17 February 2026 reflection / applied intelligence / asia-pacific / edge
The Year of the Horse: running forwards while looking back.
A first-day-of-Lunar-New-Year reflection. The Horse is forward momentum. The discipline I want to take into 2026 is choosing what to run towards, and what to carry with me when I do.
Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse, 17 February 2026, the first day of Lunar New Year.
The Horse, in Chinese zodiac symbolism, does not look back. It runs toward the horizon and barely glances at what is behind. That is fitting for a moment when AI is moving fast enough that last year’s breakthrough is this year’s baseline. The question I came back to on the first day of the new year is whether the most Horse-like thing we can do right now is simply run faster, or whether it is choosing what to run towards, and what to carry with us when we do.
Fourteen years in Southeast Asia have left me with a slightly different read on what acceleration costs and what it actually buys. The piece is a long one. It is the closest I have come to writing down how I think about pace, attention, and the operator’s job in a year that is going to push on all three.