THE PERSON BEHIND THE IDEAS

After more than four decades in my professional life, I’ve come to a simple conclusion: the most important thing we accumulate isn’t positions, companies, or projects, but sound judgment.

Sound judgment is born from experience, but also from curiosity, from mistakes, from observing others, and from being willing to change our minds when reality contradicts our certainties.

I’ve always been interested in understanding how things work, but increasingly, I’m interested in understanding why we do them and how they affect people. Perhaps that’s why my professional journey, which began closely linked to business and technology, has ended up bringing me closer to the land, society, philosophy, and human behavior.

Today, I have something that was scarce for many years: time to think. And I’ve decided to dedicate some of it to writing, conversing, and collaborating on projects where my experience and perspective can be useful.

CURIOSITY AS A WAY OF LIFE

I have never understood knowledge as something limited to a single discipline. My education has been, above all, the result of a constant curiosity: learning what I needed to better understand the next problem, even when that problem led me to a completely different territory than the previous one.

Business, economics, technology, marketing, strategy, urban planning, architecture, sociology, human behavior, and philosophy have all appeared at different points along this journey. Not to become a specialist in each of these subjects, but to try to understand how they relate to one another.

That same curiosity even led me to study to become a pilot. Flying taught me something that I have since recognized in many other areas: to understand a reality, it is not enough to look at what is immediately in front of us; sometimes you have to change your altitude and your perspective.

Over the years, I have learned to value specialists more and more and, at the same time, to recognize the need for someone who poses questions across disciplines. The architect, the technologist, the economist, the urban planner, and the sociologist all observe essential parts of a reality. My interest lies precisely in connecting these perspectives and trying to understand the whole picture.

Perhaps that’s why I continue studying, reading, and writing. Not because I aspire to know more and more, but because every interesting answer usually leads to a better question.

FROM DOING TO THINKING

For much of my professional life, time was synonymous with action: making decisions, leading teams, developing projects, solving problems, traveling, negotiating, and responding to the urgency of the next challenge.

Over the years, that relationship with time has changed. Today, I can afford something I consider a privilege: pausing to think before I have to act.

This distance has allowed me to revisit many of the issues that have shaped my career and consider them from a different perspective. Technology, the city, business, and innovation continue to interest me, but I’m increasingly interested in the questions that lie behind them: what kind of society are we building, how do we want to live, what do we understand by progress, and what place does the individual occupy amidst so much transformation?

This is also the origin of my dedication to writing. Books and articles have become another way to organize my experience, compare ideas, and share questions. Writing forces me to do something that professional activity doesn’t always allow: think slowly.

But thinking doesn’t mean abandoning action. I remain interested in real projects, conversations, and challenges. The difference is that today I can choose them. I’m interested in those where accumulated experience can provide perspective, and especially those that raise problems that deserve to be thought through before being solved.

I have moved from the urgency of doing to the freedom of choosing what is worth doing.

THE HUMANIST VIEW

Over time, I have increasingly placed the individual at the center of my understanding of the world. Not as an abstraction, but as a concrete human being: with aspirations, contradictions, affections, fears, freedom, and a need to belong.

My humanism stems from a simple conviction: progress only acquires true meaning when it improves people’s lives. We can build better technologies, more efficient companies, or extraordinarily advanced cities, but the success of all of them should ultimately be measured by what they allow those who live within them to be and do.

I believe in individual freedom, but also in the responsibility that necessarily accompanies it. In each person’s capacity to build their own life project, but also in the need to coexist, cooperate, and recognize that we are part of communities and a nature that does not belong exclusively to us.

I don’t need to resort to transcendent certainties to find value in existence. I find it in people, in the relationships we build, in knowledge, in beauty, in nature, and in our capacity to leave something better than what we found. I deeply respect that others find that meaning through faith; mine stems from my own human experience.

This perspective also explains my professional evolution. When I think about technology, business, or cities, I inevitably end up wondering about the individual. Not because everything should revolve around the person, but because no progress deserves the name if it ends up forgetting them.

Humanism, for me, is not a theory about humanity. It is a responsibility towards people.

WHAT I CHOOSE TO DO NOW

I’ve reached a stage in life where I no longer need to accept every opportunity that comes my way. I can do something far more valuable: choose.

I choose to dedicate my time to projects that spark my curiosity, to people from whom I can learn, and to challenges where four decades of experience can offer more than just technical knowledge: perspective, judgment, and independence.

I’m not looking for a position or to rebuild a career. I’m interested in contributing wherever a cross-disciplinary approach can help us better define the problem before rushing to find the solution.

I’m particularly drawn to projects that are trying to envision the future—of a city, an organization, or a community—and that understand that innovation isn’t just about incorporating technology, but about understanding what’s worth transforming and why.

My way of contributing today is simple: think, ask questions, connect, and, when I can add value, help make decisions.

I am not looking for the next position. I am looking for the next meaningful question.