The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee lays out the problems humans will face as technology rapidly consumes more of our daily lives. The second half of the book is about ‘bounty and spread,’ meaning the rewards and those to whom the rewards go. In the Second Machine Age, bounties will be consolidated into the hands of fewer and fewer people, even when the bounties are getting bigger. For Africans, who are no stranger to their country’s bounties being consolidated by a few, this bodes poorly for their future. There is often talk about how technology will democratize Africa, how people’s access to phones will enable them to take a larger part in the democracies they have been excluded from. However, reading the second machine age opened my eyes to how bleak the world will become for poor Africans. Digitization, exponential growth of technologies, automation and innovation will create more wealth which will accrue to a smaller percentage of African people than the rest of the world. In fact, due to globalization, much of the bounty created by African’s will accrue to non-Africans. It will become a de-facto third colonialism of Africa, a digital colonialism. There will be almost no opportunity for Africans to use the powerful effects of technology to build massive businesses. There aren’t massive data centers across Africa. There isn’t a VC industry. The large Western businesses will only get stronger, and faster, and more able to move into other countries. We live in a winner take all world right now, and unfortunately Africa has the odds stacked against her.