Growing Airbnb in APAC: Kum Hong’s Journey from Employee #2 in APAC to COO of Airbnb’s China Office

In this episode of Business Beyond Borders, we had the privilege of interviewing Siew Kum Hong, a seasoned professional whose journey spans across diverse landscapes, with impactful roles at prominent organisations such as Rajah and Tann, Yahoo, Airbnb and more. Starting as a lawyer at R&T, he quickly transitioned to an in-house legal counsel, contributing to Yahoo during its formative years and glory days.

Kum Hong’s journey took a defining turn with Airbnb, where he spent a decade driving the company’s APAC expansion as employee number 2, eventually culminating in his role as China COO with significant involvement in the China office. Today, Kum Hong is an Advisor to Airbnb, as well as the Board Member of GoZayaan, a travel tech startup.

In this episode, we discuss: 

- Kum Hong’s journey from law school to his leadership stint at Airbnb
- Transitioning from legal to business leadership
- Managing the China team and China market during COVID
- Implementing strategies unique to the Chinese marketplace
- Insights and advice for startups

Links:

Bluente's Website: https://www.bluente.com/

Kum Hong’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siewkumhong/

Our Socials: @bluente.official (Instagram and Tik Tok)

Transcript

Podcast: Business Beyond Borders - A Podcast By Bluente

Episode Title: Kum Hong

Host(s): Daphne

Guest(s): Kum Hong

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Daphne (Host) | 00:00:00 to 00:00:31

Welcome to another episode of Business Beyond Borders. Today. We are very excited to have with us Siew Kum Hong, a seasoned professional with more than 20 years of experience, where his career started out as a practicing lawyer at Rajah and Tann with a focus on intellectual property and tech law before he leveraged his experiences to join tech companies including Yahoo Asia, as well as the Airbnb APAC office as their in-house legal counsel. One of key highlights of Kum Hong's career is his time at Airbnb APAC office, which will spend a bit more time diving deeper.

Daphne (Host) | 00:00:31 to 00:01:32

In our podcast episode today, Kum Hong was the employee number two of the Airbnb APAC office, helping to drive the APAC business expansion plans, which then culminated in his role as the COO of Airbnb's China office. Today he remains as an advisor to the Airbnb China Office and is also very active in the startup field as both an angel investor as well as advisor to multiple startups. Beyond the corporate realm, Kum Hong's influence also extends to the public service sector, where he was the Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore, championing social justice causes, and he was also the Vice President of MARUAH Singapore, which is a Singapore-registered NGO focusing on human rights issues. I'm personally always very inspired by Kum Hong's humility, drive as well as how he thinks about his career journey, and I can't wait for him to share more with the audience here today. Welcome Kum Hong, to today's episode.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:01:32 to 00:01:47

Thanks Daphne. Very excited to be here. Thank you so much. Yeah, maybe you can start off by sharing a bit more about what keeps you busy today. So thank you for that kind of history of my career.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:01:47 to 00:02:18

So I spent ten years at Airbnb, 2012 to 2022, and time was right for me to move on. So that was last year, and so I decided I wanted to take a break. And when I started taking a break, I realized that, wow, I really needed this break more than I had imagined. And so, first piece of advice for everyone is if you get a chance to take a break in your working life, please do that. So valuable.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:02:18 to 00:02:36

It's so amazing you get to recharge. And it's been a year, I'm beginning to get a little bit restless, really thinking about what to do next. And right now I spend my time, about 25% is actually with my mom. Okay. She had a kind of a health issue.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:02:36 to 00:02:58

She's much better now, doing much better. That's good to hear. But because I had all this free time, I could take her to the doctor, spend time with her, help her with her rehab after her surgery, so I continue doing that. 25% of my time is, I guess, self care, exercise and things like that. I try and exercise every day, so I've grown to really enjoy that.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:02:58 to 00:03:37

And the remainder of my time, actually just reading, trying to stay current but also I do some angel investing and advising founders and that's something that I really have enjoyed. It's just so much fun working with smart, committed, energetic, passionate people. I've been getting energy from that and just very happy to be able to give back. 

Daphne (Host) | 00:03:37 to 00:03:54

Yeah, I think everyone can always learn a lot from the wisdom that you share. So always very thankful to hear about the advice that you have given me and also other startup founders. Maybe would love for you to share also a little bit more about your career journey. I gave a brief introduction, but I don't think that does it justice. Maybe share a little bit more about your career journey and what maybe the key milestones that brought you to where you are today. 

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:03:55 to 00:04:22

So quick. Kind of rundown. I was born in Singapore, grew up here, lived here, actually lived here pretty much my whole life and went to law school in Singapore. And so when I came out, did like four years at Rajah and Tann. And actually from the very start, I knew I wanted to do technology law because I've always loved technology, love computers as a kid, a bit of a nerd, before that was cool. Came out, started my own firm with a couple of friends and that was like, four years.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:04:22 to 00:04:28

So I was an entrepreneur for a year. Decided that, wow, this is a terrible way to make money.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:04:30 to 00:04:46

It's not so much I wasn't getting work, I had a lot too much work. And I decided to actually go in-house. So spent time in a software company, decided enterprise is not for me. Spent five and a half years at Yahoo in a variety of roles. That was very fun. Right.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:04:46 to 00:04:58

And then in 2012, I had the opportunity to join Airbnb as lawyer no. 4 globally. And I wanted to work in a startup, just try, see what the experience is like. Which year was that? 2012. Okay, right.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:04:58 to 00:05:18

So it's October 2012, 1st Lawyer in APAC and then that's just like really joining a rocket ship. It was just so amazing. So I built the team, the legal team for APAC. By the time I left, we had, I don't know, like 15 people or something. Nice.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:05:18 to 00:05:39

And I got the opportunity in 2017 to move over into the business in Airbnb. So, 2017 to 2020, I ran the APAC region. And from 2020 to 2022, my last two years, I was running our China business. Okay. Which is super fun because in China I actually had everything kind of rolling up into me.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:05:39 to 00:06:01

I had Ops, product, data, science, engineering, marketing, like everything. So I was responsible for everything. It was pretty challenging because that was during COVID. But I learned so much during that period. I got to do so much. I think that period will probably always be one of the most transformational professional experiences I can ever have.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:06:01 to 00:06:24

Just by the speed variety and the amount of learning I had to do. Yeah. And how is it like since you spent a big part of your career in the legal sector, how is it like transitioning into business? Yeah, I have to confess, and I have kind of told people this, including I was reporting to the founder. I've told my founder, I've told the global head of HR this.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:06:24 to 00:06:30

You know in my first, maybe one and a half years as a business leader, I don't think I was very good.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:06:33 to 00:06:54

If I were charitable, it'd probably be a C minus. You're too humble. There are some things I did well, but knowing what I now know, looking back, there were actually a lot of things I didn't do that well. So that was a difficult transition. I was super fortunate because it happened within Airbnb.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:06:54 to 00:07:23

I'm not sure I would have had the same opportunity elsewhere or the same amount of runway elsewhere, but within Airbnb, I was respected and I was trusted, so I had the room to learn. And during that period also, we actually did have some great operators in the business. So I learned from some really world class operators. One of you know, joined from Amazon, I reported to him. He was you know.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:07:24 to 00:07:43

In the first few months, I'm like, I actually happened to be going on sabbatical. So I was on sabbatical. I came back, I was like, oh my God, he's going to fire me when I come back, because this thing but I ended up learning so much from him. And by the time he left, one of the nicest things anyone ever said about me. Because when he left, he had a call with all his directors and he said, Kum Hong,

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:07:43 to 00:08:08

your superpower is that you can learn so much. And that was such a beautiful thing for him to say because he's like to me like, wow, this guy is a world class operator. That again, helped me grow so much. And so it's tough. But I'll say one thing that was really helpful for me is that I knew that I didn't know. Right.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:08:09 to 00:08:40

I knew that I hadn't operated before, all this was new. And so it allowed me to kind of be more open-minded, have more of a growth mindset because I didn't have any kind of preconceived notions about how things should be done. So I got to learn. And also I learned to just question everything and think about everything through first principles, which made me a challenging person to work for because I would always like for my team, they all know this. I ask them why. I ask why a lot, but trying to get back into the first principle, and I think over time, that has turned out to be very powerful. Yeah. 

Daphne (Host) | 00:08:40 to 00:09:10

And on the flip side, how did your legal experience lend itself well to helping you lead and drive business operations? 

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:09:10 to 00:09:45

You know, towards the end of my career as a lawyer, this is when I was leading the legal team in Airbnb, I realized that I wasn't actually I don't know what other in house lawyers in that experience is like. I realized that I wasn't actually kind of dealing with hardcore legal knowledge anymore. A lot of it was managing the team, managing the internal organi - navigating the internal organization, but also ultimately getting to a place where actually taking my understanding of the business and the business objectives and taking that and applying logic to the legal kind of advice that we're getting to try and figure out what's the direct solution. Right. So you know the law doesn't exist in a vacuum. The law is the means to an end.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:09:45 to 00:10:21

And that's actually what I learned through my legal career. And you know, when I transitioned to the business, what was really powerful was that training to think logically, to get down to learning how to get down to principles, to distill the question. There's a concept or whatever, can't remember, in product or whatever, there's a concept of an Eigenquestion, which is the question that is, when you're dealing with a situation, what is that one core question that if you answer, will resolve everything else. Okay. Right.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:10:21 to 00:10:43

And actually the law actually does teach you to try and figure out what is the one core question that will actually solve for the issue. So that was something that turned out to be super helpful. Yeah, that's very interesting. We can also apply it while I'm also running here. Yeah, I was send you this podcast where I first learned about it.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:10:43 to 00:11:12

I was like, okay, that was a real unlock. Yeah. Diving deeper into your experiences at Airbnb, I'm sure being one of the early employees here in this region, you would have witnessed a lot of growth, but also faced a lot of challenges that you and your team would have to overcome. Could you share with us what are some of these challenges that you have faced or your team has faced? Well, maybe kind of maybe speaking a little bit more on well, actually I'll speak a little bit more on both legal and business side.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:11:13 to 00:11:30

But I think the starting point is that actually Asia is not a single country. It's not actually a region. Right. It's a geography. Yes, but it's a geography that's a collection of many different countries with very different cultures, traditions, economies, stages of development.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:11:31 to 00:11:51

So if you think about kind of the different regions, right. The US. is monolithic-ish. Europe is diverse as well. But actually there's quite a lot more commonality in terms of tradition compared to Asia. But Asia, everything is different.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:11:52 to 00:12:06

And so you got to remember that in mind because there are implications both on the legal side as well as the business side. On the legal side, firstly, there's common law and there's civil law. And in civil law there are different flavors. Right. And I was a common lawyer.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:12:07 to 00:12:45

I didn't study civil law in law school, so I had to really kind of scale up quickly, especially because actually a lot of my work was focusing first on Japan and Korea and then on China. And these are civil law systems. So understanding that there's this intense diversity in the region also means that you've got to be versatile and adaptable. Broadly, the similar techniques can take you a long way. But I will say that I have definitely made decisions that were surprising to outside council in some of these countries.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:12:46 to 00:13:09

So, for example, I'm not going to name the country, but there is a country which is known for having regulators that are pretty aggressive in enforcement. Actually, most companies don't resist. And so the advice from the law firm came back, hey, we think that you got a pretty strong case, but most companies don't resist, they just comply. So we recommend you comply as well. I, as you know, coming from a different tradition, looked at this like, no, we fight this.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:13:09 to 00:13:23

So we fought this. We have won every single stage repeatedly. We've won everything. The law is on our side. Yes, but the regulator was so not used to people pushing.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:13:23 to 00:13:49

Yeah, and it's like a specific officer, he keeps coming back and again and again and again. This is like oh, my God. And when I was leaving, I thought, guys, I'm sorry, but we were in the right, but I'm sorry I left you with this. Some of these things you got to learn and be I guess I wasn't humble enough, but be humble to know, actually pick the battles that you want to fight. That's on the legal side.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:13:49 to 00:14:01

On the business side, I think Airbnb was an MNC. So it was really challenging explaining to HQ how different Asia can be.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:14:04 to 00:14:34

And every time there's a turnover, that's like, okay, fine, we've got to educate these people all over again that Japan is different from Australia, it's different from India and so on. So that took a lot of time. And actually the different stages of the market we've got really developed countries all the way to like real frontier markets also meant that we've got to just be realistic about the playbooks, the tactics and the level of investment that you want to put in. Right. Questions?

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:14:34 to 00:14:55

I would apply kind of concepts like product market fit for each country because you may have product market fit in some countries but not in others. So, yeah, things like that. Okay. 

Daphne (Host) | 00:14:56 to 00:15:18

And you also mentioned that the APAC region is kind of a collection of geographies and countries put together. And with that there would definitely be cultural nuances as well. And in relation to that, then the teams will also naturally be more diverse. How do you kind of bridge the diversity within teams and lead them to charge ahead? 

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:15:19 to 00:15:50

I used to get this question quite a bit. And my answer this was when I was leading the APAC region for Airbnb. My answer for them was this: Let's start with the company's values. The company as a global company had a set of core values, set of common expectations. And to me, that is the core, that's to be true everywhere. But on top of that, in each country and each office, you're going to have your own local traditions, local culture, and so that is what makes you layer that on top of it. And that combination means that every office is unique and different. And yet you should know there it's an Airbnb office when you go into it.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:15:51 to 00:16:10

And similarly in the ways of working. Each country team may have everyone has their own challenges, which are different, but each country team may have certain different ways of approaching things. But at the core, it's the same product. It's a global platform. And we do expect that, hey, you might localize some of the playbooks, but you start with the same global playbook.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:16:10 to 00:16:42

Right. So it's the understanding that's kind of really important to allow you to do that, and also just being intentional about communicating that out to people so that then they start to understand, oh, okay. Yeah. So for this stuff, it's going to be globally consistent, but this is the box that we have to play in to make it more local, and that may not suit everyone. We've definitely had people feel like, oh, wow, this like global call, oh that's not for me.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:16:42 to 00:16:55

To me, it's fine. Right. As long as both sides had kind of acted in good faith, good intent, and sometimes things don't work out, but if it's not a good fit, it's not a good fit. I wish you well. Right, yeah.

Daphne (Host) | 00:16:55 to 00:17:24

That must have been quite interesting journey to drive everyone together and maybe sort of wanting to dive a bit deeper into your experience as the COO in the Airbnb China office. That must have been quite interesting. I mean, both moving towards the business side of things, but also managing China as a country and a market. And also at the same time, that was you mentioned during COVID period, so that must have been quite a challenge or quite an interesting experience. How was it like for you?

Daphne (Host) | 00:17:24 to 00:17:43

And what were some of the things that you've noticed about the market over your time leading it? 

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:17:45 to 00:18:10

I should also add that during this COVID period, I was actually based in Singapore. Okay. So I was actually running the team over Zoom right. Which made it more challenging, but it turned out that it was doable. So I took the role running the China business in June 2020. Okay. But actually, earlier in my career, for about ten months between 2017 and 2018, I was also the interim head of China because there's a leadership transition, I filled the gap until we brought in the new leader. And at that time, I was like, going to China a lot. Sunday night radi back,

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:18:10 to 00:18:33

Thursday night radi back. Pretty intense. But it was also during this period that we brought in a lot of leaders. And so these were the people who were still in place when I kind of came back in June 2020 so that I had existing relationships, I had a reputation, people knew me, I had a lot of trust with me. So that allowed me to kind of run the team from Singapore over Zoom.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:18:33 to 00:18:43

If not, it's impossible. In the end, I did make a trip there, right? I did a quarantine as well. That's kind of the background. But that also made it more challenging.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:18:46 to 00:19:22

So much of my career at Airbnb was tied up with China as a lawyer. I worked on market entry, I got the license, set up entities, did all that. A lot of regulatory stuff to work through. And so, in a way, I am fond of China because so much of my professional success has been tied to China, so much of my growth as well. And very quickly, I actually realized the China today may be different from this, but at least in the past, China was like incredibly dynamic, right?

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:19:22 to 00:19:42

Had all these incredibly smart, talented people who are super driven. If you just think about just the law of numbers, right? China had like 1.4 billion people bell curve distribution in terms of talent, even the top 10% is 140,000,000 people. And so many of them will be concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, right? Tier one cities.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:19:42 to 00:20:09

And so it's just like the sheer density of talent was stunning. And so I was very impressed by our China team. I was super impressed. And I just love working with them. During that period in COVID, the same experience, I was like, wow, all these people are so smart. But you're still gotta understand that the China market, especially on the online space, is so different, completely different self players.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:20:09 to 00:20:28

There's no Facebook. You get really, especially working in the MNC, you get really used to like, okay, VPN works most of the time. Sometimes it just dies and it's like, okay, I don't know what I'm going to do, but instead WeChat and Ali and so on. So it was kind of an ecosystem is very different.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:20:29 to 00:20:47

And in the past, you could actually make direct comparisons. Oh, WeChat is like Facebook of China. Increasingly you can't make those comparisons because China is increasingly diverging, in fact, in some ways increasingly leading the world. In terms of consumer behavior, TikTok and Douyin is the most obvious example.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:20:49 to 00:21:17

You just have to learn that landscape, learn the companies, learn the behavior, learn what happens. I've spent a lot of time doing that, a lot of effort doing that. And the other thing is the market moves so fast and competition is so intense. So remember I said earlier, hey, you've got a global core doing a global playbook, and then you localize. China was a bit of an exception because we set China up as a standalone unit to be more independent, to move faster so that we could move faster.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:21:17 to 00:21:45

That was exactly why that's also why I had engineering and so on. And so we had to adapt. And two of the things I'll share one thing was firstly, you do have to adapt to local needs. And so the way that we were managing our supply in China was very different from how we would manage supply anywhere else. So I've been responsible for supply in APAC.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:21:45 to 00:22:01

I was responsible for supply in China. I looked at it, I was like, wow, this is so different. It is much more of a managed marketplace. But that's because in China, almost all the marketplaces are managed that way, right? So that was actually a lot of learning.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:22:01 to 00:22:04

And then the other thing was also realized that look, we have local competitors.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:22:08 to 00:22:41

I put in place a strategic shift because I was like, look, I can't play the same game that the local competitors are playing because we're probably going to lose. We are faster than the rest of Airbnb, but we're slower than them because we're still part of MNC. So I realized that, look, you got to play a different game, you got to understand what your strengths are, and then you have to have a different strategy. And that took some time to socialize with the team to explain why and get them behind it. But I think folks understood and they were very keen on this new strategy.

Daphne (Host) | 00:22:41 to 00:23:17

Very nice. And from a product angle, were there some things that you remember that you had implemented to actually help to adapt the product to the Chinese market? 

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:23:18 to 00:23:45

There was one thing that we did actually at Airbnb China that never got rolled out elsewhere in Airbnb, although there was a lot of interest in what we were doing, there was actually monetization promoted, what do we call it, host paid promos. Okay, so essentially host advertising. Okay. So the China marketplace was very different from global marketplace in the sense that most of the supply in China was quite professionalized. In the rest of the world, the supply was much less. The proportion of professional host was much less. So because of those differences and dynamics, we were confident that we could launch a paid promo product where essentially the host will advertise because they are used to it and they know how to do it right. And they did it on other platform.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:23:46 to 00:24:10

And so we actually built a product. It was very kind of machine learning driven, relied a lot on the models. Actually it was very successful. It was actually really successful. We grew a meaningful revenue stream from the paid promotions without actually affecting quality in the marketplace.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:24:10 to 00:24:30

And we were very glad for it. And there was a lot of interest from global, but because for a lot of global reasons, they have not launched it. But I actually think that and Brian Chesky has been on record as saying that it's something that they will look at just not. So that was one thing that we did such a great learning experience. Yeah, I'm sure.

Daphne (Host) | 00:24:30 to 00:24:56

And reflecting on your overall type of experience and looking ahead, what advice do you have for companies who are looking to expand to the APAC region? Any advice from maybe a legal as well as regulatory angle? 

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:24:56 to 00:25:07

Yeah, first thing, legal and regulatory, I'll just say that for startups you got to remember a few things. The first thing first and foremost is that you got to grow or you die. Okay. It's grow or die. Yeah. And you can cover all your legal bases, be super locked down and safe. If it means you don't grow, then it doesn't matter. Yeah.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:25:07 to 00:25:22

So for earlier stage startups there's an art in terms of kind of that balancing where you want to come up to the line but not cross it. But you don't know where the line is. Right. But then you have to be prepared to take the risk. Okay.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:25:22 to 00:25:46

Because there is downside risk in not taking those risks either in terms of if you're not growing fast enough. So that's the first thing I would say. Okay. Second thing is that there are some countries that are clearly more challenging from a regulatory perspective than others. I'm not going to name them, but if you talk to any lawyer with any kind of APAC overview, the same few countries always come up.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:25:46 to 00:26:02

Okay. Right. So you're going to know it also happens that those are the countries, those countries have a lot of opportunity. Right. So it then becomes kind of you got to be very intentional about knowing where you can succeed and then kind of phasing and sequencing which one to tackle.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:26:02 to 00:26:33

Right. I think the days of blitzscaling are going to behind us. Okay. So I think startup looking to do to expand you've got to be very intentional if you are expanding out your home market. I would really advise, in most cases, selecting a second market first, primarily it's got to be a meaningful market, but primarily as a use case to test that you can expand to a second market.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:26:34 to 00:27:06

So for example, if the US is like your ultimate goal, don't make the US your second market unless you're very sure that you can make it there. Instead you can pick another market. Just make sure that hey, you know how to run a multi-country business first, then go to the US. Unless there are urgency reasons to go to the US. So you know, things like that you just learn over time because running one country versus multi-country is actually an order of magnitude, more complex. Correct. That's something that we've learned.

Daphne (Host) | 00:27:06 to 00:27:24

Okay. And now looking at you've been spending quite a bit of time in the startup space and also previously in the tech sector. Any advice for startups in terms of how they think about building products? Any advice for them?

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:27:24 to 00:27:48

Yeah, I don't know if I'm look, I advise startups, but you also know that I'm quite clear what I'm good at advising on and what I'm not. So I don't know that I'm not a product expert. I'm still learning that. But I think there are some I do spend a lot of time kind of trying to learn about product and product management, and there are some actually really good resources out there that are free. Okay.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:27:49 to 00:28:07

In terms of giving you framework. Well, some free, some are not free, and that was not the case maybe 8, 10 years ago. Right. So resources like reforge and some podcasts, Lenny's podcast, shout out to Lenny. But all these things exist, right.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:28:07 to 00:28:27

Which is great. Right. So I would say as companies think about product, I think there's one universal theme that comes back, which is, hey, what problem are you solving? Right? And you got to remember that it's very human to very natural and human to go straight to solutioning.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:28:27 to 00:28:45

Oh, this feature is so cool. Oh, this solution makes sense. But if you're not clear what problem you're solving and whether that's the right problem to solve, you could be just wasting cycles. And that's actually something that I'm quite disciplined on in my coaching as well. I will ask, what problem are you trying to solve?

Daphne (Host) | 00:28:45 to 00:29:18

Yes. And last question, thinking back on your career journey, if there's one thing that you might have done differently, what would it be and why? 

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:29:18 to 00:29:42

Yeah, I thought about this for a little while and look, I feel very lucky about where my career has taken me. I feel incredibly lucky, so I have no complaints. But if there's one thing I could have done differently, I would have definitely kind of wanted to spend much more time living overseas. So I mentioned I grew up here in Singapore. I actually spent six months in San Francisco for Airbnb quite early on. But I do think that I would have benefited a lot more if I kind of lived overseas for a more extended period. Those experiences would just have been so valuable. Which country would it be, if I may ask?

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:29:45 to 00:30:17

That's a good question. I think it's maybe situational in the sense of what you want to get out of that. Okay, so for me, not having lived overseas for a really extended time, I was just like, just that experience versus not having done it is the biggest just anywhere. It would've given you a lot of benefit. I will say that I have a point of view that one of the things about living overseas is actually you get to see what the broader world is like, including you get to see what other workforces are like.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:30:18 to 00:30:36

And so there was a point in time when we were wrapping up China, where we were moving people from Singapore to China to do a stint there. Anyone who came to me to ask for my advice was like, you should do it because you're going there. You're competing against the best in the world. And if you succeed there, then you know you're good enough. You know you're on par with the best in the world.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:30:36 to 00:31:05

So if that's the mentality, then really depending on what you know, if you're a banker, go to New York, London right? If you are an engineer, maybe Silicon Valley, although now remote, I don't know. But things like that, I think it's really what you want to get out of it. And when I say that experience, it's not just a different way of life like hiking on the weekend. But it's also just knowing that you've competed against the best and you know that you can make it.

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:31:05 to 00:31:24

And it's not an ego thing. One of the things that I found very valuable is this idea of knowing what good looks like. And when you work with the best, you know what good looks like, right? And then you can bring that with you throughout the rest of your career, and that's very powerful. Yeah.

Daphne (Host) | 00:31:24 to 00:31:39

Okay, that wraps up today's episode. Thank you, Kum Hong, thank you so much for making time and sharing with us all your insights and also, as always, the wisdom that you have gained from all your past career experiences. Thank you so much for joining us today. 

Kum Hong (Guest) | 00:31:39 to 00:31:40

Thanks, Daphne, for having me. It was so fun.

Daphne (Host) | 00:31:44 to 00:31:46

Thank you so much.