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March 2023

Episode #433: Interview with Hector Garcia CPA

Ron and Ed welcomed Hector Garcia, CPA to the show. We talked about the business model for professionals and all things technology including AI. Hector is a long-time listener and has put many of the ideas we talk about into practice at his organization Quick Bookkeeping of Miami LLC, a family owned practice that has been helping small business with their tax and accounting needs for over 13 years in Doral and all over the world. His YouTube channel has over 222,000 subscribers.

A Bit More About Hector…

Hector Garcia is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), licensed in Florida; entrepreneur, and YouTuber who specializes in providing educational content on accounting, finance, and business management. He has a strong online presence through his YouTube channel and Facebook Groups, where he shares tutorials, lectures, and expert advice on a variety of topics, including QuickBooks, tax preparation, financial analysis, and small business management. Hector holds several Master/Post-graduate degrees in Accounting, Finance, and Taxation from Florida International University. He is also Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor. He is also the founder and current CEO of Quick Bookkeeping & Accounting LLC, a Miami-based firm founded in 2009.

You can find Hector at these links:

YouTube
Facebook Group
LinkedIn
Right Tool

Use these notes to follow along with the show

Segment one:

  • Hector started in technology working for GeekSquad! From there, at a bank he found his passion for technology and banking. Yada. Yada. Yada. He is now a business owner and guest on The Soul of Enterprise! More here: https://hectorgarcia.com/ 

  • What Hector really loves is empowering people to take control over their own lives — to have confidence in their work and the decisions they make in their business. His YouTube channel is great. https://www.youtube.com/c/HectorGarciaCPA 

  • “I help people take more vacations.” —Hector Garcia CPA

  • Hector’s YouTube channel is mostly focused on business, profitability, and accounting. However, the channel is a reflection of his life and features a few videos with his children as well. https://www.youtube.com/c/HectorGarciaCPA 

  • So what about ChatGPT? Hector uses it to get a head start on some of his work. For example, he has used it to help draft small agreements for customers. Then he asks those customers to send it to lawyer and saves them some time (and money). 

Segment two:

  • What are Hector’s thoughts on accounting industry labor shortages? Every tax season is like a punch in the face. “The next one will be my last.” 

  • “If you are able to charge your client as a percentage of the value you create, it gets a lot easier to compensate your employees proportionately. The problem we have is many firms bill by the hour.” —Hector Garcia CPA

  • “Everyone knows that if you jump from firm to firm, you can increase your salary but staying in the same firm you only get an inflation adjustment. Why have we — the accounting industry — not addressed this problem with dynamic compensation plans?”

Segment three:

  • Hector is obsessed with the “magic prompt” that makes ChatGPT more than a novelty. He started asking ChatGPT to write code for him so that he could speak in the same language as his programmer.

  • 1/2 Bank statements from clients have lots of transactions and many are unknown. Right now, you have to take an unknown transaction and use Google to figure out the detail. It could take you 10 minutes to figure out what a single $37 transaction might be for.

  • 2/2 So can you use ChatGPT to speed this up? Through some quick prompt engineering, Hector finds it is much quicker to research unknown transactions in this way.

  • Let’s say you could plug in your tax software and data into ChatGPT. “Hey, which of my clients own a home?” “Which of my clients has international income?” It could go through your entire dataset and scour it for answers to complex questions.

Segment four:

  • What made Hector want to transition his firm to a subscription billing model? Listening to Ron and Ed for many years certainly helped! 

  • In the coming months, Hector’s firm will be on the forefront of technology as they change and evolve. The only way to do this with predictable revenue is through the subscription model.

  • That’s a wrap! Thank you VERY MUCH to Hector Garcia, CPA for joining us today. Check out more of his work on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/c/HectorGarciaCPA 

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #432: Interview with Stephan Kinsella - Abolishing IP

Ron and Ed recently welcomed patent attorney and advocate for abolishing intellectual property, Stephan Kinsella to the show. We explored what is (and is not) intellectual property and then had a conversation about why Stephan thinks these forms of property should not exist and why the world would be better if they did not.

A Bit More About Stephan…

N. Stephan Kinsella (LL.M., King’s College London-University of London; JD, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, LSU; BSEE and MSEE, LSU) is a libertarian writer and registered patent attorney in Houston. He has spoken, lectured and published widely on various areas of libertarian legal theory and on legal topics such as intellectual property law and international law. His  publications include Law in a Libertarian World: Legal Foundations of a Free Society  (Papinian Press, forthcoming) Against Intellectual Property (Mises Institute, 2008), International Investment, Political Risk, and Dispute Resolution: A Practitioner’s Guide (Oxford, 2020), and several others.

Use these notes to follow along with the show:

Segment one:

Segment two:

  • While working in Big Law, Stephan “billed every tenth of an hour every 6 minutes.” This was referred to internally in the firm as a shizzle. 

  • Stephan has a great description of contracts on the show today. Contracts are all about communication by the owner as to whether they will or will not allow other people to use their resources (either temporarily or permanently).

  • The 4 main categories of IP in the United States are: patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secrets. Stephan goes into detail about this during segment two of the show.

  • In theory, patents are effectively monopoly control for 20 years that allows you to charge monopoly prices. There is no evidence that patents induce innovation whatsoever. 

  • Patents kill. LITERALLY. Read more from Stephan Kinsella here: https://mises.org/wire/patents-kill-compulsory-licenses-and-genzymes-life-saving-drug 

Segment three:

Segment four:

  • “Attribution have nothing to do with copyright.” —Stephan Kinsella

  • “Plagiarism is simply representing someones work as your own. It has nothing to do with copyright.” —Stephan Kinsella

  • If you buy a fake Rolex for $20, there is no fraud involved. The buyer knows the Rolex is fake. Stephan talked through this during the last segment of our show today.

  • A big THANK YOU to our guest today, Stephan Kinsella. His work is deep and focused on abolishing IP. Check out StephanKinsella.com for links to his work.

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #431: Interview with Mark P. Mills

In his book, The Cloud Revolution, Mark P. Mills explains how the conventional wisdom on how technology will change the future is wrong and lays out a radically different and optimistic vision for what’s really coming. According to Mark, a convergence of technologies will instead drive an economic boom over the coming decade, one that historians will characterize as the “Roaring 2020s.” It will come not from any single big invention, but from the confluence of radical advances in three primary technology domains: microprocessors, materials, and machines.

A Bit More About Mark…

Mark P. Mills is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. He is also a strategic partner with Montrose Lane (an energy-tech venture fund). Previously, Mills cofounded Digital Power Capital, a boutique venture fund, and was chairman and CTO of ICx Technologies, helping take it public in 2007. Mills is author of the book The Cloud Revolution: How the Convergence of New Technologies Will Unleash the Next Economic Boom and a Roaring 2020s (Encounter Books, 2021), and host of the new podcast The Last Optimist. He is also author of Digital Cathedrals (2020), and Work in the Age of Robots (2018). Mills earlier coauthored (with Peter Huber) The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (Basic Books, 2005). His articles have been published widely, including in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA Today, and Real Clear. Mills has appeared as a guest on CNN, Fox, NBC, PBS, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In 2016, Mills was named “Energy Writer of the Year” by the American Energy Society. Earlier, Mills was a technology advisor for Bank of America Securities and coauthor of the Huber-Mills Digital Power Report, a tech investment newsletter. He has testified before Congress numerous times, and briefed state public-service commissions and legislators. Mills served in the White House Science Office under President Reagan.

 
 

Use these notes to follow along with the show:

Segment one:

  • Our show bumper — featuring Ronald Reagan — epitomizes Mark’s book, The Cloud Revolution. It’s an incredibly clear statement about there being no limits to growth. More about the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Revolution-Convergence-Technologies-Economic/dp/1641772301

  • The 1920s tell us a lot about behavior. What intrigues Mark about this era was the confluence of events that can tell us so much about the 2020’s. History can’t predict the future but the patterns can help us understand.

  • Airplanes achieved utility value in the 1920s. The expansion of telephony. The beginning of the modern science era. Mark’s book features a MUCH larger list of the combination of things that caused the greatest advancement of wealth in human history.

  • This is simple and brilliant from Mark. How is the cloud different from the internet. “The cloud is different from the internet as the internet is different from the telephone networks.”

Segment two:

  • Americans, broadly speaking, are very tolerant of cultural and political experimentation. Everything is a cycle and the American pendulum swings a little more easily than in Europe or Canada. The underlying culture of America is what led to our economic flourishing.

  • What people believe matters. Economists are reluctant to admit the extent to what people believe influences economic growth.

  • Anthropomorphic robots are an example in Mark’s book. Where will they have utility? That’s harder to predict than predicting that we will have them at all. More here: https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Revolution-Convergence-Technologies-Economic/dp/1641772301 

  • Directly from Mark’s book: Revolutions happen at the intersection of three spheres: the machine, the materials, and the information https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Revolution-Convergence-Technologies-Economic/dp/1641772301 

Segment three:

  • The amount of power required for JUST the future of edge computing is equivalent to all commercial HVAC systems today combined. Can or will we generate enough power to keep up? Mark’s answer was great in that “CAN” and “WILL” are very different.

  • Mark spent his first days in the United States as a commercial science adviser at 3 mile island…the week after the accident. As a power expert, Mark postulates that small nuclear reactors will become increasingly important. 

  • Mark was pleased and surprised to find that there are something like 50 designs for new, small nuclear reactors. Some are small enough to power a house. That’s a newfound fact after writing The Cloud Revolution: https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Revolution-Convergence-Technologies-Economic/dp/1641772301

  • 20% of the worlds energy goes into making electricity. If you switch all of them to nuclear energy, you’ll take away 10-15% of the need for hydrocarbons. Meaning…it will have no impact on the demand 20 years from now but still remains important.

Segment four:

  • George Gilder’s peer-to-peer argument is not necessarily in direct conflict with Mark’s view in The Cloud Revolution. Both are possible and both are happening simultaneously. More here: https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Revolution-Convergence-Technologies-Economic/dp/1641772301 

  • Networks are like peaches. They have a strong core and the surface gets larger faster (the surface is the edge for those following along with the analogy).

  • “The technologies don’t exist” to achieve no use of hydrocarbons. The real debate is the amount of hydrocarbons in use in 20 years. 

  • A big THANK YOU to Mark P. Mills for joining us today. Folks, he is an expert and thinker that fits right in with our other guests. Do yourself a favor and check out his book, The Cloud Revolution, at this link: https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Revolution-Convergence-Technologies-Economic/dp/1641772301

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #430: LIVE from the 2023 Meeting of the Minds

Ron and Ed once again took the show on the road. For the third time, they were honored to appear at the Meeting of the Minds. Aside from taking questions from the attendees, they had a conversation about an Harvard Business Review article from Joe Pine et al entitled, The “New You” Business.

Use these notes to follow along with the show:

Segment one:

  • The “New You” Business is a recent article from Joe Pine et al. We spend the first part of the show talking about it. Link is here: https://hbr.org/2022/01/the-new-you-business 

  • So what is the “New You”? It’s about a hierarchy of value from products to services to experiences to transformations.

  • 1/4 When you sell things, you have a commodity business. How do you de-commoditize a commodity?

  • 2/4 What happens when your product becomes a commodity? You wrap some services around your product.

  • 3/4 What happens when your service becomes a commodity? If you can throw in an experience which is memorable…now you are in the experience business.

  • 4/4 What happens when your experience becomes commodity? Then you provide transformations because you are guiding the customer from where they are to a desired future state. That makes the customer the product.

  • “All too often fitness centers, medical providers, colleges, and organizations in many other industries seek to distinguish themselves only on the quality, convenience, and experience of what they sell.” From The “New You” Business by Joe Pine et al. Link is here: https://hbr.org/2022/01/the-new-you-business 

  • “A professional is someone who is responsible for creating a result instead of doing a task.” Ron Baker

Segment two:

  • Sponsored by @90Minds, our Patreon channel at Patreon.com/TSOE provides commercial free and bonus episodes to our members. Need a mind? Find one at 90Minds.com!

  • “The person has to want to be transformed.” —Ron Baker. So simple, kinda funny, and is at the heart of how you can guide a customer towards transformation.

  • “How many times have you completed 80% of the work but only 20% of the value was realized because you didn’t get to do the stuff at the end?” —Ed Kless

  • “Such business models [those focused on transformations] will be much harder to imitate than those that offer only goods, services, or experiences. And they promise to generate handsome rewards” — More here: https://hbr.org/2022/01/the-new-you-business 

  • Ed Kless told the landscaper story again today from Tim Williams (@timwilliamsicg) and it NEVER GETS OLD. An archived video of the story is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5wzlVplZ34 

  • Referenced by Ron Baker today, here is a link to the “Willy Wonka” of coffee — Starbucks Reserve https://www.starbucksreserve.com 

Segment three:

  • It’s time for questions from the audience! The first one is from Gary Feldman of IBN: What is the end goal beyond the profitability when you are talking about transformations?

  • The result of your business is profit. The PURPOSE is not profit. John Mackey from Whole Foods says profit in a business is like red blood cells in your body. Nobody wakes up in the morning with the PURPOSE of producing red blood cells.

  • Another audience question: What is the nature of companies that are interested in a true transformation?

  • An audience question from Wayne Schulz: How, as consultants, do we start to convince our customer that it is a good idea to pay us to project manage a transformation when we’ve never done so in the past? 

  • Ron referenced the Direct Primary Care business model today and we’ve had a GREAT guest on the show several times. Dr. Paul runs a DPC and wrote the book on how to do it. More here: https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/269 

Segment four:

  • In a previous show, Ed asked ChatGPT to produce an “ABOUT” page on a website for an accounting firm. It was eerily accurate because it was plain, boring, and pretty vanilla.

  • A few weeks ago, we had Chris Vanover on the show to talk about his audit subscription services. More here: https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/423 

  • “People that have more money than time will pay for a level of convenience.” —Ron Baker

  • And that’s a wrap! Thank you VERY MUCH to our great audience at The Meeting of the Minds!

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits. 

Episode #429: One Thing! Part Two!

Inspired by A. J. Jacobs when he appeared on Russ Robert's great podcast EconTalk (and Curly from City Slickers), Ron and Ed have each been keeping a "One Thing" journal for the last few years. They first shared from this journal back in October 2021, but the time has come to share some more of their best "One Things."

Editor’s note:

  • Instead of the typical show note format, we have organized both Ron and Ed’s ONE THING into discrete lists below.

Ron’s ONE THING:

  • Prefer clarity over agreement. —meeting of the minds, Mortimer Adler

  • Unearned self-esteem is narcissism

  • DRIP = Data rich, insight poor

  • FISH = First In, Still Here

  • There are 2 types of laws. There is law and there is legislation. Laws are descriptive (like gravity). Legislation is prescriptive (and arbitrary like the 55MPH speed limit).

  • Want to get rich quick? Count your blessings

  • Wisdom enters through the wound

  • Pedro Domingos of the University of Washington (while on EconTalk) says, “People worry that computers will get too smart and take over the world, but the real problem is that they’re too stupid and that they’ve already taken over the world.”

  • When you have to express something that you are pessimistic about, Ron like’s to quote George Will’s “Ohio in 1895 Theory of history”: In 1895 in Ohio, there were two automobiles in entire state — and they collided!

  • Famous chefs have said that technique trumps ingredient

  • Paula Scher created the Citi logo on a napkin during the pitch meeting. She’s famous for saying, “People love to buy process”

  • From Ron’s list, he often uses this quote when people ask what is public choice theory? James Buchanan’s Public Choice Theory says, “It’s Government without romance.”

  • “Before we decide which opera singer is better, we should listen to both.” What George Stigler is talking about is capitalism vs. socialism — or reality vs. utopia

  • From Ron’s ONE THING list courtesy of Mark Twain: “If pro is the opposite of con, then the opposite of progress must be Congress.”

  • On defensive decision making from Rory Sutherland: B2C is where people are avoiding regret. B2B is where people are avoiding blame.

  • “The best history, is written when we realize that people acted in expectation of a future that was never going to happen.” - Roy Foster on Conversations with Tyler

  • “Thinking about the unthinkable is interesting.” —Herman Kahn

  • “Don't be thinking your ambition is corrupt." - Jordan Peterson when asked for his advice for incoming freshmen at college by Peter Robinson

Ed’s ONE THING:

  • What decision do you or your firm need to make over the next 3 to 6 months?

  • Regarding the The Vampire Problem: We don’t know if we would be better off becoming a vampire until after we become a vampire. Substitute parent, spouse or other life choice for vampire

  • Courtesy of Michal Munger, here is a ONE THING from Ed: Capitalism does NOT start with the premise that greed is good. Capitalism starts with the premise greed is a human failing and harnesses that to benefit consumer sovereignty

  • From Ed (with the obvious disclaimer that this is a personal view and nothing more): It should be just as discrediting to call someone a Marxist as it is a Nazi

  • The US Constitution is the prettiest pig in an ugly pig competition.

  • To insure something is to enter into a financial arrangement in which you pay premiums in exchange for a future payment in case of the loss of or damage to the thing insured. If you are making sure that something is going to happen, you ensure it. Different words, different meanings. - Kevin Williamson

  • Great improvisers are incredibly well prepared. Great improvisation requires an incredible amount of practice and preparation.

  • From Ed we have Christopher Buckley’s “Yuppie Nuremberg Defense” — “I was only paying the mortgage!”

  • We like it when our friends like what we like, but we really hate it when they don't hate what we hate.

  • If you think the sanctions against Russia will be an effective tool by isolating them economically AND you think we should buy American/locally to eliminate the “trade deficit,” it is time for you to pause and reflect.

  • This is a great ONE THING from Ed towards the end of the show. Courtesy of Rory Sutherland: “But what if we make it pink and increase the price.”

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

Click the “FANATIC” image to learn more about pricing and member benefits.