It Cost Mark Shuttleworth More To Leave South Africa Than It Did To Leave The Earth
by Richard J. Grant Mark Shuttleworth is a South Africa born tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist who is perhaps best known in the rest of the world for being the second “space tourist” to spend time living and helping with experiments on the International Space Station. After a year of training and reportedly paying about US$20 million, in early 2002 Shuttleworth rode on Soyuz spacecraft to spend about eight days on the space station. Shuttleworth had the wherewithal to buy his space ride since 1999, when he sold his four-year-old Internet security company to VeriSign for about US$570 million. Since then, he has used his wealth to finance and build new companies as well as to fund charitable ventures. But living in South Africa, with its restrictions on capital movements, created problems for Shuttleworth’s international operations. This soon prompted him to take advantage ... Continue reading at FORBES http://www.forbes.com/sites/richa...