, it's a nice guy. Why not to talk to him?"
What's your like, do you have any strategy or tactics when you like communicate with people?
This is taking me a long time, you know. I'm not... [laughter]
I'm not naturally a a people person, actually. I, I feel, right? My wife will tell me I'm doing, I'm running an emulation layer right now. No, as in like, because we have like, I have a very, my brain is very, very strong, and I think deeply. I don't naturally get curious about people too much. So it's a forcing mechanism, right? So I've had to learn it. Uh, and so I think to me now, if my state of mind is that you can learn anything from anyone, I think even when there's a person who's a stranger, if you have genuine curiosity, I think people can feel it, and people will won't feel too defensive.
Yeah.
But you need to have like genuine curiosity about human beings. And so that's like how I ended up being like a friendly human being, right? And of course, if it's like a bad day, bad mood, you know, you won't get this version of me. You'll be like, I'll be like, right?
The high-level people that you met, and you met like hundreds of them. What are they lacking? What are the biggest like their fears, or something that they don't have, or they they would love to have if they made already their money? What's what's lacking, do you think?
First of all, people are people, right? And if you're going to relate to people, I think you really need to try and understand, uh, what makes them tick, where they are in their life right now in terms of priorities, and, uh, what would increase their, you know, their happiness, or their, their value, or their status. Like, you really have to read that person. And, and by the way, you know, some people do it so well, they abuse it, right? Yeah. And so it can be quite, you know, I say this, and maybe there'll be some viewers who going to go like, "Oh my god, that's very calculated." Right? Like, before I meet anybody who is significant, Google them, right?
Yeah.
Watch their YouTube videos. I just feel like that, uh, what was that scene from Inglourious Basterds when the guy goes, "So you're Aldo the Apache." And then, and then you're so and so.
Then the guy goes, "How do you know that?" Says, "Well, you know, this is Kristoff." Boss says, "Well, you didn't expect that. I'll do my research before, uh, I, you know, meet you."
"Then, you know, I clearly, this is not the kind of professionalism that we are expecting. Like, this guy's, you know, a German side, and this guy's on the American side. So you really have to try to do your research if you know you're going to meet somebody important."
"So, for example, I just met somebody who, he, you know, he's a very important guy. I mean, I wish I could tell you who he was, but he literally was in my office and he still wanted to come over and talk business. And I was like, 'Wait a minute, this guy's like successful. He's got a track record. He's not young. Why does he want to come over and still do business?' And I think that it's because he wants to stay relevant. He wants to stay connected."
"And also, I think that he is very concerned that the next generation, right? 'Cause he's in his 70s and then like I'm in my 50s, right? He's actually literally concerned about continuity in Assad and he feels like maybe me and a few other people have the obligation to continue and not screw it up. So he wanted to help, but it wasn't because of financial. It wasn't because he wanted to like get something off me. He truly was quite, uh, altruistic about his needs, but you can never tell."
"So then, once you kind of know, and I think a lot of times if you have the right rapport with influential people or people who are important, you can ask them straight and, you know, you'll be surprised. They, they just tell you, 'That's what I'm focused on.'"
"So, you know, if you can help, help. Like, if you ask me, 'What do you focus on here?' I'll tell you very straight. I want Singapore to have more creativity and more entrepreneurialism. I want Singapore to have the courage to make bets, which of the 10 bets they make, eight will fail, but the two that succeed will future-proof us for the next 25 years. If you went up to the street and you told me that, and if you start talking about that topic, I will not shut up."
[laughter] "I'll just keep talking. I think that's the secret. Once you tickle that person's interest, I don't care if you're a billionaire. That's going to be like exactly what they want."
"It's funny, you remember from the first interview, I asked you, 'Singapore sometimes feels like corporate,' and you said, 'Oh, for me, not because I'm surrounded by entrepreneurs. I'm in my, in a bubble.'"
"Yeah. And it got me thinking, like, oh, like in a city of 6 million people."
"You can find your bubble, actually."
"Yeah, you can find your tribe."
"Yeah, you can find your tribe, which is like very, very cool, you think about it. You need to put an effort. And then if you have all the obligations like family, like sport and health, and like business, career, so you need to put an effort. And I think some people just..."
"I think, okay, friends will just form somehow by themselves."
"Yeah. You do need to curate."
"Yeah. But I think Singapore is now big enough that, and we're heterogeneous enough that we can create our own bubbles. It's fun. Sometimes I bump into other people's bubbles. It's quite interesting."
"I just had lunch with somebody. She was like the person who organized all the biggest clubs in Singapore."
"Clubs like, like nightclubs, right? Over the past 20 years, including, I don't know if you remember Pangaea, back in the day, 20, when Marina Bay has opened up."
"I just had lunch with her because her bubble is completely different from my bubble. And I was just learning like how you, like do the bottle service, and how they do like, you know, like, you know, wipe somebody wants to do that. And you know, how clubs work. And now that I'm setting up a nightclub, but it was so enjoyable to be in somebody else's bubble. And then, then she asked me about my bubble, and I told her my bubble, and then she looked quite interested in it. And then that's great."
"So maybe the strategy would be, okay, to like build your own like circle. Maybe it could be like professional circle or circle with like similar interests, but from time to time."
"Yes. Yes."
"Try to test like other bubbles."
"Yeah. No, no, actually, I have a very interesting theory about this, which is networking theory, right? So how do you network effectively?"
"So within your own core competency, for me, it's like venture capital, technology, and entrepreneurship. I have like my own group of people which I talk to very often. It doesn't require much effort. But I like to have like, for example, like, like, for example, you, Max, right? You're like my, my connection to this whole YouTube world, right? Then I have my new friend, and she's a connection to like the clubbing world. And I got another person, you know, connection to, actually, funnily enough, like the chess world. And then I got another person who's like connected to like the Singapore government world."
"And it's almost as if your network, I feel, is like a circle, but like lots of long, like tentacles, right? And so then, if you've got a really good connection in another bubble, like you and me, like, if I remember, we were talking about that chess thing, right? That that friend of mine who's very obsessed with chess, and he doesn't know anything about YouTubing. I just call you, and then you turn up, and then we have this like interesting conversation."
"I think that's a very effective way of creating a very diverse network because to the outside world, I suspect a lot of people think, 'I know everyone.' 'Oh my god, Ken seems to know everyone.' That's not true. I like, I just know like 10 really interesting people in each bubble. Like, you're like my YouTube bubble guy, right?"
"Does that make sense? So that's a good like networking technology that you you can pick up, right?"
"Yeah. What other networking technologies you you have or you use?"
"Oh, no. It's, uh, I actually, one of the, the, the crazy things about what I do is I try my best whenever I meet somebody, if I can help them, I help them. And then there's this book that I subsequently read by Adam Grant, like 'Givers and Takers.' I think you probably have to subtitle it, which also talks about like some people who are very good at networking or people who never count like, 'Oh, you know, you give this, I hope you come back.' And they just put it out there, and they know the karma will come back."
"It sometimes can be exhausting, but that's just how I'm built. Uh, that's my topology. I'm sure there are other people who say, you know, 'Don't help other people unless they give you back something.' But that's my way of networking, right?"
"And you've seen it. We've been hanging out for like nine months."
[laughter] "Yeah."
"And then sometimes when I message you and you message me, I mean, I feel like we haven't stopped the conversation. We just like keep going, right?"
"Yeah."
"It's a good feeling."
"Feels like it. Feels like it's good. It's a good feeling. For me, it's it's it's kind of the same. I, I rarely think, 'Okay, if I do something for someone.' Of course, it's like also kind of business-oriented approach. I kind of, if I want something, I kind of..."
"Yeah. Yeah."
"Like tweak my message, for example, to bring value to to a person. I mean, it's natural. But overall, I can, if I can help. For example, if people ask me, ask about YouTube advice, 'cause I love YouTube. It's like my profession. I'm thinking about it. I, I'm like, I'm running the..."
"Actually, the biggest Russian-speaking community of YouTubers, uh, on Telegram for the like last 5 years. So I'm really into this like market. If the friend asking me an advice about YouTube, I would never charge. I would help. And then if it's easy for me, for them, it's like hours of research, probably talking to different people. For me, it's like very easy. You know what I mean?"
"Yeah. So I have another way of thinking about it, right? This is like, I haven't, I haven't used this, uh, mental model for a long time."
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"But the mental model is, there's a shaman for that."
"There's a shaman. You know, shaman. You know what a shaman is, right? So shaman is like a, before organized religion, it is like the, like somebody who is who knows his subject matter in such a intuitive way, it is actually sewn into his own fabric of consciousness, right?"
"So I give you example. During COVID, I wanted to learn how to run. 'Cause I, I run, right? And I, I used to play ice hockey. So I, I do this..."
"Used to play ice hockey?"
"Yeah. You saw that in, in my office. Remember that?"
"I, yeah. It's yours."
"Yeah. So, yes, it's me. That's me."
"You were NJ and JQ?"
"Uh, no, no. In Oxford. I played."
"Oh, in Oxford before. Okay. Okay."
"But I, I. So, I wanted to learn how to run. So, if you want to learn how to run, what are your options? Uh, you can, like, I don't know, go for a running coach. You can watch YouTube videos. But I have a friend. Well, not friend. He's like my lawyer, right? One of my lawyers. And I saw him go from, you know, normal looking guy to like marathon guy, you know, like what marathon guys look like."
"Okay."
"And so I called him up, you know, and I said, 'Hey, I'm thinking of learning how to run and I think my gate is wrong and I need to see like a running coach. Do you have somebody to recommend? I don't know, like, do you have time to talk to me about it?' Guy's like, 'Tomorrow, 4:30. Let's talk.'"
[laughter] "And you go down and the guy like just like, 'Who are you saying?' Like, I was thinking, 'No, that guy is terrible.' Like, just see my guy like, like do this."
"And so what I'm saying is that the best advice comes from people who truly, truly live that are shamans of that thing. So I always go like, 'Oh, YouTube, there's a shaman for that. Must be Max, right?' Just try to find people who truly, they're not giving necessarily a service. Maybe they might charge you for that service, but in the same time, they're doing it because they truly are passionate about it."
"That's like why I always tell people like, 'Go find a shaman.' Like, 'Try to find.' If you can find a shaman, you're going to get like the best advice ever."
"So, so that's one. The other thing, um, I would say is that I'm generally friendly. And I know when you, once in a while, you actually really need to do business with somebody that you're friendly with. The best thing to do is just to go and say, 'Hey, hi. Um, I want to talk to you about business.' Like, for example, Max, if I was going to talk to you about business, 'Hey, Max, I need to talk to you about business. I have this thing. This is what I think we'll do. Uh, I need this from you. Or, you know, if we do this, we get paid. What do you think?' Right?"
"Like, what I don't like is people, they just keep, 'Hey, man, how are you?' Like, whatever. Like, and like they're like so shy of like talking business. I don't know, maybe it's like an Asian thing."
"Like, I'm a venture capitalist. Like, I have actually had entrepreneurs go like, 'So, how much money are you raising?' And the guy goes, 'Well, you know, I'm not quite raising, but, you know, but since you...' I'm like, 'If you're not raising, don't come and see me.' Like, like, I'm a venture capitalist. Go see somebody else. But he actually is raising, but he just feels like he's like, like it's like a, maybe it's a bad negotiating tactic, or I don't know, like to to maybe he's embarrassed by. Dude, you're a startup by definition, you don't have money. You could work for Microsoft and have money, but you choose to be a startup. You're meeting venture capitalists. Just be clear about it."
"I recently, I really cannot mention a name, but I recently cold-called somebody at the Bloomberg conference. And this is like very senior person. I've always wanted to meet him or her. And I messaged the office. Yeah. I messaged the office and I said, 'Any advice?' You know, the advice the office gave me is like, 'Just go up straight to that person, explain who you are and say why you'd like to meet that person.'"
"Yeah. And, uh, either they like you or they don't. And I realized that senior people..."
"That's exactly what it is. BS, because you know, well, it's not that they're impatient. It's like, like this person was walking around the conference. It's almost like..."
"Yes."
"That person had like a force shield. So many people were so scared of of approaching it, but they're human beings. I think they also need some lovely connectivity."
"So I said, I said, 'You know, I heard you like to watch Asian Food Channel.' And then, and then they said, 'Yes, yes, I do.' I go like, 'I started it.' And then they said, 'Oh, this is very interesting. Do you have a business card?' I go, 'Here.' I made connection. And I was so proud of myself because this was like totally out of my comfort zone, right? That's something that I remember I learned, even though I'm so old and so..."
"So old. So [laughter] so tired doing this many, many years."
"What was like the, maybe you can recall some biggest lessons from other people? Maybe you met some like incredible individuals and then they do something that you, 'Oh, interesting. Like maybe I should, I should try it. I should test it.' You know, I always think journalists have the most difficult job in the world because you go meet somebody, or maybe like yourself, Max, you go there with a camera, or in the old days with a pen and paper, and at the end of like an hour, you're supposed to come out with something good, like a story."
"Yeah."
"Right. So journalists, or really good journalists, right? Not the ones that kind of like people say something, you write it down, but people who are trying to get a story. Those are the people who are the ones that I've had the opportunity to spend time with because, uh, some people, Asian Food Channel were ex-journalists, and you know, storytelling that I always think is a remarkable skill. And again, it comes back to, I feel like the best guys, when you get into a one-on-one, they're just 100% curious about the other person and just, you know, pay attention to them and really enjoy the interaction. If you have that state of mind, I don't, I, I think very few people will, will really. And you have to be very genuine in your curiosity."
"Yeah."
"Yeah. So, a sociopath is not genuine in his or her curiosity. Like, I don't know whether, I mean, in my line of work, you meet a lot of very, very different people. And once in a while, you meet, you know, really manipulative people. You know, some they call like, so, uh, sociopaths, right? Entrepreneurship, you have to have narcissistic tendencies. I really believe that. Hopefully, you're not a narcissist, right? But, you know, if you're a sociopath, in other words, you're a person who just, you have very little moral compass, and you're just there to manipulate somebody. The attention that you get from them is kind of freaky. I don't know whether you sometimes can feel the energy, like that person is like being very, very attentive to you."
"But it feels like it comes from a wrong place."
"Mhm."
"Like, I've seen that as well."
"Yeah."
"Yeah. And..."
"Does that make sense?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah. It makes sense. And then they can..."
"Easily distracted and like just switch off. And then you see, 'Oh, that was just.' Yeah."
"And, you know, funnily enough, the camera doesn't lie."
"You know, they, they always say that, right? You can see that even when you're on YouTube, right? Or on like TV."
"Yeah."
"Let me run some idea by you. Actually, um, you inspired me to do it, uh, partially. So I talked to some people, including yourself, and then I think because the communication is like super important, and somehow I managed to meet all this like super people like yourself, like to talk to them. And with some, I make friends. So, and I know some people are actually, they really, they kind of want to do the same or have this skill to be able to talk to people, to communicate, to make friends. Sometimes it's like people just feel lonely and then they just want to make friends. So I want to try to do this retreats, kind of business/fun retreats as a small group of people, maybe 10, 15 people. We go together to like Phuket, and then spend like two, three days learning like communication skills, become friends with each other. 'Cause like, even for me, like people think probably I have a lot of friends because I introduce so many people, but sometimes I kind of want more kind of deeper connection. You can meet in Singapore, but in Singapore, it would be like, like a business conference vibe."
"Yeah. But if you go for two, three days to Phuket and like spend time together and yeah, learn how to, how to communicate and try to..."
"So the first response to that is like, isn't it so interesting that now we have to learn how to communicate in in person, like, because of technology? That is like a skill that we need to go to the gym and do."
"I think it's not only because of technology. I think some people, they, they use like other skills to to grow through this, uh, to this career or business ladder."
"Oh, okay. Okay."
"But they still like feel shy inside. They know they super, they, they fear to be in a public space or like do public speaking. And then they don't know how to approach the girl, for if it's a man. So they still like very, like have this uncertainty inside. You know what I mean?"
"I know what you mean. Well, I think this is exactly right. It's, it's first of all, communication and, you know, talking [snorts] to people. I think the, the architecture or where you are is important. Remember you said, 'I want to like do a video with you,' and I said, 'Let's not do it in the office. Let's go do something else.'"
"Right? Let's like do walking. Don't you feel like it's a different conversation? It's a different conversation, right? So I think, first of all, yeah, you have to like take..."
"You have to take people away and you got to put them in a place and then the feeling is different, right? Then another thing about it, they, someone was saying that, you know, 'True friends or friendships are truly made only at 2:00 a.m. in the morning.' And then you had to like spend time hanging out with people from 10:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. That's not a waste of time. That's actually a way to set the scene."
"So, I guess my response to what you just said is that it is probably very helpful and useful because you probably do learn these skills over a period of time, but it could be quite ad hoc. Maybe you learn it when you're young, maybe you learn it when you're old, but it's definitely a skill. I mean, talking to people and not being afraid to to talk to people is definitely a skill. Communicating and knowing when to pause is definitely a skill, right?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah. And I, what, what I also want to add to this talk will be like skills learning program. But also, for example, you, you watch this video with, um, uh, Moan Morjani from, it's a billionaire. He's the guy who created Laurier Vanderbilt and Tommy Hilfiger brands."
"Oh, I know him, but I haven't met. Yeah."
"Yeah. He's like super nice guy. One of our like biggest interviews. So he lives in Phuket for the last like 8 years."
"That's right."
"Um, he's originally from India, but he lived like everywhere, US, Europe. I actually talked to him and asked like, 'Oh, what if like I come with this group of like pre-selected people and we come to your like mansion and you spend like one hour, two hours with them?' And he said, 'Yeah, sure, Max.'"
"Yeah."
"I was like, 'Oh, interesting.' So you, you didn't expect that response?"
"No, I expect this that response. But it was also very cool like this billionaire guy, like he actually is okay to spend like time with me and like my guests, like people I'm bringing."
"And which I was like, 'Okay, maybe I can also add this, uh, emotions and like the energy boost through people I interview.' Like, so I pre-select the most, the most interested people that I interviewed, and then I kind of add them to this like programs or retreats and stuff."
"No, I, I think the first thing I would say is that I, starting to realize that I meet a lot of people that are very successful financially, and then you realize that they're driven by many other different things. And this gentleman, probably number one, respects and enjoys what you're doing and wants to really help you. Like, I truly want to help you, Max, right?"
"You know, yeah, I know you're helping me big time."
[laughter] "Like, I never just like, 'Cause you know what else are you going to do with your life? If you can help somebody, help somebody. So that's probably perspective. And then number two, it helps get connected to the new generation. I think a lot of people who are successful are successful because they were very well connected, and as you get older, you get less well-connected."
"Probably he also get something out of it. What you should do is you should just simply, you know, in the right frame of mind, just ask him like, 'Hey, by the way, I'm just curious. Like, I asked whether I could do this, and you immediately said yes. Like, like why? Like, you'll be very interesting.'"
"Yeah."
"Yeah. Like one of the tricks I was taught a very interesting thing, actually. I don't know whether you've done this. You should ask your wife, 'When was the moment when she realized that you're like a cool guy, or like, you're like the person she really likes and maybe might marry?' Have you ever asked that question? It's like there's like one moment, you know?"
"I [laughter] I think I kind of, I think I kind of know."
"But have you ever asked her? You never asked her, right?"
"Um, so the thing is, you ask her, she might tell you an answer that you just blow your mind. Really? Really? That was the thing?"
"It's also like self-absorbance."
"Yeah."
"Right."
"Yeah. So I thought my wife like fell in love with me because I was like good-looking. Actually, it was because I was kind."
"So I asked her that. She goes, 'Oh, because you did this thing and I expected you to like react a certain way, but you reacted with such kindness.'"
"'I thought, wow, this is a good man.' And I was like, 'No, I thought you thought I was like [laughter] like kind was not something that I was optimizing for to impress her, is what I'm saying, right?'"
"You should totally ask, you know, everybody like, 'Okay, this is very, like, can I just ask you like, why?' Sometimes the answer is just incredibly insightful and unexpected."
"Yeah."
"Yeah. Okay. So, finishing the, the, that my take about this retreat in Phuket, if you organize something like this, would you be willing to go with us?"
"Yes. Yes, absolutely. Why would I not to go do that?"
"All right. So..."
"And I'll tell you why."
"Yeah."
"Why would I not? Because I think, for the record, that you'd put a good group of people together."
"Yeah."
"And that I would get a lot of energy and positivity out of that gathering, and that's why I would do it."
"I will leave a link to a Google form and then we just ask a few questions and then you guys, uh, you guys let me know if we should totally do it."
"Something that interests you or not. Can you recall any like, okay, maybe from like from recently meetings that kind of changed your perspective about something or like you met someone and it was like, 'Wow, I met so many interesting people, but this person was like really life, maybe life view is very different or something about the person is like very, very interesting?'"
"One guy I've been spending a lot of time with is a guy called Jim Keller."
"Okay."
"Have you heard of this guy, Jim Keller? Like, sometimes I tweet about him."
"And he is running a company called Tense Torrent."
"Okay."
"T N S T O R R E N T."
"Okay."
"This is the world's greatest chip designer alive today."
"He made like K9 chip for AMD. He made Zen chip. He made Apple A3 chip, Apple A4 chip. He even started Dojo project for, uh, Elon Musk. He's the only guy on the Lex Freedman podcast. If you Google, 'What's the difference between uh Steve Jobs and Elon Musk management style?' He can talk about it."
"Is that the guy? Is that the guy you met in SF?"
"Yeah, in San Francisco. 10."
"And he's making, you know, this is incredible, right? He's making AI chips which are an alternative to Nvidia. So you've got AMD, you've got obviously Nvidia, you actually have Google TPU, you have Amazon Tranium. These are like the four big chips that currently used. And then Turin has got their own chips. And because Jim is a chip designer, if it's the one guy who's going to build a chip that can join the those four, it's going to be him. And I have a deep conviction from a business perspective that he's going to win. However, he is the most fascinating guy I've met in a long, long time."
"One of the first things I realized is like, people are really, really smart. People were like, like 150 IQ. Like, IQ is like standard deviation and 100, one standard deviation is 115, two standard deviation is 130, three standard deviation is like 145. So if you've got a 150 IQ, you're like, you're like Albert Einstein level."
"Yeah."
"Like to them, everything is like the Matrix, right? So when I find something insightful, I go to you like, 'Max, my god, this is so interesting.' That that means like I'm not, I'm not 150 IQ, right? For people 150 IQ, they go like, 'Yeah. So like this is it. This is it. This is it.' And you go like, 'Oh my god.' You go, 'I mean, this is it.' It's like you go to you, you finally run a marathon under 3 hours. You go like, 'Oh my god, I did a marathon in 3 hours.' And then the Kenyan guy goes, 'You did?'"
"Uh, okay. Yeah, like I guess that's impressive, right? So that's like Jim, right?"
"And the first thing I noticed about people who are highly, highly intelligent, like really, is their signal-to-noise ratio is different."
"I mean, not all of them are, but a lot of them are. In other words, they just don't speak, but when they speak, it's like very insightful. So one of the things he, he said, you know, because we were talking about things and he said, like, 'You know, those who don't believe never get it done.' So in other words, even if it's an impossible task, you really need to believe. But what he didn't say is, even if you believe, some of us will still die. But those who don't believe it."
"And then the other thing he said, which is very interesting, he says, 'Once a system gets complex, it's impossible to make it decomplex. You have to completely start from scratch.' So you start on something and you make it more complex and more complex and more complex and more complex."
"One of the things he says is, 'Once a system is complex, you have to start from scratch. You cannot make it decomplex.' And if you think about it, it's always like that, right? You just add a new layer of complexity and then suddenly there's a new approach and you start from it. And that's why he believes every 5 years you should build a new computer chip from scratch."
"So his thing, which is different from CUDA, he's just decided to do it. He doesn't do it with high bandwidth memory. Like everyone in AI world goes like, 'How much HBM do you have? How much HBM do you have?' Torian chips don't use HBF. He said, 'From day one, I'm going to design it so that I don't use that thing that right now, you know, is very, very expensive and causes a lot of supply chain issues.' Like, I, I just feel like guys like him I've met over the past say 6 months have really changed my perspective. And so again, how did I meet him? Was like, I cooked him a pizza in my office 'cause he was here and he needed a conference room, and I like this guy is definitely cool, and he remembered me, and we kept on talking, and then we became friends, right?"
"So I thought that was a very interesting thing. And he's very, very interesting to watch on YouTube because he's quite soft-spoken, a guy, and he has a lot of YouTube videos, but they're all very esoteric. There are videos of him talking about like consciousness. He's married to Jordan Peterson's sister."
"Oh."
"Yeah, he's married to Jordan. You, you wouldn't even know. And so I like meeting guys like him or people like him that are sort of asymmetric human beings."
"Yeah."
"Does that..."
"Yeah, makes total sense. So if people want to follow you, what, where would be the best way? Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram?"
"Yeah, I think I'm starting to get a little bit more Twitter active or X active. LinkedIn for sure. Uh, Instagram, you can do Han can cook Cook. It's a private account, but I'll approve you. Yeah, I figured out social media as well as you have, Max."
"Okay, we will leave the links in description. So, go, go check him out and follow him, and he's one of the like very smart people that I know."
"This is great. We got our 10,000 steps in."
"Yeah, man. For sure. Okay, last question. I asked, I, I asked last time like the about the meaning of life, and I'm very curious if something has changed. So, what's the meaning of life for you right now?"
"I'm really enjoying myself right now. I, I feel like it's, it's hard, right? But I guess the way I think about it, the meaning of life to me is, try to feel like every day still is day one. And, you know what I mean? Like, you're still excited about every day. And if you're not, you got to change something."
"So, you know, I've been spending time with Jim. We've been doing a lot of work on this ASEAN thing. Fascinated by AI. So, I'm blessed that I'm still mentally active, physically active. I know people always say family and whatever that kind of stuff, for sure, that that's a given, but I think try to make sure that every day feels like day one and, uh, you're still excited about the things. Don't get too depressed about the uncertainties. That's, uh, the meaning of life, Max."
"You know, your questions seem to be harder this time."
[laughter] "Also because we are working, so I need to walk and I'll process the environment and also think. But I guess sometimes the base load also makes it quite enjoyable. Gives you a different feeling, the response."
"More natural, more organic."
"I notice people, I like, kind of recognize you. Some, one guy like waved at you."
"You're like a celebrity."
"Yeah, man. I mean, I enjoy it, actually. People are people are nice here in Singapore. They come to say hi often."
"Thank you very much."
"Thanks, man."
"No, I appreciate it. Come to Singapore. It's kind of hot, but it's a, it's a nice country."
"Yeah."