Incorruptible: The Chapter The Lean Startup Missed with Eric Ries

Fresh out of the studio, James Liang — Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Trip.com Group, economist, and author of Innovationism: A New Philosophy for the Age of AI — joins us to explore what becomes of human meaning when AI does the work. James argues that innovation and heritage are "the same coin": innovation measured by how much heritage it leaves behind. He unpacks why the individual, not the nation or firm, is the binding constraint on innovation, why aging societies stop producing startups, and how his Nature 2024 hybrid-work study reframes family-friendly policy as economically rational. Closing the conversation, James explains why he is bullish on China mid-term but bearish long-term — and why population, not chips, is the real race."To innovate and to innovate successfully is measured by how much heritage you generate. But you know what's a good innovation? What's innovation can have a lasting impact? In my definition, the good news is it's going to last." - James LiangEpisode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by James Liang, Chairman of Trip.com Group[01:06] Introduction: James Liang[03:18] Stepping down twice — the mobile wave he didn't see[05:57] Founder mode and returning to lead Trip.com[07:31] Three life lessons: a rich life, experience, family[09:44] Innovationism — why the book opens with his daughter[11:24] Core tenets: innovation and heritage as one coin[14:38] Innovation as writing a company's cultural values[16:00] What heritage really means[17:32] Distil to simplicity; learn more in the age of AI[19:00] The Nature 2024 hybrid-work experiment[19:44] Triple-win policies: employee, company, society[22:52] Innovation capacity — neurons, scale, connection[25:37] Three levels: nation, firm, individual[29:00] Why innovation cannot be planned top-down[30:21] Japan's missing startups; Korea and China compared[32:14] Hierarchy, vested interests, and blocked young talent[33:17] AI and moats — operators and the physical world[35:36] Education reform — stop filtering children too early[37:31] College as universal general education[40:00] Understanding still matters in the age of AI[41:46] What readers won't pick up from the page[42:14] The AI end game — master, child, or pet[43:27] Population as the safeguard against losing control[45:14] Technology ethics at the frontier[46:01] Longevity, fresh blood, and stagnation[49:19] Interstellar trips as Trip.com's next frontier[49:41] The biggest misconceptions about China's innovation[50:36] The big-country advantage in digital technology[52:23] Electric cars, life science, three times the talent[54:16] The China–US race — researchers as the real bottleneck[56:38] Why blocking China hurts the US more[57:42] The question James wishes people would ask[59:25] Success for innovationism — relax, travel, have children[61:22] ClosingProfile: James Liang, Co-founder, Executive Chairman of the Board, Trip.com Group and Author of "Innovationism: A New Philosophy for the Age of AI" LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-liang-tripgroup/Trip.com Group: https://investors.trip.com/board-member/james-jianzhang-liangPodcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

Fresh out of the studio, Eric Ries — author of the new book Incorruptible, founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, co-founder of Answer.AI, and author of The Lean Startup — joins Bernard Leong to discuss his blueprint for building mission-controlled companies that resist financial gravity. Eric explains why trustworthiness is the most underrated asset in business and why success, far from being a shield, makes companies a target worth capturing. He walks through the governance fortresses that have kept Costco, Novo Nordisk, and Patagonia true to mission for decades, and argues that today's so-called best practices have destroyed billions in shareholder value. The conversation turns to AI: which parts of the Lean Startup it accelerates, which parts it cannot, and why validated learning still lives only between the ears. Eric closes with a radical redefinition of profit as the maximization of human flourishing, and a challenge to Asia-Pacific leaders to leapfrog the governance failures the West is about to live through."We're helping people create this asset and we're teaching them the wrong idea. We're teaching them that success will protect them. But that's backwards. Success makes you a target worth capturing. And so that explained to me all these companies I saw that failed—not because they went out of business, not because they failed to create value, they failed because of their success." - Eric RiesProfile: Eric Ries, Founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, co-founder of Answer.AI, and author of The Lean Startup. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries/ Personal Site: https://www.incorruptible.co/ Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Eric Ries from *Incorruptible*[00:45] Introduction: Eric Ries, author of "Incorriptible" & "The Lean Startup"[01:11] Pulling the thread from programming to accountability[03:12] Lean Startup built companies; didn't teach protection[05:15] The billionaire dancing alone at the party[06:09] Trustworthiness: business's most underrated asset[07:18] Why success makes you a target[08:19] Today's best practices destroy value[09:19] Costco's governance fortress defends customer experience[09:54] Novo Nordisk's 100-year foundation structure[11:12] AI and the Lean Startup on steroids[14:09] MVP advantage dies when everyone has AI[15:39] The professor with the dangerous biotech breakthrough[17:13] Investors revealed as amoral actors[18:13] The builder's intuition: create then capture value[20:52] Protecting research from capital's gravitational pull[23:30] Organizations are literally alive[25:26] More humans, worse collective problem-solving[25:46] Moral character as an emergent property[27:25] Current profit definition has fatal blind spots[30:13] Hitman marketplace: humans as input factor[32:29] Surrogation: the measurement becomes the target[33:51] The pre-IPO team laughing after CEO leaves[36:36] Vatican conference on AI governance[38:00] Emperor-for-life founders carry impossible burden[41:31] Best practices young; ancient wisdom forgotten[44:40] ClosingPodcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast.Analyse Podcast Main Site: https://analysepodcast.comSign Up for Our This Week in Asia Newsletter: https://www.analysepodcast.com/#/portal/signup Subscribe Newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7149559878934540288

Fresh out of the studio, Geoffrey Cain, author of Steve Jobs in Exile and Samsung Rising, returns to the Analyse Podcast to argue that the twelve years between Jobs's 1985 ouster and his 1997 return to Apple were not a footnote but the forge. Drawing on private archives at Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, unbroadcast footage from inside NeXT, and interviews with the people who lived it, Cain reframes the wilderness decade as the cause, not the gap, in Jobs's transformation. We trace the NeXT collapse and the failed IBM licensing deal, the parallel crucible of Pixar where Catmull and Lasseter barred Jobs from creative meetings, and the deep Japanese and Zen influences — Akio Morita, Sony, the beginner's mind — that Isaacson and Schlender underplayed. We close on Apple at fifty, John Ternus's ascent, and what Jobs would have done with AI. "The successes that we see in the world for every iPhone there is, for every SpaceX rocket there are perhaps dozens or maybe even hundreds of failures behind that we don't see. And so the wilderness, as they call it, this is the greatest moment in the lives of many founders. It's the wilderness that we all have to go through before we can achieve greatness, and if we don't go through that, then we don't learn those lessons." - Geoffrey Cain Profile: Geoffrey Cain, author of "Steve Jobs in Exile"LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gcain/Personal Site: https://geoffreycain.net/Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Geoffrey Cain, author of Steve Jobs in Exile [00:30] What Geoffrey has been up after his first book: Samsung Rising [04:05] Working in the US House on technology policy & rebuilding America's industrial base [04:50] De-industrialisation, and rebuilding America's industrial base [05:24] The central thesis on Steve Job's exile [07:13] The Steve Jobs we don't know — before the turtleneck and the iPhone[09:07] The wilderness — where every great founder is forged[12:30] The failed coup against John Sculley[14:10] Was Jobs early or wrong about what universities needed?[16:31] Object-oriented programming — the real innovation Jobs couldn't see[18:36] Jobs of 1997 was not the Jobs of 1985[20:00] Technology does not change the world — it makes things easier[22:38] The butterfly effect — if NeXT had gone differently, no iPhone[25:13] A failure of ego — Jobs versus the company he hated[28:49] NeXTstep — twenty years into the future in 1990[32:24] Pixar as the parallel crucible — bought for $5 million[35:25] Toy Story and the IPO that made Jobs a billionaire[38:57] What the NeXT and Pixar years really reveal[40:38] Three biographies, three frames — Isaacson, Schlender, Cain[45:26] Why NeXT became the ugly duckling of Apple lore[48:12] The Japanese influence Isaacson never pulled on[51:30] Apple at fifty — Ternus and the era of execution over reinvention[54:11] How Jobs would integrate AI — quiet, in the background[55:10] The Apple-Google Gemini partnership and swallowed pride[56:38] Jobs as second mover — Macintosh, iPhone, the bicycle for the mind[57:30] Why ChatGPT and Claude would look ugly to Jobs[1:00:30] What NeXT veterans say about the Ternus appointment[01:02:33] What success means for the book[01:03:13] Closing Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast.Analyse Podcast Main Site: https://analysepodcast.com

Fresh out of the studio, Bernard Leong sits down with Kiren Kumar, Deputy Chief Executive of the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) Singapore, for a conversation on how Singapore is building trusted AI at national scale. Kiren traces IMDA's arc from the 2018 Model AI Governance Framework to the Agentic AI framework launched at Davos this year, the four AI missions — advanced manufacturing, finance, connectivity, and healthcare — anchoring the next strategic bound, and the programs moving enterprises from pilots to production. He argues the real blocker is leadership rather than policy, that trust is Singapore's enduring competitive moat, and that the country must shift from 10% productivity gains to 10X transformation. The conversation closes with a preview of ATx Summit 2026 and what great looks like for Singapore's AI economy by the early 2030s."What would be amazing to see in Singapore is, number one, we have our large companies truly transforming themselves and becoming way bigger than they are today in the global competitive landscape—in manufacturing, in finance, in healthcare, and in connectivity. That's one. The second one is we are known globally as an economy where everybody in our workforce is AI-ready. Yeah, is AI fluent. The third thing I'm hoping to see is we have amazing AI native startups being born in our ecosystem, which are global in the niche areas that they can play in. We may not have the next OpenAI, but I'm hoping that we have a lot of new AI native technology companies that are developing products and services and solutions enabled by AI, powered by AI, transforming industries and creating a lot of growth." - Kiren Kumar Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Kiren Kumar from IMDA Singapore[02:24] Origin story — Singapore, Stanford, dotcom crash[05:00] Digital economy now 19% of Singapore's GDP[08:08] Career advice — start at a startup first[09:04] IMDA's four core mandates explained[11:47] Trust as Singapore's enduring brand advantage[12:48] Co-create with industry rather than regulate[14:09] Why agentic AI changes the governance equation[15:18] Pilots versus production — the hard transition[17:18] Forward deployed engineers as scarce commodity[18:55] Why agentic AI needed a separate framework[20:23] SME AI adoption tripled in a single year[21:36] From 10% productivity to 10X transformation[24:20] SME Go Digital — 100,000 SMEs in ten years[25:40] Leadership, not policy, is the real blocker[30:46] National AI Impact Program upskills 100,000[34:50] Four missions — manufacturing, finance, connectivity, healthcare[35:49] Owning the global AI standards layer[38:01] ATx Summit 2026 themes and headliners[41:07] What Singapore must get right by 2030[42:05] AI is a contact sport — just start[44:36] What great looks like — companies, workforce, startups[46:52] ClosingProfile: Kiren Kumar, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Infocomm Media Development Authority (or IMDA), Singapore (LinkedIn) Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the Analyse Podcast show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

Fresh out of the studio, Alex Topaloski, CEO and Co-founder of Pulse ID joined us in a conversation on his company's customer engagement infrastructure powering Visa's cardholder offers across Asia Pacific. Drawing on Pulse ID's recent white paper, The Age of Knowing, Alex unpacks the three forces reshaping bank loyalty: interchange, partnerships, and intelligence. He explains why banks have solved the data problem but still struggle with engagement, walks through agentic AI architectures and the minimum effective nudge principle, and lays out why Asia-Pacific diversity demands distinct playbooks for Australia, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Closing out, Alex argues the next 12 months belong to banks that prioritize the last mile — where ROI on a decade of data investment finally lands and lays out what great would look life for Pulse ID moving forward."So we are making that transition from being a system-of-record platform for engagement, loyalty, and rewards to being a system-of-action platform that drives measurable behavioral change. And I think that is quite a big step forward. The efficiencies that clients are able to get—the outcomes, the revenue, ROIs that it can get on interactions—it's something that people are now going to start experiencing." - Alex TopaloskiEpisode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by Alex Topaloski, CEO of Pulse ID[01:13] Introduction: Alex's career journey[03:41] Pulse ID: Infrastructure platforms as invisible organs[06:26] Lifelong learning as the hardest conviction to hold[08:11] What Pulse ID does as a B2B fintech infrastructure company[09:26] Defining the era of intelligence[10:56] Two stages: data architecture, then engagement[12:56] Why super apps deliver smoother journeys than banks[16:11] Why loyalty platforms struggle to absorb new signals[17:26] Why customer engagement is the wrong primary KPI[19:41] MCP as a way to act without seeing the full data[20:26] The Visa, GCash, JCB partnership playbook[22:41] Why move-fast-break-things fails in B2B finance[24:11] Smart pricing as the hardest model to scale[25:26] Operating across Singapore, Japan, ANZ, UAE, Oman[27:56] Multiple AI brains across the stack[29:26] The guardrail principle: AI selects tools, not data[31:11] System of record to system of action[34:11] Where the moat sits when foundation models commoditize[35:56] The Asia-Pacific market diversity playbook[38:41] The boardroom decision in the next 12 months[40:56] What great looks like for Pulse ID[41:41] Book recommendation: The FountainheadProfile: Alex Topaloski, CEO of Pulse IDMain Site: https://www.pulseid.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/topaloski/Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

"Many of these AI advancements, where the U.S. is more on the innovative theoretical side of creating new models... China's really ahead on commercializing them, and that's their advantage. I think saying that China and the U.S. are equivalent in AI is probably an overstatement. I think the AI center of innovation continues to be in Silicon Valley. This could change—the gap is closing. I do think the U.S. is still ahead, but I think China is catching up."Fresh out of the studio, Bernard Leong reconnects with Rebecca Fannin, founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures and author of Tech Titans of China, six years on from their first conversation about the original landmark book. Rebecca traces China's transformation from copier to innovator, the decoupling of US-China venture capital and the reroute of capital flows toward the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and an AI race where China commercialises while the US theorises. The conversation moves through Chinese EV dominance, humanoid robotics, and semiconductor self-sufficiency, before opening out to a multipolar tech order with India and Saudi Arabia rising. She closes with a hopeful note on reopening US-China collaboration.Episode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by Rebecca Fannin from Silicon Dragon Ventures[01:00] Introduction: Rebecca Fannin[03:00] From copier to innovator: the global perception shift[04:00] BAT plus ByteDance: still the tech titans[05:30] Beyond BAT: TMD, ByteDance, DiDi go global[07:00] Temu and the de minimis tariff hit[09:00] Cross-border VC decouples: Sequoia, GGV split[10:00] Capital reroutes to the Middle East and Singapore[11:30] No more golden era for cross-Pacific VC[12:00] AI, quantum, semiconductor funding dries up[13:00] The 2020-2023 crackdown and Beijing's reset[15:00] Apple's supply chain dependency hard to unwind[16:00] The AI race: Chinese open-source models surge[17:30] China commercialises, the US theorises[18:30] Silicon Valley adopts 996 and Chinese-style attacks[20:30] Chinese EVs surpass Tesla and European makers[22:00] Why Xiaomi built a car where Apple couldn't[22:30] DJI, Unitree, UBTech: China's robotics dominance[24:00] Humanoid robots and the policy maker dilemma[25:00] China's semiconductor self-sufficiency push[25:30] Nvidia export controls and the SMIC question[27:00] What few in the West truly understood five years ago[28:00] Quantum computing as the long-term frontier bet[29:00] Beyond binary: India, ASEAN, Saudi Arabia, Israel[31:30] Why China's rise became the biggest tech story[33:00] Hope for a reopening of US-China collaboration[33:30] ClosingProfile: Rebecca Fannin, Author of "The New Tech Titans of China" and Silicon Dragon VenturesLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-fannin-533128/Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

"The word I always come back to when I think of the future of trust and safety is governance. We are no longer just making moderation decisions. We're no longer just banning people or deleting posts or removing accounts. We are ultimately responsible for overseeing the health of the platforms and communities that we've created. Especially in an age of AI, I think there's a huge role for the field of trust and safety in overseeing the decisions that AI makes. In a world where we automate more of our decisions, that doesn't mean that we don't have jobs anymore. It means that our jobs change. And our jobs change to being auditors and overseers of automated decisions. And then when we find problems, we're the people who are now responsible for engineering solutions to them." - Yoel RothFresh out of the studio, Yoel Roth, Senior Vice President and Head of Trust and Safety at Match Group, joins Bernard Leong to trace how trust and safety has evolved from a behind-the-scenes function into a board-level discipline. Drawing on his earlier work in Twitter (now known as X) and his current work across the different portfolio companies under Match Group: Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid, Yoel reframes online fraud as an economics problem — why a new face costs scammers more than a new SIM card. He unpacks why anonymity does not cause online abuse, compares the American, European, and Chinese regulatory models, and argues trust and safety belongs alongside customer acquisition cost (CAC) as a growth lever. The future, he closes with what great would look like, is governance — AI shifting practitioners from moderators to auditors.Episode Highlights[00:00] Quote of the Day by Yoel Roth from Match Group[01:13] Introduction: Yoel Roth from Match Group[04:30] Content moderation as governance, not just policy[06:30] A front-row seat to platform governance debates[09:00] Protecting public-facing employees from threats[10:30] First shift in trust and safety: regulation goes global[11:30] Shift: from reactive to proactive[14:30] 98% of Match Group's revenue depends on safety[16:30] Tinder Face Check and the case for friction[18:00] Biggest mistakes in building trust and safety[23:30] Why scammers target dating platforms specifically[26:00] A new face costs more than a new SIM[30:30] AI as decision enablement, not replacement[34:00] Detection plus intervention against AI deepfakes[38:00] Three regulatory regimes shaping the internet[40:00] What regulators misunderstand about dating apps[44:30] Why the future of trust and safety is governance[47:30] Spencer Rascoff and the CAC reframe[49:00] Resilience and mission in trust and safety work[51:30] ClosingProfile: Yoel Roth, Senior Vice President, Trust & Safety, Match GroupLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoelroth/Personal Website: https://yoyoel.com/Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

Fresh out of the studio, Peter Noszek, co-founder of SuperAI and TOKEN2049 join us on a conversation that maps the widening gap between Silicon Valley's creative intensity and Asia's underutilised compute infrastructure — including 900 megawatts of GPU capacity in Johor, Malaysia sitting at low utilisation because the routing layer between US demand and Asian supply simply doesn't exist yet. Peter introduces Pax Silica, his thesis that Singapore can serve as the neutral ground where fragmented AI communities from East and West converge through curated rooms, cultural bridging, and unreasonable hospitality. They explore why the Bay Area still doesn't understand Asia, the 12-to-18-month window before GPU backlogs clear, Singapore's unique "one to a hundred" positioning for enterprise distribution, and why AI agents — from Coinbase x402 transactions to Meta's agent-to-agent one-on-ones — are already reshaping how coordination happens at scale."I'm of like a hundred percent conviction that the majority of times when something is not aligned, it's a case of miscommunication. An inability of information to flow properly between people. And in this highly digitalized, highly fragmented and siloed world that we operate in, those things are usually not present. So bringing people into the same room and bringing them into an environment where they feel natural—as long as that room is curated in the right way—that's really going to open up these sort of icebreakers that then lead to creativity, to ideation, and to realizing that we're actually all trying to do the same thing and we're all just trying to make this entire pie grow bigger." - Peter NoszekEpisode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Peter Noszek, co-founder of SuperAI and TOKEN2049[01:21] Peter Noszek's origin story[04:30] SuperAI as bridge across siloed frontier tech nodes[07:34] The Bay Area hive mind and its velocity on AI[08:27] Bay Area fragmentation versus Singapore's unified strategy[10:14] Chinese frontier models: fork on approach, convergence on distribution[14:41] The infrastructure shift from GPUs to energy[17:08] Data centres in space versus a 15-hour flight to Asia[19:15] Pax Silica: composing rooms that break the ice[22:10] The 12 to 18-month window for Asia's underutilised compute[24:13] Gulf energy, European bottlenecks, and the geography of compute[26:00] Is AI in Asian financial services still pilot theatre?[28:42] When does an AI agent stop being a tool?[31:25] Coinbase x402 and AI-agent transactions[32:47] OpenClaude adoption: Singapore ahead of Silicon Valley[33:42] SuperAI 2025 Pulse survey: the agent thesis, called correctly[34:59] SuperAI 2026's six tracks — from frontier models to society[38:26] Collaboration over competition in the paradigm shift[41:16] Five-year view: open models and agent-run logistics[44:32] ClosingProfile: Peter Noszek, Co-Founder, SuperAI and Token2049 ConferenceLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petergnoszekPodcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Our Official Site: https://www.analysepodcast.com

Fresh out of the studio with John Morgan, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Splunk Security at Cisco. The conversation unpacks the AI inflection point reshaping security operations — from the explosion of machine data (set to more than double in three years) to the rise of the agentic SOC, where AI agents handle detection, investigation, and response while humans focus on high-stakes decisions. John breaks down why attackers armed with AI now exploit zero-days in hours instead of weeks, why security must start with observability (including the challenge of "shadow AI"), and how CISOs are evolving from technical gatekeepers into board-level business enablers. His parting message: the entire world is learning AI together — get to it with his perspective on what great looks like for Splunk Security moving forward. "The volume is increasing quite a bit. We expect in the next three years it’s gonna double. Attackers do not have a governance of regulatory and compliance restrictions on them. They just go at it and see what works. And so the volume, sophistication, speed of attacks—the only way to defend against it is to automate your responses to it. One thing that folks outside of the industry don’t maybe get is just how large the attack surface is. And how hard it is to stop—attackers need to just find one way in, and you’re trying to defend all ways in." - John MorganEpisode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by John Morgan from Splunk Security[00:50] John's path from technologist to cybersecurity leader[01:35] Leading Splunk Security: the mandate and mission[02:20] Why Cisco and Splunk have a disproportionate AI advantage[03:18] It's not the technology — it's the human beings[04:26] Why more data demands better curation and context[05:00] AI as both signal generator and attack surface creator[06:12] Where the bottleneck sits: ingestion, analysis, or response[07:10] Splunk at the intersection of observability and security[08:29] The evolving CISO role: gatekeeper to board-level risk officer[10:22] Defining the agentic SOC and where it's heading[12:00] Alert fatigue and how agentic approaches change the dynamic[13:56] Singapore Airlines: real customer outcomes from AI security[14:47] The AI arms race: who has the structural advantage[16:11] What a mature AI-native security platform looks like[17:19] How AI is changing detection from rules-based to correlation[18:35] Advice to CISOs: observe, trust, automate[19:41] The one question John wishes more CISOs would ask[20:22] The next five years — and why five years is too slow[21:20] ClosingProfile: John Morgan, GM and SVP, Splunk Security, CiscoLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmorganinc/Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. This episode is recorded in Poddster Singapore. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast.Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asiaAnalyse Asia Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kkRwzRZa4JCICr2vm0vGl Analyse Asia Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/analyse-asia-with-bernard-leong/id914868245 Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasiaSign Up for Our This Week in Asia Newsletter: https://www.analyse.asia/#/portal/signup Subscribe Newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7149559878934540288

Fresh out of the studio, Borko Kovacevic, Co-founder of Poddster and Podyx, joins us to explore how he is building the world's largest podcast studio network and the operating system behind it. He shares his career journey from nearly 17 years at Microsoft across Central Europe and Asia Pacific, to making the entrepreneurial leap and launching Poddster's first flagship studio in Dubai, followed by Singapore. Borko explains how Poddster scaled by treating operations like software — standardizing over the operational framework to run studios from UAE and Singapore to now globally across the world while building a flywheel connecting corporate brands with authentic content creators. He unpacks how Podyx, the software spinoff, hit 24 markets with zero churn on day one. Closing the conversation, Borko shares why frequency and consistency in content creation — not polish — is the single most underestimated edge in the AI era, and what great looks like for Poddster and Podyx as a global studio network and platform."So what people underestimate is frequency and consistency in posting content beats everything else. Because the future internet is about you being available online and you providing enough content, enough material, that the algorithms learn about you. If they learn enough about you, you will be recommended in searches, you will do better on SEO, you will become more discoverable than anybody else. And that's the part which I think people underestimate." - Borko KovacevicEpisode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Borko Kovacevic [01:00] Introduction: Borko Kovacevic [03:17] The danger of corporate complacency & achieving success too early[07:00] The leap: why he finally decided to leave Microsoft and build something[10:13] The origin story of Poddster — not planned, born from a co-founder complaint[13:00] Building a mini studio prototype inside Microsoft; discovering the market gap[16:33] Modelling Poddster like McDonald's: 90% of operations standardized and repeatable[18:23] Building the flywheel: connecting corporates with content creators at scale[23:00] The global studio partner network — a community of 150+ studio owners globally[26:12] The roadmap: New York by September, then Los Angeles and London[32:10] How Podyx was born — a prototype to solve Poddster' own booking chaos[33:47] Why existing booking tools (Calendly, Acuity) didn't fit the podcasting workflow[36:55] Podyx metrics: $6M+ in transactions, 160 paying studios across 24 markets, zero churn[37:15] Stripe named Podyx fastest-growing vertical SaaS startup from Singapore[38:34] Founder-led sales: Borko personally onboarded the first 50+ studios on calls[42:23] Making a services business operate like software — what can actually be productized[44:48] The test for every new process: can you repeat it 10 more times across locations?[49:48] The one thing most people don't know about podcasting: frequency beats polish[50:42] LLMs and agents will train on your content — why posting consistently is the real SEO[54:14] Creators vs. corporates: fundamentally different problems.[56:00] Corporates discovering long-form: the end of scripted media interviews[58:22] The AWS-Cisco example: executive dialogue that earns trust without selling[01:03:13] What great looks like for Poddster and Podyx in the next few yearsProfile: Borko Kovacevic, co-founder of Poddster and PodyxLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/borko-kovacevic/Poddster Website: https://poddster.comPodyx Website: https://podyx.comPodcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. This episode is recorded in Poddster Singapore and full disclosure: Bernard is an investor to Podyx.