While Sekunjalo Chairman Dr Iqbal Survé can be considered a serious businessman, he drew laughs and cracked jokes with popular media personality MacG during his Podcast and Chill episode on Thursday.
“If you look at a photograph of me in other media houses you will see a guy that is very serious. I’m a fun-loving guy. I love people, I’m a people’s person at the end of the day,” Dr Survé said.
MacG replied: “You love making babies. I mean, you got a six-month-old at sixty.”
Both co-host Sol Phenduka and MacG burst out laughing.
“I think it’s a gift,” chuckled Dr Survé in response.
Dr Survé, who is internationally recognised and respected on the global business stage as a result of his involvement in BRICS and the World Economic Forum, was full of smiles in between tackling serious and challenging questions from MacG, especially around the attacks he has come under through negative media reports and most recently, the attack on his companies by the banking fraternity.
But the businessman also shared some lighter anecdotes with MacG, and discussed his love of football.
MacG asked Dr Survé if he liked football to which he replied: “I love football.”
They went on to discuss Neymar’s benefit-laden transfer to Saudi club Al Hilal.
The host then asked Survé about why he got into the media industry.
“It was actually my daughter who spoke to me and said ‘dad, look how beautifully diverse our country is, Why don’t the newspapers reflect that?’...
“At first I approached the (former owners of Independent Media) Irish to buy the Cape Times; and the Irish flat-out told me to ‘F-off’,” Dr Survé said.
Dr Survé faced a number of challenges before the sale of Independent Media officially went through but weathered the storm, he told MacG.
MacG went on to share personal anecdotes about the challenges he had faced as Podcast and Chill was growing in popularity, also coming under attack by established media brands.
Despite this, Podcast and Chill is among the top podcasts in Africa, with over a million subscribers as of July this year.
MacG also gave props to IOL for “showing us love”.
WATCH THE FULL PODCAST AND CHILL EPISODE HERE
The episode was well-received, racking up over 82,000 views as of Friday morning.
The comments were also largely positive and supportive of Dr Survé, especially in light of his ongoing battle with what he termed “the establishment”, South Africa’s elite.
“Uncle, we need you. Please continue to school us,” said Instagram user SIEMZ.
“This was the best interview... thank you for exposing the ANC and the banks’ corruption,” said X (formerly Twitter) user @diphapangmofok3.
Regular contributor to IOL Edmond Phiri commented: “It is a brilliant interview and must-watch for all the youth of South Africa.”
IOL