Gary Acosta is an entrepreneur, public policy advocate, investor, and thought leader passionate about advancing prosperity for Latinos and other underserved communities. As an industry leader, he protects and improves the business environment required to close the wealth gap, particularly via homeownership. Amongst other endeavors, he is Co-Founder & CEO of NAHREP, the country’s leading Hispanic business organization, and Co-Founder of L’ATTITUDE, the preeminent platform for Latino economic empowerment. Acosta is also a general partner of L’ATTITUDE Ventures, the nation’s largest venture capital fund exclusively focused on Latino-led start-ups. Join Gary as he dives into today’s issues through many creative formats.
I spent the Friday in El Paso with my friend Beto Pallares. Beto is an amazing guy. He holds several degrees including a BA from Brandeis and a PhD from UTEP. He manages a $150M venture fund for one of the wealthiest families in all of Texas. He also sits on eight corporate boards, but…
USA Today published an article about the term “LatinX” this past weekend. You should read the article yourself, but it essentially blasts the term as a progressive-led assault on the Spanish language itself. The article initially resonated with me and I decided to post it on FB on Friday to see what others thought. Once the comments…
After much consideration, I have decided to name my podcast “Latin Privilege”. I’m doing my research right now, but plan to launch immediately after the first of the year. Much like this blog, we will be discussing business, politics, sports and entertainment. I’m looking forward to it and hope you will join me.
I try to avoid writing about politics every week, but with Syria and impeachment proceedings, the last couple of weeks have likely been the most consequential in the Trump presidency. Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria caused more backlash from his own party than anything else he has done to date. That decision…
I think I mentioned in a prior blog that I enjoyed the movie Crazy Rich Asians. It was a fun, feel-good, romantic comedy, and I must admit I like those movies a lot more than action films. Even though the movie is fictional, it helped perpetuate the image that Asians are a wealthy population. Conversely,…
Speaking of movies, I recently watched The Big Short on Amazon the other night. I forgot what a terrific film it was. If you haven’t seen it, watch it . . . and if you have, you should see it again. Ten years ago, the mortgage market almost tanked the entire global economy. For those…
There was a lot of talk this past week about the escalating tension between the NBA and China. It’s a complicated story, but in a nutshell, Daryl Morey, an executive with the Houston Rockets posted a tweet expressing his support for protests that are currently occurring in Hong Kong. The protests are over a variety…
According to Wikipedia, Juan Enriquez is a Latino academic, businessman, author and speaker. He is a Harvard graduate who joined a multi-stage world sailing discovery voyage led by J. Craig Venter, who sequenced the human genome. In other words, he’s a bad-ass genius. Enriquez, who has published several books on Genomics and societal issues, recently…
Just a brief note, to announce that I will be launching a new podcast later this year where I will discuss by blog and other fun/interesting topics. I hope you will join me.
According to a new study by YouGov Research, half of Americans listen to music in a language other than English and the predominate language is Spanish. Millennials in particular, say they think there should be more Spanish speaking pop stars. To me this means that while a growing percentage of Latinos in the U.S. are…
L’ATTITUDE 2019 finished with a bang. This year’s event once again featured some of the top leaders in business, politics, entertainment and journalism. The session with Marc Benioff and Oscar Munoz was a highlight for me. The two business titans spoke about some of the more consequential issues facing our country and finished their session…
For bribing an official to rig her daughter’s SAT score, the actor, Felicity Huffman, received 14 days in prison, a $30K fine, 250 hours of community service and one-year probation. A lot of people felt outraged by her sentence and believed if she were not a wealthy celebrity, she would have received a much stiffer…
College sports is a multi-billion-dollar industry. College coaches at top universities earn million-dollar salaries while the players get almost nothing. It doesn’t seem right, yet the NCAA, the entity that governs college athletics, has done nothing to address the issue. According to the NCAA, college athletes should receive an education and little more for their…
Just a short note this week to remind everyone that the L’ATTITUDE 2019 and the NAHREP at L’ATTITUDE conventions take place this week in San Diego. L’ATTITUDE is redefining the narrative for the U.S. Latino cohort. The Dow Jones Company, the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, MSNBC and Telemundo are covering the event as media partners. #LattitudeIsEverything Below is a list…
I’ve had the good fortune of being friends with some of the most successful people in the country. Not just people with large bank accounts, but people who have been trailblazers – who by the sheer virtue of their will have accomplished things that most people can only dream about. As I have said before,…
In today’s evolving economy, many of the jobs that exist today won’t exist in the near future. Robotics and artificial intelligence are changing the world as we know it. If your job can be automated, it will be automated. For someone, fifty years of age or older, this may not affect you as much, but…
The NFL Season opens today with a new controversy. Like a lot of us, I’ve been observing the blowback from the surprising partnership between the NFL and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Company. Under any other circumstances the partnership would be applauded by just about everyone, but given the NFL’s collateral damage from the Colin Kaepernick situation…
Americans like a lot of things including hamburgers, beer, television, and money. They also like the idea of living in a country where no matter how tough you might have it today, you could win the lottery or invent something and be rich tomorrow. Americans relish their freedoms, whether they are good for them or…
The highly anticipated rematch between World Heavyweight Champion, Andy Ruiz Jr. and former champion, Anthony Joshua is set for December 7th in Saudi Arabia. Ruiz, who is the first heavyweight champion of Mexican decent, won the title in May by defeating Joshua by TKO in one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. Ruiz and…
Chris Rock once said, and I’m paraphrasing, that given the number of Latinos who live in LA, Hollywood must try NOT to hire Latinos. Last week the University of Southern California in partnership with the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) released the results of the most comprehensive analysis of Latinos in the film…
