Galo Páez Fajardo

Nuevo proyecto: ciencia, tecnología, innovación, y desarrollo. Chequea

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

As someone who partially grew up among European elite kids like him, this reminds me just how incredibly hollow some of them are.

For a quick background, I went to one of the poshest high schools in France (Janson de Sailly, for those who know) and, afterwards, to what was at the time - and probably still is - the most expensive undergraduate school in Europe (EHL in Lausanne, Switzerland).

Needless to say, many of my classmates were from unbelievably privileged backgrounds. Just in my classroom in Lausanne I had the son of a (very famous) Russian oligarch, the son of Italy's largest real estate developer and the son of Spain's largest real estate developer (funnily, the latter two were flat mates).

Another classmate of mine came from the richest family in Naples, Italy and - while we were at school - his father (known in Naples under the nickname "Il Sultano") got arrested for having bribed half of Naples's city council - which, if you know Naples, ought to tell you something.

These were the kids I was doing group projects on business ethics with (literally) 😅

Anyhow, my story, and probably my luck, was that - before going to high school in Paris - I was raised in very normal public schools in the South of France where my friends were anything but wealthy. Their parents were farmers and everyday workers.

Which means - and I'd come to realize this was very important in life - that it was easy for me to understand how big a mistake it is to see money as identity and meaning - and to confuse someone's net worth with their actual worth.

What really struck me at the time was the contrast with my "poor" classmates of earlier in my life. They couldn't define themselves by what they had - by definition - and this forced them to reach deeper for their identity: their skills, knowledge, humor, etc.

Rich kids can skip that entire process, and the tragedy is that most of them do: they reach for the readymade identity that money provides. I remember being incredibly frustrated by many of my classmates, like "ok, I get it, your dad is rich and you own a lot of nice things but who are YOU, what else is there?" The answer, more often than not, was nothing.

To be fair, there were exceptions. One of my classmates I was most impressed by came from one of Zurich's wealthiest families (which, if you know Zurich, means insanely wealthy) yet he was almost OCD in not showing he had money: driving the shittiest car imaginable, living in a small studio, etc. He was very intellectual, very contrarian, and clearly at war with the idea that his family's wealth ought to define who he was.

I only discovered who he actually was when I started my first company and he approached me to invest: to discuss the investment I went to one of his family homes, which it turned out was a literal palatial castle on the shores of Geneva lake. The guy had decided to live in a small rundown studio when he literally had a castle sitting empty a 5-min drive away.

THAT I was impressed by: it's easy to see that money isn't meaning when you don't have any. To see it when you have more than almost anyone - when everyone around you is organized around the opposite assumption - is much harder. But to actually live it, to choose the studio when you have the castle keys in your pockets - with no audience to applaud you for that - that shows real depth.

At the end of the day, I think, the real distinction isn't between rich and poor but between people who exist from the inside out and people who exist from the outside in.

Wealth just happens to make it incredibly easy to be the latter, to skip the work of becoming someone and settle for a borrowed identity that glitters from the outside but is hollow all the way through. A Potemkin village identity.

This is actually a real societal issue, and magnified by social media (with idiotic posts like this one 👇): the more "outside in" folks out there, the less people with genuine internal anchors, the more fragile everything becomes.

When you think about it, everything that genuinely matters in a society is built by people who think for themselves: they take the world in, pass it through something genuinely their own, and give back something that didn't exist before: an idea, a conviction, a stand.

Every reform, every invention, every act of moral courage in history came from someone with an internal anchor strong enough to resist the current. Remove those people and all you have left is the current.

This isn't new, by the way. Most ancient traditions warn against exactly this, from the Bible (the golden calf story) to Confucius, who built his entire ethics around the distinction between the exemplary person (the Junzi, 君子) - oriented around internal cultivation and righteousness - and the petty person (Xiaoren, 小人), oriented around profit and gain. The junzi builds himself from the inside, the xiaoren chases what's outside.

So please, do not make the mistake of being impressed by wealthy people flaunting their wealth. Don't focus on the glitter, focus on the hollowness it's trying to hide.

[Mark Slapinski @mark_slapinski]

It is okay to be Jewish.

It is okay to attend your local synagogue.

It is okay to celebrate Hannukah.

It is not okay to use white phosphorus on civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.

[Álvaro Martín @alvatin18]

Presidente @DanielNoboaOk, no se olvide del audio de Inés Manzano —su exministra y amiga personal— cuando daba directrices al entonces gerente de CELEC, con el objetivo de que el Caso PROGEN permanezca en la impunidad.

Para que le quede claro, señor Noboa, fue Manzano quien negoció la firma de un contrato complementario con la empresa estafadora para facilitar —y consentir— el pago de $41,7 millones por el contrato de Quevedo.

Yo sé todas las fechorías de sus amigos porque lo investigué desde 2024, a pesar de las amenazas y los ataques. Su gobierno encubre y usted miente sin decoro.

[Ryan Cummings @Pol_Sec_Analyst]

How to sneak a chocolate bar into a FIFA World Cup match in the USA

[Fisted Away @fistedaway]

Please: be respectful of the host nation’s culture and traditions

[GoyTranslator @CanadaSentinel]

When I ask people, where would they have rather lived - Berlin or Auschwitz, in 1935, strangely no one says Auschwitz.

Before you do your usual histrionics, it's an exaggerated comparison. It doesn't mean they are the same thing.

The point is that just because one place is shitty to live in, doesn't mean the other country is morally superior.

[Galo Páez Fajardo @phypaez]

@VerminusM It never stops amasing me how this never fails.

[Galo Páez Fajardo @phypaez]

@EliLebowicz It never fails.

[Galo Páez Fajardo @phypaez]

@dv8or1 @Mbakaza4L

[Galo Páez Fajardo @phypaez]

@SgtFMRoads @RonpoLoyo @MonitorX99800

[ROQUE ORDOÑEZ @RoqueOrdonezEc]

Tras este demoledor reportaje, ahora se entienden las razones por las cuales no le permitieron compartir las pruebas del caso Progen a nuestro compañero @blascoluna al pueblo ecuatoriano. ¡Inés Manzano debe ser enjuiciada políticamente!

[Mariela Díaz Aragón @la_abogada_]

Que pensarán todos esos ignorantes que gritaban y aplaudían cuando decían "pollo corrupto", cuando les hicieron una pancarta vulgar y se mofaban de eso?.
Si no fuera por IDV no tuviéramos selección de jerarquía.
Y lo más bochornoso de todo es que hubo gente que pensaba que no se convocaba a jugadores de BSC o EMELEC por odio a esos equipos de la "costa" .
IDV realmente es un Club diferente, sin deudas, sin los paga y se levanta, sin los cheerleaders reporteros, sin anunciar la construcción de malls, sin escándalos, sino haciendo su trabajo en silencio, con responsabilidad y conciencia.
Pero sigan creyendo que tener más hinchas, da la gloria. La gloria la da los títulos......

[TermoEcu 🇪🇨🇪🇦🎙⚽️ @TermoEcu2021]

William Pacho marca a Piero Hincapié.
Tremenda foto de la mejor defensa de sudamérica.

[Ororo😎 @McFlybowy]

Also In a few more years, we’ll probably see even more players from Independiente del Valle making their way to Europe’s biggest clubs and performing at the highest level. They have one of the best youth academies in South America. I think they might even produce golden generation of Ecuador at this point.

It’s not a coincidence too, it’s a production line. The club has built one of the most efficient talent-development systems in South America, consistently identifying, developing, and preparing young players for elite football. Hincapie, Caicedo, Pacho, Paez. They’re all from there.

Their players don’t look overwhelmed when they make the jump too . They have strong technical foundations, tactical intelligence, and a maturity that usually takes years to develop elsewhere. Look at everyone of them there’s a similarity with the way they play, they’re also all good tacklers. That’s why so many of them adapt quickly when they move to Europe leagues.

They’re also focused on quality over quantity, it’s a deliberate project to produce sound and elite players. So we will definitely see more of their players.

[TobyWrites @tobyasky]

This brother called Pacho has ended the season with zero yellow cards in the league and champions league, it’s unbelievable.

He made his professional debut barely 7 years ago, but he plays like a veteran of the game. So composed at only age 24😭

You don’t have to spend billions to sign quality players, he cost PSG €40m, but Brainthwaite and the likes are valued at £80m. Sporting directors and scouts should do some work and stop being lazy, there are players out there waiting to be seen.

You see that club in Ecuador called Independiente del Valle, they produce solid players. From Caicedo to Hincapie, to Pacho, I’m sure scouts specifically go there to sign players.

These are the kind of leagues Tony Bloom and his Jamestown Analytics focus on.

Funny part is that there’s a story where Pacho didn’t want to go to Independiente, he had turned down a team before them because he’s a mummy’s boy, he said he can’t do without his mum😅. Independiente had to present a plan that could accommodate his family before he moved there.

This guy was scouted by Belgian club Royal Antwerp, and later to Frankfurt. Do you know the common thing amongst both clubs, he spent just one full season at both clubs before PSG, such smaller clubs can’t keep stars for long.

Bro has two champions league at 24, zero hype but he’s up there with the best. I can’t wait to see him for Ecuador at the World Cup. He’s a monster, a clean monster, not a typical South American defender😅

Ladies and Gentlemen, Willian Pacho.

[CONMEBOL.com @CONMEBOL]

Willian Pacho 🏆🏆

#CreeEnGrande

[Independiente del Valle @IDV_EC]

Felicidades Willian Pacho @PSG_espanol por la 2️⃣ @ChampionsLeague 🇪🇨🫶💙🖤

[Independiente del Valle @IDV_EC]

Hoy no es un día cualquiera 🏆.
Hoy, dos ecuatorianos 🇪🇨 saltan a la cancha para grabar sus nombres en las páginas doradas del fútbol mundial.
¡ Muchos éxitos hoy muchachos !
¡El Ecuador 🤝 entero está con ustedes! 🫶💙🖤
#somosidv #soloselvalle #unclubdiferente

[Muhammad Mazen @mhmd_s09]

One of the most horrific scenes in human history has been revealed.

At the very moment when a group of unarmed civilians were bombed, their bodies were torn apart, and another person who was injured and unable to walk was killed in cold blood by Israel.

A video the world must never forget.

[Ami Dar @AmiDar]

Yes, the Ben-Gvir video is disgraceful. But that's not the issue. The (obvious) issue is that if that's how nonviolent European protesters are treated in public, any person with a brain can imagine how Palestinians are treated behind closed doors. *That* is the real scandal.