By Alec Hogg
Warren Buffett has taught so many of us so much. The Oracle of Omaha is a gifted communicator who enjoys sharing timeless wisdom in bite-sized chunks. Among his favourites is a warning to “never bet against human ingenuity”. It’s something South Africa’s punditry keeps forgetting.
Yesterday I met (virtually) a qualified actuary, former investment banker and now solar power entrepreneur Andrew Middleton (click here to watch). Since starting the catchily named Gosolr, Middleton and his partners have expanded at a breathtaking rate. Their company directly installs solar solutions in thousands of households every month.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___It’s a winning model. Gosolr makes the capital investment, uses scale to cut costs and works on a four-year payback on the home installation. After starting in 2021, it is already adding 10MW a month and is targeting to reach 500MW in total within three years. That’s half a level of load shedding eliminated by a single company.
Big Business can’t get its collective head around massive inefficiencies embedded into corporate structures. It cannot understand today’s world belongs to the agile – speedboats, not oil tankers. Their shills keep telling us South Africa needs more big plants, more nuclear, and Karpowerships, but as Gosolr shows, its brains, not brawn, triumph in the modern era. Never bet against human ingenuity.
Sterkte.
Alec
Read also:
