The clincher came when Singapore’s founding PM LKY met Yeo, expressed deep concern on his exit plans and personally asked him to stay. “I couldn’t say no to him.”

Civil servants have long meetings and every time they are unsure they ask for more data, more studies. Really, the doubts are in them. It’s not that the data would flush out those doubts, they just don’t want to decide, so they go round and round in a circle, frustrating everybody along the way.

Before every press conference, we had to beg him “Chairman, please behave, okay?”

Your are a PM but you don’t have any army.

I learnt with humility that unemployment brings down even the hardest of men, that there is no better way to secure the future than to go out to create it.

Dr Goh seemed to back you in almost everything you did. How did you gain his trust?

Just do your job, whatever the job. Every time he had a job, he would call me: “I need this done.” And I would send a team to get it done.

So in that sense, Dr. Goh can be very tough. He won’t have the patience to listen to your sob stories, no. But for me, I learnt how to handle the old man. Get the job done. Don’t go into too much details and he would leave me alone. That was how I trained by EDB officers too. Why do I want them to tell me their lor sor stories? If that’s the case, I might as well do it myself. And that’s a very important trait I learnt from old man. He asked you to do, get it done. Don’t tell him too much. Then you have freedom to do it. If you ask for step one to three, you are going to get into trouble. I also learnt from him not to try to rebuild. Burn it down, restart. He believed in what’s called the “phoenix theory.” The old man taught me: you try to change… it’s very hard to change. So, always restart, then you will not be bounded by legacies.

He shared that she has always stayed in the background, looking after their family while he built his career and became an increasingly famous public figure.

“If you want to be a leader some day, one thing you will know for sure is that a leader is very lonely.” That stuck with me and I could see it in his life. People come and people go as they went on their separate ways. We are not a family where there are friends coming over every weekend. We don’t have parties. When he’s home, he’s just with his family. He’s got a larger network than most people do, but at the end, it’s a very lonely network because they are mostly colleagues and work people. I don’t think he has many truly close friends who have not been in some way or form tied to his work. It’s just family.

But Goh was not content with simply purchasing weapons overseas, as was common of developing countries’s military. “It’s easy to buy. In fact, most countries around here do it because every time you buy something, you get a commission. Purchasing of weapons is a sought-after job in armed forces because it allows rampant corruption.” Goh insisted on self-sufficiency and a local defense industry with export ambitions. But he also did not want the weapons to be in the hands of the military, so as to prevent coups as seen in Indonesia and Thailand. He wanted civilians to be in charge. So instead of parking the defense industry in Mindef, he created companies.

While the firms were state-owned, they maintained an arm’s length relationship with Mindef. They had to turn a profit, enjoyed no government subsidies and faced stringent external audits. They bids for Mindef work also required them to compete openly with foreign defense suppliers. Venturing overseas further opened them to global competition.

It was a match made in military heaven. Goh was the thinker and commander of the SAF. Yeo was his faithful tinkerer lieutenant who executed his orders unerringly. “The man who was always thinking and worrying about the defense of Singapore and global politics was Dr Goh. My job was to get the things done. There were no philosophical arguments. That generation didn’t waste time arguing what was right and what was wrong. We just did it. The next generation would ask right or wrong, pros and cons, on the one hand and on the other hand. It’s a world of difference.”

It was bullshit. I needed spare parts badly. When you buy a weapon, the problem is not the weapon but the spare parts.

Israel and Japan were the only other countries with the Hawkeye. Singapore is the only non-alliance country to obtain it. The price was $601M. We managed to buy it at $340M.

Such ambidexterity helped him achieve his mission: to create jobs. the annual target was 20K jobs for Singapore’s school leavers. “The charter of the EDB is broad, yet clear — to create good jobs. Economic development means job creation. Jobs create prosperity and the rest, such as quality of life. If you have no jobs, there is no quality of life to speak of, no higher standard of living to aspire to.”

He traveled extensively across the world, sold Singapore like “a pimp” to multinational corporations and worked tirelessly to find jobs for Singaporeans.

I don’t believe in charters, hierarchies, or layers of seniority. I believe the best and brightest can do the job. So my fundamental concern is how to create enough young talent, and I spend most of my time looking for good people.

Therein lies the challenge of every EDB officer: how to convincingly “hustle,” sell and bring investments into Singapore.

It’s a waste of my time waiting for check-in luggage. I just squeezed all my clothes in.

  • Ya, but, Mr. Yeo, we’ve got a long queue.
  • I don’t give a damn. Jump the queue.
  • Okay, Mr. Yeo. We will do it.

Well, I don’t see it as economics. I look at it as job creation. I’m not your theoretical kind of guy. I don’t really care about the structure of the Singapore economy, because to me, the structure is provided by the companies. What we provided were land, educated people, utilities, water. It was up to the companies to decide what industry, what business and what they wanted to do.

  • What were some of your selling points when you met the MNCs?
  • We gave them tax holidays, we gave them full and complete support and we found the workers. We helped them with workers’ training. We subsidized the training. We were almost in hospitality mode. EDB functioned like a hotel, offering Singapore-style hospitality.
  • What happens when the tax holidays end?
  • We came up with the idea for tax holidays tied to products. So as long as you bring in new products to Singapore, you get a new tax holiday. We moved the tax incentives from company specific to product specific. The MNCs were all very happy. This also meant they had incentives to bring in new products to our country. My thinking is that with every new product, you deserve a new tax break because you are creating jobs. And there is also indirect income for the government through other taxes, property and employment. So the government has nothing to lose. And don’t forget, when the companies come here, they put the cash here, so Singapore also benefited as a financial center.

The foreign investments brought in by EDB contributed to a robust Singapore economy through the 1990s. But it was not without problems. Soon after the country rebounded from the 1985 recession, it became obvious that wages were rising without sufficient improvements in productivity. The economy’s competitiveness was again under threat and Yeo heard the top guns of MNCs complaining openly about labor shortage. If they were unable to expand, they would move out of Singapore.

Goh was appointed economic adviser to China’s State Council, or its Cabinet, for its SEZs in 1985.

Admin Officers today don’t understand that. Such thinking is alien to them because they will be in a job for 3 years, transferred to another post and then they zao, all gone. They are moved before the shit hardens. It’s a very big serious issue. When I was chairman of EDB for 20 years, it was my job to worry about industries and jobs for the next 5, 10 and 15 years.

Even ministers move, move move. So now the backside moves and the head moves too. Where you sit affects how you think, right? Once you’re given the job, if you don’t sit there long enough, why should you care? It’s not that you don’t want to care. But it’s just not your worry. It’s the next guy’s problem.

If a government doesn’t have a long-term tenure, it will not take a long-term view of things.

In the old days when there was one big crocodile, he bit you but still delivered. Things got done. The country is a democracy now, with a lot of players, a lot of small crocodiles. Every little crocodile bites you, takes your money but never delivers. Nothing gets done. The Indonesian officials laughed. They had a sense of humor. They said: “Pak Philip, you’re very frank.” And that’s the problem with Indonesia today — too much democracy.

  • How big a role did personal relationships with foreign leaders play in your venture overseas?
  • Ultimately, it’s all about people, it’s about relationships. The Indonesian officials are my friends. When Habibie made a movie, he sent it to me on a DVD. He sent me his book too. When his mother was very sick, I arranged for her to seek treatment at Mount Elizabeth hospital in Singapore. Every night after work, I would go with him and his wife to the hospital, have dinner and discuss his mother’s illness. When the Indonesians visited Singapore on private trips, they gave me a call and I would meet them. If they asked to see a doctor in Singapore, I would arrange for them, for their wives, for their mothers. It was usually medical related. I was their concierge. To the Indonesians, I’m their friend, so it’s normal for me to help them. Now, which EDB chairman would do that? Which permanent secretary would do that? Which Singapore minister would do that? None. When their children got married, they would invite me and I would attend the weddings. When I go to Jakarta, I have no problem seeing them. I had no problems getting things done for Singapore.

Indonesians are like that, you know. They trust you, they like you, they work with you. It’s not about the rank.

He would listen to me. Personal relationships are important, but they take time to cultivate. Singapore officials no longer take time to develop deep personal ties with officials in other countries.

Jurong Island is the single biggest feat in Philip Yeo’s career. Its audacity remains stunning more than 2 decades later. The project merged 7 islands into 1 through reclamation. It sold land which did not exist.

Yeo’s idea was to build what he called the “Sim Lim Square of petrochemicals.” Everything will be housed under 1 roof, or 1 island in this case. More importantly, the products of one company will feed off one another. The technical term is “vertical integration.” What it means is for the output of 1 plan to become the input of another. One’s company’s supplier is the other’s customers. It’s is akin to having the chicken farm, the egg seller and an omelette shop next to one another.

I found no other hub like Singapore. So compact, so close to a mega port that it takes minimum time to transit from factory to marketplace. Jurong Island offers companies “plug and play” option in a multi-billion industry. They built their plants, plug in, and start to produce.

EDB went through what it called “the scary years” between 1992 and 1995. For 3 years, it drew just 3 investors. Meanwhile, the government approved a $7B budget to create the island. Reclamation started in 1995. Tenants were scarce.

For a man who had built an industrial park in Batam in 16 months and who dismissed weapons development of machine guns, mortars and artillery as “easy,” it says something about the magnitude of Jurong Island that he called it a “tough job.” “You got to call all the companies one by one.”

There’s nothing more humiliating than when you have to sell. You must have supreme confidence in what you’re trying to do, otherwise why should they believe in you?

These people had no idea Habibie and I went all the way back. So I called him.

  • Pak Habibie, can I visit you?
  • Okay, why do you want to come?
  • I need to ask you for a job.
  • You mean this is your project?
  • Yes it is.
  • No problem.

He called a press conference and told everyone: “This is Pak Philip. He is my younger brother. Whatever he wants, whatever he does, I support him.”

Some people accused me of using Sembcorp for the sake of EDB. I had a job to do and my job was to create jobs. Legally or illegally, whether I have authority or not, I would do it.

The single most important attribute that makes a project work is clarity. Philip Yeo has the ideas and he makes it simple. I would have something to describe his vision that’s simple enough for people to understand. These ideas would drive a lot of other things including infrastructure and marketing.

And he just kept repeating that everywhere he went. He would say the same things whether it’s to investors or his own people. He says it again and again and again. That helped to ensure that everybody worked on the same common idea.

It is also “the most complex” from a technical point of view. “If I want to challenge Singapore to be above our neighbors, I would choose an area where it’s hard to build up. If I succeed, there is a high barrier to entry. Why choose something that people can duplicate? You choose the hardest one, and make sure you can make it.”

R&D create jobs and more importantly, high-value jobs. The value-add per worker in biomedical sciences is estimated at $1.5M a year, doubling the $700K in petrochemical. It also generates research-related employment, such as nursing, data analysis and a downstream flow of jobs.

The MNCs get a lot of their ideas from start-up companies. You can form a company and then these big guys come in and buy them up. When you have a lot of such start-ups, the big firms will not be far away.

He devoured medical journals and magazines, and bought and read books furiously. When those proved insufficient, he went back to school for 5 days. “Some people have superficial knowledge but Philip doesn’t. He has detailed knowledge and can even discuss issues such as splicing. He’s ahead of me.”

If there was anything which Yeo did not understand, he was not embarrassed to call someone from NUS and IMCB for a crash explanation or course on cancer genetics and immunology in his office. He offered free lunch as tuition fee.

Within 5 years, Philip knew molecular biology at a level which I would say was comparable to many people in science.

The hospitals are like production lines — surgery, treatment. It has no time to experiment. Doctor are repair mechanics. They fix one patient at a time with drugs or with medical surgery and devices. Scientists are looking at solutions for everybody. So there’s a big gap between basic science and hospitals. My aim was to fill this gap. The ultimate challenge is what is called “bench to bedside” — translational research. Now, the time taken from bench to bedside is between 20-30 years. It’s very long.

  • No one else would do it because it is something which they should not do!
  • Yes, according to the rules. But my rule is when you have to beg, borrow or steal, the best option is to steal. To beg is very humiliating. To borrow, you must return. Stealing is the best, as long as it is for the public good and not for personal gain.

As God slid off because of poor health, Lee stepped in to offer Yeo the protection he needed as a chronic rule breaker. “Effectively, MM became the guy who looked out for Philip. He ensured Philip had enough stature and resources to get things done.”

The backing was critical. There were those in the highest echelons who did not view Yeo favorably.

His 5-5-5 rule on the temporal nature of industries: 5 years of initial struggles followed by 5 years of growth and finally 5 years of maturity and descent. “When things are going very well, don’t be too happy. When things are going really badly, don’t be to depressed. That’s life. We move in cycles.”

There are many governments and investors around the world that are seeking practical advice and help on how to develop their economies and bring jobs to their locations. It is not difficult for an MBA, consultant, or economist to come up with a simple plan on what a location has unique competitive advantages for. It is quite another thing to go out and execute the plan and build and industry. Few people have the credibility that Philip Yeo has in being able to create so many different clusters of economic activity in so many geographies.

Public service needs a few mavericks like Philip Yeo. Enough to prevent groupthink, but not so many as to disrupt the institution.

While Yeo is a pathbreaker, he “doesn’t do maintenance.” He’s brilliant at starting things but you know he’s not the greatest at keeping it going. To play to such strengths, it is critical to be strategic. You play individuals with different instincts in different parts of the organization. You can’t have a Philip Yeo type in some parts of civil service. It will not work. But where you’re trying to break new ground, open new spaces, then you always need people like Philip Yeo.

More than ever, we need creative and imaginative solutions, identifying opportunities and, equally important, the tenacity to implement things, to never give up. I think that’s the reason why Singapore appreciates him more now.

Quite frankly, it’s much easier to write long, lengthy paragraphs than it is to write short because it requires you to have clarity of thinking.

He and his Mad Cows referred to it as “kite-flying” leadership. “To get the best out of people, don’t be paternalistic. You have to treat them like kites. You get them up in the air, if there’s no wind you try again. Everybody needs a lift-off. If they get into trouble, you reel them in.”

People don’t work for pay alone. People work because they are recognized and valued. They leave a company because they don’t feel wanted.

Now, everywhere you go, the leaders have so many staffers. There are so many papers which need to be submitted, and then summarized for the management. Why can’t the leader read the paper himself? The paper should not be long. Why is there a need to write a long damn paper? Who’s going to read it? Dr. Goh used to demand that a paper is no longer than 1 page and it must be written in simple English. He always said: short and sharp. If you cannot tell me in 1 page or in 5 minutes, it means you have no clarity of thought. Leaders should demand clarity instead of this paper-generating culture.

The Old Guards were politicians. They built a nation from next to nothing. They didn’t care about the nitty gritty. Just get the bloody job done. Bring in investments, create jobs, build up an army. They didn’t have time to discuss with you “one the one hand and on the other hand.” They sketched the big picture, they told you what they wanted and they left you alone to do it. It’s based on trust.

  • Do you think Singapore can remain exceptional?
  • It depends on exceptional people who’s willing to serve. I’m concerned about Singapore’s economy. What’s the next engine of our growth? Is it tourism? But do you create good jobs with tourism? You don’t need highly-qualified people. All you need is a tour guide. These are not sustainable, everyday industries. These are icing on the cake.