Brazil Is the New America: How Brazil Offers Upward Mobility in a Collapsing World

Preface

The first decade of the twenty-first century has taught me a lesson. I now realize that I was hasty to be cocky half a lifetime ago about having been born in the United States.

When I was a young man, the American Dream was alive and well. I took advantage of it to invent my own work as a serial entrepreneur. I have had a hand in launching and building three billion dollar-plus companies, two companies that attained a market cap of half a billion dollars or more, and about a dozen others that became worth $100 million or more. I enjoyed the adventure and the high standard of living that went with it. But I don’t see the same opportunities ahead for my children, especially my two older children who are entirely American as I was.

By no means am I selling them short. They are both bright and energetic. They will need all the energy they can muster to succeed in the world in which they will live.

My youngest child has better prospects. He is a Brazilian citizen who speaks fluent Portuguese and is already learning Mandarin, to go with Spanish, French, and English in his language repertoire. Touch wood, he seems to have a bright future as a global citizen, more because his mother’s family includes some well-connected and successful Brazilians than because of his connections to the United States.

Most Americans are ignorant of Brazil. Many might be inclined to consider it an Hispanic country. Or guess that its capital is Buenos Aires. Equally, many would be inclined to suppose ...