There is a particular kind of myth that persists in business culture: that success arrives swiftly, cleanly, and with just enough struggle to make for a good story later. Cheo Ming Shen has little interest in sustaining it. His first book, Beating the Algorithm, is instead a measured, unsentimental account of what it actually means to build something in environments defined by speed, pressure and uncertainty.
Best known for co-founding Nuffnang and Netccentric — ventures that helped shape Asia’s early digital media and influencer economy — Ming Shen writes not as a figure looking back on a neatly resolved journey, but as one still engaged in the realities of leadership. His focus is not on spectacle or blame, but on the quieter, more consequential moments: when partnerships strain, decisions carry weight, and responsibility reveals itself less as status than as burden.
Central to the book is the idea of “the algorithm” — not in the technological sense, but as shorthand for the often invisible systems that govern professional life: hierarchies, incentives, cultural expectations. Ming suggests that many people falter not through lack of ability, but because they are operating within frameworks that do not recognise their strengths. Progress, then, depends on learning to read these systems clearly — and, when necessary, to challenge them.
Failure, in this telling, is neither dramatic nor definitive, but instructive. Setbacks, misjudgements and fractured trust become signals that sharpen instinct and clarify values. Leadership emerges not from authority alone, but from the willingness to take ownership when outcomes are uncertain and uncomfortable. The result is a book that speaks less to triumph than to endurance — and to the self-awareness required to navigate both.
Here, Cheo Ming Shen reflects on the lessons behind the story.
Many see your journey as a success story, yet the book begins from a very different place. Why did you choose to tell it this way?
It’s about me paying it forward and avoiding my pitfalls.
If someone were to understand you beyond your achievements, what part of your story should they hear first?
That I didn’t start out exceptional—I struggled, doubted myself, and often felt out of place. Everything came from learning over time on how to play to my strengths, turning them into advantages.
What does “the algorithm” represent to you personally?
Life, as we know it, is shaped by a series of systems—constructed by institutions, reinforced by society, and inherited by default. For most of us, these systems are instructional: they define what success looks like, how the game should be played, and how we, in turn, should be defined.
But if you look deeper into the code, you begin to see something else—you don’t have to play it exactly as written. You can bend it, reinterpret it, and still succeed on your own terms. To me, it’s about playing the game fully—enjoying it as you go, and reaping its rewards along the way, in whatever form they choose to appear.
You played a key role in building some of Asia’s earliest digital media platforms, including Nuffnang. Looking back, what do you think people misunderstand most about that phase of your career?
Most people see the success—the glamour, the fame, the money that came with Nuffnang and Netccentric. And beyond that, many fixate on how it all unravelled. But few go further than that. Few stop to ask why, or how. That’s where the real value lies.
It may sound cliché, but it’s never really about the destination—it’s about the journey. That’s where the insight is. That’s where the lessons are. And that’s where the value lives—not just for me, but for anyone willing to look deeper.
What prompted you to write this book now?
Something dramatic happened to me—on the business and investing front—and I found myself thinking: this can’t be uncommon. Other entrepreneurs must have gone through this too. So why don’t we hear about it? Because no one likes to revisit their mistakes. But silence carries a price—it leaves others to learn the same lessons the hard way. If sharing this helps even one person avoid that, it’s worth it.
The book engages directly with failure—something many founders still avoid discussing openly. Why was it important for you to centre that?
Because failure is where the real data is. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s also the only place where meaningful growth actually happens.
When trust is broken in a business setting, is it something you believe can be rebuilt, or is it usually a turning point?
Someone once told me: trust is hard to earn, but easy to destroy. It sits at the foundation of every meaningful relationship—and once broken, it is never quite the same, no matter how hard you try to rebuild it.
Was writing this book more of a professional reflection, or a personal one?
It started as a professional reflection, but it became deeply personal—because the lessons are inseparable from the life I’ve lived.
If readers could take away just one idea from your book, what would you want it to be?
You’re not “stuck”—you might just be playing the wrong game, or playing it the wrong way.
