The second playlist of Analyse Asia 2 starts from Episode 251 onwards.

Analyse Asia Playlist 2

"The one thing that has become quite clear in Asia, at least it's direct to retail - the government is not ready. The market is not ready. And there still needs to be a very high level of consumer protection. A lot more of a B2B-to-C approach. Where, let's say today's Web3 companies will need to partner up with existing licensed entities, whether they be licensed startups or even licensed institutions to provide their offerings to the retail. That's actually really good. Because it provides safeguards. We saw what happened last time when we didn't have those safeguards. So many retail investors lost money in FTX's spectacular blow-up, right? And that really hurt the space, that really hurt the trust, it really hurt the reputation of the space. So directionally it is inconvenient but necessary. For governments to I would say slow down or make access to retail a lot harder. Like in Singapore, we don't see any upcoming movements that crypto is going to be available to retail or easily available to retail anytime soon. We see the same in Hong Kong. The exception would of course be Dubai, but that's already more on the Middle East part, right? And then in the US, it's like a witch hunt. Basically, the long story short is it's still going to be very B2B2C driven, where the interface towards the masses, the retail, will still lie within licensed institutions." - Qin En Looi 


Fresh out of the studio, Qin En Looi, partner of Saison Capital, dives deep into the current developments and the future of Crypto and Web3 investments. He began with an overview of Saison Capital and its investment thesis. He shares how Saison Capital invests in the fintech and crypto space, and the current emergence of real-world asset (RWA) monetization, specifically in the tokenizing of physical assets on the chain. Last but not least, he shares what great would look like for Saison Capital. 

Episode Highlights: [0:00] Quote of the Day by Qin En Loi. #QOTD [1:20] Introduction: Qin En Looi from Saison Capital. [4:09] From entrepreneur to VC. [5:40] Lessons from Qin En’s career journey. [7:15] Overview of Saison Capital as a corporate VC and investment thesis. [11:10] Definition of Crypto, Web3 and Real World Assets (RWA) monetization. [14:40] Typical day as a VC for Qin En Looi. [17:53] Choice of Blockchains (L2, Alt-L1) for Development. [22:02] Web 2.0 vs Web3. [23:07] Case studies in Web3 and Crypto. [26:54] How Web3 model can reduce operational costs in TradFi. [31:27] Challenges of RWA in different crypto markets. [35:26] Fractional Ownership and Illiquidity in RWA. [36:02] Trends in Web3/Crypto and RWA. [39:45] The one thing that Qin En Looi know about RWA and Web3. [41:45] Role of Web3 in the Finance Industry. [43:06] What does great look like for Saison Capital? [43:45] Closing 

Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. Proper credits for the intro and end music: "Energetic Sports Drive" and the episode is mixed &amp; edited in both video and audio format by G. Thomas Craig 

Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia Analyse Asia Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kkRwzRZa4JCICr2vm0vGl Analyse Asia 

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Saison Capital and Real World Asset Monetization in Crypto with Qin En Looi

Fresh out of the studio, Craig Wiley, Senior Director of Product Management at Databricks who leads Mosaic AI, joins us to discuss the forefront of enterprise AI from model development to deployment at scale. Beginning with his career journey in ML operations, Craig explained how he recognized the critical connection between data and AI layers that could deliver order-of-magnitude acceleration in development cycles. Emphasizing the transition from classical ML operations to LLM operations, he showcased how Databricks' unified platform eliminates training-serving skew through data lineage capabilities and supports both fine-tuning and RAG approaches depending on industrial use case requirements. Highlighting compelling customer success stories including Suncorp's employee productivity platform and AstraZeneca's transformation of 400,000 clinical trial documents into queryable insights, Craig revealed a striking reality about enterprise AI evaluation - that 85% of AI use cases are being evaluated only by the engineers who built them, reinforcing that proper evaluation frameworks remain foundational for trustworthy AI implementation. He concluded by introducing Agent Bricks as Databricks' evaluation-centric approach to building production agents, emphasizing that model flexibility and rigorous testing are essential for enterprises moving from experimentation to production, while sharing his vision that the industry must evolve from the "year of agents" to the "year of evaluation and quality."

"85% of AI use cases are being evaluated by the engineer who built it saying, 'yep, seemed to work pretty well.' If you're gonna build a system that's going to be critical to the business, that's going to be important that it gets it right, then you can't do that without evaluations." - Craig Wiley

Episode Highlights: 
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Craig Wiley
[01:21] How Craig Wiley started his work in ML Ops that led him to Databricks
[02:43] Data and AI layer connection creates order-of-magnitude acceleration
[03:47] Mosaic AI acquisition expanded Gen AI solution capabilities
[04:38] Classical ML statistics versus Gen AI evaluation challenges
[05:48] Mosaic AI covers end-to-end from data ingestion
[07:12] Training-serving skew eliminated through unified platform lineage
[08:51] Fine tuning versus RAG depends on use case
[10:49] Industrial agents benefit from fine-tuned smaller models
[13:52] Agent Bricks prioritizes accuracy over simplicity alone
[15:44] Model flexibility crucial for speed and accuracy optimization
[17:59] Suncorp and AstraZeneca demonstrate diverse AI applications
[19:37] Asia Pacific shows aggressive AI adoption strategies
[22:00] 85% of AI cases evaluated only by building engineer
[24:12] Industry terminology evolves rapidly from RAG to agents
[25:39] Customer creativity with governance capabilities inspires product development

Profile: Craig Wiley, Senior Director of Product Management at Databricks and Mosaic AI
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigwiley/

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 Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia
Analyse 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/


#dataaiworldtour #databricks #enterpriseai #retrievalaugmentedgeneration #agentbricks #evalsAI #evaluationAI #MLOps

Agent Bricks and How Data-AI Integration Changes Everything with Craig Wiley

Fresh out of the studio, Jing Yang, the Asia Bureau Chief from The Information, shares her insights on ByteDance's pivotal moment, China's venture capital challenges, and the emerging U.S.-China competition in AI and robotics. Starting with ByteDance's latest financials, she revealed how the company now exceeds Meta in revenue but still lags significantly in profit margins, with its domestic business—Douyin and Toutiao—continuing to drive the lion's share of profits while TikTok remains unprofitable. Jing Yang explains how founder Zhang Yiming has entered "founder mode," dramatically increasing CapEx spending on AI development while ByteDance mysteriously went quiet on the AI leaderboard despite earlier dominance. Moving to venture capital, she unpacks why HongShan Capital has only deployed a quarter of its $9 billion fund raised in 2022, citing the collapse of exit opportunities, new overseas listing regulations from Chinese regulators, and the disappearance of big-ticket growth deals. She then explores the new wave of Chinese AI startups targeting global markets from day one, explaining how censorship and geopolitics force founders to choose between building for China or building for the world—they cannot do both. Finally, Jing Yang breaks down China's non-obvious advantage in humanoid robotics: not manufacturing prowess, but access to advanced manufacturing test beds where robots can be deployed, iterated, and refined at scale—an advantage The U.S. simply cannot match beyond Tesla.

“I think this is a sort of coming-of-age moment. When I say coming of age, I mean collectively for Chinese entrepreneurs. Many of these founders are my age, or even younger, and I’ve spoken with some of them. I can really relate to why they want to build businesses that target the global market instead of just China. In the past, you could build a company in China first and then think about expanding outward. That’s no longer possible. For any consumer-facing software company today, from day one you must decide: Do I build for China, or do I build for Global minus China? The examples of TikTok, Shein, and many others show that you cannot do both. It’s not possible to serve both markets at once.” - Jing Yang

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Jing Yang from The Information
[02:14] ByteDance revenue exceeds Meta, profit lags
[05:01] Zhang Yiming goes founder mode with AI 
[08:24] TikTok's significance to ByteDance's future
[10:18] China signals willingness on TikTok deal
[13:02] Chinese tech giants pivots to semiconductors, hard tech
[14:27] ByteDance's quiet AI strategy and leadership
[19:11] Why HongShan, formerly Sequoia China deploys only quarter of $9B fund
[21:00] China VC market lacks big growth deals
[24:20] New overseas listing regulations hinder exits
[26:15] Chinese VCs struggle with US investments
[29:53] Chinese founders target global markets from day one
[32:20] What forces global versus China product split
[38:28] Chinese apps feel holistic but culturally distinct
[43:00] ChatGPT arrival sparked physical AI revolution
[47:23] Chinese AI companies prioritize commercial use cases over AGI
[50:13] China's manufacturing provides crucial test beds advantage
[53:42] Redefining what constitutes a Chinese startup
[54:55] AI race between Chinese in China vs US
[58:00] Closing

Profile: Jing Yang, Asia Bureau Chief from The Information
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jing-yang-33548123/

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. 


Why Startups in China Are Going Global with Jing Yang

Fresh out of the studio, Jing Yang, the Asia Bureau Chief from The Information, shares her insights on ByteDance's pivotal moment, China's venture capital challenges, and the emerging U.S.-China competition in AI and robotics. Starting with ByteDance's latest financials, she revealed how the company now exceeds Meta in revenue but still lags significantly in profit margins, with its domestic business—Douyin and Toutiao—continuing to drive the lion's share of profits while TikTok remains unprofitable. Jing Yang explains how founder Zhang Yiming has entered "founder mode," dramatically increasing CapEx spending on AI development while ByteDance mysteriously went quiet on the AI leaderboard despite earlier dominance. Moving to venture capital, she unpacks why HongShan Capital has only deployed a quarter of its $9 billion fund raised in 2022, citing the collapse of exit opportunities, new overseas listing regulations from Chinese regulators, and the disappearance of big-ticket growth deals. She then explores the new wave of Chinese AI startups targeting global markets from day one, explaining how censorship and geopolitics force founders to choose between building for China or building for the world—they cannot do both. Finally, Jing Yang breaks down China's non-obvious advantage in humanoid robotics: not manufacturing prowess, but access to advanced manufacturing test beds where robots can be deployed, iterated, and refined at scale—an advantage The U.S. simply cannot match beyond Tesla.

“I think this is a sort of coming-of-age moment. When I say coming of age, I mean collectively for Chinese entrepreneurs. Many of these founders are my age, or even younger, and I’ve spoken with some of them. I can really relate to why they want to build businesses that target the global market instead of just China. In the past, you could build a company in China first and then think about expanding outward. That’s no longer possible. For any consumer-facing software company today, from day one you must decide: Do I build for China, or do I build for Global minus China? The examples of TikTok, Shein, and many others show that you cannot do both. It’s not possible to serve both markets at once.” - Jing Yang

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Jing Yang from The Information
[02:14] ByteDance revenue exceeds Meta, profit lags
[05:01] Zhang Yiming goes founder mode with AI 
[08:24] TikTok's significance to ByteDance's future
[10:18] China signals willingness on TikTok deal
[13:02] Chinese tech giants pivots to semiconductors, hard tech
[14:27] ByteDance's quiet AI strategy and leadership
[19:11] Why HongShan, formerly Sequoia China deploys only quarter of $9B fund
[21:00] China VC market lacks big growth deals
[24:20] New overseas listing regulations hinder exits
[26:15] Chinese VCs struggle with US investments
[29:53] Chinese founders target global markets from day one
[32:20] What forces global versus China product split
[38:28] Chinese apps feel holistic but culturally distinct
[43:00] ChatGPT arrival sparked physical AI revolution
[47:23] Chinese AI companies prioritize commercial use cases over AGI
[50:13] China's manufacturing provides crucial test beds advantage
[53:42] Redefining what constitutes a Chinese startup
[54:55] AI race between Chinese in China vs US
[58:00] Closing

Profile: Jing Yang, Asia Bureau Chief from The Information
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jing-yang-33548123/

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. 

Why Data Streaming Is the Secret Weapon for AI Success with Kamal Brar

Fresh out of the studio, Yuying Deng, Co-founder and CEO of Esevel, shares her transformative journey from corporate lawyer to healthcare operator to tech entrepreneur with our guest host, Yana Fry from  @yanatvsg .  Yuying discusses how the pandemic's sudden shift to remote work in April 2020 revealed critical gaps in IT infrastructure for distributed teams, inspiring her to launch Esevel—a platform now serving companies across 88 countries. She reflects candidly on the hardest lesson from her first startup: the importance of listening to customer feedback rather than being defensive about her vision, a mistake she refuses to repeat. Yuying challenges the traditional HQ-centric worldview, advocating that "HQ should be a mindset, not a location," and shares how Esevel deliberately builds leadership opportunities for talented professionals regardless of whether they're based in Manila, Singapore, or São Paulo. Last but not least, Yuying shares what great would look like for Esevel's future: becoming the indispensable tool companies think of first when scaling global teams, while proving that talent and performance matter more than location.

"Many companies that say they do distributed and remote work actually still have a very HQ-centric worldview. That means leadership is in HQ, strategy is formed in HQ, and high-impact jobs are in the HQ as well. So when they hire remote and distributed teams. For example, in the Philippines, Brazil, and India they use these more as back-office functions. So you have very talented people who join them there, thinking that they could rise in a global company. But very soon they find that they hit a glass ceiling and are no longer able to advance, and so they move on to another firm. I think that’s a massive waste of talent, especially if you’re talking about here in Asia. This is the world’s fastest-growing region. People are ambitious, people are bright, and they are able to take on leadership positions if they’re given the opportunity to. This is one thing that we have really tried to reverse at Esevel. You do not have to be at HQ in order to rise into a leadership position. As long as you perform your job and perform it well, we look at performance more than location. So I think that is one thing that has to shift: HQ shouldn’t be a location. HQ should actually be a mindset. And I think that’s something that a lot of remote companies or distributed work companies have correct when it comes to that."

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Deng Yuying
[02:00] Introducing Yuying Deng, CEO of Esevel
[02:25] From lawyer to operator to founder
[03:32] MBA at INSEAD shaped entrepreneurial journey
[03:53] Built community care division for Orange Valley
[05:44] Esevel: IT operations platform for distributed teams
[07:56] Company DNA shaped by pandemic remote work
[10:16] Managing operations across 88 countries globally
[12:39] Failure is a feature, not a bug
[14:33] Operational complexity and doing boring work well
[16:35] Future of hybrid and remote work
[19:48] HQ should be a mindset not location
[21:25] Characteristics needed for remote work success
[22:40] Growth opportunities regardless of employee location
[26:14] Support network essential for founders
[29:31] Ethical principles learned from parents
[30:33] Vision for Esevel and family independence
[32:28] Partnership requires mutual support for success
[36:34] Legacy focused on happy, independent children

Profile: Yuying Deng, CEO of Esevel: https://esevel.com
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuyingdeng/

Guest Host: Yana Fry from Yana TV: @yanatvsg  
LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yanafry/

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. 

How to Scale Global Teams Without an Office through Esevel with Deng Yuying

Fresh out of the studio, Ling Hai, President of Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, and Africa at MasterCard, joins us to explore how payment networks are evolving to embrace stable coins, AI agents, and the future of digital commerce across diverse global markets. He shares his career journey from management consulting to retail banking and eventually to MasterCard. Ling Hai shares that MasterCard is a global technology company that creates interoperability and universal acceptance, with technology services like cybersecurity, data insights, and consulting increasingly contributing to revenue beyond traditional payment processing. He highlights compelling innovations from Asia Pacific leading the way, including Singapore's nationwide open loop transit system and MasterCard's approach to stable coins as settlement vehicles alongside traditional currencies, while emphasizing how the company bridges the DeFi universe with the physical merchant world through on-ramp and off-ramp solutions for crypto adoption in markets like Latin America. Closing the conversation, Ling Hai shares what great looks like for MasterCard to become the operating system of commerce and the digital economy.

“MasterCard, in the end, is a global technology company. We run a global network, and we’re very much a data company. So, in all of this, when we handle people’s money and when we handle people’s data, trust is the most important thing. If we lose that, we lose our business. For us, that trust factor is absolutely critical — it’s embedded in everything we do.As the world evolves, we’ve gone from handling payments in the physical world, to e-commerce in the digital world. Tomorrow, with AI, it’s going to be agentic — agents will be doing commerce for us. But the common thread across all of this is still safety, security, trust, and also ease of use.Today’s consumer doesn’t want to trade off between convenience and security — they want both. So when we think about our solutions and services, that’s part of our design thinking. We must ensure they are easy, convenient, safe, secure, and trusted by everyone.” - Ling Hai

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Ling Hai
[01:00] Introduction: Ling Hai
[03:00] Overview of Mastercard and balancing global consistency with localization
[06:00] MasterCard's vision: inclusive digital economy for everyone
[09:13] Open loop transit leading digital payment adoption
[11:14] Asia Pacific: most advanced multi-payment region globally
[14:03] MasterCard is a global technology company focused on trust.
[16:00] Stable coins create more use cases for MasterCard
[20:38] Two universes: DeFi and traditional finance will coexist
[21:07] Payment secret sauce: resolving disputes when things fail
[24:00] Stable coins stronger for B2B, wholesale settlement use
[25:38] Be at the table or you're on table
[29:00] AI enables personalization beyond one-size-fits-all marketing
[31:24] Agent commerce requires new rules and payment standards
[32:23] Tokenization and authentication: no regret moves for future
[34:16] MasterCard network supports real-time payments beyond cards
[35:00] What does great look like:: Operating system of commerce and digital economy
[36:00] Closing

Profile: Ling Hai, President of Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Mastercard
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ling-hai-a7952ab8/

#mastercard #stablecoins #agenticai #payments #finance 

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. 

Mastercard and The Future of Money: Crypto, AI Agents & Digital Payments with Ling Hai

A weekly podcast dissecting the pulse of business, technology & media in Asia. Hear our host interviewing leading journalists, senior executives, respectable authors & thinkers, entrepreneurs & thought leaders to discuss the most important issues that move and shake the business landscape in the Asia Pacific. The show is originally created and hosted by Bernard Leong.