John Arnold: belief

Transcript context

…At least superficially, I have the impression that there aren’t so many externally influential institutions or movements coming out of Houston, Arnold Ventures aside, but do you think that’s true? Or why is that? It’s a large city. It has a lot of wealth, a lot of civic spirit, two great art museums, plus the Rothko Chapel, but it seems fairly self-contained in a way. Yes. I think Houston is an execution city. It is a place that people go to do this stuff, to build the things. Its core business has been energy, and then all the things associated with energy and chemicals and manufacturing. It has the blue-collar roots to it, but then also has become the magnet for corporate headquarters in this space. Even a generation ago, 20, 25 years ago, the energy industry was much more dispersed than it is today. You had parts of it in Dallas and Tulsa and Oklahoma City and Denver and New Orleans and a little bit in LA and New York. Much of that has congregated to Houston. I agree that Houston has not been on the forefront of movements. It hasn’t been historically an inventing city. It’s been a manufacturing and execution city, and more of evolutionary improvements rather than revolutionary improvements. Now, you live in an Alexander Gorlin-designed modernist house. He once said in an interview, and I quote, “To live in a modern space requires discipline. If one or two things are out of place, it just destroys the whole balance.” Then someone said, “Well, this is why people don’t want to live in modernist homes, because they’re messy.” Then he said, “Not all lives are messy.” How do you feel about this, living in one of his houses?…

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