because they are far too smart and far too discreet to be visible. They are an exceedingly private Straits Chinese family that goes back generations and has diversified holdings all over Asia—raw materials, commodities, real estate, that sort of thing. Their wealth is vast—Astrid’s great-grandfather S. W. Leong used to be called ‘the Palm Oil King of Borneo.’ If Singapore had an aristocracy, Astrid would be considered a princess.”
Another grande dame of Singapore’s old-money crowd who will only talk off the record tells me, “It’s not just her Leong blood that makes her important. Astrid is loaded on both sides. Her mother is Felicity Young, and let me just tell you, the Youngs make everybody else look like paupers, because they intermarried with the T’siens and the Shangs. Alamak, I’ve already told you too much.”
Can this mysteriously powerful family be responsible for Teo’s meteoric success? “Absolutely not!” Teo says angrily. Then, catching himself, he breaks into a laugh. “Originally, I was the one who married up, I’ll admit that. But nowadays I fit in very well with her family specifically because I never asked for their help—I was determined to succeed entirely on my own.”
And succeed he has—by now everyone knows how Teo’s fledgling tech firm was suddenly acquired by a Silicon Valley company in 2010, increasing his net worth by several hundred million dollars. While most men might have been content to spend the rest of their lives staring out at the ocean view from one of Annabel Lee’s luxury resorts, Teo doubled down and started his own tech-focused venture capital firm.
“I had no interest in retiring at thirty-three. I felt like I had been handed this golden opportunity, and I didn’t want to take it for granted. There is so much talent and ingenuity right here in Singapore, and I wanted to find Asia’s next generation of Sergey Brins and provide them with the wings to fly,” Teo says. So far, his bets haven’t just soared like eagles, they’ve rocketed to the moon. His apps Gong Simi? and Ziak Simi? have revolutionised the way Singaporeans communicate and argue about food, and several of the start-ups he has funded have been acquired by behemoths like Google, Alibaba Group, and Tencent. The Heron Wealth Report estimates that Teo is now worth close to a billion dollars—not bad for a thirty-six-year-old who shared a bedroom with two of his brothers until he went to college.
So how does a man like Teo enjoy the spoils of his fortune? For starters, there is the contemporary villa in Bukit Timah that anyone driving past could easily mistake for an Aman Resort. Built around several reflecting pools and Mediterranean-style gardens, the sprawling house is already getting a bit cramped for Teo’s growing collection of war artifacts and sports cars. “We are in the process of building a new home, and have been interviewing prospective architects like Renzo Piano and Jean Nouvel. We really want something revolutionary, a home like nothing Singapore’s ever seen.”
Until then, Teo takes me on a tour of his exclusive booty. On the ground-floor gallery, samurai swords from the Edo period and a massive canon from the Napoleonic War are displayed alongside his sparklingly restored Porsches, Ferraris, and Aston Martins. “I’m taking my time, but I hope to amass the finest collection of vintage sports cars outside the Western Hemisphere. See this 1963 Ferrari Modena Spyder over here?” Teo says, as he rubs the chrome work lovingly with his index finger. “This is the actual Ferrari that Ferris Bueller drove on his day off.”
And just home from kindergarten is Teo’s adorable son, Cassian, who enters the room doing a series of cartwheels. Teo grabs him by the collar of his shirt and lifts the boy into his arms. “All these things I possess, though, are nothing to me without this little rascal here.” Cassian, a high-spirited boy who has inherited his parents’ extraordinary looks, will turn six later this year, and Teo is determined to pass on the secrets of his success to his son. “I’m a true believer in the adage ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’ I think kids need a great deal of discipline, and they need to be trained to function at their highest level. For example, my son is exceedingly smart, and I don’t feel that he’s being challenged at his kindergarten, and this will be very bold of me to say, but I don’t think he’ll be challenged at any primary school in Singapore either.”