Low Level Barbarians (LLB)

The last episode of 2021. The gang had a long break from holiday travels and celebrations but came together for one last episode. The final episode of 2021 discusses Grab's IPO and its performance, the idea of shallow unicorns; raising too much money and the effects of firing employee's en masse, and lastly what the metaverse is and its future potential.

Shopee is going global and has hit a 200B market cap making it one top 20 largest tech companies in the world. What has contributed to Shopee's global domination and can they hold up to any potential competition? The discussion naturally moved to the evolution of gaming companies into platform players. We dig further and explore 2 of Vietnam’s latest unicorns Sky Mavis with their current hit Axie Infinity, and Amanotes with Magic Tile 3. Tune in to learn how SEA unicorns will continue to pop up and thrive in the region.

In this episode the LLB gang sets the foundation for a future episode around media and the metaverse by discussing the recent launch of Diablo 2 Resurrected, and its business model. The main topics for this week's episode discusses the viability of a local hero company, One Championship. Can One Championship find its footing to become a media giant or will it flounder? Secondly, the group discusses what it takes to successfully build an insurtech company in SEA along with the pain points and opportunities at hand. Lastly, the group outlines “how buy now pay” will unfold for the Southeast Asian region. Tune in to hear the details!

For this special and entertaining episode, barbarian Dave calls in from his motel in Wisconsin. The gang arrives on time to discuss Grab Q2 results, the global expansion of SEA group, the rise of Tik Tok E-commerce, and Carousell's most recent raise, which makes them a Unicorn. Are there any surprises for Grab? Will raising USD6.5B hurt or help SEA group in the long run, and do they have what it takes to win? What makes the Tik Tok e-commerce experience special? Can Carousell prove the haters wrong and justify its unicorn valuation? Tune in to find out!

Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and South Africa central banks are banning together to develop an interbank system that removes intermediaries by using digital currencies. The LLB gang discusses the nature of digital currencies along with the context for blockchain ledger technologies. The second topic covers what the future of saas in Southeast Asia looks like. Will sass in SEA be home grown emerging markets focused, or can Southeast Asia produce global dominant saas companies that compete with the best. Lastly, the barbarians discuss what the role of governments should be for fostering innovation. What are the ingredients that allow governments to harness innovation? Tune in to find out.

Can AirAsia build a superapp? We dig deep into the ambitions of AirAsia and look at their core business and see if they have what it takes to compete in superapp space. Man of the high ground, Dave Chang, gives a great presentation on the state of VC and we discuss the driving trends we see in the Southeast VC/Angel scene. Lastly we touch upon the tip of the food iceberg with the Zomato IPO.

With Grab’s release of Q1 results the LLB gang couldn't resist from following up from episode 1 in discussing the performance and health of Grab. This discussion however goes much deeper into the ecosystem and the broad ranging effects from the type of labor developing, and how substantial the results were. With China continuing crackdowns from education, gaming, and music we get to hear more nuanced views on why this is happening and compare systems from the East to the West. Lastly, we briefly discuss two new exciting business models that have been exploding in growth towards the end, BukuKas and BukuWarung.

The maiden voyage of the LLB podcast. Alex Le, Dave Chang, Andrew Gnananantham, and Jianggan Li band together to launch the Low Level Barbarians podcast. A podcast dedicated to discussions and debate about technology, business, startups, economics, society and more! In this episode the barbarians in arms discuss the Grab Spac IPO, Antitrust in China, and the Covid Situation in Southeast Asia.