Pan-African businessman Strive Masiyiwa has called on young African entrepreneurs – that he has called ‘digital, liberated young entrepreneurs’ – to lead a wealth-creation, entrepreneurial revolution on the continent.
Masiyiwa writes:
I remember a time when the richest man in the world was always an old man; a very old man.
Before Bill Gates, the richest men in the world were like Howard Hughes (a reclusive old man who made things like aeroplanes and run oil fields). There were powerful men like Tiny Rowland who made politicians quake in their boots and paid bribes to get what they wanted.
No one expected young people to get to the top, because it was understood that getting to the top was a life time toil (even multigenerational]), which required political power, and access to scarce resources.
Then came Bill Gates, Steve Job, Larry Ellison.
These were basically “kids” at the time, working in garages with digital technologies. They were innovative inventors.
These guys toppled the old men from the top; they replaced privilege and power as the only way to get to the top.
The kids that came after them were even younger, like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
These guys were multi billionaires before they were even 25 years old!
For a while it was a uniquely American phenomenon, but China also unleashed its young people. And they too have gone on to build extraordinary companies.
Strangely, Europe has never been able to do it, and you don’t find young companies at the top throughout Europe, and old men (and women sometimes) still dominate with wealth built generationally.
And what of Africa?
Unless young people go digital (and it is applicable in every field), they will not break the grip of the older generation, which our future needs them to do.
They have to be natives of the concept that #INNOVATION MAKES MONEY!
IT’S THE ONLY WAY TO PLAY THIS GAME.
How do you see things?
Are you ready for the kind of revolution in wealth creation that only young people can unleash on Africa?
#LIBERATE YOURSELF FROM THE OLD WEALTH-ACCUMULATION MODELS, AND INSTEAD THINK OF HOW YOU CAN CREATE WEALTH IN A DIGITAL AGE!