Magatte Wade is an entrepreneur with a passion for creating positive change in Africa through economic freedom. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Magatte's Twitter: https://twitter.com/magattew
Magatte's Instagram: https://instagram.com/magattew
Magatte's Facebook: https://facebook.com/themagattewade
Magatte's Website: https://magattewade.com
Websites mentioned:
Austin housing project: https://texansforreasonablesolutions.org
Center for African Prosperity: https://atlasnetwork.org/partners/center-for-african-prosperity

PODCAST INFO:
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Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4
Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
0:40 - Africa
29:33 - Magatte's story
58:21 - Corruption
1:19:46 - Advice for young people
1:40:46 - Identity
2:01:43 - BLM
2:19:02 - CRT and racism
2:49:16 - African geopolitics
2:57:47 - Overpopulation
3:16:33 - Loss

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You have to have the free markets in order to build prosperity.

If you have economic power, no 1 messes with you.

And when they do, they're gonna have to pay consequences.

The following is a conversation with Magat Wade, an entrepreneur who's passionate about creating positive change in Africa through economic empowerment.

To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.

And now, dear friends, here's Magat Weyde.

So let me ask you, what is the soul of Senegal?

Can you try to sneak up on telling us what is the spirit of its people?

Wolof is a main indigenous language of Senegal, and it means hospitality.

That is what us, the people of Senegal, are known for.

And it transpires in everything that we do, everything that we say.

It's a place where, I guess with hospitality goes this concept of warmth.

That's us, the place where you come and everybody will just embrace you, make you feel very comfortable, make you feel like you're the only person in the world and that we've been waiting for you our whole life, right?

So that's for people in Senegal, people in Africa, or also people across the world, weird strangers from all walks of life.

For everyone, for everyone, especially towards the foreigner, because it's very ingrained in us, this understanding that especially the foreigner, The foreigner is called foreigner because the foreigner is coming from somewhere else.

So if someone has taken the time and the energy, whether in a forced manner or because it's a choice to travel so far to come to a place that's not theirs to start with, that's probably foreigners again, then it is your duty to welcome them, to be uber welcoming to them.

So there's not a fear of the foreigner, there's not a suspicion of the foreigner?

And I think this goes with the other way around.

Maybe it has to do with just, you know, when you feel good about yourself, when you're very grounded yourself, it's very easy to open yourself to others.

And I'm wondering if that's not, you know, the other side of the equation, in a way.

So no, we don't have a fear towards a foreigner.

So when you have a pride of your culture, a pride of your own people, it's easier to sort of embrace.

I mean, it's interesting how these kinds of cultures emerge because, You know, the Slavic countries are sometimes colder.

1 of the reasons I fell in love with this place when I showed up is there's that same hospitality as compared to other cities I've lived in.

Sort of Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco.

There's a hesitation to open up, to be fragile, to be caring before understanding what the sort of, what I can gain from you kind of calculation.

And I wonder what, how those kinds of dynamics emerge because there's certainly parts of the world, like Austin is 1 of them, where you just feel the kindness, just radiate without knowing, kindness from strangers.

You know, if I were to advance 1 thing, and I had the same experience after having lived in San Francisco first, then we went to New York, then we came to Austin.

And when we came to Austin, I felt, it took me a while to put my finger on it, but what I found in Austin, people just hang.

Unlike what you were saying, I feel like in these other places, people are, it's a destination for people who want to come and perform.

I think maybe the early San Francisco people, it was different for them.

But later, as prosperity starts to come in and success comes in, then you attract a different breed.

At first, where are the people who made it, who made this place be what it is?

And then it attracts all the bling followers and the bling attracted people.

And when those people show up, it's time for all of us to get out.

And that's 1 of my worries about Austin too.

And I guess I'm 1 of, I count myself in it, but you know, because we also knew Arrivees, always been furious now.

But how are we going to protect this place?

Yeah, these are, you know, the best possible version of the Austin history.

This is the early days of Silicon Valley in Austin.

And so you get a chance to build on top of this culture that's already been here, of the weirdos, the artists, the sort of the characters, but also the general kindness and love that just permeates the whole place, build on top of that entrepreneurial spirit.

So like tech companies, new startups, all that kind of stuff.

And then you get a chance to build totally new ideas, totally revolutionary ideas and make them a reality and dream big and build it here.

I think Elon represents that with all the people that kind of try to do the cutting edge stuff they're doing at Tesla and SpaceX.

But there's a bunch of other companies there just like coming up.

I get to talk to a bunch of tech people and they're just incredible.

Versus San Francisco, there's a cynicism a bit and also some of the interaction with strangers, there's always a bit of a calculation, like, how good is this going to be for my career?

Or how can, yeah, how can hanging out with this person can advance me?

You know, you go to a party, you're seizing, they're seizing up.

It's like, I'm not going to talk to someone because that's not going to advance me.

And so this is what I would not want to see here in Austin.

And I think maybe there's 1 way to try to, I really would like to see Austin not go the way San Francisco did and other towns before.

I like how you pronounce San Francisco with a French accent.

That's the 1 word you go with a French accent.

But, you know, so now that you find that cute, you're gonna have to forgive me when I mess up my English because English is not my first language.

So I always try to make sure people know that.

But you know, Lex, this is why I am very interested in what some folks here are working on.

And I'm just gonna be very selfish here because I wanna help her with what she's doing.

It's someone like Nicole Nozick and her project, with the housing project that they have right now.

Making sure that Austin remains a town that's affordable for people of all walks of life.

If we can accomplish making sure that all walks of life, doesn't matter how little or big you're making money-wise, that you can stay in this town so the diversity at that level can remain, then I think Austin stands a chance to really show the world how to do things differently.

And what I love about her initiative is just how they're really trying to again, work on keeping affordability down for most people.

I think it's important to, because it seems like it matters to you, I know that it matters to me.

I absolutely would not want to see Austin go away that San Francisco did.

And I think the key to that is making sure that true diversity, not like the fluff fluff crap diversity we're hearing over there.

And that's another thing, by the way, because San Francisco likes to pride itself in, oh, you know, we are so into diversity.

But I'm like, if diversity for you means gender, difference of gender, skin color, you know, maybe the different accents we have, and you think check, check, check, check, check, I'm like, it's not enough.

And that's the other problem I have with that place.

And I know some folks who are scared of saying much around people.

So not only they're sizing you up, but everybody's also, there is this invisible, this invisible, how should I say this?

There's this invisible agreement that they all seem to have to stay on script.

Yeah, there's a feeling like you're following a certain kind of script that's very kind of shallow and there is a bit of a categorization going on.

And let's put this into a simple math equation of what comes out as opposed to just the free, open embrace of people, the weirdos, the characters, the interesting, the full, deep sense of diversity.

Not just ideas, but backgrounds and rich and poor, like

That's what makes for a rich society that's going to get ahead.

I don't know how complicated that work is because there's probably a big force trying to increase how much it costs to live in Austin.

Whenever I go to New York City, just the fact that there's a giant park in the middle of it, I wonder like, how did they pull this off?

It's like to resist the force of the increasing price of the land and still to protect this idea of having a park.

And then in the same way, protecting the ability for people from all walks of life to live in the center of the city, to live around the city, to chase a dream when they don't get any money in their pocket.

This partly political, probably, regulation, all that kind of stuff.

And this is where her and I also very much see eye to eye in terms of, you know, the free markets and also prosperity building.

Because it's always the same problems most of the time, most places.

Here what you have is some people in the name of, we gotta stand for, and I don't like to use this word, but maybe you help me find a better 1, but at least that's a word that people can understand.

We got to stand for the lesser fortunate among us.

Some people would like call them, maybe oftentimes use the word, maybe the underdogs, whatever it is, I will just say, maybe the lesser fortunate among us, right?

In the name of standing up for them, you're promoting policies that are actually gonna backfire and where they end up being the first ones to suffer from it.

So let's take this whole housing issue that Nicole and her team are working on.

We find that oftentimes the cost, at the end of the day, it's the good old supply and demand equation.

If you're gonna make it so hard that the supply level of housing remains below a certain threshold, remains lower than the demand of people who need especially affordable housing, housing altogether, what's gonna happen is scarcity, prices go up, and who gets kicked out first?

And so, but I find that oftentimes people in the name of we care, don't engage their mind.

And a friend of mine said this, and he said it so well, he said, having A heart for the poor, that's easy.

Having a mind for the poor, that's the challenge.

And oftentimes, we all have a heart for the poor.

But when it comes then to, then what do we do to have a real impact on making sure that people get a chance at going up, then that's where everything starts falling apart.

And then you have people who, then they start pushing for policies, housing policies, making it super hard for you to even renovate or add 1 more story to your home or anything like that.

By doing that, you're messing up with the supply of housing, and therefore the people who can't afford, you know, people get priced out of the market.

And so what people like Nicole are doing are going back to where all of this is taking place and they're going back to the regulation side.

And just like, I'm sure we'll talk about it here, but people wonder today, why is Africa the poorest region in the world?

We go back to the same culprit, bad laws and tons of senseless regulations.

If you make it so hard that in Berkeley, for someone to build 1 more story to their home, which means maybe 1 more unit that could be rented out to someone, and if many more people do that, then you have a much bigger supply, which means the prices will go down, which means more people have access, and among them, especially the lesser fortunate among us, then we're starting to see a winning proposal, aren't we?

But instead, if you go the other way around, then all of a sudden you're pricing them out of the market.

So oftentimes when I see problems of this nature, you can betcha that regulations and census laws are the heart of it.

It's not popular, it's not fun, and people tend to not even understand where you're coming from.

But this is a problem we have with people not understanding economic econ

Well, so it's the regulation, the laws, and the system that props them up and increases the span of those laws.

And we'll talk about that, the fascinating way those kinds of things develop, when it works, when it doesn't.

sort of step back and ask you a question about Africa.

In the West, in many places in the world, Africa is almost talked about like it's 1 country, like it's 1 place.

And in what ways is it many, many, many communities just from your perspective from in Senegal and beyond?

So at the most basic of what makes us 1 goes back to even what makes you African.

Africa is very much at the end of the day, the foundation and the birth of the human race.

So from that standpoint, at the most basic level, we're all Africans.

Where this whole thing started, and how at some point, humanity was hanging by its fingernails.

Only 2,000 of us were left on this earth, And eventually we started, you know, we went for survival and that's how we started to spread around and some going up north, some going this way, that way.

And as you're traveling to different places, then features start to change to adapt to where you are, right?

So hair gets lighter for some people, eyes get different shape for others to adjust to our new natural habitat.

You know, the genomics program, I think, at the National Geographic did that so well for people who are interested in going back to that work with Spencer Wells and such.

But yeah, so at the very basic, most basic level, that's what unites us all, first of all.

And then I would say that the continent, especially here, I will group it into Black Africa, you know, Black Africa.

Unfortunately, our common stories, you know, of having gone through this terrible, horrible period of around the same time, the whole continent being, you know, enslaved and colonized.

So that in a way forms, not that we were ever the first people or only people ever enslaved in this world.

As a matter of fact, I mean, the word slaves comes from esclav, slave, slavs, les slaves, right?

So the first slaves were actually people looking more like you than looking like

So, but we don't necessarily remember all of that because in our human psyche, the closest to us in history of a big mass of people being enslaved is African people.

You know, the pain of World War I and World War II permeates Europe, but it certainly does for the Soviet, the former Soviet Union, the countries that made up the former Soviet Union.

Does in the same way, the pain of slavery and empires using Africa, does that permeate the culture?

Especially the fact that, you know, in many different places, whether it's Ghana or my country or Benin, where you have these places that we call the door of no return or the places of no return, which this was the last place where the slaves were standing or, you know, this is in Senegal, we call it the door of no return.

There is this 1 door, you're there in the slave house and once they go, they go.

That's it, that's going to be the last time they see back home.

So, you know, those, of course, of course, it creates for a common lived experience, which becomes a common lived history.

Is there a resentment, because you mentioned hospitality.

Is there a kind of resentment of the foreigner that there's a rich, vibrant land, there's many resources, there's powerful cultures, are they just going to show up and use us?

This is, okay, so where it plays very differently is, so if you came to Senegal today, there is not really a problem at that level.

Where people's resentment start to come from is of course when bad behavior shows up, meaning like you have so many white people who can show up and just in their attitude, they have an entitlement attitude, right?

And they think that in a way we're all still servants.

Some people, in your face, some people more, but that can cause some little resentment.

And the entitlement can take different forms, like even pity.

You know, Sometimes I tell myself, my God, today you're gonna be all composed.

You know, Lex, you're all composed, so don't go there and make a fool of yourself.

get me on some grounds, that's when it's all gonna go

So resentment, There's a dance between hospitality and resentment.

So when you come in, you're you, you live your life, you're just a normal human being, and you treat me decently like you would treat a friend, normal people, I have no problem with you.

I'm not going to come back and be like, well, you and your ancestors have enslaved me.

Sometimes in this country, I feel like that's, you know, I might look like that.

Now, if you come, you have this nasty attitude, you think you're still steering servants around, well, you're gonna have a problem.

Someone like me, I might even grab you by the back of your neck and take you back to the airport.

Exactly, but where things come up is, especially nowadays with the African youth, when we have to be reminded of the World Bank, when we have to be reminded of even the world, places like the World Economic Forum, you know, like all of these places that seem to constitute, the way they describe them, and I say they, it's primarily my Pan-African friends.

So here maybe terms are worth describing.

So the Pan-African movement goes way back when.

We're talking about, you know, way back when, started in the 30s, going on all the way from there.

So what you have there is people who have started coming together and dreaming up an emancipated Africa away from the colonies.

Because at that point, there were still colonies and dreaming up all of that.

So we're talking about people like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, we're talking about Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, talking about Blaise Diagne of Senegal, and other people like that, Bande of Malawi.

So anyway, so, and the African youth of today, we're still hanging on to those, onto some of these ideas of, and on some of these dreams of a reunited Africa.

So when you were talking about what seems to unite you, there is that, you know, also.

Meaning like we all feel like we're part of the same family.

For many different reasons, there is definitely what we call a Pan-African movement.

And I very much consider myself 1 of them.

I don't agree all the time with where we want to go and how we want to go there, but not where we want to go.

Where we want to go is we would love to see a united Africa, for sure.

But how to get that accomplished, that's where oftentimes we have issues.

So on something like that, so this Pan-African, especially the Pan-African youth, but it's beyond the Pan-African youth, it's the youth in general in Africa, World Bank, UN, all of these organizations that they tend to qualify as imperialist organizations.

And it's not always a correct way to describe them, but I'm sure you get the sentiment.

And From that place, there is tons of resentment because for the longest time, these groups, organizations, and some that preceded them, have proceeded to actually decide what even our new frontiers would be.

You see, when you go to a place like Senegal, Mali, all of that, different countries, but we were 1 people, 1 group, 1 kingdom.

And then at some point they decided, just when you look at Africa, have you looked at how straight some of these borders are?

You're like, did a robot just draw these?

No fancy robots, especially this 1, it looks so cute.

So they have continued deciding what it would be to be us, to live on our land, and how do we even progress.

They get to decide how are we gonna, which type of even economic development path are we gonna choose or not?

So it's very, so from that standpoint, yes, there's a lot of resentment, including even from people like me.

Yeah, and it's interesting that the invader and the oppressor and the empires have actually created a force for unity.

I've seen that in Ukraine, in the invasion of Ukraine, where it was a pretty divided, not a pretty, a very divided country with many factions.

But the invasion really forced everyone to think about the identity of this nation together.

It allowed it to look at its history and its future.

And like they all say that all great nations have had to have a war of independence.

And this is our war to find our own identity.

so in that sense, Africa as 1 place, as 1 continent, had to find multiple times its identity through the resistance of the oppressor.

And there's an interesting aspect to this because the president of Senegal is also the head of the African Union.

So we'll talk about the fascinating geopolitics of that whole situation.

But let me ask in general, you talk about this question, this fascinating question, what does it take for a country to prosper?

What does it take for a country to prosper?

You see many countries in the world that really struggle and many that flourish.

And it's not always obvious why, because some have natural resources, some don't.

Some have sort of authoritarian regimes, some don't, and some have democracies and all that kind of stuff.

Is there fundamental ideas that result in a prosperity of a nation?

Today, I can confidently say yes, despite all

And I think then this is where it becomes very important that we are very clear about the question you asked me.

You said, what does it take to make a country prosperous?

So I'm just gonna stick to prosperity because prosperity doesn't necessarily mean, sometimes has nothing to do with maybe how you conduct yourself, otherwise socially speaking, right?

So you can be prosperous and still, when it comes to your family laws, all the way you approach the other aspects of your life, maybe you're running a very communist lifestyle.

So For me, when we talk about prosperity, I just want to make sure that we are clear on that, because some people might be somewhere and be like, well, because I know what I'm gonna talk to you about next.

people are gonna sit there and be like, well, China is not like that, or even Dubai is not like that.

No, so what I'm talking about is this thing, and that's what I love about this.

It's like, economically speaking, what are we gonna be to be a prosperous nation?

Meaning we are a middle to high income nation.

I'm not talking about what are the rights of your women to vote or can people live like this or, I'm not talking about any

Yes, Because I think that distinction is very important because over the years, I've seen people push back on all types of things and it occurred to me that that's what the misunderstanding was there.

So if we're gonna talk about prosperity, making sure that the country can make money so that it can take care of its needs and the needs of its citizens, Then what I have come to find is that at the root of that is gonna be what we call economic freedom and what I call the toolkit of the entrepreneur.

In that you can put the rule of law, You can put the concept of clear and transferable property rights.

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Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #311