dibdon🐂🀄️

🇲🇾 I'm Malaysian, so watching @balajis's Network School (@ns) get its license pulled in Johor isn't abstract for me The concept was good. It brought real energy into a near-empty city. It still got shut down. If you're a Western founder looking at Asia, don't read the headline. Read why: 1. You're a guest here. Not a disruptor The whole network-state pitch runs on "permissionless," but Asia runs on permission, and permission is earned. Local law and sovereignty aren't friction to engineer around. The moment your project looks like it thinks it sits above them, it's already over. You just find out later 2. Trust comes first, not after you scale The Western instinct is raise, grow fast, apologize later. It doesn't translate here. You build the relationship, you earn face, you move quietly, and then you're allowed to grow. Walking in pitching fast-track visas and an RM500m expansion before anyone trusts you is the whole thing backwards 3. How you handle friction matters more than being right Going public, openly asking the PM for a "deal," hinting you'll take your community elsewhere if you're not wanted, that's all perhaps normal in western culture. Here it's the move that ends you. Threatening to leave isn't leverage. It's an insult. Things get sorted quietly, over relationships, not on your timeline 4. And respect the local lines. All of them Every country has things that aren't up for a founder's debate. You don't have to agree. You do have to remember you're in someone else's house, on their soil, under their rules Here's the part that stings You can vibe-code a product, arbitrage cheap tokens, and move a whole community overnight. You cannot arbitrage trust. It's slow, it's earned in person, and it's the one thing the move-fast playbook has no shortcut for The West optimizes for permissionless We run on permission Learn that before you land Not after they shut you down