Independent media for the global private client world
Wealth Office is a long-form interview series with the founders, families and private capital holders reshaping the world. Filmed in London's great rooms. Published across Western and Chinese platforms.
The guest's chairEvery Wealth Office conversation is filmed on location in London. The chair is the only seat a guest is offered.
The Wealth Office audience this week
Subscribers and followers across all platforms
Checked 12 Oct 2026. Updated every Monday.
What we are building
Wealth Office is building the independent media brand for the families and principals who hold private capital, and for the advisers, institutions and creators who serve them. Long-form conversations filmed in London's great rooms, published in six languages across Western and Chinese platforms, and organised into the ideas that shape how wealth is held, passed on and put to work.
Wealth Office Insights
Essays drawn from what Wealth Office guests have said on the record. New essays follow every new episode.
News
Briefs on billionaires, family offices and private capital from Bloomberg, Forbes, the South China Morning Post and more. All news
Series architecture
Both series are filmed to the same production standard, in the same rooms, by the same team.
Editorial · Never sponsoredOne-on-one conversations exclusively with private capital-holding principals, authors and academics. The focus is their perspective, and how private capital is building the new world across business, technology, philanthropy and culture.
Exchange · Sometimes sponsoredTwo globally recognised leaders explore one subject where power, risk and long-term consequence intersect. Issue-led dialogue that stress-tests an idea or proposition.
Wealth Office X is where paid collaboration lives. It is always editorially led, never an advertisement in interview form.
The recurring questions
Ranked by how often each theme recurs across the episode library. Each theme has its own page that grows with every new episode.
In the chair
Every guest has a profile page drawing together their episodes, clips and the ideas they put on the record.
Behind the camera
The hosts, producers and strategists who make Wealth Office, in London, Hong Kong and Mumbai. Full biographies
From the comments
Real comments left under Wealth Office episodes on YouTube, quoted exactly as written. Collected weekly; a comment appears only after the team approves it.
Staging Twelve real comments selected for your approval. Commenter names are not shown.
Hosts
Based in London, Michael is a close adviser to some of the world's most ambitious private capital holders, with particular depth across Asia's major business families and family offices. His work sits at the intersection of media, reputation and the relationships shaping this era of private wealth. He is Principal Partner of Michael Macfarlane Associates, which produces Wealth Office.
About the seriesBased in Mumbai. Former South Asia Bureau Chief for the Daily Telegraph and host of The Diplomat's Beyond the Indus podcast, with over a decade advising UHNWIs and family offices across India and South Asia.
Based in Hong Kong. Moves between Western and Greater China circles in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, with long-standing relationships across Asia's family office and private client world.
Published in long, mid and short form
One filmed session becomes a long-form episode, mid-length clips and short-form cuts in English and Mandarin.
Collaboration partners
Wealth Office X places a firm's expertise inside a trusted, independent private client channel, with long-form authority, multi-platform distribution and content built for how AI now recommends people and firms.
Wealth Office Insights
Essays on private capital, family wealth and the forces reshaping the private client world, drawn from what Wealth Office guests have said on the record.
Episodes
Long-form episodes from both series, with an overview, key ideas and verified quotes for each.
Episode overview
Shield Xiao Dun's path into education began with a stranger's generosity. himself a Wealth Office guest, paid for Xiao Dun's schooling at Millfield in the UK and most of his Cambridge tuition, and never asked for anything back. Years later, at a gathering of around 30 scholars he had sponsored, Louey recommended the film Pay It Forward. In conversation with Michael Macfarlane, Xiao Dun describes education as the most meaningful way he could repay that opportunity, and technology as the way to extend it to as many people as possible.
The episode traces his first company, 17 EdTech, which he started in 2011 and listed on Nasdaq in 2020. It grew to 20,000 staff by meeting China's vast demand for better schooling, which far outstripped the supply of good teachers outside first-tier cities. Xiao Dun explains how mobile phones and faster networks made learning possible almost anywhere, and how the 2021 double reduction policy forced a painful pivot. He now runs a Delaware-incorporated company in Palo Alto building AI tutors that adapt to each learner, at a fraction of the cost of the best human teachers. He expects assessment to move towards mastery and real-world output.
The conversation widens to China's technological strength, why the most successful Chinese tech companies have listed in the United States, and the value of clear, stable policy. Xiao Dun also sets out two dystopian scenarios he fears AI could produce. In one, people are kept consuming without growing. In the other, a tiny group controls the compute and makes every strategic decision. His preferred society is shaped like a cactus, with many branches and many peaks. Throughout, he returns to the same principle. Purpose stays fixed, and the company is the vehicle for it.
Xiao Dun traces his career to who funded his education at Millfield and Cambridge and asked for nothing in return. He says that had he used the money to build a house in Hong Kong, it would not have been as meaningful as what Louey actually gave him, which was an opportunity. Any enterprise that creates value for society pays it forward, in his view, and education through technology is his chosen route.
17 EdTech grew, Xiao Dun explains, because Chinese families everywhere regard education as the path to a better future, while good teachers and schools are concentrated in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. A family in Tibet or Yunnan could not buy what did not exist locally. Mobile phones and successive network generations made it possible to reach those learners, and solving that gap is how the company captured value.
His new venture builds AI tutors that guide each learner in a personalised way. Because generative AI began with language models, a tutor can answer even a bizarre question patiently, at any hour, and follow a student's curiosity as far as they want. He likens learning to a tree, with shared roots in literacy and numeracy and every leaf different. Macfarlane notes that AI now does what 20,000 people once did.
Asked how self-taught learners could gain recognition, Xiao Dun expects the answer to come from outside existing institutions, which face the innovator's dilemma. Interviews, in his experience, are unreliable, and judging someone's output over time is far better. That was too labour-intensive for schools before AI. Now that AI can judge essays and understand video reasonably well, he foresees a mastery-based system built around realistic challenges.
Xiao Dun takes AI risk seriously. His worst case is a population kept consuming, with something like dopamine, while never growing. His second is one person, or a thousand, owning the compute and the best models and making every decision. He prefers a society shaped like a cactus, with many branches and peaks, where hard work is rewarded and value is measured in more than money.
The 2021 double reduction policy hit 17 EdTech hard. Xiao Dun says he understands many of the government's reasons but still disagrees with how abruptly it was executed. He argues that clear long-term boundaries, such as stating that compulsory education cannot be privatised until 2049, would let entrepreneurs plan. He senses a more stable policy period has begun, and he incorporated his new company in Delaware.
Xiao Dun and fellow scholars fund a Pay It Forward scholarship, but he accepts it stops when funding stops. He hopes his company, charging users just enough to sustain itself, will have the larger impact. He admires technology that the wealthiest and poorest use alike, and says many entrepreneurs of his generation now approach impact this way.
For me, a happy life is a meaningful life.
— Shield Xiao Dun, Wealth Office
I think the most important goal for education in this era is for someone to be motivated.
— Shield Xiao Dun, Wealth Office
I think the traditional culture of China is a culture that enables people to work well. But there was a bug of not valuing science and technology enough. We have been trying to put patches on this.
— Shield Xiao Dun, Wealth Office
So the best tech products are made so that the wealthiest people and the poorest people use the same products.
— Shield Xiao Dun, Wealth Office
Everyone's different, so they need different education, but the access should be the same. Everyone should be able to get the best access whenever they want.
— Shield Xiao Dun, Wealth Office
Quotes are taken word for word from the episode transcript.
Shield Xiao Dun grew up in a modest middle-class family in Beijing and won scholarships to Cambridge, MIT and Harvard. In his twenties he founded 17 EdTech, which reached 20,000 employees, listed on Nasdaq and peaked at a $5 billion valuation. He now lives in California, where he is building AI tutors intended to make high-quality education widely accessible.
Louey paid for his schooling in the UK and much of his Cambridge tuition without asking for anything back. Louey later recommended the film Pay It Forward to the scholars he had sponsored. Xiao Dun took it as a guide, and describes giving others an educational opportunity, at scale through technology, as his way of repaying that help.
He expects AI tutors to give every learner patient, personalised guidance at any hour, at a fraction of the cost of top human tutors. He believes this makes lifelong learning practical, shifts the main challenge to motivation, and will push assessment towards mastery and real-world output. He also warns that the same technology could produce dystopian outcomes if misused.
News
Weekly briefs on billionaires, family offices and private capital, drawn from Bloomberg, Forbes, the South China Morning Post and other leading titles, with context for families and their advisers.
About
Wealth Office is an independent media platform built for the private client world, launched in September 2025 and produced in London.
What Wealth Office is
Wealth Office explores the structural forces reshaping the private client world: the rise of private capital, the globalisation of family wealth, the shift of ambition and innovation toward Asia, the psychology of intergenerational stewardship, and the responsibility that comes with significant capital.
The series speaks with the principals themselves: founders, inheritors and long-term holders of capital, together with the authors and academics who study them. It does not cover market commentary or portfolio management. It asks how private wealth is used, governed and passed on, and what it is building.
Wealth Office is hosted by Michael Macfarlane and produced by a dedicated team in London and Hong Kong. Full biographies follow below.
Ultra-high-net-worth individuals, business-owning families, family offices, next-generation wealth holders, founders, and the lawyers, trustees and advisers who serve them.
Michael Macfarlane, Principal Partner of Michael Macfarlane Associates, is the principal host. Joe Wallen in Mumbai and Stephanie Chen in Hong Kong join as hosts.
The Wealth Office series is never sponsored. Wealth Office X episodes may involve a paid collaboration partner and are always editorially led.
On YouTube at @wealthofficeofficial, with clips on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Substack, RedNote and Bilibili (as 财富办公室), and audio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
Hosts and team
A London-based team with deep relationships across Asia's family offices, and fluency in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Wealth Office XWhere paid collaboration lives. Always editorially led.
Collaboration partners
Firms that serve the private client world collaborate with Wealth Office to own a theme: credible, independent, long-form video in front of the audience that matters, in the format AI-driven search now rewards.
The full collaboration brief, packages and audience data. Approved partners receive a one-time sign-in code by email.
Open the partner briefFor collaborations, Wealth Office X, interviews and press, write to us. Tell us about your firm, the theme you would like to own and your timing.
Email [email protected]