Latest / Totally Normal Folks / Episode 009 - The Curious Case of Nadiem Makarim

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Episode 009 - The Curious Case of Nadiem Makarim · Totally Normal Folks

• 0:00
  You know, the mic doesn't even have to be pointing that way to
• 0:01
  be able to record, but it's. Fine, really.
• 0:03
  Yeah, we were talking. Is this good?
• 0:05
  We were. We were just talking about
• 0:06
  gooning to Marvel rivals. Where we boys?
• 0:08
  Yeah. Yeah, it's a very good it's a
• 0:11
  it's a pastime for many, many young men and women.
• 0:15
  Marvel Rivals does not discriminate who they cater to
• 0:19
  in terms of the goonage. Who Who do you like to goon to
• 0:21
  the most? I'm.
• 0:22
  Not going to say that, although let's be honest, cameramen.
• 0:25
  Yeah. Very true, very true.
• 0:27
  I'm I'm ugly. So real.
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  I praise their efforts to be, you know, unisex in the catering
• 0:34
  of the Goonage. Right.
• 0:36
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But before we get this.
• 0:39
  Attraction. What a way to?
• 0:39
  Start we only have so many battery power.
• 0:44
  Hello folks, welcome back to the normal folks podcast.
• 0:49
  I am your host as always Arias, Siddhartha and my Co hosts are
• 0:53
  Daniel and Satya. What's cracking you guys?
• 0:59
  I don't know if you've been hearing this, Arya, but there's
• 1:02
  been some court cases going on lately in Venezia.
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  Court cases. A lot of court cases involving
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  former business people, former venture capital people and most
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  notably a former founder turned minister.
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  And somehow I always hear about these court cases about 9:00 PM
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  the day before the court case. Yeah, yeah, I do apologize for
• 1:26
  that. Yeah, we got.
• 1:28
  It's my fault. We got to address some of these
• 1:30
  Kangaroos, man, the kangaroo courts.
• 1:34
  Kangaroo courts all up the wazoo.
• 1:37
  Lately. The marsupial court.
• 1:39
  In in, in his opinion, kangaroo courts.
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  Just just to just to clarify. It's kangaroo courts man.
• 1:44
  Everyone thinks the same, you know, Look for context.
• 1:49
  Like you said, things have been wild here in Indonesia, but
• 1:53
  specifically in the in the law and justice aspect of things.
• 1:58
  Law and order. Law and order, yeah, not.
• 2:03
  We're having less and less of that these days, you guys, and
• 2:07
  that's kind of like what we want to talk about because initially
• 2:10
  we were going to do like a chill, hey, let's play games and
• 2:13
  have fun. But no, no fun having nowadays,
• 2:15
  man. No, it's banned.
• 2:17
  We got to talk about Fun is banned, the Great Unitary
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  Republic of Indonesia. It is no longer.
• 2:23
  We are postponing fun having until things get stepped right
• 2:27
  back on track, man. Yes indeed, things are going too
• 2:29
  crazy. So we got to address it.
• 2:30
  We're using our voices. To speak the, the, the to, to.
• 2:34
  To speak to the 2000 subscribers and 5000 followers.
• 2:40
  Is it 2000 subscribers? NO1000 Subscribers. 1000 +2000
• 2:45
  No no 1000 + 3000 on TikTok plus 5000 on Instagram.
• 2:50
  It's over 9000. The almost.
• 2:53
  There might be some overlap over there, but you know.
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  Yeah, a good a good amount of people who will want to hear us
• 3:02
  speaking truth to power. Yeah, sure.
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  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, if the ministry can fetch a
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  number, so can we. Real.
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  On the real though, things have been kind of weird lately.
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  If you haven't heard, if you've been living under a rock, former
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  Education Minister Nadim Makarim has been caught in quite the
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  conundrum right now in the courts here.
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  Some might say unjustly. So basically that what's been
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  happening right now is that the our former minister Nadim
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  Makarim has been accused of enriching himself during his
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  time as the minister. This is the former Minister of
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  Education as. Your education?
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  Yeah, by by procuring during the the programs that he had during
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  administer, procuring Chromebooks for underdeveloped
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  regions as schools in the country and via that procurement
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  process enriching himself, which a lot of people have had issues
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  with. And if you followed the case
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  through, you've, you, you will have caught on to like the fact
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  that the, the proceedings have been a little weird and the
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  accusations have been even weirder as well.
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  Yes, yes. And thankfully we're not just
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  speaking out of our asses here. Our good folks Satya and Dan
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  have actually been to the trials and have been reporting and you
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  know, following on following through on the proceedings.
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  So you know we're going to talk about that.
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  We're going to talk about that case, what it means for the
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  country, as well as the other similar cases they've been going
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  on. And also what, what's, what does
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  that, you know, what does that signal to the diaspora and
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  people who want to actively contribute to the country in a
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  meaningful ways? And you know, what does it mean
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  for you if you are also those types of people who want to help
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  the country in their own way? Yes, indeed.
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  Give back to the country. Give back to the yes.
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  What's the Indonesian term for it?
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  Mangabdi. Mangabdi.
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  Yeah. So let's just, for those of you
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  who don't know, let's just run through quickly the details of
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  the case. Feel free to like add to it or
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  like, you know, correct me if I'm wrong in some of these
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  details. So the Attorney General's office
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  is the latest, you know, developments of the case
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  demanded that the Jakarta corruption court sentence Nadim
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  Makarim, our former education minister, to 18 years in prison
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  for alleged corruption in the procurement of Chromebook
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  laptops for schools between 2019 and 2022, a project that the
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  prosecutors said have caused 2.18 trillion rupiah or 124.4
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  million U.S. dollars in state losses.
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  And the AGO have also demanded Nadim pay 5.6 trillion rupiah in
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  restitution to the state and a billion rupiah in fines.
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  So from what I understood from this case, the prosecutors are
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  basically saying that Nadim insisted on procuring
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  specifically Google Chromebooks because he was trying to, I
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  guess, Curry favor with Google to invest in Gojek.
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  That's the claim that the prosecutors are saying, Yeah.
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  And therefore enriching himself in the process.
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  For you guys who have who have followed the case the trials
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  closely, what are your thoughts so far on like how the
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  proceedings have been going and the accusations themselves?
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  Maybe you can start Daniel because I do have a lot of
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  thoughts on this, but I feel like I might just go on a bit of
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  an endless rant. No, my problem is I I think you
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  should start first Saturday because I think you for context
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  Indonesia last week which Satya runs, I do.
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  That was supposed to be a secret.
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  Is it supposed to be a secret? No, we'll cut that out, no.
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  So as part of your reportage for Indonesia last week, you've been
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  following Nadi Makarim and you've been talking to him quite
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  closely. I wouldn't say talking to him
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  closely, but following his team closely and the developments of
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  the case. And so we sort of have.
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  And talking to him as he he did literally speak closely into the
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  courtroom. That is true.
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  He was this. He was this close to the man.
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  I saw it on video. Yeah, true.
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  The The thing is, I think you know this better than I do
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  because there's still man. Indonesian politics not only is
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  difficult to follow because it's depressing, it's also boring
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  because it's not like American politics where like Trump says
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  something wild or, I don't know, a case gets leaked and like, you
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  know, 40 more people have been to the island.
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  Indonesian politics is as tedious as it is dreadful in the
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  sense that like it's just the same thing over and over again.
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  It's been the same fucking playbook since like 1640 or
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  whenever the veil say arrived where it's like, hey, how can I
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  make a quick buck out of like making the people I rule
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  miserable? And it's like the same like 350
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  year old story. So for me, it's a little, I lose
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  focus very quickly just because it's always the same playbook
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  over and over and over again. What I can say is that it is
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  utterly ridiculous in its execution.
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  I think the in, in the most recent instance of us covering
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  the, the court, yeah, the the court proceedings, the
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  prosecution was six hours late. Six hours late.
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  Yeah, we got there at like 9:30 or 10, and the court case did
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  not start until about like 4/4/30.
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  It did. Yeah.
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  Because apparently the prosecution had to be somewhere
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  for an event. That's the official line.
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  The official line. And so it just go like, this is
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  ridiculous and silly. It's kind of like, you know,
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  unfortunately my circus and unfortunately my monkeys.
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  But I think, yeah, I think Satya, you can give us more
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  details on like the background of it more because I think
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  you've done more research into this than I have.
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  IA lot of my thoughts are around the way that it's covered in the
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  media, the way that people are responding to it.
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  I think I have more to say about that, but I think the
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  background, the lead up to it and is, yeah, the background,
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  the lead up to it is something that you know better.
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  And so I'm going to throw this question at you and maybe we can
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  all have this discussion because there's not really an official
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  line. Sure, of course.
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  Why do you think this is happening?
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  Yeah, yeah. I think that's everyone's kind
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  of. Wondering, everyone's kind of
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  wondering being like, OK, like, Oh my God, someone getting
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  arrested for corruption in Indonesia literally could happen
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  to anyone in government, given what's been going on in
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  government. So why him?
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  Why now? I think it's the question on
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  everyone's mind, and it's the one that I keep trying to figure
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  out as well. And I can't quite find the right
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  answer. Fred, maybe you have some
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  thoughts. Sadhya.
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  I mean, I got to be honest, all I've all I've heard are, you
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  know, all I've heard is pretty much the same as what you guys
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  probably have heard yourself, the rumours and the and the and
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  the sayings and things like that of like, is this, is this
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  politically driven? How does it have something to do
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  with, you know, the current president and his, let's say,
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  lack of friendliness towards anyone deemed to be in
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  opposition to him? Yeah.
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  And whether or not Karim falls under that group of.
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  Opposition. Labeled labeled group of
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  individuals. Let's call it that, or whether
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  it has to do with, you know, the a or whether it has to do with
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  like the administration's campaign promises to crack down
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  on corruption. And therefore, you know,
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  bureaucratic, bureaucratic pressure from the from within
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  the AGO the A GS office to find any sort of, you know, to, to
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  find any sort of gap that they can find to try to prosecute and
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  to jail someone. Like they want to get their no,
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  get their Moby Dick, basically. Yeah, yeah, are.
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  They trying to fill a quota. I'm not saying this is true.
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  I'm saying these are what, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  People are, you know, hypothesizing.
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  Let us say. There are so many.
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  For the next like 10 or whatever minutes, all of this is
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  hypothetical. Yeah, just take everything I
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  say. Just take everything I say with
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  a grain of salt because it's hard to find in, in, in the
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  current, in the current, you know, media landscape.
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  It's really hard to find anyone who's willing to leak, leak from
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  within, from within like ministries, agencies,
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  organizations because of such. And so, and so, you know, it's
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  hard to it's, it's hard to come up with, it's hard to find any
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  sort of why yeah. Why is it happening?
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  Nothing definitive. With any, with any full, with,
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  with any certainty. Yeah, you know which is which is
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  frustrating. True, I, but I what?
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  If they just need more MB game money bro I.
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  Mean maybe? That's also.
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  That's a theory. 2.2 trillion How many?
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  But about how many MB game? How much?
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  Two days? No.
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  Really. Yeah, 1111 day of MB game is
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  like 1.3 trillion. So basically if Nadim paid his.
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  Sorry. If Nadim paid his fines, if
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  Nadim paid his fines, that's like not even a week of NBA
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  game. No, it's. 2 days.
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  Man, where are you getting all this money bro I.
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  Know it's insane. It's wild.
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  They have feels like they have infinite coffers.
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  Yeah, but it's also as as as Indonesians, we know not to take
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  things like this at face value. Yeah, You know what I mean?
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  Like, sure, there's nothing definitive out there, but things
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  don't happen just because, you know, things like this don't
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  happen because, you know, they're going by the book, you
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  know what I mean? Something else is happening
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  behind the scenes. And, you know, everyone can see
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  that because we've gone through it so many times already in the
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  past. There's always political
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  motivations behind these sorts of things.
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  Yeah. So.
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  But like, let's, let's take it at, at, yeah, at face value at
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  what the prosecutors are, are saying.
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  So like they're, they're accusing him of like enriching
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  himself, right. And, and you, as someone who's
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  been close to this case, you've done your research and stuff
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  like that. What do you think about the, the
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  accusations that are being thrown at him?
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  Like like are there any truth to the claims?
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  I just want to say that I, I just want to I just want to like
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  make a disclaimer real quick, Yeah.
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  You know, I anal, you anal. I anal, yes.
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  And and none of my none of my opinions represent the opinions
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  of, first of all, Indonesia last week and secondly, Techonasia.
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  They are the disclaimers. Yes, yeah.
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  These are the disclaimers. And once again, it's just just
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  to just to reiterate, I anal, OK, just as long as we keep that
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  clear now. I'll pretend like I I like I
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  understand what that means. Yeah, I'm.
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  Saying I am not a lawyer. Yeah, there you.
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  Go. I'm adding that to my
• 14:42
  vocabulary. Yeah, great.
• 14:44
  Although I was a lawyer. You.
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  Oh yeah, you were. You are not currently a.
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  Practicing, not. Currently a practicing and.
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  This is not legal advice. No, definitely not.
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  No, but like the, the, the, the, the entire premise of the AG,
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  the AGS or the, the prosecution is something along the lines of
• 15:05
  as what you said, he, the, the, they, they, they claim that
• 15:13
  there is some collusion between, between Google and Makarim's
• 15:20
  team during his tenure as education minister, right?
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  Whereby there was a whereby they claim the prosecution claims
• 15:29
  there was some kind of quid pro quo whereby you know, in return
• 15:34
  for, in return for. Choosing Google Chromebooks as
• 15:39
  part of their big project. Their big program?
• 15:41
  Uh huh. They will invest in Go.
• 15:43
  They will invest in Gojek. Exactly.
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  But there are a lot of, like, holes in that plot.
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  You know what I mean? At least just just from my
• 15:52
  perspective. And by the way, I just want to
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  remind everyone I'm not a lawyer.
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  So yeah, you know, none of us are lawyers.
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  People can take this, people can take this or people should take
• 16:00
  this with the. Green it'll just be a flashing
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  light constantly in the short meaning like this is not legal
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  advice. I am not a lawyer.
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  I wish I was. I'd be making money.
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  How? Can you imagine that Anyway,
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  what what, what the lawyer, what the lawyers are basically saying
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  is that the the, the the former minister or the former or the OR
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  the ministry at that time should not have just stuck to a single
• 16:29
  supplier, right? Yeah, or a single company to
• 16:33
  supply. They should not have.
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  They should not have chosen Chromebook because it, like you
• 16:41
  said, it didn't choose, it didn't like fit in with the.
• 16:45
  The remote, the requirements, they, they, they they claim that
• 16:49
  Chromebooks can't function without a, a strong, stable
• 16:52
  Internet connection. Well, yeah.
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  Which doesn't exist in the regions that they were targeting
• 16:57
  in the program. Yeah, that's what they claim.
• 16:59
  I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that's true.
• 17:01
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 17:01
  In fact, a lot of content creators have debunked that.
• 17:04
  Yeah. For example, from Philidian,
• 17:06
  Aurelio, he made a good piece of content going to these regions
• 17:10
  who are using the Chromebooks. And they were the the, the
• 17:13
  school, the teachers there are actually praising the fact that
• 17:17
  these Chromebooks were a big help to them.
• 17:19
  So, you know, that claim may, you know, may not be entirely
• 17:23
  true, but yeah. And they're, and, and they're
• 17:25
  kind of final and most important, most important claim,
• 17:29
  at least the the prosecution feels is most important is the
• 17:32
  fact that these accusations led to it led to a certain amount of
• 17:39
  state loss, with that state loss being basically the amount of
• 17:42
  money spent to procure these Chromebooks.
• 17:46
  Right. And one thing that and, and,
• 17:48
  and, and for, for me personally, I mean, like, like you mentioned
• 17:53
  earlier with, with Yang's content about, you know, him
• 17:58
  going to the remote areas and, you know, kind of showing, I
• 18:03
  wouldn't say exactly showing because they didn't, because
• 18:07
  although, although, you know, he spoke to the teachers who said
• 18:09
  this, this and that about how Chromebooks were useful.
• 18:11
  Yeah, in in their particular school, that's that's absolutely
• 18:16
  fine. But excuse me, there's a whole
• 18:22
  there. There was also, I kind of lost
• 18:25
  my train of thought actually. I do apologize for that.
• 18:27
  No, it's OK. It's only fine I.
• 18:29
  Don't know, but but but what, what I'm what I'm trying to
• 18:33
  basically say is that going back to what I said earlier about
• 18:38
  there being quite a few plot holes in the, in the in the in
• 18:41
  the prosecution's case. Yeah, one of them one one of
• 18:45
  them in my opinion being, you know, the, the whole personal
• 18:50
  enrichment thing whereby and you know, I did, I, I did, I did
• 18:54
  business and economics journalism like I still do it
• 18:59
  today, but not as much as I used to.
• 19:01
  But their entire their entire argument around that was that
• 19:05
  between 2017 to 2020 something, Yeah, while while Makarim was
• 19:13
  still in Gojek now go to and after he left go to but was
• 19:19
  still but still owned stocks in the stocks in the stocks in the
• 19:24
  company. Yeah, Google made multiple like
• 19:27
  investments into into, yeah, into the company.
• 19:30
  These are several different. Several different funding.
• 19:33
  Rounds. Several different funding
• 19:34
  rounds. Exactly.
• 19:35
  That's the term, yeah. But the the, the and and and
• 19:39
  when go to IP owed the initial public offering, which is
• 19:43
  basically when a company sells its stock.
• 19:47
  Yeah, freely on the open market. It happened around the same time
• 19:54
  that Makarim was in office, right?
• 19:56
  Yeah. Or just before he came into
• 19:58
  office. I don't remember actually.
• 20:00
  But we'll put the dates here. It must have been, it must have
• 20:02
  been while he was still in office and while he still held,
• 20:05
  while he still held the, the, the his, his stocks because he
• 20:10
  had to, because that's part of the regulations of being of, of
• 20:16
  doing an IPO. The founders need to hold on to
• 20:19
  their stock for a certain period of time.
• 20:23
  And the long and short of it is it was they, they basically used
• 20:30
  the, the prosecution more or less used his, his, his, let's
• 20:38
  say gains in his net worth from that IPO.
• 20:47
  Yeah. As evidence of like some sort of
• 20:52
  gratification happening. Exactly.
• 20:54
  Not only not only is evidence of the gratification happening, but
• 20:57
  of the amount of the gratification, if that makes
• 21:00
  sense, did. They did they count like the
• 21:03
  entirety of Goto as a company or like his share?
• 21:06
  Just a share, just a share. The number of shares that he
• 21:09
  owned and the valuation of those shares when he reported it.
• 21:12
  Yeah, yeah. Which is, you know.
• 21:14
  Now you're starting to see where the.
• 21:15
  Problem is, right, that doesn't begin with right.
• 21:17
  That doesn't, that doesn't make any sense because you know, a,
• 21:21
  a, a, a share in a company is determined on determined by
• 21:25
  market. Yeah, it's not exactly by a
• 21:27
  company who invests and who invested into that.
• 21:31
  It's. There is as much logic in trying
• 21:33
  to criminalize Macarim like stock options going up as there
• 21:41
  is for like, oh, the rupee has gone down in value since like
• 21:45
  the beginning of last year. Can we technically criminalize
• 21:49
  Mantri Kwangan for that, right, Yeah.
• 21:51
  Based on what factor? The grasping at straws,
• 21:54
  definitely, if you look at it that way, but.
• 21:55
  If you, but if you, if you put it this way, like you make you,
• 21:58
  you come up, you make a really interesting point.
• 22:01
  And that a lot of these state owned companies, right, they
• 22:04
  may, they own a lot of they own a lot of shares that in other
• 22:08
  companies that are also in the open market.
• 22:11
  And so if they sell, and so if they happen to sell those shares
• 22:14
  at a loss, would that be considered corruption?
• 22:17
  If if McLaren was found guilty of this specific of this
• 22:22
  specific case, then that would certainly open the doors to to
• 22:27
  to that to that sort of criminalization happening.
• 22:32
  In fact, there's another case going on currently that you were
• 22:35
  also covering. You and I.
• 22:38
  Yeah, you and I of the former head of the state owned venture
• 22:43
  capital, Berry Ventures. OK.
• 22:44
  Yeah. Yeah, Bank Rocket Indonesia, His
• 22:47
  name is Niko Ijaya. We're OK to say his name now
• 22:50
  because today, the day of recording, is the day that his
• 22:53
  sentencing demands are being read out actually.
• 22:56
  OK. OK.
• 22:57
  Oh, exactly on the day. Exactly on the day, so he
• 23:01
  invested in or under his leadership where if let me just
• 23:06
  let me just correct that under his leadership, Berry Ventures
• 23:10
  invested in a startup, in a startup.
• 23:14
  Thank you. In a startup called Tanihub.
• 23:17
  Oh yeah, I've heard of this. Yes, yes, yes.
• 23:18
  Now Tanihub was Tanihub had some very like shady shit going on
• 23:25
  behind the scenes and the founder of that company has been
• 23:30
  arrested for fraud. OK.
• 23:33
  And when you kind of read when you when you when you really
• 23:36
  read into his that that the founders case, you know, it
• 23:39
  seems almost for in my personal opinion, don't make any
• 23:43
  conclusions until like I wouldn't personally make any
• 23:46
  conclusions until the after the trial has ended.
• 23:48
  But you know there there there from from what I've read, there
• 23:55
  is evidence that he that that they indeed cook the books if.
• 23:59
  You will. But this is just my
• 24:01
  understanding, right? Again, I could be wrong.
• 24:03
  Right. Yeah.
• 24:05
  But the long and short of it is, is that whether or not the
• 24:10
  people at Berry Ventures, you know, knew of this, I personally
• 24:15
  haven't been, I personally haven't been following the case
• 24:19
  enough to Niko Ijaya's case closely enough to to come up to
• 24:25
  come up with my own conclusion on it.
• 24:26
  But what I can say is that regardless of regardless of
• 24:30
  that, it was definitely like a bad business bet, right?
• 24:34
  Yeah, But the but and but again they're in venture capital and
• 24:37
  so they have to accept and so like they're.
• 24:39
  Going to have to make these bets.
• 24:40
  Yeah, exactly. It's gambling with extra steps.
• 24:42
  Yeah, and the and and and in venture and and and just and
• 24:46
  just, you know V the VC world in.
• 24:48
  General yeah, that, that I mean like if, if you do have to,
• 24:50
  you're funding startups and stuff like that.
• 24:51
  It is. You're not always going to get
• 24:53
  yeah. No, I mean, I say gambling with
• 24:55
  extra steps as a joke, obviously, but like, you know,
• 25:00
  what's what's that? What's that?
• 25:02
  I don't know that that report that someone did, was it New
• 25:04
  York Times or whatever where like, oh, a goldfish picked a
• 25:08
  bunch of stock and it had about as much chance of going up in
• 25:11
  value as like one done by like like an investment bank, right.
• 25:17
  So it is. Yeah, if if any.
• 25:19
  Speculation. That's the nature of
• 25:21
  speculation. If you or anyone's ever invested
• 25:24
  or done any investing in anything, you're you have to
• 25:28
  accept that at some point you're going to lose a bit of money.
• 25:30
  Exactly. Or like, your investment's not
• 25:32
  going to pan out. That's just the nature of
• 25:34
  things, you know. The question is, if you work for
• 25:36
  a venture capital that's owned by a state owned company and
• 25:38
  you'll lose a bet, could you be could you be charged, convicted
• 25:42
  and sent to jail for for making that wrong?
• 25:45
  Is that? Kind of like kind of insider
• 25:46
  trading kind of thing. It's not exactly insider
• 25:49
  trading, but the but but it's not it's not insider trading at
• 25:51
  all. Insider trading is basically
• 25:52
  when you when you make a bet knowing.
• 25:55
  Knowing the outcome. Yeah, Someone, someone gives you
• 25:58
  something that's supposed to be a secret.
• 26:00
  You make an investment decision based on that, and you make a
• 26:03
  bunch of money on it. And that's information that
• 26:06
  other people on the market don't have.
• 26:08
  So the market deems it as like, this is an unfair advantage.
• 26:12
  That's insider trading. What's happening here is
• 26:14
  basically a bad business decision, which happens at best,
• 26:19
  a bad decision at worst. You know, you're at a blackjack
• 26:23
  table. You say, hit me one more time.
• 26:25
  You don't get a 21. Tough luck.
• 26:27
  That's how it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 26:30
  And, and, and in fairness, it's not like he, he wouldn't have
• 26:35
  been or he if, if found guilty and only if found guilty, he
• 26:40
  wouldn't be the first person to be found guilty of make of, of
• 26:45
  corruption for either making bad business decisions or making
• 26:49
  good business decisions. That wasn't done in a way that.
• 26:56
  They did not align with the interests of the government.
• 26:59
  Kind of, I don't know, it's really weird.
• 27:01
  It's, it's, it's a really weird Gray area.
• 27:03
  And this is and, and, and, and it, and it certainly sparks a
• 27:07
  lot of fears of legal uncertainty.
• 27:08
  And I see this again and again and again during my pieces.
• 27:13
  There's been a. Lot of cases similar to this.
• 27:16
  Exactly, and it really says a lot about the sort of the the
• 27:20
  sort of blurriness of it all and and hence and hence why, you
• 27:24
  know, I get a lot of access to, you know, founders, venture
• 27:30
  capitals, things like that, venture capital people through
• 27:34
  my job, right. And I've been speaking to them
• 27:37
  and the, the, the, the, the, the, the general sentiment that
• 27:41
  I get from talking to them is like, Indonesia is bad for
• 27:45
  business. Right now.
• 27:46
  Oh no. No, for sure.
• 27:48
  That's if I was someone who was going to like like invest in a
• 27:53
  company here, I'd be like, I'm not touching this with a 10 foot
• 27:57
  pole. Like even even as a company
• 28:00
  working with the government, for example, as you know, going back
• 28:03
  to the going back to Makarim's case, Yeah, even as a even as a
• 28:08
  company working with the government.
• 28:10
  And by the way, the Chromebook case isn't a case of a company
• 28:13
  working with the government. Yeah, the Chromebook case is a
• 28:15
  case of is a case of is a case of hardware procurement.
• 28:22
  Yeah. That already had Chrome OS pre
• 28:27
  installed into these into these these laptops, right.
• 28:32
  So there was basically no like there, there needed to be 0,
• 28:35
  like there needed to be 0 consultations with the, with,
• 28:41
  with Google all together. Yeah, because it's it's one of
• 28:44
  those things where you just buy it and then you set it up
• 28:46
  yourself. Yeah, because, because like
• 28:49
  Chromebooks, like you said, they're just like cheapo laptops
• 28:52
  with Chrome OS on it, like Google.
• 28:55
  I think Google used to make like Google made Chromebooks, but
• 28:59
  they definitely don't make them anymore now.
• 29:02
  Like that's not the model that Chrome.
• 29:05
  That's also our base. Yeah.
• 29:05
  That's not a model that can. Yeah, 'cause like the Google
• 29:08
  make chromos are also like usually high, like premium
• 29:11
  products that aren't, you know, they're like 1000 bucks a
• 29:14
  laptop. That's not something you just
• 29:16
  generally distributed. I will say there is a very, very
• 29:20
  clear benefit for Google in the use of Chrome OS.
• 29:24
  That's OK. If I'm going to play devil's
• 29:27
  advocate, is there a case where like Google greatly benefits of
• 29:29
  this? Yes, of course.
• 29:32
  I'm going to take this from the angle of like what Adobe is
• 29:35
  doing with a lot of like creative industry, or at least
• 29:41
  sorry, creative universities and degrees where they give student
• 29:47
  discounts or something that's completely free in order to get
• 29:51
  all of these students and all these young people onto their
• 29:54
  platform and what's the term for it and grandfather them into the
• 30:00
  system where? The ecosystem.
• 30:01
  The ecosystem. By the time they graduate, you
• 30:03
  know no one's going to know how to use.
• 30:07
  Like any. Other products like which is
• 30:09
  something that like Microsoft did very, very well.
• 30:10
  I think for our generation right where it being like we grew up
• 30:13
  on like Microsoft Word, Microsoft.
• 30:15
  Excel. It's Windows, the OS, yeah.
• 30:16
  Exactly right where there was a there was a long time where
• 30:19
  being like damn this Google doc shit how does it work?
• 30:22
  Like what do you mean I can't work with no Internet?
• 30:24
  Connection. A lot of the old heads filled
• 30:26
  out. Yeah, exactly.
• 30:27
  So there is a very, very clear benefit for Google.
• 30:32
  The problem I believe, is like the correlation between that
• 30:38
  and. The investments.
• 30:41
  And the investments in the 1st place which is like it's dumb.
• 30:45
  Like anyone who has seen how like the startup world works,
• 30:50
  which I will be the first to say is bullshit.
• 30:55
  A lot of startups operate on the basis of you got to keep
• 31:01
  growing, which means the company will need like as many funding
• 31:09
  rounds as it needs because so many of these startups operate
• 31:13
  at a loss for so many years of their development.
• 31:17
  So most startups, whether it's go Jack or Grab or Uber,
• 31:24
  whatever, for like a certain amount of years for I, I believe
• 31:28
  like at least a decade for many of these start-ups, you're going
• 31:31
  to be doing multiple funding rounds in which you're going to
• 31:36
  be expecting people to invest. And when people don't invest,
• 31:41
  that usually spells bad news for your company and for anyone who
• 31:47
  holds your stock, right. I'm going to segue slightly to
• 31:52
  like what we heard the, the, the witness that the defense called
• 31:59
  was one of like the Google execs.
• 32:00
  And what he said was like, oh, this is just, I'm paraphrasing
• 32:05
  here. But like, you know, it's a
• 32:07
  startup. And in the startup world, if you
• 32:09
  don't invest in a company that you invested in in the
• 32:15
  beginning, if you don't keep investing it for a certain
• 32:18
  amount of times and certain amount of years, that's going to
• 32:20
  be interpreted as a. Vote of no confidence.
• 32:24
  Yeah, a vote, a vote of no confidence being like, you know,
• 32:28
  hey, you funded Gojek 2 years ago, why aren't you funding them
• 32:31
  again? Has something changed?
• 32:33
  Did you lose faith in the company?
• 32:34
  Should I also pull out? You know, right.
• 32:37
  And so there is an incentive for Google to keep keep on investing
• 32:42
  because one, they already sunk a lot of money into Gojek.
• 32:48
  They already own a lot of Gojek stock.
• 32:50
  If they don't keep pouring money into it, the company will
• 32:55
  slightly devalue and the stocks they hold will slightly devalue.
• 32:58
  So, you know, if you want to take a problem with startups
• 33:01
  that that is a problem, right? Where it's like, you know, it's
• 33:04
  being like the whole too big to fail kind of thing.
• 33:08
  But I think that was, that was definitely not the case that the
• 33:12
  defense was making, sorry that the prosecution was making
• 33:15
  because the prosecution is, I thought apparently somewhere
• 33:20
  else. That's like, but that's kind of
• 33:21
  that kind of shows the the disconnect between the
• 33:25
  prosecutors. Yeah.
• 33:27
  Thinking of what's, what's startup mindsets are like and
• 33:31
  what the startup mindset is actually like because because
• 33:34
  they, they're thinking that, oh, Google really wants to, you
• 33:39
  know, make their Chromebook successful.
• 33:41
  So like if, if they can cut a deal, then they would invest
• 33:45
  like as if like that's such a big thing for Google.
• 33:48
  Yeah, but like, it's really not that much money, Google.
• 33:51
  I mean, like it's what, third like 300 million?
• 33:55
  That's the thing also because Google does not give two shits
• 33:59
  about hardware, let alone Chromebooks.
• 34:01
  Yeah, and I look this up, right, because Google hasn't been that
• 34:05
  big on hardware for a while, and definitely not now.
• 34:08
  They're like all on AI now, right?
• 34:10
  Right. The last big hardware push that
• 34:14
  Google had I believe was Stadia, the cloud gaming.
• 34:17
  Service. That they had actual hardware
• 34:20
  for, Yeah. Now that they discontinued that,
• 34:23
  that was a complete, complete failure.
• 34:26
  And how about the pixels that was?
• 34:28
  Does that not count? I think.
• 34:29
  That's still kind of like going, but like for like a new thing
• 34:33
  that they're trying to do, like the Stadia thing that completely
• 34:35
  failed. And now just to give you an
• 34:38
  example of like the how insignificant the amount of
• 34:42
  state losses in Google's point of view is actually is.
• 34:48
  So again, the the prosecution claims that the state losses are
• 34:52
  on the 124.4 million U.S. dollars.
• 34:55
  Now this is chump change. If you, if there you go, don't
• 34:58
  realize this is chump change to Google.
• 35:00
  Yeah, in 2021, around the time this is all, you know,
• 35:03
  happening, their revenue was already up way beyond 200
• 35:08
  billion U.S. dollars at that point.
• 35:10
  So. Let me just think about that 100
• 35:12
  million to versus 200 billion, that's 0.500, zero point,
• 35:17
  0.0005%. It's insignificant basically.
• 35:22
  I'll take your word for it, man. That's like they spent they
• 35:25
  spent more money refunding Stadia consoles and the games
• 35:31
  that it came on than they did for this particular thing.
• 35:35
  They don't care about Chromebooks.
• 35:37
  They've never cared about Chromebooks.
• 35:38
  They don't care about hardware. You know, they've that's never
• 35:40
  been that hasn't been their focus for a long time.
• 35:43
  So to think that the logic behind this is they really want
• 35:48
  to push Chromebooks. They want to make Chromebooks a
• 35:50
  thing here. And if you're able to do that,
• 35:53
  we'll invest a lot in your company's complete bullshit.
• 35:56
  You know, it's complete nonsense.
• 35:58
  I will say this though, Daniel, you do make a really, you do
• 36:01
  make a really great point about how like did I know about, about
• 36:04
  grandfathering. Yeah, yeah, yeah, in that like.
• 36:08
  Putting people in that ecosystem, the Google ecosystem.
• 36:11
  Exactly. And and you know, there's also
• 36:12
  there's, I do understand as well, like just just just
• 36:16
  speaking from like somebody who understands like the, the, the,
• 36:20
  the the negative downsides that, you know, monopolies or in, in
• 36:25
  the case of airlines, duopolies, yeah, can bring.
• 36:29
  But if we were to, if, if we were to, if we were to have like
• 36:32
  the entirety of the school, of the school, the, the school, the
• 36:38
  academic, the digital academic system under the umbrella of a
• 36:43
  single company, Of course there is some, you know, risks to
• 36:48
  that, right? But at the same time, the, the,
• 36:53
  the, the only other company I can think of that can, that can
• 36:56
  provide that sort of service is Microsoft.
• 37:00
  Or in the case of, or in the case of, you know, other
• 37:02
  academic, academic dashboards, let's say Blackboard.
• 37:08
  I can't think of I can't think of the other one, but there's
• 37:10
  another one. Moodle.
• 37:12
  I have no idea. I've never even.
• 37:14
  You don't know anything Moodle, just Moodle in blackboard.
• 37:16
  Oh fuck, it's a whole thing. No, sorry.
• 37:18
  You said Moodle and I, I and I get a PTSD flashback because in
• 37:22
  college that's the system that I use.
• 37:23
  There you go. Fucking I'm nightmare.
• 37:26
  I'm very sorry. Woo.
• 37:27
  No, but yeah, yeah, like no I. Totally get it.
• 37:29
  For a government to be completely like for a government
• 37:33
  to, to have one, to have full total control and like, you
• 37:37
  know, or no, let me rephrase that.
• 37:38
  For a government to have not only full total control, but
• 37:41
  also uniformity across all systems while also being able to
• 37:45
  be completely safe from from a monopoly, yeah, they would have
• 37:48
  to develop that system themselves.
• 37:51
  Yeah. Yep.
• 37:51
  And we know just how bad the government is at developing like
• 37:56
  software in general, let alone an entire infrastructure.
• 38:01
  Yeah, digital infrastructure if if you, if you've ever.
• 38:04
  Done your taxes this year? Holy.
• 38:07
  If you've done your taxes this year, if you are a victim of
• 38:10
  Cortex, you will know. I am pissed with Cortex.
• 38:14
  Man, fuck cortex. Fuck Cortex.
• 38:16
  I always hate Cortex I. Was so happy with the previous
• 38:19
  one with DJP. That was so easy.
• 38:21
  That was so easy. That was super easy, actually,
• 38:24
  Yeah. And they made it.
• 38:25
  Worse, Get ready for our next year's Cortex dot AI.
• 38:29
  Oh, I. Imagine that our producer just
• 38:32
  had a look of horror on his face.
• 38:34
  Like, Oh, no, honestly. But like I if you know, all
• 38:40
  things considered, yeah, if there's one thing that I would
• 38:43
  want AI taking care of, it's my fucking taxes.
• 38:46
  You know what I mean? Like if if I can just if I can
• 38:49
  just feed my taxes into like a government approved AI.
• 38:51
  But do you really want to give to to think about it?
• 38:55
  Do you really want to provide all of your bank details to an
• 39:00
  AI created by the government? Nope.
• 39:03
  I retract my previous statement. Can you imagine the amount of
• 39:07
  gaps available for people to hack into my?
• 39:11
  God my my my laziness overtook my common sense there for a
• 39:14
  little bit. I retract my statement.
• 39:16
  I don't want my taxes done by AI.
• 39:18
  I'm pretty sure the last time I read about like an Indonesian
• 39:21
  government data leak on Twitter was literally last week.
• 39:24
  So you know, Oh, no. Yeah, it.
• 39:25
  Happens. Every other.
• 39:26
  Week. It happens every time, every
• 39:28
  very often, so. You know, not recommended.
• 39:32
  And so you can almost understand why like, OK, between these
• 39:36
  three options or between these four options, Microsoft, Google
• 39:41
  Blackboard, Moodle. Yeah, Moodle, Moodle, Moodle.
• 39:45
  I get it. It's not.
• 39:47
  Like it's not you don't. You're not.
• 39:48
  You're not really, you know, you don't really have much of A joy.
• 39:51
  It's not like, it's not like in their mind, yeah, Nadeem's
• 39:56
  trying to prevent like some sort of home grown education suite
• 40:03
  from taking a piece of what could have been theirs.
• 40:06
  Because their, their only realistic options were either
• 40:09
  Google or Microsoft or some other major, you know, education
• 40:14
  suite company out there, you know.
• 40:16
  This gives the Now that you've brought Moodle up, I'm and I'm I
• 40:20
  am having PTSD flashbacks being called.
• 40:22
  Out if you fuck with Moodle I. Was a blackboard guy actually.
• 40:26
  Really interesting. I don't I, I, I like, I'll hand
• 40:31
  write my papers, dog. No, no, because there are times
• 40:35
  where I'm like, OK. And we all know.
• 40:38
  Hey, hey, hey. We've all been there.
• 40:40
  We have Yeah where assignments due on Sunday night 11:59 we're.
• 40:48
  Cranking that shit. Yeah, yeah, yo.
• 40:51
  We're cranking that shit late night.
• 40:53
  Late night cranking. Yeah, being like, OK, I have, I
• 40:56
  have, I have like, like a 1500 word essay to write.
• 41:01
  And it's 9:00 PM on a Sunday. Homework is due Sunday, 11:59
• 41:07
  PM. And I'm being like, all right,
• 41:10
  I'm on three Red Bulls and a fucking Initial D Euro Beat
• 41:15
  playlist, and I'm being like, I'm writing.
• 41:17
  I'm writing, bro. No, no, before AI, by the way,
• 41:19
  I'm writing, bro, I'm writing. All the kids out here, they're
• 41:22
  not. They don't, they don't get it,
• 41:24
  man. They.
• 41:24
  Don't get it. They don't get.
• 41:25
  They don't get it. Yeah, they don't get.
• 41:26
  It they're putting this shit at GPP as we speak.
• 41:29
  Exactly. No, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:31
  Your your brain on three Red Bulls is way more powerful than
• 41:33
  any like 500 hectare data centre know that.
• 41:37
  And then it's 11:59. I'm sorry, it's like 9:00 PM and
• 41:42
  you've been writing and you've been writing and you've been
• 41:44
  writing and now it's like 1130, your assignments due in like 30
• 41:48
  minutes. And then I get on fucking Moodle
• 41:51
  and I try to paste my essay Moodle into the import box, edit
• 41:57
  fucking errors out. And that's my fucking problem
• 42:00
  with Moodle and being like I need to stop in my assignment
• 42:03
  I've done. Sorry folks, Daniel Moodle too
• 42:07
  close to the Suns and our fucking camera died.
• 42:11
  But we're back now. Dan, do you want to continue
• 42:13
  moodling or you got no? I think I've said all that need
• 42:17
  to be said. Maybe you know what?
• 42:18
  Maybe, maybe, you know, the gods decided that what I had to say
• 42:21
  about Moodle was was was too, too much for the people.
• 42:24
  Big Moodle didn't want you. To continue that.
• 42:26
  Big Moodle man Insane. I think the point that I was
• 42:29
  trying to make is that, yeah, this reminded me of the college
• 42:36
  days because it feels like when I'm trying to do my when, when
• 42:41
  there's like a big group project and you're just under the word
• 42:45
  count. And so you've been like, you
• 42:47
  know what? Just just just make stuff up.
• 42:48
  As, as long as you can make a threadbare connection from the
• 42:52
  beginning of your paper to the end of your paper, and we can
• 42:55
  just sell it to the class and to the teacher.
• 42:57
  They're like, hey, we did our work.
• 42:58
  Yeah. And this is what the the
• 42:59
  prosecution's case felt like. Yeah, it was like grasping at
• 43:02
  straws, basically. Yes, yeah, exactly.
• 43:04
  And the, the, the, the real, like one of them going back to
• 43:08
  like the entire like point of the tech in Asia and LW pieces
• 43:13
  that I've been doing is that all of this, you know, not only
• 43:17
  Makarim's case, but Niko Vijaya's case as well.
• 43:20
  And you know, Ibrahim Arif's case is what does that say?
• 43:26
  What does that signal to foreign investors?
• 43:30
  And what does that signal to not only foreign investors, but
• 43:32
  also, you know, internal investors as well?
• 43:34
  And that like if, if, if, if in any way, shape or form your
• 43:42
  company, even if you did not like, even if you did not
• 43:45
  directly like deal with the government, like in the case of
• 43:52
  like in the case of Google, for example, where the ministry just
• 43:56
  as a just just just to repeat, the ministry did not the
• 43:59
  ministry did not have any agreements with Google.
• 44:02
  The ministry procured laptops that had that had Chrome OS on
• 44:06
  it, that had Google Chrome OS on it and Chrome device management
• 44:09
  on it too, right. And if something like that can,
• 44:16
  if something like that can implicate a, a company who did
• 44:21
  not who, who did not do any dealings with the government at
• 44:25
  all, how high is the risk of operating in Indonesia
• 44:31
  whatsoever, you know? Those government contracts not
• 44:34
  looking too sweet no more. Exactly.
• 44:37
  And here's another. And here's another thing, if
• 44:39
  you're a company in Indonesia, if you're an Indonesian company
• 44:43
  who's looking for capital to fund your, to fund your company
• 44:48
  in the this is particularly in the case of Niko Vijayan Berry
• 44:52
  Ventures. Yeah.
• 44:54
  Why would you want to take funds?
• 44:59
  Why? Why would you want to accept
• 45:00
  funding or debt from an Indonesian from from an
• 45:04
  Indonesian government? Yeah, owned venture capital.
• 45:09
  Firm the risk is becoming too much to bear.
• 45:11
  Exactly knowing. De antara bro.
• 45:14
  I'm Speaking of Betty Ventures, but de Antara is certainly one
• 45:17
  of them for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:19
  And with and in the case of Ebam and I think this is going to
• 45:21
  segue very well into what you want to talk about next.
• 45:24
  Just for context, Ebam is Nadeem's subordinate.
• 45:27
  Former subordinate. Something like that.
• 45:28
  Yeah, he was. He was.
• 45:30
  He was a consultant. Exactly.
• 45:31
  The technology consultant. Ibrahim Arif, picture up here.
• 45:35
  If if you were, how would you say if you were contacted by the
• 45:44
  government to provide consultation for any kind of
• 45:50
  service, you know? Yes, I know in Ibam's case, it's
• 45:54
  the basically consult in, in, in the in in IT or in the digital
• 46:00
  sector, if you will, right. Yeah.
• 46:02
  But if you were, say, creative worker, an MC for example, or a
• 46:07
  videographer in the case of what's exactly what is stopping
• 46:13
  you from being criminalized? And therefore, would you even
• 46:18
  work with the government at all? Yeah, it's a very.
• 46:22
  This is going to be a massive backlash going forward, as we
• 46:28
  see because because of how big and how much media attention
• 46:31
  these cases are getting. Yeah.
• 46:33
  Especially for the cases like I'm Salsa Tabu.
• 46:35
  Like, it's a clear signal to a lot of folks.
• 46:37
  Obviously, I'm Salsa tabu for contacts.
• 46:41
  He pitched his video production services to several villages.
• 46:50
  He said, this is how much, this is what I can give you, and this
• 46:53
  is how much it costs. So it's all like above board.
• 46:56
  It's very typical for that kind of work.
• 47:01
  And then the prosecutors just said, Nope, you overcharged if
• 47:07
  he overcharged and just say no, bro, like the villages did.
• 47:11
  They're not forced at gunpoint to accept these things.
• 47:13
  But that's kind of like that signals to a lot of creative
• 47:16
  workers and other workers who are going to take up government
• 47:19
  contracts or or like pitch work to government entities to be
• 47:24
  like, maybe I should just not do it at all.
• 47:26
  Right? Yeah.
• 47:27
  Because, yeah, even though in Amsal sit Tabu's case,
• 47:30
  eventually after being viral, he was, you know, acquitted of all
• 47:33
  charges. What, you know, does, would that
• 47:37
  be the same in your case if that were to happen?
• 47:39
  You know, you can't always be sure they'll.
• 47:42
  So that's that for a lot of people, maybe that's not a risk
• 47:45
  that you want to take, you know what I mean?
• 47:46
  And there's going to be less and less of that happening, you
• 47:49
  know. Yeah.
• 47:50
  And that's crazy, isn't it? Because you know, I mean like,
• 47:53
  like like in in any country, a major driving factor behind the
• 48:02
  economy is the government, whether through, whether
• 48:06
  through, you know, policies or whether through fiscal spending,
• 48:09
  Right. Yeah.
• 48:10
  And by fiscal spending, I mean, you know, spending on programs
• 48:13
  like that, the national free nutritious meal program, for
• 48:18
  example. Yes, yes, yes.
• 48:20
  And if if, if that kind of risk is so severely high and that
• 48:26
  anyone can be caught, why the fuck would you even take it?
• 48:30
  Yeah, it's a big red flag to take government contract.
• 48:33
  This is what you're signalling basically to people, Yeah.
• 48:35
  Yeah. This is a pretty good segue to
• 48:36
  what I think you want to talk about.
• 48:38
  Yeah, yeah. Which is?
• 48:39
  But but the. Brain drain.
• 48:40
  Yeah. I want to talk about that.
• 48:42
  But prior to that I do want to ask because we have been seeing
• 48:47
  a lot of these cases happening recently.
• 48:50
  I don't, I don't know if this is kind of like just it doesn't
• 48:56
  feel like it's business as usual.
• 48:59
  It feels almost low key like a desperation call, like we want
• 49:06
  to get as much of these cases as possible kind of thing because
• 49:11
  obviously we see the case even Tom Limbo if we go back like.
• 49:18
  Oh yeah, Tom Limbo, right? Yeah.
• 49:20
  And it feels kind of like is this?
• 49:22
  And these are just the big cases, right?
• 49:24
  They're just the big cases. There's several others, yeah.
• 49:26
  So like, what's the deal? Like is this, is this a pattern?
• 49:31
  And if it is, what does it, what does it mean?
• 49:34
  Like what? What is causing all of these
• 49:37
  cases to kind of like, it feels like they're popping up more and
• 49:40
  more. I will say there is one thing
• 49:42
  that I want to connect to to that in that yesterday, I don't
• 49:47
  know if you were watching this, but we were recording this on
• 49:49
  May the 21st and on May the 20th the President went to Parliament
• 49:55
  to deliver a speech on the state of the economy, right,
• 50:02
  basically. And many people or many
• 50:05
  observers I should say, saw that as kind of like a, a so-called
• 50:11
  what they call what they consider to be an emergency
• 50:14
  speech, right? To try to calm, to try to calm
• 50:18
  fears. But what happened and said is
• 50:20
  that the president announced a new a new, a new policy or a new
• 50:29
  regulation. Not a law, but a regulation, a
• 50:32
  presidential, a presidential decree, actually, right.
• 50:34
  Yeah. Either a presidential decree or
• 50:37
  a government regulation. I do love me some presidential
• 50:39
  decrees. I don't remember which.
• 50:41
  Basically stating that all palm oil, coal.
• 50:51
  All the commodities, basically. Yeah, basically natural
• 50:53
  commodities, palm oil, coal and precious metals, yeah, were are
• 51:00
  to be exported only through a single state owned enterprise,
• 51:05
  right. Yeah, that's a whole.
• 51:07
  Thing I saw that that's. Definitely nothing VOC related
• 51:10
  at all. It doesn't remind.
• 51:11
  Me of the VOC. close enough. Welcome back, Portamina.
• 51:14
  Or New order, Yeah. Did you see the video where it
• 51:18
  was a side by side real time? I did.
• 51:22
  The speech and then the Indonesian Stock Exchange.
• 51:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going down as he kept
• 51:29
  talking, baby. It's going down in real time.
• 51:33
  It went down just as he just as he announced the new body, the
• 51:37
  new agency or the new or the new.
• 51:40
  What is it called? Danantara something Indonesia
• 51:45
  pet the DSI I think. Let me look it up.
• 51:47
  Pet the. DSI So basically privatizing.
• 51:52
  Denantara Sumberdea, Indonesia. Sorry, is it, is it privatizing
• 51:56
  the term for or is it like? It's it's monopolizing.
• 52:01
  It's monopolizing. The opposite of it's
• 52:03
  nationalization. It's.
• 52:04
  Nationalization. Nationalizing.
• 52:06
  Nationalizing. Export export basically.
• 52:09
  Yeah, yeah. Specific commodities export.
• 52:11
  And this is something that he thinks will calm the markets.
• 52:15
  Well, I don't know if that was, I don't know if that was why he
• 52:19
  did it. But I will say like there, there
• 52:21
  has been a pattern of centralization within within
• 52:25
  with like during the during the the period of the recent of the
• 52:29
  current administration. Going back to 2014, actually
• 52:33
  centralization has been going on since 2014, that is.
• 52:37
  Masterful gambit, Sir. I mean, true, but you have to
• 52:39
  admit it really like, like he really stepped on the gas pedal.
• 52:43
  When Yeah, it's like they don't even bother to lie badly
• 52:46
  anymore. I think it's the line from my
• 52:47
  favorite show, yeah. Chess right now, guys we're just
• 52:49
  not seeing. It we're not seeing the vision,
• 52:51
  it's we're just idiots, you know we're.
• 52:52
  Just idiots. He's the be the brains of the
• 52:54
  operation. Man, I, I, I think what's
• 52:56
  happening is just like he's doing the exact same thing I
• 52:59
  think the previous administration's been doing at
• 53:01
  least since 2014. He's just.
• 53:03
  He's mask off man. Yeah, he's just too dumb to do
• 53:06
  it. Well, mask off, bro.
• 53:08
  It's mask off. It's very Trumpian.
• 53:10
  Yeah, to say it's like. Trumpian.
• 53:12
  It reminds me a lot of I'm. Too dumb to say I'm not.
• 53:16
  I'm too dumb to say the quiet part quietly and then so it
• 53:19
  doesn't. Allow.
• 53:19
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 53:22
  At least that's our opinion of it.
• 53:23
  I just want to, I mean like all of this is an opinion, you know,
• 53:26
  We can't, we cannot, we cannot, we cannot legally diagnose that
• 53:31
  he has narcissistic personality disorder.
• 53:33
  We can't do that. Because we're not.
• 53:35
  Yes, we're neither. Neither are we licensed.
• 53:39
  A therapist. Psychiatrist.
• 53:41
  We don't even know the right turn.
• 53:43
  Or do you want to? Villainize people with
• 53:45
  narcissistic personality disorder.
• 53:47
  I think there are plenty of people out there who are just
• 53:50
  dumb, shitty. People right?
• 53:54
  I will say this does remind. OK, first of all, I think I know
• 53:58
  why he's trying to do that with Dan Antara, because I think Dan
• 54:01
  Antara is taking off the like the Norwegian sovereign wealth
• 54:06
  fund playbook, right? Where they consolidate a lot of
• 54:09
  the natural gas funds under the the state.
• 54:14
  And that's why they're such a wealthy, like welfare state,
• 54:17
  right? And I think that's what they're
• 54:18
  trying to do, except it's Indonesia.
• 54:20
  And we know how oil and gas works in Indonesia.
• 54:22
  Natural resources work. Indonesia.
• 54:24
  Like I'm getting like war. Not not even war flashbacks,
• 54:28
  just getting like horror glimpses into like what happened
• 54:32
  with Portamina. I think in like 19, was it 1985
• 54:37
  where Portamina went nearly bankrupt with all like all of
• 54:42
  our like state owned funds because it started working like
• 54:47
  a shadow National Bank and start, you know, like borrowing
• 54:51
  and leveraging money. And all of its stocks went so S
• 54:55
  that we had to deplete like our entire like almost two years
• 55:01
  worth of like foreign exchange money just to save Protamina.
• 55:06
  No, yeah, that really happened. And they when they finally
• 55:08
  opened the books and they were like, why is Protamina investing
• 55:12
  in frozen foods and like tourism, frozen foods and
• 55:18
  airline businesses and be like, Oh my God, this is a mess.
• 55:21
  And like, you know, I'm getting like war flashbacks of that.
• 55:24
  And yeah, this is not great. But in terms of like, to go back
• 55:30
  to your first question, why is it all happening right now?
• 55:32
  OK, I honestly don't know my my conspiracy theory right now.
• 55:41
  Take it. With a grain of salt, by the
• 55:42
  way. Yeah.
• 55:43
  Grain. You did.
• 55:44
  Yeah, grain of salt. We are not.
• 55:46
  Experts. We are simply making somewhat
• 55:49
  educated guesses. Good, then you.
• 55:51
  I feel like I don't know. I wonder if there's a stuff
• 55:54
  source out there just typing into ChatGPT.
• 55:58
  Like how do I divert attention? Away from they're pulling a Pete
• 56:01
  Hag Seth bro, no. Yeah, I don't.
• 56:04
  I have absolutely 0 faith that the people in government are not
• 56:08
  using ChatGPT for a solution like that.
• 56:10
  I wonder if they're just looking at me like, OK, someone throw a
• 56:13
  bone to the media because the rupiahs surpassed 17,000, you
• 56:17
  know, or like somebody, how do we get them to stop talking
• 56:22
  about Board of Peace? Someone get nadim makarim.
• 56:25
  And I feel like yeah, because there's no logic to this.
• 56:31
  They're just like trying to trying to get out of a hole that
• 56:36
  they dug themselves into by putting themselves in a bigger
• 56:40
  hole. Yeah, it's like.
• 56:41
  And the hole just keeps subsequently getting bigger and
• 56:43
  bigger. Yeah, exactly.
• 56:45
  It's like I my house is on fire instead of putting out the fire
• 56:49
  being like, look, everyone, the fire across the street and you
• 56:52
  set the fire across the street on fire.
• 56:56
  Oh no, there's another fire over there.
• 56:57
  Guys, look and don't look at my house.
• 57:00
  That's on fire where that you can again easily put out just
• 57:03
  by, you know, having I feel like a little bit of sense, but I
• 57:06
  feel like that's. That's that's a Regan.
• 57:08
  It's a conspiracy theory, but it sounds just dumb enough to be
• 57:12
  real. Yeah, yeah.
• 57:13
  And I wouldn't put it past our our the great minds working in
• 57:18
  the in the government to do. I feel like every headline I've
• 57:21
  read for the past five years has been like, oh, this is just dumb
• 57:23
  enough to be real. Actually, there's a big.
• 57:26
  And it was real. There's a very there's a very
• 57:29
  interesting report by Amnesty International that just came out
• 57:34
  yesterday or two days ago. What's to say, buddy?
• 57:37
  Let me just look it up real quick, just to make sure.
• 57:39
  OK Indonesia, the military silences dissent with
• 57:43
  disinformation campaigns branding government critics as
• 57:47
  foreign agents. Yes, an Amnesty International
• 57:51
  investigation can reveal coordinated information
• 57:56
  campaigns portraying government critics as foreign agents are
• 57:59
  silencing dissent and fueling intimidation violence under the
• 58:02
  Indonesian President Prabhu Subiento, Amnesty International
• 58:05
  said in a new report published 2 days ago titled Building Up
• 58:10
  Imaginary Enemies, revealing a growing pattern in which
• 58:15
  Indonesian authorities, including the military, deploy
• 58:18
  online disinformation to target journalists, activists,
• 58:21
  academics and protesters in retaliation for their legitimate
• 58:25
  activism and expression. Meanwhile, tech giants Meta,
• 58:29
  TikTok X and YouTube have allowed harmful disinformation
• 58:33
  to remain online. Yep, this came out only two days
• 58:37
  ago with Amnesty International's report claiming that our tax
• 58:42
  funds are being used to suppress us.
• 58:45
  Oh. No, I never saw this coming.
• 58:49
  No, I feel like this is just what happens when you know,
• 58:54
  people 10 years ago, because I feel like this started with
• 58:58
  like, you know, OK, this this is like, OK, populism is a double
• 59:04
  edged sword, right? Right.
• 59:06
  I feel like in the same way that everyone cheered for Obama when
• 59:11
  he became president because he was so like, oh, for the people,
• 59:14
  Jokowi was so for the people. This is like, yeah, this is what
• 59:18
  happens when that becomes the sole tactic of a political body
• 59:26
  and it becomes rhetoric and discourse heavy as as opposed to
• 59:30
  policy heavy. They.
• 59:32
  Relying on the cult of personality.
• 59:34
  Yeah, and but not just a cult of personality, just discourse,
• 59:37
  just like I'm going to say this and I'm going to say that and
• 59:40
  this is going to be happening like your diversionary tactics
• 59:42
  because like, yeah, it, it does feel a little too crackpot
• 59:45
  conspiracy theories or just oh, they're just saying this so that
• 59:49
  we don't talk about like Board of Peace or whatever.
• 59:51
  But I think it this is just what happens when the thing that it's
• 59:54
  happening within the last 24 hour news cycle within this week
• 59:58
  is the only thing that matters. And you know.
• 1:00:01
  And if that's true, you know it works.
• 1:00:04
  We're not talking about the Board of fees.
• 1:00:06
  Yeah, No, we're not. They they, they got us.
• 1:00:09
  They got the totally normal folks to be talking about this
• 1:00:13
  instead of other stuff. There you go it.
• 1:00:15
  Worked, man. Yeah.
• 1:00:16
  So it's not so. Our next week's episode on Board
• 1:00:19
  of Peace. Not so far fetched.
• 1:00:20
  By the way, did you guys hear about the 9 activists on the on
• 1:00:23
  the flotilla? Yeah, who got freaking kidnapped
• 1:00:26
  by the? The foreign minister just issued
• 1:00:29
  a statement saying that no guys, that's.
• 1:00:32
  That's it's not a kid, it's. Not a kidnapping.
• 1:00:33
  Actually, they were. They were apprehended.
• 1:00:35
  Apparently was a big difference. So there you go.
• 1:00:38
  Big difference. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:39
  Wow, yeah. Handed international waters,
• 1:00:42
  isn't that piracy? Yeah, man.
• 1:00:45
  Yeah, I, I, I, you know, like every other week it happens to
• 1:00:48
  be I'm just sailing in international waters.
• 1:00:50
  Yeah, maybe I have, like, a bunch of food packets in, in,
• 1:00:54
  in, in, like, you know, in, in the bottom decks.
• 1:00:56
  And then I get, you know, I get, you know, floodlights shown on
• 1:00:59
  me and men with guns board my ship.
• 1:01:01
  And I'd be like, oh, OK, there you go.
• 1:01:02
  Business as usual. Business as usual.
• 1:01:05
  Yeah, thank you God. I have my president to.
• 1:01:07
  It's weird when it doesn't to root for me.
• 1:01:09
  Yeah. It's weird when it doesn't
• 1:01:11
  happen. Yeah.
• 1:01:11
  Yeah, that's what you come to expect.
• 1:01:13
  And here's the thing, we, we know, like we're not, we're not
• 1:01:16
  idiots. We know they're actual, you
• 1:01:19
  know, diplomats within Kamlu who are.
• 1:01:22
  I hope. I hope, I certainly hope.
• 1:01:25
  I'm related to 1. There you go.
• 1:01:27
  Are working to get these people, you know, back home safely, but
• 1:01:31
  public. But public sentiment matters.
• 1:01:33
  Yeah, dude, nearly as much. Yeah.
• 1:01:36
  Do you know? I want.
• 1:01:37
  I want to, I want to have certainty and and assurance that
• 1:01:42
  my government's doing things. Yeah, that they're going to bat
• 1:01:45
  for me, you know? Exactly.
• 1:01:46
  It's a very simple premise. I mean, you say things that will
• 1:01:51
  make people feel comfortable and people you know will feel
• 1:01:57
  comfortable until they, you know, realize, oh shit, actually
• 1:02:01
  this might not be good for us, but that was how it was during
• 1:02:03
  the during Jokowi's administration in my.
• 1:02:06
  Opinion. But I don't want to like talk.
• 1:02:10
  I don't want to say this like I know what I'm talking.
• 1:02:12
  About because I don't know. I don't, but I feel like with
• 1:02:15
  the rise of populism, people kind of forgot what the social
• 1:02:18
  contract is. Both, you know, both on our, on
• 1:02:22
  both on the public's end, right, Because with a lot of the
• 1:02:24
  populism came like the, the, the buzzer culture of like, hey,
• 1:02:28
  don't say that about our government.
• 1:02:29
  You're supposed to love our government.
• 1:02:31
  And like, and the government started to get online or they
• 1:02:33
  being be like, yeah, why aren't you, you know, engaging in like,
• 1:02:37
  you know, civilized discourse. And people forgot that like,
• 1:02:41
  hey, if you break the social contract, if, if one of us
• 1:02:45
  breaks a social contract, and in this case it's the government,
• 1:02:47
  you don't take care of the people when after we voted for
• 1:02:49
  you, we're we're we're allowed to be pissed.
• 1:02:52
  Yeah. We're allowed to be disappointed
• 1:02:54
  at the very least, right. Disappointment is like the
• 1:02:57
  bottom. The bar is in hell.
• 1:02:58
  It's like the the minimum, the bare minimum of like, I'm
• 1:03:01
  allowed to be disappointed. Apparently we're not allowed to
• 1:03:03
  be disappointed anymore. And I've got like Nadima Karin
• 1:03:05
  case thrown in our face. Yeah.
• 1:03:07
  And I feel like there's also that notion of like, because of
• 1:03:10
  the populist rhetoric that's been happening, that's been
• 1:03:13
  going around since, I don't know, 20/13/2012.
• 1:03:16
  Yeah. There's a sense of like, there's
• 1:03:18
  a sense of like taking There's, there's almost the notion that
• 1:03:21
  you have to take sides. But I feel like, like if, if I
• 1:03:25
  were, if I were a supporter of the of the president during his
• 1:03:30
  campaign, which I'm not, but if I were, I'd be like, fucking
• 1:03:33
  pissed, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like, yeah, what
• 1:03:38
  what if, what if some of the things that I voted him in for
• 1:03:41
  aren't? Like he went back on his word
• 1:03:44
  net. Exactly.
• 1:03:45
  What if I voted him in just because I thought he was going
• 1:03:48
  to continue Jokowi's legacy? Yeah.
• 1:03:50
  Or continue Jokowi's projects and all of where are my roads
• 1:03:54
  and all of that were just completely thrown to the side
• 1:03:58
  for, you know, the food nutritious meals program, for
• 1:04:00
  example. Or for example, you know what?
• 1:04:03
  I mean. Exactly.
• 1:04:06
  Where is. My where is what?
• 1:04:07
  Like tell me, tell me why I shouldn't be pissed when that's
• 1:04:12
  exactly the reason why I voted him in in for in the 1st place.
• 1:04:16
  Hypothetically, if I was someone who voted him in for that
• 1:04:21
  reason, which I didn't, Yeah, you know what I mean.
• 1:04:24
  Yeah, You know what? That's a good segue to our next
• 1:04:27
  point. I feel like, go on.
• 1:04:29
  Now that people are pissed. Yeah, people are pissed.
• 1:04:32
  What's happening? Yeah.
• 1:04:34
  What? What's yeah, Oh yeah, take it
• 1:04:36
  away. Like what's happening?
• 1:04:38
  People are pissed, people are disappointed.
• 1:04:40
  What is the Nadeem Makarim case? What do you think that it's
• 1:04:44
  doing to like the public supplement?
• 1:04:47
  Well, well, for that, I want to toss the question to you guys.
• 1:04:49
  Just hypothetically, OK, put yourself, close your eyes.
• 1:04:52
  Sure. I'm closing my eyes right now.
• 1:04:54
  Put yours. Put yourself, imagine yourself.
• 1:04:56
  You're Nadeem Makarim. You.
• 1:05:00
  You got your MBA from the States, you got you founded a
• 1:05:05
  multi $1,000,000 company. Everyone's using it.
• 1:05:09
  You get, you're getting hella dough, and you could very easily
• 1:05:16
  retire off your riches, live abroad somewhere, literally do
• 1:05:21
  anything. But you chose from the goodness
• 1:05:26
  of your heart to contribute and serve your country, which a lot
• 1:05:31
  of people have chosen to do. Yeah.
• 1:05:33
  Now Nadeem Makarim himself has gone on record when asked, do
• 1:05:38
  you regret taking the path that you chose in public service?
• 1:05:43
  And he said no. But he's very admirable,
• 1:05:45
  obviously. But put yourself in his shoes.
• 1:05:51
  Would you like being in his position right now?
• 1:05:56
  Would you regret your decisions? 100%.
• 1:06:01
  Knowing what I know now or if say I was transported back to
• 1:06:05
  2019 and and and I had a choice to do that.
• 1:06:08
  Like you are right now in the here and now and you're being
• 1:06:11
  asked that question. After what Nadeem's been
• 1:06:14
  through. Yeah.
• 1:06:15
  OK, so like let's say you being let's say you being asked in
• 1:06:17
  private like no, no cameras or whatever.
• 1:06:19
  Like yo, would you have preferred to have just like
• 1:06:22
  avoided public service altogether?
• 1:06:24
  I. Don't know man.
• 1:06:25
  I mean, listen, like if, if, if I was Nadim, and don't get me
• 1:06:30
  wrong, I don't agree with I, I, I, I definitely did not agree
• 1:06:33
  with all of his policies or all of the policies of the ministry,
• 1:06:37
  all the policy that is in ministry, all the policies under
• 1:06:40
  of the ministry under his leadership.
• 1:06:42
  I, I certainly don't agree with all of it.
• 1:06:43
  Yeah, but he came, he, he came into, he came into office with a
• 1:06:49
  mandate that was created by the president at the time to
• 1:06:57
  digitalize the the. Education firm, Yeah.
• 1:07:00
  And I don't think, I don't think even he expected actually, he
• 1:07:04
  said, he said the techonasia exclusively look at the
• 1:07:08
  interview, read the interview that he did not expect this to
• 1:07:13
  happen at all. Yeah.
• 1:07:16
  And so I feel like if I was in issues I still wouldn't regret.
• 1:07:19
  It because you didn't know. Yeah, but with hindsight.
• 1:07:22
  In hindsight, I don't know if I feel like I, if I feel like what
• 1:07:26
  I did truly help, could have, would have, should have helped
• 1:07:31
  to benefit society in general, then I probably wouldn't have
• 1:07:34
  regretted it. You would have regretted it,
• 1:07:36
  yeah. Because.
• 1:07:37
  Like, like if you knowing what's happening now, yeah.
• 1:07:42
  And then you were able to like, let's say, go back in time to
• 1:07:45
  the point you made that decision.
• 1:07:47
  Yeah, you, let's say you know, that the programs that you've
• 1:07:52
  that you've enacted had a positive impact, but it LED you
• 1:07:57
  to have had to go through like all this legal, like buffoonery
• 1:08:03
  basically that cost you your physical and mental health.
• 1:08:06
  You'd be like, that's OK, it's worth it.
• 1:08:09
  You have to understand as well, because for you not to be able
• 1:08:12
  to regret it, you have to believe that you're innocent.
• 1:08:16
  You have to believe that you're not guilty.
• 1:08:17
  Yeah, right. And I, and I, and I, and I
• 1:08:20
  personally, if I was put in that situation and I did all these
• 1:08:22
  things, I wouldn't and, and I didn't take any money at all,
• 1:08:25
  for example. And I'm still being prosecuted
• 1:08:27
  by the yeah, by, by the AGS office.
• 1:08:29
  Like I wouldn't feel guilty because I felt like what I did
• 1:08:32
  was right and therefore I shouldn't feel any regret.
• 1:08:34
  So if anything, feeling any like if, if he were to say something
• 1:08:38
  along the lines of, or if I were to say something along the lines
• 1:08:41
  of yes, I regret doing that, that would almost be like an
• 1:08:44
  admission of guilt. And so I feel like I would not
• 1:08:47
  give them. I would not give them.
• 1:08:50
  I would not give anyone dissatisfaction either.
• 1:08:53
  I would not want to give anyone dissatisfaction of say of of
• 1:08:56
  hearing me say I regret that decision because fuck all these
• 1:09:01
  people who think I'm guilty because I'm not.
• 1:09:04
  You know what I mean? That's fair.
• 1:09:05
  Yeah, I understand that. I think it's also difficult.
• 1:09:10
  I think I wouldn't fault people for feeling either way.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah, not Nadim nor the diaspora of an of smart, skilled
• 1:09:20
  professional innovation seeking their education or working
• 1:09:24
  abroad. Yeah, some of them bless their
• 1:09:28
  hearts, knowing the type of shit they have to, you know, go
• 1:09:33
  through if they were to still try and contribute to the
• 1:09:38
  country despite all the issues that come with it, still choose
• 1:09:42
  to do so. I mean, bless their hearts.
• 1:09:45
  But I also don't fault people who are like, Nah, fuck this
• 1:09:48
  shit. I don't I don't want anything to
• 1:09:50
  do with this because even if they have no I'll intent in
• 1:09:54
  their heart, that just makes it worse because like, even without
• 1:09:59
  any ill intent, I go into this trying to help and then I get,
• 1:10:04
  you know, I get potential jail time.
• 1:10:06
  I get, you know, like terrible for my mental physical
• 1:10:11
  well-being going through like the rigorous stresses that come
• 1:10:15
  with, you know, being falsely accused of something, going
• 1:10:18
  through trials and like like years of, you know, this
• 1:10:22
  nonsense. I wouldn't blame them for like
• 1:10:24
  now, like I'm, I'm good. I'm just I'm I must stay abroad.
• 1:10:28
  Exactly because why would you, right?
• 1:10:30
  Why would you? Touch.
• 1:10:31
  Yeah, I feel like that's my answer.
• 1:10:32
  I mean like for the 10 foot full.
• 1:10:33
  Yeah, no, I feel like that's my answer.
• 1:10:35
  Like I if I were in Nadi McGarry shoes, I mean, obviously if I
• 1:10:40
  was actually Nadim, Yeah, I think he's doing the best thing
• 1:10:42
  that he can. You know, he's making a very
• 1:10:48
  strategic play. The public's on his side.
• 1:10:50
  And so, yeah, he's he's doing the right thing.
• 1:10:52
  But, you know, if I were still myself, just in his shoes, I
• 1:10:55
  would crash the fuck out. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:57
  Like I, I left a like billion dollar job to help my fucking
• 1:11:05
  country and this is how I get repaid.
• 1:11:06
  Oh, crash the fuck out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:10
  And you know. I'm sure you know, Yeah, we're
• 1:11:13
  not talking about like, how what would we say to the media that
• 1:11:16
  would help our case? We're talking about like how he
• 1:11:18
  would we would feel. I would like fucking like I
• 1:11:22
  should have never done this. Like I should have just kept my
• 1:11:25
  mouth shut, my millions, move the fucking the Bahamas or
• 1:11:28
  whatever, and just like chill the fuck out for the rest of my
• 1:11:31
  life and I'd be good, you know? And I feel like a lot of people
• 1:11:34
  are met with that choice. Maybe not to the scale of Nadim.
• 1:11:37
  Oh no. Maybe maybe you're like a
• 1:11:38
  successful doctor in the States or something.
• 1:11:41
  And then you can just like, chill out the rest of your life
• 1:11:43
  there and never come back home. Or even just like you don't even
• 1:11:46
  have to be a diaspora. You can be an Indonesian living
• 1:11:49
  in Indonesia with a special, with a specific, you know,
• 1:11:53
  expertise and say, for example, videography or in or in other
• 1:11:58
  cases, you know, digitalization. Yeah, you know, or, or, or an IT
• 1:12:05
  or an whatever, anything. And you can choose not and and
• 1:12:08
  you can choose not to want to work with the government.
• 1:12:10
  Just because of private sector? Exactly because of how, because
• 1:12:13
  of how fucked up the entire situation is.
• 1:12:16
  And I think that's actually one of the more classic examples as
• 1:12:18
  well. Whenever I talked to my friends
• 1:12:20
  back in the day while we were still in school, yeah, or after
• 1:12:23
  we after we graduated from school, but we were already in,
• 1:12:26
  we kind of got back to like hang out every now and again and be
• 1:12:28
  like, would you want to work for the government?
• 1:12:31
  They'd be like, yeah, why the fuck would you do that?
• 1:12:32
  They get low pay. Yeah, the salary is really shit.
• 1:12:38
  The bureaucracy is. The bureaucracy is a massive
• 1:12:41
  pain in the pain in. The hell yeah.
• 1:12:44
  And if you do one thing wrong. Like let's not forgot the the
• 1:12:47
  the the the culture, the culture, the workplace culture
• 1:12:50
  is not a culture that. Rewards people who try to do a
• 1:12:54
  good thing. Yeah, Who try?
• 1:12:55
  To schmooze. They, they, they try to they,
• 1:12:57
  they they they they reward people for schmoozing instead of
• 1:13:00
  for instead of for. Standard like.
• 1:13:03
  For the most part I'm not going to say it's the the the case,
• 1:13:05
  but. That's like, that's like the
• 1:13:06
  thing, right? Because back then, the worst
• 1:13:10
  thing that comes with a government job or trying to
• 1:13:13
  contribute to the government in that way, it was that you're
• 1:13:15
  getting low career progression land, low pay, low compensation.
• 1:13:19
  Yeah. But now you add to that the fact
• 1:13:21
  that not only are you compensated very poorly and
• 1:13:25
  you're entering a terrible work culture, you also have this
• 1:13:28
  added stress on the top of your head that, oh, if I go into
• 1:13:32
  this, I might go to jail or like, I might get fined really
• 1:13:35
  heavily for something I didn't do.
• 1:13:37
  Yeah. So the the, the small pool of
• 1:13:39
  people that would have taken that job would have, would have
• 1:13:44
  tried to contribute to the country is getting even smaller
• 1:13:47
  if there's any left. And by the way, that includes
• 1:13:49
  state owned enterprises. As well.
• 1:13:51
  Sorry, what? That includes state owned, Yeah,
• 1:13:52
  not just not just not just like government workers, but state
• 1:13:55
  owned enterprises too. Yeah, the brain drain is coming.
• 1:13:58
  Yeah, I think it's not going to be good.
• 1:13:59
  What makes it even worse is like the the government is actively
• 1:14:02
  punishing people who are trying their hardest.
• 1:14:05
  It is not just like, oh, if I work with the government, I
• 1:14:07
  could get jailed, which is always a risk, right?
• 1:14:10
  No, but the, they're actively going after people who are
• 1:14:15
  doing, you know, marginally better than the than the
• 1:14:20
  government usually does, which I think is the the saddest bit
• 1:14:24
  because you are not only like, oh, you're not only like, oh,
• 1:14:28
  this, yeah, there's always the risk of like, you know, criminal
• 1:14:30
  activity going to government. But no, you are actively, This
• 1:14:34
  is not even a criminal activity. We are making up criminal
• 1:14:38
  activity to punish people who seem to be, you know, innocent
• 1:14:44
  that we just don't really like. So I feel like that's even,
• 1:14:46
  like, even more damning just because it's like, yeah, this is
• 1:14:50
  like this. Yeah.
• 1:14:54
  Because it really kills, right? And because we, OK, we talked
• 1:14:58
  about this earlier and I want to raise this point.
• 1:15:00
  It actively kills the argument that like, oh, if I do well, I
• 1:15:06
  can, I can actually make a, make a make a difference, right?
• 1:15:10
  Because you know, like, yeah, I, I like, I share this on my
• 1:15:13
  Instagram and we just watched it like, you know, right before we
• 1:15:15
  were recording where there's still, and you know, I disagree
• 1:15:19
  with you, but you know, your own opinion you can hold.
• 1:15:21
  There are still a large amount of, I believe, like middle class
• 1:15:27
  people who believe that like, hey, if I do the right thing, I
• 1:15:34
  don't have to like, you know, criticize my government or like,
• 1:15:38
  oh, there's still hope for, you know, the regime.
• 1:15:42
  I just got out, you know, just got to wait it out.
• 1:15:44
  You know, just like, you know, just like keep your head down,
• 1:15:45
  you know, keep on, you know, just like keep my head on.
• 1:15:51
  So, you know, like the, the, the usual, you know, stay in your
• 1:15:54
  lane type of argument that gets given like that, like the, the
• 1:16:02
  the Nadima Karim case completely kills that like that argument
• 1:16:07
  that like, you know, that demographic of people be like,
• 1:16:09
  Oh yeah, if I just do the right thing, I can actually make it,
• 1:16:13
  you know, because Nadima Karim is like, for the longest time it
• 1:16:16
  was he was like the neoliberal Golden Boy of like, oh,
• 1:16:23
  incredibly successful, incredibly charismatic, wealthy,
• 1:16:28
  great businessman. And now he's in government.
• 1:16:31
  He's made actually making the government made all amazing
• 1:16:34
  capitalism works. Crony capitalism is actually not
• 1:16:38
  that bad because look, at least we got Nadima Karim.
• 1:16:41
  And now he's blown out of the water and being like, oh, great,
• 1:16:45
  we're back to the order Baru days.
• 1:16:46
  Yeah, order libi Baru Lagi. Yeah, even newer, even newer
• 1:16:53
  order. Even newer, newer.
• 1:16:54
  Order. New order Redux.
• 1:16:57
  Yeah, which is insane new. Order 2033.
• 1:17:00
  Time in the last forever. By the way, by the way, I want
• 1:17:05
  to, I want to expand on your point about competent people.
• 1:17:08
  I'm not there are, there are definitely plenty of competent
• 1:17:11
  people within government. I've met many of them, yes.
• 1:17:14
  And they and, and my and my sort of my sort of observation is
• 1:17:21
  that they tend to get sidelined quite a lot.
• 1:17:27
  Yep. When it comes to, you know,
• 1:17:29
  yeah, when it comes to certain aspects of, you know,
• 1:17:35
  governance, yeah. And that's and that's and that's
• 1:17:38
  really depressing. I'm not saying I'm not saying
• 1:17:40
  all of them are. I'm.
• 1:17:41
  Just saying there's a pattern, No, Yeah, it's.
• 1:17:44
  Yeah, I'm also, I think I also don't want to like demonize
• 1:17:47
  these people, like, oh, you fools.
• 1:17:49
  I mean, like, I understand that. Like they are trying to make the
• 1:17:53
  best of all the opportunities they've been given.
• 1:17:56
  No. No, no.
• 1:17:56
  But what I'm trying to say is that what I'm trying to say is
• 1:17:59
  that, like, competent people tend to be loyal to data and to
• 1:18:05
  insights. Yeah.
• 1:18:06
  Yeah. And loyalists tend to be loyal
• 1:18:08
  to a certain individual, as is the case with the loyalists of
• 1:18:12
  the current administration. Yeah.
• 1:18:14
  And when you end up with a bunch of and when you end up with a
• 1:18:17
  bunch of loyalists instead of a bunch of competent people, of
• 1:18:20
  course you're going to make a bunch of policy decisions that
• 1:18:23
  may not be truly beneficial for the population at large.
• 1:18:29
  Yeah, yeah. The system just doesn't reward
• 1:18:32
  those kinds of people. Who?
• 1:18:33
  It really doesn't. Actual positive change.
• 1:18:35
  It's the same argument as ACAB. You know, like why do we say why
• 1:18:40
  do people say all cops are bastards?
• 1:18:42
  It's because not that there aren't good cops working,
• 1:18:47
  they're trying to do good, trying to do their jobs exactly
• 1:18:51
  the way they're supposed to. But it's the fact that the
• 1:18:54
  system doesn't reward. Yeah, those people.
• 1:18:57
  Same like a government, like the system's just straight up
• 1:18:59
  broken. It's does it rewards, you know,
• 1:19:02
  cronyism, It rewards people who, you know, kiss ass.
• 1:19:05
  You know, it doesn't reward people who are competent, who
• 1:19:08
  are trying to make a positive impact.
• 1:19:10
  The system has been designed specifically to to reward
• 1:19:15
  cronyism. Yeah, yeah, basically.
• 1:19:16
  The good people make no difference and the and the bad
• 1:19:20
  people just make everything worse for everyone.
• 1:19:23
  It's like the yeah, like the ceiling is stuck and the floor
• 1:19:29
  only goes deeper. There's a really interesting
• 1:19:31
  book that's already out that I'd like to recommend.
• 1:19:35
  It's called Reset Indonesia. It was written by I think it's
• 1:19:39
  Dundee Lofson. I need to make sure of that.
• 1:19:41
  It's cuz I cuz I'm worried I might.
• 1:19:43
  Be Yeah, good guy. Indonesia.
• 1:19:47
  It is written well. You look that up also time
• 1:19:49
  check, we're approaching 90 minutes.
• 1:19:52
  OK, It's written by a bunch of people actually.
• 1:19:56
  Sorry, not just not just Dandy, but basically it's Farid Gabban
• 1:20:01
  and Dandy Luxuno, as well as Yusuf Priyam Bhutto and Binaya
• 1:20:04
  Haropu. So yeah, I, I would recommend
• 1:20:07
  people read that and to see and just kind of like, because it
• 1:20:10
  helps, because it really helps to understand the contextualize,
• 1:20:12
  really helps to contextualize what exactly is, you know, Yeah.
• 1:20:17
  What is the system that we live under?
• 1:20:19
  Exactly. And and also helps to provide
• 1:20:22
  some ideas as to perhaps what can be done to change that
• 1:20:26
  system to or perhaps to design an entirely new system that
• 1:20:32
  works for more of a greater portion of the general
• 1:20:37
  population. Yeah, you know, and there you
• 1:20:40
  go. Yeah.
• 1:20:41
  On that, on that note, we're, I think our discussions have
• 1:20:45
  reached a natural endpoint. Yeah, closing thoughts is I
• 1:20:52
  think if for those of you out there who still have this
• 1:20:56
  yearning of trying to make things better, first of all, the
• 1:21:00
  people who don't and are turned away by this, we don't blame
• 1:21:03
  you. Like, it's completely natural
• 1:21:05
  for you to be completely turned off from, you know, government
• 1:21:08
  work or like contributing in any way because of the possible
• 1:21:12
  risks that come with it. You can completely understand.
• 1:21:14
  It is. If you want to, if you want to
• 1:21:17
  stick to the private sector, if you want to stick abroad, as
• 1:21:20
  long as you're not hurting anyone, as long as you're, you
• 1:21:23
  know all that stuff. If like, you know, you do you
• 1:21:31
  like you're not. I don't think you should feel
• 1:21:34
  like you're obligated to contribute because of the way
• 1:21:38
  that things are. But for those of you who do
• 1:21:40
  still have that yearning, perhaps it is a good idea to
• 1:21:44
  channel that. Maybe not straight towards
• 1:21:47
  government work because of the risk involved.
• 1:21:49
  There are still other ways that you can contribute and help out
• 1:21:52
  your fellow countrymen, and maybe that's where your energy
• 1:21:54
  should be directed. To yes indeed.
• 1:21:56
  I feel like just to add on that there are many grass roots
• 1:22:00
  organizations and grass roots issues out there.
• 1:22:03
  If you still want to, like, if you feel like you wanna, like,
• 1:22:07
  you know, I've said before on the podcast, like, do you love
• 1:22:09
  your country? And I'm like, no, I don't.
• 1:22:12
  I just love the people that live there.
• 1:22:14
  And I feel like they should be treated as humans.
• 1:22:16
  So there are, yeah, there are issues.
• 1:22:20
  There are organizations out there.
• 1:22:21
  If you still want to do, like, your duty to your fellow man,
• 1:22:25
  just I think you should, you know, divert your resources or
• 1:22:29
  your efforts there. And I feel like you make a hell
• 1:22:31
  of a lot more difference. Yeah.
• 1:22:33
  Certainly. And one more disclaimer that I
• 1:22:36
  want to make and the reminder it's everyone.
• 1:22:38
  We anal, we anal. We are not lawyers and we could
• 1:22:45
  have gotten things wrong here. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:22:48
  Yep. We have said all of the things
• 1:22:50
  that we've said to the best of our abilities and with the
• 1:22:53
  knowledge that we have and with the information that we've had,
• 1:22:57
  as well as the testimonies of the people that we've spoken to,
• 1:23:02
  who I would like to I would like to maintain.
• 1:23:06
  Who's who's anonymity I would like to maintain.
• 1:23:13
  But, yeah, I just want to say that, you know, if you're
• 1:23:16
  feeling frustrated with the direction of the nation, if you
• 1:23:23
  want, if you feel like you want change into a new direction that
• 1:23:30
  can actually truly progress us into, you know, what we believe
• 1:23:35
  to be the Indonesia of the 21st century can be, then rest
• 1:23:41
  assured that there are many of us who feel exactly the same way
• 1:23:47
  and who would do anything to try to achieve that as much as, you
• 1:23:54
  know, you can in our own ways, You know, through journalism,
• 1:24:00
  through activism, through even just talking about it at the
• 1:24:05
  dinner table. Yeah.
• 1:24:06
  Or even just, or even just working everyday, one step at a
• 1:24:11
  time. Yeah.
• 1:24:12
  Making the making all the small. Start small.
• 1:24:15
  You know, contributions that you can, you know, so don't lose
• 1:24:18
  hope because there are a lot more of us than you think.
• 1:24:22
  There are a lot more of us than you think who really, really,
• 1:24:26
  really want to create the version of Indonesia that's more
• 1:24:33
  equitable, let's say. Yeah, for everyone.
• 1:24:37
  There you go. Keep your head up high, folks.
• 1:24:39
  This has been totally normal, folks, and we're signing out.
• 1:24:42
  See you next episode. Bye bye.