Lee Kuan Yew’s book From Third World to First offers an insightful account of how Singapore grows from “0 to 1,” an interesting parallel with how the tech community talks about growing a company or a product from 0 to 1. If Lee Kuan Yew was playing a country building board game, his starting board would look like this: started with a tiny land area (roughly the size of a city), a small and unskilled labor force, no military protection, hostile neighbors, and a diverse, multi-racial population with no strong national identity.
Despite these challenges, Singapore achieved remarkable economic growth in just 30 years. Lee Kuan Yew led with pragmatism, strategic thinking, and an unyielding focus on execution—qualities that our tech community today can learn from.
Henry Kissinger, in the book’s foreword, makes an insightful point “The explosion in information doesn’t mean an explosion in knowledge.” This resonates deeply where technology accelerates, yet cultural understanding between East and West have not caught up in similar ways. Singapore’s success came from its ability to learn from both worlds, a lesson that remains increasingly relevant today.
To survive in the region, Singapore’s guiding principle is to build a country that is more rugged, better organized, and more efficient than others in the region. With this vision, he positioned Singapore as a First World oasis in a region of developing nations, focusing on:
World-class infrastructure in public safety, healthcare, and education.
A disciplined, hardworking population as Singapore’s greatest asset.
Attracting top talent—entrepreneurs, engineers, and professionals.
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1. Pragmatic and unconventional choices
Singapore needs to create an environment that’s possible for investors to operate successfully and profitably in Singapore despite a lack of domestic market and natural resources. Its transformation was built on pragmatic problem-solving and here are two memorable examples of how Lee tackled these challenges:
Ensuring political stability and public order. Homeownership was a cornerstone of Singapore’s stability. Lee ensured that every Singaporean could own a home, linking national stability to personal financial security through the Central Provident Fund (CPF)—a mandatory savings program for retirement, healthcare, and housing.
Unlike many welfare states, Singapore avoided high taxation and extensive social safety nets, which Lee saw as eroding personal drive. Instead, he reinforced Confucian values of family responsibility over government dependency, fostering a high-savings, self-reliant society.
Attracting and retaining talent in government. To prevent corruption and maintain a competent, high-performing government, Lee introduced two radical policies:
Elections without high campaign spending—so officials wouldn’t owe favors to donors
Competitive salaries for civil servants—matching private-sector pay to attract top talent
This first-principles approach challenged the norm that public service should mean low salaries, but it worked—ensuring Singapore was run like a well-managed enterprise.
2. Singapore as a Confucian society
Singapore operates on the principles of Confucianism, which places the interests of the community above those of the individual. In Confucian societies, the individual exists within a network of family, extended family, friends, and the wider society. The government is not expected to take over the role of the family, but rather to create an environment where the family unit remains strong.
This philosophy shaped Singapore’s policies, reinforcing:
Thrift and financial discipline through CPF and homeownership.
A culture of hard work and responsibility rather than reliance on government welfare.
Respect for elders and education, ensuring social stability and economic growth.
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3. Strict but effective governance
Lee Kuan Yew is known as a “hard head realist” who prioritized efficiency and pragmatism, which meant making tough and sometimes unpopular decisions. For example:
Banning firecrackers (1972): A bold move to prioritize public safety, despite backlash from the Chinese community, for whom firecrackers symbolize prosperity.
Banning chewing gum (1992): A seemingly extreme step, but one that kept Singapore’s public spaces clean and reduced infrastructure costs.
Perhaps one of Lee’s most controversial policies was racial integration through forced intermingling. Singapore’s housing policies mandated that each neighborhood reflect the country’s racial mix (e.g., 25% Malay, 13% Indian per block), ensuring that diverse communities lived, worked, and studied together—reducing ethnic tensions over time.
4. Strategic moves with difficult trade-offs
One of Lee’s most difficult but defining decisions was switching Nanyang University’s teaching language from Chinese to English.
Nanyang University (now NTU) was an important symbol of Chinese education in Southeast Asia. The shift to English sparked resistance from alumni, faculty, and even Lee’s own cabinet members. Critics feared it would dilute Chinese heritage and undermine cultural identity.
However, Lee proceeded with the decision because it’s a strategic move that aligned with Singapore’s long-term national interest and workforce needs:
English was the global language of business and technology
Fluency would make Singapore’s workforce more competitive
It would raise university credentials as a world-class university
It would unify Singapore’s multi-ethnic society under a common language
While the short-term impact was painful—professors retrained, students struggled, and public sentiment turned against the government—this is a memorable example from the book that demonstrated Lee’s ability to make difficult decisions positioning Singapore as a global economic hub in the long run.
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Lee Kuan Yew ran Singapore like an enterprise and his story is a reminder that clear vision and unconventional thinking that can execute well with local contexts are key to building anything from scratch — timeless lessons the tech community can take away as we grow future products and businesses.