Ideas & Wisdom
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AI reignited a childhood curiosity for building, and the gap between what AI can do and what enterprises capture is a generational business opportunity.
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America’s persistent wavering on racial equity isn’t a failure of merit — it’s a failure of wisdom, and the costs are measured in $23 trillion of lost GDP.
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5 AI Breakthroughs We’ll Likely See in the Next 5 Years (Singularity Hub) Is Ghana’s Economic Growth Failing to Reach The People? (Global Risk Insights) Uganda’s Leading Family Owned Businesses (Asoko Insight)
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American Democracy: Conversation between Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Peter Thiel, and Cornel West This is a fascinating conversation that covers a range of topics that impact our form of government – technology, creativity, and economics to name a few. I’m not the biggest fan of Peter Thiel’s world view. I struggle with his mix of contrarianism…
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I initially rolled my eyes at this question during the latest KindredCast episode with Oath CEO Tim Armstrong, but Armstrong and KindredCast host Aryeh Bourkoff both had really interesting answers to the question. KindredCast is a podcast hosted by the CEO of Liontree, a boutique investment bank that does some of the biggest deals in…
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There’s so many incredible things on my mind for which I’m grateful: 1. My daughter is this incredibly sweet, hardworking, funny, disciplined little person. Just incredible to watch. 2. Hosted friends at my place twice this past month and got so much joy out of it. Grateful for the people who have invited me into…
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This guest post is by my friend Ifunanya Nwokedi. I’m excited about her starting to put her point of view out in the public square. While Africa needs a well-educated and experienced graduate to drive change and development, these are not the experiences students receive at universities. In their Quartz article, Seth Traudeu and Keno Omu…
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I spotted this plaque at my parent’s home before I headed back to DC from one of the best New Year’s holidays I can remember. I have been observing people around me who I admire for how they consistently show their gratitude. On New Year’s Day, I had a pretty good opportunity to work on…
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I couldn’t see oncoming traffic as I tried to make a left turn after picking up my daughter yesterday evening. A car slowed to a stop to give me space to pull out and the driver waved for me to come through. Typically, people wave at you to let you know that they are giving…
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The woman pictured above changed my life. Mrs. Jones was my 7th grade social studies teacher. My class was slightly rowdy, yet she always remained in control of the room. I started off underperforming in her class, more concerned with my pursuit of coolness. She pulled me aside one day and told me she knew…
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Four lessons I have picked up from 100 blog posts.
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I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing Eric Osiakwan about his experience building internet infrastructure in its early days in African countries, and the transition to investing in African startups. On top of that, he is pushing to get more Africans in the investing game to support the growth of the technology industry across the continent. Here’s the…
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David Brooks published a review of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest book, Between the World and Me this morning. A few points stood out to me: The last year has been an education for white people. There has been a depth, power and richness to the African-American conversation about Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston and the other killings that…
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I didn’t set out to create an industry. “Something Ventured,” a piece covering the early days of the venture capital industry really helped me get a better grasp of the nascent stages of Silicon Valley. To hear the stories of Three lessons stood out from the documentary: 1. Opportunity is in R&D We’ve seen venture…
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There should be an app that tracks when you’re bragging about your friends and sends them updates when you do. One of my good friends and daughter’s godmother, Livi, is pursuing her PhD at the University College London and got upgraded from a Master’s candidate to a PhD candidate a few days ago after writing…
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Do you remember the T-Mobile Sidekick? Did you ever ask how it was made? I sure did not.
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While doing research for another article, I ran across my talking points from a presentation I gave at Yale’s Sankofa54 conference. They were interesting to take a look at a year later. I figured it could not hurt to post them here. Reflections on role models for Anna Olivia Last night was incredible for me.…
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The World Economic Forum is taking place this week. At 10:15am today, January 21, a panel will discuss Africa’s Growth Agenda. A link to the panel is below. Africa’s Growth Agenda
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Feel free to check in over the course of the year to see how I’m doing in making this stuff happen. Love God. Love People. Last year really tested my faith. I hit some really dark spots and had some real highs. I look forward to listening to God’s word daily and writing out my prayers…
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Nigeria has tremendous growth potential and risks. My friends and I hopped on a Google Hangout to discuss.
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“I don’t feel pressure from being the President of the Toronto Raptors. I feel pressure from Africa.” The energy that entered the room when Masai Ujiri said that at yesterday’s NYU Africa Economic Forum is why I am still awake. Masai went on to say that his work would be a waste if he didn’t…
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But I won’t argue the point too hard. Yesterday evening, I attended the DC Africa Tweet up hosted by Semhar Araia. I learned about the event through Twitter and had a blast chatting it up with folks addressing the task of contributing to African development from different angles. Of the ~60 or so people at…
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Never have I been so excited about chickens! Earlier this year in Uganda, I and Sydney Musonda developed a business model for a chicken farm he would run in Zambia. He spent the next five months pursuing financing for his venture and secured funding in November. To date, he has purchased 205 day-old chicks and…
Kwame Som-Pimpong 