Axioms of a Delusional Approach to Developing Ethiopia
The pursuit of excellence does not need justification.
Mitchell Hashimoto, creator of Ghostty and founder of HashiCorp
In this essay, I try to put thoughts I have been having for a year or two into words. “A scrambled set of bullet points” might have been a better title than “an essay”. This is a short one. I may not explain what I mean by some of the things I write. If you are interested, make your own meanings for my takes. Interpret them however you want. Your interpretations should tell you whether you are ready for the things I mention.
If you didn’t read the title, these axioms are more like “requirements” that I think are prerequisites to developing Ethiopia for our generation, not just our grandsons’.
To be clear about what kind of axioms these are: I am not going to prove them, and I don’t claim they follow from evidence. I am choosing them as starting points, not arriving at them as conclusions. They are bets, not facts.
The Axioms at a Glance
- Axiom 1: Delusional Optimism. Be arrogant enough to be unapologetically optimistic about our country’s future, even if that means detaching from today’s reality.
- Axiom 2: Pick the Industries. Find the industries that can grow Ethiopia fast enough to reach “developed” status within our lifetimes.
- Axiom 3: Build the Ecosystem. Build an ecosystem profitable enough to reward our exceptional people at the level they deserve, in their peak years.
- Axiom 4: A Willing Few. Find the delusional few ready to give up the rewards of leaving and stay to build that ecosystem. Work in a coalition of the “willing few”.
Axiom 1: Delusional Optimism
Being delusional or arrogant enough to have unapologetic optimism about our country’s future is probably the most important thing. That means ignoring obvious problems like the divide, the war, and the weak economy, and detaching from any good or bad opinions about current or future political regimes, knowing these matter less in the long run than what we hope to achieve. It also means being ready to work with any of these regimes. We can’t talk about developing anything without the optimism that things will work. Unfortunately, in a country like ours, or in most third-world countries, that optimism only comes from being delusional enough to disconnect from reality. You might call this going crazy. I would agree. I invite you to go crazy.
Axiom 2: Pick the Industries
Once that unapologetic, shameless, arrogant optimism is in place, the next step is finding the industries that can grow Ethiopia fast enough to reach “developed” status within our lifetimes. Those industries depend on the skills one has, and even more on the interests one has, since skills and talent can be manufactured. If you don’t agree (a younger version of me would not), read the book “Talent is Overrated”, by Geoff Colvin, or any (auto)biographies of people you aspire to be. When I use the word “talent” from here on, I mean exceptional people who are good at and interested in what they do, not just good at it.
Axiom 3: Build the Ecosystem
Poor talent retention is one of our biggest problems. Say a company trains people into their prime, only to watch them leave for a competitor. That is a waste. It is exactly what we are doing with the few exceptional people Ethiopia produces: the competitor they join is another country. We can’t blame them. The reward Ethiopia gives them is not what they want or deserve.
Should we ban people from going abroad, or try to force them to stay? I say no. We can’t know, let alone limit, what everyone wants to do. Different people, different backgrounds, different ambitions, different ways of getting there. Even if we tried, it’s questionable whether it is possible. The train has already left the station, and it’s departing faster every year.
It also makes sense to look at the many people who do return from abroad, bringing knowledge, experience, and resources. If retention is not going to improve anytime soon, we should focus on getting people with experience to come back and stay.
In the end it comes down to two questions. How can we retain talent? Or how can we make loads of talented people working abroad return en masse while they are still productive, and this time, make them stay?
I believe both can be solved at the same time. We have two related options. One, creating (by other means than my second point) an ecosystem profitable enough to reward such people at the level they deserve during their peak years. Second, …
Axiom 4: A Willing Few
The second way requires a collection of delusional, exceptional, talented Ethiopians ready to sacrifice the rewards they could get by moving abroad, and are dedicated to stay and work in Ethiopia. Hopefully, these deluded individuals can work together towards creating the ecosystem needed to attract Ethiopian talent from all over the world.
The ultimate goal should be reaching the point where we attract not only Ethiopian talent back, but also people from other top countries, like India, China, and elsewhere in Africa, who aspire to come and work with us.
The “willing few” will need to sustain themselves and cover their basic needs while they work on what they think truly matters. Or they can be even more delusional and stake everything on the belief that their work will sustain them. It depends on the individual.
What we want is a coalition of the “willing few” working in one field and towards similar directions. Scattered, they will achieve little to nothing in the grand scheme of something as long-running and transformative as developing Ethiopia.
Note: I write about Ethiopia because it is near and dear to my heart. I don’t see why these axioms would change for other countries, or continents like Africa.
The pursuit of greatness is a worthy goal on its own. It doesn’t need any reasoning.
I want to thank the reviewers of early drafts of this post. I have disregarded some of their comments. These are my opinions and don’t reflect the stance of any reviewer, although most of them told me they agree with most of what I say. Here are my wonderful and hard-to-convince reviewers: - Robel Alemu - Barkilign Mulatu - Getabalew Manegerew