[VIDEO] Watch Malaysian Entrepreneur Khailee Ng Speak At Facebook's F8 Conference
Ng, who's also managing partner at 500 Startups, shared his vision for creating products and startups in an increasingly divided world.
By Samantha Khor — 19 Apr 2017, 07:41 PM
The recent Facebook F8 Conference 2017 saw Malaysian entrepreneur Khailee Ng take the stage with a enlightening keynote speech on creating successful startups
Titled 'Weapons of Mass Creation', Ng shared personal stories and his vision for "capitalism that unites" at the conference, held at San Jose, California, on 18 April.
"To build a platform for anyone, anywhere is a dream. Not just for all of us in this room, but for all those outside of this room. I’m gonna break down how we’re gonna get that done in three parts," he posited.
"Firstly, I’m gonna share how tech and all of us as creators, can change an individual person. I’m gonna share my story, from where I came from. Secondly, from changing one person, I’m gonna expand this topic, to how this can change an entire region. The third thing I’m gonna do is, I’m going to share how what we’re doing can change the world system of capitalism that divides, to capitalism that unites."
Ng also spoke of his days growing up in PJ and "peer pressure" from his schooling years, which led to a brief preoccupation with petty crime
"I didn’t grow up with war, famine or disease. My parents gave me a really comfortable upbringing. We had more important concerns, my friends and I. We were worried of peer pressure. Every day, we're living in fear of what people thought of us. We'd go to school, and some friends are bling-ed out with designer goods. I wanted that stuff," he said.
"That pushed me. I was stupid, okay. I went into shoplifting, I started stealing stuff. I was so enterprising. I would steal stuff that I could sell to my friends, to get money so I can buy the things I actually want."
"But I stopped all of that. I was at the brink of pursuing a career of crime. I had to find different ways to make money."
"There was this kid, his name was TJ. TJ has a special power... to code! He could build websites, he was building (Macromedia) Flash intros. Rumour has it, he could build a Flash intro for 20,000 dollars in two weeks."
Ng revealed that he approached TJ and asked him to teach him how to code too.
"From building websites, I started to build companies. I build my country’s largest news website called SAYS.com. I also built an e-commerce business that was acquired by Groupon. All of these opportunities gave me an alternative path to prosperity."