Book REVIEWS

FULL REVIEWS

Dr. Truong Gia Binh

Founder and Chairman of FPT Corporation

When reading 40 Years of Innovators, I felt the atmosphere of the early Đổi Mới years come back. Vietnam had just emerged from war: still poor, still under embargo, and short of almost everything. Yet there were people who dared to believe the country could move forward through knowledge, creative work, and a spirit of integration with the world.

To me, Đổi Mới was not merely an economic policy. It was a liberation of mindset, helping the country ‘rise’ beyond hunger and poverty, and move beyond years of isolation.

This book is not about policies; it is about the people who dared to step into ‘uncharted territory,’ break through constraints, and open new paths for the nation’s development.

The twenty-five individuals featured in 40 Years of Innovators come from different fields, different generations, and different nationalities. Yet they share one thing: great aspirations and a deep love for Vietnam. Some opened the way for the private sector; others laid the foundations for finance. Still others brought technology, education, healthcare, or human values into the country’s development. Though they traveled different paths, all shared the same belief in Vietnam’s sustainable future.

That belief nurtured an entire generation of Vietnamese entrepreneurs, including us, the founders of FPT. FPT was born out of Đổi Mới and built on the friendships of scientists and intellectuals who were sent abroad to study during the war years, then returned to help build a unified and growing Vietnam.

Looking back over more than thirty years, I have come to understand more deeply that FPT’s success is inseparable from the success of Đổi Mới. Since its founding, FPT has never let go of its aspiration to “contribute to the country’s prosperity.” Today, as Vietnam enters a new stage of development, often described as Vietnam 2.0, growth is increasingly driven by science and technology, innovation, and the quality of its human resources. Recent major decisions by the Party and the State have made this direction clear: recognizing the private sector as a key driver of the economy; positioning science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation as strategic breakthroughs; and setting the goal of making Vietnam a developed nation by 2045.

This is a call to action for the entire society, especially the business community and the younger generation, to become the builders of the future, working alongside the nation to tackle major challenges such as raising productivity, advancing education, improving healthcare, and building a digital government and a digital economy. For FPT, our strategy of sustained investment in research and development across areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, the low-altitude economy, and railway technologies is also a responsibility, one that befits a company born of Đổi Mới and grown alongside Đổi Mới.

Just as the previous generation dared to step into ‘uncharted territory,’ I hope that today’s generation will dream bigger, innovate more boldly than those before them, and step onto the global stage for Vietnam in the digital era.

Ambassador Ted Osius (ret)

United States Ambassador to Vietnam (2014 to 2017)

If you want to tell the story of something big, such as why Vietnam became an Asian Tiger, it’s best to tell stories about people. This book tells us about 25 remarkable individuals who contributed to Vietnam’s success. Their stories inspire, because they truly made a difference for Vietnam.  As Sam Van and Sam Korsmoe write, “they believed in the future of their country, or adopted country for the foreigners, and did their best to help Vietnam succeed since Đổi Mới began in 1986.”

Like Korsmoe’s earlier book, Vietnam, Asia’s Rising Star, this one makes the case that Đổi Mới worked. It’s hard to argue with that conclusion when you consider the astounding fact that Vietnamese living in extreme poverty – less than two dollars per day -- dropped from almost 70 percent in the 1980s to about two percent today. Three out of four citizens were lifted from extreme poverty. Year after year, Vietnam is getting richer.

For 30 years, I’ve had the privilege of working with a third of those profiled. So, you might think I would find their stories repetitive. Instead, the authors let these men and women tell us what motivated them, and it’s inspiring.  As Ambassador Nguyễn Quốc Cường wrote in his excellent Foreword, “I discovered that the more stories I read, the more excited I felt about the stories and wanted to keep reading.”

Under Đổi Mới, Hanoi’s leaders effectively cherry-picked the best policies from both socialist and capitalist growth models. They decided a relationship with the United States would unlock the door to the global economy and accelerate Vietnam’s growth. They negotiated a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) with Washington, which led to Vietnam’s 2007 entry into the World Trade Organization. From that moment on, it was off to the races.

It wasn’t easy. A key player was Vietnam’s chief BTA negotiator, Nguyễn Đình Lương.  On the U.S. side, Lương and his counterpart, trade official Joseph Damond, grappled with a persistent lobby against normalization due to war legacy issues. On the Vietnamese side, Lương had to deal with people who felt that he might be giving away too much to the Americans.  Van and Korsmoe quote Lương as saying, “The biggest obstacle was the hatred. It was too deep and the war was too long and too fierce. There was no trust, and [for trade negotiations] trust was the most important thing.”

But Lương and Damond found the support they needed, showed respect, and built trust.  The result was an agreement that gave life to Vietnam’s market economy. It sparked investment that continues today. Because the government and Party stuck with a free trade, export-led approach, the country prospered remarkably fast. After 20 years of 6.5 percent GDP growth, more than 25 years of double-digit total trade growth, and more than 30 years of relatively low and predictable inflation, Vietnam is indisputably an Asian Tiger. Tens of billions in foreign direct investment have flowed into Vietnam and tens of billions more in development assistance capital has gone into infrastructure.

There is a personal aspect to this success.  An excerpt from the book helps us understand:

In Luong’s home, there are two framed photos. One is of Luong and US President Bill Clinton shaking hands and smiling in the Oval Office of the White House. They are celebrating the signing of the BTA agreement. The other is a framed letter, written in Vietnamese, from Joe Damond to Nguyen Dinh Luong. In the letter, he expresses his thanks to his Vietnamese negotiating partner for their friendship and sharing over the previous five years to accomplish what many people thought was impossible.

From completely different cultural, historical, and political backgrounds, these two people overcame mistrust, forged a friendship and, together, created a better future for Vietnam. 

Today, the question is what it will take to get Vietnam into the top 20 global economies.  Already close to qualifying as an upper-middle income country, the country must escape the middle-income trap and achieve upper-income status.  That requires four elements: innovation; infrastructure, including sufficient energy; an effective education system; and investment. 

Van and Korsmoe write about each of these elements with stories showing how Vietnam has created an ecosystem to support innovation, how infrastructure is improving, and why education is getting better.  

For growth to continue, strong investment must get even stronger. And it is. The five investors profiled might have been satisfied by getting rich. They weren’t. Each one believed that giving the people of Vietnam opportunities for a better life was the best investment they could make.

Bằng Trịnh, who organizes and runs world-class marathon competitions, believes the Vietnamese “will need to have the mental and physical stamina to complete many IRONMANs and marathons to earn a seat in the Top 20.” He added, “What’s happened in Vietnam over the past ten years has been extraordinary, a reminder that purpose gets us going, passion keeps us inspired.” 

Another investor, Chris Freund, believes in “vision-driven investing.” “We’re always looking for patterns. Part of the approach is that it cannot be based on any theory. It has to be validated based on actual things that happened.” Chris’s company measures core values and culture, the management team, CEO reliability, customer experience – all elements of vision. There is no lack of vision in these stories of innovators. 

Sprinkled in among the 25 profiles, the authors help the reader understand Vietnam’s trajectory and why it is vaulting forward so quickly. They conclude by looking at recent policy decisions on the “Era of the Nation’s Rise” and Resolution 68, both spear-headed by General Secretary Tô Lâm.  Based on their analysis – and especially through these inspiring stories – it’s clear that Vietnam will swiftly become more innovative and prosperous.

Ambassador Andrew Goledzinowski AM

Former Australian Ambassador to Vietnam (2022 to 2025)

Forty Years of Innovators is a warm, lively celebration of Vietnam’s recent transformation, told through the lives of 25 people whose energy and ideas helped remake a nation. Rather than focussing on policy processes, Sam Van and Sam Korsmoe have chosen a smart, human-centred approach to telling the remarkable story of Vietnam’s last 40 years. Readers who want to understand the mechanics of Vietnam’s rise will find the explanations easy and accessible.

And what a story it is. I often say that Vietnam is currently the most interesting country in Asia, and perhaps in the world. This book reminds us that Vietnam has been interesting for most of the last four decades – we just weren’t paying attention.

The story of modern Vietnam is actually 100 million individual stories. The authors must have had a tough time choosing just 25 personal narratives with which to paint the big picture of Vietnam’s journey from post-war devastation to the country of today. The stories they found are not just interesting in themselves; they each point to important truths about the last 40 years of Vietnam’s journey.

The authors divide the Đổi Mới era into five distinct segments with five protagonists from each period. Innovation is the thread that binds them together. Each individual saw a better way of doing things and had the courage and determination to get their ideas - sometimes modest, sometimes audacious - translated into reality. This book is a celebration of people who took risks and changed the nation as a result.

Readers will come away with a clear sense of how Đổi Mới unfolded on the ground: the equitisation of state owned enterprises, the painstaking work to create an environment for foreign direct investment, and the slow birth of a financial services industry. Some of the 25 stories are about the building of businesses or whole cities; others are about creating opportunities or new ways of thinking. It’s interesting to observe how many of these challenges are again on the table as Vietnam changes gear to move into the next stage of economic development and growth.

Two editorial choices deserve special mention. First, the authors chose not to forget the role of women in the making of modern Vietnam. This choice is important, not just to accurately reflect history, but because the changing role of women in Vietnamese society will do much to influence its future direction and success.

Second, the decision to publish this book in English as well as in Vietnamese is important. Despite all the attention it currently enjoys, the world’s understanding of modern Vietnam remains painfully shallow. Which is surprising given the extent to which Vietnam’s development has been shaped by innovators who studied abroad, by overseas Vietnamese who came home, and by foreigners who chose to build their careers (and lives) in Vietnam. A majority of those celebrated in this book fall into one of these three categories. Vietnam has always been more open to the world than it’s given credit for.

For young local readers, I hope the Vietnamese edition will speak directly to a generation that grew up studying ancient heroes, but who may like to know that Vietnamese heroes still walk among them today.  

A special pleasure for me as I read this book was realising how many of these remarkable individuals I know personally; and most of the others I know through their work. For this review I have chosen not to single out particular stories – partly because of word limits – but really because to mention just one or two would be to do an injustice to others.

Today, Vietnam is trying to do what no other country has done: escape the middle income trap by building a high income economy, while simultaneously achieving net zero and navigating a new era of protectionism and global uncertainty. The odds look daunting, but Vietnam has a long history of beating the odds.

The most important lesson of this book might be that Vietnam’s greatest strength has always been its people. Leadership is important. But if Vietnam is to rise in this new era it cannot be just a top-down approach. Success will only be achieved if the Vietnamese people bring all of their intelligence and determination to the task. Understanding and taking pride in how the challenges of the past were overcome might just provide the inspiration for this generation to do likewise.

To know where a country is going, look where it’s been. This book does that, and does it very well.

Trần Ngọc Anh,

Professor, Indiana University Bloomington

Former Economic Advisor to Prime Minister of Vietnam Chair, Annual US-Vietnam Forum

A Story I Was Privileged to Witness: Reading "40 Years of Innovators"

“In a world of hard power, these 25 lives prove that the most lasting change comes from the softest touch: decades of kindness, patience, and shared passion.”

“This book preserves the stories of the pioneers so that the next generation will know their future was built on a foundation of profound human partnership.”

To read "40 Years of Innovators" is, for me, a profoundly moving experience. It’s like opening a family album. When I was growing up in the 1980s, Vietnam was a nation of scarcity, isolated from the world. Then, as a young man in the 1990s diving into the chaotic, optimistic "Wild West" of Doi Moi, I had the privilege to witness a generation of pioneers at work. They were the people in this book.

Sam Van and Sam Korsmoe have documented a critical, and often missing, human chapter of Vietnam's modern reform story. From my own small role within the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, I was fortunate to see the "top-down" story. We were the ones wrestling with the architecture of reform, drafting policies to untangle a centralized economy.

But this book tells the essential, human "bottom-up" story. It shows how those policies were made real, not by edicts, but by people. And the passion of the partners, both Vietnamese and American, who came to help is a central theme.

What this book captures so brilliantly is that their passion was not for charity, but for partnership. I think of my mentor, Tom Vallely. Here is a man who came to Vietnam first as a US Marine. For him to return, to dedicate his life to co-creating the Fulbright Economics Teaching Program and then the nation-building triumph that is Fulbright University Vietnam—this is the entire story of US-Vietnam reconciliation embodied in one man's life. He wasn't just building a school; as I know from personal observation, he was building the intellectual-capital engine for a new generation of Vietnamese leaders.

The book also rightly honors Vietnamese champions, like my hero, Pham Chi Lan. In my own work, especially with the Prime Minister's Research Commission, I remember her as one of the most powerful, persistent, and courageous voices for reform. She was a bridge within Vietnam, connecting the government to the nascent private sector. The book's profile of her captures the tireless courage it took to be that internal advocate, the "bottom-up" force of conscience and intellect pushing our "top-down" reforms.

The remaining stories in this book, each in their own way, echo this spirit. They show the lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and educators who quietly did the work, built the systems, and transferred the knowledge that helped make our reforms a reality.

This book's heart and soul clearly come from one of its authors, Sam Van. Having observed Sam's work in Vietnam for years, I have seen his tireless contributions firsthand. He is not a detached observer; he is a part of our community. As his moving dedication to his mother reveals, his is a journey that led from Vietnam to the US and, driven by a deep love for the country, back to Vietnam for over 20 years. His kindness and profound personal commitment, which I have seen directly, make him the perfect person to have gathered these voices. He has been a bridge-builder in his own right, and this book is a testament to that spirit.

To this, Sam Korsmoe brings the essential gift of narrative and academic rigor. He is not a casual visitor; he's an American who has spent two decades in Vietnam, speaks the language fluently, and even wrote his Master's thesis on the Doi Moi reforms. As a journalist, researcher, and author of other works on Vietnam like "Saigon Stories," he possesses the unique skill set needed to weave these 25 distinct, complex lives into a single, compelling tapestry. He provides the structure that allows the passion of the subjects—and his co-author—to shine through, ensuring these vital stories will endure.

Together, the two Sams have proven that the true innovation was the partnership itself. These individuals didn't come to "convert" Vietnam. They came to listen, to learn, and to build with us. As a dual citizen, I now see this story from both sides. This book shows the very best of the American spirit—not one of imposition, but one of practical, passionate, sleeves-rolled-up collaboration. My friends Sam Van and Sam Korsmoe have given us a precious, heartfelt gift. They've captured the human-to-human interactions that truly forged the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership we celebrate today. This isn't just a history book; it's a testament to what's possible when people choose to build a future together, and it's a story I am so proud to have been a witness.

Hao Tran

Founder and CEO Vietcetera

Vietnam’s Modern Renaissance, Told Through Its People

In 40 Years of Innovators, Sam Van and Sam Korsmoe offer a fresh lens on Vietnam’s recent history—focusing not on abstract policy, but on the people who made transformation real. Rather than retelling the familiar Đổi Mới narrative as a set of reforms, the authors build a mosaic of twenty-five individual lives, each embodying the spirit of experimentation, resilience, and ambition that carried Vietnam from post-war scarcity to global integration.

The book’s structure—seven chapters spanning the “Đổi Mới Generations”—anchors each profile in an era, from early reform pioneers to high-tech visionaries shaping Vietnam’s digital future. What emerges is not a linear chronicle but an evolving ecosystem of human endeavor.

Former Ambassador Nguyễn Quốc Cường’s foreword sets the tone: Đổi Mới wasn’t just a policy shift; it was a national awakening led by citizens, returnees, and outsiders who believed Vietnam could—and must—reinvent itself. His insight that “it’s all about the people who made Đổi Mới work” becomes the book’s thesis.

A Dual Perspective

Van and Korsmoe’s collaboration mirrors Vietnam’s own hybrid identity. Van, a Vietnamese-American financier shaped by Wall Street and now a bridge between two worlds, writes with reverence for the country’s potential and pragmatism about its challenges. Korsmoe, a long-time American observer of Vietnam’s growth, brings the storyteller’s eye—grounding macroeconomic milestones in human detail. Together they weave a dialogue between insider empathy and outsider curiosity.

Stories That Define a Generation

Among the book’s standouts are profiles such as:

• Madame Phạm Chi Lan, the reformist economist who helped open the private sector.

• Don Lam and Dominic Scriven, who shaped Vietnam’s frontier-finance era.

• Nguyễn Thanh Nam, the FPT mathematician whose “two-computer dream” captures the startup spirit.

• Jimmy Phạm, whose social-enterprise work reframes profit as purpose.

Each portrait reads as both biography and case study, showing how global exposure, education, and persistence intersected to move Vietnam forward.

Style and Substance

The prose is direct yet reflective—academic enough for policymakers, accessible enough for general readers. Van’s “Reflections on Vietnam’s Transformation” gives the project personal resonance, tracing his path from Saigon’s 1980s austerity to the trading floors of New York, then back to a rediscovered homeland. Korsmoe’s companion essay, “It’s All About the People,” ties decades of observation into a single humanistic thread: Vietnam’s story is one of continuous reinvention.

Why It Matters Now

As Vietnam enters what some call “Đổi Mới 2.0,” this book feels timely. It doesn’t just memorialize the past forty years; it asks who will lead the next forty. By highlighting cross-cultural partnerships and the return of global Vietnamese talent, it points toward a future built on collaboration rather than ideology.

Verdict

40 Years of Innovators is both tribute and testimony—a reminder that nations evolve through the courage of individuals who decide to act. For readers of Vietcetera, the book’s multicultural sensibility and focus on creative agency will resonate deeply. It’s a work that belongs on the shelf of anyone curious about how Vietnam became what it is today—and where it might go next.

Professor Carlyle A. Thayer

University of New South Wales Canberra

It has become commonplace to say that “Vietnam is not a war, Vietnam is a place.” This cliché passed into history when Brook Taylor and Sam Korsmoe co-authored the book entitled Vietnam: Asia’s Rising Tiger. The co-authors argued that based on the case studies of Taiwan and South Korea, Vietnam had what it takes to become an Asian Tiger.

Van and Korsmoe now provide the reader with a new perspective to understand “Vietnam’s rise in the new era.” Vietnam is not just a place or an Asian Tiger but a country that nurtures gifted Vietnamese either born in Vietnam or raised aboard as well as a welcoming country for foreigners who have devoted their careers to assisting Vietnam develop. Vietnam should now be called the country of innovators.

40 Years of Innovators is divided into seven chapters and two Appendices. The Foreword is written by Nguyen Quoc  Cuong, Vietnam’s Deputy Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the United States and Japan.

Next, Sam Van and Sam Korsmoe each provide their own personal introductions. Van’s family moved to the United States in 1991 where he was educated at St. John’s University and earned a Master in Business Administration from Cornell. Van then worked in various capacities for the New York Stock Exchange. He returned regularly to Vietnam after 2007 serving as a facilitator for Vietnamese policymakers seeking to understand how to engage economically  with the U.S.

Korsmoe, an American, first visited Vietnam in 1990 and subsequently studied Vietnamese at the University of Hanoi and University of Washington. He worked in Vietnam for eleven years from 1993 to 2004 and returned in 2018 where he has resided until the present. Korsmoe established the Saigon Writers Club, teaches creative writing, and published three books.

Van and Korsmoe were motivated to write about the “who” of Vietnam’s Đổi Mới or reform process. The “who” were the people who made a positive contribution to Vietnam during their professional lives over the last forty years. In order to narrow the sample, Van and Korsmoe sought to distinguish persons based on the time period they made their contribution and what particular group of people they belonged to.

In Chapter One, Van and Korsmoe describe how they selected persons to be interviewed on the basis of three criteria: “First, they have made a positive difference for Vietnam with their ideas, projects, companies, missions and life. Second, they began their work at a particular time or era that we identified between the advent of Đổi Mới in 1986 to the present day… Third, they came from a generation or have personal histories that were quite distinct from other generations.”

Van and Korsmoe identified five special groups:  Vietnamese who studied abroad and worked in Eastern Europe prior to 1986 and returned to Vietnam; Vietnamese who studied in Western Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea and Australia and returned to Vietnam after 1986; gifted Vietnamese who were educated in Vietnam and who promoted their ideas or launched their startups mostly on their own; Overseas Vietnamese who left Vietnam well before 1986 who decided to return to Vietnam to pursue their careers; and foreigners who chose to make Vietnam their home to build careers, launch companies and develop innovative ideas.

Chapters Two to Six discuss the contributions that twenty-five innovators made over the last forty years. Each chapter sets the scene by providing an overview of what make this particular time period distinctive. Each chapter includes well-written succinct profiles of five innovators.

Chapter Two discusses the early years of Đổi Mới. Chapter Three discusses life in Vietnam under the American embargo. Chapter Four discusses opening up and the emergence of frontier finance. Chapter Five discusses the era of Free Trade after Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization. Chapter Six discusses Vietnam’s recovery from COVID-19 and its pursuit of a high-tech future.

 Chapter Seven concludes the book by looking forward and the prospects for “engineering the future of Vietnam.”

40 Years of Innovation should have wide appeal because Vietnam’s leaders have doubled down on their commitment to become a developing country with a modern-oriented industry and the high-middle income level by 2030 and a developed country with high income by 2045.

40 Years of Innovation should be required reading for all business executives, government officials, international financial institutions, and academics who want to know how Vietnam really ticks.