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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NEOM: A City

Saudi Arabia wants NEOM to have flying cars, a fake moon, and 24/7 surveillance The futuristic city-state rising on the northwestern corner of Saudi Arabia ....... aims to transform 10,000 square miles of desert into “the world’s most liveable city” ....... a place of extreme automation, surveillance, and wealth meant to attract large Western companies, help diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy, and decrease its financial reliance on oil. .........

NEOM could be the next Dubai, but with far more advanced technologies and an urban ecosystem built from scratch that would rival every major metropolis in the world

...... NEOM might not be fully realized due to the reported corruption that exists within the Saudi government. Right now, many countries are hesitant to do business there because of it. Even architects and major leaders in the field who previously committed to and served on NEOM’s advisory board are flat-out refusing to work with the country anymore.......... Located on the very edge of Saudi Arabia where the Red Sea meets Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, NEOM features a masterplan that’s rather inconceivable and extremely expensive, but construction is already underway and an airport has already been built. Here are some of the consultants’ big ideas: flying taxis to take residents to work, robot maids to clean peoples’ homes, beaches with glow-in-the-dark sand, cloud seeding to bring rain to the hot desert, a hologram faculty teaching at leading local schools, a robot dinosaur island that serves as a tourist attraction, and state-of-the-art medical facilities where scientists will work to “modify the human genome to make people stronger.” Last but not least, MBS wants to build an artificial moon that would light up the city at night. While that could be accomplished with drones, one of the more nefarious ideas proposed by MBS himself is the constant surveillance of NEOM’s citizens through facial recognition technology and a legal system operating outside the bounds of Saudi Arabia’s courts............ the proposal for NEOM was dreamt up by a team of U.S.-based consulting and management firms.......... Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey & Company, as well as Oliver Wyman, were working on the project....... recommendations go beyond urban planning and include a slew of economic incentives and legal systems that NEOM could utilize to both lure residents and keep them there. ...... NEOM‘s first phase of development is expected to be completed by 2025






Virgin Hyperloop One hits major bumps in the wake of Saudi controversy Last month, Saudi Arabia nixed a deal to construct a hyperloop in that country after former chairman Richard Branson criticized the kingdom’s alleged killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudis announced a $1 billion investment in Virgin Galactic, another venture by Branson, after Branson stepped down as the chairman at Hyperloop. ...... With Branson and Lloyd gone, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has stepped in as the new chairman. His company, DP World, a UAE-based shipping and logistics group, is now Virgin Hyperloop One’s largest investor.



Robot cage fights and flying taxis: leaked documents reveal Saudi Arabia’s plans for its next megacity Neom could be $500 billion city-state or another colossal waste of wealth .......... The riches of Silicon Valley have enabled some extravagant and quixotic projects, but they’ve got nothing on what oil money can do. ...... Saudi Arabia’s biggest megaproject yet: a city built in the desert named Neom, where robots will outnumber humans and hologram teachers will educate genetically-enhanced students............ The details are stunning. It’s a mixture of dystopian fiction (AI surveillance cameras everywhere!) and childish imaginings (let’s build a robot dinosaur park!). Taken together, the plans remind of you what a dedicated nine-year-old can achieve in Minecraft. Yes, the scale and ambition are impressive, but it’s not like you could do this in real life, right?............. proposals, of course, dreamt up by American consulting firms like McKinsey and Boston Consulting who have no incentive to bring Saudi leaders down to Earth. But all the same, they give you a flavor of what trillions of dollars of oil wealth will do to your sense of proportion .......... plans from Japanese tech giant Softbank to create “a new way of life from birth to death reaching genetic mutations to increase human strength and IQ.” ....... “I don’t want any roads or pavements. We are going to have flying cars in 2030!” said Prince Fahd bin Sultan, the region’s governor, in a planning meeting. Another planning document reportedly read: “Driving is just for fun, no longer for transportation.” ........ Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, saying he wants the city to attract the “world’s greatest minds and best talents.” ....... bin Salman “envisions Neom the largest city globally by GDP, and wanted to understand what he can get with up to 500 billion USD investment.” ........ The project is the flagpole of Saudi Arabia’s plans to diversify the country’s economy away from oil. ....... The project is the flagpole of Saudi Arabia’s plans to diversify the country’s economy away from oil. ......... As currently planned, Neom will occupy a region the size of Massachusetts. This will include a huge coastal urban sprawl; outlying towns and villages; advance manufacturing hubs in industries like biotech and robotics; and links with international shipping routes. Early building work has already begun, with facilities including a new airport and palace. ............. A lot of factors have stopped Saudi Arabia attracting international business thus far ..... corruption, a difficult legal system, and social norms that range from unappealing to straightforwardly immoral for Western visitors. .......... a country in the desert desperately trying to turn oil riches into a technological haven before it’s too late.











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