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Update:Temasek's "Google Gaffe" Moment (Revealing sensitive company info to the public)

Just a few more days before Thailand wraps up an unique confidence vote of its current Administration. Thaksin Shinawatra's sales of his family jewel Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings has created a massive backlash amongst the urban Thai population who have called for Thanksin's resignation. For the uninitiated, Shin Corp is one of Thailand's biggest telecom conglomerates with equity holdings in various businesses including mobile phone services, television broadcasting, satellite services, airline, and personal finance…

Intense social turmoil has been created in Bangkok, bombs going off, massive street rallies of hundreds of thousands(mainly peaceful), and effigies of Lee Hsien Loong, SIngapore PM, and Ho Ching (CEO of Temasek Holdings) being burnt on the streets. My question is: is Temasek at fault? For what it considers a purely commercial decision? Did both parties actually consider the social consequences of the sale of such a politically sensitive asset?

I don't profess to have an answer now, but let me share what I learnt from one of the usually mundane classes i attend in college. For once in school, i achieved a fleeting moment of Zen clarity.

1. Ethics affects business performance.
2. Business is a social activity and for it to do well, it has to be given a license by society.
3. Otherwise, it creates social disturbance.

I was learning ethics, usually perceived as a highly fluffy, head-up-in-the-clouds topic and which recently has come to the fore of business studies in the wake of corporate governance scandals of Enron, MCI WorldCom and the online privacy concerns related to Google's massive archival of information related to Earthlings that ever lived on this planet and had accessed the Internet.

Did Temasek cross an ethical boundary? While chasing elusive economic goals that conflict with social well-being?
One thought that's forming in my mind is that Temasek Holdings' future success has to be correlated with the degree of independence of Temasek's executive and directorial bodies from the political elite of Singapore. A paternalistic political culture might work in Singapore, but the umbilical cords of business and politics cannot be sustained for Singapore to advance our economic interests in our own Southeast Asian region without causing social disruption of our near neighbors. No matter how transparent Temasek can be (in the form of an abundance of press statements that deny conflict of interest between politics and business) the public is not a fool. Governments and corporations have to understand the wisdom of the crowds and the sentient-ity of the Internet that has become a valuable equalizer of information access to all levels of society.

The Thaksin Turmoil might blow over, and it might not. But let this be a warning sign that over-cosy ties between politics and business do not work.

Bombing Disturbance in Thailand

Temasek completes Shin Corp Takeover

More from Justin Lee's Blog

On the same theme of youths in SIngapore, this article by Bernard Leong has some new and succinct insights on how our young generation in Singapore seemed to lack the "fire in our bellies" that anchor US culture and not too distantly, our immigrant forefathers that founded this nation.

Click here.
Why is Finland, with only 5 million population, able to create immensely successful corporations like Nokia and NimbleGen and Singapore, with 4, pushing 5 so far only have Creative and HyFlux to our name?

On an irreverent corollary, why do our national soccer team always get thrashed on the international scene while we watch countries with lesser resources do much better than us?

I am friggin' bored out of my skin trying to study and work on my multitude of projects, essays, quizzes as the NUS academic semester roars to an end. Its always during this period that college students engage in activities they logically should not do:

• like catch an ENTIRE SEASON of a new television drama series (like Desperate Housewives or CSI) like what my friend did last sem,
• watch AS MUCH Youtube videos as possible like the indian chick opposite me in this study room is doing (plus guffawing uncontrollably, to her neighbors' furious glares),
• click on ALL their friends and friends' friends on Friendster, Hi5,
• run crazy distances (like i did who ran 12km 2 nights ago)…

So i am officially hating school, 3 months after returning from Silicon Valley where studies and work and play just fused together in such a unitary symbiotic fashion there was artistic beauty in it all. None so in Singapore. And where does all this schooling and education go towards? I question that because I dun see any of my peers enjoying what they study nor applying what they learnt in a more linear fashion, e.g. engineering, life science, arts, law, business grads flocking to i-banking and converging in one big orgy.

Another big rhetorical question, why do i keep feeling Stanford students seem to enjoy their studies so much more compared to NUS students? NUS students are so much more hardworking based on the hordes of eyebrow-furrowed students in the study rooms at all times of the semester while most US students have all the football tailgating parties, the frats and sororities parties, the no-reason-we-just-want-to-drink parties and still end up working at cool companies when they graduate and getting appreciated in their jobs and enjoying it at the same time. Making quite a general statement here, but my point is if education equates career success (and maybe satisfaction), why do Singaporeans' fanatically dilligent attitude towards education not translate into high career satisfaction?

Is it a lack of career choice in Singapore? Many graduates-to-be rely on the college career services to find them jobs and in NUS, there is a voracious supply of companies pounding on our doors and they all seem to be coming from the financial sectors, a lot of the investment banks. There's the consultancies as well, and consumer product giant P & G… and i dun really recall the rest cos they do not come to do recruitment talks. (Sidetracking: Ok, only cool company talk i went to this year was Google) Does Singapore only have these sectors? What happened to the media industry, TV, radio, advertising, newspaper, fashion, airline (budget airlines), telcos? Fair enough, there are graduates who join these companies but are less publicized but a fair amount of top graduates join the financial sectors for the money and social standing and that is my main gripe.

Yes, money is very important. I love money too and could think of a gadzillion ways to spend a billion bucks. But here's the thing, there's also at least a million ways to make money but many pple think it can only be through banking. And the thing is, many people dun really like banking at all. At least pple i know who has started working and complain to me. They reluctantly accepted it after graduating because over-enthusiastic recruiting agents made the banking sector the lowest-hanging fruit to pick for a career. And when they have started, they grudgingly willed themselves to like it before getting their senses so numbed 5 years down the road they no longer complain abt banking and return to their alma maters to evangelize their cool "sweatshop" jobs that pride materialism above quality of life.

Can a lucrative career exist outside of banking? Can young graduates actually find jobs that are aligned to their passions? Instead of choosing the jobs they dun like but are easier to get due to abundance? I believe so. What they have to do is ignore the obvious and search.

To all the patient and open-minded ones who read thus far, this is the type of post i write after too much Red Bull. Disagree all you want, if you have violent objections, maybe it means u haven't heard too many contrarian thoughts lately. Then you should. IF you really love banking, forgive what i say please. Cos I will need you to charge me cheap underwriting fees when my hypothetical startup goes IPO on NasDaq in Year 2011. Anyhow, good night and good luck.

Update: for those who enjoyed this, or are bored and wants a follow-up read, click here for a view on overseas Singaporeans.

Related Article: Thoughts about Life in Singapore

This is an update to the Singapore Spaceport (check out my earlier post), a Space elevator has real strategic advantages, not to mention economic payoffs for our country’s future 50 years and beyond.

Refer to this article.

The 62,000-Mile Elevator Ride: Weekend - Yahoo! Finance

This has real potential for Singapore. Check these excerpt(s) out (my comments in bold):

“Finding the funding

Who will bite first? The Chinese government has made no secret of its ambitious space program and carbon nanotube research. Nor has Japan.”

Singapore is geographically near these Asian powerhouses and economically plus politically friendly to both.

“Whoever builds the first elevator will have a virtual monopoly on all future ones,” Edwards says. “The political and economic structure of the world could be completely different 50 years from now.”

Singapore could really be a real force to reckon with in this new space power balance.

“The floating platform will ideally be anchored on the equator, Earth’s calmest area with the fewest lightning strikes and storms. The ribbon will have the highest melting point of any material ever produced and be flexible enough to withstand high winds.”

Same reason our equatorial location landed us a Spaceport, it should position us strategically for a Space Elevator. Seriously, this ain;t science fiction anymore. We might have missed out on the PC revolution, but the Space Revolution is right within our reach. (read the article to know why building space elevators are no different from building PCs in the 1960s) In future, nations 50 years from now will count space elevators an important aspect of their national economic infrastructure.

is going to include my own Death Star theater, looking like that.

Gonna hire Dillon Works who designed all this for some private client. Damn, i will write Dillon a check right now but you guys gotta cash it maybe a coupla years down the road. =) And plz, dun sue me cos i am doing free advertising for your services. How about you give me a discount if i refer x number of well-heeled clients to you? lol

Steve Jobs IS the pulse of Apple.

Every major product design has his footprint, as has every major success of Apple. And the Dark Ages of Apple happened when Steve Jobs was out of the company.

So what’s Apple’s succession plan when Steve’s gone one day? Read on.

Market wants to know Apple will stay fresh after Jobs - Technology - smh.com.au

But the best part of this article is actually from the Digg comments.

“Jeez, you believe Steve Jobs is actually going to *die*? Nah, never. He’s already put in place measures to transfer his life-force into a shiny white plastic and brushed aluminum vessel after his primitive meat body has ceased to function. He will then issue commands to his minions using multicolored lights and beep-beep-boop sounds.”

“Apple will become a wholly own subsidy of GE and be heavily promoted on cable shopping channels in addition it will be a major brand at Odd Lots.”

“Jesus died but his company (Christianity) is still making millions.”

“Probably the same thing that happened in Russia after Lenin died.

They’ll have his mummified corpse in a glass coffin on display in the basement of their HQ, and probably hang posters of him around their HQ and Apple stores, with at least 2 statues of him outside the building.

Oh yah, then a few years later they’ll collapse due to severe financial problems.”

I thought this was the best. lol

“The Chinese will buy it. They will rename it — Red Apple.”

Update: What drives Singapore youths?

Travelling back in time, a BusinessWeek article written in 2000 talks about the Singapore government trying to cultivate a Silicon Valley mindset amongst its population and it also profiled Cozzee.com , a local internet startup. Here's an excerpt:

"Having said that, the trends I am seeing in Singapore's Internet scene are heartening. People are slowly breaking away from old, conservative work habits, taking on new risks, and starting their own businesses — perhaps not at the same speed as in the U.S., but it is definitely happening. Cozzee's most surprising employee has been a middle-aged woman who didn't know the first thing about the Internet before joining us. Yet somehow, she instinctively grasps our ideas about Cozzee's potential as an online reverse marketplace that harnesses cutting-edge technology, and she has become a gem of a saleswoman for us."

Fast forward 2006 and it seems Singapore is still mired in the premordial tide pool of internet startups if we count the amount of investment that was pumped into the local IT scene and the returns on this investment. Its no wonder so many local VCs are so conservative and pessimistic about the local industry after having been burned less than 5 years ago.

But here's another article from Silicon Valley's serial-entrepreneur-turned-VC Kamran Elahian on creating a Silicon Valley in Singapore. Some interesting facts involving Phillip Yeo's ill-fated $5 million venture in Kamran's Momenta.

On a somewhat cheerier note, here's some pictures on what could be considered Singapore's Silicon Valley:

Clarke Quay in the Central Business District of Singapore

And Suntec City - marketed as Asia's Vertical Silicon Valley

Was scrounging on the internet for cool summer internships in Singapore and chanced upon this.

Apple’s offices circle the globe, with the largest in Cupertino, CA; Cork, Ireland; Singapore;… While the regions differ from location to location, they all share beautiful campuses located in or near major cities. … And the Singapore office lives in the hub of the Silicon Valley of Singapore—the Ang Mo Kio neighborhood.

Here’s Ang Mo Kio for you.

Now, wait… I had to back off the screen before it sank in. Just who in the world wrote this misguided line of fiction to defile the Apple website???? lol..

Ok, fair enough, that picture was the residential area of Ang Mo Kio, but its city centre wasn’t too photogenic enough to be found on Google Images. Maybe Apple was trying to make its Asia-Pac HQ sound cool and its true that Singapore ain’t got too many cool places so Apple had to make do with what they had. But Ang Mo Kio?? The closest AMK comes close to being a Silicon Valley kind of technology hub was the pirated CDs/ DVDs they used to be infamous for in the late 1990s. Undisputedly, AMK is a major town hub of SIngapore and also highly developed as it is the local constituency of Singapore’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, but it is far from being a tech hub or “Silicon Valley” of Singapore. Nice try though for the hype-marketing of Apple outside of Singapore.

I probably ain’t going to have much success with a summer internship application for Apple Singapore. But hey, if the Apple HR manager read this far in my blog, you at least know that I will be a purveyor of truth amidst my future involvement in any hype marketing. =)

Bring Firefox to life.

Do you dream in scenes and setups?

Write dialogue on the subway?

See an ad on TV, and think, “It’d be so much better if they’d…”?

Here’s your chance to show what you can do.

Make an ad for Firefox. Enter it in the Firefox Flicks Ad Contest. Get your work judged by a panel of accomplished film, TV, and advertising pros.

This is so cool i just have to give it a shoutout to those fellow Firefox browser fans. Go check out the blog, shoot your own Firefox video (msg me if you want to shoot an ad with me) and hobnob with fellow Firefox aficionados!

Dunno whats Firefox? Wake up, get smart and get it here.

The days of “company vs consumer” are over. There isn’t some distant, abstract entity called a “market” you can hold at arms length and shout at via broadcast media and PR manipulation. They are real people with real needs and voices. They will get heard anyway so why not start with listening?

From Chris Garrett at Performancing Metrics.