Forrest Li believes humility and ambition are complementary, not contradictory. By comparing Sea's success to the trillion-dollar valuations of Silicon Valley giants, he maintains humility. This perspective frames current achievements as just the beginning, fueling the company's ambition for far greater growth.
In markets with poor infrastructure, such as Southeast Asia's incomplete address systems, building proprietary logistics is a key differentiator. Sea assigned its best talent to solve this "hard problem," creating a sustainable advantage over competitors by owning the customer experience from click to delivery.
Beyond automating 80% of customer inquiries with AI, Sea leverages these tools as trainers for its human agents. They created an AI "custom service trainer" to improve the performance and consistency of their human support team, creating a powerful symbiotic system rather than just replacing people.
Sea's long-term commitment to Southeast Asia as its "home ground" allows it to outlast competitors who enter and exit in waves. This permanent mindset fosters a deep obsession with customer satisfaction and building sustainable advantages, rather than reacting to transient competitive pressures.
Sea transformed its hit game, Free Fire, from a static product into an evergreen service. By treating it as a platform, they continuously add new gameplay and rapidly integrate real-world social trends (like a famous local hippo), making the game a dynamic cultural hub that extends beyond gameplay.
A core tenet of Forrest Li's leadership is that leaders must personally own and execute the most difficult decisions, like freezing salaries. He argues that pleasant and popular tasks should be delegated, while the leader's ultimate responsibility is to show up in difficult times and make the unpopular-but-necessary calls.
Sea's multi-billion dollar fintech business wasn't a top-down strategic initiative. It was born from necessity to solve internal problems: a lack of payment methods for its gaming customers and the need for a scalable transaction system for e-commerce. This internal tool evolved into a major consumer-facing business.