February 2019: Pulling Up Roots

Last month, I was at a bar on Long Island, speaking to a longtime contact from the financial technology industry who had bought the place around six months before. The room smelled like sawdust and fresh paint—my contact had ripped the entire place apart when he’d bought it and built it back up from scratch, including the bar. This was a thing of beauty, a polished mahogany centerpiece that he had carved, cut and finished himself in the bar’s back room, which had been converted to a makeshift