How Socialism Made Africa Poor (And Startup Cities Will Help It Thrive) - Magatte Wade

bring us up to speed though since that really famous Ted talk like what does your life look like now the case I was trying to make is why is Africa still the poorest region in the world in terms of how easy or hard it is to start a company you tell me why African countries all 50 of them are basically at the bottom of that list despite having some of the greatest riches in the world do you know what it what it is for others Kevin for others it is you pack yourself into little Fisherman's boats come here trying to cross to somewhere in Spain and often times that boat on the you called that at one point people are turning into fish food yeah basically we are still still serving as fish food that's a SE route let's take land route what happens to us most of the time we get stuck in Libya and being stuck in Libya means you get sold as a slave yes in the 21st century so what happened in my situation was one question for you then is like all right before we dive into today's episode I wanted to take a moment to thank you for tuning in number one and if you haven't subscribed to our Channel yet please consider hitting that subscribe button right now by subscribing you'll ensure that you never miss an episode of our show and it helps us grow our Channel and continue creating great content that matters to you so if you find Value in what we do hit the button below and thank you for being a part of the KRS Community now just a quick intro on today's guest mugot Wade she's a Visionary entrepreneur an inspirational speaker and a leading advocate for economic freedom and prosperity in Africa her entrepreneur Journey has been featured all over the place she's been on Forbes the guardian huffing the post and definitely check out her Ted talk as well now mugot is really passionate about creating Enterprises that change the perception of business in Africa she believes in the power of Entrepreneurship to drive sustainable economic growth and improve lives it's a fantastic Mission now her work extends Beyond her business ventures she is also a strong voice for policy reforms particularly in the areas of property rights and the rule of law to create environments where entrepreneurs can thrive in Africa now she was named a young Global Leader by the world economic forum and it forbs 20 youngest power women in Africa mugot is just truly a Trailblazer now there is a lot to learn from her she has a unique perspective that provides valuable insights into navigating the challenges and opportunities of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets I was just absolutely inspired by her story she has this unwavering determination and a vision for an economically vibrant Africa if this video this is one of those videos where you watch it and you're like I'm just not doing enough with my life like this person is absolutely crushing it on so many levels and taking on the world it's really inspiring this is mugot Wade thank you for joining me thanks for having me Kevin appreciate being here so glad to have you on the show first thing I want to say is for anyone that has not seen your Ted Talk I know it's 5 years old now but it is insanely inspiring thank you so much and it seems like as an entrepreneur and an activist and you know all the things that you are you do so much bring us up to speed though since that that really famous Ted talk like what does your life look like now yeah so since had Ted talk so the main the gice of a t Ted Talk I won't um give people everything so they have to watch it but um the gist of it was we were in um Tanzania in Aria and it was in 2017 uh yeah 2017 uh before that we had been in Africa for the first time Ted for the first time in 2007 in Aria back then I was part of the cohort of the Ted fellows we were the first cohort of Ted fellows as a matter of fact and they had picked a 100 Africans from the continent and outside of the continent but they felt would be the Trailblazers for the continent building it it up and so 10 years later we had a little bit of a reunion you know and kind of checking things out a little bit um for me I the case I was trying to make is why is Africa still the poorest region in the world so that's a case that that t talk is making yeah right and since then of course I've made some progress and we'll we'll talk about it but um really when when we call me an activist I like to say that I call I'm a people say what type of activist are you I said I'm a Prosperity activist and it's on purpose because Africa unfortunately still is the poorest region in the world despite having some of the greatest riches in the world starting with its its young population I don't know if you know Kevin but it is the youngest um continent in the world with the average years is 19 years old n one nine and by 2050 H one out of every four people walking this Earth will be African wow so I think it's important for people to sit with those numbers and just start to think about the magnitude of what this means yeah so for someone like me of course I'm thinking wow it's great what a wonderful opportunity we are a future we are a future but what type of future are we talking about because if we're going to remain the future if this future is also going to stay the poorest in the world I think the world has huge problems coming its way yes right um and we're already seeing it uh to some degrees with uh the immigration uh process so the the Americans so people here in the US have been complaining about you know um immigrants coming from forther south you know Central America Latin America but right now we also have um immigration coming from Africa up till recently most of the uh immigration done under more or less you know um illegal um routes was happening between Africa and um Europe for the most part but now there is a route going from West Africa especially to into the us through Nicaragua mostly so um there is you know years ago so I was giving a talk at MIT I think it was maybe more 12 around then and I said to them I said it was a very Tech oriented um you know Gathering but I said to them listen guys if nothing is done about the state of Africa I could see a time a time in the Horizon not too far out where we're going to have the entire political you know landscape of Europe being completely changed where you have all the extreme right-wing parties winning everywhere based on what on the promise that they will keep the immigrants especially from Africa out and that's exactly what you're seeing Georgia milone Italy Victor Orban Hungary it's happening everywhere I think France probably is going to have Marine Leen or maybe Eric Z who knows but it's probably going to be happening and so we we're seeing and we're seeing the shift yes in any case so for me someone like me I'm sitting there my argument is not going to be about let more of us in or keep us out that's really not the argument that I make the argument that I make is it takes something extraordinary for a group of people to leave everything behind to leave their families behind to leave their land behind to leave their communities behind in my case to leave their child behind my parents you know as soon as I was done breastfeeding around Age Two my families my family made a decision but so many African families before them made and so many since them are still making to this day means you turn your back that's how I I saw it but I but I understand now that's not what it was but they leave they and in my case my parents didn't take me with them because they knew that the journey they were about to take was not going to be a safe nor maybe they didn't know if is work to work were're going to have stability on the other end nothing they'd much rather see you survive exactly than take that risk exactly and uh and even if um it worked for them they wanted to make sure that they got everything under control and had would provide stability by the time I come I come join them and this is my parents who were able to do it under rather safe safe conditions because do you know what it what it is for others Kevin for others it is you pack yourself into little fishermen's boats trying to cross to somewhere in Spain because it's the first entry point into the European into Europe and often times that boat tips somewhere you know on the ocean yeah you you called that at one point people are turning into fish food yeah basically we are still still serving as fish food and that phenomenon by the way has been has been nothing but accelerating and at first it was primarily young men right um but women and children were staying behind you know if it worked then maybe they could join them through the normal safe legal route uh but now no women are leaving babies are leaving and which means that many more of them dead serving as fish food at the bottom of the ocean so that's the land route that's a sea route when they think that's too dangerous let's take um land route what happens to us most of the time we get stuck in Libya and being stuck in Libya means you get sold as a slave yes in the 21st century someone like me gets caught trying to make it to Europe using land route we get stuck in Libya and there we get sold and do you know my price $300 to $500 it's insane yeah it took for CNN to talk about it for the world to believe us but I I knew this was happening because so many of us are on WhatsApp groups where all we do is paying money to buy people's freedom back holy all right let's talk about something near and dear to my heart investing so for me I absolutely have to have someone that is in my corner that's a trusted partner that can look at everything holistically and and the best type of professional is a cfp which are certified financial planners you're probably saying to yourself I have one of these people at xbank or at this financial institution and I did as well but I stopped doing that because these people charge you a percentage of your assets under management 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this is not an offer to sell Securities or investment Financial legal or tax advice past performance is not a guarantee of future performance terms and conditions apply so there will be someone that reaches out to you uh on a WhatsApp group and says hey I have this person they are my slave and if you send me money how's that done typically like a payment like not PayPal like no no no no no so some people some people um so in my case in in the in the in the ones that I'm in it's you're not going to see necessarily the the people holding our people reaching out to you but there are some relays you know some relays on the ground and people would find out that so and so got caught and how can you trust that because this is what Africans do we we we have always worked as relays do you know how much money is living New York City you see a lot of um a lot of the people that you see selling uh Goods on the side uh on the side on the side street of New York City yeah most of the time they're black people ask them where they come from for the most part they come from Sagal my country what are they M like me and uh but these are some very hardworking people and I'm sure you see them all the time working super hard you know that a lot of the money that they make they most of it they send back home to take care of the families that they left home and a lot of that money does not travel for your Banks or anything like that it's it's you're going I trust you I know you so we still we still have a parallel you know like routes like that about everything about Comm with Communications with money or um you need to spend money in the village for example there's somebody in there who has that amount of cash and but uh somebody in their family members need something similar on the US side you exchange that way wow has cryptocurrency helped it all of course of course crypto has been a life Cher a game changer for us and you see that's what excited me so much about crypto because oftentimes we Africans so many of us we look at you guys in the west fighting each other you know the Bitcoin Community especially and uh so I'm more I'm more a Bitcoin gal so definitely on my maxi my maxi you know status well you're doing well thank you we told you to hold but anyway that's the hold of a conversation but um so what happened is in the west I think um the West has been so spoiled because when you have PayPal when you have um you can wire you can venmo you can zel you can do all of this stuff you have bank accounts you have credit cards so you live under this great um you know you live into this under this great uh illusion that you have um sound money yes you it's not sound money as you and I know by now and I think many people are starting to discover but us we the reason why Africa is one of is the region with the fastest adoption of Bitcoin and crypto in general is because unlike in the west the signal pinpoint is very clear for us when you have nonfunctioning financial institutions oh for sure you're left with only one thing that works I have some people on my team that are from Nigeria the only way can pay them is using Bitcoin crazy without Bitcoin I could not pay them all right confession time I'm always trying out new software and if I'm being honest with you I jump ship to new stuff all the time it drives my wife crazy mainly because she's like what are we using now why why do we why do we have to move I will say there is one tool one application that I've been using for years now and it just keeps getting better and that's today's sponsor which is notion I use it to take notes for the books that I'm reading use it to track movies track articles I actually have the Chrome extension so I can save articles directly to my notion that I want to go and revisit later uh it is my personal hub for all the things now professionally it's equally as awesome because you can create these dedicated team spaces that are kind of quarantine and walled off from all of your other personal data so on the team side we're talking about Guest that we're booking show notes going there publish dates pretty much anything and everything for the podcast so so it's my all-encompassing just life hub for all the things my in my entire life so notion combines your docs your notes and your projects into one space that's simple and beautifully designed and now they have a brand new AI the fully integrated notion AI helps you work faster write better and think bigger doing tasks that normally take you hours in just seconds and I've tried the AI out and it's cool because you don't have to bounce out to a thirdparty AI app it's just all built right into the notion which is great so try notion I know you've heard of notion but you probably haven't tried it if you haven't tried it go and check it out right now so try notion for free when you go to notion.com Kevin Rose that's all lowercase letters notion.com Kevin Rose to try the powerful easy to use notion AI today make sure to use our link you'll be supporting the show when you do so so notion.com Kevin Rose I mean and I I hear this time and time again obviously not just in Africa but there are certain regions where the inflation and the local currency is a joke and if that's the case like what are you going to do and so I see a world where 5 seven 10 years out there's going to be some serious Nations that say Hey well there already has been the hints of this yes maybe this should be the way that we use currency you know that's it that's it and so for us um what it is is because since we are not obstructed with all these choices that in at the end are in a way but the West gets to have but it's still you know it still um makes things easier we're not obstructed by that so we see right away the real function of coin or of crypto uh we see it as what it was always designed to be which is money sound money here I think people don't understand what money is and also what constitutes good money it needs to be able to travel back and forth it um you don't want to have too many inter in it and most importantly you don't want to have the ability to Tinker it which is what brings up you know inflation deflation all of that crap so anyway so for us I think um and what I love about our what's going on with us is here in the west I see people arguing with each other all the time about the philosophical merits of uh crypto or not of Bitcoin or not whereas we're like listen we don't necessarily need to know how the sausage is made but we know the S is right so that's all it is and so we're just the one jumping on it so have you used cryptocurrency to to free a slave in my case um sometimes that's what you have to do sometimes you uh that's how the money has that story is not being told that that actually is a a real use case for cryptocurrency you you know people who would say it um this is why I really love the work of people like Alex Alex gladstein over at hrf Human Rights Foundation you definitely should have him on and have people like um you know Fara um there are so many of these human rights activists around the world and this these stories are really nothing when you compare to some of the activists that are working um in Iran or are working in Afghanistan or some of these you know places where I mean literally a them is not even like you're freeing somebody it's like you're saving somebody's life someone is about to be executed holy someone is about to be executed and if you don't pay up now and the money has has to be the amount and it has to arrive on time if it doesn't life doesn't is not worth more than a chicken some of these oh yes oh yes so that's why when I hear people trashing crypto all over the place I'm like it tells me this is what we call Financial privilege yes you have Financial privilege so when you sitting there and say oh we can be p no this is very real we're talking about life and death we're talking about Freedom or captivity so the United States using the US dollar as obviously the reserve currency for the world they must be frightened you'd have to imagine that somewhere maybe not yet maybe they're too old and they can't they can't see it yet but I have a feeling in the next decade it's is going to be like oh this is going to give us a run for our money in terms of like you know a real Global universal currency well what I like about um crypto and Bitcoin General is that we don't have to really wait for any any centralized authority to deem it worthy or not yes and also to stand in the way between us and the and the the the result of our labor yeah you know uh because that's money really all it is it's just a way to for you to standardize you know the value of your of your of your labor but you know that's pretty much what it is store value getting back to to Africa you know you you I I see the the horrors that that you're explaining to me around people leaving in your Ted Talk you talk about you know reasons why that is the case these insane tariffs on new Goods coming in which stifle entrepreneurship um what is what has changed since then and and what do you need to have happen so that rather than leaving you know there can be places in Africa that are entrepreneurial hubs that have true you know Prosperity that's right yeah so since that t talk I think what it did is um it opened more people to the idea to to even the the diagnosis that I was putting forward because you see as with any problem in the world uh Kevin it all starts with a proper diagnosis without it you might be lucky once in a while and hit it right but without a proper diagnosis you're pretty much banging your head against the wall uh to no end and so for me um so what happened in my situation was you see um I I I so my family left s Sagal and then eventually after a couple after a few years um they decided it looks like their immigration Journey has worked and so it was time for me to be reunited with them which meant being torn away away from my grandmother who had become my caretaker so for the second time in my life the very uh important stage of my life I get literally ripped away from you know my caretakers the only people I know um and all of that how do you handle that emotionally you know it is what it is and people can say oh you were young it's okay but you know I think that's not understanding The Human Condition and so how do I cope with that this is where for the most part um it does help to not have sometimes the luxury of uh grieving or having the luxury of being sad about something or having the luxury of saying this is wrong this is not fair uh so for me what I did is I think I sublimated it eventually it was not about me or what I went through it is what it is and I willon never be able to change it but darn it I if I if I think I can help another person not have to go through that you bet you that's where my work is so no no no you know self-pity for myself but it's like how do I make sure that um this is can be avoided for others you know what I mean well I mean it sounds like in a way your therapy to process this is to help others yeah and so it sounds like like the what you have I mean obviously anyone would have an insane burden yeah of feeling that pain yeah and if you can even prevent one person from going through what you did that's that's a release that's my bone that's my bone and and that will help you release and and feel that's that's right that's right that's my way of processing it and I wish so many more people you know could find that space within them because it's a really great way to you know Let it Go and turn turn the pain into something that's much more um what do you call it much more productive and inspirational because you're using this this Force because it's a force yes uh but to to do good and not let it consume you where it's really negative and bad so so in this case that's what happened I uh I I have been try my whole life so what happened is when I arrived in Germany that's when that's when I left my country for the first time my parents were in Germany at that time and that's when I was called to be back with them and right there around it CH I'm looking around and that's my first time in Germany and I look around I'm like how come they have this we don't it was just so shocking for me how come and all I was talking about Kevin was how come back home when Grandma says my God it's time for your shower between the moment she says that and the moment the water actively touch is my skin 45 minutes to an hour goes by why because grandma has to get the charcoal stove going literally Fanning the coal for it to go and then she puts a pot of hot water of um water on it for it to boil when it boils she puts it in a bigger bucket mixes it with cold water and then my cousin or somebody stronger drags it to the shower area and there at last I can have my shower that's what taking a shower back home meant here Mom says my got time for your shower I'm like I I'm not getting but in this where's a bucket of water like come on you silly just jump in the shower and there I go and I turn the buttons and the water is coming and I'm just like that's what I meant how come they have this and we don't and then the paved roads and then these grocery stores that look so beautiful you know with AC in the summer and you know heat in the winter and everything just felt so easy and so little girl my seven was like huh you know it's like what's going on here and I think you know like children can be very crazy about waves something doesn't make sense to them it can really consume them and that that was me I was that child I'm I'm still that that way I need to be able to make sense of the world otherwise it doesn't work and so that question literally defined the the the rest of my life that's the reason I'm sitting here talking to you that's what led me to everything so uh the question became how come became how come some countries like mine are poor While others are rich yeah and along the journey I've heard it all I've heard it all Chief among them being oh darling it's not your fault it's just because you know blacks and Browns are just not as smart as white people you know the I Fury and I know that that IQ Fury is Been peddled Around by some people in the Bay Area especially and around the US who actually seem to have the ear of some very interesting you know Tech entrepreneurs all of that people that I'm like but that's that's conversation for another day sometimes you the best way to argue something believe that's still a thing that people are having that discussion Sometimes the best way to argue something is to show is to show and that's why we also are going to show you know we are going to get our our continent to being one of the best in the world and then we will settle that one it's okay um so anyway so some people say that and others would say oh you guys are always fighting each other all of these wars that you have you guys are lazy so what I have found Kevin it's very interesting is just because if you could put um two groups of people in like Africans here non-africans here and you ask these uh people why is Africa the poorest region in the world so from the Africans and their usual allies um traditionally people maybe from the left um will say they will come up with all their victimhood you know uh reasons as to why about the case racism um colonialism slavery there people are stealing on natural resources you'll hear it all on that side all right it's that time this episode is brought to you by manscaped true story a few years ago I got their razor it's called the lawnmower it's fantastic and it's largely because how do we say if you're trimming these sensitive areas that you we have we all have uh you can get cut and it's not fun it hurts and it's not a good look so they have something called The Skin safe blade that doesn't cut you when 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lawnmower because you got to keep that tight you got to keep it a little bit short it doesn't you don't want too much to manscape.com and use the code Kevin Rose for 20% off plus free shipping my my uneducated just to give you a classic old white guy take uh please Don't Judge Me I'm learning here this is learning session is um is is corruption I hear a lot of government corruption you know the news stories that we are pedal are government corruption and like you know even like you know danger uh very unsafe Place uh Pirates overtaking ships I mean you hear it all yes yes so yeah so on one end you hear all of that uh the non-africans um the non-africans especially those who are have no sympathy for Africans will say the lazy thing the IQ thing that I told you about you guys are fighting over time all of that stuff and yes from both sides we'll hear Bad leaders who are completely corrupt you know the corruption we're talking about and yeah thanks to um Western media um that seem to always focus more on the negative and they're positive I'm not saying that those things are not happening but if you make it the whole story then you're the facto lying because you're making it sound like this is the truth when the truth is uh X percentage of this x percentage of that and there are some great things happening that's the truth not just like always boom boom boom bad stuff so it's kind of like with America in that way there's a lot of crub because when they say oh Africa is so corrupt or they say oh is Sagal corrupt I'm like yeah almost as bad as Chicago so anyway but um look all of that is happening all of that is happening and the Pirates were talking about you know along the coast of Somalia it's definitely there and in some parts of Kya definitely there is it less than some other parts of the world some of parts of the world also have their Pirates as well so but the bottom line is I I look at all of that and I hear all of it and um because of what I've gone through now I know better because what I went through so left s left uh Germany after a couple years then moved with my family to France France where I got mostly educated and after business school in France I decided that France would be too small for my ambitions made it to the US and literally built an amazing life for myself having very good life for myself and if anybody doubts about the fact that the American dream is real I am a walking story of it I'm sure in your own way you might be so um did so well for myself um at barely I was not even 25 I had bought a house in one of the most expensive ZIP codes in the US you know Los SOS Hills I'm sure you heard of where that is all of that and it was just um great but one day I broke down one day I literally broke down um as I was driving down it was one of those days when I was celebrating all of his great success and also feeling all of this wonderful gratitude for all the people who along the journey show up um thanking God for having taken me from one place to another giving me all of these opportunities putting all of these people in my in my path because from in my mind well you know God is not something you're going to see here in here it's in you it's in the next person and he exercises his grace for you and for the next person and that's how you know that that exchange between us that's what God is that's how you know experience God right so anyway um having a lot of gratitude uh for all of that and everybody and then just right away then what would happen always to me when I I am in that place of Happiness true happiness and gratitude um my mood that day turned really dark and um and uh usually it would it would always happen so I knew and but I also had always relied on one thing when that happened to me I relied on just pushing it on the rug what am I calling it it's basically when you're in this extreme moment of Joy thinking about everything that life has afforded you in this case is amazing abundance of what I was living in my life having to having to compare it to the life of scarcity that I had left back home MH having to um you know be reminded of those dead people that I told you about children separated from their families that I talked about bodies dropping from airplanes cuz sometimes that's how people try to you know um migrate people being sold somewhere at some point you can imagine it's just overwhelming and so my whole life has been overwhelming yeah cuz my whole life the stories have been my lck yeah and um usually I just tell myself come on this is bigger than you it was there before you sadly will be there after you there's nothing you can do leave your life try to have a good life for yourself and it will be as good as anything else and that Dil you know they say the mind has an amazing ability to pretty much um justify anything that's how I think some people you know Nazis or whatever committing the most atrocious crimes and finding a way to justify it sure but the body doesn't have that ability and that day my body separated from my mind body said to the mind you keep telling yourself whatever you want we can't go on like this yeah and eventually physically I jerked I was driving I was about to end up dead at the bottom you know like above from the cliff on highway on Highway one you know the level of Big Sir yeah stopped for car and made my deal with God said you know from here on this is this is it I just want to make sure that uh everything that I do from here on is going to be serving um you know my continent and you show me the way because I don't know what to do but uh but I'm reporing for Duty show me tell me and eventually I became an entrepreneur I shortly after about a few months later I went home to Sagal and then I realized that the hibiscus drink I grew up with had disappeared uh because my people always always think that uh we are whatever comes from us is not good enough so we have this complex of inferiority where whether we admit it or not that's another thing I discovered anyway um and most importantly the women who used to grow the Hibiscus which was the main ingredient for this beverage we're losing their livelihood because now everybody prefers to drink Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Pepsi Fanta because that's a cool thing to do and uh so you mean locally like that was like oh yeah the big corporations come in and run the marketing campaign absolutely absolutely so the and of course it's going to up everyone's heal you know that's it that's it so and it was making me so sad that while uh Coca-Cola sales were going down 5% at least in the US and in the western world because they're waking up to The Madness of high corn fure syrup you know and other crap like that I mean the amount of sugar that's inside and caffeine that's inside a Coke of can and and then you see some parents the kid is sipping you know this whole thing I was just like mad so while their sales were going down 5% or so in the west it was going up double digits in the Western World in the in the poor Nations and sitting there being like where are we ever going to get a break everything about us seems to be so not going the right way and the women who used to grow the Hibiscus losing their livelihood leaving their Countryside going to the cities packing themselves there becoming M like it was overwhelming eventually at some point you know put two and two together my God you were always raised to criticize by creating got a problem with this what's your solution it does have to be the right one but get on that journey of solving this problem right criticized by creating so that's exactly what I did so I started my first company and I remember starting my little kitchen and at some point you look around my boardroom and you have Roger enrio the ex-chairman of PepsiCo you had Greg St Paul who had founded odala sold to Coca-Cola you had Bellow you know created H soie sold to um so the host of the beverage industry was right there so that was my first inroad with entrepreneurship but while I was building that business Kevin my an my aname because we had a sister company in Sagal a sister company in the US and at every level of starting and running business the those businesses was two technically but the same right that's when I saw it I saw it I saw it I saw that in my country back then it took me almost two years to legally register the business we're talking now to 2003 uh 2004 in the the US it was taking barely 20 minutes to file up for L I was going to say I can I can get you an LLC by the end of this conversation that's right that's right that's right uh over here you had to have a few thousand dollars to open a bank account over here almost nothing 20 bucks $5 and even over here if I want to hire you Kevin I we have to sign a of the contract in free um you know um examp examples then I have to literally drive it myself or take it physically myself to the uh to the government office which is called Labor inspection office where a government official will tell me get to tell me if you and I get to work together what's the criteria for that well they're going to look at even your physical uh adaptability they're going to say to you by the way what does that even mean yeah you have to go to a doctor scking everywhere you have to go to the doctor the doctor has to give you like a health check yes yes you can do that you you're physically apt for this job even if it's best job I just don't even understand how that could ever possibly I mean talking about stifling entrepreneurship that's my that's my point that's my point and then uh they who have the money to even do all that or the time or the travel com combinations or you name it there you go and then this the government official who has never worked in in the private sector for most part doesn't even know where we are doesn't understand anything about my business gets to tell me if you and I get can work together and most of the time we'll have to do that trip two or three times because at some point also he's going to say well gevin has a degree uh he has a PHD in um in German mind you but I don't care about that worthless degree of yours oh well because he has a PHD the minimum salary you have to pay him is X which might be three four five times more than what the budget of this job I have for you and that's why you have so many um graduates who sit home that's why half of our Graduate University graduates can't find a job and the more graduated you are the less the less the more you're going to be uh not be able to find a job I mean how can you that sounds like Step One is demolish all that that paperwork all of that paperworks yeah so and then here I just talked to you about that the minute I hire you I need to start building a file on you because that's the only that's going to be the only way I can get to fire you because once that happens let's say you're stealing from me you're not coming on time repeatedly um you're not being careful about your job I need to fire you in the US it would be look it's not working out goodbye goodbye two weeks notice I don't even wait for two weeks I pay you that two weeks and you're gone here we have to go to the same office again and uh kind of put it through that person has to agree they will fight you and usually you the employer you have to hire a a lawyer where them they only have to have a union representative represent them cost them nothing so the cost of suing you going after you cost them nothing and it's a whole business because the union leaders that's all they wait for when you go to the court like these piles each one of them and anyway so it's like that uh the the the the permit the permit situation everything everywhere laws and regulations are waiting for you around the corner so at first I thought Kevin I guess it's so I guess it makes sense we're poor because you know um it's it's because we're poor but everything is so combersome and over here it's because they're rich but everything seems to work so well just come to understand wait a second you're poor because you don't have enough money at least not enough money to take care of your basic needs you don't have enough you don't have money because you you don't have a source of you don't have um money because you have no source of income what is a source of income for most of us it's a job where do jobs come from the these businesses What do businesses need an enabling business environment oh but wait you just told me that in these countries you had the worst business environments in the world right so then I'm like and then and also forget I mean you got local entrepreneurs but then you have international organizations that say hey if I'm going to come open a plant here I'm going to open and produce some livelihood yeah why would I want to go through all those hurdles that question you ask yourself is what most companies who could set up shop in our countries whether local or not do that's what so many wonderful um diaspora people that's the question they ask themselves there is a reason why you have so many successful Nigerian entrepreneurs so many successful African entrepreneurs in this country the same people argue you sent them back home they couldn't do it it's not because it's them it's a same person but still achieving the same thing I argue that if Elon Musk was today still had to operate from South Africa we would not have Tesla we would not have um you know um SpaceX none of that would be happening same guy if Elon stayed in Africa or if I sent Zuckerberg anywhere in Africa we would not be having any of his companies is South Africa easier to operate in it is easier but uh you see the thing is like when we're comparing it is easier when it is easier within the African continent but even with but if you take out South Africa and start comparing it to the rest of the world it's still in the in the crap in the crap um um cohort yeah you know so so so yeah so that's what you so this all of this when you put it all together these laws regulations that rule the business environment um the rule of law the the fact that you have access to clear and transferable property rights all of that stuff all of those things when you put done together the permits everything the economy is call it economic freedom it's how free are you to Enterprise or not and when you look there there are many economic uh indexes that measure that who ranks number one uh who ranks number one you have places like Singapore you have uh but so the top 10 is going to be Singapore even easier in the United States like you oh yes oh wow oh yes yes I wish I felt like it I haven't been so I can't really judge it but I hear that there's not really a deep culture there it feels like very St to me well that's the thing so what we're talking about is just think about the business environment so this is why for the rest of the conversation what I'm talking about is very important so if we just stick to business if we just stick to trying to create an enabling business environment yes once you do that you create a little sandbox then then the magic starts to happen you know this doesn't work because a central planner said we're going to do this everything we all the good we've had has come through what I call emergent order emergent order just allows the most um the most competitive behaviors laws regulations whatever to emerge out of just cha what seems like chaos and that's that's a wisdom of the market you know when we talk about the market it's not like it's weird thing it's just the wisdom of a market and so anyway um economic freedom is something that's very real so it's measured by many indexes whether it's a doing business index of a world bank or the Heritage uh economic freedom index of uh you know all of those what do they show they show what I live through as an entrepreneur I'm building my third company right now and trust me a few things have gotten better but on a grand scheme of thing not enough to to Really uh make make that change that we so desperately need and so what what they show what they all show is it is harder to do business in almost anywhere in subsaharian Africa than it is in say anywhere in Scandinavia and I take Scandinavia on purpose because even anti- business people like Bernie Sanders love to take Scandinavia right thinking that oh it's a socialist Nation that's not understanding Scandinavian how it works it's not a socialist Nation maybe the way they provide their welfare and that that that side of their organization might look socialist to to people um but the way they make money is very much the good old capitalist way and so in any case when you realize that then it all start to make sense Africa is the poorest region in the world because it's a region in the world that uh where we have the worst business environments in the world and if you have a bad business environment your entrepreneurs simply can't do the magic that entrepreneurs exactly so one question for you then is like where do you find that you're going to have the most impact is it going to be starting something or I in some sense I I I kind of like feel like running for office or something might be might be a better path for you no not even not even so when you see when you start to understand the level of the issue that we have then your path your path is very clear the pathway is very clear so there are few things that I have to do which is what I am doing and which which is what I'm exhorting as many people who finally get it to do the same thing so it was very important uh for us to set the record straight as to the diagnosis as to why this this continent still is the poorest in the world and then my fellow Africans always get mad at me because like my in country it's 44 ntion it's 44 Nation 54 Nations like yeah I know it's 54 55 or 56 depending how you count because you know some countries are still in dispute like this one in the northern Moroccan part but anyway um I speak of Africa almost as a village because when it comes to the problem I'm talking about we look like a village because except for four African nations almost I mean everyone else is in the bottom half of a doing business index ranking especially in Subs suban African nations so I'm sorry this is looking like a village we share the same problem problem so do you how do you what's your plan of attack so let me tell you is is it is it Village by Village is let me tell you a plan attack it's really cool so plan of attack is as with everything awareness first that's why I wrote this book I was kicking myself driving down here I'm like my God where is your copy for Kevin I ship you one amazing tell people right now the name of the book it's called the heart of a cheetah so that book talks about everything you and I talked about and it also goes into the History part as to how we got here we so basic so quickly here I'll tell you what happened is um um most African nations uh that were getting their independences so-called independences that was happening towards the end of the 50 uh late 50s early 60s right around that time is when um you know we had socialism being like it was the ideology on Vogue any respectable intellectual was socialist only crazies and nuts were not socialist so that was the ideology on Vogue at that time people need to remember that at the same time it was a traditionally Marxist socialists but have been fighting for racial equality back in those times remember African nations haven't had their independences yet right so the Marx socialists were the ones who were fighting for racial equality at the same time we had just we there was slavery um you know like if we go past if if you were just to start with slavery but I will always say people we were we had people in Africa before slavery so I always look back at that time but in this case these people were about to uh to finally colonization was about to end before that there was slavery and then I think before that most people forgot that we were free people but anyway here you are put yourself into the mental mindset here they are and with these two ideologies butting head with each other on one and here Freedom represented by the Western Nations and their um economic system was capitalism facing off with very uh with uh the other block that's uh promoting various forms of statism the Eastern block for the most part and they're looking for influence because that's how you win I mean that's what ideology looks for always to influence the more you influence people and the you're going to win right and then you can proceed to to implement so there were fight there were these two ideologies were at the height of a battle meanwhile you know we had um uh the Soviet Union telling the world that communism was working all of that all the lies that we found out were lies afterwards but anyway so our people said so between the fact that uh Marxist socialist have been the one facing for racial equality the fact that um you you had a um they're looking you know they're looking at their P psychological mindset and thinking to themselves you you the West have colonized us we're the ones who we are still colonized by you if you think we're going to you know buy your ideology no way and so they cided with the other side and also the fact that at that time socialism was pretty much the ideology on Vogue anybody serious was a socialist so when you put those three factors together what happened the the African liberators because we had many people fighting for African for AF for their African countries to be to be liberated in Tanzania you had um you know Ken for Kenya in my country you know um everywhere you had people fighting uh and this was like because they saw Gandhi was you know about to I mean this was I mean it was the Aira must have been so electric to see that the largest colonized nation is about to get this independence from the largest colonizer in the world Great Britain in this case so they um so that was the what was going on so eventually they sided with a Marxist socialist and that's how most of uh African nations as becoming these free Nations were ran by for the most part Marxist socialist even the ones that were not supposedly socialists like Nigeria for example still um we're running fiveyear plans you know which is hardly super capitalist it's because various capit there levels right so they would say oh no we're not socialist but we definitely not like a you don't have a level of capm that's going to be needed to thrive and so this has been Kevin the the the what can I say the tragedy the tragedy that's that important Fork of our life we took the wrong Fork that time of our life and then of course nothing to show for it 60 some plus years later here we are talking about Africa being poor so is is this a series of iterative uh changes that gets you to where you want to be or is it a revolution that's what we're going to share so it was important for me to share about so the book has all of that and then the book will go into goes into solution so important to have diagnosis everybody needs to have a diagnosis right because as long as we have what I you and I talked about earlier you line up 100 Africans here another 100 non Africans over there you ask them why is Africa poor no one tells you Africa is the poorest region in the world because it's the one that has the least economic freedom for its entrepreneurs if no if no one can make connect those dots how do you think we're going to solve that problem yeah right so that diagnosis need to be to be to be to to be set straight and that's what the book is doing and that's why being you know here talking to you and I'm so appreciative that you're giving me this opportunity because the more the story goes out and the more we get closer to the solution because I'm advancing a solution we're going to talk about it in a minute but what I love about more people knowing about something is because the power of the crowd remember when we talked about it before the wisdom of the crowd you me I can't even imagine what might come out of your mind once you have your finger on the right diagnosis because then your mind your gears are going to get on right you know and then you're going to be starting to work from that from that framework but if your framework is Africa is poor because of racism guess what you're going to come up with de crap and who know knows what else right or if you think Africa is uh is is is poor because the IQ is so low you're never going to think about even the type of stuff I talk about because you're going to say my God why are we going to bother even cleaning up the business environment because these people are too stupid for their own own uh good to even make to make anything of what we're going to do so that's not what we should work on maybe we should work on Aid maybe we should work on helping them against themselves because they're so stupid the only way to help them is to actually substitute to their brains you see why what do you identify to be the problem matters so much because then you go work towards that and right now no one mostly has been working towards greater economic freedom yeah so so the solution in this case has been so once I discovered all of that I was just like first of all I was liberated true Liberation descended upon me true Liberation because I have to tell you I think at some point in my life me too and i' I compared notes with some of my other African friends and even today when I tell this story to some of my other African friends at some point the conversation is wow I'm so glad I I never thought about it this way but uh and then we go into the little confession part I'm my God I have to tell you at some point I thought that maybe this is this is all there will before for us maybe we are doomed maybe we are just maybe maybe there's something wrong with us these are things we talk about among ourselves we get it out but um yeah some because at some point how do you explain all of this so anyway then when I discovered it's about economic freedom the business environment has to be brought to B world class then um that took me to the journey of becoming the uh director for the African Center for prosperity of the adlas network which is the largest free market uh think tanks uh Network in the world and they you know uh just really working with ones in Africa uh primarily working on reforms um you know to get the business environments better and various forms of freedom to be you know enacted on the continent is that is that really I mean it's funny I I've seen so many not in Africa obviously but I've seen these working groups that have the best of intentions for various causes and they just hit wall after wall after that's that's a thing so our Atlas Partners I must say are doing amazing work especially uh you have people in South Sudan who are working on putting women's property rights into the Constitution and doing very well others what do you mean women's property rights women can own property are you serious only men can own own property Yeah so basically let me turn it around so um in Burundi women uh have don't have access to property right until our people worked on that and they got it to put it into the Constitution before that it was not the case then you have places like South Sudan where it is in the Constitution but the all the stakeholders are not uh necessarily on board like the women who are the first beneficiaries on it don't necessarily know that they have his right and the rest of the stakeholders meaning the judicial system as well as the husbands as well as the the you know the the family- in- laws everybody else is just like acting like it's not it doesn't those rights don't exist so the women de facto don't benefit from those rights that are in the Constitution so in the case of a South Sudanese uh groups what their job was all about about doing was making those rights known and also explaining to the stakeholders how actually it works for everybody to really um respect those rights and making really good in votes so that's great Burundi those rights don't exist and so they had to put it to the Constitution and they did some great work and there you know you imagine the campaigns you have to do and kind of help prepare these laws and all that stuff so people are doing amazing work everywhere but my issue is it's going too slow we we're not going to we're not going to stop those efforts they need to continue and then it to try and go faster so I am a firm firm believer and supporter of this free Market think tanks if people want to support Atlas network is a great place to do that um meanwhile I am sitting there and seeing that every year oh tens of millions of new people young people are coming of age of working with no Prospect for work we have a ticking bomb on our hands we have to find something radical so when you were coming about a revolution radical and that's not going to come from me running as a president or anything like that because I think people don't understand that president have very little power whether it's in this country or many places right unless you're a flat out you know dictator and maybe you can move things faster I don't know but um or I do know um so any case so in this case so what did what was what is the solution uh so while this peac Mill legislation is happening over there with our think tanks and they need to continue that work I'm saying we need to accelerate so what are we doing startup cities these are special Next Generation special economic zones with their own law and their own governance their own law how did you pull that off has this been done yes or no I will tell you with onlaw on governance and also custom regulatory framework so the best way to think about it is think about the piece a piece of land the size of a city the size of a city and think of it as your computer so the land is like a computer but then the laws that rule it become your operating software and when it comes to the poor Nations they're poor because they're running the some very very old softwares techn crappy Technologies yesteryear Technologies yes and so what do we have to do but because we exist in a u Global World we have to be you know Cutting Edge yes we have to be cutting edge because when a company can choose to be anywhere in the world and you the the latest um you know down upgrade you're proposing is an 80s software I'm sorry when you have Singapore which is at the next level it's just not going to happen they're going to suck up everybody and you're going to stay in the dust that's what where we are right now so um in this situation what you do is you say uh and by the way it's nothing really new I what is kind of new is more like what we call the custom regulatory framework part because when you think about it um Singapore did nothing else than that but they did it at at a country level because it's smaller enough they can do it at the country level Hong Kong same thing pretty much all the Asian Asian tigers did this I mean Dubai Dubai who decided that on 110 acres of land oh maybe the law that we have is not good for uh business so we're going to look around and think about the best you know uh practices in the world and it always always countries that run on British common law by the way always are way there because British British common law is just it's like I like I had even thought about that by the way cuz I've been to Dubai a few times and it's like you've got really strict laws and regulations for everything around everywhere and then you go into your hotel and they're like hey by the way you're in the hotel you you can have some drinks in here you know it's illegal but you can have some drinks that's a thing that's a thing that's a thing so and when it came to business so really for Dubai with Dubai the great Insight of the rules of Dubai was but a um in this case they're running Sharia law and it's not the best you know for for at least what they were trying to to attract business especially the financial side so for the Dubai intern International Financial Center on 110 acres of land the rulers of Dubai said here we're going to operate different laws from the rest of Dubai and see what happens so you're taking part of that Playbook yes and how far you and taking it and taking it much much further down and so so basically you do that and then um in their case they hired retired British common law judges to come and educate the law and all of good stuff and then 20 some years later Dubai just entered the top 10 International Financial Centers of the world let me ask you a question so I'm I'm I'm really fascinated by this because like oftentimes and obviously you know way more than I do about this but people in power don't want to lose power it turns out let's talk about that and so and so you've got a framework that it may not be working but I'm imagining that there are people at the top that are doing okay yes and so if you if you don't screw with those people how do you convince them to take a chunk of land and give it up give up their rule they're ruling over that that piece of property right right so the way it works is that's the question you asked is precisely the reason why we do cities and not at a whole country level right multiple so um not all country not the whole country at once because um change first of all even if it's going to be better for people uh you know how it is every time you try to change something people people up and down the street until the cows come home even if it's the best thing for them so what you don't want is to impose the change on people that's why you go to this rather unoccupied that's another key word a rather unoccupied piece of land so you're not displacing anyone and if you're getting there and there are people there you pay them above market rate for you know um seing their their land so it's it's it's a normal transaction you've probably heard about what's going on in the Bay area right now I know they're creating their own little mini city outside of San Francisco where they paid all the farmers bought the land bought for land but then they're going to have bigger problem well that's a very that's a very interesting one yeah um and so there rather unoccupied piece of land if not you buy the land above market rate so you stay super clean no problem no shadiness and the people who want to stay there then you give them an upside into the project right they're deciding to stay with you we're going to put the land and of course like an investment and there you so that's why you go there and um you don't do it at the country level so then people who decide to come in it's a voluntary move on their part to come in and be part of that and then the people who just want to stay on the sideline and check it out for a while they can do that as well so it's like you get to try before you buy and so that's number one number two it's because um you can imagine especially and I'll I'll give you some examples of some of countries without telling you the names because you can understand these are very very um sensitive uh questions but some of these countries where when you when you come in they're running on civil law civil law is terrible for business as we all know but um so in this case absolutely must turn the place into a common law uh jurisdiction jurisdiction so there you can only imagine that it's one thing to change the laws but you have everything has to trickle down the judges have to be trained the right way the lawyers have to know what the hell is going on I mean the whole system has to be following so if you want to try at the country level good luck with that right and so um so that's another reason but the biggest reason is what you talked about too when this this this mess and even will this country like in mine 25 poorest countries among the 25 poorest countries in the world somebody is making a lot of money somebody's are making a lot of money hell yeah that's right uh maybe even the top person as well right uh so you trying to go there and change the rules you might as well just take uh a gun and shoot it to your own head it will be faster and less painful maybe yes right so you don't do that you don't do that leave everything alone leave everything alone but then work with the with the the next level of what I would call the elite of you work with the next level of people who have access so the ones who have so much access that they're like you know benefiting from the status quo vals are not going to be the ones you work with but it's it's the next uh it's the next uh in line so maybe the cousins those people who are smelling it but not able to taste it yes those guys cuz they're looking for opportunity yes they have access also yes because you cannot do this without the leader of a country of course I mean I'm not we're not here to be like a what do you call them like a neoc colonialist that's not the plan so then with this this group of people who have access to the president and or to the key ministers in this case min of Finance for sure economy those are the type of people I'm usually looking for then with them we say we're going to go build something over there where you're not threatening anything here and at some point what happens as this starts to work even the guys here start to realize oh I can make money everywhere but they know by the time they come they know what the rules are and eventually they even find that oh my God you mean I no longer have to go and kiss ass to be president but I actually think he's really I have no choice right now because if I say something bad I do anything I'm going to be you know so he all of a sudden learning that wow I can do business in a way where I don't have to spend half of my work work an hours trying to kiss us or to please where here I just do it I can I can all of it toward my business grow my business bigger and really it's a trojan horse yeah finally be a a clean man well you're starting at small you you prove out a model yes and then you do it where no one's even kind of like watching exactly off to the side exact and then you get enough momentum and ground and then that's it that's and then that's it so what we're doing is so and when I was talking about our own law and governance the best way to think about it is we are not interested in touching anything that um that uh affects the sovereignty status of a nation that is really not the plan because remember we said all we're after is building an enabling business environment so that the magic of wealth and prosperity can start to happen right and so here all we're changing all we're tackling is the business loss and so we only deal with business laws we don't touch criminal law we don't touch family law we don't touch immigration law we don't touch any of that stuff right and so and then there though we start with a blank canvas and then we start to design our things and so the best way to think about what uh has been done so far and so the the best model for this so there are there it's a very nent industry and I think you can appreciate that because I heard you earlier say that you love you know like things that are at The Cutting Edge just getting started this is so nent it's not even a joke so um we in my mind the best such City so for people who are interested in this topic they will find more information under what's called Charter cities cities with their own Charter I call mine startup cities because that's really what the goal is it's a it's an it's it's an area to basically start you know for businesses to be started and be ran where how far along are you in that process is there land identified is there infrastructure going in what's up yeah it's too bad you were not there recently but uh so the group that has done an amazing amazing amazing work on this it's called prospera so prospera and right now so prospera in my mind is the most advanced startup cities um in the world you know like the ones that are doing what I'm talking about right now and it's based on the island of ran so there yes there's a physical area on the island of ran where basically um the laws that are designed you get to have um um choice of law but beyond choice of law choice of regulations regulatory Choice as well so let's just walk people through what that means and for me that's the magic of really what Prosper has been able to accomplish so you see right right now if a multinational settles somewhere you get they get the what I call the choice of law CH of law means do you do you decide to incorporate under Delaware law New York law BR you know British law or multinationals have that capability and we're saying why shouldn't everybody has that privilege as well because it is it is a great thing and so Within These zones even if you're like little no company nothing you get to you get to have this choice of that choice of law which is amazing but beyond that um so what choice of law will do is just like you're going to say well uh when I when I write my contracts we have to I I I'm going to write it so that we follow the laws of the the the contract laws of Delaware or of New York or of Texas or whatever and that makes the uh interoperability between uh corporations a lot easier when they follow the same choice of law or similar known choice of law exactly and that's usually what they will do and they will look at uh before doing business with you when there's a contract those things are going to be decided and even you know when you sign a contract and you say there's a dispute the the state of we're going to go Delaware we're going to go Texas or whatever and you sign meaning when there's a dispute have to get to that court system so it's not but Kevin it's not because you and I um now okay we operate uh um Delaware law we sign our contracts according to Delaware law we design them to it doesn't mean let's say we're in a in the pharmaceutical industry for example make it up or in the drug treatment industry it's not because we are signing contracts along those laws that it means that now I can go take my drug and then you say you and me say oh I have this ination integrative drug you know this novelty drug you have this cancer there is no hope for you we think this thing could help you you voluntarily say to me my God please I am desperate this I did my research this seems like you know a good option for me I've got nothing to lose at this point uh if I something doesn't work I'm gone in the summer yeah I have a friend is's going through that right now so I speak from that place yeah and um right but you could agree I could agree yeah but it's but dfj doesn't allow it yeah I mean this is a known thing I mean it's it happens today yes like there was a a great story here about a decade ago where um we we all know the the late and great Kobe Bryant that passed away um he had a lot of knee related injuries left the United States got an experimental stem cell treatment in his knees to re like build the cartilage and and and actually improve his game couldn't do it in the United States wasn't FDA probably had to go somewhere in Europe found a place in Europe exactly and so like you're saying like so so then what happens over here so that part so the that we can sign a contract and we say you know we design our contracts according to Del law one thing fine that's great because that way I can I can avoid crazy New York laws or whatever depending especially on which um you know on which industry I'm in yeah crypto not good in New York no no exactly right so that's how you thinking you that's why you you're choosing your your your law which which which state type of law beyond that or not even state it could be which country that's my point that's my point that's why I call it state in this case State as in country yes okay State as in country yeah so so here so you not only have that level so choice of law is the first one but then in the case of Prosper what you also get is case of regulatory so what it means here is okay uh where we signed in into the Delaware BR and then when it comes to the regulatory part we are going for the O for one of the oecd so you get to basically from a menu of regulatories you choose which one you're going to choose are you going to go for FDA or you going to go for something in the oecd uh Zone you know with uh all the European one Japan Australia are you going to go for because as we as you know depending on what the drugs or treatments or whatever oecd is going to be much more open that's why Kobe had to go there but here at prospera right there you get to decide which regulatory is going to you're going to be you're going to accept to be under yeah and it can be the one of a country if you feel like one of a country is better than anything else fine like this is so cool Choose Your Own Adventure how you want to build your startup exactly so you're right there and so what is what is happening is is Prosper is attracting some of the most Innovative you know um biomedical companies in the world and actually we uh made um Bitcoin the legal tender in the zone and you this is how you know when what's his name Peter CH was complains like oh we wanted 104 we wanted uh we wanted um what he said flying cars and instead we got 140 characters you get 140 characters because primarily because of a regulatory primarily because of that we don't have a flying cars because regulatory is sitting in the wayt right drones same thing we haven't gone to where we could have gone just because it stood in the way this are our example drones um one of uh one of the most advanced drone companies in the world is called zipline do you know where they had to go and develop zipline which by now is also one of the top um um it's not cyber it's like um Aerospace type related company now but they had to go to Rhonda because when the West said no way they Ronda was smart to say I'm Western zip line there you go you go so that's what we're talking so these zones but Ronda we was just for this one thing but us what we do is when we work with the entrepreneurs to literally for you to have a custom regulatory framework that my friend is unheard of it is just like one of the greatest Innovation I think that exists and this really literally has the the chance of changing our civilization As We Know It uh so some people go to Mars that's great prepare the place but here there's so much more we can do and most importantly if the West if um America doesn't want to get his act together then we're going to give a kick to America all the way from these African nations so what we have been doing so Prosper is out there right now we're having a struggle with uh the hrant government but uh I believe Prosper is going to outli the whole thing but bottom line is the cat is out of a bag it's not going back in and so in this case um I am the co-founder of Prosper Africa as well as the head of global Affairs for um for uh public affairs sorry for prosper Global and so I've been taking Prosper model to Africa I'm right now speaking to six Nation going on to eight and just to give you example so some uh the there's this one country we were so close so close the minister of economy and finance was totally on board um we I mean all the people who mattered were on board and then one thing leading to another we think we got too close to the elections and then some people almost like want to keep it underneath their arm for the project you know like they're like we want to do this but only when we're on anyway so this journey that I've been on for the past couple of years or so literally taking this to these African nations and talking to the Presidents to the ministers and all of that um so a few months ago I was literally um taken into a black car 10 o'clock they call and they say at 1:00 you need to be ready we're going to pick you up in a black car uh no one can come there's only going to be one person that you know in the car because otherwise I'm like I'm not going yeah and so they come pick me up in this car and we Dr we drive away and then I arrive in this place where I kid you not I believe some people are probably being tortured for reals right now it's a place that looks like nothing from be outside looks run down and then you start walking and then you come in they take everything from you you they take your they take everything and so no phone or nothing because you know everything strip you down and you know make sure there's nothing and then you go in and then I go into this room if imagine this one African place there is no AC you know nothing the windows they open I'm like why are they opening the it's so hot you know why not even have a fan so you had this little dinky fan above me they sit me on this chair there this big room and there's a chair in the middle of a room and sitting in there I'm the only one sitting on the chair super uncomfortable but he is killing me mosquitoes all over the place just biting me everywhere and there's this one guy sitting at this desk he doesn't even have a computer because none of this information is supposed to go through the airwaves and then there's another guy sitting over here him his only job is to watch me and to see if I'm lying or not or what I'm going to say because basically this president has his own secure his own secret Services next to the secret services so checking on his own people so he wanted to know what was happening to to who who was because he's trying to know who's trying to sabotage him and the problem is I can't really lie because if I do that's the end for me not going to kill me or anything but it's I'm like okay we're not doing business with you anything and uh so I you to T truth plus they know everything they know when you set foot in the in the country they probably know who you sing because there's spies everywhere anyway so this pretty much has become a little bit like some of the things that I that I'm that I put myself through and uh but it's a fc it's a really fascinating work and uh you and another country um it's uh it's a situation where the country I'm dealing with could have a lot uh has some autonomy but maybe not the level of autonomy that I need so that we can plug the Prosper you know um platform on it and then with them so what you're doing is you're trying to one of the countries they're soon about to go for renegotiation of their autonomy from the bigger group that they belong to so then the job there is to help them figure out what is it they should ask for so that when they get it if they get that we now can enter get into action so it's just a really uh really tedious work um you have to look at the president where they at but the good news is I amum I I really think we're very close to announcing something very soon I'm I mean it's what has been exciting for me is the level of Interest I I did not expect that I did not expect that and from and so that's why when African people are you know they're like oh my God our leaders are so corrupt they're never going to accept any of this I say you don't understand how we're doing this a we're not threatening anything or any body yes it's all benefits for them once the city is established and starts to make money they get they get I mean we send money to the to the to the main to the to the main to the main uh government back then all of this we work it out with them it's just a way for them to have a cake and eat it too and eventually at some point this becomes more relable land the people get to decide on their own wow we want more of this and then you did it in a way that's really not distruptive or destructive and a very constructive way sharp to do it that way the other way is just impossible impossible and so so we do it and what we're seeing is that there's appetite but what they like about it is that we're not breaking anything we're not breaking anything I I know that they're going to kick us out of this room in a couple minutes I'm so glad we we did this in in Austin uh and and you had the time to sit down with me yeah me too thank you we should have book this room for like three hours going on and on no problem um I I do have one question I I want to get to well first of all there's so much more to unpack here where can people go I mean they can pick up your book um where can people go to to learn more educate themselves and and actually contribute is there a way for people listening to this and I have mostly us-based listeners to actually say hey this is Meaningful this matters what can I do yeah no definitely so you can go to my website magat wade.com uh my book definit a heart of AA to really understand all of this and why we're heading the way we're heading and then also for people to spend time on PR prosper. hn as in Honduras prosper. hn I mean Eric bman Gib go uh Nick draus Tom Mott I mean these guys are amazing we have on our team the ex CEO as well as the ex Chief strategy officer of the Dubai International Financial Center we have the top two architects of uh the um Estonia e government you know the people who who AR The Architects of that yes we have and we work with zahid the best you know um what do you call them architect firm in the world so it's definitely it's like a kickass team a kickass team of people who really know what they're doing and also come show up with with a heart we are in this because for me this is a fighting chance that the poor the global poor has to leave poverty behind and finally get into prosperity and leave a happy healthy productive lives now when you say how can people help right now I am um we have what we call the African uh Development Fund the best way to think about it is is our exploration fund so this is the fund that allows me to do all of this uh prospective work that I'm doing so that phase is designed to get us to where the country said yep we're on board theou is here it's it's it's more than anou it's it has th and it's really serious so when we get there and then from that so the beauty here is that people who on top of that come into this Development Fund the minute I get to sign one of these deals then you can also come back and actually be now also an investor you get right you know you can be an investor into um the like now we're building the city now we're bringing the companies the jobs are been created everything is happening so but we had to do it in you know at least in this case we're doing it in two phases so that's another way for people to participate as well for that of course you know would be better to reach out and so I can walk you through what this entails and how does it work um it's funny because I made a plea to um uh I I I I I tried to get the attention of someone like do uh like Mr Beast because I'm like Mr Beast come on and it's you know was was so funny Kevin because the people of Mr Beast I don't think he went to him but I am not I'm not giving up it has to get to Mr Beast because I know he would get this um what happened there is his people looked at the proposal I sent him a little video you know explaining the whole thing and showing that has leg this is like serious people serious ideas serious everything I mean The Economist wrote about these things I mean this is real um and then his people like oh well sorry not this time we're we're already doing things with Africa just to find out a few weeks later a couple months later the whole I'm sure you saw the big the big viral thing that went around with Mr Beast all the Africans complaining because what they did is cre all of these Wells and bring water cleaning water and don't take me wrong it's bringing water to people is always a good thing right it's you cannot you cannot criticize that but I'm sitting there and saying Mr Beast should we always just want to just have access to clean water or do we want to get to a place where talking about clean water is no longer a problem and so I I just wish that um they had understood more everything that we're talking about because if they had they totally would have seen like holy moly this is this is the but they didn't get it but people will people will so that's how people can participate last question for you um clearly is someone that is has been travel traveled all over educated themselves all over the world um who who are your mentors how did you how did you become this entrepreneur how did you educate yourself like how did you you know it takes um it it takes someone that's willing to fail and get back up again it takes someone that's a long learner um to ask questions when they don't know the right answers what what what um how does someone become like you I don't know if I'm if I'm some someone to emulate or anything like that but I but I definitely do pride myself in the fact that I I don't accept the status quo that's that for me is very easy I think at the end of the day um it's very important to try you know yesterday I was interviewing somebody from my podcast and I asked him this question and I don't think he was used to being asked question I said when it's all said and done what do you want to see in your Tombstone and you know it goes back to what is your your your mission and purpose I think when you ask people that question it helps them Elevate be Beyond above and beyond all the mundanities of of life you try to it forces you to try and re remember in the end in the end um why why were you here what's your tomb my Tombstone 2.5 billion Africans getting into Prosperity by 2050 I want for Africans In Our Lifetime to achieve prosperity and to be recognized as Global co-creators of innovation and prosperity you can't do that alone so is is this m way I learned so no so yeah so I have so many mentors how do you land a mentor how do you land someone like you you when when you list your roster of people that are involved these are household names these are people that like would people would die to get in front of yes yes how did you open those doors yes so how did I open those doors I think what you do is you be very clear about what your goal is and again um don't critic just criticize by creating so that's the big thing criticize by creating be be very clear sometimes it doesn't even have to be a goal it but it can just be a dream but it has to be serious you have to be serious about it and it and it and it needs to be uh well articulated and then from there you put yourself out there you you really put yourself out there my whole life I've put myself out there I don't I don't I don't have a problem asking for help I think I think humility is very important I'm very I'm I'm very strongly opiniated but you know what um Kevin I accepted that about me you have to accept who you are work with who you are put yourself out there the way you are don't try to be as people don't try to be something that you're not what you have to have faith in is you are what you are and maybe not everybody's going to love you or like you or even care about you or even be moved by you but there will always be some that will be and those are the ones you're looking for and um and but those cannot come to you if you don't open the door for them so and I tell people also do you really want to be um do you really want to attract People based on something that's not 100% you yeah do you so my answer would be put your know what you want and sometimes even if the problem is I don't know what I want but I am here I want to find my my my my purpose and my meaning it's okay if that's where you are but say it say it and try to give something to work with um about who you are what you're interested in and you can say and and I am after meaning and purpose I think meaning and purpose really matters to people because nobody is interested in just making you more rich or making you more beautiful or whatever it's like in the goal of what right right so if it's in the pursuit of money it's you'll you'll when times get tough as they inevitably will you bail you bail because there's no there's no there's no internal passion or driver what you're trying to that's right that's right but there are some there are a few names that I want to that I want to give and I I know it's so terrible because there's I'm going to give free so I don't overwhelm people and then any a couple books that maybe you inspired by absolutely so I'm going to give a uh the three top people in my life right now um four because one of them is gone but man she was everything but there's a hundred more behind all of these people so everybody that I'm not going to say your names don't be offended it's just because so the first one is my husband Michael Strong right if when you discover his background you will know why it's not one of those situations oh I want to thank my husband yeah you you'll know why a real partner oh I can see in your eyes he's doing the Lord's work he's doing the Lord's work on his in his own right um so there's Michael Strong and then there's John Macky co-founder of Whole Foods Market and then there's Jordan um there's VOR Jorgenson um the very quiet man behind someone like uh um Muhammad yunice who won the Nobel Prize um for peace and invented you know the gramine the gramine phones idea and all of that stuff so beyond um those guys is the woman who in my mind started it all and she remains uh um she remains a a mentor even from her grave but it's my grandmother uh so people who read the book will know why and so those really are the people who are my greatest mentors right now uh it's not just right now it's it's being like that and also these mentors have been with me through Fick and fin um they s they s my potential when I think no one else did they saw my potential and they believed in it even when I didn't starting with my grandma who when I was very tiny she would say oh baby I in your eyes I can see a Universe and I I know she believed that beautiful thing isn't it yeah so that was that and then um in terms of books um obviously I really feel like everybody should definitely read Michael's book it's called be the solution how entrepreneurs and conscious capitalists can solve all the world problems so talking about entrepreneurship and really you know remembering it's called be the solution be the solution okay and then um there is also um all the books from uh Professor saell Thomas saell I love all of his books mhm yeah and um so those and and my last one this is also a mentor of mine um Professor George a we have we lost him early last year but uh his book Africa Unchained is is is a masterpiece a masterpiece George is the reason why I started looking where where I have been looking George is the reason why many people think I'm an economy when I'm not but because I I geek out on these things but um yes he he he he George really deserves I'm I'm standing on his shoulders I'm I'm literally standing on the shoulders of George and one day it's part of a work I'm doing one day George's name will be part of a history Box about Africa he is the one who so something that no one else saw in times when it was very dangerous to even go there he had his office bombed all that stuff he took so many errors on his back but I'm not going to let those errors go to away so I'm carrying that ball and that's why I called the book The Heart of a cheetah because George in 2007 remember when I told you my first time at Ted the first Ted Africa George was on stage and there was imagine eyes were bright open I was just coming to the world and uh George had this call talk this talk called the um it was called sheah versus hippos and uh he was talking about these hippos it's all more like a mentality it's not so much about your age or whatever but the hippo mentality are the ones sold out Africa whether it's our leaders you know all the people who are involved into this power grab that's left us where we are he said those are the hippos but he said but all my hopes and my bets for Africa lies on your backs you cheaters and he said we were the cheetas I was part of his original cheetas and he said you are the fast Runners of Africa you are the people who will wait for No One you wait for No One you wait for nothing you are our only hope and he said run just run and run we will I I got to I got to write that Ted Talk down now as well we'll link all this up in the show notes yeah I'll send it to you so uh M from from the bottom of my heart thank you for being on this show thank you for all that you do thank you uh you it's so clear to me that you're one of the good ones you're driven from a place of of of courage and and wanting to change the world and make it better which uh it's just an inspiration to us trying to trying to thank you

Channel: Kevin Rose

Views: 1,518

Keywords: Magatte Wade, Kevin Rose, The Kevin Rose Show, Alex Gladstein, economic freedom, prosperity activism, blockchain technology, cryptocurrency benefits, Próspera, magatte wade ted talk, magatte wade interview, magatte wade africa, Magatte Wade Kevin Rose, Kevin Rose Podcast, Business in Africa, magatte wade book, African economy, africa, startup cities, human flourishing, Prosperity

Id: jpUcxapS7BY

Length: 91min 22sec (5482 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2024