Social Connectedness, Being a Billionaire, Artificial Intelligence and other Tools for Human Productivity

 Being a billionaire will take the simplest, yet hardest things. For instance, the greatest factor responsible for making people billionaires is "association". The people around you. That sounds very simple, and so motigbesional. But try it and see whether it really yields much. 

The truth is that having the right company is more often a matter of luck. The schools you attend, your church, your natural social circles and nature of work can determine the sort of people that are around you. And then, that is no guarantee. The so called quality people may not like you. They may not trust you and they may just be too selfish. Not even in a culture like ours where almost everyone is trying to corner everything because they want to cure the generational poverty in their family. The rich ones are also scared. Its a crazy really. 

The fact remains that the world we live in demands innovation for wealth creation. And it is people who bring all the pieces together to make these solutions useful and workable. I have been trying for weeks to get a nod that an AI solution is technically feasible. The Data Scientist or AI expert doesn't pick my calls again 🙄🙄. Let's give him the benefit of doubt. 

Back to the issue. Warren Buffett had Benjamin Graham from whom he learnt the rudiments of finance and investing. He also had his late wife who allowed him work so hard, sacrificing family time. He has Charlie Munger who I regard a destiny companion. He takes feedback from Charlie, who is equally brilliant. And they have had this billion dollar relationship for 60 years. 

Bill Gates had his mother who was on the board of IBM. The story is that Bill Gates had his first big break with IBM. Who is your daddy, mummy or uncle? Our parents have tried for us. But they are not on the board of a company that can make us billionaire based on our innovation. Let's see if we can even do up to what they did. 😂😂😂😂. 

Elon Musk had a rich entepreneur father, he was at Stanford and he has access to a trove of quality people helping him build his great companies. 

Mark Zuckerberg, if you have watched The Social Network had his Harvard Friends with whom he discussed ideas of a social network, especially Eduardo Saverin and Winklevoss twins who provided some capital and improved the idea respectively. And Zuckerberg has depended on Sheryl Sandberg to help him scale Facebook and get around regulatory issues. 

Back home in Nigeria, Folorunsho Alakija was the Fashion Designer of Mariam Babaginda. Otedola's father was a big businessman and former governor. Dangote's grandfather was the richest in Nigeria and that family is still very rich till date.  

I think two things are clear. The will to succeed and the quality of your company are two things that determine wealth creation and economic mobility. And they provide a chance for you to get lucky and be a billionaire. Please underline that being a billionaire also requires some luck. 

A recent study by Harvard's Raj Chetty proves that social connectedness increases chances for economic mobility. He analyzed 21 billion Facebook friendships and discovered that the more people interacted with people with some superior economic capacity, the higher the chances for economic mobility. Please note that economic mobility is not just financial capital, human capital is the most important one here. 

The question is this, who do you know? I am not asking about who can give urgent 2k. Who can help transform your ideas? Who can co-invent with you? 

Let me add something that is very important. Andrew McAffe of MIT plotted a graph of human progress and productivity. He discovered that human productivity increased astronomically when labour moved from the use of individual muscles and effort to the use of the Steam engine. It further increased with IT services and computers. And what we will witness with Artificial Intelligence cannot be fathomed. The point is that productivity requires and X-factor. A factor beyond an individual. 

I think the point should not be stressed. Our culture should start looking at collective development for higher productivity. And shared success over individual workmanship. 

But it is easier said. Getting the right people for your business or personal company is one of the hardest things to achieve. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Monotechnics Can Accelerate Nigeria's Movement into the Knowledge Economy

 ASUU is proposing an amendment to the NUC Act. The objective of that proposed amendment is to stop the proliferation of universities, where there is lack of funding.  I understand ASUU. The idea is that they won't get as much compensation and benefits if government spreads itself too thin. I get that.  But the thing is this. We need to reconfigure our economy. We actually need more universities. But we need way more vocational institutions and monotechnics.  The key to accelerating the knowledge economy in Nigeria is not Universities, it is monotechnics. Just Information Technology Courses.  These monotechnics can be virtual and can award degrees. They can also be exempted from NYSC or given privilege to choose where they want to serve.  They must also be able to get full time jobs.  My objective for such an intervention will be to surpass India in production of technology talent. Nigerians can be the leaders of major technology companies abroad....
Read more

Why Apple's Strategy has to Change

Image
I'll naturally think Apple would be the best executor of the Metaverse, considering it's user experience edge and learnings over the years. However, it appears that Apple may not be playing any leading role in that part of Web 3.0. This has obvious strategic implications. Why do I say this? Apple's Q4 results fell short of analysts expectations. It's hardware businesses (iphone, Wearables and Mac) particularly missed the target, while it's service business surpassed analysts target. This has been attributed to shortage of chips, leading Apple to knock off $6billion off it's revenue forecasts, also making Apple lose its most valuable company status to Microsoft. Growth has been good in India and Greater China (83%), but it must be noted that Apple sells discounted and cheaper iPhones in China.  Apple has also had to increase prices to meet revenue targets. The point is that the hardware business may not be sustainable as the major source of revenues, ...
Read more

Global Responsibility: A Brief Description of a New Paradigm

The entire world is struggling with inflation and other economic woes because some people in Asia have a fancy for wild animals, and coincidentally, when the microorganisms in those animals have been mutated by climate change. Something can start in a small country and put the entire world in trouble. That is how connected we are. The new fact is that we are in the age of global responsibility. Is it possible that absolute sovereignty and national determinism have become obsolete. If a cyber attack on some super servers or digital infrastructure in USA affects Europe and Africa, leading to a loss of 30 billion dollars daily, is US still free to do as it pleases with it's cyber-policy? If China creates malicious AI algorithms that provide inspiration for non-state actors to cause misinformation and disinformation at scale, thereby providing tools for terrorists in Africa, especially Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) and Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCAP), does it still ha...
Read more