Speaker 1: Mhm
Speaker 1: Hello, you're listening to Kobe time, a podcast series from
Speaker 1: markets and economies from DBS group research. I'm camera big
Speaker 1: chief economist. Welcome to our 76
Speaker 2: episodes.
Speaker 1: My dear listeners and viewers. Today's guest is not like
Speaker 1: anyone we've had in covid time history
Speaker 1: Cl Ean works for Go Jek as the Singapore general
Speaker 1: manager and also leads the driver operations across all countries.
Speaker 1: Go Jek is a southeast asian online platform providing access
Speaker 1: to services including transport, payments, food delivery and logistics.
Speaker 1: Before go Jek leon worked at Mckinsey where he was
Speaker 1: based in china and spend time in Sierra Leone helping
Speaker 1: deal with Ebola. Prior to that, leon was a commando
Speaker 1: officer in the Singapore Armed forces where he led a
Speaker 1: battalion and was in East timor as a U. N. Peacekeeper.
Speaker 1: An avid adventure. And this is where the differentiating part
Speaker 1: comes in leon is the first guest in Covid time
Speaker 1: to have climbed the tallest peaks in the world including
Speaker 1: Mount Everest and K. Two. He has done things like
Speaker 1: run 250 kilometers ultramarathon through amazon jungles and the Gobi
Speaker 1: desert and he's done all sorts of expeditions in North
Speaker 1: Pole and South Pole. Now that's
Speaker 1: a renaissance man for you.
Speaker 1: Cl ean, Welcome to Kobe time.
Speaker 2: Hey time, a real pleasure to be here and
Speaker 2: Running podcasts, you know, are really not easy, 76 editions
Speaker 2: is even more impressive. So real, real, real pleasure to
Speaker 2: be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It's a little easier than running 250 km Leanne.
Speaker 1: Let's start by talking about your motivation. Um you have
Speaker 1: done a lot of physically demanding pursuits in your life
Speaker 1: then of course, you know, you kind of settle down
Speaker 1: and did some desk stuff.
Speaker 1: But how did your journey all the way to go,
Speaker 1: jek transpire.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. I guess I'll speak a little bit about
Speaker 2: them and adventurous stuff. It's, it's, it's a good story.
Speaker 2: Um,
Speaker 2: probably, you know, runs through three stages when you're young.
Speaker 2: You are young, foolhardy, reckless. But you are about to explore.
Speaker 2: You don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 2: And that was my climbing journey.
Speaker 2: The first time you climb, it's really to see what,
Speaker 2: it's all, what, what is, what is this all about?
Speaker 2: What is the experience? Somebody asked you and you go
Speaker 2: on a trip and I've got a good story about that.
Speaker 2: But the first, the first, the first trip,
Speaker 2: uh,
Speaker 2: which kind of had some good learning lessons
Speaker 2: when it became a second trip and a third trip.
Speaker 2: And after a while you want to become a little
Speaker 2: bit better. You want to have a little bit more mastery.
Speaker 2: You want to challenge yourself a little bit more. You
Speaker 2: want to see a little bit more of the
Speaker 2: uh, the bigger names that people have been talking about
Speaker 2: the story, uh, peaks and mountains and trips and places
Speaker 2: that have been written about and that probably is the
Speaker 2: second arc.
Speaker 2: And then as you sort of get into the
Speaker 2: later stages, you do it because you really enjoy doing it. Uh, I'm,
Speaker 2: you know, probably still somewhere between the second and the
Speaker 2: third stage, I try to do a trip,
Speaker 2: you know, every year. So that's on the, on the
Speaker 2: personal side
Speaker 2: in terms of adventure, I'll tell a very short story though,
Speaker 2: which is
Speaker 2: this foolhardy uh you don't know what, you don't know
Speaker 2: and that's why there's a survivor sort of statistic that
Speaker 2: if you make it past the first few months of
Speaker 2: any product or company, then you're probably okay. The first
Speaker 2: time I went to climb a mountain I had with
Speaker 2: me on my
Speaker 2: climb towards the summit,
Speaker 2: I was wondering why everyone was moving much faster than
Speaker 2: I was. It was in California is a one thing
Speaker 2: called Shasta and I realized that, you know, they all
Speaker 2: have very light packs and I noted to myself that
Speaker 2: in my pack I had
Speaker 2: this really heavy book called the Freedom of the Hills
Speaker 2: and anyone who's familiar with it knows that it is
Speaker 2: the bible of climbing, which also means that it is
Speaker 2: a good, you know, several kilo tomes
Speaker 2: and I had, you know, things like my,
Speaker 2: my my heavy
Speaker 2: torchlight talking about men like they're just huge metal contraption.
Speaker 2: So anyway, long story short is I ditched all my
Speaker 2: stuff and managed to make it into the peak at
Speaker 2: the cut off time, the very last person to be
Speaker 2: allowed on that day.
Speaker 2: So from those rather inauspicious beginnings became this pretty much
Speaker 2: a lifelong love affair with climbing and the outdoors. So
Speaker 2: uh
Speaker 2: if you survive the first few times and you kind
Speaker 2: of enjoy it, then hopefully you'll carry on doing it
Speaker 2: whatever endeavor it is
Speaker 1: leon we'll we'll talk about the transition into, go check
Speaker 1: in a second, but I just want to ask one
Speaker 1: specific question okay, going up the mountain is one thing,
Speaker 1: But running across a desert for 206 km seems like
Speaker 1: a absolutely insane order of pain.
Speaker 1: Why would you subject yourself to that?
Speaker 2: Ah
Speaker 2: It's good
Speaker 1: scenery.
Speaker 2: There are a bunch of ultramarathons now and people can
Speaker 2: talk about uh the meditative aspects of it, the terrain.
Speaker 2: I mean it is beautiful. First, I'll start off with,
Speaker 2: it is really beautiful when you're running across the desert.
Speaker 2: And some are really, I've got some nice pictures on
Speaker 2: my blog adventures with Leanne dot com,
Speaker 2: but
Speaker 2: if you are out in the desert and the sand
Speaker 2: dunes like full, full on desserts, it's really amazing. And
Speaker 2: some of the desserts are massive, like the ones in Namibia.
Speaker 2: And then you can actually see for each each dune
Speaker 2: and in between each sand dune, these are parallel sand
Speaker 2: dunes are so big, they can actually see it on
Speaker 2: a satellite map. We're talking about a kilometer or two.
Speaker 2: So you can kind of see one
Speaker 2: kilometer away
Speaker 2: if you're in the sand dunes in the Gobi, you're
Speaker 2: literally seeing one hump away and then you're just doing
Speaker 2: that for hours and hours on end and you really
Speaker 2: can't tell what's beyond. Except that, you know,
Speaker 2: uh 50 m from from now, I've got another sand
Speaker 2: dune to deal with. So even sand dunes are different.
Speaker 2: Even deserts are different. If you're in the Atacama desert,
Speaker 2: it is just a flat expense. And then you can
Speaker 2: kind of see people from really far away. So the
Speaker 2: first point is sand is different. Sand dunes are different.
Speaker 2: The geography is different
Speaker 2: if you're in the amazon jungle, 40 plus degrees Celsius,
Speaker 2: 90 over percent humidity.
Speaker 2: Kind of sounds like Singapore, but even even warmer.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a different type of heat, a different
Speaker 2: type of discomfort,
Speaker 2: but a different type of beauty as well.
Speaker 1: All right. The ability to appreciate
Speaker 1: the diversity of our amazing world. Alright, so the journey
Speaker 1: to go check,
Speaker 2: journey to go Jack started off in the military
Speaker 2: and then subsequently
Speaker 2: it became a, you know, left left after battalion command
Speaker 2: and became a management consultant.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, these two experiences kind of.
Speaker 2: I learned I learned a lot from them, but I
Speaker 2: always knew that I want to be back in an
Speaker 2: operating role in a
Speaker 2: in a commercial environment.
Speaker 2: And that pretty pretty much brought me to go check
Speaker 2: the trajectory has always been something china
Speaker 2: southeast asia along that vector. So, uh you know, go
Speaker 2: Jack spoke to me, I really, really, really liked what
Speaker 2: what we were doing.
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, it really makes sense. So
Speaker 2: that's how I joined. Go jek
Speaker 1: so leeanne, given the physically demanding pursuits of your past
Speaker 1: life
Speaker 2: and I'm
Speaker 1: here that you know, you're not
Speaker 2: actually completely
Speaker 1: devoid of doing that. You're still squeezing in a couple
Speaker 1: of trips or at least one trip a year. Um,
Speaker 1: so you talked a little bit about your appreciation for
Speaker 1: the geo diversity in the world or you know, the
Speaker 1: meditative aspect and so on. So
Speaker 1: what are the values and practices from your, you know,
Speaker 1: physical world that you're bringing to the world of technical
Speaker 1: e commerce?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: All of it is a piece. Whether I mean you
Speaker 2: come to the table with everything that you are and
Speaker 2: you can kind of pull out pieces. But I say
Speaker 2: you come to the table with everything that you are
Speaker 2: that has shaped you to be the person that you are.
Speaker 2: I'll probably try to
Speaker 2: pull out of fuel
Speaker 2: as much as you can. Ascribe to single instances.
Speaker 2: The military is very much about leadership. But again, the
Speaker 2: leadership in the military is very different at different levels.
Speaker 2: If you're a young
Speaker 2: platoon commander in the special forces, it's about direct leadership.
Speaker 2: It is about looking your men and men and for
Speaker 2: me it's just men by looking at men in the eyes,
Speaker 2: being the first to jump out of the plane,
Speaker 2: leading the run from the front as you move up
Speaker 2: the ranks, then you start being a leader of leaders
Speaker 2: and even though you you can have direct line of
Speaker 2: sight of the people that you lied but you primarily
Speaker 2: interact with managing your commanders and making sure that you
Speaker 2: provide very good intent, very good direction
Speaker 2: and then when you move even up further then you
Speaker 2: don't even have line of sight with the with the
Speaker 2: people that you lied and it's very much around organizational
Speaker 2: change and that I think transitions or segments very well
Speaker 2: into my time as a consultant,
Speaker 2: I would say a large part of my projects involved
Speaker 2: a significant proportion of organizational change
Speaker 2: and you know that
Speaker 2: but
Speaker 2: you know that the speed of ground execution is actually
Speaker 2: much slower. I can draw a power point and move
Speaker 2: an Akhtar around in,
Speaker 2: you know, in in an hour.
Speaker 2: But for that to actually flow through the system and
Speaker 2: for the ramifications of the skills capabilities, raising the teams.
Speaker 2: I mean those time cycles and the time cycles of years, months, months,
Speaker 2: if not years. So let's say skills things I learned right,
Speaker 2: what does leadership mean at the personal level, what does
Speaker 2: leadership mean at
Speaker 2: organizational level or leading through leaders?
Speaker 2: So that's really from
Speaker 2: both military and Mckinsey.
Speaker 2: Uh as a management consultant, I think the second one
Speaker 2: is learning
Speaker 2: or just being very, very clear what your objective is
Speaker 2: asking the right questions and creating an environment where the people,
Speaker 2: the team and yourself can come up with the right answers.
Speaker 2: So probably just leave with these these two things or
Speaker 2: maybe a third one
Speaker 2: is and always being being very calm.
Speaker 2: Um
Speaker 2: frequently I'm asked you know your greater strength and when
Speaker 2: I was younger be or how smart I am, how
Speaker 2: strong I am, how fit I am, how aggressive I am,
Speaker 2: how much I get things done now. I just say
Speaker 2: that column is contagious when you come, you deescalate the
Speaker 2: emotions when you're calm, you de escalate the anxiety
Speaker 2: and then everyone can come to a better solution. So
Speaker 2: right now
Speaker 2: com is probably something that I take from
Speaker 2: the different things that I've done in my life.
Speaker 1: That's great. Earlier today I was listening to somebody say
Speaker 1: that you know things are never really as good as
Speaker 1: as they seem and there never really as bad as
Speaker 1: they seem and I think that's gonna erupt into your
Speaker 1: point that don't react too much to what's happening right now.
Speaker 1: This too will pass whether it's good or bad. Um
Speaker 1: leon I'm gonna ask you the question that I normally
Speaker 1: start my podcast with these days, which is how did
Speaker 1: you and your company deal with the pandemic?
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: Well uh
Speaker 2: you know everyone talks about pandemic and pandemic scarring and
Speaker 2: hopefully I won't even say anything about what the future
Speaker 2: looks like. You're not not not using sit
Speaker 2: probably a friend of uh sort of macro observation and
Speaker 2: then some individual things that we did
Speaker 2: micro observation was this early on. People talked about different
Speaker 2: kinds of recovery, L shaped, K shaped or you know,
Speaker 2: whatever particular alphabet that you have in mind. But it
Speaker 2: is true
Speaker 2: there are people who have your frontline staff is still
Speaker 2: staying on the front line
Speaker 2: and there are people, so there are people where you
Speaker 2: could do your work virtually, but it's still an hour
Speaker 2: of work
Speaker 2: more or less. So the teachers, teachers during the period
Speaker 2: spent an hour
Speaker 2: on a zoom classroom rather than an hour in the classroom.
Speaker 2: And I know there's a lot more back end in
Speaker 2: front of work but roughly work is still in our
Speaker 2: except you're delivering it virtually
Speaker 2: there were some people where the work evaporated these were
Speaker 2: you're in early periods whether it's F and B. Whether
Speaker 2: anything frontline where the demand disappeared such as marketing events.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately many of these roles have to Reroll I'd
Speaker 2: say for people in a manageable capacity or managerial roles,
Speaker 2: the work is not proportional to volume. The work is
Speaker 2: proportional to change. So every 20% down
Speaker 2: In terms of volume of traffic volumes meant a significant
Speaker 2: business decision had to make and every 20% recovery was
Speaker 2: again a significant business decision that I had to make.
Speaker 2: And so it's not as if, I mean obviously more
Speaker 2: more traffic better than less but it has changed. That
Speaker 2: actually
Speaker 2: causes a lot of the work. So
Speaker 2: um, I'd say not so much for go jek, but
Speaker 2: for myself personally, I felt
Speaker 2: the rapidly changing conditions just meant that we collectively had
Speaker 2: to just
Speaker 2: cheap on top of it,
Speaker 2: what does it mean for go jek as a business as,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, if you look at my background,
Speaker 2: this is a driver partner
Speaker 2: and we are ultimately here to were ultimately here to
Speaker 2: serve the customers to consumers through the on demand services
Speaker 2: and within the broader group as e commerce and finance
Speaker 2: as well. But
Speaker 2: bingo jacket is about delivering food, delivering people, moving the
Speaker 2: parcels around
Speaker 2: um, and that is done by the driver partners, it
Speaker 2: is fulfilled by the driver partners and the driver partners
Speaker 2: are the ones who found it very difficult to uh, make,
Speaker 2: make an earnings during that period. So whether it is
Speaker 2: supplementary supplementary, um, you know,
Speaker 2: money that we offered to them, whether it was taking
Speaker 2: away the commission's that go check, charged or even more
Speaker 2: recently we added on a fuel surcharge so that they
Speaker 2: could help defray the cost of rising fuel, which is uh,
Speaker 2: one of the largest operating expenses. We've done everything that
Speaker 2: we could to support the driver partners so that they
Speaker 2: could say sustainable
Speaker 2: because ultimately they are the bedrock on which our business
Speaker 2: is operates on.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this driver partner relationship a little bit,
Speaker 1: I have, you know
Speaker 2: seen
Speaker 1: stories and case studies around Uber and other large, you know,
Speaker 1: driving partnership platforms and
Speaker 2: each
Speaker 1: founder seems to have, you know, slightly different take on
Speaker 1: this relationship between the company and the driver partners
Speaker 1: give us a sense of the responsibility and the,
Speaker 2: I don't know the,
Speaker 1: the burden sharing that that transpires when you have a
Speaker 1: model like this.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Project started in Indonesia. The name itself is a motorcycle
Speaker 2: taxi
Speaker 2: and there was a fragmented
Speaker 2: service that at slightly lower levels of reliability, people were
Speaker 2: uncertain about what they could get
Speaker 2: and uh, and so that's how we start to go
Speaker 2: check at the, at the point in time and
Speaker 2: The social cause and the social mission has been very
Speaker 2: apparent from, from day one.
Speaker 2: Uh, there are many stories of the merchants that have
Speaker 2: been enabled on go check uh, even through the pandemic
Speaker 2: to be able to provide a livelihood for their families.
Speaker 2: Similar similarly for the driver partners
Speaker 2: who have, I think, I think the statistic is that
Speaker 2: accounts for 12% of Indonesia's GDP now transacted through the
Speaker 2: on demand services that go check offers. I may be
Speaker 2: wrong the number, but I think it's roughly in that ballpark.
Speaker 2: So it is a massive,
Speaker 2: it is important. It's massively important to the broader economy
Speaker 2: to the consumers that is unlocked, but even more so
Speaker 2: for the merchants and the driver partners that are on
Speaker 2: the platform and whether it's in Vietnam or even in Singapore,
Speaker 2: the social costs, the social impact
Speaker 2: uh, and the social impact because of the commercial impact.
Speaker 2: If you don't scale and you don't have a big
Speaker 2: commercial impact, then
Speaker 2: you know, the social impact also may not be quite
Speaker 2: as large. So I think because of the commercial impact,
Speaker 2: we never forget the social aspect to it as well.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a very, very specific scenario. This happened
Speaker 1: to me yesterday actually I was talking to a driver
Speaker 1: and he said that he used to work for a
Speaker 1: different right hailing platform and the right that he had
Speaker 1: somebody vomited in the car and he had a big
Speaker 1: cleaning bill and the right healing
Speaker 1: Company basically told him that that was his problem other
Speaker 1: than like a $30, you know, flat fee they give
Speaker 1: for cleaning, whereas his liability was much larger. So
Speaker 2: that incident
Speaker 1: alone where the company may have had a set of practice,
Speaker 1: which from the company's perspective was good practice. But from
Speaker 1: this driver who had experienced a tail risk if you
Speaker 1: will was that, you know, he was sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: let down by the company and he basically stopped working
Speaker 1: for that because you know, there are other companies to
Speaker 1: work for and therefore he just moved on from that platform.
Speaker 1: But that was all it took that one incident. Um,
Speaker 1: so do you find situations like this often that this
Speaker 1: is a very sensitive volatile group of driver partners and
Speaker 1: you have to be extremely careful in dealing with them?
Speaker 2: I would say it's not that the request unreasonable, but
Speaker 2: it is uh,
Speaker 2: it is the value of having competition. There's the value
Speaker 2: of having alternatives and the value of having choices. And
Speaker 2: many people talk about ride hailing being a commodity product,
Speaker 2: which in a sense it might be, but there is
Speaker 2: great value to the market and to the market, meaning
Speaker 2: both to the customers as well. As the driver said,
Speaker 2: there is choice.
Speaker 2: For instance, you have a monopoly
Speaker 2: and I'm not, I'm not
Speaker 2: talking about any specific company, but in all examples, you
Speaker 2: see when you have a monopoly, then you just become
Speaker 2: less sensitive to market signals. You become less sensitive to
Speaker 2: competition signals. You try a little bit less hard if
Speaker 2: you will. And that's true of any monopoly. So, uh,
Speaker 2: we, and, and you know, we operate in the open
Speaker 2: and contestant marketplace
Speaker 2: and that is one of the values of just having
Speaker 2: competitors keep you on your toes
Speaker 2: as a general principle.
Speaker 2: And then more specifically, we always try our best to
Speaker 2: um, take care of forever partners. We can't manage all
Speaker 2: tail and risk. Uh, I mean you're an economist. So, uh,
Speaker 2: there's a,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, on the other hand, there may
Speaker 2: be real intentions. Uh, we try to support as best
Speaker 2: as we can and we definitely do listen to
Speaker 2: the concerns of every single driver partner.
Speaker 2: The answer may not be yes, but at least I
Speaker 2: guarantee that you'll, you'll have a, you have a year
Speaker 2: that does listen to you and does its best to
Speaker 2: manage your specific situation and if the specific situation keeps
Speaker 2: popping up categorically then it's something that we'll try to
Speaker 2: address as a system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's the absolute right way of approaching it.
Speaker 1: The industry as a rejoinder to what you just said
Speaker 1: the driver also his key complaint was that you know,
Speaker 1: it took him a very long time to get hurt
Speaker 1: and I think you know from your project can see
Speaker 1: that that is a issue that you of course are
Speaker 1: keen to address on a forceful, forceful manner. Um you
Speaker 1: have access to very good quality, high frequency data. You
Speaker 1: probably know exactly how many rider ships took place yesterday
Speaker 1: in Singapore.
Speaker 1: What's your sense of the economic recovery and ridership coming back?
Speaker 2: Um
Speaker 2: a lot of it, well it's primarily
Speaker 2: macro related. The rules and regulations are opening up.
Speaker 2: One interesting nugget that we saw was you would think
Speaker 2: that everyone has gotten used to trace together by now
Speaker 2: but one interesting nugget we saw was that
Speaker 2: when trees together
Speaker 2: seize um
Speaker 2: to sort of be mandatory at the entry points of
Speaker 2: all the malls, mall destination trips was up significantly yesterday.
Speaker 2: So you think that things are priced in but actually
Speaker 2: there is still, there is still friction. So it was,
Speaker 2: it was, it was actually, I'm not sure whether it
Speaker 2: was one of, I'll look at it today as well whether,
Speaker 2: so anyway, it might be just as spurious anecdote, but
Speaker 2: that was, that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: Obviously ridership is growing up, you know, people are circulating,
Speaker 2: we can all see with our eyes and our own
Speaker 2: experiences and,
Speaker 2: and, and going out there domestically at least within Singapore
Speaker 2: things are looking very positive.
Speaker 1: Good to know now of
Speaker 2: course
Speaker 2: speaking
Speaker 1: of macro, I mean we are at a
Speaker 1: juncture where it is becoming a bit uncomfortable, fuel prices
Speaker 1: are soaring,
Speaker 1: food prices are picking up and of course interest rates
Speaker 1: are going up. Um, so, so this sort of, you
Speaker 1: know food fuel inflation, interest rates going up. How do
Speaker 1: you see it affecting both your, you know
Speaker 1: customers as well as your own business strategy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Um,
Speaker 2: transport as a transport as a, as a bucket,
Speaker 2: transport as a cost bucket, you know, the,
Speaker 2: for for most commuters. I mean the good thing about
Speaker 2: Singapore actually, I always say this, the biggest competitor that
Speaker 2: we have is not um, it's not, it's not another
Speaker 2: point to point operators. It is the fact that Singapore
Speaker 2: has a
Speaker 2: fantastically well resourced public transport infrastructure.
Speaker 2: MRT is great. Our busses are great.
Speaker 2: Uh, but there's obviously still a strong need for point
Speaker 2: to point whether it's for convenience, whether it's for rain,
Speaker 2: whether you have some
Speaker 2: mobility issues you're going to somewhere a little bit less accessible.
Speaker 2: I mean there are many reasons why you still want
Speaker 2: to do point to point
Speaker 2: uh but it is also true that costs have risen
Speaker 2: fuel prices. We've talked about with what's happening in europe
Speaker 2: at the moment
Speaker 2: and so we launched a
Speaker 2: uh temporary surcharge uh which we passed through to the
Speaker 2: drivers primarily to defray the cost of fuel and this
Speaker 2: isn't something new it's been done in the industry before.
Speaker 2: Um Hopefully it is something that will be corrective. The
Speaker 2: point is
Speaker 2: will inflation be permanently high. Will prices be permanently high
Speaker 2: if they won't then you just take temporary measures to
Speaker 2: address them. If they're gonna be structurally high then you
Speaker 2: need steady more permanent solutions to address them. So temporary
Speaker 2: cells for temporary pains, study more permanent solutions for more
Speaker 2: permanent pains
Speaker 2: and I think what we're seeing in terms of
Speaker 2: a rising CPI I hopefully
Speaker 2: is um is temporary
Speaker 2: things about housing now that's that's outside my remit. So
Speaker 2: you might have to speak to other people who have
Speaker 2: a little bit more of real estate meant
Speaker 2: about what the price of a G. C. B. Is
Speaker 2: in Singapore but at least when it comes to transport
Speaker 2: uh we think that this will this will pass.
Speaker 1: Yeah I mean I'd like to think that especially with
Speaker 1: respect to fuel prices already the market is a bit
Speaker 1: nervous about the outlook with respective growth which then has
Speaker 1: a negative impact on fuel prices And you know, we're
Speaker 1: having this discussion in the middle of april, We have
Speaker 1: seen signs of fuel price using in the last week
Speaker 1: or so.
Speaker 1: Not a good backdrop in the sense that it is
Speaker 1: in the context of slowing growth,
Speaker 1: but at least that specific pain fuel seems to be
Speaker 1: one of those very sensitive things, You know, anybody who
Speaker 1: is exposed to the transportation world, which is most of
Speaker 2: everyone
Speaker 1: immediately reacts to that, you know, 10 cent 20 cent
Speaker 1: rise in per liter fuel prices. And it seems to
Speaker 1: have a disproportionate impact on people's sense of well being.
Speaker 1: So the sooner it abates the better action for all
Speaker 1: of us. I want to switch
Speaker 2: just just, just just to jump on that uh the
Speaker 2: to the, you know, I wasn't a very good student,
Speaker 2: but one of the things I did learn in the
Speaker 2: economics class was the two prices that most matter in
Speaker 2: the world are the two most upstream ones, which is
Speaker 2: the price of money, which is your interest rates
Speaker 2: and the price of fuel,
Speaker 2: which powers everything else in our modern, industrialized uh sort
Speaker 2: of economy. And so, I mean understandably, these are the
Speaker 2: two things which
Speaker 2: people like yourself who look over it every single day.
Speaker 2: I mean that's that's that's why we
Speaker 2: I mean, I was actually just reading the
Speaker 2: biography of uh Jeremy Heywood and he spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time in the british Ministry of Finance and it
Speaker 2: was all about interest rates and interest rate mechanisms and the,
Speaker 2: you know, european monetary union, fascinating history, which can be
Speaker 2: a little bit dry, but these are the things that
Speaker 2: move our economy and shape where the,
Speaker 2: it's a single number is one of the single numbers
Speaker 2: that matters the most.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll ask you later about strategy to move away from
Speaker 1: fuel or fossil fuel to other things, but let's reserve
Speaker 1: that for a little later. Um, I saw recently in
Speaker 1: this article about gore tex decision to give I. P. O.
Speaker 1: Shares to all 600,000 fewer drivers. Can you explain to
Speaker 1: me
Speaker 2: the thinking
Speaker 1: behind that?
Speaker 2: I think it's a very simple one.
Speaker 2: driver partners really make, go check what it is and
Speaker 2: we wanted to make every driver partner and owner in,
Speaker 2: go check that they will be able to say, this
Speaker 2: is my company, this is our company,
Speaker 2: uh and its future is my future. And that was
Speaker 2: really this very simple thinking behind
Speaker 2: granting shares to all the driver partners that are still
Speaker 2: active on our platform and the ones who came in earlier,
Speaker 2: we actually had a different tier of award for them.
Speaker 2: Simple thinking behind it. Every driver partner is an owner
Speaker 2: in Georgia.
Speaker 1: Just one more integrated question.
Speaker 1: You know, most of your drivers, I'm assuming don't have
Speaker 1: a brokerage account or have not dealt with stocks before.
Speaker 1: So just from a financial infrastructure perspective, was that a
Speaker 1: very challenging thing to accomplish,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of education and I mean, this is
Speaker 2: really the social responsibility there, kojak hairs as a move
Speaker 2: like that, which is well intentioned, also has to be um,
Speaker 2: also has to be
Speaker 2: executed and it has to land well, right? So it's
Speaker 2: a land well in terms of education
Speaker 2: investing in stocks, obviously, I mean, we have so much
Speaker 2: user caution
Speaker 2: advertising rules in Singapore, similarly, we don't, we don't want
Speaker 2: people to be reckless with it. So there is a
Speaker 2: lot of education around the nature of equity, the nature
Speaker 2: of stocks, I mean, overall is very, very well received,
Speaker 2: but there's also a lot of education
Speaker 2: in terms of how to monetize this, how to open
Speaker 2: a brokerage accountants and so on so forth.
Speaker 2: But I think we've done that outreach, you know very well.
Speaker 1: That's, that's fantastic. I mean, in my day to day dealings,
Speaker 1: I see so much gap in the field of financial literacy.
Speaker 1: So for a large company like yours
Speaker 1: to push that I think is really commendable effort.
Speaker 1: Um actually,
Speaker 2: on the, on the, on that 0.1 of the reasons
Speaker 2: why we actually rolled out go pay and had a
Speaker 2: wallet was,
Speaker 2: this is a well known statistic
Speaker 2: for anyone in the financial space of Fintech space in
Speaker 2: Southeast asia, but
Speaker 2: Indonesia,
Speaker 2: large amounts of unbanked, right? The majority are unbanked and
Speaker 2: so when you are taking cash, cash transactions of this
Speaker 2: high high high friction no ability to put your cash anywhere.
Speaker 2: And with that with the advent of go pay for
Speaker 2: the first time, they actually have a digital store of
Speaker 2: money that that the drivers produce.
Speaker 2: And they could obviously use that subsequently to pay for
Speaker 2: the different transactions without
Speaker 2: All the old friction of money. Again, a well known
Speaker 2: story by the by the 2020s. But if you think
Speaker 2: of this 57 years ago really transformational
Speaker 2: and this is just
Speaker 2: maybe another
Speaker 2: another leg or another step in that journey of digital finance.
Speaker 1: Absolutely great stuff.
Speaker 1: Now we not only have this uncomfortable macro backdrop of
Speaker 1: you know high rates and inflation and war and all
Speaker 1: that kinda stuff. Um We are also seeing at least
Speaker 1: in the U. S. But also in china. Um major
Speaker 1: correction in the tech space companies have lost hundreds of
Speaker 1: billions of dollars worth of values just like in the
Speaker 1: span of
Speaker 1: 34 months netflix being the latest one. Um So how
Speaker 1: is that turmoil that storm that's taking place in the
Speaker 1: listed equity space? Is that how is that affecting the
Speaker 1: local startup scene
Speaker 2: uh
Speaker 2: happens in a maybe I'll take a few different segments,
Speaker 2: friends said to me
Speaker 2: and maybe this is also the internal view that we
Speaker 2: have
Speaker 2: uh we're often asked this is not a good time
Speaker 2: to list. Why why is why is go to the
Speaker 2: parents of our parent company, why are we listening now
Speaker 2: when
Speaker 2: you know all the conditions and the situations that you
Speaker 2: mentioned are happening
Speaker 2: and and the truth is um I think it was
Speaker 2: who said that in the short run
Speaker 2: it's the stock market is a popularity machine or popularity contest.
Speaker 2: And in the long run it's a weighing machine.
Speaker 2: And we are looking at the long run game.
Speaker 2: Um, somebody, another friend said if you started the law,
Speaker 2: actually it's a great it's a great place. If you
Speaker 2: if you list at a high,
Speaker 2: uh this is not something that we're doing for a day,
Speaker 2: two days. This is not a fundraising round. I. P. O.
Speaker 2: Is not a fundraising round. It is something that you
Speaker 2: do in perpetuity.
Speaker 2: Ah and so you will need to have good performance
Speaker 2: and good growth
Speaker 2: in perpetually.
Speaker 2: From their perspective, the specific timing at which you
Speaker 2: I. P. O. Is not maybe not so relevant.
Speaker 2: and if you had to pick one may be coming
Speaker 2: in at
Speaker 2: at the height of
Speaker 2: of the cycle may not be quite as beneficial in
Speaker 2: the long run as coming in at a different part
Speaker 2: of the cycle.
Speaker 2: So that's maybe from a timing perspective. But the point
Speaker 2: is
Speaker 2: You can't necessarily time time these things, you don't know
Speaker 2: what six months from now or 12 months from now
Speaker 2: will happen.
Speaker 2: You know, our company was ready. So that's why we
Speaker 2: chose to do. So that's from a listing perspective for
Speaker 2: really early stage startups.
Speaker 2: Um, maybe it would be different from a sort of
Speaker 2: fundraising perspective,
Speaker 2: but if you have good ideas, I'll switch method first
Speaker 2: a little bit. Think of, think of running Singapore is
Speaker 2: actually a really bad place to, to, to do certain
Speaker 2: events because it's kind of warm. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
Speaker 2: it's humid,
Speaker 2: but
Speaker 2: it is the same for every single competitor. Everyone out
Speaker 2: on the lanes, everyone out on the tracks is experiencing
Speaker 2: the same heat, same temperature, same rain, same humidity that
Speaker 2: you are doing.
Speaker 2: And if you're not trying to compare yourself with companies
Speaker 2: that came 10, 15 years before in a different environment,
Speaker 2: but you're comparing yourself to the market as it is
Speaker 2: now and the market is Fedex, internal prevailing conditions are fair,
Speaker 2: this is this, your all all out on the running
Speaker 2: tracks on the, on the lanes at the same time.
Speaker 2: So from that perspective, I'd say you can compare, you
Speaker 2: can wish or you can wish, but unless you're gonna
Speaker 2: tell us entrepreneur
Speaker 2: Wait three years. I mean,
Speaker 2: if the entrepreneur really believes in his company, he's not
Speaker 2: going to wait three years, he will do it now
Speaker 2: because his idea is ready now.
Speaker 2: Could you tell him to do it three years ago?
Speaker 2: Of course? Sure. But unless it's a time machine that's
Speaker 2: also not a readily available or a realistic option. And
Speaker 2: so what matters much more than the external timing is
Speaker 2: the power of conviction, the internal belief, the internal direction
Speaker 2: and uh,
Speaker 2: yeah, I don't think anyone is going to shape broad
Speaker 2: strategy around.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've got some flax, three months, six months,
Speaker 2: but you're not going to say, wait a year, wait
Speaker 2: two years, wait three years to have more certainty. No
Speaker 2: one's going to do that.
Speaker 1: I remember before the.com bubble birth, uh, you know, fundraising
Speaker 1: was so easy. And the questions that were asked were
Speaker 1: almost ridiculously, you know, easy to answer. And then after
Speaker 1: that in 2002 onwards, you know, the tech companies that
Speaker 1: came to the market,
Speaker 1: they had to be subject much tougher grilling from their
Speaker 1: investors
Speaker 1: and of course they have to start with,
Speaker 2: you know, much
Speaker 1: tougher funding environment. Um, are you seeing a parallel to that,
Speaker 1: that the questions that were asked a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago versus the questions that are asked now?
Speaker 1: Different order of difficulty?
Speaker 2: I think they're the same questions. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: more maybe I'd like to turn the question around to you.
Speaker 2: If you think of,
Speaker 2: if you think of investors yet,
Speaker 2: they are the same questions. The the decision point is
Speaker 2: with the answers that are given, what do you say
Speaker 2: yes to now versus what you say yes to ask
Speaker 2: time and what you say yes to in the future,
Speaker 2: they are the same questions. I won't say there are
Speaker 2: any more difficult, you know, nobody's nobody's giving us a
Speaker 2: free pass in in any way, but it is, it
Speaker 2: has always been,
Speaker 2: do you believe the story and you believe the,
Speaker 2: the well not believe the reality. Do you value the
Speaker 2: reality the numbers now and you value the story for
Speaker 2: the future?
Speaker 2: And that's a question for investors to ask. But I
Speaker 2: would say that if you look at the photo, if
Speaker 2: you look at the, how tightly integrated it is in Indonesia,
Speaker 2: the value that we bring in Singapore, the,
Speaker 2: the and the similar to Indonesia model that we are
Speaker 2: executing in Vietnam. I think there is at least the markets,
Speaker 2: the public markets are saying we do value the current
Speaker 2: and the future potential of this company
Speaker 2: and what it stands for.
Speaker 2: Mhm
Speaker 1: Earlier we were talking about high fuel prices and I
Speaker 1: think that was coming to my mind, but I held
Speaker 1: on to that question at that point with, you know,
Speaker 1: what about, you know, switching the fleet to electric cars
Speaker 1: and so on. So, liane, what do you see in
Speaker 1: the region with respect to quitting the footprint of transportation
Speaker 1: and logistics?
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of,
Speaker 2: I would say
Speaker 2: it's not just the region,
Speaker 2: Covid plus other efforts globally have made climate change really.
Speaker 2: Number one on the agenda.
Speaker 2: So I said on the climate governance, Singapore's during committee.
Speaker 2: I also, you know, sit on the board of the
Speaker 2: center for social enterprise. So these are related to the
Speaker 2: e and the s of the SGN obviously
Speaker 2: just being a board member or even as a management.
Speaker 2: Uh there's obviously a strong G angle. So I said,
Speaker 2: GSG really has
Speaker 2: uh
Speaker 2: become front and center across the consciousness of Corporates of
Speaker 2: people everywhere.
Speaker 2: Um PMS, you know, at the at the budget, we
Speaker 2: talked to, you know, the government
Speaker 2: basically gave a price to carbon and said that they
Speaker 2: will be raising the price of
Speaker 2: uh per ton of carbon emissions gradually over the next
Speaker 2: several years. Um So there is a market price to
Speaker 2: it already and the companies are responding.
Speaker 2: Um the biggest emitters would be things like construction, concrete transport.
Speaker 2: Um so we're all taking steps to green. Go check
Speaker 2: in particular has a
Speaker 2: We have a 000 policy.
Speaker 2: Um you know, and when we think think uh so
Speaker 2: whether it is something around
Speaker 2: ah
Speaker 2: the amount of plastic waste that we
Speaker 2: generate through food delivery, whether it is having a fully
Speaker 2: Evie fleet, uh you know, by 2030 whether it's any
Speaker 2: of these um measures,
Speaker 2: I think we are definitely with the times
Speaker 1: and as we speak today, I mean there are concrete
Speaker 1: steps being taken to do those two things reducing plastic
Speaker 1: waste and
Speaker 1: getting a bigger fleet of SUVs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so this is the, so I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I should have
Speaker 2: Elaborated. So our pledges, zero emissions, zero waste, zero barriers
Speaker 2: by 2030, isn't a very long time
Speaker 1: away as
Speaker 2: as these things. All right. It's it's so it requires
Speaker 2: changing now. Um from let's say take TVs. So uh
Speaker 2: we we have E. V.
Speaker 2: Partnership with with with bogoro and we'll be rolling out
Speaker 2: these E. V. Motorcycles in Indonesia.
Speaker 2: Um and so environmental sustainability is to have the zero
Speaker 2: emissions and zero waste. I'm trying to pull out the
Speaker 2: exact specific number here.
Speaker 2: Uh
Speaker 2: okay. Actually it's it's it's actually a really long line
Speaker 2: long long list but
Speaker 2: let's just say that
Speaker 2: um
Speaker 2: Under underpinning the 000 by 2030 there's a long list
Speaker 2: of practices that we have pledged to publicly and that
Speaker 2: we will be committed to?
Speaker 1: Very good.
Speaker 1: Um Let me ask you a question that I think
Speaker 1: first came up in the context of Uber a bunch
Speaker 1: of years ago where somebody had heard
Speaker 1: um I think it was Travis Kalanick but it could
Speaker 1: be somebody else from Uber that the ultimate view was
Speaker 1: to actually have automated cars because that simplifies the ride
Speaker 1: hailing operations substantially. Um so I just want to hear
Speaker 1: your general view that, you
Speaker 2: know, technology
Speaker 1: is very disruptive and it's been through the centuries, all
Speaker 1: sorts of jobs gets this place,
Speaker 1: People then move on to something else and so on.
Speaker 1: But how do you see
Speaker 2: this
Speaker 1: issue of striking a balance between embracing innovation and automating
Speaker 1: jobs away.
Speaker 2: I think it very much depends on the nature of
Speaker 2: the job that you that you have.
Speaker 2: I mean, and there's been so many sort of historical parallels?
Speaker 2: I'll try a few of them, right, which I think
Speaker 2: many people would be familiar with
Speaker 2: tv didn't completely displaced radio,
Speaker 2: but radio is still around, streaming is still around. So
Speaker 2: depending on the industry, you will get two or three
Speaker 2: multiple tracks.
Speaker 2: Um we still have the spoke uh
Speaker 2: sort of artisan craftsmen, you've got mass produced shoes, but
Speaker 2: you also have people who like really nice shoes and
Speaker 2: other made shoes. And uh those craftsmen are still around,
Speaker 2: you have
Speaker 2: Casio watches, but you also have
Speaker 2: handmade, expensive swiss watches.
Speaker 2: So it really depends on the industry and there will
Speaker 2: always be a space for
Speaker 2: some of these skills. I think the thing I always
Speaker 2: ask people is maybe you might not want to be
Speaker 2: a driver, but would you still want to get a
Speaker 2: driving license?
Speaker 2: Um
Speaker 2: there might be a day in the far future where
Speaker 2: driving licenses or there are no humans
Speaker 2: allowed. Right, But I don't think that that's coming yet.
Speaker 2: So maybe it's also around the question of how far
Speaker 2: or how, how near is that future?
Speaker 2: Um more broad. So the first point I want to
Speaker 2: make is that the industry that you're in really matters,
Speaker 2: will there always be a space for some human element
Speaker 2: to it or some human craftsmanship? I think the answer
Speaker 2: is yes, driving maybe a little bit less of a
Speaker 2: uh sort of craftsman type of skill. But then the
Speaker 2: second question there is, what is the time horizon in
Speaker 2: which it will come
Speaker 2: 3rd and more broadly I think is, um,
Speaker 2: I really like how Ntuc pictures it
Speaker 2: in other jurisdictions, in other countries. You have very strong
Speaker 2: unions who are trying to preserve the jobs and here
Speaker 2: and you see the mantra, I really like it is,
Speaker 2: it's about taking care of the workers, not taking care
Speaker 2: of the work. So they don't, they don't, they don't
Speaker 2: know whether to a particular type of activity, but whether
Speaker 2: to the people that do things
Speaker 2: and that really comes to the point of re rolling
Speaker 2: and really supporting the re rolling in
Speaker 2: even in right hailing, we not just myself, but our competitors,
Speaker 2: we have re skilling and re rolling abilities for, um,
Speaker 2: for the driver partners,
Speaker 2: whether, and some of some people, our driver partners because
Speaker 2: it gives them the flexibility to amend one guy, He
Speaker 2: was actually studying his part time degree and so driving
Speaker 2: gave him an income to help support him, support his,
Speaker 2: his education while he
Speaker 2: wanted to move into something else. And super happy for him.
Speaker 2: So, to your point about striking the balance, I'd say, uh,
Speaker 2: the speed at which the innovation comes,
Speaker 2: uh,
Speaker 2: mm hmm,
Speaker 2: let's use a v specifically, the speed at which the
Speaker 2: innovation comes
Speaker 2: hopefully is in time for social acceptance ability for, uh,
Speaker 2: for large groups to, um, to reroll recently, we had
Speaker 2: a tripartite meeting where the conversation was about autonomous vehicles
Speaker 2: and uh, and, and sign posting that they will come
Speaker 2: and this is in a sign of how for looking
Speaker 2: the whole industry is whether the regulators, whether the unions,
Speaker 2: whether the platforms, we're talking about these things early so
Speaker 2: that workers can be prepared. So the responsibility is to
Speaker 2: make sure that it's not too
Speaker 2: denied change, it is to manage the speed of change.
Speaker 2: And I think we're doing pretty well.
Speaker 2: Um, babies in particular looks like they still are a
Speaker 2: while away.
Speaker 2: But if it suddenly turns overnight that let's say you
Speaker 2: had a magic wand tomorrow, babies could be here. Um,
Speaker 2: I think then it would be a case of really
Speaker 2: man managing through that transition,
Speaker 2: but
Speaker 2: without any magic ones already doing the best we can
Speaker 2: to signpost, doing the best we can to
Speaker 2: reroll and doing the best we can to ensure that
Speaker 2: people
Speaker 2: stay sort of culturally educationally
Speaker 2: fluid
Speaker 2: and are willing to reroll and willing to take on
Speaker 2: new things.
Speaker 1: Um, from your vantage perspective, how many years do you
Speaker 1: think before we see a sizable number of cars becoming
Speaker 1: autonomous cars in the, in the ride hailing world?
Speaker 2: Well,
Speaker 2: it's a number that's far enough away that I'm sure
Speaker 2: nobody's gonna call me out on it and,
Speaker 2: and, and nobody's gonna make, well maybe they might, this
Speaker 2: is a, this is an important podcast. So they may
Speaker 2: do that. So I am,
Speaker 2: it's hard for us to be, it's, it's, it's hard
Speaker 2: to go out on a limb here,
Speaker 2: significant amounts say
Speaker 2: 10, 15 years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like, you know, the enthusiasm that all
Speaker 1: the googles and others had about autonomous vehicles say 57
Speaker 1: years ago when it seemed like it was just a
Speaker 1: question of harnessing enough data and we'll have it,
Speaker 1: it seems that that's flattened to some extent that, you know,
Speaker 1: technologically and also from a regulatory perspective, it's not turning
Speaker 1: out to be that straightforward. Am I missing something here?
Speaker 2: I think the perception is right um, in more controlled environments.
Speaker 2: So if we talk about ports, porter, Porter quite well
Speaker 2: defined
Speaker 2: environments in places like that, in places where you're running
Speaker 2: a standard loop, I think he's already pretty well known
Speaker 2: and you know, I mean, these are
Speaker 2: um, it is these operating environments where you already have,
Speaker 2: if these uh,
Speaker 2: commercially operating,
Speaker 2: um, I think when you're exposing them to the full
Speaker 2: challenge of, of,
Speaker 2: of city traffic, then that's where you get so many
Speaker 2: unpredictable things happening and it is that till the end,
Speaker 2: ah,
Speaker 2: and there's just so many cases, eight cases are much
Speaker 2: more the,
Speaker 2: the, the norm than the exception. I think that's where
Speaker 2: it gets pretty tricky, right? And we're not even talking
Speaker 2: about different climate conditions and we just get rained here,
Speaker 2: but imagine you're in a place that has rain sleet, snow, hail,
Speaker 2: maybe some all in the same day.
Speaker 2: Uh that that makes it much more tricky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, things all of those that you have experienced many
Speaker 1: times during your various expeditions. Leanne, I think we will
Speaker 1: end on that note. I really appreciate your sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, human angle in in looking at this role
Speaker 1: of technology and innovation. I really appreciate that. So, good
Speaker 1: luck with logic and good luck with all your other
Speaker 1: demanding pursuits.
Speaker 1: See liam.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much for your time and insights.
Speaker 2: Thank you Time. A real pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: It's great to have you Thanks to our listeners to
Speaker 1: Kobe time was produced by Kendall Rich from Spice Studios daisy.
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