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Hi there,
Recently, I was rewatching The Hobbit trilogy. I enjoy watching prequels, mainly because of my curiosity about characters’ pasts.
As a journalist, one of the things I find most interesting is the career paths and decisions people have taken. Even with many of the colleagues I have worked with, the paths they have taken are very different from my own. While some made conscious decisions to pursue their professions, others had accidentally stumbled into them.
That’s why I find our first Big Story interesting. My colleague Peter visually maps the journey of nearly 80 founders and co-founders of unicorn startups across Southeast Asia to see if any of them shared common traits during their journey to the billion-dollar club.
Interestingly, one of the points that emerged is that 58% of the unicorn founders had attained a postgraduate degree. This – and the tough competition for funding – could help explain why we recently came across some founders in the region lying about their academic qualifications.
In the second Big Story, my colleague Scott digs into the financials of Block Solutions, the parent firm of the popular blockchain explorer Etherscan. While many crypto and Web3 startups have been struggling since last year, the Malaysia-based company is one of the few that have managed to carve out a successful path.
Block Solutions’ net profit has grown by 33x over the last four years. But unlike other crypto firms that make money from staking, trading, or mining cryptocurrencies, the company relies on a traditional method – advertising – to fuel its growth.
In AI Odyssey, I look into Ola’s launch of its large language model Krutrim AI. But first, our Big Stories.
— Collin
THE BIG STORY
1️⃣Cracking the code of Southeast Asia’s unicorn founders
Image credit: Timmy Loen
Our data shows that Southeast Asia is home to 38 unicorn companies, but what do their founders have in common?
2️⃣A Malaysian Web3 pioneer defies downturn with 33x profit surge since 2019
AI ODYSSEY
FYI
NEWS YOU SHOULD KNOW
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