Welcome to the Junteau

The what and the why

The Junteau is an upcoming online magazine/newsletter covering business and entrepreneurship, life and leisure, and society and culture — with an inquisitive and critical edge.

Junteau is an homage to the Junto — the first business and social club in America. It was founded by Ben Franklin in 1727, inspired by an earlier club in England called Dry Club (John Locke was a member). It was a club “for mutual improvement” made up of entrepreneurs, scholars, and artists with various backgrounds and perspectives. Its purpose was to discuss business and cultural affairs of the day, foster intellectual debate, and incubate novel ideas. It influenced the creation of now-commonplace institutions like fire departments and public libraries... and some historians even suggest it invented craft cocktails. The word itself was a derivation of the Spanish “junta” which means “assembly” (…not the violent version).

“Junteau” is simply our derivation. It combines the humble feeling of a local shopkeeper with a global, multi-cultural connotation. In that sense.. a literal sense.. it also has a double meaning. It conjoins “junt” (Scottish: a large chunk) and “eau” (French: water)... which I like to think means the world. In his very own words, Franklin had experienced his “densest happiness” in Scotland. While in France, he engineered the most consequential geopolitical and military alliance in world history while keeping his personal and business affairs in order back home. The ultimate combination of business and pleasure. Franklin was the consummate executive and epicurean on a global scale.

Junteau honors this spirit…
Junteau means the world.

About the Editor…

I should have launched this a decade ago. Not just a place to share interviews and conversations, thoughts and ideas, personal and professional experiences... and occasional rants... but a media or lifestyle brand that pulls it all together.

One small problem was I couldn’t. For the vast majority of my professional life, strict healthcare and financial compliance, plus my own paranoia, prevented (or demotivated) me from writing much of any substance outside work— despite having a lot of interesting stuff to share. Say hello to HIPAA and FINRA. While I grew up in a small blue-collar family, my first non-family business “thing” was emergency medicine and rescue. I was an EMT and ambulance driver for about 8 years. I would spend 12+ hour shifts bandaging wounds, splinting legs, and extracting people from precarious positions… but would certainly never write about it. Perhaps there was no harm so long as I obfuscated the details, but the prospect nevertheless made me uncomfortable. In my late 20s, I ended up on Wall Street where, ironically, I wrote financial and industry research every single day. My name is probably on over 1,000 pieces of research. But since broker-dealers need to avoid potential Regulation AC violations or even misinterpretations, it is highly frowned upon, and in some cases wholly disallowed, to maintain any public editorial presences outside the paywall and auspices of the firm. In other words, no, I couldn’t write about my life or career — or have a Twitter — to mitigate the risk of accidently saying (or suggesting) something that conflicted with something else I said in one of my published research reports about the consumer sector, economy, or investing in general.

But in 2021, I quit my job to “go solo” and launched a professional services business to monetize the knowledge and experience I gained throughout my W2 life. Shortly after, I was nudged by friends to start a Twitter account to “build in public” — a phrase popularized on social media that means to share your entrepreneurial experience honestly (both the good and the bad) publicly online as a way to inspire, entertain, and perhaps warn others seeking a similar path. Suddenly, I no longer had a reason not to write publicly. I ultimately settled on the handle Virtual Executive Officer (@vrexec)... dedicated to the idea of having executive control over your life without anchors to specific places (e.g. an office, city) or brand affiliations (e.g. a company or institution).

That account has gained about 12,000 followers — many of whom are business owners, aspiring corporate soldiers, or struggling parents… sometimes all three! For no particular reason beyond inertia, now is the time to shift to own-brand media… if nothing else, an experiment.

I enjoy high-aesthetic business and lifestyle brands, which are often anchored by, or at least start out as, a simple magazine or newsletter. Think Bloomberg and The Economist, or on the smaller side, Monocle or Courier. These brands weave together business, geopolitics, culture, and aspirant luxury content between glossy and visually-appealing cover art and photography. But what this content world lacks, in my view, is a version of these with a bit more salt. That is, more salt-of-the-earth… more blue-collar and less bon vivant. More dirty uniforms, fewer bleach-white collars. More SMB perspectives, fewer jet-setting corporate reflections. More honesty about parenting and other life struggles between the clean lines of outward-facing “success”. More balance… let’s call it… “striped collar”. Let’s certainly enjoy the fruits of thy labors… and wax on about our dreams and aspirations… but always remember to highlight and underscore the small, humble, often painful beginnings and ongoing realities.

Ah.. and did I mention I just moved to Europe for a bit?

Perhaps Franklin is even more of an inspiration than I’ve let on… :)

Welcome to the Junteau.