In Cuba, the President mentioned that Cubans should embrace technology like AirBnB and Stripe (and I suspect, Atlas). Some people say this is new colonialism. Do you agree?
Patrick Collison is with him. Player. & I think he flew there himself, like he is his own pilot.
Check out @patrickcâs Tweet: https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/711952117632663552?s=09
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I love how these guys use diplomacy to push the expansion and business interests of their companies. Nigeria has a lot to learn in this regard.
Nigeria is still busy campaigning for its people to buy their own products though.
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Americans (like most governments) have always mixed diplomacy and trading interests together. This is not new. I donât get the âcolonialismâ angle. Unless itâs some over zealous connection to Stripe Atlas.
Politics aside, the potential positive impact to the ordinarily citizens of Cuba will be huge. To have that close proximity to the U.S and not be able to trade with them was literally throwing $$billions away. In 08, I used to live in Bermuda (2hr+ flight to New York) working for deloitte, and one thing I can tell you for free is that, a great deal of the economy, was dependent on the promixity to the states. Cuba has unrealised benefit and this is an opportunity to tap into that.
But if you bring this back home and ask âwill Buhari push Nigerian startupsâ. The govt will say âYesâ. We do that already.Thatâs why we give people like Dangote âpioneer statusâ in loads of industries. Heâs a âstartupâ. And you see, we open doors for him (and people like him), in other African countries as well.
But what about the real startups? The truth is that weâre still in embryonic stage. Weâre not ready yet. Yes, weâre on the right path and clever people are now building companies, that hopefully will outlive them. Hopefully, they will turn out to be great companies. But weâre not quite at that point, for a govt to be advocating for us in other countries. Just look at this https hotel saga stuff. I touched on âPrivacy and Securityâ some time ago in some article, and I was pulling up the piggybank on obvious lapses, they turn it round quickly and made changes on their website. Huge respect to the team on being able to take feedback (they didnât wait until some âstarâ told them). Not quite sure whatâs happening in this basic security 101 case, but still we observe.
In all, we still have a long way to go, weâre going to get there. But we gonna learn.
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It serms that in the NG psyche, we can only export things we dug from the ground - oil, agric products or minerals.
We also love big men like Dangote, ignoring the thousands of Igbo traders that have built cross-border businesses.
And we forget that Nollywood and the music industry have helped push our culture and generate billions across the continent.
This blindness to business opportunity across the continent is a feature of the NG govt. Itâs not a bug but it should be
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It is an over-zealous connection to Atlas. Lol.
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I like this thought-out response.
Most economically dominant countries invest in trade at a government level, and they do so through diplomatic channels. Those channels are often historically connected to colonialism. Trace the funding of ODA (Overseas Development Aid) programmes, and look at the history of ODA itself, and the connection becomes clearer. (I like this book on the topic: The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development by Maggie Black | Goodreads )
Having delivered programmes with that kind of funding, I can say there are clear political motives, but theyâre often altruistic, like trying to help Europeans invest money in African companies. But it also gets competitive - the US, EU and China all run competitive programmes and funds. (The EU has the E-Estonia programme which trumps Stripe Atlas in many ways.)
Itâs certainly worth considering that creating a company where youâre not a citizen and have limited access and rights comes with risks. But the jurisdiction also means that investors there are more comfortable with you. In this case, these governments are trying to open themselves up to attract investable companies, and thus attract and retain investment.
In the case of the US promotion of AirBnB, thereâs a land grab for customers and markets.
In the past, colonialism equated to exporting natural resources with failed promises of investing in industry in return. Whether or not âexportingâ startups or customer bases is also colonalism is a big debate.
From another angle, youâre the director of a startup - why would you not do whatâs best for your business?
Jorn Lyseggen, the founder of the MEST school in Ghana, and I argued about this once, and he made a strong point: every successful African founder, whether or not they grew their business in Africa, can return to re-invest and teach others.
Back to the politics. In some ways, itâs nice to be bargained over, but that leaves out the more obvious opportunity, to do it yourself and reap all the rewards. After all, if youâre going to make an investor rich, better that investor is your countryman right? Well, maybe not - I think whatâs more important is does that investor re-invest in your home economy?
The grass is always greener on the other side. AirBnB was also pushed when Obama was in Kenya. Thereâs a story behind that - AirBnB helped Obama in his first presidential campaign. Thereâs a relationship there. I wonât compare that what happens in Nigeria, but itâs worth considering the similarities.
Itâs also worth comparing this to what Vietnam has done - which is to create an environment where local tech entrepreneurs can execute well and win the local market.
Interswitch always comes to mind when I think of successful tech companies in Nigeria. Now, theyâre only recently starting to engage in the startup community, but thatâs a good sign. Given thereâs a $1b local tech company investing in startups tells me Nigeria is a little bit passed an embryonic stage, as you put it.
Yeah, thereâs still a long way to go but look at how fast things are going!
Whatâs interesting to me is how this creates a number of funding options for African startups. Like any funding, itâs worth investigating and learning what strings are attached.
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Barack was doing his duty as a civil servant. I want to get the verbatim of the particular act that provides for this so that Iâm not misquoted. So here;
Smith-Mundt Act â Title IIâInterchange of Persons, Knowledge and Skills, Section 201: The Secretary is authorized to provide for interchanges post, on a reciprocal basis between the United States and other countries of students, trainees, teachers, guest instructors, professors, and leaders in fields of specialized knowledge or skill and shall wherever possible provide these interchanges by using the services of existing reputable agencies which are successfully engaged in such activity. The Secretary may provide for orientation courses and other appropriate services for such persons from other countries upon their arrival in the United States, and for such persons going to other countries from the United States.
Fulbright-Hays Act Sec. 2452. - Authorization of activities
(a) Grants or contracts for educational or cultural exchanges; participation in international fairs and
expositions abroad
(2) cultural exchanges, by financing -
(i) visits and interchanges between the United States and other countries of leaders, experts in fields of specialized knowledge or skill, and other influential or distinguished persons;
(ii) tours in countries abroad by creative and performing artists and athletes from the United States, individually and in groups, representing any field of the arts, sports, or any other form of cultural attainment;
(iii) United States representation in international artistic, dramatic, musical, sports, and other cultural festivals, competitions, meetings, and like exhibitions and assemblies;
In essence, his mandated by law to promote American culture and by extension American startups with all his might. No, itâs not new colonialism.
Uhuru actually does this as well. Very well actually. Did you guys watch GES in Kenya?
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Hmm, what story is this? All I can remember is the cereal boxes of '08 elections. But they not only had Obama Oâs (for Obama), they also had Capân McCainâs (for McCain). Even then, that was for their benefitâŚnot the candidates.
Election history aside, I think your approach to looking at the tech stage is interesting but I was more observing the macro view.
InterSwitch is successful by many standards. And thatâs not in doubt. However, when I touched on the âembryonic stageâ, it doesnât mean we donât already have good companies, but instead itâs means weâre still at the early stages into a natural progression of how tech companies grow and have an impact at scale. Itâs really at the point of impact at scale, that startups can do stuff like have their president open doors in other countries.
While weâre on this topic of tech stages in an ecosystem, itâs also worth reflecting on examples of other ecosystems and how this has played out. So if you look at US for example, where there was dominance of IBM/Intel/Cisco then became Microsoft/Apple intertwined with Amazon/Google and now we have the Facebook/Amazon (Google & Apple still relevant of course). Key thing to point out is that even IBM is still a $64bn co. so not exactly going into extinction. But new companies take over and literally drag along the rest of the sector. (see example of Amazon tax by Ben Thompson).
But the universal factors (which will apply to Nigeria) that causes the change of guard are; outdated technology (e.g built on old stack), changes in consumer behavior and tastes (very hard to get right) innovators dilemma (how do you change when youâre minting money by ripping off consumers), no sufficient moat (remember old tech means vulnerability so 10x competitor is not a mirage) etc. If you extrapolate this view back to Nigeria, then itâs clear to see weâve not had the change of guards. So using the same interSwitch (which happens to be a unicorn as youâve pointed out), itâs natural that we will have other tech companies take their place. So the likes of PayStack, SlushPay, Cash Envoy etc should be able to take market share. Iâve not been to their InterSwitch offices, but Iâm sure they are vulnerable to symptoms of the problems I mentioned above.
And Iâve not at all mentioned market. Well, for most parts, the âmarketâ is still under tapped and under developed. We can literally take any sector; say hotels (most people still book for their stay by walking up to the front desk), or SVOD (believe it or not, most Nigerians have neither heard of any of the local or foreign players), transportation (still done by going to the bus stops/garages) etc. Maybe this is food for thought for anyone hoping to buildâŚthe market is still available and weâre indeed still at embryonic stage.
@Sherrytums any major highlight of GES? I didnât really keep up with it.
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You forget that Airbnb has been in and out of court in the US over a number of housing violations pushed by the state, and have had to build up an effective lobby machine along the way. Serviced with a sizable war chest.
The company has even taken preemptive bold steps in building out her own network of vested lobbyist starting with her beaming rank of hosts.
This has been a reality for the company.
So before we go all conspiracy clubbing on this one Cuba trip, letâs keep in mind Airbnb still has her battles at home and if she drops a gauge she goes down. No uncle Sam to cry to.
On a somewhat personal quip; whatâs colonialism, whatâs global expansion, whatâs global prosperity?
Same view, different lenses.
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No I didnât. You say Uhuru does this well? Thatâs good to hear
I learnt a lot from looking at this trip. Obama goes, they play baseball (sports), he takes along Stripe and AirBnB (startups), reps of Mariott, Starwood etc (large corporations) and the Rolling Stones perform a concert (culture).
Hopefully, we will see this deliberateness in years to come among African governments. At least publicly.