Can Boulder Get Out of Its Own Way? with Aquiles La Grave

In this episode of The Bear Roars, Dan sits down with Aquiles La Grave — serial entrepreneur, community builder, and candidate for Mayor of Boulder — for a candid conversation about whether Boulder can get out of its own way before it prices out the very people who make it special.

Aquiles arrived in Boulder in 1995 as a 15-year-old immigrant from Venezuela, and within a single generation his family built thriving lives here. His worry is that today's Boulder wouldn't offer that same chance. He and Dan dig into the numbers behind the anxiety — roughly 3,600 fewer K–12 students and looming school closures, about 30% downtown office vacancy, and permit timelines that can stretch a six-month project into years — along with what Aquiles calls a "crisis of empathy" in a city government whose staff largely neither live in Boulder nor come into the office.

They also get into what he'd actually do about it: treat adaptability as a governing framework, bring city staff back to serve the community in person, make it easier to build the homes working families need, and lead with "yes, and here's how" instead of "no, and here's why." And why it matters well beyond city limits — Boulder anchors the Front Range, producing some $10 billion in annual payroll, most of it in jobs beyond its own borders. It's a conversation about accountability, opportunity, and keeping a community's door open to the next family chasing a better life.

Connect with Aquiles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aquileslagrave/

Order Dan's Book – Bandwidth: The Untold Story of Ambition, Deception, and Innovation that Shaped the Internet Age and Dot-Com Boom: dan-caruso.com/book