Is the key to success just the Key? Not so for Robert Kuok


Joe Samad

Bumiputeras can learn many lesson from Robert Kuok's book, including honour before profits, building network and connections, being humble but firm and filial piety. – The Malaysian Insight file pic, March 14, 2018.

WRITING books in Malaysia is a risky business. Either your books get banned or some deranged person will call you all kinds of crude names even before they turn the last page of your book.

In one famous case, a Muslim university lecturer claimed that when he read Hannah Yeoh’s autobiography, he could have been drawn to Christianity. Such is the situation in Malaysia, when the words, cartoons or stories from a book can be turned into political fodder.


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Comments


  • great

    Posted 6 years ago by Astann astann

  • Thanks Joe for this enlightening summary of events !

    Posted 6 years ago by Malaysia Forward

  • Najib said "Kuok is driven, hard-working, industrious and disciplined – but that is not enough, according to Najib. EVERYONE still needs the key". NAJIB IS ABSOLUTELY COMPLETELY WRONG.. Fact is, any nation governed properly, HARD-WORK, INDUSTRY AND DISCIPLINED IS ENOUGH FOR MOST, SHOULD BE ENOUGH. Any system where too many people need a "key" to succeed is NEVER going to work.

    Not only that, KOUK NEVER NEEDED A KEY.. He was ALREADY a successful trader even before he was "given the key". In fact, it was because he was already successful, he was "given the key". Looking back, what was given was NOT THAT MUCH. KOUK WAS GOING TO BE HUGELY SUCCESSFUL WITH OR WITHOUT HELP FROM THE GOVT.

    Unless, you are saying a normal functional government is NOT the right of every citizen, that its the "key" to success, WHICH IS PERVERSION. then there is NOT EVEN A BASIS FOR NAJIB'S STATEMENT.

    NAJIB IS OVER ENTITLED, OVER PRIVILLEGED, MEDIOCRE.

    Posted 6 years ago by Bigjoe Lam

  • Money you give to people who will die if they don’t recieve your money is properly called donation.

    Money you give to orphans, old folks , monks and priest , people who have lost everything in a calamity , is for example , properly called a donation.

    What you give as donation cannot obviously be returned to you for obvious reasons - the people you donated it won’t need your donation if they could afford to return it.

    When Robert Kuok gave money to political parties freely and willingly , it is not a donation, because political parties won’t die if they dont recieve donations from Robert Kuok , and because political parties are able to get money by some other means .

    What Robert Kuok gave to political parties should rightfully be called a gift or a favour or a debt or even a bribe just like the way najib recieving the money from Arabian royalty should rightly be called a gift or a favour or a debt or a bribe.

    Robert Kuok’s Story is a rags to riches story of a person in Malaysia and China and Hong Kong , not Switzerland or Norway of Finland. For An individual who has the ambition to rise up in Malaysia or China or Hong Kong during rober kuok’s time , hard work and intelligence alone is not enough - you also need to grease the wheels every now and then.

    Nobody blames Robert Kuok for doing what he has to do - when you start from scratch, you tend to be forced to use slime as the mortar to build your foundation, whether you want to or not.

    If individuals like Robert kuoks did not build what they built, we would not be where we are today .

    We should be grateful to people like Robert Kuok without needing to whitewash history .

    We should not lie to ourselves calling a favour a donation or what nots.

    The more lies we need to sustain our self esteem , the weaker has our spirit is become.

    Posted 6 years ago by Nehru Sathiamoorthy

  • Which of these would come first? Hard work or the key? This reveals the stark differences between the malays including nazri and najib, and the chinese. Success or failure depends on picking the right choice to commence.

    Posted 6 years ago by Landy Oz

  • Which of these would come first? Hard work or the key? This reveals the stark differences between the malays including nazri and najib, and the chinese. Success or failure depends on picking the right choice to commence.

    Posted 6 years ago by Landy Oz