Wambui Valentine

Fueled by music & coffee, applied technology in digital financial services. always ready for the next great adventure.

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

It is very hard to defeat someone who is in love with the sport and their style of play.

[Moe @moneyacademyKE]

Delivery platforms like Uber, Bolt, Glovo and Little will pay higher licence fees after the CA introduced a new licence category for the sector, effective July 29.

The new rules include:
— A new "Courier Hailing Service Provider" licence
— Sh5,000 application fee
— Sh100,000 licence fee, up from Sh30,000
— Sh100,000 annual fee or 0.4% of gross turnover, whichever is higher
— 0.5% universal service levy on annual gross turnover
— A 10-year nationwide licence
— Existing operators must move to the new licence category

[Reads with Ravi @readswithravi]

This paragraph by Haruki Murakami hits very hard:

“Once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

[Khusoko | East African Markets @khusoko]

HF Group Plc officially becomes HFCB Group Plc from 22 May 2026, unifying its brand across banking, property, and insurance under one identity after six decades of operations in Kenya. https://t.co/1LJ2Qcdc9K

[Kenya Wildlife Service @KWSKenya]

Spotted at Tsavo East National Park this morning.

[Mwai, MBS. @IanJamesMwaiK]

I watched Doctor Gikonyo saying he saw only 3 heart attack cases at KNH between 1970–1980 a period of 10 yrs. Right now he sees around 3 PER DAY 😳

Guys, eat right, move your body, reduce stress & take your health seriously. Lifestyle diseases are no longer old people problems.

[Sholla Ard 🇰🇪 @sholard_mancity]

A Kenyan by the name Elias Wekesa has taken Safaricom to court, and every Kenyan should pay attention.

He says Safaricom deactivated his line after it stayed inactive for a few months, then reassigned it to another person.

When he tried using it again, he was met with a shock.

The number was gone.

Worse, he says he could no longer receive OTPs from his bank and other platforms tied to that number.

This case matters because it touches every Kenyan.

Because your phone number is no longer just a number.

It is tied to your bank account.
Your email.
Your work accounts.
Your private life.

The moment that number is handed to someone else, the risks begin.
OTPs can go elsewhere.
Recovery codes can land in another person’s hands.

Account alerts can reach a stranger.

That person is not just holding a SIM card.
They may be holding access to parts of your digital life.

And if they have bad intentions, the damage can be immediate.

And for families who have lost loved ones, it cuts even deeper.

A parent’s number.
A sibling’s number.
A loved one’s number.

One day, it holds memories.

The next day, it belongs to a stranger.

This is why Safaricom must be forced to create stronger safeguards before reassigning numbers.
Because in today’s world, a phone number is not disposable.
It is identity.

And identity should never be reassigned without protection.

[Wiza Jalakasi @wizaj]

Founders reach out to me to connect them to enterprise leads, and I ask for detailed product / offering materials. Instead, I get a half-baked blurb with a vague product description and a request to "have a quick call" and they wonder why they don't convert ☹️

[s @Sincyyyyy_]

‘Unaniambia nivae heels nikikuja date ndio nianguke nikufe nikose kupiga kura’

[Hugo Navarro @HugoNavarroPer2]

EBITDA (2026 edition): Earnings Before Iran, Tariffs, and Donald Announcements.

[klöss @kloss_xyz]

imagine you’re Travis Kalanick

you built Uber from nothing into a $70 billion company and changed how every city on earth moves

then in the worst three weeks of your life, family tragedies hit, and five of your investors hand you a letter demanding you resign

so you step down

the board replaces you, your successor and board sell off the self driving division you created, the thing you believed was Uber’s entire future

gone

$4 billion to Aurora

the mainstream media tries to write your obituary: toxic culture, bad leadership, and a cautionary tale

silicon valley moves on
as they always do

but you don’t

you don’t really forget

you go quiet, completely quiet

you take $150 million and buy a ghost kitchen company called CloudKitchens

you raise over a billion dollars, hit a $15 billion valuation, build a company with thousands of employees

and nobody even knows the name
eight years in stealth, employees aren’t even allowed to put your company on their LinkedIn

then today you rename the company Atoms, and it’s not a kitchen company anymore

it’s a robotics company

1. food
2. mining
3. transport

your first move?

acquiring Pronto

the autonomous vehicle startup

built by Anthony Levandowski, the same engineer you originally swooped away from Google to build Uber’s self driving program

oh and he went on to deploy 100+ autonomous trucks for one of the largest materials companies on earth

now he’s coming back to work with you
and the reports say Uber itself

the same company that pushed you out, is now backing you to go after self driving harder than Waymo

the guy they removed is the guy they end up needing

poetic justice

your framework aka everything in civilization is mined or grown, manufactured and moved

you call it the golden age

your manifesto ends with three words:

“I never left”

eight years of silence

then this

but here’s what people keep getting wrong about your situation

everyone wants to call it a comeback or a revenge story

it’s neither

you just went quiet and built for eight years while everyone who wrote you off had stopped paying attention

that’s not revenge, that’s just what true builder obsession looks like

most founders would’ve stayed bitter

most would’ve written a book and done a podcast tour, most would’ve taken the $2.5 billion in shares and disappeared off to a beach or Epstein’s island

you didn’t do any of that
you just kept building

and now the same people who pushed you out need you again

so whether you love him or hate him

the most dangerous person in any room is the one who goes quiet yet never stops building

karma is real

welcome back Travis

[FIFA World Cup @FIFAWorldCup]

95 days until #FIFAWorldCup 2026.

Kylian Mbappé completely changed the 2022 Final in 95 seconds ⏰🇫🇷

[Formula 1 @F1]

Never count out Max 👊

Will he deliver another race to remember?

#F1 #AusGP

[Wambui Valentine @valWambui]

Do you remember when you joined X? I do! #MyXAnniversary

[Polygon | POL @0xPolygon]

BREAKING: Polygon to become U.S. regulated payments platform

We’re acquiring Coinme and Sequence to move all money onchain.
→ Regulated money movement in 48 states
→ Fiat on/off ramps
→ 50,000 fiat-to-crypto locations in the U.S.
→ Easy onboarding with wallet infra
→ 1-click crypto transactions across chains

All vertically integrated in the Polygon Open Money Stack.

[Cyber Security News @The_Cyber_News]

⚠️ Instagram Data Leak Exposes Sensitive Info of 17.5M Accounts

Source: https://t.co/3vPNLgpwnG

A significant security breach has compromised approximately 17.5 million Instagram user accounts, exposing sensitive personal information that is now circulating on the dark web.

The breach encompasses a wide range of personal information that could put affected users at serious risk. Compromised data includes usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses.

This combination of information makes users particularly vulnerable to identity theft, phishing, and social engineering.

#cybersecuritynews #databreach

[Eddie Kago ⚡ @BasedKago]

2026 is going to be interesting in Kenyan fintech.

After 20 years of M-Pesa, I think regulated digital tokens of real world things will unlock billions in our economy with direct rails to global crypto for fungibility. Imagine Bills, Reserves, Commodities, Fractional Ownership...

The sweet-spot is somewhere between local mobile money (MoMo), and tokenized things (instruments, etc). Kenyan innovators can ride on M-Pesa as the accelerant for real utility of cryptofied assets.

There's definitely more bangers to drop from the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act, 2025. Asanteni @vaspchamber for sticking it out.

[B/R Football @brfootball]

The AFCON round of 16 bracket is set 🍿🌍