The Woke Salaryman Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Woke Salaryman
Hi, we’re Ruiming and Wei Choon, the co-founders of The Woke Salaryman. We’re a web-comic with over 400k followers across our Instagram & Facebook platforms where we talk about personal finance, investments, career things and more.
Follow us on Instagram (@thewokesalaryman) or check out our articles at www.thewokesalaryman.com
We talk about the trade-offs for the creative soul who wants to run a creative business.
0:00 Intro0:50 More about our business and me1:36 Creative VS Business owner4:15 Delegate to people who like it more, or are better than you6:42 Consider input, not just output10:10 Being creative is good for business11:36 Take creative risks as a part of business13:21 Unproductivity is part of productivity16:25 Mistakes are part of the plan17:47 Give yourself due credit
Juliana Chan is a scientist and scholar turned business owner. Today, she runs Wildtype Media Group, managing a 20-member team — based in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and India — with 30 to 40 regular freelancers around the world.In this episode, we talk to her about how she took her company remote, and the impact it has had on morale and productivity.0:00 Intro: The road to 100% remote5:00 Productivity will suffer14:14 The types of employees that are suitable for remote work18:58 How do you know everyone is working?27:26 What about hiring locals and protecting local jobs?31:36 Where in the world are her colleagues working from?35:55 What's the competitive advantage of someone from Singapore?41:37 Singapore's a great place to start a business46:00 How you can keep Gen Zs51:14 Concluding plugs
Is overtime ever justified? Why do good employees leave? Do you have to worry about your own job being irrelevant?
This episode, we get the whole TWS team to have an open conversation on these hard topics. We hope you enjoy it.
Also, this is our first sponsored podcast - a shoutout to Workforce Singapore for sponsoring this conversation. To find out more about what grants and tools are available to kickstart your company’s job redesign initiatives, visit https://go.gov.sg/tws-jobredesign
Featuring (from left to right):
Wei Choon (Co-founder)
Ruiming (Co-founder)
Vivienne (Account Manager)
Wen Xin (Artist)
0:00 Intro2:08 Why do good employees leave?3:51 What is a good employee?7:45 What is job redesign?14:18 Have you had a job redesign?20:58 Do all jobs need to be redesigned for relevance?29:35 Should all employers job redesign?38:15 Approaching job redesign with limited resources?47:41 Who should initiate job redesign?52:27 Is it fair to have employees OT for job redesign?59:10 Job redesign VS find new job
This episode, we talk to the founders of The Black Hole Group; a collective of lifestyle and F&B concepts.They started out in 2012 with a backpacker's hostel, and now they own about 13 F&B and lifestyle concepts and are still going strong.More importantly, they are friends who started a business together, and we are super excited to talk to them because The Woke Salaryman was also started by two friends who met in school. They met in JC; while we met in Poly, so we have so many things to ask.We will ask them about what it's like starting a business with a close friend, how to maintain or balance being friends and business partners, and their journey from plucky 26-year-olds running around putting our fires in a backpackers hostel to essentially, F & B moguls.
0:00 Intro
1:16 Why are they called The Black Hole Group
10:05 Starting a hostel in their 20s
15:17 The margins of running a hostel
21:08 Scaling the business
24:02 Do you hang out as friends now?
28:58 Working together as friends/cofounders
37:15 Growing a business = compounding learning
41:00 COVID as a wake-up call
48:20 Co-founders with different lifestyles
54:21 Would you recommend starting a business with a close friend
Jeremy Tan is a professional magician who does a lot of work on cruise ships!
We talk to him about the pros and cons of working in such a unique job, what it takes to succeed as a magician, balancing artistry and corporate crowd pleaser, adapting to COVID, and more.
0:00 Intro1:23 How he started magicking7:19 Becoming a cruise ship magician15:31 Adapting to COVID22:17 Revealing magic tricks to the public33:50 Crowd pleasers OR artistry
We respond to some spicy comments on Reddit about the fact that we have sponsors, and talk about how we approach sponsored content, what we say no to, and whether we think we've sold out, and whether we can sleep at night.
The Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/askSingapore/comments/15c2suy/is_the_wokesalaryman_just_sponsored_nonsense/
READ OUR COMICS: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewokesalaryman/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewokesalaryman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thewokesalaryman/posts/ Our website: https://thewokesalaryman.com/
Timestamps: 0:48 Is TWS sponsored nonsense? 4:38 When we reject clients 9:52 Do sponsors make content bad? 13:06 Fluffy centrist content VS taking a stand 15:18 Have we run out of topics? 18:14 Choosing tone, raw vs empathic 23:02 We make readers feel unambitious :( 24:17 Limitations of content formats 27:26 TWS is self-righteous 32:00 OP elaborated more 35:03 Bye bye :(
Watch this to understand how your financial agent is actually being paid, and what your options are.
We also talk about parenthood and why Asian parents find it so hard to be emotionally vulnerable with their kids.
0:00 Intro
1:24 Convo starts
12:06 Flashy agents and flashy wealth
20:56 Chris' childhood
25:39 Being caught in the wealth trap
30:14 Working hard VS Time with family
38:00 Asian parents and affection
43:22 Fresh grads, do this now
46:50 What are rich people like?
50:27 Financial freedom as a MINDSET
Providend's Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Z3FcQx5rHHFx8Fd2gLhOl?si=98960dbb5db54a2c
Meet Vivienne, she's the first person we hired since we went full-time with The Woke Salaryman.
2.5 years ago, Viv left an amazing job at a very esteemed bank to join our humble little rickety company.
2.5 years on, our company is still rickety; but she has become indispensable.
We interview Viv in this podcast about what it's like to go from a huge, highly regarded MNC to a tiny SME, whether she has any regrets, and what we do well and not so well.
At The Woke Salaryman, we create content by writing and drawing. A.I. solutions for these 2 functions are getting really really good.
Are we at risk?
In this podcast, we discuss specific short and long-term worries we have about A.I.
We also talk about what we'll do if we are fresh grads entering the market now.
Hawker culture is very important to Singapore culture.
Central to the definition of HAWKER is the idea that hawker food should be CHEAP and GOOD; but are hawkers still financially sustainable in a world with aggressive inflation? Can hawker prices keep up with inflation and still satisfy customer expectations of low prices?
We talk about this and more with Faye Sai, one of the three siblings that run Coffee Break: a third-generation hawker store at Amoy Street Food Center.
They took over the stall from their father, and they serve traditional-style coffee in a hawker setting.
We talk about this infographic that compares the cost of retiring around the world.
Singapore is the most expensive country apparently. We discuss why this is so and what Singaporeans can do.
Source: https://theindependent.sg/singapore-allegedly-the-most-expensive-country-for-americans-to-comfortably-retire-in/
Original source: https://www.netcredit.com/blog/cost-of-retirement/
(The link to the original source article doesn't seem to be working anymore but you can still find the infographic if you google 'Netcredit cost of retiring around the world'.)
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:18 Reasons why Singapore is the most expensive country to retire in
2:24 Singapore's unique position as a city-state
3:22 Retiring in Malaysia?
6:16 Retiring in Australia?
9:09 Retiring in Japan?
11:14 Prices of retiring at different countries
11:49 Pros and cons of retiring overseas
11:56 The value of the Singapore dollar
13:24 Size of the country where you retire
14:36 Pace of life
17:10 Leaving your relationships
18:42 Giving up local identity
20:01 Learning new language nd culture
20:43 Raising kids
24:14 Giving up safety
24:50 Economic mobility
28:00 is it wrong to leave your country of birth to retire?
32:00 Looking at Southeast Asia as a whole
34:34 Does the productivity of residents matter to governments?
36:52 Attestupa
39:17 Elderly people retiring
42:13 Should Singaporeans consider retiring overseas?
It may be hard to believe but we used to be very left-leaning when we were younger.
This is us reacting to a short clip of an older fellow with a nice voice talking about how his political leanings shifted as he grew older.
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS4UT_t73b0
(This is purely anecdotal and qualitative of course, we know plenty of people who stayed left, or became MORE left with age.)
We react to a report summarizing how Singaporeans are doing when it comes to financial wellness in the past year.
Read the report here: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/close-to-half-of-singaporeans-dont-have-enough-savings-to-tide-through-an-emergency-survey
We react to a recent post that went viral, where a Singaporean plumber relocated to Australia because they would be paid far better there.
We talk about the trade-offs for both Singapore and Australia; and discuss topics like arbitrage, opportunities, talent drain, and moving up the value chain.
(Sry there was an issue with the export so some parts were muted. We've fixed it) This is a bit late but we intended not to publish this for audio initially. But I think we will just drop it anyway because it's quite a good discussion.
Hope y'all enjoy!
The original clip can be found on YouTube if you just search for 'The Peter Principle'.
Yip Pin Xiu is a professional swimmer who has won gold at the Paralympics 5 times. She is Singapore's most decorated Paralympian. This podcast was very informal because despite her achievements, Pin Xiu is very down-to-earth and quite goofy and fun to be with. We had a blast and hope you enjoy this podcast as well.
Sorry, we started eating halfway through the podcast because Pin Xiu had to go after the recording and she didn't have time to eat. We apologize if the occasional eating sound is disturbing and do not blame anyone if they stop listening as a result <3
But anyway even though this episode is very chaotic it's one of our favorite ones we've done yet because Pin Xiu is hilarious.
A simple, yet though-provoking parable we found.
How do we take care of the poor? Does progressive tax work? What are the trade-offs when you tax the rich too much? Do we even need rich people for a city to prosper?
Read the parable here: https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-20108946.html
We talk about the recent crypto cataclysm and the pushback against content creators who plugged it.
(Sorry for the thumps we bought a new mic stand and it stands on the table so when we whack the table we'd be able to hear it. We will whack the table less in future.)
Our guest Wey Fook is the Chief Investment Officer at DBS Bank.
btw THIS VIDEO IS NOT SPONSORED BY DBS. WE HAVE DONE SPONSORED WORK WITH THEM ON OUR WEBSITE BUT THIS VIDEO IS NOT. WE JUST ASKED IF WE COULD INTERVIEW WEY FOOK AND THEY SAID OKAY. IF OUR VIDEO IS EVER SPONSORED WE WILL TELL Y'ALL.
Timestamps:
00:00 - 00:53 Intro
00:54: Wey Fook's journey from engineer to CIO
5:20 How Singapore has moved up the value chain
7:32 What exactly does a Chief Investment Officer do?
10:00 Wey Fook's career before being a CIO
10:30 what separates a CIO from a middle-management portfolio manager?
11:50 The importance of a bottom-up view of the market
12:50 Don't write off a whole investment class forever
14:37 Understanding the Margin of safety in investments
15:11 The democratisation of investment insights
16:23 Be disciplined, and make money slowly
17:10 Have a long-term view of your investments
18:27 Wealth is like a bar of soap - the more you touch it, the less it becomes
19:06 Views on the US stock market
21:05 What would happen if the S&P 500 falls to zero?
22:05 Crashes are driven by greed and fear
23:10 Are there any signs of a bubble that people can spot?
26:10 Thoughts on buying the S&P 500
27:56 Thoughts on the STI-ETF, Russell 1000
32:10 Indexes that haven't outperformed the bond market?
33:14 Do my investments contribute to society?
37:24 Understanding a stock's price discovery
38:28 Tying a company's share price to CEO performance
39:11 Shareholder vs stakeholder capitalism
43:23 ESG investing
45:14 Singapore Real Estate
47:33 What if you just don't invest?
49:18 What if you can't handle volatility
50:11 What are the options if you can't take any market volatility
52:05 Understanding portfolio construction
53:03 Don't buy individual stocks or bonds. Buy funds.
57:02 Importance of staying in the game to ride through volatility
58:04 There will always be bubbles
1:01:17 What if my projected return on investments do not beat inflation?
(NOTE: In case y'all are interested, the OP recently posted a more serious reply to the story that you can check out on his FB wall.)
We talk to our first guest ever on the podcast about how he grew up poor in Singapore and how he broke the cycle.
Thomas is an investor and writer who founded steady compounding, a stock analysis blog that focuses on discovering and analysing 'investing concepts, business models, and timeless lessons from super investors.
We'll talk about Thomas' insights on investing, and also how he recently quit his iron rice bowl government job to run Steady Compounding full time. We also talk about what it was like growing up in a lower-income household, getting into fights in school and much more.
Setting healthy boundaries with work, measuring productivity, attendance vs work done.
Time stamps:
0:00 What is quiet quitting and our thoughts on this
3:45 Is quiet quitting just setting healthy boundaries and pushing back against hustle culture?
8:45 Make productivity part of the negotiation with your boss
9:00 How quiet quitting might be damaging for your career long term
11:42 How companies manage employees out in response to quiet quitting
13:54 Comparing this with hikikomori and the lie flat movement
15:54 What will we do if our employees are quiet quitting?
19:15 Our thoughts on companies managing people out
21:08 What will we do if we're thinking of quiet quitting
26:05 Understanding markers of productivity as a response to the quiet quitting culture
28:03 The top 1% of workforce talent and the benefits that come with it
Would you spend all your money if you became rich? Is the point of life to spend the money you earn? Is it possible/fulfilling to have a lot of money but spend very little of it?
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
3:20 - TWS in the future - rich but miserable?
4:35: Do we have a fair snapshot of the uncle’s life?
6:58 How having more money and financial security can change your mindset towards life
7:10 Dying with zero movement, passing down wealth?
11:50 Is the uncle gaming the system by renting a government-subsidized rental flat?
20:40 The quiet pride in living below your means, and the importance of values
24:48 How your choice of hobbies matter
36:40 The importance of a lasting power of attorney, and how it’ll affect your loved ones
Is it wrong to be unambitious? What's with the anti-work, lie flat, 'hikikomori' movements popping up all around the world?
Is this a sign of things to come? Is this an old thing with new names?
How do close relationships work when ambition levels are not aligned?
We discuss these topics and more.
Singapore is a small country with declining fertility rates. How should we keep up internationally amidst local resistance to immigration? We discuss this frankly. Our credentials:
Ruiming: Born and bred Singaporean. IC color: Pink.
Wei Choon: Born in Malaysia, studied in Singapore since he was 7 years old. Currently a permanent resident in Singapore. IC color: Blue
The first podcast we're doing in our new office.
It's a significant upgrade in terms of working conditions, accessibility, presentability, and of course, COST. So we are naturally wary.
In this podcast, we talk about these insecurities and how our perspectives have changed since we became employers of a small team.
This podcast is best experienced in video form. Watch it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/MJljGVPgbP0
Follow us on Instagram (@thewokesalaryman)
The last podcast we will do from our very first office!
We are moving to a bigger (and more expensive 😱 office) which will only be ready in 2 months so we will be working completely remotely for a while. We talk about what we've learnt from the past year, the courage to be disliked, Ruiming's experience getting COVID and holidaying in Europe, Wei Choon's difficulty in going home to Malaysia, as well as our thoughts on crypto and NFTs.
*This episode is best experienced on YouTube. Check it out at: https://readtws.com/podcastep5
We talk about Netflix's hit series Squid Game. How accurate is the show as an analogy to real life? How far would we personally go to preserve our lives? Is Sang Woo evil? How can Gi-hun better manage his money better for season 2? All these and more in this week's episode of our TWS Podcast.
0:49 Pre-spoiler convo/ Similar shows
1:40 What Squid Game is about
2:15 SPOILER MARKER
2:26 Our reading to responses to the show
3:34 The agency of the players
7:21 Sang Woon vs Gi Hun disagreement
9:58 Wei Choon’s biggest heartbreak about the show
11:58 What makes people bad/guilt/good
20:00 Squid game is hell on earth?
21:39 Ruiming choosing the type of deaths
22:43 Why people chose to join squid game
24:48 The Concept of Hell being a state of mind
25:27 Sad scenes in the show
26:33 Thoughts and disappointment about Player 001
31:57 Are the squid games and modern society fair?
41:27 Financial Advice for Gi-Hun
46:14 We are observers, like the V.I.Ps
48:04 Do the ultra rich play with our lives
49:27 How do ultra rich provide value
50:08 Random discussion about Parasite
52:46 What should the more privileged do for the less privileged?
53:32 Who’s the true hero of the story?
Are young people pressured to find success in life too early? We talk about the definitions of success at different milestones, how we view our own ‘success', and the importance of walking your own path.
00:00 Intro
02:16 The average age of startup founders? A whopping 45.
07:20 How lists like 30 under 30 are designed to be newsworthy, and how that affects your view on success
09:00 The qualities that define a successful person in school is different from that in the business world
12:58 Does Ruiming think he’s successful for his age?
14:12: Our metric of success - Ikigai
17:05 When we felt like we were “too late to things”
23:40 A caveat - how “money can earn back” is a dangerous mindset
34:00 The importance of saving up so that you have the resources ready when the opportunity comes
42:00 Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results
46:40 Final thoughts
Follow us at our handles and check out our articles at www.thewokesalaryman.com
Instagram (@thewokesalaryman)
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We’re huge fans of Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin). In this 2nd episode of our podcast, we talk about the life lessons we learned that relate to personal finance and leadership, the importance of trade-offs, and why we must have a WHY in life.
Watch this podcast on our Youtube channel (The Woke Salaryman) and follow us on Instagram (@thewokesalaryman)
Hi, we’re Ruiming and Wei Choon, co-founders of a webcomic called "The Woke Salaryman". Our mission is to make personal finance easier and more entertaining for everyone.
In this first episode, we're talking about the F.I.R.E. Movement. F.I.R.E. stands for “Financial Independence, Retire Early.” The goal is to save and invest very aggressively—somewhere between 50–75% of your income—so you can retire sometime in your 30s or 40s.
Follow us on Instagram (@thewokesalaryman) or check out our articles at www.thewokesalaryman.com