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’m big believer in the concept of original thought. While I admire people who can run a business, play an instrument, or perfect a process, I have always been more interested in people who write the music, invent new technology, or essentially have the ability to create something that is totally original. Some of us…
Last summer, I participated in a fundraiser for Congressman Tony Cárdenas in San Fernando, CA. We raised about $12K from a network of Latino small business professionals. The congressman was pleasantly surprised…Why? Because even though he is one of the strongest Latino advocates in government, Cárdenas told me that more than 95% of his political…
This week, the media was dominated by the impeachment hearings. While I am going to save my opinion on the subject for another time, watching Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill testify convinced me of two things: First, knowing that there are smart, dedicated people like this in our government gives me confidence that despite…
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren think billionaires shouldn’t exist. This has caused some well publicized indignation on the part of some famous billionaires like Blackstone’s Stephen A. Schwarzman, who countered by saying “Maybe Bernie Sanders shouldn’t exist”. In fairness to Sanders and Warren, I don’t think they are calling for the elimination of anyone in…
I have been thinking a lot about what Latinos really want, and perhaps a better question is what do they really need. Everything I do with NAHREP, The Hispanic Wealth Project, and L’ATTITUDE is about answering those questions. We talk a lot about creating a new narrative for the Latino community. Not an easy undertaking,…
The NAHREP National Convention is moving to the Spring (March 16-18) and will take place concurrently with our Housing Policy Summit. The move is designed to bring more business content to the first part of the year, and make room for our new Fall convention focused on Sales Mastery, Real Estate Skills and Wealth Building,…
The Washington Nationals completed their fairy tale season by winning the World Series for the first time in franchise history. Manager Dave Martinez brought the city its first baseball championship in almost a century in only his second year. The success of the Nationals mirrored the unlikely achievements of the Toronto Raptors, who won its…
I love buying gifts for people, and enjoy it even more when it is unexpected. In other words, I love seeing family and expressing our love for each other – I don’t love the obligatory gift giving that comes with the holidays. I do it, but I don’t love it as much. I know that…
I’ve been talking about leadership a lot lately. It’s an interesting topic because the qualities that create a great leader are sometimes difficult to define. The concept of emotional intelligence has become better understood in recent years and there are some good books on the subject. Great leaders have vision, integrity, good communication skills, and…
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…
