Kenyan tech entrepreneur explains why he turned down a scholarship to Harvard

Zagace Founder & President, Mubarak Muyika, joins 'Influencers with Andy Serwer' to explain why he turned down Harvard and discuss his path to success.

Video Transcript

ANDY SERWER: At some point you applied to Harvard, though, and got a scholarship, but decided not to go. Tell us about that.

MUBARAK MUYIKA: Actually, what was the case was this. When I won the award in my very first time at national level, the thing became what's the next best thing for somebody of that level, which was the advice of multiple partners, and teachers, and stakeholders that were involved in my life, including one of the gentlemen of the companies that was supporting the whole event, [INAUDIBLE].

So he had been an alumni of Harvard. And so it felt like the next best thing to do, considering he's also an alumni of my school, and he got into the almost the highest level from a business perspective, so I applied to Harvard. And it was something that I felt like was the best thing for me at the time. So I was supported through the whole application process. And was really an amazing experience.

But then it got to a point where I did not know about this piece about where I had some of my peers, like had actually won an award, which was this [INAUDIBLE]. So it brought in like a new dynamic in the competition, because for the first time what I felt I was going to do at Harvard from a software engineering perspective, I felt like some of my peers already had raised funds, they already had employees, and they were already competing.

And that would take me, like, five years behind for me to actually catch up with them. So it became a situation where I decided, no, scrap this. I have to remain ahead. So that whole process made me decide, like, I can put a wait on this.

And actually what I decided at the time is that I'm not going to think about this Harvard thing anymore. I just want to win first. Then in the process of winning, that became a process of three years by the time I get to think about it again.

ANDY SERWER: Did you ever have any regrets about not going to Harvard?

MUBARAK MUYIKA: I actually, I never thought about it like that, because my thing about it was winning. I wanted to win at all costs, because the problem at the time was I used to every time I'd look at multiple people and peers, I'd be like, what does it take to be number one? What's so different from that guy and me?

So that whole thing used to be like that. So at the time, there were multiple people who I felt had beaten me. And if I was going to go down that road, I was going to be five years behind. And so I wouldn't say I regret it. I just think that there was a different path to take.