Meet Strive Masiyiwa: Africa’s own Larry Ellison

Strive Masiyiwa, the unassuming and soft-spoken telecoms visionary behind Econet Group and Cassava Technologies, is Zimbabwe’s richest person and the 21st wealthiest in Africa, with a net worth of over $1.3 billion, according to Forbes.

A builder of systems and ideas, his quiet determination and strategic brilliance draw a striking parallel to Larry Ellison’s; different in scale and setting, yet alike in purpose and depth of vision.

Returning home, he joined the Zimbabwe Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (ZPTC), which held a monopoly on phone services.

When he left to start his own engineering company, and later Econet Wireless, the government fought him bitterly in court for years. He eventually won, securing a mobile license and changing Zimbabwe’s telecom history.

Today, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe is the country’s largest mobile operator, with more than 11.5 million active subscribers and a market capitalisation estimated between US$500–600 million.

Through the wider Econet Group, Masiyiwa oversees operations and investments in over 17 countries across Africa, Europe, the Americas, and East Asia.

Larry Ellison’s early life was equally formative, though shaped by different circumstances. Born in 1944 in New York City and raised by his aunt and uncle in Chicago, Ellison faced challenges from the outset.

He dropped out of the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago before moving to California in the 1960s, drawn by the emerging tech industry. There, he began working on database projects for the CIA, laying the foundation for Oracle Corporation, which he co-founded in 1977.

Both men faced adversity: Masiyiwa with regulatory barriers and civil unrest, Ellison with financial and academic setbacks, but turned those struggles into opportunity.

Where Ellison built the backbone of enterprise computing, Masiyiwa is building the digital infrastructure of a continent. Their stories converge around persistence, foresight, and the will to construct systems that endure.

Larry’s Oracle was born from an idea: Edgar F. Codd’s research on relational databases.

Ellison, who would go on to become one of Silicon Valley’s most renowned billionaires, saw the potential to turn that academic concept into a commercial revolution ‘I’ve always believed that the most important thing is to build something that lasts, not something that merely dazzles for a moment,’ he once said.

Masiyiwa’s inspiration is similarly rooted in pivotal conversations and bold thinking. He recalled meeting Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote and former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Singapore:

“Our ‘Baba’ [as we call former President Olusegun Obasanjo] challenged us both that day to ‘do bigger things for Africa… stuff you guys can now do!’”

Dangote’s new refinery was all the sign he needed; however, the idea had not yet fully crystallized. Later, during a panel where experts claimed Africa could only consume AI, Masiyiwa decided to act:

“Sitting there, I thought to myself, ‘If Aliko can raise $19 billion, surely I should be able to raise a few billion dollars to get AI Compute started in Africa. After all, we already have most of the key components right here in our own companies!’

The AI boom has created fortunes for many, but few have approached it with purpose. Ellison positioned Oracle as indispensable to AI-driven enterprises worldwide; Masiyiwa aims to do the same for Africa.

Each facility will house thousands of Nvidia GPUs, giving African researchers, startups, and governments access to high-performance computing locally.

The factories, managed through Cassava Technologies, will leverage a 100,000-kilometre fibre network, twelve renewable-energy colocation halls, and last-mile connectivity through Liquid Intelligent Technologies.

The first GPU pods in Johannesburg are expected to go online in Q3 2026, with the full network operational by year’s end. By 2027, at least 50% of Africa’s AI researchers will have access to these critical resources.

“Our AI factory provides the infrastructure for innovation to scale,” Masiyiwa said. “African startups and researchers no longer have to look beyond the continent to get it.”

Although Ellison is not typically soft-spoken, widely known for his bold, outspoken, and competitive personality, he is now one of the world’s richest people.

In contrast to Masiyiwa’s quiet, methodical approach, Ellison’s style is assertive and expansive. yet both converge at the intersection of disciplined execution.

He has turned Oracle into a cornerstone of global AI infrastructure, growing the company through decades of strategic acquisitions, including Sun Microsystems ($7.4 billion in 2009) and NetSuite ($9.3 billion in 2016), expanding Oracle into cloud computing, cybersecurity, and enterprise intelligence.

Oracle’s technology now underpins AI-ready databases and cloud platforms used by governments and corporations in over 175 countries. “People want the spotlight, but I want the architecture,” Ellison once said.

In 2025, the company began constructing one of the world’s largest AI computing clusters in Abilene, Texas, spanning 1,000 acres and housing over 450,000 NVIDIA GB200 GPUs.

Oracle also partnered with OpenAI and SoftBank on the Stargate Project, a planned US$500 billion investment in AI infrastructure, and signed a multi-billion-dollar deal with AMD for 30,000 MI355X AI accelerators to rival NVIDIA’s dominance.

Both men pair ambition with purpose.

Ellison founded the Ellison Medical Foundation in 1997 to fund research on ageing and age-related diseases, later establishing the Ellison Institute of Technology with Oxford University to address global challenges in AI, robotics, healthcare, and food security.

Through the Larry Ellison Foundation, he supports health, education, conservation, and climate initiatives, and in 2010 signed the Giving Pledge, committing to donate most of his wealth.

With his wife Tsitsi, he co-founded the Higherlife Foundation, supporting orphaned and underprivileged children in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Burundi, and Lesotho.

Larry Ellison’s fortune has soared with the AI boom, making him the world’s second-richest person. The Oracle co-founder, who owns about 40% of the company, crossed the $400 billion mark in 2025 as demand for AI infrastructure surged.

Strive Masiyiwa’s path has been less predictable, shaped by Africa’s economic volatility. Zimbabwe’s currency depreciation and market swings have repeatedly eroded his wealth.

In 2020, a new currency policy cut his fortune from $2.3 billion to $1.1 billion. However, as he moves deeper into Africa’s AI ecosystem, his fortunes may soon rise again; this time on home soil.

Both men pair ambition with refinement. Masiyiwa owns luxury New York apartments in the Eldorado Towers worth $24.5 million and a £24 million, 24-room mansion in the UK. Ellison, meanwhile, has spent over $1 billion amassing global estates; from Hawaii’s Lāna‘i Island to Malibu mansions and historic properties worldwideeach a testament to his obsession with architecture, art, and beauty.

In a world captivated by Elon Musk’s bold ventures or Aliko Dangote’s oil empires, Ellison and Masiyiwa’s quieter, calculated rise reminds us that real power lies in constructing the frameworks on which entire industries depend.

As Ellison once said, “It’s not about being the richest man in the world, it’s about being the most prepared.”

Masiyiwa is doing for Africa what Ellison did for enterprise IT globally, building the backbone on which a continent’s digital future can thrive.