Entrepreneur

Business growth in Africa depends on ‘big tech’: Kenyan entrepreneur


Zagace Founder & President, Mubarak Muyika, joins ‘Influencers with Andy Serwer’ to discuss his thoughts on America’s big tech industry and its hold on African small businesses.

Video Transcript

At some point, you applied to Harvard, though–

MUBARAK MUYIKA: Right.

–and then got a scholarship, but decided not to go. Tell us about that.

MUBARAK MUYIKA: What was the case was this. When I won the award the very first time at national level, the thing became, what’s the next best thing for somebody of that level, which was the advice of multiple partners, and teachers, and stakeholders that were involved in my life, including one of the gentlemen of the companies that was supporting the whole event, Chris Kirubi? So he had been an alumni of Harvard, so it felt like the next best thing to do, considering he’s also an alumni of my school.

And he had gotten to almost the highest level from a business perspective, so I applied to Harvard. And it was something that I felt like was the best thing for me at the time, so I was supported through the whole application process. And it was really an amazing experience, but then it got to a point, where I did not know about this piece about where I had some of my peers, like had actually won an award, which was this on [? Zetia. ?] So it brought in, like, a new dynamic in the competition.

Because for the first time, what I felt I was going to do at Harvard from a software engineering perspective, I felt like some of my peers already had raised funds. They already had employees, and they were already competing. And that would take me, like, five years behind for me to actually catch up with them, so it became a situation, where I decided, no, scrap this. I have to remain ahead, so that whole process made me decide, like, I can put a weight on this.

And actually, what I decided at the time is that I’m not going to think about this Harvard thing anymore. I just want to win first. Then in the process of winning, that became a process of, like, three years by the time I came to think about it again.

Did you ever have any regrets about not going to Harvard?

MUBARAK MUYIKA: Actually, I never thought about it like that, because my thing about it was winning. I wanted to win at all costs, because the problem at the time was I used to– every time I’d look at multiple people and peers, I’d be like, what does it take to be number one? What’s so different from that guy and me?

So that whole thing used to be like that. And at the time, there were multiple people who I felt had beaten me. And if I was going to go down that road, I was going to be five years behind, so I wouldn’t say, I regret. I just think that there was a different path to take.



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