I went to a neighbourhood secondary school – Anderson Secondary School. Now, it is one of the better neighbourhood school but it was a humble school back then. I often represented the school for competitions (mainly math and computer) and the teacher in charge often gave us this advise “Don’t worry about losing. It is the experience that counts.” – We never won anything.

A few years later, I entered Hwa Chong Junior College, one of the top JC. I still represent the school for competitions (math and computer again) and the teacher in charge often gave us this advise “Play to win. We must win.” – And we won, mostly.

“Of course! You won cos you are in one of the top JC with the smartest students!”. But I have great teammates in Anderson too, smart students who went on to the top schools in Singapore. I dont think we are any weaker in Anderson compared to Hwa Chong. Yet we lose in one and we won another.

I believe the difference is the attitude. If you think you going to lose, you already lose.

So play to win. And only play if you will win. Dont waste your time otherwise.

Rule One of giving advise: Never give advise to something you won’t do yourself.

Dont recommend your friend to buy something you wouldnt buy yourself. Dont give advise to action you wont do yourself.

Never never believe one who dont do what they preach.

I am on my way to Xiamen. Come to think about it, it is the first time I am flying on Silkair so I am not sure what to expect. If you are wondering I am going to Xiamen and not to Hong Kong for the big ITU World 2006, you aren’t the only or the first to ask. No, I didnt plan for the trip ITU World…I didnt thought I need to be there. But as it turns out, I may have to end up doing a day trip over for a brief meeting. But lets see.

The last two days was kind of crazy for me. I fly back to Singapore on Thrusday to have dinner with Cory & Jean from SecondLife who was in town. They also gave a talk at SMU which nearly 300 people turn up. I have to wait nearly an hour for all the fans to finish shaking his hands and asking questions. By the time we settled down for dinner, it is already 9pm.

Series of meetings later, I am back in the airport flying out. I feel quite bad for my wife and kid who hardly have any time with me…Sorry :-(

Incidently, my little daughter discovered Youtube yesterday. She refused to go to sleep until she got her Hello Kitty..and still crying for more after watching it twice. :P

For me, I enjoyed the rejoice, the FU (Thanks Rob :-) as well as the bullshit :-)

Over the weekend, I learn an acquaintance was recently recruited (together with the rest of his team) to join a new hedge fund by Goldman Sachs.

The package he got was nothing less than amazing, in the millions per year. Considered he is probably one of the mid-level guys offered from his team, you could imaging what his peers or boss is offered.

Although they are paid a lot more than many of the listed companies executives, such pay package is not really unusual for Goldman Sachs. Afterall, if the team can manage a 50% yearly return on more than US$1b fund, they more than deserved it.

Warren Buffet once said that Wallstreets is probably the only place that US$1m is considered tips.

What is unusual is that such pay are normally exclusive to Americans and Wallstreets bankers, it is coming to Singapore (or Asia in general) but still within the Ivy League clique. A retired banker friend said that such pay is unheard of in his time. Not in the dotcom days and definitely not before that.

One reason for this is obviously the money is flowing to Singapore and Asia. Serious lots of money.

As money flows here, fund managers (esp. those who can managed good returns using OPM, other people money) is going to pay very well. Where money flows, the economy will follow. Follow the money, follow the growth.

Anyway, congratulation to my friend. Wish him all the best in his new job at Goldman Sachs.

¹ Singapore government has provided excellent system for funds to operate out of Singapore.

² Seriously for those who complains about widening income gaps in Singapore, how do you narrow the income gap between someone who has an MBA from Havard managing US$1b fund and another who has an ITE diploma? Thats the new reality in Singapore now.

Dear Celcom,

I know I have voicemail.

But do you have to set your system to call me every 15 mins? At 4am in the morning? Just so to wake me up to see a 3 missed calls from my own number? And to taunt me a few more times before I gave up and clear the voicemail (music tone??? wtf!)…only to find I cannot go back to sleep. (wtf! wtf!)

Your voicemail service is to help me take a voice message when I am not available. And for me to retrieve the message when I am available. It is not an excuse for you to call me every 15min (for a music tone no less!), and definitely not at 4am in the morning.

So beloved Celcom. Get a freaking clue and fixed your bloody system. Stop calling your customers 4am in the morning.

Yours Sincerely,

A very pissed off customer.

Had a long coffee chat with a former colleague from IDA yesterday. It was nice to know whats happening with the team as well the usual corporate gossips. It is even nicer to confirm one of the work I started is indeed going places, not just to the Cabinet (and PM was there :-) but also COPS (Committee of PS) as well as the ultra-elite Pyramid Club¹. And as expected the 20min timeslot given was not enough and as usual, a lively discussion :-)

Hearing these stories makes me wonder if I should have left IDA in the first place. I missed all the fun!

Just before meeting this colleague of mine, I was meeting with an investment banker whom I recently know as we are working together on a project. So we were just trading histories and I blurt out “I spent 3 years in IDA…but I think it is one year too long”. He gave me a suprised look and said “You dont like IDA?”.

No, I absolutely love IDA. In fact, leaving IDA is one of the hardest thing I had to do in my career. “There is no better place for a technologist like me to work in Singapore. Tracking technology trends is a hobby and doing it as a living is even better. Not only that, it gives me opportunities using technology to make a difference to the society (hopefully for the better).” still remains true. Making it harder was the fact I had nothing to fall back to. Essentially, I am resigning without knowing what I am going to do next. (It has to do with a promise of staying back until my replacement is found but no longer than that)

Yet now that I taken that step into the unknown, I realized I should have done so earlier. Like the story of “Who moved my cheese”, the journey of the seeking is exhilarant, the savour of the new cheese even more.

Looking back, it was the same experience when I resigned as CTO of my previous company. I had an extremely well-paid senior management position. I left without anything to fall back and after several months, I landed in IDA, with a paycut no less. But I was having so much fun in IDA that I told myself, “Damn, I should had done so an year earlier”. Not that I wasnt having fun either in my previous job.

Sincerely, I enjoyed all my jobs. I would not have taken a job that I know I dont enjoyed in the first place. Each of them is challenging, pushing me to higher and most of all the experience is valuable. But as fun as it is, as challenging as any work is, once is fun, twice is okay, thrice is boring and if remains the same, become monotonous². Eventually I will find myself dragging myself to work.

Thats when I know it is time for me to leave.

The only problem is I always waited one year too long to leave.

So no more. This is a promise that I pick up the courage and be true to myself. No more dragging myself to work and feeling life sucked out of me. When I know it is time to leave and if it is the time for me to leave, I shall leave, as soon as possible.

No more one more year.

¹ You wont find info about the Pyramid Club anywhere on Net. It is an exclusive invite-only club that comprises of the whos and whos in Singapore from both public and private sector. I had a mentor who was once a club member.

² Don’t get me wrong, there are many many people who likes predictable work. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If anything else, I am the odd ball. Thats just me.

Link

Veni just send me an email to inform me that Bulgarian Foreign Minister starts his blog, meets Paul Twomey and Joichi Ito, and uses CreativeCommons!

Minister Kalfin started his own blog, to be found at www.kalfin.eu, where he will be discussion issues about Bulgarian foreign policy, EU membership, etc. The blog is based on open source software – WordPress, and is the first such an initiative by a Bulgarian minister. Mr. Kalfin invited Joichi Ito to become an author at his blog – an invitation that was accepted by the famous Japanese IT-investor and blogger.

I didnt know Joi was in Bulgaria. I think I just went to a raid (in warcraft) with him a couple of days ago. Anyway, it is cool!

Then again, Singapore Foreign Minister, George Yeo also blog at BeyondSG. In fact, Singapore win with a Podcast :-)

Someone email me today and asked me if I have become a banker?

Hahaha.

I am still a technologist. And I hang around with bankers enough to know I am definitely not qualify to be one.

However, it was pretty flattering when Edwin (below) asked me the same question when I met him in Shanghai. He has seen some of the investment advisory I did and thought I was one, or have the training as one.

Thank you :-)

ps: A mentor did advise me to consider to explore a career in financial engineering. Afterall, it is still engineering :-)