Your sentiment on the traits of an entrepreneur on get rich quick mentality is true. It is in creation of value and thus revenue received for offering a valuable product of service. Kweli kabisa and like you said, it is also true that "Get rich quick" becomes are problem when linked to “extractive” economies.

But all the institutions offering oversight, rules or social contracts that are meant to counter “extraction" are not working yet here in this country. Working in the civil service in Kenya is an avenue to "get rich quick”. This is a mentality that has now permeated the “youth” and coming generations to the extent that renumeration is not viewed in a way as to be commensurate to work or that most businesses are into cutting costs and corners and not in creating value.

The hard work is to reverse that mentality in the spaces we occupy and that work is going to be done with and through data. We have a demographic “youth bulge” that, depending on how you look at it, it is either a future source of labour and a future market or a socio-political time-bomb.

My problem is how the global elite have hijacked “entrepreneurship” and are now selling it as a solution to social ills, many developed by the said elite. As Ory once said, "You can’t entrepreneur around bad leadership, we can’t entrepreneur around bad policy,” Okolloh said this while criticising what she called the “fetishisation” of entrepreneurship and neglect of fundamental problems hampering African countries.

We need to work towards a market based on true demand-driven value. Education, based on information harnessed from data, is our ticket to establishing good policy at every level to establishing fair markets. Then we can entrepreneur and disrupt to our hearts’ content.

Best Regards,

Jimmy Gitonga

Web Software Design and Development

LinkedIn: Jimmy Gitonga | Twitter: @Afrowave

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Web: afroshok.com

On 7 May 2019, at 3:21 AM, Patrick A. M. Maina <pmaina2000@yahoo.com> wrote:

On get rich quick startups, I would disagree with your views because a get rich quick mentality is a key trait for entrepreneurship - if it comes from a value creation perspective. It is about recognising that resources are scarce and therefore looking for the most productive way to allocate capital by generating compelling high value propositions for society.

Even investors want to get rich quick from their investments.. because they trade in capital (and have many lower-risk options e.g. bond markets)... and that's why the less sophisticated ones ask for outrageous equity for minimal investment (literally sabotaging themselves) and push to exit with multiples in less than 5-7 years which leads to a lot of craziness (and often guaranteed failure / loss).

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." - Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations (https://www.investopedia.com/updates/adam-smith-wealth-of-nations/)

Get rich quick becomes a problem when it is linked to extraction (deception / theft / plunder) instead of real value creation. But that is mitigated by rules (regulations), oversight (e.g. board representation) and checks/balances (e.g. investor appointed counter-signatories like CFOs). Systems fix these things.

Competent investors understand risk and would give credible reasons like high transaction costs (heterogeneous markets / low disposable incomes - which works against population size, political uncertainty, arbitrary rules, corruption which lowers rust in redress institutions like courts, lack of credible exit paths, liquidity challenges, inflation and fragile currency).

On financial services, beside the fact that it would displace jobs geographically (which would leave the now jobless farmers worse off), I don't think its a sustainable path for mass jobs creation (or growth). That sector is already being massively disrupted by tech - and things will get worse as Fintech AI becomes more reliable, accessible and affordable.

Have a great day!