African founders are taught to dream in thousands. While Silicon Valley dreams in billions. This is why we're losing. A founder in Rwanda pitched me. Asked for $50K. Promised VC returns with a straight face. In Lagos, when we started raising for Afropolitan, our deck said $5M. African investors pulled us aside: "That's too ambitious. Try $1M. It'll be easier to close." In San Francisco, American VCs had the opposite reaction: "Only $1m to build a digital nation? Why so little?" The gap isn't capital. It's audacity. We've let scarcity program our dreams. Taught ourselves to apologize for thinking big. Convinced ourselves that ambition is arrogance when you're African. Fam, we come from people who built pyramids. Who crossed deserts with gold. Who created kingdoms that made Europe look primitive. Now we're out here thinking $50K can compete with founders raising $5M pre-product. This isn't humility. It's self-sabotage. While we're being "realistic," Silicon Valley is funding flying cars. While we're being "prudent," they're colonizing Mars. While we're playing not to lose, they're playing to own the future. Here's what haunts me: That Rwandan founder was brilliant. His idea could scale. But his $50K ceiling meant he'd never get the resources to prove it. We're not behind because we lack talent. We're behind because we lack audacity. If we're going to catch up, we need to match them. Audacity for audacity. Ambition for ambition. Dream for dream. Stop letting geography shrink your imagination. The world isn't waiting for another small African startup. It's waiting for the African founder who thinks like they already won. What would you build if you believed you deserved to? If this post resonates with you, share with your network.