Happy Wednesday to all. So I was doing a search on Hacker News and I came upon this post whereby Oo Nwoye i.e @OoTheNigerian asked Paul Graham on Hacker News about why Africa can’t produce global scale startups. The responses he got are very interesting. Please remember this was about 6 years ago. But what I find interesting is how YCombinator plans on visiting us next month.
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Ha!
Thanks for the flash back man.
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Interesting, I didn’t even know what a startup is at the time. Good points @OoTheNigerian, rolling up my sleeves as well 
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We can, It’s just a matter of time. But meeehn una don tey on this startup thing ooo 
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As in over tey sef. As from now on, if Oo is talking, I wee just keep shut & learn.
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Haha
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With biro paper and tape recorder sef…
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It was a great question to ask and I learned alot from the responses.
Did PG ever reply?
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It’s silly questions like this is why Africa is backward. Do the Koreans go to Silicon Valley to seek validation? They work on building an industry. Paul Graham from the little I know of him barely has any idea of Africa beyond probably TV imagery and safari expeditions and all the 419 emails he wrote filters for back in the day. He is no authority in the same way OO Nwoye is no authority on the Eskimos of Alaska.
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Inferiority complex?Maybe,maybe not.
I dislike him using term “Africa” though,why do Nigerians always generalize their thoughts,problems to encompass all of Africa?
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The ancient name for Africa was called “Alkebulan” which means Mother of mankind or Garden of Eden or land of the blacks…
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@Godmode, I never knew. TIL (Today I Learned) that. Good Look my brotha!!!
This was a quiet and so relevant comment there:
"Economic Evolution:
Agrarian -> Manufacturing -> Service
Web-apps are Service sector. African countries need to start displacing Asian ones as manufacturing centers before we can even start talking about foreign venture capitalists wanting to invest in African tech-service startups. If the company targets a global audience because there is not enough local demand for web services, then why is it based in Africa?"
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