Buenos Aires — As a presidential advisor to Argentina’s Javier Milei, Alec Oxenford brings a wealth of entrepreneurial experience to the table, having co-founded globally companies like DeRemate.com, OLX and letgo. In an interview, Myelin VC’s Managing Partner gave his take on why the current attempt to steer the country away from 80 years of economic interventionism, and toward a lasting and market-friendly stance, is likely to be successful.
To be sure, Oxenford, who accompanied top global investor Peter Thiel during his May meeting with Milei in Buenos Aires, sees major potential for the country to attract international investment under the administration. More than that, he echoed Thiel’s view that the Argentine president is becoming a leading voice for economic freedom worldwide.
The entrepreneur, who also co-founded the SPAC Alpha Capital, which acquired Brazil’s Semantix, believes Argentina is on the cusp of a major transformation. The government’s commitment to reducing state intervention, inflation, spending and fostering a more liberal economic are the key drivers behind what he anticipates could drive “avalanche of dollars” flowing into the country, reversing decades of economic stagnation.
“I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that in a few months, Argentina’s problem might be the opposite—too many dollars coming in” to the country, he said.
Founded by in 1999, he sold DeRemate.com to MercadoLibre in 2005. In 2006, Oxenford teamed up with Fabrice Grinda to launch OLX, which rapidly grew into one of the world’s most popular classified platforms, operating in over 45 countries.
Born and raised in Argentina, Oxenford currently resides in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full conversation, in Spanish, on the podcast La Estrategia del Día Argentina.
You’re part of President Javier Milei’s Advisory Council. How do you view the current situation in Argentina, and what motivated you to join this group?
This is my personal opinion, to be clear, as the Council’s official spokesperson is Demian Reidel. Speaking as Alec Oxenford, an Argentine, and a long-time libertarian, I believe Argentina is perhaps facing the best opportunity in a century to reverse its decline. Several significant factors have come together to make this possible, and hopefully, we won’t face yet another disappointment. The Argentine public has grown weary of a juvenile and self-destructive system that has been in place since 1930, intensified in 1945, and has only grown more corrupt over the following decades. The military dictatorships further entrenched this system, and in the last 25 years, it became suffocating. We had a fascist regime rooted in ideas that gained traction in Europe after the 1929 crisis, where the capitalist democratic model was called into question a model that had brought so much prosperity to Argentina from 1853 until 1930, as well as to Europe and the United States. Statist, corporatist, and totalitarian ideologies took hold, rapidly becoming accepted truths among the populations of the most educated countries in the world. These ideas profoundly impacted Argentina and were imported here. All the restrictions on freedom we’ve seen since 1930 were deepened significantly after the Peronist government and reached an extreme. The nationalization of public services, among other measures, led to a country that had accumulated phenomenal capital and such a high standard of living that it attracted more immigrants per capita than the United States between 1900 and 1930—more than Australia, even—ultimately disrupting the economy’s functioning. This resulted in a series of poor systemic decisions, increasingly suboptimal, which eventually created a system reliant on subsidies and distorted relative prices to maintain the prevailing narrative. Fast forward a few years, and much of the economy was nationalized, with some of the highest taxes in the world for those who pay, leading to a decline in investments. As a result, the country began to decapitalize. We went from having the best public services in the world to having the worst of any Western country. We went from a system that attracted millions of immigrants to one that began driving people away. We’re the only country in the world that has experienced multiple hyperinflations, except for Venezuela.
What makes you believe that the changes Milei is proposing, moving towards a less interventionist, more economically liberal approach, can be sustained?
For the first time in Argentina’s history, we have a president who has not only explained the causes and consequences of Argentina’s decline since 1930 but also laid out a detailed plan and a roadmap to start reversing this situation. This plan, unlike previous ones, is beginning to change public opinion. It’s not just that people were fed up with the disaster they were living in—rising inflation, a paralyzed state, the poor handling of the pandemic, etc.—and voted for anything on the other side. People have started to understand the connection between the causes and effects of many of the misguided ideas they’ve held onto for so long, realizing that the state could be more of a problem than a solution. For 80 years, the sacred cow that couldn’t be questioned was the state. All governments, whether left or right, military or democratic, never shrank the state, except slightly under Carlos Menem. But even those changes weren’t very sustainable and were later reversed. The tangle of laws that have hindered the economy is now being questioned, and the lies are being exposed. Challenging these sacred cows is very healthy and could mark the beginning of a new era where truth is prioritized. This could be a long process—hopefully a swift one—but we’re trying to reverse a very long trend. Personally, I’m amazed at how quickly this process is moving. Inflation has dropped from 25% per month to less than 5% in just a few months. This is a faster reduction than during Menem’s administration and much less painful than the exit from the one-to-one peg to the US dollar. When we left that “convertibility”, there was a 16% drop in GDP. It was extremely painful and caused severe trauma in the population. The current drop is around 5%, with a more cautious adjustment, despite being more disciplined and much stronger. That’s why it could yield much more reliable long-term results. This explains why, despite the recession, people support the changes and the president because they feel they’re being told the truth. And that’s what makes me very optimistic. There are no longer the daily pickets—of which there were 400 per day—and Minister Sandra Pettovello has supported those who need state assistance. Minister Patricia Bullrich has restored order in the streets, and we’re now seeing a situation that’s almost normal. It’s not very different today from what you’d see if you crossed into Uruguay or Chile. We’re already starting to see growth in various sectors of the economy. That’s how it begins.
Would Argentina have more unicorns if the last 80 years had been more liberal? Some say the resilience of Argentine entrepreneurs is a result of navigating so many obstacles.
There’s no doubt we would have many more unicorns and successful technology companies if the context had been more stable. Let me show you the evidence. Few competitive tech companies emerged during the years of high inflation or the Peronist years of the ‘70s and ‘80s. They only started to appear in the ‘90s, and then they all appeared at once. It was a time when those of us considering building tech companies launched them. There were 70-80 companies at once, and we did it faster and with better results than Brazil, Mexico, and Spain. In the first wave of the internet in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, Argentina had more valuable tech companies than the rest of Latin America, Spain, and Portugal combined. This didn’t happen because there was a volatile, high-inflation environment. It’s the opposite—this happened because a combination of factors came together. One of these was the presence of human and entrepreneurial capital ready to take on the challenge. And of course, the hardships Argentine entrepreneurs faced living in Argentina helped them become more resilient and disciplined, no doubt about it. But the fertile ground provided by a stable macroeconomic environment allowed them to focus on creating value rather than just surviving in a constantly shifting landscape. There is a culture in Argentina of looking outward, of learning, and of being willing to compete on a global scale. Not many countries have groups of people who say, “I’m going to do something, and I’m going to do it internationally.” This ability to compete abroad, coupled with order, allowed them to think long-term and consider raising capital in the United States. It gave them the chance to do what’s necessary to build a company in those critical first years—what Peter Thiel calls going from zero to one. Zero to one requires stability; these are fragile beginnings, and if people have to worry about how to pay salaries because the dollar went up, the dollar went down, currency controls were imposed, inflation changed, it’s impossible to operate like that. After going from one to one hundred, other factors come into play, like economies of scale, etc. Argentina took advantage of the opportunities presented by the global context change with the emergence of the internet as a new technology. The world believed in Argentina, so these companies were able to secure financing in the United States at the same rates as American projects. That’s another huge change, because there was a perception of rule of law in Argentina, after several years of currency stability. All of these companies were financed with foreign capital, not a single one with Argentine capital.
And do you see a similar opportunity on the horizon now?
The key word is “horizon.” I think no one knows for sure, but it’s possible that a new context is emerging where it could happen again. The most challenging part, which we already have, is a skilled workforce, experienced entrepreneurs, and that hunger to conquer the world. Once again, we have a visionary government aiming to change the status quo and the rules of the game, making them more liberal and globally integrated. If stability, which is the goal, is achieved—and I personally believe it will be—then we’re on the right track. What we’re missing is the emergence of a technological shift to ride on. It could be artificial intelligence (AI) or some version of AI. We need to see something equivalent to the internet boom of the late ‘90s, because you can’t join a revolution where there are already well-established players everywhere—they have a learning curve that we don’t, and you can’t compete with that. Why does MercadoLibre dominate e-commerce instead of Amazon? Well, because Amazon arrived in Latin America 10 years later. If MercadoLibre tried to launch in Germany today, where Amazon is already established, it would be impossible. But maybe a new niche will emerge where we can compete on equal footing, where there are no advantages in experience or scale. That’s what Argentina might be able to seize. That’s what I think could happen. Argentina spent 80 years driving capital away. You’d have to be blind not to see it. Well, for the first time in 80 years, we have a president and a government that understand this country desperately needs capital. They’re doing everything to attract it, and with considerable success already. We have the RIGI [tax, currency and customs benefits for large investments], we have the Petronas and YPF investment—the largest in Argentina’s history—and it seems likely that there will be more investments, both in Vaca Muerta and in minerals.
“[Large investors and entrepreneurs] are indeed looking at Argentina seriously. One person ... is searching for properties in Argentina to live in. It’s not that they are moving, but rather to have a base in Buenos Aires, which is the first step to starting serious activities here.”
— Alec Oxenford, Presidential Advisor to Javier Milei
You went with Peter Thiel to meet with Milei, who also met with Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, and Sam Altman. Is this just marketing for now, or are these people genuinely interested in Argentina to the point of considering investment?
Yes, we went with Peter Thiel to the Casa Rosada to meet with the president. It was a very productive conversation, and afterward, Thiel told me he was deeply impressed by the president as a person and by his ideas. He said that the world, particularly the West, desperately needs the ideas of freedom and a leader like Milei just as much as Argentina does. He sees, and I agree, that the West has a massive problem with an oversized government and overregulation, though it’s less noticeable than in Argentina because it started later. Europe hasn’t grown for a long time. The thing is, Europe’s quality of life is so high, and it’s so far ahead of the rest of the world, that people struggle to see a problem with the model. So, they’re confused. They have some sectors that are incredibly competitive, mainly in technology, and those create enough added value to subsidize other sectors that are completely non-competitive. That’s what some people are beginning to realize, saying, “Look, we may be doing okay, but we could be doing much better,” because the level of regulation, taxes, and state obstruction of private activity is ridiculous. Specifically, yes, they are seriously considering Argentina. Someone—I won’t say who, but I know because I introduced them to the person who’s helping them—is looking for property in Argentina to live in. They’re not planning to move here, but they want a base in Buenos Aires, which is the first step in starting serious activities here. As far as I know, they haven’t bought anything yet, as of last week, but they are in a serious search process.
A major entrepreneur or investor?
One of the people you just mentioned. I won’t say who, but it’s very positive because it means Argentina is starting to factor into these people’s action plans—they all talk among themselves. You just mentioned the visits with Demian Reidel and Milei to these Silicon Valley figures, or the visit with me and Thiel to the Casa Rosada... No president has managed to secure those kinds of meetings in such a short time. The key thing was that Milei wanted to do it, but also that these people wanted to do it. Elon Musk doesn’t meet with just anyone. Everyone wants to meet with him these days. People see something very unusual in Milei, someone who’s bringing a lot of politically incorrect ideas to the table—ideas that make a lot of sense and are crucial—and he’s getting people to support them. There was a general belief that populism and statism had won.
Those photos of Milei with these major entrepreneurs—do they represent a significant opportunity for Argentina?
Absolutely. There are certain industries that can drive rapid change because they grow much faster than the rest of the economy and can generate value without needing to rely on expensive legacy assets. Technology is one of those. I can create a company like MercadoLibre without needing all of Walmart’s warehouses, and I can do it much faster. Still, it takes 25 years. But it doesn’t take 100 years. If you focus on these people and get them to start seriously considering Argentina, there’s a huge opportunity to accelerate this shift into a new era, a new age for Argentina. The government has a monumental task ahead—to explain that this time isn’t like the previous times, because in the past, they also said it was new, different, and that things were going to change. I think this time it’s real. As the months go by, more people will realize this. Those who realize it first and invest first will see returns first. They’ll get in at a lower cost, and this is a very attractive moment to invest in Argentina on many fronts. The stock market has risen quite a bit, but when I compare it to the multiples of markets like Brazil, Chile, or Colombia, there’s still room to grow. If we look at physical assets like real estate in Buenos Aires, the interior, and farmland, the valuations show a huge potential upside. It’s possible to invest, and this is before even considering investments in plants, infrastructure, and long-term assets that require a longer payback. There are very attractive short-term investment opportunities in Argentina right now. I’m already starting to see them. I know of several people who have bought farmland in Argentina because they see it as a foundation, and they’re starting to understand that Argentina could be a place where it makes sense to put capital. As the benefits of RIGI become clear, when the first investor comes, the second will follow, then the third. The YPF announcement with Petronas is very important, and if a few more deals like that materialize, as I expect, we could suddenly see an avalanche of investment. It hasn’t happened yet, but that’s normal. I would have expected us to see inflation below 5% two years after December, not eight months later. Given the level of caution this government is exercising, the speed at which things are moving is incredible. I imagine these trends will continue because the president has already shown he has no intention of printing money, and if there’s no money printing and no deficit, inflation will come down. And with inflation a bit lower at 2-3% in the coming months, it will be natural for people to start investing. The horizon for calculating investment returns is starting to become clear. Capitalism is beginning to work, right? Prices are attractive, which is an additional incentive. And I don’t rule out the possibility that in a few months, Argentina’s problem might be the opposite—too many dollars coming in, which could put pressure on the currency. It could happen; I really don’t rule it out. Federico Sturzenegger is deregulating a new sector every day. It’s spectacular, something you don’t see anywhere else in the world: someone dedicated to dismantling the obstacles that prevent people from freely making decisions to create value. We have that here.
