People sometimes ask why I haven't moved. The assumption inside the question is that Cairo is something to be left, that ambition lives elsewhere, that the work is somehow held back by where it is made. The assumption is wrong, and I'd like to explain why.
The work is portable
Software ships from anywhere. Editorial ships from anywhere. Programs and protocols ship from anywhere. The internet flattened the geography of distribution twenty years ago. The thing that hasn't flattened is the perception of geography — and that's a problem in someone else's head, not mine.
Clients who care about where the work is made are clients I don't want. Clients who care about whether the work is good find me regardless of where I am. The selection is automatic.
What Cairo gives
Cairo gives me a slower clock. The city does not run on quarterly earnings. It runs on something older and steadier. That metabolism shows up in the work. Pagassa would not exist in San Francisco. Gym Egypt would not exist in Berlin. Amordex would, but it would feel different.
The brands have a cultural specificity that comes from being made here. That specificity is the moat.
I am not running away from anywhere. I am building exactly where I want to build, with the people I want to build with, at the standard I want to build at. That is the entire calculation.