THE GREAT EXIT: Why Top Engineers are DUMPING Fintech for Hard Tech Startups

So collectively today Africa spends about $55 billion on security. The biggest misconception is we have to build much more besides Far Power. What Africa lacks today is intelligence, sovereign intelligence. Can you bring that to our audience what you mean by sovereign intelligence? Sovereign intelligence essentially means the capacity to collect surveillance data, analyze this data and predict outcomes or insights on a particular attack across your infrastructure, your people or your resources. Today Africa relies a lot on foreign intelligence. The drones that is capturing data for us is not us. The satellites is not us. And that becomes a huge problem because. Nathan Watcheku was 15 years old when he lost sight in his own eye. At 17, he turned down a four university scholarship. At 19, he had already built one company used by hundreds of thousands. And by 22, he was running terror industries. At defense and autonomous systems company protecting billions of dollars worth of African infrastructure across eight countries. My question was what is the one foundational pinpoints that once you can solve it, it would literally spark a revolution in every single industry. It's not energy, it's not food production, it's not education, it's not health, it's not any of these other industries. What they all depend on is. Nathan, you raised $11.75 million. So my question is when you are talking to clients, do they ever say what is the 22-year-old know about defense? We see the tweets and every single day what we see is we love ever-polluting. This podcast is underrated. This is the best podcast ever. But the problem is 82% of you are not subscribers but I know you guys are watching. So I need you to click the subscribe button so you can join the AfroPolluting family. Thank you. Nathan, so someone's going to click your specific video and they are going to maybe be on the way to work. Maybe they're winding down from a long day. Maybe they just want to hear what you have to say. So the first question I have to you that I want you to tell our AfroPolluting audience is what is a common misconception about the defense industry in Africa? I think first of is that the only way to tackle insecurity is by adding more firepower. Interesting. You know, the biggest misconception is we have to build more firepower, much more precise firepower. What Africa lacks today is intelligence, serving intelligence. You know, being able to understand previous attacks, being able to part out pattern recognition that can help you predict future attacks. And this is what has been lacking on the continent essentially for the last few decades. And this is what we are trying to do. So I'm going to ask some controversial because it's been the ongoing conversation as we record this podcast. So the other day, you know, they were talking about firepower, right? And they showed a map. And my concern was when they showed Africa, it was like, we have none. Like it's like empty. Is that real? Is that not like even though you're saying, you know, we don't actually need as much firepower as we need. You don't still think that is necessary. So it's, um, when you compare the firepower, of course, Russia, the US, the major world powers have, you know, they have enough for the kind of wars they are fighting. The kind of wars we are fighting is not necessarily state and state wars is mostly with terrorists, with terrorist groups. You don't need to have ballistic missile systems. And you don't need to have submarines. You don't need to have a lot of the advanced weaponry that the West, um, builds out. Um, for what we have today, I'm talking Nigeria, I'm talking other countries, it's enough for the kind of war on terror that that is currently raging. So it's, it's, it's, it's relative, essentially. Okay. And can you break down for audience? They may not really understand that. So when you're saying state on state, what, like what does that actually mean? Yes. So state on state means you're not saying Nigeria fighting, you know, looking at the first one or Ghana, you're not seeing, you know, countries fighting countries. A lot of the wars in Africa are always internal conflicts, you know, um, mostly fighting, terrorist groups, non-state actors, um, that don't have the, their own level of sophisticated weaponry. You can't compare that to a state actor, you know, if, if you're fighting a nation. So that's what we mean by state actors and non-state actors. Also from a sovereign intelligence perspective, because I love that you speak about that. You said African doesn't necessarily prioritize that. Can you break down for our audience what you mean by sovereign intelligence? Yeah. Sovian intelligence essentially means, you know, the capacity to collect, you know, sovereign intelligence data, I say, your data, um, analyze this data and predict outcomes or, or insights, you know, on a particular attack, um, across your infrastructure, your people, or your resources. Today, Africa relies a lot on foreign intelligence, you know, the, the, the drones that, that is capturing data for us is not us. The software, even the human intelligence for, for, um, a lot of countries, they, they depend on foreign Western, you know, agencies to actually articulate what is going on in their own country. Um, and that becomes a huge problem, you know, um, because first of all, you, you never truly, uh, fully get the rights contextualized data from these guys. They don't understand your country better than you, you know, there is always room for misinterpretion and this is where you now see countries, you know, misfire or, you know, targets the wrong group of people. Second is, you look at data sovereignty, you know, national security data should not be held anywhere else, but by you. Um, and that brings a lot of problems too, you know, if you're hosting your national security design, other continent in other countries, that is not, that, that, that is not yours because it allows room for sabotage or even blackmail. So there is a lot of issues with sovereign intelligence, every continent, every major world powers tries for that except Africa. You know, it is almost like we're completely happy of showing our national security, you know, while, um, acting like it's, it's all okay. So this is essentially what we mean by sovereign intelligence. I love that you broke that down. Now, from a, um, hardware software perspective, we're having this conversation offline. I think they're going to be people who are tuned into this podcast and they're like, we're super intelligent. We usually understand software. We understand software as a service, we understand technology. But for some reason, Africans don't tend to necessarily play or believe that it can play in the hardware space, right? This is core hard. Like this is not like you're not playing. It's like you're joining us taking off things that are happening that are harder. Where could you break down to our audience? Why do you believe that Africans should be playing also more in hardware? Not state that we ignore software, but hardware is important. Like, why should we do hard things in that way? Yeah. If you look at where Africa is today as a continent, you know, it's, um, it's undergoing an era of rapid industrialization, you know, um, finally. But there's still a lot of foundational infrastructure that lacks on the continents, you know, across security, energy, several other very foundational problems that we haven't fully solved. You can't solve that by your fintech apps. You know, you can't solve that by, um, just relying on software only. Software thrives on hardware. You know, the best software on the world is because they are backed up by great hardware. And, you know, this, this, um, I would say the culture right now in the ecosystem where a lot of people are scared of hardware is very, is, is, is, is more psychological, you know, days are, these are not spoken, you know, rule almost where a lot of people feel Africans are not smart enough to build anything more than websites or apps. It's very unspoken. But it's a belief, it's a belief that is not just with non-Africans, even the Africans themselves believe this. You know, they believe once it's beyond websites or apps, ooh, that is too advanced for us. Um, and we, we wanted to show that that's, that's not right. You know, it's, um, intelligence is distributed equally around the world. It's, it's, it's, it's all about just meeting the right opportunity. So it's, um, for us, the next stage of Africa's growth right now, you know, which is basically how can it fully industrialize and capture its full potential would require us to build serving hardware infrastructure. You know, not just in security, we need to build energy infrastructure. We need to build for food production, for in health. These are things that you can't just do with software alone. So this is why I believe that what kind of entry like a phase two of the ecosystem where more people would actually do heartings. You know, I was, I read Elon Musk's book and he was speaking to his background in terms of physics and the role physics plays in understanding hardware, right? So from a, I guess the foundational layer of like frameworking, right? Can you break down? Cause I know you you also had a physics background, right? Can you break down why physics is important for our building as a as a national as a continent? And also, I think this is more of a question for you to also appeal to talents that's watching, right? So you're talking about talent that can be based whether it's an adaptable based on the ground as to why should they focus on pivoting into hardware spaces and attracting that sort of talent to come build in this space as well. But can you from a foundational layer explain why physics is also important for us to have a foundational understanding of hardware as well? Yeah, I think for me personally physics changed my life. You know, was very active in physics or in periods. I actually wanted to be a professor of physics. You know, then I realized they didn't have money. So I quickly pivoted. But I think for this new hardware innocence that Africa is about to have physics is very fundamental because it allows you to see problem from the first principles. You know, when you want to solve a problem, and this is basically how you solve like a typical physics equation. You know, you have to basically strip it down to its very first core principles and then go back up again. You know, it allows you see problems from a very different perspective than how other people may may view problems. And this was actually how I realized that security was what needed to be solved in Africa. Because you know, my question was what could you solve in Africa that could suck was everything. You know, what is the one foundational pinpoint? Point that once you can solve it, it would literally spark a revolution in every single industry. It's not energy because energy is still required security. It's not food production. Most of our farmers and not even farming right now. It's not education. Most kids again are being kidnapped. You know, we see this news almost every few weeks. It's not held. It's not any of these other industries. What they all depend on is security. And that is like if you want to solve Africa's industrial problem today, the first thing you have to do is first lay that modern security infrastructure, then everything else comes on top. And even our software ecosystem would require security. You know, Africa today made a very big mistake. By completely jumping the industrial revolution. We first began as an agrarian economy. Then we completely jumped. You know, that whole industrial process and became a service economy. Which means that that period where a lot of typically a lot of civilizations during the period have low income large youth population. And that is when they threw them into the factories to do, you know, location on low tech production. And at that point over a few years, they eventually become middle class and all that. That's typically how middle class is formed, you know, doing that industrial area. Because we didn't go through that phase. We essentially have a large pretty book youth population that have no jobs. A service economy can never provide enough jobs. And now foreign investors are not going to invest in industry in Africa because of security. They look out industrialists don't trust Africa. You know, like they would rather go and invest their money into buy. You know, Dan Gutei was saying it's few is back. That rather than investing here, they would rather invest their money into buy or some other countries because they gain the don't trust the African environment. So basically, have putting a modern security infrastructure is foundational to everything, to sparking the industrial goods here. And that was something I wouldn't have figured out without using the first principle, you know, you know, I'm framework that physics taught me. You know, it's funny because I was just writing something on LinkedIn the other day about this first principles thing. And I think for us, even what we do here at Afopolitan, it started from a first principle perspective, which was, I think I'm a big fan of Navale, and we talk about it on the podcast. And, you know, after reading his book, I think for me, it was, there was a quote in there that he has, which is, "society will reward you for giving it what it wants, but does not yet know how to get." Right. And that to me is like the basis of entrepreneurship and even building is at scale. And I think for me, when I was streamed down and when I was sharing it with Chica, I was like, "What is the one layer thing that society really wants? Like our people are Africans everywhere wants deeply, but they've not yet been able to get. And it can be solved for that. And for me, my own revelation was it was good governance, right? But I'm not realizing, even when we're talking to you, like you're, you're broken it down even to a sub layer at some rate. Yeah, good governance might be the catch all phrase, but under good governance, one of the things in good governance is security, right? Like if you don't have security, even able to secure things, you're not able to guarantee things that are, that people are going to be safe underneath it. Where do you go from there? But I wanted us to pivot to the fundraising journey, right? I think I, I, I wrote an article about Tara, like when you guys first raised, and I want to need to, from your perspective, share what the journey was like for you, especially you're walking into a room, you're talking to investors who may, may or may not be educated in this space, especially sometimes people from where we're from, right? And what did that look like for you guys to articulate your vision, help break it down to people. And I'm sure some people still don't get it. But what does that, what did that journey look like for you, especially for founders who are looking to go raise in hardware, moving forward? What was your journey like? Yeah, I mean, it was as tough as every other founders journey. But I think even tougher because, as you said, you know, a lot of investors, especially African investors, didn't understand. It's a very new market. It's a blue ocean market. We don't look like the typical defense founders, you know, and also, you know, there were just a lot of questions around how can this even scale in Africa? You know, like, how can this be built? How would this be for like, there was so many questions and it was very tough trying to educate them because, you know, they they are used to the FinTech ecosystem. They are used to, you know, funding those type of startups. Their entire expertise have been built around that. It's very hard to pick someone from that framework. But I think that is slowly changing. You know, they are starting to be a bit more open-minded. But eventually, we had to actually just go to go to the secures that understand. You know, and that was what eventually led us to Silicon Valley. You know, our very first precede, we had an investor that was actually my age. You know, his name is Coco, Silicon Valley investor that put the first institutional, you know, check back in for that round, you know. And his entire belief was more philosophical and more geopolitical. You know, he understood that where the world is going today, every continent would need a sovereign defense capability. You know, the world powers today are retracting. You know, the days of global hegemony is ending. Yeah. And we're entering an age of regional hegemony where the US now in the Donut, doctrine is focusing on the Western hemisphere. You know, China is going to focus on theirs. Europe is looking inwards. Every single continent is now looking inwards to building their own defense capabilities except Africa, which is still looking for handouts from around the world. So it was clear that Africa would need a regional defense prime that would, you know, be stationed to protect it. And he understood where that was going. You know, both for my philosophy, point of view and geopolitical point of view. And I think there is something a lot of, you know, the Afghan VCs I spoke to initially, they lacked. You know, they, a lot of them don't invest based on ideology or philosophies, mostly just based on, you know, the markets. And the market they understand. Did you agree with, I don't know if you even had a chance to read this. I don't want to zoom, but yeah, I wrote something about like the philosophical world view that they like. Would you say that was, that's your been a experienced reason because that was also our experience, right? And where I'm like, yo, no offense. I know people are going to be watching, but I'm like, what books do you guys read? Like do you watch movies? Do you watch documentaries? Like what reforms your world view? Because it's almost like you're talking to someone. I'm like, I don't expect you to know everything. But you don't have a foundational layer of what you're like your capital should have a world view. Yeah. You said I'm saying you can't be like capital locator. It's like, what is the point of having the money to invest in? Sometimes it's not your money because it's LPs money. But when you're convincing LPs, it should also be like, what's your world? What is the world you want to see when this, which is actualization? And so for some of them is like, no, I just came into this to just double the money that's it. And I'm just like, bro, like, okay. And I actually want to add because I actually think if we're talking about some of the things you're saying that, you know, we skipped a lot of steps. So now we need to step back and build some of these industries. We can't keep building on just Chintek. Like, I think we built all the fence. We can't build. I don't know what else we're solving at this point. But I agree that, you know, when we're, I really want investors to hear this part because I feel like a lot of African investors were not, we're going to keep relying on handouts. If we don't get to the point where we're investing, investing in world views, we're investing in like, how do you see Africa moving forward? And Africa does not reliance on other countries or other types of entities in order to prop us up as well. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Yeah, but I think even further, what was the exact amount you raised? I wanna talk about that. - 11.5 million. - Okay. - That's $11.75 million. Okay, 'cause that got to say that number, 'cause people think it's impossible. So I'm curious, were there a lot of institutional investors or were there a lot of angels to get to that point? - It was mostly institutional. You know, it was led by ADVC, owned by-- - Jailons, Palantir founder, Jailons Dale. And in participation was value equity, Silicon Valley, NGOs, lockscapital, you know, the usual guys in Silicon. We only had about, I think, two NGOs. - Interesting. - Yeah, it was really purely an institutional round. - Only two angels. - Yeah. - Wow, and so were any of these Africans? - No. (laughing) - Okay. We got to say that, we got to say it all. That's the problem. - Well, not in this round, but in the first round. - Okay. - We do have a few African investors that got in the first round. - Okay, okay. - Yeah, but for this round, no, no, we're not able to get in African investors before the round closed up. And for us really, we were also looking for people that have built global defense primes before. You know, these are the same exact set of companies that built Palantir, that built Andreu. They know what it takes to build a multi-billion dollar defense prime. You know, we wanted to work with people that fully understand these sticks and disacrifice it would tick to build something like this. You know, and yeah, that was why we went with them. - Etch, remember that time I walked into a bank, I'm not gonna give the name, and I asked them for $1,000, and they told me, no, they cannot withdraw any dollar for me. And I was so upset, and I just remember asking everybody, how can I solve this issue? And I'm so happy that I finally have the band to finally solve this issue for me. You know, the thing is, you should be able to have access to your money anywhere in the world when you get paid, right? So I'm grateful we have V-Band as a sponsor for that for Palantir podcast. With V-Band, you're able to get paid in foreign currencies, whether it's pounds, USD, Euros, and you can actually spend it in local currency as well. Now, you're also able to get a virtual card which can be used to spend and pay for services across the world. Right? So I'm grateful to have V-Band as a sponsor. - You can download it on the Apple or Google Play Store, and remember, when you sign up, you use Apple Palantir so they know you came from this podcast. - So something interesting is your 22, right? I wanna perform from your age. Okay. So you're 22, right? I'm 37. (laughing) Right? Sorry. I see the world. I see the law thing. So my question is, when you are talking to clients, right? Do they ever say, what is a 22-year-old know about defense? Not really. Probably if I was doing this five years, it would have killed. But right now, since I get in so bad, the world is getting mad. - Yeah. - You know, and people are getting to a level of depression that's, African needs a madman. No matter how the madman looks, they are ready to work with him. So it was just perfect timing for that. Yeah. And it's so funny you use the word hedge money because funny enough, I don't know if you saw the Canadian Prime Minister, right? You see, you saw the word he used. He kept using that word specifically, right? So I'm even more curious, after doubles, have you seen like some emails come through like, well, maybe we need to reflect on the type of services you're offering. I'm curious to have you seen an uptake or just more people being interested, just based off of those conversations that happen. - I think in terms of geopolitics, you know, it's, the US will always be a strong partner to keep countries around the world. I mean, the US is a good partner to Nigeria, to most of Africa, and they will keep on being a good partner. But at the same time, we are starting to see is shifting their foreign policy, where they are now also focusing inwards. You know, they want to rebuild back their industrial base. You know, they want to ensure that the Western hemisphere is protected from foreign adversaries. Right now, that is their primary objective. Everything else is secondary, possibly even tertiary. And for us, you know, we always, we are focused on building a sovereign's capability for the continent to protect itself. But of course, it doesn't mean that we want to turn Africa into a Sharia, you know, like, they're still going to be a world where we will still need global partners. But now is more, is more, from a framework where we are working as partners, not begging for handouts. You know, we already have our own capability. And we are now working with our global allies to even elevate what we already have. It's, you said it's been done with Europe, you said it's been done with Japan. These are countries that have the industrial base to produce whatever they want. But they still work with global allies like America. So I think that is where Africa is going to evolve with if there are wins. - Yeah, and I'm even more curious, what is your typical client? Because I'm thinking about consistently when America, especially during elections, you always talk about the defense budget, defense budget, right? And as soon as you were talking, I was like, what defense budget? So we have like, that's what I'm thinking, like, is it important? Is it, or is it private entities like I'm curious, you know, what budgets are being set up please for the type of, you know, business you're building? - So collectively today, Africa spends about $55 billion on security. - Okay. - You know, Kotana Kuo's protecting this infrastructure is resources and this people. There is a saying that African governments don't pay. But actually, I like to edit that saying a bit. African governments pay for security and energy. You know, those are the two, because even African governments understand that those are the two pillars that are foundational to every civilization. You don't play with security, you don't play with energy. So, even in that, like, we don't have any issue with that. And that budget is basically based on just the typical government of defense budgets collectively, you know, we're not talking on what the private sector guys are spending on protecting their own privately own assets, you know, what, because for terror, we focus on both the government pipelines and also the commercial pipeline. Like, we're working with privately owned infrastructure assets, power plants that are owned by billionaires and commercial companies, refineries, you know, mines. - Yeah, that's why we got the last one. - And all of that. So, those guys are collectively spending another few tens of billions, you know. So, the market is much larger than people actually realize and it keeps growing, you know, it's the defense market in Africa is the fastest growing market right now. Mostly because the threat is evolving faster than any other continents, you know. This terrorist now are getting smarter. They are now using drones. We saw the news early last year. They are using drones now to attack several installations across this aisle. So, since our instability increases, that market is only going to get much larger and it would, you know, probably terror won't even be enough. You know, this market will probably have two or three winners. You know, so this is where we see the industry going. - I like this because I want you to break down for our audience what actually happens to a country, right? When critical infrastructure like pipelines, power plants are insecure, even if there's no war, right? So, again, I think it helps to drive the value that terror is actually providing here. Can you break that down for our audience? - So, if you look at the civilization today, you know, let's say your building seems, you know, like sim city. If you want that civilization to run, essentially, you have to build some foundational pillars that will enable them to run. You will need power plants for energy. You will need commercial farmlands for food production. You will need, you know, refineries for the oil and all that. You know, there's all these critical infrastructure that will need to be put in place to enable society run smoothly. Now, what happens if those infrastructure assets are attacked and blown up? In the matter of hours, that society is completely torn upside down. People don't understand what it means to live without those assets. Like, just try to think about what it will mean if all the power plants, all the refineries, our farmlands, our borders, the telecommunications towers, all of these assets are destroyed all at once right now. Suddenly, your communication is completely cut off from the world. Power is gone. In a few days, there will be food scarcity. People would starve to death. You know, the borders will be put, will be flooded with, with unwanted people we don't want it to turn into basically an apocalypse. So critical infrastructure is very important to enabling, you know, smooth sailing for its civilization to run. And it's, you know, my own thesis is that it's even more important than the actual shooting war. You know, like this is why it's better itself have entirely focused on protecting critical infrastructure because this is a market that never dies. You always have to protect it, you know, and you can protect it without going kinetic. You're always playing on the defensive and predictive on side of defense because we personally, we never want to go kinetic. We're not interested in going kinetic. I don't think the type of war Africa is fighting requires us to go kinetic. As I said earlier, the firepower is more than enough. So basically just enabling, you know, a large scale mesh network of defense systems all connected to each other, all sharing data with each other, and enabling our governments to now rather than acting for a reactive point of view, they're now being more predictive. You know, they're able to predict future attacks and intercept them before it happens. That is where we want to get Africa to. For audience, could you break down what you meant by kinetic? Yeah, I'll say. Okay, kinetic is essentially weapons. Like weapons that can't kill, weapons that can neutralize. So in defense, they're essentially two categories of systems. Well, they are all that much smaller categories, but I'll just focus on the two main. There is ISR. So intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. That is where Terra plays, and there's kinetics. The people that build the weapons that then destroy after ISR is done. Most of the global defense players today play mostly in kinetics. You know, the Andreel, Helsing, only very few, purely in ISR like Palantir, and for the kind of war, these guys are fighting. You see the war in Russia and Ukraine, it requires them, it's mostly a kinetic warfare. You know, they're going through millions of our three-table systems at an industrial scale. They need to essentially produce weapons at a massive scale. You look at the US too. That is the kind of system that they need. They already have enough ISR from their satellites and all that. So they essentially need to focus more on our three-table kinetics. Well, when you come to Africa, you know, again, the kind of war we are fighting here, we're fighting, you know, terrorist groups that beyond, you know, if you, beyond a few guns, grenades, maybe they may have a few other slightly more sophisticated systems, it's not sophisticated enough that what we have right now, the fighter jets we have, the missiles we have, is not enough. It's more than enough to take care of these guys. But the problem now is where are they? You know, how are they perpetrating these attacks? How are they coming? Where, you know, like using previous attacks, how could you, you know, plot out possible ways that they would attack possible doctorate and possible strategies and intercept them? And this is what we're trying to do now. And essentially, that's why it's a place in that ISR field. It's funny because, obviously, me and you just came back from vacation, so we were resting. I was reading a lot of, I said to her that I feel like war is coming at some point. So people who are students of history really need to go and start like reading up on the stuff. Because I think our generation has forgotten what world wars used to look like because we're so far removed. The reason I'm bringing this up is obviously back then they used to have carriers and, you know, the defense of the wars they would fight are very different from now. And I think Ukraine and Russia have shown how different that is. And going back to your point, it doesn't make sense to deploy a fighter jet against like 10 to 15 bandits and some like even just the the fields of to fill up the jets is more than you would spend to do anything. So it doesn't make any sense. And I think I was reading that that's where countries like Turkey and a bunch of these other guys have stepped up to produce like drones and things that can that might be smaller cost of produce but have much more bigger effects. Where I wanted us to go to is talent, right? We already touched about it a little bit, right? But why should a young engineer today or young person today who's looking to go into technology, you know, focus or be proud to build in this space compared to like the software features that they already like that they already have so many examples of like why should more of our talent focus on this hardware space? I think because it matters, you know, very controversial opinion, but I'm I might as well believe is the smartest engineers, the smartest minds in Africa should not be wasting your time on us, you know, it's it's it's it's a complete waste of your time. We have much more fundamental, much more important, much more urgent problems to solve. You know, and we need the best brains on those problems. So it's it's you know, first and foremost, it's just a simple answer. It just matters like it matters now where the world is heading now. We need the the the the best brains, the best possible outcomes to would possibly come from here too. You know, because the people that build the rules, the people that build the infrastructure once Africa industrializes will be the biggest winners. The people that build the security infrastructure or the energy infrastructure, communications, all of that in 10, 15, 20 years, you know, we are the ones that will essentially be the biggest winners of of of of of this new age industrial revolution that is ongoing right now. So there is much more upside whether than going to drag is super saturated markets, you know, that's basically hasn't grown in the last two years. You know, and second is is cooler shit. You know, like what what possible stuff could you do that is cooler than this? You know, like it's it brings a lot of fulfillment to everyone working at Terra today. You know, I've never seen people that are so happy at Terra today. You know, they they they come to the factory even when they're not even meant to come. Like some of them sleepers sleep there, you know, like they talk about what we're doing so so much because at Terra it's a very mission driven problem. You know, what we're talking about the fence. This is not some abstract problem that no one everyone knew someone that has been affected by insecurity is either a family member, a friend, a friend of a friend or sometimes even them directly. At Terra, we have people that have lost like families, you know, friends, brothers from from from from from from insecurity, even I personally. So this is something that is very close to home and beyond, you know, the very beautiful compensation and payment package, by the way, beyond that, people feel like this is a mission, like this is a battle for the soul and fate of Africa, you know, and you know, we have been best to the point is to essentially lead the charge. So it's, we're currently hiring, by the way, so reach out and yeah. Actually, I have a follow-up question to this. So since you gather a lot of intelligence literally, I'm curious because you're saying, you know, you have a great brain, you're have a future among you, don't waste your time and time. What other industries out of defense are you literally seeing that you feel like some of these brains need to go into that you think there's a blue ocean? Energy. Energy, sustainable energy. The our energy infrastructure today is not nearly good enough to power Africa even in 25 years. You know, the, with the current trajectory of Africa's demographic growth, population growth, the amount of industries that will be needed to sustain the continents, we need a very robust sustainable energy infrastructure. And I think that's there's going to be a second energy wave coming, you know, but it wouldn't be the old guys, you know, and it wouldn't be the typical ways that we are seeing today. So I'm very excited about energy really. I keep track of damn market a lot. I read up a lot on what's going on there, you know, I've made a few angel bets myself to be honest. So, yeah, so energy communication, you know, again, because of the current demographic, demographic growth, there is, I think in a few years, you know, close to half a billion people that would, would need to be onboarded, you know, on a new communication infrastructure. So essentially, for me, it's very, very basic, you know, things, even food production, we need more sustainable ways to boost urban food production now, because we can't entirely depend on rural food production, like the way we have been producing food is not fast enough, it's not efficient enough to support the large population of Africa. You know, we need newer, more efficient, much faster ways to do things. So these are some of the industries I think are going to be good minds very soon. And yeah, I think we need more builders that are building big projects here. It's funny because a couple of years ago, I think, I've been pre-covid or during COVID. I was reading something about how the Chinese government was intentionally stopping or at least trying to, you know, encourage the best brains to not just be going 'cause I think they have realized and woke up and realized they're best brains where leaving college or leaving high school to go and start working on TikTok type companies or Facebook type companies. They're like, "How can the best of you be dedicating your brain space to gamification of getting people addicted to scrolling?" Like that doesn't make any sense. Like we need people in, you know, what you call it, even like the EV market or these different markets, like you just talk about the hardware stuff, right? So I think, I remember reading that and being taken aback because I was in a position where I was seeing the best of us who were even Africans graduating from these schools abroad and like, "Hey, I'm going to go work at Facebook. I'm going to go work at TikTok." And I think at that time, you're proud to say you work at those companies because that's the Nigerian American dream, you have probably job out, but then when you sit back at it and you say, "Well, I'm literally one of the best at what I do to whom much is giving much is required." I mean, what's required from you is to allow someone to scroll on Instagram. That's the aballicle, right? And I think that that's why I love this conversation because I think a lot of those talents who are watching are slowly starting to realize like, "Look, your job part, your beard now connects, your skin is glowing, your been on Facebook for five, six, seven years, your vestes, some stock options, you are now needed to come back home or come or in some way or fashion, contribute to building things that will actually impact the vast majority of our people. Like our best minds cannot be stuck working on a TikTok or working on the Facebook. Like I'm sorry, like after I've done two, three, four years, make your money, but it's time for us to like, like they didn't say like, "We need to, time is of the essence. We need actually our best minds to pivot." Where I wanted to now go take this conversation to is, we talk about philosophy back then, right? Or a couple of minutes ago. We grew up in a world where globalization was the thing, right? And to be fair, we give a good account. Globalization seems to have worked out for countries like China or for the vast majority of countries who are looking to develop, right? What is your philosophy? Because obviously in this kind of environment, it does benefit terror, right? When you step back and I think you might be a student of history a little bit, right? When you analyze globalization and this retrenchment that's happening, do you, are you pro-goblinization? Where do you think globalization ended up being like a good thing and where were some of the downside effects of it? I just wanna get your philosophy involved with you on that. - Yeah. Yeah. So I'm very much for globalization, or at least what it was meant to be. It quickly devolved. And this is why I think the problem with globalization happened. You know, if you study countries in the 19th, 18th, even the 20th century, they were much more independent than they are today. You know, you had even second-tier, third-tier countries in a lot of different continents having a booming manufacturing sector across different industries. You know, they could provide at least the fundamental like necessities for just civilians, irrespective of global trade. But what globalization has become in the 21st century is essentially where entirely depending on just, you know, very few countries. You know, not more than three to four is essentially supplying the world of most of its goods. That is very dangerous, super dangerous. Especially now that we're entering a new era, you know, and in the current geopolitical winds, you don't want to be essentially dependent on foreign powers, you know, for your normal day to day life. So I think I'm out for what's actually going on right now of everyone basically looking inwards, retracting back to the original spheres of influence, building up their own industries. But I still support living the global markets open. So it's gonna be a mix of both where we're all building our own industries. Of course, not everyone, for example, there will be no one at least for the necessary future would beat the semiconductor industry in Taiwan, you know, the automotive industry in Germany, with the ways we mean competitive. I think every country has something special to offer to the world, you know, is about finding that specialty now. But every country can have specialized industries that know where, like, you can't get it at that quality from anywhere else. And it's about, you know, looking inwards, building up those specialized industries, you know, ensuring that the core fundamental things your citizens need to live is also localized to a certain degree but leave the global markets open. So I think hopefully, you know, I mean, what's still watching, what's still in very early days of this new phase. Hopefully that is what happens. I, you know, the worst possible outcome is everyone basically just retracts. Global markets collapses because it doesn't work for anybody. You know, we are already so used to globalization that is going to be a disaster for everybody. Well, what's if, because again, still in the history, what's if our own specialization here in Africa, specifically Nigerians, Afrobeats, what if that's what's like everybody else, or what you're trying to do in this one, Taiwan, these semiconductors, what if our oil is Afrobeats giant, the culture of the world is vast. The day is very sad. That's how we look at our speed. And I wasn't that what he was doing. Did he go to any arts highly unfortunate? He was just going to the vibe, the dancing, the culture, the food, the music. No, because these things are important. I do think I agree with you where, you know, it's a balance between global and also making sure you do have things as sustainable. Because I do think if you do study history, to be fair, globalization led to less wars, right? I think the fact that the last World War was 1945, literally when it ended, we've literally had almost 100 years or almost 15 plus years of no wars at that level, right? And back then, there were much more retrenched. Everybody could produce things at home. People could, it wasn't as globalized as it is today. So one could argue, and I'm just talking about this from a philosophical standpoint. Because I do think I am trending to where your stance actually is. But as I was analyzing this, I was like, to be fair, it's not as if China has been going around bullying people or trying to say like, we're about to start a war. Whereas before, the other those wars used to start because somebody would look at their situation and say, "Hey, we don't have enough oil here." Like Japan, for example, part of what inspired them to go to war was the embargo, the sanctions, and then being like, "Okay, you know what, the Dutch West Indies, Indonesia at the time has oil. We're going to have to hold that for you." So I think an argument could be made where maybe it's a trend, actually much more enveloping more so that we are all connected and people are like, "Hey, don't bully us because you're doing this." And then, let's see where it goes. Why do you think like, I'm somebody who does not like outsourcing critical things? So that's because once somebody offs your lights, it's only English you can speak. Yeah, you know. So actually, you know, come in day-bid. I think the argument that globalization stopped was, it's actually quite a mistake because it stopped the war between major powers. Yeah. There were still hundreds of proxies wars. Yeah. You know, if anything, it increased the war within, you know, second, third, third, third powers, you know, like, because now these major powers have essentially not been to lose, you know, and they're able to fund proxies wars across the globe. So I don't think it has stopped was in, in any way. But yeah, yeah, I do agree that this is what's like, the world has to become now. You know, where we have to build our own sovereign capabilities in key industries. Why else do we live in the global markets open? Actually, before we transition, right, I think the only thing I would love our audience to learn because yes, you are 22 years old. It's not rare that these are the conditions that a 22 year old is having, right? So what are the, I know, at 15, you had an experience where you weren't blind. And when I, can you speak to our audience as to how that experience shaped you and there's a fire and there's a drive inside of you that anyone who's talking to you can feel, right? Yeah. What was that experience like? Can you break it down for our audience? But also, how has it shaped the man that we see sitting before us today? Yeah. So at, um, at 15, I had an accident on my right eye. That put me in a coma for a while. I became blind. So basically, it happened on my 15th day. You know, you know, in some body schools, you're having fun, your friends are throwing water and stuff like that. One of my close friends, two slippers. I had a bucket on my face, shielded at a 60 degree angle. Somehow, the, uh, slippers, sorry, what the sound, the sound, how broke the bucket. And a piece of the box, get went into my head, you know, shat with my eyes and I blocked out. Several surgeries later and the coma, I woke up and you never truly appreciate life until you essentially experience, you know, a near-death experience. And there was this feeling of like when I woke up I wasn't like scared or crying or whatever it was this feeling of purpose. I felt like I had just been given a second chance in life, you know, for context around this time when it happened I was actually very depressed, I know I was 15. But I was very depressed because, you know, I've always been very ambitious but I didn't know how to actually do it, you know, I was more of a talk, talk, talk, but never actually do anything, you know. But after this I realized like, first of all, you could die any moment so make every day count. And you know, second, if I had died then, I just died in nobody, you know, I just went as a statistic that, sure, my mom, my family would cry, but in a few years I'm forgotten, you know, I'm just the dust in the ground. And that scared me, it caused like an existential crisis in me and I wanted to then, it gave me the sense of purpose to do something with my life. Because I don't know when, you know, it's pretty funny in a country where I think Nigeria's life expectancy is like 50 something. Everybody thinks they'll get to 90. If you talk to everybody, everyone says, you know, when they are 90, when they are 90, it's, you know, it's, I think that was like a very transformational experience for me, you know, and after that, I just never got scared of anything, you know, like because like, it's one of the experience that there's nothing that can scare you. Like you're not scared of death, you're scared of dying in nobody. And I think that has been like, that has given me a level of audacity that, that I can't really put in words. How does that make you relate to, because obviously we're also entrepreneurs on the culture, and there's a level of ambition we also have. How has that shaped how you relate to family, friends, even co-workers, right? Because even I want to tie that back into what sort of person would thrive at terror, right? Because I think sometimes when, like, I think part of my own journey to start with a near-death experience too, and you know, there's a lot of even cheaper to dealt with grief that was also a death experience to that, like this unlocks something where you're like, look, we're not here to be statistics. We're not going to be spectators in arena. We're going to actually jump in and see what we can do. How has that related with, how has that defined how you relate with people? And the reason why I'm asking this is sometimes you're so ambitious that slowing down or being present is not available. And I think for me at 22, bro, like what I'm 35 now, right? I've learned the trade-offs that you're actually making real time. We're like, you're so ambitious. You want to do things, you want to do, and then you look back after 10 years and you are so ambitious that people, he does as it disconnects. And at the time when you're making those choices, it's worth it. Yeah. Then when you get to say, "Asian, you look back and you're like, maybe I could have, you know, balanced out here and there, right?" So I want to ask you specifically, like, do you think about that? Like as you're, because I can feel the fire, I can feel the passion. You remind me of eating it too when I first met eating at 24, 25. And it's the same thing. I'm not saying extrapolating 10 years from now, right? How do you balance the relationships where their things you're going to have to be present for? But then answer that question, then answer the sort of person that thrives currently at Terra as well. Yeah. I mean, naturally, I am quite introverted, you know. I don't really like people. I think it's, so building this company, essentially, you know, increased that even more. So beyond when I'm like walking and all that in my private life, I pretty much keep to myself most times, I am, it's a sacrifice what making. You know, there are certain times you have to make certain sacrifices. You know, it's not every time you get an opportunity to do something that could actually change everything. And I think for me, that is the way I see it. You know, so I know I'm missing out on a lot. You know, I have basically been walking from the moment I lost the eyes. So basically since I was 15, I've not had a lot of experiences in my life. But the experience is I do have, you can't trade it anywhere. It's something that I'm actually very proud of. You know, so yeah, it's just one of those things where I think what I'm doing is so important for the continent. It's so big for the continent that someone has to basically take one for the team, you know. I agree. I agree. I will also circle back with you in 10 years to see, not that the ambition has died or any of them, but like what nuances have been introduced to it where I can maintain this ambition and what it is I want to achieve. But what else have you learned through the journey as well? Yeah. And I'm curious at this stage of your life, what values are non-negotiable for you? Values with me. Yeah, values with you. Yeah. Oh. I'm sorry, you can also tie that into the terror question about what sort of values would you want somebody who's working that terror to have? But yeah. I think it's people that see life beyond like that's okay for me first. It's basically, you know, ambition. I think I. I try to basically set, you know, where I want to be personally in my life and what I want to do in my lifetime and what I want to have to also become is so high that realistically, there's a very high chance I don't actually ever get there. But it is so high that it's basically you aim for the stars, you fall on the moon kind of situation. You know, so I set this because if you set your ambition very low, you get to achieve it very quickly. And once you achieve it, that's that's that moment when you ask like what next is the most dangerous moment because once you're once you're seeing what next, you're very easy for you to like get distracted and stuff like that. So I like to set very almost unrealistic, you know, goals for myself. But you know, I know within myself very low chance of actually doing this, you know, and to be honest, most times I've actually done it. But it just helps me keep focus. It helps me keep focus. I don't think in my lifetime I'll ever finish everything I want to do. And that is good because I must not ever relance throughout my life. I have to keep at it. It's the gas has to be full pedal, you know, till I'm able to at least calm a bit close to what I think I need to do while I'm here. And for like the people that are coming that will be working at Terra is all about that. You know, like one question always acts everybody when you want to work at Terra is like what you want to do your life. You know, it's a trick question essentially. You know, because I want to know your own ambition independent of whatever job you're applying for. You know, if I'm hiring you for a job and I ask you what you want to do with your life, I'm telling me that this was your life's goal. I know your line. You didn't see this the art you like last week. How's your life go? You know, or you're telling me that you want to do this for 50 years. I'm like, bro, I may not even be doing this for 50 years. Like what are you doing? You know? It's like they need to have a larger goal for themselves. Then it's more realistic that okay, Terra is going to essentially be, you know, just a parting way for you towards your own goal. You know, it's just going to play a role in your own journey. So I think that's that matters a lot. And people that are that's really deeply care about the mission. I'm going to pay you well. You know, you're going to get a lot of amenities. We're probably one of the best paying startups in Africa today. Aksa engineers, they are enjoying. But you have to deeply be passionate about what we're solving because as I said earlier, you know, this is a struggle for the fit of the continents. If you don't care about this, you won't, you wouldn't put in that extra edge, you know, but you don't know how many people that would save. You know, you don't know what that extra edge, that idea that you presented, that feature that you added, you don't know what that could save. You know, it could save, if you hundreds of people, it could save thousands, it could save an entire country from an attack. You know, so what we're doing is very, it's very important. work and you know I think that is what matters to us. Can you name one of the ambitious goals you have that you don't think you'll be able to achieve in this lifetime? Personally for you. Yeah, personal. I want to singlehandedly, if possible, you know push Nigeria towards total industrialization. You know the potential of this country is just too much. Every time I think of it, it's like I want to go mad. You know, it's I have never seen a country more blessed than Nigeria. You know, and for me now is about focusing on the pillars that the country would need to unlock its industrial potential. I don't know if I will be able to do all of it. I don't even know if I will even do half of it, but I think is what trying. You know, I have time on my side. So I think for me that is one big person I'll go for me. You know, yeah, hopefully we're able to, you know, even though I do a small part of it, some other people can't do other than, you know, collectively we can then make it happen. So John, Joe Lonstale is co-founder of Pantair. He led the 11.5 million seed fundraisers with his VC firm, VC. Yeah. What was the pitch that landed with him to enable him to bet big on Tara? What was his own geopolitical or you don't even need to go there? What was the pitch that landed him? I mean, Joe is one of the smartest guys in Silicon Valley, you know. He deeply understands where the world is heading. He did this with Palantir, you know, essentially saving the West when it was at the brink, you know. Sorry, saving the West in what sense so that audience understands. Seven the West when it was at the worst of terrorism, you know, at the brink of collapse from terror, you know, Palantir was started after 9/11 and the entire goal was saving Western interests from terrorism, you know, protecting Western interests from terrorism. He's essentially similarly book here, you know, terror right now is at his worst in the last 10 years. And he saw an opportunity, you know, to help Africa in a meaningful way, not by giving donations, not by giving bags of rice, by actually funding people that give a shit about saving the continent, you know. So for him, this was in nobina, you know, from the very first day that I spoke to him, he instantly got it. He knew why this needed to exist. He knew the opportunity here, sure, from a financial point of view, but he saw a much larger opportunity and that is the opportunity to save an entire continent. You know, the potential, the industrial potential of Africa if we can lay a more than security infrastructure, that is the view opportunity here. And that is something that excites every single one of our investors, you know. So yeah, yeah, it was pretty straightforward on that. And obviously you guys manufacturing Africa, what went into that specific decision because like you said, you could have chosen to also outsource manufacturing to China for even different reasons. So what went into that decision? Yeah, I mean, if we went the easy way of like, outsourcing, stocks from, you know, China or wherever, first, you know, that is going against the entire idea of serving defense capability. We might as well just buy it and plus our sticker there, you know. Well, second, serving intelligence, what it really means, okay, let's look at Palantir again. Palantir basically builds the largest intelligence network in the West. Yeah, almost everywhere in the West, they're helping track detect and track terrorists on large scale at a large scale. Now, Palantir did not need to manufacture anything because there was already existing surveillance infrastructure for data collection. They just had to build the software layer over. Now, when you come to Africa, the pre-existing surveillance infrastructure here is just essentially old analog CCTV cameras from China that their NVR don't even allow you, so bad technical now, their NVR don't even allow you to even integrate, you know, like to integrate any sort of software capability over. So essentially, we had to build, put the hardware infrastructure that is collecting data and then the software layer that is ingesting this data, fusion it for multiple sensing capabilities and analyzing and tracking the threats. You know, so we had to do two things at the same time. This is why we build a hardware infrastructure because there was no pre-existing infrastructure to layer over. And also, for true data sovereignty, we had to ensure that every step of the way belongs to us, you know, because if we're collecting the data with external hardware and the software has now been analyzed by us, that is already a bridge. If we're collecting the data with our own hardware and the software has been analyzed by them by the foreigners, that's also a bridge. We have to control that end-to-end ecosystem to ensure we control not just the experience, but you know, every point of data leak is essentially covered. Yeah. What needs to happen for there to be 100 Nathans building in hardware, right? What needs, what do you think the environment needs to encourage to have more of our people coming into the space during hardware? I think just basically more local capital. I was fortunate, you know, to have access to Silicon Valley. Many people wouldn't be. And that dreams would die here. You know, they need to be more local capital, especially risk capital. We need to take big bets on things that don't initially make sense at first. But if it works, it's a thousand X outcome. Yeah. You know, the way we make bets today, we take bets on essentially 10 X or maybe 20 X or 30 X. You know, there's a higher likelihood to work, but it's working is not some revolutionary, you know, outcome. But the most transformational companies in the world today are those companies that this very big chance you're just with your money investing, but that slight chance it works will change everything. And those are the companies that change the world. You know, and we can't have those kind of companies here if we're not, you know, throwing capital at founders that could build those those type of companies. You know, there's something that I always tell friends and, you know, yeah, like a few friends, you know, Sarah basically has a binary outcome. Is it going to be the biggest company in Africa or the biggest failure in Africa? There's no two is about it. And in the funny way, that actually excites me because now, you know, we know that there's only two is discount end. And why why why play small why go small you go all out. We have nothing to lose here. You know, so yeah, that's that's that's essentially the only way we can we can essentially build an ecosystem that is producing, you know, people that would be that that would solve much more foundational deep tech problems. And how did you get access to Silicon Valley? Like what did that pathway look like for you? So it's, I honestly have no idea. I just woke up one day and so they're number but no, I'm joking. But I've been in this ecosystem for a while now. Even though I'm 22, I basically have seven years of experience here in this ecosystem. And do you mean defense or yeah, you know, as you were in education first. Yes, okay, you know combined. And you know, people watch, people notice everything you do, you know, over time I've been I was able to build up good credibility around myself. And I also built relationships over time from from from class days that's period of big time when I finished or et cetera. A lot of these relationships I started that I said building out doing class days, you know, they were with investors in Silicon Valley that typically backs like deep tech, you know, the backspacer X the back all the sort of companies. So they would not typically back, you know, like, it's us, it's a tech platform. But I think of the relationship and also it's just talking to them and all that. When I started server and it's really so that's like taking off and growing and picking up a lot of traction, they got the interest very quickly. And we said not to render that relationship and eventually, you know, you know, in Silicon Valley, everybody knows everybody. It's kind of like how the XM is here. You know, it's we got interest to more people and more people and you know, as long as you're doing the rights in, what of mouth is essentially the way you get connected to this guy. So yeah, the rest was history. And you're not just necessarily focused in nature. You're all across Africa as well. Right. So I want to talk to you because a lot of the people in the audience might understand B2B understand B2C. But you guys are B2G sometimes too, right? Which is like you're literally selling to governments as well. What does that process of closing governments look like? I think for those of us who've even ever have dealt with any African government, how slow sometimes that process can be can be like nerve-wracking. But you did say and mentioned like actually, African governments do spend on two things, energy and security. So what does that look like? In closing, because I think I watched a video where you said for a lot of them is really sure until like don't come out, be telling us like what you plan to do is the drone taking off now? Is it being able to can I see it in real time? So what does that look like to close these sort of government contacts? Yeah. So it's been a very new experience. Let's I'll say that. So yeah, at Tera, we mostly do B2G. We still do a bit of B2B to a commercial division. But now it's heavily 90% of the company's resources is going to us B2G. So the way defense contracting is done in Africa is fundamentally very different from how it's done in the West. In the West is very bureaucratic. It goes through several steps. So essentially first you submit your proposed house or ideas of what you want to do. They give you a contract for a research contract that could take one to sometimes even up to two years. You build the initial prototype. It works. They could either give you a further research contract or you just go straight into a production contract. Typically that entire cycle could take up to five sometimes ten years. You know, it's super long, super bureaucratic. Is a bottom-up process in Africa is a top-down process. Is heavily solution for the West and network based. So what I mean by solution first is just like you said, no one cares about papers here. You know, we don't have time to be within technical proposal or tell us what thing you think you do. You know, this is how this is how this is so essentially that model that Andrew have done is perfect for Africa. You know, where you essentially take on the R&D yourself. You build out the fleet of these demos, like you build out demos to it. And you go and carry out actual demonstration, you know, with government agencies on the field. And this then translates into, you know, actual contracts. Now, the typical cycle for this just takes about six months compared to the multiple years that it takes in the West. It's much faster, much more straightforward. And by network based, it's very built, it's very based on trust. When we first started, we were entirely just focused on commercial because we needed to basically build credibility. We couldn't just go and talk to government as, you know, twenty-two years that basically show we had a tech, but what, you know, but because when we went to talk to them, we already had a large portfolio of very impressive private assets on that protection. You know, now they want to listen, you know, like, oh, you're protecting that power plant, oh, you're protecting that, you know, refinery and so on. And that brought a lot more credibility and respect to the territory. I want to talk about why aunties are so important to African history. Aunties represent curators of the African experience. And oftentimes they have been unacknowledged. They have literally held our archives before there are archives. They were literally institutions before we had institutions. They held so many important cultural artifacts, such as the way we rate our hair, the recipes of our cooking. They represent abundance. There's literally a reason why we call an African culture rich aunties. And we believe that with partnering with Anthony, we're able to showcase this type of history through art. So to connect to African history and get a piece of the Anthony and Aproposity collection called on see, make sure to click the link in the description. And this is your way you can support our channel. So babies, I'm always talking to you about investing. How's your journey going so far? It started because you've been on my head for the past six months about investing. And you'll be proud of me because I actually found an app I love. It's called Rise Vest. And actually what I love about it is that you can start with $10 and it automates everything for you. So really, I just go into the app and literally it's investing for me every single day. Yeah, because we know you're not going to be a trader anytime soon. But with Rise Vest, you're going to be able to invest in your stocks, right? Fixed income, real estate, etc. Right. And so I'm happy you're finally on board. And you know, the funny thing too is I always tell my girls that as women, when I'm investing enough, when I'm talking about it and when I have these conversations, so I share it in all my group chats. So you can find Rise Vest on the Apple and Google Play Store. Okay, make sure he is called Afapolitan so that they know that we sent you. You know how every week you sit down with people who've done it, people who've built people who've led movements, people who've created culture. What if you could do more than just listen to them? That is why we built Convoy by Afapolitan. On Convoy, you're able to book one on one video calls with Indomand experts from Africa and the diaspora. Go to Convoy.vip to get access to your next mentor because sometimes one convocating change your entire path. So we're going to transition to our rapid fire segment, which is where we hit you the first question and the first thought that comes into it. Mind that's what we need from you. It's pan-Africanism, realistic or romantic idealism. It's realistic. Nigerian tech ecosystem overhyped or underhyped? Underhyped for now. What's more important for Africa right now? Software innovation or hardware manufacturing? How do I? What's your favorite Nigerian food? I don't eat Nigerian food. Really? Yeah. Wait, why? So what's your favorite food? I don't have a favorite food. I just eat egg. Really? Is it like you just eat to sustain? Basically, I just eat not to die. So what did that start? 10 years ago, for some reason I just stopped eating a lot of food. So I don't eat a lot. Like in terms of variety, I just eat two to one over again. So egg? Spaghetti and meat. I mean chicken, beef. So no soups? No offense, no no, not saying. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, what's the one superpower you wish you had? One single one. Superpower that you wish you had. So stop time. Yeah. Why? Why is that? You always need more time. Favorite African founder, accept yourself of course. Who do you look up to basically? In the ecosystem? Yeah. I guess GP. Well, Africa industrialized in your lifetime. Oh yeah. It's definitely. He has time. He's 22. Maybe not ours, but he has to. Do you code any more or has that shipped sale for now? Yeah. For now, it's a ship sailed. I mostly now in like pure physics. Really? Yeah. Okay. So I know the question we ask our guests, every guest that comes. Wait, I got to ask that question. Okay, no, go on ahead. I think that's what you're gonna last minute. You should have switched things up. Okay, so the last question we ask every single guest of the Avapalto podcast is who do you want to see that share and whose story do you think needs to be told? Like do they have to be so unpopular? No, in fact, that's the best ones are not popular. My co-founder. He has a very interesting personal story too. Also, could you speak on how you guys even met? We didn't even touch on that. Like, because co-founder relationships are so important in building any startup, right? So what does that look like in the symbiotic relationships? You guys had especially going into something this hard? Like, yeah. Well, we met all great men in mids, Twitter. Yeah, we met on Twitter three years ago. Two, three. Three. Okay. Three years ago. He reached out back then. He was doing something else. I was doing something else. And we had shared interest in robotics, physics, and we had just basically bouncing ideas of each other, every now and then we just have a call and just talk about a lot of random things. There wasn't really any like, like we didn't plan to actually start a company to 2024. It was sometime in eventually soon, his first company, and sometime in 2023, late 2023, we decided to seriously talk about like where the world is headed. You know, it was now more philosophical and geopolitical. That was actually what led to this company. It wasn't like where like, okay, this, like we have a product now we need to sell or this money in the market. It was purely from philosophy and geopolitics standpoint. You know, we saw where the world was heading, post-Russian, you know, Ukrainian invasion. And it was just, it was clear that the time for an African defense prime is now. And we just said this, you know what, leisure started, you know. What could possibly go wrong? What was it about the Russia Ukraine action that made you guys think this is where the world is going? What specifically did you see around that? I mean, that changed everything, you know. The entire geopolitical winds of the world changed after that. I want to choose my words very clear. - Careful here. - But yeah, it was just clear. For example, you know, when that invasion happened. First of all, you know, there was like doing, on grain scarcity, you know, Nigeria, I contrary, that should be supplying the world grain, you know, was having grain scarcity. You know, it just didn't make sense. - Because we imposed from Ukraine. - Yeah, because we imposed from Ukraine. You know, like, I think that war should be fragility of globalization. And it was simply after that war that people were like, "Okay, I think we should start building, you know, sovereign industries, you know, sovereign supply lines, sovereign defense, especially because whatever world order has kept global peace is all falling apart, you know. And it's clear that the only people that can protect you is you. So yeah, I think that's, that's, that's what was a huge booster for our ideology. - Okay, so I definitely want to definitely piece that a little bit more because, but that's on the philosophy standpoint is I can definitely have that construction with your offline but I have a little bit of it with you here. Is that not also somewhat of an illusion in the sense of where you look at prior to globalization, the word country is how to invest it in defense, right? But if you think about it from like a Greek perspective, like the strong do what they can to weaken your what they must, right? Like, Canada, 41 million people, this is straight math, right? 41 million people, American 300 million people, Russia 150 million people, Ukraine, maybe like 30 million people, China, 1 billion people, Taiwan, maybe 200 million people, bro. Like, I don't know what defense you're going to be defending, but like at some point, like you're going to run out of human bodies, which is this should be part of the equation. Or maybe all of us just get nuclear and then we hold nuclear on the side of them, we're like, okay, shah, shah, shah. - Yeah. - How you want to do it? - So all good to go. That much would have would have made a little sense, probably 100 years ago, but autonomy has become a leveling playing field. You know, now with drones and other unmanned systems, those are first multipliers. You know, essentially, the only thing stopping you from, you know, not producing enough to defeat your enemy is your own industrial base. - Yeah. - It's not how many humans you can throw to defeat with any more. So you could even see countries with 5 million, 7 million population, you know, holding back countries with 100 million, or because they have built sustainable, you know, military industrial complexes. So the days of, because if you're going back from the matter of like World War One, World War II, essentially, it was one machine to one human, you know, every machine was manned. So at some point, yes, you were run out of men. That was basically what Germany ran into. You can't fight the whole world if, and expect, you know, to win, except you have like 500 million people. But if you're now looking at, you know, the way war phase fought today, you can essentially have won too many, you know, one operator can control hundreds of unmanned systems, possibly thousands, you know. That changes the entire equation. That's a really good point, because if you take for example, Taiwan, the semiconductors, and they've already had what, like almost 20 plus years of compounding industrialized field, you can imagine them like building enough drones to cover the entire continent. And then what do you then do with that at that point? Exactly. And if anything, it gives you leverage where somebody has to think twice before even come between the first place. Exactly. I love that. I love that. Thank you for giving us that perspective too. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]