Interconnected

Prosus: Softbank Without the Drama

“What is the single best technology investment of all time?” An often-heard answer to this question is Softbank’s early investment in Alibaba. Indeed, Masa Son’s storied $20 million bet on Jack Ma (with his strong, shiny eyes) in 2000 has yielded Softbank

Topics: Industrial Planning• Semiconductor• China•

US vs China: How Can America Win?

The technology competition between the US and China is often framed as a race where China is trying to catch up, while the US is trying to maintain its lead by using tools, like export control, to keep China behind. For the first time

Topics: Cloud Industry•

How to Invest in China's Cloud

A couple of weeks ago, we published a detailed breakdown of China’s cloud industry’s current state of development, which resonated with many industry analysts and technologists. We combed through the official whitepaper published by the government-affiliated think tank, China Academy of Information

Topics: Cloud Industry•

How is China’s Cloud Industry Doing?

The Chinese economy may well be heading into a recession. But one sector that has continued to grow, seemingly unabated, is its cloud computing industry. According to Canalys, China’s total cloud spending in 2021 increased by 45%, bringing high expectations for more in

Topics: AI• Regulation• China•

So Which Algorithms Do the Chinese Regulators Have?

Back in January, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), in coordination with several other regulatory bodies, enshrined a new policy to regulate how algorithms are used in Chinese Internet companies. Seven months later, the CAC made its first public announcement of which companies have

Topics: Masa Son• Softbank• Alibaba•

Understanding Masa Son’s Rationality

During Christmas last year, I read one of the few biographies available on Masayoshi Son, titled “Aiming High”. Written by Atsuo Inoue, the version I read was an English translation of the Japanese original. Perhaps due to the “lost in translation” problem, it was

Topics: XPeng• Tesla• Alibaba•

Why China’s Road to Self-Driving Goes Through Inner Mongolia

AliCloud and XPeng announced a partnership to build a dedicated cloud computing center to train XPeng electric vehicles’ self-driving capabilities last week. The news of this alliance was not terribly surprising. After all, Alibaba was an early investor in XPeng, still one of its

Topics: Intel• Semiconductor• South Korea•

Not Intel, but South Korea, is where CHIPS Money Should Go

The comically embarrassing timing between the final passage of the CHIPS and Science Act and Intel’s disastrous quarterly earnings, both occurring on the same day last week, elucidated one hard truth: Congress may be barking up the wrong tree. Many have assumed that

Topics: Didi• Antitrust• Data Regulation•

Didi's $1.2 Billion Penalty and the Global 5% Upper Bound

Last week, the embattled Didi stock had arguably its best week ever since its IPO last July, notching a 20% weekly gain. Why? Because it was fined $1.2 billion by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) for its egregiously poor data privacy and

Topics: Cloud Industry• Google Cloud Platform• Data Regulation•

Where Data Centers and Abortion Rights Intersect

On the surface, cloud data center locations and women’s right to abortion in America are two topics that could not be further apart. Yet, they have become intimately intertwined when Proov, a healthcare tech company focused on fertility, decided to move its entire

Topics: Geopolitics•

What is Exceptional about "American Exceptionalism"

Every year leading up to July 4th, the American Independence Day, I get pensive and meditative. As a naturalized American citizen, who has sworn the oath to protect the US constitution three times so far -- once during my naturalization ceremony, once to work

Topics: ByteDance• Oracle• Data Regulation•

Solutions to TikTok's American Credibility Problem

Last week, I wrote a detailed post breaking down TikTok’s immense credibility challenges in America, as revealed by Buzzfeed’s reporting based on more than 80 leaked internal meeting recordings. In today’s post, I propose some viable solutions – some technical, some organizational

Topics: ByteDance• Oracle• Data Regulation•

TikTok's American Credibility Problem

What happens when audio recordings of 80 internal meetings of a company are leaked to the media? A serious credibility problem. That’s what happened to TikTok last week when the audio of, indeed, more than 80 internal meetings were leaked to Buzzfeed, which

Topics: China• Alibaba• Jack Ma•

Ant IPO and China's "Startup Debt" Problem

Last week, Chinese tech stocks went through a mini rollercoaster. The Wall Street Journal first reported that regulators were close to completing their cybersecurity investigations of Didi, Full Trust Alliance, and Kanzhun, sending stock prices up. Then Bloomberg reported that the China Securities Regulatory

Topics: Apple• Tesla• China•

American Tech Leaves China, But What Will Stay?

A series of recent headlines has confirmed a looming trend – American tech businesses are giving up China for good. LinkedIn, Yahoo, Airbnb, and most recently, Amazon’s Kindle, have all officially announced their departure. To me, this trend feels irreversible and not a temporary

Topics: Southeast Asia• Cloud Industry• Geopolitics•

US and Southeast Asia: A Dysfunctional Romance

Last week, Southeast Asia scored a long overdue diplomatic victory. The US-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Nations) Summit was finally held in Washington, DC and hosted by the White House – the first time in ASEAN’s 55-year history. Symbolic victory aside, what the Southeast

Topics: Morris Chang• TSMC• Semiconductor•

When Morris Chang Speaks, America Should Listen

Last month, Morris Chang, the founder and two-time CEO of TSMC (now retired and in his 90s), gave a rare interview, hosted by the Brookings Institution and CSIS, two of the most prestigious DC think tanks. During this interview, in no uncertain terms, Morris

Topics: ByteDance• Facebook•

How Does TikTok Do Global Expansion

Like it or not, TikTok is now a global phenomenon, not just in terms of cultural relevance, but also as a real business success. (As we all have seen with Twitter, you can be very culturally relevant and still struggle as a business.) Based

Topics: Web3• Open Source•

Polygon: Web3's MongoDB and More

I first heard of Polygon in mid-2021. Friends of mine who were web3 entrepreneurs and NFT artists mentioned it as a promising project, providing a solid scaling solution for Ethereum. After some initial research, I learned that the founding team members were mostly from

Topics: Twitter• Open Source• Elon Musk•

Why Open Sourcing Twitter is Good for Humanity and Business

By now, the entire world knows that Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter. During his first interview after making his intention known, Elon made it clear that he wants to open source Twitter’s algorithm. This announcement was met with long, thunderous applause. There’

Topics: Facebook• ByteDance•

Facebook vs TikTok: Will Every Tech Company Become a Political Campaign?

Long before tech, I cut my teeth working on political campaigns fresh out of college. I was a field staffer on Obama’s first presidential campaign, during a time when smartphones were novel, Twitter didn’t exist, Facebook grew mostly just on college campuses,

Topics: Didi• IPO•

Take Didi Private

If Disney builds a new rollercoaster using Didi’s stock chart from the last four weeks, it will surely be one of its most head-spinning, vomit-inducing rides yet. With so much volatility around all Chinese stocks, but Didi’s in particular, it is impossible

Topics: China• Stock Market• Charlie Munger•

Dissecting the "Great Delisting"

Last December, I wrote a rather provocative post called “Let the ‘Great Delisting’ Begin”. That was when the SEC released its final specifications to implement the accounting compliance requirements outlined in the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (HFCAA). Back then, and right on cue,

Topics: e-CNY• Central Bank Digital Currency• Web3•

Central Bank Digital Currency: Should You Want It Too?

Over the last five months, we have researched and written about e-CNY (China’s Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC), from its core technology and product experience, to the key institutional players involved and its long-term strategic implications. During this process, I found myself

Topics: Russia• Ukraine• Semiconductor•

Fog of War

The analogies of “war” are used often to describe and analyze non-war situations – businesses, sports, electoral politics. We now have a real war between Russia and Ukraine, and the “fog of war” between clarity and confusion is as thick as ever. Because there is