A few years ago, my friend and business partner Arne attended his first House of Beautiful Business event. When he came back, he was full of awe—moved not just by the content, but by the atmosphere, the depth, the unexpected beauty of the whole experience. I remember thinking: Whatever this is, I want to feel it too.

So I started following Tim Leberecht and the House. I watched from afar as they created spaces that were more than conferences—places where ideas, emotions, and unlikely connections could flourish. I fell in love with their approach: the curation, the community, the courage to explore complexity through art and conversation.

So when we heard that the House of Beautiful Business was hosting an event in Tangier—given my affection for Morocco—we didn’t hesitate an got our tickets right away. And I went to HoBB wearing all my hats: as a coach and “company of one” founder, as an event organizer curious about new formats, as an AgriTech investor, and simply as a human craving connection.

I knew it would be intense. And I was ready to immerse myself completely.

This post isn’t my usual kind of recap. It’s more like a quilt—stitched together from fragments of thought and emotion. It’s raw, patchy, sometimes poetic. Just like the week itself: full of contrast, full of depth, full of people who showed up open-hearted from every corner of the globe.

Embarking…

I went to Tangier with a suitcase full of questions, a head full of roles, and a heart ready to be unraveled.

Coach. Curator. Angel investor. Tired optimist. Curious human.

I’ve fallen in love with Morocco before—its people, its poetry, its contradictions—and I came back not to relive that feeling, but to renew it. This time through the prism of the Polyopportunity, inside the cracked mirror of what the event organizers called the Polycrisis.

I’ve stumbled across these words by Gramsci on social media just a few days before the event and they perfectly describe how we all felt:

"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters."

But, and that was imminent, every attendee was convinced that there was hope! Not the naive, surface-level kind. The radical kind. The kind that sits inside a rug being woven. The kind that shares a book and a bowl of soup. The kind that unites people and whispers, we are all in the business of hope.

Stitching a New World, One Thread at a Time

I arrived knowing it would be intense. I wanted it that way. I was ready to immerse.

Ready to learn what “hospitality” truly means when it’s layered with intention.
Ready to get uncomfortable with Uncertain Erik, the semi-sentient, AI-integrated art experiment reminding us: “I’m an imperfect copy of an imperfect person.”
Ready to confront the emotional backlog we carry in our bodies—“an ocean of tears we’re afraid of touching.”

I met people asking: What do you hope to find here?
I didn’t have an answer.
I still don’t.

But I found:

A weaving circle that felt like a soft revolution → working with your hands can be so helpful for us rationalizing all the time!
A dinner table that became a book club and a confessional booth all at once → it’s such a powerful thing to learn what touched others, even if it’s only in the form of their favorite poem.
A deep collaboration workshop where Moroccan tea met institutional transformation — looking at what unites us, how we are able to collaborate across cultures and borders with a team from the U.N. research lab was very reassuring—that collaboration is resistance!

A World That Weeps, Learns, and Plays

We talked of rituals and how powerful they are in a business context. Of collective healing. Of the feminine in AI and the importance of feeding machines with intuition, care, and slowness.

Someone said: “If you play with AI for two hours, spend two hours practicing being human.”
I can’t stop thinking about that.

We mapped learning as something ecosystems do. Not just humans.
What if anarchy is learning?
What if creating spaces, holding room is learning?

We were advised to look at “the periphery,” not the center whenever we get stuck. Whenever we get hopeless. Because sometimes understanding the world means not looking at Europe or the USA. Sometimes solutions are there to be found in Brazil, in Uganda, in Lebanon.

Random Notes to Self, and to You

Create platforms for optimistic stories. That’s not fluff. That’s duty.
Curate spaces that challenge assumptions. About success. About systems. About the selves we perform.
Don’t rush to scale. Nurture nuance. Amplify the small.
Touch what’s real. Invest in what can be held. A meal. A moment. A memory.
Be less afraid of collapse than of becoming numb.

The Books We Carried

We read and we shared:

Wintering by Katherine May
Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
Annie Dillard’s Write ‘Til You Drop
Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids
Sarah Kay’s poems
Nizar Qabbani’s “Choose”

And conversations that may never be written down but are still being lived

I’m back now. Not the same.

Still many hats, still learning.

But more convinced than ever that creating spaces for human connection—in business, in product, in life—is a political act. A rebellious act. A necessary act.

Let’s keep weaving.

More Threads from the Tapestry

One of the beautiful things about the House of Beautiful Business is that everyone experiences it differently—and many have generously shared their own reflections, stories, and impressions. If you’d like to explore the event through other eyes, here are a few recaps and reactions from fellow attendees:

Rituals, Rugs, and Radical Tenderness - My Experience at the House of Beautiful Business in Tangier