Devin Booker’s maternal grandfather was from Mexico. He was raised by his Puerto Rican-Mexican mother, while his father, who is Black, pursued a basketball career internationally. Booker, who was just named to the USA Olympic team, is 24 years old and has been one of the marquee stars of the NBA playoffs this season. He…
LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers were knocked out of the NBA playoffs last week by the Phoenix Suns. As expected, the LeBron haters were in full force on social media calling him overrated and a fraud. At 36 years old, LeBron James has been in the NBA for more than half of his…
Two years ago, I met Richard Montañez in New York City. Richard was accompanying Indra Nooyi to a speaking engagement she had with the Latino Donor Collaborative. Nooyi was CEO of PepsiCo at the time. Prior to the meeting in New York, I had heard of Montañez. I knew that he had written a book…
Late last year, Spencer Rascoff, the former CEO of Zillow, reached out and invited me to be part of a new advisory board for his latest real estate start-up, Pacaso. I knew Spencer when he was at Zillow and we kept in touch over the years. I don’t sit on many advisory boards, but I…
In a recent memo to chapter leadership, NAHREP gave the green light to begin planning live events, subject to state and local health protocols. NAHREP will also host its first regional event in Miami on July 13th. The event will take place at the JW Marriott in Brickell and will take on one of the…
Capital flows towards growth, so one of the biggest mysteries in the history of capitalism is how little capital has flowed to the U.S. Latino cohort. The Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI) says if Latino entrepreneurs had access to a proportional amount of capital as the overall market, it would add $1.5 Trillion to the…
The pandemic has been devastating for all of us – especially those that lost loved ones, and even though it seems odd saying this, there were also some positives. With the vaccines, there is light at the end of the tunnel, but we can never forget some of the things we learned during the pandemic.…
Racial economic inequality is a serious issue. The implications go far and wide and I don’t think it hyperbole to say it poses an existential threat to the nation’s economic well-being. If we don’t do much better, our overall economy will suffer. The recent awakening by corporate America to the problem has prompted dozens of…
Despite the pandemic, Latinos drove growth in the homeownership sector for the sixth consecutive year. Next week, NAHREP releases its 11th annual State of Hispanic Homeownership Report, and without giving too much away, the report is a blockbuster. The youth, work ethic, and vitality of the Latino market is burning up the market, and some…
I used to think I knew a lot about small businesses. I launched too many to count, and I have mentored a few as well. But the world of unicorn start-ups is not something I’ve understood very well until recently. Last Fall, Sol Trujillo and I launched L’ATTITUDE Ventures with a goal to raise $75…