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08-11-2021, 11:18 AM
As a global investor, I look around the world for the best companies.
A company is the basic unit in an economy that organises your hunan resource into a productive competitive unit.
From my evaluation of companies in many countries the problem is rarely the lack of talent but lack of leading entrepreneurs.
Very small countries like Israel , Taiwan, Ireland etc are able to produce world beating companies with what ever talent they find where they initially set up. Morris Chang who started TSMC return to Taiwan and tapped on local electronics graduates and grew TSMC into a global giant.
Iscar the world leading tool company owned by Buffett hires people from the small town where it set up tapping talent not from Technion or leading Israeli universities but nearby local universities.
These are not the exceptions but the rule. It is how human capital is used and developed within a company that is important. Companies in fields that need top global talents to compete are in the minority and often takes place in the later stage of the company's growth story.
Now let's turn to Singapore which embarked on global talent hunt for decades believing success can only come by having the best talent in the world. After many decades of doing this to the point that 40% of the work force is foreign, where are the world beating companies? It can be counted on one hand!
We know from their speeches and policies that Singapore leaders feel that Singaporeans are inadequate to realise their global ambitions. They want a free hand to import as many foreigners as they want. It is the constraint of land, transport and infrastructure that limited them.
One just needs to look at what is happening in our companies to see if such policies are working. Look at our stock exchange, our blue chips. The largest companies today are more or less the same as 20yrs ago. Whereas in Taiwan and US, 90% of the largest 20 companies today were not on the list 20yrs ago.
We cannot import talents to make up for our lack of entrepreneurship and leadership. These talents are just job seekers and nothing if great future value will be created
A company is the basic unit in an economy that organises your hunan resource into a productive competitive unit.
From my evaluation of companies in many countries the problem is rarely the lack of talent but lack of leading entrepreneurs.
Very small countries like Israel , Taiwan, Ireland etc are able to produce world beating companies with what ever talent they find where they initially set up. Morris Chang who started TSMC return to Taiwan and tapped on local electronics graduates and grew TSMC into a global giant.
Iscar the world leading tool company owned by Buffett hires people from the small town where it set up tapping talent not from Technion or leading Israeli universities but nearby local universities.
These are not the exceptions but the rule. It is how human capital is used and developed within a company that is important. Companies in fields that need top global talents to compete are in the minority and often takes place in the later stage of the company's growth story.
Now let's turn to Singapore which embarked on global talent hunt for decades believing success can only come by having the best talent in the world. After many decades of doing this to the point that 40% of the work force is foreign, where are the world beating companies? It can be counted on one hand!
We know from their speeches and policies that Singapore leaders feel that Singaporeans are inadequate to realise their global ambitions. They want a free hand to import as many foreigners as they want. It is the constraint of land, transport and infrastructure that limited them.
One just needs to look at what is happening in our companies to see if such policies are working. Look at our stock exchange, our blue chips. The largest companies today are more or less the same as 20yrs ago. Whereas in Taiwan and US, 90% of the largest 20 companies today were not on the list 20yrs ago.
We cannot import talents to make up for our lack of entrepreneurship and leadership. These talents are just job seekers and nothing if great future value will be created
I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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