Hello everyone! 你好呀！Apa kabar?
My name is James Chan - anti-disciplinary investor, entrepreneur and all-round hustler. I'm a 36-year old ethnic Chinese born and bred in Singapore with a 4-year stint in the United States for my Bachelor and Masters, after which I returned to Singapore and have based myself out of since. I used to be an introvert for much of my growing up years and became an ambivert by a series of circumstances around the ages of 27 through 29. My professional role requires me to take the reins and speak a ton, but I'd very much prefer to relax on a couch with my book or smartphone whizzing around virtual realms or the interweb.
Pic 1 - I stumble across a trolley of frozen tuna in Tsukiji and ask for a rare photo of myself to be taken with one of my fav food
I wear a couple of hats in my multi-dimensional life; as an entrepreneur, I spend all of my waking moments working on Wecash (since Sep '16) and Silicon Straits (circa Nov '12) in Asia Pacific, as I trapeze through the cities of Singapore, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh, Delhi, Mumbai and Beijing.
As an investor, I maintain our remaining unrealised portfolio in Neoteny Labs (final close Jan '11), a US$5M seed fund I started and raised with Joichi Ito in May '10 which has since returned 1.35 times of capital to LPs and GPs, and continues to have significant unrealised assets under our management. Post-Neoteny Labs, I wrote angel-sized cheques out of the Silicon Straits balance sheet, investing into companies and funds such as Burpple, Neoteny 3, HipVan, Caarly (acq. by Carousell), Ztore, Carro, One Eight Technologies, PolicyPal, Udu, Pixel Labs and SurePark. These days, I only invest in companies I operate or build teams to operate. I also invest in cryptocurrencies.
As a citizen of Singapore, I contribute to The Birthday Book and its community, The Birthday Collective. It's a non-profit I continue to be a core member of. We produce an annual collection of 800-to-1200-word essays by a curated list of volunteers that matches Singapore's birthday, hence the name "The Birthday Book". I spend most of my weekdays on the road and usually return to Singapore only on weekends. Apart from my family, this initiative is my only other anchor that gets me to continue to care for my home and country.
As an individual, I'm a father of three and try to sneak whatever time I can eke out from my bankrupt schedule to pen thoughts - previously on Medium, and henceforth, only on Steemit! I also try to sneak some time in to read, play computer/mobile games, hone photography, travel and gorge on good food. I've been largely a letdown to my friends due to my lack of time, and cannot thank my wife and kids enough for putting up with my mental and physical absence. All I can say is that I'm working hard on being a better husband and father.
Pic 2 - My 3 kids bring a smile to my face every time I think of them or see them.
I was cracking my head for a good blog title to jumpstart my Steemit presence and settled for a play on Aldous Huxley's ageless dystopian classic. I don't think blockchain, decentralised ledger technology or cryptocurrencies will play a pivotal role in getting us to an international scientific empire that manufactures citizens via eugenics in laboratories sans sex. I do think there's great potential here for crypto to bring about a new awakening and decoupling akin to the Internet - best embodied by select crypto-economies such as Steemit, Ethereum, Bitcoin and a few others - but also remain cautious given the sheer amount of shill-coins that raise insane amounts of money on the back of the crypto-bubble. I find the speculative nature of most cryptocurrencies to be a zero-sum game that can cause things to get worse before they get better; very different from the regenerative commons that is the Internet, where every additional user does not add beta and instead strengthens positive network effects without materially depleting much of the Internet Commons.
I'd like to end my introductory Steemit post by sharing with you a Chinese phrase I picked up from watching Fan Bing Bing's "The Empress of China" - 不问前程凶吉，但愿落幕无悔. It loosely translates as: "Don't ponder if the road ahead will be filled with wins or fails. Just live without regrets. YOLO!!" It's with this spirit that I approach much of life and crypto.
Thank you for staying up with me, and let me know what else you'd like to read from me in your comments!