Notes by Eden
Ideas worth keeping around
Published essays and build notes by Eden Tan on products, AI, human behavior, and turning messy realities into useful systems.
Essays are not disposable content; they are a growing archive of judgment and knowledge.
The "mad bull" hits a wall: Korea's 2026 market, and the gap between price and value
In the first half of 2026 Korea had the best-performing market in the world, nearly doubling in six months—everyone was talking about getting rich. Then in July it hit a wall, posting its largest monthly drop on record. The strangest part: that same month, Korea's exports hit an all-time high.
Price and value were never the same thing. Korea's chips, AI demand, and exports were all real—but price ran far ahead of value on emotion and leverage. The real business barely moved; what went wild was the price.
Old scam, new clothes: MBI and the coin that "only goes up"
A self-issued coin said to "only go up," a tangible online mall, and a line like "you'll regret missing this forever"—Penang's MBI pulled in the money of about two million people with this kit. Take it apart, though, and inside is a trick that has not changed in centuries.
The scam's outer clothes keep upgrading—postal coupons, property, crypto—but the core barely changes: pay old entrants with new ones' money, nothing real underneath, kept alive by confidence and fresh cash.
An empire built on borrowed money: the Carrian case
In 1983 a body turned up in a Hong Kong banana grove—an auditor a Malaysian bank had sent to check the books. His death exposed the largest fraud Hong Kong had seen: a 200-company empire that looked like it could turn stone into gold, yet was almost hollow underneath.
Carrian punctures a mistake we make daily—treating "looks rich" as "is genuinely valuable." However glamorous the balance sheet, underneath there is either real output, or just borrowed money and other people's belief.
Is modern finance a Ponzi scheme?
"Government debt, pensions, paper money—isn't this just a Ponzi scheme?" People say it every day. Rather than rush to agree or disagree, I first want to take the term "Ponzi scheme" apart and see it clearly.
By definition modern finance is not a Ponzi scheme—it only shares the "borrow new to repay old" trait. The sharper question is not "is it a scam" but "is debt growing faster than the real things the future can produce?"
What is wealth, really?
Too many people are busy predicting bonds, AI, and house prices. I wanted to do something dumber: take the word "wealth" apart layer by layer, and see what is left at the very bottom.
Money is not wealth—the ability to meet needs is. And the further out you look, wealth becomes how much future productive capacity you can control.
Turn chaos into systems
The point of a system is not to look sophisticated. It is to make the same confusion unnecessary the second time.
Automation is not the value. Removing repeated confusion is the value.
Judgment is not knowing more
More data does not automatically produce a better decision. Often the missing piece is deciding what matters.
Information tells you what happened. Judgment decides what you are willing to trade next.
Human nature is a design condition
People forget, protect themselves, and take easier paths. Good systems are designed for those realities, not ideal users.
Do not design a system that only ideal people can use correctly.
Win before you fight
Strategy is not about pushing harder. It is deciding which battlefield deserves your effort before you enter it.
Strategy does not teach you to push harder. It teaches you where effort is not worth spending.