Business tycoon and former Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi, has revealed how he lost out on an opportunity to invest in the popular teleconferencing and online chat services app, Zoom.
He said this at a webinar which held on Saturday, according to a report in the PUNCH.
Obi who disclosed that the investment was less than 30 cents, regretted missing on an opportunity he should have seized with both hands.
Zoom has grown during the course of the pandemic, with its market capitalization skyrocketing to $50 billion as at May 30, 2020, despite recording a revenue of $623m in 2019.
“I was telling someone a few days ago how in 2015 I met people where I have gone to do a programme in the US and they came out and told me about the Zoom business that just started. As of that time, it would cost you less than 30 cents to invest in Zoom if I wanted to do so.
“This is because they were telling me about a business proposal and I said this will never happen where we would be in our houses and be doing meetings- it would take some time. Here I am now, being in the house for four months only to do meetings through the same thing,” he said.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) vice presidential candidate in the 2019 election said lack of support of business in Nigeria was killing several dreams and was part of reasons the idea wasn’t worth considering at the time.
“Eventually one of them came to me and said they have been able to get funding from the government and from the bank. I said they were lucky, in my country, nobody would give you any funding for such an idea.
“You have to bring properties from your mother and father in order to be able to get funding for such. This story you are telling me, I cannot put money behind it talk less of me lending you money as a banker,” Obi said.
He stated that Nigeria was still stuck in the past and it needs to wake up to the realities of time or else, it would be left behind.
According to him, “When we talk of the new normal, we have to look at the environments. Look at what is happening all over the world, Countries are having closed-door meetings on rejigging the economies but what are we doing here? We are doing the opposite. We are talking about all the ways of the past. All these new opportunities must be taken differently with new thinking.
“Today’s jobs are global. You can be in Nigeria and work for a firm in London. Doctors do examinations on zoom, making them global workers who must do things differently. Politicians have to do things differently to have a better country.”
Obi, however, noted that if the country doesn’t move with the times, it may become difficult for it to compete with its contemporaries in the years to come.
