My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn
Welcome to 2025! It’s been a few months - let’s unpack that.
1. WORK: Thousands of Meetings at Matchups, Asia Tour
2. EXPERIENCES: Asia, BJJ Brown Belt, Coding, Expectation
3. CULTURE: Health Shows, Digital Art
4. THOUGHTS: US Elections, What is Worth Learning?
I ran four VC/Founder virtual matchmaking events in 2024. They attracted over 1,500 investors and close to 2,500 founders, leading to thousands of meetings. While it’s impossible to know how many deals happened, SOSV alone invested in 8 startups we met through those events, making them our single largest source.
The climate tech events in Singapore, HK, Seoul and Tokyo went well with 50-100+ investors participating. Those markets are definitely behind the US and EU in the climate space, but interest is rising. For the cultural part, see below.
In addition to quick stops in SG, HK and Seoul I took 10 days off in Japan. The timing was great and the yen at a 20-year low. It was also my first “long vacation” there in 2 decades after living there for 4 years. Fortunately I managed to maintain my Japanese language skills, which made the trip super easy :)
Among the highlights (in no particular order):
Beautiful maple and gingko leaves in Matsushima (ya!). I initially hoped to see red leaves in Akita but it was already too far North. Fortunately the Japan Weather Association track 775 spots for foliage and helped me course-correct.
Cat cafe (in Seoul) and Shiba cafe (in Kyoto). I did not visit the owl cafe, the bengal cat cafe, the mini-pig cafes — all in Kyoto.
Kabuki experience in Kyoto. Explanations about origins (it was all female!), costumes, makeup, sound effects (early foley)
Convenience stores are as great as usual, with much better quality and healthier options than abroad. ATMs for foreign cards were also a life savior.
Jimjilbang (Korean spa) in Seoul. Chill time.
Digital art museum by TeamLab in Tokyo (their Singapore show is a bit crap compared to their Tokyo ones).
K-pop performance featuring the son of a Korean friend. He is a trained musician but started dancing 2 years ago. He just signed a 4-year contract to try to become a star with a group.
Louise Bourgeois show at the Mori Arts Museum in Roppongi Hills. Quite a few cool pieces - including a revisit of Charcot’s hysteria.
Among the changes I noticed in Japan:
A LOT of tourists in famous spots. I mostly avoided those areas. Japan is adapting to it as their tourism ratio is still quite low (25M for 125M or 1:5 vs. 100M for 68M in France or 1:0.7).
Many foreign staff in convenience stores and restaurants (from their name tags, mostly South Asians, Koreans, Chinese). They all seemed to speak quite good Japanese. Japan’s birthrate is at 1.26 (Korea at 0.78) and average age at 49.4 so it looks like they relaxed immigration a bit - we’re at a peak with 3.5 million for 124.5 million (still only 2.8% vs. 13.8% in the US).
Worse English? It was never great, and while the olympics might have helped improve in the hospitality sector, it felt like Japan had turned more insular than before. Korea was the opposite. Note that I only used English occasionally.
Cash is sometimes the only option and foreign cards are sometimes not working, while China is all digital — and even in Lisbon where I live I rarely use cash or even plastic cards.
I received my brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Frankly I don’t think I put as much sustained effort into any skill or hobby ever before (even in learning Japanese). Impostor syndrome struck again, but the professors said to everyone “if you don’t know why you’re receiving this belt, we do”. I feel the target on my back just grew larger, in a gym where most people are 10-20 years younger and 10-20 kg heavier (sometimes 30-40kg)… I try to beat enough of them so they don’t notice I’m barely hanging in there ;)
I wasn’t a big shopper but the dirt-cheap prices and creativity of the weird gadgets I found on Temu got to me. I have now ordered dozens of semi-useful things, from a magnetic agitator to the highly-rated toilet light (I ordered several more as gifts). It’s a bit hit or miss but some products turned out to be great.
Toying again with Python code, I managed to build a simple “flappy bird” game in 2 hours, with graphics and background music using ChatGPT (it used the popular gamepy library). It’s not GTA or COD but the development speed impressed me (and some tech savvy friends). Further thoughts on this in the last part of this newsletter.
I’m part of the expecting team as we are pregnant with a boy due in February. I’m discovering the joys of getting equipment, medical visits and glucose monitoring. How do you get enough D, B12, choline, as well as C to absorb enough Fe, and keep your glucose in check? (the answer for the latter: an over-the-counter CGM patch - it’s quite educative to track). A little anecdote: Japan and Korea offer cute tags to pregnant women that help get priority seats or entry in various locations. Japan introduced them almost 20 years ago. It was a proud moment to get them, and I doubt many tourists did!
After School Doctor (Netflix)***
Surprisingly good! This unassuming Japanese drama features a young and grumpy pediatrician sent to work at a primary school due to an issue at his hospital. Each episode deals with some issue the children face and hit me in the feels with its “Mr Rogers” vibes. It also reminded me of the Korean movie “My Teacher, Mr. Kim” I liked years ago.
Respect*** (Netflix)
A biopic of Aretha Franklin — true singing & musicianship!
Joy*** (Netflix)
An interesting movie about the invention of in-vitro fertilization. Despite government, church and sometimes public opinion resistance (including James Watson of DNA fame), the first IVF baby was born in 1978, followed by millions (about 2% of US babies) and a Nobel prize in Medicine in 2010 - a tad late as 2 of the 3 inventors had passed away.
Don’t Die** (Netflix)
If you’re already familiar with Bryan Johnson’s longevity antics, the main novelty is the personal aspects, notably his religious upbringing and relation with his youngest son. If you’re not, you might be surprised by the extent of this modern health explorer’s commitment to finding a solution to aging, and marketing his journey to the masses. For the busy crowd: exercise, sleep, eating right (+ avoid sugar, alcohol, smoking).
The City of Wine***
An educative and experiential exhibition about wine, in the city of Bordeaux. I was intrigued by the “fake” wines (some not even involving grape) which plagued the market until more controls were introduced.
TeamLab: Borderless**
Digital art rarely gives me much emotion, but some of the Tokyo installations of TeamLab, a team of Japanese “ultra-technologists” were quite thrilling. Note that they also have a show in Singapore which is unfortunately not as good.
As a French living in Lisbon I didn’t really have a horse in this race, but I am wondering what the first batch of executive orders will be, what the DOGE department headed by Elon and Vivek will come up with, and what RFK Jr. will do with healthcare. My native France is generally trailing 10-20 years behind the US on social and political movements so it might be a window into its future.
With tools like ChatGPT offering instant (albeit sometimes flawed) knowledge, the question arises: how much "theoretical" learning is necessary before diving into creation?
If you want to make music, should you spend years in a music school? Or should you simply sing your ideas into a microphone and use software to refine them?
If you dream of building a computer game, is it essential to study computer science? Or could you collaborate with tools like ChatGPT or Claude to develop your vision, learning what you need along the way?
This question speaks to both the present and the future of learning.
Do we need solid foundational knowledge to begin?
Or should we prioritize curiosity and playfulness as the core drivers of education? After all, many top musicians today can’t read sheet music or play an instrument, but they can recognize good sounds and transform raw ideas into polished art.
Similarly, when I created my small game, my primary role was guiding the process—providing instructions and reviewing a bit of code—rather than writing it myself. The friction was minimal.
Tools are both enabling and limiting — if I have a hammer… — but could provide not only the reward of faster creations, but also a better on-ramp to deeper interest.
On those thoughts, onward to 2025!
— Ben
