The draft framework published by South Africa’s National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank would prevent South African businesses from using crypto assets for legitimate cross-border transactions and make self-custody a one-way street.
65 karma · joined July 26, 2015
Founders and first group of employees are the creators. The ones who often care deeply and want to bring new ideas to life, creating value for customers (and eventually shareholders) - Higher risk for this group.
As the company grows but is still early on the journey, the next group tends to also care and often want to protect whats been built while helping creating new value. This group likely wants to earn a bit more having joined later. This group are taking less risk as there are likely already a few rounds raised at this point.
The company continues to grow and starts hire more staff to help it operate at scale. These people are disconnected and tend to arrive to extract more value than the groups before them. These are often managers or extra execs, more sales teams on commission etc.
This new group is not here to defend whats built and often arent as invested in the idea. They didnt join out of a burning desire to see the world get better - they are here to earn well and push their careers.
I think this is where founder mode helps. It keeps the ones who care deeply about the business, the idea, the customers, the world, the employees etc in the know. They keep their finger on the pulse and can help steer everyone away from just chasing personal gain. They can bring back the guiding principles that may have been diluted through various levels of "those who don't care as much".
I think early employees - those taking the most risk aside from the founders - could also be leveraged here. In fact, I think those early employees could be considered mini-founders if they are are still around at later stages.
We also have a very high income tax rate. Up to something like 45% depending on your level of income.
If I for instance saved 10% of my salary vs someone earning comparatively the same in the US, I would have far less buying power in the world in general.
Overseas holidays are something very few can afford. Spending ZAR overseas is rough.
It took me at least 5 years as a software engineer with a CS degree to reach that per year in South Africa.
I understand cost of living adjustments etc etc but $15 per hour in SA would help so many people dramatically. We have a huge number of citizens living below the poverty line.
For perspective, our minimum hourly wage is 23.19ZAR per hour which is roughly 1.49USD.
Its worth noting that their entire business is built around detecting blockchain based illicit activities.
If exchange control was applied fairly as was the interpretation up until recently, then staying below those amounts in ZAR terms would be fine. However, that may not be the case any more.
Enter the exchange control laws from the 60s that still limit capital flow out of SA.
1m ZAR per annum per person(~70k USD) this includes things like Netflix subscriptions, Amazon orders etc.
Cash is still king when it comes to crime. Crypto can help make it harder for criminals.
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