Kind: captions
Language: en
you have
to have the free markets in order to
build prosperity
and
prosperity means economic power
if you have economic power
no one messes with you or if they're
gonna do it they're gonna have to think
twice and when they do they're gonna
have to pay consequences
the following is a conversation with
magot wade
an entrepreneur who is passionate about
creating positive change in africa
through economic empowerment
this is the lex friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's my god
wait
you were born in senegal
you have lived and traveled across the
world
so let me ask you what is the soul of
senegal like it's people it's culture
it's history can you can you try to
sneak up on
telling us
what is the spirit of its people taranga
taranga
taranga in it's a wall of word wolf is a
main indigenous language of senegal and
it means hospitality that is what us the
people of senegal are known for
and it transpires in everything that we
do
um everything that we say
it's a place where
i guess with hospitality goes this
concept of warmth so we are very we are
a very warm people
uh it's on a nutshell that's us that's
that's us the place where you come and
everybody will just embrace you
um make you feel very comfortable make
you look like feel like you're the only
person in the world and that we've been
waiting for you our whole life right so
so that's my country so that's for
people in senegal people in africa or
also people across the world weird
strangers from all walks of life so
hospitality towards everyone for
everyone for everyone especially towards
the foreigner because
it's very it's very um ingrained in us
this understanding that especially the
foreigner
the foreigner is called foreign because
the foreign is coming from somewhere
else so if someone has taken the time
and the energy whether uh in a forced
manner or because it's a choice to
travel so far to come
to a place that's not theirs to start
with that's probably foreigners again
um then it is your duty
to welcome them to be uber welcome
welcoming to them so there's not a fear
of the foreigner there's not a suspicion
of the foreigner no no no and i think um
this goes with the other way around
maybe it has to do with um
just you know when you feel good about
yourself when you're very grounded
yourself it's very easy to open yourself
to others and um i'm wondering if that's
not you know the other side of the
equation
in a way so no we don't have a fear uh
towards a foreigner
so when you have a pride
uh of your culture pride of your own
people like it's easier to sort of
embrace i mean it's interesting how
these kind of cultures emerge because
um you know the the slavic countries are
sometimes colder
they're slower to trust others
uh we're now here in austin texas one of
the reasons i fell in love with this
place when i showed up is there's that
same hospitality right as compared to
other cities i've lived in
boston philadelphia
san francisco
there's a
there's a hesitation to open up to be
fragile to
to be
caring
before understanding what the sort of
what i can gain from you kind of
calculation it's really interesting and
i i wonder what
how those kinds of dynamics emerge
because there's certainly parts of the
world
like austin is one of them where you
just feel the kindness just radiate
without knowing kindness from strangers
you know um
if i were to advance one thing and i had
the same experience um
after having lived in san francisco
first
then we went to new york
then we came to austin when we came to
austin i felt it took me a while to put
my finger on it but what i found in
austin
people just hang
people
right they're real yeah they're real
yeah unlike what you were saying i feel
like in these other places
um people are it's a destination for
people who want to come and perform i
think maybe the early san francisco
people it was different for them
um but later as prosperity starts to
come in and success comes in then you
attract a different breed yeah at first
wherever people who made it who made
this place be what it is and then it
attracts all the bling followers and the
bling attracted people and when those
people show up it's time for all of us
to get out and that's one of my worries
about austin too and i guess i wanna i
count myself in it but you know because
we also
new arrives um always been furious now
but um
how are we going to protect this place
yeah
yeah these are you know in the best
possible version of the austin history
this is the early days of silicon valley
in austin and so you get a chance to
build
on top of this
culture that's already been here of the
weirdos the artists
uh the
sort of the characters but also the
the the general kindness and love that
just permeates the whole place build on
top of that
entrepreneurial spirit so like
tech companies new startups all that
kind of stuff and then you get a chance
to build
totally new ideas totally revolutionary
ideas and make them a reality and dream
big and build it here i think elon
represents that with the the all the all
the people that kind of tried to um
do the
cutting edge stuff they're doing at
tesla and spacex there's a bunch of
other companies they're just like coming
up i get to talk to a bunch of tech
people and they're just
incredible versus
san francisco there's uh
there's a cynicism a bit and also some
of the interaction with strangers
there's always a bit of a calculation
like how good is this going to be for my
career
yeah how can um hang out with this
person can advance me you know you go to
a party you seizing the season this
isn't up it's like i'm not going to talk
to someone so because that's not going
to advance me who's going to advance me
next and so this is what i
would not want to see here in austin and
i think maybe there's one way to try to
i really would like to see austin not go
the way san francisco did and other
towns before i like how you pronounce
san francisco with a french accent
it's great i think that that's the one
word you go with the french accent
sounds beautiful san francisco
but you know um so
so now that you find that cute you're
gonna have to forgive me when i mess up
my english because english is not my
first language so i always try to make
sure people know that um
but you know lex this is why i am very
interested in what some folks here are
working on
and i'm just going to be very selfish
here because i want to help her with
what she's doing it's someone like um
you know nicole noezek and her project
you know with the housing projects that
they have right now
making sure that austin remains a town
that's affordable for people of all
walks of lives if we can accomplish
making sure that
all walks of life doesn't matter how
little
big you're making money wise that you
can stay in this town so the diversity
at that level can remain then i think
austin stands a chance to really show
the world how to do things differently
and what i love about about you know her
initiative is just
how they're really trying
um
you know to again work on keeping
affordability down for for most people i
think it's important to
because it seems like it matters to you
i know that it matters to me i
absolutely would not want to see
um austin go away that's what francisco
did and i think the key to that is
making sure that true diversity not like
the fluff fluff crap diversity we're
hearing over there and that's another
thing by the way because san francisco
likes to pride itself in oh you know we
are so into diversity but i'm like if
diversity for you means um
gender difference of gender
skin color
you know maybe the different accents we
have and you think check check check
check check i'm like uh it's not enough
can we also add diversity of thoughts
and that's the other problem i have with
that place you know
and i know some folks who are scared of
saying much
around people that's also another thing
so not only they're sizing you up but
everybody's also very
invisible
this invisible
um
how should i say this there's this
invisible
agreement that they all seem to have to
stay on script
there's a feeling like you're following
a certain kind of script that's very
kind of shallow and there is a bit of a
categorization going on which category
do you belong to and let's put this into
a simple math equation how what comes
out as opposed to just the free open
uh embrace of people the weirdos the
characters the interesting the full deep
sense of diversity exactly not just
ideas but backgrounds and
uh rich and poor
like artist engineers high school
dropouts phds yes all of this yes yes
yeah that's what makes for a rich
society that's gonna get ahead i'm glad
you mentioned nicole's efforts i know
she really is passionate about
um i i don't i don't know how
complicated that work is because there's
probably
a big force
trying to um
increase how much it costs to live in
austin
yeah i don't know how you resist that i
whenever i go to new york city just the
fact that there's a giant park in the
middle of it
uh i wonder like how did they pull this
off this is amazing
it's like to
resist the force of
the increasing price of the land and
still to protect this idea
of having um having a park
and then in the same way protecting
the ability for people from all walks of
life to live in the center of the city
to live around the city to uh to chase a
dream when they don't get any money in
their pocket absolutely i don't know how
you do that this partly political
probably uh regulation all that kind of
stuff it's a lot of it has to do with
regulations um and this is where her and
i also
very much um
see eye to eye in terms of um
you know the free markets and also
prosperity building because it's always
the same problems every most of the time
most places
here what you have is some people in the
name of we got to stand
for and i don't like to use this word
but maybe you help me find a better one
um but at least that's a word that
people can understand we gotta stand for
the less lesser fortunate among us some
people would like call them maybe
oftentimes use the word maybe underdogs
whatever it is i will just say maybe
even lesser fortunate among us right um
in the name of standing up for them
you're promoting policies that are
actually going to backfire and where
they
end up being the first ones to suffer
from it so let's take this whole housing
issue that nicole and her team are
working on
um
we find that oftentimes the cost at the
end of the day it's the good old
supply
and demand equation
if you're going to make it so hard
that the supply
level of housing remains
below a certain threshold remains lower
than the demand of people who need
especially affordable housing housing
altogether what's going to happen is
scarcity prices go up and who gets
kicked out first the lesser fortunate
among us
and so but but i find that oftentimes
people in the name of we care
don't engage their mind and a friend of
mine said this and he said so well he
said
having a heart for the poor
that's easy
having a mind for poor that's the
challenge and oftentimes it's we all
have a heart for the poor but when it
comes ventu then what do we do
to have a real
impact on making sure people get a
chance at you know going up
then that's where everything starts
falling apart and then you have people
who
you know then they start pushing for
policies housing policies making it
super hard for you to even renovate or
add one more story to your home or
anything like that by doing that you're
messing up with a supply with a supply
uh with a supply um the supply of
housing and therefore the the people who
can't afford you know people get priced
out of a market and so what people like
nicole are doing are going back to where
all of this is taking place and they're
going back to the regulation side and
just like you know i'm sure we'll talk
about it here but people wonder today
why is africa the poorest region in the
world we go back to the same culprit bad
laws
and tons of um senseless regulations if
you make it so hard that in berkeley for
someone to build one more story to their
home which means maybe one more unit
that could be rented out to someone and
if many more people do that then you
have a much bigger supply which means
the prices will go down which means more
people have access and among them
especially the lesser fortunate among us
then we're starting to see a winning
proposal aren't we but instead if you go
the other way around then all of a
sudden you're pricing them out of a
market same thing was done with us so
oftentimes when i see a pro problems of
this nature you can betcha that
regulations and census laws are the
heart of it and that's what they're
tackling it's not popular it's not fun
and people tend to not even understand
where you're coming from but this is a
problem we have with people not
understanding economic econ 101
well so it's the regulation the laws and
the system that props them up and
increases the span of those laws and
we'll talk about that the fascinating
way those kinds of things develop
when it works when it doesn't let me
sort of step back
and ask a question about africa in the
west
in many places in the world
africa is almost uh talked about like
it's one country
like it's one place
so
in what ways is africa one community
and in what ways is it
many many many communities just from
your perspective
uh from in senegal and and beyond right
so at the most basic
of um
what makes us one
goes back to even what makes you african
you are african i'm african well one big
family it's africa is very much at the
end of the day the the
foundation
and the birth of um you know the human
race so in from that standpoint at the
most basic level
uh we're all africans where this whole
thing started exactly exactly where this
whole thing started and how at some
point um humanity was hanging by its
fingernails only two thousands of us
were left on this earth and eventually
we started you know we went for survival
and that's how we started to spread
around and some going up north some
going this way that way and as you're
traveling to different places then
features start to change to adapt to
where you are right so hair gets lighter
for some people eyes get different shape
for others to to to adjust to a new
natural habitat you know the genomics
program i think um at the
via national geographic did that so well
for people who are interested in going
back to that work with spencer wells and
such but um yeah so at the very basic
most basic level that's that's what
unites us all first of all
and then
i would say that the continent
especially here i will group it into
black africa you know like africa
um
unfortunately are common stories you
know of um having gone through this
terrible horrible period of um around
the same time the whole continent being
you know enslaved and colonized so that
in a way forms not that we were ever
the first people or only people ever
you know enslaved in this world as a
matter of fact i mean the world slaves
comes from escrow you know esclav slave
slavs lislav right from the eastern bloc
so the first place where actually people
looking more like you than looking like
me right
so
but we don't necessarily remember all of
that because in our human psyche um the
closest to us in history of um
a big mass of people being enslaved
is african people we were the last the
last you know group like that you know
um the pain of world war one and world
war ii permeates
um europe but it certainly does for the
soviet the former soviet union the
countries that made up the former soviet
union does in the same way
the the pain
of um
slavery
uh
and empires
using africa does that permeate the
culture is there still echoes of that in
a way yes especially the fact that you
know in many different um places uh
whether it's ghana or my country or
benin where you have um
these places that we call the dwarf no
return or the places of no return which
this was the last
um
place where the slaves were standing or
you know this is in senegal we call it
the door of no return uh there's this
one door you're there in the slave house
and uh once they go they go it's um
that's that's it that's gonna be the
last time they see back home
um
so you know
those of course of course it creates for
a common
lived
uh experience which becomes a
common lived
um
history and of course he's gonna tie us
up is there a resentment because you
mentioned hospitality yeah is there a
kind of resentment of the foreigner that
they there's a
rich vibrant land there's many resources
there's powerful cultures
are they just going to show up and use
us yeah that's a way to see geopolitics
in this modern world yeah this is okay
so where it plays very differently is so
if you came to senegal today there is
not really a problem at that level
where people's resentment start to come
from
is of course when bad behavior
shows up meaning like you have so many
white people who can show up and just in
the attitude they have uh an entitlement
attitude right and they think
but in a way we're all still servants
some people
in your face some people more but that
can cause some little resentment but
where really the resentment is
and that can the entitlement can take
different forms like even pity
is is don't even get me going on that
one i was trying to be polite today so
just just don't lex do not
you know sometimes i tell myself my god
today you're going to be all composed
you know next year i'll compose so don't
go there and make a fool of yourself
just just behave yeah but together you
get me on some some grounds that's when
it's all gonna
go yeah so yeah let's let's let's move
beyond that too or so resentment there's
there's a dance between hospitality and
resentment and resentment so when you
come in you're you you live your life
you're just a normal human being and you
treat me decently like you would treat a
friend normal people i have no problem
with you i'm not gonna come back and be
like well you and uh your ancestors have
enslaved me you
you're not gonna see that stuff
sometimes i'm in this country though i
feel like that's you know
it might look like that but we we in
africa don't do that
now
if you come you have this nasty attitude
you think you're still seeing servants
around well you're gonna have a problem
someone like me i might even grab you by
the back of your neck and you know take
you back to the airport that's when
you're lucky yeah um
how are you very quickly exactly but um
where things come up
is
especially nowadays with the african
youth
when we have to be reminded of a world
bank
when we have to be reminded of um even
the world places like the world economic
forum you know like all of these places
that seem to constitute
um
they would you they the way they
describe them when i say they it's
primarily my pan-african friends
so here maybe terms are worth describing
so um
the pan-african movement
goes way back when um we're talking
about you know way back when
started in um
in the 30s going on all the way from
there
so what you have there is um people who
have started coming together
and dreaming up and emancipated africa
away from the colonies because at that
point they were still colonies and
dreaming up all of that so we're talking
about people like kwame kuma of ghana
we're talking about jewish new railway
of tanzania talking about blizzchiang of
senegal and other people like that bundy
of malawi so anyway so
and the african youth of today we're
still hanging on onto those onto some of
these ideas of uh and on some of these
dreams of a reunited africa so when you
were talking about what seems to unite
you there is that you know also
meaning like we all feel like we're part
of the same family is it only in our
heads it's in reality many for many
different reasons there is definitely
what we call a pan-african movement and
i very much myself um consider myself
one of them i don't agree all the time
with our where we want to go and how we
want to go there
but
not where we want to go where we want to
go is we would love to see a united
africa for sure but how to get that
accomplished that's where oftentimes we
have issues so
on something like that um
so vis-pan-african especially with
pan-african youth but it's beyond the
pan-african youth it's for youth in
general in africa
um world bank u.n all of these
organizations that they tend to qualify
as imperialist
organizations
and it's not always the correct way to
describe them but i'm sure you get the
sentiment
and from that place
there is tons of resentment
because for the longest time
these groups organizations
and some that preceded them
have proceeded to actually
decide what even our new frontiers would
be
you see when you go to a place like
senegal mali all of that different
countries but we were one
people one you know one group one
kingdom what what
and then at some point they decided just
when you look at africa have you looked
at how straight some of these borders
are you're like did a robot just draw
these
really fast robots no offense to robot
especially this one he looks so cute but
you know what i mean so
so they
they have continued
deciding
what it would be
um to be us
to live on our land and how do we even
progress and it just keeps on going
they get to decide
how
are we gonna which type of even economic
development path are we gonna choose or
not so it's very um so from that
standpoint yes there's a lot of
resentment including even from people
like me yeah and it's interesting that
the invader and the oppressor and the
empires
have actually
created a force for unity
i've seen that in ukraine in the
invasion in ukraine
where it was a pretty divided not a
pretty a very divided country with many
factions
but the invasion
really forced everyone to think
about the identity of this nation
together yes beyond factions beyond all
of that that's right it allowed it to
look at its history and its future like
they all say that all great nations
have had to have a war of independence
and this is our
war to find our own identity that's
right and so in that sense
africa
as one place as one continent
found had to find multiple times its
identity through the resistance of the
oppressor especially sub-saharan africa
especially southern africa yes and
there's an interesting aspect to this
because the president of senegal is also
the um you know the head of the african
union so we'll we'll talk about the the
fascinating geopolitics of that
of that whole situation but let me ask
in general
you talk about
this question this fascinating question
what does it take for a country to
prosper
what does it take for a country to
prosper you see many countries in the
world that really struggle
and many that flourish
and it's not always obvious why because
some have natural resources some don't
some
have
wars some don't
some have
sort of authoritarian regimes
some don't
and some have democracies and all that
kind of stuff so you the dynamics aren't
exactly obvious is there is there
commonalities is there
um
fundamental ideas that result in a
prosperity of a nation today i can
confidently say yes
despite
all the differences that you talked
about and i think then this is where it
becomes very important
that we are very clear
about the question you asked me
you said what does it take to make a
country prosperous
so i'm just gonna stick to prosperity
because prosperity doesn't necessarily
mean
sometimes doesn't has nothing to do with
maybe how you um
conduct yourself otherwise so
socially speaking
right so you can be prosperous
and still when it comes to
your family laws all the way you
approach the other aspects of your life
maybe you're running a very communist
lifestyle
or you're in a very affordable another
a very liberal you know society
so for me when we talk about prosperity
i just want to make sure that we are
clear on that because some people might
save it might be somewhere and be like
well
you you because i know what i'm going to
talk to you about next and some people
are going to sit and be like well china
is not like that or
you know uh even um dubai is not like
that um no so what i'm talking about is
this thing and that's what i love about
this if we just stick to the word
prosperity to me i see prosperity as
this it's like economically speaking
what are we going to be to be a
prosperous nation
meaning we are a middle to high income
nation i'm not talking about
what are the rights of your women to
to vote or
can people live like this or
um i'm not talking about any economic
fundamentally economic yes prosperity
because i think it's that distinction is
very important because over the years
i've seen people push back on all types
of things and it occurred to me that
that's what the misunderstanding was
there so we're going to talk about
prosperity
making sure that the country can make
money so that it can take care of its
needs and the needs of its citizens
um then what i have come to find
is that
at the root of that
is going to be what we call economic
freedom and what i call the toolkit of
the entrepreneur in that you can put the
rule of law you can put the concept of
clear and transferable property rights
economic freedom is at all the levels
that which will allow
entrepreneurs
and business people
to create value
and create value entrepreneurially we're
not talking about rent seeking anything
like that it's like you found a pie to
be this big and you make it this big
so that's what we're talking about
create value create value yes
so
when it comes to that we have found that
um
whether you're looking at
two countries that start out the same
we're talking the same people
east germany west germany
south korea north
korea very similar people to start with
right
but yet
radical
outcomes
i know that today
germany is united but we're talking
about back in the days when you had east
and western bloc
same people very different outcomes like
i said south korea
um north korea and so on and so forth
and at the same time very different
nations
dubai
compared to
singapore or to
england
very different yet
the same outcome so it seems to me like
whenever we're looking at prosperity if
a nation is prosperous
regardless of whatever other shenanigans
they might be running whatever
other operating software they might be
running for anything that's not related
to business
if on the business side
they are
proponents of a free markets or at least
a base
level
of free markets we know that such
countries
will create prosperity so what are the
aspects of the operating systems that
lead to singapore and
and to south korea and all that kind of
stuff so can you speak to different
elements that enable the toolkit for
entrepreneurs sure sure
and maybe here
let me just maybe illustrate it with my
own story and then i can take you back
tell us your story
who are you it's just because it started
with me coming here you shouldn't even
rob anything and now it looks like i've
known you we know you're sorry for
talking and then you're like tell people
and then no no but
so
this is where this question even when
you ask me how are some some how do some
countries become prosperous
that question
lex i had it when i was seven or so
that's when my family
moved me to um from senegal for the
first time of my life i left my country
i left my continent and i was headed to
europe to go join my people my my family
my parents who were there as economic
migrants my parents had migrated for a
better life
as so many people have to
so many people have to coming from
poorer places coming for low-income
countries do you saw the difference yes
between the two places
how else would you call it here you were
in senegal minding your own business
causing tons of trouble everywhere you
know just being a this being a happy
free-range kid but i was yeah so you
were always a troublemaker not just now
okay okay life wouldn't be fun without
it and of course i agree
so because even you you know like can
you like all put together like front i
know there's a lot of problem making
behind you desperately trying to keep it
together i know you are but with me i'm
gonna totally bring it out so just yeah
so you saw the difference right i still
be different i'm walking in here
back home and i tell people this story
because to me it's a defining story
back home to take a shower it's a
it takes time grandma has to you know
make the charcoal catch
on a little uh stove like you use at you
know when you go camping
and then she puts a pot of water on it
it boils she takes it puts it in a
bigger bucket mixes it with some colder
water then we put a little uh pot in it
and a stronger member of the family has
to drag it to the shower and then there
finally i can proceed to take my shower
here i'm in germany in the middle of the
winter and my mom's like my god time for
your shower i'm like i'm i'm not getting
naked where's the bottle
wherever it is a bucket of hot water
she's like oh you're silly come on just
jump in and i jump in the shower turn
the buttons the water is coming down
temperature while i'm playing
are you kidding me it's so amazing i've
been cheated out of life my whole life
yeah so that's what happened
and then i then and then i'm like
oh and all of these roads are paved
roads unlike back home everything is
like sandy and you know my feet are
always ash i always have to wash off
when i back when i go back home and your
shoes get ruined most of the time
and it started everything and i had this
question and it was just like wow how
come they have this and we don't
so i was not being like oh you know how
come they have all this money oh i i was
not that it was just like how come and i
think what i was alluding to was how
come life is so easy here and it's not
an easy not in a negative sense in a
beautiful sense sometimes i get
uh you know just having traveled through
the war zone just to come back traveling
through europe
back to america it just i'll just get
emotional just looking at the efficiency
of things like
how how easy it is how that we can
um
first of all in ukraine you currently
can't fly right it's a war zone just
even the the transportation you said
roads yeah the quality of roads in the
united states is amazing just not you
know many of the places that drive in
ukraine
you're talking about i mean uh
really bad conditions of roads and i'm
sure in many parts of africa and many
parts of the world the world's even
worse right right and outdoor you know
having a toy indoor toilet is a is a
fascinatingly awesome luxury to have
it is it is and don't take me wrong lex
do we have
some great roads now in many parts of
africa yes yes main arteries great roads
you're like whoa this is moving
it
yes we do
uh but definitely uh more today than in
my time growing up
um
do we have you know
a country like nigeria that just birthed
um six unicorns last year alone yes
do we have the african youth out there
being so amazing and
you know living their lives yes we have
all of that
but it is still unfortunately
just
like we're scratching the surface yeah
and those people still are getting all
of that accomplished
literally swimming through molasses this
is some of the most
most gross
immoral
unfair
waste of human capital
and so that
is the started with you as a
seven-year-old
asking wait a minute
how do
amazing people in europe
do this and the amazing people in africa
don't yeah and that's a key word amazing
because that's when i that's what i
realized later because and it was not
always like that for me amazing and
amazing right i knew instinctively that
of course we are amazing too
but so this and then the so eventually
the question became
how so i went from how can we have this
and we don't to the country as i'm
growing up and researching because it
stayed with me when i tell you i'm
obsessed i'm haunted i am good so
you can laugh all you want but it's
so the question became
the question became how come some
countries like um
the united states
singapore are rich and some others like
mine and many others in africa are poor
that became the question
and along the line like
along the the road
i continued on living my life
wondering about this question
and
i've heard
all types
of reasons as to supposedly why that
might be the case
some people with a very straight face
are still peddling the iq fury
according to which
come on darling it's not your fault
you know your skin color goes with a
gene sequence that just doesn't allow
you to be as smart as white people are
and it's not your fault but just accept
it
bad stuff is still out there it's very
real
i and i have to hear it
and others would say to me oh it's just
because you know you guys don't have
adequate level of um
education and i say you know maybe you
got to go say that
to
most of the street sellers you go see in
senegal
you go up to any of these to many of
these street sellers in senegal
they are wading through cars in moving
cars
under the hot sun
fumes thrown at their face
trying to sell you anything and any
that you think you might be able to use
whether we're talking about um
an ironing board
to an umbrella to q-tips to
um you know
toothpicks
selling you whatever you need for from
your car these are street sellers and
you ask them dear
do you do you have any degree
yeah
i i have this credit uh degree in math
or in in uh literature or whatever
some very very educated people yet
they're right there this is what they're
doing
so that's
just at scale
wasted human potential thank you
thank you so that has to do
the wasted human potential has to do now
with the system
with something about the laws
which is some yeah something some
something about
sort of uh the things that limit or
enable the entrepreneur yes
because at that point i've heard this
you know i heard people say yeah your iq
is no good
yeah you're not you don't have enough
degrees or you're not educated
no some people would even say it's
because you guys are malnourished you're
malnourished
you need to be fed others oh well maybe
i'll give you some shoes and maybe
something is going to change whatever
and then so i heard all of these
nonsense likes but you guess what but
guess what none of them made sense you
know why didn't make sense because if
any of that crap was true
why or why is it that
my parents
or any other people from these places
and oh and by the way some people call
up those places
god forsaken land
that's also the type of
criteria always have to hear when it's
not just flat out
s-h-i-t whole countries from you know
one person a few years ago president of
this country
that sentiment is sometimes there it is
it is as i go on with my life trying to
and trying to find the answer to why are
some countries like mine poor while
others are rich i'm hearing all of these
reasons thrown at me
and then they make no sense because then
how come then if my parents
move as it is usually anyone else who
moves from a a poorer nation to a nation
that supposedly is rich
all the
sudden
they get to manifest their greatest
potential
so i'm starting to think this has
nothing to do with a person per say
because we're talking about the same
person same background so maybe the same
name features everything yeah now i'm
starting to think maybe it doesn't have
to do with a person maybe we're talking
about something that has to do with a
place that they came from or the place
that they're going to
so this this little thing is starting to
be in my mind again remember this is not
something that i woke up to overnight
i'm like voila i got my ques
it took me for a long time and i had to
i had to to face off to have many
different ideologies face each other i
had to really have a reckoning literally
in my heart and in my mind
and so
so then that's what i'm thinking it
cannot be it cannot no no no it's the
same people it has to be about the place
but then what about this place but then
even about the place
you're thinking
again two countries different
backgrounds same outcome same background
different outcome
what is this
and then i go on
i start a comp i i am in silicon valley
in the late um
uh 90s early 2000s
that come boom all of that
and um i'm starting to discover this
concept of this thing called
entrepreneurship you know i'm in silicon
valley and uh just getting to experience
what um seems so cliche by now but you
know people on the getting together in
the back of a napkin talking about an
idea you know putting it out and then
they go out and they talk to somebody to
some interest investors who's gonna
invest in it then they have a lawyers
who get to you know put all of this
stuff together and then they have uh the
big four cpa firms this whole ecosystem
of what they call of entrepreneurship
and then eventually this concept of
entrepreneurship being this uh this idea
of um you know creating something out of
nothing so there i am and at some point
i become an entrepreneur myself and the
way i became an entrepreneur was not
like i woke up and i'm like
i want to make money so i'm going to
become an entrepreneur you know like no
and this is also another problem i have
with people who have a problem with
entrepreneurs or business people
most entrepreneurs do not start a
business to become rich most
entrepreneurs start a business
because they have found identified a
problem that bothered them enough that
they said enough is enough i'm gonna do
something about it what entrepreneurs
are are people who criticize by creating
do they always get it right no as a
matter of fact the failure in
entrepreneurship is humongous it's it's
it's kamikaze
path to take the entrepreneurship path
we lose our spouses my first husband
passed away as soon as i was about to
sign my first term sheet and yet i had
to keep going
what force can keep you going after you
just loved lost the love of your life
what force keeps you going the force of
oh i just want to be rich really
when your whole your whole world is
upside down
your whole world is upside down and you
just want to quit you just want to go
meet him and join him in death
i stayed why because of the same reason
why i started my company
i stayed because the women whom i had
put back to work by then we're talking
about some of the most vulnerable women
in my country these are women who grow
the hibiscus which we need to make the
bisap which is the juice of taranga
remember this is our national identity
drink
and for the longest time women grow this
hibiscus but we use for the national
drink for this drink and now that
coca-cola pepsi and all that had made it
through the marketing that it is more
cool to drink those beverages now there
is no more market for the hibiscus and
with that goes the livelihoods of these
women
and for me that bothered me enough
because in that force i saw two things
one was
a part of my culture we're talking about
i mean my part of my
cultural identity for christ's sake
the juice of taranga you ask me what
defines you i said taranga there's a
juice for it so my culture is
disappearing and at the same time
these women
are sliding into abject poverty because
what they used to make no one needs
anymore so
that is what got me to start a company
and the company was created just because
of that i wanted to build a company that
would allow me to not only preserve this
very important aspect of my cultural
identity
and at the same time put these women
back to work
and maybe it's more difficult to put
into words
but there's a kind of it's a basic human
spirit where you see the the place where
you came from
breaking apart in some kind of way
and you have the entrepreneurial fire
that dreams of helping yes and that
sometimes it's hard to convert that into
words
you have to tell nice stories and so on
but it's the basic human desire to help
yes and uh especially when criticized by
creating especially when you've been
raised especially when and let's face it
um
do we all are we all a bundle of
circumstances some happy some some worse
yes we are
and um
oftentimes i ask myself my god why you
why did you why did you get
to have the opportunities that you have
what makes you different from let's say
even your cousin that couldn't that is
still home yeah
trapped because we call ourselves
trapped citizens when you're strapped in
these countries that go nowhere
we're like a bunch of trapped citizens
so
so you see lex
when my husband passed away and i wanted
nothing more to do than to quit
and to send
investors had already said we understand
if you want to stop
whatever you decide to do will do that
and i wanted to quit and i was actually
on my way i was in senegal for a month
trying to really get a bearing over
myself
and
um
by the end of the month i had decided
i'm letting go there's no way if a pain
was too great
um
nothing made sense anymore it was too
much
so i went to see these women
and um i talked to the one who you know
we're talking back then
there were 400 of them later on we grew
to 9 000.
and um
i told the representative of all of them
and i told her this is very lit this
very old lady
and just looking at her
i knew i was going through some pain but
this woman has probably gone through 10
times not that pain is calc you know
like measurable but you could tell this
woman probably lost a child as often
times happen in places you know that are
lower income countries
probably lost a husband also
probably who knows so many people lost
this part of our lives you could see the
pain you can see the pain yet she's so
so dignified she's so dignified
and that already kind of made me like we
got to stop crying
but and i told and i told her that i was
quitting i could not look her in the
eyes and um
and she said look at me
i could not look in the ass she said
look at me child
and i looked at her
and she said
you know
i know you're in pain
but where your husband is where your
beloved is there's absolutely nothing
that you can do for him but for us you
can change everything
and i went back
so
that's what entrepreneurs are
at their best
so she helped you find your strength yes
and i i
i was i was weak still
but i said you put that aside
there's a job to do here
and i went back and lex i fought with
everything that i had and this company
that i started in my kitchen
became this company that had the who's
who of a beverage world
with at some point roger enrico the
chairman of pepsico sitting on my on my
board on my board
yeah i went back because of that so the
reason why i tell this story for me is
important
because i it the world needs to
understand
that there are so
there is a much more there is a viable
way
of caring
and of um being part of a solution
for
the lesser fortunate
in terms of not keeping them where they
are and we're like the savior is coming
and you know giving them food and all
that no no no no but it's like just like
the leg up i got in my life give
somebody else a leg up
what are the things you're fighting
against in africa when you try to build
a business like that
so then we're building this company
and
back then
this was
in 2004 but it wasn't i built my first
company
we had to have um two sister companies
one there one here so the one in the in
africa was about the whole supply chain
yeah
and uh the one in america
was you know uh research development
sales and marketing all of that good
stuff
and then
at some point i look around i'm like
wait a second
here back in the days before we had the
you know like they would talk but we say
oh we have this one-stop shop for
business registration but the truth is
very quickly you can set up an llc in
the us we're talking about less than
even then less than you know two days
super fast 20 minutes online it's done
back then it was you know less than a
few hours to get it done
um cost you almost nothing we're talking
about a few hundred dollars you know
free two to 350 depending which state
you are so llc starting a basic company
takes almost no time no time no time no
money almost you don't have to
know a guy that knows a guy
that
slipped some money to the politician and
so on no none of that stuff none of that
stuff
and so
at the same time also things like um and
visa can take you into today's day
okay lex i don't know if you have um
employees on payroll or anything like
that uh but
do you have to go
every month or anybody listening to us
right now
do they have to go
every single month
to three different type of agencies
um
you know like governmental agencies
to do one
step
this one is basically you're gonna go
and
give them your
retirement money like you know like the
pension part of the salary that you took
out from your employee
you have to go to this agency and put
that application through so you leave
that money behind then you go to another
agency this one is for their health you
know care whatever you have three of
those places where you have to literally
go to
in person three times three places every
single month
to drop off these you know these
paperwork
do you have to do anywhere in the u.s i
mean
do you do we have that situation
anywhere that you know of right now
no
and do you think that's uh business
friendly or do you think it's uh it's
cumbersome and business and that's not
just cumbersome sort of physically it's
cumbersome psychologically
but there's uh there's a feeling
like the system around you yeah there's
a feeling like you're trapped it's a
feeling like the system doesn't want you
to succeed versus a system that does
want you to succeed exactly
you're in a country like uh we're in
texas
if you make less than a million bucks in
revenues a year you know all you do five
minutes it takes you you're filing you
know your
state your franchise um tax
that's it
it's below that number tell them what it
is then you have nothing to give them or
anything like that you move on
us
even if i make
this much
there is a minimum tax that you have to
pay which is a thousand dollars in
senegal right now for the listener
mcgowan was holding up a zero
you make no money
you still have to pay
so so and then
oh let me walk you through what happened
to me when we had to try to get the
electricity uh hooked up
on our first office
so
we go they say oh first you have to
apply you know like you normally you
have to apply
then we apply we pay the money remember
again here you have to also go this was
like you know you go to the office and
you pay
and then we wait
and we wait and we wait and when i say
we wait i'm not talking but we waited 24
hours we did 48 hours a month
two months three months four months five
months you go this you send your
assistant she goes she comes back uh
well they say we send it to wait at some
point i'm like i gotta go there so i go
there
and um i asked to speak to the head of a
district
for
you know
and um
i'm just like going on and on and on and
on about how we've been delayed this is
gonna be a problem we have to produce
everything is delayed
and i'm i'm i risk losing my business uh
we already pre-sold some of these
products to our customers
i gotta something needs to happen
so at some point the gentleman looks at
me it's like lady look over there i look
over there
i see a pile
of paper this high we're talking about
maybe hundreds of applications each one
of them is a single single single sheet
each single sheet is an application for
getting um the electricity
and it says do you see that i said yeah
and i said look over there i look over
there to the other side
i see two meters
he's like
each of his applications needs one of
those
how many do you see i said two then i
knew i was in trouble
and then i said
what do i do and he said lady
it's not at our level and i agreed with
him it was not on his level
but eventually you know by now you can
tell that i pretty much get what i need
because and at that point what i did was
not threaten him or anything like that i
didn't even pay bribe or anything but
you could see why people pay bribes
because when you have a pile like that
then the only way to advance your file
and that by the way happens even at the
passport office
you come you apply for your passport
which is your right
they forced us to have passports it's
your right is assistance you have a
passport and even there if you want your
yours to keep going through the process
you have to bribe somebody so it can go
even the face is supposed to go let
alone faster so here
i'm thinking i have a problem
and at that point i did what i do
i talked to him about all the things i
was trying to do i explained to him why
i'm here why i'm trying to do this and
even him said lady
someone like you you have no re you
you have no reason to even be here you
could be back in america living your
life loving the loca you don't have to
be here so that i think gained a lot of
his respect and i said if you don't do
if you don't help me with this i
understand
i shouldn't be of a priority or anything
like that but i beg you i beg of you i
need i need for this to go on this week
and he said okay that's how i got my
meter one of those two meters became
mine
so then he said but we have a problem
and i said what he said well
the truck we need of a truck to be here
to do it because because of where you
are from the pole we need long cable
lines
to
get it all done but the truck is i don't
know i don't know where the truck was
because they had this one truck i don't
know how many customers
so i go to the mayor of a town with whom
i'm quite friends
but you see i know people
but it shouldn't be this way
so i go
to the mayor of the town and i said
mayor he happens to have the same name
as me first last name same but except
he's the ugly when i'm the pretty one
because you know he's hurt
you know
right that's so people can tell you
apart she's experienced
i need your help you need to help me
with this he's like now what and i
explained to him and he's like okay you
can take the truck from the from the
from the city hall i'll tell the guys
that they can all