WORLDVIEW: Cape Town’s newest billionaires – leveraging cheap SA skills into global market

Cape Town acquired its newest billionaires yesterday when Rob and Sam Paddock sold their ten year old online education business GetSmarter for $103m. In cash. And provided the next two years' earn out targets are met, their total haul will rise to over $133m, or R1.8bn at the current exchange rate.

This is a serious price tag for a company that few South Africans have ever heard of, and which last year generated total sales of $17m. But it is a reflection of the potential which technology offers to leverage the country's cheap but world class skills into a hard currency paying global arena.

I came across the Paddock brothers last August when GetSmarter got a mention on the BBC. They were delighted to engage and the result was an extensive interview with Rob on Biznews which delivered more news value. It also unpacked a successful model for those seeking ways to translate South Africa's often unrecognised advantage of a highly educated but hard-to-move crust into a skills scarce world.

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