PJ Teh's Page

07/09/2025

In recent years (meaning the past decade), I had a few exchanges with different people that seems to be a sort of pattern:
- they are all very smart, which isn’t just me asserting that they are smart,
but is validated from their schools, their grades, profession, etc.
- they are all damaged in some way or another, on the personal front. One of
them clearly suffered from PTSD. If I follow the dementia/depression
screening that I used to do for the elderly, I think all of them would
test positive for depression (definitely not dementia!), even if they
might not admit it.
- they all don’t listen very well. From joint conversations with other people, often, their takeaways from the joint conversations are radically different from others, including myself. It is almost as though we were NOT in the same conversation…
- they pride themselves as being intelligent and skeptical, and that often
comes across from their follow-up questions and statements.
- they take offence very easily, especially if there are potential allusions to them.
- they have all caused offence to others, in ways that they themselves often don’t understand.
- they are all male.
- they are all Buddhist-inclined, i.e. they have shown an affinity to some
aspects of Buddhism, but not entirely. E.g. I don’t think any of them
truly believe in past lives.

I have a very soft spot for these folks, because while I (really) don’t think I am as smart as them (I would classify myself as more studious than smart), I see a lot of my old-self in them, and had really suffered before as they have.

In my opinion, many of their actions fall in the category of smart but unwise (which I tried to define here: https://inquivision.com/wisdom-definition ), often in the name of some abstract principle like “Truth” or “Justice”. They often end up hurting themselves and others in the process; one of them left behind a trail of damage that can only be described as a bushfire in the organisation…

This came up yesterday when I was talking with my wife over lunch: we were talking about all kinds of things (as usual), and she commented that such folks lack self reflection.

My conclusion is that the fundamental gap they have (and their blindspot) is the lack of humility, which is the necessary condition for a self-reflection feedback loop.

(Rest of the blog post here: https://abuddhistblog.org/posts/2025-09-07-humility-smarts-wisdom/ )

In 2007, Paul Graham wrote a clickbait essay titled “Is it worth being wise?.

10/08/2025

Yesterday was Singapore’s 60th National Day (Happy birthday Singapore!)

And what is National Day without the Singaporean classic song “Home”?

There is absolutely no doubt that “Home” is the classic
Singaporean national song (aside from our national anthem). There’s no
better way to ruin your makeup and composure than to listen to this song
when you’re homesick and flying on Singapore Airlines 10,000km away…

So it is super interesting to come across this really interesting article about the song’s creation: https://hear65.bandwagon.asia/articles/interview-home-dick-lee-kit-chan-sydney-tan

Here’s what surprised me most: “Home” wasn’t meant to be a National Day song at all. It was written for Sing Singapore, and the initial committee reaction to the song was doubt!

What is also super interesting to me is how inspiration played a huge role in the song’s creation: it took less than an hour to write!

The rest of the article describes how the three of them (Kit Chan,
Dick Lee and Sydney Tan) felt about the song’s growing popularity over
the years.

For me, I think there are a few takeaways that I think are relevant to my current role in a large system.

1. it is important to not over-optimise, but to have enough space for optionality. Imagine if the Sing Singapore festival had been cut out due to
rationalization efforts (“why not combine this with our National Day
song selection process?”)… Singapore would have really lost out.

2. As a nation, we tend to focus on perspiration, but maybe we should now focus on sparking inspiration.

3. The committee’s reaction was interesting for me, because it really emphasises the importance of humility: that we often really don’t know. Even if your idea or project is backed by solid reasoning, it might still be a damp squib. And if your project was the result of a 55 min midnight melancholic episode, hey, maybe that might be the next big thing! Maybe most selection committees might be better off if they view themselves as overseers of experiments.

4. Directed efforts (what Nassim Taleb called ‘teleological’) might be self-defeating… I’m reminded of an earlier blog post summarizing ideas from the book ‘Why Greatness Cannot be Planned’ (https://inquivision.com/art-design-and-innovation/ ), which points out that if you aim for greatness, that aim might actually prevent you from getting there, because you miss out on the necessary conditions for the end-state. If there was the direction to “create a national classic”, that direction will likely be self-defeating (not least due to Campbell’s Law and other effects mentioned here: https://guerrillafoundation.org/escaping-the-trap-of-impact-measurement/ ).

Twenty years ago this National Day, a beautiful, bright-eyed singer named Kit Chan stepped out in front of thousands of people to perform a song that is now universally acknowledged as a Singaporean classic: ‘Home’.

08/08/2025

I just started in a new role for the past week, and one thing that struck me was the stark contrast between the Microsoft Ecosystem vs. Google-Office-Slack-Trello-Jira-others.

On paper, the two look similar, offering a similar suite of products that cater to similar needs (e.g. word processing, spreadsheets, slides, etc.)

In practice, the difference in user-experience is much more like this picture.

The experience is one where yes, there is often integration up to a point. But what is missing is like a sidecurb(without curb cuts) for a wheelchair: small enough from a distance, but a complete blocker up close.

Read more (with examples) here:
https://inquivision.com/curbcuts

27/07/2025

Society conditions our minds and bodies for “success” more than for our happiness.

And the mental actions and habits for success are very different from those for happiness.

For success: be ambitious! Dream! want more! strive and work hard: grasp tight!

For happiness: be content, let go, enjoy

21/07/2025

Weekend realization:
if you are mentally suffering, from a Buddhist pov you aren’t seeing things correctly at that moment.

(ie your mind doesn’t have Right View at that moment)

11/07/2025

Recently, I had the same conversation with two different people, who
both said the same thing: “That is very interesting, I never thought
about it like that before!” So here’s what I shared with them, as this
perspective might be helpful for others too.

I was explaining that I was very privileged, as a middle manager in
EDB’s Strategic Planning team from 2015-2018. The EDB SP team (together
with our Corporate Planning colleagues) functioned as the secretariat
for our Executive Committee (“Exco”), which comprised of our most senior
management. Exco met weekly, and we supported them with secretarial
work: the duty secretariat members would clarify the meeting agenda with
EDB Chairman, coordinate with the EDBians tabling items to Exco, take
minutes, and also capture follow-ups. So we had a very intimate view of how EDB and our leadership operated.

After some time, I realised that there was a fundamental dilemma, as a leader of leaders.

I first realised this dilemma, when I observed that many senior
management often put a LOT of effort into convincing their direct
subordinates. This puzzled me: why would they do this? Wouldn’t it
suffice to just tell their subordinates “hey, do this!”?

After thinking it through, I realized that there are two fundamental tradeoffs facing every leader: If you tell your subordinates what to do, that sends the signal that in future, every simliar decision should go to you....

(read the rest here: https://inquivision.com/leadership-dilemma )

Context Recently, I had the same conversation with two different people, who both said the same thing: “That is very interesting, I never thought about it like that before!” So here’s what I shared with them, as this perspective might be helpful for others too.

06/07/2025

Quite recently, I had to make a decision between two job choices. The two choices were extremely different:one job offer was with a non-profit tech startup as a managing director;the other was with a government entity, with an ex-boss whom I work well with.There was a 90% pay differential between the two jobs, and for most people, that is the deciding factor. But for me, the pay differential wasn’t really the main factor... The main factor in my mind is whether a job allows me to practice the Dhamma, well. And both jobs fulfil that criteria.

I was really quite stuck, and told a friend that this seemed to me to be
(not an apples-to-oranges comparison, but) “an apple flower (non-profit
startup) vs. a ripe durian fruit (government job with a mature
organisation) comparison”.

How, then, did I finally decide? Here is what I did:I first collected all the information I could about both job opportunities. I was candid in sharing with each organisation about my conversations with the other org, and made sure to clarify information about job roles, pay, benefits etc. etc. before I made a decision.....

(You can read the rest, including how a cat played a role, here:
https://abuddhistblog.org/posts/2025-07-06-how-to-decide/ )

“Bhikkhus, there are these four ways of taking a wrong course. What four? One takes a wrong course because of desire, because of hatred, because of delusion, or because of fear. These are the four ways of taking a wrong course.” AN 4.17 Wrong Courses Quite recently, I had to make a decision betw...

09/05/2025

This dude took 6 years to graduate, started college intending to do poetry, realized junior year that he liked math, is very slow at maths problems (but goes deep), had such a weak track record that only one university accepted him, went to america, and now won the Fields medal (Nobel equivalent in Mathematics).

And his work approach epitomizes Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity:

“On any given day, Huh does about three hours of focused work. He might think about a math problem, or prepare to lecture a classroom of students, or schedule doctor’s appointments for his two sons. “Then I’m exhausted,” he said. “Doing something that’s valuable, meaningful, creative” — or a task that he doesn’t particularly want to do, like scheduling those appointments — “takes away a lot of your energy.”
To hear him tell it, he doesn’t usually have much control over what he decides to focus on in those three hours. For a few months in the spring of 2019, all he did was read. He felt an urge to revisit books he’d first encountered when he was younger — including Meditations by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and several novels by the German author Hermann Hesse — so that’s what he did. “Which means I didn’t do any work,” Huh said. “So that’s kind of a problem.” (He’s since made peace with this constraint, though. “I used to try to resist … but I finally learned to give up to those temptations.” As a consequence, “I became better and better at ignoring deadlines.”)

He finds that forcing himself to do something or defining a specific goal — even for something he enjoys — never works. It’s particularly difficult for him to move his attention from one thing to another. “I think intention and willpower … are highly overrated,” he said. “You rarely achieve anything with those things.””

Reading the rest of the article, it’s clear his approach is to instead to search for inspiration, using his internal LLM to find patterns of beauty.

Such an artist.

And I’m pretty sure impossible for the Singapore education system to generate, because he would have been forced to do a lot of other things that drained his energy!

June Huh wasn’t interested in mathematics until a chance encounter during his sixth year of college. Now his profound insights connecting combinatorics and geometry have led to math’s highest honor.

01/05/2025

Reflecting on Singapore's 2025 General Election, I was initially taken aback by the intensity of the campaign period. What I anticipated to be a quiet election turned out to be filled with unexpected developments, including public disputes involving prominent figures and leaked messages that contradicted campaign messages of empathy and compassion.

One major topic that stood out to me was the recurring political slogan of "Singaporeans first" in job and business policies. While it's easy to agree with this sentiment in principle, I find it to be an oversimplification of a complex issue. As a former public servant, I've witnessed firsthand the pride in Singaporeans achieving success. However, I've also seen the challenges businesses face in finding local talent with the necessary skills, especially as our population ages and the workforce shrinks. Despite government efforts like SkillsFuture and Workforce Singapore, the talent gap remains a significant hurdle.

Moreover, I believe the real issue isn't just about job availability but about Singaporeans feeling a loss of economic status in their own country. Comparing our situation to places like Dubai, where citizens maintain a clear status advantage over foreigners, highlights our unique challenges. In Singapore, the fear of unemployment carries the very real threat of financial hardship, which isn't as prevalent in some other nations.

For Singapore to last longer, maybe we need to dive deeper into examining some of our structural issues, and maybe taking more of an "open source software" approach.

Last but definitely not least, I think we should also really be GRATEFUL for all the candidates who stepped forward. Being a Singaporean politician can be really thankless job! I, for one, am grateful that they have given us the gift of a vote and of public service.

Read the full post here:

Here in Singapore, we are in the tail-end of a surprisingly rough and vocal election season: initially I thought “aiyah, the election period is so short, should be no issues one lah…”

14/04/2025

This is perhaps the most important man you've probably never heard of: J.C.R. Licklider, universally known as "Lick". See his truncated Wikipedia entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._C._R._Licklider

The fact that you can read this is due to him.
The fact that we have an internet which spans the whole world, is due to him.
The fact that Doug Engelbart had the funding to do "the Mother of all Demos" was due to him.

And so much more!

---

I read M. Mitchell Waldrop's "The Dream Machine" a couple of years ago: it's a thick read (it literally took me a few years to finish the book).

What struck me was how Lick's PERSONALITY and CHARACTER played a huge role in his ability to influence and shape what eventually became the internet.

At his retirement party in 1985, over 300 people showed up, many luminaries who were ex-Xerox PARC, ex-ARPA, who had worked with Lick on Project MAC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Computer_Science_and_Artificial_Intelligence_Laboratory ).

Also in attendance were MIT undergraduates who had only met Lick, and only knew him as "the nice guy in a corner office who gave us all a wonderful chance to become involved with computers." One of them said "What amazed me was how many generations of people he influenced: there were people there from Hewlett-Packard, from DEC - from all over the place, all standing up and crediting Lick with giving them a chance to do their best work. It was a universal feeling."

At the end of the event, one of the youngest undergraduates stood up and said "I'm one of Lick's Kids!" and then the other 20 undergraduates got up and cheered. Lick's wife recalled "Those kids literally lived in (Lick's office): he made visitors from Washington sit in a little cubbyhole so that the lixkids (sic) wouldn't have to leave his office." (page 431-432 from Dream Machine, Stripe Press).

I find Lick to be a complete inspiration.

And I am of the opinion that every new industry probably needs its own version of Lick: someone generous, altruistic for the community, and who isn't afraid to support and champion others, no matter how junior they are.

What do y'all think?

08/04/2025

I just tried "vibe coding" with Cursor today for the first time, and am 🤯 . I literally created this (admittedly simple) app in less than an hour of prompting.

< ONE HOUR.

This was an app idea I had in mind since 2022, and always put it off... even though it's a simple idea, I thought it will be super hard to execute given my skill-level.

You can see from my screenshot of my Trello card (yes, I use Trello to track my project ideas) that Cursor basically did... a lot of work for me.

This is really a whole new world.

26/03/2025

Today was my last day at foodpanda as a trainee backend software engineer. It’s been an absolute blast! I learned so much in such a short time.

I didn’t get converted to perm, but am clearer what to work on next. It’s been so inspiring seeing colleagues who are absolute machines!
Till next time!