The Malaysia Magic Show with Gabey Goh

Gabey Goh (@gabeygoh) from Digital News Asia joined us to dissect the technology entrepreneurial scene in Malaysia and her perspectives on how it is different from Singapore given her recent move down south. In this interview,  we discussed some stories which are never aired in public: (a) the origins of GrabTaxi, (b) how MOL made 5x returns from Facebook IPO and its current troubles since NASDAQ listing and (c) the new MaGIC initiative from the Malaysia government to re-ignite the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Here are the interesting links on companies and articles on Malaysia which form the basis for our discussion:

• The story of Digital News Asia with Gabey Goh and her recent coverage of the technology startup space extending from Malaysia to Singapore.
• The cultural difference on the entrepreneurial ecosystem between Singapore and Malaysia (with a shout out to Colin Charles for one of the insights mention on education). Interesting companies from Malaysia.
• The origins of GrabTaxi and how they are set to compete against Uber in Southeast Asia. With the ongoing price war between the various taxi app companies such as EasyTaxi and Uber, can GrabTaxi win the war?
• The real story behind MOL’s acquisition of Friendster and how it profited from the Facebook IPO in 2012. We also discuss the back story of the bidding process leading to how MOL acquiring the social networking patents from Friendster.
• The recent troubles of MOL after its listing on NASDAQ.
• Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC): What is the purpose of the centre from the perspective of the CEO and how it ignites the Malaysian startup ecosystem? How is MaGIC different with the previous initiatives from the Malaysian government such as MDec & Mavcap? We also chatted on the recent successes of the Malaysian media industry with the famous example of animating the Tiger in the Life of Pi.
• Are there other clusters in Malaysia other than Klang Valley in Kuala Lumpur: Penang or Johor?

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and is sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter & Facebook).