What does it mean to be Mexican? Lessons I learned about my roots from AI

For more than a decade, I’ve been in the AI industry. It’s a fast-paced ecosystem that constantly changes and evolves. It challenges assumptions, shifts perspectives, and forces you to ask hard questions to better understand what truly matters about the problem you’re solving. The better you understand your reality, the better the systems you can build to reflect and serve it.

It was in that process of building, researching, testing, playing, and learning about AI systems that I began to understand what it means to be Mexican, at least for myself. Someone of Mexican descent, born in the United States, who’s spent the past two decades living around the world.

A while back, I was told about Chavela Vargas’s famous phrase: “We Mexicans are born wherever the hell we want.” Chavela was born in Costa Rica, but she and her music became a Mexican symbol. Her phrase still resonates.

To build a great AI product, you have to ask the right questions and stay open to wherever the data leads you. You must challenge the assumptions, understand what is possible—and just as importantly, what might not be possible yet. 

What if your passport is not what matters?

I’ve had the privilege of calling Condesa in Mexico City home for over half a decade now. As an expat living in Mexico, I’ve often asked myself: What does it mean to belong? To be accepted? To make an impact that might be viewed as positive by some and negative by others? What does it mean to be Mexican if you’re of Mexican heritage, born abroad, and now living in Mexico City? Can you ever truly become Mexican—or will you always be seen as the Taco Bell version of what is Mexican?

Let’s see where this goes, and then you can tell me what you think.

This won’t be an easy or simple conversation. It might challenge you to try to understand someone who is both similar and different from you. It’s easy to judge—it’s much harder to empathize, to take the perspective of someone we may see as foreign, distant, or simply put, someone who is “not like us”.

Two Mexicos, One Sidewalk

When I first moved to Mexico City in 2019, I was struck by the two Mexicos I saw coexist in such a profound and constant way in my neighborhood. The Mexico of parents taking their little kids to school and walking right past them, the Mexico of parents taking their kids to work alongside them. Every day I watch those worlds intersect in this small corner of the country. Every parent and every child harbor dreams, but how were those dreams shaped? What do they see as possible for themselves? And what do they picture as possible for their children? Do both groups have the same chances to move forward, to aim higher, to be truly heard?

I see both my future and my past in both groups. When I see the parents taking their kids to school, I consider what my future children will be talking to me about when I take them to school. Did they like their breakfast? Are they excited by learning math? At the same time, when I see the children working alongside their parents, I see my maternal grandmother, who was born in Tacubaya a hundred years ago. An exceptional woman who had to make very different choices because the structure of society did not benefit her. In much the same way, many families simply cannot send their kids to school.

Without a doubt, Mexico has come a long way since my grandmother left for the United States. The country vibrates, and Mexico City in particular is an extraordinary place. The mix of the old and the new never stops astonishing me—and, in a way, I am part of that “new” Mexico. Yet something profound happened when I arrived: the people, the business community, and society at large never treated me as “the newcomer” or an outsider. Instead, it felt like the warm embrace of a long-lost relative, making up for lost time and savoring every moment together.

That doesn’t mean it’s all been easy. Understanding how business is done took time. It was familiar—and also foreign. After spending over a decade living and working across the U.S. and Eurasia, there was a learning curve: long lunches or dinners that can stretch past three hours, where business is only brought up at the very—and I mean very—end, or catching the subtleties of a capital city negotiation that differs quite a bit from what you'd find in New York, Moscow, or Berlin.

Business with dessert—and the duel over the check

It reminded me of a dinner I once had with a close colleague in Moscow, overlooking the Kremlin, where he explained what doing business in Russia is like for Russians and for foreigners. The more answers I got, the more questions arose. It’s a process I’ve enjoyed just the same in San Francisco, New York, Paris—the list goes on. At the end of the day, all you can do is set out on the path, surround yourself with good people, and, above all, keep your eyes wide open. Especially in Mexico, where even the most everyday gestures have their own choreography. One of my favorites: that little ritual with the check. One offers, the other refuses (at least a couple of times), and after the third round of "No, I couldn’t possibly!", victory is sealed with a smile. I learned that if you manage to keep the check in that duel of courtesy, you didn’t just pay for the meal—you also earned respect. And everyone leaves happy. And yes, that’s another way of understanding business.

In Mexico, I’ve found countless people and organizations that have supported and shaped my journey: the Government of Mexico, the Mexican Stock Exchange, EGADE Business School, and the fantastic team at Fast Company Mexico, who’ve given me a platform to share what I know with readers across Mexico and the Spanish-speaking world.

Yes, Mexico has its challenges. But so does every country. Only when you go out into the world and live amongst other people, integrating into their way of living, can you see the strengths, weaknesses, and similarities between nations. Every society is continually working to improve the lives of its people, making them better off, more prosperous, and safer. Some have a longer way to go than others.

And this brings me to a key point. I feel that Mexico is as much mine as it is for anyone born or raised here. From day one, I came to my grandmother’s country—now mine—to be part of the solution. You can’t just understand the future. You have to help build it.

Every year, I share what I’ve learned in the world’s leading tech hubs with hundreds of the brightest graduate students in Mexico. And now that Mexico (like all countries) is defining its strategy for artificial intelligence, I’ve had the honor of collaborating with various national government bodies—sharing best practices, strategies, and methodologies I’ve picked up in other parts of the world. When universities in Mexico invite me to help develop their AI and business programs, I do it gladly. I give my time, effort, and expertise to the people who are and will be leading this nation because that’s how change is made: by sharing knowledge and integrating into the society that’s given you a home. Just like the United States once did for my three grandparents.

When You’re Also Part of the Problem

At the same time, I’m fully aware that foreigners—myself included—can contribute to rising housing costs, the displacement of communities, and rising tensions. In Condesa, I hear French, German, Russian, and English on a daily basis. The other day, while walking with my wife, we noticed that everyone crossing the street with us seemed to be foreigners. Airbnb tourists? Long-term residents? I’m not sure. However, I’ve noticed the neighborhood has changed in recent years.

The gentrification we see in Mexico City is also a reflection of how attractive the country—and its capital—have become: a hub for the tech scene, Latin American business, and increasingly, global players.

Mexico is at a pivotal moment where many things can flourish. There are enormous opportunities to build new industries and create businesses that meet the needs of today and tomorrow. But that also means we’ll need more people from around the world to come be part of the next chapter of this story. The alternative would be a city that doesn’t grow—where prices fall or stagnate.

But that, too, demands sensitivity: attracting talent cannot mean displacing stories. Growth must not become a synonym for uprooting. If we want this country to be home to more people, it must remain—first and foremost—home to those who are already here. And above all, we must ensure that the benefits of that growth are shared equitably. Perhaps the true measure of progress lies with those we choose not to forget.

After several years of living in Mexico, I asked myself a couple of questions that changed me as I reflected on my impact, my family’s history, how much has changed—and, at the same time, what remains the same. My grandmother left Mexico more than 75 years ago in search of opportunity. My grandfather worked in the fields of California and Texas, picking fruits and vegetables to feed Americans. And when I see children today who are not in school, who work alongside their families, I ask myself, “How is this possible in a G20 country bordering the United States? Why is the same journey my family—and perhaps yours—once made still happening today?”

In a world where artificial intelligence is transforming everything, why aren’t we using it to improve the lives of all Mexicans—and the Global South? The more questions I asked, the more ideas came. In 2023, I designed and taught the first-ever course on Applied AI Ethics and Governance at EGADE—the first of its kind in a graduate business program in any school in Mexico or Latin America. I did it because when something important isn’t already on the table, you build it.

Since then, many of my students have told me how useful that course has been in their current roles. They’ve thanked me for giving them tangible frameworks to apply in their work. They’ve used those tools to make responsible decisions in their organizations—and many still do. That was the goal: to ensure business leaders in Mexico and across the region had real tools to deploy AI responsibly and ethically, for the benefit of all. What role should AI play in work, finance, intellectual property, or employment? Do the data we rely on actually represent the people we’re trying to serve?

When the Future Forgets Your Past

With the arrival of more large language models, I saw a clear challenge: these systems did not truly represent the people they were meant to serve. First, most models are trained on very little Spanish data. Second, more than seven million people in Mexico speak another native language—partly or entirely—besides Spanish. How many languages, you ask? Mexico officially recognizes 67 Indigenous languages plus Spanish… yet about 364 distinct variants are actually spoken. My great-grandmother spoke Nahuatl at home.

It hit me hard to realize that my own ancestors would be left out of the systems I build, promote, and advise on in Mexico and around the world. But what to do? This effort goes beyond a single course, a single company, or a single article; it is a societal issue. If a system cannot understand you, it can never hear you or treat you as you deserve. At the end of the day, we all want the same thing: for our wishes, our dreams, and our needs to be heard. We want to know that we matter—and that we will be treated with fairness, with respect, and as an integral part of the society we inhabit.

Without your data in the system, the future is designed without you

From that pivotal question—and from everything I learned by pausing to observe—I launched a project focused on building sovereign artificial intelligence: digital and physical infrastructure that enables each country to strengthen and uphold its cultures, languages, laws, and preferences in the era of advanced AI. I paired this with strategies to create sovereign wealth funds that would finance the development of this technology at a national level.

Harvard University invited me to continue this research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while I pursue graduate studies at the intersection of government, technology, economics, and strategy. This work aims to empower not only Mexican citizens but also people across the Global South.

So, am I the Taco Bell version of “Mexican”? I don’t think so. I’ve trained hundreds of brilliant leaders in my courses, reached millions of readers through my columns, and contributed to the rise of a vibrant, prosperous Mexico. When I look at the country, I see myself—because I have adopted Mexico, and, in many ways, Mexico has adopted me.

I encourage you to embrace the opportunity to contribute, to join in, to build community from wherever you are reading this. The world is reshaped by those who dream and by those who dare to build. So why not dream a fairer, more equal, more inclusive Mexico—and work to make it a reality?

I’m in. Are you?

This piece was first featured in Fast Company México, Summer 2025, print edition (p. 24)
https://www.magzter.com/MX/Fast-Company-M%C3%A9xico/Fast-Company-M%C3%A9xico/Business/