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Entrepreneurialism is the key to African prosperity, with Magatte Wade
35 Plays5 months ago
There are some problems that feel like they are just too big to solve. African poverty has long fallen into this category. But try telling that to the "Cheetah Generation.” The “Cheetah Generation” are a new cohort of dynamic African entrepreneurs and professionals identified by Ghanaian economist George Ayittey, who are creating local pathways for change that will shape the future of African prosperity. They are bound together by the belief that entrepreneurialism and innovation are the keys to Africa’s future.
Magatte Wade is at the forefront of the "Cheetah Generation." She is an entrepreneur, CEO, and the world’s leading African prosperity activist. Throughout her career, she has created successful high-end retail brands inspired by diverse African traditions, most recently SkinIsSkin.com. Her latest book is titled, ‘The Heart of A Cheetah: How We Have Been Lied to about African Poverty, and What That Means for Human Flourishing.’
Get in touch with Acquis Cortico-X here.
Follow Acquis Cortico-X on LinkedIn here.
Contact Magatte here.
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Transcript
Introduction to Aquas Cortico X and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Aquas Cortico X is an experience-led transformation business that partners with clients and technology companies to drive digital acceleration. We are experience activists passionate about elevating everyday human experiences through the belief that what's best for people is what's best for an organization. Reach out to us for a chat. A link is in the show notes.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Speaking from Experience from Aquas Cortico X, where we speak to the people with experience of experience. I'm Will Kingston.
Addressing African Poverty with Will Kingston
00:00:45
Speaker
There are some problems that feel like they are just too big to solve. African poverty has long fallen into this category. But try telling that to the cheater generation. The Cheater Generation are a new cohort of dynamic African entrepreneurs and professionals identified by Ghanaian economist George Ayute, who are creating local pathways for change that will shape the future of African prosperity. They are bound together by an unshakable belief that entrepreneurialism and innovation are the keys to Africa's future.
Magat Wade's Journey and Childhood
00:01:24
Speaker
McGart Wade is at the forefront of the Cheetah generation, an entrepreneur, CEO, and the world's leading African prosperity activist. Throughout her career, she has created successful high-end retail brands inspired by diverse African traditions. Most recently, SkinisSkin.com. Her latest book is titled The Heart of a Cheetah, how we have been lied to about African poverty and what that means for human flourishing. Maguard, welcome to Speaking from Experience. Thank you so much for having me, Will. It's a pleasure. You were born in the Senegalese town of Imbor. You now are speaking to me from Austin. I did a quick Google. There's about 8,000 kilometres between those cities and no doubt an extraordinary story in between those cities. Tell me that story.
00:02:15
Speaker
Yes, thank you. Well, yeah, I was born in Senegal in Bour, a little um fisherman's town, 80 kilometers south of Dakar, the capital city. So there I was, obviously, and right around age two, because, you know, many Senegalese families breastfeed their children until two. So that's, you know, ah right around that age, my parents made the decision that so many African parents before of them have made and continue making to this day. they made the decision to leave. but In this case, they left me behind, not because they were irresponsible parents. You could argue the opposite because they actually needed to make a better life form for me, right? And in this case, they would have to emigrate, it meant they had to leave. And because they did not know
00:02:58
Speaker
how the immigration journey would work, it was better for them not to take me along and have me go through those and through that uncertainty. Because as you know, children, the last thing you want is uncertainty. So they left me behind with my grandmother while they took on that journey. And so So then I was with grandma, you know, just living my life.
Cultural Shock of Moving to Germany
00:03:17
Speaker
And a few years later, when my parents decided that their immigration journey was successful, then they called for me to be reunited with them, which means me being separated from my grandma. Right. And so it was, it was definitely a traumatic experience, ah but you have to be resilient. In any case, I yeah went to join with my parents.
00:03:36
Speaker
You were seven at that time? Yeah. And at that point, I went to meet up to be with my parents. They were back then living in Germany. When they first moved, they went to France, but somehow from France, they went to Germany. And by the time I got together with them, they were in Germany. So here I am in the middle of the winter, having never, I don't know what cold weather was, let alone no here I am arriving in Germany and it's just like it's like shock everywhere you look culture shock everything shock shock shock it was like what and but I remember among I mean we've been amidst all the shock the biggest
00:04:12
Speaker
thing that I remember as a little to girl was like, how come they have this and we don't? And the question was not, oh, why do we have Maseratis? Or for me, it was as simple as, you know, back home when grandma says, my God, it's time for your shower. It would take 45 minutes to an hour but between the moment that decision was made and the water actually touching my skin. And why is because grandma had to get a charcoal stove going, fan it for it to really catch on. put a pot of water on it, waiting for it to boil. Then she transfers it to a a bigger bucket, adds more cold water to it for a safe temperature for me. And then somebody stronger than her would have to drag this thing over to the shower area. And there at last with a smaller little plastic pot, I could finally proceed to take my shower. But here, mom in Germany, mom is saying, I got time for your shower. I'm like, I am not going to make it in this cold weather. And she's like, come on, you silly. Just jump in the shower. So I jumped there and I turned the knobs on and the water is coming down and the temperature I wanted, the pressure you want. I was just like, wait, what? You know, you feel like you've been cheated out of life forever.
00:05:13
Speaker
Right? And then it was like about everything, the
Understanding Global Inequality
00:05:16
Speaker
roads, the the supermarkets that were, you know, like beautiful, lining up of all types of goodies, you know, with AC in the in the in the summer and heat in the window winter. Just amazing. Yeah, the paved roads. Back home, I'm always going home with dusty, ashy feet because of the, you know, the dust. And I was just like, wow. And I guess all I was referring to was this ease, this ease of life. And eventually, you know how much more productive you are when you don't have to spend 45 minutes to an hour just getting a shower ready. I mean, that leaves you time for so many other things. So anyway, so i I became obsessed with that question of how come they have this and we don't. And eventually the question, because it was so obsessive, became how come some countries like mine, um most of these African nations are poor,
00:06:07
Speaker
while others are rich that's what the question became how come some countries are poor while others are rich and it's just a question that needed to be answered and along the way so here i am meanwhile you know growing up running my little life at some point you know a family decides to move from germany to france because if we're gonna stay in europe and blah blah blah blah blah and as I'm growing up trying to answer this question. And of course, I've heard it all. I've heard the IQ theory. I've heard the recent theory. And as a matter of fact, ah what you have is when you ask, why is Africa the poorest region in the world?
00:06:44
Speaker
And I like to do this experiment, line up a hundred people here and line up a hundred people over there. This first set of 100 people, they're Africans for the most part and, or they're allies, they're traditional allies. You know, we're talking about usually people, maybe on the left, those, those who who have hijacked the concept of we care about Africans. So you line up a hundred Africans and the allies over here, you line up a hundred non-Africans. And the people that are traditionally viewed as not very sympathetic to Africans, you're going to have two sets of answers. So the Africans and their allies race it's were poor because of racism, slavery, ah they're they're stealing our natural resources, and you name it, and so on and so forth. I'm sure you've heard a bunch of those usual suspects. So that's what that first group comes up with.
00:07:33
Speaker
Second group comes up with, oh, it's because they have such a low IQ. These people are savages always fighting each other. They are lazy. So you name it. And what these two groups have in common that they usually will bring up both is corruption and the leaders are corrupt. There you have it. But there I am sitting and thinking to myself, This absolutely makes no sense, because let's take the IQ or anything any other that stuff. How come the same person, in this case my parents, the minute they move from this place and they go to another place, all of a sudden they're starting to be able to self-actualize? That's kind of weird. So some of this theory does not does not really make sense.
00:08:14
Speaker
And then you have people who say, oh, it's because of colon colonialism slavery. Then if that was the truth, if that was the case, how come nations like Singapore to- today, almost, you know, around the same time, I mean, we have almost the same journey in terms of, you know, when end of colonization and where we are to end, up you know, to present day, how come, ah you know, so um Singapore was colonized before. And today, fast forward, Singapore is richer per GDP capita, and GDP per capita, sorry, than its ex colonizer Great Britain. At the same time, and then you have the same situation with many other previously colonized nations that are ahead of fa the the colonizer, then you look at a country like, ah conversely, you have a country like Ethiopia that has never been colonized.
00:09:00
Speaker
And Ethiopia, sorry, but for the longest time, they were the poster child of poverty in Africa, of famine in Africa due to poverty. you know We even have this joke of when I was a kid, what is ah you know um a chubby ah chubby ah Ethiopian? Oh, it's an Ethiopian showing off. That was the joke. You know what I mean? So it just goes back to tell you how they were the poster child, yet they've never been colonized. So when I'm looking at all of this, it's just not making sense to me. It's just simply not making sense. None of this is making sense. But I'm hearing that. and eventually So I keep going. So family moved from Germany to France and eventually me after business school in France, I decided that France would be too small for
Embracing the American Dream
00:09:37
Speaker
my ambitions. So I decided to move to the United States because really it was the country where, you know, we talk about this American dream. When the American dream truly is, it's just this concept of social ladder. This is the place where the social ladder works at the maximum speed and at the highest heights. So that's where I wanted to be.
00:09:54
Speaker
And of course, you know, the the American dream started to happen for me. There I was starting to, you know, working with companies like Google, Netflix, before they became a household name brand. It was just rather amazing. And watching all of these companies that today we take for granted, I mean, literally, at this little creamery, Palo Alto creamery, you know, where you had these people who would be building these companies that the rest of us would only know later on the back of a napkin, literally. I mean, it sounds very cliche, but on the back of a napkin, coming up with the ideas with their co-founder, then, you know, the next week you see them. Now there is VCs that are probably going to be investing in them, probably broad for lawyers that are going to for corporate lawyers that are going to help them, you know, put together the, and you know, the whole thing and maybe their first employees, whatever. But it's just happening. I'm watching the magic of of ah entrepreneurship happening, which is entrepreneurship is the magic of creating something out of nothing, literally. It's just rather mind-boggling. In any case, so that's where I got that bug of entrepreneurship. And I was doing extremely well for myself as a headhunter in the finance industry. that's That's the type of talent we were finding for companies like that.
00:11:05
Speaker
and doing really well. Like I said, I i was not even 25 years old by the time I bought a beautiful home with pool in California in vmo one of the most expensive zip codes in America. Definitely, it it was definitely, I think if not the most expensive zip code in California, it was probably next to you know close to in that top three or five. And the story there just goes to explain and what happened because so so I was having my American dream. I've been living my American dream. And oftentimes, you know, so this one special day I was driving down Big Sur thinking to myself about how far I've come, how far the little girl that grandma would look in the eyes and say in your eyes I can see the universe thinking about how far she's come and feeling so proud of the journey and feeling so much gratitude for those who have helped me being very thankful to God for the life I was afforded and um you know what I've been able to do with it. But that day, something something did not did not go as usual. Because every time when I had those moments of pure euphoria and joy and gratitude and abundance, almost invariably, the very next second, a switch would happen in my head and everything would go dark.
00:12:17
Speaker
And the reason that would happen is because at that precise moment when I was celebrating the life of abundance that I was afforded, I was also reminded almost instantly of the life of scarcity that I had left back home. And in moments like that, what is it? This is this very overwhelming feeling of sadness and grief and anger all mixed in together because it's the time at which these stories come back to you, you know, of people packing themselves into little fishermen's boats trying to cross over to Europe, people hiding in the landing gears of planes trying to cross over to Europe and then the body drops somewhere above England, people trying to use land routes to
00:12:58
Speaker
migrate to Europe and then they get stuck in Libya and there when they get stuck in Libya they get sold as slaves. It is still very much happening to this day. Someone like me is sold between 300 and 500 dollars. You know when you grow up with stories like this and they're not just nameless people. But they're your fellow country men and country women. Now even babies are in these boats. And it's also people that you know. It's family friends. It's friends of friends. It's just so close. Even if they were not too close, they're human time human. That brotherhood alone in humanity should make you stop and feel something. But on top of that, when it's your people, when it's, you know, it's just
00:13:40
Speaker
it just gets so close and so that day normally the next step of the process should have been okay the anger the grief everything but you know my god seriously what can you do about this this this was here before your birth and it's probably going to be here long after you're gone this is too big for you this is something that no one e what what can you do about this so girl just live your life live your life if you can manage to build a good life for yourself and those around you you should be darn proud and it should be get good enough And that's usually normally what I would do, right? So the euphoria moment followed by this grief, sadness, crazy, overwhelming feeling of just like, I don't want to be here anymore to the next phase of just pushed into the rug.
00:14:22
Speaker
And focus on yourself. Do what you can for yourself. Everything else is it's just not yours to fight. Too big. But that day was not happening. The feeling just stayed there. It stayed there. My little coping mechanism did not work. Did not work. and I had a failure. I had a failure. A failure. Failure was happening everywhere. You know, the red lights were going on. Boom, boom. No, it's not, it's not. And um so much that my body, you know, like physically, physically it manifested. You know, my i yeah in this case, I did it this way because the water was down this side. I stopped the car as soon as I could. I was shaking. I got out of this car and it was just like, I fell on my knees. My my my my knees, could my legs could not carry me anymore. I just fell. And the only way I found
00:15:07
Speaker
soulless and Appeasement was just to to Surrender literally and say God from here on I promise you I just I I promise that every breath that you'll grant me I will put it towards the betterment of my Country of my continent of my people and I don't know what to do though But you will have to show me the way but me I my God wait promise to show up and from there very very I mean he started to happen and it just um a few months later took my husband a back then Emmanuel to um my country of birth and so just to realize that this hibiscus that i was raised with had disappeared because you know if you were it's not that it disappeared but you had been completely weakened and it's because you know if you're just anybody the way you show your status and you know how humans are all about status right so many of us it's just it's just something we share
00:15:56
Speaker
You know, you show your status by drinking these Western sort of pop brands, you know, and the people at the bottom of a pyramid, the way they they ah fake their status is by drinking, you know, the knockoff brands of those, you know, Western brands. In between, my beverage is squeezed out. And more than a beverage, it's a part of my cultural identity because Bissap is known as Taronga. Taronga means hospitality. That is what the people of Senegal are known for. But all of that squeezed out the women who used to grow the hibiscus and rely on that as their livelihood no longer have a livelihood. Now they're leaving the countryside, packing themselves into cities, turning into maids that are being poorly paid, poorly treated, almost like you have a slave in the home so often. I mean, it's just horrible, right? And so anyway, so when I saw that, I was pretty upset for a couple of days or three. And eventually at some point I remember to myself, look, my husband who said that back then, he said, my God, this anger of yours, because I was really, i was I was very angry. I was very disappointed. I was very, very upset with what we have allowed to happen to ourselves. Why do we have such a low self-esteem that anything that is indigenous to us must be perceived to be inferior? Why? Why are we doing this to ourselves? I was very upset with that.
00:17:10
Speaker
And so you and your book put forward three reasons why it is so difficult for Africa to catch up when it comes to wealth. You put forward government overregulation, corruption and Western charitable efforts that create dependency on regulation. Tell me about the challenges of setting up a business in Africa.
Challenges of Overregulation in Africa
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, so on regulations, this is where, you know, after going to Senegal with Emmanuel, taking him there, I saw that issue with ah with the hibiscus, then I'm like, okay, if I'm not happy with the fact that Pepsi is taking over our bellies, and Coca-Cola and Fanta, it's going to be up to me to create an alternative to this situation. So I criticized by creating, but literally what I, that was, I was not thinking about it myself as an entrepreneur or anything like that. I said, I have an issue with this. What can I do about it?
00:17:55
Speaker
Okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to build a brand that has embedded in it the very best of my DNA, of my Africa, of my DNA, in this case, my Senegalese culture. So we're bringing back recipes that have a whole cultural thing. And in doing so, we're going to put these women back to work. See, that was it. I have an issue with my culture disappearing. And I have an issue with women losing their jobs. Okay, what's my solution? A brand. And when you do a brand, you bring the culture back and you put women back to work. That's exactly what we did. And so um there, when I was doing that back then, it was in 2003 that I started doing that. And between 2003, 2004 is when by 2004, we had set up, you know, the legal entity in the US. And I'm looking around and I'm just like, we had a sister company you in Senegal, a sister company in France, ah in ah in ah so in ah America. And then I look around and at first I'm like, this can't be real. What I was talking about is, was the discrepancy of what I could only call, even I who had no concept of economics or anything like that back then, the word came out easily from my mouth saying the discrepancy in the ease of doing business. Cause over here, my sister company in Senegal, almost a couple of years back then to finally get through all the hoops and everything to legally register it. In the US, less than a half a day.
00:19:12
Speaker
And later when people, things were on computer, but I mean, today in 15, 20 minutes, depending on how fast to type, you can register your LLC online. Over there, you know, you needed a few thousand dollars ah to open a bank account. In the US, 20 bucks, you're good to go. Not even. Over here, labor laws that are so complicated that it's worth truckloads of ah rules and regulations, which means you better hire an HR person to do things right. And even him or her is going to make mistakes because it's so complicated. Complication breeds mistakes naturally. Yeah, and which means raise of doing of of my cost of doing business, because I have to hire this expert. But across the board, when you look at the US, ah will um employment at will? Okay, we want to work together as a sonic attack move on. If we if we're done, two weeks notice, you're gone. Over here, I have to go to an office called an Aspect Solutavai, labor inspection office, get their approval to able be able to hire you. They borderline even tell me how much I'm supposed to pay you because of your worthless degrees, but have nothing to do with the job I have for you.
00:20:10
Speaker
and so on and so forth. The tax code is also so complicated, it's also worth truckloads. This was mind-blowing to me because I guess I naively would have assumed that it would have been laissez-faire, anything goes. When in fact it is the opposite, it is the most over-regulated market, arguably on Earth. Africa is the most over-regulated region in the world. And the reason why people have this sense, and I have it too, once this video comes out, you're going to see. um There's a reason why Jordan Peterson is like, we have millions and millions of views, tens of thousands of comments. I mean, people are talking because because of what I said. And you're probably, you might get the same issue because they'll be like, don't you see me so much there? Anything goes.
00:20:52
Speaker
I'll explain to you why we got to this perception. Because if you make it so for people to start and run a business, and it's not just about starting it, it's about running it, all the rules and regulations that rule the life of a business in this place. And everywhere you look, there are chains, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke, choke. So when you do that, you're going to limit the amount of would-be entrepreneurs who will be setting up a business. If they don't set up a business, You don't have those jobs that come with it. The income that come from those jobs and having an income means you ideally go into the middle middle class where you're no longer poor. And as if many people do that, critical mass of people get that in your country. You go from being a poor nation to a middle income nation and all of a sudden, you know, you're part of the prosperous nations of the world.
00:21:42
Speaker
Here, what happens is, if you make it so hard for people to start and run a business, then very few people will be will be having these official formal businesses. There's a reason why in my country, 95% of the companies' businesses are in the informal sector. Technically, they don't exist. They cannot have a bank account. They cannot get investments. ah The employees cannot get a retirement at the end because where is your employment? Are you going to be to be employed to have a contract? It has to be between you and an entity. That entity doesn't exist. That's what it means to be in the informal sector.
00:22:15
Speaker
You cannot build an economy along these lines. But most sub-Saharan African nations are operating along that line. So what does it mean? It means that very few people, very a few companies, legit companies are going to exist, which means very few jobs are going to exist, which means what happens is then all of a sudden the few jobs that exist, people there are going to be treated like shit. Because guess what? Hey, you have a problem with how I'm treating you, Magat? The door is right there. This is how you get people waiting on, they have not been paid for eight months, nine months. Then you could say technically, why don't you take them to court? What do you want them to take them to court for? So people are just saying, I'm not going to go, I'm just going to stay and I'm going to take the abuse. But the reason why that's happening is not because we're, and then you look at that from the outside.
00:23:02
Speaker
And you're looking at all the informal sector, all of these things happening everywhere. Nobody really has real legitimate, you know, like legit companies, no real jobs. It seems like it's a jungle. It looks like a jungle, which in your term you use, it seems like it's let's say fair. There are no rules on that regulation. anybody People do whatever the hell they want to do, whatever. And because what happens, to people stay in the informal sector, every time they might be smacked on the on the hand because maybe a cop tells them, I don't know, the load that you have of bread taking your for your bakery, it should be packaged this way, this way, that way, you give them a little bribe and you move on. So from the outside world, you look at all of this and you're thinking, oh my God, there's no rules, there's no regulation, it's a jungle. And I'm saying, no, no, no. The reason why that is the case is because things are so over-regulated in the first place that no sane entrepreneur wants to set up shop.
00:23:53
Speaker
And when when you don't have an enough critical mass of entrepreneurs setting up legitimate businesses, you end up with very few jobs and adverse few jobs and also the informal jobs. People are always in a precarious situation. That's what people need to understand. I've heard you say that to try and reform at a national level, those regulatory frameworks would take too long. but What's the alternative? What's the solution to this problem? Yeah. Thank you. Because you now, by now, you know, I work problem, solution, criticise, creating, right? So good. Yeah.
00:24:29
Speaker
the reforms that we need are just too many and for many of them you would have to touch different ministries, different parts of government and each time it's an opportunity event for the opposition parties or who knows who has a whatever issues with the current party in power to like stick to you you know because as we know politicians don't work for us they work to get reelected you know what or to be elected so the way you get reelected is just and or elected is just to tell us or us the world what you want but they're not here working really working and this is not just african nations it's it's politics in general around the world politicians around the world is you know so and people what because when they say okay i hear you when you say in the business environment okay my god what do we start with the problem is it's not what you start with
00:25:19
Speaker
The best way to think about it is, you see, if I was to say to you, like Italy, Italy is, I think they're giving these homes for the one dollar for the one symbolic euro because there's so many of these homes that are crippling falling down and everything. Think about it. You come and you say, oh, yeah, and now you don't have to spend the real money on the on the house. You know, instead of a home, but normally you should cost five hundred thousand euros or a million euros. We're giving it to you for ah a symbolic euro. Your first reaction might be, oh, great. Oh, but wait. For those of us who are really smart and they know that, OK, what else?
00:25:51
Speaker
You're like, okay, one euro, but my God, you have to renovate it. And you have to renovate it within the first six months. And worse than renovating, you have to restore it. We want you to restore it to historical, to what it was historically, whether you like it or not. It's going to have to be this paint, it's going to have to be this arches, it's going to have to be this garden. Everything has to be restored to its glory days. And on top of that, once that's done, your taxes on this, it's going to be, I don't know, 75%. you know, like ah property taxes, you're going to have to pay on this stuff. And it's going to be based on the now cost what it costs because you have renovated it. Oh, and by the way, you cannot have more than two children in this home because you can only and because you know, the the the plumbing, by the way, you're not allowed to bring this type of plumbing or whatever. It can only take two people, so no more than two people.
00:26:40
Speaker
Oh, and by the way, your friends can never visit for more than five days at a time or never more than 10 people in your home at any given time. And it better be people that you're in family with. We all have gone through this during COVID. So we know this is all very, could be very real. So imagine now all of a sudden will that one Euro home, is it looking that great to you anymore? No, it's not. Then you say, okay, fine, my God, one euro plus you can take your time, only five years to renovate it. So you have a little bit more time, so is so six months, five years. Oh, and you can have as many kids as you want in it, but everything else stays. Are you still doing it? No. So you see, you have to have a critical mass of reforms that need to happen together.
00:27:22
Speaker
for it to make sense. But the problem with piecemeal legislation is that already to change even one thing, it takes forever. But on top of that, if I tell you have to address 20 million of them at the same time, I mean, almost literally, it's that many, because people don't spend time to look at laws and regulations. But we're talking, it's almost like about like code, you know, like when you look at Twitter, the lines of code involved in making Twitter one, It's millions. And everybody would argue that's what Elon did when he came. The best ones are the ones that require the least code. A clean code is less lines.
00:27:56
Speaker
Same thing with law, eventually, because when things are so messy, all of a sudden, when there's a problem here, it affects everything else. And before you can find it, it's like you have to go through 20 million of them. And so here, this is a work you really have to do. We have to weed out, weed out, weed out, weed out with people who are not really the best engineers in the world. Let's face it. Government people. So you can imagine why that would be a cumbersome process. That takes time and you're making like little incremental you know, progress at a time where literally you need to be running because every year you have millions of new, of young Africans who are entering the job market in a job market that definitely does not have a number of jobs that's needed. And so in our case, I'm like, I don't have time for this piecemeal
Proposing Solutions for Africa's Growth
00:28:40
Speaker
legislation. It's going too slow. And so this is why inspired by, you know, like situations like Dubai, Singapore, because what they all have in common,
00:28:47
Speaker
China is the latest to have done this, is to say, look, as a nation, we we run on the worst business environment software in the world. That's why we're poor. But let us see if we can use special academic zones. So big countries will go for special academic zones, because you know, you're doing pocket at a time, a small nation like Singapore can do it all at once, or Dubai all at once, if you call it a a nation, you know, nation state, small ones, all at once, and then the big ones, they do special academic zones by one by one. So here, the solution is, hey, the startup cities. Startup cities are basically special next generation special academic zones that have their own law, their own governance when it comes to business. We touch only business. You don't touch immigration law or defense law, family law, all of those that are really, should be only the preview of the sovereign nation. You don't touch those. You're dealing with a business environment because that's what it is. That's what we're talking about. And so within these zones, city size,
00:29:42
Speaker
You have, number one, you have a choice of law. So like in the US and multinationals enjoy this everywhere all the time, you get to choose ah of which ah jurisdiction you're going to be um you know judged by. So choice of law on top of that, you have my my brain is going too fast. So choice of law, I'm trying to break it up, break it up for your audience so that I don't confuse people all all over the place. So you have choice of law and arbitration. So here you're deciding, as a multinational, you already have it. You're saying, I'm going to, we are going to be obey obeying the law of Delaware, even though you're in California. And because when there is a problem, you know that you're going to, you want to be arbitrated along those laws. Multinationals get that every, every, all the time we are saying how come small and small, medium sized enterprises should not have that because it's a very, very good thing to have, right? It's really super business friendly to have that. Then the other thing is that we also have full choice.
00:30:33
Speaker
of the regulatory body that you want to to two to to obey. So let's say you're a medical device company or you're a drug treatment company, if you're in the US, you have no choice, you're subjected to the FDA. If you were in any of the OECD countries, including, you know, Japan, Australia, and places like that, also because they're part of the OECD, you are subjected to the OECD regulatory when it comes to those things, right? And if you're in Brazil, but doesn't obey any of those things, you're under the Brazil one, or Senegal, Senegal one, where here we're giving you full choice of regulatory system, which means you get to decide which other regularities you're going to subject yourself to. It's cool, isn't it?
00:31:11
Speaker
so it's So it's things like that. And also on top of that, you can have a custom regulatory framework designed specifically for your industry. And in this, that's how we you always stay on top of innovation building. Because when you do that, you're very much attracting the most innovative companies in the world because you're creating a sandbox for them to operate from within. right um Another thing is you have ah we use a lot of um liability insurance. So in many countries, the way they're going to try to, you know, supposedly care for you, ah it's like, let's put one more regulation. Let's say, you know, you cannot do this, you cannot do that. Or us, we try to only leave what we have to leave within law and regulation and everything else we try to take it to.
00:31:58
Speaker
the insurance, of through insurance liability. Knowing that insurance liability is a much more flexible way for the business and the economy in general to respond to new realities. I put this argument in place where, do you remember the lead pipes that they were using back in construction back in the days? Then they discovered that it was causing serious, you know it was having some really great precautions in children. like causing brain tumors and damages and things like that. Well, we argue that if an event was left within the realm of liability insurance, A, we would have caught it earlier,
00:32:33
Speaker
And once it's caught, also tackle you know find the solution much faster. Because as a matter of fact, in Chicago, the unions were actually the ones standing against ah the winding down of the lead pipes because it made them more money to use that than it was to move to metal ah to um plastic pipes, you know which did not have those issues. See, if you were, and and because it was law, all of this is protected. No one is going to go to the union or anything like that because the law hasn't said yet, blah, blah, blah. where in our case, we don't get to enjoy this concept of sovereignty where you cannot be sued. So us, we would have been sued, rightfully so. And because of that risk of being sued, you're going to do the right thing, won't you? And you're going to be much more on the ball in terms of innovation, adopting innovations, and most importantly, letting go of bad things. So this is all the type of things that you see ah within these startup cities. And again, as you can see, it's not just like free zone, typical free zone, or even typical special economic zones. It's not just about, oh, can we just have the lowest taxes? As a matter of fact, we argue it's not about the lowest taxes, but it's about as a whole, what makes the most sense for a business environment. And so this is what I'm working on.
00:33:43
Speaker
This is what we're going to Africa. I am very excited I have I'm talking to Six Nation going on eight and out of those eight to our light years I think they I think I think the Westerners have something coming for them which also is great because I think in the West the complacency has set in and The only way you're gonna wake them up is to put some fire under their butts So for me, instead of fighting and arguing with what the legislators are doing or not in um in the UK or in America, I'm like, you guys will all thank us later. We're going to go create competition on this other side of the world, but also has the youngest population in the world. We're going to give you a run for your money.
00:34:23
Speaker
And at some point we're going to bring competition back, which means if you want to compete with us, you're going to have to dust off and clean up your business environments as well and stop being so crazy and really, you know, go
Closing Thoughts and Gratitude
00:34:35
Speaker
back to basics. So I think this is also how we're going to be able to help the West eventually get its act back together. And so, so that's, that's really what's going on. And it's really, really exciting. I'm very, very excited. I reflect on what you've said, Magat. The start of this conversation was all heart and soul and then it ends with such strategic creativity and insight and it's the way that you marry those two things together is really inspirational and that is all there in your book which of course I strongly recommend along with your podcast. You are such an important figure for
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah, get the flag in the heart of the cheetah get it from all good bookstores and all bad bookstores where we get anywhere It is a wonderful read and you are doing absolutely wonderful things Thank you ah for your time today and also thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you. I appreciate you