A Malaysian crypto investor is weighing a plan to revive the tech campus left vacant by the abrupt collapse of Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School, potentially giving a second life to an experiment that drew hundreds of entrepreneurs to the country.
Jeff Yew, a Malaysian motorsport enthusiast who previously headed Binance Australia, is considering establishing his own technology campus at Forest City, the troubled US$100 billion development in Johor. His vision would take a different tack from Srinivasan’s, with a “Malaysia first” approach.
Yew may offer a lifeline not just to the empty campus, but to Forest City – a man-made island that’s struggled to live up to its billing as a futuristic new metropolis – and to Malaysia’s broader ambitions to build a technology economy beyond data centres.
For almost two years, school leavers, graduates, professionals and young families enrolled in Srinivasan’s Network School, which offered a curriculum blending practical skills with an ideological vision of how technology and society might evolve.
Srinivasan, a prominent crypto investor and former Coinbase chief technology officer, chose Forest City as his testing ground, though he frequently referred to the location simply as being “near Singapore”.
Malaysian authorities ordered the school to close last month after a public falling-out between the two sides, forcing the students to leave the country.
Today, Yew heads Monochrome Asset Management, whose Australian-listed Bitcoin exchange-traded fund has about A$128 million ($90 million) in assets. His matte-blue Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato carries a “Bitcoin” number plate.
His proposed campus would put a distinctly Malaysian stamp on the idea. It could potentially turn a site associated with one crypto experiment into a base for a new generation of technology entrepreneurs, but the plans are far from settled.
Days after the eviction, Yew offered to take over the project in a social media post, and told Bloomberg News that he’s entered preliminary discussions with Srinivasan and his team.
“It’s about a balance of attracting talent overseas and also nurturing local entrepreneurs,” Yew said in an interview, while floating the possibility of local scholarship programmes. The goal is to make Johor “a digital hub” for global artificial intelligence, blockchain and computer science.
For the plan to work, Yew said it would need to be built around Malaysia’s interests, including a commitment to respecting local authorities.
Network School at first aligned neatly with Malaysia’s ambitions to attract tech talent from afar, complementing a boom in data centre and AI investments that has drawn tens of billions of dollars into the Southeast Asian country. Students came to “lock in” on building their start-ups with like-minded people, shared workouts and protein shakes, as well as Srinivasan’s belief in a new kind of society.
And though small, the community also brought sorely-needed dynamism to developer Country Garden Holdings Co’s Forest City, a decade-old mega-project on reclaimed land that has failed to attract meaningful numbers of residents or businesses.
Srinivasan had grand ambitions for the area, including plans to buy a landbank to expand his campus and operate boats between Malaysia and neighboring city-state Singapore, according to people familiar with the matter.
Just a few months ago, digital minister Gobind Singh Deo visited the school, gushing that it “reaffirmed Malaysia’s position as a rising destination for global tech talent”.
The scrutiny of Srinivasan’s school was sparked by allegations that Israeli students were living and studying on its campus, in breach of Malaysian immigration rules. Muslim-majority Malaysia has no diplomatic ties with Israel and passport holders are banned from entering without permission.
Old photos uploaded by Israeli content-creators who visited the campus late last year began to circulate during local state elections in July as alleged evidence that the school was “recruiting Israelis to join its operations”. The visitors are believed to be dual nationals who entered on different passports.
It blew up into a local backlash that prompted authorities to raid the campus and check the passports of all students. Although immigration officials found everyone at the school had “valid travel documents”, the damage had been done.
Freshly re-appointed menteri besar Onn Hafiz Ghazi widened the probe, which uncovered two violations of local licensing laws and led to an eviction notice.
Johor’s influential regent Tunku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim, the son of Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Ibrahim, consented to the eviction notice, according to Onn Hafiz. Separately, Sultan Ibrahim owns a substantial stake in Forest City.
Representatives for Onn Hafiz didn’t respond to a request for comment.
