How did the Nigerian billionaires say they got rich, and what did they say about scaling a business?

The Nigerian billionaires framed getting rich as creating value for other people. The Andela co-founder said wealth comes from productivity, and that in Nigeria you only make money by making other people money. He described moving people earning about $100 a month into careers paying several hundred thousand dollars a year. The real estate developer stressed that your name and integrity are the first thing that makes you money, and that you have to keep your word. The Ezone chairman listed hard work, discipline, and deferred gratification as his core attributes, and said he skipped buying a car early on to acquire property instead. Scaling, in their telling, depends on systems and people. The Andela co-founder said the key is making things automatic, with recruiting, onboarding, and annual reviews running on a fixed schedule, and that a billion-dollar company is really a team of people who could each have built a $10 million business alone. Dangote described backward integration, producing locally what the company used to import, and the oil and gas dealmaker credited his ability to read and close a deal.