What you don’t know about Synthasite founder Vinny Lingham is that he’s afraid of heights, owns a Kindle and is a closet historian. So much has been written about South Africa’s Slummies to Silicon Valley success story that it’s increasingly challenging to uncover new ground on the man.

Why does he love history? “I like looking at what happened in the past because history repeats itself. I often analyse events in my own lifetime together with events that happened hundreds of years ago,” says Lingham.