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Some of the ideas will feature in my upcoming economics book, Robust Manifesto Nation.

“Entrepreneurs are heroes in our society. They fail for the rest of us.”  –  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game)

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I recently shared a LinkedIn post by someone criticizing the Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) system – saying South African entrepreneurs are over-mentored and underfunded.

It showed the iconic video of Sibusiso Ngwenya of Skinny Sbu Socks on SABC News, where he outright defied the advice of an invited mentor on the show. Sbu said he “needs money” and not “solutions,” i.e., he does not want advice, but money. His business needed money as his market had developed and demand was growing.

My book Innovate Like Elon Musk is available on this blog, Amazon and SA bookstores.

If you follow tech news — or Elon Musk’s social media rants — you might have come across the claim that Starlink can’t operate in South Africa because of “racist laws.” He once said, “Starlink can’t get a license to operate in South Africa simply because I’m not Black. How is that right?” That statement is not only misleading, it’s outright false.

Interestingly, it now seems the company has changed its tune after previously abandoning the pursuit. On 14 June 2025, Starlink sent a letter to Minister Mpho Parks Tau (DTIC) reaffirming its interest in operating in South Africa.

Apartheid wasn’t just racism. It was economic warfare. It was a mix of genocidal tendencies and structural slavery — just without the whips and cotton fields of the American South.

President Ramaphosa, during this week’s media engagement with President Donald Trump in the White House’s Oval Office, displayed the quiet strength that defines Ubuntu Stoicism.

First, congratulations to Africa Eats on its listing on the Mauritius Stock Exchange.

Since last year, my co-founder and I have been researching the best model for our book publishing and AI fund underway. We are exploring the choice between a venture capital company and a Permanent Capital Vehicle (PCV), but we are leaning towards the latter.

Introducing Ubuntu Stoicism book is available at Amazon, my webstore (SA only), Takelot.com, Bargain Books and Exclusive.

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Talking about Ubuntu — I heard Ernst Roets on Tucker Carlson’s Show trying to tarnish the word Ubuntu for his political denigration game.

Let me show you what Ubuntu is and is not.

I wrote a book called ‘Introducing Ubuntu Stoicism: Gain Joy, Resilience, Productivity, and Defuse Anxiety’ to compare the Greek philosophy of Stoicism with Africa’s Ubuntu philosophy.

Here I will focus only on Ubuntu — a Zulu and Xhosa word meaning humility, “good humanity,” or kindness.

First, Ubuntu is a decentralized and sovereign philosophy that one must voluntarily embrace. If you show anything other than kindness, then it is not Ubuntu. (And no university in South African teaches anyone to kill—it would be illegal and subject to prosecution on many levels. If he has evidence otherwise, he should report it.)

South Africans have the best dancing rhythm of any country in the world. We are the best. If you disagree, show me which country beats us. All our tribes — Pedi, Zulu, Tswana, Xhosa, Tsonga, Venda, Sotho, Ndebele, Swazi — contribute to this point. Even the Afrikaners will get there eventually, either by force or peer pressure.

I hope you’re doing well today/tonight.

I’d love to share a model I developed some time ago with Startup Picnic Academy. Over the years, we’ve successfully trained companies, product managers, students, educators, and entrepreneurs using this approach.

The IDM is a simple, fast, and comprehensive framework for navigating innovation. It brings together the EBC Business Model, which I created over a decade ago, and the principles of Design Innovation to deliver impactful results.

• It provides clear foresight on how to approach, create, and launch innovative products.
• Includes real-world examples from Zara, Pep Paxi, M-Pesa, Tesla, and SpaceX.
• Empowers you to design innovative products, features, and processes.
• Highlights why now is truly “The Easiest, Cheapest, and Quickest Time in History to Be an Innovator.”

Download the Innovation Design Model and its explanation here.

Are you looking for a simple and engaging way to teach your students about innovation and entrepreneurship? The Innovation Design Model is a straightforward yet powerful tool to help your learners think creatively and practically about solving problems, developing new ideas, or improving existing ones.

Here’s how I recently used it to inspire students:

In just one day, I ran workshops at two boarding schools in North West — an all-girls school in the morning and a mixed school in the afternoon. The results were incredible! The students quickly grasped the concepts and applied them with enthusiasm.

This model has worked wonders not only with high school learners but also with university students, corporate professionals, and entrepreneurs. Let me show you how you can do the same with your students.

Download the Innovation Design Model and its explanation here.

A few years ago, Donald Trump shared a press release announcing a new Trump Hotel venture in India. The release was riddled with spelling errors—so carelessly done that it made you wonder if it was an intentional stunt for attention. This happened around 2012, a few years before Trump ran for president. Now, while India is not an English-speaking country, the sheer number of mistakes was too blatant to overlook.

Today, such errors wouldn’t stand a chance. With AI tools like ChatGPT, grammar and spelling errors can be corrected in seconds. In fact, AI can even write the entire press release with just a few points of information in minutes.

Tools like ChatGPT have become standard, even for editing books.