Writings
Recent
Pitch
How to Win, and How to Not Win Pitch Competitions I actually was not sure
Black-Owned
At the Howard Family Bookstore, I ran into Antonice J. Strickland, founder of Nice’s Tea House. She carried me through her origin story in a plain way: entrepreneur to entrepreneur; when we are not performing for investors.
Rebuilding Detroit
By the time I attended my first major ecosystem event in Detroit—after living in the city for about a month—it was late winter edging into early spring.
Markets Don’t Care
Detroit is a useful contradiction because it was not a peripheral city trying to become relevant. It was relevant—technologically, industrially, and culturally—at a scale that reshaped the global imagination of production.
All About the Numbers
I was casually scrolling on Twitter [now X], and I came across a tweet, expressing shock at the fact that there are no Apple Stores on the African continent.
Africa’s Next [$] Billionaires
Africa continues to be framed as the “final frontier”: a vast, youthful market whose growth is preordained by demography and digitization. And yet – the facts are incomplete.
[Useless] Demographic Dividend
In recent development data and reports, Africa’s demographic future has been described as its greatest economic opportunity.
Every 30 Seconds
I was standing on the factory floor at the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan, and I could not help but focus on the thirty-second mark.
Big Bet[s]
Shah writes about the idea that meaningful change rarely comes from incremental programs or cautious reforms. It comes from bold, coordinated investments in ideas that seem almost unreasonable at first—ideas that aim to move entire systems rather than tweak the edges of them.
Q2 Systems
It was in a Waymo ride in San Francisco at the 2025 TechCrunch Disrupt Conference that we knew clear as day that Q2 Systems had to bet on autonomous systems.
