Ross Rambles

2025 was a consequential year. 

A year which I may well look back on in 5-10 years as “the beginning of the next chapter of my life”. A year with the highest of highs, a spectacular wedding that exceeded my greatest expectations, but also with professional challenges that have forced me to question whether I’m capable of seizing the opportunity to lead a company like Somos. 

A few days to rest and reflect at the end of the year with J and her family in the PNW (the mellowest Christmas I think I’ve ever had), following an important week in NYC that culminated with the signing of Term Sheet for the Somos Series B, has left me confident that yes, I can be that guy. 

But it’s going to require changes on my own part. 

I hope I look back on 2025 as the culmination of a chapter that began with my accepting the job at Somos as I struggled to work out my path post-KC, and is ending with Somos raising a Series B and me married to the woman I love after 2.5 years as boyfriend and girlfriend. A chapter of huge import. A chapter that has set me up for the rest of my life.

2026 is to be a year for building the best version of myself, a year in which Ross takes control of his life and dictates the agenda a bit more. 

In 2025 I struggled professionally as Jill’s arrival with the Somos Series A meant that no longer were we trying to justify our existence as a company, but rather I was having to justify my own existence at the top of the Somos strategic totem pole as Forrest’s de facto number 2. I don’t know if I can honestly say that I fully rose to the challenge in 2025 – I definitely felt overwhelmed at moments and the change in the balance took a while to adapt to – but I think I have a good plan going into 2026. I’m going to focus on owning vertical growth initiatives and embedding product throughout the org, while Jill can own the horizontal growth of the existing core business. 

If I succeed, I will cement myself as a critical part of the company and evolve from being just the “bad cop” who sets goals and dishes out budgets to a true value creating leader. I think a key piece of the puzzle is writing more, controlling more of the agenda by putting together written justifications that turn decisions from “a conversation” to “an inevitability”. We’ll how it goes…

My agency should be helped by three things in 2026 – the removal of 2 time-consuming responsibilities (the wedding and winding down Mesa Salvaje), and the increased personal use of AI to just do things myself.

The decision to close Mesa had been made by the end of 2024, a decision influenced by economics but made primarily to have a clean break from the prior chapter and move fully into my next stage of life. Mesa is always going to be a special piece of my heart, and I look at the location every time I pass with a pang of sorrow, but never regret. It was a tough, tough business. People loved it and I’m proud of it, but it’s a chapter of history now. 

The wedding was so much more than I ever could have hoped for. Everything went as planned barring a couple of hiccups and a classic Bogotá rain storm that dissipated just in time (rain on your wedding day means abundance!!), but it was the emotional outpouring that exceeded all expectations. It was a festival of love, both between J and I but also from everyone who came. I feel incredibly lucky to have made a day (and entire week) like that happen. It just… flowed. From paragliding with my Dad and friends in Sopó at the beginning of the week, to closing down the dancefloor at 3.30am on Saturday night (to Closing Time by Semisonic), surrounded by close friends, and everything in between. (Link to the 1,500+ photos – PW is the date on our rings).

I’m publishing quite late this year because on January 3rd Nicolas Maduro was dramatically captured by the US in Operation Absolute Resolve, another example of how today’s world is v different to the pre-Covid world. Packy McCormick asked me (and Forrest) to write about Venezuela, in a piece that was just published: The Venezuela Opportunity. Pretty wild that I am now co-writing essays with Packy… but that’s the power of compounding, as I discussed last year.

Anyway, it’s January 26th so I better hit send so I can go back to living in 2026! 

Hasta la próxima!

Ross

Things I’m most proud of:

• The Wedding of the Year – magical and full of love, went better than I could have ever hoped. I am so very happily married.
• The Cable Cowboy life – The Somos event at Cincuenta Cincuenta, time spent with Packy before and after the publishing of the article, and the build up to the Series B Term Sheet
• Overcoming serious challenges to unlock credit with Bancolombia as we hedge the Architect facility, negotiating the revshare agreements with both MELI and ETB.
• Mesa closing in a way that treated the staff and customers fairly
• Quality time with family and friends – Andy & Emily in Feb, Tom & Clarkey in the summer, White Elephant, Carlos in CDMX, Mum, Dad, Scott, and Katie in Mallorca.
• Interesting travel to new places – Mavecure, Venecia Somos offsite, Denver, another side of Mallorca, a new finca in Tobia.
• Vibe coding, and integrating AI into my daily life. Hopefully more to come next year.

Highlights to remember

• Mariachis on the last staff night at Mesa 
• Birthday hike up Tres Cruces in Medellin, then hike over to La Calera for an Asado with the group that weekend
• Sunrise while climbing Mavecure and having the top to ourselves / the scale of the Orinoco
• The night in Mala with Scott from ACME and JuanFe
• Reading Abundance, plotting with Forrest to launch APD and navigate.
• Watching the greatest comeback in tennis history with J and our cats
• Italodisco Spanish Tortilla making
• The cabaret night in Palma, Mum’s embarrassment.
• The whole experience of seeing Bloc Party at Red Rocks and then meeting them backstage afterwards
• Lane8 under the K bridge 
• Sunset, Chippy, and wine in Wales upon arriving in July / swimming out past the breakwater.
• Dancing with J to Champagne Supernova in the plaza de Santiago de Compostela at 3am after Jonny & Maria’s wedding
• The whole ordeal of getting home from Europe… 2 nights in airport hotels… but giving champagne to Jennifer at 6am.
• Oasis Live 25! Didn’t see them live, but wow, what a time just following along the Poznans
• Taking J to Old Trafford. Meeting the Edinburgh crew in Derby.
• Seeing how lovely Fort Collins is and how it explains a lot about J.
• Lunch with the guys at Oriente before our couple of days in Sopó 
• Getting legally married with J at Notaria Primera, with German the notary
• Getting ready to be married with the Fam in the Four Seasons
• Tearing up as I first saw J came around the corner at Casa Artensanias with her parents
• Spinning J around on the dancefloor to This is The One, rose petals falling from the ceiling, thinking THIS is the one.
• Drinks in the Four Seasons CDMX with Forrest, Jill, the K50 guys, and the LPs
• First in person Board meeting at the USV offices, and the dinner at Kimika with a pretty impressive group of people/investors, with the interesting interpersonal dynamics
• Talking to Packy about Secret of Secrets over breakfast in CDMX
• Heat-Celtics with Chris at TD Garden
• The lamb shank dinner I made J and fam on Christmas Day

Things to improve

• Less agency and less control this year. Felt like I was swimming to keep my head above water and react, rather than driving the narrative. Both professionally and personally – I was reacting to an agenda rather than making the agenda. A wedding doesn’t help that feeling, but I think even without the wedding I was a bit passive this year.
• The feeling of not knowing where to look to “find new friends” as the Adventure Group cast departed for good. 
• Less time spent with Forrest, less time spent leading my team. Related to the first point but different, as I felt drawn more to weekends in Bogota with J. Would like to get J to Antioquia more in 2026, and integrate the 2 areas of my life that right now are quite distinct.
• Post-wedding I let go of myself to focus on work / let myself enjoy food again, but enjoying food is fine if there is exercise to compliment. I will forgive myself as long as it was a temporary 2 month period between the wedding and Christmas. 2026 is about building the best version of myself.

Memorable Books / TV Shows / Movies / Newsletters / Podcasts

TV & Movies

• Andor
• Welcome to Wrexham
• The Diplomat
• The Traitors
• Line of Duty
• Marty Supreme
• Slow Horses
• For All Mankind

Books

• Project Hail Mary
• The Vegetarian
• Secret of Secrets
• Abundance
• Apple in China
• Bandwidth

Newsletters

• Not Boring – especially some of the consciousness pieces at the beginning of the year (and Cable Caballero, of course)
• Stratechery – signed up again
• Bankstreet Telco newsletter

Music

• Oasis – I surprised myself how caught up I became in the Oasis 2025 reunion. Not going to see them in Mexico or Buenos Aires is probably my biggest regret of the year. But hell of a year listening to their setlist.

What I’m looking forward to next year

• Scott & Tom’s weddings in the UK in May
• Patagonia 2026 (!!!)
• Playing with AI as a personal hobby for creative projects
• Planning for the medium and long term, not reacting to the short term – potentially including decisions around real estate and geography. TBD.
• Trilogy of epics – Project Hail Mary, The Odyssey, and Dune Part 3.
• Anthropic vs. OpenAI vs. Gemini. I’m starting the year primarily using ChatGPT and Gemini, but everyone is raving about Claude Code and Claude Cowork – lets see how it ends this year.