The last 3 months have been a test of my personal and business philosophy like no other. A near constant reevaluation of the situation globally and in Colombia brings with it a constant reevaluation of wisdom of the decisions we’ve taken regarding our small business – an all day cafe in Bogota. We initially felt so … More The Murky Moral Obligations of Small Business Owners in a Time of Crisis
I have some thoughts about WeWork. But first, I wanted to recap the We company’s implosion to commemorate it’s supernova-esque size and speed, as well as to celebrate the play-by-play commentary as narrated by Bloomberg Opinion’s Matt Levine, which will go down in Financial Journalism history. It was a daily spectacle for 3 short months, a … More A Recap of WeWork’s almighty implosion
For the past 4 weeks I have been spending my days as a delivery cyclist for my restaurant, Mesa Salvaje. We made the intentional decision not to list ourselves on any of the delivery platforms for the duration of the national quarantine in order to maintain complete control over the delivery experience and not sacrifice … More RappiRoss: Observations on Delivering Food from Mesa Salvaje
The authorities are doing the right thing. Public Health is one area in which private markets and individuals must take a back seat and allow the government to take all actions necessary for the greater good. But drastic actions have drastic consequences, good and bad. Today began a 4 day lockdown in Bogota with only … More A Tragedy in Bogotá
Bogotá feels like a city that is coming out of its shell and embracing its own identity. The Bogotá I came to know in 2019 is one that is full of energy – energy of activist students, rebellious street artists, ambitious real estate developers, hustling “comerciantes”, and everyone else in the 10 million-strong and growing … More Bogotá in 2020: What to do, eat, drink
This year has been unlike any other in my life. KC and I successfully opened our first gastronomic establishment, a dream years in the making; I became a parent to a perfect dog; I travelled less than in any other year of my life and probably watched less TV and movies than ever before; two of … More Year in Review 2019: The Birth of Mesa Salvaje
I try to live my life so that I will have no regrets. I have followed a non-conventional path since leaving MGS, first by spending a gap year working in a professional setting, then by choosing to study at a relatively small undergraduate business school in The Bronx, and then by choosing to leave a … More It is all about the people, stoopid
I hate running on a treadmill. I consider myself a runner, having completed 6 half marathons and 1 full, and derive an immense amount of pleasure from running a 10K through the streets of Bogota, New York, or whichever place I happen to find myself in for more than a couple of days. For me, … More Avoiding the Treadmill
There is a longer post to come in the future on “how I opened a coffee shop in Colombia”, but for now I wanted to share a few early thoughts I’ve had:
As I have thought about the main ideas I wanted to reflect upon this year, I kept returning to a phrase I had used when Tom Moss asked me how things were going, shortly after he arrived in Bogota last month: Lighter in wallet, lighter in weight, but most importantly, lighter in heart and mind. … More A Year in Review 2018: Feeling Lighter in Life
