Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - Martyn Terpilowski: What Technocracy in Business Looks Like

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Martyn Terpilowski, CEO & Founder Bhumi Varta Technology (Bvarta), shares his views and experiences on doing business in Indonesia. This episode talks about our business and investment ecosystem, as well as building a corporate culture.#Endgame #GitaWirjawan #MartynTerpilowskiChapters:0:00:00 - Intro0:01:36 - Personal background: From North England to Tokyo0:07:51 - Work culture in Japan, Hong Kong vs Indonesia0:12:08 - Technocracy attracts talent (and money)0:19:58 - Startup0:24:26 - How to channel money to the right talent and ideas0:36:31 - Best practices in Southeast Asia0:41:24 - It takes decades to build a proper business0:52:26 - How foreign investment works1:02:24 - Building business culture1:12:53 - What would make a business succeed/fail1:19:57 - Education------------------Get your copy of Gita Wirjawan’s book, “What It Takes: Southeast Asia”, NOW:⁠https://books.endgame.id/⁠Also available on Amazon:⁠https://sgpp.me/amazon/⁠Leave your review here:www.goodreads.com/book/show/241922036-what-it-takes------------------Related Endgame episodesSandiaga Uno: Tanah Gemah Ripah, Ramah, Bernilai TambahAzman Mokhtar: “There’s More to Life than Finance and Economics”Jessica Tan: How She Leads Half A Million Employee

What I see here, brutally honest, having an MBA here means you've got wealthy parents. That's all it really means. It doesn't mean anything else. Davy Beckham's son cannot play for Manchester United because he's not good enough. Yeah. How many self-made multi-millionaires have I met in Indonesia? Hardly any. What's going on?

The bloodshed in the tech space now. Do you think that's enough to entail a pivot from short-termism to long-termism? I really hope so. I really hope so. It's the time for getting serious, talking to the real people who want to build businesses, and getting these people on board. Best talent does not want to work in markets where their achievements are not recognized. The meritocracy has to be here or those people won't come. Hi, friends, it's a pleasure to tell you that my book, What It Takes, Southeast Asia, has been released in English and Bahasa Indonesia. You can buy it through books.endgame. ID or at any of these stores.

Now back to the show. Hi, friends. Today, we're honored to be graced by Martin Terpelowski, who is the founder and CEO of Bavarta. Martin, thank you so much. Thank you, Gita. Nice to meet you. Tell us how you grew up, where you grew up, and why you moved out here to Asia. Right.

Long story. I grew up in a small town in the north of England, just a town of a couple of hundred people, really. And, you know, between, I would say when people say, I always say Manchester because it's easier, but it's not. It's two hours north of Manchester, one and a half hours south of the Scottish border on a peninsula. It's like the end of the world. You have to go nearly up to Scotland and then back again. So the closest town is a place called Barrowing Furnace. And not a particularly nice place, to be brutally honest.

But I haven't lived there since I was 18. But yeah, that's where I grew up. And yeah, it was never really a plan to move to Asia particularly. It's just that obviously there was very little opportunity where I came from. And again, we'll come on to later, but people like me living in that area, we don't know about scholarships and stuff. You know, we're just not aware of all this stuff. So I went to a university quite close to me because we didn't necessarily have the money

to stay away. So basically, I just went to the closest university I could drive to or get the train to, which didn't cost a lot of money. And then at the end of that, I went back to work in my hometown for a while. I realized that this is not really for me. And I thought, well, I've got a bit of ability, I think. So, you know, what to do? So I went to London and started working as a junior in a finance,

in a broker shop. And after eight months, I was asked if I wanted to go to Tokyo. No kidding. And, yeah, I went to Tokyo as a junior. really difficult at first, you know, that business is dog-eat-dog. It's not a, you know, we're doing like investment sales and equity sales. It's dog-eat-dog. But I had a choice.

Do I want to go back to England or do I want to be an opportunity? I see some of the guys who'd made a lot of money. There was a lot of people, a lot of foreigners and expats in the early 2000s, who were making a lot of money in financing, in investment banking, in broker, equity sales. And I just decided that actually, I've got to make this work. And I nearly went back many times.

And I always talk about, you know, the sliding doors moments. I went into a bar on a, I think it was an Australia day. It was like a Monday night or something. I went into a bar on Australia day. And I walked into this tiny, not tiny,

but like five foot four Japanese guy. When he comes out, he'll be watching this and he won't be very happy about me saying this. But he started talking to him. And he was, at the time, I think he was, Morgan Stanley, sorry, Citibank at one at the time at the time. Over time, we became very, very good friends.

And then he became very senior in one of the Japanese banks. Because I became, I was the best man at his wedding. And then he introduced me to so many people. So then I had the opportunity then to be introduced to the fund managers, to the family offices, where then, you know, I looked at it as an opportunity. I was always quite, you know, we'll come on to this, I was always quite vocal. I was in the past that I called out some of the big frauds,

because frauds don't just happen here, they happen everywhere. There's been some big cases that I was a whistleblower on, which to me were very obvious. But this really endeared me to the Japanese. And so I just, you know, I made a lot of money, to be honest, compared to what I would have ever made back in England, but I really focused on making sure the clients made a lot of money as well. So, you know, there's nobody out there saying, he lost all my money. I've lost my own money taking big risks,

but when it came to investors' money, I was cautious, so managed to maintain a relationship with the right people. And yeah, so I was in Tokyo for 12 years. Then after the earthquake, and also the tax in the regulation as well, also regulation in relation to some of the funds, a lot of people started moving to Hong Kong and Singapore.

And yeah, I was asked to move to Hong Kong. What made it stick for you in Japan, for you to be able to stay for 12 years? We're connected to the right people who looked after them. They're not wanting to go back to the UK anytime. There was nothing back in the UK for me. I don't have a wealthy family. I'm not going to walk back into a job because my parents can fix me a job or anything. I've got nothing back in the UK, you know.

And again, over time, I know some of the top people in Japan. Like personally, I can't go home and call Richard Branson. But even here, I've got three or four of the top 20 people. in my phone, right? So over time, I managed to build up the relationship with people. And even when I left my job, kind of semi-retired when I was 38, decided what to do next, didn't know what was going to do next. At the time, my mum really wanted me to go home because I've been away for so long. But I said, Mom, what can I do back home? I've got nothing back home. I mean, go to London, nobody knows me. I've worked six, eight months there in my life. You know, so, and I made

relationship to the right people. And I think the Japanese is hard. There's not many foreigners get into that community, but it's a trust thing. It's a bit different to hear. There isn't, most of the people I know in Japan who have made it and not, they don't have a fancy second name. They are mostly self-made. They may have been middle class, but they're self-made as in some of my mates make, you know, millions of millions of years, tens of millions in the hedge fund business. And a lot of them, you know, when you look back to what they started off, they were just doing the sales job in a bank, or even some than were doing IT in a bank when I met them. And they worked the way up, you know,

swapped into different businesses, ended up doing prop trading. And then when prop trading stock got rolled out by one of the big Japanese banks and then made a career for themselves. So most of my network are self-made multi-millionaires or more, right? You know, so having that network

around you who are not, you know, again, coming back to it, we're friends. Right. So, you know, we disagree on things, but we're friends and we support each other in business. And that has given me the opportunity even now to continue to build this business and even grow this business into Japan. So I think that's the main reason. How would you differentiate the working culture between or amongst Japan, Hong Kong and Indonesia? Well, I mean, Japan, sometimes I think,

you know, Japan think if you work long hours, that means you're doing a lot, right? I think there's, you know, when a lot of the foreigners went to Japan in the late 90s, early 2000s, they were kind of shocked at the hours people working and why are they still at the office? Why are they still the office hours after market ends? There's a culture in Japan not to leave until your boss has left or that kind of thing, right? But I don't necessarily always think he's working smart. Sometimes just working the hours, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. You know, in Hong Kong, I mainly worked with the Japanese or Japanese connected anyway.

I think the Chinese are more aggressive in business. So one of the reasons a lot of foreigners working the broker shops in Tokyo was because they were more aggressive in the business. So there was a lot of boule back in the early 2000s. But that's changed now. It's gone back. I always say this about bringing in the talent. And now it's all the top people of Japanese again.

At one point, they were all foreigners running these banks because they had that more aggressive Wall Street nature that they didn't have the Japanese. But again, I would say my close friends who have done very well, they are all quite westernized Japanese. Worked in New York, work in Sydney, working in Singapore, Hong Kong. So they're more westernized Japanese.

I think here, it's, I mean, from the cultural perspective, the work, I have no problem. If you hire the right people, it's good. I mean, I've got some, again, I always, push back on the skill gap. I mean, for me, it's not the ability of the people. It's the wrong people are in the wrong jobs. And people don't like me saying that. But the lack of meritocracy is the problem for me. You know, I work with some really smart people and I believe they'd be really smart anywhere. But they don't have a second name. And unfortunately, I see as well,

time and time again, there's no accountability if you've got the right second name that you can keep blowing things up and you'll just move to another company. Well, that just doesn't happen in the hedge fund world. You can't get things wrong constantly or make so many mistakes and just say it's a risk. You know, okay, yeah, then step aside. But that won't happen when you, so the biggest challenge for me in the Indonesian market, yes, we can say, we can say that they still, we could, we can still get the education better, obviously.

And I agree with that 100%. We can agree with that. But getting the right feeling the right jobs will be helpful. And even when it comes to returnees, I've got a few returnees who will never come back because they will not answer to people there. They have a better experience then. So this is your challenging, you know. And also the culture here, everybody wants to be in politics.

It's a very different world. And we don't even know who our politicians are. We're just so not interested. Right. And I think it makes me laugh. Recently, somebody gave me a business card for the Tony Blair Institute. Tony Blair's only here because he's persona non-gratry. in the UK. I mean, this is

well, I mean, I don't know the guy personally, but he's not a popular man in England, right? So, he's come out here and create, and when people see you, and they see you for England, they think he's a big thing. Oh, I'm Tony Blair. And I'm like, I think he's more respected in Indonesia than he is, than he is in, we don't have that same culture.

So, I think I also think, I mean, it's in people's favor. I see a huge sycophant culture here, where people just go to events to get pictures of people. Yeah. And that stopped that stops the competitive edge. Because when I go to meetings,

20 years ago, I wanted to be better than them. I didn't want a picture with them. I wanted to be better than them. I want to be richer than them. I want to be more successful than them. Yeah. Yeah, they're, oh, you can't do that.

You can't say that. He's famous. I'm like, famous for what? Famous for having a successful father. That doesn't mean anything to me. I know many people like that, right? So I think the cultural thing where, you know, people look up to people,

whatever they've done because of the second name, And at the same point, certain other people are blocked from getting anywhere. Yeah. I think that's a big problem. I want to pick your brains on something that's just been written by somebody in the US. And it talks about how nations or countries cultivate or manage talent. And then there's four illustrations there. And the first one is called Brain Train, which is manifested in Japan.

They got a lot of talent indiginity. 80% of their Nobel laureates never went overseas. They all studied in Japan. You aptly pointed out, right? Japan has become a top 10 economy. It used to be number two. Now it's number five. The second is brain gain.

This is manifested on Australia. They opened the gates, invited all the best talents from all over the world. China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Bhutan, whatever. They managed to put themselves in a top 10 economy. And the third is brain circulation, which is China. They've sent in the last 50 years about 9 million talents all across the world to study STEM. Most returned industrialization took place. And the fourth is brain linkage manifested in India.

They've sent in the last 50 years probably more than 7 million talents all across the world, U.S., Europe, Australia. Most didn't want to go back. But those that have stayed overseas have become the Satyana Della, some of their pitch eyes of the world. But every day to exchange ideas with their cousins, nephews, friends in Gujarat, Bangalore, Calcutta. So I'm just curious how you see Indonesia going forward. I mean, I can share with you that I think Indonesia needs to pick up a lot more on brain gain and brain circulation.

Open up so that best talents from all over the world come in and then circulate. sent a bunch of Indonesians to study at all the best universities or schools around the world, then make sure that they come back. But after they've studied the right stuff. Yeah, I think just studying overseas, I don't think it's a solution. I think you've got to have worked overseas as well, got experience overseas as well. Yeah, the opening up is a difficult one. I agree.

I don't think you'd have had this issue in the venture capital world if you'd had 20 years experienced guys running the money. I mean, people don't like me saying this. I would be very confident. I've never run private assets before, but I'd be very confident I could have done better than what has happened because it seemed that there was, the trouble is when you're in a circulation

when nobody pushes back on certain names. If I was there, I'd be like, no, we can't do that. That makes no sense. I don't care if it's your uncle, your cousin, your sister, your brother, we're going to lose the money. Whereas, so I think having people who understand risk and things and certainly also top tech minds would really help. This also comes from the welcoming, be more welcoming for FDI.

Because one of the big things where Vietnam has succeeded is in 2005, they opened up. They let Intel come in, 100% FDI, not all these stupid restrictions. Because I know how stupid these restrictions are. I'm a local company, employ more than 150 local people. And when I had this local content, they came to my office and told me my air conditioning units were from Japan. And I said, make it then. You know, make them then. So, or your computers are from America, you know, it doesn't make sense.

It's just a ludicrous thing. And obviously, Apple cannot come and make everything here because they have, you know, the supply chain doesn't allow that. So some of the regulation in relation to that, that in itself would solve a lot of problems because you'd get top talent coming in to work in the tech industry. And then that top talent, you know, look at Vietnam now, all these companies, FPT, AMA, these guys are global tech companies now, Silicon Valley, FPT's big now, right?

They're here, you've got VINFAST. A lot of them guys were returnees who made money and came back. I think the VINFASC guy, if I'm not correct, went to university in the Ukraine. He started a noodle company, he sold it to Nestle, then he went back. So this is, but they did something to go overseas.

What I see here, brutally honest, is a lot of people, you've got wealthy parents. To me, having an MBA here means you've got wealthy parents. That's all it really means. it doesn't mean anything else. I don't have an MBA because I couldn't afford it. Nothing to do with my ability.

It's not relevant. I mean, from my perspective, if I meet somebody here with an MBA, their father will be wealthy. So that doesn't, as I always say, and I'm not having to go up people, David Beckham's son cannot play for Manchester United because he's not good enough.

So if you want to get, there is people in the Indonesians overseas, who I know personally, who have 20 years overseas and built up, they're the ones you want coming back. They're the ones who can add to society, but the, But the problem is, do they want to come back and work for somebody's family members?

That's the challenge. Because I know now, I wouldn't work for most of the people here in finance, for example, because I don't think they are qualified at my level. And people might not like that. I think I've done better than they have. I think I know better than they. I think I've got more experience than they have. And I know some Indonesians overseas who've worked for some of the biggest private equity,

the biggest banks. They ain't going to come back and work for these people. So, again, this becomes controversial because people don't like this saying that kind of thing. but realistically, that's how it's got to work. How many self-made multi-millionaires have I met in Indonesia? Hardly any. But all of my friends are self-made multi-millionaires. My personal network, they're all self-made multimillionaires, including myself.

Somebody from where I came from, you know, never going on a whole day overseas, you know, brilliant family and everything, but never having the cash to do all. You know, we can't get on in Indonesia. We can't get. Now, again, it comes to nature versus nurture. Yeah. A lot of it, in my opinion, it's nature. My ability doesn't, I mean, of course, you can improve your ability by through education.

My ability was just lucky in some respects because I was born with a certain level of intelligence. I'm pretty sure if I went to do an MBA at Stanford, I'd have no problem with it. But it's just not on my list of things to do because I was already, I didn't have the opportunity then. and when sometimes I'm asked now to do an MBA course, it's going to make no benefit to me. It's just going to be some letters after my name. And again, it's a cultural thing. I don't know which university

most of my friends went to. So I can't tell you my good friends exactly which university. I think one went to somewhere in Australia, but I cannot tell you which university they went to. Whereas Indonesia, I know which school, everyone I know went to university because they tell you because they're all MBA Chicago booth,

Pepper Dine. Again, most of them, If they've got the benefit, they come straight back after university. And the reason they come straight back is because they don't have the name to succeed overseas. So nobody knows who they are overseas. So it's easy to come back here and I have the job because your connections. So the real good talent stays overseas and doesn't come back. And anyone who's got a well-known second name comes back straight away.

So you're not going to get the best talent. And people, like I've got a friend last week I met and he was at Goldman's for many years in Tokyo. And now he's working for a startup as a CFO. And he's been out of the country for 20 years. He did his PhD university in Tokyo and never came back. And he's quite connected in this group, because he's got some friends that I know,

but he's not at the level where he thinks he can really get on with it. And he doesn't want to hang around them just trying to get somewhere. So he thinks he's got a better chance of a career in Japan where his ability is more important than his connections. And he has connections, but not to the very top level, right? I think they're the challenges you're facing. You're suggesting that technocracies is an endangered species, right? What would it take, I mean, you've extensively talked about the tech winter in Indonesia, right?

What would it take for the tech space or just the normal space in Indonesia to be a lot more technocratic? to the extent that it doesn't have to relate to somebody's having the right last name. Well, I guess the problem was the money, the fundraising, wasn't it? The problem is when it's only that group of people getting it, and I get in the opportunity of the funding, and mostly between friends and people investing in their wife's company and investing in their sister's company and two businesses basically doing business with each other in this circular economy.

External people come in, like me, and look at the whole thing and go, this is a house of cats. I said it within the first year of being here. This is a house of cats. It is not sustainable. It's just people trying to build up the numbers, right? And yeah, I've done it on my own, but I don't think most people could because you need your own capital

and capital from close network outside of that bubble. No VC was going to give me money because I was too questioning. I was too, I don't understand. Obviously, we can't do 20x this year. That doesn't make sense. you know, of course the numbers will never get to that level, just in Indonesia. And the other danger of only doing business like that is, how do you expand outside Indonesia?

And they can't, most of them, because they're getting on here because they're connections. You know, that whole VC world, you know, most people invested in companies by just following somebody else. They had no, nobody looks at data rooms, nobody looks at anything. It's just like, they've got all these analysts, I don't know what they do. The business model was follow somebody in who's got a bigger name than me. That was the, and that's why it's gone to absolute nonsense. I sat on the sidelines watching this, thinking, what, this is going to go so wrong. So, I can't be the cleverest person

in the country. There must be some other, but there is a lot of other people. There is a silent majority, I think, particularly of all the people who have probably got senior jobs, but some of them returnees, some of them still living overseas. They all saw this coming. Right. Right. A lot of people, because the writing was on the wall, the numbers being claimed for these companies, revenue, they claimed to be making the funds that were raising. Just total nonsense. They were paying for revenue. Paying for revenue. And now everyone

said, oh, well, you know, some of these guys now have become advisors and I just like, what's going on? How are you becoming an advisor? Or they blow a company up, then they become a VC. There's no accountability. So what the trouble is with that is when you're a real professional and you've built your way up by

being successful, you lose respect for things. And that's the problem with getting those people how do you do it? You've got to stop the vested interests to get the right people in the right jobs. And that is the real challenge of this market because noses will be put out of joint.

Noses will be put out of joint because the minute you start hiring people who are not known in Indonesia but far better known outside Indonesia, I mean, most of these people, they've made it look like they're major financiers. You ask any of the guys who work in the banks in Tokyo,

Hong Kong. They've never heard of them. It's big fishing small pond. It's a huge country, but when it comes to investment, it's a small pond, right? And I think if they had more meritocracy, you'd get more returnees of quality, of high quality. And I think, yes, education is very important, but from my perspective, all I see here is the people, they come straight back. Because they have the benefit. If you've got this second name, you're going to walk into a job here, right? And I know some of them, and it's not personal. I'm friends with some of them. I'm friends with quite a lot of them, actually. And some of them at first don't like me because I said this,

but then they realize I'm not, I'm not having to go to them. It's not their fault, but it is the way it works. You know, and that is a danger because there is more skillful people and people who could add a higher value solution here. And I think one of the solutions is,

as you say, opening up like Vietnam did bring, all this like taking Indonesian jobs. Indonesians don't make telephones. Yeah. They don't make chips. So let these guys come in and build it. Let them bring the high talent, let them hire the local talent.

And that will lift it up. The whole tech system and all these guys like FPT and all that, they're all like, it lifts everybody up. I've got a couple of follow-up questions. The first is structural. Yeah. If you take a look at the money supply to GDP ratio. In Indonesia, it's only about 42, 43%.

Yeah. You've lived in Tokyo, Japan. Their money supply to GDP ratio is about 200%. They've lived in Hong Kong, China. Their money supply to GDP ratio is also more than 200%. So in a country or a scenario where the money supply to GDP ratio is only 42 to 43%, unlike 200% or above, it compels only a certain finite group of people. We call them the elites, right?

To be able to elitize the economic narrative. right and this is something that you've sort of like referred to how people with the right last names you know been able to basically push a certain narrative and this is probably structurally it's certainly how to change to the fact that there's very scant money supply right but but to the extent that that money supply

to GDP ratio for Indonesia is above 200% the likelihood for somebody with an irregular last name or an unpopular last name, he or she's probably going to be able to attach his great idea to money. Yeah, I don't doubt that. I mean, Indonesia did raise a lot of capital for the startup sector, right? So there was quite a lot of inflows of capital during that. It sounded a lot, but relative to what we're seeing in other parts of the world, it's tiny.

On the startup world as well? Right. Tiny. Well, yeah, I heard that from, I was talked to one of the guys in Korean Bank. If it was significant, it would have bumped up the money supply to GDP ratio. Right. Significant. I know that in other sectors, Indonesia's had issues raising capital for several structural issues, you know, the corruption, the ease of doing business as I read in your book and stuff like, these are all problems, right?

I understand that. I just know that also a couple of years ago, there was huge amounts of money raised here for ideas, you know, and which I feel. found bizarre, right? Which I've, again, I'm not, you know, I had this conversation when I was talking to one of the other startup kids. And I'm not an expert on venture capital because when I was in Tokyo and Hong Kong, I never met one. It's just become a fashionable place, particularly, even now, it's very fashionable in the emerging

markets. Right. One of the reasons it's fashionable is because there's no regulation. And it's not like you can't run a hedge fund because you've got a good second name. It doesn't work because you have to have experience. You have to have the licensing. So if you want to work in Hong Kong, you've got that SFC. GSDA, series seven, you've got to have all these exams.

So it doesn't work the same, right? So family offices, the proper family offices are all run by professionals, the ones in Singapore. Even when the big families here are run by professionals. I know some of the guys who run these businesses. So that was a, you know, that's, that was a, but then for a few years, there seems to be a lot of money, you know,

coming in, coming into that particular sector. And, and yeah, I think, if you wanted to come into Indonesia, easier. You had to, my understanding is, as you say, it was no one near, maybe it was nowhere near as much as people think. So I wonder how come Tamaset got involved in this? How come, um, Oteria Teachers' Pension Fund got involved in this?

Because I dealt with some of these guys in the past and they were very, very doing strong due diligence. So how did they get scammed into some of this stuff? How did they get spanned to FDX as well in the US? One of the reasons giving to me is it's such small money for them compared to their positions in other things. Correct. Compared to their positions in Singapore.

estate compared to their connections, you know, US treasuries, that kind of thing. So it's, it's, so it was a punt, so be honest. So that's why the due diligence was so bad. You know what I mean? So, but I still wonder how you can match high levels of skill with money in emerging markets, which still have a sycophon culture. Yeah. Because I honestly have no, in Hong Kong and Singapore and I don't know, you know, I think even

Yanae San, who's the richest man in Japan, can walk. down the street and no one will know who he is. Somebody might know he is, but very few. Like, to see how Goldman Sachs, for sure, goes out for a drink with his friends. Nobody's asking for a photo. So, yeah, there is also, it's a lot more based on your ideas there,

and actually, no one even cares. No one's trying to get on your right side of you for favors. No one's trying to become political with you. It's how good you are. It's how good you. I mean, I started the blank piece of paper in Tokyo, ended up making millions of dollars off my performance. So it's possible.

Nobody cared who my family was. or where I came from or anything. It was just, can you do the returns? Well, it goes back to what I alluded to earlier. I mean, Japan has got tremendous talent indigenity. China has got tremendous talent now on the back of having done brain circulation. No, I agree.

I agree. But I want to just show you some facts, right? I mean, Southeast Asia, in the last 20 years until 2024, registered around 300,000 patents. China, just in 2024, registered 1.8 million patents. So we're talking about a region, Southeast Asia, or even Indonesia, where there is a very thin layer of talent.

If you want to put money into a location or a zip code or region, you got to make sure that there is, adequacy of talent. But China was a sponge, right? China was a sponge. They allowed them all the American companies to come there and then they copied it, right? This is Indonesia, what Indonesia should do. Vietnam did it. Japan welcomed you. China has welcomed tons of people from all over the world. Now look, at the same time, they circulated. A bunch of talents. Japan didn't finance. I'm telling you, when I, I remember when I first went to Tokyo, a lot of the senior guys who are American from Wall Street, a lot of the hedge fund guys,

the big guys, Whitney Capital, Evolution. They're all Bulei, foreigners, all from Hawaii and New York. And then over time, a lot of them guys have gone or retired, and it's now back, the big hedge funds are run by Japanese. So they learned from these guys and then took that experience on. Vietnam's done the same as all these spinoffs out of Intel, out of Nvidia. But I agree. I mean, it's how China's built their EV business completely, you know.

I want to test your hypothesis on the premise or assumption that the seemingly successful entrepreneurs or techpreneurs in Indonesia who've only gotten MBAs, I guess the narrative going forward for Indonesia is to involve a lot more MBAs, right? MBAs to the extent that we don't have the necessary quantum computing experts, the necessary AI experts.

It sounds like Indonesia should be open-minded about attracting the best talents in those areas from all over the world. Of course. Right. So this relates to what I alluded to earlier in terms of brain gain. You've got to open up and invite all the best talents so that we can technocratize. And you've got to have the actual skills because, again, having an Ivy League MBA does not allow you to drive an airplane.

It does not allow you to do brain surgery. So why do people think they can come back under a couple of years be running $500 million of illiquid assets? You know, hedge fund managers get paid more than footballers. in many cases because of the performance. So this idea that I could just come into it because I'm a connector, because my family in all people, was a bad idea. What should have been going on, as you say, like STEM,

bringing in not just the MBAs from locals, because that basically means here, as far as I know, it means you've got wealthy parents. Nobody fails. You know, 100% NBA. I don't know what your score is, but everybody has an M, you know, nearly everyone I know. So that's, is that really proving anything?

And everybody wanted to get into the VC and founder world because they saw it as a way to make money. Six months at McKinsey, then we'll do this. People looked at these guys who'd raised $10, $12 billion and lost it. And they became the poster boys of the country. I think that's the problem. Too much money in the hands of people and regularly they hired their family. They hired their friends.

If you look at who these people were, they hired family members and friends. And I think the amount of money is not the issue. There was too much money going into the wrong ideas, which was, and these people managed to raise the money off the back of their connections. and they kept it to themselves. I do believe that there is... Of course, education needs to be better. We understand that.

But how do you make it better? You make it better by inviting top talents in and obviously you've got to make your own education system better. But wouldn't it be nice if you had X NVIDIA, X this, rather than X a mass loss-making startup? Because I know what these companies were like. I've... I tried to hire people during the bubble.

And the monies was just ridiculous. The money people asking for for mid-level jobs how many VPs were getting paid in these unicorn companies? You can't pass that cost onto clients in Indonesia. So I think a lot of it is, yes, the skill sets need to be better. But you get more input from the skillful people if there was more meritocracy as well. Though I think we can always improve everything. If there was better FDA, you know, allowed the foreign companies to come in and do things properly,

hire the best talent, then bring some talent from overseas to educate. them. I think the trickle-down effect would be there. But the trickle-down effect's not there at the moment because even the Indian guys here who raise money from startups, all of them were connected from these guys from school in America. So they all came here, raised loads of money, lost you all, and then raised again. People keep giving the same people money. Another classic in Indonesia, I don't guys who lose everything they do, and they still get more. So there is no accountability, and until you fix that problem, that's still going to be hard. Because the best talent does not want to work in markets where their achievements are not recognized.

You know, I always say to people about listed security market is a real leveler. And people's, again, people's idea is, oh, everyone who goes to Goldman Sachs is Ivy League. It's just not true. Yeah. It's just not true. A lot of these guys on the trading floors in the big investment banks, some of them went to Ivy League. Some of them didn't go to university. I've got friends who were sandwich delivery boys in the city in the 1990s, super smart.

obviously they are smart but they never had that chance so there's all these things how do you get those people how do you bring those people in because if you go into a broker office in Tokyo 20 years ago it was full of 20 people like me 20 people like me not fancy education but talented

driven driven driven driven ability to make money don't want to go back to where they were because they had no money you know they have this business I'm doing now there's no coincidence that I've put my own money up I don't get a salary there's not coincidence that I've got a bit of experience,

which is not just doing a bit linked to my connections, I think there is other people. Even in my company, I can name five to ten people who have the ability to do proper startup companies like me. But where are they going to start to get the money? Because I remember when I first came through my original partners getting introduced to some of the VC guys,

and these guys, because I'm not, they don't think anything exists outside Indonesia. They spoke to me like I was a complete idiot. And when I looked at their background, I was like, really? What the heck are you? Who are you? And I don't know the second names then. I'm like, who the hell are you?

I mean, you've got no background. I've got 20 years experience made. So that's, if they're speaking to me like that, how are they going to treat the normal people here with a good idea from ITB? I know it does exist, but I just, I think there's two things. Need to bring more talent here. Welcome the foreign talent. But also the meritocracy has to be here. or those people won't come.

Draw the picture for Indonesia in the next 10 to 20 years if those things were not to happen, meaning if Indonesia were not to show open-mindedness to invite all the best talents, what do you think will happen to Indonesia relative to what's happening around the region? I don't think people are going to keep giving the same people money anymore. I think it's a, I know that these VCs now,

no one's going to give them more money. You know, people have seen what goes on. They've become independently wealthy, well, everything's lost money. There isn't a lot of appetite. So, yeah, I don't think it's, if you're looking for foreign investment, again, it's different here. I don't know who the LPs are for all these companies.

And again, we come back to how it works here. There's things that I'll never understand, you know, how it works. But some of the money given by the big LPs here, it's probably tiny compared to what they put in their real family office in Singapore, right? So they're just punting money, and they rather punt money with their friends, who they trust or their family. They trust family is a big thing here, right? I mean, I get it.

Family is a big thing to me, but I wouldn't employ my dad to run engineering. You know what I mean? Because he's a car mechanic. You know what I mean? So we're realistic about this. Well, he was a car mechanic. Then he became an engineer,

but more on the, you know, fixing things, kind of kind of thing. So, yeah, I mean, common sense would be required, right? So I think... In Southeast Asia, who do you think is going to stand out

by way of showing open-mindedness with respect to talent? But Singapore, obviously stands out because it has, you know, again, it does. have. I know that you've got a few, but they're not usually not Singaporeans, but it does have meritocracy to an extent. There is guys who've done businesses there from zero. There's a lot. There's self-made millionaires in Singapore, right? And there's a lot. So I think Vietnam has got a number of good examples. Now at VinFAST. I was at the company

called FPT, as I said, in TMA, and recently I was at that house of the guy from TMA. And his story is brilliant. He was in America, Canada, working for Nortel networks. He came back and then they started originally as an outsource company. And then they built a talent up when Intel came in and everything. And then now they've got big AI business, even in Silicon Valley. So you need to attract the top Indonesians back as well. Yeah. I know a few.

And they ain't coming back or the back and wanting to go again. Well, you know, the diaspora for Indonesia in the last 50 years would amount to about two to three hundred thousand right India over seven million China over nine million Of course So just just

I mean the populations of these countries is a lot bigger You know if this is a country That's the fourth largest in the world Right We've got to think and scale Yeah I just I just think You know there's a lot of smart people

Within those two to three hundred thousand people That would have studied overseas or in You know inside Indonesia But if we want to scale up Technologically economically we've got to show tremendously more open-mindedness in attracting talent from overseas. Now, STEM, the picture is as follows.

If you take a look at Southeast Asia, Malaysia is the LeBron James now. They're converting 40 to 43% of their university students to STEM. Superseding Singapore at only 36%. Indonesia, 22%. I just gave a lecture in Huchemin and Vietam. Right, nice place. They saw the landscape.

And that university where I gave a lecture, they're converting 50% of their university students to STEM. So they're showing hunger, thirst, and they read what's happening. And they want to go where they want to go. Yeah, I mean, politics isn't as big a thing in those countries as well, right? One guy, one party. Yeah, yeah.

And even in it's less complicated. Even in Malaysia is less complicated. I've done... No, but Malaysia, at the rate that it's converting 40 to 43% of its university students into STEM, it's the main reason

why Nvidia, Intel and all the other big boys are putting money into Malaysia. Of course, but again, here, it comes back to the thing. Where's all the startup business here? It's all apps. It's all consumer apps.

Everything was about Tam metrics. Nothing was about building. Now, everybody follows. Nobody leads. You know what I mean? So it was about like some guys doing and seeing something happens in America, we'll come back and we'll do it here.

and we'll use our connections to raise the money. So a lot of it was not high-tech products. I mean, that's probably where you saw my thing without comment about how many billions, hundreds of millions or billions of dollars will spend. And there's very little IP. There's very little IP that you can take up to other countries and win. You know, in what we do, we're already the biggest in Vietnam.

You know what I mean? And we've got the ability to take this to Japan, and I believe we'll be the biggest. Because there is IP. But nobody wanted to do what we did because it takes too long. The problem was, I think, everybody saw people getting rich quick. So how would you get rich quick? It's all tam metrics.

MSMI, MSME tech. Everybody was talking to me about MSMEETEC. Everyone was talking about financial inclusion. I was brutal. If financial inclusion was such a big thing, the richest man in the country would have done it already. Yeah. He already has a bank. Or he did if he's the richest man still anymore.

Most of the people who started startups in Indonesia had no plans to go overseas. Because the population and no... 280 million, blah, blah, blah. You do a business in these other countries, their plan is to go overseas because the population is not big enough. And again, once you plan to go overseas, you've got to take your second name out of it.

You've got to take your ability and your quality and your performance. And that's what happens. And that's why some of these companies have been successful from these countries. Plus, yeah, they've welcomed top talent in. But yeah, I mean, that's the thing. There wasn't the interest in building deep tech in Indonesia,

because it took too long. People looked at certain people making tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in a few years. The model as well became here, sell your shares on the way up. So everybody was getting rich while the companies were losing money. It was completely ridiculous to me.

But because of that, when somebody came with a deep tech idea a few years ago, people are, you're not going to do that. I got told by people, that'll never work. They'll be stupid this Indonesia. And I'm like, it take time, but it might work.

This won't work because there's like 100 people doing it, and it's a race to the bottom. And again, it's now everybody's doing an AI agent. That's the latest thing. You've got to be a bit like selective in what you do and try to actually, and accept that to build a proper business, which is not just a get rich quick scheme,

will take 10 years. You know, that's a fact. If you look at the grandparent to these people, it took them decades to build the business. The problem is now everyone wants to get rich, keeps raising money without thinking, all right, what happens if I can't keep raising money? I always knew that I couldn't keep raising money. So how do I make sure that I actually have?

And I realize that from my perspective, B2B, whatever anyone says is a better business in Indonesia. B2B is a more successful business in Indonesia because they pay me money. They pay me. It might take time sometimes to get paid. But yeah, it's not like, you know, bottom of the pyramid who just wants promotion and there's no loyalty. So one of the challenges is getting people to actually believe they can build deep tape products. Because everyone just says we can't, we can't. But that was because all the support, all the money,

and now we're having all the backlash, all the money from the government. I have a question whether these guys should, government should ever be investing in startups, in my opinion. You know, I don't think these countries are rich enough to be throwing money around in startups. But that's where it's all coming back to bite now, because it was all in, let's get this money back quickly, blah, blah, blah. What it should have been was building like they do, in Vietnam and Malaysia,

building, you know, before it became popular, AI hubs and all this stuff, right? That's where I believe should have been going on. But unfortunately, the culture was, in my opinion, it was just a very small group of people on get rich quickscapes. And, weirdly, most of them selling the shares on the way up and most of them just look at exits.

They were not looking at building. I think the best thing is, here, people do not look to build generational companies anymore. All these founders are out of the companies. Most of the VC guys have left the VC and gone to government, right? They weren't looking to build generational companies. They were looking to get rich. And, you know, that's the problem.

Getting rich should come like it has for Jensen and Vrida after years and years and years of building a product that's globally required. This has happened several times in other locations. But it won't happen if your plan is just to build the simplest thing possible, which cannot go overseas because there's too many competitors. and just use your connections and a number of people in the country to blow up the valuation.

And again, if there was more people, you know, doing STEM here and there was more people with access to capital and more top talent from overseas, I don't think that would be a problem because realistically, Indonesia should be challenging places like China. I mean, a lot smaller scale. But China is the opposite.

China was a sponge. China was a sponge. You know, Japan was a sponge in finance and they've managed to work out how to bring the best talent, copy the best talent and kick them out again, basically. That's the China model. I mean, you look at, there's a company that does what we do called Esri. And it's the biggest, it's a US private company that does geospatial,

mainly for government. And they were in China for about 20 years. And then one day, suddenly, all the people left and joined Supermap, which is now the same people exactly working with it. And now they're competing globally with Esri now, like catching up. what I mean? Doing a lot of business here with the government. And that's the model, you know, that's the model that these guys have done.

But your structural issue, you know, is still, it's the, yeah, not bringing in top talent and the meritocracy to ensure that your top talent gets to the top. Because look at the UK. I think the top 10 people, seven of them were born poor. Seven of born poor. My friend's married to his sister. He's the richest man in the UK now. through Blue Crest,

and yeah, born in Preston. He could buy Preston now. So how did that happen? He happened because he was the best at his job. You know what I mean? And he managed to do very well. Of course, there's luck involved, but that, you know, it made him from zero.

That happens a lot where there's a meritocratic society. The bloodshed in the tech space now, do you think that's enough to entail a pivot from short-termism to long-termism? I really hope so. I really hope so. I mean, people... Just your blunt analysis.

No, I think I also, because people come on, you know, sometimes, I don't read the comment. I never had Instagram until recently. I only got Instagram because after that podcast, it was going around. So my staff said you should get Instagram yourself. But I didn't want to read the comments because there's so much hate on there. It's on there, right? But some people say, oh, you go home, you hate our country.

I said, no, no, no. I think, I just think it could be done better. That's all. I think this country retains opportunity, but they have to pivot quickly. And the pivoting is what you've said, you know, stop this. You can't keep losing opportunities with the big companies to come into Indonesia and teach your people. And I think what Paxandi said last way, Paxandi, you know, he said, we lose deals because

of our willingness to be welcoming. I often feel that people think I'm lucky to be here. I'm not sure that's the way to do business. I'm not sure that's a way to run an economy. You know, we're rich already, we don't care. Because most of people making the decision are rich already. That's the thing, right? That's a challenge you have.

I mean, we're seeing in America now all kinds of problems, right? But we know that's going to last four years and it will come back to a norm. You know, the level of graft and stuff in America now is crazy, right? But here, you know, is there, again, come back to the education, is there an interest from the people at the top to have? You know, once you get a system where, seven of the richest 10 people were born poor, that pushes people's nose out of joint, right?

That's what's needed. That's what's happened in China. I mean, yes, okay, Jack Mar got pushed aside. But India, they have self-made people as well, right? So, but the problem with that is how many, does everybody want that? Is that in the interest of everybody? You know, because I know people don't necessarily like me, because I don't rely on them, and I say my opinions.

If there's lots of people like me who are self-made and don't require, rely on them, it's going to be more difficult for them to be on control of everything. So I think those are things what need changing, but that would require some, you know, and again, I think another issue here is the local people often talk, it's like two different conversations. They're talking to a local audience all the time. So when they come out with this golden visa

or turning Bali into Singapore, all these things that they come out with here, every foreigner just laughs. You know, every foreign just likes it. We just look at it and go, what are they talking about? It's never going to happen. Foreign investors look at this and think it's mad. So they don't have that sycophant culture.

They don't know who they are, most of these people. I know the person who runs Franklin Templeton and Merging Market Equities. She doesn't care who these people are. She cares about the system working so she can invest in this country. And she says mostly uninvestable right now because of all these problems. Often these, I remember sat down with the ex-head of the stock exchange. He told me that we were going to be more liquid than Singapore in six years. He told me it's going to be that.

They have all these crazy things that they come out with. Oh, you're going to do it? Let's do things which are achievable. You can bring, I think because of your natural resources and a number of people, you can bring these big companies here at some stage. Yes, it takes time because, as you've just said, other countries are taken over on the stem and stuff. You had a couple of periods of a couple of years where nobody wanted, everybody just wanted to be MBA, VC or startup, right? That's what everybody wanted to do.

Nobody wanted to be a lawyer anymore. there was nobody who talked at Goldman Sachs because it takes 10 years to get to the top or 20 years to get to the top. Nobody wanted to work at JPMorgan or city because you're not going to get a top job at 23, right? You're going to be getting the sandwiches at the office and stuff.

Yeah, so that's kind of what everybody went down on the avenue. So they need to be a pivot. And the pivot would have to be bringing in top talent overseas, bringing in companies that can, you know, people can be X, NVIDIAX. That is a possible, but it's got to be pivoted quick. I don't think people are going to keep on throwing money at Indonesia

because the lack of success stories. Even the unicorns, most of them are hemorrhaging capital. And I don't think, yeah, okay, they can be profitable by firing everybody. A lot of the companies now are saying we're profitable because they're firing lots of people, right? So, but how do they sustain that? How do they become Asia-wide players? Because Indonesia is a big enough economy for trying to become Asia-wide players. Why is only a bouleer taking his business to other countries?

Why? You know, I build a product in Indonesia, so it's possible. even I talk to the top people in the big distributors here, they don't make anything, they're a middleman. They distribute big American software company. They always said to me, oh, it's too much risk, too much hassle doing yourself. So if that's the mentality, that's a problem. You need to have somebody who wants to build a tech for the good of the country.

And when I came to Indonesia, I'll be honest, that's what I was sold. Let's build Indonesia's first ever deep tech company, blah, blah, blah. That's why I was sold. You know, that's why I came here as an investor. And looking now 10 years, sorry, eight years, there are a few others, but most of them don't have any capital,

so they're messing around trying the best. You know what I mean? They can't build up to why I've built up to because they just don't have the opportunity. If your friends overseas that are in positions of authority in allocating capital, and if they realize and recognize

the divorce between the narrative and reality, what would it take? for the narrators to understand this. To understand that the people out there actually see what's actually happening. I don't know because you always see there's currently campaigns going on online and I don't know. It's to me it's like when listening to these people, it's like they're talking, they're just talking to the local audience nearly always. And sometimes coming out with comments, which I think, and I'm not going to say,

well, you know who, but there's a few comments been made recently about, you know, taking more ownership in foreign, making more ownership. in foreign entities and taking golden shares in tech companies. This ain't good for foreign investors. You know, you just need to stop saying these things. I know it might not be said in jest, but it's not the time for jest. It's the time for getting serious, talking to the real people who want to build businesses and getting these people on board.

These people are not bothered about who you're connected to. They're bothered about the best result for their company. They're bothered about if I come to this country, will it be better or should it be good as this other country? I have a friend who's on a global board at one of the big, and I pretty sure you know her, and one of the big tech U.S. companies, and she couldn't even get them to open here

because she couldn't sign off on it because she just knows it's too problematic. And she lives in the US in California. And yeah, you know, that's the problem. So some of them people, unfortunately, kind of giving up. They're living in California. They're not coming back ever. They just come back to see family. I met a few weeks ago at the Shangri-La. And how do you get the people who really want to do that in the country? Because at the moment, a lot of the stuff's being said,

you know, the foreign view on a lot of this, there's been a lot of arguing online between Singaporeans and Indonesians where Singaporeans have set out what they think about these corruption cases and Indonesian have gone mad on it. And there's the campaigns, from anyone who's ever worked with any of these people. And again, I don't know who's wrong or right. But foreigners are thinking, like, hang on a minute. It's like more, these guys are your heroes. They're not, it's a different story to who's wrong or right or what's about business.

So there is still concerns that it's like a cult, a cult. You know, culty, right? It's kind of a cult because that's how it's operated for a number of years. You know, a couple of years ago, you'd go to a startup event. These guys were like celebrities. Yeah. It's unbelievable, like going in, like, high-fiving and pictures with people. You don't see that at the Goldman Sachs conference or the Numeru conference.

It's just nobody does that. Nobody's going around like queuing up for photos with people. Yeah, I think there's the narrative. They're not selling themselves very well. So there's a lot of stuff which sounds great here when you're listening to them here, but actually it's not workable. You know, foreign investors do not want to come in and necessarily partner with these people because, you know, a lot of them,

I've got political exposure rules that they can't necessarily partner with these people. I mean, even I personally, I've recently rejected interest from a local, in local government-related investment

because some of my partners on boards in GS and places cannot invest in companies with political exposure personally. So there's all these challenges that they don't, I don't know if they don't know, I just ignore.

You know, I don't know, that's the thing. Do they actually know that saying that, you know, comments is kind of dangerous. Do they know that? Or do they care? Because they personally are okay. Sometimes what I wonder do, does anybody care? Because personally, they're doing okay, you know?

Yeah, I don't know. It's a challenge. I've been spending a lot more time with people of STEM background. Yeah. Because they seem to be able to think in zero or one terms. They take the subjectivity out of the equation. take ambiguity out of the equation. Whereas if you talk

to people with non-STEM backgrounds, they try to infuse ambiguity. And this is manifested in, well, I guess I can use Japan or China as an example. China's political calculus is such that the parties get

100 million membership from what I heard, 20 to 30 million of its members or STEM. The Politburo has seven members of which three have stem backgrounds, including Xi Jinping, who studied chemical engineering. In the U.S., wasn't it? No, at Chenghua University.

Oh, right. I saw a picture of it. With the pieces in polymer. Right. So, you know, I'm speculating, but, you know, borderline hypothesizing in that when these guys made decisions, there's likely to be greater degree of efficiency and velocity. Of course. Right?

And deciding. Of course. They don't prolong decisions. I'm quite black and white. I just don't know the solutions necessarily here because I can't control. I know what I would do here. Right. I guess just to wrap up,

I mean, the 22% of STEM conversion for Indonesia needs to move up to at least 40%, right, without which I think we're going to not be able to robustly attract capital allocation, technologically and economically. Yeah, it's certainly an issue. And I always say that you need to get the meritocracy right,

but of course that's also important. My question is, why is the not support of that? And I always the question is, is it because there is a danger? Once the support of that, you do get these outliers, you get this, you know, you get the self-made multi-millionaires, you get the Michael Platzer this world, the guys who come from Preston end up owning, you know, Bluecrest Asset Management. Is that the potential issue? Is that why it's not being supported?

I don't know. I think, honestly speaking, the problems here are quite easy to solve. Most countries, as they become increasingly successful, rely less and less on the state, not more and more on the state. And when everybody wants to join government, it concerns me. And when everybody wants to be a, you know, I got a call tomorrow from the UK to be the prime minister. I would say, no, we're not interested. I make much more. Especially now.

I can make much more money in the private sector, and that's a concern. And, you know, I don't want to get involved with who's right, who's wrong, but the private sector pays far, far more. I was paid more than George Bush when I was in Tokyo by a long way. So it's a different market, you know what I mean? You don't get people, apart from Trump, but he was a failed businessman anyway. You don't get businessmen wanting to go into government. So here it's everybody's dream to be in the government.

And while they like to say, like, and I guess, Pakistan, last week, that they want to influence everything, the easiest way to influence things I think is make more of a private sector you know increase the private sell off your national assets I know it's but there's too many there's just too much

you cannot have enough innovation when you're 50 60 70% government owned it just won't work I know this because I've been building software here and I know that everybody many company or agencies have tried to copy us and never worked

it's never worked because I've got some very good talent You know, people say there's no tech talent here. I've got STEM talent. I mean, my head of data is a PhD from Cambridge. I've got multiple guys who worked in Canada and Silicon Valley and Singapore. They do exist. They're just not working at, you know, the...

Not off the kind of scale we're seeing in China. No, of course not. Of course not. We need massive... We got those talents. We need massive improvement. But we got to multiply them by 1,000. But I'm lucky a lot of these guys, like, the guy from DETA, he was in London for 70 years.

So he didn't just come straight back. He said seven years in an AI and data company in London. After that, he wanted to come back because his partner, his wife now, is her family have a business here and she wants to run it. But he reached out to me because he said, where do I work with my skill set? I'm lucky because I'm going to attract that kind of talent because we are one of the few companies doing deep tech. We are building a deep tech product in Indonesia.

So it can be done. Of course, at scale, it takes time. But how do you do it? Again, it's been done by a boole. So a good idea maybe to not always like say it's a bad idea to have them here because maybe if you bring the people with a scale and the and the tenacity, I think, as well. Because you've got to have tenacity to succeed in a startup company. Let's pick up on that.

You know, I spent quite a bit of time in the Bay Area, but also I go to China. Like I went to China eight times last year to give talks. What I've noticed, the entrepreneurialism in the Bay Area is really amalgamation of, research being done by universities there and entrepreneurs. Like Japan? Yeah. Yeah, Japan's like that. You've got great universities.

All the staffs of Tokyo University. Right. But in Shenzhen, there's no great university. But the people that are working in Shenzhen are those that would have migrated from Wuhan, from Shanghai, from Pecheng, Chongqing, Cheng, Chengtu. And the mindset is such that if they had worked nine or ten hours a day in Wuhan, after having moved to Shenzhen, they would want to work 13, 14, 15 hours a day

to make sure that they make a better, faster, cheaper product. Now, that, I think, is a pretty rich observation, right, about the entrepreneurialism that's, you know, pervasive. I think it's also in our company. And how do you get Indonesians or Southeast Asians to embrace that sort of a work culture? To the extent that,

that our research and development is not as sophisticated in most countries in Southeast Asia as those that you might find in Singapore. A lot of my guys work, I think it depends on your leader, right? I think there's a lot depends on your leader. I work ludicrous hours to make this business work. It's basically all my money's involved. So people might have left our company because they didn't like it, I'm sure. We lost people because they didn't like the culture.

The culture is work hard. You know, my sales team are on the phone with me 10, 11 o'clock at night often. I've got a group of guys that probably would not be hired at a lot of these other startups, some of them, but some of them, there's a real mix. But from my perspective, on the tech side, I've got some very highly qualified people, and I've got some people who maybe their CV was not the mess CV, but I saw something in them. And they've proved to be very, very good.

So I think it's also quite hard just to judge people purely on what they're a educational attainment is because there's also effort and tenacity. It means a lot because you can come out as much strategy as you want. I think I'm lucky because I have some level of intelligence, but I'm not the smartest person in the world. There's much smarter people than me with much better educational background. But do they get up at 5 o'clock in the morning and push this? Because when failure is not an option.

So when you're like, you know, your 10-y-one chance of succeeding, they start up VC businesses, 10-1. I mean, I had wanting one. If I failed, I was screwed over. So if you've got a culture where you're selling out, your shares your business before it goes up, because you know it's going down, it's all cultural, right?

How can you build that? How can you get that culture of building the STEM and all that? Because people are not interested, because they can see quicker ways to make money. So it's all coming back to them, make sure that the culture is not about getting rich quick and doing that. The culture is about building generational companies

and building generational talent. Because if you build generational companies and generational talent, this will become a first world country. And keep talking about GDP. It's also absolutely nonsense. When your GDP per capita is still less than 5,000. Yeah.

And that's, take all the oligarchs out. It's less than probably 3,000. It's not relevant. You know, people are we got, I'm sick of hearing the Tametrics all I've ever heard. I've always said that the bottom of the pyramid is too big to base your business entirely on that. You've got to have a business here that you build to international standards that you can take to other countries as well. that you can sell your product in Singapore. And everyone says you can't do it.

But VinFast have done it. So don't tell me it can't be done. That's just done my returnee. FPT have done it. So it is possible. There is companies who've done it globally. I just think if you get to the culture again where everything's long term,

you want to build up something. Your life should, I mean, I'm living overseas, but it shouldn't all be about going overseas long term. You should want to come back to your own country. And I don't, but that's mainly because I spent a long time building relationships here that I don't have, obviously, back in England.

And I can do more here. You know, I can create more. I can achieve something more. I can, you know, for me, you see, it was also a legacy issue. And I don't think there's enough of that. I think the grandparents had that. But when all these founders are selling the shares on the way up, that concerns me. Is there a legacy issue?

So Indonesia should build their own tech products and create a legacy, you know, not just about, let's get rich quick. And that will create the whole ecosystem around it, right? There is possibilities here, but mostly what they do here, it's still a very middleman economy. And you even see some of the big family offices here in tech company. They're investing in America, they're investing overseas. I didn't know that for recently, actually.

I was talking to GDP, and they invest overseas in the US and stuff. But there isn't many companies that are actually trying to build a deep tech product that's robust enough to go into Japan. So I'm taking my product into Japan. Now, it took me a long time to do it. I have the connections in Japan to make it work, right? And I believe we can stand out from the competition because, again, Japan as its negatives as well,

the competitors I have in Japan only deal in Japan. Well, most of the big Japanese companies, they want an Asia product, not a product that just works in Japan. So my big sale in Japan is, I can sell to Uniglo to go Southeast Asia. You know, that's what I'm trying to do. But you've got, you know,

I'm not saying everyone's going to be as big as Nvidia but I think a few years ago, everyone just thought they could open a new coffee shop or open a new logistics company and it'd be a billion dollar company. That's seen, and money came in like that.

So there was very little, when there's that much money flowing around and it's only, there was no money going into a big of that mind. I was laughed at a few times I talked to startup VC, sorry. Ha ha ha, don't be stupid. Never work in Indonesia.

That's how they speak. This is the investors. The local investors, telling me I can't do it in Indonesia. Now I have, and some of the people who told me that are not in the best condition, Yeah, but I'm sure other people can do it as well

But they have to have a longer outlook You know, I moved to Tokyo when I was 22 It took me the first three years were horrible I was getting the sandwiches for people at the desk And getting people's cigarettes and going in the office To get people's beers And I hated it I hated it

You weren't I looked at it like this I didn't have a backup If I went back I might be working a fish and chip shop In Barrowing furnace for coming Jesus, it could happen, right? So if you keep showing tenacity and try to prove yourself to the right people, I think even here, when I first came,

some of the guys I think of the top people here, I got their numbers and harassed them, people like, they probably thought, this boole will be out of here soon, you know? This boule will be out of you soon. Who is this boolet? He's just like, he's got talks a lot, but can he deliver?

And it's quite funny, now I meet some of these guys. They go, wow, you're actually still here. Now you're dealing with, Now, we do all the, our company does loads of stuff for pertamina. We manage all the petrol stations. We work with telecom property. It's deep tech product. It's not, you know, we have, our engineering team is, our company's main engineers.

It's not mainly marketers. It's a by far engineering based database, right? AI engineers, engineers, that's, I will call that. That's very rare for a tech company here. Most tech companies here were salespeople, which sales to these people means giving away in general, you know, and then marketing people. It's all about the marketing budget, not about the product. What you find is now we work with Microsoft, they help us sell our product.

We work with MetroData, they help us sell our product. But when I first talked to Metrodata, they said we don't sell Indonesian technology. But over time, over time they do. So I think you've got to have a bit of a longer, this get-rich-quick scheme. I think these early unicorns have created that to an extent. And the problem was the money was flowing so much. and the other problem was then companies grew so quickly and the funds grew so quickly

and again the people the people running the funds honestly speaking had not got a track record of running that kind of money, none of them as far as I'm aware and they might have come from a good background but they didn't have that ability it's very hard to allocate like

$500 million in illiquid assets in a country like Indonesia at this stage so the problem was they had to allocate money and that's where the problems came where could they put their money Well, there was only like the big unicorns who could take it. Because at that stage, they can't write the ticket for less than 50 millions. But that's unfortunately, not just here, actually.

The startup world works very much, what's it called, momentum investing. Even when I talk now to some of the private equity companies outside of here, all they're interested in, I said, do you want access to my data room? They said, no, just tell me who else he's in. That's the crazy, crazy culture. That's not here. So I don't know because compare that Compare that to the

So I know a guy in Singapore Who runs an asset manager Jin asset management He's one of the big Japanese guys I've known him for 20 years Really smart cookie He has like seven people work at him Where's flip-flops to work

Runs loads and loads Runs loads and loads of money Out of Central building in Hong Kong People think he's got like no money And he's very successful And he doesn't want to know his ideas he doesn't want anyone to know his idea. He wants to use his ability to outperform others.

He doesn't want everything like group thought, whereas he is all group thought. Is he in it? I want to go in any fees in it. Well, that's always going to create a massive problem because there isn't enough analysis of what's going on. And I don't think,

I've got experience of running significant amounts of money, but I don't believe it's going to be very easy to manage 500 million of illiquid assets here. Even recently talking to one of the big private equities in sync, they're talking about investing in my company because I want to go Asia-wide. But the minimum ticket size is 30 million. Now I said I can't take 30 million without having a negative effect on my business. Because it would skew everything and it would,

they'd want me to allocate it and spend it. And that's when the money starts getting wasted. So I don't think necessarily money is a panacea here. Money is obviously very good and you need money, especially the people who, but it's not a panacea. Sure. If the management's not good and the, and their due diligence is not good,

and the, it doesn't matter how much money you've got. You've seen that here. These guys had loads of money and it's all gone gone. If that money had been put into EV cars local, or if that money had been put into companies like mine, you know, microchips. Microchips, all the other stuff that they could have been building along with partnerships,

because this idea were protecting the local, you're not protecting because by creating jobs like Intel and stuff, as you say, being a sponge and then doing it later yourselves, I understand why Indonesia protects some businesses. I understand why they protect, you know, MSMEs from foreign, massive foreign intervention, right? I get it. But when you're bringing in big tech companies who are creating jobs, creating skill sets, teaching people, and you don't have it at the moment, what is the damage?

But the problem is they all want somebody to partner with a BUMN or partner with whatever it is I partner with a local family. Not everybody wants to do that. I don't think Elon Musk wanted to do that, you know? Let me pick up on that. If the best engineer at SpaceX, for some odd reason, falls in love with Indonesia. Maybe he went for scuba diving somewhere in eastern parts of Indonesia and found beauty in our country. Yeah.

And wants to move here. What would make her fail or succeed in, you know, creating the next best reusable rocketry. Well, if something like that, they'd probably get the, they'd probably get my experience here. They'd get the red carpet treatment for a while. And then once they realized that this is going to take longer than we thought, and this person's not maybe as compliant as they should be,

things can change. I mean, if she comes there, she's the best engineer at space. She's going to be able to pull money from anywhere around the world. You would think so? She needs to... I think so. I think so. It would have to...

If she was the primary or one of the primary drivers behind $1.7 trillion dollar valuation. It would still be in Singapore, though, the capital because the rule of laws... No, no, no. For some reason, let's say she got married with Indonesia. Oh, no, I know. But even now, if you look at all the startup companies here,

even go through the head office in Singapore, always has been... Okay, administrative. Yeah, administrative. But she wants to live in Laban Bajo. Yeah. She wants to create the next best, reusable

rocketry business in the world. Possibly with a launch pad in Biok in Papua. Yeah. Right? And what would make her fail or what would make her succeed?

She's going to be able to pull the money. She's going to be able to pull the talents from, well, I mean, the talents may not be able to come here, right? Depending on where the government stands, right? That would have to be made simpler because you would have to have a certain level of,

and again, if she was to do that, they would have to make it easier for to be bringing in fallen talents because initially there wouldn't be the level of talent she needs here. So that comes back to the, it will not happen overnight. It will happen over a period of years. So therefore

she would have to be, it would have to become easier to bring in foreign talent. I'm not saying foreign talent should take all the jobs of Indonesians. I'm saying that there's a, if there's a job that if, we had Mark Carney, for example, as the British, what's it called, the head of the bank of England, Mark Carney, who's now the Prime Minister of Canada He's a smart cookie, but we hired him because he was the best person for the job.

Now, that probably, we've got Thomas Tushel as the England football manager. He's German, right? We hire the people who are best for the job. And I think if we get to the conclusion, we can't be the best in everything, but if we bring the people over and become the best in everything, because there is that ability to do it. So that would have to make it easier to employ foreigners. And I get in jobs where they can add extra value.

If you want to run the, like, look at Vietnam, some of the big VCs and the big private equity are run by foreigners because they've got a long-term track record of delivering results out of Silicon Valley, out of somewhere. They're not just connectors. A lot of the guys here admit to being connectors rather than, so making it, I think, of course, she'd have to bring talent at first. So that would have to be made easier. And there would have to be confidence over the rule of law. And again, I don't get into this too much because I'm not an expert in this. there's a lot of issues at the moment people talking about the rule of law. I don't know.

Again, my argument with all these things, I wasn't there. You know what I mean? But there is a concern of rule of law in Indonesia. And I think even when it comes to myself, I'm owed a lot of money sometimes by foreign entities, not Indonesian entities. And they use the lack of ability for me to do anything about it to do it. I'm always trying to do contracts through my Singapore office

because it's much easier for me to deal with it. I mean, this is usually foreign entities. So there'd have to be some guarantees over the rule of law, and there'd have to be some, obviously, ability to hire senior management at a certain level of people. But again, that's what I see. I mean, I don't know the full reason, but a couple of years ago, Elon Musk was definitely coming here.

I was at B20, he was on the big screen. He was in his pajamas, I think. I mean, that's, you know, ever since then he was, he was supposed to come, and then he just, he had a chat with an indie band. on the big screen, but he was supposed to be coming here. And the natural... I think he figured out he's not going to be able to compete with VAT.

And the other thing is... Well, yeah, of course. But the natural resources here should lead to a lot. There's a lot of good stuff for here. There's a lot of stuff. Even though I think they shouldn't just lay on that... The problem is in the moment, the answer to everything. And it's...

If you see all these posts on Indonesia, they drive me crazy, all they ever talk about is natural resources is 280 million people. It doesn't solve anything. Indonesia needs to be able to export their goods. and build something that can be exportable overseas. You know, just surviving or using the law to forcing companies to do things you want, that's not really a sustainable business model. You know, I think the solution is like spending, you know, building something to be generationally good.

You know, whereas what they're trying to do now is they're trying to do the, what's it called, they're trying to introduce everything downstream in whatever. But before they do that, they're going to make sure everything's simply. to do it? Have they got the right people of the jobs? Is the government too involved in processes? Things like that need correcting because other countries, look at Hong Kong. Many of the, even in like big Hong Kong real estate companies or big Hong Kong finance companies are corporates like Sunhung Kai. If you look at the sea level, the 70-year-old bullers, right, who've spent 30 years at Savils and 20 years, that's what they do. And that's what

Singapore does. That's what Abu Dhabi did. They do that. And these, people have built ecosystems somewhere else in the world. They've built an ecosystem of successful. You know, there's a guy who's passed away now, but he was like, oh, what's he called? David Runciman. He was a big guy in Hong Kong in the real estate market. And he was one of the people who considered, he was like, he passed away. He was like in his 80s or 90s. But he, my friend's prodigy. My friend runs real estate for some of the big oligarchs in, he's a boule as well from north of England, start with nothing. But he runs one of the big real estate. state portfolios for some of the oligarchs in Hong Kong.

And that guy went there in like their 60s and stuff. And he's now, you know, he built up that system. And then later they were inviting him to Abadabie to talk about how we can build this ecosystem, how we can learn from this, right? Learning from people is not a bad thing. But here they just, again, even the people they learn from is like, Coney Blair. So it's like, it's like, you know, it's, I think there's bringing in that,

yeah, that lady, for example, and she becomes an advisor and she becomes, right, I need this, this, this, this. I don't want you to get in my way. I don't know. No government involvement, blah, blah, blah. But the problem, I would see, if she did that, you'd get the, you know, the SOF would be jumping in trying to check, what do you call it, golden shares. She'd just like, oh, too much hassle. Final question.

Do you think Indonesia is perennially cursed in terms of its ability or desire to move out the value chain? Not at all. I think if they pivot and take on advice of people and follow, even follow what we've done to an extent, we're not, we're not invidia or anything, but we've just done things properly. There's nothing clever about it.

We've just done things properly. Yes, people can say we're small compared to some of these companies, but we're not losing the money that they're lost, you know what I mean? Because we couldn't. And we, I think some of the things you're saying, and I'm saying are common sense.

I don't think it's rocket science, what we're saying. But as you, you know, you said to me, even yourself, you know, ex-minister, well-known in business, you're also concerned about saying certain things. You know, people want to say things in quiet. I say things more loudly, always try to say I'm not being rude to people, but if people don't speak out about it, how's it going to change? You know, how is it going to change? So, no, I think if they're pivoting, I personally think the problems here are quite easy to fix. but whether the will is there is a bigger concern

because it would involve, it would involve, yeah, as you said, becoming a sponge. It would involve increasing the cost of education, STEM. Because again, education is something you, it's okay saying about these fancy schools and all that, but that limits only the rich people. That's the problem. So having a very high level education,

unless you've got scholarships and stuff, it keeps the same system. You know, it doesn't necessarily, allow people to get on because most people, I guess, in Indonesia, can't go to, can't get an NBA at Stanford, right? You know, if they're from one of the villages. But there is a lot of people. I know from my network, the guy who runs real estate in and for,

I mean, he makes millions who runs real estate before for Richard Lee's cousin, who's Lee Carrishing's family, he's making millions and millions. He only went to some like polytechnic in Sheffield, right? Very smart cookie, but no family money to support it. So having the opportunity through the, what's it called? Because another thing what Indonesia does, sorry, Vietnam does very well. The European Union in Vietnam does loads of scholarships. Scholarships into European universities, right?

I mean, that's a great little way to build your talent pool. I mean, that's a good thing because they realize that there's a lot of clever kids who maybe can't go to the top schools. Because I do believe there is a, yes, you can learn, but I believe there's certainly a nature, nurture, thing. You know, I really do because I know I didn't go to top school, but I sometimes sit down with guys with the best education in the world, and I think you're the smartest guy I've ever met. Because, you know, it happens, right? It happens. There is some who are very, very smart,

but how many people are missing out? And again, you look at, you know, the guy who owns Man United, you know, he was born in a council estate in Scotland. What's he called, Jim, Jim, something? He was born in a council of skate in Scotland, and there are a lot of them people out there that, and necessarily found in these countries. You need to feel like footballers. You know, they're found in Africa. They're found all over the place. If they don't go to college in the US,

a lot of these guys, you know, get picked up in Africa, right? So how do you find that talent that probably does exist, but they're not accessible? So I believe there's probably a lot of that talent out there, but you need to make the universities more accessible to the normal people. You know what I mean? Because, and not, I don't think,

always look at the Ivy League in the US, it's better because that's, That's not realistic to most people. So, you know, my staff have been to Praseta-Mullia, very good. You are very good. UGM, ITB. A lot of people I work with have been to these schools, and they're very good. They just didn't, I mean, yeah, I'm sure they could all go get an Ivy League education

if they had the capital to do it, right? All I see is that, you know, that means that you've, education for the Ivy League style is much here than it is in Japan. You know, people don't talk about it so much, right? Yeah. Thank you so much, Martin. Thank you. Friends, that was Martin Terpolowski.

Thank you.