Cooking as a family and eating together is a lost tradition that many of us have restarted during the pandemic. I had no idea that my daughter Marisa had become such a great cook; her addition to our kitchen has been a huge positive to the Acosta clan. She loves sashimi and vegan dishes and I swear her Hamachi and jalapeno appetizers rival the world famous Nobu restaurant. That said, I do love restaurants and while one in five is expected to close permanently, I also anticipate a lot of new innovation for both food and service, which will be exciting. I never liked buffets, so I won’t miss them if they never come back. However, there will be some downside. New safety regulations will make it more expensive for neighborhood restaurants to get started and survive, so chain eateries with deep pocket parent companies may take over many communities – which will suck. More people will eat at home, at least for a few years, so online cooking classes will probably flourish and hopefully the institution of families eating together will stick around for a while.
Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to speak at the T3 Conference in Florida…I surprised the audience when I explained how the issue of diversity has been framed incorrectly, and has for the most part alienated the business community.
Elon Musk dropped by the Real Time with Bill Maher show recently for an interview with the host. Maher, who considers himself a liberal is an obvious fan of the CEO of Tesla and Space X. The centerpiece of their conversation was their discussion regarding what Musk called the “woke mind virus” or what I prefer to call “cancel culture”.
People sometimes get me wrong. They think that because I talk a lot about giving back and living modestly, I must not care about money. On the contrary, I care a lot about money because I understand how our system works.