Monday, November 18, 2019

My Take On NEOM, The City

Today I got to connect online with Mustafa, who I believe is Man Friday to Mr. Jassim, by all impressions Michael Jordan to Finance in the Gulf Region, the man with a Midas touch, the turnaround artist, someone to watch.

(Full disclosure: Noor Almuna chaired by Mr. Jassim has approved a loan towards my real estate tech startup.)

I started reading some of Mr. Mustafa's articles online. In one article he mentioned NEOM. This was obviously not the first time I had heard of it. In fact, I heard of it when it was first announced. But I had not had a chance to dig deep into it. Today I got that chance. Digging deep is actually quite a surface level digging. You do a simple Google search, and you read the first few articles that show up. If the Google algorithms are screwed, you are screwed.

NEOM: A City

I'd like to read up on it some more before I start commenting.

Western media is always biased. It is because when you are a newspaper in a capitalist country, all you really care about is eyeballs and page hits. Ca-ching. So reading western newspapers can not be anyone's idea of searching for the truth. But as long as you are aware there is bias, you can extrapolate. You can condense some of the facts, and try and ignore the opinions. And form your own opinions.

Here's a recent example of the media trying to create a fight when none existed.

Having said that, I don't believe it is too early for me to make some comments on NEOM.
  • NEOM has fired up the imagination for the region and the world. This is like Prince Salman's own Mars. Elon Musk might or might not go to Mars, but Mars has been tremendous for his marketing.
  • I commend the desire to do something bold. Saudi Arabia (and the region at large) faces a 10-year window to diversify or face decline. Only something big and bold might work. I am reading a book right now called "The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells," and I am thinking, if someone were to make a movie out of it, it would be the top horror movie in movie history. Global warming is not 10 years from now. It is today. It is already happening. The very concept of wealth makes zero sense in a post-warming world.
  • Another reason is economic. Cleantech has been seeing exponential rates of advances. That will lead to plummeting prices. Oil is going to get priced out.
  • NEOM has to make economic sense, first and foremost. It has to be economically viable. Can NEOM attract some of the top tech entrepreneurs of the emerging technologies? That is the make or break question. And I don't know the answer to that.
  • Genetic engineering of human beings is a red flag. All humanity has to be part of the moral/ethical debate on that one. The whole Khashoggi thing was a major PR disaster for the kingdom globally. And that is without pointing fingers on who did it. A genetic engineering disaster is going to be Khashoggi times 100 in terms of PR mess, big enough to sink the entire project.
  • You can do flying cars, why not? But they have to be economically viable. Are they viable? Do the math. And see for yourself.
  • I think the world underestimates the amount of conservative friction/opposition the prince faces inside Saudi Arabia because it is a monarchy. In his own way he has been Saudi Arabia's own royal Mikhail Gorbachev. He has opened up things. Women drive. Young people attend pop concerts. These have been big changes to the Saudi scene.
  • The number one thing I noted was, NEOM is going to be its own judicial jurisdiction independent of the judiciary in Saudi Arabia. I consider this a masterstroke, politically speaking. The Dubai Sheikh did something similar when he created the financial hub in Dubai. And that is what made it possible.


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