"As a country, investing in education is a no-brainer, but often, education gets politicized and there is a cultural aspect of it. Rich people want their kids to go to better schools. They spend money on them and take control of what their kids learn. It can lead to a bifurcation where you can have more or less resource schools. That leads to people pulling their kids out of public systems to go to more private systems, which also leads to defunding and eventually to a negative cycle." - Shiyan Koh
"At the end of the day, you have to be really clear and honest with yourself on what the actual math of user acquisition and repeat usage is. Be disciplined in seeing cohort profitability and getting people to come back. With ridesharing, people do a lot of price comparisons and they don't have as much loyalty. It makes the additional usage of other services weaker, whereas anyone who's gone to China and used WeChat or Ali has really been blown away by that ecosystem where you can do anything, and everything is run on the same payment rails. Ultimately, that is incredibly sticky and compelling." - Shiyan Koh
"It's important for Southeast Asia’s education system to be well-managed. You need both the quality of management and the quantity of capital to go into it. Vietnam is turning into a technology hub because they are highly sophisticated in computer engineering and how they're looking at the world. Everyone says Vietnam is so good, but they don't talk about the education system decisions that were made 30 years ago. A lot of folks ask what it takes for this country's ecosystem to be a great technology place and I say we have to talk about education today, and in 20, 30 years, we're going to see that the technology system ecosystem evolves." - Jeremy Au
In this episode, Jeremy Au speaks on the super apps dive (Grab, GoTo, and WeChat), Vietnam's world-class education system, and founder leadership transitions at Spenmo.
Keywords: Super Apps Dive, Grab GoTo WeChat, Vietnam World-Class Education System, Founder Leadership Transitions, Spenmo, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, Thought Leadership
