Ged Carroll

Search results for: “Malaysia”

  • William Gibson + more things

    William Gibson

    I have been thinking a lot about William Gibson recently. Judging by my social feeds, the Neo Tokyo aesthetic has saturated mainstream culture (from 90s anime clips, tech wear, creator built cyber decks and Hong Kong at night) and our Silicon Valley elites sound more like Wintermute at every turn.

    William Gibson in Berlin, 3.2008

    The K-shaped economy described by Gary Stevenson in his thesis, feels very much like the have-nots of the sprawl trilogy.

    Finally, Apple is on the cusp of releasing a TV adaptation of Gibson’s first novel Neuromancer next year. So I had to post these vintage videos of Gibson as they feel so ‘now’ despite being decades old.

    William Gibson talking about cyberpunk as a genre in 1990. He calls a distinctively post-modern fiction genre. In a prophetic turn they talk about the unique way in which cyberpunk has been manifested into the real world; just not in the countercultural way that Gibson envisaged. Although the relationship now between Gibson’s work and the real world are probably too close for comfort. And there is a great interview with Timothy Leary.

    Related to that was the cypherpunk movement who realised that cryptography was essential to online worlds.

    Cypherpunks were concerned about the government a quarter century before the Edward Snowden leaks and the algorithmic web with a web of data for sale to advertisers and bad actors.

    And in this clip, William Gibson contextualises the early web in this interview

    Business

    The Technology Industry Is Stumbling Down The Path To Becoming A Proper Supply Chain | Forrester – I think is a polite way of saying that the industry has moved from growth to value investment. Whether the industry has a maturity in thinking that reflects this new position is something else.

    China

    Spain’s largest Chinese investment to rely on workers from China | Investment Monitor – very similar to the belt-and-road model elsewhere. Interesting the lack of pushback that came from Spain, given the size of the country’s construction industry.

    Design

    30 Years of Micro Motors to Robot Dexterous Hands: MINDSYNC TECH and Jiangsu Leili Solve the Mechanical Stiffness Problem in Humanoid Gripping – interesting article in Pandaily. It’s basically smaller sizes of strain wave gears. Back when I went to the launch of Automata’s EVA robotic arm launch, strain wave gears came up as a topic of conversation. Robotic precision focused on software because only standardised strain wave gears were available from a limited amount of suppliers like Harmonic Drive. The Chinese seem to have sidestepped this innovation pinch point with powered strain wave gears small enough to operate a robotic hand with a high degree of dexterity.

    Gadgets

    Open Source Vacuum Avoids Cloud | Hackaday – thanks to open source software, a Raspberry Pi board, off the shelf parts and accessible additive manufacturing there is now an open source Roomba style vacuum cleaner.

    ŌURA and LillyDirect to Expand Support for People Using GLP-1 Therapies with New Tools and Savings Options – The Pulse Blog – I was there when wearables were proposed as a digital kit to another obesity management product years before this deal was announced. I am surprised that it took so long. The partner selection implies a heavy female bias to the expected customer base.

    ChinAI #366: Most Companion Robots Die by Day 30 – model capabilities will become increasingly cheap, while scenario-specific evaluation datasets will become increasingly expensive. Most companion products will not die because their AI models lack power, but because users stop opening the app by Day 30.

    Germany

    Watching China in Europe – August 2026 – by Noah Barkin – Volkswagen is now pursuing a strategy that consists of:

    • Doubling down on manufacturing at its EV hub in Hefei, China as part of what Blume describes as an “in China for China” approach.
    • Exporting the cars it produces in China, in Blume’s own words, to Southeast Asia, Australia, India, South America, Africa and Europe, in what looks more like an “in China for the world” strategy (minus the US market).
    • Pursuing mass layoffs in Germany, while luring Chinese carmakers into the German factories that Volkswagen is struggling to sustain.
    • Urging the EU to accelerate and broaden its trade defense measures against Chinese competitors that are seizing market share for plug-in hybrids at an astonishing rate.

    If your head is spinning, you are not alone …

    Ideas

    FCC approves orbital space mirrors, first test satellites will launch this year — large spacecraft reflects sunlight to Earth’s surface for construction sites, search-and-rescue lighting, and more | Tom’s Hardware

    Indonesia

    Indonesia’s 9 Dragons. Who Are They? Are They Too Rich For Indonesia’s Good? | Dr Wealth

    Innovation

    Why the US is losing Chinese AI stars | FT – comparable opportunities at home.

    Russia’s Newest Kh-101 Cruise Missile Upgrade Points to Chinese Help | Wes O’Donnell – the recent upgrade to Russia’s Kh-101 missile capabilities owes far less to stolen Western secrets than it does to Chinese industrial hardware. Whilst espionage may have ironed out a few technical creases, Russia is quietly acquiring the machine tools and microelectronics from Chinese suppliers. These are needed to turn a dormant Soviet-era innovation into a mass-produced reality.

    The rationale for putting such high-spec, durable components like single-crystal engine blades into a single-use weapon comes down to a recent design trade-off. Having substantially increased the missile’s warhead size at the expense of its fuel capacity, Russian engineers required a hotter, vastly more efficient engine to recoup the lost flight range. Manufacturing equipment sourced from Chinese vendors provided the industrial “kitchen” necessary to make this crucial engineering workaround a reality.

    Porous material could pull 1.8 liters of drinking water daily from dry air | TechXplore

    IP

    The 6 wildest claims in Apple’s lawsuit against OpenAI | The Verge – OpenAI allegedly “coached” Apple employees on how to bypass security measures. Apple alleged Tan kept an internal document that outlines employee off-boarding procedures. OpenAI allegedly used this information to warn employees coming from Apple about the company’s security checks and “coached” them on how to avoid it.

    OpenAI advised departing Apple workers not to disclose their new employer and also offered tips on how to avoid a “dreaded walk out,” which would result in their immediate removal from the company, preventing them from accessing Apple’s systems for a standard two weeks, the lawsuit alleges. OpenAI is accused of telling Apple employees not to “sign anything at the exit interview,” and if they’re asked to sign a document, to tell OpenAI “asap.”

    In the lawsuit, Apple says that OpenAI’s alleged tactics “appear to be having their desired effect.” Apple claims it has noticed “a recent trend of employees who are leaving Apple for OpenAI and taking steps to evade security measures,” including workers “ignoring outreach by security personnel to schedule exit processes and security reviews.”

    Luxury

    Why luxury brands are falling for Asia’s queer romance shows | FT

    Rolex accused of hiring ‘crowds’ for Shanghai centenary exhibition | Reddit r/Watches – the use of gig workers to bulk up footfall numbers is unfortunate but understandable. It’s not a great look. They may have not have been hitting footfall numbers.

    Secondly there is a need in Chinese culture for events to be bustling with people. I remember going to the China South City wholesale mall in the Shenzhen region. Some of the car park was converted into basketball courts so that there would be the sound of people there, even if they were having fun rather than purchasing supplies for their business.

    The problem for Rolex got much worse when this story breached beyond the Chinese internet into the feeds of western watch enthusiasts.

    Security

    OpenAI admits AI ‘agent’ caused major cyber breach by itself | FT – I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a certain amount of PR behind this story.

    Royal Navy Drops a Drone Boat Out of a Plane | Maritime Executive – this feels like an important step towards more autonomous warfare, particularly in rapid expeditionary deployment.

    German firm files for insolvency, blames cybercrims who shut down production for 6 weeks | The Register

    UK, EU officially pin Poland energy cyberattack on Russia | The Register

    Space Force officially has its own weapon for taking out satellites | Task & Purpose

    Five Takeaways From the Times Investigation Into Larry Ellison’s A.I. Gamble – The New York Times – The United States had one major advantage in the A.I. race: China lagged behind in computer chip technology. The Biden administration cut off Chinese access to American-made chips, but China could still obtain computing power remotely through other countries.

    In 2024, Oracle made a $6.5 billion deal to build an data centre complex in Malaysia from which it could supply computing power to ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, and other foreign companies. Oracle’s facility in Malaysia was soon on track to become the second-biggest in the world, providing by one estimate more than one-fifth of China’s total A.I. computing power. Ellison is now powering the A.I. ambitions of China aka America’s biggest geopolitical rival.

    Cybersecurity expert Steve Sims discusses how hackers are now using AI.

    Software

    3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, and 3.5 Flash Cyber | News from Google – but no Gemini 3.6 Pro yet.

    Exclusive-Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China’s top AI models, sources say | Yahoo! Finance

    Microsoft to axe 4,800 jobs as it resets Xbox | FT

    Palantir CEO Alex Karp says ‘something has gone completely wrong’ with how AI is sold | CNBC – Palantir CEO Alex Karp caused a stir by discussing what he says is growing unhappiness among U.S. businesses about the costs to access models from the biggest AI companies, like OpenAI and Anthropic. And he asserted that those customers are getting “no value” from the technology.

    Taiwan

    China-friendly KMT stunts Taiwan’s attempt to grow into a fully formed hedgehog | The Strategist

    Technology

    Hyundai buys SoftBank’s Boston Dynamics stake for $325 million | Quartz – Hyundai is using the robots in its own operations from factories to construction sites. They are even being used in Posco’s steel foundries too.

    RISC-V Is Inevitable, State of the Union Keynote Argues – EE Times

    Axios AI+ |⛽ Trading compute – 1 big thing: Wall Street wants to trade AI compute like oil. This reminded me a lot of Enron’s doomed attempt to trade bandwidth in a similar way, which was the core offering of Enron Broadband Services.

    Wireless

    OnePlus, the ‘Flagship-Killer’ Smartphone Brand, Is All but Dead | WIRED – this surprised me given that Samsung has been on the ropes and OnePlus had such a good relationship with Qualcomm.

  • April 2026 newsletter – 33rd edition aka ‘dirty knee’

    April 2026 introduction – (33) dirty knee

    This is the 33rd edition of Strategic Outcomes, I had briefly toyed with calling it 33 1/3rd edition – but parked that foolishness as only Jed Hallam and Alec Samways would have half-heartedly smirked at a rather naff DJ dad joke.

    In bingo halls ’33’ was announced as dirty knee. For generations past, this would brought up memories of organised sports like winter football games ad the more real-life social activities of playing outside with friends. According to research conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Save the Children back in 2022, only 27% of UK children now play outside.

    https://flic.kr/p/392Xqw

    However, other data, like the UK government’s own The Children’s People and Nature Survey for England: 2025 update implies that number may be higher than the OnePoll research suggests. The University of Exeter published research which seems to be more in line with the UK government’s research. They found that 34 per cent of children don’t play outdoors on school days, while 20 per cent don’t play outdoors on weekends.

    In Chinese culture 33 is considered to be a good number. 3 sounds similar to birth or life. Two 3s is considered to intensify or double this idea. Which seems an appropriate sentiment for spring and the beginning of the financial year. Bring it on!

    This month’s soundtrack to the newsletter is a sublime 1980s disco mix by Toronto-based Japanese DJ Sakiko Nagai.

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    SO

    Things I’ve written.

    A collection of inspiration from Malaysia Airlines mascot Pilot Parker to Sir Martin Sorrell.

    Some thoughts how WPP might deal with its Burson dilemma.

    ICYMI – Top five shares on LinkedIn

    1. Aston Martin issued its third profit warning in a year and sold its Formula 1 naming rights for £50 million to raise cash thanks to internal delays and international tariffs.
    2. Meta is projected to pass Google in digital advertising spend thanks to Reels, Threads and WhatsApp.
    3. The implications of Tottenham Hotspur being relegated from the Premier League has implications beyond the pitch and into sponsor’s boardrooms.
    4. Nike made a bold leap for the UEFA Champions League match ball contract with a bid that doubled the value of the previous Adidas contract.
    5. Tom Roach outlined frameworks that help navigate the transition to more sustained growth once initial performance marketing channels hit saturation.

    Books that I have read.

    My friend Ian lent to me Ikenami Shōtarō‘s book The Killer on The Streets which is part of his Samurai Detectives series. The book follows the adventures of a 60-something retired swordsman and his son as they become embroiled in the hunt for what we’d now call a serial killer.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Supply chained

    Even before the current debacle in the Persian Gulf, globalisation brought logics and supply chains into high focus. Supply Chained is a new podcast with great presenters that provides top quality analysis on different aspects of global supply chains. The first episode looks at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

    Generative AI & cooking

    I first met Rowan Kisby a decade ago this year at 100 Victoria Embankment, back when I was contracting for Unilever on their Family Brands global range of margarines. Rowan worked for what was then MullenLowe Profero. Recently we reconnected on a shared Slack group. Rowan put together a report on the intersection of generative AI use and cooking.

    I found it unsurprising that one of the behaviours consumers are doing is telling the generative AI service what they have in their fridge and asking it for dish / recipe recommendations. Back when I worked for Yahoo! we saw similar behaviours in the search box, particularly amongst US users. Reddit now gave Rowan better qualitative insights on how these results play out.

    More interesting from the point of view of retailers was its ability to create and manage a shopping list for weekly groceries. The idea of a retailer or an FMCG building an AI skill (or Gem on Google Gemini) is just begging to be sold in by agencies to their clients.

    Praykinson

    I got to judge the amazing entries from around the world at Adforum’s PHNX awards. One campaign really stuck with me. A health campaign by Dentsu Creative Thailand and Vajira Hospital in Thailand to help people with Parkinson’s disease was smart, solution-based and had a great insight behind it. More on the project here.

    https://flic.kr/p/2s6adiF

    CHESS

    I was listening to the MM+M podcast interview with Chris Brandow, head of account management at VCCP Health US and came across the acronym / nemonic CHESS. It comes out of thought leadership research ‘Checking the Memory Code‘ that VCCP did in conjunction with Cowry Consulting.

    CHESS looks to encapsulate some of the key attributes that makes marketing creative effective. It codifies marketing science findings that you would be familiar with fromthe likes of, the IPA, System1 and Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and provides it in a list that pharma clients and their agency partners can use as a RAG (red-amber-green) guide to evaluating everything from initial creative concepts through to output.

    • Character – what be called a fluent object elsewhere. It is a mascot or memorable element like Alexandr the meerkat from Compare The Market. It could also be a spokesperson like Tommy Lee Jones’ appearances in Boss Coffee adverts as ‘Alien Jones‘.
    • Humour – the power of humour used to be well known as an advertising device and in recent years has come back on trend at Cannes. It helps create talkability and memorability
    • Emotion – Binet and Fields established the power of emotion over rational advertising. Daniel Kahneman conveyed the power of emotional ‘system 1 thinking’ in Thinking Fast and Slow.
    • Surprise – the unexpected. Our enjoyment of storytelling is the process understanding which story archetype a tale belongs to. If we guess it easily it falls flat like a Dad joke, on the other hand a twist in the tale makes it memorable.
    • Sonic branding – jingles fell out of fashion, yet made ads memorable.

    Chart of the month. 

    Ofcom released their 2026 Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes  report, more here. I went back through past reports to look at smartphone only internet access, households with no access to internet and claimed usage of generative AI services.

    • Internet access is now at a point comparable to where broadcast television was previously.
    • The digital divide is now about the mode of access, with smartphones on mobile internet providing a poorer service.
    https://flic.kr/p/2s69P1v

    Things I have watched. 

    My internet went down on April Fool’s Day, so I revisited Wong Ka wai’s back catalogue. I watched the films the first time after I got a portable DVD player and there was a massive surge in video labels including Artificial Eye and Tartan publishing arthouse titles. This provided a great way to explore and experience world cinema and I gravitated towards Japanese and Hong Kong cinema.

    I was familiar with traditional martial arts films and the ‘gun fu’ of John Woo. Wong Ka wai was Hong Kong’s answer to French new wave auteurs. Around the same time, I ended up going out with someone who lived in Hong Kong when we bonded over Faye Wong’s performance in Chungking Express. In a moment of delicious irony, I got to watch Wong Ka wai’s ‘western’ film My Blueberry Nights while staying in Hong Kong.

    This time around I was working my way through Curzon’s Wong Kar wai boxset which was bought for my birthday during COVID time. It contained

    • As Tears Go By
    • Days of Being Wild
    • Chungking Express
    • Fallen Angels
    • Happy Together
    • In The Mood For Love
    • 2046

    More on my time watching The World of Wong Kar wai boxset here. You can enjoy most of the films listed at the Prince Charles cinema ‘The Films of Wong Kar wai season‘.

    After all that I needed something a bit lighter, so I watched the Japanese film Supermarket Woman. It is a light hearted comedy caper about a middle aged woman, a poorly performing supermarket, business rivalry and a bit of skullduggery. Nobuko Miyamoto plays Hanako Inouse who brings her customer eye view to revitalising the Honest Goro supermarket. The film was written and directed by Jûzô Itami, better known for Tampopo. Supermarket Woman was made a decade after Tampopo, but both feel of the same time. Itami-san was often compared to the French new wave directors of the 1960s and I can see why.

    OSS117 is a series of books and films written from the late 1950s onwards. The films were made in 1963 onwards, with a reinvention and reboot in the 2010s.

    • OSS 117 is Unleashed – is a French film about an American agent with French heritage who works for the CIA. Compared to the Bond franchise, its French new wave. No gadgets but a dollop of guile. It’s notable for its underwater scenes, scuba diving was new thing opening up a new world under the waves thanks to Jacques Cousteau.
    • OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok – is the first colour film in the series. Our hero goes to Bangkok to investigate a dead colleague who looked into ineffective vaccines.

    Useful tools.

    PopChar – PopChar is an old but good utility app that has been supporting Mac users since the late 1980s. You are trying to find the right emoji or symbol to type, in each font.

    Beats Studio Buds + – while I usually use Shure wired earphones for most applications there are some times that wireless is handier (like reducing wired clutter on a busy desk, or listening to podcasts while cooking or folding laundry).

    I was leery of the Beats brand because of their reputation of having a muddy bass sound with a poor sound stage. I was pleasantly surprised by these. They are as balanced sound as a pair of AirPods. They have reasonable noise cancellation, comparable to my old Bose earbuds. They charge on the USB-C cable as my iPhone and MacBook Pro. They are less noticeable than a pair of AirPods and still integrate into Apple’s ‘Find My’ service seamlessly.

    Google Gemini app for Mac – I hope that this will help with my current tab and window juggling in Safari. I will let you know how I am getting on in a few months once I have given it a full shakedown.

    The sales pitch.

    I am a strategist who thrives on the “meaty brief”—the kind where deep-tech or complexity, business goals, and human culture collide.

    With over a decade of experience across the UK, EMEA, and JAPAC, I specialise in bridging the gap between high-level strategy and creative execution. I was embedded within Google Cloud’s brand creative team, where I helped navigate the “messy steps” of global pivots and the rapid rise of Gen AI. And have recently been helping out agencies and startups in various sectors from narratives and new business pitches to sports partnerships.

    My approach is simple: I use insight and analytics to find the “surprise” in the strategy. Whether it’s architecting an experiential event or defining a social narrative for a SaaS powerhouse, I focus on making complex brands feel human and high-velocity businesses feel accessible.

    The Strategic Toolkit:

    • Brand & Creative Strategy: From B2B infrastructure to luxury travel.
    • AI-Enhanced Planning: Deeply literate in Google Gemini and prompt engineering to accelerate insights and creative output.
    • Multi-Sector Versatility: A proven track record across Tech & SaaS (Google Cloud, Semiconductors), Consumer Goods (FMCG, Beauty, Health), and High-Interest Categories (Luxury, Sports Apparel, Pharma).

    I am officially open for new adventures with immediate effect. If you have a challenge that needs a all-in, hit-the-ground-running strategic lead, let’s talk.

    now taking bookings

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my April 2026 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and enjoy the May bank holiday. 

    Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful as this helps other people and the algorithmic gods of Google Search and the various LLMs that are blurring what web search means nowadays.

    Get in touch and if you find it of use, this is now appearing on my blog,  Substack as well as LinkedIn.

  • Pilot Parker & more inspiration

    This inspiration post is a mix of things that caught my eye from Pilot Parker to HyperCard.

    Pilot Parker

    https://flic.kr/p/2s5GEX6

    Pilot Parker is Malaysia Airlines mascot. I was familiar with him from the inflight duty-free catalogue. The inspiration for the film came from a moment shared by a young passenger who had flown with Malaysia Airlines. After her trip, she sent the airline a hand-drawn illustration of Pilot Parker along with a letter describing how the mascot brought her comfort during the journey. So the brand moved Pilot Parker from souvenir to fluent object.

    Lemon – lime facetime call.

    Apple had a week of things including more affordable devices (iPhone 17e and MacBook Neo) in a green-yellow colour. The company deleted all their TikTok account contents and then posted this video.

    @apple

    hello?

    ♬ original sound – apple

    20-somethings in the ad industry lost their minds, feeling seen and considering it revolutionary that large brands have humour and can navigate culture. They then filled LinkedIn with insightful posts to let all the oldster millennials know.

    Just leaving this one here, in case anyone notices. The lesson of the story is that everything old is new, especially the heuristic about being part of culture.

    Retrospective on HyperCard

    HyperCard was a powerful idea that didn’t have its time. I used it to run lab experiments during a brief time with Corning prior to my going to college. This video goes into real depth about what we missed.

    Voice recognition is older than you think

    I found this 1958 film of Victor Scheinman, at the time a high school student. He invented a solution that provided speech to text via a typewriter. It isn’t that far away from the speech recognition that I had on mobile phones from my Ericsson T39 through to my current iPhone.

    In his adult life Scheinman worked with AI pioneer Marvin Minsky and worked in the field of robotics in academia and the private sector. Scheinman went on to work with General Motors and Yaskawa Electric Corporation. Right up to his death Scheinman was an associate professor who still consulted at Stanford University.

    Scheinman’s high school experiment shows both how far we’ve come and yet how little we’ve progressed in comparison to the hype.

    Think with Google & Sir Martin Sorrell

    Think with Google interviewed Sir Martin Sorrell who was entertaining and consistent on themes he has been talking for the past few years. I found it interesting that he suspects marketing science is ‘over’. I don’t agree with him in this respect because software changes faster than wetware, but Sorrell instead has the CFO view within clients.

    Yet the favourite campaigns that he worked on were his work at Saatchi & Saatchi before he built WPP.

    Here’s the British Airways ‘Manhattan Landing‘ campaign from 1983 that Sir Martin named as the favourite campaign that he worked on.

    More marketing related content here.

  • 2026 AI outlook of Marc Andreessen

    2026 AI outlook introduction

    Marc Andreessen’s 2026 AI outlook was published by A16z. As one of the leading funder of Silicon Valley startups, his world view matters.

    IMG_0435

    I’ve gone through and contrasted his 2026 AI outlook through the lens of the viewpoint I researched and wrote up. The core point over where we differ: Andreessen see’s the dawn of a new unbound industrial revolution. Whereas I think that the upside he sees is hard to navigate to; and also risk mirroring the echoes of financial bubbles past in many of the high profile pure play AI companies like OpenAI or C3.ai.

    Andreessen has been the quintessential techno-optimist for at least the past two decades with his emblematic essay Why Software Is Eating the World. His worldview is of an industry where demand is insatiable and revenue is undeniably real.

    Like Andreessen in his 2026 AI outlook, I would agree that players like Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft are making money to variable degrees from their AI offerings as part of cloud computing and productivity software bundles.

    But in my view there are two aspects of concern:

    • Pure plays with the notable exception of Anthropic don’t seem to have a clear path to profitability in a time period that would match their implied future revenues based on loans and valuations.
    • Hyperscalers like Meta and Microsoft are using unusual partnerships to fund their infrastructure and have been inconsistent over how fast they would depreciate their AI computing hardware.

    Both Mr Andreessen and myself agree that we are witnessing a technological shift of seismic proportions, arguably, “bigger than the internet” as he put it.

    I think that change will happen slower in the short term due to an economic sand box acting as a rate limiter on infrastructure and derived labour efficiencies. In particular, the economic viability of the infrastructure being built to support it.

    The Nature of the Boom: Real Revenue or Irrational Exuberance?

    A key question is the the solidity of the current market.

    For Andreessen, the AI boom is not a speculation fuelled exercise but a demand-driven reality. He argues that unlike the early internet, which required years of physical infrastructure build-out before finding business models, AI is generating cash immediately.

    “This new wave of AI companies is growing revenue like… actual customer revenue, actual demand translated through to dollars showing up in bank accounts at like an absolutely unprecedented takeoff rate.”

    Andreessen points to “revealed preferences”, observed insight from what people do is more insightful than what they say when asked by market researchers. While the US and European publics express fear of job losses, they are simultaneously adopting AI tools at a fast pace.

    My “Dot LLM Era” report, however, suggests this revenue may be dwarfed by the capital expenditure required to generate it. 

    It posits that the sector faces a “self-defeating economic” cycle. The report highlights that the current valuations of the “Magnificent 10” tech giants (including Nvidia, Microsoft, and Alphabet) imply a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 35 times. This is alarmingly close to the S&P 500’s P/E ratio at the peak of the dot-com boom, which approached 33.

    In the report I warn that current valuations assume LLMs will drive revenue growth by $1–4 trillion in the next two years. 

    If this growth is achieved through massive job automation, the resulting unemployment could depress the very economy needed to sustain these companies. Like the 2008 financial crisis, this would invite various forms of regulatory intervention.

    This implies a sweet spot between speed of productivity gains versus efficiencies in terms of job losses realised by clients – and acts as a break on the velocity of adoption.

    The Infrastructure Trap: The Amortisation Crisis

    Perhaps the most critical technical divergence between our viewpoints concerns the hardware powering this revolution.

    The “Dot LLM Era” report introduces a chilling concept: Amortisation Risk. It draws a comparison to the “telecoms bubble” of the late 90s, where companies laid massive amounts of fibre optic cable.

    • The Telecoms Analogy: Fibre optic cable had a useful life of over a decade, meaning even after the companies went bust (like WorldCom), the infrastructure remained useful for Web 2.0.
    • The AI Reality: Modern AI infrastructure relies on GPUs and TPUs. These processors have a useful life of only 3 to 5 years before becoming technically obsolete.

    The report argues that if an AI bust occurs, the hardware will not be waiting for a resurgence; it will be electronic waste. 

    Hyperscalers are currently lengthening the assumed useful lives of this hardware in their financial filings—Google to 6 years, Meta to 5 years—which the report suggests may artificially overstate profits and adversely affect competitors with debt securitised against AI data centre hardware.

    The rapid obsolescence of chips represents a “financial and technological amortisation risk” that could lead to trillions in write-offs, similar to the $180 billion loss left by WorldCom.

    Andreessen views this hardware cycle through a different lens: Elasticity.

    He acknowledges that massive investment leads to gluts, but argues that “the number one cause of a glut is a shortage”. He believes the price of AI compute is falling “much faster than Moore’s Law”.

    As prices collapse, demand will expand exponentially. If chips become cheap and plentiful, AI can be embedded into everything, moving from massive “God models” in data centres down to small models running on local devices.

    Geopolitics: The US-China Race

    Both Andreessen and I agree that the AI landscape is a bipolar contest between the United States and China, but their assessments of the leaderboard differ.

    Andreessen frames this as a “new Cold War” where the US must maintain dominance. He is encouraged by the “DeepSeek moment”, referring to a powerful open-source model released by a Chinese hedge fund. To him, this proves that catching up is possible and that the US cannot rest on its laurels. He advocates for open source as a way to proliferate American standards globally.

    I offer a more sobering assessment of American pre-eminence. I argue that unlike the 1990s “Long Boom,” where the US was the undisputed hegemon; the current era is defined by high debt and strong competition. The US maybe on the Soviet side of a Reagan era ‘Space Defence Initative (aka Star Wars)’ AI race from an economic perspective.

    • Alibaba’s Qwen model claims to deliver comparable performance to American models while requiring 82% fewer Nvidia processors to run.
    • China doesn’t have a electrical power crunch in the same way that western data centres have due to its sustained investment in coal, nuclear, gas and renewable power sources.
    • Even Silicon Valley investors and major companies like Airbnb are opting for Chinese open-source models because they are “way more performant and much cheaper”.

    Andreessen worries about regulation stifling US innovation, I think that the real geopolitical threats are:

    • China’s ability to operate largely immune to US sanctions, smuggling chips and utilising data centres in neutral geographies like Malaysia.
    • China’s speed at propagating the use of AI within its own populace, driving utility at a lower cost per token than their US competitors with state regulation defining trial ‘sand pits’. This will drive new uses faster in China and in China’s client states across the global south.

    The Outcome: Transformation or “Minsky Moment”?

    Where is this all heading? Andreessen is betting on a future where AI becomes as ubiquitous and essential as electricity. He envisions a “pyramid” structure: a few massive “God models” at the top, cascading down to billions of specialised, cheap models running on edge devices. He admits these are “trillion-dollar questions,” but his firm is aggressively investing in every viable strategy.

    I think that LLMs will make a sustained technological impact, but it will be limited in velocity by economic boundaries. In the “Dot LLM Era” report, I outlined seven potential scenarios, ranging from total transformation to total collapse. Currently, it assigns a ~95% likelihood to the “Moral Hazard” scenario.

    • The Moral Hazard: This scenario posits that major AI players will be considered “too big to fail” due to national security imperatives. Governments will step in with loan guarantees and subsidies to backstop the massive infrastructure debts, effectively nationalising the risk . Rather like the banks during the 2008 financial crisis.
    • The Telecoms Bust: With a ~75% likelihood, the report fears a “Minsky Moment”, a sudden market collapse driven by the realisation that cash flows cannot cover the massive debts incurred to build short-lived data centres.

    Comparative Summary of Perspectives

    FeatureMarc Andreessen (The techno-optimist)My own view (The economic limiting skeptic)
    Current PhaseInning 1. “Biggest technological revolution of my life.”Phase 1: The boom / The Inflation of a bubble.
    RevenueReal, unprecedented, showing up in bank accounts.Potentially illusory for at least some players; reliant on untenable cost savings.
    InfrastructureShortages lead to gluts; cheap chips drive adoption.Amortisation risk: hardware obsolescence in 3-5 years.
    PricingUsage-based is great for startups; prices falling fast.Pure-play LLMs selling tokens below marginal cost (burning cash).
    GeopoliticsA race the US must win; open source is key.US dominance challenged; Chinese models are more efficient and effective enough for organisations from Singapore to Silicon Valley to adopt them.
    OutcomeLong-term ubiquity; widespread prosperity.Technological change bounded by economic limitations. Current high risk of “Minsky Moment” or government bailouts.

    Conclusion: The Trillion-Dollar Questions

    Marc Andreessen candidly admits that “companies… need to answer these questions and if they get the answers wrong, they’re really in trouble”. His firm’s strategy is to bet on everything: large models, small models, apps, and infrastructure. He is doing this on the assumption that the aggregate wave will lift all boats.

    My ‘Dot LLM Era’ report offers a counterweight to this enthusiasm. A bubble decouples technological and financial progress. Technological utility does not always equal investor profit. As I note in ‘Dot LLM Era’, “Bubbles don’t kill technology from moving forwards”. The internet did change everything, but it also wiped out trillions in shareholder value along the way.

    The defining question for the next five years is whether the demand for AI can grow fast enough to pay for the hardware before that hardware becomes obsolete.

    If Andreessen is right, this elasticity of demand would save the day. If I am right, we may be heading for the most expensive recycling project in human history.

    The Productivity Paradox and Society

    A fascinating tension exists between Andreessen’s view of societal adoption and my own macroeconomic warnings regarding productivity and labour.

    The “Wingman” Economy vs. The Phillips Curve

    Andreessen describes a “symbiotic relationship” where AI acts as a productivity multiplier: a “wingman” for doctors, coders, and writers. He argues that higher pricing in SaaS can actually benefit the customer by funding better R&D, suggesting a cycle of value creation.

    I argue that the wingman sweetspot is optimal but tricky to land, in the report I showed the risk through a darker macroeconomic “thought experiment.” It used the Phillips Curve and Okun’s Law to model what happens if Andreessen AI scenario succeeds too well.

    • The Thought Experiment: If AI automation generates $1 trillion in cost savings through job cuts, it implies approximately 10.5 million unemployed US workers.
    • The Consequence: Such a spike in unemployment could trigger deflation and a massive drop in GDP. This is “self-defeating economics”: the hyperscalers need a healthy economy to consume their services, yet their success might undermine the investor, enterprise customer and consumer base.

    Andreessen counters this fear by citing historical context. He notes the “Committee for the Triple Revolution” in 1964, warned Lyndon B. Johnson that automation would ruin the economy—a prediction that proved false. He believes AI will follow the path of electricity or the internet: initially terrifying, eventually indispensable.

    Automation did displace a massive amount of developed world jobs moving at a much slower pace than Andreessen predicted for AI. Electricity moved at an equally slow pace compared to the pace envisioned by AI’s champions.

    The Open Source Debate

    Both of us agree that the role of open source is pivotal in both narratives.

    For Andreessen, open source is the great accelerator. He marvels at how knowledge is proliferating: “Some of the best AI people in the world are like 22, 23, 24”. He views the leak of knowledge as inevitable and beneficial for US competitiveness, provided the US stays ahead.

    I analysed the “Red Hat Analogue.” It suggests that in the dot-com era, open-source (Linux) won, but the companies that built the models (or distributions) mostly failed, with Red Hat being the notable exception.

    I assigned a ~70-80% likelihood to the “Red Hat Model,” where pure-play LLM creators (like OpenAI or Anthropic) might struggle to justify their capital burn as open-source models like Meta’s Llama or Alibaba’s Qwen commoditise the intelligence.

    We have already seen Singapore’s national AI programme drop Llama for Alibaba’s Qwen, reinforcing the idea that the value might accrue to those who service the models, not those who create them.

    Final Thoughts

    The divergence between Marc Andreessen and my own analysis is not about whether AI works both of us would agree that the technology can be magical and transformative. The disagreement is about who pays for it, how that affects the velocity of AI and who profits.

    Andreessen sees a future of abundance where falling prices drive infinite demand.

    My own view sees a future of financial reckoning shaping the 2026 AI outlook where shorter hardware lifespans and brutal competition erode margins, setting a slower pace at which we reach Andreessen’s abundance. 

    Andreessen’s viewpoint reminded me a lot of mid-20th century aspirations for nuclear power. Nuclear power offered a similar vision in the mid-20th century of electricity too cheap to meter. That was never close to being achieved in the likes of France – arguably the most passionate adopter.

    As with the railway mania of the 1840s or the optical fibre boom of the 1990s, society may inherit a significant infrastructure, with a shorter lifespan built on the ashes of investor capital.

    Our differing views boil down to a question for the 2026 AI outlook: are we in the “boom” phase, or are we staring down the barrel of the “amortisation crisis”?

    As Andreessen himself concluded, “These are trillion-dollar questions, not answers”.

  • CNY 2026

    Chinese new year CNY 2026 also known as lunar new year, spring festival or Tết festival. 2026 marks the year of the fire horse. In the same way that the Super Bowl and Christmas are the stand out times of the year for advertising in the US and Europe, CNY 2026 will be the same for much of east Asia and Southeast Asia.

    There has a large amount of tradition and rituals around celebrating the festival, which are rich seams of inspiration for strategists and marketing moments.

    I featured an advert from Brunei for the first time.

    As with previous years, Malaysia had a lot of campaigns running, many of which were partnerships with local musicians to collaborate on a seasonal song. One of the advantages of partnering with local musicians is their ability to cross post on their own channels broadening the videos reach.

    In the Malaysian adverts that were storyteller driven, coping with aging relatives suffering with dementia came through as a common social theme.

    Social video has been a great leveller. I have a featured a few videos from small businesses this year which were nicely executed despite operating with minimal budgets.

    Coca-Cola in China was notable in that it showed strategic thinking closer to what we now see in the west with social-first ‘Instagrammable’ tactics.

    Australia

    Godiva

    Anywhere up to 8 percent of Australia’s population have some connection to China, which explains why Godiva have done a Chinese new year themed range of chocolates.

    Brunei

    Flower Journal

    Flower Journal is a florist shop based in Brunei, yet they have created a cinematic advert with great storytelling. The craft is arguably better than a number of the big brands featured this year. The work by local agency Cinekota really impressed me.

    China

    Adidas

    Adidas made a film about a school football team and focuses on how the team is a ‘football family’. Reuniting with family is an important part of lunar new year. It’s also about looking forward to the future, hence the children’s wishes.

    Apple

    TBWA\ Media Arts, Shanghai teamed up with film director Bai Xue for Apple’s CNY 2026 advertisement. The film joins Apple’s series of ‘shot on an iPhone‘ mini movies.

    Coca-Cola

    Coca-Cola China took a social and experiential approach focused around togetherness. A drone show in Chongqing paired with fireworks that are considered part of China’s intangible cultural heritage was supported by social video clips of a famous father and daughter.

    https://flic.kr/p/2rVFjbe

    All of this was to address young adults dual sense of togetherness during spring festival as mainland Chinese call CNY 2026. Being together with friends a la Friends and This Life, as well as more traditional family connections.

    Valentino

    Valentino put relatively subtle lunar new year symbols into a Chinese take on an American diner. The galloping horse zoetrope and red accents throughout the restaurant from neon signs to red floor tiles. As for the film itself, it’s basically a video lookbook.

    Hong Kong

    Hang Seng Bank

    Hang Seng Bank ties into the the importance of welcoming good fortune into your life at Chinese New Year. Celebrities dress as the god of good fortune giving wishes for flourishing prosperity to different neighbourhoods across Hong Kong.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqYWpeDrtZ8

    Malaysia

    AEON

    Japanese supermarket chain AEON did a Malaysian market specific film featuring a mix of well known entertainers. The giddy up line telegraphing its horse related theme and the cultural impact of K-pop is evident in the whole video.

    Affin Bank

    Affin Bank is consistent in their lunar new year campaigns. Each year they tell of how a famous business customer battled adversity to succeed. This time it was Malaysian book retailer BookXcess.

    Affinity

    Affinity is a Malaysian estate agent. The video creative is a pretty run of the mill reenactment of Chinese new year with the horse head mask hinting at the CNY 2026 theme. The song itself is a bit an ear worm.

    Air Selangor

    Air Selangor hits you with a gut punch of an emotional Chinese New Year story that felt like it came straight of the Thai advertising agencies rather than Malaysia. (Thai agencies are famous for wringing you through an emotional shredder leaving you drained after an insurance ad).

    Alpro

    Malaysia’s largest prescription pharmacy chain put together a humorous new year film based around the mechanic of three wishes.

    AmBank

    The film melds together traditions around fabric sharing and lion dance to tell a Chinese new year story of a community coming together.

    Astro

    Astro is a Malaysian holding company that has a mix of linear TV, connected TV and radio assets. Think the reach of the BBC, but a private enterprise.

    Bamboo Green Florist

    Bamboo Green Florist is a single shop business based in Penang. For a small business their Chinese new year advert punches above its weight.

    Coca-Cola

    The first of two appearances in this list by Malaysian group 3P.

    GVRide

    GVRide is a Malaysian ride hailing app, they sponsored a new year song music video by Namewee alongside other brands.

    IJM Land

    IJM Land is a Malaysian property developer (part of a larger conglomerate). They position themselves as “one of Malaysia’s property development”. The film sits at the tension between the love of heritage, accumulating wealth and the non-monetary aspects of CNY 2026 – coming together, family, building memories and legacy.

    JinYeYe

    JinYeYe sell seasonal hampers, so lunar new year is their peak sales time. Their advert is targeted at the global Chinese diaspora and they partnered with Tourism Malaysia alongside local musicians. A bee is considered to a symbol of blessings and represents sweetness, hope and companionship.

    https://youtu.be/0YvLVF4TJAE?si=sn4nMWPwykr7WzjM

    Lee Kum Kee

    Hong Kong’s Lee Kum Lee were the inventors of oyster sauce and have a place in every Asian kitchen cupboard. But their advert is weak sauce (pun intended) that could have been knocked out on PowerPoint.

    Listerine

    Listerine just straight up sponsored the video of Malaysian producers 1119 for this new year themed music video.

    Loong Kee

    Loong Kee is a Malaysian food company who makes everything from processed meats to baked goods. This is at least the third year that they have partnered with local musicians who are internet-famous to collaborate on a new year themed song.

    Lotus

    Lotus supermarket was formerly part of Tesco’s international footprint before the UK brand divested itself of its international stores to Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group. This advert taps into family friction and a couple of nice wushu cinema referencing touches. It reminded me a lot of SingTel’s films from previous years.

    It handles the diversity of Malaysia well, without the awkward approach that Malaysian Airlines went for.

    Malaysian Airlines

    Malaysian Airlines focuses on Malaysians coming home. Given that the airline is a government company. While ethically Chinese, and speaking Chinese at home – the woman is a devote muslim.

    In reality that’s about 1-2% of the ethnic Chinese population – for ethno-political, social and cultural reasons that I don’t want to get into on this post. The video is as much about a government approved theme as it is about the airline.

    Marrybrown

    Marrybrown is a Malaysian quick service restaurant. It is really nice how the story moves through time with relatively small but important cues on screen.

    Maxis

    Malaysian broadband provider took an unusual angle bringing together two erstwhile business rivals in a spirit of shared community.

    McDonalds Malaysia

    Great storytelling but with a serious topic as middle-aged siblings deal with an aging parent with signs of dementia.

    Nescafé Gold

    Instant coffee brand Nescafé Gold goes down the sponsored music video route. But with a few noticeable differences:

    • Better product placement that articulates the customer moment.
    • A more diverse cast than most of the other adverts.
    • The video title Gongxi Kemeriahan – is a mix of mandarin and malay – gongxi meaning best wishes or congratulations and kemeriahan means excitement.

    All of which are likely to because of Nestlé being a western multinational and the marketers are looking to target all Malaysians rather than just ethnic Chinese.

    PMG Healthcare

    PMG Healthcare is a regional provider of pharmacies, medical and dental clinics to private health insurance customers.

    Mr Potato

    Mr Potato is a local potato chip brand in Malaysia. Their CNY 2026 advert is a spoof of the Jackie Chan kung fu film Drunken Master.

    Public Bank

    Public Bank is a Malaysian headquartered bank. This year they have done an AR-based activation. Each Chinese new year you can go into your bank and get a pack of red envelopes and crisp new bills to give out to family, friends and junior colleagues. So this execution makes sense.

    RHB

    Malaysian bank RHB continued its theme of inspiring stories told in previous Chinese New Year campaigns through to its CNY 2026 campaign. This year tells the story of Komuniti Tukang Jahit, a small tailors shop that empowers women through sewing skills and fair income opportunities.

    Setia

    Malaysian house builder Setia takes a lighter comedic approach telling the story of a family’s new year celebration through the eyes of its youngest member. Its lightness of tone is in contrast to other adverts this year which are more of an emotional rollercoaster.

    Shopee

    Singaporean e-commerce platform Shopee partnered with local act 3P to a Chinese New Year song for its Malaysian ad campaign. Thoughout Asia lunar new year songs and playlists are all over TV, films, Spotify and YouTube playlists. This leans right into that trend.

    SPD Racing

    SPD Racing is a small workshop that service motorcycles and sell after market parts. This short video is really nicely executed, replacing parts on the motorcycle with red fittings in the same way that people would wear new red outfits on Chinese new year for good luck.

    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1x7RpOLHcTA

    Tenaga

    Tenaga is a Malaysian electrical utility. There is a nice bit of storytelling about a lion dance troupe. This could be rerun in future years given its lack of specificity to CNY 2026.

    U Mobile

    U Mobile is a Malaysian wireless operator. Their advert focuses on on the travel use case over lunar new year as more people travel rather than staying at home.

    UCSI University

    USCI is part of Malaysia’s private education system that sprang out of the positive discrimination of successive Malaysian governments towards Malays in comparison to Chinese and South Asian Malaysians. This was enshrined in article 153 of the Malaysian constitution, New Economic Policy, National Development Policy, National Vision Policy and the concept of Ketuanan Melayu which continues to be a pillar of government decision-making.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILuFokNxHck

    In common with several other films here this year it focuses on the treasure of memories built over the festival and also has a dementia plot line.

    Vida C

    Vida C is kind of like an energy drink, in a number of Asian countries high vitamin C content is used in the same way that taurine and caffeine are in western energy drinks. They did a relatively subtle product placement in this comedic music video. It’s much less PC than western multinationals would allow.

    Watsons

    Watson’s is the Boots of Asia. Like previous years it tells a story of family coming together with the joy and chaos that usually ensues. It features Maria Cordero – a Macau born entertainer, radio and TV personality with a famous cooking show based in Hong Kong – but known throughout the region.

    Singapore

    Carlsberg

    Carlsberg launched a pan-Asian campaign with a mix of horse themed packaging design and having it promoted by SKAI ISYOURGOD – a popular Malaysian rapper with appeal across Asia.

    https://flic.kr/p/2rVJfn9

    FairPrice

    Singapore supermarket chain FairPrice focused on the small family moments of the new year celebrations and their ability to build lasting memories. The advert was created by TBWA\ Singapore.

    Grab

    At first I thought that this ad was aimed at the Malaysian market, but I think it’s aimed at both Singapore and Malaysia. It would work in either, even though some of the brands are Malaysia only like JayaGrocer. It’s unusual because of the amount of brand collabs in it, count them:

    • Vinda tissues
    • 7Up
    • GXBank
    • Jasmine SunWhite Rice
    • JayaGrocer
    • Kyochon Chicken
    • Oriental Kopi
    • Subway

    Secondly, there was the filming of an ad within the ad concept that Orson Welles would have enjoyed.

    LVMH

    LVMH’s drinks portfolio has been suffering from declining sales. Family get togethers are an ideal consumption moment, so it makes sense that Hennessy leant in with special packaging and a Singapore family reunion ‘kit’.

    https://flic.kr/p/2rVCZcR

    SIMBA

    Australian owned mobile network SIMBA did a very simple sales promotion which is very much in keeping with its value proposition , but the horses are nicely done.

    Singapore government

    A comedic short film with relatively light social engineering aiming at harmonious relationships and community during CNY 2026. The family were framed as being salt-of-the-earth Singaporean Chinese living in old HDB flat. The universal food photography was very on point.

    Taiwan

    Coca-Cola

    Coke did a really simple sales promotion with a giveaway competition attached to each purchase.

    United States

    Panda Express

    Panda Express is an American fast food chain that specialises in American Chinese food. It kind of sits outside usual lunar new year traditions becoming a Roald Dahl style fantasy.

    Vietnam

    Coca-Cola

    Really simple creative by Coca-Cola. They missed a trick by not creating something as iconic as the US Coca-Cola truck adverts. Instead they phoned in the creative with this spot.

    Ensure Gold

    Abbott Health’s Ensure Gold is a Complan-type drink designed to fortify health and restore strength. The film uses family union traditions to focus on the past, recover during the Tết festival and look to the future with a shared sense of resilience. The theme is even reflected when the family does traditional ancestor worship and we hear the wishes of their departed family.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdSib8exz6I

    Home Credit

    Home Credit are an online financial services company. They provide credit cards, vehicle loans, pre-payment accounts and instalment payments for consumer products. The advert focuses on everyday people and how they prepare for Tết, including decorating the home, getting new clothes and a new karaoke machine for the family gathering.

    Mirinda

    Mirinda is a Vietnamese soft drinks brand similar to Tango. Their adverts were noticeable for their shortness. They were running 3 five-second spots and two 15-second spots. No real story, but there is energy, brand colours feature heavily and it gives off a joyous vibe.

    MyKingdom

    MyKingdom is a Vietnamese toy retailer similar to Toys R Us. Their mobile first content focuses on the challenges of parents looking to buy toys that will last longer than the spring festival.

    https://youtube.com/shorts/EjSu9ybiwwo?si=NWMbimjWHizp9faY

    Sunhouse

    Sunhouse is a home electronics brand. Everything from kitchen appliances to to cookware.

    In the advert, they focus on starting the new year healthy, there is a belief in starting the new year as you would like it to go on.

    Viettel

    Wireless carrier Viettel subverts the idea of a family reunion storyline during Tết. Instead when the family can’t come home, an uncle visits his family members around the country.

    As I find more CNY 2026 campaigns I will add them here.

    Past years

    CNY 2025

    CNY 2024

    CNY 2023

    CNY 2021

    CNY 2019

    CNY 2018

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