60/40 Podcast24 Aug 2025

Are SEA’s and India's Unicorns Finally Delivering on Their Billion-Dollar Promises?

Southeast Asia’s and India’s leading tech firms are, at long last, delivering on the promise of profitability. Sea, Grab, GoTo, and Paytm all reported better-than-expected numbers in Q2, and markets rewarded them accordingly.

At the same time, the global conversation around AI shifted again. The launch of GPT-5 raised more questions than it answered: have we reached a plateau in AI advancements, or are we merely pausing before the next great leap?

On this episode of 60/40, Maria Li and Prashanth Ranganathan team up with analyst Aleksey Mironenko to untangle the hype from the signal, swap notes on how Southeast Asia’s fintech engines are quietly powering growth, and even indulge in a detour to China’s very first Humanoid Olympics (spoiler: lots of bad robot soccer).

Timestamps

00:00 – Kicking off with Beijing’s Humanoid Olympics
01:00 – GPT-5: leap forward or overhyped minor tweak?
07:30 – The three phases of AI (spoiler: we’re still in kindergarten)
12:00 – Perplexity’s Chrome bid: bold play or PR theater?
22:00 – Southeast Asia Q2 earnings: profit finally shows up to the party
31:00 – Fintech takes the spotlight (and why banks can’t keep up)
35:30 – Robots as the new factory workers (and geopolitical pawns)
47:00 – Would you buy a Chinese humanoid robot for your home?
51:30 – Wrap: AI, earnings, and robots all in one breath

Give us feedback or nominate topics & speakers at 6040podcast@techinasia.com.

60/40 is a bi-weekly podcast co-hosted by Prashanth Ranganathan, Peter Bithos, and Maria Li. Special thanks to our resident analyst, Aleksey Mironenko.

A podcast by Tech in Asia, a member of The Business Times.

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