Part 77
Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about what constitutes success. It seems to me that it means many things to many people, but the majority of us strange creatures called humans seem to focus on wealth as our yardstick.
At the height of the Victorian era, class was more the criterion but, of course, many of the aristocrats had inherited wealth … until it ran out!
So, what makes a billionaire and are they a species on a level above us mere mortals? In my last blog I wrote about two billionaires who were at school with me. Ron Holmes à Court was descended from British aristocracy, but clearly had an obsession to succeed in business. Whether it was just for the money or recognition or even for the simple goal of succeeding, I have no idea.
Dick Enthoven came from a very prosperous middle-class Dutch family and managed to build on their existing wealth, initially in South Africa and later globally.
Did I feel inferior to these two guys? To be honest, I was more intimidated by their academic prowess at school than I was in later years when they made their millions. At school I was the sports jock, great on the rugby field and boxing ring and considered to be one of those harmless idiots without a shred of grey matter. I made a profession of failing exams but did show some skill with writing. Even I began to believe that people like Rob and Dick were a different species from me – until one day the school decided to give all of us an IQ test. I actually found it quite interesting.
A few days later I was called into the headmaster’s office (at Michaelhouse, he was called the Rector) and faced an irritable looking man, not my favorite person, who said, “Dresser, I don’t know what to make of you. I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re bone lazy. All you want to do is prance around the sports field and show off.”
I had no idea what had set him off. I was not his favorite person anyway and I decided that he had found another way to needle me. Then it occurred to me that I had probably done so badly with my IQ test that he just wanted to rub it in. I decided to at least offer a token protest even though I was beginning to think he was right. I assured him I was not lazy but didn’t find the subjects I was studying interesting enough to retain much of the data.
The man shook his head despairingly. “What I cannot understand is that you have one of the highest IQs in the school and yet you are hopeless academically.” Even with my superior IQ I couldn’t offer him an answer and left his office with an increase in our mutual dislike.
What did give me a ray of hope was the thought that I was not completely stupid; how to translate that into improving my exam marks was beyond me at the time. Later in life I discovered the perils of the word not fully understood and what it did for my learning and lack thereof.
Anyway, on to my third billionaire. He was certainly not at school with me and is considerably younger. When I first met him, I had absolutely no idea of who he was other than he owned a new and flourishing insurance company in Johannesburg and had just built a magnificent tall new building that appeared to be made entirely of panels of pale green glass that shimmered brilliantly in the late afternoon sun.
The man, Douw Steyn, was an Afrikaner whose short-term insurance company, Auto & General, had come up with the innovative idea at the time of telephone sales rather than having to go through all the rigors of endless paperwork. The new building was to have an official opening and he needed someone to film the event.
Douw was a large and quite friendly fellow. Had I met him in the street I would have classified him as an Afrikaner and probably an ex-rugby player. I have no idea whether he had any sporting prowess, but I do know he graduated as a quantity surveyor (in South Africa, a financial consultant of the construction industry) in 1978 from Potchefstroom University in the then Orange Free State. He worked for a while as a quantity surveyor for the national power grid, Eskom, then went to Germany on a two-year study program. During this time Douw realized the value of monthly motor-insurance policies. He spent a short time in the US where he founded Cal America Education Institute, as his innovative ideas about short-term insurance were evolving.
The new Auto & General Insurance building opened in 1985. My film crew and I shot scenes of the ceremony, then followed the celebrity guests to the Johannesburg Country Club nearby where a sumptuous meal was served. At the main table Douw hosted a number of important businessmen and women, including my school pal Dick Enthoven and the guest of honor, the then South African President F. W, de Klerk. Even though de Klerk was to go on to release Nelson Mandela and eventually hand over the country to the iconic leader of the African National Congress in 1994, his views on race relations were not yet clear. Dick Enthoven, a former political “Young Turk” of the Progressive Reform Party, threw a cat of color among the all-white pigeons by having as his partner for the evening a stunningly beautiful young lady of mixed race. It certainly created a loud buzz during the dying days of Apartheid.
I’ve written this before but will repeat that I needed to go to the toilet that evening, I approached the “gents” to see a large security man standing in front of the door. He politely asked if I needed to use the facility. I nodded and he let me in. Imagine my surprise when I found the only person occupying one of the urinals was President de Klerk. I hesitantly approached a neighboring urinal. The President smiled and wished me a good evening. Almost tongue- tied I gabbled on about hoping that our camera lights were not too irritating for him. He shook his head and said he was used to it.
A while later I started writing a book on South African politics and decided to entitle it “A Pee with the President.” Sadly, I never finished it.
Anyway, Douw’s company went from success to success. A couple of years later, I was contacted by Douw’s office to ask if I would shoot a short video for him? I agreed and arrived as arranged at Lanseria Airport (the smaller secondary airport for Johannesburg) with my crew. We were invited on board his Lear jet. I had no idea where we would be flying to. I was surprised to discover that we were going to Vanderbijlpark, only about 45 miles away. However, we spent a few hours there filming Douw and the branch manager, then flew on to Klerksdorp, over 100 miles away. This seemed to justify the use of an expensive private jet.
On the way back Douw, who was between marriages, spent most of his time chatting up the air hostess. Apart from the fact that Douw was clearly a smart businessman, I still had little idea of what was to come. His company, Auto & General, continued to dominate the motor insurance market and Douw indulged in other pursuits such as building a superb boutique hotel, the Saxon.
I lost sight of Douw’s activities for a while until one day a friend, who had just returned from the UK, told me about some wonderful television commercials advertising motor insurance involving some meerkats (a small mongoose found in southern Africa). I then learned that Douw had taken his sales concepts to Britain where he had set up an insurance group called BGL. This in turn is the parent company of “Compare The Market,” an enormously successful insurance story centered around the incredibly cute meerkats who for no apparent reason speak with a Russian accent. Having seen and filmed meerkats in the wild, I was well aware of how appealing these little animals are in real life. To use them in commercials was a stroke of genius. Anyway, it made Douw a billionaire.
I think that Douw, who in many ways is a reclusive character, still wants to be remembered for his achievements. In the early 2000s he conceived the idea of Steyn City on the outskirts of Johannesburg. It’s still developing but was in the top-ten lifestyle estates in the world in 2021. It has a Jack Nicklaus-designed 18-hole golf course, a commercial center, supermarkets, a school and hundreds of residential dwellings. It caused a fuss at first because it is built very close to Diepkloof, a rundown sub-economic area where poverty abounds. The Steyn City managers argue that they have employed over 11,000 people from the area and therefore have boosted the economy of its previously deprived community.
Douw is a very different person from Rob and Dick, but is arguably the most successful of the three billionaires I have known.
I can’t wait to be able to add a certain Peter Warren to my list, once ExoBrain takes over and becomes the next major computing system on the planet!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.