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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I walked through mall after mall in Dubai and kept seeing the same thing: Starbucks, Nike, Apple, Alo… even Chipotle is here.

But where are the Middle Eastern brands making it big abroad?

This region has everything: insane wealth, futuristic cities, and some of the boldest projects in the world. Yet the region that gave us algebra, astronomy, and coffee hasn’t given us the next Nike. Why?

It’s not a lack of talent or money. It’s a branding gap.

America doesn’t just sell products, it sells feelings.

Nike isn’t about sneakers. It’s about human determination.

Apple didn’t invent the smartphone. It made it irresistible and told a story about innovation everyone wanted to believe.

Meanwhile, Middle Eastern brands often copy the West instead of building on their own cultural strengths. Add to that a fragmented market, risk-averse culture, and a global narrative written by others, and the challenge becomes clear.

But here’s the good news: this is fixable. The region has world-class ambition (hello, NEOM), a global talent pool, and cultural depth. The key?

• Find your own voice. Don’t mimic; reimagine.

• Package culture as aspiration. Like Korea did with K-pop.

• Tell stories that scale. Stories that make people feel something everywhere.

Because the truth is, America doesn’t just build companies, it builds dreams. And the Middle East needs its own.

Could it produce the next Apple? I think so. But it won’t come from copying, it’ll come from creating a narrative the world can’t ignore.

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.

I’d sit there, rewinding the same sentences over and over, convinced that mastering this language was my ticket to something bigger than the place I came from.

And for a long time, it was part of what worked.

The formula was simpler:

Learn the skills → do the work → get into the right universities → secure the right job → lock in your place.

You could step into the middle class, or at least hover close enough to touch it.

But every day, I’m reminded how quickly that formula is dissolving, and how many are clinging to it, unaware the ground beneath them is disappearing.

Denial is the first stage

Recently, I ran a poll on my Instagram stories:

Do you believe AI will eventually replace your job?

Most people said no.

It’s wild to me.

Because if you’ve ever watched technology reshape an industry up close, you know denial is always the first stage.

Many still believe AI is coming for other people.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the first wave of disruption is already sweeping through white-collar, knowledge-based work.

Not because it’s low-skill. But because it’s predictable. Because it relies on processes that can be digitised, automated, and optimised into oblivion.

And because it’s lucrative to replace.

When a company can swap ten salaries for one workflow, it doesn’t hesitate.

That’s why AI isn’t impressed by credentials or years of experience. It only looks for patterns it can automate and most knowledge work fits the bill.

Subscribe now

The illusion of safety

There are three reasons this reality feels so hard to accept:

1. Status signaling. For decades, knowledge work has been treated as an insurance policy against obsolescence.

2. Comfort with incremental change. People expect a gentle slope of disruption, not a cliff.

3. Narrative bias. We all want to believe we’re too creative, too essential, too human to automate.

Safety nets won’t build wealth.

In a world where costs rise faster than subsidies, you must own assets, skills, equity, or IP, or you’re on a shrinking island, whether you see it yet or not. I break this down further here:

Here’s my bet

Company sizes will shrink.

Org charts will flatten.

The middle management layers without vertical expertise will vaporise.

And the AI-native employee will become the new 10x team.

We live in the greatest time in history to build.

The internet tore down the gates, and I’m proof of what happens when you walk through them.

But AI is an even greater equaliser.

It doesn’t care where you were born or where you went to school. It rewards speed, hunger, and the willingness to act before you feel ready.

Most people will watch this shift from the sidelines, convinced their jobs and lives will somehow stay untouched.

But guess what: what you don’t change, you choose.

And trust me, you don’t want to be choosing to stay behind.