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 going to do it,

they're going to have to think twice. And when they do, they're going to have to pay consequences.

The following is a conversation with Magat Wade, an entrepreneur who's passionate about creating

positive change in Africa through economic empowerment. This is Alex Friedman podcast.

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,

here's Magat Wade. 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 try to sneak up on telling us what is the spirit of its people?

Teranga. Teranga. Teranga, it's a Wallof word. Wallof 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, 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. So on and on,

Shalva, that's us. That's us, the place where you come and everybody will just embrace you,

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 a whole life, right? 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 tells everyone. Yes, for everyone,

for everyone, especially towards the foreigner. Because it's very, it's very ingrained in us,

this understanding that especially the foreigner, the foreigner is called foreigner because the

foreigner is coming from somewhere else. So if someone has taken the time and the energy,

whether 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 where the foreigners again, 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 this goes with the other way around.

Maybe it has to do with 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 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 towards the foreigner.

So when you have a pride of your culture, a pride of your own people, it's easier to sort of embrace.

I mean, it's interesting how these kind of cultures emerge because, you know, the Slavic

countries are sometimes colder. They're slower to trust others. 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 as compared to other cities I've lived in, sort of Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco.

There's a hesitation to open up, to be fragile, to be caring before understanding what the sort of,

what I can gain from you kind of calculation is really interesting. And 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, if I were to advance one thing, and I had the same experience

after having lived in San Francisco first, then we went to New York, then we came to Austin.

And 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. They're real. Unlike what you were saying,

I feel like in these other places, 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.

But later, as prosperity starts to come in and success comes in, then you attract a different

breed. At first, where are the 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

want to, I count myself in it, but because we're also new arrivals, always been furious now.

But how are we going to protect this place? Yeah. Yeah, these are 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,

the sort of the characters, but also 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 all the people that kind of try to do the cutting edge stuff they're doing

at Tesla and SpaceX. But 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 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?

Or how can I hang out with this person, can advance me? You go to a party,

you're seizing, they're seizing 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. San Francisco? That's great. That's the one word you go with a French accent.

You have to. San Francisco. San Francisco. But you know, so now that you find that cute,

you're going to 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. 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, you know, Nicole Nodzek

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 life.

If we can accomplish making sure that all walks of life doesn't matter how little

or 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, you know, her initiative is just how they're really trying, you know,

to again work on keeping affordability down 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 Austin go away, that San 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 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, 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 is also, there is this invisible, this invisible, how should I say this,

there's this invisible agreement that they all seem to have to stay on script.

Yeah, 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, what comes out as opposed to just the free, open embrace of people,

the weirdos, the characters, the interesting, the full, deep sense of diversity, not just ideas,

but backgrounds, and rich and poor, like, artists, engineers, high school dropouts,

PhDs, all of this. Yes, yes. That's what makes for a rich society that's going to get ahead.

I'm glad you mentioned Nicole's efforts. I know she really is passionate about,

I don't know how complicated that work is, because there's probably a big force trying to

increase how much it costs to live in Austin. I don't know how you resist that. Whenever I go to

New York City, just the fact that there's a giant park in the middle of it, 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 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 chase a dream when they don't get any money in their pocket.

Absolutely. I don't know how you do that. It's partly political, probably,

regulation, all that kind of stuff. A lot of it has to do with regulations.

And this is where her and I also very much see eye to eye in terms of 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 helped me find a better one. But at least that's a word that people can

understand. We got to stand for the lesser fortunate among us. Some people would like

call them, maybe oftentimes use the word, maybe the underdogs, whatever it is. I was just saying,

maybe the lesser fortunate among us. 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.

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. But I find that oftentimes people in the name of

weak care don't engage their mind. And a friend of mine said this, and he said it so well, he said,

having a heart for the poor, that's easy. Having a mind for the poor, that's the challenge.

And oftentimes it's, we all have a heart for the poor. But when it comes then to, then what do we do

to have a real impact on making sure that 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 the supply, with the supply of housing, and therefore the people who can't afford,

you know, people get priced out of the 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 loss.

And tons of 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 the market. Same thing was done with us. So

oftentimes when I see problems of this nature, you can betcha that regulations and senseless 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 of 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 you a question about Africa. In the West, in many places in the world, Africa has almost

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,

from Senegal and beyond? Right. So at the most basic of what makes us one goes back to even

what makes you African. You are African. I'm African. We're one big family. Africa is very

much at the end of the day, the foundation and the birth of the human race. So from that standpoint,

at the most basic level, we're all Africans. Where this whole thing started. Exactly. Exactly.

Where this whole thing started and how at some point humanity was hanging by its fingernails.

Only 2,000 of us were left on this earth. And eventually we started, 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. So hair gets lighter for some people. Eyes get different shape for others to adjust to our

new natural habitat. The genomics program I think at the National Geographic did that so well

for people who are interested in going back to that work with Spencer Wells and such.

But yeah, so at the very basic, most basic level, 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, black Africa. Unfortunately, our common stories, you know, of having gone through this

terrible, horrible period of 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 esclave, you know, slave, Slavs, the Slav, right, from the Eastern Bloc. So the first

slaves were 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, the closest to us in history of

a big mass of people being enslaved is African people. We were the last, the last, you know,

group like that. You know, the pain of World War I and World War II permeates

Europe, but it certainly does for the former Soviet Union, the countries that made up the

former Soviet Union. In the same way, the pain of slavery 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 places, whether it's Ghana or my country or Benin, where you have

these places that we call the door of no return, or the places of no return, which this was the

last place where the slaves were standing, or, you know, this is, in Senegal, we call it the

door of no return. There is this one door, you're there in the slavehouse, and once they go, they

go. That's it. That's going to be the last time they see back home. So, you know, those, of course,

it creates for a common lived experience, which becomes a common lived

history. And of course, it's going to tire us up.

Is there a resentment, because you mentioned hospitality, is there a kind of resentment

of the foreigner, that there's a rich, vibrant land? There's many resources, there's powerful

cultures. Are they just going to show up and use us? 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 resentments 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 their attitude, they have an entitlement attitude, right? And they think,

but in a way, we're all still servants. Some people, you know, in your face, some people more,

but that can cause some little resentment. But where really the resentment is.

And that can, the entire one can take different forms, like even pity.

Don't even get me going on that one. I was trying to be polite today. So just don't,

Lex, do not. You know, sometimes I tell myself, my God, today you're going to be all composed.

So don't go there and make the fool of yourself. Just behave. But if you get me on some grounds,

that's when it's all going to go to hell. So yeah, let's move beyond that too. So resentment,

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 going

to come back and be like, well, you and your ancestors have enslaved me. You, you're not

going to see that stuff. Sometimes I'm in this country where I feel like it's, you know,

might look like that. But we in Africa don't do that. Now, if you come, you have this nasty attitude,

you think you're still serving servants around. Well, you can have a problem with 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. Help you very quickly. Exactly. But 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 even the world, places like the World Economic Forum, you know,

like all of these places that seem to constitute, they would, you, they, the way they describe them,

then I say they, it's primarily my Pan African friends. So here maybe terms are worth describing.

So the Pan African movement goes way back when we're talking about, you know, way back when

started in the, in the 30s going on all the way from there. So what you have there is people

who have started coming together and dreaming up an emancipated Africa away from the colonies,

because at that point there were still colonies and dreaming up all of that. So we're talking

about people like Kwame Kuma, Afghana, we're talking about Julius Nehri, of Tanzania,

talking about Blaisdian, of Senegal, and other people like that, Bandi of Malawi. So anyway, so,

and the African youth of today, we're still hanging on onto those, onto some of these ideas of,

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? Is it in reality? Many, for many different reasons,

there is definitely what we call a Pan African movement. And I very much myself 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, so this Pan African, especially the Pan African youth, but it's beyond the Pan African

youth, it's the youth in general in Africa, World Bank, UN, all of these organizations that they

tend to qualify as imperialist organizations. And it's not always a 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 group, one kingdom. 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 were like, did a robot just draw these? Really?

No offense to a robot.

No offense to a robot, especially this one, he looks so cute.

But you know what I mean? So they have continued deciding what it would be 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 going to, which type of even economic development path are we

going to choose or not? So it's very, 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 of 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.

Beyond factions, beyond all of that, it allowed it to look at its history and its future.

And 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. And so in that sense, Africa, as one place,

as one continent, had to find multiple times its identity through the resistance of the oppressor.

Especially subterranean Africa, especially subterranean Africa, yes.

And there's an interesting aspect to this because the president of Senegal is also the head of the

African Union. So we'll talk about the fascinating geopolitics 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 the dynamics aren't exactly obvious. Is there commonalities? Is there 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 going to stick to prosperity. Because prosperity doesn't necessarily mean

sometimes it has nothing to do with maybe how you conduct yourself, otherwise socially speaking.

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 liberal society. So for me, when we talk about prosperity,

I just want to make sure that we're clear on that. Because some people might be somewhere and be like,

well, because I know what I'm going to talk to you about next. And some people are going to

sit there and be like, well, China is not like that. Or even Dubai is not like that.

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 woman to vote? Or can people live like this? Or I'm not talking about any of that.

Economic, fundamentally economic prosperity. Because I think 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 if we're going to

talk about prosperity, make sure that the country can make money so that it can take care of its

needs and the needs of its citizens. 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 or 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. Yes. So when it comes to that, we have found that

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 West and block. Same people, very different outcomes.

Like I said, South Korea, 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 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 to... Macaulay, tell us your story. Who are you?

It's just because it started with me coming here, you showed me the robot and everything,

and now it looks like I'm no new for, we're no new sorry for talking. And then you're like,

tell people. And then, no, no, no. But so this is where this question, even when you asked me,

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 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 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 from low

income countries. So 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 happy, free wrench kid, but I was. Yeah, so you were always a troublemaker,

not just now. Okay. Life wouldn't be fun without you. And of course, I agree.

Right? So because even you, you know, like, and you're like all put together, like front,

I know there's a lot of trouble making behind you. Desperately trying to keep it together.

I know you are, but with me, I'm going to totally bring it out. So just, yeah. So.

So you saw the difference? Right. I saw the difference. 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 short call,

catch on a little 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 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 you to shower. I'm like, I'm not getting

naked. Where's the bottle? Where's the bucket of hot water? She's like, oh, you silly. Come on,

just jump in. And I jump in the shower, turn the buttons. The water is coming down temperature.

Are you kidding me? So amazing. I've been cheated out of life, my whole life.

So that's what happened. And then I, then, and then I'm like, oh, and all of these roads,

the 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, when I go back home and your shoes get ruined most of the time.

And it started. 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 of this money?

Oh, 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 back? It's not.

And easy, not in a negative sense, in a beautiful sense. Sometimes I get, you know,

just having traveled through the war zone, just to come back from 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 we can, first of all, in Ukraine, you currently can't fly, right? It's a

war zone. Just even 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, 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 toilet, indoor toilet is a, 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. Yes, we do.

But definitely more today than in my time growing up. Do we have, you know,

a country like Nigeria that just birthed 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. 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, the seven year old asking, wait a minute,

how do amazing people in Europe do this? And the amazing people in Africa don't.

And that's a key word, amazing, because 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 eventually the question became, how, so I went from, how can

they 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 haunted. So you can laugh

or you want, but it's, so the question became, the question became, how come some countries

like 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 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. That 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 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 and moving cars under the hot sun,

fumes thrown at their face, trying to sell you anything that you think you might be able to use.

Whether we're talking about an ironing board, to an umbrella, to Q tips, to, you know,

toothpicks, selling you whatever you need from your car. These are street sellers.

And you ask them, dear, do you have any degree? Yeah. I have this graded degree in math or in

literature or whatever. Some very, very educated people. Yet they're right there. This is what

they're doing. So that's just that scale wasted human potential. Thank you. So that has to do

now with the system, with something about the laws, something about sort of 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.

Now, some people would even say is because you guys are malnourished. You're malnourished. You

need to be fed. Others, oh, well, maybe I give you some shoes and maybe something is going to change,

whatever. And then so I heard all of this nonsense like, but you guess what, but guess what,

none of them made sense. You know, I didn't make sense. Because if any of that crap was true,

why, oh, why is it that my parents are any other people from these places? And oh, and by the way,

some people call those places God forsaken land. That's also the type of

criteria I always have to hear when it's not just flat out,

SHIT whole countries from, you know, one person few years ago, president of this country.

That sentiment is sometimes there. It is. As I go on with my life, 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 poorer nation to a nation that supposedly is

rich, all of a sudden, they get to manifest the greatest potential. So I'm starting to think

this has nothing to do with a person per se, because we're talking about the same person,

same background, same name, features, everything. 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 the place that

they came from or the place that they're going to. So 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, well, I got my

quit. 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 am in Silicon Valley

in the late 90s, early 2000s, that come boom, all of that. And I'm starting to discover this

concept of this thing called entrepreneurship. You know, I'm in Silicon Valley and just getting

to experience what 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, bring it out. And then they go out and they talk to

some, to some of these investors who's going to invest in it. Then they have the lawyers who get

to, you know, put all of this stuff together. And then they have the big four CPA firms,

this whole ecosystem of what they call of entrepreneurship. And then eventually this

concept of entrepreneurship being this, this idea of, 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 going to 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 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

bishab, which is the juice of taranga. Remember, this is our national identity drink. And for the

longest time, women grow this hibiscus that we use for the national drink, for the, 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, part of my cultural

identity for Christ's sake, the juice of taranga. You asked 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 that the place we came from,

breaking apart in some kind of way, and you have the entrepreneurial fire that dreams of helping.

Yes. And 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 get criticized by creating.

Especially when you've been, especially when, and let's face it,

do we all, are we all a bundle of circumstances, some happy, some worse? Yes, we are. And

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, trapped? Because we call ourselves trapped citizens. When you're trapped

in these countries that go nowhere, we're like a bunch of trapped citizens. 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,

we'll 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 by the end of a month, I had decided I'm letting

go. There's no way. The pain was too great. Nothing made sense anymore. It was too much.

So I went to see this woman. And 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 I told the representative of all of them,

and I told her this is very, 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 like measurable,

but you could tell this woman probably lost a child as oftentimes happened 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, my God,

stop crying. And I told her that I was quitting. I could not look her in the eyes. And she said,

look at me. I could not look her in the eyes. 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,

is 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.

Did she help you find your strength?

Yes. And 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 that's, 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've, the world needs to understand that there are so, that there is a much more,

there is a viable way of caring and of 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, 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, that was when I built my first company.

We had to have two sister companies, one there, one here. So the one in the U,

in Africa was about the whole supply chain. And the one in America was, you know,

research and 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, they would 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 U.S.

We're talking about less than, even then, less than, you know, today's super fast, 20 minutes online, done.

Back then, it was, you know, less than a few hours to get it done cost you almost nothing.

We're talking about a few hundred dollars, you know, three to three hundred fifty, 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 the 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

Envisa can take you even to today's day. Okay, Lex, I don't know if you have employees on par or anything like that,

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 types of agencies, you know, like governmental agencies to do one step?

This one is basically you're going to 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 the 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 that anywhere in the US? I mean, do we have that situation anywhere that you know of right now?

No. And do you think that's business friendly, or do you think it's cumbersome in business?

And that's not just cumbersome, sort of physically, it's cumbersome psychologically,

that 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, 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 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, my guy was holding up a zero.

You make no money. You still have to pay.

And then, oh, let me walk you through what happened to me when we had to try to get the electricity

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 about,

we waited 24 hours, waited 48 hours, a month, two months, three months, four months, five months,

you go, you send your assistant, she goes, she comes back. Well, they say we send it to wait.

At some point, I'm like, I got to go there. So I go there. And I asked her to speak to the head

of the district for, you know, and I'm just like going on and on and on and on about how we've been

delayed. This is going to be a problem. We have to produce. Everything is delayed.

And I risk losing my business. We already presold some of these products to our customers.

I got to, something needs to happen. So at some point, the gentleman looks at me,

he'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 the electricity. And he says, do you see that?

I said, yeah. And he said, look over there. I look over there to the other side.

I said, two meters. He's like, each of these 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 a 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 force us to have passports. It's your right as a citizen to have a passport. And even there,

if you want yours to keep going through the process, you have to bribe somebody so we can go

even the phase it's 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 reason to even be here. You could be back in America, living your life,

living the loka. You don't have to be here. So that, I think, gained a lot of his respect.

And I said, 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 a truck to be here to do it because because of where you are from the pool,

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 for 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 a town and I said,

mayor, he happens to have the same name as me. First, last name, same, but except he's the ugly

one. I'm the pretty one because, you know, he's, you know, that's so people can tell you apart.

She's exactly, I'm the pretty one and he's the whatever. So I got to a mayor and I'm like,

mayor, 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 arrived 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.

They've been sitting around 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.

There's was in some other village and they didn't know if he was going to be back for another three

days or four days. I said, are you kidding me? He's like, no. So I call mayor again. I'm sick mayor.

Do you have a ladder? And I explained and he said, and that's how I got 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 or for bad. And some people say, oh, no, you're not married

for good or for bad, except that it will just cost you a lot of time and money to get rid of any of

them. It doesn't matter the circumstances. Do you think I really, an entrepreneur really need to

hear something like that? You know, the head of the halo, 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 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 for a morning till evening,

having some, you know, babysitters or, you know, having healthcare, child care on site,

all of these perks that come on top of really cozy salaries. It did not happen because you,

the 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 going to get, like in my country,

do you know what we have to show for all of these, the fact that 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, lady, it's not my level, which is for somebody

who grew up in the Soviet Union, at least echoes some of the same sounds I heard 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, to what degree is there corruption in Senegal and Africa? And how do we fix it?

So when you said to which degree is there 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.

Right? So now, what I want people to understand when it comes to corruption,

it's 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,

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 at 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,

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? For five of them, I am paying a 40% tariff and for the other two,

almost 70% tariff. That I call senseless laws. These tariffs are senseless.

The corruption is just a symptom. They reveal that something is broken about the laws.

And the laws are so taxation, 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, if you add 40%, you're basically on the other end. So every time you add,

if let's say my product normally costs 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%

you added to it, do you know how much it's going to add to my final cost that once the product

is finished, I have to sell it to the customer? I have to sell it for $1.60 more because of that 40

cents 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 is the blood of a business. There are two people on

misguided. They say, oh, you dirty, greedy business people. And it's all about profit,

profit, profit, profit. 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 see

something that needs to be taken care of in society. Whole Foods Market is one of them.

The Container Store, 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're 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 or 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 those. Otherwise, no Lex. And if no Lex, no one working. You know

what I mean? So that's how people need to stop with this whole profit non... Do we have some

psychopaths among us? Yeah, one person of us in this world of psychopaths in every field,

anywhere you look. And surely you find that in the entrepreneurial world as well.

Yeah. So we have one person of us who are psychopaths 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,

you charge me 40% tariff, which is outrageous. Then you're forcing me to sell it for $1.60 more

than my competitor who does not have to go through 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 $1.60 more simply because of some stupid rules from back home,

then guess who is going to stay in business and who doesn't? See, they want to talk about equality.

That's the type of equality I want to see. The playing field has to be leveled.

I told you English is a full language.

Well, it's two people talking. Between us, maybe we'll have this English thing figured out.

We'll have it figured out. So the idea of capitalism, the idea of conscious capitalism

is the thing that in large part enables this level playing field.

That's what we want. So what you're trying to say, so here, so when I talked about census laws,

that's an example. So when you make the tariff so high that you're going to render me

noncompetitive, 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 10% of the price or 5%. It's

surely not 40%, but you are happy with it. You're the government official. That's what we call a

bribe. And me, I'm like, hey, I saved myself money. And also I saved myself time.

But you see, if the laws where you pay 5% or even the 10% that I just left behind or nothing,

you come, you pay, you move on. Because who has the business of fooling around and staying behind?

And no, you do that when it's actually 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? So I'm like, we've got a problem. Your best friend now.

So I say, now it's the customs. And he'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 he's like, yeah,

I know this is not, this is not very down this. And I said, what do we do now? And I saw him

going through binders and binders in his office, because he's going to 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 we can allow you, there's a special term for it, 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, trade secrets or trade

secrets. But here you're asked to be putting it in front of some people who 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

of Candida wax, X amount of coconut, coconut oil, okay. And on top of that, we have to think about

how much Polish might they be or not, because again, we don't want her 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 competition, or maybe even them, they start a business and

they compete with you, because we've seen that. So you have to do that. And then each time fill

out a 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 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 going to pay

the taxes that we held up. So you're basically forced by these laws to be dishonest. If you

want to succeed, all of this was so it's so cumbersome, because each it means more paperwork,

paperwork everywhere, maybe having to disclose your things. So me, in my case, what I did is,

you know, this person said, okay, we're going to see how we can, how we can work with you.

But for the first two years, we were more or less in the gray area.

Yeah. So even gray area is good.

Yeah. But what does it mean in a situation like that, whenever they want to mess with you,

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. I mean, you're an incredible person because it seems like there's

two ways to change this, 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 to 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 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 US too. People thinking that presidents have all this power. Do you know who

is the least power in government? The president. I mean, people don't get that. Your best bet,

if you're going to, 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 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 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 a 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 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 government, you're going to be paid something, right? And they're like,

yeah. And then even before I can say something, they're like, oh, yeah, because that money we used

to pay our public officials comes from taxes, employers, employees, we go back to the private

sector for most of it from where this whole thing is created. So it's clear. You're poor because

you have no money, no money because no source of income. Source of income for most of us is a job.

We're talking about 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

friendly doing business environment? And also a lot of the, a lot of it comes not just in the

small and medium sized businesses, but I think a lot of the value is created from new ones being

launched. Right. It's not just like me like saving somehow through regulation, the ones that are

already there. It's like letting the market, letting the new better ideas flourish. Yes.

It's about 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,

the doing business. So basically when I've discovered all of that, when I put all of those

dots together, then I'm like, well, I guess the business and it makes sense. Like, if you want

to grow tomatoes, you're going to 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 that you're going to put in it?

Is it in a place that has tons of sun? How much sun exposure or not? The climate

engineer is going to be cold, not not. You can't have some beautiful tomatoes in the middle of

Siberia last time I checked. So same thing here. You know, Mohammed Yunus, the noble laureate for

peace said, poor people are bonsai people. They're the same people. If you put them in the normal,

natural, 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 you created by giving me such a hostile business environment that basically

we're 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 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 talk to me like that.

They don't send me a call. They shouldn't. They better not. But they say, whatever they say.

I'm scared. I'm scared.

But bottom line is, we're going to make mistakes. This thing is so complicated, we're going to

make mistakes. So which means my ass is on the line. So anyway, so if the tax code was so simple,

straightforward, like it is maybe in Texas, where up till a threshold, you owe me nothing,

go online, five minutes, fill out your taxes, you're compliant, 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 for this really hot, nice hot sauce that I know the Americans are going to love. I'm

hearing that 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 there. 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 X whatever and it doesn't have to be, you know, the next Steve

Jobs. That seems really far, far away. It's at all levels. You create local heroes because

representation matters. And we are so badly in need of that. And so that's what all the things

that have been stolen from us as long as things remain the same. So 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 doing business index ranking of

the World Bank or the Frasier 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 Subterran 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 Scandinavia is more capitalist. Scandinavian

nations are more capitalist than almost any Subterran African nations. Ultimately,

the political systems actually don't even matter nearly as much as the private sector

being able to operate the machinery of capitalism. There you go. There you go. There you go. And it's

almost like, like I said, it's almost like its own little widget 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 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 the 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 specialists, 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. There this, there that, and 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 ill, but guess

what? There's a path forward. We know that. I'm going to have a lot of work to do, but there's

hope, right? And you're 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

become, I mean, the beacon for your people, your home, this power that you see that you feel all

around to escape the feeling of being trapped. Is there advice you can give to people that,

to young girls and boys dreaming somewhere in Africa of 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. And one of my

goals is to open the same doors that were opened for me, because together, our voice,

there's such amazing stories out there. And 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 the 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 it, I feel like I'm talking to a priest. And I'm like, because the gospel, I receive

the gospel. 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 sit in front telling you, oh, yeah,

it's because of colonialism, it's because of racism, it's because of imperialism, it's because

they're stealing raw material, blah, blah, blah. Is any of those guilty to some level of where we

are today, maybe part of the reason where we are today? Maybe, maybe. Is that the only reason

or the overwhelming reasons? No. Is that insurmountable? Absolutely not. So for me, don't stay in that

place of that steals and rubs you of your agency. 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 of, you know,

or not the usual suspect of, oh, famine is building over there, war is building over here,

oh, we're having Ebola is coming, all of that stuff. Even when they were talking about the

monkeypox, which at first, you know, in this wave, it started with white people in Europe.

Well, even in the many newspapers you pull out, it's black people with monkeypox on their skin.

I'm like, wait a second, this time around, we did not start with us. So why are you always

showing us when it's right now happening to white people, you know? 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 the 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 climate change. I don't know. But anyway, 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, all the natural resources, diversity in land, people, cultures,

languages, everything that make, that make for great ingredients 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 over over regulated region in the world.

At the end of the day, with Africa, as an idea to say Africa here, and treated 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 there are. If you're serious about

prosperity building, we lack economic freedom. And economic freedom is the thing that unlocks

that human potential of 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 thing that gets you to get up and go and do something,

criticize 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. And in this situation, what they do, you know, let's talk about precolonial

Africa of four faves before slavery ever happened. There were black people in the, 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 weren't there before. Before what men ever sat foot. Who were we? What

were we doing in our diversity? What economic 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 free enterprise side. So even that is a reinforcement. This is the place where we do

not understand our history. So proper diagnosis, Africa is a poorest region in the world because

it happens to be the most overregulated region in the world lacks economic freedom. Number two,

what do we do about that? We got to become serious about reforms, economic reforms, so that we can

become beacons of 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. Lee Kwon Woo, you know, when, you know, he's just like, we've got

to do something. And he looked around and he realized at some point, we've got to make these

reforms. And he went on to that journey of reforms, making his country one of the most free market

countries in the world. And voila, the magic happened. Back in the, you know, in the 30s,

the stock market crash, and the Great Depression and everything, the world, and with all the lies

that were told to the world coming from the Soviet Union, Stalin, while they were starving and

dying over there. But oh, no, you know, I mean, Durante was telling the world that, 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, this, you know, crash that you had in the, in the, in the stock market is proof

this is what least age capitalism produces. You guys always have your big ups and downs. 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 were told the lies coming out of the Soviet Union, that supposedly the communism was doing

just fine. And at that, you had the point where the free market concept almost died. And it's the,

you know, the, the, the Asian tigers who kind of helped, you know, bring that idea back to life,

right? Their success, having used the free markets. And so for me, we got to have, we got to

make a new commitment to the free markets on this continent, if we want to go anywhere,

if we want to go anywhere. And the timing is perfect because the young people, there's a,

there is a kind of freedom for that revolutionary free markets in this whole space.

Exactly. And by the way, 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. English is my second language too. No, you said, you said there's

something revolutionary in, in that, because you know how young people are attached to a revolution

and how, you know, I understand, look, look Lex, I understand and I am willing to give the

benefits of the 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 criticized by creating. Exactly. Exactly. But violent revolution is never the answer.

But that's what they went for in 1789 in France, you know, the French Revolution.

And then, you know, Marx and Engels, you know, they're promoting these ideas that usually,

for them, justifies violent revolution. Then in all of these people, I am with them when they say

that they want to see equal rights for people. Of course, I don't agree with their, therefore,

we need to push for equal outcomes. 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, that people get killed, 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 a type of revolution we want. The revolution 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. But what, you're gonna go shoot people

or be like, what's his name? Che Guevara, who tells you, I love, it's in writing, I love nothing

more than to fry the brain of a man with his gun. Really? Well, in terms of sexy, 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 corrupt and absolute power corrupts,

absolutely, is 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, 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 anyone from your

country to dream and to make that dream a reality by creating it with as few sort of 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 of the world is because it happens to be the most

overregulated 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 laissez faire. 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, no. And 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 other problem.

I'm not even talking to it at that point anymore. So, yeah. So just to clarify, you know, there's

a perception 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,

Africa should have, in terms of economic indices, should be as free as the Scandinavian countries.

You're just giving that example. Yes, because if the Scandinavian, they do have a subsidized,

you know, like a welfare system, that's what a more socialized welfare system. But the way

they make the money is very much the way of the free markets. So there is how you make your money,

and then there's how you maybe decide as a country to redistribute it, right? And so

even there, even in Scandinavia, again, yes, they have more economic freedom. So then from

there, like 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. It's not over for us. We will never catch

up. The time for catch up 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 not when you go to universities. I will ask you, MIT, the MIT econ department, or even some

of most of the professors, are they free market oriented? We find that oftentimes in academia,

there is a strong anticaptice bias. There is a strong anti free market bias. So this is a problem.

This is a problem. Nobody cares about the economists anyway. So we move forward.

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

by putting these artificially made regulations and laws that stand in the way and clip their wings.

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 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 of

the 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 complimented by my own life, having to build these companies

on two separate continents and having to, 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 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 empower you and they will even furthermore, they will power you, empower

and power you. Because empower is like inside and power is like a 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? Where it's done in a way where

people don't necessarily be left behind or anything like that. We're in 2022 for quite

sake. We don't have to do entrepreneurship the same way maybe it was done 50 years ago,

100 years ago, when as a community, as a people, we were maybe less enlightened because of our

times, right? We can update this thing and move forward. But update is definitely not build back,

build back, what do they call it? Build back new or whatever they're calling it at the WF,

you know, like whatever nonsense and stuff they're smoking over there. It's not that.

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 things we learned from our times and from life. So that's what I want them

to know. Learn your facts, be empowered, empowered, and then look around, think about 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

going to 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 Matthew edit.

Math is universal. So it belongs to all of us. There's no color. Exactly. In the space of economics,

in the space of ideas, ideas, and there's a chance to leapfrog to exactly, which is really, really

powerful. Exactly. Because here we will leapfrog. And let's, I'm not crazy. This is, this is going

to happen. You mark my words. But it's going to happen if as many people hear what we're talking

about today, because at some point, the solution is not going to come. It's not me. It's not,

it's going to come from the wisdom of the 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

emergent 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 a lot of

things that 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 and get excited about shit together, and then 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 then that idea builds on top

of itself where you think that the entire populace is much lesser than the wise sages sitting at the

top. Then you add violence at the top of that and that leads to corruption, to corrupting

just the human mind of the leaders. And the whole thing becomes a giant mess. The antidote to that

is economic freedom. For people to have a freedom to enterprise. And look, Lex, when we allow for

that to happen, have you looked around lately and looked at the level of niche that has happened in

this country? I mean, you have clubs where, you have places where people are into guitar strings,

you know, like some of them. It's all about guitar strings. And others, it's all about

these best cupcakes. And others, it's all about this new crypto thing over here. And others like

hair, best, you know, weight. 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.

But 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. There's a bit of European flavor in there, a little French,

Silicon Valley, you're now in part a Texan, there's, you really are an American, 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. What I have found is I think who I am today has been for sure shaped by

I call it Dakar, Paris, San Francisco, Dakar, San Diego, Paris, France, and San Francisco

primarily. And now, yeah, I think I might want to ask a little bit of Texan in there.

How do you say Texas in French? Texas, Texas, Texas. Austin, Texas. Austin, Texas. Austin, Texas.

Austin, Texas. So you, I was formed by those three, I have to say that what I enjoy from

my Senegalese roots are our commitment to peace, love, and tolerance very much. And Teranga, obviously.

And I like that it's a culture that's very much about reverence. It's big on reverence.

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 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 the dignity that older age

normally provides. And there's wisdom to the rewards that you yourself may not 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. 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? Yeah, the fineness, foods. You mean

like the intricacies that like the very stuff? Yeah, the sophistication in there. I mean,

French lingerie, for example, I mean, la dentelle, you know, the laces, all of that super, it's

exquisite. So the fashion, the food, fashion, the food. I mean, there's something to be said

about all of that. And it's very beautiful. And I love also, even when I talk about fineness,

it's like a meal is not about like this big thing we 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 Senegalese culture is eating is a moment of communion.

It's a moment of friendship, family. 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's 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 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

humanity was the fact that while I did know how to speak French for a long time, I forgot most

of the language. 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 if you don't, there's a bit of a

bit of a barrier. I must admit on that and that it is true. You would feel less that if you were

with a group of Senegalese people per se, or I would even say if a group of Spanish people.

And I think this has to, this is maybe the other side of it for the French people, they can be a

little bit, you know, up a little bit up there. And I think maybe that's what you're sensing there.

If you don't have the codes, which is what you call the, if you don't sing the music,

then it's hard for you to be part of it. But I was speaking here from the standpoint of you're in.

From the inside. Also, come on, come on. Coming from Texas and also Ukraine. Ukraine,

I should say, some of the best steak and meat I've ever had. Cheap. Texas, some of the greatest.

The size of the meals in France, it's like, what are we doing here? I get it. I get its art.

But I'd 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 Michelin star restaurant? Maybe that's why.

Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. That's why. Because next time you go to France,

I'll take you to the countryside or any 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,

they're 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 not be like this.

And then, you know, but no, you'll eat plenty, but it's because you went to the Michelin places

where they were like. I'm sure the warmth and the people's there. It's almost makes me sad

that sometimes, I think to properly be in a place, you really should spend a long time there and

also be emotionally ready. Again, I was emotionally unavailable. I just like,

Well, I would imagine a new way to be Ukraine. I'm like, who can think about food?

But in your identity, a bit of Texas, a bit of San Francisco.

And yeah, San Francisco. And, um, I guess from America, the defining, the defining

thing for me for America is it's 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,

he 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 twenties 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 US, 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, or maybe

go to where your spouse's parents are, and you buy your house and you buy it once and you're

not going to do like the Americans two years later, I sell my house or go somewhere else.

You don't have any of, and what do you mean, you know, like just stopping from nowhere,

you're going to do a bit, you're going to do what? Start a business and you have nothing to back you

up or whatever. Oh, and, um, 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 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, at some point it was $32 million for my first business, never would 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 the 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 scenes. 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 just stopped 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, um, I'm part of this, um, you know, you have what we call the

murid. I'm a 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 the 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 where 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, uh, especially the system that tend to breed more like, you know,

the French bureaucrat mindset, then you can see all the entrepreneurial mindset kind of starting

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, uh, brings out the heart of a cheetah, which I think is a beautiful, beautiful

thing that 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 that 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, um, 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 care 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 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 to 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, said, my God, you're about to go to this

place where most people will not look like you. And most people speak a language that's going to

be different from yours. And you're going to realize that all the kids are going to school and you're

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 showed her words that 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 she 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? It was right. And that helped me. And I think when you

internalize that so early on, 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 at least don't bring weed if you go on the plane. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Yeah, right. That girl, I don't know what she was thinking, but 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

unfriendly places in the world to someone like me, because there are places like that.

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 came as a tourist. And, but, you know, you had this

amazing family who had a business, a family business in Indiana, Columbus, Indiana, the Wences,

Carolyn Eldon Wences, 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.

Because, you know, the elite, the 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 to the cent and 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, 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 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

growing up in San Francisco, when I say, I left my heart in San Francisco. Because,

you know, my, my, the man would become my husband. 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 there.

And I just looked like there was something there. And Scarol was like,

you got to go to San Francisco and find out with Emmanuel what's going on.

So I went and I left my heart in San Francisco. I came back and I'm like, okay, I'm leaving.

Here's the keys to my apartment. But I'm out of here. So no, but Carol, so this is it. This is

what I'm saying, especially in these times when this country loves to dwell on, you know,

you're bad because you have this skin color. Here are people with a completely different

skin color than mine, completely different faith than mine, yet embraced me, protected me,

paid for my visa, you know, for my, for my lawyer to, for my H1B, everything, and also

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 is at the,

at the extremes of, at the antipods of where you are 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 and walk past it. And it doesn't, it doesn't

stick to them in a way that they build resentment and it paralyzes them.

If they internalize the world as 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, you'll find them.

It will find, yeah, yeah. And you know, the other thing too, Lex, is,

especially in these times we're walking in, it is to remind yourself, I think 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, those three are the antidote

to pretty much anything.

Yeah.

Curiosity and to be 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 going to, I'm going to engage with love,

even if I'm scared to death and even if I'm pissed off to death by this, but can you do that?

In the, in the face of just like, you know, judgment or whatever, can you show up with

empathy? And 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 the brain scientists, but you also

can feel it in your body that you're engaging very different parts of your soul.

And so I try myself, I'm not always good at it, but it's a practice that I try to honor,

which is curiosity, empathy and love.

As I told you offline, those, I agree with you a hundred 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 and it's okay if it takes you years,

but it is about trying 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, 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 do 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 context 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 Matter,

yet you are self proclaimed Marxist socialists, 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

is because 60 some years ago, it started before even 60 some years ago,

Black people in this case, I'm talking about the African people, I'm talking about

the Black Africans who would go on to really cement this concept of African emancipation

and African liberation. And here I'm taking us back to 1945. They had four of them before that,

but in 1945, in Manchester, UK, happened something that would become major for

Africa and its future, especially subterranean Africa. In Manchester, UK, people like Blaise

Diagne of my country, Nira Ray, 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 say Dubois because

that's how we say it in French. He has a French name, a French name at least. And Americans would

say, so for Americans listening, I know you say Dubois, but Dubois, no, because just in case they

like who's talking about, that's what I'm talking about. So all of those people got together in the

UK. And with W.E.B Dubois and Marcus Garvey, big top African American intellectuals of their times.

W.E.B Dubois had so many things happened to him, starting from the north, being more or

more or less a liberal type guy, came to the south just to see at this time,

Black people being lynched and some of the body parts being shown in store windows.

I mean, just for a second, we put ourself 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,

isn't that? And I was like, God darn it, and maybe these people, we don't talk to them, we force,

you know? And eventually, little by little, things going through,

yeah, you have these people, they're very much on the Marxist socialist train.

So do you think 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 these times,

you're being lynched, bodies burnt, body parts showcased at window 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 aside 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,

they're meeting with Garvey, with W.E.B Dubois. And that's where this meeting is very important.

It's the fifth Pan African Congress meeting. It's very important. It could be the last one,

but it's the most important one because that's when they formed their plans and really the

rallied around this concept of African emancipation and African liberation. We're going to liberate

our countries. Then later, so that's how all of these movements started to happen. And 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 arrived in late 50s

and, you know, Krumah with them, you know, then with the British as well, they might

manage to become, to become, their colonization is over. They're the first one to go in, 57.

Then from there, it's what we call the independences. That's what most Subterranean

African nations are getting their 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 we want to understand what's going on.

Because people today ask me, why do you think, because even now when they understand, oh,

you're right, 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 the day of times, precolonial Africans were free

marketeers, free enterprise. It's pretty well recorded by someone like George Ayute. That's

where I got the cheat I think from. And Ghanaian economist, and then slavery happened, colonialism

happened, and then the independences, late 50s, early 60s for most Subterranean African countries.

So there what you have is, but then what happened there? So I told you in 45,

5th Pan African Congress in the UK with the liberators of Africa under the under the leadership,

because he was the wise, you know, eldest man. 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 they're like, so there they are. Now 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, black African American intellectuals

of their time who were very socialist Marxist 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

neocolonism going on. So now this is happening and becoming free. But then you look around,

what do you see? That now most of these liberators of their nations become the present of their

nations. But remember what I told you, most of them have drunken the social socialist,

Marxist socialism Kool Aid. So as these African nations become independent with their first

independent governments and in, you know, presidents, most of them, most of them are

socialists, various forms of status type of government. And this is because at that point,

we had made a fatal mistake of going off saying, we are Marxist socialists, because

you guys fight for equal rights. So in this case, there should be no colonialism or anything like

that. And 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 hand represented by freedom and the economic, what do

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 are the time where, remember the free market

concept was almost dead, almost dead. So almost every intellectual at that time was social Marxist.

Or Marxist socialists, I put the name, that's what you were. So you in the 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 the people who represent supposedly people who are saying that who had been fighting

for equal rights 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 to agree on with Marxist socialists

of the times, especially equal rights 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. When it comes to 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 Siddharth Sengar, 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, you have to

keep the 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 Krumah, for people like Nerewe,

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 do a debrief and see what worked, what didn't work, what happened.

And we have had the 60 years to look back and to reflect. So yes, I can understand why they did

what they did. I can even, I can understand why they sided with these people who on the surface,

or at least some part of a fight, was 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 socialist Marxists, Marxist socialists. It just doesn't work.

So the BLM movement is too deeply integrated with the ideas of Marxism.

Yeah, they're 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 going to do it, they're going to have to think twice.

And when they do, they're going to have to pay consequences. So if you want for blacks to be

respected anywhere in the world, you're going to have to be serious about Black prosperity.

All mass, not just a few people, Oprah over here and somebody over there, 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% of our representatives of a black race.

So you're going to be serious about Black Lives Mattering without being serious for

Africa, the 1 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 up prosperity wise.

And the resources of the young people, the young minds.

Yes, 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 the obstacles.

That's what we need. Senegal becomes rich and Senegal can become and will be richer than France.

The colonized Singapore did it. We can do it.

Mali rich, Nigeria rich functioning as well. Mali Malawi rich, Tanzania rich, Uganda rich,

Zimbabwe rich, Niger rich, everywhere rich, prosperous as prosperous if not more prosperous

than Switzerland or Singapore or the U.S. I don't know of, or the Liechtenstein or Luxembourg

places that have no natural resources. We become rich and you watch the world having

a very different relationship with us. That's the only time we will command any type of respect.

That's when people, even our common psyche will change even about black people.

All of the stereotypes that they have of us is going to melt away and you may still not like us

but you will still respect us because we are a force 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 earth and someone said 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 is the only thing.

Prosperity is the only thing and the way we do that there is no, just like all of us humans

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 going to have to do something different. Well good luck with that.

So this is here why I'm saying I have no patience for black lives matter. They'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 the Marxist socialists 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? 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 even with more philosophical ideas of critical race theory,

for example, do you think this is still a battle that needs to be fought at the forefront of culture

in the United States? 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 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. I say no. Many people in this country have showed it. Whether the African

Americans or 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 us 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 yourself of agency.

It's of course easier said 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 inner city black America maybe the environment might be a little bit tougher

for you to try and get to act together and all of that stuff and it's okay but even in that situation

we need to 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 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 you know Abraham X. Kendi 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 loud and clear that you are a true racist. I know that you told

me you are and for you to think that your anti racism makes you less racist and it's that happens

too. She comes from a racist background fine she's saying it it's true but this idea that

that every walking person on earth belongs to one category of the other depending on what you

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 going to stop me from doing anything I have to do?

No. Might it make it harder, longer, 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 or self I got I got to use all the

agency that I have to fight back and fight beyond see it says shouldn't you 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 this is why I have loved the job so when I have somebody who is like oh anti racism is away

we're going to go and tell all the white kids that you know because they will happen to be white

that they're really the oppressors and blah blah blah and the black kids because they're black you

know you're not changing anything when you're doing that nothing except that you're putting

problems where there were no problems to start with all we had to do was maybe go for a different

route 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 bias because that's something I spent years of my life on and my journey

on the science of bias started with the days of Philando Castile Eric Garner that whole summer of

2016 when we had this horrendous horrendous situation of black people killing being killed by the police

where they shot before asking and 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 later

four years ago in the whole world is like you know 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 skin is skin that's where it came from again criticized by creating I 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 that I it could it could be that your back your 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 this time on some of the work and then eventually

I understood that discrimination if you wanted to understand it beyond um it's um you know beyond

the the big lines of 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 behavioral

psychologists with evolutionary biologists we 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 I think it's Wisconsin and they're the only ones who made sense

in this sea of nonsense back then and this article was in political and it was saying

something that I could relate with and eventually what I learned was and this part comes from the

evolutionary biologist 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 um 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 be 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 state to the next station 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 the world at this 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 that do so ever so quickly because failure to do to be able to do that might

means that you might not be alive the 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 um 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 try it 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 of 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're attached

and here is the pathway well this pathway in the world of um the world of um bias 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 I'm white you're a woman I'm a man this this and that that people like that again 100 one person

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 Lex guy needs to go down he's a man he's a don't take me around I'm sure there's 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 so you're using these kind of just

like you said brilliantly the brain has as much as simplifications is built up and it uses those

simplifications to get through 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 the with the information

that black man walking around with a hoodie equals danger so later what do you see

whether it's like so my god I'm walking in the dark alley I see a black man with a hoodie

maybe I'm going to run away because I've been given that information so the best way to think

about it is the brain is a hardware and 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 damn cells are to be saved by the prints and all that stuff and girls

were pink and all whatever um you know you watch the movies and all the movies whenever you watch

images about Africa they're talking to about the blood diamonds or they're talking to you about

slavery or they're talking to about this and then of wonder you walk away thinking that all the ills

of Africa are caused because of resource extraction of the diamonds or they're always fighting each

other look at the amin and the movie you know or you know slavery all the time you walk away and this

is it and we're all programmed along the same lines see that's the beauty of it all of us are

because even some black people who are going to claim that they didn't business up when they registered

really so the truth so then when I learned a little bit something 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 or green issue it's about we are human

issue and these are part of things we develop to you know to to to keep to stay around just like

we no longer have to rely on you know this fear of flight you know like ability of a brain because

bears over there start running and running fast right today where are the bears show me where they

are but we have kept this tendency to go for fear of fear of flight I don't know how they say it

and so we have this you know court is done by the stress you know stress triggers that 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 the 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 where the 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 a simple categorization of black and white it's all kinds of about everything it's about

everything and you know when I started on that journey and in 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 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 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 date the Asian men

because she went her mind was into some stereotypes about the size of whatever and she was like no

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 understood 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 realized once again

the black person is portrayed like uh like the fog 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 you gotta be more liberal than that and this gentleman

is asking these two candidates one of them is a woman political candidates if the other one is a

man I'm hearing us I'm asking the lady a question that I know he's not gonna ask the man and he

didn't ask her he said how do you um how do you balance um 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 a fear and paralysis that's right you should almost I mean

that's where humor is make fun of it bring it to the surface like acknowledge the fact that those

things are a 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 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 this is how this is affecting how I think you

might exactly we might like how that works when we might not but we have to acknowledge it and

not get you know make it part of humor make fun of yourself you know all that kind of stuff that

that's the thing and so legs 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 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're like 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

in the other person's shoes all of a sudden something else starts to click and then from there

you go on to making connection then you're making your 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

um issue with women wearing their the hijab and because for her it was like how come you how come

how come you you you you just slow it 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 uh Ramadan when the Muslims are doing you know they're uh it's the holy month of um you know

fasting and then we break uh at night and she started understanding very different things

and eventually happens the last step that happened 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

need 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 the 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 me 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 be can you help provide people with

the tools to stand up so this is why I have so much respect for vengeance people like vengeance

although I disagree with him on so many things but people like Miss Alice Johnson she was pardoned

by President Trump through the work of people like vengeance 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 criminal justice reform then anybody who stands for it has to come together

and so what they did in this situation with with what they're doing criminal justice reform in my

mind is a valid action to fight 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 he passed away unfortunately but today we have Anton lucky

Anton lucky who was in jail for having killed his cousin you know he had started I think he

started the the the the gang in South Dallas so we're talking really tough guy who was written

the wrong side of the of the equation and then in in jail literally he found Plato the cave and all

of that so today these people 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 DiAngelo I'll say it again

until the cows come home but it is about we go where help is needed we go in we go in in urban

you know inner city inner city 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 it says sometimes people are the the feet 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

been 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 love and respect Glen Larry and Company you know and Ian Rove and all

of those guys I love them I love a lot of the things that they say you know this whole concept

of personal response we don't know that but I'm just like at some point it also needs to be matched

up with real actions and that's what the people like Anton Lucky urban specialists 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 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 a school choice support school choice black mamas are they know