My guest today is Antonia Botero, the Founder of MADDPROJECT. Antonia has over 15 years of experience in architecture, construction, and development. Her notable projects include the rehabilitation and repositioning of the historic TWA terminal into the TWA hotel at JFK Airport in New York City. In today’s episode, we discuss Antonia’s key influences including being an immigrant, going to an all-girls school, and the high standards and unwavering belief in her abilities by her parents. We also discuss how a pivotal year led to a complete re-examination of her life and what’s changed since then.
Antonia Botero:
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas
Tim Ludwig:
Topics:
(00:00:00) – Intro
(00:02:50) – Antonia’s upbringing and the impact of all-girls education
(00:08:53) – Antonioa’s family life & parental influences
(00:16:00) – Entering the real estate field
(00:21:52) – Immigrant experiences
(00:29:38) – The journey of becoming a US citizen
(00:37:37) – Antonia’s early career in architecture and development
(00:44:12) – The beauty of NYC
(00:54:44) – Moving to Park City, UT
(00:59:04) – Starting Mad Project
(01:03:13) – High consequence vs. high-risk
(01:09:32) – What has surprised you most about yourself?
The content of this podcast does not constitute investment advice, an offer to provide investment advisory services, or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund.
Transitions with Tim Ludwig is produced by Johnny Podcasts
Tim Ludwig: Welcome to the show, Antonia. I’m super excited to have you as a guest and for our conversation for a lot of reasons, but two that really stood out to me are, one, you’re the first woman that I’ve had on the show, so that’s super exciting to me, and you’re also the first immigrant, so this is a show of firsts.
Antonia Botero: Love it. Love it. I’m very excited about, I’m very excited about this project you’re doing in general and I’m super excited that you reached out and that we’re having this conversation.
Tim Ludwig: Yeah, I think it’s going to be really fantastic and a lot of fun. I thought it would be fun to start with you going to Catholic all-girls school all the way through high school. And I was curious, what were your takeaways from spending those initial years in education in an all-girls environment?
Antonia Botero: I mean, this is a really interesting topic because especially people who know me now will say, oh man, you must have rebelled or it must have been really hard. And I think that there are some, in some ways I did. But they weren’t in the typical I was getting in trouble sort of ways. I was just more maybe questioning a little more than was expected. But I think the all women’s education was really- and to add to that, I went to Sacred Heart School. So, sort of the thoughts behind Sacred Heart education, it was the idea kind of started at a time when women were not educated. Women, basically, the only way that you could get an education was if you went to a convent. And so that’s kind of how it got started. It was sort of like, okay, well, let’s actually educate women and having that really as sort of one of the goals of Sacred Heart Education has really like stood the test of time. It really is a mission, and it does come through in the way that the schools are set up, or at least the way that I experienced the Sacred Heart education. I mean, all women’s schools, you basically have, there aren’t like the things that the boys do or the things that the girls do. You just all sort of do everything. You’re encouraged to take the science classes and play in sports and do stuff like that now more than ever and I think much more than in co-ed education, especially when you’re young or younger, coming through like primary school, middle school, and high school. So I really took that away from it, really. There was never kind of a question of, is this activity for me because I’m a woman? And I think that that really, and I speak about it with some of my classmates who graduated with me. We all kind of felt that in some way or another. I wouldn’t even call it like a courage. It’s sort of like a naivete that we kind of came into a professional world in a way where we didn’t- there was no stuff that wasn’t for us. So it almost gives you an advantage there in that there isn’t like a self-consciousness to say, oh, well, I shouldn’t say this or I shouldn’t say that because I’m a woman. And on the flip side of that, it’s still a Catholic religious education that in some ways is very socially conservative. And so, on one hand, it’s very like, oh, there’s nothing you can’t do. But on the other hand, it’s sort of like, this is how you must behave as a woman. And so there’s a little bit of a strange dichotomy there. And I think that it also, I think in a way, also a conversation I’ve had with many of my classmates from high school, is that it gave us a really good range. There’s sort of like that respectfulness of your superiors and your elders. And there’s kind of like that understanding, understanding socially how to speak and when to speak and sort of how to address certain situations in a more tactful way, just because, again, in that weird dichotomy, that more conservative socially sort of environment, you kind of just are more aware. So, I think that that has really helped in some ways, especially when you’re a little bit, have a little bit more of a rebellious personality. Sometimes you’re like, okay, well, maybe I need to take a pause and think about this. And I think a lot of that comes from that religious all girls education.
Tim Ludwig: You’re sort of like the secret rebel. And the Catholic school, I think, embodies some of that. It’s the confidence that was generated from being in an all girls environment where there weren’t expectations about what you should and shouldn’t be doing from a gender perspective, but then also these societal and social norms that were placed on you with all these expectations. And I think as we continue the conversation, that’ll be one of the themes that really stands out is that there is this rebellious spirit that you have, but it’s sort of wrapped up in a more conventional, outwardly seeming presentation a lot of the time.
Antonia Botero: Yeah, absolutely. But I think there’s a huge value, honestly, in the single gender education just because you do have that freedom. There isn’t sort of like an added layer of like the boys and the girls. It just lets you kind of really focus on school. And I remember being like, during school thinking that that’s such a weird way of thinking. And I don’t think I came to appreciate it until I was much older. And you kind of begin to realize it. You begin to run into other women professionally or even in college, you realize how different their approach to education and to a professional environment. It’s just they grew up differently. And understanding that and the meaning of that and the value of that was really something that, looking back, was really great about the all girls education, for sure.
Tim Ludwig: Yeah. There’s two other influences I want to talk about. One, your parents. And then two, I think place also really impacts how we see the world. And given your immigrant background and story, I think there’s two places I want to talk about. One is Bogota in Colombia, and then the other is Miami. And then I think as the story continues, we’ll also talk about New York, which is I think the third place that really stood out to me in our earlier conversation. But maybe going back to your parents, can you share a little bit more about them and the influence that they’ve had on your life?
Antonia Botero: Sure. So, my parents were divorced when I was really young. I actually don’t remember them being together. And I do remember when I was young, they worked, they had a real estate development company. So, it was sort of in the air. There was always some sort of construction sites, some sort of pictures of a building, drawings of buildings. I couldn’t tell you exactly the memory, but it was just one of these like things that happened in my childhood. It was just always around. And so, there’s a little bit of that point from the perspective, obviously, professionally where I’ve ended up where it was kind of in the air for me. But also, the fact that they were divorced when I was so young, and I don’t remember them together. And so, it’s a little bit of a- a lot of people will ask, oh, the effect of your parents’ divorce, and I’ll tell you, maybe at the time, maybe when I was a kid, I may have struggled with some of it. I couldn’t tell you that I remember that. So I think that that in some ways has an impact, but maybe in less ways that people would imagine. And I get the question often. It’s like, oh, how does this impact you? And I’m like, well, they’ve always been my parents and they’ve never been together. So there wasn’t like a thing about it. But yeah, I think that the development aspect of it and then just really sort of in an odd- and I always sort of had some aptitude for art and drawing and design, kind of that idea. So I grew up with this, and it wasn’t like an explicit expectation. They were never like, oh my gosh, you must be an architect when you grow up. Like, this is what everyone has ever done in your family, sort of like in the families of doctors where there’s like this crazy- I didn’t grow up like that. It wasn’t like that. It was just more their recognition that I had that sensibility, and then they were like, oh, you’re probably going to end up doing this when you grow up. And then they were right. But I think in some ways, that may have translated as a bit of an expectation more on my end. I mean, I guess as a child, you kind of process it that way. But I really don’t think that it was. I think with my mom, because I grew up mostly with my mom – or not mostly, I grew up entirely with my mom. But the way that she raised me was more towards whatever you do, you’re going to be the best at it. She’s like, I really don’t care what it is, but you’re just going to rock it and you’re going to be incredible at whatever it is that you do. And then the work ethic that she always had, that I got to see because I’m an only child, I grew up just with my mom, and so it was just the two of us. And so, I got to see her working very closely. And that sort of, if you commit to something, you follow through, you show up on time, you show up in your best, you do your hair. She’d be pretty mortified about what my hair looks like right now. But that sort of thing, like you make sure you’re wearing the right clothes for the right event. So, it wasn’t just a matter of like vanity. It was more a matter of you need to show up right. You need to show up prepared. If you’re going to commit into a meeting, you need to know what you’re going to be talking about. If it’s your meeting, you need to know more than anyone else. That was what I think had the most effect on me in terms of my upbringing, it was kind of that tenacity but also that discipline in showing up.
Tim Ludwig: Yeah, it sounds like a really high expectation that she set and a standard across the board, but then also a tremendous amount of, I think, belief in you that you had the capability of being great at whatever you set your mind to.
Antonia Botero: Yeah, and I think that you bring up a good point there because I think that for her it was always the idea of being capable, like being a useful human being, not standing in the way, just being able to take care of yourself, like all of that. And that’s something that she taught me by example too. It wasn’t only from just like a do as I say sort of situation. It was, she really has always been that way. And I think that pride, that personal pride in showing up. And those are really like- those I think are more complex things to teach a kid. So, I think those have been the really valuable lessons of my upbringing from my mom.
Tim Ludwig: With your dad then, I sort of got the impression that you might have been out on job sites with him sometimes and that he sort of envisioned you as a mini me in some respects, that you would grow up and be able to do these projects together. Is that accurate?
Antonia Botero: Yeah, so I mean, and I think, and this one is a little bit of what we spoke about offline where the complex stories are just more difficult to tell because they don’t necessarily only belong to you. So, this is one of those for me. But my memories of my dad when I was really young were exactly that. There’s this really great picture, and I’ve shared it on Twitter a couple of times, of me playing with sand on a job site. And I remember that day with my dad. So, he would take me to the job site. I would play with the sand and then I would sit at the trailer, and I remember there was a whiteboard, and I got to draw on the whiteboard and that was really cool. And there was always this sort of, even when I was in my early teenage years and I know we had multiple conversations about him being- how it’d be really cool, I think he started realizing that I was like a person at the time. And that moment of him being like, oh, you’re like someone that I could talk to, and oh man, it turns out that you’re actually pretty good at some of these things that actually overlap really well with development. There were some of those conversations of like it’d be really cool to work on something together, to do something together. I think there were a couple of buildings and drawings and things that I did for him when I was in architecture school, so about 20 years ago now. And I wouldn’t- it’s less, again, less of an expectation, but more like the flavor of my life there, where- and I couldn’t tell you exactly if that was the expectation he had, but for me, it was just always like the conversations with my dad have always been more about the work than about anything else. And that’s been really interesting. And my memories of him too, the cool moments and the equal moments with my dad have always been about the work.
Tim Ludwig: Yeah, and clearly he and your mom both saw something in you, not only just sort of raw potential but also something that was aligned with real estate. I mean, did you feel drawn to it at an early age too? Or did that sort of come later where you had to make your own choice about what you were going to do?
Antonia Botero: I always wanted to build buildings. It wasn’t so much about the drawing or the design or the colors. It was more about like the orchestra, the directing, the managing. And when you’re a kid, you don’t grow up to say, I want to be a project manager. You just gravitate toward the more easily accessible thing when you’re a kid, which for me was drawing and it was like these are the plans. And I think, growing up and even in high school, we had this massive event that the high school seniors put on for the whole school. And there’s a ton of logistics and stuff that you need to figure out, and they divide the whole senior class into teams and each team does something. And I was like, I’m doing the logistics of the thing. And I think that was the first time that I realized there’s something here that isn’t… There’s this thing that I’m really good at doing that I don’t necessarily have the language for. I don’t know how to explain what this is called. And I think that was kind of the first time. But imagine me being a kid, being like six years old or three years old, like in that picture and being like, I want to be a project manager when I grow up. It was more like, I want to build this whole thing. So maybe, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do, and art and drawing was kind of like my intro to it from a more accessible perspective for the age.
Tim Ludwig: Yeah, that’s so cool. And interesting to combine the creative aspects, the art and the drawing, with the planning and the logistics and the organization and keeping things running smoothly. I mean, those are two very different skill sets that you were trying to bring together.
Antonia Botero: But the creativity is the thing. And I think that that’s something that a lot- I’ve had this conversation a couple times. I’ve spoken with [inaudible 15:48] on a podcast about creativity, and it’s a little bit of how it manifests. Sometimes, and especially because I work with a lot of clients who have like solely a finance background, and then I’ll meet the guys who have a finance background and they’re incredibly creative people. They’ve never drawn a thing in their lives. But we begin talking about logistics and problem solving and solving issues and discussing things with people, and you can see the creative ones right away, and you can see the non-creative ones right away too. So, you can feel it when it exists, but when it doesn’t exist, you can really feel it. So I think that for me, that creativity and really coming up with different ways, like how do we solve this problem, was really what it was from the beginning for me. And it just manifested in design at first. And then again, by the time I was in high school, I was like, well, it turns out that there’s more to this creativity that I could actually, that there might be a thing to do. And as I got into architecture and actually practicing architecture, that became more and more useful in the logistics and in the problem-solving sense, more so than in the creative sense, while still maintaining a lot of aesthetic sensibilities and really the idea of good taste and studying design and what are the things that make good design. But I would say that my real strengths are really like in the creativity of solving the problems.
Tim Ludwig: Yeah. And real estate really does lend itself in certain roles to being multidisciplinary. I remember my father-in-law was a real estate developer, and I didn’t know much about real estate when we were having this conversation, but he had told me that if he hadn’t been a real estate developer, he thought he would have been a movie producer because the skill set was very similar in a lot of ways. He was organizing these teams on a project basis to complete this creative task and see it through a completion with a finite budget. I thought it was such an interesting comparison, so non-obvious, but once I heard it, I was like, oh yeah, those are actually really similar roles in a lot of ways.
Antonia Botero: Yeah. And I feel like whenever you look at any major creative endeavor, like whether it’s a building or a master plan or a movie or an art show or an art collection, even like a runway show, anything that is highly, highly creative where you’re really, even like music, any new albums that you see out there, and when you actually meet the people who put these things together, you realize the amount of… That creativity doesn’t stop at the end product and at the thing that you put out. Creativity really begins backstage, and it follows all of these. And I’m grateful to have some friends in different creative fields and we have these conversations too where the thinking and the thoughtfulness and the planning and the how do you solve the problems, the creativity is really there. And ultimately you’re able to have this runway show, you’re able to have this fashion collection or this album or this building or this movie. And so, it’s a really interesting, I think that’s a great analogy because I don’t think that you could have highly creative work that is presented and shared without having a well thought out plan to put it out there.
Tim Ludwig: Yeah, and I think some structure and constraints also help to feed that creative process. All right, so now I want to who you are today comes from talk about these places. You were born in Columbia, lived there until you were nine. I’m curious, what about there?
Antonia Botero: That’s a great one. I haven’t thought of that in a very long time. But I feel like there are a lot of these sort of undercurrents in kind of where I am right now in my life. But I think the first thing which I have thought of a lot and I don’t think I’ve actually had this conversation with many people, maybe except for my mom, but now I’m living in Park City, Utah. I’m living in the mountains, and I was born in the mountains. I was actually- and so there’s been this sort of- and in between, I’ve lived by the ocean. So it’s sort of like the mountains are kind of encapping my ocean time, which at sea level in Miami and then in New York, with like a quick Boston interlude in there. But I’ve started to feel and think more about being an immigrant now than I think I ever have in my life. And I don’t know if it’s like the political climate currently or if it’s more just a matter of getting older and sort of realizing like where do I come from, where are my roots, like what does that mean? I think there’s a little bit more colorfulness in my life that I think comes from the fact that I do have like an entire culture as part of my upbringing. And again, more as part of the air, like I was never so proudly Colombian. Not that I wasn’t, not that I’d hide it or wasn’t proud, but it was just never something I led with. It wasn’t like, oh my gosh, like I am- a lot of people will put their flag like on their profile. It just never occurred to me; that was never part of who I’ve been. And so, it’s been less about that and more about that air and the things that are around you and how it’s influenced for me a little bit like my aesthetic and what I like, my environment. I would say, for all the contemporary stuff that I really like, I think there’s a lot of color and a lot of plants and a little bit more, it’s a little bit more fun there. And then I think in terms of identity and like who I am, I think there’s just this richness of perspective. I don’t know if you’ve read One Hundred Years of Solitude, but it’s kind of like that magical realism, the stories of family, the kind of patriarchs who had a second family and so-and-so who it turns out was not so-and-so’s kid. There’s a little bit of that colorfulness and layers that when I go do my work, there’s a lot more empathy for people than otherwise there would be, just because there’s kind of this understanding that we all come from different places and we all have different perspectives all the time, regardless of where you were born. And so I think that that, for me, is the bigger impact. Like, it just has opened my eyes. As I get older and look back and say, okay, I have this whole entire background, it’s opened my eyes that other people have their own backgrounds. And again, regardless of whether they were born here or not. So, I think that I think of it more that way, where there’s a little bit more depth to people and my realizing it.
Tim Ludwig: And what about Miami? What sort of layers did that add to your worldview and your perspective? Because I mean, going for- and you grew up there sort of mid to late 90s and a little bit beyond. So I don’t know what was happening in Miami then, at this all Catholic girls school, but recent immigrant, mom is involved in the international community there. How does that help shape you?
Antonia Botero: I think the first thing that comes to mind in some ways, because this is what’s playing in my house all the time, but I think my taste in music really, really came from Miami, which might not be a good thing, but it’s definitely a big part of my day. I listen to music all the time. And I think that’s something that I think about often, how it affects my work and that kind of stuff. But Miami, when I lived in Miami, it was a really interesting time because it was a cool place, but it was, I would say, maybe a little bit less international and more Latin American. Not that it isn’t Latin American still, but there wasn’t this sort of, it was cool, but it was like Latin American cool. It wasn’t so international as it’s become, I’d say, in the last 15 years. I lived in Miami until 2010. So it’s been almost 15 years since I’ve been gone. And then in the last 15 years, Miami has grown tremendously. I tell people like it’s grown up. It’s definitely gotten a lot more dense, like the downtown has grown a bunch, a lot more investment has come in. I think that for me, Miami, it’s like for me that in-between place, like literally the in-between place. I think it was a place where I never really quite felt like myself living there. And I think that was, it was a struggle socially, it was really hard for me. And so I don’t love going back and I don’t love it there. Like I don’t- Its very cool to visit and my mom lives there and it’s really nice in many ways. But I think for me, it’s just a weird place. I think I mentioned to you when we chatted before, where people- I remember I would go back to visit family, and they would be like, oh my God, you’re so American. And then I would come back to the US, and people were like, oh my God, where are you from? Like, you’re so not from here. So, I think that is what Miami embodies for me. And I was talking to a friend recently, and he had a very similar timeline of when his family moved to the US. And that feeling of like, you’re not from here and you’re not from there, it’s a really interesting thing to grow up with and to look at as an adult where… I mean, I think the biggest impact on that for me has been that it’s made me really adaptable. It’s kind of like, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter where I am, and it doesn’t matter exactly what I’m doing. But I’m going to go back to the lessons of my mother and I’m going to do it as well as I can. So, I think it’s sort of that in-between place. And this isn’t just about how I felt about Miami. A lot of people who live in Miami have a very similar timeline where they came to Miami when they were kids and you grow up in this really strange sort of culture that isn’t quite the US, but it isn’t quite the country you came from. And so, it’s an odd place of transition, I’d say.
Tim Ludwig: That’s really interesting. I’ve never thought of Miami that way, but it makes sense to hear you describe it like that. All right, so you left Miami and had a brief stop at MIT where you picked up a master’s degree and then you moved to New York, which is the melting pot. Like there’s a little bit of everything there. And that was a super pivotal time, it seems like, in your life. And before we talk about the professional side of that, one of the things that, if I got the timeline right here, that was going on is you were making efforts to become a US citizen around that time. And it was not, I don’t know what the normal process is like, but you had a challenging process. And I thought it would be interesting to hear a little bit more about that, just to shed some color on what it can be like to try and become a citizen in the United States.
Antonia Botero: Yeah, I mean, it was an incredibly lengthy process. We had multiple letdowns through the process. All in all, I think it took over 10 years to become a US permanent resident. My residency took so long that I was eligible to apply for citizenship before I had my US permanent resident card. It was such a wild process and the details are really kind of a lot. Like it’s just one of those crazy stories that, if it was a movie, you wouldn’t believe it because it’s just like no, no way.
Tim Ludwig: But you were getting your driver’s license renewed every six months, like there was just a lot of red tape and bureaucracy you had to deal with.
Antonia Botero: Yeah, so during the process, when you’re in process basically, so the moment that you decide to apply for permanent residency, you’re basically considered in status. So you’re technically not out of status, which is what a lot of people like to call illegal. So now you’re in status, and when you’re in status, what they do is they basically take away your visa. So, if you had a student visa or a travel visa or whatever, they cut it out of your passport. So, you give up your visa. You’re in status. They give you what they call an alien number, which is the thing that you get because you don’t have a social security number. So, you get your alien number, and with the alien number, then you can go and you can apply for a work permit, which is also processed by the Department of Homeland Security, and a travel permit because now you don’t have a visa. And so if you’re ever going to go out of the US, that’s all good, except you can’t come back in unless you have a piece of paper. And it’s literally a piece of paper. It’s the most terrifying thing. They take this very official looking thing out of your passport, and they give you a sheet of paper that then, when you come back to US immigration, you literally have to stand in line. And then every time you come in, because it is just a piece of paper, they have to verify it, which means you go in, and before they stamp your passport, they make you go into a little room and you have to sit there for a couple of hours while they verify that that piece of paper is indeed legit. So there’s the anxiety of travel, the anxiety of your work permit, and in some states, most states, you can’t get a driver’s license if you’re not a US permanent resident. But you can get one if you have a work permit. Because if you have the right to work, but you can’t drive, like that’s a bit of a problem. So here’s the thing, the work permit and the travel permit, they expire once a year or every two years, depending on how close you are to the process. When I was doing it, mine expired once a year. And so what they do is when you get your driver’s license with that work permit, the driver’s license expires and the work permit expires. And so once a year, you have to go through this process. And the application, I want to say right now, between your work permit and your travel permit, I would say right now it’s probably around a thousand bucks, just the application. This is without having a lawyer involved or anything. So, you have to fill out these documents, and then every time that you do it, they send you in for biometrics. So you have to go and they send you a letter and they say you have to go get fingerprinted. You get fingerprinted, and then your fingerprints come back, and it’s like a wait period. You have to wait, like all in all, it’s about 60 days or so. And then you get your work permit and your travel permit renewed and then you have to go and renew your driver’s license, which everyone complains about going to the DMV, but imagine having to do it once a year. So you’re doing this. And at the time, I was in my early 20s and so imagine like all the freedom that you have in your early 20s and all the things that you’re able to do and all the jobs you are able to take, the risks you can take, all this stuff, and all of a sudden, for me, it was this awareness of even like a speeding ticket was a concern because at some point you were going to be coming up for an interview and that interview for residency was going to be super meaningful and your entire future depended on it. And so, if you had like too many parking tickets or whatever, like there’s always that nervousness of, am I going to do something that is going to jeopardize this process that I’ve been in my entire life? And never mind the possibility that they’ll deny you. And after living in this country for over 20 years to say, oh, by the way, you have to go back to a place where you don’t have a network, you don’t have an education, you don’t really speak the business language, you don’t have any connections. You have some family, but that’s it. It’s a pretty terrifying prospect, especially if you’re a pretty meaningfully contributing member of society. I mean, I had to do that, and I didn’t become a US citizen until 10 years ago in 2014. So, it was a big sigh of relief. And I think that was sort of the beginning of a massive change in my life, because right up until that point, you’re sort of living with that cloud of a pretty restrictive existence, from both a legal perspective, but also there’s this, I wouldn’t say social, but there’s this kind of like mood all around you where it’s kind of like you can’t have a misstep. You really can’t. Because then you’re like, oh, that immigrant that did that thing also. And you’re not just screwing up for yourself, you’re screwing up for your family. And so, there’s that complexity to it, which it’s a lot to deal with when you’re in your early 20s. You’re still a young adult.
Tim Ludwig: I can only imagine what that does to you. I mean, that’s a lot to take on. It seems like you’d just get into a place and you’d never want to leave your apartment. And then you talked before about feeling like you didn’t belong here, but you didn’t belong there. And this is sort of another version of that. Like, for all intents and purposes, you feel like a US citizen. You’ve been in Miami since you were nine. Like this is home. But then every year, you’re reminded of the fact that this isn’t quite home yet.
Antonia Botero: Yes, and not only that, but in the meantime, like graduating at the top of your class in college, getting a pretty good scholarship to go to MIT, it’s not like you’re not contributing. It’s not like you’re not doing things that are meaningful and that you’re gainfully employed. Oh, and by the way, in the whole meantime, you’re paying taxes. Because that’s the other thing that comes up for review. When you go for that interview, they’re going to check and make sure that you’ve been paying taxes because that’s a big part of it. So, it’s not like you get a free pass. And you can’t vote. You have no civic say, which is fine. But there’s sort of like that dichotomy of, yeah, you’re not from here, you’re not from there. And it’s kind of like, it’s very restrictive. And I think for me, looking back especially, it definitely sent me back meaningfully professionally. I know it. The opportunities I would have had and the things I could have done. There’s a lot of travel that I wanted to do in my 20s and I just couldn’t because I literally couldn’t. I mean, unless I wanted to travel and never come back to the US. There is kind of that.
Tim Ludwig: Well, I’m appreciative of you sharing all that because it was certainly a lot of information that I’d never heard before and it certainly deepened my appreciation of what it’s like to be in that situation and to have to go through that process. And I’m glad you persevered and that you’re still here and continue to be a contributing member of society. So, after MIT, you moved to New York. What was the first job in New York?
Antonia Botero: My first job in New York was actually working for a medium-sized architecture firm, medium-sized at the time, they’re pretty big now, called Beyer Blinder Belle. I got to work on some fabulous projects while I was with them. I think that was the first time where professionally there was a whole team of people that were true mentors. I mean, I’d had a really good boss. My first boss was amazing. She’s still to this day the best boss I ever had, which is remarkable because at the time I was 19 and she was 28, and she was just a powerhouse. I mean, she’s just incredible. Lots of lessons, the way that I run my teams that come from her. But when I went to New York and I worked at BBB, the people there, the principals there, my bosses there are just the best people, really. And I’m still in touch with them, and I’m extremely thankful to them because they’re just exceptional people.
Tim Ludwig: And during that time, you were working on getting your licensure as an architect, right? After you get your degree, then you have to go and actually be a practicing architect and get a certain number of hours or something to qualify. Is that right?
Antonia Botero: Yeah. And you have to get a certain number of hours in specific buckets. Like you have to do a little bit of construction administration, like some design. There are all these different categories that you need to fulfill in order to become registered.
Tim Ludwig: You put in four years of undergrad, say, studying architecture.
Antonia Botero: Five.
Tim Ludwig: Five years, okay. A couple years of grad school studying architecture, practicing architect for three years, finally get licensed, so a ten-year run there to become a licensed architect. And then what’d you decide?
Antonia Botero: I decided to leave architecture. Like pretty much immediately. It was comical. I became registered in Florida first because the requirements are a little bit different than New York. New York is a little bit more stringent. I actually became registered in New York, I think, after I had already, like a few months after I had officially left practice, just because my paperwork took- So I got the registration, I think, yeah, I got the registration after. I always knew I wanted to build buildings. That was the thing. And once I started working in architecture, particularly in New York, where these development projects are super intense, I very quickly realized I wanted to be on the other side of the table. I wanted to be on the developer side. It was just that’s where the decisions were being made. That’s where a lot of the design was coming from. That’s the stuff that had meaning. And I was like, well, I mean, logically, that’s the next thing I’m going to do. Much to my surprise, it’s apparently an incredibly unusual jump from architecture into development. And when I was applying for jobs trying to get into the development side, it was a really funny, and I think I wrote up a post about this on X about how I was interviewing with all these firms, and on the same day I got feedback from two different places where I had interviewed, one said, you have too much design experience and not enough construction experience, and the other said, you have too much construction experience, not enough design experience. And I got that feedback. It was funny because I was working with a recruiter because these jobs are pretty tough to come by. And he was kind of laughing when he was giving me the feedback. He’s like, this is what this one guy thought. And this is what this other woman that interviewed you thought. And I just thought it was kind of crazy, but very much indicative of how unusual of a candidate I was for that kind of job.
Tim Ludwig: Real estate, construction, architecture, I think none of those are really known as being particularly female friendly or having many women in the workforce there. New York City is certainly known as probably one of the most competitive job environments in the world. And the shift from architect to developer is also uncommon. So, there were a lot of things working against you to make that switch. Were you confident when you set out that you’d be able to find a chair on the developer side?
Antonia Botero: I mean, I was, and maybe it was because I just didn’t know how hard, I mean, I knew it was going to be hard, but now looking back, now I realize how hard, how incredibly hard it was. And I ended up getting that job actually through a structural engineer that we worked with. And he just knew somebody, and it was more of like a word of mouth, which was a massive lesson too about the industry, which was sort of the reputation and your work ethic and the sort of stuff that you did, that’s what got you the job. It wasn’t the recruiter who was shopping you in front of a bunch of people, but their recommendation was not as meaningful as that of someone who’d actually worked with you who had a good reputation in the industry. So, this structural engineer, like everybody who’s worked in New York knows this guy. We’re still pretty good friends. He has his own shop now. And he spoke for me. So, I think that that, realizing that it was really important to have people speak for you was really a big part of it. And that came into play again when I went to work for the other development shop where I worked, where it turns out one of my bosses from BBB was the architect for a project. And I didn’t know this until after the fact. He was working on a project for them, when I was interviewed, obviously they saw in my resume that I had worked for BBB, and so the guy who ended up being my boss went and asked the architect who was working for him at the time, and said, what about Antonia? And he spoke for me. So again, both development jobs that I had in New York were through people who knew me and who spoke for me. It was completely just word of mouth experience and reputation.
Tim Ludwig: Yeah, you also talked about with me New York really feeling like a great fit, like that felt like home for the time that you were there. What was so different about New York, maybe in contrast to Miami or Boston, that made it feel like that just you were comfortable in your skin there?
Antonia Botero: It’s a mix of two things, and I think that the first one is really sort of physical, like the way the city has been designed. The New York City grid, and I talk to friends about this all the time, there’s this book I like to give friends, it’s Delirious New York by Rem Koolhaas, and it talks about the history of the New York City grid. And I think that the possibility that you could create anything right next to anything else, the fact that we have these massive buildings right next to like cathedrals is just kind of wild. You don’t see that in too many places around the world. So, the freedom that the city embodies is really something that a lot of people feel when they get there. Like you get there and it’s sort of like anything is possible. Like literally you could walk outside and you could be at the best fine dining that you could imagine, you can also have the best $20 meal you’ve had in your life, you can also be by the water, and you can also see some of the best architecture in the world within three blocks of each other. And for me, there’s always this, whenever- I go to New York often, I’m there about once a month, but when I get there, you walk out of your hotel, and it’s just kind of like you could go anywhere and you could do anything. And I think that that feeling sort of lifted the lid on a lot of this ‘you have to’ that I had lived with for so long between the Catholic conservative education, the immigration situation, the living in Miami where you’re not from here, you’re not from there, all of a sudden, New York is just very like, well, who do you want to be? And then whatever it is, like totally possible, let’s go. And I think that that made it so- and every time I go, you just feel like you just know, that you’re like you can own this place. And sometimes that can be really overwhelming. I went a couple of months ago and I walked around downtown with a friend of mine, and we were just looking at buildings, and he was taking notes, and we were just walking around. And I remember I got back to the hotel, and I was so overwhelmed. I’m like, there is no way I’m going to be able to figure out this place. Like, there’s no way I’m going to be able to figure out how to build here. And I go back and forth because that feeling is real, but that’s what comes along with that freedom and why it feels so much like a welcoming place for me because it’s sort of like it’s up to you. It really is up to you. And I feel like, I’d like to think that up to now, I’ve made my way, other than my mom’s relentlessness and sort of tenacity in the education and the work ethic and that kind of stuff. And I’ve had some good opportunities to learn. But I’ve never been given anything. Everything that I have done I have earned. And so, to me, being in a place where it’s kind of like, well, there’s nothing you can’t earn here, it’s sort of like, okay, let’s go. And I really like that about New York.
Tim Ludwig: You said something there about it’s a place where you can lift the lid off and not do what – what did you say? – the have to. And I want to dig in there a little bit more because I think that’s, you phrased it much better than I just mangled it there, but I think that’s really sort of one of the key things that was going on for you right then is that you’ve been following expectations for a long time, trying to meet the societal expectations or the familial expectations and doing the right thing in the right way. And it seems like New York, like to you said, took the lid off of that. And now you were choosing how you were going to confront the life that you wanted to lead and making decisions about, I’m going to be a developer, I’m going to do X, I’m going to do Y. And to me, that’s so powerful. I just want to hear a little bit more about what that must have felt like for you with this realization that seems like it was always sort of crackling beneath the surface, but in New York, it sort of broke through and it was like, holy crap, I can do anything and it’s up to me to make it happen, but nothing else is going to stop me.
Antonia Botero: Yeah, I think it was a mix of things. One, obviously becoming a US citizen because suddenly you have this real freedom, like you could literally travel now. There are these things that you don’t have to worry about anymore. So that’s obviously one of them. Second, becoming a registered architect, it’s sort of like this legitimacy that you’ve been chasing for 10 years now is in your back pocket. Having finished a master’s degree from MIT, same thing for me, and it’s a really interesting thing because I have some incredible friends that didn’t go to college who have done tremendous things professionally. For me, needing that legitimacy in many instances has been the one thing that’s gotten me in the room. So now, I was a US citizen, I had my architecture license, I had my grad degree from MIT, I had done everything that I needed to sort of get in the door and say, okay, I’m legitimate, I have a real work ethic, I’m capable. I had that on paper. And so that gave me that sort of freedom at that time to begin looking at the possibilities of, well, what can I do with this? And it really, I mean, the crazy thing about my life at that time, I went from I had been chasing all these things, I’d been doing all these things for about 10 years, pretty much my entire adult life, becoming a registered architect. I had been in a long-term relationship up until that point as well. And sort of having that realization that, okay, you have this permission now, like what are you going to do, also gave me permission to put up my entire life for review. And that is, when you’re 30 years old or about to be 30, I remember it was 2015, so I was turning 30. It started at the beginning of that year, and between March of that year and November, I completely changed my life. Because when you choose to leave a long-term relationship and when you choose to leave a career that you’ve spent so much time in that is so strongly tied to your identity equally as a relationship at that time in your life, you lose a lot of people. That’s just part of it. Your entire life just- there’s this weird clarity that happens at those moments where, all of a sudden, if you truly are putting everything up for review, there’s this strange understanding of what matters and what doesn’t and what you want and what you don’t want. And it’s a difficult thing to suddenly do when you’re 30 because you’ve spent, again, the majority of your adult life up until that point, like whatever you have when you’re 30, potentially you’ve spent the previous 10 years finding it, chasing it, working for it, and saying, hey, listen, I’m going to do away with a lot of this because it’s actually not what I want for my future. It’s gotten me here, but it’s not going to get me there. And I don’t- there was a mix of things that happened, obviously becoming a citizen, getting licensed, there were a few people that came into my life during that time where seeing how they saw life gave me a ton of inspiration. You get to see your potential in the acts of other people. And suddenly, there were these people doing these really remarkable things, living in ways that were just completely foreign to me. There was no permission. There was no, they didn’t ask like, hey, well, can I do this? Or, oh, my parents expect it. Or, oh, if I get a parking ticket, I might not be able to stay in this country. All of a sudden, you get to see the world differently. And honestly, it’s the highest highs and the lowest lows. It’s this restlessness and this sort of like, what am I doing in my life? And it wasn’t an easy period, but it was like a wildly happy period. I lived by myself for the first time in my life. I had this beautiful studio in Hell’s Kitchen and I had a view of the Empire State Building and I had this job that I loved and all of a sudden I was living in New York. By the end of 2015, it was like my life was full of new things, and at the same time, there was kind of the mourning and the sadness of letting go of 10 years of relationships, of experiences, of professional accomplishments. I had people that I worked with in architecture who stopped talking to me because I went to work on the developer side, which was kind of hilarious. And that’s just a tiny illustration of how massive this change was. But it was a really remarkable time in my life, and it sort of gave me a lot of courage also moving forward because now it’s sort of like anything that happens or any of these moments, I feel like I have not just changed but changed the way I live from then on. And since then, it’s been a really wild ride. I mean, it’s just like every year, there’s like some crazy thing that I’m doing or there’s a big move or something else. And I think it was that moment of saying like, oh my gosh, this was terrifying. And you know what? You’re capable.
Tim Ludwig: I love that. That’s such an incredible story. It gives me goosebumps. You spent another, after 2015, what, another five years in New York City after that?
Antonia Botero: Almost. Yeah, actually exactly about five years after that.
Tim Ludwig: So, in the five years, you’ve had this transformational year in 2015 where the lid came off and all these new possibilities were opening up, new professional experiences, new personal experiences, new relationships. And New York was home. Like you said that that was, it was just a great fit. But here you are, you said earlier in Park City, Utah. So what happened?
Antonia Botero: Oh man. Well, like I said, every year since has been kind of a little more wild. And then we had COVID and that was crazy. So 2015, I went to work in development. Then from there, I worked in development for a little while, went to work for another developer who did national projects. And at the time, he was also doing the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. I was the project manager in charge of the restoration, repositioning of the flight center specifically, so it’s a really cool building. And I was there, so I was in Queens in a trailer for, I would say, 14 months or so while we did that specific part of that project. And during working for that company, I also had the opportunity to travel across the country and work in many, many different jurisdictions doing hotel work. So, I learned the side of hospitality and I learned national markets and what it is to travel for work, which is very common in hospitality. And during that time, I also got married to Mike. And Mike’s job brought us to Park City. Because I had had the opportunity to travel across the country and I pretty much lived on a plane, really, I had like weeks that I was traveling like 10,000 miles, it was intense, it gave me the opportunity to live wherever in the US. And so Mike had this sort of career changing opportunity to do a really, really big project, one of the largest projects in North America right now. And he’s in the same industry as I am. He works for a big development shop. And so, I knew exactly what the opportunity meant for him to the extent that I was like you can’t turn this down. Because I understood from the professional aspect, I’m like, you can’t say no to this. So we had three days to make the decision to move. And so we made the decision, we moved. And we were going to- so we made the decision in the summer of 2019, and we were going to move the beginning of 2020. And so, he traveled back and forth, and I kept my travel schedule, and we bought land in Utah where I built this house. And then we moved at the beginning of 2020, which was quite an interesting time to make that decision, as we all know. But it was completely unrelated. It was just related to Mike’s job. So, we finally made the move back. And a lot of what I had been thinking about was once we moved, I was probably going to slow down a little bit and try to open up my own shop, which I had sort of been doing a little bit of work on the side while I was in New York doing honors rep stuff. But now I have the benefit of knowing how to work in national markets and I had been doing that quite seriously for several years then. And so, I was like this is something that I could do. And then COVID happened. And so I was working in hospitality when COVID happened. And anyone familiar with the industry knows, the industry got totally crushed. So, I had a team of six people at the time, and I lost all of them. Rather than go off and start my own shop, I had to hold down the fort and make sure that the contracts were properly closed out, the vendors and contractors that I had brought on board were properly closed out and paid. It was really a tough time. At the same time, I saw the writing on the wall and I knew that that job was going to be pretty much over. And so, the plans to start my shop kind of in some ways got accelerated, in some ways got delayed. So, I had to sort of really get my shop started at the same time.
Tim Ludwig: What were your goals with the business when you started it?
Antonia Botero: So, I started the business technically in 2017 when I was still in New York. And I think there was- at that time, I think I was still working for the first developer that I worked with. And there was a little bit of that contrast between the world of architecture that I had come from, specifically from BBB, which the leadership was coherent and thoughtful and they ran the place in a very special way. And when I went to work in development, it was such a huge contrast. Like I couldn’t even understand it at first. I was like, what is happening here? And after a few years, two years, because I left in 2015, by 2017, I was like, you know what, I think there’s a better way to do this. And if I truly believe that, then I should just go do my own thing. Like you’re taking some personal responsibility there. And so, while you figure it out, start out doing things that you are proficient at, which was, for me, project management. So, the idea was always, as wild as it sounds, again from then was eventually I wanted to have my own development company. I wanted to do my own projects, and I didn’t necessarily know how I was going to do that. But I knew that I could start a project management company because I knew that that was something I could do. I knew the business of it. I knew the technical aspect of it. I knew I had clients. Like it just made sense. So, when I opened up shop nationally from Utah, the idea was really to position a project management company in a way where eventually I could pivot into development. And I wasn’t sure what the timeline would look like. Honestly, during COVID, all I knew was that I needed to position myself as well as I could to build a house, which I had already committed to doing, and position myself well enough that I would just have money. Like at the time, it was more like you didn’t know, we didn’t know what was happening, we didn’t know what jobs there were going to be. There was so much uncertainty that it became more a matter of really positioning. It was like, just try to make as much money as you can doing the thing that you know how to do really well. And thankfully, that was a great way to approach the moment. So that was the original intent, honestly. The immediate one was don’t go broke. And the more long-term one is, okay, if everything goes well and you don’t go broke, and now you have all this cash, then maybe you’re in a position where not only have you built a little bit of a savings, but now you’ve also built a team that you can take and pivot into doing this thing that you really want to do without a set timeline. I didn’t really have a… And honestly, some of it for me was with the vibes of what real estate was doing at the time and money just seemed so free and so crazy that I was like completely terrified of starting then. So I was like, this is not the time. Like money is just- like the stuff that is happening right now is so stupid that I want no part of it. So that was sort of a thought of why I didn’t start a shop then and why my timeline was a little bit like, okay, well, let’s see what happens.
Tim Ludwig: And now you are beginning to pursue the second chapter there, which is on the development side.
Antonia Botero: Correct. So now it’s four years later, and I think between the change in cycle, the changes that we’ve seen in New York, and sort of where my team is, I think that we’re ready to start going in that direction.
Tim Ludwig: That’s super exciting. I’ve got a couple more questions. In a previous conversation, you said something about high consequence versus high risk. I don’t know if you remember that. But it was a really interesting notion that I think didn’t come off the cuff. It’s something that sounded to me like you’d thought about before. Can you just explain what you mean by that?
Antonia Botero: Yeah, so actually, I didn’t come up with this. This is something that I heard first on a podcast with Alex Honnold, and he was talking about the Dawn Wall and when he did that, that free solo. And for me, it really made a lot of things click when he’s talking about this because a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, this guy, he’s taking these crazy risks. And he’s like, no, the amount of training and thought that went behind that climb, and he’s like, it’s risky if you don’t know what you’re doing. But for him, it was like he’d been training for years, and then he’d been training this specific climb for weeks, probably years also, where every move was down on a notebook. It wasn’t like he just walked out of his camper van one day and decided like let me just try this out for today. That was not at all how he did it. And I think the preparation and the training really clicked for me in a lot of ways. And I actually wrote a post about this specifically, and specifically in this changing environment of real estate, where a lot of people talk about risk. And it’s interesting as a woman and also as an architect, you get this reputation that you’re very risk averse. It’s like, oh, you’re a woman, you’re an architect, you must not really take any risks. Some of the biggest risk takers I know are architects. I have a couple of friends that come to my mind that I’m like you have no idea like the wild stuff they do. But for me, it sort of brought into perspective the real estate environment at the time where we have always been, when you work in real estate and you do really big projects and you’re personally guaranteeing stuff and your reputation’s on the line really a lot, you’re in an environment of high consequence. We are, period. You can lose everything and you can lose your reputation, and if you’re particularly cute about the law, you can end up in prison. There’s no question there. We’re seeing headlines now, a lot of them too. And so, a lot of people say, oh, well, these guys took all these really big risks. In my mind, they conflated the two. They didn’t realize they were in a high-consequence environment because money was free for a long time. And it turns out, it’s always been a high consequence environment, always. And so how prepared are you, and what fundamentals are you following into the work? And that’s where risk comes in. If you’re prepared and if you do things right, obviously you can get caught in a bad cycle and you can do everything right and still end up in a bad way, but the consequence is very different. And I think that that’s where we’re seeing a lot of the people who are not doing so well currently, it’s not that they took these- yeah, they took massive risks because they weren’t prepared, and because money was free, they were completely unaware that they were in a very high consequence industry. And I think that that’s something you can apply that to a lot in life. And it ultimately comes down to how you show up and being prepared and bringing it. And then again, getting to this point where I’ve gotten with my clients and my work is not something that- this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been prepared. And if I didn’t make sure that every time I show up to the table that I’m going to bring it, I wouldn’t have gotten this far. And I think that that’s a little bit of that thoughtfulness that goes into addressing an environment or an industry of high consequence. It’s like, I’m going to show up extremely prepared. I’m going to do everything that I can. I’m going to dot all the I’s, cross all the T’s. I’m going to have the right team. I’m going to have the right investors. I’m going to do all the things that I need to do well so that I hopefully don’t have to suffer the consequences. But yes, it’s not risky in that sense. You might look at it from the outside because the consequence is so great. But ultimately, if you’re prepared and you’ve kind of played the movie over and over, you’ve gotten the reps and you’ve done the things that you need to do, the risk is much, much smaller.
Tim Ludwig: It’s such a great distinction and framework to use. It also kind of reminds me of the difference between gambling and investing. Where with gambling, it’s sort of this recklessness where you’re hoping for the odds, whereas investing is trying to be really thoughtful about identifying and then managing the risks that you’re taking on to create some sort of an asymmetric profile of the return spectrum so that you can lose a little bit, but potentially make much, much more. And it’s not eliminating risk, it’s being mindful of it.
Antonia Botero: And again, that might be such a different risk depending on who’s doing it. Like if you have the experience and you have that thoughtfulness, you may be able to make bets, if you will, on your investments in a way that someone who doesn’t understand the environment or the bets that they’re making. Some people just don’t even understand what they’re doing. And I think that those are the situations that are super risky because that also means you don’t understand the downside and you don’t realize there’s a consequence. I think that once you’re able to separate the two, you become much better at taking risk in a way that is not real risk to you, just because your background and your experience makes it up.
Tim Ludwig: Yeah, absolutely true. All right, last question. Transitions are all about change and self-discovery, I think, and I’m curious, what have you been most surprised by about yourself as you’ve gone through your life?
Antonia Botero: How capable I am. And I think that’s something that, and again, now starting the new shop, it’s interesting, I’ve had a lot of friends send me messages or say, hey, I saw your announcement, this is really great. And I say two things. The first is I’m terrified. And the second is I haven’t done anything yet. And I think that those things are good in the sense that they show that I have some thoughtfulness and understand the consequence. But at the same time, they can be paralyzing. They really can be. And I think that that’s one of the toughest parts of having your own business, especially if you don’t have partners, is that you’re sort of sitting alone on a Wednesday realizing that if you don’t bring in this many clients by this date, you might not make it to the end of the year. And it’s less about finding myself in that situation, but thinking of the potential that I may find myself in that situation. So, it’s a really screwy, sort of like this may happen to me and how terrifying is it. And then there’s the fear, the flip side of that fear, which is what happens if you actually succeed. It’s really scary if you fail, but how terrifying is it if I actually put together a deal, and all of a sudden, I find myself in charge of a hundred million dollar project in New York City? That sounds absolutely terrifying too, even though the execution portion of that is something that I’m extremely comfortable in. That’s what I have reps in. So, I think going back to that moment and realizing that every time I’ve had these massive changes, moving to Utah, starting my project, changing my life in 2015, realizing how capable I am. And it’s kind of going back to that lesson. And every time that I’ve had a major change, even when we moved to Miami, I remember being really worried or really scared because I didn’t speak English. And I barely remember learning how to speak English. There was maybe three or four months of my life that I actually remember where there was a little bit of a challenge, but you figure it out. You’re resilient and you do it. When we made the decision to move to Utah, and I made the decision, I was like, I will figure it out. And then again, when COVID happened when it was like, okay, let me figure this out, I didn’t just go for like, when we talked, you said, oh, you could have just taken a local job and you would have done just fine. But you didn’t do that. And it’s like, of course not. And I think there’s sort of that tenacity, and again, going to mom’s lessons. But remembering again and again, it’s like you’re capable and you’re so much more capable than you think sometimes. So, I’ve been replaying that in my head in the last three weeks since I announced the new shop. But it really is sort of one of those lessons that I think anybody that goes through a major transition probably comes off with, just because you look back and you say, man, how did I get through that? And it’s like, you got through it just fine. And you rocked it. So that to me has been the lesson. And this whole experience, talking to you and going, this is beautiful. And sort of thinking about it in this way, it’s probably extremely timely for me too. So I am thankful to you for that.
Tim Ludwig: Well, I think I got a lot more out of the experience than you did, but I’m glad to hear that. Thank you, first of all. This has been a wonderful way to spend a little over an hour. And I’ve just loved your story of learning to live your life authentically and outside of conventional expectations and the constant willingness to try to do things of high consequence. So thank you.
Antonia Botero: Thank you, Tim. This is beautiful. I love it.
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