Showing posts with label ray youssef. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ray youssef. Show all posts

Monday, July 29, 2019

Ray Youssef Talks Wisdom









Saturday, July 20, 2019

Africa Is Mars


Mars is undoable. Mars is undesirable. There is this funny thing called gravity. The human body does not do well in the absence of gravity. Send robots. They are gravity neutral. But people? Africa is plenty undiscovered. Plant a trillion trees instead. Save this very planet instead.

When you plant the Australian eucalyptus in a new climate, there is havoc. Imagine a microbe from Mars coming over to earth. What could happen?

The best point for rockets are one step further and one step closer. I am all for robotic mining of the asteroid belt. Countries used to go to war over spices. Gold is the new spice. I am all for internet access on every point on earth through 10,000 or more satellites.

But I am all about Africa, not Mars. Ray Youssef has an edge over Elon Musk in that regard. Mars might be Elon Musk's masterstroke in marketing, not an actual place he wants to go to. Look, Mars! He says. And then builds boring tunnels and exciting cars.

Both Ray and Elon are immigration success stories. Both are out of Africa. Elon might look like he has white skin, but you just have to read his life story to realize the sickness that was apartheid also brutalized him. Elon grew up in South Africa. Ray's parents came from Africa. Ray is a New Yorker. And now Ray is America's gift to Africa. These two inspiring entrepreneurs are in stark contrast to the stupidity emanating out of Washington. So much garbage is being talked about immigration. To Ray I might say, go back to Africa. But looks like he is already there.














Thursday, July 18, 2019

Money Moved, Value Created



The biggest development economics story of my life is something I was never taught in any of the textbooks in high school or college. No development economist, many of whom do originate from the Global South, was able to foresee that remittance will play a much bigger role in development than foreign aid or even trade.

Aid is big, trade is much bigger, but the biggest of them is remittance. And we have to put remittance in a separate category from trade because we have still not achieved that stage in human evolution when we might realize a completely free movement of people all over the world will immediately add a few trillion dollars to the global GDP. Money moves. Goods move. But people get clamped down. That is where we are.

What is remittance? People move from poor countries not always to the richest countries. More often they move to slightly richer countries. They work the lowest-paying jobs. They save money when saving might be thought of as impossible. They pay shark rates to move money. And they send money home. This has been the greatest driver of development in the past few decades. No economist was able to foresee it.

There is enormous value created when you make it possible for people to move money. And that is elemental. That is not even banking. When you make that movement instantaneous and free, the value is so, so much larger. And the Blockchain promises to do that. The Blockchain is going to be more revolutionary than the Internet. The Internet has been the appetizer. The Blockchain is the meal.









The Underbanked And The Blockchain

The Blockchain: The Unavoidable Governance Issues









Why is it that despite the fact that the dollar a day people are much, much better at paying back their loans than the educated, rich people in a place like NYC that the banks have a history of ignoring the dollar a day people? I don't think it has been malice, for the most part. I think the processing costs for a loan has been just too high to take it to the dollar a day people. Now that has fundamentally changed. The costs are on their way to zero. Which is to say, the Blockchain will positively impact the close to two billion unbanked, and almost that many underbanked (a lot of whom are right here in the US), more than the other groups. For the same reason why drones are taking off in Rwanda like no place in the US or Europe, and why mobile phones penetrated India so fast.











Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Ray Youssef Of Paxful Likes My Tweets





































Africa Is The Next China, And The Blockchain Is How
Blockchain PDFs
A Powerful Interview Of Ray Youssef, Paxful Founder CEO
The Blockchain Rumble
The Blockchain In The News
Paxful: Buy Bitcoins Instantly
Facebook's Blockchain Push: Libra

30-30-30-10: A More Thoughtful And Egalitarian Formula For Equity Distribution In Tech Startups For The Age Of Abundance
The Blockchain: Fundamental Like The Internet
The Blockchain Rumble
The Character Called The Tech Entrepreneur





Monday, July 15, 2019

Africa Is The Next China, And The Blockchain Is How

There is the dour debate (is it even a debate?) around immigration in DC, all the racist rhetoric flying around like bullets in a war zone, and then there is the excitement around the Blockchain. Africa is the next China, and the Blockchain is how.

There is going to be some bad news, some pain. When you make it easy for people to move around money, plenty of scammers are going to jump in. The Blockchain companies do have to try and do the very best job they can in terms of product architecture, policing (at their sites), and educating the general public. The scamming has to be minimized as much as possible. But it will not go down to zero despite the best efforts.

I have been reading up on one particular company these past few days, watching videos on YouTube, particularly of its Founder CEO who, I learned, after 11 failed startups lost his apartment and ended up homeless, but came back to found Paxful, which has seen much success over the past few years.

And today this tweet showed up in my stream. Paxful is celebrating its birthday. Happy birthday, Paxful. 



Paxful Turns Four!


30-30-30-10: A More Thoughtful And Egalitarian Formula For Equity Distribution In Tech Startups For The Age Of Abundance
The Blockchain: Fundamental Like The Internet
The Blockchain Rumble
The Character Called The Tech Entrepreneur



Thursday, July 11, 2019

A Powerful Interview Of Ray Youssef, Paxful Founder CEO

This interview reminds me of the Joe Rogan interview with Elon Musk. And it is not just about the length. It is more about the relaxed pace.