Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - Azman Mokhtar: “There’s More to Life than Finance and Economics”

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar, former CEO of Khazanah Nasional, shares his remarkable life journey and insights gained from his 14 years leading Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund. He discusses how his upbringing, education at Cambridge, and early career experiences shaped his principles and approach to leadership. Azman provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Khazanah's investment strategies, decision-making processes, and efforts to instill a culture of open discourse and accountability. Azman also reflects deeply on broader issues like justice, development, inequality, and the role institutions and individuals play in shaping societies. Drawing from Islamic philosophy, he articulates a holistic vision of progress that balances financial success with moral ideals. The conversation covers wide-ranging topics like Southeast Asia's pragmatic culture, the need to nurture principles of excellence, harnessing technology ethically, and navigating the intensifying US-China rivalry. Throughout, Azman shares candid insights into Malaysia's evolution, lessons from the Asian financial crisis, and his hopes for the region's future as a voice of wisdom and moderation on the global stage. #Endgame #GitaWirjawan #AzmanMokhtar ---------------- Other Endgame episodes you might also like: Kishore Mahbubani: The Biggest Mistakes of the US, China, and ASEAN How She Leads Half A Million Employee - Jessica Tan India-Indonesia: Comparing Potentials - Naushad Forbes ---------------- Explore and discuss this episode further: https://endgame.id/ ---------------- Be our collaborator and partner: https://sgpp.me/contactus

Those who try to model economics, like mathematics, like mathematics, it cannot be done. Think about Kanchanomics, which is a metaphor for when the giants fight in the big ugly jungle, the big beast fight, the elephant and the tiger and the crocodiles, be the smart, nimble, clever, little Kanche. So then, actually, my intellectual curiosity turned to the one question I wanted to answer is that is more

to life and finance. Hi friends, today we're honored to have Tan Sri Asman Mohtar, who's a dear friend of mine, but also former leadership of Kazana and Tabungaji. Asman, thank you so much for racing our show. Thank you for having me, Pat Gita. Asman, you came to planet Earth in January, 1961. Yes, indeed. Right? Talk a little bit about how you grew up, your parents being teachers and how they

shaped you and all that. Sure. So as Park Gita said, 1961, I believe, was a good year for various reasons. And I came into the world in the state of Malacca in Malaysia, which is one of the 14 states. Historically, this is probably one of the best known because Malacca had an empire in the 15th, more like 15th century. And then the age of colonialism, actually, in this part of the world, you could date it to 1511 when Malacca fell to the Portuguese, which heralded about 600 years, so I come from that state.

And of course, the Straits of Malacca is named after Malacca. My parents were teachers. At the time, 61 men, Malaysia as a nation, was only four years old. We got our independence. In fact, we celebrated our National Day, 31st August, 97. we were only four years. So a young nation and I came into the world and my parents were teachers. They were part of a program to become teachers ahead of the Independence 57. So it's quite exciting. They were selected from the peninsula at that time. My mother was from the state of Joho, the southern state.

My father was from Lecker. And they went to England to Kirby, which is within Liverpool. You know, it would have been exciting. I mean, teaching as a profession was very important still is. And so I grew up in a home with both parents who were teachers, a lot of books, a lot of learning. We were not rich. We were not poor either. So I guess we were middle class. And it was in that atmosphere that I grew up in.

Who would have been more influential, your mom or dad? I would say both in a very complimentary way. So my mom, Ciggu Maimuna, you know, was very strict, very old school. And in fact, she went on to specialize in preschool education. Later, she went to university in the UK again. And I think I probably could read apparently quite early

along with my siblings. I'm the middle child of three, partly because I guess the latest pedagogy was being tried on us and I'm very grateful for that so she was very organized you know, Cech government, very old school in that sense and I'm glad for that.

My father though and I guess they say opposites attract and he was larger than life by all accounts in fact he went on from becoming a teacher quite quickly became a broadcaster a writer even a football commentator

so this is my love for sports probably came out of that. And in a way, you know, you're blessed that the house was not only full of books. It always had in the background somewhere radio, whether it's radio, Malaysia or Radio Malaya, or indeed BBC World Survey or Voice of America. This was before podcast, in that age. And, you know, I was just going through some of his old books because we just had a family jambal se, to put it in a nutshell,

and included, for example, works by Mokalubis, you know, some of Bung Karnos, old books. So it was in that environment that I, al-hambilah, I benefited a lot,

growing up. You did rugby, then you debated, then you played chess. Was that on your own initiative? Okay, so my journey, if I may, So, you know, there's a school that I entered high school, essentially.

It's called the Malay College Kualakanga. So MCKK, the history of this country, you know, in many respects, is quite synonymous. The current Prime Minister, Dato Srianoa, Ibrahim, is an old boy of our school. In fact, Datsrianoa is the 10th Prime Minister of Malaysia. We've had nine prime ministers because Dr. Mahdi, prime minister twice right so of that nine prime ministers I at least two and some say three were actually from from our military college one of course Tune Razaq the father Lattuck Srinajib and our common friend Tan Shri Naze right so

Tone was head boy actually of the school a very exemplary old boy and some say our first prime minister Tung Kodd Rahman was there briefly briefly so although his name Razan always so in short the history has been of the school was also synonymous, but at different stages. So pre-war, for example, the school was very much a school or the college for aristocrats or the royalty. As this kind of institutions were all over the empire, the British Empire, you can find the schools in India, in Uganda and indeed in Malaya. In fact, there's a guy called McCauley.

Macaulay's minute, actually, this is part of the whole colonial strategy, I suppose. Post-war, it began to open up gradually. By the time I entered in the 1970s, it was quite democratic. So, you know, not an aristocratic person like myself, you basically had to win a place through national exams. And it was a privilege and also a real eye-opener and highly competitive. I mean, today, you know many of them, whether in the corporate world, in politics, leadership, but also other schools, no doubt. And one simple way to describe is that there's many activities,

but in Malay College, I represented in three things, actually, in rugby, which is the prestigious sport, not, I mean, I play at a reasonably high level. You're built for it. I'm sorry? You're built for it. Well, I was, you double treat me. It was a bit smaller then. But yeah, you're right. Secondly, in debate, and then in chess, actually. So another way you're putting it is that, you know, I basically gave them my body, my mind, my soul,

something like that. What made you choose those? Because you wanted to be dexterous? No, to be honest, there was no such planning. You just went for it and, you know, you kind of gravitated to whatever you were doing. there was, to be honest, less planning, but certainly what the school had was a certain ethos. So in terms of, you know, this was literally formative years. So for, you know, for us as a boarding school, you know, far away from your home parents,

no communication in the 70s at that time, it really shaped. And in fact, I came in 74 and we just had our 50th reunion of that. So these are truly, you know, these are friends for life. so to speak. And I would say a combination of your family, those formative years, and then the journey went on to UK. And this, perhaps,

thematically, Gita, is that nations where there is upward mobility, that institutions popped up at different stages, right? That was, you know, meritocratic, yet developmental, that allowed you to proceed. So I want a scholarship to go to UK to study accountancy. ACCA, so it's a chartered accounting profession, which I did, but I must say I opened up,

you know, I probably spent just as much time, in fact, probably even more, learning the culture, learning about going to the museums, hitchhiking endlessly around Europe, this is in the late 70s, early 80s, and then came back and served what was LEMBaga Electric Negara, which is like the PLN equivalent in Indonesia, right? the national utility. And so on, and then we'll talk about how from there, pivoted into investment, banking, investment research, then the world of finance.

I want to still pick on your scholastic or academic journey. To what extent would you attribute your ability to put premium on, not just economic and financial value, but also societal value, to what you've learned in academic institutions, Or was it something that you sort of acquired post going to school? Sure. Nice question.

I guess we are all on a journey, all of us. And our journey, you know, in some ways, is defined by what our interest in. Of course, our circumstances, you know, for example, the practical circumstances of earning a living. Or, you know, the range of options available, right? So frankly, in 1978, when I went to UK, had they say, go and study archaeology or anthropology or whatever, I would say I'm born because you just want to get out, right? So it was accounting, which is fine, which is a good profession, which I'm grateful to have that, right? But quite quickly, when I was there, I said, fine, like, you know, you eventually pass your accounting exams.

But my God, the world, there were so many things out there. So I think more important than this question is probably this innate sense of curiosity that you have in you. And somehow this was probably planted from the environment I grew up in, the household. My father, as I said, was a broadcaster. So an extremely gregarious guy. In fact, one anecdote I remember is that in the old days when we back Kampong to go back to the village, it should be two or three times a year. So typically those in the audience in Malaysia will know you drive down.

That time, the highways were not there. So we would stop to fill up gas, petroleum. Sungai Bersi, typically, this is where the petrol station was. Sometimes, then my, that time, car no icon, right? So I can remember, Cegu Maamuna was not very happy. My mom, mom, if you're watching this, I remember this, going like that. Because my dad would meet a random stranger at the family and start talking for one hour. Well, the rest of the family was waiting inside, that's that.

He would strike out a conversation, and this is a wonderful characteristic, right? as they say, to be able to talk to kings and prime ministers and knaves and the most common, and treat them the same. I think this is a nice touch. I think I hope, you know, I honour my father's memory that he was very much intellectually, very curious. But yet he could touch, I think, the important thing, he was a writer, he was a member of Gapena is this writer's kind of movement, which was very much identified with the independence movement. as a new nation was forming. And at that time, they basically crossed borders a lot of affiliation with Indonesia and Indonesian intellectuals.

But yet, I think the organizational skills, I would say my mom, I picked this up. For example, just a simple anecdote as I think about it. On those same trips going back Kampong, our car, several cars, not that many. One was, I think, a Renault, whatever. So all the luggage of the family, no one else can fit it in except my mom. So it's about optimization exercise, right? She was able to rain in a certain way. Only she was able to do it.

Till today, mom, she's 90. Mom is always right and mom is always right. I can say the same. I can say the same thing. So we grew up in that environment. and then, you know, so my academic journey, if you like, was accounting. I kind of did that. And then as the journey went on, you know, there was a period of my life in the late 80s,

which involved, you know, our somewhat, what they call it, blessed, almost magical existence as a family was kind of rocked towards the late 80s. when my late father after the time had a stroke. So he passed away quite young at 57. So this kind of, you know, for family that basically not much, every family would go through their trials. So a period of about two to and a half years after the stroke,

was quite testing for all of us. And then he passed away. And as it turns out, that was a turning point in the sense that my father had that stroke one month before going for Hodge. to bring my mother. The good news is that he had gone earlier in 1977 as a guest of Saudi, because as a senior government servant, they get to go.

In fact, he even went into the Kaaba, but only alone. My mom didn't go. So that was a trip post-retem I wanted to bring my mom. So being the elder of the two boys, there's three of us, so two boys and a girl fell on me to bring my mom. So of course suddenly this young man had to get prepared how to go to Hajj. So no, no, no what they call. Normally people go to Hajj, as you know, Pat Gita.

One long time, two, you know, you do Umra first and then you go for the big one, right? So I went into the deep end, actually. And this was the Hajj on 1990. And the Hajj on 1990 was, first of all, it's July. So it was like peak summer kind of thing. Second was this was the year of the Mina tragedy. My relatives were casualties. There you go.

I mean, Malaysia lost, where 2,000 of a people, Malaysia lost, I don't know, 100 over Indonesia. My father's younger siblings, yeah. And that was actually a turning point in more ways than one, as you can imagine. I went there as a 29-year-old, single bachelor, so, I mean, I think I can reveal here that, of course, you know,

you go hajee, yeah. We're bada, ya-allah, give you to bea, and no, jodoh and bad, right? So I kid you're not, we met, you know, this very nice elderly couple who's like distant, distant from the village in Johor. Within, within a year I married their daughter,

all of the blue. Seriously. Well done. Al-a-a-a-ma. Mas. As you know, my dear wife was actually practicing as an architect in the US, living there for like 10 years studying.

Suddenly she came back and I don't know, a twist of fate within a year we're married. And then my career just changed, actually. Our kids came and I joined. I left the National Electricity Board and joined UBS. And the twist of fate was also, Tenaga was a relatively sleepy, fair to say, utility. Suddenly became, when it was listed, became the largest company in Malaysia. 30% of the index or that about.

and globally significant in the early 90s because Malaysia was about 14, 15% of MSCI index, emerging market. So when you're 30% or 15%, there's a lot of percent. Everybody comes to KEL, just to see Tenaga, and I'm the finance guy running investor relations. So now everybody in the land or the blind, the one eye guy is a king, so they all think was the expert, small expert. So UBS hired me, and then my career just kind of took. off in Navakene Head of Research, you'd be as Solomon. This was the boom go-go years. Yeah.

And then boom, the bus of 98, right? And 98 actually was even in a very depressing way, in a way, good for me because Solomon was the financial advisors to the government of Malaysia. We were trading distressed assets. Not equity is close, right? But we're trading distress assets. So the journey intellectually, kind of mirrored the practice journey in the sense that after doing haj, I decided I needed to know more about my own religion, which is Islam, of course.

Because, you know, you kind of grew up on a technical feel like accountancy. But culturally, while I was studying and hitchhiking throughout Europe, you know, we were into art and culture, read the existentialist philosophers sitting down. in the left bank in Paris, that kind of thing is Amsterdam, the kind of stuff you do. But yet when you go through that, then I decided, and thankfully the international Islamic University of Islam, which the current Prime Minister, she started, was instrumental in 1983. So they were less than 10 years old, but they had a wonderful program called diploma in Islamic studies, just basically for people who are, I suppose, quite well educated in the western side.

but needed to know more about the Islamic tradition. The ideas of Professor Saidnaqqab al-Tas, by the way, who talks about secularism, who talks about Islamization of knowledge, to talks about adab. These are very influential and very formative. And some of that manifests itself in this course. So I enlisted for this, no one asked me to,

because I said there's a gap, I need to know. It's not so much the qualification. It's just that burning. desire to know, right? So I did that. And that's like a year and you would go on a Saturday afternoon after work. That time you work five and a half days a week.

But it was very stimulating because it opened up, you know, you got reading lists and stuff, right? And the gentleman who ran that, a very distinguished scholar who has passed away. I consider him one of my teachers. Later when I was at Kazana, I would engage him to think through certain things, certain Sri Kamal Hassan.

And interestingly, there was a very different. international faculty from the Muslim world. And one of them, later I would call on him in Ankara when he was the prime minister of Turkey, Ahmad Dvato Guru. The prime minister of Turkey was actually a lecturer in the course. And so I would knock on the door and he would answer me. I said,

Asalamu'a'u al-a-qum-salam. What about? He was talking in Malif, briefly. And this is quite interesting because, you know, Kazana, we opened up. We probably deployed about a couple of billion dollars, which grew and then, of course, currency. But, you know, we didn't lose money, but, you know. But he was very cute in the sense that he said he told the Turkish press in Davos,

oh, I saw my former student. He's a good student, but he'd be a better student if he invest more money in Turkey. So for the next three days, our Istanbul office nonstop. Everybody wanted to sell us in their cafe, their kebab store, their, I don't know, trinket store, all kinds of calls, but it was quite funny. So I learned that. And then when I went into the world of investment research, then I realized this thing called CFA, for example,

chartered financial analyst. It was a useful qualification, which I built on that. So somehow that desire to learn was still burning. And then, Pat Gita, in 98, of course, the boom and boom and bust, right? So then, actually, my intellectual curiosity turned to the one question I wanted to answer is that is more to life than finance and economics. So where do I find this answer? So thankfully after two, three years, that means 97, 98, as a financial advisor,

so I was head of research. And this was a very tumultuous period, right? You probably, like dog years, one year you probably learn the three years equivalent. And Malaysia, as you know, went through a path that was considered unorthodox, which worked, by the way. We did not follow IMF World Bank, as you know. Thank you, we didn't. Well done. And as you know, from Korea to Thailand to Indonesia, right?

And in fact, there was one of the thing that prompted me. I remember looking at Indonesia, some of the data, I believe, about 40 million people in the Republic went below poverty line, sorry, above poverty line and then went below. Now, this is double jeopardy, right? if you've seen what's life right outside the poverty trap and then to fall down again, my goodness. So we saw how throughout the region a financial crisis became an economic crisis, became a political crisis, became a social crisis. Malaysia contained this somewhat.

I mean, there's pros and cons by the way when you start containing. But by and large, I think it was good because so we saw all that. However, it really ignited intellectual curiosity. I needed to know more about something. So actually, I gave Solomon a year's notice to say, that's it. You know, September 2000, I'm off.

And I applied as a rather elderly Cambridge. To Cambridge. I turned 40 at Cambridge. That's positively ancient, as you know, for graduate students. But thankfully, they took me in. Because, and then I became like a slightly crazed

middle-aged guy was supposed to take only four subjects, I took like nine. I took exam for but I attended like nine. So I was like riding bike. But consider this. You know, the job I had as said or result, Solomon was one of that age. One of the most interesting, one of the best

paid. I gave all that up with nothing because I just felt a burning thing I needed to know more. The clock was ticking, right? So I went and thankfully I landed on development studies, majoring on development economics. And my supervisor, at that time, relatively unknown, is this, well, now rather famous Korean professor,

Dr. Hajun Chang. So Hajun, I believe he has sold something like 3 million books. So 3 million books. I got to meet him because of you. That's right. In any genre, 3 million is a lot of books, let alone in economics. So you could say Hajun was,

heterodox, whatever you want to call it, whatever label, but we hit it off. In fact, fast forward many years later, after Kazana, he invited me back and I became, you know, a distinguished fellow at his centre on development at Cambridge. And now I'm actually with him. He has moved to So-S in London. I'm also a fellow at his centre now. And we still collaborate with him and he's ever-expanding quarterly of former students, no, summer in Oxford in Bristol.

So we are now thinking through around, you know, we'll talk about it. later about development, about inequality, about impact of technology, impact of finance. So that journey kind of grew, so the idea of a lifelong journey or discovery, but later perhaps we'll talk about ultimately the point of ilmo knowledge is to apply, right? To apply it properly. I want to pick up on two things that you raised. The first would have been your exposure to the Islamic University. And in many of your remarks or writings, you would have alluded to the Caldouns of the world, the Batutas of the world.

Those are personalities belonging to what I think, you know, a great Islamic age, right, between the 8th and 13th centuries. The so-called golden age. Yeah, the 500 years of golden era. I think it was largely because of the high degree of old. open-mindedness with whatever that was happening, right? Do you sense that we in Southeast Asia are lacking that? Or even to stretch it even more, many Islamic countries are not showing the kind of open-mindedness. That's the first question.

The second would have been what your father did, right? He was a great storyteller. And then you talk about being grounded a lot. And I sense that, I think Southeast Asia is a region that needs to tell its story a lot better to the world. What are your views about these two? No, I think Park Gita does are extremely interesting and important themes. You started by sketching the historical perspective of the Islamic Golden Age. roughly 800, 7,800 till about 1300, the sacking of Baghdad.

1258, yeah. 128, like the Mongols, right? Correct. And where Darul Heikama, the House of Wisdom, Baikal Heimha, yeah. And Baikal Heimha, is right. Where the river was filled with, became black with the ink from the books, right? I think contextually, you know, my own thoughts, and I should caveat by saying, look, we are most of all, practitioners with, you know, a close affinity towards knowledge and learning.

And before I go further, I think, I mean, the COVID period, for example, was actually a period where reading, listening, you know, it does fill up. And history, I found myself again and again gravitating back to history, because history, there's so much. much you can learn. Of course, history is history, written by historiography, written by winners, etc. But, you know, there's a lot of tools in that. So, I think if we take this, it's really our broad sweep of humanity is really between periods of light and periods of darkness. As you know, between Issa a lai. Salam, Jesus, Muhammad was a period about 600 years, 700 years, roughly. 570, 632. And often, if you read and understand globally,

where was morality, where was conscience, where was practices? Dark, dark, actually. The Arabian Peninsula was particularly dark. Jihilia, Zaman Jahiliah, baby, etc. And then there was this light, this Nour, Nur, Nur Muhammad, prophet, even for the Prophet was called Alamin, etc. And how did within less than 100 years, basically a backward tribe in a backward region, in one corner, suddenly became an empire from the Atlantic.

Spain to Pakistan. Correct. Morocco at this end, and then Europe, they were knocking on the doors of France. And then all the way, I mean, it was like probably one of the largest, if not the largest empire known then. It was people say, oh, some say the sword. No, it was knowledge. And what is being hung on is character, character, actually, morality, right? And later, of course, 1258, I think that was law so partly because ostentation, this unity, what's the term,

the bubble, the obfacification that we refuse to be more open to learn knowledge. And of course, that golden age, we are part of that great. suite of humanity and our because first of all, Islam is Rahmatulil Alamin. It's far too important, Islam is far too important to be kept for just Muslims. To paraphrase the code on

politics, right? It's far too important to be kept for just politicians. So, we carried the tradition from the Greeks, Romans, and to an extent the Indian civilization, and later contact with the Chinese civilization through Silk Road and other trade rules,

right? So if we think of this a bit like a baton relay between civilization, but we're all actually one, right? So then during our golden age, the West called it the dark ages, right? During this period, we can argue. Then when they call it the Renaissance was actually taking from it. I'm currently reading a book called Stealing from the Saracen. Have you heard of this book? It's about architecture.

Absolutely. But it's also about the Gothic style, for example, it's actually the Saracen style. Arab, if you go to a place like Venice, a lot of the architecture, because these are the port city, trading routes. So really, it goes from one civilization to another.

And I think there are verses in the Quran. Allah Allah says that if you fail, he will select another group of people. Then fast-word to our part of the world, Musantara, right? The archipelago. Indonesia, Malaysia, and all this before there were nation states. Al-hambhala, we found that civilized.

So this has always been a region where not just ecologically, where the winds meet, the trade winds and other winds meet, the monsoon. Such that people could, you know, train, drop and go. Of course, we are endowed at the tropics. That means, you know, it was fertile for many reasons. And most of all, the people element, this are where the great civilizations meet in our region. China on one side, India. The Arab and the Muslim world later came.

And then the colonial powers, which, by the way, Ahmad Dvo Toglu just now, one of the things he taught me I remembered was that he said, you know, Mediterranean was close because Muslims were controlling, Silk Road was close, the land road was close, And therefore, the Europeans had to work harder, starting not a coincidence from one end, the Iberian Peninsula, the Portuguese, Spanish, and then later the Dutch. And the Dutch, by the way, benefited a lot from the diaspora, from the Inquisition, including the Jewish people move there, right? That's a mistake about it. Then they went out, and of course we got colonized for five, six hundred years.

So it's just coming out of that, and Africa to another part, right? So in that regard, we have that. that heritage that is very open, very syncretic, right? Very synthesized. And our great strength is that, as you know, the debate about EU versus what they call it ASEAN, right? And the argument that we're... That's a no-brainer. Yeah.

I mean, you know, they try to do basically a fiscal currency union without a fiscal union. Fail. Oil and water, right? And I think the genius of ASEAN, hopefully is a genius. Certainly is very wise that. you know, how can we grow together but yet, you know, remain part of the ego hold and being very open. And I think it's perhaps one of God's endowments, Gita, my little reflection that had he intended would be contiguous. This is an archipelago.

Right? So that means geographically it is different. And, you know, the 600-odd million different. So I think this is Asian's time. At the time when the great power rivalry is back, I think the spirit of Bandung 55 and all that, right? Amen. Next year, 75 years. 25 years, right? And so I think those factors come in. And Islam are out of the 600 odd, I don't know, what's the number?

Maybe about half. Islam? In Asian. Yeah, 250 million. Well, in Indonesia, it's about 200. Okay, so it's not quite half, but, you know, it's obviously a key part. And therefore, our Islam, and because it came to this part of the world,

some of the scholars, but many of the scholars were also traders. So they must have been very good. I don't know, I suppose in current talk, ESG practice or whatever, they behave very well. And that's why they need. Of course, they work with the local community and the feudal hierarchy, etc. So I think we have that capability to show the world how to live in peace, harmony, yet being progressive.

Yes, there are some extreme elements that we all have to. to fight on all sides. But I think by and large, this is perhaps Asian's time. I've actually, if you take a look at the numbers, in the last 2,000 years, the number of lives lost by way of differences of views or opinions with regards to ethnicity, race, or religion. In Southeast Asia, no more than 9 million. Is that it?

In the same period, in Europe, 190 million. Oh yeah, I mean. Right there it tells you it's empirically very safe and stable. It's just in Europe. Just in Europe. Well, the two world wars were about 120 million people. Yeah, I'm afraid the European project was carried into several other continents. Correct.

So you start adding up. You add to that the Napoleon. Australia, Africa, et cetera. No, la. We have many friends in Europe too. But yeah, I think. And perhaps, you know, this relative oasis where the winds meet. called Nusantara and Southeast Asia, Asian, is really what it is.

So today we are connected to all. And I think our leaders, I hope, will be, you know, and circumstances will be wise enough to allow us, you know, there shouldn't be, is there such a term, a bushism, as in either with us or against us, that shouldn't come into play, right? So I think we should remain. In fact, there's that old term, what, zone of peace, freedom and neutrality, a bit of a mouthful, Zop fan.

perhaps an updated version is look, you know, in the time of open platforms, you know, how to, the trade-off is really how to maintain certain things you have to maintain your own security, your own interests. That's what nation states are for. But yet to be open and connected. And I think that the moral compass to that is really how do we create a system that is both progressive but also fair with ideas like justice, for example, at the heart of it. This is how you work within nations and between nations. What would it take, though, for Southeast Asians to upnarrate about themselves in the region? Because we're not narrating ourselves as well as perhaps the Indians.

Yes, perhaps. My kind of instinctive reaction to that, Gita, would be, somehow I'm not that concerned about not telling a good story. I'm not saying it's not important. But I'm more concerned about instead of just narrating which of course not the case once we do the right things get it done, it will find its own way.

When exactly I don't know but eventually it always does right but yes the narration is part of the journey but I'm less worried about that I'm more concerned about if we're doing the right things eventually

some say people would say or perception is everything I said, no, with respect, truth is everything. Perception is important. And then you want to narrow that gap. But sometimes, yeah, perception is so far away that it affects your ability to shape that truth, right? The truth that you want.

So in that regard, I think South Asia, you know, again, in a nutshell, right, peace, stability. But underneath that is the kind of legitimacy that our societies need to have, the trust by basically delivering. So we've got to fight whatever stuff, whether it's corruption, whether it's, you know, racism, narrowness, right? Because those are the stuff that inhibits the development of a progressive society.

I mean, you know, I marvel at the dynamism of places like Indonesia. For example, of course, what you call Chris Monnetta, that period was a very tumultuous period. But and then I was reading some, I mean, one of my field is development economics, right? So they say people start to think about democratic rights when they hit maybe $8,000, $9,000 per capita. Indonesia was doing this at $2,000,000 already, you know. So clearly the spirit of this is very strong in the Indonesian psyche. And that's great, that's wonderful. and your past to independence different round hours, right?

Yeah. And Malaysia, because of the relative mix between me, we had a different project. But now that we are at that stage, I think the fact that it's a nice mix between the democratic aspects and the... But underlying that openness, but yet connectedness, is actually the timeless stuff around

you know, legitimacy around, you know, fairness, social justice. Without that, you know, there'd be no oxygen in the tank, you and I know that, right? It may be more cyclical, but the secular trend has to have all that. I agree. I agree. Last bit on education. If you take a look at the non-tertiary, we call this pisa, which is a measurement of the lingual and stem proficiency for 15-year-olds. Only two countries in Southeast Asia stand out above the global average, Singapore and Vietnam. Yes, even Malaysia is below now. Well, Indonesia. Cambodia is number 81 out of 81 countries, man.

Indonesia is 69. Malaysia is quite well above that, but Singapore has just toppled China as number one. Previously Singapore was number two. At the tertiary level, if we take a look at the number of Chinese studying at all the universities in the US, all the universities in the UK, they just outnumber disproportionately those that would have come from India, those that would have come from Southeast Asia. And I mean, I'm not suggesting the US and UK are the only places to go to school, but I think there's some good innovation that could be learned from

those places, but what do you think needs to be done so that Southeast Asia will, you know, progressively get much better from an educational standpoint, both at the non-terrary and tertiary levels? Yeah, I think the, you know, the reason it sounds like cliché is because it's true. Obviously, education is a great leveler and knowledge, science, applied knowledge, is one that basically advances you know but let's also put a shout out about education technology finance are very powerful levers but let's not forget the moral conscience of a country and a society so that that's a GPS where it's heading and that's actually part of education or it ought to be

so i in my 14 years running kazana and then subsequently since another six years of working in many public bodies and so on, including I'm sharing a couple of universities today, our technology universities, some big public universities and on Islamic finance. So, I would say getting just PISA's scores are very important, and I'm an advocate of looking at that as a metric, but there are also other metrics, I just want to put that out of the way, i.e., the other kind of, you know, more holistic, things around your moral GPS, so to speak, for absence of a better word. But clearly this is, in many ways, the limitation of how far all these ambitions in various plans.

For example, in Malaysia, we are currently in a good place, and the numbers are beginning to show it in terms of, for example, semiconductors, data centers, right? You're taking everybody else's lunch. Well, there's enough lunch for everyone. There is enough lunch for everyone. Different parts. Yeah. And for example, semiconductors, it doesn't come just like that.

Pinang, for example, around that, there's a famous photo of Andy Grove in black and white, rolled out sleeves, pushing his car that was stuck in the paddy field, black and white. 50 years ago, Intel set out their first plan. So that industrial base and subsequently, then Qudet Packet came and others came. Invidia? Well, now we're talking, Nvidia, etc. Infinion everyone's in, right? Right.

And you know, Kazana, we, you know, our only waferfab, thankfully now is very hot, et cetera, right? So of course the whole geo-economics, geopolitics, geopolitic stuff means that we are kind of this in-between space, right? But one of the critical paths now is producing enough engineers, enough data scientists, etc. So happened, the university that I chair is the technology university, by the way, University of Technology in Malaysia. And we are going overdrive as much as we can. Wow. You know, to see.

And, you know, in fact, I'm getting help from, we have at least two or three who are very successful. They are Intel alumni. They work for 30 over years. They are our graduates. I didn't even know. Siketan, Ski Fong. They've done their spin-off companies getting listed. These are now several billion dollars,

several billion ringer, so probably a dollar unicorn kind of thing, testing and beginning to get into design. So he's helping, actually. But it's also for his interest, right, to produce engineers. Having said that, certainly more needs to be done, education system. And this is one of our great challenge, and I'm sure Indonesia.

I always felt one ASEAN project is actually just like IIT was done in India, right? So Prime Minister Nehru and India got independence, what, 47, right? Poor country, of course, at that time. Still is in many respects, but at that time certainly he had the vision to create IITs, right? And therefore, this is a hell of a school. Huge. I mean, there's five IITs. At least there was five.

I don't know what's the latest. I work and brought one to Penang, actually, in partnership with our guys, right? So, I Tebeer in Bandung, for example. And US, of course, Singapore, you know, Nanyang and others, right? So UTIM is trying. So I think you need solid engineering schools for sure. This is what all ages of industrialization teach you, including from the Islamic Golden Age.

And this is a thing, a word back again to the holistic nature of knowledge. The Islamic Golden Age, the great. the great astronomers or scientists, Imnosina, they were also great religious scholars, right? Right. Because Al-Qa-ishmi, Ibnusina, all of them. All of them, actually. Because, you know, the source of knowledge is all Tao-Hed, it's all comes from one source, right? And they practiced it.

And that, maybe to seduate slightly into AI, right? So the problem or, I mean, the great possibility of AI is, humongous, enormous. The great danger of AI is also humongous. And the differentiator was going to be basically whether your compass is correct or not. And that compass is something I don't think, well, some will say the singularity moment will come, that this and this. I think there's no AW, there's no artificial wisdom. As you know, now you can get answers for just about anything. The question is, do you know what question to ask? Yeah.

It's really the question, right? And that question is really, that's our humanity's philosophy, this kind of thing. I think it will still be there, very important. And that is something that at individual level we have to do, certainly at the school level, but collectively as a nation. That's where our institutions of democracy, press, the politics. So as a nation, you know, Malaysia, just like Indonesia. So we follow, we try to follow, you know, what's happening.

or Thailand. So to the extent how far we can go is actually how those institutions fall into place. Just to add on AI, I'm happy to come back to this. But it just seems like a narrative that's not getting pushed forth in an adequately multidisciplinary manner. There's a bit of technological hubris because it's being pushed by technologists. In fact, I need to maybe turn the tables a bit because you are at Stanford, you're closer to the valley there. But as we know, it's not just the valley, right?

What's happening in China? What's happening in Europe to an extent? There's regulation, different dynamics. But by and large, yes. I mean, of course, Malaysia, we tend to be like most developing price takers in that sense of the technology, right? but I think somebody put it well and first of all AI in Malaysia at least

of all the public universities is about 20 our university was selected UTM was selected as the national nexus for artificial intelligence and also an access was created and we tried to put the elements of multidisciplinary inside

for example it so happens thankfully there's a center of Islamic thought happens to be where Saed Nakakya Alatas. A great philosopher is there. So I'm trying to bring them closer. But of course that's not the only one. There's others outside the university as well.

So I think the, as someone put it, I think AI is basically content generator, right? But do you know what is just as important, if not more important than content is context? Absolutely. So context. what is a question to ask, to what end, right? So that part, I don't think you can AI this too much.

Content, yes, extremely powerful. So knowing the difference between content and context, I hope, I think, at least I try, I think that's a useful frame, right? Yeah. So the context setting is going to be driven by, as I said, thinkers, conscience, but also a kind of an institutional frame. How are you going to get that together?

And the institution is, I'm not talking top down necessarily, not the government. People that's trust, deficit, as you know, whatever's coming from the center, people don't trust. But it's like this. Social media influences, you know, what is the national kind of discussion, narrative? And this is where civil society, right? What are the poets saying? Absolutely. The moralists, the spiritualist, the philosophers, culturalists.

The artists, the culturalists, etc. Absolutely. And that atmosphere, you know, needs that kind of frame. And countries and leaders, leaderships who are able to provide that, I think, can go far. The reverse holds that those who contain, because there's argument, there's polarization, right? And then the framing, right, left and right. Of course, there's a lot of commentary about the push to the right, strong, usually man, you know. in the US, in Hungary, in other countries.

Germany, recently. And I know you see the numbers in Europe in all the election. But yet the so-called left, you know, with the wokeness part, can also be a problem. I mean, this is too, too much. I live in a woke state called California. Absolutely. Well, we, you know, so happened our youngest,

our daughter is doing a, she graduated, but now doing her master's in Manhattan, in Colombia. in the middle is a hot spot of modern wellness, but also the whole crisis around thinking and Gaza and so on so forth, right?

I'll come back to AI, but I want to fast forward to 2004. You got promoted. To be the CEO of Kazana. You stayed there for 14 years. You spearheaded a bunch of magnificent stuff. You jumped on health care. You jumped on

telcos. You jumped on the internet. You jumped on financial services, you were visionary. I'll look at at sectors that a lot of people were not making any attempt to look at. What have you learned from your 14 years at Kazana? Right. So thank you, Pat Gita. 2004, which is 20 years ago. In fact, we sit here today on 5th of September, I can tell the date, right? Today, days ago actually 3rd September was exactly 30th anniversary of Kazana. We just had a very heartfelt event only limited to current and previous staff so there was still about thousand plus. Kazana is not very big in terms of the number of staff but very big in

terms of its footprint in Malaysia at least and to an extent beyond. The prime minister is by actually not by constitution but by tradition and by practice is the chairman of Kazana. Although we are not a statutory body, we are actually a company under Companies Act, which means one or two interesting situations where Prime Minister, as chairman, agrees in the Kazana-Bot meeting and then he goes back to chair the cabinet meeting, what was agreed on electricity terrace, for example, suddenly it becomes something else, which is fine. People say, what can you do that? I said, no, that's fully fine. One is corporate governance, this is national governance. So anyway, so we found a way to back in 2004. Basically, when I came in,

Kazanah was a fine institution, very steady, but its investment mandate and style was very custodial. So basically it was a custodian of assets that were formerly, for example, government agencies like in telecommunication or power utility, and then they were corporatized and then such subsequently listed, you know, some of it quasi-tatcher style, you know, but we would keep a lot and then gradually reduce. And then 98 crises came in and several companies that were deemed to be strategic to the country, like our highways, the Norsa Highway, under the Renung Group and other assets went into Kazanah as a form of, you know, on behalf of the country, that is deemed to be strategic. So when I came in and back to the, to link back to the story during the Asian

crisis, I think Malaysia, you know, thank goodness, al-hambilah, we did well in terms of stabilizing, in terms of putting in, you know, so-called heterodox measures, like take character control, bank consolidation, didn't take IMF money, did all this. But one part that was not quite done was corporate restructuring. That's where I came in. So I was brought in as a, you know, from investment banking. By that time, I had our own little boutique advisory called Binafiqe, me and Danny and Zainal, my partners. So we brought in.

So I basically had four tasks, very briefly. One restructure the stuff from still not restructured from Asian crisis. We thankfully did practically all of it. I said one major one. Malaysia Airlines remains a major challenge up and down. And, you know, this was basically the, you know, this was basically the, you know, the albatross, if you want to call it that. But, you know, it's a very important company, very close to my heart in many respects.

In fact, a small anecdote, this company is called Mas. So it's my wife. So there was a time, Gita, when people... How serendipitous. I know. So there was a time, but just to tell my own journey, there was a time maybe seven, ten years ago when I was still in Caldana. Friends would say, how's Mars? I said, wait, wait, we're going to only make a public announcement in about two months time.

thinking, you know, my mind was me. But today, if you ask me, how smart, I will, of course, say, oh, she's fine. In fact, as we speak, she's actually in Jakarta right now. During the high-speed rail. She took amazing. She said, 33 minutes, Bandong, whoosh. Is that what you go?

Wush. Amazing. So anyway, so one, restructuring. Two, to transform, which is a bit more different from restructuring. Restructuring means, you know, you will, of course, DEP Morgan and Goldman, you know what restructuring is. But transformation means these are companies that were okay, steady, but not particularly exciting. So we had to leave companies like telecom, as you know.

You saw this happen. In fact, you helped us, you know, certain you were advising, right? Tenaga, for example, airports, right? So this transformation program, we took a 10-year program created, if I may say, well, it's all there for the record. Huge value. We went like 4x, 5x, companies that were completely underperforming for a long period. But if that wasn't enough, third, the mandate came that, oh, you need to go out of Malaysia. When I started, Kazana was, first of all, basically single country, maybe 1% somewhere, isn't it?

1 or 2%. To 40%, right? In the end, it became 40%. And the portfolio that grew almost four times with no money coming in, by the way. This was the other challenge because they call it a sovereign wealth fund. The wealth needs to be replaced. Well, technically, sovereign wealth fund usually means three things. One, natural resource wealth, usually oil money.

In steady flows. Which actually goes to a sister company, a big sister company, Petronas, well managed, I should say. Two is foreign exchange results. Well managed. Central Bank doesn't count us. And three, intergeneration wealth, pension, EPF and others. Well, managed. But it means we have all these assets.

that I had to grow, create value, and then monetize and then watch your asset liability mix. So al-hambilah, we did all that. We grew it 3.5 to 4x, depending how you count. At an acceptable level of risk, I think to me, this is what we were able to achieve, me and our colleagues. So the third pillar was really some of the new stuff, getting into healthcare. We opened up in the valley to do tech investment. We opened up China, you know, caught the big wave, including the Alibaba, of the world, open up India, caught the big wave of consumer place. Thank God. And of course, Indonesia was in early, you know,

we were trying to see how we could build regional presence and so on. Then the also more developmental work. So one of the challenge was a complexity of managing different investment stars. For example, from doing the deals, the corporate finance stuff, right, to how do you develop what became Iskanda in Jerusalem? So from Greenfield to Brownfield, you know, then you have to figure out you've got to bring in schools, you got to do this and that. So I think I can mention him. Garnan, Datoq now, Datoogne was my head of investment. So I said, Gannan, going to become from investment banker, property developer, okay? And of course, Gondon always does a great job. He's heading TPG for Asia now, as you know. And all of us had to pick up new skills, right? And that was such a great period. And then now I like to think, that developmental work or more not just pure financial work is coming to its own. You know, the stuff that we did holding out on the wafer fab, now the semiconductor boom. I think there is ready,

et cetera, right? Of course it's not just that, but because it was there, it produced engineers, it produced scientists. Iskanda now, you know, the current government now is the Joho and Singapore, special economic zone coming together. I like to think, you know, you know, regionally, right, with some of our banks in Indonesia and other places. So, and then, but finally, actually, so one, restructuring, two, transformation, three new sectors, new geographies. But four, actually, and this is quite interesting. People, developing people became a strategic initiative in itself, not just an enabler.

When people do this corporate house charts, right, the strategy house charts, normally people is in the base as an enabler as opposed to a strategic objective. We put it there. Partly it was the vision of Prime Minister Abdullah, later carried on by Prime Minister Najib. But I think more so, I think we felt that, or rather just as much, we felt that this was our duty. And today, if I may say, apart from all those numbers that we created, that, you know, if you scan Malaysia and beyond Malaysia, actually, at least 50, 60, maybe even more,

major CEOs in various places. Absolutely. For example, when President Adroghan decided to open, to become a Turkish wealth fund. Zafé, Zafé was our guy in, you know, our chief in Istanbul. So, Ben, for example, was running China, you know, ran for the Canadians, the Ontario teachers, I think, and Gunnan and others, even the World Bank. Our one colleague from Africa became the chief economist. What do you look for when you recruit somebody?

I think, as you know, like Gita, once, so the formula, in fact, if I may, like just to complete this. Well, I want to refer to what you've remarked many times. Abtitude, altitude and attitude. Okay. Put in the context of those three words. for purposes of describing how you search for people. But as you know, first of all, I was about to say,

whatever you decide to do, and that deciding to do is also not so easy. This is in the realm of mandate and strategy, right? Right. As they say, do the right things right in the right way, if I may. This is my little mantra, so do the right things means your mandate,

and sometimes not just you, alignment with your stakeholders. In the case of Kazana, right, the government and the government's change, for example, it's not so easy. But getting that right, but also I say we serve not the government on the day, we serve the 33 million Malaysians. In fact, more than that, those not born yet, right? The creation you refer to. Correct, that's fine.

But then the efficiency part is the second, right? But the right way is the ethics and the fairness and the governance and the integrity, right? So therefore, if you think this is the what needs to be done, the modus of perendai, or the model Vivendai even. Then it's really about what kind of the three A's now. Of course, aptitude, you know, you have those skill sets. You got the right background, right degree, ability to think. But the second part is the second and third part, if anything, is even more important. The attitude and the altitude management, so to speak, means, the attitude means, you know, teamwork, the drive, the hunger, the curiosity, you know, honesty, that kind of stuff.

Intangible in many ways. But even more important, is the humility, the altitude management is about humility, about gratitude, about, because my formula broadly is the third part also means how to get lucky. In life, because you and I know,

whatever you do, you can truly control only 60, 70%. So how to get lucky is what I don't do the right things. And sometimes the world is not entirely fair, at least not initially. At least not in the long run, the longest run. you know, it will be fair.

But in between things may not, but certainly you know that if you don't do right, you have to be, you know, proper, you have to be fair to people, fair to others. Example, I can tell you and you know you, we work on some deals. I was always fascinated, as you know, in Latin, in Latin the term caveat amtore, right?

Bias beware. So we do deals all the time. I was so impressed when I learned the concept. concept of sellers declare. And I dealt with some, you know, that was, and I should highlight them actually. One of our partners was, Masik is a group in Saudi Arabia, the Al-Subei family. So one day I got a check in Kazana. I said, what is this check, bro?

I asked my, oh, we had some dealings in a building somewhere in Saudi through one, even then, not directly, through one of our investments. And then they said, oh, there was a defect in whatever you all bought. Here's the refund. No one asked. I said, wow. I said, wow, this is another level. And then when I found out, I said, wow.

So honestly, those who dealt with us knew that this Kazana guys, I tried to inculcate that. These guys can be a pin in terms of negotiation. This one, some say, wow, they're very many. What do they know this young guy? But I said, no one should ever question us on our integrity and our sense of family. But we are not going to be a pushover, we're going to fight very hard at our corner. So we must be tough, that means we're robust in what we're doing, we must be savvy, creative enough to create a solution.

And for us, a lot of the time, because we define success as three things, right? Financial value, strategic economic value. And the third one is societal value, including the environment and everything. So it's a multiple regression you've got to solve. So therefore, all our solutions are by definition not unidimensional. unidimensional. So therefore, they have to be savvy. Savi means, you know, holistic and all those stuff, right?

Just, as you know, can be complex. But that's the beauty. Actually, there's not much competition in that area. Seriously, it's too complex. I mean, it's not easy, but, isn't it? But the last part is fair, actually. Yeah. So after a while, we discovered that deals came to us, seriously.

It places like China because people said, I want to... So the origination work became, in a way, easier later. Because actually size, we grew it from about 12 billion US to about 40, that 3.5 billion. Of course, the assets were maybe 120, something like that, because we don't own 100%. So we control, we tend to take control position. So we were, in Malaysia, we were big, but regionally, globally, we were small. And we were definitely outpunching in terms of this. And yet we had to carry all that, but I didn't want to argue too much about getting more

I said, it's okay, we do what we can first. And that was great because thankfully we managed to figure out fairly early that the critical path was getting the right people on board. And I was lucky I was able to attract a very good bunch. But also older people, gray hair, right? The wisdom because this was a relatively young group. And today this young group, you know, 15, 20 years on, as I said, many a whole. holding key positions and if anything that is that fourth pillar is perhaps the if there's going

to be a legacy is there actually because that's the one where I say Kazana means treasure I always say the real treasures is there is people hopefully and and by the way when we say nation building we always say nations building I'm not just saying this of your R this is literally what we do want to go to new country like say India or Vietnam first column what does this country need Second column, what are we good at? Where can we think we can add value? Third column, okay, what are the issues? What are, you know, opportunities or obstacles?

This is literally how this was being taught too. You know, and anyway, so, so yeah, that was a great experience. The mandate to go international. How difficult was it to obtain? To be honest, this came from Prime Minister Abdullah that felt that Malaysia was at that stage. it's time to go out. I think what we had to content with

and rightly so, was to ask should it be Kazana or should it be the Malaysian private sector? I think the answer is should be both. So my view was that, you know, maybe this is a good seduce, the argument whether the state versus the market, right? Crowding in or out.

Crowding in or crowding out. So the argument of state versus market, I think, is so-called false binary, right? Shouldn't be one or the other. So I've given like some of the my quasi academic work is from state and markets. The issue is what makes to crowd in rather than crowd out and figuring out. For example, Iskanda, maybe the first phase of development, private sector were not willing or able to come in. Certain assets, we come in first.

And then pass it on. Of course, it's not always as smooth as that, but broadly. And I think many economists is actually like that, right? is actually a mix, even America, as writers like not just Hajun, Chang, there's an industrial policy even what Biden was trying to do. Matsukato, Mariana, Manzukato writes about this and others, right? And indeed, I saw Indonesia's got your own sovereign fund, this and that, and there's always a mix. Jeff Bezos, he made reference to how decisions would have been made throughout his Amazon days.

He said he was lucky to be able to get away with making decisions based on one of two things. The first would have been compromise. For example, if they need to measure the length of a letter, one guy would say eight feet, the other guy would say seven feet. Okay, let's just compromise on seven and a half. The second method of making decisions would have been driven by what he calls war of attrition. whoever can argue better than the other guys in the room

decision would be based on whatever in hindsight he says it's not the right way so with Blue Origin which is his new little company he wants to make decisions based on truth in the absence of which he's not going to make any decision

what's your philosophical approach on decision making it's interesting so this is what the best school of management. No, it's interesting. No, because... Well, I'll throw in a force, which is what Kissinger would have always

advocated, which is conjecture. In the absence of the full facts, sometimes you just got a conjecture. You never have a full facts, yeah. Correct. Well, I think at least the decision-making framework and practice I try to do,

first of all, is to somehow create a reasonably open atmosphere. culture to discuss, right? It's important. As you and I know, those who can do that, your chances are better. In fact, Pat Gita, we sat on the Asiata board, remember?

And as you know, I was the chairman, but I was also representing major shareholders. Technically, in corporate governance, it's not so healthy. However, I was quite pleased when minority shareholder watchdog group voted me in as chairman of the year. Because to be voted by the minority shelter group who normally resent major shoulder, because we tried to practice being fair.

And there were times in our board, Auxiazza, original mobile telco company in about eight, nine countries. Sometimes we agree, sometimes we agree. When the meetings are a bit long, partly I encourage discussion. Sure. And I encourage dissent and different points of view. But this can be chaotic if you don't get any. I mean, the alternative, of course, is all top down. The answer is always something between.

And what makes is really the recipe, right? So in this case, if you come to my room last time, which you did in Kazana, on the 30 third floor, the Petronas Twin Towers, it's what happened. The building is like that. It's a beautiful building, Seza Peli, Islamic kind of a geometric shape. So the meeting room is where it's like round, like this table. So therefore I said the most efficient is not to put a square table, put a roundtable.

It's not that we had some, you know, delusional ideas of being Arthur and knites of the roundtable, no. It's a roundtable, because it's most economically efficient. In the middle of that was a spider phone, like most corporate meeting rooms, you know, those, that spider phone, speakerphone thing. On thought that I happen to have, in fact, I have it like here, if I'm here allowed to show it here. There's a reason for this year. This was the elephant in the room. So my staff knows this perfectly.

And the idea was a bit of an icebreaker. When people came, you know, all kinds of people would visit the CEO, Kazana, big private equity, you know, masters of the universe. You know what that is? Because they're very smart guys, right? They say, well, there's an elephant in the room. I said, yeah, but it's the only elephant. in the room, and then, you know, cue laughter, break their eyes, right?

That's not the only one. Then my staff will always know what's the next question when they bring, you know, a hundred page PowerPoint deck or whatever this, which you have no time to read. So as a CEO, as you know, you read faces. Now I can reveal all this secret. You got all your assistants. But in the end, you have to read face and read the executive summary. Actually, I asked what we're going to use.

Is this a light switch? Sorry, I'm being a bit demonstrated. You know what that is? It's a weighing machine. It's a weighing machine. This is binary. Yes, no. Right?

Yeah. This is a way machine. Example, a Zeta bot. Should we pay this guy who says they can help us to win this mandate in such and a country that shall remain unname, Gita may remember this. That's a bribe, that's a bribe, answer is of course no, you can't. But once you find a way into this country,

how much should we pay for this acquisition? One billion, 1.2, 900 million, that's a weighing machine. Knowing whether this is a light switch or a way machine, honestly, my staff will know, forgive the illustration, but, you know, understand. So this, I try to hold one, create the, what do you call it, the atmosphere of an open discussion.

Of course, you know, bosses can be intimidating, right? Hence, we try to put process. Example, Kazana is known we have seven gates. The last gate is a borderline. The first gate is actually in January every year. I sit down, we call it a start-year review. So I have to cover, we have about 30-odd sectors and geographies. example, healthcare is one, aviation is one, China is one, right?

So 30 of that. So it actually takes up my January, February, is basically doing this with the various teams, right? So that's first gate. So we said we're going to play here, we're going to go hunting here, and we're going to avoid this this year, this year, to Amman, of course along the year if something comes up, opportunities or plans change, right? Second gate, I leave it to the, because there's no way, there's, you know, 30 over the, this one, I can't do it, obviously.

You leave it to the bosses, right? The executive directors, you know many of them. So they go hunting, so Datoch Nozma and in this area, that kind of thing. The third gate is when they bring out something to me and say, okay, this is where we think, based on the strategy, based on this, we've done some filters. And as you know, the ratios are something like if you, for example, China for each investment you make, typically you review 50. this is the funneling right as you know you know roughly the ratio

then by the fourth gate is when I say it that's when we start paying external advisors if at all for due diligence legal technical whatever and so on right so five they come back to the committee now at every stage dissenting views are not just recorded they're encouraged including the most junior fellow can write if they don't agree this is a practice we try to put in, trying to create that open environment. And then trying to figure out, then I think sometimes it can be, is it slow? Yes, it can be a little bit cumbersome admittedly. But then we understand our business, we're not traders.

I do, we do maybe we used before we started investing into technology. We only did maybe 30 to 40 deals a year. Right. Once, about tech was smaller sizes. Right. Maybe maybe, maybe I don't know, another 20, 30. but that worked fine. And frankly, if you look at our investment record, it's there.

We were hitting about 75 to 80% hit rate. Above 90, you should be in jail, as you know. You can't do. No one can do about 90. Isn't it? I mean, you know, that's why Medoff was probably 95%. Anyway, sorry, now you got me talking about it. A number of interesting points to, you know, just to raise as observations.

The first is this is very counter, very much counter to how a typical GLC is run. How you've been able to democratize opinions and views at all levels, all the way to the lowest. How easy or how difficult would it happen for just the ecosystem to be accepting of that culture? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So to be clear, because some of my guys will hear this and they laugh in case we just stop it there, I mean, I have very strong views. Sure.

And in the system just now, when it comes in the end, all the views are said, but final decision is mine. Sure. Because I will still decide what goes to the board. It's not by voting by committee. But at the same time, did you know, now you may know, or rather you may have known before, like this is our little practice. for a 40 billion US dollar fund, the delegated authority to the CEO to invest on his own, you know what's what?

Zero. Deliberate. In fact, some of my board numbers, you don't want some delegators. I said, I don't want. Because I figured out that we only do, as I said, 30, 40, later 50, 60 deals a year. Not many.

I'd rather we have a group, this one. But what it also meant, frankly, no one else can do that, including, you know, my board cannot simply bulldoze it through. So sometimes when you have too much

compliance, governor, you know, no one takes charge actually, to be honest. Then you lose that entrepreneurial drive in an institution, right? Somebody must take ownership. I take ownership fully. And therefore I take responsibility when things don't go quite right. Of course, the process

to get there, that means you get if what, like in the bazaar speak just now, how the market for truth, how do you arrive at truth, what is truth, I think you have to maximize your chances. That's our method, just sharing you, you know, under the bonnet. This is basically what we tried to do. I'm not quite sure exactly what is the process today,

but it's basically what we did for many years. And some of that evolved, by the way, we didn't quite, you know, because, oh, you learn, oh, this one doesn't quite work. So you evolve, pivoting a little bit. So how hard or how easy? I think, you know, once you get great people and you encourage the argument, and then, of course, race assessment, and as I said, complexity was always tricky, right? And then, if you ask me, what is it I know now, I did not quite know then when I started.

Actually, it's the noise around, you know, internet, social media, public scrutiny. You know, how loud and how noise. news about it. Right. Which I didn't fully appreciate it, it was still developing in 2004. But over time, actually, then you know the antidote to that

has to be being truthful, but also building trust. So we instituted a process called Kazana Ennuri Review, which comes up every January, rain or shine, you do it, okay? So I had there 14 years, right?

Thankfully for me, the 14 years, 12 were up years. Two were down years, one was after Lehman, and another was another one, mindly down. So of course, it helps, too,

and the Lehman year, of course, everybody was down. The year, but that actually helped that if you do a right practice consistently, then eventually,

you know, it will whittle away, you will erode whatever, suspicion, this and that, and people begin to accept and trust,

then you have to ask yourself that you don't believe in your own propaganda, so to speak, so you have to have internal mechanics, to check on yourself. And that's why I wanted, again, one of the thing is hiring very good people. And the psychology guitar is like when I look around the room in my senior team, they're

truly great guys. You know many of them. I said, I can't BS any one of them individually, that alone collectively. The famous was it, the JFK code, you can fool people some of the time and all that. Let me ask you on this. What would help you with cultivating a good good BS detector as a leader? Oh. I don't know. I like to think, I think the Arabic word is kashaf.

Kashav is this instinct, this intuition. I'm not claiming to have any special powers. But I like to think if you think you're trying to do the right things, you know, in the right way, good intention. Of all, not enough, right? Right. Then somehow that luck part, I was trying to explain luck.

And that luck comes, you know, you've been in positions where something tells you. Because there's all the stuff in front of you, right? First, the processes help to hopefully narrow down that, you know, certain things are not supposed to come in, but yet they still come in, right? Then can you detect this and that? As I said, getting the right people around you, that's so key. And my, you know, I don't know what to say technique, but certainly the practice I thought we did was, as I said, like, sometimes we have the strategy retreat, right? Hundreds of your top guys there.

So I'm the CEO. So I said, I've given my speech. So it's their turn to speak. So I look around the room and my reflection would be how many of these guys actually need to be here. Okay? This is the frame of thinking. So the idea being, I hope none of them need to be here. But they are here because of something else.

They're here because they want to serve a bigger cost. In this case, our mandate, we want to create three types of building through value, of course, for our country and for our partners, right? This kind of thing. Many actually took pay cards to join. Wow. I mean, not massive, but some massive actually, but eventually because they wanted to serve. And I know for sure if they leave the following month or the following week, someone will grab them. That's a nice feeling, of course, retention.

Then you know, because that immediately removes, hopefully, like that time, no politics. Some people just remove some work. Second, diversity. So because our mandate was very diverse, you know, all the full spectrum from the most hardcore, you know, deal types, high bankers, investment bankers. Of course, some became property developers, you know, great business builders through MNA, but yet to the other end were hardcore NGO types. Because we did the full spectrum.

Then the ability to gel them together to a bigger cause and a bigger culture was really, you know. Once that happens, I think at least from my humble standpoint was the minor magic begins to happen, frankly. It just has its own wheels. In many ways, when I departed from Kazana, I said, guys, this is the real Kazana is in you. culture wherever you go until today we have a very thriving and vibrant alumni.

I want to pick up on that date. The day you left after 14 years, you wrote a beautiful letter, which I read. A few pages, I think five or six pages. You referred to something, a phrase from the Al-Qaeda. Talk about that. Yeah, I think first of all, 31st July was the day I left. 14 years, two months. So slightly abrupt because I was actually in my last term of three years.

So we went 15 years, so I was 10 months short. New government had just come in. So this is quite a tumultuous period for Malaysia. I'm very proud of that actually because our democracy work. And I think the thing is now we're trying to find our equilibrium, just like Indonesia perhaps after Patsuarto, you had the period of several changes and then you found your equilibrium. hopefully, inshallah, we're getting there.

That's important. So for me, I was already exiting, actually. I already appointed two deputies, Tengu Asmail and Ahmad Zucanan-Ot. Interestingly, Azmail's chairing many things now. And Zol is actually running the even larger fund, EPF. It's managing my pension. Zul, you're listening to this.

No, they're great guys. But of course, institution I was heading. So I said, I need a lot. to write because my staff gave me a most wonderful farewell, very impromptu. In fact, much better than I suppose they have done 15 years, you know, probably nice corporate event, the usual, but here they did, you know, everything within 12 hours, KLCC, the thing was covered, like, he went viral and all this, right? So in the end, gave me a bit of time one or two days later, I basically wrote, you know, a farewell letter, belatedly, which tried to

to say a few things, actually. Number one was to remind ourselves a bit of a score cut, what was our mandate and how did we do, but also to be honest enough to say, to me, these are the gaps. We got to solve Malaysia Airlines, I wish I could have done, created more entrepreneurs. You know, we saw performance for some of key companies after going great guns, and they were beginning to plateau and taper off and fuel areas. And therefore, I reminded that, hey, remember we got this transformation program 2.0, stuff like that, right? The second part was to explain because it was a noisy period, people were accusing us this and that, which is nonsense, and put for the record, which we did, which we did on some of our investment. I said, look at the

whole portfolio. So I conclude this was during the World Cup, 2018. If this is a football game, I said we were at 1-5-1. Yeah, we considered one goal, which we did. So we actually made like 100 billion. We lost about another time, but net net we made about 80-odd billion during my time at this. And all this audited, everything clear. And by the way, frankly, and my exorcet, now, later this was immortalized, thankfully not by me, but by billion-dollar whale. We did not touch one Ndb.

Billion dollar will, page 41. Al-hambl-harmid, the author, I don't know him. I read that book. Well, page 41, if you go there. Because the author, Tom Ra, I don't know him, actually. He sent a copy. He says, Dear Azamon, congratulations. Page 41 is for you.

open 2841, that's the bit where we apparently we basically told the young man to jump in the lake, basically, and he was insane, and therefore he needed his own fun. So my friends would read that person and say, see, if you agreed, why in DB when I happened? I say, if I agreed

Kazana would have been gone. But anyway, so we went through that. Then, the third part was about some messages for the future, I said, you must stick together, you must continue, serve the public, etc., etc., right?

That kind of stalled, right? And very grateful. But the start of mandate, I reminded them, somehow it landed on this particular verse, which is a verse in the Holy Quran, Suratun Nisar, which is the fourth chapter of the Holy Quran, Ayat 58 actually. The 58th, what do you call it, verse,

which essentially says, Allah God instructed us to render the trust the amanah to the ahele to those who are qualified and those who are qualified the task of those receiving the amana

the ahele just now is to be lau adele to institute justice. Now justice then I went on to interpret we are investment house so basically you know where you allocate the money and for us as a holding company that was in control positions, choosing who sits in which corner office was a key part of our mandate and indeed in us trying to achieve results that we wanted. So Ammanah, Ahele, and my staff knows that we would discuss, we would actually discuss, but usually during Ramadan, once a year at least we gather.

Sometimes, I'm not sure whether it's on camera, across the road from where we sit there. Now it's a Musola. Even in here, actually, we've discussed this. And that's my, our true north kind of post, for this particular. And if you think about it, actually, if you treat something as an amana, as a trust, you're just trustees, right? In fact, you're a steward rather than a steward rather than a leader. This is a subtle but important distinction. second, the notion that you must always give the trust to the one who is most qualified.

And who is most qualified? Again, the Holy Quran in other places talk about Kauwil. Amin, this is the story of Prophet Moses. Two parts, eh? Kauwil means quad, strong, capable. Amin means trustworthy, right? Or in the parlance of Bank Nagara or Bank Indonesia, fit and proper, more or less. or in Surah Yousauv

story of Joseph as the Kazanah chief of Egypt the verse talks about Hafizul Alim Hafizul is someone what do you call it who are able to protect you know

Alim means knowledgeable Alimla so I really tried to hold this dear whatever our limitations we really try to do that. So I think those are not particularly rocket science.

The discipline or rather the effort is really in trying to be as discipline as it can inspire whatever pressure. And that's a process. So combination on that and then getting lucky, frankly, luck also played a role. Luck is big. Luck is big. And as you and I know, there's really no coincidences. Luck happens for a reason.

And that happens because all intangible, your belief that I must do things as properly as I can, even though you feel like, hey, I'm so powerless, you're never powerless. The power of personal agency and then the power of the collective, the institution. Put that together. And history of world and history of change management is basically that. But guitar is not about, you know, one person, no, it's never about one person, but it does take one or two people who had the gumption and the stubbornness and the belief to do things properly, right? And this is what we need to do, actually.

We are already, we're not quite in the winter yet. At least I'm in the autumn. You know, I'm 63 now. That's why actually I spend a lot of time like you teaching the younger generation. You're entering the ninth cycle. Ah, yes. Talk about the seventh. your cycles. Yes, I think Pat Gita clearly does his homework. So some of my, the way I frame this

was actually something I learned. I got a theory of seven-year cycles on our leadership journey. Okay. Yeah. So if you split our journey, all of us, again, this is not rocket science, some people earlier, some people later, but it's a frame. Like all frames, it's not the last on everything, but it's a frame as a tool. So broadly it says, now I'm in my ninth cycle, or nine chevron, as we call it, because I'm 63, I mean coming at age, entering 63, 64 to 70 will be the 10th one. So at each stage is about situational, right? And this arises from the thinking around as we go through.

The first seven years, for example, in fact, it started this train of thought, started because I asked me and my classmates as young parents 30 years ago, asked about raising children actually. So a wise guy who's what we call paca motivation, who happens to be a senior in my school last time, Dato Fadilla Kamsa. So he said, so as TOTO, KONSI la, can you share thinking about how to raise children? He said, first seven years, he must give them love, which makes sense, right? a lot of the problem cases on Netflix or whatever, bad childhood. Sorry to say. 7 to 14, discipline. Otherwise manja, they'd be spoiled.

Not a coincidence, for the Muslim. You know that seven years old, you have to ask your children got to start praying. Discipline, time management. 14 to 21, as the kids grow, you must somehow find a zone to be in touch with your children who are now. In fact, they cannot be too molly-coddle. They've got to go out and discover stuff.

at the age, right? On the other hand, you can't give complete freedom because otherwise they can go away. Then the Pakar Motivasi stopped there, because to be fair, then we only ask him about raising children. Then I kind of extrapolated from my own journey and those that I was beginning and later heavily mentoring and leading your direct reports. And as Kazana, you know, in many ways you are not just CEO, Kazana, you're not just CEO, CEOs, there's a lot of, in many ways. you have too near. So 21 to 28, first job. So my advice always would be don't go for the most glamorous, the highest

paid, go where you can grow, where you have good work ethic, that you don't stay out of jail. Don't do silly things. Good advice, right? Stay out of jail. Clay Christensen, by the way. 28 to 35, you've got to be good at something, man. It's competitive

out there, right? So you've got to be the go-to guy at something. I got lucky, as I said, suddenly, Tenaga from relative obscurity largest in the Malaysia, significantly, one of the largest, most important emerging market company at the time when emerging markets are growing. So that was my break, frankly. So I'm the go-to guy on Tenaga, man, and utility, etc. 35. Then from there you become head research. 3542, for me at least, you begin to be like hair research, you supervise others.

Then you realize your personal franchise, personal, professional excellence takes you only so far. You've got to work through others, right? There are certain professions. You can continue growing in situ, writers, for example, scientists. You don't have to work with others. You don't have to work with a few machines. But for most jobs, that journey, you have to be able to work through others, right? Then I consider 4243, 49, prime time one, as I call it, because this is where, but then you have 20 years experience.

You got your proverbial Malcolm Gladwell, what, 10,000 hours. 1,000 hours. Outliers. Outliers, right? Then what? And then you hopefully have learned a few things. But I would say in your... Talk about how you felt you were not...

quite ready for Kazana at 43 or 44. Okay, because I mean, we- Or you may not have been ready. Well, I definitely was not. First of all, as you know, you will never be completely ready. You and I know that sometimes leaders won't show this outside world, but everybody has this kind of trepidation.

And those who say they don't, maybe there's a few really exceptional one, but frankly, you know, that one you've got other kind of problem. problem, isn't it? Correct. The issue is courage, as you know, is not absence of fear. Courage is overcoming fear. That's courage, right?

As you know, right? So, in this case, there was also the situation, because the context of Kazana at that time was just after Asian crisis. So a generation of corporate leaders were wiped out, you know, wiped out. And I was, honestly, I felt I was too young for this. But there was no one else. There was a generation. And there were moments in time.

example, it's well known in Malaysia, Tan Sri Wanazmi. He was chairman of Maybank, I think, very early 35 or something like that. Partly because this was the period of Malaysianization, you know, and there was no earlier generation. So sometimes, you know, you're born into a certain age, you know, the post-war generation, they all had different, you know. And sometimes the reverse, right? It was too neat and but then it's about near.

So in my case, I recognize that. On the other hand, this is my field, investment strategy. I just came of Cambridge. Of all the subjects I did was somehow I landed on development study. I could have done. I don't know, international relations or whatever it is. This development economic is really at the intersection of state and markets, having been in investment banking and investment, right?

So in a way, you know, it was being prepared for this kind of. But yet in recognizing that, okay, there are certain gaps that you try to synthesize and complement with other things. For example, at the board level, the survivors from that Kaling during the Asian crisis, there were a few of them. You know, very wise, good guys. I can name some of them Tan Sri, Tajudan, Tan Sri, Manu Yuso, very wise. Integrity, unquestioned, experience, judgment. wisdom and ability to mentor some of us. And we combine them in the boards, etc.

And then along the way we grew to. So at that age, actually, you know, your maturity, your temperance is actually not quite there yet. You know, files are still flying. So you're human. You know how this. You're in the middle or in the arena. As Roosevelt says, right, you're in the arena. This is this real world, right?

How different would it have been if the Tan Sri Nouri Jacobs of the world would not have been there? It would have been very different because yes, this story is of course completely incomplete without mentioning Tan Srinot Muhammad Yaqub. It was my boss. Many people thought I knew him a long time, no. I know of him. But we, I came back on to him. He was a legend 98.

Well, Tan Srinor, as you know, was advisor to Dr. Mahadee, even before he was officially advisor because he was, that was simple, but he was the key person behind capital controls, the story is told. I selected character, he wrote the paper. Of course, he was closely associated bank, negara, etc. But anyway, so the story for that period of restructuring started before even the Kazanah 2004, around about 01 or 2. So I just came back from Cambridge.

I decided me and my partners opened out our own firm. But Tansri No will tell this story sometimes that he said, Asman, I offered him several jobs, to be honest. I did not take up. Not that I was playing hard to get or anything like that. I honestly was trying to reconcile my own conscience that I should only take on a job that I felt I was I mean, you know, fit and proper for that job.

It doesn't mean you're no good, doesn't mean you're no good. So maybe there's someone else better and your fit is somewhere else. But he will tell the story that when he offered Kazanah, it was at 30,000 feet above Atlantic Ocean. We were going to Washington, D.C., for IMF World Bank meeting, for the spring meeting back in 2004. Actually, it happened quite quickly. So around April or thereabouts. And Tansri said, Azman, he popped the question. You said no to be there.

I'm offering you now. I'm asking you. I'm instructing you to be the. CEO of Kazana Island. And if you don't agree, you have to jump off the plane now. So this story is not amazing. He says this publicly. But, you know, basically I shouldn't say no because I recognize it's my skill set at that time.

Sure, I have many more things to learn relatively young. But also the situation was, it's a different mandate. It needed a lot of energy, by the way. So I was able to bring in people like Ghana and half of McKinsey, Malaysia was basically consultants stopped sending people to see us because Bloomberg ran an article and called me Body Snatcher. Can you imagine? I love that article. Bloomberg actually ran a story called the Body Snatcher about

whoever came and would snatch and so on. But it was very exciting. It was like a startup. It was a startup. It was a startup. I mean, frankly, when we look back the first two, three years. You built a great team. I don't know, we built together and I'm so, you know, And two days ago, the 30th reunion was quite an emotional event because, you know, all these hugs everywhere. Harts everywhere. And the nice thing is that, you know, how to go through that journey, maintain your integrity, your soul, you know, your relative humility.

As you know, we have a practice called Kembarra or Kazana. You know this practice, right? Incognito. You go to the ground. So the inside was this, la. We are literally in the Twin Towers. hopefully not ivory towers, the Petronas towers. And, you know, our nature of work means, you know, you go everywhere, lots of places running around.

Or sometimes like, kind of venting around. So one day, I somehow, my thought was like, hey, guys, you guys are going in New York, Silicon Valley, Dubai, Hong Kong, London. Have you been to Kuala Pila, Kuala Lepa, Kuala Nerang? Then I realized, bloody hell, I also haven't been to some of these places, okay? wow, I said, wow, okay. Then somehow got the idea. So there was certain response, example. So stressed out, right?

Working like a hamster wheel. You know, you know what is. So we instituted something called silent day. Silent day is a circuit breaker. Once a month, last Friday every month, meeting is not allowed. So technically it's like you do whatever you do. Filing, take your kid to concert, I don't know what, I don't ask.

but our guy was so wired to be constantly on the move, right? I began to pick up reports of, ha, secret meetings were happening. Then I wrote, hey, it's not supposed to do this. Quite funny, ironic. And then 5 o'clock, official office hours was close. 5.01, boom, there'll be meetings. I said, this is not quite working,

but at least the idea of putting a circuit breaker. Because you're on this journey, you want the energy. You don't want to curtail that animal spirit, very important, the drive, right? Peri on JLC, you want to put it. But yet you know, you know, this has got a dark side to it. You have to be careful. So the bit about going out, so the rule is one week. The week is defined as five working days. Up to you, like, could be six, could be seven, but minimum five. Most people did six, maybe. You must go out that we had like six themes. So for example, mystery shopper, one team.

CSR, another team. National development, another team. People development. So whatever you want to do, you go out in teams or three or four. Only take public transport, go in Cork Meadow. So I would go, starting with me. So my team with three, four people. I'll wear a cap, slippers, you know, this one,

and start turning up at our many companies. For example, if it's a team I'll turn up at a power plant or a bank branch or telecom, you know. And then I'll call the CEO and say, wait, Zam,

you've got instruction to book up Unify, Unify is a high-skirts broadband. I'm chos, you know. But I said, don't sack the guy, okay? The poor guy, I think your guys are not telling him the right script. You got to groom this guy.

So no one got sex, as far as I know. I'm quite sure. And then with Tan Sri Naze, with Jay, I would say, Jay, there's this lady in your Chaukate branch, which is like, you know, in this gritty part of KL. I walked in that day. I asked for New Zealand dollar. So I remember that year because I was going to the Rugby World Cup in Auckland. I needed some of New Zealand dollar.

I know for sure there's no New Zealand dollar in this gritty branch. But she was very good. She doesn't know who I am. Maybe she noticed as well. So the further way I go to KEL, which is great, people don't know who the hell this guy is. Otherwise, you know, as a boss or as straight minister, if you go, you know, everything be ready, right?

You're never going to see the real thing. She got you? She got you to Kiwi dollar? No, she told me, go to Jalan Raja Lawt, meet such and such a person. Pretty good. So I told Jay, Jay promoted her at some, whatever, some management retreat. So after a while,

the minor legend goes, oh, see, O Tadri Asman's going to come. You know, like the Shaolin Temple movie? Actually, the guy just killed, you know, the battle that fellow killed only five people by the time, reached the emperor,

5,000 people. It's all exaggerated. Creates insecurity. Well, it creates this, this alert. They got to be alert. But most important, this was exactly where I was in it.

So, okay, at the end of the day, we had like 30 groups. It's about three, four people. Actually, more than that. about 40 groups, it's about 4 or 5 people. So you're talking about 3, about half the organisation. But actually, when you map it out, every single day, on average, there's one highly qualified Kazana person at all corners of the country mapping things out. And then you roll this up.

There was a system that the strategy unit rolled this up, presented to the board, checked by the prime minister in the December board meeting. So I would tell, sir, I'm sure you've been briefed, but this is exactly how the diesel subsidy policy turns fishermen into oil traders in Kuala Kedah, in the Thai border. So I actually interview guys, you know, undercover, I go out there. Again, then the prime minister will let me, okay.

And sir, this is how on the East Coast, we've heard of cloning of mobile phone, right, of SIM cards. Did you know that fishermen boats can get cloned? the same number got three boats, you know, incursion from wherever, like. Oh my gosh. But some of this, you also wonder, does it really translate into our mandate, the investment? Some do, some little bit nebulous, granted. But actually, the real benefit is the humility and touching the people. Because we are Kazana.

We're supposed to serve the people. How do you serve your people when you don't even know, you've never been to some of these places? So that was, to me, the big insight, like. 14 years was there, the second seven of that 14 years, we instituted this. We wrote a book actually. On this there somewhere. And al-hmdhambilah. And actually, this took inspiration from, you know, the likes of Uma al-Khatab.

Sure. Right? The second caliph, umma abdu-azis, the famous caliph. In the Malay world, Sultan Ali-Hudian Riyahya Shah famously would go in. called me to walk among his people and others, right? Well, Buddha. Guptaama Buddha, came out of the palace, right?

And walked the streets. Nobody knew. So, I mean, that basically transformed him. So, I mean, these were responses to somehow, wasn't just me, you know, collectively. And of course, you get a belker. Some will say, well, I was going, but most people embrace this, including our foreign, you know,

people. In fact, the China thing said, Tadri, boss, Why don't we do Kembarra Chinese? I would love to, but, you know, let's do this first. We never got around to that. So imagine if you, because as you know, as a leader, one of the biggest problems is the people talk about information as symmetry, right? Yeah.

All the Nobel laurels, all this, you know, which implies that actually the agency problem this fellow knows more than it. But actually, it's the other way or not. It can also, the symmetry is also that you're out of that. You're what's happening down there. And, you know, pollsters get things wrong these days. and partly is because of that, right? So anyway, those are some of our practices. We've covered a lot.

I want to take you to the next level. Southeast Asia. Yes. Right? And I've talked quite a bit in the past about how Southeast Asia has been able to embrace what I call a culture of pragmatism really effectively. Yes.

By way of which we've been able to be peaceful and stable. but we're lacking and embracing the culture of principles. This is about the culture of perfectionism. How to put food on a table. How to increase the intelligence of the people. How to bring up welfare. How to infuse moral value, social value, all these good attributes, right? These are actually important attributes for any nation building.

How do you see Southeast Asia going forward in trying to nurture and cultivate the culture of principles? Okay, yes, I think very important and what do you call it, timely question. You have outlined, Gita, we are both, I suppose, Asianites in that sense. At a time when I think, maybe not to over-hype it, but certainly many factors, the planets seem to be aligning. And there's quite strong, you know, what you call it, tailwinds behind us, maybe less headwinds. In a time where the world, there's a lot of turbulence even in the world. And I would even venture to say a lot of darkness. There are some dark spots in the world, right?

principle of which is the stuff happening war and conflict and genocide, frankly, in Palestine. Palestine, people say it's not just Palestine. It is biblical, it is Quranic. And this is really the journey of mankind itself, we believe. I mean, we are not Arabs, right? We are not from that part of the world. But really, you know, and the great Abrahamic face, there's a reason why Jerusalem and Alcodes, the Holy Land. But that aside, this is a proxy for the state of morality in the world, actually, to be honest.

I had the opportunity to visit as a guest of the UN 10 years ago to the West Bank, Jerusalem, go in. And then you realize, my God, this is primordial, which is very near. So the world, in a way, is a gauge. They say when Jerusalem is at peace, the world is at peace. So therefore, the world is not at peace ever in a way. In a way, like, I have to use that as a reference because to context. Let me add one more reference, just to put context. The 190 something countries in the world are spending $2.75 trillion a year on defense.

On defense. Of which the United States, NATO and their friends spent about $2.15 trillion a year. There you go. The UN, which is the multilateral institution that's supposed to opposed to how pacify the world, has an annual budget of only 4 billion US. There you go. Right there you know. The hope for peace is...

I mean, there's all this fancy framing around poly crisis, right? Usually people talk about climate, about inequality. Actually, there's a crisis of humanity as well. Reflected in wars, genocide, migration, refugee, absence of development. And one of the failures, one of the great successes, of the international system post-45. You know, Bretton Woods was near, World Bank, all is very good.

UN, right? The United Nations and UN. Multilateralism. WTO, all these things, you know, breaking up, right? Unfortunately, all much reduced, much diminished. Then, of course, subject of China and all that. But I think that says it all. I mean, COVID, one of the many lessons of COVID,

it was that one was the great ingenuity of our species to develop the vaccine to fight. I mean, this is incredible story. Yes, within months. Okay, some the anti-vexas may argue, but let's put that aside to the real effect. Who knows? But we don't know, like science, right? But the fact that whole continents, how many people couldn't get the vaccine? That's a failure not of science.

That's a failure of humanity. And finance, well, development finance. and failure of multilateralism, right? So to me, that's so stark. And today, the number you quoted between defense budgets and who's behind that, we can all have our views, and the reality

of what this multilateral agencies are supposed to do. It's so stark. So in that context, actually, then we start looking that if there is no multilateralism or some say de-globalization happening, then it fractures into

regionalism. So which region So when the great power rivalry returns in the form of the West with United States principally, Europe also finding their own way, and then China, and of course India is called a subcontinent for a reason. But really, and then of course there's Latin America and Africa, which is interesting in itself, developing world, right? But really Southeast Asia as a bloc. Now, are we really a bloc that, of course, you can question the old things about being an archipelago, standards are different. But by and large, we've been steady going on, right? As you say, we don't, you know, we don't, there's no conflict per se. But as you said, a culture, as you put it, principles of excellence or precision. Lacking, you know, you ask how many world-class

socialisation companies are there, really, really world-class. But to be fair, That means you take top 50 around the world. Basically, it is also in a limited number of countries, right? I used to study this in great detail and research, because we were talking about regional champions. We didn't want to say global champions, not yet. So we built IHAH, we built this and that, right? We concluded that, so we studied, for example, Brazil had Embria, state-driven, right?

That it is possible, is it possible to have great companies coming out of countries that are not quite there, because they're answer generally no. But can you have great countries that doesn't have great companies? Hard to see. I mean the Japanese companies, the SogoSocias came out, right? And then the Sonys of the world were asserted by Korean companies. So that whole industrial path we have to understand. So I think South Indonesia, of course, Singapore has done great for themselves and the region to an extent. Indonesia has enormous potential. I read the book, The Nation in waiting. It is definitely not waiting anymore.

You've quoted the numbers and what kind of. The question is, then, how do we build that culture? I think, for me, maybe one way to structure this is one, ultimately, it is the culture of the people that matters. So once I ran, what do you call it, we have this thing called Kazana Mega Transforum, you spoken at it. It was our flagship kind of event. And one year the topic was geography as destiny, question mark.

So we were basically thinking through spatial economics, thinking through location, thinking through, you know, in this case, so the advocate would say Malaysia, South Asia, because of all those straight green, blah, blah, blah, right? Malaysia additionally, you know, or we say, oh, absence of disaster zone, this kind of stuff, right? And then invited a distinguished lunch speaker, George Yo. So George very nicely, very wise. Of course, George says, actually geography is not quite destiny. Geography matter, but it's not quite, culture is destiny, which I agree.

Which we all agree, right? So how do you develop this culture? Culture, of course, is this abstract, not abstract, but this big word, is a big word, right? So I would say, if I were to break that down further, I would say, I would say one is a reflection of personal agency. So there must be good people, individually, first. Then the units around that build society, family being one, and this one, if I may say, the strength of the family unit, very important, because there's all kinds of things going on

around the world now. You're a beneficiary of that. Oh, for sure. We all are. And then sometimes this, you know, even if even if these things fail or break down or there's, you know, leakages, I suppose, in a system thinking kind of way. Institutional capacity to fill it up, right? How do you bring in social welfare without becoming a welfare state that is, you know, what starts as a bud, as medicine, can quite quickly become poison, no, in the wrong place, right? That means you oversubsidize, you over-subsidize, you over-neous, so getting that balance, right?

And then the personal side is, in spite of all that, somehow you, still produce people, I mean, I can't help but thinking, you know, I'm from the Malay world, right? Malay world, and Santara. If you go to kampong, kampong, room kampong, nimbabu in Malaysia, if there is a reading culture, many are, not all, but many are. The Quran, the tasse is always tasaamka. We consider go hankar, you know, as one, as our ulama. I mean, you're a terrorist, yeah.

Of course, Minang, right? And I think that's part of culture. So I think then institutions. Institution, we're looking at Indonesia. Your evolution, as I said, even though the economic progress was still at maybe 3,000, 4,000 US dollars, right, per capita, I don't know, what's the number today? Close to 5,000. Five, right?

So it went like you were 2, 3,000. But yet, wow, people were asking for social justice. We marvel at that, right? So Malaysia was going in it, but then we worry whether this is going, many of us worry whether it's going to be soulless, right? Our friends in Singapore once invited, several times I invited to give a talk. And I said, well, I'm sorry, you're being very polite. I said, I'm not going to polite. You've done great.

Then when they press on, I said, well, and it came from the gut and from the heart, actually. I said, you build a great city. But whether you can build a great civilization is maybe the next step, which I meant that, which is about soul. and as you know, like, the student leader in school, if I can take that metaphor to go back to school, is not necessarily the best student, right? It's the student who thinks of others. I'm not saying they're not like that.

So I think this is the next stage, because this is what a civilization built. Are you helping out the guys at the back of the class, or worse, the ones out of the class, or worse, the one who couldn't come to class? Because they were busy helping their family for economic reasons. I've known people like this. In the absence of top-down imposition of certain political culture, which we would hope for.

You know, the bottom-up approach has to depend on not just what's conversed at home, but what's conversed at school. At the office, at the social institutions, at places of worship, at the cafes and whatever. And I tend to think that you brought up social media. I mean, social media, I think, has not done justice to creating or nurturing the right kinds of conversations. And that has affected the political culture that exists in each one of the stuff that I've mentioned. How do we re-engineer that? I think, I don't know, it may be a bit of a, you know, futile, what did you call it? Sisyphian effort, yeah, featuring this border.

Victory. Cheric is when you win, but actually the Sisypian is like the legend of Sisypahs, they push this. Tansu No, I've always talked

about this. The bolder thing, yeah. The reason is, I don't think, maybe it's to go even deeper. So I reflect maybe the bit about

what my staff last time will know, I call it the market for truth. I call it, my simple way trying to understand in market terms.

I think there's a market for truth, right? People manipulate the, just like market manipulation is wrong because you want to create a market that is efficient, that is fair, that kind of thing. It's not. You know, we had to deal with, you know, hired guns.

We call it Toyol. People hiring all this hired gun. I was offered. We refuse to pay. And they said, we don't pay. We're going to whack you. And they said, okay, do your worst. And they did.

But believe that, you know, that eventually the market, the truth will come out, right? This is my belief. If you don't believe that, then you probably play the game. Of course, you can suffer in the short run, or even the medium run, right? Long run, no. You won't suffer. You always win if you do think. The question is how long is long as another matter.

Okay. So actually, maybe a frame, like guitar as we come, I don't know, which is something I've been reflecting on for about 24 years. If I can go back to the time I was in Cambridge. So remember, I left a rather cushy job because the question I wanted to answer was, there is more to life than finance. I saw this happening in the Asian crisis.

So thankfully, Cambridge gave me a place. It gave me a place to think, put my thoughts together, learn from some of the best, including Hajun. But one thing Cambridge was, I asked them, what about philosophy? What about how does this link to sociology? Science. What about religion?

Oh, no, no, no. We're Cambridge. We don't do it in the secular. I said, okay, fine. So after graduating that summer, 2001, and by the way, it is a few months before 9-11, by the way, I read the whole summer, Umar Chappra's future of economics, one of my reference point, and Islamic economist, thinker, Oman Chabra books out here. So the books here are basically books, I keep on reading or rereading, or some I need to read,

like anyway. So, Umar Chabra quoted Ibn Haldun, what became known as his circle of equity, which is basically the summary of the whole his magnum opus, the muqadimah, right? It's an introduction. It's just an introduction to history. It's Ta al-Libah, right?

But anyway, so, if I can start with this, right? It starts by saying the sovereign gets his power. Sovereign means the ruler, not necessarily the king,

through the rule of law. The rule of law, It starts to be very circular. The rule of law cannot be near, except through the sovereign. Still, there's eight of this, by the way, the circle moves. Then the sovereign, though, cannot sustain unless he has the backing of the people. Democracy in many ways, right?

The people cannot be sustained unless they have wealth. Economic, remember? Which president said that is the economy? It's stupid? Is it Bill Clinton? which is true. But economy cannot be sustained unless you have development. So you make a difference between wealth and development.

That's why in Kazana, we were known as sovereign. We created a genre called sovereign development fund, which interestingly Prime Minister Anwar reiterated is, I mean, I didn't do the speech, obviously, two days ago. And the terms SDF, sovereign development fund was actually coined not by us, by an economist in Paris called Javier Santiso Javier was the chief economist of OECD,

interestingly, the Rich Men's Club for the Development Centre. Later, he became friends. Javier then developed was basically running Kazana Europe and now he has left and I'm actually on his board now. We're raising our second fund.

First fund for 100 million euros we're raising a second fund of a billion already EIF, European, tag, so Javier already thinking, very thoughtful guy. So, wealth is not enough,

but development. And development can only happen when there's justice. Justice, right? This is very interesting. Justice. Now, justice then, is the criterion.

The next one is, justice is the criterion by which Allah, God, our creator, is going to judge mankind on this world. So that relationship, one is with our creator, we are servants, but between each other, if there is one word, one word only, is justice.

How we treat each other is justice, actually. What is justice? Saitnaki al-Lata is one of our teachers, putting right things, right place, right time, right proportion. That's justice. Knowing what is that is wisdom, you've got to figure out that, right? Of course, this is contested all the time.

Everybody argued in this is the... Now, then the final loop to complete the circle is... Because justice is a criterion by which God judge mankind. The principal role of the sovereign is to institute justice. There's an economist who wrote something that's subtly similar. Jane Robinson. He talked about the Leviathan. Leviathan.

That puts itself in a balanced position between civil society and the ruler or the leadership. Only if there is rule of law. to the extent that there's no proper rule of law it gets a little to that's part of it. So the interesting thing, and as I said, I've been reflecting and in some ways, you know, because you've been given the

power or rather the responsibility to do things, right? And the big canvas, at least for me, for me, it was big, maybe not so big about it. Call Kazana, right? I've been reflecting on this repeated and then later Tabangaji. Leviaton, for example, Thomas Hopes

Leviathan, that was the original piece, was what year was that like 16 or 17th century piece? It's actually quite depressing. He basically analyzed and said human beings are brutish, miserable, blah blah, therefore you need strong central force to put things in order. I think a libertarian would criticize that, right?

Because this is like in a way, if you extend and extrapolate that, this is, you know, fascism. You can even go that way. not necessarily the case. I think historian Ferguson, right? No. Ferguson wrote about the tower and the square. Yeah, that's a great book.

Which is basically a metaphor for a more open system and a more top-down system, right? Correct. To me, the answers are in both. I think it's a false binary. You say it's one or the other, no, it's not. But that's why the circle is actually an interesting metaphor, the circle of equity,

because it's all interrelated. Every variable is both a dependent variable and an independent variable. Okay? But I have my own thinking. We can debate this. The conclusion, justice is very important. You must achieve justice in how we treat each other.

How you go with God, that's your servant relationship. But how we need? Then the real variable is actually people. Yeah. Think about it. Because why? Because everything, science, mathematics all follow and order, right? A plus B equals to C. That is a formula. Except people.

A plus B, depending on the day, depending whether my football team won or loss, it could be C, it could be D. Depends whether I'm having a good time or having a bad time, having an argument. Why? Because we are capricious. And that temperance may not be there, we've been given our species, you and me, all of us, the gift and the burden of free will. No one else has this. Therefore, that variability. That's why those who try to model economics like mathematics,

like mathematics, tabulae, it cannot be done. That's why behavioral economics is important. Not a coincidence. I agree. Can the man who's not an economist who say, a feller, all these guys are more psychology people, right? And what is psychology? After all, is the science of behavior.

What is behavior? It's back to that. those humanities part about justice, about things like this, right? So I think, so you and I know, actually, so the more, that's why that's that third part, doing things in the right way, bringing the soul into that. I think we can do that, be kind to each other, be tolerant.

And Southeast Asia, I think, has that tradition, but you rightly put the finger on the issue, hey, we've got to be more exacting, more precise, more principle, not be, like, ah, it's more, like, ah, be able, like, how some of people are. It's just amazing how the young generation likes to talk more about events and people as opposed to ideas.

Whereas in the old days, people were so much more used to talking about ideas. I think we need to be talking more about ideas as opposed to events or people. We look over our shoulder here in Malaysia somewhat enviously in a good way to the intellectual climate in Indonesia. No, no, I mean, I support some independent bookstores here in KL. Sometimes I go in there, one or two. I actually feel like that about Malaysia. No, no, no, no, honestly. No, no, I was just someone was sending me this WhatsApp feed about, you know,

people in Jakarta, I don't know who these are. When these guys are reading this, reading that, I said, wow. And then here, of course, there's niches everywhere again. There are independent bookstore called Rewaerat. I love this store. I don't know whether they're watching. But when I go in sometimes, you support, like lots of books, don't care, give friends, you know, help people.

But I think the realm of idea is there, just that, you know, most of the need. So if you can encourage that thinking culture, that independent thinking culture. So I worry about many, we worry all worry about many things. So I think maybe to not much time we are left, but to round this up, as I said, the power of personal agency is very important. In the end, you and I, we are responsible for ourselves, no one else. So these people must take charge. You know, both your accountability and the notion that an individual can make a difference. Yeah.

Okay. And then I get invited a lot to speak, you know, to younger groups. And I say, guys, verse in the Quran, Allah did not create anything in vain. Everything has a purpose, okay? I take that to mean everybody has a superpower, okay? Some people got, you know, gifted with more than one superpower, right? But at least one, right? The tragedy guitar, as you know, is that for many circumstances don't give them that opportunity to unlock that.

Maybe poverty, maybe corruption, maybe bureaucracy, right? And this, the next level. Institutional level, we've got to clear that all that up. Which is what, the power of the collective. Now, whether that's through a leviaton or through civil society or combination. The fourth estate, whether that's social media or, you know, Pratt, they have a response. I decided to bring some props. No, that's great demonstration.

I want to show you some of the books I was referring to. Yeah, as we were just saying, and maybe, although I mentioned it, if you don't mind, I'll just read this actually from the exact copy, as I said, the future economy by Omar Chava. Short passage, Ibn Haldun's entire model is condensed to substantial extent in the following advice. extended to him to the monarch. The strength of the sovereign al-muk does not become consummated except by the implementation of the Sharia. And you hear Sharia means rule of law, more or less, an institution. The Sharia cannot be implemented except by

sovereign. The al-Mukh seems obvious, right? Interrelated. But the sovereign cannot gain strength except through the people. That's where the kembara story is you must, among other things, right? You must always be in touch. But the people cannot be sustained except by wealth, by wealth, economy. But wealth cannot be acquired except through development, which is pushing the efficient frontier of the economy. That's where you need to education, things like that, right? But development significantly cannot be attained except through justice. And justice is not just the courts. Justice is in your practice, is your playing field level, is that our mobility, right? Things like that. But justice,

and this is the link between the temporal world and the universal world and the creation. Justice is a criterion, al-Mizan, by which God will evaluate mankind. And finally, the sovereign is therefore charged with the responsibility of actualizing justice. And that, of course, at different levels,

governments, but if you're running a company, you know, you can understand that. So honestly, in my own little way, This is what I read after graduating for my master's. And somewhere I've been at the back of my mind. I don't refer this all the time. But on and all, I read that. And then this is actually the book about on justice and the nature of men,

which has written by Saeitna Kep Alatas as a reference text, where verse 58, as a slatun Nisa. Allah commands you deliver the trust to keep us, Ahele, worthy of them, and when you judge between people, you judge with justice, again, justice. So I think the organizing principle between people to people, nations to nation, is justice, hence social justice. So now in my post-Kazana years, you know, I've been given responsibility, we stabilized, thank God, our tabung hajee, very important institution. they went through a difficult period

the Royal Commission of Inquiry Hamdila, what they call it, 90 billion portfolios now at record high all time 60 years confidence, trust there's some structural issues for example, hutch inflation not just Malaysia, everyone faces

this Indonesia, the whole umah right? But now I'm working a lot on Islamic finance which I think because it's our field finance but Islamic finance ethical finance as in making sure

that we've created in Malaysia for example a halal ecosystem Sharia compliant but now we're calling that we need to build the next curve which is about

halal to halal to type actually this is what we're doing in my various roles on Sharia banking system globally speaking if you take a look at

both the assets and liabilities most of them are non-reiber I'm sorry? Most of them are non-riba. Sure, sure. What's the best way forward? Okay, I think first of all, if you trace back,

and we just finished in Malaysia, but not just Malaysia, we have something called MIFC, is the Malaysia International Islamic Finance Centre, which has been the umbrella body under Bank Negara or Central Bank and also Securities Commission to look at development of Islamic Finance.

As you know, Malaysia is not the largest because countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran, technically asset size larger. But Malaysia is often cited like Indonesia is of course big. Well, more Malaysia. Yeah. But cited as in terms of a complete ecosystem from education to standards to universities to different investment or other asset classes. That means banking, Sukuk, which is the bonds to

Takafal, which is insurance, Arrhanu, and so on, is the most complete system, often by, not by us, these are independent ranking. So we conclude that the last 60 years, for example, you take statistics like banking system, 46% is Sharia compliant, and soon it's going to be more than half. Largest banks, like May Bank is really above half, something like 60-odd percent already. Then you take the capital markets of about 4 trillion. about 64, 65% is already Islamic. Most of that is Sukuk, etc.

But the Islamic economy or capital market or capital base is actually more than just debt because some of the banking is essentially credit relations still, right? Sukuk, still credit relation. But there's debt, there's equity, and then there is social finance, philanthropic capital, zakaaqa. So this is the beauty. of the system is that it's all of the above. So we are calling now, going forward.

One, we recognize the progress in that term, is Sharia compliant, but it must move from beyond form to more substance and spirit to solve issues around inequality. Access, for example. As you know, if you get a Sharia compliant credit card, great, but are you promoting overconsumption? What do you need with a second? there are certain needs that are still not being met, whether it's education, whether it is energy

transition, whether it is about entrepreneurship at the micro SME levels, right? Access to capital is difficult because a for-profit industry for that is most few. So among the things, for example, that we promote, we've picked 18 initial impact project as demonstration project. One of it, I wanted, one or two wanted to highlight. For example, Bank Negara, has built a very nice platform during COVID. It started called ITACAD. It's a blended finance platform that you can bring in elements of for-profit lending, but also Kadul-Hassan, which is interest-free loan,

Zakat money, for example. And then you basically groom and help because banks are strong in many things, including payment system, they have the resources to do the hand-holding, bring in. So Bank Islam are doing this, May Bank, doing that, right? So that's quite hopeful we're doing this in the major way. We're working with, you know, for example, the Lembaga Zakat, Negri, Kedah, where this is our rice bowl, paddy farmers. So can imagine for seven decades almost of being an independent nation, there are still paddy farmers who are recipients of Zakat, Asna, that were. So we're working with them,

we're turning them into Zakat payers for the first time after the last two years. But in the process, we're also fighting existing cartels, actually. is the Nahi Munkha Park, not just among us, and so on. So this is all in the report. You brought up the word inequality a few times. I want to point out a number of economic phenomena with regards to inequality, in the context of inequality of income, inequality of wealth, inequality of opportunities, and also the last bit is central brutality of economic development.

Meaning economic development was supposed to be centrifugal. Centrifugal. Going from the center to the periphery. But it's actually... Shucking it in here. From the secondary cities being sucked by the primary cities. And I want to relate this to how the internet has not helped democratize ideas and economic capital. It has helped in democratizing information, but not necessarily economic capital.

And I think this is likely to get amplified by something called AI, which unfortunately is only in the hands of those that are the halves. How do we deal with this? Yeah, if I can add to that observation, you call it what? Central. Centrality. Oh, I cannot pronounce this, but I mean central. Centrality, okay, I got it. I call it concentration.

So there's, I think, you know, in our line of work last time in looking at sectors, something called the Heffindal Index, you remember? It calculates how concentrated sectors are, right? And you can't help, but I've read sound like I think I can't quote often. In many, many sectors, you would have thought that with more and more competition, more and more, what they call it, democratization, data, blah, blah, or it should be more democratized, but the centrifugality, as you call it,

but instead is their way around, right? Example, if you look at the Heffindal Index or many industries, concentration, winner takes all, right? Number one, number two, maybe number three can survive. We saw that. Magnificent seven. Some say about the recovery, they say what, the K recovery.

The K recovery is because only, you know, certain number of stocks, tax stocks in particular, time rather than, but the rest are actually going like that. Let's take football. Someone analyzed the number of teams that win trophies, not that many because it concentrates on, you know, a few teams. A handful of the money, it's actually, again, you know,

someone, I think a Harvard professor wrote about surveillance. Yeah, a capitalism. capitalism. Susiana. Sushana, which is how do you regulate, you know, that again, the concentration of tech power in the tech companies. And it's not just about money. Increasingly, as you pointed out, it's about market for truth.

About, you know, whose truth is it, right? I mean, look at X, look at what Elon is doing. And you can debate, this is now going into different Riyam. So, if you accept that the paradox of, Plenty is supposed to make things flatter, but it's not. It's actually the reverse. Your centripe fatality, the concentration risk. Correct.

Why is that? I reflect, I don't have the answer, but I reflect that one is actually how, what is the fuel that drives that, technology is one, finance is the other. But most of all, what drives that fuel is the GPS, the GPS is the morality. Come on. Are you the type that want to share or are you the type that says I want more and more and more? Now the world after World War II, when the Great War in Europe, as you quoted the statistic, you know, and this was like, they call it World War II, but there was the World War I, which is even just as brutal, if not worse. And then earlier there were all kinds of wars, right?

But they said no more war and hence they created UN, the nation, created all the institutions. Now there are all these proxy wars happening, not really in my area, but we all know all the geopolitics, right? But maybe another version of that war is actually happening in the field of the war on economy and the war on technology, the war on culture and those things are again having said that I think the power again of

agency, personal agency, individual societies and belief most of all is belief I think if you have belief it will somehow sustain in spite of whatever or this other forces and I think our future

of our species and certainly our region, I think rest on that, right? So at individual level, at institutional level, at national level and between nations, Agita. And certainly, you know, podcasts like yours helps to increase that understanding and that linkages. So we all work in our corner, right, whatever we can do. In fact, the theme of our Islamic finance work, we talk about the process of Islamist, Islam is a beautiful word. It means reform, but actually deeper, another subtle meaning is restoration. Islam, and the nice thing about restoration, what it means is that you're restoring to something.

Our position, you know, our belief system is that the world was created perfect, but it's through corruption by the hands of men, mostly men, some women, but mostly men, man, right? We corrupted and ruined this thing. This is our fate, our burden, but also our possibility of glory is actually restoring in that restoration, reclaiming the common, so to speak. So then pointed out to me by a scholar which I included subsequently in the report, in my presentations like this, it's a verse from Suratulhood, prophethood, talk about Islah Mastatatatu. It says, basically I want to restore Islam Mastatatat too, means I do what I can actually, to the extent that my ability.

Because a lot of people maybe we feel, what they call it, despair, despondent, right? Helpless. Actually, no. You know, even if we can make a small change, don't care, like the power of increments. The power of it. And then you try to collectivize, right? We do it together. And that's why throughout history, I think whoever needs, they think they know, you don't. the Let Them Eat Cake Moment, the Mary Anten, there's always this and that, right?

In fact, final one, if I made it talk about inequality, right? So I read a Stanford professor, the great leveler. You know, the author is a Stanford professor, Walter Schneider, something like that. So essentially is the 3000 years history of inequality. You know, so in other words, the great leveler is how do you re-level society. not that you want to play God and start leveling up because the communists strike that doesn't work, right? But he said basically history tells us four things that tend to level back society. It's quite depressing, like the four things are the what do you call it?

The four horsemen of Apocalypse, war. Can't remember the order, but war, pestilence, like the great plague. If you survive the plague, per capita you do better off, you've got more resources. makes sense, no? So war, pestilence, what do you call it? So disease war, some kind of societal collapse usually linked to ecology. That means you overstretched. So the world or Jared Diamond, for example. She visited Uncle Ward. What an incredible place. Natural disasters. What made them great was water management and then somewhere along the way they lost the balance. And then of course there were incursions from the ties like next door, etc., the empire, right? But another one is revolution, which is man-made,

you say it's man-made because the moment it is so unequal, that's why I backed to finance just now, right? Which is my field. Then you look at depth. Now the thing about depth when it blows up and rebar for that matter is compounds. Compounds. So you think about this, right?

It's cancerous. Environment, environment, eh? Consider this, this thought. comparing the environment and finance. Environment, nature has ability to heal itself. We've seen how not all the time though. So species loss, for example, that's why once you hit a certain tipping point, that's it.

This species is lost in spite of you. You can try to store the DNA and stuff like that, right? But finance, once you do that, once the genie is out of the bottle, it keeps on compounding and compounding and compounding. The cure for that. So, like, for example, rivers can be dead, right? And you can recover, you can bring back to life, actually. During COVID, we saw some of this, right?

Singapore, you look at both key, clark key, those rivers were terrible, I don't know, 50, 60 years ago. It was all right. Or people can reforest, for example. You know, re-nature things, right? Because this is the power of the natural system. That's why, in many ways, Riba is, well, it is unnatural. because it compounds, it eats from other. And that's why the one verse in the Quran says what?

Allah Allah declares war, war on oriva. So if you ponder that this is so cancerous, it grows. And so I'm reading this guy called Michael Hudson. Not very famous. Michael Hudson, who's at Harvard as I believe as an archaeologist, not anthropologist, not as an economist. Basically, he concluded that the cure to that was what is called Debt Jubilee. So in the past from Hamurabi's time, when the ruler basically says society is so unequal

that not necessarily, maybe they are from the love of the people, but because of self-preservation, they know that this has grown so far, this guy's got nothing to lose, they're going to go after me. That's what happened in the French Revolution. Let them eat cake, marry internet. They all literally lost their heads, right? Now, so consider this. Remember, HIPC, high-income poor countries, the debt relief for Africa. Doesn't happen much. Everything is like IMF coming, bail out the creditors. Come on. Greece, what happened? So debt has reached a certain level that this is not, I think, some famous Harvard, your Harvard colleagues, I think, Ken Rogoff and others.

I think the number is about 90% debt to GDP. Then it becomes sclerosis, very difficult to grow. That's why risk and reward have to come together. That's why equity, venture, for example. Like what you're doing, private equity. Of course, not voucher capital, but venture capital. Balcher capital, the structure may be right, instrument may be right, but if the people is wrong, doesn't work either, right?

So I think we need to think in those terms. Otherwise, the great leveler, but I like to think through certain moments in history, take the Scandinavian example, right? They somehow got together, reorganized society, the vulnerable, do this and that, and then social welfare system, high taxes, but that was their compromise, move forward. China now doing, you know, they are whatever, like, Deng, I thought, Deng is a great fan, amazing, right? What Deng did.

Of course, Deng came after the failed cultural revolution. So what Malaysia, Indonesia did? Malaysia worked for what is worth. If there's an Olympic sport for poverty eradication, we'll be on the podium. For all the near we moan and groan here and there, al-a-hambilah, to recognise that. But, of course, that's not enough. We want to be more.

We want to remove all this nonsense in between, right? We can do that. Indonesia is such a great possibility, but we can't. You know, the power of increments. I tell people, one point. power of increments. Increment. 1.0 to the power of 365 is equal to 1.

But 1.01 to the power of 365 is equal to 37.7. Amazing. So that 0.01 matters. Wow. In a good way or in a bad way? So what you've done is you've applied the magic or the evil, depending on your own compound, of compounding. can be...

Well, Nargaara that talks about incrementalism is Tolstoy. Right. You know, in war and peace. He talks about what it takes to be great by being simple, good, and smart.

There you go. But the power of increments. Asman, I've taken up so much time. No, no, no, thank you. Last question. Canchil. The deer. In the context of this,

Thucidatea, the strap. that's happening between China and the US. What does Southeast Asia have to do? Very interesting. Yeah, I actually wanted to say this earlier in the podcast. I'm glad you raised it because I'm on record now because two days ago at the Kazana 30th anniversary, I sketched out, you know, they gave me the flaw along with the former MDs.

I sketched out three kind of formula, if I can call it that. The first one, maybe for this audience and others, to repeat that, I said 33 times 33. Second one, K times K. And the third one, a result to the end. 33 times 33 for me was that Malaysia just turned 67. Forget what, Kazanal, the last 30 years, enough, like, patting ourselves on the back. More important, look at the next 33 because in 33 years' time, Malaysia will be 100,

kind of a milestone. But the 33 was the 33 million Malaysians, were smaller, but for me, this is just one number, important number and those not born yet, right? The K times K is that one of the day. K was of course Kazana. The second K, I said, Kanchilnomics. Think about cancernomics,

which is a metaphor for when the giants fight in the big ugly jungle, the big beast fight, the elephant and the tiger and the crocodiles. Be the smart, nimble, clever, little cancille. You know, we don't make unfairly from others, We have to recognize we are not that big, at least Malaysia. Indonesia, of course, is larger, but Asian in the world, maybe it's a metaphor, to be nimble now.

As you know, in our folklore, and I think in Indonesia too, right, how does the cance across the river, right? It does that when there's lots of crocodiles by finding a way to jump on the heads of the crocodile to cross. We grew up on this, right? How does when the elephant fight with this, somehow they do a lion with the monkeys to come and change the game? I was born in Mleka as he started this podcast.

Mleca, the origin story in Mleca, legend or otherwise, is when Paramehawar, the Sumatran prince came over, sat down under the Mleca tree. And then he observed about this little being called the mouse deer, you know, fighting this big dog. But this guy won, feisty, right? So we got to be that can chill. And I think so that's the metaphor, the country, of course the country got to be lean, got to be healthy, got to be smart, blah, blah, you know, all these things.

And I think we can. And small nations, by definition, are not big nations. Big nations are big, so they have certain advantages. But they also have certain burdens, right? In fact, there's a whole group of nations. There are successful small nations. I mean, take Denmark, take Switzerland,

take Latvia, take New Zealand, for example, or Singapore, for that matter. But there's also, you know, middle powers and large powers. So knowing your place, I will play in place. I think this is where our time come. And to complete my third formula was actually finding your true north, your Kibla,

which we covered quite a lot already. Then execution. So, you know, one of my popular quotes last time when I was at Kazana was, my colleagues will remember this, execute you before

you execute like your point about your point about power of precision principle right excellent right

and your five minute rule oh the five minute rule is about integrity which is the third part the third part so through north

plus execution multiply by I put it as how to get lucky you get lucky by being true one of the ways

to be true is this five minute rule which means the only way we work was to be five minutes away from either getting sacked or resigning on matter of principle. As it turns out, paradoxically, you survive 14 years. If I may riff on that a little bit, you know, you follow rugby, you know? So the New Zealand, all blacks, legendary, right? So they are famous Hakka, right?

And the Hakka, and of course we claim they're actually from the Malay world, you know, Jonah Lomu, all this, they roll all the way to the South East. goes, Kumate, Kumata, kha, kumata means Akumati, Akumati,

came from us. Came from us. By the way, this is the Melanesian language, so kumate, kumati, I'm mati,

akumati, koi, korea, kut, I'm living, you got to die first. This is the warrior

mentality, right? You know this in our culture, sometimes we forget. Our great warrior although in Indonesia, of course, land of warriors, many warriors. Only world too,

sometimes we don't fuck enough. So, so, you know, the present-day warriors must have that warrior mentality. You serve, you die. So to get lucky, and be fair,

back to justice is now. You be fair means you be reasonable. You give right proportion. You know? It's about giving right proportion. You declare, if you know,

this one is defect, declare. Imagine. So then you get lucky, right? You somehow get lucky somewhere, I mean the world is unfair place, but there are still pockets

of not just pockets, there's ways and ways of good things and this is the power and I think our world, our part of the world, al-hambilah, our ancestors to Santara, right? Islam came to this part of the world, but also, you know, I've been to

Prambonan, I've been to Borobodor last now. This is this, this this is a great region you know, I mean, I'm more like, my ancestry half-bugist the other half is Chinese.

My mother's side. So, you know, this part of the world, people come from all over. It's a melanch. And let this be the meeting place. Yeah. And the place where that meeting can become, you know, glorious in a good way, in a civilizational way. I think a lot of people don't realize that Southeast Asians,

they've been able to show tremendous agency and ability to embrace multipolarity. for the last 2,000 years. That's a bit underestimated. Absolutely. I mean, for us, that ambiguity, managing ambiguity is natural, no? Why? Because our part of the world has always been doing that.

As you say, it's in the DNA. It's literally in the water and in the blood. Just going to sharpen it a little bit more. The problem, as you rightly put, certain things we don't seem to be serious enough, okay? Let's get serious. You want to redo this serious. The execution part just now.

precision, excellence, pizza scores and those kind of stuff when you do it properly and do it at scale and repeatability repeatedly. I think that's where the power institution but the family unit I think very important

right? The family unit unfortunately there's a lot of social ills, there's problems here and there so if we frame that way then let's all do whatever we can in our own little corner and then let it multiply in a good way I mean, I got lots more, but we're out of time.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for coming all the way to this corner of Pajan. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Friends, that was Tan Sri Asman Mautar.

Thank you. This is Endgame.