In this episode of In Plain Sight, we went down a rabbit hole to trace where venture capital actually comes from…

And it turns out, the story starts long before Silicon Valley, and explains far more about today’s startup world than you’d expect.

You can watch the full episode here.

When Stripe acquired Paystack for over $200 million, most people saw it as a successful exit, but the more important story is what happened after.

Because just like PayPal in the early 2000s, Paystack didn’t just build a company, it built founders. Former employees went on to launch a new wave of startups across payments, banking, logistics, and infrastructure, raising millions and expanding across Africa.

What we’re witnessing looks strikingly similar to the PayPal Mafia, a network of operators who go on to shape entire industries after leaving one company.

We dug deep into this network, who left, what they built, how they’re connected, and what makes this pattern repeat, and what we uncovered might be the blueprint for how entire ecosystems are actually formed.

Watch the full episode here.

The company maintaining Saudi refineries, North Sea oil rigs, and nuclear plants across Europe…started as a bankrupt scaffolding business with 30 employees.

Today it’s a $5B industrial empire operating in 50+ countries. And it was built by a Syrian immigrant who arrived in France with almost nothing.

Watch the full episode here.

We met with:

• Arsen Tomsky, CEO & Founder of ‪InDrive, the world’s second most downloaded ride-hailing app after Uber

• Sayasat Nurbek, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan

• Ibrahim Tashim, CEO of Baibars Venture Studio and advisor to the government
  

What I found out is that when you’ve had to rebuild your systems and your economy from zero, you don’t move slowly. You build fast, fail fast and start again. Just like a startup.

I always thought terms like emerging or frontier markets were reductive. Because like Kazakhstan, these places aren’t waiting to emerge. They’re already here.

And it’s what gives countries like this an advantage, not in catching up, but in redefining what “developed” even means.

So maybe this episode isn’t a just case study about ambition. Maybe it’s a blueprint for a new kind of progress, one the West might actually need to learn from.

Watch the full episode here.

We went to Astana to understand how Kazakhstan is positioning itself between China, Russia, and the West and why it’s quietly building one of the most ambitious AI and tech ecosystems in the region.

One thing is for sure, this isn’t the story you think it is.

You can watch our show, In Plain Sight, here.

From selling small things to survive, to coding his way through engineering school, to bootstrapping Kustard with friends and selling it to eBikeGo, this episode breaks down exactly how he climbed out of his circumstances.

Now he’s building ClanX, betting on the future of work.

What you’ll learn:

• How to build leverage when you start with zero capital
• The scrappiest ways to survive while bootstrapping
• How to get your first customers with no brand or network
• What founders get wrong about exits
• How to negotiate an acquisition when you’ve never done one before
• Why growing up with nothing can become your unfair advantage
• What to build if you had to start from zero today

If you’re a founder starting without connections, money, or privilege, this is a required story to watch on building, surviving, and selling.

Watch the full episode here.

You’ve probably never heard of the Olayan family. Yet if you’ve ever bought a Coke, used a P&G product, or walked into a major bank in Saudi Arabia, you’ve felt their influence.

For decades, they built a $40B+ empire by becoming the indispensable local partner to the world’s biggest companies. While others chased headlines, the Olayans mastered distribution, trust, and long-term alliances, embedding global brands deep into the Saudi economy and turning access into power.

This is the story of how a family from Riyadh positioned itself at the crossroads of global capital and a rising kingdom, while building one of the most influential business networks in the Middle East.

You can watch the full episode here.

The Blueprint is an entrepreneurial-focused series digging into the origin stories and strategies behind the most successful companies in the world.

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This episode is all about what building in a 20-million-person city in Pakistan teaches us about scaling businesses when markets are massive, capital is scarce, and failure isn’t an option.

I met Maha Shahzad, who built BusCaro after 1,000+ rejections, now a $7M+ revenue company moving millions across the city.

Muneeb Maayr, co-founder of Daraz (acquired by Alibaba) and founder of Bykea, who’s raised $15M+ to build everyday infrastructure for Pakistan.

Rabeel Warraich, founder of Sarmayacar and Shark Tank Pakistan judge, backing founders most global investors won’t touch.

Fariel Salahuddin, who built a $2.5M bootstrapped business most people would mistakenly label “social.”

And Saim Siddiqui, founder of ProCheck, exporting a “Fitbit for factories” to manufacturers worldwide while taking on the funding drought head on.

All of them are building in a market most capital has written off and solving the boring, expensive, unglamorous problems that keep a megacity running.

The Karachi episode of In Plain Sight is now live on YouTube.

In Plain Sight is a show uncovering the business lessons, tech shifts, and global playbooks traditional media often misses.

Each episode explores overlooked companies, untapped markets, and bold ideas shaping the future of nations through business and tech.

You can watch it here.

Everyone thinks they know Pakistan. To most of the world, it’s a case study in crisis. A place that survives but never thrives.

So I went there to show you the Pakistan you rarely are told about.

The one that’s teaching the rest of us what it really takes to innovate when the odds, and sometimes even the infrastructure, are against you. Where founders, investors, and builders are rewriting what it means to endure in a place that’s been written off.

In a world obsessed with billion-dollar valuations, this is a story about something harder to measure, the will to build when no one’s watching.

First episode dropping Nov 19 on YouTube.

In Plain Sight is a show uncovering the business lessons, tech shifts, and global playbooks traditional media often misses.

Each episode explores overlooked companies, untapped markets, and bold ideas shaping the future of nations through business and tech.

You can watch it here.

Subscribe now

You may have never heard of The Oberoi Group.

Born in colonial-era India, Oberoi built a reputation so precise and a service culture so disciplined that it became a global benchmark.

From a clerk earning 50 rupees a month to the founder of one of the most respected hotel groups in the world, M.S. Oberoi didn’t just build hotels, he built a system that trained generations of hoteliers across India, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

And that proved you can compete with billion-dollar global giants, not by copying them, but by doing what they can’t.

This is the story of The Oberoi Group, and the blueprint behind one of the world’s most underrated luxury empires.

The Blueprint is an entrepreneurial-focused series digging into the origin stories and strategies behind the most successful companies in the world.

You can watch more episodes here

More than 70% of global companies are family-owned, including some of the biggest names you’d never think of as “family businesses.”

We dug into the dynasties shaping economies, industries, and even nations.

We also mapped how power, ownership, and legacy intersect, and why family might be the strongest business model of all.

In this episode, we uncover how family empires build power that outlasts any startup, IPO, or presidency, and what that means for the rest of us.

In Plain Sight is a show uncovering the business lessons, tech shifts, and global playbooks traditional media often misses.

Each episode explores overlooked companies, untapped markets, and bold ideas shaping the future of nations through business and tech.

You can watch it here.

A sit-down with Spek, the founder of PopArabia, the company powering music rights and royalties across the Arab world and South Asia, and part of billion-dollar group Reservoir.

His roster includes JID, Mohamed Ramadan, and Nancy Ajram, and his bet is clear: the next global hits won’t come from LA or London, they’ll come from emerging markets.

What you’ll learn:

• How music rights and royalties actually work

• How to build global infrastructure from scratch

• Why culture is the next big growth market

• What it takes to take on Sony, Universal, and Warner from Abu Dhabi

To watch more episodes, head over here.

Once a year, over 2 million people from 160+ countries converge on Mecca for the Hajj, one of the largest gatherings on earth.

For pilgrims, it’s a sacred ritual. For Saudi Arabia, it’s also a multi-billion-dollar business model unlike any other.

Power Moves covers the business of nation-building. How countries build influence and wealth through branding, commerce and bold moves.

To watch more episodes, head over here.

In a world where most countries chase more, more tourists, more growth, more exposure, Bhutan chose less. And turned it into a multi-million-dollar strategy.

This Himalayan kingdom caps visitor numbers, charges up to $200 a day just to enter, and until recently, forced tourists to book through licensed operators. It sounds like a formula for failure. But it’s exactly the opposite.

In this episode of Power Moves, we unpack the economic playbook behind Bhutan’s high-fee, low-volume tourism model and how it built a luxury brand out of national identity.

From sustainable development fees to soft power diplomacy, you'll see how Bhutan makes scarcity profitable, and what other countries (and companies) can learn from it.

Power Moves covers the business of nation-building. How countries build influence and wealth through branding, commerce and bold moves.

To watch more episodes, head over here.

We uncover how Choithrams went from a single shop in 1940s West Africa to competing with giants like Carrefour and Lulu in the $263B Middle Eastern grocery market.

You’ll see how a family business built a supply chain across three continents, survived wars and recessions, and kept shelves stocked when global competitors couldn’t.

And most importantly, you’ll learn why this story is a rare blueprint for founders trying to survive and grow in industries stacked against smaller players.

The Blueprint is an entrepreneurial-focused series digging into the origin stories and strategies behind the most successful companies in the world.

You can watch more episodes here.

By 2050, Africa will have over a quarter of the world’s population, and the world’s largest free trade area.

But the cables, towers, and satellites carrying its internet, the infrastructure that will power that future, are mostly foreign-owned.

Whoever controls Africa’s internet will control its data and its economy. The window to decide who that will be is closing fast...so we mapped out the step-by-step play for how Africa can either become the world’s biggest digital colony, or take full control and cash in on its digital future.

I'm Chaymae, I study the world and build in it.

In Plain Sight is a show uncovering the business lessons, tech shifts, and global playbooks traditional media often misses. Each episode explores overlooked companies, untapped markets, and bold ideas shaping the future of nations through business and tech.

You can watch all our episodes here.

Subscribe now

From Shenzhen to Lagos, Transsion built a $13B empire by designing phones for markets Apple and Samsung overlooked.

Long battery life, dual SIMs, cameras tuned for darker skin tones, every detail was built for local life.

This is the story of how a Chinese brand became Africa’s smartphone king and the blueprint behind one of the most overlooked tech empires in the world.

The Blueprint is an entrepreneurial-focused series digging into the origin stories and strategies behind the most successful companies in the world.

You can watch more episodes here.

I’ve been an immigrant my entire adult life, in America, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

But here’s the truth: migration today isn’t just a political issue.

It’s a business.

Every time a border closes, a business opens.

Private detention centres earn billions. Visa-processing companies handle 100M+ applications. Defense contractors like Palantir and Northrop Grumman run surveillance systems and tracking databases.

The U.S. alone has spent $55 billion on private immigration contracts since the 90s.

Australia pays up to $500,000 per refugee per year to private companies.

Even rejections are monetised, travellers from India, Africa, and the UAE lost $76 million on Schengen visa fees in just two years.

Migration is no longer about who gets in. It’s about who gets paid.

And that raises the real question:

Why would anyone fix a system that makes money by staying broken?

In this video, we dive into:

• The rise of the “migration-industrial complex”

• How borders became a $50B+ industry

• Why fixing the system would collapse it and what that means for the future

In Plain Sight is a show uncovering the business lessons, tech shifts, and global playbooks traditional media often misses. Each episode explores overlooked companies, untapped markets, and bold ideas shaping the future of nations through business and tech.

You can watch all our episodes here.

Every year, this company sells over 5 million motorcycles.

More than Harley-Davidson, Ducati, KTM, and Triumph combined.

And yet… outside India, almost no one knows who they are.

They started as a bicycle parts shop. Partnered with Honda. Then split and somehow still became the largest motorcycle manufacturer on Earth.

While the West obsesses over Teslas and e-scooters, Hero quietly built transportation for the next billion people.

This isn’t just a story about motorcycles. It’s about how:

• Emerging markets build global giants outside Western awareness

• Distribution and localisation beat hype every time

• Mobility changes economies and why this matters for the future

In Plain Sight is a show uncovering the business lessons, tech shifts, and global playbooks traditional media often misses. Each episode explores overlooked companies, untapped markets, and bold ideas shaping the future of nations through business and tech.

You can watch all our episodes here.

When most people think innovation, they picture Silicon Valley: hoodies, lattes, and billion-dollar apps for first-world problems.

What they don’t picture is engineers in Lagos building fintech that powers millions… or drones in Rwanda delivering blood to remote hospitals.

Here’s the twist: Africa isn’t playing catch-up, it’s leapfrogging.

From mobile money in Kenya to off-grid solar power, Africa’s tech hubs are solving real problems the West never faced.

But it’s not just tech, it’s culture, risk, and resilience shaping this boom.

Because building a startup in Africa isn’t just about raising capital, it’s about navigating family expectations, power cuts, and broken infrastructure… and still winning.

By 2050, Africa will have the world’s largest workforce. The question is:

Will this future belong to local innovators, or foreign giants?

I break it all down in the new episode:

• Why Africa’s Silicon Valleys exist and what makes them different

• How they’re innovating without legacy systems

• The cultural challenges founders face (and why it makes them stronger)

In Plain Sight is a show uncovering the business lessons, tech shifts, and global playbooks traditional media often misses. Each episode explores overlooked companies, untapped markets, and bold ideas shaping the future of nations through business and tech.

You can watch all our episodes here.