23/09/2023
What do you see...?
Back to the future!
__This is YOUR time. What do you see? [And what do you NOT?]
I recently went on a business trip that took me to Israel and California’s Silicon Valley, both global epicenters of innovation-driven entrepreneurship. There's a lot going on this week, but I promised I would share some of my learning experiences with you here. [None of us must ever stop learning!]
In Israel, I took time off from a visit to our business to spend some time with one of the country’s leading Venture Capital investors, known as Jerusalem Venture Partners. These guys provide equity funding to dozens of tech entrepreneurs who build businesses that go on to list on the local stock exchange as well as the Nasdaq in New York. I met so many entrepreneurs who have developed leading-edge technologies and are looking for strategic partners in Africa for their products.
I have long urged African governments to study the venture capital ecosystems that have made Israel a country of about 9,7 million people with virtually no resources into a $520bn+ GDP economy [bigger than that of South Africa]. I have even shared with leaders an amazing book on how Israel did it, called "Start-Up Nation". In 2022 Israel's GDP grew 6,5 percent!
It is the same approach used in places like California’s Silicon Valley and has led to the emergence of behemoths like Apple and Alphabet, which together have a market cap value bigger than the GDP of Africa, and rival that of the UK and Germany.
After a week in Israel just visiting tech companies that are in my own industry and signing up new partnerships whilst following up on our business that has more than 1,400 people, I headed off to Silicon Valley where I have been going for more than 30 years. For a tech entrepreneur like me, I’m totally addicted to going there and it just never disappoints!
On our visit to Stanford, we were joined by some of the Team at Rockefeller Foundation. They're doing some really pioneering work across the world and I know many of you will be inspired to find out more: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/commitment/innovation/
For obvious competitive reasons, I can’t go into specifics about who or what we saw in Silicon Valley, but there were two things I don’t mind sharing:
First of all, I was keen to visit as I have read more than 20 books this year alone on the subject of Artificial Intelligence [AI], and I felt confident enough to spend time with some of the leading experts in the field including professors at Stanford University who gave us an entire day of their time.
Stanford's Professor Fei-Fei Li is one of the world's top AI experts. Why don't some of you do a little research on her and Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence [StanfordHAI]. Remember I’m also on the Advisory board of this University, which is where the founders of companies like Google and Open AI studied, to name a few.
One of the most exciting experiences I had was ordering a driverless car called Waymo. I first visited Waymo when it was still under development at Google Labs but now it is available for the first time as a commercial service.
I ordered it through an App in much the same way you order Uber, and soon enough the car arrived after about 10 minutes. As you can see from the picture, I sat next to an empty driver’s seat!
The electric Jaguar took me through the streets of San Francisco to my destination. There are now so many of these cars on the streets that people barely take notice!
It would stop at traffic lights, or make way for cyclists and pedestrians just like a normal car. It was just amazing! As I reflected on this development, it occurred to me that it was only a few years ago that we were all excited about the arrival of services like Uber and now we have the arrival of Waymo; a totally driverless car service.
As I have often pointed out, you cannot be a successful entrepreneur if you lack curiosity. I’m always trying to learn about new things, and sometimes just for the fun of it. And when I have learnt enough, I try to do something myself because I don’t like the idea of just being a consumer of what others have done. I try to re-imagine things to add my own twist or innovation.
For the last five years, we have been working on AI, and as it begins to go mainstream commercially with products like ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude, our teams are preparing to launch our own products into the market. I have absolutely no intention of being left behind in the AI revolution!
African entrepreneurs [of all ages!] this really is your time. What do you see? What do you not yet see? Are you busy ?
"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it". Ralph Waldo Emerson