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 allow you to have it and
then they come and then you guys can do
this and then we arrive there guess what
i thought i was done lex but i was not
done
because now the electricity company by
the way whom we paid everything was
there we've been sitting in our money
for nine months by now
well we need a ladder long enough to you
know like one of the super super
professional ladders that normally the
electricity companies have
theirs was in some of a village and they
didn't know if it was going to be back
for another three days or four days
i said are you kidding me
he's like no
so i called mayor again i'm sick mayor
do you have a ladder and i explained and
he said and that's how i got my electro
my electricity hooked up
otherwise i probably would still be
waiting
so
lex you add all of these things together
and also the fact that in my country by
the way the labor laws
are so stringent basically you are
married to employees for good for bad
and some people say
oh no you're not married for good or bad
except but it will just cost you a lot
of time and money to get rid of any of
them
it doesn't matter for circumstances do
you think i really an entrepreneur
really need to hear something like that
you know the head of ilo i had an
argument with him at the un
and i said to him listen and you listen
to me very well
the reason if you want
to protect employees
as you claim everything you're doing is
to protect employees
a you know
better for human being than i am in
terms of making wanting to make sure
that people are treated right and fairly
but last time i checked
google for example
is not offering their employees chef
cooked meals
super healthy
anything they want
feeding them from morning till evening
having some you know babysitters you
know having health care
child care on site all of these perks
that come on top of really cozy salaries
it did not happen because uv ilo told
them you have to do this it happened
because there are enough jobs created
around
that now you're in an employee's market
and employers have to fall all over
themselves to attract the best talent
among us that's how it's done and not
with your nonsense that you're imposing
me right now
which the only results you're gonna get
like in my country do you know what we
have to show for all of these the fact
that the senegalese employees the most
protected employee on paper in the world
well we're one of the 25 poorest
countries in the world that's what it
got us
so
let's try to untangle this so there's a
system in place there's a momentum with
that system
like you said ladies not my level
which is
for somebody who grew up in the soviet
union
um
at least echoes some of the same sounds
i heard
um from from people i knew there it's
kind of this helpless feeling like well
this is just part of the system this
gigantic bureaucracy
and the corruption that happens is just
like the only way to get around to get
anything done and so the corruption
grows
maybe could you speak to the corruption
is there
is to what degree is there corruption in
senegal in africa
and
um how do we fix it
so when you said to which degree there
is corruption i will respond to you the
same i respond to people i say yeah we
have corruption and it's almost as bad
as in chicago yeah right so um
now what i want people to understand
when it comes to corruption
it's uh because we are misguided with
corruption
we think corruption is the root cause of
problems when corruption is simply
a symptom of a deeper
root problem
in this case
um
if you make the laws
so
senseless
meaning let me give you an example of
senseless laws
every time i have to import something in
my country
i have a business
we're making lip balms in this case and
others skincare products
some ingredients i'm able to find in the
country at the standard that i need in
order to remain competitive
because for example our products are
sold whole foods market you can
understand it's a pretty sophisticated
and really you know they don't just put
anybody on the shelves
but the thing is
it means that on the other end
my inputs has to be right
so out of those some
we have seven ingredients seven items
that need to come from abroad
to go into the making of this product
some packaging and some raw
material but guess what
likes for five of them
i am paying a forty percent tariff
and for the other two almost 70 tariff
that i call senseless laws this tariffs
are senseless
yeah corruption is just a symptom they
reveal that something is broken about
the law exactly
and the laws are so taxation
um
this kind of
restricting laws like laws that slow
down the entrepreneurial momentum they
do they do because in this case when my
product comes
what do people have to do
because every time you if you add 40
percent
you're basically on the other end so
every time you add um if let's say my
product normally
cost a dollar and with your 40 by the
time i'm done i had to pay i had now
it's costing me 140. by the time it
arrives in my warehouse in my
manufacturing facility it's now at 140
because of a tariff i left behind
that 40 percent you added to it do you
know how much it's gonna add to my final
cost but once the product is finished i
have to sell it to the customer
i have to sell it for dollars sixty more
because of that forty cents uh extra you
took from me
in order for me at the end of the day
to have some type of profits because
profits at the end of the day
um is uh the blood of a business there
are two people are misguided they say oh
you dirty greedy business people and
it's all about profit profit profit
profit
you know
i belong to this organization called i'm
a board member on the conscious
capitalism
it is the largest organization of
purpose driven
businesses and entrepreneurs
the type of people i told you about we
start our businesses because we we see
something that needs to be to be taken
care of in society whole food market is
one of them the container store
you know all of these companies that are
beloved in the us that you can hear of
we believe
that the end goal of business
is purpose
but in order to do purpose
you have to have profits
to stay in to stay alive
and the best way for people to think of
profits so that they'd not all twisted
about it
lex if i asked you
what's your goal in the world
you're probably going to tell me your
dream you're going to talk to me about
what you're doing right now and how you
want to be uniting you want a more
harmonious world you want human
flourishing that's what you're working
towards that's what you say to me you're
not going to say well my biggest goal in
the world is to produce as many red
blood cells as i can
except you need to produce verse
otherwise no legs and if no legs
no one working
yeah you know what i mean yeah so that's
how so people need to stop with this
whole profit not
do we have some
psychopaths among us yeah one percent of
us in this world are psychopaths in
every field anywhere you look and surely
you find that in the entrepreneurial
entrepreneurs world as well yeah so we
have one person of us who are a
psychopath for sure but do they define
the rest of us absolutely not and
thankfully not
so let's just be clear on that so here
the you know
my
you charge me 40 tariff which is
outrageous
then you're forcing me to sell it 4.60
more than my competitor who does not
have to go for that nonsense because
she's an american woman who is operating
in america and she doesn't have that
nonsense put on her so now i'm on this
market competing against this woman eye
to eye
so if we're selling the same value
product
mine cost a dollar sixty more simply
because of some stupid rules from back
home
then guess who is going to stay in
business and who does it
see they want to talk about equality
that's the type of equality i want to
see the playing love the level the
playing field has to be leveled told you
english is
language so
two people talking
between us maybe we'll have this english
thing figured out
we'll have it figure it out so
the the the idea of capital is the idea
of conscious capitalism is the the thing
that in large part enables this level
playing field
that's what we want so so what you're
trying to say so here so when i talked
about sensors loss that's an example so
when you make when you make the tariffs
so high
that and you're going to render me um
you know
non-competitive
then
that's where for people who might make
sense
when the product arrives at port
they say hey
i give you this
what i give you maybe it's ten percent
of the price or five percent it's surely
not forty percent but you
are happy with it you have a government
official that's what we call a bribe and
me i'm like hey i saved myself money
and um also i saved myself time
but you see if the laws where you pay
five percent or even the ten percent
that i just left behind or nothing you
come you paid you move on because who
has the business of fooling around and
staying behind and no you do that when
it's actually uh makes sense to do that
so i'm not sitting here telling people i
engage in unlawful practices in my case
because i'm around saying the things i'm
saying right now so i'm a target
you have to do things cleanly and i
believe in doing things that way so what
i had to do was go to the
ask again mayor
we have a problem mayor is whenever he
sees me he's like now what
sounds like we've got a problem you're
best friends now
so i say now it's the customs
and and it's like what do you want me to
do i said do you know anybody at customs
i need to hire up at customs because i
got to explain to them what's going on
here they all know of course but i think
they're not always maybe understanding
or maybe they understand and in this
case he understood
so we went
and uh he's like yeah i know this is not
this is not very damn this
and i said what do we do now and i saw
him going through binders and binders on
in his office because he's gonna try to
go and look where
in the law
can we find something that can help me
escape
these rules
and you know the best he found lex was
oh well here see this one if you've been
in business for two years
then uh we can allow you there is a
special term for this which french is
technical we can allow you to bring your
raw material
but you have to tell us exactly
how much you're bringing and it has to
match your formulation because you know
they don't want you to bring in more
that we need and maybe sell some of that
to the rest of the market and they
didn't make their money on it
so
there it means i have to give them my
recipe imagine coca-cola being asked to
give their secret sauce
to government officials
in a country that you can't even know
what might happen let alone even in
business you don't do that i mean
straight secrets or trade secrets but
here you're asked to be putting it in
front of some people you don't know
where it's going to go after that
because there they get to see okay her
recipe calls for
x amount of um
of candy little wax x amount of um
coconut coconut oil okay and on top of
that we have to think about how much
foliage might they be or not because
again we don't want her to to to buffer
it over there so you have to get naked
in front of them in terms of your recipe
which might end up only god knows where
tomorrow maybe competitive competition
or maybe even them they start a business
and they compete with you because we've
seen that so um you have to do that and
then each time find out fill out the
paperwork get the approval then it can
come in so when it can come in you don't
have to pay that tax oh and by the way
you only have you have one year one year
to make this product and get it out
and all of it needs to be back out
because if it's any of it stays here
you're gonna pay the the taxes that we
held up so you're basically forced
by these
uh senseless laws yes
to be dishonest
all of this was so it's so cumbersome
because each it means more paperwork
paperwork everywhere maybe having to
disclose your thing so me in my case
what i did is um you know
this person said okay we're gonna see
how we can how we can work with you but
uh for the first two years we were more
or less in the gray area
yeah so
so what even gray area is good
yeah but but let's what does it mean in
a situation like that whenever they want
to mess with you yeah it means they can
come and they will look and they will
find something so it means that every
day i'm trying to do business i'm
running the risk of being harassed and
or maybe even put in jail depending on
what it is yeah
i mean
you're an incredible person because it
seems like
there's two ways to change this
uh
become
president or gain power in the country
and to try to change the laws
which seems really difficult to do and
the other way is
fight through the laws and create the
business anyway build the business
community and through that method create
a huge amount of pressure
change the laws you're totally getting
it by with your last part because this
is the other thing and this is where
i get so upset sometimes with um my
fellow africans because they get so
disgusted by what they're seeing right
and they think the answer is to go for
politics let's go be president let's go
be this let's go be that and we're going
to change everything i see that in the
u.s too people thinking that presidents
have all of his power do you know who
has released power in government for
president i mean people don't get that
um your best bet uh if you're gonna if
you insist on going into politics stick
to the local level that's where all the
skeletons are buried and hidden and
that's where you can make the most
impact local level i know it's not shiny
i know it's not exciting but that's
where it's at so if you must go into
politics but there's another way so in
my case what i do is two things i preach
and i practice i preach when i'm here
talking to you about this i'm preaching
i am sharing with people that is which i
found and by the way the answer was
there
i was doing these two businesses
realizing the difference in treatment of
um the doing business environment of the
us compared to the doing business
environment of senegal
and at first i was like of course us
everything is messed up it's because
we're poor country
but when i started to put two and two
together i'm like
you're poor because you have no money at
least not enough money to take care of
your basic needs you have no money
because you have no source of income
where does a source of income come from
for most of us it comes from a job
doesn't it
and in some people sometimes at my uc
berkeley class they say oh no it comes
from government too
i'm like i would like to think that even
if you work for garman you're going to
be paid something right and they're like
yeah and then even before i can say
something we're like
yeah because that money we used to pay
our public officials
comes from
taxes you know employers employees we go
back to the private sector for most of
it from where this whole thing is
created so
it's clear
your poor because have no money no money
because no source of income source of
income for most of us is a job we're
talking about uh so where do jobs come
from the private sector primarily small
and medium-sized enterprises then don't
you think
that we should make it easy
that we should have a friendly
doing business environment
and also a lot of the a lot of it comes
not just from the
small medium sized businesses
but i think a lot of the values created
from new ones being launched yes right
it's not just like me like saving
somehow through regulation the ones that
are already there no
no it's like it's letting the market
letting the new better ideas yes
flourish yes it's about what what i mean
by doing business environment is all the
things that you and i talked about
earlier
even the access of electricity is part
of a doing business we're doing business
so basically when i've discovered all of
that when i put all these dots together
then i'm like well i guess business and
it makes sense lex if you want to grow
tomatoes you're gonna have to have two
things one is a good seed
right that has good attributes
and then you're going to have to have
a good environment for it
is the soil the right one
what's your ph level
all of those good nutrients we're going
to put in it is it in a place that has
tons of sun how much sun exposure or not
the climate engine is it gonna be cold
not not you can have some beautiful
tomatoes in the middle of siberia last
time i checked so same thing here you
know mohamed yunus the noble um laureate
in for peace said
poor people are bonsai people
they're the same people
if you put them in the normal natural a
friendly habitat where they can thrive
they become the tallest tree in the
forest
poor people are bonsai people so you see
that tiny pot you put around the bonsai
tree
that's the tiny pot that created by
giving me such a hostile business
environment
that
basically were put together by the set
of laws that you have put that basically
i have to jump through as a business
person practicing business in my country
if you turn that environment into a
friendly environment where
i am not married to my employees i have
flexibility of uh the labor laws are
simple straightforward clean where the
tax code is very simple it's not worth
truckloads of laws like in my country
it's so complicated you have to hire a
cpa which costs more money and even them
tell them girl we're going to make some
mistakes they don't they don't talk to
me like that it's new now you know they
don't send me golem they shouldn't
they better not but they say
whatever they say
i'm scared
you know
you know they're like we're gonna but
bottom line is we're gonna make mistakes
this thing is so complicated we're gonna
make mistakes so which means
my ass is on the line so anyway so
so if the tax code was so simple
straightforward like it is maybe in
texas where up till a fresh hold you owe
me nothing go online five minutes fill
out your taxes you're you're compliant
keep bringing keep building your
business because that's what we need
from you if you made it so easy and
straightforward
then you know what that's when you get
all of these people likes what you're
talking about saying you know what
my name
is aminata and i live in the middle of
nowhere senegal but you know what i've
got this great idea which is for this
really hot nice hot sauce but i know the
americans are gonna love i'm hearing but
hot sauce is a big thing let me bring it
to them but everything is there for you
to jump into the ring of
entrepreneurship you don't have to know
someone like my god you don't have to
even have the ability to sell yourself
maybe like i can sometimes
you are
someone with a great idea you're willing
to work hard for it
and pour everything you got into it
guess what
it's fair you can get into the race you
can be a dreamer and you can be a
dreamer in a rural little village and
then that has ripple effects throughout
the entire country young kids growing up
you know i want to be the next ex yes
whatever and it doesn't have to be you
know the next steve jobs that that seems
really far far away all levels it's at
all levels you you create uh local
heroes
because because um because
representation matters yes right so and
we are so badly in need of that and so
um so that's what all the things that
have been stolen from us as long as
things remain the same so lex once i
found out that basically at the end of
the day
the answer is economic freedom and that
when it comes to that the indexes
economic indexes that measure that
whether it's the dream business index
ranking of a world bank or the fraser
economic freedom index
of the heritage foundation when you look
at all of those indexes and others what
do they have in common
one after another they show you
that it is
harder to do business in almost anywhere
in sub-saharan africa than it is
per se
anywhere in scandinavia so it is telling
you that scandinavian nations that
socialist americans tend to love so much
and take as an example over there too
they're showing you that they don't
understand what's going on really in
scandinavia
that uh scandinavia
is more capitalist scandinavian nations
are more capitalist than almost any
sub-saharan african nations
ultimately
the political systems actually don't
even matter nearly as much
as the private sector of being able to
operate the machinery of capitals there
you go there you go there you go and
it's almost like um like i said it's
almost like its own little widget within
within it you can have whatever type of
society you want to practice you want to
exercise at whatever level you want to
but if you're serious
about becoming a low amid a middle to
high income nation
there is no other pathway that we know
of at this point
and you know what made me
super excited about that beyond having
finally
found my answer
i have to tell you when i found that
answer i literally fell to my knees
it was a type of feeling that
you know
if something is not well with you
whether it's physical or mental
something is not well you're not well
and you go around and you go to the
so-called specialist some of them you
know but you're going around for years
going around trying to get help
for your ailment
and
here they don't know here they tell you
things that
you can't tell why but you just know
it's not true
they're this they're bad
and it's it's going on for years after
year after year and finally you meet
this one person
and boom
it's there
not only the liberation
but also this whole new world that comes
with it
you know
i'm still
i'm still ill
but guess what
there's a path forward
we know that
i am i'm gonna have a lot of work to do
but there's hope yeah right and you're
the uh the beacon of hope actually for a
lot of people in that part of the world
and that's those beacons are actually
really necessary so not only is there
hope but you can
uh become
i mean
the beacon for your people your
your your home this this power that you
see that you feel all around to become
uh
to escape the feeling of being
trapped is there a device
you can give
to people that
to uh
young girls and boys dreaming somewhere
in africa
how to change the world that's right and
by the way i want to say
there are bigger beacons there are
better beacons than me
i just happen to be someone who
has the chance of talking to you right
now
uh and one of my goals is to open the
same doors that were open for me because
together our voice
there's such amazing stories out there
and um
so
bigger beacons better beacons out there
one thing here for me
the reason why
i do what i'm doing right now and it's
almost to a point of self-destructing my
own health
i feel invested with such the mission of
i have been afforded the truth
so it is my moral duty to try to take it
around i know i sound people sometimes
say when i listen to i feel like i'm
i'm talking to a to a priest and i'm
like
because of the gospel
like reciprocals so anyway but the thing
is lex who tells you these things
to this day when they talk about the
poverty of africa what do they talk
about they're sitting there telling you
oh yeah it's because of chronism it's
because of racism it's because of
imperialism it's because they're
stealing you know raw material blah blah
blah
is is any of those
cult you know like uh guilty to some
level of where we are today uh one of
maybe part of a reason where we are
today
maybe maybe
is that the only reason or the
overwhelming reasons no
is that unsurmountable absolutely not so
for me don't stay in that place of um
that steals and robs you of your agency
so
so i think it's important for people to
a get the right diagnosis as to why we
are where we are because what you and i
just talked about
the mainstream does not talk about this
when they even talk about africa in
terms that you know are not the usual
suspect of oh famine is building over
there wars building over here oh we're
having ebola is coming all of that stuff
even when they were talking about the
monkey pox which at first you know um in
this wave it started with white people
in europe well even in the many
newspapers you pull out it's black
people with
monkey pucks on their on their skin i'm
like wait a second this time around we
it did not start with us so why are you
always showing us when it's right now
happening to white people you know um so
so all of that is happening so for me
the thing is
we the world simply right now
does not have the right diagnosis as to
why this continent right now despite all
of its riches because lord knows it's
got riches starting with its young
population 75 of a population in my
country is below the age of 25 years old
so when we're talking i know we're
talking about you know
repopulation you know
it's an important we're going to have to
go for that
maybe you'll get me going about
commenting i don't know but
anyway um so here my point is a we need
the right diagnosis as to why this
continent is the poorest continent in
the world despite its riches starting
with its young people over natural
resources diversity in land people
cultures languages everything that make
that make for great ingredient for for
awesomeness despite all of that we are
the poorest region in the world people
need to know that the reason why that is
it's because we also happen to be the
most overrated other regulated region in
the world at the end of the day with
africa as and i dare to say africa here
and treat it as one we are 54 countries
55 depending on how you count
yet we almost for a tiny minority of
these countries
we almost all lack one of the most
crucial freedoms that they are if you
are serious about prosperity building
we lack economic freedom
and economic freedom is the thing that
unlocks that human potential the young
people just yes
for them to run to run with their ideas
to start businesses or to start
initiative it doesn't have to be
for-profit all the time right but it is
it is it is this is this thing that gets
you to get up and go and do something
criticized by creating young people are
naturally wired to want to criticize by
creating they're not sitting around
waiting or complaining usually unless
you put them in a tiny box and they have
no other way to go yeah and in this
situation what they do you know let's
talk about pre-colonial africa of four
favors before slavery ever happened
there were black people in the con on
the continent you see when we talk about
the story of black people and africans
africans you know black people in africa
for most of us even me i noticed that
unconsciously it starts with slavery but
you're like no we were there before
before white men ever set foot who were
we what were we doing in our diversity
um what um academic systems were we
running on
and then you realize that for most of
them they were free marketeers and they
were very much on the free trade on the
fria enterprise side so even that is a
reinforcement this is the place where we
do not understand our
history so proper diagnosis africa is
the poorest region in the world because
it happens to be the most over regulated
uh region in the world lacks economic
freedom
number two what do we do about that we
gotta become serious about reforms
economic reforms so that um we can
become beacons of uh free markets
just like the asian tigers that's what
the asian tigers did they had to become
serious singapore taiwan you know south
korea those guys had to become serious
about the free markets
you know when uh
you know he's just like we gotta do
something and he looked around and he
realized at some point we got to make
these reforms and he went on to that
journey of reforms making his country
one of the most free market you know
countries in the world and voila the
magic happened back in the you know in
the 30s of a stock market crash
and the great depression and everything
the world's and with all the lies that
were told uh to to the world coming from
the soviet union stalin
while they were starving and dying over
theirs but oh no you know i mean durante
was telling the world that uh oh no no
everything is going well nobody's dying
when we know now and getting police
surprises based on this stuff but then
the world went on believing that
oh no
capitalism failed this is this this you
know um
crash that you had in the in the in the
stock market is proof this is what
lisage capitalism produces you guys
always have your big ups and down and by
that time it was so hard on people that
they're like we're done with this and at
the same time we're told the lies coming
out of soviet union but supposedly that
communism was doing just fine and you're
at the point where the free market
concept almost died and it's um you know
the the
the asian tigers who kind of helped you
know bring that idea back to life right
uh their success having used the free
markets and so for me we gotta have we
gotta make a rick a new commitment to
the free markets on this continent if we
wanna go anywhere if we wanna go
anywhere and the timing is perfect
because the young people
there's a
there is a kind of freedom for the
revolutionary free markets in this whole
space exactly and bible you said
something oh say that again because i
want to tell you what i'm hearing in
that because something's really cool say
it again come on lex i don't know which
part you said english is my second
language too no you said you said
there's something revolutionary yeah in
in that because you know how young
people are a touch of a revolution and
how you know
i understand look look like
i
understand and i am willing to give the
benefits of a doubt
to some of these socialists who cut who
came to it because they had to witness
some of the horrors of
you know of their times you know
there's a revolution
behind that it's ultimately yeah uh uh
criticized by creation exactly exactly
but violent revolution is never the
answer but that's what they went for in
1789 in france in over french revolution
um and then and you know marx and engels
you know they're promoting these ideas
that usually for them justifies violent
revolution lending all of these people
the
i am with them when they say that they
want um to see equal rights for people
of course i don't agree with their
therefore we need to push for equal
outcomes yeah equal rights is right but
equal outcomes is not right so but i am
with them for all the way to equal
rights but this is where the two paths
go this way and also they're they're
they're none the fact that they have no
issue with violent revolution people get
killed uh you know people get put in
gulags and people get that's not right
so what you just said here just give me
goosebumps because
there is revolution in the free markets
but that's the type of revolution we
want the revelation that comes from
people creating criticizing by creating
it's one of the best forms of revolution
if you ask me that's the most sexy way
of revolution criticized by creating
yeah by what you're gonna go shoot
people or be like uh what's his name um
che guevara who tells you i love it's in
writing i love nothing more than to fry
this
brain of a man with his gun
really well in terms of sexy uh there is
power in that message of the oppressor
the abuser
the enemy that has abused their power
they need to be destroyed and there's
power in that in the message of that
violence
unfortunately the lessons of history
show that the violence
one doesn't work but
it does it does the following there is
something about human nature as the old
cliche goes that power corrupts and
absolute power corrupts absolutely it's
the people who are in charge of
committing that violence it does
something to their head
the first person you kill the second
person you kill
for some reason you lose your ability
the compassion for other humans even if
you began as a revolutionary as the
soviets did fighting for the worker for
the for the rights and the
the basic humanity of the people that
really do the work
uh you lose
you lose the plot somehow because of the
violence
so in that way it seems like the lesson
at least of this part of the human
history until the robots take over is
that the economic
freedom
free markets and protecting those and
allowing
the anyone from your country
to dream and to make that dream a
reality by creating it with as few
sort of
uh roadblocks as possible exactly
so so that's why for me
the message is very clear is what we
talked about today the reason why africa
is the first region in the world is
because it happens to be the most
overregulated um
region in the world and for some people
who might be you know
put off by it because they're like oh
she's talking about let's say fair
no
let me put it maybe in a way that you
can understand
do you think
that
it should be as easy for any person in
africa for any entrepreneur in africa to
enterprise than it is for any person in
scandinavia to enterprise if your answer
is yes which i would hope it is
then you have a moral obligation
to work with me
to make my
country and as a whole my continent more
free markets it's that simple at that
point there's no like yes but on the
other hand uh-uh no
and it's for me on that question and i
yet have to find somebody who claims to
say no if you say no then we have a
whole nother problem i'm not even
talking to at that point anymore so yeah
so just to clarify
uh you know there's a perception and in
some reality that scandinavian countries
have
elements of socialism in their politics
and their society in their even in their
economics
so at the very least
uh africa should have in terms of
economic
indices should be as free as the
scandinavian countries you're just
giving that example free yeah because
even scandinavian they do have uh um
a subsidized you know like uh welfare
system that's what
a more socialized welfare system but the
way they make their money is very very
much the way of free markets so there is
how you make your money and then there's
how you maybe decide as as a as a
as a country to redistribute it right
and so
even there even in the in the in
scandinavia
again yes they have more academic
freedom so when from their legs where we
go is
my job and my goal is for every single
african
young and old
to know
what i have come to learn
we are not doomed
um
it's not over for us
we will never catch up the time for
catch-up is is gone
but guess what we've got a strong strong
possibility and chance to leapfrog
and leapfrog we will
it is still time but for that to happen
like i said we need to know what we just
talked about today because that is not
what the mainstream
keeps us abreast with when you go to the
world bank they don't necessarily work
along these lines they're still it's
it's not
when you go to universities um i will
ask you mit the mit econ department or
even some of most of our professors
are very free market oriented we find
that oftentimes in academia
there there is a strong anti-capitalist
bias there is a strong anti-free market
bias
so this is a problem
this is a problem nobody cares about the
economist anyway
uh in mit the spirit of the entrepreneur
burns bright
not in the economics department because
they just write op-ed articles but in
the dreamers the young undergrads that
actually build something no i get that
but then we cannot be stifling their
efforts yes by putting these
artificially made regulations and laws
that stand in there and clip their wings
so so that's why when you were saying
what advice do you give to them
the advice i give to them is
each one of them
they have
to pay attention to this to this
discourse we just had i don't ask
anybody to agree with me on face value
go back do like i had to do i come very
much from the left over left if you can
believe that but i had to have my own
intellectual journey
and in this case my intellectual journey
was very much complemented by my own
life
having to build these companies
on two separate continents
and having to obs i was i had front row
seat of the differences at first i
thought it was this way just because
we're poor and therefore we messed up
and therefore it's like this but
eventually i learned that no we're poor
because we lack economic freedom and if
the country allows its citizens the
economic freedom to enterprise then they
become rich so yeah i had it upside down
you see and so it's important for people
to know that so number one know your
facts
because your facts will
empower you
in this case i like to use that word
facts will empire and they will even
further more they will power you empower
and power you because then power is like
inside and power is like i push you
forward and up so that's what it does to
know the facts
and then
go on and look around you
where are the best practices of this who
is at the cutting edge of a free market
we're starting a way where
people don't necessarily be left behind
or anything like that we we're in 2022
for quite sick we don't have to do
entrepreneurship the same way maybe was
done 50 years ago a hundred years ago
when as a community as a people we were
maybe less enlightened because of our
times right we can we can update this
thing and move forward but update is
definitely not uh buildback uh buildback
what do they call it buildback new or
whatever they're calling it the wf you
know like whatever whatever nonsense and
you know stuff you're smoking over there
it's not that where there are some
principles that are universal
and that stand the test of time
those we have to keep and on top add the
new
new things we learn from from our times
and from life so that's what i want them
to know learn new facts
be empowered empowered
and then look around think about the and
look to see where the best practices
are around the world because the world
is yours you might be african but the
world is yours so stop this nonsense of
oh well it's done by white people so
we're not gonna do it get the best that
exists in humanity for what you're
trying to solve
and on top of that put your own twist
right bitcoin is all of ours to take
bitcoin is not the white man's thing so
therefore oh come on you know because
you know we have a misguided pride we're
not going to use bitcoin because it's
white man stuff bitcoin is mafia idiot
math is universal so it belongs to all
of us there's no color exactly
in in the space of economics yeah in the
space of ideas ideas
and there's a chance to leapfrog too
exactly which is really really powerful
exactly because here we will leapfrog
and let's i'm not crazy this is this is
gonna happen you mark my words
but it's gonna happen if as many people
hear what we're talking about today
because at some point
the solution is not gonna come it's not
me
it's not
this it's gonna come from the wisdom of
a crowd this is why i love the crowd
there's no better wisdom than the crowd
and that's also why i believe in the
free markets this concept of emergence
order there's no way there's no central
planning that is smart enough that has
the level of intel that street level
people have
trying to create something it's just we
just have to be humble there's just
something at the bottom of a pyramid
that just bubbles up and happens they're
the best
i think the cynicism the idea that
people are dumb
is at the core of uh a lot of things
that
uh prevent the flourishing of society
you know this kind of anecdotally people
are like everyone is stupid and people
say that jokingly but the reality is
people are incredible they have the
capacity
for kindness for love for innovation for
brilliance in all kinds of dimensions
you might be you might suck at math but
you might be amazing at carpentry you
have to find that thing and there's
something about when there's freedom to
find that thing and people interact they
get excited about shit together and then
they they build it's
if you look at authoritarian
at places that limit that freedom
at the core i think is the idea that
people are dumb let us take care of
everything we'll come up with the rules
and the regulations because people are
too dumb to manage things themselves and
that and then that idea builds builds on
top of itself where you think that there
the entire populace is much lesser than
the wise sages sitting at the top then
you add violence on top of that and that
leads to corruption and uh to corrupting
of just the human mind of the leaders
and the whole thing is uh becomes a
giant mess the antidote to that is
economic freedom but people have a
freedom to enterprise and um
look
um lex when we allow for that to happen
have you looked around lately and look
at the level of um
niche that has happened in this country
i mean you have clubs where you you have
places where people are into guitar
strings you know like some of them like
it's it's all about guitar strings
and others it's all about these best
cupcakes and others it's all about this
this new crypto thing over here and over
it's like
hair
best you know wait
it's when you allow us because
seven billion geniuses each one of us i
believe came to this world with
something something that only he or her
possesses and that is the genius and it
is their contribution to the human
problem
when you think about your identity today
so it's all started in africa just like
it did for the entirety of the human
species
um there's a bit of european flavor in
there a little french
silicon valley
you're now
in part and a texan there's
here you really are an american so but
you're also an african
who are you when you look in the mirror
when you think about yourself when you
listen when everything gets quiet and
you listen to your heart
who are you is can you figure out that
puzzle
that's a very interesting question
because
it's been a long time i haven't asked
myself
i have before
um
what i have found is
i think
who i am today has been for sure shaped
by
i call it dakar paris san francisco
dakaris senegal senegal paris
france and san francisco primarily and
now yeah i think i might want to ask if
there's a little bit of texan in there
how do you say texas in french
success
success yeah so austin texas austin
texas
yeah
so um
you
i was formed by those free
i have to say that
what i enjoy from my senegalese roots
are
our commitment to peace love and
tolerance
very much
um and taranga obviously
and i like
that it's a culture that's very much
about reverence
it's we're big on reverence
um i don't think you could ever
hear me tell an older person
especially not my parents or my grandma
or anybody like that for us to be able
to tell an older person
that's not true
or you're lying it would never cross my
mind because that's the most
disrespectful thing you can think of the
most irreverent thing you can think of
it doesn't mean that you have to agree
with everything that's said
but there is a way
to disagree
there is a way to push back that doesn't
have to rob
this person who happens to be older than
you especially from their dignity for
the dignity that older age normally
provides
and there's wisdom to their words that
you yourself may not absolutely see so
the reverence is for the idea of wisdom
of tradition exactly exactly
and again
so that is something that i really
enjoy
especially and something i'm very
attached to to this day
uh and then from france
what i had to what i really came to
enjoy of course
is all the fineness
that one can find within french culture
the fineness you have a fineness foods
i mean you mean like the intricacies
like that like the very yeah there's
some sophistication in there
i mean french lingerie for example
i mean
like don't tell you know the
laces all of that super
it's it's it's it's
it's uh exquisite so the fashion the
food the fashion the food i mean there's
something to be said about all of that
and it's it's very beautiful and i love
also um even when i talk about fineness
it's like a meal is not about like this
big thing they put in front of you but
you know smaller portions enjoy what
you're eating and spend time at the
table like the eating time is not
necessarily just this function of
feeding yourself which i understand
it but
for this is something that they share
with uh with senegalese culture is
eating is a moment of um communion it's
a moment of friendship
family it's it's it's a pers it's a
precious moment to this day and my
husband is american
we eat our meals together all the time
there's i would not have it any other
way and there is a prep time all of that
stuff it doesn't matter how busy i am
but we're doing it actually to push back
a little bit it's interesting because
yeah the camaraderie over a meal is a
beautiful thing
i i got i mean i was in a pretty dark
place because on the way to ukraine i
traveled to paris and i stayed in paris
and i wasn't able to
enjoy the fineness
because it was almost a distraction from
the humanity for some reason to me
because there's such a focus on the art
of it all
that you lose the basic connection to
humanity now that said depends what
you're talking about i think some of the
lack of connection over humanity was the
fact that while i did know how to speak
french for a long time i forgot most of
the language
um and so part of it there is a barrier
you said hospitality
there is a bit of a barrier in french
culture to where in order to be welcomed
in
you have to you have to
hear the music and be able to play the
music of the people and uh if you don't
there there's a bit of a barrier i must
admit on that and that it is true um
you would feel less that if if you were
the group of senegalese people per se
or i would even say if a group with um
of spanish people
um and i think this has to this is maybe
this the other side of uh it for the
french people they can be a little bit
you know uppity up there and i think
maybe that's what you're sensing there
um if you don't have the codes which is
what you call the if you don't sing the
music then um it's hard for you to be
part of it but i was speaking here from
the standpoint of you're in yeah um
yeah yeah yeah also come on come on
coming from texas and i'll see ukraine
ukraine i should say some of the best
steak and meat i've ever had
cheap
uh
texas some of the greatest and for the
me the size of the meals in in france
it's like what are we doing here i mean
i i it was i get it i get its art
i like to look at my art on the wall no
okay and then eat my damn steak did you
go so maybe okay no no no no okay now
here i have to defend them although
sometimes i'm the worst no
you did you go to some michele star
restaurant maybe
that's why a little bit because next
time you go to france i'll take you
to the countryside or any whole
french home
they will serve you multiple times i
mean
you're by the time you're done even if
it's you know the portions are smaller
if it's smaller if you want to but
because that way you get a chance to
really you know feel what you're eating
and then have more and then all of that
stuff but let's be like oh like this and
then you know but no you'll eat plenty
but it's because you went to the
michelle's places where they're like i'm
sure the warmth and the people is there
it's almost makes me sad that sometimes
i think to properly be in a place he's i
really should spend a long time there
yeah and also be emotionally ready again
i was emotionally unavailable i was just
like well i would imagine on your way to
the ukraine i'm like who can think about
food but
in your identity a bit of texas a bit of
san francisco
and um i guess from america
the defining the defining
thing for me for america is
it's um the freedom
and the entrepreneurial mindset
see
very quickly when i moved from france to
the united states and i started becoming
successful in the united states
i found myself me and my husband he was
french and my first husband who passed
away
we found ourselves at some point we
stopped talking to our friends in france
who stayed in france
because we were talking to them about
things that were so outside of their
their their comprehension what do you
mean
you're in your 20s and um
you know you just raised um
i don't know a million dollars or two
million dollars especially from back in
those days today you know it's easy here
and there so even in france that
entrepreneurial spirit didn't burn quite
as bright i mean i mean
don't take me wrong do you have some
entrepreneurial people in france yeah
but to the level that you have it in the
u.s absolutely not it's just uh i mean
in france it's still very much you know
you're born in this area you go to
school in that area your parents live
around eventually you'll marry and be
where your parents are maybe go to where
your spouse's experiences are and you
buy your house and you buy it once and
you're not gonna do like the americans
two years later i sell my house or go
somewhere else you don't have any of
anyone what do you mean you know like
just stopping from nowhere you're gonna
do a bit you're gonna do what start a
business and you have nothing to back
you up or whatever oh and even this idea
of um you know going and fundraising
this venture cap especially back in the
days venture cap all of that is it's
very american we take it for granted but
it's very american who would have met
made a bet on me in france the same
person i would not have found the same
people i would never in france have been
able to um raise it you know somebody
was 32 million for my first business
never would have have been able to do
that in france and it doesn't mean that
french people are bad people or anything
like that it's just um something that's
just not so in the culture right just
like um this whole concept of
philanthropy it's not that french people
don't do philanthropy but philanthropy
in america is very different from the
level and also the magnitude of maybe
what the french people do and also they
have this um always like oh let's do it
behind the scene money is suspicious you
know success is suspicious so at some
point my husband and i just felt like
our friends actually were maybe thinking
that we're maybe some drug dealers or
something so we should stop because it
just was not flowing anymore and so um
so yes in america i found
i found this um
this um entrepreneurial spirit but then
i was able to link it with something
that i'm very familiar with in my
country see back home in senegal
i'm part of this um you know
you have what we call the murid
so what it is is uh one of the four
brotherhoods in senegal muridism is the
most influential of them and the biggest
one and um us it's all about
entrepreneurship as well i mean of
course there's a whole religious part
and but our mantra
is pray as if you will die tomorrow and
work as if you will never die and the
way we say the way somebody will say
that somebody passed away we say
somebody has retired
somebody has retired from their work
right beautiful right so so so i think
um it's funny because
in in that community we're very much
entrepreneurial um
you know left to our own devices we're
entrepreneurial but then what happens is
the minute people start going to they're
being educated through the education
system you know like the french
especially education system but tend to
breed more like you know the french
bureaucrat mindset then you can see all
the entrepreneurial mindset kind of
starting to to dwindle down so it's kind
of very interesting so in a way america
helped me reunite with that side of my
of my roots where america
tells me
reinforces that side of my roots and
also gives me more tools to practice
that side of my roots if that makes any
sense
uh through all of that that's what
brings out the heart of a cheetah which
i think is a beautiful beautiful thing
that encap encapsulate that whole
trajectory which i think is the best
possible answer anyone could give it
makes me want to really think about
who i am because you really have brought
together
so many cultures within yourself
like just talking to you makes you feel
like we are just all one people because
at the end we are at the end we are um
and you know when you come from uh at
the end we are and also i think for me
if people can take anything from my
story it's at the end of the day i am
very clear about it and uh i'm all for
harmony among people and among um among
us peoples
um
if
we can accept
that we're all i know this sounds so
cliche but some for me it's so true
that we're all humans you know when i
left senegal
when i was about to leave senegal for
the first time and to go to europe to be
reunited with my parents
because now they had emigrated
and things were going to be fine
and
i was going be
things were stable for them now they're
like it's time to be reunited with her
they brought me over but before i left
senegal my grandma sat me down she
actually she lowered herself down to my
level and she said
say my god you're about to go to this
place where most people will not look
like you
and most people speak the language
that's gonna be different from yours
and you're gonna realize that all the
kids are going to school and you never
been to school because you know i was
like i said a free-range kid and i was
just living my life
and she said but
i don't want for any of that and she
said her words said i don't want for any
of that to intimidate you
she said you can be impressed by some of
it if you want
but no intimidation and she said because
the fact that they might be different
from you yeah they're going to have a
different skin color from you but it is
still
human skin
you're human they're human
and said this language you're going to
speak
it's a different language from yours
but it is still a language that humans
speak
you're human they're human therefore you
can speak it
and lastly they have gone to school
going to school is what little humans do
you're a little human so you'll be just
fine and i went and grandma was right
right that was right
and that helped me um and i think when
you internalize
that so early on um
it just makes you belong to the human
family that you're part of i am part of
a human family
and i would have no problem going to
russia for example let's take
and
be totally open maybe don't go right now
but no not now maybe not now you're
right but please don't bring weed if you
go go on the plane no no no no no no no
no no yeah right that girl i don't know
what she was thinking but yeah um no so
but what i'm trying to say lex is
i feel like i can go anywhere in the
world including some of the most um
unfriendly places in the world to
someone like me because there are places
like that yeah and yet i know
i know
that somehow somewhere
someone will take care of me someone
will help me
when i first came to this country
i i
i came as a tourist
and
but you know you had this amazing family
who had um business a family business in
indiana columbus indiana
the wences
carol and eldon wentz i owe them
everything that i have in this country
that i am in this country
they are americans
in mid-america from a place that most
other americans would maybe you know
look down on because you know and some
people would be like oh you're going to
this place where they have more churches
and cows than people you know that type
of behavior uh because you know the
elite coastal elites
but it is in midwest in the midwest
that i found
that i
black
young women
coming out of nowhere
found support
they all rallied around me i didn't even
come from the same faith as they are
from
yet their whole church rallied around me
to find me an apartment
my host family found me
got me a job and it was not a pity job
they were like we need we are in serious
needs of getting our accounting under
control and our marketing and all of
that and i had to catch up years of
accounting like two percent
and uh come up with marketing all of
that and i did it way faster than they
thought i would ever be able to do that
at some point they look at me and
they're like look
you there is a future for you and we are
too small for that future and now we
could be we could be selfish and keep
you here with us and we wouldn't we
would want nothing more than that
because really they're like my parents
to this day i just came back from seeing
them
and they said
but there's so much more for you and we
don't have it so we want you to go and
find out what it is and that's
eventually when i you know because
something was
brewing up in san francisco when i say i
left my heart in san francisco because
you know my uh my man would become my
husband um we went to the same business
school in france but then he was older
than me so he had come to san francisco
and started a business fair and i just
looked like there was something there
and scar hollow was like you got to go
to some forces go and find out with
emmanuel what's going on so i went and i
left my heart in the sky i came back i'm
like okay i'm leaving here's the keys to
my
i'm apartment of here so no but carroll
so this is it this is what i'm saying
especially in these times when this
country loves to dwell on
you know um you're bad because you have
your skin color here are people with a
completely different skin color than
mine completely different faith than
mine yet embraced me
um protected me um paid for my visa you
know for my for my lawyer to for my h1b
everything and also uh played emotional
support for me and
no one no one asked them to do that they
didn't have to do it they didn't so what
i'm saying is and this has been the
story of my life everywhere i go
regardless of the hostility around me
you bet you have that there's always
always going to be somebody who shows up
for you and somebody who's at the at the
extremes of at the antipods of where you
and who you are
and that tells me something
in the end we are good people most
people are good people and there's so
much power to that
the internalizing of this idea
that we're all just human
and there's human kindness all around us
i've seen it
a lot where people internalize that
and they're able to walk lightly amidst
hate
yeah
and walk past it yes and it it doesn't
it doesn't
uh stick to them in a way that they
build resentment and it paralyzes them
if they internalize the world just human
they can be in the just like you said in
the in the worst places in the world for
them and someone somewhere that human
magic and touch is there yeah you'll
find it will find them it will find yeah
yeah and you know the other thing too
lex is um especially in these times
we're walking in
it is to um remind yourself i i think um
this is where we all are called to
practice more
more courage i call it courage
it's the courage
to show up with curiosity with empathy
and with love to me verse three are the
antidote
to pretty much anything yeah curiosity
in love in the face of fear can you
can you show up with curiosity in the in
the face of hate
can you say i'm gonna i'm gonna engage
with love
even if i'm scared to death and even if
i'm pissed off to death by this ah but
can you do that
and um
in the face of uh just like you know
judgment or whatever can you show up
with empathy and um
i had just found that when you try to do
that you you engage very different parts
of your brain that's that's proven by
the way by a brain scientist but you
also can feel it in your body that you
engage in very different parts of your
soul and so um
i try myself i'm not always good at it
but it's a practice but i try to honor
which is curiosity empathy and love as i
told you offline
those i agree with you 100 percent on
that but there is you know when you go
to ukraine
and and you can say
you can speak about the power of love
but
when you lose your family when you lose
your home all you have in your heart is
hate even if you know it
you're not supposed to have it
you still all you have is hate so
sometimes
it's it's a very human thing to have
resentment to have hate
but it is but it is about trying not to
stay there yes and it's okay if it takes
you years but it is about trying and i'm
and i mean the word trying it is about
trying not to stay there
let me ask you about some of the things
you see in this country from your from
your perspective of everywhere you've
been in the world what do you think
about the black lives matter movement
here in america that does
struggle
with the role of
skin color
today
and throughout the history of this
country and maybe even throughout the
history of the world
well
black lives matter has been a very hard
one for me
because do black lives matter those
three words together in that order what
they mean
they mean everything because black lives
do matter
as any other lives do matter but i know
in this case why they say black lives
matter because some of the contexts we
have had
now
while i agree with the principles that
black lives matter i have a big problem
with the organization
and what it stands for
when i have an organization that
pretends to want to stand for black
lives to matter
yet you are
self-proclaimed
marxist socialist
i pause
why
i pause and then i'm like have we
learned nothing
have we learned nothing
and the reason why i say that
lex is because
60 some years ago
it started before even 60 some years ago
black people in this case um i'm talking
about the african
people i'm talking about
the black africans who would go on
to really
um cement this concept of
african emancipation and african
liberation
and here i'm taking us back to 1945
it's they were they had four of them
before that but in 1945
in manchester uk
happened something that would become
major for
for africa
and its future especially sub-saharan
africa
in manchester uk
people like blessing of my country
nearby tanzania
kwame nkrumah ghana
and others and others
from different parts of the continent
got together
with marcus garvey and w.e.b dubois
and i said dubois because that's how he
stated in french he has a french name
uh french name at least and americans
would say so for americans listening i
know you said dubois
oh but
no because just in case they're like who
is talking about that's what i'm talking
about
um
so all of those people got together in
the uk yes
and with uh w.e.b dubois and marcus
garvey
big top african-american intellectuals
of their times
um www had so many things happened to
him you know starting from the north
being more more or less a liberal type
guy you know
um came to the south just to see
um at this time you know people black
people being lynched and some of the
body parts been shown in store windows i
mean just for a second
we put ourselves in his shoes
i put myself in his shoes
and that's when he started to become
radicalized
right because at first it was like oh
reforms we say that and i was like god
darn it enemies people we don't talk to
them we force you know
and eventually little by little things
going through
um yeah you you have these people
they're very much on the
marxist socialist train
so do you think the la the sort of
it's the political movements that are
just using
yeah because what happened back in those
days
it is true
that to their credit
communist socialists were fighting for
equal rights
they were fighting for the rights of
black people to have equal rights
so of course
i could see why one could say especially
in those times
you've been lynched
bodies burnt
body parts
showcase that
windows stores
meanwhile
in africa
under colonization
in your own country in your own land
and
you have this group that's saying
we
your fight
is part of what we fight
of course you're going to say a side
with you
especially if this is all happening at a
time
where you know so 1945
these guys
who would be
the liberators of various african
nations for meeting
with garvey
with w.e.b dubois
and um that's where prem this music is
very important it's the fifth
pan-african congress meeting it's very
important it could be their last one but
it's the most important one because
that's when they formed their plans and
um and really the rallied around this
concept of african administration
emancipation and um african liberation
we're going to liberate our countries
then later so that's how all of this
movement started to happen and um from
there gandhi was already making some
progress with india you know getting
them out of
british rule and all of that so all of
this was happening and really like this
whole thing was bubbling bubbling
bubbling you know like there's like a
new force going on
and then we arrive in the late 50s
and um you know kuma with um
the you know them with the british as
well they might manage to become to
become
um the their colonization is is over
they're the first one to go in 57 then
from there it's what we call the
independences that's what when afr most
of sub-saharan african nations are
getting independences different dates
mine
april 4th 1960 so all over so this is
happening and now think about it you're
talking 57 you're talking 60.
we're like at the
we're like at this time now with the
middle of a cold war because we have to
put things in context if you want to
understand what's going on because
people today ask me why do you think um
because even now when they understand oh
you're right um it makes sense if you
have no economic freedom you're going to
be poor but why why why did they go for
this why did they go for this and then
they don't understand so that's what
happened so
beginning of day of times pre-colonial
africans with free marketeers free
enterprise it's pretty well recorded by
someone like george adity that's where i
got the cheetah thing from
and getting an economist and then
slavery happened colonism happened and
then the independences um late 50s early
60s for most countries for most african
most sub-saharan african countries so
there what you have is um
but then what happened there so i told
you in 45 fifth african congress in the
uk with um the liberators of africa
um under the um
under the leadership because he was the
the wise you know eldest man um
dubois was he was in his 70s back in the
day so he's older than them you know and
he's coming with all of his ideas and
everything so we're like
so there we are now we're in the late
50s early 60s we're starting to make
progress with the independences you know
india has gone there before so all of
that is starting to happen
and at that time
remember they they already were being
introduced to the concept of socialism
marxism all of that way before
by some of these you know um black of
african-american intellectuals of their
time who are very socialist marxists by
that time
so now they're becoming
independent because i do i do
independent like this because i i reckon
that there's still neo-colonism going on
so
now this is happening
to becoming free but then you look
around what do you see
that now
most of these liberators of their
nations become the president of the
nations but remember what i told you
most of them
have
the drunken the social socialist marxist
socialism kool-aid
so as these african nations become
independent with the first independent
governments and
you know presidents
most of them most of them
are socialists
various forms of statist type of
government
and this is because at that point we had
made a fatal mistake
of going of um saying
um
we are marxist socialists because you
guys fight for equal rights
uh so in this case there should be no
colonism or anything like that
so not only you have that going on
and the people so right now you had this
battle of ideology going on because on
one end represented by
freedom and the economic what you call
it the economic system they were using
is capitalism and these are represented
by the western nations
facing off with eastern bloc
practicing various forms of statism
socialism communism various forms of
statism
and these two are fighting for influence
so and we also have it's also not so two
things there one is we're at a time
where remember the free market concept
was almost dead
almost dead
so almost every intellectual at that
time
was social marxist
or marx socialist i put the name that's
what you wear so you're in a world where
it was the normal thing it was just
mainstream acceptance so not only you
have that force but at the same time if
these two forces are fighting one
another it turns out that the one
representing capitalism and freedom
well sorry but isn't it you who enslaved
us and colonized us
and you're fighting with
with the people who represent you know
um supposedly people who are saying that
uh who had been fighting for equal
rights for us with us for the longest
time
these are our friends
and that's when we made a fatal mistake
because while yes there were maybe good
things um to agree on with uh marxist
socialists of at times i especially you
know um equal rights for for all people
and all of that that's the only thing we
should have among the only things we
should have agreed upon their violent
revolution tendencies no way uh when it
comes to um
the economic nonsense no way we should
not have thrown the baby out with the
bathwater but that's what we did and
that's when we made a fatal mistake so
then we became
free all of these nations and most of
them started with socialist or communist
leaders my country
socialist
leopold
he was a socialist
and they stayed in power for 40 years
the first 40 years of our
freedom years
and all over the continent more or less
that's what you had
and on top of that
something else that the french don't
know the people don't know is france
with its colonies said you cannot
not do um you have to um you have to
keep um the french
french civil law
so we're talking about the napoleonic
civil code are you kidding me
so that's what happened so the reason
why i go back to blm
is while
i have
all the respect in the world
and all the compassion in the world
for people like kruma for people like
near railway for people all of us people
of those times the liberators of africa
while i have so much love compassion for
them
i am also able to say
because i got the benefit of 60 some
years time
and you know where you get to
to do a debrief
and see what it worked what didn't work
what happened
we have had the 60 years to look back
and to reflect
so yes
i can understand why they did what they
did
i cannot even i can understand why they
sided with these people who on the
surface or at least some part of a fight
with the same fight as them when it came
to equal rights
i can excuse them
but i will not
excuse
the blm founders
because that mistake
was tolerable
60 some years ago today
no
the blacks of today
cannot
be serious about black lives mattering
and saying in the same sentence
and we're going to be socially smart
mark's a socialist if this doesn't work
so the blm movement is too
deeply integrated with with the ideas
ideologically marxism yeah
anti-free market
anti-capitalist
and we do know
that you have
to have 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
so if you if you want for blacks to be
respected anywhere in the world
you're gonna have to be serious about
black prosperity
all mass not just a few people oprah
over here and somebody have a vet
no
we as a group
have to be
a critical mass of prosperity
across the board
and because we're talking critical mass
of prosperity across the board it means
black people everywhere in the world
but guess what we in africa happen to
represent 90 percent of a representative
of a black race so you're gonna be
serious about black black lives
mattering without being serious for
africa the one billion people in africa
that are black and for them to have
access to the free markets and yes
fossil fuels so that they can
rocket you know up
prosperity-wise and the resources of the
young people the young minds so that all
of these young people young minds can
finally manifest their greatness that i
know they have and that they're showing
us every day despite despite the
obstacles
that's what we need
senegal becomes rich and synagogue can
become and will be richer than france
the culinary singapore did it we can do
it
manly rich
nigeria rich functioning as well
mali uh malawi rich tanzania rich
ugandan rich zimbabwe rich
niger rich everywhere rich prosperous
as prosperous if not more prosperous
than than than switzerland or singapore
or the us don't know all of alician
chinese or luxembourg places that have
no um you know
resource resource natural resources
we become rich
and you watch the world having a very
different uh relationship with us that's
the only time
we will commend any type of respect
that's when
people even the
our common psyche will change even about
black people all of the stereotypes that
they have of us
is gonna melt away
and you may still not like us
but you will still respect us because we
are a force to be to be dealt with
and only economic power does that it
would be nice of course
for us to respect people because they're
people it would be nice but let us not
kid ourselves this is this is earth and
someone said you know nice people will
make it to heaven but not to harvard
necessarily it's true it's interesting
that
pity
does not
ever turn into respect
it would be nice if it did it would be
nice but it doesn't prosperity
prosperity is the only thing and the way
we do that there is no
just like all of us humans have to
inject have to inhale
oxygen
and exhale
carbon dioxide that's a human way of
breathing
you bring me on but you want to be
foolish and be like oh well sorry that's
how white people breathe so as black
people we're gonna have to do something
different well good luck with that
right yeah so this is here why i'm
saying i have no patience for black
lives matter we're making a mistake that
was made 60 some plus years ago
even more than that maybe even 100 you
know when we were siding with a marxist
socialist because they're the ones
who've been fighting for equal rights
let me ask you though about racism
do you as you travel through this world
as you travel through america
feel the burn
of hatred
um you've spoken about the revolutions
that have been fought throughout the
20th century
against racism
but today as people talk about educating
reminding the world with the
even with more philosophical ideas of
critical race theory for example
do you think this is still
a battle that that
needs to be fought at the forefront of
culture in the united states
um does racism exist
yes it does
but all forms of isms exist
some people it's about various forms of
ableism
others it's about size
um and racism yes is one of them
does it exist yes it does
but
is it what's going to stop anyone from
manifesting their greatest potential
i say no
many people in this country have showed
it
whether they're african americans or
african african immigrant i'm an african
immigrant
you have african-americans like oprah
and others and other people even before
her
who
despite the nastiness around them were
able to make it
so
we do know
especially as black people but i think
it's humanity as a whole
and that's what i love about the human
spirit it's resiliency
but resiliency only can happen if you
don't allow yourself to be beaten down
and to lose your self of agency
it's
of course easier say than than done
and some among us
need a little bit more help
to not succumb for it than others do
and i've seen it it might be harder for
you if you're somewhere in uh you know
um
in a city
um you know you know city black america
maybe the environment might be a little
bit tougher
um for you to try and get your act
together and all of that stuff
and it's okay
but
even in that situation
we need to um
i think it's important that we still do
not rob you of your agency
and this is where i am mad as heck
against those who supposedly
um care
and their idea of how to make sure
that i don't become or stay a victim of
racism is through all the things we
talked about the crt the anti-racism
crap of um you know uh
abram x candy and
what's her name robin d'angelo i mean
her i'm shocked the woman is making all
of this money
supposedly fighting
a war on our behalf i'm like lady i hear
you lie loud and clear that you are true
racist i know but you told me you are
and for you to think that you're into
racism makes you less racist
and it's
that happens too she's she comes from a
racist background fine she's saying it
it's true but this idea that
every walking person on earth
belongs to one category of the other
depending on what you know which skin
color you came with
it's
it's problematic at its root so my point
is
does racism exist yes
do you think it's gonna stop me from
doing anything i have to do
no
might it make it harder longer
prob maybe
but it will not stop me
but for it not to stop me i can't engage
in victimhood mentality
i can't lose myself a self i i got i got
to use all the agency that i have
to fight back
and fight beyond see it's just soon just
better fight back you fight back and you
fight beyond because at some point
yeah and
it's this concept of yes and
so um this is why i have loved the job
so when i have somebody who is like oh
anti-racism is the way are we gonna go
and tell all the black all the white
kids that you know because they happen
to be white that they're really
oppressors and blah blah blah and
they're black kids because they're black
you know
you're not changing anything when you're
doing that
nothing except that you're causing
you're putting problems where there were
no problems to start with all we had to
do was maybe
go for a different rat from there kids
are kids kids are born kids and this i'm
not sure if you want to get me going on
to the whole science of um bias because
that's something i spent years of my
life on and my journey on the science of
bias
started with um
the days of philando castile eric garner
that whole summer of 2016
when we had this horrendous horrendous
uh situation of black people um being
killed by the police where they shot
before asking and the people left to die
in the most inhumane way for the rest of
us to watch from the social media
that's
me that's when my george floyd moment
happened not late or four years ago in
the whole world is like you know
um so
that
sent me on a journey
of understanding what discrimination is
and bias is
um
and in a way that's the reason why i
started this company that i even called
skinny skin
that's where it came from again
criticized by creating
i
i needed to understand what
discrimination was how does it work is
it true what candy is saying is it true
what d'angelo is saying is it true that
but i it could it could be that your bad
your race is just because of the skin
color you happen to be born in is it
true
is it true i i needed to know
because i was at a time of my life where
at some point you know when when those
killings were happening it was so hard
for me um being a black person in this
country
and wondering
i mean what is this and
and what do we do with this
um yeah is it true how much
discrimination am i operating under in
the system
all of that
you need to understand the full
characteristics of if you're if you're
dreaming of making a big change by
building companies
you have to kind of
intuit how much what am i up against
what am i up against right and so this
is why you know spend all of his time on
some of the work and then eventually i
understood that um discrimination if you
wanted to understand it beyond
um it's um you know beyond the the big
lines of uh especially the the clickbait
lines would make it very black and white
then i had to really take a moment and i
spent time you know with a world of
brain scientists with uh behavioral
psychologists
uh with evolutionary biologists to have
all of this ecosystem but together form
what we one might call the science of
bias
and especially
i came across the work of this team of
scientists at the university of uh i
think it's wisconsin and there were only
ones who made sense
in this sea of nonsense back then
and this article wasn't political
and it was saying something that i could
relate with
and eventually
what i learned was
and this part comes from the
evolutionary biologists people
they in a way tell you that right around
age three
can happen sooner or later because you
know we're all different
but you go from this person who has to
rely on these other people usually your
parents to stay alive
to be fed to be housed to even your
diaper change all of that stuff right
to now
something is kicking in
where
you have
to in order for you to survive
and this is all wired in so you don't
even understand it consciously as i'm
saying it now
where in order for you to survive for in
order for you to go from this state of
dependency to another to the next step
to the next stage and more and more and
more
you're going to have to develop this
ability to make sense of the world and
what's making sense of a world at its
most basic level means is
can you determine if a situation or a
person is good or bad for you
failure and you need to be able to do so
do so ever so quickly
because failure to do to be able to do
that might means that you might not be
alive for next second
see it's so wired in
so this process starting to kick in
and at that point your brain is going to
be your best ally for that
and what the brain is going to do is
it's going to help you and the way the
brain works is through
it it works with um for if it's all
wired for efficiency and the way it um
it goes for efficiency is through
automation meaning that every time it
has computed and you probably know these
things way better than me every time it
has computed one algorithm
it doesn't quite it doesn't want to do
it again it's almost like this okay got
it stored
stored right and then it adds maybe some
little levels of complexity to it but it
has to be something new meaning the new
level of complexity for it to even be
willing to reconsider
otherwise you have so then all of a
sudden what you have is
these neurons in the back of your head
and they have created pathways right so
and every time um neurons have created
pathway among themselves
because basically they attached and here
is a pathway well this pathway in the
world of um
in the world of um
science of bias
it's a habit in general it's a habit
when they form two pathways when they
form a pathway it's a habit so
if we're willing to talk about
unconscious bias because of course
it's very different from somebody who
tells me to my face
there's no world in which
you or i could ever be equal because
you're black and white you're a woman
i'm a man this peace and that
that people like that again 100 one
percent of psychopaths in our world
they're out there unfortunately by the
time they do nasty things it's pretty
horrible and that's what all we hear
about but i'm talking mostly about the
rest of us remember when i told you that
most of us are good people bumbling
along making it up as we're going that's
why i have compassion for human nature
so but really
in the morning when i wake up do you
really think that i'm waking up and
thinking how am i gonna go kill how am i
gonna go kill lex that next guy needs to
go down he's a man he's a don't take me
where i'm sure about some women who feel
like that but i'm not one of them and i
do think a majority of us are not
whatever but you know in the morning i'm
waking up i'm just like
gee
can i get my tea
oh my dog is not looking okay today you
know we've got
right
it's a lot going on and you're using
these kind of
just like you said brilliantly the brain
is has a bunch of simplifications it's
built up yeah and he uses those
simplifications to get through the day
for the day exactly so so then here you
are needing to make sense of a world and
then the brain is your best ally in that
the way it's going to do it is for
efficiency efficiency done through
automation so every time it thinks it's
figured something out it's never going
to think about it again so that's how
you build all of these habits of
unconscious bias because everything so
it's somewhere along the line you come
up with um the
with the information that black men
walking around with a hoodie equals
danger so later what do you see
whether it's lex oh my god i'm walking
in the dark alley i see a black man with
a hoodie maybe i'm gonna run away
because i've been
given that information so the best way
to think about it is the brain is a
hardware
and uh and the software it runs on
is um
what do you call it is a cultural
imprint
all of this information that we're
getting from the disney movies that
you're reading telling you that
themselves are to be saved by the prince
and all that stuff and girls wear pink
and or whatever
um you know you watch the movies and all
the movies whenever you watch them it's
about africa they're talking about the
blood diamond so we're talking to you
about slavery over talking to about this
and then north wonder you walk away
thinking that all the ills of africa are
caused because of uh resource extraction
for diamonds or they're always fighting
each other look at uh i mean in the
movie you know or you know uh slavery
all the time you walk away and this is
it
and we're all programmed along the same
line see that's the beauty of it
all of us are because even some black
people who are going to claim but they
didn't business when they registered
really
so the truth so then when i learned all
of this i'm like wow this concept of if
you've got a brain you've got biases
it comes with a territory that makes
sense
now
it doesn't mean we can't we can't
transcend that function of a brain and
that we should transcend it
right but i think it's very important
because once you understand that
a little bit more peace is created among
us because this is not about a black and
white or a yellow and green issue it's
about we are human issue
and these are part of the things we
developed to you know to to to to keep
to to stay around
um just like we no longer have to rely
on um
you know this fear of flight um you know
like um ability of a brain because bears
over there start running and running
fast right today wherever bears show me
where they are but we have kept this
tendency
to go for fear uh fear or flight i don't
know how they say it and so we have this
you know courtesan done by the stress
you know stress triggers but back in the
days we have a stress trigger we run and
it's all you know expelled out but today
we get triggers and we don't know what
to do with it because where would we run
to what do we do bear is not even here
so same thing here with that and so when
you realize this whole thing
that is now we what you understand is
that this problem is not about
anti-racism bs but it is about can each
one of us
do the work with a work is needed which
is we look inside
can we go for this work of
deprogrammation
this concept of a mindful practice
of undoing the habit of bias
and that doesn't
necessarily have to do with the simple
categorization of black and white
it's all kinds of biases everything it's
about everything and you know when i
started on that journey and then my
friend back then built you know this
practice of undoing your habit of
unconscious bias
we had all types of people come
and say wow i discovered that my bias
against
larger people and i'm like what do you
mean well um i think i it seems to me
like i felt that larger people maybe are
are dumb
no we heard things and you know and you
don't judge
yeah you don't judge
and so and you see it's at every level
you know like um i don't know like
there's even this one friend she was
like you know when i looked into the
whole dating thing i absolutely didn't
want to have um you know asian men
because she went her mind was into some
stereotypes about the size of whatever
and she was like no
but you see you once you start because
there's this whole thing of um it's the
five step thing bias awareness this uh
underst basically
at this level what you're doing is
you're learning to spot the biases in
our culture because that's where the
cultural imprint comes from you're
watching this movie and you're realizing
just like i said wow gee i realize once
again the black person is portrayed like
uh like the fuck of a movie um or you
know um the latina lady this is how
she's been portrayed and you see it
everywhere even the npr npr is happening
like you're listening to something like
npr it cannot be more liberal than that
and this gentleman is asking these two
candidates one of them is a woman
political candidate if everyone is a man
i'm hearing as i'm asking the lady a
question but i know he's not going to
ask the man he didn't ask her he said
how do you um how do you balance uh
you know your race with a family yeah
does a man not have a family
right there you see it's very
subtle yeah but you see but because now
my mind is kind of trained to see things
i'm like interesting or like when the
media just says
froze
um
climate change issue on something
without even the choice of words so it's
pretty much everywhere you open the book
everywhere the interesting thing though
uh i mean even that man uh woman example
is i think it's really
um powerful to bring that bias to the
surface
but not let that lead to kind of fear
and paralysis that's right you should
almost i mean that's what humor is make
fun of it bring it to the surface like
acknowledge the fact that those things
are part of the conversation and a lot
of them are
it is
you know
it's a cultural imprint because it's
part of culture and that might be there
could be you know i grew up in the
soviet union where the gender roles were
stronger than in other places that's
right and that's part of the culture we
have to acknowledge exactly that that
this is how this is affecting how i
think you might exactly we might like
how that works we might not but we have
to acknowledge it and and not get you
know make it part of humor make fun of
yourself you know all that kind of stuff
that's the thing and so lex that's why
this first step is bias um bias
awareness so you get you train yourself
oh yeah okay that was one or it's where
you know and it's about it's in you it's
we're talking about you we're not and
then from there you like um
um replace the bias like bias
replacement
then it is um
where you practice the empathy you're
like gee wow i wonder how i would feel
every day i walk into a store and the
guy thinks he should be following me
because maybe i can i might steal
something because i'm black right
because when once you try that to put
yourself into a person's shoes all of a
sudden something else starts to click
and then from there you go on to
making connection
when you're making a connection and then
things start to change because now you
um no you're making um then you make
cultural immersion so this is where we
had some people like this one woman she
was very um uh quite uh very feminist
oriented and um she had an issue with
women wearing their hijab
and because for her it was like how come
you how come how come you you
you just slow you know like
how come you're accepting this uh
demeaning of yourself not understanding
everything else that comes with it
but through as she understood that she
even had that bias
then she went on through all the
different processes and then eventually
when comes the next step cultural
immersion she started going
uh to the mosque during ramadan when the
muslims are doing you know their uh it's
the holy month of um you know fasting
and then we break at night
and she started understanding very
different things and eventually happens
the last step that happens naturally
making a true real genuine connection
and this is where friendships happen
this is where that's it you guys can go
home now because it has been challenged
with reality
and understanding and so for me
that is what i was after
and then
but then the world was just like we
don't want to be told we're part of a
problem
so
but i still reckon that it is the type
of mindfulness type of practice that's
going to happen and it's one that's very
internal
to to to you it is it is not and it
happens everybody at their own pace
so all of this i take it back
to um to racism the question you were
asking me
does racism exist yes it does is it
going to stop me from doing anything i
want to do no it's going to make it
harder
but this is where for anybody who is
serious about
making sure
uh about fighting racism
i think the only job you have to do
is to
make sure
that people
keep their sense of self-agency
and b
can you help provide people with the
tools
to stand up
so this is why i have so much respect
for van jones
people like van jones over at this
grooving on so many things but people
like um miss alice uh johnson she was
pardoned uh by president trump through
the work of people like van jones and
kim kardashian and others they all
joined forces this is a case where
people of and and those folks then went
on to combine forces
furthermore
no no no regard given to their political
belongings they said if the issue is
criminal um criminal justice reform
then anybody who stands for it has to
come together and so
what they did in the situation with um
uh with um what we're doing criminal
justice reform in my mind
is a valid
uh action
to fight
um racism in my mind because what are
you doing there you're trying to get
people out of jail who really have no
business being there
and also when you have people like
bishop omar
and the people uh he passed away
unfortunately but today we have anton
luck and lucky who was in jail for
having killed his um cousin you know he
um
had started i think he started the the
the gang in south uh dallas so we're
talking really tough guy who was reading
the wrong side of uh of the equation and
then in in jail literally he found plato
the cave and all that so today these
people
we i'm like why don't we hear more about
them the urban specialists because these
people it's not about the anti-racism
crap of candio di ninja where i say it
again until the cows come home but it is
about we go where help is needed we go
in
we go in um in urban you know um inner
city inner city uh black inner city
neighborhoods and block by block we
change the culture and they say it like
that it's their words these are
african-american people who have as many
rights as anybody else to talk about
their own culture and they will tell you
we have to change the culture i have
some some videos like that on my youtube
with bishop omar
what these people are doing is what we
need to do bishop will explain in size
sometimes people are
their their feets and feet deep down in
the mud
and what we have to do is to try to pull
them up
and you cannot say you didn't pull them
up because we're not seeing the head out
yet but how much how much progress have
they made from the bottom
to where they are now
and keep
going so what i see these people doing
you see i have so much i i love and
respect glenn larry and company you know
and ian rove and all those guys i i love
them i i love a lot of things that they
say
um
you know this whole concept of personal
responsibility don't know that
but i'm just like at some point it also
needs to be matched up
with real actions yeah and that's what
the people like anton lucky urban
specialists um alice johnson are doing
they're going where it's hard alice
johnson is getting people out of jail
every single day literally and then
people like anton lucky and his team are
giving them the tools to live the gang
life
to to be better people to go for a life
of redemption
this is happening right now but what i
find is they're not getting the bulk of
the attention yeah but this is anybody
who's serious about this is why how i
would love to see people do anti-racism
is help lift people up for real action
support support um uh school choice
support school choice black mamas are
they know what's going on and when they
tell you we want school choice they know
what to talk about they're not idiots
yeah especially at the local level yes
they're helping them at the local level
yes so help them
make sure that they can take their kids
out of these public schools that are
doing horrendous things to them you know
miss virginia watch that movie
how could you not
support black moms in this country to
take the kids to safety when it comes to
education how come not that's what i
want to see happen and not like some
yeah let's go to some
classrooms and everybody's white you go
over here everybody's the next state you
go over here and kids let us tell you
about this no no no no
as a black person i don't want you to do
any of that crap
let me grow my wings
yeah if you want help put some fuel
behind them and let me take my flight
that's all i'm asking for but the only
way for you to do
um a for that's the only way for you to
be part of a racism battle if that's
what you think is the most important
battles of our life
that's it that's what i have to say
about that and so for me i'm keeping my
head very straight it's about what
uh enables
black people
to thrive
i don't need for you to be an activist
on my behalf no because when you're
doing that you're doing exactly what
you've been doing to us black people in
africa our whole life
i don't need your white savior complex
because that's what anti-racism is white
savior complex that stuff doesn't work
it only works to make you feel better
about how superior you are to me but it
does nothing absolutely nothing to
change my everyday life if it is not if
it is at least in the african side to
actually even change my um you know turn
me into somebody who's waiting for
handouts
so
if peop i would encourage people to
really those people who are really
serious about wanting to be part of a
solution and i know there are many out
there for the love of god and everything
that's out there and we care about
stop
it it's it's about think about what's
gonna
um
um enable people
maybe the word is wrongly chosen but you
know what i'm talking about yeah give
them
to spread their wings yes give a person
um yeah learn to teach a person how to
fish and don't give them a fish
when you're putting your stupid signs on
a lawn uh with black lives matter and
all that crap you're not helping and
when you're buying one more anti-racism
book or or
as a company you know financing one more
dei you know um if it done along those
lines i think we've got a problem yeah
so you do think that the
the efforts of uh diversity equity and
inclusion are
often not effective not only are we not
effective but they also backfire and
there are reports on all of us
and at the end of the day it makes sense
it makes sense
so for me i am very very glad that
people um have developed an
enlightenment about this
very happy about that very
but let us not keep going for the easy
perceived solution to problems
again they've done this to us the poor
people of africa
they thought the solution was to give
it does not work
and then they say oh we're gonna do a uh
social uh social um social
entrepreneurship on you tom's shoes buy
one pair of shoes and we give one pair
of shoes to some people in uh in poor
countries
then guess what happened to us
you know in the town where we operate in
senegal where i have my little
manufacturing
two
we have 2 000 little mom and pop
businesses and guess what they happen to
be in lex
shoemakers right
so you have issue makers each one of
them hires at least five fifteen people
do the math
family businesses
guess what happens to them the day the
tongue shoes truck shows up with bunch
of free shoes
yeah you can who can who can compete
against free now all of these people
little by little are gonna have to close
their shops because who can compete
against free because tom shoes dumping
all of his shoes on them
and then they go out of business and now
instead of helping anybody you actually
sent all the kids who depended on these
adults working in these places now they
have to join the rank of kids who need
to be given shoes because you took their
parents ability
to make money
through their wages
buy them shoes
you see so first they said we just have
to give so that was
a primarily um you know the charity
business
and
um you still have foreign aid business
going on so we just need to give
and then the social entrepreneurs came
in place but i'm like the only person
for this is business is good is for
blake mikasi you know the founder of tom
shoes but other than that i'm not sure
really seeing who else is winning from
this
and then they and so today my whole
thing is
we got a challenge
to have a mind for the poor
or to have a mind for the lesser
fortunate maybe in this country
it is easy
and lesser fortunate because you know
for anybody that you see you you feel
like is being trampled upon because of
something maybe it's because of economic
circumstances or maybe it's race in this
case or whatever
to have a heart
for the lesser fortunate among us for
whatever reason
at that's easy
but to have a mind for them that's a
challenge
let me ask you a difficult question yeah
as if we were not already asking
difficult questions
uh the president of senegal
uh
maggie saw
is also now the chair of
the african union
he met with the president vladimir putin
on june 3rd
i think
primarily was to discuss
food security security africa seems to
be
split
halfway on their perspective in the war
in ukraine so broadly speaking
what do you think about this
first of all the geopolitics of africa
and uh the geopolitical relationship of
africa with the rest of the world and
its current conflict
with the war in ukraine
what are your thoughts there well you've
seen that many countries when it was
time to vote
some of up abstained you know which in a
way says something
i think for the africans today
especially as represented by the african
union because not all countries fall in
this along the same lines
i feel like again we're back to way back
for the longest time the west tries to
tell us what to do
they decide for us
and here
they are there's trouble
meaning
there's definitely
a rift
major one
between most of the western world as
represented by you know europe and
america primarily now australian and all
that um
and then them they're saying
you know
um i think this is more or less an
attempt to
to stand
on their own as well it's like you're
not don't tell us what to do as usual um
you always work us in with when it makes
sense for you to try to rope us in and
then we're left hanging on our own so
there's a this goes back to the
sentiment you were talking about earlier
it's been challenging
for me
to watch this because remember
i have one foot also you know like
because there's what i get to see and
hear
from being in the western world
but there is also what i get to see and
hear
from when i'm in the back home
so i wear all hats
and um i think this is a situation where
the african um union
and african nations in general are
saying
we don't
it's this case we're almost like you
guys are fighting
you guys are fighting
maybe for once we have to watch it for
ourselves yeah there's a sense in which
um
this is the embodiment sort of
you know abstaining from a vote on the
war in ukraine
is a political embodiment of uh
resistance to the influence of the west
right it's not about the war between
whatever you guys are fighting yes it's
saying
uh we're not going to
let this particular empire that seems to
be at the top right now which is the
united states empire in europe
to dominate our political uh discourse
our geopolitical considerations it's
almost like no we're not touching this
yeah especially that given usually so
when they need us again
for influence which means more power oh
you guys vote the same way we do
and when the it's all over and they go
back to
they go back to uh spreading um you know
they go back to um how do you say that
they go back to um exchanging
and sharing between themselves the
goodies of uh you know their halloween
collection
we no longer we're not there when the
goodies are being shared
so i think it's it's definitely one of
those situations
but for me
it still is hard
because i watch everything that's going
on
and um
i
it's going to be complicated for
ramifications of all of us i would like
to to see our african leaders also what
they're doing is is clear but this is a
place where i almost i'm also tempted to
say
yes
and um
yes to
the reasons you're advancing right now
you know of we don't want to be always
citing because we're tired we're tired
of always being dragged around and taken
for granted and you wrote our way you
know um come on guys uh when when you
need us we're we're great and everything
is good and then when it's time to go
and um share the goodies we don't exist
anymore and you actually go for um
policies that go against us but in this
situation though
i would like to still see us do the
right thing in my case i was not very
happy to see
um us going
and more or less begging for
you know
what do you call it um cereals
you know oh please let the cereals um
make it so at least we get them and we
don't starve
i can understand why a president
would say something like that or try to
negotiate something like that
but when it comes to an african
president
having to do that
with a
non-african president
i'm sorry but for me it's too close to
begging
listen it's hard to be a leader it's
such a difficult dance because in some
sense
sort of
the
the flip side of that
is
you're creating a market a geopolitical
market of saying
we're willing
to sit down at the table with america
with european leaders
with uh russian leaders with china
and we're gonna let you guys convince us
who
we should collaborate with
and that's what sort of great
um
nations and groups of nations do do now
there's a cynical of course a dark
perspective of that because
what's in in that game played by leaders
the people that hurt people ukraine hurt
people of africa can hurt people of
russia people of russia can hurt people
of china people united states but
it is the way of the world and to to
earn res you have to
you have to earn respect and sometimes
earning respect leads to the suffering
of many well but except in this case
yes to all of that and
the reason why i'm actually upset
with with
going and being like oh can you let at
least the boats uh that are supposed to
come to africa full of cereals come over
the wheat and all that
it's just like look africa has the
highest land that you can do agriculture
on yes you know
we have a larger surface such surface in
the world
why is this not a time for us to try to
wean ourselves off of cereals that we
don't necessarily have on the ground but
no
let us go and plead
don't beg create instead great instead
exactly this should have been you know
just like how the rest of the world when
uh kobe happened and china had to close
off for different reasons and since then
has not you know completely reopened and
people have started to realize wow we've
got um we've got too much we're too
dependent on china for a lot of what we
need so we're going to have to bring
back some production to the us the
europeans are doing the same all of that
this should have been enough a time for
african leaders to be like we we need to
be serious now
uh about um you know food security
and maybe the stuff that
maybe don't grow under our climates
necessarily can we work on coming up
with different things now i understand
that it can take time but um if i knew
that that was happening at the same time
that was saying oh well let the cereals
come in maybe i would be a little bit
easier with it but right now i'm just
like is it gonna be the same business as
usual and in this case i'm just like are
we gonna go are we gonna keep going from
one masa to another masa
i mean really
the interesting aspect of all this is if
we look at all of human history it's
possible that the 21st century is
defined by africa it will be
and
the young people the the huge number of
young people it's like the trajectory
could be there's so much possibility to
define
the future of human civilization in
africa and i don't mean
sort of in the next 10 years i mean in
the next 50 years
what uh so some people are concerned
about
overpopulation some people are concerned
about
us dying out as a human species
uh
both of those people live in austin and
talk to me often about i know i know
i know
i i know who they are but yeah
uh what's your in africa is as at the
center of this because there is uh a
vibrant
huge number probably over a billion
uh uh yeah we're 1.3 billion people and
of those one billion um blacks
i mean that
where do you land on that
there is a reason
likes why i say i'm haunted
but i'm obsessed
that i'm monumental when it comes to the
free markets
and that i have such a strong sense of
urgency to the point that literally it
is affecting me
and it has to do with the fact that yes
you have the youngest region on earth in
terms of the age of its population
and the growth and the rate at it at
which it's growing
demographic wise
i am not willing to stay there and say
it's a curse for humanity
but it will be a curse for humanity
if we don't
make sure
that these people
our youth
gets
to partake
and what it takes to partake is not much
so if the rest of the world thinks that
get to partake means you have to send
more foreign aid you have to have more
um charity businesses
i mean charity um organizations sending
stuff away um of course
you're almost thinking parasites
i'm sorry to say this way
if this is what you're thinking
you're seeing us as no more than
parasites
and if that's what it's gonna be
i could see why some people might be
worried about that
although
humans should never be
seen as parasites no matter no matter no
matter
but some people will go
there now
people are here
what are we going to do dispose of them
that's not an option
so the only option we have left
is to make sure that people partake and
what partaking means is that the people
get included
in them and are
part of the systems that allow for human
flourishing
and it doesn't it's not much
in this case
it's about can we be serious about the
reforms
so we have free market
zones areas
where people where the flourishing can
start can
start to take place
the wealth
that people will need to flourish they
don't need you to give it to them
but it's all about can i let you fly
and you will make it happen for you and
also for me
every young african i see today
i realize how stupid the rest of the
world is
if they're not supporting
what i'm trying to talk about
because even if you don't want to do it
because that's the right thing to do
which i think it is the right thing to
do
yourself in it maybe engage your
selfishness
cause this person right there remember i
told you seven billion geniuses
everybody is came to this world with a
piece of solution to the human
problem
this person and that person and that
person
hold something for me because i'm part
of humanity this person might have a
cure
to a cancer that might take my wife out
the wife i haven't met yet but this kid
right here
has it inside
and if i help this if i make sure that
this kid gets a chance to flourish and
to manifest his genius or her genius
that trickle down many years later
comes straight back to serve me and the
love of my life
if we can't see it any other way maybe
let's try to think about it that way
because it becomes a very good
proposition at that point so in this
case
by 2050 lagos nigeria will be the
largest city in the world
the future is african whether we want it
or not but is it going to be
an african future where
you have a youth being a ticking bomb
because they have not you know there's
no hope
they stay
in poverty because they belong to
nations that don't even understand
sometimes the importance of common law
versus civil law
because they're trapped in countries
that don't understand that you know you
need to pro you need to um make the
legal framework to provide for better
economic freedom so you can unleash
the the genuineness the awesomeness the
ingenuity the industrious the industry
side of your young people especially of
your women
so that they build all the wealth that
your nation is going to need you to
build and with it the respect that comes
from that
see we have a choice to make and this is
why i feel so so so
restless about this at this point of my
life
we just lost george sayed
george aj is one of the few africans
that i knew who
who put this out that's who i learned
from he's he's gone and i feel a strong
sense of urgency
to not only bring back to the table that
which he has been working on
but to also make sure that it gets
steamed
that's why being here talking with you
today
it's it's
you have no idea it's
people ask what if someone like you
could say what can i do you did or you
did more than you could ever ever
imagine by just
allowing me to take this message to one
more person
and because if we do this
the change is going to happen somewhere
down the line so verbal effects of all
of that on the unlocking the human
potential it's unbelievable all those
people and efforts building cool stuff
amazing things yes yes yes so some are
going to be built stuff offers are going
to work on the reforms so we're working
on reforms by the way i'm
i'm the head of the um africa center for
prosperity of the atlas network the
largest organization in the world uh
working on taking down barriers of entry
for entrepreneurs around the world in
their respective countries so we're
doing great work there are i am i
basically um you know all the i
obviously overthink tanks we have in in
africa right now um free market think
tanks and we want to promote more of
them to come up and these are local
solutions by local people for their
local problems always that's where we
draw the line and so um
there so we're working on
reforms primarily and making people
understand the free markets and the
importance of it
um
but it is piecemeal legislation
it takes time
it is hard by the time you accomplish
something here more crap has happened
over here more laws have been pounded
out because you know how they fix a bad
law most of the time whether it's in u.s
somewhere else put other laws to kind of
undo the law from before but it keeps
stacking up and before you know it
where you should have one thing and it's
clear you have a hundred and they go
against each other and then it's all
it's worse so we have piecemeal
illustration but happening you know our
teams are doing really amazing fantastic
work especially the team in ima you know
imani in ghana we have a group now in
burundi the great and the great lakes i
mean people are doing amazing work
amazing work but we need to run faster
so while we keep we help ram running
faster we also have to unlock other
things and right now i'm working on one
of my most
craziest projects
something bold radical crazy for some
people
but i know we're not crazy because
before singapore has done it
you know uh hong kong has done it
latest the most recent china with the
sdzs the smell um special economic zones
um some of the most radical free market
zones in the world they've done it and
often times within a generation
meaningful change start to happen right
so
um here what i'm working on is this
concept of some call it um charter
cities paul romer
others call it um the
um
free cities and i like to call it
startup cities
what these are is for us to think about
okay if piecemeal legislation takes
forever at the same while we have this
demographic that's growing faster and
faster in africa
there is a discrepancy here between the
the process of the progress we're making
to set the right environment for
business to prop up
and how many more people are coming
to life
literally every day on the continent
there's a discrepancy here and so
the ticking bomb is going faster than
the process we the progress we can make
this is a problem
so what some of us are working on is
this concept of a startup cities and to
say peace management takes piecemeal
legislation takes too long
how about we continue doing that work
which is essential and critical but at
the same time can we think of zones and
i like to call them also common law
zones
where we basically try to
have within a country an area where for
business i'm not talking about family
law or any of that stuff no one is
touching your culture or anything like
that but we're just saying business-wise
an enclave where you have the best
practices from around the world
including yours
in terms of
what constitute a great business
environment
and allow people
in like it's a it's you know you get in
freely or nobody's forcing you to go
nobody's forcing you to whatever so
in visa so basically you're you're to
think about this um rather unoccupied
plot of land within a country think
dubai on 110 acres of land dubai is
thinking that
uh in their case they're like uh maybe
they decided maybe to realize that the
best for business in their case and they
said uh they looked around and were like
wow but common law especially british
common law seems like a very good one so
at that point they decided for business
only
not family or anything like that which
is going to stand there you know sharia
or whatever and so they said
we are gonna bring in um
you know uh so they hired a retired
british common law judges to educate the
law and train the people under there and
i'm oversimplifying but at the end of
the day
in uh within a generation
dubai
became
one of the top international financial
centers in the world
it is what it is today
um
so
in the case of the african nations that
that zone can then spread yes it can not
only spread but maybe let's say senegal
if senegal was to go for this here you
have this one and then over there you
have another zone and then what they
start to do is they're not all modeled
the same way because maybe this one is
saying hey we want to attract more i
don't know maybe we want to attract more
um
um medical research right this one's
going to be saying maybe we want to
attract more um crypto or maybe it's
going to be more like us we want to be
more about religious this or whatever
you know what i mean so it we wanted to
fit more vis-a-vis and just uh kind of
give the basics the grounds and then
watch the magic happen on it right and
so this is what we're working on
and the hope fair because sometimes
people are like
you know i know some people are like you
guys are crazy but hey i'm like no it
it's just it's more or less the story of
um you know um
the asian tigers and um most recently
most of uh china's progress economically
speaking because some people might say
well you don't want the china way of
developing you see
even then i say and it's okay
we you can always do better
but we cannot deny
the what the magic
that they have accomplished what they
have accomplished is nothing short of a
miracle 800 million people getting out
of poverty
so it's not include yeah for the
the quality of life and the majority of
the child yes population yes does
something like that happen without
problems of course not
and so the next person to do something
just actually gets to learn from lessons
from lessons that's all and leapfrog
leapfrog and leapfrog exactly so for me
this is a promise and people are like oh
but you guys are crazy but i'm like just
like with everything do you know how
many attempts it took before the first
flight you know the wright brothers took
off do you know how many
and that's important you you try you
crash you try you crash but each time
you're going higher up higher
and you once you get
up for once then you stay up longer and
before you know it you're doing all
types of things so here's the same thing
i tell people
listen all i need
is one success story
and then the sea change
people don't even wait for us yeah
everybody but this is hard because it's
the first time
so but the good news is there are many
groups working on the continent there
are some some um
groups in zambia there's a zone there
folks are doing something like this in
nigeria where we're part of a project
fair in nigeria um the one that i'm most
excited about i cannot disclose the name
of the country yet but my god i'm i'm so
excited by it and i just know i just
know lex it's gonna happen in our
lifetime i hope so it's a really
powerful vision and uh you know it's not
being dramatic to say that the future of
humanity uh depends on this that your
success that success in africa
it's such an important continent it is a
century it's the continent where
everything started
and i think it's the continent where
we have that continent has to finally
finally finally thrive we cannot all of
us call ourselves
um
an enlightened society as a whole when
you have such when you have
this it's a humongous continent have you
seen the size of it
you know yeah
it's it's it's hard to fathom actually
yeah i forget exactly and it has such
ingenious people
you know sometimes i look at my people
i have to tell you
i'm so proud of them and the young
people especially and you know you would
look at them and you know somebody said
sometimes one day and it was so true
they said
you know we've seen poverty other places
but here
it is just maybe somebody doesn't have
money
but they have dignity
and it's true yeah so everything else we
can handle and we will handle you have
to mark my word for this this is gonna
happen
and um our youth is amazing
you should see them
so full of creativity and it doesn't
matter you know you were telling me what
makes you different many things makes us
all different you know rwandans are very
different from um the west africans that
we are um rwandans for example never
dance with their hips they dance more
like you know with
this part of a body um
west africans hips us it's hips all over
the place all the time and it's you know
more jumping stuff like that in one day
you feel it's more like you know i mean
they remind me more of you know the
ballet thing
um rondon's harvest times where you know
they don't eat in uh you know so much in
public it's not very well it's something
you do
um us we have west africans we like to
be loud we're almost like the italians
of the continent
and then the ones are more like you know
the swiss of active country even looks
like a switzerland i mean we're so
different from one group to another when
you go to with a congo and you see these
guys they're so crazy we have a dress i
mean le saper so we are a very different
bunch um but you know what i love about
us what i love about my people
we are
we
we are we
we are a manifestation of what
resiliency means
and
um
so everything we need is there
everything we need is there
i will say that there's nothing wrong
with the seed
everything
that's wrong with us
is that pot
that we put around us
so we're tired of being bonsai people
we
need to be the tallest trees in the
forest that we were designed to be and
so and that can be fixed and that can be
fixed and that's the beauty of it and
that's why i am so i'm almost dizzy
with i get dizzy with uh with hope
i know my history
i know my economics
my fellow humans and all of that and we
know that there's an unfailing recipe
and when it comes to that recipe we have
the hardest part of it
one missing ingredient which is a free
markets
as we go around and talk
and people start to understand
and each country tries to figure out
okay where do we go there from here
i
i know
that i will die
with my continent
having taken
the right shift for a turn i don't have
to see where it ends because i cannot in
my wildest dream imagine where it's
gonna end
but i know it's gonna be
yeah so all my only job
is to get this message out
and then let my people do with it what
they want to do that's a scale of impact
it's just boundless it's kind of cool i
mean you know sometimes we think about
individual problems and how do we solve
them we look up to certain individuals
like the i don't know steve jobs and
elon musk
but
it's so much more powerful to just
without knowing what they will do
give the freedom
uh to millions to hundreds of millions
of people to do whatever the hell
they're gonna do can you imagine
can you just imagine it's truly truly
exciting so with the in that sense the
work you're doing it's unimaginable the
kind of impact it would have
now going back to that hard moment this
dark place you went in
in your mind in your personal life story
you lost your husband
um what gave you strength during that
time uh what were the what were the
places you went to your mind
in terms of
personal struggle in terms of maybe even
depression or
or these kinds of struggles
i think for me
when my person passed away
i
went
to
maybe my friends could see what was
going on maybe they couldn't i don't
know
but on the surface
i looked like i was fine but what
happened is the only thing i think that
kept me around aft as i thought about it
uh was um
the job to be done
these women relied on me
and i was no longer free i did not own
myself and they said it in those words
you don't own yourself anymore
and it was true
but it helped me because i was able to
um
you know sometimes whatever it takes to
keep you around whatever it takes and
that's what i would tell people who feel
like they can't just push one more push
and they think they need to end it at
that point whatever it takes just stick
around for one more second because the
next second you know
so
i stuck around because of duty i felt a
very strong sense of duty my duty was in
this case i think stronger than my than
my pain
i don't know if it's possible i don't
know how that was possible but it was
and um
and i just
pushed my grief under the rug for years
for years i worked like a mad lady
i travel i would travel i would do three
states in three days landing at twin the
morning
around five or six gonna ride along with
our distributors because it was beverage
and just keep going and have all of this
energy and look like everything is fine
but what happened was just like i was
focused on the job to be done and
sometimes it is okay to do that at least
for me
it was my safety my you know like when
you're in the water and you're about to
sink and they throw you that um that
round thing i don't know how you call it
um you know but uh
you know that keeps you afloat yes yes
yeah whatever yeah
between the two of us we're back we're
still we're terrible
i know exactly what you mean exactly
right so you understand me so they sent
you that thing and you just i was just
hanging on to it
my life depended on this thing so these
women they carried me yeah they carried
me
and with time
things are moving forward
and at some point i went into a really
really deep depression and um
i went into a very dark place even
darker than the one i think i came from
because by that time
i had worked for years on this company
and now some other things was happening
and around that time
it's also when i was discovering
a lot of what i'm we talked about today
about what makes the country rich
and for me to understand that
um
my network i was very much into um left
oriented network
and um
to to just start to
to see all of this
i tried to address it to realize that
many of these people would prefer go
running for the hills
then
except for a moment
that maybe capitalism might be part of a
solution
when many of them were involved in
capitalism
so um
that was a hard time
at some point i was um
yeah so many things were happening
around that time that basically shook
up
everything for me
one it's hard to talk about because it's
very personal and the person that i that
was but i but i was having a problem
with passed away last year
and i'm one to always say
leave the dead alone
so
because of that i won't speak about it
but there too having a major fallout
with somebody who was like a favorite
figure for me somebody that i completely
trusted
and so
at some point you just tell ask yourself
was my whole life built on a lie
right
and um and then you're confused and then
you become confused
and
and then at some point you lose 90 of
your friends because of ideologically
speaking it doesn't work anymore
um
[Music]
then you just wonder
have i
have i been asleep this whole time
and then you start to wonder remember
when you ask me who am i
at some point lex
i literally was like a candle in the
wind
i felt like i was a candle in the wind
and it was very hard to come back from
that and um
people have a heart the few people i
talk to about this they have a hardest
time understanding or even believing it
because they're like you
i'm like yes me
i used to be a candle in the wind what
got you out what made you overcome that
my current husband
my current husband love love
see when i tell you love is the answer
but him he came with love
but he also came with
um
really helping me figure out the world
so with michael because that's him who
we're talking about michael strong
um
that must be special he's so special
he's so special so you have no idea how
special it is
but you know um michael the reason why i
have such love respect and admiration
for my husband i'll never say it enough
is because um actually it's one of those
relationships that got built based on
intellect first
you see
at some point
i was in the position where
i could start a foundation
after having built my first business
and all i wanted
was
an ability
to
um power
as many
especially women african women
entrepreneurs like me a few years ago
before then to do something like i was
able to do
bring back to the world some really cool
aspects of our culture built into a
really cool brand 21st century type
that's what i wanted to do because the
more i could promote women like that and
put steam behind them and the more
my dream envisioned for and respected
africa prosperous africa would happen
back then that's what i wanted
and around me this was also part of a
whole
crisis of um ideologies i had back then
everybody was like
well
we we should be just doing grants
and i knew that i'd my people didn't
need grants they didn't need like a
handout
they don't want your charity
i didn't want charity
i wanted someone who could work with me
on my accounting i wanted somebody who
um could help me brainstorm marketing
wise i wanted somebody or i needed to
raise money to
pay my um my research and development
guy
to help me you know take the juices from
my grandma's recipe to something that
can be shelf-stable
i i uh if you're gonna i needed coaching
these are all the things that i needed
to make my dream happen i didn't want
you to give me some crap for free that's
not what i want i just want um to be
able to build my business with all the
things that business building needs
and so
that's what i wanted to do and it's what
it was needed
and so
michael
somebody found out about what i was
doing because back in the days in foster
school they would write a lot about me
and everything and
so michael along with john mackey the
founder of whole foods market they had a
non-profit called flow
and it's all about human flourishing
they want for people everybody to get
this choice this ability to be able to
get to a point in their life where
they're in complete flow it's uh mikhail
just make high michael is the only one
who can say that last name but you know
the whole concept of flow when you're in
a state of flow you're basically doing
what you need what you're supposed to do
the way you're supposed to do it with
the people was this whole concept of
flow yeah it's amazing unfortunately i
decided so you know so i meet with this
man
okay so i so we we
he finds me his people find me
and then there was a program where it
was all about accelerating accelerating
women entrepreneurs so it's during these
times when i'm starting now to see
things that's when actually all of this
stuff that i noticed how come here it
takes me all of his time to start my
business over this 20 minutes here it's
free however thousands of dollars all of
this nonsense that i just took oh maybe
it's just because we're messed up we're
poor that's why everything is so messed
up
whoa these people are introducing me to
concepts i'm like first of all i'm like
oh really um
what did you call um the uh doing
business in the right what is that
um you know all of this stuff yeah and
i'm starting to discover this whole of
the body of work
what but the free markets like this
thing that i was sensing
this environment that i was sensing that
it was different
around me
and that they called it the free markets
over here and i was very bad
and then i started to
but had those ideas with the ideas that
i was fed with before that
and the evidence won
and further more than the evidence the
evidence combined with my lived
experience
it was so powerful so i basically unders
started understanding these ideas from
the most visceral part of my my body you
know of my being
and
it makes sense
so michael
michael helped me find the solution the
answer to my lifelong little girl's
question
of why do they have this and we don't
and how do some countries like mine
be poor while others are rich
and
with the we've learned with
understanding all of that
the greatest
biggest sense
of liberation
came upon me like
i i have no other word to describe that
true liberation the liberation that
comes from a peer
to finally
understand and be vindicated
in your own
you know
understand in your own um
deep knowing or
feeling that
they're not what they're saying is not
true you're not the problem it's not you
there's something else
and when i discovered that my whole life
changed so and since then
i have be i've been very serious about
going deeper and deeper and deeper into
my understanding of all of this
understanding the subtlety
at some point i was very angry about the
liberators of africa because i was like
yes you helped liberate us
but just to keep us in this mannerism
i was angry for the longest time
and then eventually you have to engage
empathy
and love
to put yourself in their shoes and try
to understand the time at which they
were living and that got me onto a
journey of trying to understand history
more
that's how i understood i was able to go
beyond just these liberators and try to
understand and rebuild the world around
them at the mark at the micro and under
also them at the other macro level
just really you have to try to walk in
their shoes
and from there
finally separate the baby with a bath
water but they were not able to do back
then that's why today
i'm sorry but i have no patience for the
blm organizers founders
especially founders i don't know what
organizers think but the founders told
us what they stand for and i say guys
don't make that same mistake again if
you're serious about this you cannot
make this a mistake
the liberals of africa
they have an excuse
we didn't know better it was it was so
easy back then to conflate everything
but today you me anybody alive
cannot with a straight face
embrace marxist socialist ideas
especially especially
when they're claiming that they want
people
to thrive no you can't i'm sorry
and i will hold you i will hold your
feet up to the fire on that one i will i
will and that's what i'm doing they will
give me a lot of grief for this but
guess what i could care less do you know
why i could care less
because we have an entire population
to help rise
out of poverty into prosperity where
they become
you know co-creators
global co-creators of
innovation
and those ideas give you hope for the
place you love for senegal for africa
they do they do i live the world i live
in
the new centers of culture and fashion
are in dakar
the new um the new the new centers of uh
tech and
and um
you know crypto even
is somewhere maybe nigeria so you see
that future you see that future clearly
i do i do
i do
it's a beautiful thing and uh it's also
beautiful to see that the space of these
uh really powerful ideas is where you
also fall in love right so at the
intersection i did a section michael
would spend mike and i would spend hours
talking about all of his ideas and i
would be like but what about this no it
doesn't make any sense no no no oh no
and then hours every single day for
months lex yeah
and then from there our love was born
because i tell people
for us love is not about location in the
eyes like you know we all think
but it's about we look in one direction
and in this case it's this vision what
we know to be possible and true if only
you liberate people
we what we know to be true impossible
we all of us are miracles walking around
every time i get on a plane it's a
miracle of engineering
um all the things we're able to do you
know now when they do operation on your
teeth how they're able to put the pain
down away all of this is us you're
working on this robot
this this this inside here yeah humans
are amazing i know so that's why i went
and when it works in great tandem with
this guy yeah yeah these two working
together yeah
watch out nothing we can't accomplish
nothing nothing well guy you're one of
the most incredible people i've ever
talked to i've ever
thank you so much this is truly an honor
thank you for everything you're doing
thank you for the fire that burns within
you and and there's just the passion you
have for a place that's going to
i think define the future of humanity so
thank you for everything you're doing
thank you for talking thank you thank
you to you and sometimes i hope this
fire doesn't consume me that's how much
it is
but um i am grateful to you for this um
and um
yeah thank you for i know you don't do a
lot of this you know i am it's uh
this type of interviews maybe i don't
know but um i'm so so happy you mean fun
inspiring powerful interviews yes i need
to do more you're amazing i don't know
because at first i was like lex friedman
really yeah really how's this gonna go
i'm gonna talk to lex and go all crazy i
think you need to work on your uh
unconscious bias
thank you thank you thank you so much
thanks for listening to this
conversation with magot wade to support
this podcast please check out our
sponsors in the description
and now let me leave you with some words
from nelson mandela
money won't create success
the freedom to make it will
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time