In the 2009th year of our Lord I was unemployed and mostly without income. What little money I was bringing into the household was from pimping myself to every publication that was willing to pay me R2 per word for my hallucinations. You don’t know desperation until you’ve enthusiastically agreed to write a 300-word thinkpiece for Marie Claire magazine on why wearing boxers is better for your sperm count than briefs. “Make it as zany and lighthearted as you can, Dumi!”

Unbeknown to me, two former Yahoo cubicle dwellers, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, were using the same year to create an ingenious communication platform we now know as WhatsApp...