Interesting reads this week! #6

Studio Ghibli copy & paste; Turmoil in Indonesia 🌪️

Mar 30, 2025

Copy and paste

I had a go at OpenAI’s image generation update and had a whale. The loading times were really long last night (presumably because it was daytime in the US) but these images can be generated in any style easily in minutes.

In particular, the Studio Ghibli style went internet viral, which speaks a lot about the amount of brand love for that franchise. Unfortunately, it also demonstrates how quickly AI is eroding massive value from human IP that’s been carefully crafted for decades.

According to one estimate, Studio Ghibli just lost $11 million in cultural capital overnight. Artists and IP lawyers should be having a headache these days.

Most of us are debating copyright law. But the real question is of value.
How much value did OpenAI get from Studio Ghibli without paying?

ChatGPT’s new image generator just went viral, with Ghibli’s iconic aesthetic all over X.
Elon Musk and even Sam Altman himself — reimagined in Miyazaki’s dreamlike warmth (perhaps to hide their own coldness).

No licensing. No royalties. No recognition.

My rough estimates of the economic value are:
~$1M in training data value
~$5M in user growth from viral hype
$2–5M in equivalent licensing value

That’s up to $11M of cultural capital exploited.
Not a legal gray area. A moral one.

In the age of GenAI, value is no longer created.
It’s extracted — from the unprotected, the priceless, and, most importantly, the human.
Source: Koshu Kunii’s Linkedin post

Oh dear Indonesia. What is going on?

What a week Indonesia has had. Or should I say, year?

Investors got spooked this week after President Prabowo Subianto started unveiling generous fiscal budgets while consolidating state grip at its sovereign wealth fund Danantara Indonesia. The Indonesian rupiah plunged to its weakest since the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis (see chart below). An IDX selloff also ensued on growth concerns.

TradingView chart — Created with TradingView

President Prabowo is reportedly spending the Eid holidays seeking to reverse negative sentiment among investors.

President Prabowo Subianto will meet with investors and others following the long Eid-al-Fitr holiday, which begins on Friday, aiming to correct misperceptions about the government's policies, said Raden Pardede, a special aide to Indonesia's senior economic minister Airlangga Hartarto…
Key messages will include assurances that the government will not break the legal fiscal deficit ceiling at 3% of GDP and there will be no political interference in the newly set up sovereign wealth fund Danantara Indonesia, Raden said. (Source: Reuters)

The eFishery scandal didn’t do much help, but it isn’t the only story getting talked about in recent times.

In February, state-owned oil giant Pertamina was found to be involved in a $11.9 billion fraud scheme involving “illegal crude procurement, inflated transport costs and adulteration of Pertamax fuel”. The case implicated high-ranking officials and oil traders.

This is not a good look at all for fundraising Southeast Asian GPs, of which there are several. I spoke to one Indonesian VC earlier this week and it’s remarkable how internal targets have shifted.

Just a few years ago, investors were aiming for IPO and M&A exits. Today? Pre-IPO opportunities. Secondaries. Many are also dabbling in Japanese and South Korean deals as a way to diversify risk.

I am also very keen to know how Southeast Asian GPs are hedging currency risk. If nothing was done during the post-COVID period, I wonder if they will look at it seriously now?

Another Southeast Asian investor shared a review he did on one of his Vietnamese investments — “40% increase in value over 2 years. But after currency exchange and paying capital gain tax, 10% return after 2 years. I think most Southeast Asian investors are stuck, whether in Vietnam or Indo”.

Stuck indeed.

Several weeks ago, I did a podcast recording with Transcelestial’s CEO Rohit Jha who mentioned that he had the opportunity to raise crypto during the startup’s seed round back at a time when BTC and ETH were around $10 or something crazy. They held back because they were afraid of what institutional investors might think.

“As a first time founder, I think we were too tied into what the board would think, what the investors would think, what we can do. Eventually you realize you can actually do whatever you want, right? Like but within reasonable bounds…so you don't put your entire treasury in speculative assets.
But if you have a large chunk of cash lying around, it is prudent, especially if you know where something is going right to invest in certain areas. US companies do this. OpenAI raised a bunch of money and they started their own investment fund. There are arguments that can be made, (and) they are probably making a lot of money from that. So I think this was something that I regret for sure.” (Source: The Upside Podcast)

Of course I’m not saying that everyone should put money into crypto, but it’s interesting to think how EM investors might attempt to diversify risk moving forward.