YouSaid · the spoken record

Magatte Wade

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241

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2022-08-13

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2022-08-13

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1

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podcast

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1. “That's right. And by the way, I want to say there are bigger beacons, there are better beacons than me. I just happen to be someone who has the chance of talking to you right now And one of my goals is to open the same doors that were opened for me because together our voice There are such amazing stories out there. And so bigger beacons, better beacons out there. One thing here for me, the reason why I do what I'm doing right now. And it's almost to the point of self-destructing my own health.”

   2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “You know, if something is not well with you, whether it's physical or mental, something is not well, you're not well, and you go round and you go to the so called specialist, some of them, you know, but you're going around for years, going around, trying to get help for your ailment. And here they don't know. Here they tell you things that you can't tell why, but you just know it's not true. There, this, they're that, and it's going on for years after year after year. And finally, you meet this one person and boom. It's there Not only the liberation, Also, this whole new world that comes with it. You know, I'm still ill. But guess what? There's a path forward. We know that. I'm going to have a lot of work to do. There's hope”

   2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “There you go. There you go. There you go. And it's almost like I said, it's almost like its own little widget within it. You can have whatever type of society you want to exercise at whatever level you want to. But if you're serious about becoming a low, a middle to high income nation, there is no other pathway that we know of at this point. And you know what made me super excited about that beyond having finally found my answer. I have to tell you, when I found that answer, I literally fell to my knees. It was the type of feeling that”

   2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “It is harder to do business in almost anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa than it is per se, anywhere in Scandinavia. So it is telling you that Scandinavian nations, that socialist Americans tend to love so much and take as an example, over there too they're showing you that they don't understand what's going on really in Scandinavia. That Scandinavia is more capitalist. Scandinavian nations are more capitalist than almost any sub-Saharan African nations.”

   2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “All levels. It's at all levels. You create local heroes because representation matters. And we are so badly in need of that. And so that's what all the things that have been stolen from us as long as things remain the same. So once I found out that basically at the end of the day, the answer is economic freedom. And that when it comes to that, the indexes, economic indices that measure that, whether it's the doing business index ranking of the World Bank or the Fraser Economic Freedom Index of the Heritage Foundation, when you look at all of those indexes and others, what do they have in common? One after another they show you.”

   2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “My name is Aminada, and I live in the middle of nowhere Senegal, but you know what I've got this great idea with for this really hot nice hot sauce that I know the Americans are going to love. I'm hearing that hot sauce is a big thing. Let me bring it to them. But everything is there for you to jump into the ring of entrepreneurship. You don't have to know someone like my God. You don't have to even have the ability to sell yourself maybe like I can sometimes you are. Someone with a great idea you're willing to work hard for it and pour everything you got into it, guess what You can get into the race.”

   2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “But bottom line is we're gonna make mistakes. This thing is so complicated, we're gonna make mistakes, so which means my ass is on the line. So anyway, so if a tax code was so simple, straightforward, like it is maybe in Texas, where up till a threshold, you owe me nothing, go online five minutes, fill out your taxes, you're compliant, keep building your business because that's what we need from you. If you made it so easy and straightforward, then you know what? That's when you get all of these people, Lex that you're talking about, saying, you know what?”

   2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “You have to hire a CPA which costs more money, and even them tell them girl, we're going to make some mistakes, they don't talk to me like that. They don't semiola. They better not. But they say, whatever they say, they say.”

   2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Poor people are bonsai people. They're the same people. If you put them in the normal, natural, friendly habitat where they can thrive, they become the tallest tree in the forest. Poor people are bonsai people. So you see that tiny pot you put around the bonsai tree? That's the tiny pot that you created by giving me such a hostile business environment that basically we're put together by the set of laws that you have put that basically I have to jump through as a business person practicing business in my country. If you turn that environment into a friendly environment where I am not married to my employees, I have flexibility of the labor laws or simple straightforward clean where the tax code is very simple. It's not worth truckloads of laws like in my country is so complicated”

   2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “Yes, it's about what I mean by doing business environment is all the things that you and I talked about earlier. Even the access of electricity is part of a doing business. The doing business, so basically when I've discovered all of that, when I put all of those dots together, then I'm like, well, I guess the business and it makes sense, Lex. If you want to grow tomatoes, you're going to have to have two things. One is a good seed, right, that has good attributes, and then you're going to have to have a good environment for it. Is the soil the right one? What's your pH level? All of those good nutrients that you're going to put in it. Is it in a place that has tons of sun? How much sun exposure or not? The climate in general, is it going to be cold? Not, not. You can't have some beautiful tomatoes in the middle of Siberia last time I checked. So same thing here. You know, Mohammed Yunus, the noble laureate in for peace, said,”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Taxes, employers, employees, we go back to the private sector for most of it from where this whole thing is created. So it's clear you're poor because you have no money, no money because no source of income, source of income for most of us is a job. We're talking about, so where do jobs come from, the private sector, primarily small and medium-sized enterprises, then don't you think that we should make it easy, that we should have friendly doing business environment?”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “I am sharing with people that is which I found. And by the way, the answer was there. I was doing these two businesses, realizing the difference in treatment of the doing business environment of the US compared to the doing business environment of Senegal. And at first, I was like, of course, us, everything is messed up. It's because we're a poor country. But when I started to put two and two together, I'm like, you're poor because you have no money, at least not enough money to take care of your basic needs. You have no money because you have no source of income. Where does a source of income come from for most of us? It comes from a job, doesn't it? And in some people, sometimes at my UC Berkeley class, they say, Oh no, it comes from government too. I'm like, I would like to think that even if you work for government, you're going to be paid something, right? And they're like, yeah. And then even before I can say something, they're like, oh, yeah, because that money we used to pay our public officials comes from.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Totally getting it with your last part. Because this is the other thing, and this is where I get so upset sometimes with my fellow Africans because they get so disgusted by what they're seeing, right? And they think the answer is to go for politics. Let's go be president. Let's go be this. Let's go be that. And we're going to change everything. I see that in the US too. People thinking that presidents have all this power. Do you know who has the least power in government? The president. I mean, people don't get that. Your best bet, if you insist on going into politics, stick to the local level. That's where all the skeletons are buried and hidden. And that's where you can make the most impact. Local level. I know it's not shiny. I know it's not exciting, but that's where it's at. So if you must go into politics, but there's another way. So in my case, what I do is two things. I preach and I practice. I preach when I'm here talking to you about this. I'm preaching.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Yeah, but what does it mean? In a situation like that, whenever they want to mess with you, it means they can come and they will look and they will find something. So it means that every day I'm trying to do business, I'm running the risk of being harassed and or maybe even put in jail, depending on what it is.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Corruption, all of this was so cumbersome because it means more paperwork, paperwork everywhere, maybe having to disclose your things. So me in my case, what I did is, you know, this person said, okay, we're going to see how we can work with you. But for the first two years, we were more or less in the gray are”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “End up only God knows where tomorrow, maybe competition or maybe even them. They start a business and they compete with you because we've seen that. You have to do that. And then each time fill out the paperwork, get the approval, then it can come in. So when you can come in, you don't have to pay that tax. Oh, and by the way, you have one year, one year to make this product and get it out. And all of it needs to be back out because if any of it stays here, you're going to pay the taxes that we held up.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “You have to tell us exactly how much you're bringing, and it has to match your formulation because they don't want you to bring in more, that we need and maybe sell some of that to the rest of the market and they didn't make their money on it. So there it means I have to give them my recipe. Imagine Coca-Cola being asked to give their secret sauce to government officials in a country that you can't even know what might happen, let alone even in business, you don't do that. I mean, trade secrets are trade secrets. But here you're asked to be putting it in front of some people you don't know where it's going to go after that because there they get to see, okay, her recipe calls for X amount of candyla wax, X amount of coconut oil, okay, and on top of that we have to think about how much porage might there be or not because again we don't want her to buffer the over there. So you have to get naked in front of them in terms of your recipe, which might”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “So I said now it's the customs. And he's like, What do you want me to do? I said, Do you know anybody at customs? I need to hire up at customs because I got to explain to them what's going on here. They all know, of course, but I think they're not always maybe understanding or maybe they understand. And in this case, he understood. So we went and he's like, yeah, I know this is not very. And I said, what do we do now? And I saw him going through binders and binders in his office because he's going to try to go and look where in the law can we find something that can help me escape these rules. And you know the best he found, Lex was? Oh, well, here, see, this one, if you've been in business for two years, then we can allow you there is a special term for which French is technical. We can allow you to bring your raw material.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “But you see, if the laws where you pay 5% or even the 10% that I just left behind or nothing, you come, you pay it, you move on. Because who has a business of fooling around and staying behind? And no, you do that when it's actually makes sense to do that. So I'm not sitting here telling people I engage in unlawful practices. In my case, because I'm around saying the things I'm saying right now. So I'm a target. You have to do things cleanly and I believe in doing things that way. So what I had to do was go to the ask again mayor We have a problem. Mayor is whenever he sees me, he's like, now what? We've got a problem, your best frie”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “That's what we want. So, what you're trying to say, so here I talked about census laws, that's an example. So when you make the tariffs so high that you're going to render me non-competitive, then that's where for people who might make sense when the product arrives at port, they say, hey, I give you this when I give you maybe it's 10% of the price or 5%. It's surely not 40%, but you are happy with it. You're the government official. That's what we call a bribe. And me, I'm like, hey, I saved myself money. And also I saved myself time.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Who is going to stay in business and who doesn't see? They want to talk about equality. That's the type of equality I want to see. The playing field has to be leveled. Told you English is my fourth language.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “You know what I mean? So that's also people need to stop with this whole prophet. Do we have some psychopaths among us? Yeah, one person of us in this world are psychopaths in every field, anywhere you look. And surely you find that in the entrepreneurial world as well. Yeah, so we have one person of us who are psychopath for sure. But do they define the rest of us? Absolutely not. And thankfully not. Let's just be clear on that. So here you charge me 40% tariff, which is outrageous. Then you're forcing me to sell it for dollar sixty more than my competitor who does not have to go through that nonsense because she's an American woman who is operating in America and she doesn't have that nonsense put on her. So now on this market competing against this woman eye to eye. So if we're selling the same value product, mine costs $1.60 more simply because of some stupid rules from back home.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “But in order to do purpose, you have to have profits to stay alive. And the best way for people to think of profits so that they're not all twisted about it, Lex, if I asked you, what's your goal in the world? You're probably going to tell me your dream. You're going to talk to me about what you're doing right now and how you want to be uniting, you want a more harmonious world. You want human flourishing. That's what you're working towards. That's what you say to me. You're not going to say, well, my biggest goal in the world is to produce as many red blood cells as I can. Except you need to produce those, otherwise no lacks. And if no legs, no one works.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “They say, Oh, you dirty, greedy business people, and it's all about profit, profit, profit, profit. Know, I belong to this organization called I'm a board member on the conscious capitalism. It is the largest organization of purpose driven businesses and entrepreneurs. The type of people I told you about, we start our businesses because we see something that needs to be taken care of in society. Whole food market is one of the container store, all of these companies that are beloved in the US that you can hear of. We believe that the end goal of business is purpose.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “They do. They do. Because in this case, when my product comes, what do people have to do? Because every time you add 40%, you're basically on the other end. So every time you add, if let's say my product normally costs a dollar and with a 40%, by the time I'm done, I had to pay, now it's costing me $140. By the time it arrives in my warehouse, in my manufacturing facility, it's now at 140 because of the tariff I left behind. That 40% you added to it, do you know how much it's going to add to my final cost that once the product is finished, I have to sell it to the customer? I have to sell it for dollar sixty more because of that 40 cents extra you took from me in order for me at the end of the day to have some type of profits because profits at the end of the day is the blood of a business. There too people are misguided.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “For example, our products are sold at Whole Foods Market. You can understand it's a pretty sophisticated and really, you know, they don't just put anybody on the shelves. But the thing is, it means that on the other end, my inputs has to be right. So out of those, some we have seven ingredients, seven items that need to come from abroad. Go into the making of this product, some packaging and some raw material. Guess what? Like four or five of them, I am paying a 40% tariff. And for the other two, almost 70% tariff. That I call senseless laws. These tariffs are senseless.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “So, when you said to which degree there is corruption, I will respond to you the same, I respond to people. I say, yeah, we have corruption. And it's almost as bad as in Chicago, right? So now what I want people to understand when it comes to corruption, it's because we are misguided with corruption. We think corruption is the root cause of problems. When corruption is simply a symptom of a deeper root problem. In this case If you make vals so senseless. Meaning, let me give you an example of senseless laws. Every time I have to import something in my country, I have a business. Making lip balms in this case and other skincare products. Some ingredients I'm able to find in the country at the standard that I need in order to remain competitive.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “Among us. That's how it's done, and not with your nonsense that you're imposing me right now, which the only results you're going to get, like in my country, do you know what we have to show for all of these, the fact that the Senegalese employees, the most protected employee on paper in the world? Well, we're one of the 25 poorest countries in the world. That's what it got us.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “The reason if you want to protect employees as you claim everything you're doing is to protect employees, A, you know better for a human being than I am in terms of wanting to make sure that people are treated right and fairly. But last time I checked Google, for example, is not offering their employees chef cooked meals, super healthy, anything they want, feeding them for morning till evening, having some babysitters, you know, having childcare on site, all of these perks that come on top of really cozy salaries. It did not happen because UBILO told them you have to do this. It happened because there are enough jobs created around that now you're in an employee's market and employers have to fall all over themselves to attract the best talent”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “I said, Are you kidding me? He's like, No. So I call Mayor again. I'm like, Mayor, do you have a ladder? And I explained. And he said, and that's how I got my electricity hooked up. Otherwise, I probably would still be waiting. So, like, you add all of these things together. And also the fact that in my country, by the way, the labor laws are so stringent. Basically, you are married to your employees for good or for bad. And some people say, oh no, you're not married for good or for bad, except that it will just cost you a lot of time and money to get rid of any of them. Doesn't matter the circumstances. Do you think I really, an entrepreneur, really need to hear something like that? You know, the head of the ILO, I had an argument with him at the UN and I said to him, listen, and you listen to me very well.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “Exactly. I'm the pretty one and he's the whatever. So I got to a mirror and I'm like, Mayor, I need your help. You need to help me with this. He's like, now what? And I explained to him. And he's like, okay, you can take the truck from the city hall. I'll tell the guys that they can allow you to have it. And then they come and then you guys can do this. And then we arrive there. Guess what? I thought I was done, Lex, but I was not done. Because now the electricity company, by the way, whom we paid, everything was there. They've been sitting on our money for nine months by now. Well, we need a ladder long enough to, you know, like one of the super, super professional ladders that normally the electricity companies have. Was in some other village and they didn't know if it was going to be back for another three days or four days.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “It shouldn't be this way. So I go to the mayor of the town and I said, Mayor, he happens to have the same name as me. First, last name, same, but except he's the ugly one, I'm the pretty one because, you know, he serves.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “You have no reason to even be here. You could be back in America living your life, Levida Locca. You don't have to be here. So that, I think, gained a lot of his respect. And I said, if you don't do, if you don't help me with this, I understand I shouldn't be a priority or anything like that, but I beg you, I beg of you. I need for this to go on this week. And he said, okay. That's how I got my meter. One of those two meters became mine. So then he said, but we have a problem. And I said, what? He said, well, The truck We need a truck to be here to do it because of where you are from the pole, we need long cable lines to get it all done. But the truck is, I don't know, I don't know where the truck was because they had this one truck for I don't know how many customers. So I go to the mayor of the town with whom I'm quite friends.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “And then I said, what do I do? And he said, lady, it's not at our level, and I agreed with him. It was not on his level. But eventually, by now, you can tell that I pretty much get what I need because, and at that point, what I did was not frighten him or anything like that. I didn't even pay bribe or anything, but you could see why people pay bribes. Because when you have a pile like that, then the only way to advance your file. And that, by the way, happens even at the passport office. You come, you apply for your passport, which is your right. They forced us to have passports. It's your right as a citizen to have a passport. And even there, if you want yours to keep going through the process, you have to bribe somebody so it can go even the pace it's supposed to go, let alone faster. So here, I'm thinking I have a problem. And at that point, I did what I do. I talked to him about all the things I was trying to do. I explained to him why I'm here, why I'm trying to do this. And even him said, lady, someone like you, you have no reason.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “And I risk losing my business. We already presold some of these products to our customers. Something needs to happen. So at some point, the gentleman looks at me. He's like, Lady, look over. I look over there. I see a pile of paper this high. We're talking about maybe hundreds of applications. Each one of them is a single, single, single sheet. Each single sheet is an application for getting the electricity. It says, Do you see bad? I said, Yeah. And he said, Look over there. I look over there to the other side. I said, two meters. He's like, each of these applications needs one of those. How many do you see? I said two. Then I knew I was in trouble.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “And then, oh, let me walk you through what happened to me when we had to try to get the electricity hooked up on our first office. So we go, they say, oh, first you have to apply. You know, like you normally have to apply. Then we apply, we pay the money. Remember again, here you have to also go, this was, you go to the office and you pay. And then we wait and we wait and we wait. And when I say we wait, I'm not talking, but we waited 24 hours, waited 48 hours a month, two months, three months, four months, five months. You go, you send your assistance, she goes, she comes back. Well, they say we send it to wait. At some point, I'm like, I got to go back. So I go there. And I ask her to speak to the head of the district for, you know, and I'm just like going on and on and on and on about how we've been delayed. This is going to be a problem. We have to produce. Everything is delayed.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “Exactly. You're in a country like we're in Texas. If you make less than a million bucks in revenues a year, all you do five minutes, it takes you, you're filing your franchise tax. It's below that number. Tell them what it is. Then you have nothing to give them or anything like that. You move on. Us even if I make this much. There is a minimum tax that you have to pay, which is $1,000 in Senegal right now.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “Three different types of agencies, like governmental agencies to do one step. This one is basically you're going to go and give them your retirement money, like the pension part of the salary that you took out from the employee. You have to go to this agency and put that application through. So you leave that money behind. Then you go to another agency. This one is for the health, you know, care, whatever. You have three of those places where you have to literally go to in person. Three times free places every single month to drop off these paperwork. Have to deliver anywhere in the US. I mean, do we have that situation anywhere that you know of right now?”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “No, none of us stuff. None of our stuff. And so at the same time, also things like, and this I can take you into today's day. Okay, Lex, I don't know if you have employees on Peril or anything like that, but... Do you have to go every month or anybody listening to us right now? Do they have to go every single month?”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “So then we're building this company. And back then, this was in 2004, but when I built my first company. We had to have two sister companies, one there, one here. So the one in Africa was about the whole supply chain. And the one in America was research and development, sales and marketing, all of that good stuff. Some point, I look around, I'm like, wait a second, here back in the days before we had talk, they would say, oh, we have this one-stop shop for business registration. But the truth is. Very quickly, you can set up an LLC in the US. We're talking about less than, even then, less than today, super fast, 20 minutes online. It's done. Back then, it was less than few hours to get it done cost you almost nothing. We're talking about a few hundred dollars, free, two to $350, depending which state you are.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “Yes. I was weak still, but I said, you put that aside. There's a job to do here. And I went back and likes, I fought with everything but I had, and this company that I started in my kitchen. Became this company that had the who's who of a beverage world. At some point, Roger Enrico, the chairman of PepsiCo, sitting on my board, I went back because of that. So, the reason why I tell this story for me is important, because the world needs to understand. They're so Of caring and of being part of a solution for the lesser fortunate. In terms of not keeping them where they are, and we're like the saviors coming and giving them food and all that. No, no, no, no, no. But it's like just like the leg up I got in my life, give somebody else a leg up.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “Conceive the pain, yet she's so, so dignified. She's so dignified. And that already kind of made me like, my God, stop crying. And I told her that I was quitting. I could not look her in the eyes. And she said, look at me. I could not look her in the eyes. She said, look at me, child. And I looked at her, and she said I know you're in pain, but where your husband is, where your beloved is, there's absolutely nothing that you can do for him. But for us, you can change everything. And I went back. That's what entrepreneurs are at their best.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “And I wanted to quit. And I was actually on my way. I was in Senegal for a month trying to really get a bearing over myself. And by the end of the month, I had decided I'm letting go. There's no way. The pain was too great. Nothing made sense anymore. It was too much. So I went to see this woman. And I talked to the one who, you know, we're talking back then. There were 400 of them. Later on we grew to 9,000. And I told the representative of all of them and I told her this was very old lady. And just looking at her, I knew I was going through some pain, but this woman has probably gone through 10 times, not that pain is measurable. But you could tell this woman probably lost a child, as oftentimes happens in places that are lower income countries.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “Especially when creating, especially when you've been crazy. Especially when, and let's face it, do we all a bundle of circumstances some happy, some worse? Yes, we are. And oftentimes I ask myself, my God, why you? Why did you get to have the opportunities that you have? What makes you different for me, let's say even your cousin that is still home, trapped because we call ourselves trapped citizens. When you're strapped in these countries that go nowhere, we're like a bunch of trapped citizens. So you see Lex. My husband passed away, and I wanted nothing more to do than to quit and to send investors had already said we understand if you want to stop. Whatever you decide to do will do that.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “And for me, that bothered me enough. Because in that force, I sowed two things. One was a part of my culture. We're talking about, I mean, part of my cultural identity for Christ's sake. The juice of Taranga. You asked me, what defines you? I said Turanga. There's a juice for it. So my culture is disappearing. And at the same time, Sliding into abject poverty because what they used to make no one needs anymore. So that is what got me to start a company. And the company was created just because of that. I wanted to build a company that would allow me to not only preserve this very important aspect of my cultural identity. At the same time, put these women back to work.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “The force of oh, I just want to be rich? Really? Your whole world is upside down Whole world is upside down, and you just want to quit, you just want to go meet him and join him in death. I stayed why because of the same reason why I started my company. I stayed because the women whom I had put back to work by then were talking about some of the most vulnerable women in my country. These are women who grow the hibiscus which we need to make the bisop, which is the juice of taranga, remember? This is our national identity drink. And for the longest time women grow this hibiscus that we use for the national drink, for this drink. And now that Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and all that had made it through the marketing that it is more cool to drink those beverages, now there is no more market for the hibiscus. And with that goes the livelihoods of these women.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “Want to make money, so I'm going to become an entrepreneur. You know, like, no, and this is also another problem I have with people who have a problem with entrepreneurs or business people, most entrepreneurs do not start a business to become rich. Most entrepreneurs start a business because they have found identified a problem that bothered them enough that they said enough is enough. I'm going to do something about it. What entrepreneurs are are people who criticize by creating. Do they always get it right? No. As a matter of fact, the failure in entrepreneurship is humongous. It's kamikaze path to take the entrepreneurship path. We lose our spouses. My first husband passed away as soon as I was about to sign my first term sheet, and yet I had to keep going. What force can keep you going after you just loved, lost the love of your life? What force keeps you going?”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “What is this? And then I go on, I start. I am in Silicon Valley in the late 90s, early 2000s that come boom, all of that. And I'm starting to discover this concept of this thing called entrepreneurship. You know, I'm in Silicon Valley and just getting to experience what seems so cliche by now. But, you know, people getting together in the back of a napkin, talking about an idea, you know, bring it out, and then they go out and they talk to some of the investors who's going to invest in it. Then they have a lawyer who get to put all of his stuff together. And then they have the big four CPA firms. This whole ecosystem of what they call entrepreneurship. And then eventually this concept of entrepreneurship being this idea of creating something out of nothing. So there I am. And at some point, I become an entrepreneur myself. And the way I became an entrepreneur was not like I woke up and I'm like,”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “So this little thing is starting to be in my mind. Again, remember, this is not something that I woke up to overnight. I'm like, voila, I got my quest. It took me for a long time and I had to face off to have many different ideologies face each other. I had to really have a reckoning literally in my heart and in my mind. And so then that's what I'm thinking. It cannot be, it cannot, no, no, no. It's the same people. It has to be about the place. But then what about this place? But then even about the place, you're thinking, again, two countries, different backgrounds, same outcome, same background, different outcome.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “It is, it is. As I go on with my life, trying to find the answer to why are some countries like mine poor while others are rich, I'm hearing all of these reasons thrown at me. And then they make no sense. Because then, how come then if my parents move, as it is usually anyone else who moves from a poorer nation to a nation that supposed is rich, all of a sudden they get to manifest the greatest potential? So I'm starting to think this has nothing to do with a person per se. Because we're talking about the same person, same background, so everything, same name, features everything. Now I'm starting to think maybe it doesn't have to do with a person. Maybe we're talking about something that has to be.”

    2022-08-13 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #311 – Magatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source