Happiness: The Ultimate Metric for Business and Life

Empty barrels make loud noises. This Vietnamese proverb speaks volumes about the importance of purpose. Those who lack it will cause discord, while those who cherish it will help create harmony. Who doesn’t want a harmonious life?

In the Western world, many experts these days recommend carefully managing the so-called work-life balance. Too much work disrupts personal life, and thus detracts from fulfillment. But few companies openly tout happiness as a key objective.

One firm from Southeast Asia bucks this trend: FPT, founded by 13 science and math professors in 1988, focuses intently on achieving this noble cause. Company executives not only talk the talk, but walk the walk as well, which can be seen in any number of corporate policies.

Take parents day, for example. You’ve likely heard of “bring you kid to work” day, which many companies have tried over the years. FPT, which has many Gen Z staffers in its employ, came up with a new idea: “bring your parents to work” day! That’s right: all parents are welcome.

The idea is that all good parents want their children to succeed. When you see your child doing well, it fills your heart with joy! Are there any better feelings in life? With this policy, FPT demonstrates its commitment to the families of their staff. Actions speak louder than words!

That spirit of innovation goes back to the original DNA of the company. The founders recognized that life in Vietnam needed real improvement. In the early days of the company, the average household income in the country was a mere $3,000. Fast forward a decade: $30,000!

Fostering an order of magnitude in wealth expansion created a remarkable energy that drove the country forward. As happens with positive economic policies, success begot success. Citizens began to prosper, and consequently spread their wealth. That momentum continues!

You can also see evidence of FPT’s character in their corporate leadership. Its subsidiary FPT Software is one of a few technology firma with a female Chairperson, Chu Thi Thanh Ha. She joined FPT when the corporation was just 100 employees. More than three decades later, it now boasts a global workforce of ~70,000.

In fact, this month, FPT celebrates its 35th anniversary! Averaging 2,000 employees per year of existence is an impressive feat indeed. The company also boasts a record low attrition rate compared to every other large corporation in the country. That’s a testament to quality culture. They’re also clocking in at roughly $4BN in annual revenue across many lines of business.

Enduring Vision

But what about the future? Suffice to say, FPT will not rest on its laurels. To help celebrate 35 solid years of success, the company hosted a Cultural Tour of their home country, inviting a cadre of media and influencers from all around the world, including yours truly!

On the first day of this special junket, top company leaders delivered a presentation about their goals, history, performance, and vision for the future. Joining Chairwoman Ha were several other executives, including Ms. Nguyen Dan Phuong, Head of Global Marketing, who led the meeting. She’s one of many female employees in this tech concern. In fact, fully 31% of the company’s staff are female.

Mr. Tran Dang Hoa, Chairman of FPT Information Systems, then took the mic. Like Ha, he’s a longtime veteran of the firm, serving for the last decade.?“I can say that in 30 years we have modernized our whole country, private, public, banks, finance, customer service, tax and more.”

A subsequent tour of the Fornix Data Center demonstrated the company’s commitment to provisioning the necessary infrastructure for modern cloud computing, digital transformation, and the technology that’s changing everything: Artificial Intelligence.

Like kids in a candy store, we were allowed to walk around and witness first-hand the humming buzz of a modern data center. It was loud! And a little bit warm. What’s more? The array of 500 racks filling floors 4 and 5 have already sold out! They’re now working on 6 and 7.

Next up for the tour? A press conference touted a deepening partnership between FPT and Landing AI, featuring top tech influencer Andrew Ng, Founder of Landing AI, plus the original Founder and Chairman of FPT, Binh Truong Gia, and FPT Chief AI Officer, Phong Nguyen. Taking center stage was Binh, who made clear his recognition of today’s trajectory: Computer vision and Large Vision Models (yes, that’s a new thing).

“We see so much more with our eyes than we speak or hear. Vision is critical for human life, and I’m betting on the next big thing: Computer vision!”

What, pray tell, is an LVM? Think of a Large Language Model, but focused on images. “Unlike Instagram, with photos of smiling, happy people, the Internet does not have the kind of industrial images necessary to train an LVM. That’s why we need this partnership with FPT,” added Ng.

The idea is that FPT’s expansive reach across manufacturing, retail, distribution, engineering and related fields means it has access to a critical mass of industrial imagery, the kind necessary for training this next era of Generative AI technologies.

Landing AI is a world-respected leader in this space. The benefits of this technology span countless use cases: Take car user manuals, for example. Instead of thumbing through a dense index, then trying to figure out what the line-drawings mean, just point your camera at the object in question, and you’ll be told what to do in no time.

Or consider the amazing new clipping features on Samsung and Google phones. For the former, you just hold your finger on a person or object of interest, and… voila! You have a perfectly clipped image that can be placed on any background. I used that feature for these photos! To do that sort of job manually not only takes hours, it crushes morale.

To quote William Gibson, “The future is here already. It’s just not evenly distributed…” yet!

Capping off day one was a brilliant evening in Ha Long Bay. We were taken on a cruise that featured cultural performances, exquisite food, and of course a few drinks! Native dancers enchanted us with their graceful charm. And a calligrapher created art for me on demand. What do you think the theme of that art was? Why, happiness!?

Want to see this innovation in action? Well, hop on a scooter or take an Uber to the big Tech Event today at the Convention Center! Come on down and see what happiness your future can bring.