Ep. 10 - Kanyi Maqubela, VC & Entrepreneur: Curiosity + Process = Success

The Investing City Podcast

Kanyi is one of the smartest guys out there. His systems thinking and unique viewpoints will challenge the way you think. Enjoy this one. Thank you so much for listening, we really appreciate you. If you have found this valuable, please consider leaving us a review as it will help more people find it! Thanks you're awesome! You can find more information and content by going to these places: Website: https://www.investingcity.org YouTube: Investing City Twitter: investing_city Instagram: investing_city Or feel free to email us at [e-mail] Again, we really appreciate that you would take the time to listen. Hope it was valuable. Let us know if you have any questions! Below you will find our entire conversation transcripted. Enjoy! Join our Dynasty Membership to see them all in one place. Ryan Reeves On this episode of The Investing City Podcast we are so happy to have Kanyi Maqubela on, just a great guy and former VC investor and we're going to get into more of his story but just thank you so much for being here. Kanyi Maqubela I'm very happy to be on Ryan. Ryan Reeves Great. So, let's just dig in a little bit to your background I think you have kind of a fascinating history and background so can you just talk a little bit about where you're born, and then just a little bit about your background. Kanyi Maqubela Sure. Gladly. I was born in township of Johannesburg, South Africa in the 80s, a Southwest Township. In the midst of apartheid, my parents were involved in the anti-apartheid struggle and my father actually was in exile, so I was born with my mother and her parents and quickly shuttled off to Brooklyn, which is where my family was living. A special circumstance, but one that I'm very proud of, and we ended up coming to the United States in the midst of that very chaotic period in South African history. We landed in New York City with my folks, where they made their way via substitute teaching. My mom was actually an ESL teacher at the Fashion Institute of Technology. And my dad was a public-school teacher, a substitute teacher at first and then eventually a public-school teacher in chemistry. And so, we ended up in the United States and lived the proverbial American dream. Ryan Reeves Wow. So, being the son of two teachers, obviously, education is probably pretty important. Just tell us a little bit about that. Kanyi Maqubela Of course, well it's extraordinarily important, and has had a big impact on my life, and maybe I'll start in reverse order. If I had to describe what my passion is and what I prefer to do, above all, it's to teach and I come, obviously from lineage of teachers, my parents, but also their parents and my grandfather were actually all teachers so it's in my blood, whether or not I like it. And I've spent the better part of the last 10 years teaching in some capacity or another and right now it's really more in the context of teaching first time entrepreneurs, how to avoid unforced errors. So how to make new mistakes is what I call them. And I was also teaching in a more formal capacity at NYU for a couple of semesters for entrepreneurship for undergrad, so teaching is something that's very, very important to me. Before, obviously, I was a teacher I was a student, and my trajectory of the student was an interesting one on two factors. The first factor is I was once a dropout. So, my first stint at Stanford University, which is where I went for undergrad, was cut short to chase a startup dream and so, about two and a half years into my time and undergrad, I was studying philosophy, I dropped out to pursue a startup and needless to say that wasn't my parents favorite activity over the course of my life, given their background, and their point of view on the world, but it was something that at that time in my life I really needed to pursue, and that ended up...