February 28, 2025 • 63 mins
In this episode of A Legacy of Purpose: Conversations with Dina H. Sherif, we sit down with Ahmed Zahran, CEO of KarmSolar and 2024 Foundry Fellow at the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT. What started as a company born out of frustration and necessity has now become one of Egypt’s leading solar energy firms, transforming the way power is generated and distributed in the region.
Ahmed shares his journey from working in corporate energy to being forced out of a job—an event that led to the creation of KarmSolar. We explore the power of entrepreneurship as resistance, the role of adaptive leadership, and why building for the long-term often means letting go of ego and immediate success.
We also discuss the future of renewable energy in Egypt, why leadership is about championing others, and what it takes to sustain a mission-driven company against all odds.
**This Episode was originally filmed in November 2024**
Host: Dina Sherif
Produced by Donovan Beck
For Media Inquiries:
Donovan Beck
Communications and Storytelling Coordinator
Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
292 Main St, E38, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142
don_beck@mit.edu
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dina Sherif (00:00):
I'm super excited to welcome you to
(00:10):
our podcast, legacy withpurpose. It's wonderful to be
able to host a good friend, afoundry fellow and an amazing
entrepreneur from my homecountry, Egypt, on this podcast.
So today we have with us Ahmedzaharan, CEO karm solar, and
also foundry fellow of theCenter for development
(00:32):
entrepreneurship at MIT. Ahmed,thank you so much for making the
time. We're so excited to haveyou with us on this podcast. I'm
very excited to be here. I'mglad that you are so I want to
get started right away, and Iwant to ask, I want to start out
by asking, Your journey has beenan interesting one, and you
started your career working in abig multinational shell, and you
(00:55):
worked in London, back to Egypt.
You still worked in a fairlylarge company, also in the
energy sector,but at some point, you made a
decision to step away fromstable, big corporate job, and
you decided to start your owncompany called Carm solar. What
(01:17):
was behind that decision toleave the stability of regular
income big company and thenventure into starting a company
at a pretty unstable time in thehistory of our country as well?
Ahmed Zahran (01:36):
Actually, I did not choose to start consoler.
The reason consoler started isbecause I was kind of pushed out
or fired from the company whereI was working, and we found
ourselves basically having toestablish corn solar because we
still wanted to achieve thethings that we were trying to
(01:59):
work on with when we were hiredat that company. So it was never
a conscious decision. It waskind of we were being pushed or
cornered to do that. Now theother, I think the
the one thing that I couldelaborate on is that when, when
this happened to us, normally,we could have just looked for
(02:22):
another job, but I think thereason we did not do that, and
the reason we preferred to startour own thing, was, I think, I
think it was because of theeffect the Revolution had on us
that suddenly it was very clearto me that there was so much
power In the hands of that man,and he is able to fire and hire,
(02:44):
invest and not invest in thingsthat he wanted, and he
associated that with what hebelieved in. And I thought that
we deserve a similar chance thatwe work on the things that we
believe in, and we support itourselves, and we make it
independent, and we secure ourown source of income within an
institution that we startourselves. Tell us a little bit
(03:07):
about Carm solar. So what isCarm solar? Well, at the moment,
we define Carm solar as a solarutility company. So we're aiming
to redesign the power utility,whether when it comes to power
generation or powerdistribution, but this is a very
recent definition of thecompany, the company, you know,
changed many times on the way.
When we started, we were just,you know, the company was fueled
(03:29):
with anger, and it was startedto get back at that oligarch, to
show him that we can do it, andto show him that we do not need
him, nor we need people likehim,
but then, you know, Anger cantake you for a bit of time, but
it doesn't. It's not able totake you for the entire journey.
(03:51):
And we were again forced tomature and start thinking in a
different way. It's very rare
Dina Sherif (03:58):
that you hear somebody say, I didn't, I
started a venture because it wasmore of a form of protest,
Ahmed Zahran (04:05):
actually. Yeah, it was completely fueled by anger.
I I hated the guy so much, and Ihated the amount of power and
influence he had. But this isnot enough to build an
institution, and that's what werealized midway. So at the
beginning, when we started, wereally started to try and
(04:28):
develop a certain type of solarwater pumping systems, because
Egypt has a lot of undergroundwater, and it is a main source
of water for agriculture, and touse solar energy directly for
the pumps. There was a kind of atechnical difficulty that needed
to be solved, and we managed insolving it with a patent. And
(04:49):
that was the beginning of thecompany. And then we started
really developing our businessmodel. Instead of selling solar
systems, we started investing insolar stations and selling power
to the private sector. And thenwe started. It working on power
distribution as well throughinvestment in power grids, and
then we started integratingpower generation and power
distribution through solar.
Well, the plan is for all thegrids that we're managing is
(05:12):
that you would get to solarpenetration that is 100% so each
grid has its own story and hasits own economics, but all of
them are moving towards becoming100% solar. So some grids are
still at 2% sort of penetration.
Some of them are 60% sort ofpenetration. It depends on how,
how fast that grid is growing,how the demand is changing,
(05:34):
whether there is a batteryinvestment or not, and so on.
But the aim is to eventuallydesign the power infrastructure
that would be able to have 100%renewable energy, because
currently, our powerinfrastructure in many of our
countries are designed primarilyfor fossil fuels, not for
(05:55):
renewable energy, right?
Dina Sherif (05:57):
So that brings me to my next question at the time
that you started calm solar, theworld was not, and definitely
our part of the world was notall excited about solar energy,
clean energy. It was still inthe very, very early days. So in
many ways, you started thiscompany, in a way, by accident,
(06:19):
and also you started in a spacethat was to great extent against
the grain, and in a region thatwas the main provider of fossil
fuels. So how did you manage tostay the course, to get to where
you are today, with such adifficult beginning, where there
are so many things movingagainst you, whether it be
(06:42):
politics, whether it be thatclean energy was still not the
obsession of the Arab region,building a strong team, all
these things. There's so manythings, raising capital. There
were so many things that weredifficult at the time. How did
you stay the course?
Ahmed Zahran (07:02):
I think there were two specific things that helped
us at the time. Number one, thatI had access to really some
great people that supported us,both financially,
psychologically, technically,and, you know, they really felt
that we represent them, and theyfelt that our success meant
(07:25):
something to them. And thesecond thing is consistency. You
need to show up to the officeevery day, working, smiling, you
know, accepting the challengesthat life's throwing at you, and
realizing that if you keep doingthat, and if you keep trying,
(07:46):
maybe something is going to workout. So it was always a bet that
maybe 1% of the 100% of thingswe're working on is going to
work out, and that whateventually happened. I mean, the
company has been around, andthis this month, we celebrate 13
years, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Which is the age of therevolution, the
Dina Sherif (08:10):
age of my own company? Oh, yeah, so many of us
started companies that year.
Yeah, exactly. It was, manycompanies, for sure, in Egypt,
and
Ahmed Zahran (08:20):
that's one of the main things that the revolution
did to the country that I'mstill very proud of, because I
still very much belong to thatrevolution and what it
represented to me and to manyother people like me.
Dina Sherif (08:34):
Yeah, I really love this idea of consistency and
just keep on showing up. But i iIt's not always easy, so I still
have to say, what, what did youneed to tap into, to just keep
showing up for your team and foreveryone? Because it's not
(08:55):
always easy to do that in theface of multiple obstacles. What
do you think that you have thatallowed you to do that?
Ahmed Zahran (09:06):
I have a cause, and I think having a cause is
something that provides with theenergy and drive to do anything,
and I only get to live once, soif I don't use my my life, my
(09:26):
time on this planet, to work onthe things that I really love
and believe in, I'm not going toget a second chance to do that.
And I believe I was created tohelp with a specific cause, and
I'm there to do it. And I thinkthat what makes me quite happy
(09:49):
to go to the office or to decideevery day
Dina Sherif (09:52):
to believe in something bigger than yourself,
yes, and
Ahmed Zahran (09:55):
I do not measure my. My success by achieving
anything during my lifetime. Ithink that a lot of the things
that we're going to be that wewant to achieve require time
that is more than our lifespan.
Yeah,
Dina Sherif (10:14):
so we won't likely live to see it, but it doesn't
matter. Yeah,
Ahmed Zahran (10:18):
so I don't care if I die defeated, as long as what
I believe in lives to succeed orwin one day. And that's the
thing that I think is veryimportant that we you know,
there's always this pressurefrom society for the instant
gratification seeing the fruitof my work right now, yeah, or
(10:40):
during my lifetime,
Dina Sherif (10:41):
I used to be in it for the long, the long exactly,
it
Ahmed Zahran (10:45):
took me a lot of time to train myself not to be
influenced by that. Because,listen, we come from a place
where problems are quitecomplicated and they will take a
lot of time to be solved, andnot one single generation will
be able to solve all of them,but someone has to start, and
(11:06):
someone has to start who is notaddicted to achievements. So we
have to be addicted to patientsrather than addicted to
achievements. Yeah, it's
Dina Sherif (11:16):
interesting that you say that. A couple of weeks
ago, I had a podcast with hisexcellency president, Masisi of
Botswana, and we talked aboutthe meaning of leadership, but
also specifically that ego hasto be let go of when you are in
(11:37):
the business of service orachieving something that is
bigger than yourself, would you?
It sounds like you would agreewith that
Ahmed Zahran (11:47):
very much. So, you know, there's a king called Mina
Narmer. He's the founder ofEgypt, basically. So he's the
one who Egypt. Before there wasEgypt, there was the kingdom of
the north and kingdom of theSouth, and he unified them and
created Egypt and the firstcentral government. And
Dina Sherif (12:07):
I'm sure not many, many of our audience would know
that. So that
Ahmed Zahran (12:11):
was around maybe 6200 years ago, and Mina never
saw the pyramids. He knowsnothing about them, but it is
because of his work that thepyramids eventually happened.
And that's, you know, I think, alesson that I learned from that
(12:34):
you have to be, you know,connected to what you want to
achieve, and disconnected fromwhen is it going to happen?
Because many of those things,especially if they are of a high
impact, you just need to createthe grounds that would allow the
people that come after you tocarry on with what you're trying
to do. So maybe I will not liveto see 100% solar grid, but I
(12:59):
want to get it as high aspossible, so that the people
after me can take it 100% and
Dina Sherif (13:03):
maybe that's what leadership is all about.
Ahmed Zahran (13:07):
I think leadership is about that plus many other
things, because life is verydifficult and we are created to
have a lot of fights andstruggles in life. And I think
(13:29):
the most difficult thing inlife, and that's what leadership
could help us with, is gainingwisdom. And I think wisdom is,
you know, is a very difficultthing to achieve, and it is my
hope that one day I'd be able tobe, you know, to be wise. And I
(13:53):
think that, you know, one of themain goals of leadership should
be achieving wisdom, becausewisdom helps you. Understanding
others helps you getting towhere you want to go, but also
it helps you in building acommunity building you know, a
structure of ideas, a structureof you know, human beings, a
(14:16):
structure of systems that allowhumanity to prosper and reduce
the injustice, the inefficiency,the waste that exists today.
Yeah,
Dina Sherif (14:31):
yeah. Well, I want to talk about something a little
different. Rumor has it that youhave very particular views about
recruiting talent and retainingtalent, and I would love for you
to share your own philosophyaround talent, talent
(14:53):
recruitment, but also retainingtalent, and as a result, how
that translates into culturewithin. An organization.
Ahmed Zahran (15:03):
I think that you know talented people like to
belong to a cause and like tounderstand how their work is
going to be impactful on theirsocieties and on the people
around them. And I trulybelieve. And I mean, from what
(15:26):
we've seen at corn solar, it isimportant that the people you
work with really understand theimpact of what they're working
on. It's not just about themoney, it's not just about the
financial compensation, and it'snot just about the career
development. It's not about thetitle. It's not about those
things alone. It's about whatare we trying to build and why
(15:46):
are we building it? It's aboutthe cause. Why does this place
exist? Why does that place needme, and how can I use that
place, this place where I'mworking, that institution, to
make life better for others andfor myself. So it is about the
(16:07):
accumulation of knowledge,accumulation of value. And I
believe that it takes a lot oftime to find those people who
are willing to, you know, towork with that work mode, and I
believe that it takes a lot oftime for people to really
(16:30):
understand what their cause is.
We sometimes, you know, thinkthat we're born with a cause
doesn't work this way, andtalented people are the ones who
understand that it takes time toidentify with what we align with
and what we want to achieve inlife. And I believe that it is
(16:50):
the job of any institution toprovide the platform for people
to achieve
Dina Sherif (17:00):
what they want to achieve exactly. And
Ahmed Zahran (17:03):
if you have, when you have an organization that
has that as you know as the coreof what they're working on,
you're usually able to attracttalent that are normally only
available for way biggerorganizations that are offering
much more attractive financialcompensations, but we don't have
(17:26):
as much money, and our peoplework in very difficult places,
but still, we're able to attractthat type of talent, and I think
the core reason for that is thecause that They belong to when
they work on those things,
Dina Sherif (17:43):
and maybe the passion that you have for it.
Ahmed Zahran (17:46):
Well, I, you know the what if I get hit by a bus
and I disappear? Does this meanthat that you know institution
or that cause is going todisappear the power of any
organization is in the abilityof its leader to resign. So I
(18:08):
think that my biggestachievement to crumb solo would
be my resignation. Someday,
Dina Sherif (18:14):
I would tend to agree with that, you know,
because I left my own company,yeah, and it continues on
exactly so I definitely, thatdefinitely resonates with me and
talk, talk to us a little bitabout the culture of calm solar.
For example, I know that youwere very bullish about your
(18:35):
team having lunch together andsitting on the roof rooftop and
spending time together like whatwas behind that? Not everybody
will take the time, you know.
And building a company is noteasy. There's time is never a
luxury. But you would take thetime for all of you to sit and
have a meal together, and thatwas just part of the culture of
(18:55):
carb solar. What what was behindthat, and what was the actual
culture that you wanted tobuild? So
Ahmed Zahran (19:05):
let's start with the with the problem that I was
trying to solve, you will finddifferent companies working
according to different workcultures. There is the American
work culture, there's theEuropean one. There is a very
specific English one. There isthe Japanese one, which is also
quite different. And as Arabsand as Egyptians, we never
(19:29):
really had our own workingculture. And what I thought of
is, what are the elements fromour culture that I think we
could add to the workplace thatwould make it more relevant to
how we function as people, andwhat are the elements of that
(19:51):
culture that if we introduce tothe working environment, others
outside of our culture can makeuse of you. Right? And Egypt
functions like one big grouphug. Yep,
Dina Sherif (20:04):
we love our communities exactly and, and we
love food exactly
Ahmed Zahran (20:09):
and, and you'll find a lot of interactions
between what is personal andwhat is business, and what is
social and what is not, and soon, even with dealing with
clients, with investors and soon, all those things you know,
it functions in a fundamentallydifferent way from other places.
And the question was, how canyou introduce that to the
working culture in a way thatwould not disrupt it and but
(20:32):
would be a reflection of how weas people, as a culture, view
the world? And I realized thatone of the best times that you
have with your friends and yourfamily is the way that we get
together around food, forexample. And also it's about the
physical space where we work.
It's about the the power of acourtyard, for example. So it's
(20:54):
not just about the our office inCairo, but our campus in the
Black Desert, for example, isone of the places that I love
working from. And a lot ofpeople in the company, they love
working from there. And it wasone of the main things that I
thought the company shouldinvest in. It has a workshop for
our engineers to work from andour technicians so that they can
(21:17):
come up with ideas andexperiment. It has a, you know,
a kitchen and a chef so thatthey can eat properly. It has,
you know, it has a very niceterrace, and it's in the middle
of the fields. And the reason itwas designed like that is to
make sure that it really borrowsfrom our architecture, our
(21:40):
distribution of space, becauseit's different from from it's
just a different interpretationof life. You know, we come from
hot climates, and the role of acourtyard is important. Now,
imagine what you can do with aterrace and a courtyard within
our own architecture, it createsa type of experience for the
(22:01):
people working, and a type ofinteraction between all of them
that is different from fromanywhere else. And that was the
idea. And it succeeded to theextent that at certain points in
time, very talented people whowere and who were always very
difficult to get to work in thedesert. Loved working from there
(22:22):
because it was quite enjoyable.
Although it was quite primitive,it did not really have a lot of
luxury into it. But it had goodlocal food. It had a workshop
where they can experiment. Ithad, it has good architecture,
so all those elementscontributed to that. And so what
(22:45):
I realized is that, you know, alot of ideas and a lot of
suggestions could come whenpeople gather around food to eat
together. So it's not a questionof offering a good meal. It's
not about offering the goodmeal. It's about the interaction
between different parts of theteam during the around the
(23:08):
activity of eating, and that'sthe most important thing, I
think, in terms of how we manageit so they have to eat at the
same time. It's not a questionof the availability of launch
between 12 and two, for example.
No, it's about lunches beingoffered during a specific half
an hour. And
Dina Sherif (23:28):
you all have to be there exactly. I love it. I love
it. So fast forward 2024 whichis where we are now. And you
know, Carm solar had a difficultfew years getting started, with
some difficulties in between,obviously, like any company. But
(23:54):
you know now Carm solar is in avery, very different place. And
not only is Carm solar verysuccessful, but Carm solar has
also given birth to a number ofnew subsidiaries, and that kind
of family of companies continuesto grow and evolve. And you're
(24:16):
you've moved beyond Egypt toother markets. So I wanted you
to share with the those who arelistening in what is that full
growth journey for you? What hasthat been like? And as you give
birth to new companies and newideas come into fruition, how
(24:38):
does that fit into that originalvision, or has that original
vision also shifted with time?
Or has that stayed very stablewith other things falling right
in between to achieve that?
Ahmed Zahran (24:55):
I mean, definitely the vision changed many times.
I. Actually, because as we wereworking, we were learning and
discovering things,consolidating is a is a
platform, and it has to functionas a platform that allows others
(25:16):
to build things that theybelieve in, and to be able to
technically develop what they'reworking on. And the reason it
has to function that way toachieve its scalability is
because I have to be lessinvolved. The the role that I
play is to make sure that thatplatform is functioning
(25:40):
efficiently and that people aregetting the resources that they
need to build, what they want tobuild, and it has to function in
that manner, because there aremany ways of doing things, and
if I stick to My way, this meansthat there are many other
(26:02):
possible, you know,alternatives, scenarios, methods
that can be used, that will bemissed by the company. When
you're working in a difficultenvironment, a difficult
economy, you cannot count on oneway of thinking, and you cannot
count on one source of revenue.
And because I grew up in Egypt,and because Egypt is a difficult
place to do business in, I wasalways thinking of that, that
(26:25):
the importance of a backup allthe time, the importance of
options all the time, and thatmade me and the management make
sure that different methods bydifferent management teams or
managing different companies canbe implemented, and that we can
support them and accept thatpeople can do things in a
(26:48):
different way, and we onlyintervene if they need support,
if there are certain problemsthat are happening, if they're
facing certain challenges thatthey do not Know how to deal
with or if certain thingsrequire certain type of
experience that they don't have.
But in general, they are left todo things the way they want and
(27:09):
to grow their own businesseswithin the umbrella of what
comes with and that really whatenabled us to diversify our
sources of income and survivethose difficult times,
especially after COVID,
Dina Sherif (27:21):
and allow people to evolve and create their own
things, yes,
Ahmed Zahran (27:25):
which is a because, I mean, not
Dina Sherif (27:27):
necessarily a common model, right?
Ahmed Zahran (27:30):
I don't know if this is a common model or not.
Please remember that most of mylearning is from trial and
error. I did not really get As
Dina Sherif (27:38):
with most entrepreneurs, right? That's a
part of the entrepreneurialjourney, exactly.
Ahmed Zahran (27:43):
So I don't know what happened out there. The
reason I do things like thefellowship and and other
educational, you know,activities that I engage with is
I try to find out what is outthere and what can be used to
minimize the impact of trial anderror. Because at the end of the
day, trial and error has animpact on the organization. And
(28:04):
it's always better to try anddiscover things that you can
reduce that impact. But again, Ireally learned a lot from how
others within the company managetheir part of the business, how
they look at things. I reallylearned from our board and how
they look at things,
Dina Sherif (28:23):
there's a lot of beauty and diversity,
definitely.
Ahmed Zahran (28:26):
And previously, I was not like that. I was very
specific and particular abouthow things should be done, and I
always felt that I have toimpose that on everyone. And it
took me again time to realize
Dina Sherif (28:40):
that doesn't always have to be done my way, yeah,
and
Ahmed Zahran (28:43):
that's not how you're going to scale. So you
have to guard governance andefficiency and provide that for
everyone, but they have to tryand do things their own way,
because they might reach abetter conclusion than yours.
And it's the survival of thebest ideas
Dina Sherif (29:09):
that's quite profound, actually. So hold
government governance and propergovernance stable, along with
efficiency of the business, butallow space for everything else
to emerge in its own particularway. You
Ahmed Zahran (29:26):
cannot hire talented people and then force
them to do what you want. That'sright, yeah. You have to, you
know, provide them with aplatform for them to be
creative, and I'm onlyparticular about products that I
(29:46):
am designing myself, but thingsthat they are designing, it's
just left to them. And that'sthe whole idea that when you
believe in a certain product orcertain services and you're
designing it, you need to giveit a chance, to try doing it
your own way. So I always, youknow, I always tell them,
whenever I see someonesuggesting something, and they
really believe in it, I tellthem, I will follow you. And
(30:13):
when I say that, it creates thetype of good liability that,
that I think is important forany organization. So there is a
difference between saying that II approve something, and saying
that I will follow the person.
When you say that you willfollow the person, they become
(30:38):
more responsible for what theyare doing, and they will start
assessing it and scrutinizing itin a better way, because you
gave them ownership exactly, andbecause they feel liable to you
and the rest of the company. Butwhen you approve things it, I
see it is a, you know, it's notabout approving or disapproving.
(31:03):
It's about following good ideas,right, and allowing them to
evolve and prosper. You know,because we, we are, we are
working in a in a poor countrywith a lot of trouble and
challenges. And when you put it
Dina Sherif (31:27):
mildly, to put it mildly, and
Ahmed Zahran (31:29):
when you're working in such circumstances,
you really need every braincell. And if you think that you
have the solution alone, youwould probably drown. But if you
make sure that others areengaged and are trying and are
doing their best to help andthat they understand the
responsibility of theirparticipation, your chances of
(31:52):
succeeding, I think, are goingto be higher.
Dina Sherif (31:58):
Very fair Well, you brought up the fellowship and
the fact that you're a foundryfellow, and during the
fellowship, you were introducedto this very out of the box and
not very traditional frameworkthat we call adaptive
leadership. And the impression Igot from you is that this
(32:19):
framework deeply impacted you.
And the question I have is, whyis it that this particular
framework of leadership impactedyou, and why do you think that
it's important for the center tocontinue to spread this
particular approach toleadership within the context of
the Arab region in Africa. Morebroadly.
Ahmed Zahran (32:46):
The the problem with people like me is that we
know how to talk and we know howto pitch, and that is sometimes
a double edged sword, because wecan say a lot of bullshit and it
(33:08):
will appear as if it's concreteand logical. And sometimes you
do it without intending to doit, because we were conditioned
to do it when you'refundraising, you have to get the
money in. When you'reencouraging and motivating
people, you have to say certainthings. And sometimes when
(33:31):
you're good at doing that, youmiss the real problem. And there
is, there is one of the profoundthings about adaptive
leadership, the fact that thereare certain challenges called
adaptive challenges, thatrequire the change of the system
or the change of the way ofthinking or the change of the
(33:51):
framework, but when you becomeso good at gaming the system,
you get addicted to what we calltechnical solutions that allow
you to navigate the corruptedsystem, or the corrupted
framework or mode of thinkingthat the company needs to change
in the first place. So thereally, the thing that I, that I
(34:15):
you know, that I love the most,is, you know, for an adaptive
challenge that requires aparadigm shift. You have to come
up with an adaptive solution.
But for an adaptive challenge,if you come up with a technical
solution that just doesn't makesense, you know, people like me
fill the air around everybodyelse with how we talk and what
we say, and you can have a lotof meetings with a lot of ideas
(34:38):
and suggestions and so on. Butbecause we're able to do that,
sometimes we miss the point. Wemiss the main challenge that we
have to be dealing
Dina Sherif (34:50):
with, which is much easier, an answer exactly, and
why you need an adaptivesolution exactly. So sometimes,
when for those who arelistening, who may not know the
framework right, the adaptive.
Challenge means that we don'treally have an answer or a known
solution, and that requirestime, because that means that we
need to come up with a newsolution, something that has
never been introduced before.
(35:14):
And if the solution was there,then it would be a technical
challenge with a technicalsolution, and everything would
be great, and we wouldn't needsomeone, yes,
Ahmed Zahran (35:24):
right? And because you can or
Dina Sherif (35:27):
we wouldn't need leadership, per se, you would
just need a good manager whounderstands the technical part
of it, who can take that problemand provide the technical
solution, because they have thatexpertise and be done with it.
It's exactly
Ahmed Zahran (35:39):
like how you market an unhealthy McDonald's
meal versus a really healthymeal that takes a lot of time to
cook, and that is what technicalsolutions are like. And because
we can do a lot of marketingaround technical solutions that
are not necessarily doing thatparadigm shift, it's much easier
(36:00):
to sell them to the team and getthem to work on things that are
not really changing the realityof how we're working
Dina Sherif (36:08):
and adaptive work takes time and takes a lot of
effort and a
Ahmed Zahran (36:11):
lot of resources and a lot of brainstorming and a
specific type of interactionbetween the people involved in
finding that solution. You know,one of the main things that I
learned from the fellowship aswell is how to uncomfortably
work with others, because wealways think and we always aim
(36:32):
for that comfortable workingsetup where we are
Dina Sherif (36:37):
all getting Along exactly and all is easy and easy
flow, whereas the magic happensin the tension Exactly. And
Ahmed Zahran (36:45):
one of the main things that I was always looking
for before the fellowship,because it's a question that I
always had, is, how can we learnhow to fight within the context
of where we are working or wherewe belong, to make sure that we
reach the best conclusionspossible or the best suggestions
(37:07):
possible. In Egypt in general,in the Arab world, the first
fight is usually the only fightand the last fight, and people
just split. Well,
Dina Sherif (37:19):
I don't think that's in Egypt alone. Tension
is uncomfortable.
Ahmed Zahran (37:23):
I think the Arabs have an expertise on but what I
what I'm trying to say is that Iwas always looking for how, if
there is a, you know, anacademic way of learning how to
fight and how to uncomfortablywork with others and be outside
of your comfort zone, but stillachieve something and still stay
connected as one exactly. Andthe the training on adaptive
(37:48):
leadership that we had at thefoundry fellowship really
provided me with a with a with apotential option of how to deal
with that. And I actuallystarted using it
Dina Sherif (38:03):
that makes us happy. Yeah,
Ahmed Zahran (38:05):
that's actually where I came up with, I will
follow you approach. I onlystarted using it after the
fellowship, because it is basedon that, that I do not have to
be leading everything. The wholeidea of leadership is everybody,
Dina Sherif (38:24):
and everybody can exercise leadership at any time,
in any at any point, exactly.
Ahmed Zahran (38:31):
And it's, you know, that's, that's, I would
have never imagined myselfthinking like that, because I
was very comfortable to provideall the necessary leadership,
and it was always in demand, andpeople were more comfortable
(38:52):
following me, and I think it'swhen they realized that I am not
just willing to follow them, butit is my intention to keep
following them. I think itcreated a shift, yeah, it
changed how people areperceiving, how we're working
together.
Dina Sherif (39:12):
Yeah? That makes me very happy to hear, yeah. It's
Ahmed Zahran (39:15):
now. It has become a very scary whenever I tell
anyone that
Dina Sherif (39:20):
they're like, oh, I can take ownership now. The
lights on me, yeah, I get that.
You know, part of the during thefellowship as well, you are also
exposed to our own views onAfrica and the importance of,
you know, Egypt is a part of theArab world. It's also part of
Africa. And at the center, wetalk about there, there was
(39:42):
Africa pre colonial times, andAfrica during colonial times, in
Africa in a post colonial era,and where we haven't
Ahmed Zahran (39:53):
seen the third one yet. Well, we've seen we're
still, we're still
Dina Sherif (39:58):
the rise of.
Political independence. What wehave not seen is true, economic
liberation.
Ahmed Zahran (40:04):
I don't differentiate between the three.
Well, I would agree
Dina Sherif (40:07):
with you. I don't necessarily differentiate, but
for the sake of the world, Ithink you know, in the eyes of
many, Africa has achievedpolitical independence, but we
are still very much trying tofind our way towards economic
agency and sovereignty. And atthe center, we have this deep
(40:28):
belief that entrepreneurs areextremely important to the
achievement of economic agencyand sovereignty within Africa.
What are your own thoughtsaround the importance of
entrepreneurship andentrepreneurs to creating
(40:49):
economic agency within countrieslike Egypt and beyond.
Ahmed Zahran (40:54):
Entrepreneurship is a form of resistance. It is a
way of fighting stupidity,inefficiency, corruption and the
oligarchs. The world is missingour interpretation of the world
(41:15):
and our interpretation of life,and we have so many colors that
the world has not seen yet. AndI think that this will be only
achieved if there is a true andsincere decolonization of Africa
(41:36):
and the Arab world, and not justAfrica and the Arab world. I
think this is, you know, this isa thing that connects
Dina Sherif (41:43):
Africa, Arab world, Latin America, Asia. Many
countries have been a
Ahmed Zahran (41:50):
part of this journey. I'd call them the
unfortunates of this world. Andthe beauty of entrepreneurship
is that it allows you with verylittle resources to fight
against the powerful and showyour point of view. And although
(42:16):
we have a lot of resources inAfrica, we don't have access to
them. So there's a differencebetween having a resource and
actually having access to it.
And because of a lot of powerstruggles and, you know, and
political issues and so on, wewere cornered in a way where we
do not have access to our ownresources. And I think what
(42:38):
entrepreneurship is providing uswith is the tool to resist and
change all of that, becauseentrepreneurship teaches you and
allows you to use the verylittle resources that you have
access to to tap into the biggerresources that You're not
allowed to touch, and it allowsyou to outsmart the the power
(43:02):
hungry, the outsmartdictatorship,
Dina Sherif (43:15):
to outsmart colonialism, Imperial. Yes,
Ahmed Zahran (43:19):
definitely. And I think it's, it's, I think it's
going to take a lot of time, butI think that, I think that we
are creative people, and I thinkthat our the hardships that we
(43:42):
had to go through, and thenumber of things that we had to
struggle with on daily basiswhile growing up, has made us
interpret the world and see itin a fundamentally different way
from others, the way we are ableand willing to confront things
(44:04):
that are usually disruptive inmany places is higher than what
you would find in Europe orAmerica or any other developed
country. And I think this is ourpassport to a better life,
because not only do we work withmuch, much less, much less, but
(44:26):
we are capable of coping withtougher circumstances.
Resilient? Yeah, no, I wouldn'twant to use resilient, because
resilient is a very Western wayof looking at it's not
resilient, it's we are morecapable at dealing with
(44:49):
randomness.
Dina Sherif (44:50):
Yeah, I had a another fellow recently say
about, we had a workshop, youknow, about currency volatility.
And she said, you know, inAfrica, we just. Roll with the
punches exactly. I said to her,said, How did what was going
through your mind when, when thedevaluation in your particular
company or country happened? Andshe said, you know, Dina, we
(45:12):
just roll with the punches.
Where we come from, just the wayit goes,
Ahmed Zahran (45:17):
but the Yeah, but, but, you know, when you say
resilience, it doesn't reallycover resilience mean, means
that I'm capable of dealingextreme situations with
conditions that I can expect orthat I know of, or maybe
sometimes that I'm trained for,but it's like an extreme version
(45:39):
of it, but our ability to dealwith black swans is, I don't
want to say unmatched, but it'squite good, or maybe it's our
superpower, because we, youknow, I like to say to notify I
(46:02):
think we're street cats. I knowyou've said that before that you
know, nothing comes easy.
Nothing does come easy. That isvery true, yeah, within a
condition where everything isagainst you.
Dina Sherif (46:22):
Yeah. And in spite of it all, we continue, right?
Yes, yeah. I don't know. Maybethe word, I often say that
there's this word calledresilience, and then there's
this idea of emotionalresilience. And when I say
emotional resilience, it's Imean it in the face of multiple
(46:43):
struggles, you do not fallapart. You don't bury your head
in the sand or go into a dark,deep, dark depression. It's more
that you are able to pushthrough the difficult moments
and manage your emotions in away to allow you to keep taking
one step forward in front of theother. I have never seen that,
(47:08):
you know, as much as I have seenthat in my own country or in
countries like ours,
Ahmed Zahran (47:13):
because you cannot afford that 10 minutes of
crying.
Dina Sherif (47:17):
Yeah, in many ways it's very true. I mean,
Ahmed Zahran (47:21):
you just simply cannot afford it. There are a
lot of people dependent on you.
You have a lot of commitments.
You have to be always capableand ready to deal with
unfamiliar situations,unexpected issues, and still
(47:42):
grow, because it's not justabout survival, by the way, it's
about growing within thatcontext and within those
circumstances. And I think thisis the thing that we this is the
value that we, that we have tooffer the world. I think this
is, you know, a missing colorthat if people see in us, and
(48:09):
what we are trying to build andwhat we're trying to do, that
they might like and they mightadopt some of what we have, just
like music, you know, so Africanmusic is the cool thing now, but
it has an impact in other typesof music that are not
necessarily related to Africanmusic today. Yeah, but people
(48:30):
got a chance to see it, try itand integrate it within what
they built. Yeah, that's right,but they haven't seen how we
work, and they haven'tnecessarily seen how we solve
problems. And I believe if theyget to see it, and if they get
(48:50):
to assess it in, you know, in acomprehensive and sincere way,
that they have something tolearn from us, we're always
perceived as inefficient andlazy, and, you know, generally
behind. And although this istrue from a technical point of
(49:11):
view, and although we are farbehind in terms of human
development, which is true, andwe are poor, and we have to
admit it, and we have toacknowledge it so that we're
able to deal with it. But wehave a lot of values, ideas,
ways of doing things that arerelevant to the extreme
(49:33):
conditions, extreme, you know,unfavorable conditions that
we're going through that aregoing to help us in not just
solving it, but offeringsomething to the world that they
can, that they can also make useof. And I know that this is
necessarily going to happenduring my lifetime, but I know
(49:54):
that the work we're doing todayis going to have a contribution.
To what our people are going toachieve 200 years from today,
Dina Sherif (50:05):
yeah, or hopefully sooner. I have to ask you, you
know you have become extremelyfamous amongst your fellow
fellows at the center, andamongst many people who also
know you with this term,entrepreneurship is resistance.
But I've and you and I have beenfriends for a very, very long
time, but I've never actuallyasked you, how did that phrase
(50:29):
pop into your mind?
Ahmed Zahran (50:32):
Because I always think of that oligarch that
Dina Sherif (50:39):
I think we get I think we get it from here. We
get it from here. No,
Ahmed Zahran (50:43):
it's that anger developed into that, I think,
more sustainable way ofunderstanding the world. So I
realized that what is betterthan anger is understanding what
I have in my mind to to dealwith the situation. You know, he
(51:08):
was actually after we got fired,he was actually calling some of
our potential clients, tellingthem not to work with us. He was
calling some of the people whowere willing to invest with us,
warning them from andthreatening them not to invest
with us. And I didn't reallyunderstand why would someone who
is 70 something years old, and Iwas like, 31 at the time, do
(51:33):
that, really. I kept thinking,you know, it just didn't make
sense to me, especially in theway our culture works where, you
know, I'm very young, is veryold, is very powerful. I don't
have any power in my hand. Whywould you would he have an issue
with me? And I realized it's theproblem of obedience. It is
(51:58):
really about obedience. So thefirst thing that comes to mind
when you when you feel how theperson in front of you wants you
to be obedient about somethingwhere they don't have the right
to require or ask for thatobedience, that there has to be
resistance to that. And Irealized by the work that we are
(52:21):
doing, and by the institutionand the company that we're
building, it is resisting that,and that was the way that anger
was channeled, was changed anddeveloped into the understanding
that it's actually itsresistance. Yeah, so it is one
form of resistance that somepeople can use to change the
(52:42):
reality of themselves and of thepeople around them and of their
community. People like me werenot allowed to have companies
like console and they were notallowed to think the way we
(53:07):
started thinking in 2011 whenthe revolution happened. And I
know that because I know myselfand how I thought before 2011
and as I told you, I would havenever thought of starting a
company. I always viewed myselfas the best employee ever, and
there is nothing wrong withbeing an employee. It's just
about the mentality and how muchrisk you're willing to take. And
(53:31):
I am so upset, like reallyupset, that I was made to think
like that, and I think it wasnot fair. I agree with that. So,
yeah, so I think, you know, andthat's why it is resistance to
those types of thinking, and thefact that some people in certain
(53:53):
societies feel that they havethe right or they have the
ability to force others to actor think in a certain way. So
entrepreneurship allows you andprovides you with the platform
resist and enforce your versionof doing things, you know, but
(54:17):
it takes time. I mean, it's nota it takes a lot of time.
Obviously, yeah,
Dina Sherif (54:25):
I do feel you on many levels. I want to ask you a
couple of more personalquestions, because, you know,
you and I are both Egyptian, andEgypt is going, you know, Egypt
has gone through many difficulttimes, but there's something
(54:46):
really wonderful, beautifulabout the Egyptian, or I would
say about you in particular, isthat in spite of some of these
challenges and things that for.
Frustrate, frustrate us aboutstate of the country and so
forth and so on. You have thisdeep love for your country and
(55:07):
for those who don't know you,you have a deep love for
history, and you the history ofEgypt and the history of the
Egyptian people and the culture,and how the culture has evolved,
and the food, and the differentkinds of food that exists in our
country, where did that lovecome from? Did it come from your
(55:28):
family? Where did it where didit come from? And how do you
keep that love alive, as youalso have some feelings of anger
as well.
Ahmed Zahran (55:49):
Um, you know, people develop, develop
particular taste for things, andusually when you grow somewhere
and you know the place, youdevelop a taste for that. So I
(56:10):
definitely have a taste forEgypt. But I think the thing
that connects Egypt to othercountries and to Africa and to
South America is the suffering,and that's what I love about
Egypt, is that I get a chance topunch some people, and I hope
(56:38):
that this would be helpingothers. In other places, give
punches to those who deserve itas well. And Egypt is, for me,
is, you know, you know, I don'twant to sound like
(57:03):
nationalistic, but it is it. Itcan provide a lot of relevant
examples to a lot of people,because it sits on the
intersection of differentcultures and trade routes. So it
means something to Africa,because we have a shared history
of oppression. It meanssomething to the Arabs. It means
(57:26):
something to the Mediterranean.
It means something to differenttypes of people in different
societies. And that's what Ilike, that whatever you
experiment with in Egypt,whatever you try and works out
in Egypt, it is going to providesomething that others can work
with or develop. And I feel it'sa responsibility being an
(57:50):
Egyptian. I don't think it'sit's easy being an Egyptian. I
think being an Egyptian is, Iwouldn't say, a liability, but
it's just, it's not an easy job.
You know, trying
Dina Sherif (58:03):
an Egyptian woman, but
Ahmed Zahran (58:07):
Egyptian women are quite powerful, I have to say,
Dina Sherif (58:11):
according to you,
Ahmed Zahran (58:14):
so, I mean, you wouldn't want to upset an
Egyptian
Dina Sherif (58:19):
woman. Fair, fair.
I want to ask you anotherpersonal question. And this
question is really built, Ithink, on my lived experience as
your friend. And you know, youhave your three kids, you have a
wife, and you have this, like,army of friends, a lot of them,
and amidst of all that you dorunning this big company and all
(58:44):
of the other entrepreneurs thatyou mentor and that you coach,
you're like this fierceprotector of your family and of
your friends. Why is that, andwhat's behind
Ahmed Zahran (59:05):
that. You know, when you are living in a shitty
neighborhood, that's what youhave to do, because, like your
friend said, you don't knowwhere the punches are coming
from. Anyhow, coming from, andyou have to roll over with the
punches, you know, every day. Sothe social depth is something
(59:31):
that means a lot to me. I willonly live once, and if I don't
work with and if I'm notsurrounded by the people I love
and appreciate, then I think myloss would be really big. So
(59:52):
that's why I think it's justit's an important aspect of of
my life. Really
Dina Sherif (59:58):
now I feel like the next time you. Eight, don't go
to sleep early, come spend timewith me when we're in Soma Bay
next and I'm not gonna be ableto say
Ahmed Zahran (01:00:08):
no, yes, because we don't, we don't know when are
we going to die. It's a fact oflife
Dina Sherif (01:00:16):
and a lesson we both learned very well.
Ahmed Zahran (01:00:19):
So basically, I mean, it's just always, it's
important to just invest in, youknow, in relationships and then
family and then and in qualitytime. You know, it's not just
about spending time together. Ithink the one thing that is
missing is quality time.
Dina Sherif (01:00:41):
Yeah, but since you brought up death, and we all
know that death is coming, thispodcast is really also about the
legacy of purpose that we wantto leave behind. And I would
like to end with this one simplequestion, when you leave this
(01:01:02):
world, what do you want yourlegacy of purpose to be?
Ahmed Zahran (01:01:08):
That people would say that I just tried hard. I'm
not interested in success,really. I mean, it's a very,
very long term thing thatoutlives us. I'm more interested
in building the infrastructurethat would support us and others
(01:01:38):
and allow someone to succeedsomeday.
Dina Sherif (01:01:47):
Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to
have this conversation. We'vebeen friends for such a long
time, and every time I feel likeI have a conversation with you,
I learn something new, not justabout you, but I learned
something new to take away intomy own life. And I just hope you
know how much I appreciate you
Ahmed Zahran (01:02:09):
same here, and I always enjoy being at MIT. Yeah,
I think MIT is a kind ofaddiction.
Dina Sherif (01:02:17):
Well, we enjoy having you, everyone around here
the minute you walk in. Youknow, we're big fans.
Ahmed Zahran (01:02:26):
Me too. I'm big I'm a big fan of you,
personally, and for all thesupport that you provide for the
people around you, whether inthe US or back in Egypt, I don't
know how much people are awareof that, but you do play a role,
even in your absence back home.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Ihope you still call it home.
(01:02:46):
It's
Dina Sherif (01:02:47):
100% is home, okay?
It is 100% home. I am alsodeeply in love with Egypt, not
because I want to punch anybody,but because I love it. It's my
home. It is Thank you. Ahmed,
Ahmed Zahran (01:03:03):
anytime, anytime.
I'm super excited to welcome you to
(00:10):
our podcast, legacy withpurpose. It's wonderful to be
able to host a good friend, afoundry fellow and an amazing
entrepreneur from my homecountry, Egypt, on this podcast.
So today we have with us Ahmedzaharan, CEO karm solar, and
also foundry fellow of theCenter for development
(00:32):
entrepreneurship at MIT. Ahmed,thank you so much for making the
time. We're so excited to haveyou with us on this podcast. I'm
very excited to be here. I'mglad that you are so I want to
get started right away, and Iwant to ask, I want to start out
by asking, Your journey has beenan interesting one, and you
started your career working in abig multinational shell, and you
(00:55):
worked in London, back to Egypt.
You still worked in a fairlylarge company, also in the
energy sector,but at some point, you made a
decision to step away fromstable, big corporate job, and
you decided to start your owncompany called Carm solar. What
(01:17):
was behind that decision toleave the stability of regular
income big company and thenventure into starting a company
at a pretty unstable time in thehistory of our country as well?
Ahmed Zahran (01:36):
Actually, I did not choose to start consoler.
The reason consoler started isbecause I was kind of pushed out
or fired from the company whereI was working, and we found
ourselves basically having toestablish corn solar because we
still wanted to achieve thethings that we were trying to
(01:59):
work on with when we were hiredat that company. So it was never
a conscious decision. It waskind of we were being pushed or
cornered to do that. Now theother, I think the
the one thing that I couldelaborate on is that when, when
this happened to us, normally,we could have just looked for
(02:22):
another job, but I think thereason we did not do that, and
the reason we preferred to startour own thing, was, I think, I
think it was because of theeffect the Revolution had on us
that suddenly it was very clearto me that there was so much
power In the hands of that man,and he is able to fire and hire,
(02:44):
invest and not invest in thingsthat he wanted, and he
associated that with what hebelieved in. And I thought that
we deserve a similar chance thatwe work on the things that we
believe in, and we support itourselves, and we make it
independent, and we secure ourown source of income within an
institution that we startourselves. Tell us a little bit
(03:07):
about Carm solar. So what isCarm solar? Well, at the moment,
we define Carm solar as a solarutility company. So we're aiming
to redesign the power utility,whether when it comes to power
generation or powerdistribution, but this is a very
recent definition of thecompany, the company, you know,
changed many times on the way.
When we started, we were just,you know, the company was fueled
(03:29):
with anger, and it was startedto get back at that oligarch, to
show him that we can do it, andto show him that we do not need
him, nor we need people likehim,
but then, you know, Anger cantake you for a bit of time, but
it doesn't. It's not able totake you for the entire journey.
(03:51):
And we were again forced tomature and start thinking in a
different way. It's very rare
Dina Sherif (03:58):
that you hear somebody say, I didn't, I
started a venture because it wasmore of a form of protest,
Ahmed Zahran (04:05):
actually. Yeah, it was completely fueled by anger.
I I hated the guy so much, and Ihated the amount of power and
influence he had. But this isnot enough to build an
institution, and that's what werealized midway. So at the
beginning, when we started, wereally started to try and
(04:28):
develop a certain type of solarwater pumping systems, because
Egypt has a lot of undergroundwater, and it is a main source
of water for agriculture, and touse solar energy directly for
the pumps. There was a kind of atechnical difficulty that needed
to be solved, and we managed insolving it with a patent. And
(04:49):
that was the beginning of thecompany. And then we started
really developing our businessmodel. Instead of selling solar
systems, we started investing insolar stations and selling power
to the private sector. And thenwe started. It working on power
distribution as well throughinvestment in power grids, and
then we started integratingpower generation and power
distribution through solar.
Well, the plan is for all thegrids that we're managing is
(05:12):
that you would get to solarpenetration that is 100% so each
grid has its own story and hasits own economics, but all of
them are moving towards becoming100% solar. So some grids are
still at 2% sort of penetration.
Some of them are 60% sort ofpenetration. It depends on how,
how fast that grid is growing,how the demand is changing,
(05:34):
whether there is a batteryinvestment or not, and so on.
But the aim is to eventuallydesign the power infrastructure
that would be able to have 100%renewable energy, because
currently, our powerinfrastructure in many of our
countries are designed primarilyfor fossil fuels, not for
(05:55):
renewable energy, right?
Dina Sherif (05:57):
So that brings me to my next question at the time
that you started calm solar, theworld was not, and definitely
our part of the world was notall excited about solar energy,
clean energy. It was still inthe very, very early days. So in
many ways, you started thiscompany, in a way, by accident,
(06:19):
and also you started in a spacethat was to great extent against
the grain, and in a region thatwas the main provider of fossil
fuels. So how did you manage tostay the course, to get to where
you are today, with such adifficult beginning, where there
are so many things movingagainst you, whether it be
(06:42):
politics, whether it be thatclean energy was still not the
obsession of the Arab region,building a strong team, all
these things. There's so manythings, raising capital. There
were so many things that weredifficult at the time. How did
you stay the course?
Ahmed Zahran (07:02):
I think there were two specific things that helped
us at the time. Number one, thatI had access to really some
great people that supported us,both financially,
psychologically, technically,and, you know, they really felt
that we represent them, and theyfelt that our success meant
(07:25):
something to them. And thesecond thing is consistency. You
need to show up to the officeevery day, working, smiling, you
know, accepting the challengesthat life's throwing at you, and
realizing that if you keep doingthat, and if you keep trying,
(07:46):
maybe something is going to workout. So it was always a bet that
maybe 1% of the 100% of thingswe're working on is going to
work out, and that whateventually happened. I mean, the
company has been around, andthis this month, we celebrate 13
years, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Which is the age of therevolution, the
Dina Sherif (08:10):
age of my own company? Oh, yeah, so many of us
started companies that year.
Yeah, exactly. It was, manycompanies, for sure, in Egypt,
and
Ahmed Zahran (08:20):
that's one of the main things that the revolution
did to the country that I'mstill very proud of, because I
still very much belong to thatrevolution and what it
represented to me and to manyother people like me.
Dina Sherif (08:34):
Yeah, I really love this idea of consistency and
just keep on showing up. But i iIt's not always easy, so I still
have to say, what, what did youneed to tap into, to just keep
showing up for your team and foreveryone? Because it's not
(08:55):
always easy to do that in theface of multiple obstacles. What
do you think that you have thatallowed you to do that?
Ahmed Zahran (09:06):
I have a cause, and I think having a cause is
something that provides with theenergy and drive to do anything,
and I only get to live once, soif I don't use my my life, my
(09:26):
time on this planet, to work onthe things that I really love
and believe in, I'm not going toget a second chance to do that.
And I believe I was created tohelp with a specific cause, and
I'm there to do it. And I thinkthat what makes me quite happy
(09:49):
to go to the office or to decideevery day
Dina Sherif (09:52):
to believe in something bigger than yourself,
yes, and
Ahmed Zahran (09:55):
I do not measure my. My success by achieving
anything during my lifetime. Ithink that a lot of the things
that we're going to be that wewant to achieve require time
that is more than our lifespan.
Yeah,
Dina Sherif (10:14):
so we won't likely live to see it, but it doesn't
matter. Yeah,
Ahmed Zahran (10:18):
so I don't care if I die defeated, as long as what
I believe in lives to succeed orwin one day. And that's the
thing that I think is veryimportant that we you know,
there's always this pressurefrom society for the instant
gratification seeing the fruitof my work right now, yeah, or
(10:40):
during my lifetime,
Dina Sherif (10:41):
I used to be in it for the long, the long exactly,
it
Ahmed Zahran (10:45):
took me a lot of time to train myself not to be
influenced by that. Because,listen, we come from a place
where problems are quitecomplicated and they will take a
lot of time to be solved, andnot one single generation will
be able to solve all of them,but someone has to start, and
(11:06):
someone has to start who is notaddicted to achievements. So we
have to be addicted to patientsrather than addicted to
achievements. Yeah, it's
Dina Sherif (11:16):
interesting that you say that. A couple of weeks
ago, I had a podcast with hisexcellency president, Masisi of
Botswana, and we talked aboutthe meaning of leadership, but
also specifically that ego hasto be let go of when you are in
(11:37):
the business of service orachieving something that is
bigger than yourself, would you?
It sounds like you would agreewith that
Ahmed Zahran (11:47):
very much. So, you know, there's a king called Mina
Narmer. He's the founder ofEgypt, basically. So he's the
one who Egypt. Before there wasEgypt, there was the kingdom of
the north and kingdom of theSouth, and he unified them and
created Egypt and the firstcentral government. And
Dina Sherif (12:07):
I'm sure not many, many of our audience would know
that. So that
Ahmed Zahran (12:11):
was around maybe 6200 years ago, and Mina never
saw the pyramids. He knowsnothing about them, but it is
because of his work that thepyramids eventually happened.
And that's, you know, I think, alesson that I learned from that
(12:34):
you have to be, you know,connected to what you want to
achieve, and disconnected fromwhen is it going to happen?
Because many of those things,especially if they are of a high
impact, you just need to createthe grounds that would allow the
people that come after you tocarry on with what you're trying
to do. So maybe I will not liveto see 100% solar grid, but I
(12:59):
want to get it as high aspossible, so that the people
after me can take it 100% and
Dina Sherif (13:03):
maybe that's what leadership is all about.
Ahmed Zahran (13:07):
I think leadership is about that plus many other
things, because life is verydifficult and we are created to
have a lot of fights andstruggles in life. And I think
(13:29):
the most difficult thing inlife, and that's what leadership
could help us with, is gainingwisdom. And I think wisdom is,
you know, is a very difficultthing to achieve, and it is my
hope that one day I'd be able tobe, you know, to be wise. And I
(13:53):
think that, you know, one of themain goals of leadership should
be achieving wisdom, becausewisdom helps you. Understanding
others helps you getting towhere you want to go, but also
it helps you in building acommunity building you know, a
structure of ideas, a structureof you know, human beings, a
(14:16):
structure of systems that allowhumanity to prosper and reduce
the injustice, the inefficiency,the waste that exists today.
Yeah,
Dina Sherif (14:31):
yeah. Well, I want to talk about something a little
different. Rumor has it that youhave very particular views about
recruiting talent and retainingtalent, and I would love for you
to share your own philosophyaround talent, talent
(14:53):
recruitment, but also retainingtalent, and as a result, how
that translates into culturewithin. An organization.
Ahmed Zahran (15:03):
I think that you know talented people like to
belong to a cause and like tounderstand how their work is
going to be impactful on theirsocieties and on the people
around them. And I trulybelieve. And I mean, from what
(15:26):
we've seen at corn solar, it isimportant that the people you
work with really understand theimpact of what they're working
on. It's not just about themoney, it's not just about the
financial compensation, and it'snot just about the career
development. It's not about thetitle. It's not about those
things alone. It's about whatare we trying to build and why
(15:46):
are we building it? It's aboutthe cause. Why does this place
exist? Why does that place needme, and how can I use that
place, this place where I'mworking, that institution, to
make life better for others andfor myself. So it is about the
(16:07):
accumulation of knowledge,accumulation of value. And I
believe that it takes a lot oftime to find those people who
are willing to, you know, towork with that work mode, and I
believe that it takes a lot oftime for people to really
(16:30):
understand what their cause is.
We sometimes, you know, thinkthat we're born with a cause
doesn't work this way, andtalented people are the ones who
understand that it takes time toidentify with what we align with
and what we want to achieve inlife. And I believe that it is
(16:50):
the job of any institution toprovide the platform for people
to achieve
Dina Sherif (17:00):
what they want to achieve exactly. And
Ahmed Zahran (17:03):
if you have, when you have an organization that
has that as you know as the coreof what they're working on,
you're usually able to attracttalent that are normally only
available for way biggerorganizations that are offering
much more attractive financialcompensations, but we don't have
(17:26):
as much money, and our peoplework in very difficult places,
but still, we're able to attractthat type of talent, and I think
the core reason for that is thecause that They belong to when
they work on those things,
Dina Sherif (17:43):
and maybe the passion that you have for it.
Ahmed Zahran (17:46):
Well, I, you know the what if I get hit by a bus
and I disappear? Does this meanthat that you know institution
or that cause is going todisappear the power of any
organization is in the abilityof its leader to resign. So I
(18:08):
think that my biggestachievement to crumb solo would
be my resignation. Someday,
Dina Sherif (18:14):
I would tend to agree with that, you know,
because I left my own company,yeah, and it continues on
exactly so I definitely, thatdefinitely resonates with me and
talk, talk to us a little bitabout the culture of calm solar.
For example, I know that youwere very bullish about your
(18:35):
team having lunch together andsitting on the roof rooftop and
spending time together like whatwas behind that? Not everybody
will take the time, you know.
And building a company is noteasy. There's time is never a
luxury. But you would take thetime for all of you to sit and
have a meal together, and thatwas just part of the culture of
(18:55):
carb solar. What what was behindthat, and what was the actual
culture that you wanted tobuild? So
Ahmed Zahran (19:05):
let's start with the with the problem that I was
trying to solve, you will finddifferent companies working
according to different workcultures. There is the American
work culture, there's theEuropean one. There is a very
specific English one. There isthe Japanese one, which is also
quite different. And as Arabsand as Egyptians, we never
(19:29):
really had our own workingculture. And what I thought of
is, what are the elements fromour culture that I think we
could add to the workplace thatwould make it more relevant to
how we function as people, andwhat are the elements of that
(19:51):
culture that if we introduce tothe working environment, others
outside of our culture can makeuse of you. Right? And Egypt
functions like one big grouphug. Yep,
Dina Sherif (20:04):
we love our communities exactly and, and we
love food exactly
Ahmed Zahran (20:09):
and, and you'll find a lot of interactions
between what is personal andwhat is business, and what is
social and what is not, and soon, even with dealing with
clients, with investors and soon, all those things you know,
it functions in a fundamentallydifferent way from other places.
And the question was, how canyou introduce that to the
working culture in a way thatwould not disrupt it and but
(20:32):
would be a reflection of how weas people, as a culture, view
the world? And I realized thatone of the best times that you
have with your friends and yourfamily is the way that we get
together around food, forexample. And also it's about the
physical space where we work.
It's about the the power of acourtyard, for example. So it's
(20:54):
not just about the our office inCairo, but our campus in the
Black Desert, for example, isone of the places that I love
working from. And a lot ofpeople in the company, they love
working from there. And it wasone of the main things that I
thought the company shouldinvest in. It has a workshop for
our engineers to work from andour technicians so that they can
(21:17):
come up with ideas andexperiment. It has a, you know,
a kitchen and a chef so thatthey can eat properly. It has,
you know, it has a very niceterrace, and it's in the middle
of the fields. And the reason itwas designed like that is to
make sure that it really borrowsfrom our architecture, our
(21:40):
distribution of space, becauseit's different from from it's
just a different interpretationof life. You know, we come from
hot climates, and the role of acourtyard is important. Now,
imagine what you can do with aterrace and a courtyard within
our own architecture, it createsa type of experience for the
(22:01):
people working, and a type ofinteraction between all of them
that is different from fromanywhere else. And that was the
idea. And it succeeded to theextent that at certain points in
time, very talented people whowere and who were always very
difficult to get to work in thedesert. Loved working from there
(22:22):
because it was quite enjoyable.
Although it was quite primitive,it did not really have a lot of
luxury into it. But it had goodlocal food. It had a workshop
where they can experiment. Ithad, it has good architecture,
so all those elementscontributed to that. And so what
(22:45):
I realized is that, you know, alot of ideas and a lot of
suggestions could come whenpeople gather around food to eat
together. So it's not a questionof offering a good meal. It's
not about offering the goodmeal. It's about the interaction
between different parts of theteam during the around the
(23:08):
activity of eating, and that'sthe most important thing, I
think, in terms of how we manageit so they have to eat at the
same time. It's not a questionof the availability of launch
between 12 and two, for example.
No, it's about lunches beingoffered during a specific half
an hour. And
Dina Sherif (23:28):
you all have to be there exactly. I love it. I love
it. So fast forward 2024 whichis where we are now. And you
know, Carm solar had a difficultfew years getting started, with
some difficulties in between,obviously, like any company. But
(23:54):
you know now Carm solar is in avery, very different place. And
not only is Carm solar verysuccessful, but Carm solar has
also given birth to a number ofnew subsidiaries, and that kind
of family of companies continuesto grow and evolve. And you're
(24:16):
you've moved beyond Egypt toother markets. So I wanted you
to share with the those who arelistening in what is that full
growth journey for you? What hasthat been like? And as you give
birth to new companies and newideas come into fruition, how
(24:38):
does that fit into that originalvision, or has that original
vision also shifted with time?
Or has that stayed very stablewith other things falling right
in between to achieve that?
Ahmed Zahran (24:55):
I mean, definitely the vision changed many times.
I. Actually, because as we wereworking, we were learning and
discovering things,consolidating is a is a
platform, and it has to functionas a platform that allows others
(25:16):
to build things that theybelieve in, and to be able to
technically develop what they'reworking on. And the reason it
has to function that way toachieve its scalability is
because I have to be lessinvolved. The the role that I
play is to make sure that thatplatform is functioning
(25:40):
efficiently and that people aregetting the resources that they
need to build, what they want tobuild, and it has to function in
that manner, because there aremany ways of doing things, and
if I stick to My way, this meansthat there are many other
(26:02):
possible, you know,alternatives, scenarios, methods
that can be used, that will bemissed by the company. When
you're working in a difficultenvironment, a difficult
economy, you cannot count on oneway of thinking, and you cannot
count on one source of revenue.
And because I grew up in Egypt,and because Egypt is a difficult
place to do business in, I wasalways thinking of that, that
(26:25):
the importance of a backup allthe time, the importance of
options all the time, and thatmade me and the management make
sure that different methods bydifferent management teams or
managing different companies canbe implemented, and that we can
support them and accept thatpeople can do things in a
(26:48):
different way, and we onlyintervene if they need support,
if there are certain problemsthat are happening, if they're
facing certain challenges thatthey do not Know how to deal
with or if certain thingsrequire certain type of
experience that they don't have.
But in general, they are left todo things the way they want and
(27:09):
to grow their own businesseswithin the umbrella of what
comes with and that really whatenabled us to diversify our
sources of income and survivethose difficult times,
especially after COVID,
Dina Sherif (27:21):
and allow people to evolve and create their own
things, yes,
Ahmed Zahran (27:25):
which is a because, I mean, not
Dina Sherif (27:27):
necessarily a common model, right?
Ahmed Zahran (27:30):
I don't know if this is a common model or not.
Please remember that most of mylearning is from trial and
error. I did not really get As
Dina Sherif (27:38):
with most entrepreneurs, right? That's a
part of the entrepreneurialjourney, exactly.
Ahmed Zahran (27:43):
So I don't know what happened out there. The
reason I do things like thefellowship and and other
educational, you know,activities that I engage with is
I try to find out what is outthere and what can be used to
minimize the impact of trial anderror. Because at the end of the
day, trial and error has animpact on the organization. And
(28:04):
it's always better to try anddiscover things that you can
reduce that impact. But again, Ireally learned a lot from how
others within the company managetheir part of the business, how
they look at things. I reallylearned from our board and how
they look at things,
Dina Sherif (28:23):
there's a lot of beauty and diversity,
definitely.
Ahmed Zahran (28:26):
And previously, I was not like that. I was very
specific and particular abouthow things should be done, and I
always felt that I have toimpose that on everyone. And it
took me again time to realize
Dina Sherif (28:40):
that doesn't always have to be done my way, yeah,
and
Ahmed Zahran (28:43):
that's not how you're going to scale. So you
have to guard governance andefficiency and provide that for
everyone, but they have to tryand do things their own way,
because they might reach abetter conclusion than yours.
And it's the survival of thebest ideas
Dina Sherif (29:09):
that's quite profound, actually. So hold
government governance and propergovernance stable, along with
efficiency of the business, butallow space for everything else
to emerge in its own particularway. You
Ahmed Zahran (29:26):
cannot hire talented people and then force
them to do what you want. That'sright, yeah. You have to, you
know, provide them with aplatform for them to be
creative, and I'm onlyparticular about products that I
(29:46):
am designing myself, but thingsthat they are designing, it's
just left to them. And that'sthe whole idea that when you
believe in a certain product orcertain services and you're
designing it, you need to giveit a chance, to try doing it
your own way. So I always, youknow, I always tell them,
whenever I see someonesuggesting something, and they
really believe in it, I tellthem, I will follow you. And
(30:13):
when I say that, it creates thetype of good liability that,
that I think is important forany organization. So there is a
difference between saying that II approve something, and saying
that I will follow the person.
When you say that you willfollow the person, they become
(30:38):
more responsible for what theyare doing, and they will start
assessing it and scrutinizing itin a better way, because you
gave them ownership exactly, andbecause they feel liable to you
and the rest of the company. Butwhen you approve things it, I
see it is a, you know, it's notabout approving or disapproving.
(31:03):
It's about following good ideas,right, and allowing them to
evolve and prosper. You know,because we, we are, we are
working in a in a poor countrywith a lot of trouble and
challenges. And when you put it
Dina Sherif (31:27):
mildly, to put it mildly, and
Ahmed Zahran (31:29):
when you're working in such circumstances,
you really need every braincell. And if you think that you
have the solution alone, youwould probably drown. But if you
make sure that others areengaged and are trying and are
doing their best to help andthat they understand the
responsibility of theirparticipation, your chances of
(31:52):
succeeding, I think, are goingto be higher.
Dina Sherif (31:58):
Very fair Well, you brought up the fellowship and
the fact that you're a foundryfellow, and during the
fellowship, you were introducedto this very out of the box and
not very traditional frameworkthat we call adaptive
leadership. And the impression Igot from you is that this
(32:19):
framework deeply impacted you.
And the question I have is, whyis it that this particular
framework of leadership impactedyou, and why do you think that
it's important for the center tocontinue to spread this
particular approach toleadership within the context of
the Arab region in Africa. Morebroadly.
Ahmed Zahran (32:46):
The the problem with people like me is that we
know how to talk and we know howto pitch, and that is sometimes
a double edged sword, because wecan say a lot of bullshit and it
(33:08):
will appear as if it's concreteand logical. And sometimes you
do it without intending to doit, because we were conditioned
to do it when you'refundraising, you have to get the
money in. When you'reencouraging and motivating
people, you have to say certainthings. And sometimes when
(33:31):
you're good at doing that, youmiss the real problem. And there
is, there is one of the profoundthings about adaptive
leadership, the fact that thereare certain challenges called
adaptive challenges, thatrequire the change of the system
or the change of the way ofthinking or the change of the
(33:51):
framework, but when you becomeso good at gaming the system,
you get addicted to what we calltechnical solutions that allow
you to navigate the corruptedsystem, or the corrupted
framework or mode of thinkingthat the company needs to change
in the first place. So thereally, the thing that I, that I
(34:15):
you know, that I love the most,is, you know, for an adaptive
challenge that requires aparadigm shift. You have to come
up with an adaptive solution.
But for an adaptive challenge,if you come up with a technical
solution that just doesn't makesense, you know, people like me
fill the air around everybodyelse with how we talk and what
we say, and you can have a lotof meetings with a lot of ideas
(34:38):
and suggestions and so on. Butbecause we're able to do that,
sometimes we miss the point. Wemiss the main challenge that we
have to be dealing
Dina Sherif (34:50):
with, which is much easier, an answer exactly, and
why you need an adaptivesolution exactly. So sometimes,
when for those who arelistening, who may not know the
framework right, the adaptive.
Challenge means that we don'treally have an answer or a known
solution, and that requirestime, because that means that we
need to come up with a newsolution, something that has
never been introduced before.
(35:14):
And if the solution was there,then it would be a technical
challenge with a technicalsolution, and everything would
be great, and we wouldn't needsomeone, yes,
Ahmed Zahran (35:24):
right? And because you can or
Dina Sherif (35:27):
we wouldn't need leadership, per se, you would
just need a good manager whounderstands the technical part
of it, who can take that problemand provide the technical
solution, because they have thatexpertise and be done with it.
It's exactly
Ahmed Zahran (35:39):
like how you market an unhealthy McDonald's
meal versus a really healthymeal that takes a lot of time to
cook, and that is what technicalsolutions are like. And because
we can do a lot of marketingaround technical solutions that
are not necessarily doing thatparadigm shift, it's much easier
(36:00):
to sell them to the team and getthem to work on things that are
not really changing the realityof how we're working
Dina Sherif (36:08):
and adaptive work takes time and takes a lot of
effort and a
Ahmed Zahran (36:11):
lot of resources and a lot of brainstorming and a
specific type of interactionbetween the people involved in
finding that solution. You know,one of the main things that I
learned from the fellowship aswell is how to uncomfortably
work with others, because wealways think and we always aim
(36:32):
for that comfortable workingsetup where we are
Dina Sherif (36:37):
all getting Along exactly and all is easy and easy
flow, whereas the magic happensin the tension Exactly. And
Ahmed Zahran (36:45):
one of the main things that I was always looking
for before the fellowship,because it's a question that I
always had, is, how can we learnhow to fight within the context
of where we are working or wherewe belong, to make sure that we
reach the best conclusionspossible or the best suggestions
(37:07):
possible. In Egypt in general,in the Arab world, the first
fight is usually the only fightand the last fight, and people
just split. Well,
Dina Sherif (37:19):
I don't think that's in Egypt alone. Tension
is uncomfortable.
Ahmed Zahran (37:23):
I think the Arabs have an expertise on but what I
what I'm trying to say is that Iwas always looking for how, if
there is a, you know, anacademic way of learning how to
fight and how to uncomfortablywork with others and be outside
of your comfort zone, but stillachieve something and still stay
connected as one exactly. Andthe the training on adaptive
(37:48):
leadership that we had at thefoundry fellowship really
provided me with a with a with apotential option of how to deal
with that. And I actuallystarted using it
Dina Sherif (38:03):
that makes us happy. Yeah,
Ahmed Zahran (38:05):
that's actually where I came up with, I will
follow you approach. I onlystarted using it after the
fellowship, because it is basedon that, that I do not have to
be leading everything. The wholeidea of leadership is everybody,
Dina Sherif (38:24):
and everybody can exercise leadership at any time,
in any at any point, exactly.
Ahmed Zahran (38:31):
And it's, you know, that's, that's, I would
have never imagined myselfthinking like that, because I
was very comfortable to provideall the necessary leadership,
and it was always in demand, andpeople were more comfortable
(38:52):
following me, and I think it'swhen they realized that I am not
just willing to follow them, butit is my intention to keep
following them. I think itcreated a shift, yeah, it
changed how people areperceiving, how we're working
together.
Dina Sherif (39:12):
Yeah? That makes me very happy to hear, yeah. It's
Ahmed Zahran (39:15):
now. It has become a very scary whenever I tell
anyone that
Dina Sherif (39:20):
they're like, oh, I can take ownership now. The
lights on me, yeah, I get that.
You know, part of the during thefellowship as well, you are also
exposed to our own views onAfrica and the importance of,
you know, Egypt is a part of theArab world. It's also part of
Africa. And at the center, wetalk about there, there was
(39:42):
Africa pre colonial times, andAfrica during colonial times, in
Africa in a post colonial era,and where we haven't
Ahmed Zahran (39:53):
seen the third one yet. Well, we've seen we're
still, we're still
Dina Sherif (39:58):
the rise of.
Political independence. What wehave not seen is true, economic
liberation.
Ahmed Zahran (40:04):
I don't differentiate between the three.
Well, I would agree
Dina Sherif (40:07):
with you. I don't necessarily differentiate, but
for the sake of the world, Ithink you know, in the eyes of
many, Africa has achievedpolitical independence, but we
are still very much trying tofind our way towards economic
agency and sovereignty. And atthe center, we have this deep
(40:28):
belief that entrepreneurs areextremely important to the
achievement of economic agencyand sovereignty within Africa.
What are your own thoughtsaround the importance of
entrepreneurship andentrepreneurs to creating
(40:49):
economic agency within countrieslike Egypt and beyond.
Ahmed Zahran (40:54):
Entrepreneurship is a form of resistance. It is a
way of fighting stupidity,inefficiency, corruption and the
oligarchs. The world is missingour interpretation of the world
(41:15):
and our interpretation of life,and we have so many colors that
the world has not seen yet. AndI think that this will be only
achieved if there is a true andsincere decolonization of Africa
(41:36):
and the Arab world, and not justAfrica and the Arab world. I
think this is, you know, this isa thing that connects
Dina Sherif (41:43):
Africa, Arab world, Latin America, Asia. Many
countries have been a
Ahmed Zahran (41:50):
part of this journey. I'd call them the
unfortunates of this world. Andthe beauty of entrepreneurship
is that it allows you with verylittle resources to fight
against the powerful and showyour point of view. And although
(42:16):
we have a lot of resources inAfrica, we don't have access to
them. So there's a differencebetween having a resource and
actually having access to it.
And because of a lot of powerstruggles and, you know, and
political issues and so on, wewere cornered in a way where we
do not have access to our ownresources. And I think what
(42:38):
entrepreneurship is providing uswith is the tool to resist and
change all of that, becauseentrepreneurship teaches you and
allows you to use the verylittle resources that you have
access to to tap into the biggerresources that You're not
allowed to touch, and it allowsyou to outsmart the the power
(43:02):
hungry, the outsmartdictatorship,
Dina Sherif (43:15):
to outsmart colonialism, Imperial. Yes,
Ahmed Zahran (43:19):
definitely. And I think it's, it's, I think it's
going to take a lot of time, butI think that, I think that we
are creative people, and I thinkthat our the hardships that we
(43:42):
had to go through, and thenumber of things that we had to
struggle with on daily basiswhile growing up, has made us
interpret the world and see itin a fundamentally different way
from others, the way we are ableand willing to confront things
(44:04):
that are usually disruptive inmany places is higher than what
you would find in Europe orAmerica or any other developed
country. And I think this is ourpassport to a better life,
because not only do we work withmuch, much less, much less, but
(44:26):
we are capable of coping withtougher circumstances.
Resilient? Yeah, no, I wouldn'twant to use resilient, because
resilient is a very Western wayof looking at it's not
resilient, it's we are morecapable at dealing with
(44:49):
randomness.
Dina Sherif (44:50):
Yeah, I had a another fellow recently say
about, we had a workshop, youknow, about currency volatility.
And she said, you know, inAfrica, we just. Roll with the
punches exactly. I said to her,said, How did what was going
through your mind when, when thedevaluation in your particular
company or country happened? Andshe said, you know, Dina, we
(45:12):
just roll with the punches.
Where we come from, just the wayit goes,
Ahmed Zahran (45:17):
but the Yeah, but, but, you know, when you say
resilience, it doesn't reallycover resilience mean, means
that I'm capable of dealingextreme situations with
conditions that I can expect orthat I know of, or maybe
sometimes that I'm trained for,but it's like an extreme version
(45:39):
of it, but our ability to dealwith black swans is, I don't
want to say unmatched, but it'squite good, or maybe it's our
superpower, because we, youknow, I like to say to notify I
(46:02):
think we're street cats. I knowyou've said that before that you
know, nothing comes easy.
Nothing does come easy. That isvery true, yeah, within a
condition where everything isagainst you.
Dina Sherif (46:22):
Yeah. And in spite of it all, we continue, right?
Yes, yeah. I don't know. Maybethe word, I often say that
there's this word calledresilience, and then there's
this idea of emotionalresilience. And when I say
emotional resilience, it's Imean it in the face of multiple
(46:43):
struggles, you do not fallapart. You don't bury your head
in the sand or go into a dark,deep, dark depression. It's more
that you are able to pushthrough the difficult moments
and manage your emotions in away to allow you to keep taking
one step forward in front of theother. I have never seen that,
(47:08):
you know, as much as I have seenthat in my own country or in
countries like ours,
Ahmed Zahran (47:13):
because you cannot afford that 10 minutes of
crying.
Dina Sherif (47:17):
Yeah, in many ways it's very true. I mean,
Ahmed Zahran (47:21):
you just simply cannot afford it. There are a
lot of people dependent on you.
You have a lot of commitments.
You have to be always capableand ready to deal with
unfamiliar situations,unexpected issues, and still
(47:42):
grow, because it's not justabout survival, by the way, it's
about growing within thatcontext and within those
circumstances. And I think thisis the thing that we this is the
value that we, that we have tooffer the world. I think this
is, you know, a missing colorthat if people see in us, and
(48:09):
what we are trying to build andwhat we're trying to do, that
they might like and they mightadopt some of what we have, just
like music, you know, so Africanmusic is the cool thing now, but
it has an impact in other typesof music that are not
necessarily related to Africanmusic today. Yeah, but people
(48:30):
got a chance to see it, try itand integrate it within what
they built. Yeah, that's right,but they haven't seen how we
work, and they haven'tnecessarily seen how we solve
problems. And I believe if theyget to see it, and if they get
(48:50):
to assess it in, you know, in acomprehensive and sincere way,
that they have something tolearn from us, we're always
perceived as inefficient andlazy, and, you know, generally
behind. And although this istrue from a technical point of
(49:11):
view, and although we are farbehind in terms of human
development, which is true, andwe are poor, and we have to
admit it, and we have toacknowledge it so that we're
able to deal with it. But wehave a lot of values, ideas,
ways of doing things that arerelevant to the extreme
(49:33):
conditions, extreme, you know,unfavorable conditions that
we're going through that aregoing to help us in not just
solving it, but offeringsomething to the world that they
can, that they can also make useof. And I know that this is
necessarily going to happenduring my lifetime, but I know
(49:54):
that the work we're doing todayis going to have a contribution.
To what our people are going toachieve 200 years from today,
Dina Sherif (50:05):
yeah, or hopefully sooner. I have to ask you, you
know you have become extremelyfamous amongst your fellow
fellows at the center, andamongst many people who also
know you with this term,entrepreneurship is resistance.
But I've and you and I have beenfriends for a very, very long
time, but I've never actuallyasked you, how did that phrase
(50:29):
pop into your mind?
Ahmed Zahran (50:32):
Because I always think of that oligarch that
Dina Sherif (50:39):
I think we get I think we get it from here. We
get it from here. No,
Ahmed Zahran (50:43):
it's that anger developed into that, I think,
more sustainable way ofunderstanding the world. So I
realized that what is betterthan anger is understanding what
I have in my mind to to dealwith the situation. You know, he
(51:08):
was actually after we got fired,he was actually calling some of
our potential clients, tellingthem not to work with us. He was
calling some of the people whowere willing to invest with us,
warning them from andthreatening them not to invest
with us. And I didn't reallyunderstand why would someone who
is 70 something years old, and Iwas like, 31 at the time, do
(51:33):
that, really. I kept thinking,you know, it just didn't make
sense to me, especially in theway our culture works where, you
know, I'm very young, is veryold, is very powerful. I don't
have any power in my hand. Whywould you would he have an issue
with me? And I realized it's theproblem of obedience. It is
(51:58):
really about obedience. So thefirst thing that comes to mind
when you when you feel how theperson in front of you wants you
to be obedient about somethingwhere they don't have the right
to require or ask for thatobedience, that there has to be
resistance to that. And Irealized by the work that we are
(52:21):
doing, and by the institutionand the company that we're
building, it is resisting that,and that was the way that anger
was channeled, was changed anddeveloped into the understanding
that it's actually itsresistance. Yeah, so it is one
form of resistance that somepeople can use to change the
(52:42):
reality of themselves and of thepeople around them and of their
community. People like me werenot allowed to have companies
like console and they were notallowed to think the way we
(53:07):
started thinking in 2011 whenthe revolution happened. And I
know that because I know myselfand how I thought before 2011
and as I told you, I would havenever thought of starting a
company. I always viewed myselfas the best employee ever, and
there is nothing wrong withbeing an employee. It's just
about the mentality and how muchrisk you're willing to take. And
(53:31):
I am so upset, like reallyupset, that I was made to think
like that, and I think it wasnot fair. I agree with that. So,
yeah, so I think, you know, andthat's why it is resistance to
those types of thinking, and thefact that some people in certain
(53:53):
societies feel that they havethe right or they have the
ability to force others to actor think in a certain way. So
entrepreneurship allows you andprovides you with the platform
resist and enforce your versionof doing things, you know, but
(54:17):
it takes time. I mean, it's nota it takes a lot of time.
Obviously, yeah,
Dina Sherif (54:25):
I do feel you on many levels. I want to ask you a
couple of more personalquestions, because, you know,
you and I are both Egyptian, andEgypt is going, you know, Egypt
has gone through many difficulttimes, but there's something
(54:46):
really wonderful, beautifulabout the Egyptian, or I would
say about you in particular, isthat in spite of some of these
challenges and things that for.
Frustrate, frustrate us aboutstate of the country and so
forth and so on. You have thisdeep love for your country and
(55:07):
for those who don't know you,you have a deep love for
history, and you the history ofEgypt and the history of the
Egyptian people and the culture,and how the culture has evolved,
and the food, and the differentkinds of food that exists in our
country, where did that lovecome from? Did it come from your
(55:28):
family? Where did it where didit come from? And how do you
keep that love alive, as youalso have some feelings of anger
as well.
Ahmed Zahran (55:49):
Um, you know, people develop, develop
particular taste for things, andusually when you grow somewhere
and you know the place, youdevelop a taste for that. So I
(56:10):
definitely have a taste forEgypt. But I think the thing
that connects Egypt to othercountries and to Africa and to
South America is the suffering,and that's what I love about
Egypt, is that I get a chance topunch some people, and I hope
(56:38):
that this would be helpingothers. In other places, give
punches to those who deserve itas well. And Egypt is, for me,
is, you know, you know, I don'twant to sound like
(57:03):
nationalistic, but it is it. Itcan provide a lot of relevant
examples to a lot of people,because it sits on the
intersection of differentcultures and trade routes. So it
means something to Africa,because we have a shared history
of oppression. It meanssomething to the Arabs. It means
(57:26):
something to the Mediterranean.
It means something to differenttypes of people in different
societies. And that's what Ilike, that whatever you
experiment with in Egypt,whatever you try and works out
in Egypt, it is going to providesomething that others can work
with or develop. And I feel it'sa responsibility being an
(57:50):
Egyptian. I don't think it'sit's easy being an Egyptian. I
think being an Egyptian is, Iwouldn't say, a liability, but
it's just, it's not an easy job.
You know, trying
Dina Sherif (58:03):
an Egyptian woman, but
Ahmed Zahran (58:07):
Egyptian women are quite powerful, I have to say,
Dina Sherif (58:11):
according to you,
Ahmed Zahran (58:14):
so, I mean, you wouldn't want to upset an
Egyptian
Dina Sherif (58:19):
woman. Fair, fair.
I want to ask you anotherpersonal question. And this
question is really built, Ithink, on my lived experience as
your friend. And you know, youhave your three kids, you have a
wife, and you have this, like,army of friends, a lot of them,
and amidst of all that you dorunning this big company and all
(58:44):
of the other entrepreneurs thatyou mentor and that you coach,
you're like this fierceprotector of your family and of
your friends. Why is that, andwhat's behind
Ahmed Zahran (59:05):
that. You know, when you are living in a shitty
neighborhood, that's what youhave to do, because, like your
friend said, you don't knowwhere the punches are coming
from. Anyhow, coming from, andyou have to roll over with the
punches, you know, every day. Sothe social depth is something
(59:31):
that means a lot to me. I willonly live once, and if I don't
work with and if I'm notsurrounded by the people I love
and appreciate, then I think myloss would be really big. So
(59:52):
that's why I think it's justit's an important aspect of of
my life. Really
Dina Sherif (59:58):
now I feel like the next time you. Eight, don't go
to sleep early, come spend timewith me when we're in Soma Bay
next and I'm not gonna be ableto say
Ahmed Zahran (01:00:08):
no, yes, because we don't, we don't know when are
we going to die. It's a fact oflife
Dina Sherif (01:00:16):
and a lesson we both learned very well.
Ahmed Zahran (01:00:19):
So basically, I mean, it's just always, it's
important to just invest in, youknow, in relationships and then
family and then and in qualitytime. You know, it's not just
about spending time together. Ithink the one thing that is
missing is quality time.
Dina Sherif (01:00:41):
Yeah, but since you brought up death, and we all
know that death is coming, thispodcast is really also about the
legacy of purpose that we wantto leave behind. And I would
like to end with this one simplequestion, when you leave this
(01:01:02):
world, what do you want yourlegacy of purpose to be?
Ahmed Zahran (01:01:08):
That people would say that I just tried hard. I'm
not interested in success,really. I mean, it's a very,
very long term thing thatoutlives us. I'm more interested
in building the infrastructurethat would support us and others
(01:01:38):
and allow someone to succeedsomeday.
Dina Sherif (01:01:47):
Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to
have this conversation. We'vebeen friends for such a long
time, and every time I feel likeI have a conversation with you,
I learn something new, not justabout you, but I learned
something new to take away intomy own life. And I just hope you
know how much I appreciate you
Ahmed Zahran (01:02:09):
same here, and I always enjoy being at MIT. Yeah,
I think MIT is a kind ofaddiction.
Dina Sherif (01:02:17):
Well, we enjoy having you, everyone around here
the minute you walk in. Youknow, we're big fans.
Ahmed Zahran (01:02:26):
Me too. I'm big I'm a big fan of you,
personally, and for all thesupport that you provide for the
people around you, whether inthe US or back in Egypt, I don't
know how much people are awareof that, but you do play a role,
even in your absence back home.
Thank you. I appreciate that. Ihope you still call it home.
(01:02:46):
It's
Dina Sherif (01:02:47):
100% is home, okay?
It is 100% home. I am alsodeeply in love with Egypt, not
because I want to punch anybody,but because I love it. It's my
home. It is Thank you. Ahmed,
Ahmed Zahran (01:03:03):
anytime, anytime.
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