YT36 | From Physics to Fortune 500 – life and business secrets w/ Bernard Leong

What are the characteristics of a successful leader and a happy human being? Meet Bernard Leong. Dr Bernard Leong is currently the founder and CEO of Dorje AI, a new enterprise AI startup focusing on building the next-generation business operating system that enables companies to be productive, optimally efficient and continuously adaptive. Born in Singapore and having studied at Cambridge, his work has taken him across many different companies across the globe, including Amazon Web Services and Airbus. Bernard’s journey spans theoretical physics, tech startups, and global leadership. 

In this episode, we speak about Bernard’s leadership style, focusing on empowering his team rather than micromanaging, and how this approach fosters growth and innovation. Listen to the philosophy behind his success and how he approaches living a meaningful life across cultures. Tune in now!

Discussion Topics: From Physics to Fortune 500

• Introducing Bernard Leong
• How did a diverse background enhance Leong’s problem-solving skills?
• Changing career paths frequently: What were the lessons learned?
• What are the key qualities of a successful leader today?
• Can support from loved ones influence your career choices?
• How do you maintain loyalty with frequent job changes?
• Should you join a corporation’s “inner ring” for success?
• What skills should the next generation have for an excellent career path?
• Wrapping up

Transcript: From Physics to Fortune 500

Bernard: I always tell people who want career advice and then just wrote it down to 12 words. So you learn from everyone, but you follow no one. You observe the patterns and learn from everyoneto minimize the amount of mistakes. But you have to follow no one, right? Because it is your story that you need to write. 

Yana: Welcome to YanaTV. Today, our guest is Bernard Leong, who is the founder of Analyze Asia, an independent angel investor. He also has a Ph. D. in physics from Cambridge University and worked in such companies as Synctel, Airbus and Amazon Web Services.

Bernard: And, uh, actually I just, just caveat is a sink post, which I used to work for as well.

Yana: Ah, that’s right. Sink post. So you have both the academical background, the business background, and there’s also the life background 

Bernard: I think the way to think about it is my career is very nonlinear. I started, As an academic, uh, I was doing theoretical physics and cosmology astrophysics. Then I went into work in the Human Genome Project in the Wellcome Truss Sanger Institute, which is, uh, one of the most renowned institutes. And then I came back, worked for Genome Institute also. Singapore and then went into the startup world.

So in the startup side, I did two companies. Uh, one of them is called Chalkboard. Uh, unfortunately it didn’t work out, but there is a second one that I did that we eventually called SG Entrepreneurs. It’s like a tech crunch Singapore site eventually got acquired by Tech in Asia.

And then, uh, The next stage of my life, I went into corporate. Because I, when I finished Chalkboard, I was asking myself, if someday I’m going to be a CEO of a startup, maybe I should go and learn how to be a better manager. So, essentially, we talk about me joining Mr. Print, SingPost, Amazon Web Services, Warhub, and also Airbus, um, in, in, in these, different companies.

I learned different things. And now, now I’m independent and, and, uh, I’m actually thinking true. Um, what is the company that I’m going to be building, uh, specifically in the enterprise AI side and then, um, working my way there.

Yana: It is very interesting, and I think it’s also quite unusual, uh, with your background. I read some of the, like, articles that you have out there in the internet, and in one of them you mentioned that when you decided to study physics, your family was very supportive, your father was very supportive, but some other people thought that the only career you could possibly have is to be a teacher or civil servant, and nothing else really. And if it’s not, you know, for your family and your father, sort of, courage and believe in you, then probably you wouldn’t have completed it.

Bernard: Yeah, my late father has been one of the most important supporters of my life. I think one of the things that if you think about in a typical Asian, let’s say we’re living in the 1980s 1990s your career path is rather very set is if you want to go for the top of of, uh Uh, if your career you most likely be a professional, uh, doctor, lawyer, uh, or even, you know, uh, businessman, uh, person, right?

And what I did was pretty out of, out of the blue because at that point in time, uh, Singapore hasn’t started develop going into what is called today we call a knowledge economy. And I just happened to say, okay, I like physics. I like to solve problems with going through first principles. And then essentially what happened was that, uh, I did a PhD in physics and realize that those skills are actually, uh, be able to map into the different things I do.

So when I think about how I work in different industry, different verticals, I start from what in physics we call first principles. That means asking the most important questions about what the problem is and try to find solutions from there. Which is actually not very different from, from academia, startup, or even in the corporate sector. You’re just basically solving problems. 

Yana: And I mean, those are some very big companies and you also have had like leading positions in them. So I’m just curious. Um, what was maybe like the biggest learning or realization that you had over your like a corporate career path, something that really stands out for you and particularly equips you now to be an entrepreneur?

Bernard: Well, I think when you’re in a corporate career, you’re trying to focus on aligning with different people, uh, to, for a certain specific outcome that will actually help assist the business. Maybe I talk a little, uh, tell you a bit of story, about, uh, when we were in Singapore, I think on my first day. When I joined St. Paul’s, actually, it was probably one of the best, uh, management teams that I’ve ever worked with, 

I think we were redesigning the post office on the first day. And because I was coming in as the Chief Digital Officer. I had to work with the, uh, person who leads the Post Office, the person who leads Logistics, and we try to figure out what is the modern Post Office is going to look like.

And It was straight, we have, we have very quick time to turn around to change the impression of a post office being a place doing all kinds of services down to something that’s very specific to the core of what the postal service should be and We actually even did some things like okay, we’re gonna launch these new digital services.

Here’s what the plan is We’re gonna put the icons there. But what you see is that, uh, every symbol was actually you see on the physical world is actually has a digital, a place in the digital so that the customer can realize what it was.

So I think that’s one of the key highlights about, uh, it took me four years to get the To actually, uh, transform the entire post office. In fact, I ended up becoming the head of the post office, which actually I ran, uh, the entire business of the retail for SingPost from dealing with government services, dealing with, uh, big corporations like Western Union, dealing with remittances, and then also, um, redesigning a national icon, uh, for the SingPost, which was a SAM machine, uh, which very, uh, uh, which very interestingly won two Global Poster Tag Awards, uh, for that year, 

I remember the essay that we wrote, it was, um, the, the aim, the future of, of, uh, post office in Singapore is to have five million post offices. And the question is, what does that mean, right? What it really means is that, um, when we redesigned the SAM machine, we actually redesigned from the iPad. And. And our belief is that in 10 years time, the i the kiosk will disappear, and eventually everyone will just hold an iPad on the screen.

That’s why we put an iPad on, and subsequently, if the kiosk ever disappears, it’ll go into and then everybody basically having the five the post office in where they are and able to send things, et cetera, from there. I think that’s one of the major things I learned in corporate is the ability to align different people with different interests and try to solve a common problem.

Yana: Beautiful. If I were to ask you for a person who would like to advance in the corporate career and maybe particularly wants to be in the leadership position and stay in the leadership position and be really good at what they are doing, what do you feel number one quality they need to have?

Bernard: to have? I think, uh, there are a few things, right? One is, uh, a very customer centric, uh, focus. Because you need to, you need to know who your customers are and how you deal with it. But for me, for yourself, when you lead that team, um, you need to be empathetic, um, to their needs. I think, um, a lot of in Asian culture, people tend to micromanage.

Uh, that’s something that I have actually not do. I tend to, um, help. I tend to look at myself to, that my, my role to people who work with me, not under me, even though, uh, the org chart say so, but the way to, to give them is to empower them and say, how can I unblock you? Uh, how do, um, if this is the three things you want to focus this week, uh, what are the things you need from me so that I can help you to achieve those three things?

Yana: when we talk about younger generation, it’s very hard to retain the talent because people are moving from place to place, from company to company and No one stays for a long time. Like our parents and grandparents sometimes work the entire life in the same company. I mean, we don’t do that anymore. So, and there’s this conversation about, does it mean like we are less reliable? 

Bernard: Uh, my father actually, uh, worked for a company for 50 years. If you calculate, he started in age probably, uh, 13 and then, you know, and probably around 60, 60 plus, and then he retired.  this is one of the things that I really thought is something that I can emulate, but when I graduated, the world is very different.

Um, I think the average, uh, uh, work life for one company for an employee is about three years. if you are in the digital Segment, etc. It’s less than 1 to 1. 5 years. Then the question is what does loyalty mean in the modern context? So, um when my father died I wrote in essay about, uh, what, what is the thing that I really learned from him?

I learned from him that loyalty is important, but I have to adapt it to the modern context of what it means today to me. So one of the rules, and the reason why I have such a non linear career is that I always do not join the, uh, when I work in one industry, when I leave the company, I do not join the competitor In the same industry. 

Yana: that’s your loyalty to the previous company.

Bernard: so if I’m in St. Paul’s Um, I would have to turn down logistics company, postal company. So there’s one then I moved on to Airbus and then when I leave I won’t be joining Boeing anyway Because there’s only two of them or maybe Comac, the Chinese one Then I went to AWS and obviously I can’t go to Google and Microsoft.

So in, in each one of, uh, in each one of the, the journey, I find that actually having the loyalty to the organization, uh, makes it really, really amicable. And I still have a very good relationship with all my employees, uh, as of today, even with Warhub, which I recently left. 

I think one of the things that also enables me is the ability to see different industries. Um, the, what are the similarities and what are the differences and that also helps me to, uh, think about different problems and have a very, uh, different perspective to things. I, I think, you know, there was this, uh, thing that Steve Jobs said, you cannot, um, you cannot look forward, but you need to, you need to connect the dots. You need to work backwards,

Yana: you look backwards

Bernard: you connect the dots and, and, and a lot of the things that I think about in each part of the journey, sometimes I actually have to go back. and withdraw from some of those experience that think about it. And I think this whole thing about loyalty actually benefited me, uh, to have such a nonlinear career.

Yana: When we start talking about loyalty and Korea, I mean, kind of to just unfold what you were discussing. Because when we look at it from a, again, from a company, from the employer point of view, of course they would like people to stay. Right. So as long as possible, because I mean, when you have your staff to know where it’s, it takes a lot of money to train new people, a lot of time, a lot of energy, and it’s also sets the profitability and efficiency of the company back. So it’s a problem for the company, you know, to go through this. But

Bernard: I think that that’s also, I think there’s a very good, um, book, I think it was written by Reid Hoffman and it’s called the Alliance. From the loyalty perspective on that is, um, every person’s career is a tour of duty. It’s like in the military, you know, you go through different tours of duty as such. I think the way how employers need to think about. Of course, it’s good to retain people who will be there for a very long time. Um, that’s great, right?

Uh, butone of the things I have adopted as a principle is when somebody from my team comes to me and tender their resignation, and if I really, uh, think that this person is competent, I’ll ask a couple of questions. I’ll ask them, um, what’s this next job look like?

Um, Do you earn better? Does it improve your roles and responsibility? I think that’s the real key question that I will ask. Does this actually help you to take your big steps of your career? And, and if the person say yes, then it’s like, it’s okay. I think you can, I think it’s of course my loss that we’re, but I think if you can get to a better stage, it is, it is, it is, I think this is what success means for me.

As, as, as a manager or as a, as a, um, so the one thing I always told my team, um, I always tell them that there will be a day where I will leave this job. And if you can take my job or can even go higher than who I am, then I know that I’m being successful. I think a successful leader is not about whether, you know, how many big wins of, or, you know, and tearing down everyone else. But I think a successful leader is one that brings out the best in his team. 

Yana: Asia and in Singapore, we can definitely see that when like just look around at people, particularly professional people, there’s a tendency where people feel that They need to associate with certain type of people in order to become successful. And I think this is also like where this whole idea of the Ivy League universities came from, right? I mean, I mean, okay, you go there for the degree, you go for study, but he’ll largely go for the networking. Right. So what do you think about 

Bernard: It’s interesting you mention this. So, there’s actually a very good article that was written by C. S. Lewis, who’s one of my favorite writers that I follow, called The Inner Ring. uh, like anyone, I’ve also gone through a pretty, very good school, Cambridge University. And then, uh, of course, in the years of the corporate, I would try to, you know, I want to work for the best companies, be it Airbus, Amazon, as such that?.

And then, you know, and of course, if you’re an entrepreneur, you aspire to be the Forbes, you know, 40 under 40, et cetera, et cetera. One of the things that when I decided that I want to come back to become an entrepreneur, uh, as of in this stage, where I’m going to rewrite the story, um, every entrepreneur will go through two things.

One is the struggle, the struggle of. all the things that things if what if things don’t work out failure because the chance of you being successful is one in a million uh regardless of who you are okay whether you are from ivy league whether you’re from rich family it’s the same okay the odds are the same.

The real difficult part of that is the inner ring why because you would when you when things do not work out The first question you’re going to be asked, you know, when will I ever be in, um, maybe YPO. I know there’s a lot of people who wants to join the YPO, uh, or maybe, you know, your, your Miller Nestle’s, Biller Nestle’s, um, and then, when you try to get into the inner ring, a few things happen.

You try to exclude people as well. I think, when you reach a point in time when you want to think about, um, the privilege of a lifetime is to be yourself, right? This is a very great Josephine, uh, Campbell code. And I think to be yourself, I, if I were to say today, I just want to limit to that three things and three things I want to work on.

I think to get away from the inner ring, I think the first thing I want to do is do the work on the things that I really love right? So that’s number one. Number two is Well, before I got it, before I went into the corporate, I just got married. Now I have three kids, right? I spend all your time, the quality time with them.

Um, uh, everybody say, you know, uh, great entrepreneurs must be like Elon Musk. You must have a demon mood, you know, and all that. But, um, I would just give you a very great counter example. Uh, Rockefeller, you probably know, if you read the book Titan, he spends two of his days working from home and spending a lot of time with his kids.

So there’s a counterexample of a successful entrepreneur does not need to spend time with his family. Okay. So, so that’s like second part. The third one, I think is the thing to tell yourself that, um, do not be swayed by things like the inner ring where you try to be aspired to that. And, um, it’s difficult. Okay. I’m not perfect. I will think about it, but I have to try to.

Weed myself of that. I think the the important part to Me why I want to be an entrepreneur is to be myself is to do great work If I’m not spending my time focusing on those things Then it is not and so what do I substitute with the inner ring? There’s the people who you have worked with friends people who you spent a lot of time with and I think those are like, you know, even spending time with you and Ravi, you know, I feel that those are quality time, right? I think having that kind of quality time with people that really matter and not being part of the inner ring, I think that is like the three things that I think about that’s becoming very important to me.

Yana: We fundamentally, we are talking here about our sense of connections. We are talking about it. You, you choose who you want to be with and want to interact with because You really want it not because it feels somehow the list and they are on paper perfect match for your social interactions Right,

Bernard: not that, it’s not the social interaction. It’s like, oh, do I need to be with this very famous person? Yeah. Um, does it really matter in the greater scheme of things? I think that is the part that I find that um, a lot of people who went into building their own companies Um fell into this trap. It took me I think it wasn’t until I reread C. S. Lewis’s Uh, the inner ring. It really made me think through why do I want to do this? I think To come back and do this again Really you have to be very mindful of all the things that can go wrong. Anything that can go wrong, can go wrong, right? Murphy’s law.

This is a very deep and very refreshing perspective, I must say, especially from the person who has such a diverse academical and business background worse, we are in Asian societies, right, where your success is actually, is very determined by which ring you’re in, which inner ring you’re in, right? And that’s very scary sometimes, right? And I think if you start to just take away that from it, I think you will live a happier

Yana: life. I think that’s it. You can say almost a trade off, right? So when you choose your own happiness and your family happiness and authentic connections with people, then your life just becomes much more fulfilled on so many levels rather than being constrained to a very small group of people. But of course, I mean, it’s an individual choice of every human being, but I just love how You show, uh, sort of the story of your life and your development, how, you know, you came to this realization right now and you think you’re a father of three children. So I am just curious. So when you look at your kids, how old are they?

Bernard: Four, six, eleven.

Yana: Okay. So very young still. It’s going to be a while until they fully go into the workplace.

Bernard: Yeah, I think they are going to be in a very, very different world.

Yana: That’s what I wanted to ask. Exactly. So what do you think is coming for them?

Bernard: I think we, unfortunately, due to what is happening politically, geopolitically, I think the world is going to go back into a multi polar world. I think there’s going to be a lot more regional, business is no longer that much global. Some parts will be still global, but some parts will be still regional, but a lot of the action will be more in inward looking than outward looking.

So that’s the first thing. The second is to the ability to navigate the complexities of working with, uh, different regions, right? And I think they have to think through, uh, what is, you know, anything that can energy trip them. Think about a sanction, for example, right? If they work in, say something like, uh, semiconductors now is becoming very, very difficult to be able to, you know, sell semiconductors to China from the US, right?

And a lot of the nations out there, when they think about we are in the middle of two powers having a conflict, how do what, and we do not want to get involved. Uh, how do they, what, how would they respond, right? If, of course, uh, the possibility of war, um, I think we were, we are fortunate, um, since 1945 until maybe up to the last two years, we haven’t really seen very, very major.

What’s happening, and it feels to me that they are going to be the ones navigating that. Uh, I think about that for them every day, but I think, um, how to say, it is not up to us to decide. I think all we can decide is what we have, and it’s the same for them. They have to figure out, you What is the best way forward for them? 

Yana: Absolutely. As a parent, right? When you look at them and in general, like you feel as a parent these days who have any parent who has small children, what do you feel would be maybe like some of the really important qualities that we really need to translate to our children or imprint or educate them so that they have it to make sure they’re ready for the future.

I always tell people who want career advice and then just wrote it down to 12 words. So you learn from everyone, but you follow no one. You observe the patterns and you work like hell. So, so, so the reason why you need to learn from everyone is of course to minimize the amount of mistakes.

Bernard: But you have to follow no one, right? Because it is your story that you need to write. And then we just have to look at all the patterns, what’s going on in the world, and then try to figure out there’s something that you think that this is what you’re going to be passionate, and then you go out with all your effort.

I think if you just do those four things, I think It’s important. It’s like, you know, do, do they need to go to school? Yes and no, because they, I, I’m sometimes very impressed by the fact that my daughters could just go to YouTube and figure out how to solve a Rubik’s Cube, right? So it is the same principle, right?

Today, um, if you want to do anything, you can go to YouTube and learn it, right? So I think the information, unlike when in our times we have to go to the library, we have to, you know, borrow books, because books is such a. Very, uh, scarce resource, but today, you know, the information is everywhere. That’s number one. But it is also your own responsibility to think critically of what you learn from whichever the source you get your information from. So I think those two things are very important. Bernard, 

Yana: thank you so much for joining us today. That was a wonderful, wonderful conversation. And that was Bernard Leung on Yanet TV. And we would love to hear from you. What is your experience when it comes to their career transition? Was your past linear or non linear? Do you feel that traditional ways how the society should be going all the embracing something new and if new?

What is that? So please share with us in the comments. We would love to hear from you. And I love being at Muse studio where they’re hosting here on the TV. So thank you for having us. And the most important, please remember to subscribe to the YouTube channel and share these episodes with friends. The change starts with the conversation and I see you next time.

Bernard: We forgot that sink post.

Yana: Ah, that’s right. Sink post. Well, you just have such a impressive, uh, you know, credential that I don’t even know where to start.