So, working theory: businesses reflect the capital structure of their ecosystems (like how animals evolve to fit their environments), and judging an ecosystem for not having enough startups is a bit like saying there aren’t enough polar bears in a tropical rainforest.
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Silicon Valley is set up to spit out venture-funded startups, the same way that South East Asia is set up to create family-run conglomerates that expand via JVs.
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SV investors are primed to look for the next Stripe; SEA investors are primed to look for the next Wilmar International.
(Not entirely accurate; because an existing conglomerate might want to get in on the action by doing a JV with the small business; but directionally right).
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Wilmar is one of the more focused ones... professional and focused on palm oil. YTL, Berjaya, or any of the smaller Singapore banks might be examples?
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But Robert Kuok bought Wilmar a few years after his nephew founded it. I was going for that as an analogy!
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Oic. Longtime Wilmar shareholder lol... never quite regained its heights.
Would be interested to know about capital efficiency of family conglomerates versus venture backed... and other metrics. I’m sure there’s a big corpus of lit on this.
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