Thursday, January 20, 2011

My Third World Advantage

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...Image via CrunchBaseThere are five broad categories in tech: web tech, clean tech, bio tech, nano tech, fin tech. Each of those five categories are broad. Each has sub categories, and sub sub categories.

There is no next Google in web tech, there is no next Facebook in web tech. Google is the next Google. Facebook is the next Facebook. But the Googles and Facebooks of clean tech, bio tech and nano tech are still out there. They are still small. If you can locate them and put some money into them, you are going to end up uber rich. But it is not easy to locate them, not easy at all. Even the Google of today was not easy to locate when it was small. Yahoo could have had the Google search engine for a few tens of millions, but they passed up on the offer.

All I know is I am the Google and Facebook of FinTech. Sam Walton started in the US South. I am starting out in the Global South. I am a Third World guy. That gives me a huge advantage. I know the Third World impulses instinctively. When institutions go missing, that impacts human behavior. If you were to magically take away the NYPD, human behavior in the city would change immediately. There will be street
Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...Image via CrunchBase crime on Fifth Avenue, there will be immediate riots, there would be mayhem.

What a lot of people trying to grasp poverty who did not grow up in the Global South struggle with is coming to terms with behavior that might have been shaped when a lot of the institutions were never there. I don't. People living on a dollar a day had nicknames for me when I was growing up. I know the terrain. That is a huge advantage to have in my line of work: microfinance.
Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments: