The latest in Malaysia’s tech narrative

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Hi there,

One advice for life and living I regularly hear is to keep your head down and just do the work. Sure, it makes perfect sense, but these quotable quotes really should come with a book of caveats. And it should be perfectly acceptable to throw this book at those spouting advice about life or business at the drop of a hat.

Now that I’m done venting – let’s revisit the advice: ‘just do the work.’ You might tick all the boxes but there are still factors outside your control. Take, for instance, the crossroads at which Malaysia stands as a new government is sworn in – the country’s tech industry could do with a lot of catching up, including updating policies to ensure startups don’t drown in red tape.

To summarize Emmanuel, the author of today’s premium pick, the Malaysian tech narrative is a tale of survivors. To me, those are the folks still standing after the dust settles and flashy headlines have come and gone. But there’s more to the climax of this story than what meets the eye.

Today we look at:

• Malaysia: No country for tech heroes
• The launch of Astra International’s new used-car platform
• Other newsy highlights such as the latest on recession and Temasek admitting it may have been defrauded by FTX.

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Premium summary

The tea on Malaysia’s tech scene

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Several issues plague Malaysia’s tech scene – the most significant being a lack of skilled talent as many choose to take their skills elsewhere, including Singapore. The industry in itself is lackluster, producing only jaguh kampung – Malay for local champions.

• To top that off, tech evangelists in the previous government, including former finance minister Tengku Zafrul Tengku Aziz, are no longer around, having lost their respective battles in the recent general elections. Zafrul will be remembered as the man who got Penjana Kapital, a state-owned fund of funds, going. But he didn’t bring any groundbreaking reforms for tech.

• Rewriting bureaucracy: Many government-owned VCs overlap in terms of investment mandates in Malaysia.The largest of these, Mavcap, has come under criticism for being sluggish in deploying capital and in raising a VC class. State-owned VCs and tech agencies answer to the finance minister.

• Long road ahead: Malaysia’s startups have to navigate more than just bureaucratic hurdles and corruption – in Malaysia, there’s more talk about Indonesian startups than homegrown ones. This, even when Malaysia’s strategic advantages – including a multilingual workforce and quality public infrastructure – are well recognized.

Could this be Indonesia’s answer to Carro and Carsome?

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