On Sovereignty & Systems
Marc Andreessen once said, “Software is eating the world.”
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Read itMarc Andreessen once said, “Software is eating the world.”
And he wasn’t wrong.
Since 2010, we’ve watched software quietly devour industries, starting with finance.
Banks, once the untouchables of modern economies, are now fighting for relevance against apps, tokens, and protocols.
Crypto is eating the banks.
That part is real.
But here’s the question I can’t stop asking:
Is software eating Africa?
Or is Africa eating software?
2020 looked like a factory reset.
Everywhere, people moved online.
Remote work surged. Video calls became currency.
Governments held meetings on Zoom and called it a transformation.
In Africa, it felt like even that was a milestone.
The bar is so low that “finally using video conferencing” became a cause for celebration.
But behind the headlines, our institutions remain technologically hollow.
COVID-19 didn’t just expose a virus. It exposed just how technologically resistant and systemically fragile our governments are.
The software industry in Africa is still micro.
So micro that we’re obsessed with building this and that for Africa or whatever global success story we think we should mimic.
But we often forget that those products grew on top of functional infrastructure: stable policy, digital identity systems, and capital markets that work.
We’re trying to plant in concrete.
Let’s digress for a moment.
During Europe’s Industrial Revolution, railways reshaped everything.
Factories replaced artisans.
Family-run cottage industries collapsed.
Societies restructured.
Migration patterns changed.
The nation-state emerged around industrial and technological coordination.
But none of it could have happened without governments willing to evolve: to get out of the way or get in the game.
Now imagine if they hadn’t.
Imagine if 19th-century leaders in Europe had been as resistant to change as many African leaders are today.
There would be no railways.
No economies of scale.
No modern Europe.
Every time an African startup tries to push boundaries, it hits the same wall:
Policy.
Regulation.
Gatekeepers.
Silence.
Innovation seems alien to our leaders: something to fear, not foster.
It’s not just that software isn’t eating Africa.
It’s that African leadership is chewing up software, along with the possibility of real progress.
If you’re a founder in Africa, you know this already:
The greatest risk isn’t product failure.
It’s building something that works, but that power won’t allow it to survive.
Until our systems are willing to evolve, software will always be limited in what it can truly do here.
So no, software isn’t eating Africa.
Not yet.
But the appetite for innovation is real.
The energy is here.
And at some point, that hunger will become unstoppable.
Until then, we keep building, with one eye on the code, and the other on the gatekeepers.