Welcome to Tech in Asia’s Sunday newsletter, your weekend brief on the biggest moves in Asia’s tech and startup world. Not on the mailing list? Register here. Got a story tip? Send it to editors@techinasia.com.
In focus
- Thu Huong Le on the importance of super resilience
- Are Sea Group and Klook proving their resilience?
- Want your startup in the spotlight?
Hello reader,
Last week, two Vietnamese men survived 40 hours adrift at sea amid Typhoon Kalmaegi’s rough waters. They spent two nights floating in the open ocean, eating live fish and drinking rainwater to stay alive.
This scenario might be familiar to you thanks to movies or real-life miracles that show people making it through similar ordeals, but that doesn’t take away from the resilience of these survivors.
Meanwhile, as I traveled through Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore that week, I found myself constantly worrying about storms and heavy rain. It was a reminder that building resilience is crucial now more than ever.
In 2024, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang jokingly told Stanford students that he wished them “ample doses of pain and suffering.” He noted that people with high expectations often have “very low resilience.”
Now, as we strive for AI to achieve superintelligence, we should also aim for super resilience. Tenacity and persistence sets us apart in times like these.
Image credit: Arsal Ysfin
The companies I want to highlight this week also embody this kind of grit.
First is Sea Group, which doubled its profits to US$375 million in the latest quarter, as shown in this visual story. In 2022, the company had to cut 7,000 jobs within six months to curb losses.
Second is Klook, a Hong Kong-based travel startup that is now heading for a US IPO, with a reported revenue of US$417.1 million in 2024. As one of its co-founders recalled in this piece, Klook nearly tanked just two years after it was founded in 2014.
So let’s celebrate the weekend – and those who embody super resilience, push through setbacks and slowdowns, and survive to emerge stronger.
Thu Huong Le, managing editor
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