Alvin Foo

Venture Partner | ex-Google | Decoding AI • Motivational stories on innovation & resilience • Tesla/SpaceX insights 🚀

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

Huawei Built a European Palace for 35,000 Researchers, Then Spent $28 Billion on R&D in a Single Year

I walked into what looked like a European palace.

Marble floors. Crystal chandeliers. Gilded railings. Classical statues. Vaulted ceilings that belong in a ministry building in Vienna or Paris.

Then the giant screen lit up with the Huawei logo.

This is not a government building.
This is Huawei’s Shanghai research campus.

A self-contained research city with lakes, landscaped grounds, modern laboratory blocks, elevated walkways, and its own internal light-rail system. Designed for 35,000 researchers. Current density is already extreme: roughly 80% hold a master’s degree or higher. About 10% are PhDs. Throw a stone and you hit advanced technical talent.

In 2025, Huawei generated CNY 880.9 billion in revenue.

It spent CNY 192.3 billion on R&D, 21.8% of total revenue, roughly US$27.9 billion.
That single-year R&D outlay exceeds the entire GDP of multiple countries with larger populations.

Total employees: ~213,000.
R&D headcount: 114,000 (53.7% of the workforce).

Most companies and most nations still treat research as a residual. Huawei treats it as the core operating expense.

The result is not just beautiful architecture. It is sustained technological capacity under pressure.

This is the case study that matters.

Resource allocation at this intensity, sustained for more than a decade, produces outcomes that incremental budgets and short-term political cycles cannot match.

Have you visited a corporate campus that genuinely changed how you think about what’s possible?

Video produced and edited by Arianne, my beloved daughter 😍

[Doge Tipping @Dogetothemoon]

Talulah and Elon married in 2010 and divorced, and then remarried. They divorced for the second time in 2016.

Talulah once share the story behind their eventual separation.

"I found Los Angeles really difficult from the moment I arrived. It was an incredible culture shock, and I just wanted to go home. I kept trying to come home, but I also really loved Elon. It took us quite a few years to work all of that out.

He could see where the world was going in a way that I did not understand. I loved having that perspective, and I am grateful for every part of it.

I hope he gets humanity to Mars, because I think that, more than anything else, is his reason for being."

[X Ethan @XEthanai]

A heartwarming moment in Pennsylvania as Elon Musk meets a young fan. 🥹 Sometimes the smallest moments create the biggest memories. ❤️

[Melissa Chen @MsMelChen]

Seeing the riots in France and the terrible state of the French economy made me think of this 🔥 speech by Lee Kuan Yew.

"Look at the buildings around you. Look at the stock market bouncing up.

Let me tell you how to bring it down. Have a couple of really good riots, shake political confidence."

On top of that, the French economy is collapsing. Only one in three French people works in the real economy. Two-thirds live off other people’s taxes. The entire system is completely unsustainable due to absurd pensions and runaway state spending.

At the end of the clip, Lee says:

"My political opponent says that we are 'obsessed with profits'

I say 'YES! That’s how Singapore survives.'

If you have no profit, who pays for all of this?

If you make profit into a dirty word.. Singapore dies!”

Beyond mass migration, this is how Western Europe is dying btw.

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

The Real Price of Wealth

Money doesn’t just buy material items, it buys escalating tiers of autonomy, influence, and impact.

Here is how the true value of money shifts as net worth grows:
* $10K: A safety net, absorbing unexpected emergencies without spiraling into debt.
* $100K: Options in life, the freedom to switch careers, relocate, or invest.
* $1M: Freedom from daily financial anxiety.
* $5M: Full financial independence.
* $10M: Complete ownership of your time.
* $50M: Unrestricted access to opportunities and assets worldwide.
* $100M: Personal friction and complex problems virtually disappear.
* $500M: The ability to acquire and scale entire companies.
* $1B: Entry into an entirely different realm of global power and lifestyle.
* $10B: Direct access to heads of state and global leaders.
* $50B: The scale to finance national-level infrastructure and economies.
* $100B: The leverage to shape global markets, policy, and the future.

True wealth isn't measured by what you collect, it's measured by the degree of freedom and impact you command.

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

EBITDA = Bullshit earnings 😁

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

If you can’t look back at your younger self and see an idiot, you’re probably still one.

Growth isn’t feeling wiser. It’s being able to name, specifically, where you were wrong.

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

People buy why u do and not what u do.

[Mark Dubowitz @mdubowitz]

FlyDubai’s Flight Data Recorder shows the aircraft was less than 30 seconds from hitting the ground.

It’s staggering how close this came to catastrophe.

[Rohan Paul @rohanpaul_ai]

Cathie Wood explains how Jevons paradox is running hot in AI:
the same answer costs 99.99% less per year, and volume exploding.

Even with that price crash, OpenAI's run rate went from $20B to $70B in about a year, past Anthropic's reported $65B. Cheaper calls did not shrink the business. Usage exploded.

and she says that is the engine for explosive GDP growth.

----
From "ARK Invest" YouTube channel, (link in comment)

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

@nikitabier All the best to your next adventure

[DogeDesigner @cb_doge]

BREAKING: SpaceX launched three missions in less than 13 hours.

• Crew-13: 4 astronauts to the ISS
• Transporter-18: payloads to orbit
• NROL-97: Classified NRO mission

Human spaceflight. Commercial payloads. National security.

Three pads, two coasts, one day.

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

The story you are living was written by whoever profits from it. You can keep reading what they print or you can go quiet, watch, and one day write the story yourself.

[MG 🇮🇳 @mgnayak5]

Must Watch, please don't Skip.

[a16z @a16z]

This is what happens to a rocket engine when the people who design it and the people who build it sit in the same room.

SpaceX builds roughly 80% of Starship in-house because when you're solving a once-in-a-generation problem, design, manufacturing, and testing have to live in one loop.

Most companies are not SpaceX. They don’t have suppliers in the room with them. And every new defense company can't rebuild American industry inside its own walls.

@ConnorLoveCA and Collen Larson on why the suppliers, and the capital behind them, are the next defense-tech opportunity: https://t.co/iqaYhGrK32

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s best career advice:

“Passion isn’t enough, you’ve got to endure.”

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

Product features vs user needs 😁

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

Michael J. Fox was named a Companion of the Order of Canada. From a kid from Burnaby to a global icon, he turned a Parkinson’s diagnosis into a mission of hope, courage and change.

Talent got him to Hollywood, heart made him extraordinary.

Congratulations, Michael. You’ve inspired the world.

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

If you think brilliant ideas just simply drop out of the sky, you are wrong. A recent scientific study of Brian Lucas and Loran Nordgren shows that the best ideas actually occur only after the ‘dip’. So creativity is far and foremost a matter of persistence.

[Dima Zeniuk @DimaZeniuk]

“Elon did in 19 days what others take a year to achieve. It's unbelievable.”

— NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang

[Alvin Foo @alvinfoo]

This is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the 'Peanuts' comic strip.

You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them. Just read it straight through, and you'll get the point.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.

These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies.

Awards tarnish ...

Achievements are forgotten.

Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson:

The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money or the most awards. They simply are the ones who care the most.

For me, the people most dearest to me are my family members especially my wife who has stood by me through thick and thin all these years without asking much. Took me years to realize her sacrifices and importance, it’s now my turn to be doing what she did for me.

Remember to cherish those dearest to u, spend time with them, support them and most importantly tell them how much they mean to u and how grateful you are having them in your life.

[Maye Musk @mayemusk]

Proud Mom 🥰