Synopsis

This book tells the inside story of Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that became a proxy for growing Western anxieties about the country’s desire to dominate critical technologies. Through dogged reporting and rare access, Eva Dou charts the company’s journey from a scrappy telecom supplier to a strategic player at the heart of global geopolitics and the centre of a tech cold war.

It’s a story about the architecture of influence—how corporate strategy, national pride, and state power intertwine.

Why I picked it up

I wanted to understand Huawei beyond the headlines. Not just the sanctions, or the drama around 5G, or the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, but the deeper forces at play. What made Huawei different, and what does it reveal about how China builds, protects, and exports power? As the Wall Street Journal’s lead China tech reporter, Dou had rare access to Huawei insiders and years of frontline context, making her the ideal person to answer that.

Why it stuck with me

Huawei thrived in ambiguity—between the state and the market, between global norms and local realities. It mastered the use of complexity as camouflage, and in doing so, it exposed a blind spot in how Western firms think about risk: we’re not always good at seeing things that don’t play by our rules.

This book isn’t just about a company. It’s about what happens when a system of incentives, relationships, and national strategy coheres into something that looks like a firm, but behaves like something else entirely.

Through the lens of Modern Risk

For risk professionals, House of Huawei lands hard:

• Geopolitical risk is supply chain risk. If your infrastructure—cloud, devices, comms—is entangled with firms like Huawei, you’re exposed. Not just to operational disruption, but to reputational, legal, and compliance risk.

• The boundary between public and private is collapsing. In China (and increasingly elsewhere), private companies often act in alignment with state interests, whether by choice or necessity. That changes how we assess counterparty risk, due diligence, and even M&A exposure.

• Resilience means more than redundancy. Dependency on opaque or state-aligned vendors weakens contingency planning and invites regulatory scrutiny. Boards and risk leaders should be asking: Who are we dependent on, and what assumptions are we making about their intentions, incentives, and allegiances?

Worth questioning

One of the quiet tensions in the book is Western complacency. Huawei didn’t rise in secret. Its pricing model, its hiring practices, its relationships with state entities—these were visible for years. But they were ignored, downplayed, or misunderstood until the geopolitical temperature rose.

How many other risks are hiding in plain sight because they don’t fit our frameworks? How many suppliers, investors, or partners operate with incentives and constraints we don’t fully grasp?

For readers who enjoyed…

• The Chip War by Chris Miller

• The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind

• AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Lee

Let’s Talk About It

What concrete steps—if any—have you taken to assess or reduce exposure to politically sensitive suppliers or jurisdictions? Have you made any changes to vendor onboarding, risk assessment, or tech procurement in response to these shifts?

Smart Money: How Digital Currencies Will Shape the New World Order

Brunello Rosa & Casey Larsen (2024)

Synopsis

This book explores how digital currencies—especially state-backed ones—are reshaping the global balance of power. It’s about money, yes, but more than that, it’s about the fight to control the infrastructure of the future economy.

Why I picked it up

I’ve been trying to understand how money is evolving—not just in terms of crypto hype, but in how governments, institutions, and private actors are positioning themselves for control. This book promised a geopolitical lens on digital currencies, and it delivers.

Why it stuck with me

“Since the end of the Second World War, the US dollar has been the global reserve currency, which has ensured American dominance of the world economy. But no longer. More than a hundred countries are developing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), digital equivalents to cash that will utterly transform how we do business at home and abroad.”

It’s not a book about Bitcoin. It’s a book about control—how states, central banks, and private actors are racing to shape the architecture of digital money in their image. Rosa and Larsen argue that digital currencies aren’t just a financial innovation, they’re a tool for geopolitical leverage and a reassertion of sovereignty in a fragmented world.

Through the lens of Modern Risk

For risk professionals, the implications are hard to ignore:

• Monetary risk is becoming infrastructure risk. CBDCs, stablecoins, and programmable money will change how capital flows, how sanctions bite, and how liquidity crises spread. That reshapes FX exposure, supply chain financing, and even cyber threats.

• The line between financial systems and national security is blurring. If money becomes programmable, it also becomes censorable. Organisations will need to think more seriously about where they bank, what rails they rely on, and what that says about their risk posture.

• Fragmentation isn’t temporary—it’s the baseline. The book reinforces a Modern Risk theme: global integration is being replaced by selective alignment. Smart money is also strategic money.

Worth questioning

One of the tensions that runs beneath this book is the growing Western scepticism of CBDCs. Unlike the more top-down enthusiasm seen in China or the Gulf states, many Western democracies are confronting a backlash rooted in civil liberty concerns. Programmable money raises real fears: Could governments restrict transactions by location, time, or behaviour? Could monetary infrastructure be used as a tool of soft coercion (domestically or abroad)? The book makes a strong case for the inevitability of digital currencies, but it’s less clear whether liberal democracies are ready to adopt them without a fight.

For readers who enjoyed…

• Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio

• The Future of Money by Eswar Prasad

• Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper

Let’s Talk About It

CBDCs get a lot of theoretical attention, but how are they being accounted for in real-world treasury, risk, or compliance strategies? Have you seen any serious corporate planning around them, or is this still mostly noise? Would love to hear what you're seeing.

It’s a brilliant reminder that the best ideas in business often don’t make sense — at least not rationally. They work because they tap into how people feel about value, trust, danger, and loss.

It got me thinking:

🧠 Why Logic Can Be a Trap

We love risk registers, frameworks, and actuarial models.
But they’re often built on a hidden assumption:

👉 That people behave rationally.

(Spoiler: they don’t.)

When it comes to risk, emotion often beats calculation. Not because people are stupid — but because in uncertain, complex environments, feelings are faster, stickier, and (sometimes) more protective than spreadsheets.

Here’s how that shows up in practice:

🔸 People don’t fear the most statistically likely outcome — they fear what feels uncertain.
🔸 A risk that looks managed is often more reassuring than one that is managed.
🔸 Most risk communication fails because it explains when it should empathise.
🔸 Stakeholders want confidence, not caveats.

🛠 Practical Shifts to Build a Smarter Risk Culture

If you want risk management to actually work in the real world, you need people to internalise it instinctively — not just comply with it mechanically.

Here are four shifts that stand out:

✅ Frame Risk in Human Terms, Not Technical Ones

• Risk isn’t just about probabilities and severities — it’s about how people feel about danger, loss, and uncertainty.

• If you want teams to spot and respond to risks early, you have to talk about it in language they live every day.

• Example: Instead of “third-party vendor failure risk,” say, “What happens if our partners let us down when we need them most?”

✅ Use Storytelling and Symbolism, Not Just Spreadsheets

• Data doesn’t move people. Stories do.

• Strong risk cultures are built on shared narratives: cautionary tales, close calls, "we almost lost it" moments.

• Symbolism matters too — small rituals, visible reminders, and common language that keep risk felt and seen, not buried inside a monthly report.

✅ Design for Confidence, Not Compliance

• Compliance is a box-ticking exercise. Confidence is a felt sense: “We know how to act when things go wrong.”

• Good risk management empowers people to make smart decisions under uncertainty — not just follow procedures.

✅ Build Trust, Not Just Processes

• Good risk culture isn’t about having the thickest handbook or the longest compliance checklist. It’s about creating an environment where people trust that raising a risk, challenging assumptions, or flagging uncertainty will be valued, not punished.

• If your people don’t trust the system (or worse, don't trust each other) no amount of documentation will save you.

• Trust turns risk management from a box-ticking exercise into a living, breathing part of how decisions get made. It turns technical protection into a bigger emotional contract: "We’re ready. We’ve thought about this. We’ve got each other’s backs."

🧠 The Real Lesson

Don’t just quantify risk.
Psychologise it.

If your risk strategy only makes sense to a spreadsheet, it won’t survive first contact with real people.

Logic might explain risk, but it doesn’t move people to act on it — or to trust your judgment when it matters.

If you want your risk strategy to hold up under real pressure, you have to design for something messier: belief, instinct, confidence.

Risk culture isn’t a technical problem. It’s a human one.

Disclaimer: This post is for general informational purposes only. It does not constitute legal or financial advice. Always consult qualified professionals for guidance tailored to your specific situation.