PNB’s poisoned chalice
Of legacy disasters, political masters and a stagnating ship.
I’m not sure why people love to keep on trumpeting Penang as “Silicon Valley of the East”. The latest being Internet Alliance Malaysia.
Folks, it’s a big con-job, yeah?
Silicon Valley in the US was born because the Pentagon and Nasa were willing to pay almost any price for the most advanced chips in the world.
Penang boomed because the Malaysian government offered the cheapest skilled labour, tax breaks, and infrastructure for foreign electronics giants, that couldn’t be found anywhere in the 1970s-80s.
Intel’s first overseas assembly plant in 1972, followed by National Semiconductor, AMD, HP, et al came for low-cost offshore packaging and testing.
Surely, it wasn’t for missile guidance systems.
Penang, then, could be more accurately described as the world’s largest sweatshop than as a true Silicon Valley.
“Silicon Valley of the East” sounds like a swell tagline for tourism and investor decks. But, it’s farther from the truth.
I’m equally doubtful that the food up there — supposedly the next best thing — is even great these days.
First up, yesterday’s scoop-y ICYMI on the so-called golden kids of the Malaysian startup/VC space: 500 and Aerodyne 👇🏾
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It’s the season for GLIC leadership changes as contracts wind down across Malaysia’s investment landscape.
Earlier, I covered the possible shake-up at KWAP and now Permodalan Nasional (PNB) is coming into focus.
