Selling My Company Taught Me More Than Building It | Ajay Bulusu - E731

Wing Vasiksiri joins Jeremy Au to analyze a major wave of tech M&A deals and macro growth trends reshaping Southeast Asia. They dissect Grab’s $1.5 billion acquisition of a 60% stake in Atome Financial, examining its unique performance-linked staged structure, offline-to-online retail synergies against Sea Group, and the strategic value of Atome’s credit underwriting capabilities. They also break down Circle’s $400 million purchase of Tazapay, exploring how cross-border B2B payment rails and all-stock deal structures de-risk regional expansion and align long-term founder incentives. Finally, they examine Singapore’s $200M+ fintech fund injection, the double-digit surge in regional e-commerce activity, and why Thailand and Malaysia are emerging as primary data center hubs for Chinese hyperscalers and frontier AI initiatives. 00:00 SEA tech M&A takes off: Grab announces a $1.5B deal for Atome Financial while Circle acquires B2B payments firm Tazapay for $400M.  03:14 Grab and Atome synergies: Combining offline BNPL retail networks with food delivery to build an orthogonal vector against Sea Group.  04:38 Unique deal structures in regional tech: How staged buyouts and performance-linked mechanisms de-risk acquirers and align management teams.  06:36 Underwriting as a competitive moat: Grab taps into Atome's multi-country credit track record, institutional debt lines, and portfolio scale.  11:08 Strategic cash deployment: Grab utilizes balance sheet cash for high-growth strategic acquisitions rather than traditional public market buybacks.  12:51 Circle acquires Tazapay: Cross-border regulatory licenses and global payment infrastructure unlock a 6x payout for early VC backers.  18:02 Singapore’s $200M+ fintech initiative: Public funding steps in during a VC deployment winter to support proven regional exit pathways.  19:50 E-commerce surge across SEA: Double-digit growth in app installs in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia creates secondary startup opportunities. 26:02 Frontier AI labs expand to APAC: OpenAI and neolabs establish Singapore headquarters and launch accelerator programs in Thailand.  27:18 The Thailand and Malaysia data center boom: Abundant power, cheap land, and a "bring-your-own-chip" model drive Chinese hyperscaler investments.

Ajay Bulusu sold NextBillion.ai after a two-year process, and his verdict on cross-border M&A is blunt: 99% of attempts fail, and the founders who never sell are usually stopped by greed rather than by the market. He tells Jeremy Au why 2021 SaaS valuations stopped being fundable the moment ChatGPT arrived, why he picked a number before he started and walked the day he hit it, and why age not coming back mattered more than the last dollar. Then he explains why he started again immediately. After losing his father to a side effect of his cancer treatment, and his mother to a stage four diagnosis a colonoscopy would have caught, he spent eighteen months on his own money building what became 150, a precision health company that reads epigenetics, gut and blood to tell you how each of your organs is ageing. Ajay Bulusu is a technologist, entrepreneur, and founder building at the intersection of artificial intelligence, data, and human health. He is the Co-founder of 150, a next-generation human health and longevity company building an intelligence layer for health — bringing together diagnostics, biomarkers, wearable data, nutrition, and AI to help people predict, prevent, and optimize their health over a lifetime. Prior to 150, Ajay was the Founder and CEO of NextBillion.ai, a Singapore-based deep-tech company pioneering AI-powered mapping, spatial data, and routing infrastructure for global enterprises. The company was acquired by Velocitor Solutions in 2025. Earlier, Ajay was a founding leader of the Geo organization at Grab and held leadership roles at Google, Indeed, and American Express. Having built technology and companies across Asia, Europe, and North America, Ajay brings a global perspective to building ambitious, category-defining businesses and applying technology to some of the world's most complex problems. Ajay’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajaybulusu  150: https://150.fit  Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/ajay-bulusu-150-health  BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one. Listen & Subscribe YouTube (English), YouTube (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (English), Spotify (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (Chinese), Spotify (Vietnamese), Apple Podcasts Follow BRAVE LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp Follow Jeremy Au LinkedIn, X / Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Twitch Resources Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com #PreventiveHealth #FounderExit #SoutheastAsia #Singapore #India #TechPodcast #PrecisionMedicine #HealthTech #Epigenetics #PreventiveCare #Longevity #Wearables #Supplements #StartupExit #MergersAndAcquisitions #SecondTimeFounder #Founders #SoutheastAsiaTech #Malaysia #Indonesia #Philippines #Vietnam #Entrepreneurship 00:00 Introduction 01:13 From Hyderabad to Google, Grab and NextBillion.ai 03:20 Deciding to sell: the SaaS peak and ChatGPT 04:42 Why 99% of M&A fails 06:44 Losing his father, and his mother's diagnosis 09:12 Why the company is called 150 10:45 Doctor 3.0 and the WhatsApp agent 12:39 Precision medicine, not longevity 16:59 Who buys preventive health, and does insurance pay 22:38 The real barrier is the mind, not the money 28:52 Five doctors per patient, and India's specialist gap 32:15 Supplements and the anti-anxiety band 38:48 Men, women, hormones and taboos 40:48 What being brave means

Adriel Yong is the Co-Founder and COO of Clouted, the AI-native clipping and distribution company that turns long-form content into short video and routes it to the right platform and audience. Clouted has raised a $7M seed led by Slow Ventures, following a $4.45M round backed by a16z SPEEDRUN and AppWorks under its former name, Clout Kitchen. The team also produces &FRIENDS, one of the largest dance and pop-culture festivals in the Philippines.  Adriel joined Jeremy Au to work through what AI has done to media. Five or six years ago, making this podcast meant cutting every "um" by hand and building cover art from scratch, and Adriel's estimate is that roughly 80% of that work no longer exists. What moved into the space are faceless pages and fully synthetic creators, plus a third feed inside the AI apps competing for the ten hours a day. Social was meant to be the escape from bought media and is now entirely paid, and the answer engines are going the same way: people used to shape human perception, now they shape the model's. Which leaves the question of what still competes, and Jeremy's answer is not sleep, the way Netflix once put it, but real life. They work through the evidence and the strategy underneath it, from the K-shaped cinema rebound to Costco's private-label discipline mapped onto AI marketplaces, and close on the framework that AI shortens the route to purchase for things and places, but not for people. Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/ai-content  BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one. Listen & Subscribe YouTube (English), YouTube (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (English), Spotify (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (Chinese), Spotify (Vietnamese), Apple Podcasts Follow BRAVE LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp Follow Jeremy Au LinkedIn, X / Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Twitch Resources Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com #AI #Media #SoutheastAsia #Singapore #Philippines #TechPodcast #ContentCreation #CreatorEconomy #FacelessContent #AIVideo #GenerativeAI #GEO #AISEO #MediaStrategy #Startups #Founders #SEAstartups #Indonesia #Vietnam #Malaysia  00:00 Introduction 00:55 How AI collapsed the production workflow 03:28 Faceless creators and AI-generated creators 05:16 The ChatGPT feed vs the Instagram feed 07:12 Social is now paid social, and the GEO scramble 09:25 Content's biggest competitor is real life 10:37 IRL experiences as a go-to-market motion 12:09 The K-shaped cinema economy: IMAX, the Sphere, F1 14:15 Do you need more AI tools than ChatGPT? 15:17 The atom of work AI actually replaces 16:22 Free time, the senses, and omnichannel shopping 18:33 Costco, Kirkland, and AI marketplaces 19:59 A24's barbell versus the blockbuster bet 22:19 Fandom, IP, and imaginary characters 24:27 Know the real estate you are standing on 25:39 How media consumption habits changed 27:31 Why podcasts survive: edutainment and opinion 30:14 What we consumed in the last 24 hours 32:14 The insurance arbitrage AI found 34:08 Toilets, Wirecutter, and shopping with AI 36:02 Things and places, yes. People, no. 38:55 Word of mouth is still the filter for people 40:44 The Comfort Crisis and rethinking the cinema

Jeremy Au takes the hot seat in a reverse interview hosted by Edric Poon to unpack the true value of a Harvard MBA and the fundamental principles of business leadership. Jeremy unbundles the prestigious degree into three core components: practical utility and learning, building a long-term global network, and acquiring a costly social credential. He shares actionable frameworks for effective leadership, emphasizing the necessity of decisive strategy, ruthless prioritization, and the ability to mobilize resources and capital. The conversation also explores the psychology behind the Harvard case study method, how pattern-matching helps leaders spot corporate fraud, and the harsh, irreversible realities of founder burnout. Finally, Jeremy contrasts Western and Asian leadership styles, explaining how regional GDP per capita and Wall Street’s shareholder supremacy dictate corporate culture across the globe. Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/harvard-mba-leadership  BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one. Listen & Subscribe YouTube (English), YouTube (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (English), Spotify (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (Chinese), Spotify (Vietnamese), Apple Podcasts Follow BRAVE LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp Follow Jeremy Au LinkedIn, X / Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Twitch Resources Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com #Leadership #SoutheastAsia #HarvardMBA #Singapore #TechPodcast #MBA #BusinessSchool #Management #Founders #Startups #VentureCapital #CareerAdvice #Burnout #FamilyBusiness #CorporateGovernance #AsianLeadership #SEAstartups #Malaysia #Indonesia #Philippines #Vietnam #Entrepreneurship  0:00 500 case studies, and what they're actually for 0:52 Introduction: Jeremy in the hot seat 1:43 What a Harvard MBA is actually for 5:01 The half-million-dollar signal 6:38 How to unbundle all three yourself 9:17 Decide, prune, mobilise 10:43 Atari, Nokia, and BlackBerry's own prototype 14:24 Manager versus leader 16:15 The campfire, and who walks into the dark 21:00 Authenticity is not permission to be your worst self 22:59 The case method and the supercomputer brain 26:21 Enron, and pattern matching fraud 29:59 The mistake Jeremy made twice 35:27 Two bad nights of sleep is two drinks 37:34 So what is Asian leadership? 39:12 GDP per capita, and where trust lives 44:49 Wall Street versus everybody else 50:52 Community over the individual 54:08 The MBA in your pocket

Jianggan Li returns for a China read: Europe's run on Chinese air conditioners, the humanoid robot games, Shein's discounted Hong Kong listing, and what breaks when Chinese firms go abroad. One thread runs through all four. China's advantage is not invention. Midea did not build a better aircon, it read Europe's building codes and engineered to them. Robot hardware raced ahead because engineers ground at it for a year while the software did not. Temu went from someone suggesting a Super Bowl ad to the ad being made in thirty days. The moat is iteration, and Chinese firms are mostly competing with each other, not with you. Also: why the robots still need a human holding a remote, why humanoids substitute for cheap labour instead of complementing it, and the advice one operator gives about expanding abroad, which is to stop trying to change how things are done there and change yourself instead.  Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/china-competitive-advantage  BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one. Listen & Subscribe YouTube (English), YouTube (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (English), Spotify (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (Chinese), Spotify (Vietnamese), Apple Podcasts Follow BRAVE LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp Follow Jeremy Au LinkedIn, X / Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Twitch Resources Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com #China #HumanoidRobots #SoutheastAsia #China #HumanoidRobots #SoutheastAsia #Shein #Temu #Unitree #Midea #Robotics #Ecommerce #Manufacturing #Singapore #Startups #SEAstartups 00:00 Introduction 01:45 Europe's aircon panic, and the 12-hour drive 03:08 Designed to the regulation, not to be better 05:07 It's not China vs you. It's China vs China. 05:55 The World Humanoid Robot Games 06:52 Why the robots still need a human with a remote 08:20 Hardware outpaced software, and the data problem 11:19 Unitree's IPO, and a founder who wasn't smiling 11:53 Humanoid robots vs cheap human labour 15:02 Complement or substitute: where humanoids land first 16:43 Shein: $100B to $26B 19:25 Temu, de minimis, and the marketplace squeeze 20:43 The Super Bowl ad built in 30 days 23:12 Nobody writes the story of iterative engineering 25:41 Going global, and the driving seat problem 28:49 What to watch: the Xi-Trump meeting

"How are you going to stay ahead of the competition in a world where two kids can vibe code a clone of your product over a weekend?" Itamar Novick is a solo capitalist and the founder of Recursive Ventures, a pre-seed fund focused on AI and emerging tech startups. He has supported over 50 successful startups, including Deel, Honeybook, Placer, Credible (IPO), MileIQ (acquired by Microsoft), Automatic Labs (acquired by SiriusXM), Tile (acquired by Life360), SafeGraph, and Armory. He's been recognized by Business Insider as a Top 100 global seed investor (#17 in 2021, #29 in 2022). As an operator, he helped take Life360 from Seed to IPO, scaling the business to over $250m in revenue. Itamar joined Jeremy Au to talk about what still counts as a moat in AI, why proprietary data is only the starting point, and where AI actually replaces people instead of augmenting them. He also looks back on twelve years at Life360, joining as VP of Product and leaving as the CFO who took the company public, and why he now writes the first check at pre-seed. Itamar’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itamarnovick/ Recursive Ventures: https://www.recursiveventures.com/ Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/itamar-novick-recursive-ventures  BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one. Listen & Subscribe YouTube (English), YouTube (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (English), Spotify (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (Chinese), Spotify (Vietnamese), Apple Podcasts Follow BRAVE LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp Follow Jeremy Au LinkedIn, X / Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Twitch Resources Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com #AI #VentureCapital #AIStartups #SoutheastAsia #Startups #Founders #Fundraising #PreSeed #SeedFunding #DataMoats #VerticalAI #ReinforcementLearning #VibeCoding #SiliconValley #Singapore #Malaysia #Indonesia #Philippines #Vietnam #TechPodcast #Life360 #SEAstartups #Entrepreneurship  00:00 Introduction 02:01 Coding at 11, and the army cybercrime unit 04:12 Product management before Agile 06:00 Gigya, and meeting Zuckerberg in 2008 07:27 Morgenthaler Ventures and the first inning of SaaS 08:37 Twelve years at Life360, VP Product to CFO 11:36 "Kids are never gonna have smartphones" 13:53 Raising $500M and 11 corporate VCs 16:31 The VC story problem, and which VCs got it 22:26 Going full time into venture, and why pre-seed 27:48 How Itamar picks: team, TAM, and moat 30:06 Data as the moat, and the customer data flywheel 35:48 Where AI can and can't replace humans 40:33 Taking the one big swing

Jeremy Au and Shiyan Koh take apart Singapore's new SG Child Support Package: almost $70,000 per Singaporean child paid out over 17 years, more childcare leave, and preschool fees heading towards $150 a month. Jeremy on why the number only means anything relative to income. Shiyan on why the preschool change matters most. Whether the extra leave actually gets taken, or quietly costs you at work. And the change nobody articulated: every Singapore Citizen child now qualifies regardless of their parents' marital status. Plus nuclear, transhipment, and their wishlist for the next budget. Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/singapore-child-financial-support  BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one. Listen & Subscribe YouTube (English), YouTube (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (English), Spotify (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (Chinese), Spotify (Vietnamese), Apple Podcasts Follow BRAVE LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp Follow Jeremy Au LinkedIn, X / Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Twitch Resources Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com #Singapore #NDR2026 #SoutheastAsia #NationalDayRally #SGChildSupportPackage #BabyBonus #ChildcareLeave #FamilyPolicy #SingaporeStartups #VentureCapital #FundingWinter #AngelInvesting #NuclearEnergy #Logistics #SupplyChain #TechPodcast #SEAstartups #Malaysia #Indonesia #Vietnam #Philippines #HustleFund #Entrepreneurship 00:00 Introduction 01:33 The $70,000 package, explained 03:26 Why preschool is the biggest piece 06:26 Cash today, or shares that compound to 18 09:03 Sweeping unused payouts into a nest egg 12:15 A voucher society, or a shareholder society 13:38 The pushback: SMEs and the colleagues covering 16:49 Reservist, and the cost of stepping away 21:38 Who qualifies: citizen children, foreign parents 25:34 What about single parents? 29:45 Nuclear: island mergers and a China pact 32:41 Vietnam, transhipment, Dockware and Portcast 36:20 Wishlist for the next budget 39:24 Fifty $50M companies beat one unicorn 43:10 Outro

The next three years should deliver what the last thirty did. That is John Lin's argument, and it is why he thinks the ground under founders has shifted. John Lin is the Founding Partner of Linea Ventures. Previously, he helped start F-Prime Capital's west coast tech practice and was also a Principal at Trinity Ventures. He has invested in 50+ companies, including Numeral, Squire, Branch, Side, Weights & Biases, Triumph and You.com. Prior to that he led Product and Engineering at Roomi and worked at McKinsey and Yelp. John graduated with degrees in Business and Computer Science from UC Berkeley. He joined Jeremy Au on why AI coding has made good engineers five to ten times more effective, why everything in AI is both overhyped and undervalued at once, and where value still accrues now that a model costing billions to train can be built for tens of millions. Then the part most founders have not priced in. A Series A used to mean $800K in revenue and a $40M round. Today it is closer to $3M and $70M, and by John's reading only 1 in 5 to 1 in 7 companies make the jump. Round to round survival has fallen from about half to somewhere between a third and a sixth. Plus how he picks: a $1B market, a path to 25x, companies between $1M and $10M in revenue, and the one question every founder has to answer. John’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-lin-39a18921/ Linea Ventures: https://lineavc.com/  Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/john-lin-ai-investing  BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one. Listen & Subscribe YouTube (English), YouTube (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (English), Spotify (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (Chinese), Spotify (Vietnamese), Apple Podcasts Follow BRAVE LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp Follow Jeremy Au LinkedIn, X / Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Twitch Resources Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com #Singapore #TechPodcast #AIInvesting #SeriesA #SeedFunding #Startups #Founders #Fundraising #AIInfrastructure #VerticalAI #SiliconValley #EmergingManagers #SEAstartups #Malaysia #Indonesia #Philippines #Vietnam #Berkeley #Entrepreneurship  00:00 Introduction 00:43 From Berkeley to Trinity, F-Prime, and Linea Ventures 02:59 Is AI huge, or overhyped? 04:34 AI coding, and 30 years of innovation in 3 07:44 Where the economic value of AI will accrue 11:26 Overhyped, undervalued, and no longer defensible 13:10 How John picks: market, founder, inflection point 15:12 Case study: Numeral and US sales tax filing 18:08 Red flags, and how to validate an AI idea fast 20:26 Are billion dollar seed rounds the new normal? 24:41 A tale of two cities in startup funding 26:50 Only 1 in 5 to 1 in 7 reach Series A 30:04 Personal investing versus investing out of a fund 35:56 What a decade of reps teaches you

Where does innovation in Southeast Asia actually start? Not in a lab. In this compilation from the BRAVE archive: a lock that took eleven hours to install, a Peter Thiel put-down at Harvard, and customers using a real estate website to sell food. Anthony Chow built Igloo's first smart lock from parts bought in China, watched the first shipments fail, then invented an offline PIN lock (Google Authenticator, but for doors) because vacation rentals have no Wi-Fi. That invention won the Airbnb partnership and now runs more than half of Australia's tennis courts, fully unmanned.  Kelvin Teo heard Peter Thiel tell a Harvard room that Asia doesn't need innovation, just execution ("annoying, but factually accurate") and turned it into the method behind Funding Societies, which underwrites SMEs by asking for more documents than the banks, because its real competitor is the money lender charging 48% a year.  Dennis Velasco burned $150K on a broken real estate market before his users showed him the pivot, launched Prosperna three months before the 2020 lockdown, and argues that none of it counts until small businesses trust you to stay. Watch the full episodes: E676 Anthony Chow, Co-Founder & CEO of Igloo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU1-wIvarVk  E678 Kelvin Teo, Co-Founder & Group CEO of Funding Societies | Modalku https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob9Wq9DMpko  E692 Dennis Velasco, Founder & CEO of Prosperna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVw0B8m3eN4  Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/innovation-playbook  BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one. Listen & Subscribe YouTube (English), YouTube (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (English), Spotify (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (Chinese), Spotify (Vietnamese), Apple Podcasts Follow BRAVE LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp Follow Jeremy Au LinkedIn, X / Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Twitch Resources Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com #Innovation #SoutheastAsia #Startups #Singapore #Philippines #Indonesia #Malaysia #Vietnam #TechPodcast #Fintech #Proptech #Ecommerce #SmartLock #SME #MSME #VentureCapital #Founders #SEAstartups #Entrepreneurship 00:00 Intro 00:25 Anthony Chow: the lock that took 11 hours to install 06:20 Kelvin Teo: "Asia doesn't need innovation" becomes a playbook 11:01 Dennis Velasco: the customers showed us the pivot 15:23 Kelvin Teo: more documents than the banks 20:50 Dennis Velasco: the trust factor gap 23:37 Anthony Chow: half of Australia's tennis courts, unmanned 27:03 Outro

An offhand compliment from a leader becomes praise. An offhand insult becomes a verdict. Nobody in a leadership role gets to opt out of that. Three conversations from the BRAVE archive with three best-selling authors, and one thing they share: all three went and checked what everybody already assumes about leadership, and found the data pointing the other way. Adam Galinsky is a professor at Columbia Business School, currently spending a year at NUS Business School in Singapore, and the author of Inspire. He explains the leader amplification effect, why the people we call great are characterised on two dimensions and excused on the third, and what he found after asking people on every continent to describe an inspiring leader and an infuriating one. The answers were the same everywhere, with one variation: hypocrisy comes up more in Asia. Eric Ries wrote The Lean Startup. Fifteen years on, he went back to the founders who used it and found many of them miserable, and many of them no longer recognising the company they had built. His argument: we taught people how to build and never how to protect it, trustworthiness is the most underrated asset in business, and since 2008 the companies rated bad on governance have outperformed the ones rated good. Nir Eyal has written three books on why we do what we do. He starts with the most uncomfortable pattern in his own office hours, which is people waiting months for a call to report that the step they never did didn't work. Then the mechanism: what stands between us and what we want is not information, motivation is a triangle of behaviour, benefit and belief, and we quit because we have never separated pain from suffering. People, then institutions, then yourself. Watch the full episodes: E709 Adam Galinsky, Professor at Columbia Business School https://youtu.be/MhVfGQ8iI7I  E700 Eric Ries, Author of The Lean Startup https://youtu.be/8wihh7uYpRo  E706 Nir Eyal, Author of Hooked, Indistractable and Beyond Belief https://youtu.be/4eM2OOMyruA  Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/leadership-authors  BRAVE is Southeast Asia's leading tech podcast, hosted by Jeremy Au. Honest conversations with the region's top founders, investors, and operators on building startups in Southeast Asia. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss one. Listen & Subscribe YouTube (English), YouTube (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (English), Spotify (Bahasa Indonesia), Spotify (Chinese), Spotify (Vietnamese), Apple Podcasts Follow BRAVE LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp Follow Jeremy Au LinkedIn, X / Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Threads, Twitch Resources Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at www.bravesea.com #Leadership #SoutheastAsia #Founders #Singapore #TechPodcast #Management #Startups #VentureCapital #BusinessBooks #LeanStartup #Psychology #FutureOfWork #Productivity #CorporateGovernance #SEAstartups #Malaysia #Indonesia #Philippines #Vietnam #Entrepreneurship 00:00 Three findings that contradict what you believe 00:41 Adam Galinsky: you don't get to choose your impact 03:01 The Steve Jobs defence, and Mother Teresa 05:10 The captain of Flight 1380 07:07 Inspiring vs infuriating, and what Asia judges differently 08:57 Eric Ries: they built the companies and ended up miserable 12:09 Since 2008, bad governance has beaten good 16:31 Costco, Sol Price, and the locks that were changed 20:19 Nir Eyal: they read the book, they didn't do the book 23:48 Why visualising success backfires 26:52 Pain is not suffering 30:35 The thing nobody checked