Mohammed Alabsi is the CTO of Hypefast, the largest house of brands in SEA. Before Hypefast, Mohammed was the SVP of Engineering at Bukalapak, and a technology leader at Amazon. He is also an active angel investor, with companies like GrowSari, Evermos, Upmesh and Kilo in his portfolio.

👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

I build technology that helps online brands grow their businesses faster and make more money.

🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

I come from a big family, and I mean BIG. 25 uncles and aunts, and over 120+ 1st-degree cousins. Family reunions are a hoot!

🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

I'm a builder at heart and have been fortunate to be part of amazing teams and work on great products. That includes building 3 of Amazon's biggest businesses in Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon Advertising and Amazon Business (B2B e-commerce), and growing Bukalapak's tech practice and gearing it towards an IPO. Lately, I've enjoyed witnessing startups I'm supporting experience tremendous growth, raise a number of institutional rounds and overcome challenges along the way.

Currently, I'm joining Hypefast, building and managing the company's tech team. We focus on developing ultra-relevant tech solutions for the e-commerce native brands in Southeast Asia based on actual problems and challenges we're facing when managing our own portfolio brands.

🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?

As we're coming out of COVID, startups are experimenting with different work arrangements: Some are remaining fully remote, some are adopting different variations of hybrid, and some require their employees to work from the office full time.

It will be interesting to see how these experiments will pan out. Personally, I believe flexibility is here to stay, and startups that offer their staff flexibility will have a competitive advantage in hiring.    

💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

Look for an organization that cares about people development and is willing to invest in you, a manager that will be your mentor and advocate. That's more important than the financial aspects of a job.

With time you'll find what you enjoy and have the potential to be great at. Once you do, focus your time and energy on honing your craft and becoming exceptional at it.

🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

I've always been passionate about Nature and History and enjoy talking about related topics. They help us better understand where we live and where we came from.

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

I love comedy TV shows. The Office (US) and the IT Guys are top of mind.

🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?

Mango!