Analyse Podcast

Bernard Leong

A weekly podcast exploring the pulse of business, technology, and media worldwide. Hosted by Bernard Leong, the show features in-depth conversations with leading journalists, executives, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders on the ideas and forces shaping global markets — from Asia to the rest of the world.

  1. Inside Singapore's AI Bet for 2030 with Kiren Kumar

    3D AGO

    Inside Singapore's AI Bet for 2030 with Kiren Kumar

    Fresh out of the studio, Bernard Leong sits down with Kiren Kumar, Deputy Chief Executive of the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) Singapore, for a conversation on how Singapore is building trusted AI at national scale. Kiren traces IMDA's arc from the 2018 Model AI Governance Framework to the Agentic AI framework launched at Davos this year, the four AI missions — advanced manufacturing, finance, connectivity, and healthcare — anchoring the next strategic bound, and the programs moving enterprises from pilots to production. He argues the real blocker is leadership rather than policy, that trust is Singapore's enduring competitive moat, and that the country must shift from 10% productivity gains to 10X transformation. The conversation closes with a preview of ATx Summit 2026 and what great looks like for Singapore's AI economy by the early 2030s."What would be amazing to see in Singapore is, number one, we have our large companies truly transforming themselves and becoming way bigger than they are today in the global competitive landscape—in manufacturing, in finance, in healthcare, and in connectivity. That's one. The second one is we are known globally as an economy where everybody in our workforce is AI-ready. Yeah, is AI fluent. The third thing I'm hoping to see is we have amazing AI native startups being born in our ecosystem, which are global in the niche areas that they can play in. We may not have the next OpenAI, but I'm hoping that we have a lot of new AI native technology companies that are developing products and services and solutions enabled by AI, powered by AI, transforming industries and creating a lot of growth." - Kiren Kumar Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Kiren Kumar from IMDA Singapore[02:24] Origin story — Singapore, Stanford, dotcom crash[05:00] Digital economy now 19% of Singapore's GDP[08:08] Career advice — start at a startup first[09:04] IMDA's four core mandates explained[11:47] Trust as Singapore's enduring brand advantage[12:48] Co-create with industry rather than regulate[14:09] Why agentic AI changes the governance equation[15:18] Pilots versus production — the hard transition[17:18] Forward deployed engineers as scarce commodity[18:55] Why agentic AI needed a separate framework[20:23] SME AI adoption tripled in a single year[21:36] From 10% productivity to 10X transformation[24:20] SME Go Digital — 100,000 SMEs in ten years[25:40] Leadership, not policy, is the real blocker[30:46] National AI Impact Program upskills 100,000[34:50] Four missions — manufacturing, finance, connectivity, healthcare[35:49] Owning the global AI standards layer[38:01] ATx Summit 2026 themes and headliners[41:07] What Singapore must get right by 2030[42:05] AI is a contact sport — just start[44:36] What great looks like — companies, workforce, startups[46:52] ClosingProfile: Kiren Kumar, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Infocomm Media Development Authority (or IMDA), Singapore (LinkedIn) Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the Analyse Podcast show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

    48 min
  2. Inside Pulse ID's Playbook for AI-Driven Banking with Alex Topaloski

    MAY 14

    Inside Pulse ID's Playbook for AI-Driven Banking with Alex Topaloski

    Fresh out of the studio, Alex Topaloski, CEO and Co-founder of Pulse ID joined us in a conversation on his company's customer engagement infrastructure powering Visa's cardholder offers across Asia Pacific. Drawing on Pulse ID's recent white paper, The Age of Knowing, Alex unpacks the three forces reshaping bank loyalty: interchange, partnerships, and intelligence. He explains why banks have solved the data problem but still struggle with engagement, walks through agentic AI architectures and the minimum effective nudge principle, and lays out why Asia-Pacific diversity demands distinct playbooks for Australia, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Closing out, Alex argues the next 12 months belong to banks that prioritize the last mile — where ROI on a decade of data investment finally lands and lays out what great would look life for Pulse ID moving forward. "So we are making that transition from being a system-of-record platform for engagement, loyalty, and rewards to being a system-of-action platform that drives measurable behavioral change. And I think that is quite a big step forward. The efficiencies that clients are able to get—the outcomes, the revenue, ROIs that it can get on interactions—it's something that people are now going to start experiencing." - Alex TopaloskiEpisode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by Alex Topaloski, CEO of Pulse ID[01:13] Introduction: Alex's career journey[03:41] Pulse ID: Infrastructure platforms as invisible organs[06:26] Lifelong learning as the hardest conviction to hold[08:11] What Pulse ID does as a B2B fintech infrastructure company[09:26] Defining the era of intelligence[10:56] Two stages: data architecture, then engagement[12:56] Why super apps deliver smoother journeys than banks[16:11] Why loyalty platforms struggle to absorb new signals[17:26] Why customer engagement is the wrong primary KPI[19:41] MCP as a way to act without seeing the full data[20:26] The Visa, GCash, JCB partnership playbook[22:41] Why move-fast-break-things fails in B2B finance[24:11] Smart pricing as the hardest model to scale[25:26] Operating across Singapore, Japan, ANZ, UAE, Oman[27:56] Multiple AI brains across the stack[29:26] The guardrail principle: AI selects tools, not data[31:11] System of record to system of action[34:11] Where the moat sits when foundation models commoditize[35:56] The Asia-Pacific market diversity playbook[38:41] The boardroom decision in the next 12 months[40:56] What great looks like for Pulse ID[41:41] Book recommendation: The Fountainhead Profile: Alex Topaloski, CEO of Pulse ID Main Site: https://www.pulseid.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/topaloski/ Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

    42 min
  3. From Copier to Innovator: The Tech Titans of China with Rebecca Fannin

    MAY 4

    From Copier to Innovator: The Tech Titans of China with Rebecca Fannin

    "Many of these AI advancements, where the U.S. is more on the innovative theoretical side of creating new models... China's really ahead on commercializing them, and that's their advantage. I think saying that China and the U.S. are equivalent in AI is probably an overstatement. I think the AI center of innovation continues to be in Silicon Valley. This could change—the gap is closing. I do think the U.S. is still ahead, but I think China is catching up."Fresh out of the studio, Bernard Leong reconnects with Rebecca Fannin, founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures and author of Tech Titans of China, six years on from their first conversation about the original landmark book. Rebecca traces China's transformation from copier to innovator, the decoupling of US-China venture capital and the reroute of capital flows toward the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and an AI race where China commercialises while the US theorises. The conversation moves through Chinese EV dominance, humanoid robotics, and semiconductor self-sufficiency, before opening out to a multipolar tech order with India and Saudi Arabia rising. She closes with a hopeful note on reopening US-China collaboration. Episode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by Rebecca Fannin from Silicon Dragon Ventures [01:00] Introduction: Rebecca Fannin [03:00] From copier to innovator: the global perception shift [04:00] BAT plus ByteDance: still the tech titans [05:30] Beyond BAT: TMD, ByteDance, DiDi go global [07:00] Temu and the de minimis tariff hit [09:00] Cross-border VC decouples: Sequoia, GGV split [10:00] Capital reroutes to the Middle East and Singapore [11:30] No more golden era for cross-Pacific VC [12:00] AI, quantum, semiconductor funding dries up [13:00] The 2020-2023 crackdown and Beijing's reset [15:00] Apple's supply chain dependency hard to unwind [16:00] The AI race: Chinese open-source models surge [17:30] China commercialises, the US theorises [18:30] Silicon Valley adopts 996 and Chinese-style attacks [20:30] Chinese EVs surpass Tesla and European makers [22:00] Why Xiaomi built a car where Apple couldn't [22:30] DJI, Unitree, UBTech: China's robotics dominance [24:00] Humanoid robots and the policy maker dilemma [25:00] China's semiconductor self-sufficiency push [25:30] Nvidia export controls and the SMIC question [27:00] What few in the West truly understood five years ago [28:00] Quantum computing as the long-term frontier bet [29:00] Beyond binary: India, ASEAN, Saudi Arabia, Israel [31:30] Why China's rise became the biggest tech story [33:00] Hope for a reopening of US-China collaboration [33:30] Closing Profile: Rebecca Fannin, Author of "The New Tech Titans of China" and Silicon Dragon Ventures LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-fannin-533128/ Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

    38 min
  4. How AI Is Rewriting the Future of Trust and Safety with Yoel Roth

    APR 29

    How AI Is Rewriting the Future of Trust and Safety with Yoel Roth

    "The word I always come back to when I think of the future of trust and safety is governance. We are no longer just making moderation decisions. We're no longer just banning people or deleting posts or removing accounts. We are ultimately responsible for overseeing the health of the platforms and communities that we've created. Especially in an age of AI, I think there's a huge role for the field of trust and safety in overseeing the decisions that AI makes. In a world where we automate more of our decisions, that doesn't mean that we don't have jobs anymore. It means that our jobs change. And our jobs change to being auditors and overseers of automated decisions. And then when we find problems, we're the people who are now responsible for engineering solutions to them." - Yoel RothFresh out of the studio, Yoel Roth, Senior Vice President and Head of Trust and Safety at Match Group, joins Bernard Leong to trace how trust and safety has evolved from a behind-the-scenes function into a board-level discipline. Drawing on his earlier work in Twitter (now known as X) and his current work across the different portfolio companies under Match Group: Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid, Yoel reframes online fraud as an economics problem — why a new face costs scammers more than a new SIM card. He unpacks why anonymity does not cause online abuse, compares the American, European, and Chinese regulatory models, and argues trust and safety belongs alongside customer acquisition cost (CAC) as a growth lever. The future, he closes with what great would look like, is governance — AI shifting practitioners from moderators to auditors. Episode Highlights[00:00] Quote of the Day by Yoel Roth from Match Group[01:13] Introduction: Yoel Roth from Match Group[04:30] Content moderation as governance, not just policy[06:30] A front-row seat to platform governance debates[09:00] Protecting public-facing employees from threats[10:30] First shift in trust and safety: regulation goes global[11:30] Shift: from reactive to proactive[14:30] 98% of Match Group's revenue depends on safety[16:30] Tinder Face Check and the case for friction[18:00] Biggest mistakes in building trust and safety[23:30] Why scammers target dating platforms specifically[26:00] A new face costs more than a new SIM[30:30] AI as decision enablement, not replacement[34:00] Detection plus intervention against AI deepfakes[38:00] Three regulatory regimes shaping the internet[40:00] What regulators misunderstand about dating apps[44:30] Why the future of trust and safety is governance[47:30] Spencer Rascoff and the CAC reframe[49:00] Resilience and mission in trust and safety work[51:30] Closing Profile: Yoel Roth, Senior Vice President, Trust & Safety, Match Group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoelroth/ Personal Website: https://yoyoel.com/ Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

    54 min
  5. From Token2049 to SuperAI: Architecting Global Tech Convergence with Peter Noszek

    APR 20

    From Token2049 to SuperAI: Architecting Global Tech Convergence with Peter Noszek

    Fresh out of the studio, Peter Noszek, co-founder of SuperAI and TOKEN2049 join us on a conversation that maps the widening gap between Silicon Valley's creative intensity and Asia's underutilised compute infrastructure — including 900 megawatts of GPU capacity in Johor, Malaysia sitting at low utilisation because the routing layer between US demand and Asian supply simply doesn't exist yet. Peter introduces Pax Silica, his thesis that Singapore can serve as the neutral ground where fragmented AI communities from East and West converge through curated rooms, cultural bridging, and unreasonable hospitality. They explore why the Bay Area still doesn't understand Asia, the 12-to-18-month window before GPU backlogs clear, Singapore's unique "one to a hundred" positioning for enterprise distribution, and why AI agents — from Coinbase x402 transactions to Meta's agent-to-agent one-on-ones — are already reshaping how coordination happens at scale. "I'm of like a hundred percent conviction that the majority of times when something is not aligned, it's a case of miscommunication. An inability of information to flow properly between people. And in this highly digitalized, highly fragmented and siloed world that we operate in, those things are usually not present. So bringing people into the same room and bringing them into an environment where they feel natural—as long as that room is curated in the right way—that's really going to open up these sort of icebreakers that then lead to creativity, to ideation, and to realizing that we're actually all trying to do the same thing and we're all just trying to make this entire pie grow bigger." - Peter NoszekEpisode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Peter Noszek, co-founder of SuperAI and TOKEN2049[01:21] Peter Noszek's origin story[04:30] SuperAI as bridge across siloed frontier tech nodes[07:34] The Bay Area hive mind and its velocity on AI[08:27] Bay Area fragmentation versus Singapore's unified strategy[10:14] Chinese frontier models: fork on approach, convergence on distribution[14:41] The infrastructure shift from GPUs to energy[17:08] Data centres in space versus a 15-hour flight to Asia[19:15] Pax Silica: composing rooms that break the ice[22:10] The 12 to 18-month window for Asia's underutilised compute[24:13] Gulf energy, European bottlenecks, and the geography of compute[26:00] Is AI in Asian financial services still pilot theatre?[28:42] When does an AI agent stop being a tool?[31:25] Coinbase x402 and AI-agent transactions[32:47] OpenClaude adoption: Singapore ahead of Silicon Valley[33:42] SuperAI 2025 Pulse survey: the agent thesis, called correctly[34:59] SuperAI 2026's six tracks — from frontier models to society[38:26] Collaboration over competition in the paradigm shift[41:16] Five-year view: open models and agent-run logistics[44:32] Closing Profile: Peter Noszek, Co-Founder, SuperAI and Token2049 Conference LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petergnoszek Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Our Official Site: https://www.analysepodcast.com

    48 min
  6. The Agentic SOC: How Splunk Security Transforms Enterprises in the Age of AI with John Morgan

    APR 13

    The Agentic SOC: How Splunk Security Transforms Enterprises in the Age of AI with John Morgan

    Fresh out of the studio with John Morgan, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Splunk Security at Cisco. The conversation unpacks the AI inflection point reshaping security operations — from the explosion of machine data (set to more than double in three years) to the rise of the agentic SOC, where AI agents handle detection, investigation, and response while humans focus on high-stakes decisions. John breaks down why attackers armed with AI now exploit zero-days in hours instead of weeks, why security must start with observability (including the challenge of "shadow AI"), and how CISOs are evolving from technical gatekeepers into board-level business enablers. His parting message: the entire world is learning AI together — get to it with his perspective on what great looks like for Splunk Security moving forward. "The volume is increasing quite a bit. We expect in the next three years it’s gonna double. Attackers do not have a governance of regulatory and compliance restrictions on them. They just go at it and see what works. And so the volume, sophistication, speed of attacks—the only way to defend against it is to automate your responses to it. One thing that folks outside of the industry don’t maybe get is just how large the attack surface is. And how hard it is to stop—attackers need to just find one way in, and you’re trying to defend all ways in." - John MorganEpisode Highlights:[00:00] Quote of the Day by John Morgan from Splunk Security[00:50] John's path from technologist to cybersecurity leader[01:35] Leading Splunk Security: the mandate and mission[02:20] Why Cisco and Splunk have a disproportionate AI advantage[03:18] It's not the technology — it's the human beings[04:26] Why more data demands better curation and context[05:00] AI as both signal generator and attack surface creator[06:12] Where the bottleneck sits: ingestion, analysis, or response[07:10] Splunk at the intersection of observability and security[08:29] The evolving CISO role: gatekeeper to board-level risk officer[10:22] Defining the agentic SOC and where it's heading[12:00] Alert fatigue and how agentic approaches change the dynamic[13:56] Singapore Airlines: real customer outcomes from AI security[14:47] The AI arms race: who has the structural advantage[16:11] What a mature AI-native security platform looks like[17:19] How AI is changing detection from rules-based to correlation[18:35] Advice to CISOs: observe, trust, automate[19:41] The one question John wishes more CISOs would ask[20:22] The next five years — and why five years is too slow[21:20] Closing Profile: John Morgan, GM and SVP, Splunk Security, Cisco LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmorganinc/ Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. This episode is recorded in Poddster Singapore. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast. Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia Analyse Asia Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kkRwzRZa4JCICr2vm0vGl Analyse Asia Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/analyse-asia-with-bernard-leong/id914868245 Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasia Sign Up for Our This Week in Asia Newsletter: https://www.analyse.asia/#/portal/signup Subscribe Newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7149559878934540288

    23 min
  7. Building the World's Largest Podcast Studio Network: Poddster & Podyx with Borko Kovacevic

    APR 1

    Building the World's Largest Podcast Studio Network: Poddster & Podyx with Borko Kovacevic

    Fresh out of the studio, Borko Kovacevic, Co-founder of Poddster and Podyx, joins us to explore how he is building the world's largest podcast studio network and the operating system behind it. He shares his career journey from nearly 17 years at Microsoft across Central Europe and Asia Pacific, to making the entrepreneurial leap and launching Poddster's first flagship studio in Dubai, followed by Singapore. Borko explains how Poddster scaled by treating operations like software — standardizing over the operational framework to run studios from UAE and Singapore to now globally across the world while building a flywheel connecting corporate brands with authentic content creators. He unpacks how Podyx, the software spinoff, hit 24 markets with zero churn on day one. Closing the conversation, Borko shares why frequency and consistency in content creation — not polish — is the single most underestimated edge in the AI era, and what great looks like for Poddster and Podyx as a global studio network and platform. "So what people underestimate is frequency and consistency in posting content beats everything else. Because the future internet is about you being available online and you providing enough content, enough material, that the algorithms learn about you. If they learn enough about you, you will be recommended in searches, you will do better on SEO, you will become more discoverable than anybody else. And that's the part which I think people underestimate." - Borko KovacevicEpisode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Borko Kovacevic [01:00] Introduction: Borko Kovacevic [03:17] The danger of corporate complacency & achieving success too early[07:00] The leap: why he finally decided to leave Microsoft and build something[10:13] The origin story of Poddster — not planned, born from a co-founder complaint[13:00] Building a mini studio prototype inside Microsoft; discovering the market gap[16:33] Modelling Poddster like McDonald's: 90% of operations standardized and repeatable[18:23] Building the flywheel: connecting corporates with content creators at scale[23:00] The global studio partner network — a community of 150+ studio owners globally[26:12] The roadmap: New York by September, then Los Angeles and London[32:10] How Podyx was born — a prototype to solve Poddster' own booking chaos[33:47] Why existing booking tools (Calendly, Acuity) didn't fit the podcasting workflow[36:55] Podyx metrics: $6M+ in transactions, 160 paying studios across 24 markets, zero churn[37:15] Stripe named Podyx fastest-growing vertical SaaS startup from Singapore[38:34] Founder-led sales: Borko personally onboarded the first 50+ studios on calls[42:23] Making a services business operate like software — what can actually be productized[44:48] The test for every new process: can you repeat it 10 more times across locations?[49:48] The one thing most people don't know about podcasting: frequency beats polish[50:42] LLMs and agents will train on your content — why posting consistently is the real SEO[54:14] Creators vs. corporates: fundamentally different problems.[56:00] Corporates discovering long-form: the end of scripted media interviews[58:22] The AWS-Cisco example: executive dialogue that earns trust without selling[01:03:13] What great looks like for Poddster and Podyx in the next few years Profile: Borko Kovacevic, co-founder of Poddster and Podyx LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/borko-kovacevic/ Poddster Website: https://poddster.com Podyx Website: https://podyx.com Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. This episode is recorded in Poddster Singapore and full disclosure: Bernard is an investor to Podyx.

    1h 3m
  8. Elastic: From Search Recipes to AI Infrastructure at Scale with Ken Exner

    MAR 24

    Elastic: From Search Recipes to AI Infrastructure at Scale with Ken Exner

    Fresh out of the studio, Ken Exner, Chief Product Officer at Elastic, joins us to explore how Elastic evolved from the world's most popular open-source search engine into the context layer powering modern AI applications and agent systems. He shares his career journey from database programming to over 16 years at Amazon building AWS resilience practices, and now leading product strategy where search, observability, and security converge into a unified AI platform. Ken explains why context engineering is the defining discipline of the AI age, where developers become managers of agents, and how Elastic's 15-year enterprise head start positions it as the foundational retrieval layer between enterprise data and LLMs. "I like to think of the future of software development is—developers will be managers of agents. They're no longer going to be ICs [Individual Contributors], they’re going to be managers. Every developer is going to be a manager of agents and they’re going to be doing context engineering. They’re going to be figuring out how to pass context and data to an LLM or an agent. And they’re going to be goal setting. They’re going to have their team of agents, and they’re going to give them goals, and they’re going to review the output." - Ken Exner Episode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Ken Exner from Elastic[00:51] Ken's origin story: database programmer to Amazon[02:07] What attracted Ken to Elastic[02:51] Lessons from building resilient systems at AWS[04:34] How Elastic evolved from search to AI infrastructure[07:06] Elastic today: context engineering, observability, security[09:42] Why observability will be fundamentally transformed by AI[10:48] How early vector search prepared Elastic for GenAI[12:53] Context engineering: ingestion, retrieval, evaluation[15:39] The 10-year head start over purpose-built competitors[20:57] A developer's day is now all context engineering[24:16] Elastic as the bridge between enterprise data and LLMs[26:13] Agent Builder capabilities for customers[28:09] Data, tools, and context in the Elastic framework[29:39] Elastic on battleships and a Mars rover[31:00] The disorienting acceleration of AI coding models[32:07] Developers will be managers of agents[34:00] Authentication and identity for autonomous agents[35:30] Great in five years: the foundational AI layer[36:14] Disrupting observability and security from within[36:36] Closing Profile: Ken Exner, Chief Product Officer, Elastic LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-exner-b914542/ Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

    38 min
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4.7
out of 5
22 Ratings

About

A weekly podcast exploring the pulse of business, technology, and media worldwide. Hosted by Bernard Leong, the show features in-depth conversations with leading journalists, executives, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders on the ideas and forces shaping global markets — from Asia to the rest of the world.

Information

  • Creator
    Bernard Leong
  • Years Active
    2014 - 2026
  • Episodes
    524
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Bernard Leong
  • Show Website
    Analyse Podcast

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