H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (22 March 2019) – It’s Not Enough to Be Right-You Also Have to Be Kind

March 22, 2019 Leave a comment

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (22 March 2019) – It’s Not Enough to Be Right-You Also Have to Be Kind; Takedowns and clever quips are easy, but empathy and persuasion are better

Companies

  • Kakao acquires 28.9% stake in Tidesquare (Investor)
  • GIS to ramp up in-display fingerprint sensor shipments to Samsung starting 2Q19 (Digitimes)
  • VGI and AnyMind Group sign tech partnership (NM)
  • Nearmap Aerial Imagery Helps Elite Grounds Achieve Ground-Breaking Increases in Accuracy and Productivity (BW)

BATTSS – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, TSMC, Samsung, Softbank

  • Alibaba to run its entire business on the cloud (Technode); Alibaba to step up cloud computing expansion amid growing global demand (SCMP)
  • Fliggy, the online travel platform owned by Alibaba, launches its own shopping portal (KRA)
  • Tencent to begin closed beta for cloud gaming service Start (Technode, KRA)
  • Tencent to cut reliance on China gaming after profit hit (Reuters); Tencent loses steam as new growth engines struggle to take off; Asia’s once-most-valuable tech company suffers steepest profit drop in 14 years (Nikkei); Relax, Things Really Aren’t So Bad at Tencent; Management trimmed its marketing budget, and games monetization is back. That’s good news, really. (Bloomberg); Why Tencent Missed the Mark on Profit by Most in a Decade (Bloomberg)
  • Clouded vision: Masayoshi Son prepares to unleash his second $100bn tech fund; Volatility in tech stocks, the Khashoggi scandal and frictions over governance have changed the mood around the Vision Fund (Economist)

FAANNMG – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Netflix, Microsoft, Google

  • Apple TV App To Get A Second Life With Video Subscription Service (Forbes)
  • Amazon to Launch Mobile Ads, in a Threat to Google and Facebook (Bloomberg)
  • Google’s new gaming service will let game makers use rival clouds, executive says (Reuters)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

  • Wave of layoffs washes over China’s tech giants; Mass demotion at Tencent follows job cuts at JD.com and NetEase (Nikkei)
  • The China Tech Bubble Is Dead. Long Live the China Tech Bubble; Offshore private equity funds struggled to compete with a wave of onshore money. Now it’s retreating, and the water looks more inviting. (Bloomberg)
  • World’s Biggest AI Startup Exploring Cars, Global Expansion (Bloomberg)
  • Chinese smartphone firms jazz up products, seize turf in home market from Apple (Reuters)
  • China’s auto, internet giants set up 9.76 billion yuan fund to invest in ride-sharing industry (Reuters)
  • Meet TikTok, the social media your kids are watching (AFR)
  • Chinese e-commerce platform Little Red Book upgrades its brand partner platform (KRA)
  • Race is on for tech companies like Grab, Ant Financial to gain an edge in SE Asia’s financial services market (SCMP)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

  • Robotics process automation startup UiPath raising $400M at more than $7B valuation (TC)
  • Rent the Runway hits a $1 billion valuation (TC)
  • Big banks are using AI to keep out of trouble (CNN)
  • Doctor App Babylon Health Offers Quick Appointments, But Grapples With Follow-Up Care For Mental Health (Forbes)
  • Square Stock Is a Buy Because Its Cash App Will Grow, Analyst Says (Barron’s)
  • Spotify enters high-stakes licensing talks with music industry; Universal, Sony and Warner control two-thirds of streaming service’s catalogue (FT)
  • Someone Else Is Making Money on Your Online Returns (Bloomberg)
  • Scientists reveal ancient social networks using AI-and x-rays (Wired)

Life

  • Why book value has lost its meaning: The trouble with intangibles (Economist)
  • It’s Not Enough to Be Right-You Also Have to Be Kind; Takedowns and clever quips are easy, but empathy and persuasion are better (Ryan Holiday)

Filed under Innovation

About bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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