Devon Zuegel: How To Create A New Town - [Invest Like the Best, EP.413]

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Colossus

Investing, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2025

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Devon Zuegel: How To Create A New Town - [Invest Like the Best, EP.413] My guest today is Devon Zuegel. Devon is the founder and president of the Esmerelda Institute, and she is creating a new town called Esmerelda in California wine country. Learning of Devon and her plan, I couldn’t help but wonder why there aren’t more people building new towns. She shares the origin story of her project Esmeralda, a modern reinvention of the Chautauqua community she cherished growing up, and we explore her fascinating work building communities and reimaging how we live together. We discuss how environments fundamentally shape human behavior, how cost of space impacts creativity, the financial challenges of town-building despite their potential for strong returns, and the plans in place for Esmerelda. Please enjoy this fascinating conversation with Devon Zuegel. Subscribe to Colossus Review. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Ramp is the fastest-growing FinTech company in history, and it’s backed by more of my favorite past guests (at least 16 of them!) than probably any other company I’m aware of. Go to Ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. – This episode is brought to you by Ridgeline. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. I think this platform will become the standard for investment managers, and if you run an investing firm, I highly recommend you find time to speak with them. Head to ridgelineapps.com to learn more about the platform. – This episode is brought to you by AlphaSense. AlphaSense has completely transformed the research process with cutting-edge AI technology and a vast collection of top-tier, reliable business content. Imagine completing your research five to ten times faster with search that delivers the most relevant results, helping you make high-conviction decisions with confidence. Invest Like the Best listeners can get a free trial now at Alpha-Sense.com/Invest and experience firsthand how AlphaSense and Tegus help you make smarter decisions faster. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Learn About Ramp, Ridgeline, & Alphasense (00:06:00) The Origin of Devon's Obsession with Places (00:08:07) Proximity and Cost of Space (00:10:02) The Chautauqua Inspiration (00:11:31) Building a New Town: Esmeralda (00:13:23) Urban Design and Street Importance (00:15:44) Community Values and Peer-to-Peer Learning (00:18:15) Edge Esmeralda: A Prototype Community (00:21:38) Challenges and Trust Building in Development (00:26:45) The Role of Cars in Urban Planning (00:31:10) Mortgages and Taxes: Shaping Communities (00:42:11) Devon's Journey: From Stanford Review to Esmeralda (00:43:41) Tools for Thought and Feedback Loops (00:46:33) Urban Design and Pop-Up Villages (00:50:06) Exploring Las Catalinas and Car-Free Living (00:52:31) Placemaking and Organic City Development (00:56:25) Frontier Camp and Creating Collaborative Spaces (01:02:39) Building New Towns: Financial and Infrastructure Challenges (01:12:05) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Done For Devon

Transcript

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0:00.0	This year's presenting sponsor for Invest Like the Best is Ramp. Ramp has built a command and control system for company's finances.
0:07.4	You can issue cards, manage approvals, make vendor payments of all kinds, and even automate closing your books all in one place.
0:14.2	We did an incredibly deep dive on the company and its product as part of this new partnership, and what we heard and saw in customer surveys over and over
0:21.3	again was that Ramp is the best product by far. We've been users ourselves since I started my
0:26.5	business since long before I was able to spend so much time with the founders of Ramp and their
0:30.7	team. Over the holiday, I was with Ramps founders. Those that listen know that I believe that the best
0:35.8	companies are reflections of the people that
0:37.9	started them and run them. I've always loved the idea that Apple was really just Steve Jobs with 10,000
0:43.6	lives. Having gotten to know Ramps founders well, I can tell you that they are absolutely
0:47.9	maniacal about their mission to save people time. As far as I can tell, they do not stop working
0:53.0	or thinking about the product and how to make it
0:54.9	better. I'm sure they're proud of what they've built, but all I ever hear when I'm with them
0:58.9	is them talk about what they can do to improve and expand what Ramp does for its customers.
1:04.1	I used to joke that this podcast should be called This Is Who You Are Up Against. I often had
1:08.7	that same thought when I'm with Ramps founders,
1:11.0	Kareem, and Eric. I would not want to compete with these guys. I wish all the products I
1:16.1	used had a team as hell-bent on making the product better in every conceivable way.
1:20.4	I could list everything Ramp does here, but the list would be stale in a week. I highly recommend
1:24.3	you just start using it to run your business's finances today. This year,
1:28.1	I'll share a bunch of things I'm learning from these founders and this company, and I think it'll
1:32.0	make you realize why we are so excited to have this partnership with them and why we run our business on
1:37.0	Ramp. To get started, go to ramp.com. As an investor, staying ahead of the game means having the right
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