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Today's topic is Jeff Hanneman. This is a long three-part tribute, timed to be here for the 12th anniversary of Jeff's sad, untimely demise.Talkin' Slayer is a deeply researched podcast that uncovers the history of Slayer, the thrashiest of the Big Four American thrash bands, one episode at a time... sometimes two. Host & award-winning journalist D.X. Ferris has written two books about the band.Patreon supporters hear an episode every week. Free listeners miss every other episode — and then some. Packages start at under $1 episode. Learn more at Patreon.com/SlayerBookIf you'd rather make a one time donation... or drop some ducats in the virtual tip jar, you can do it here: https://ko-fi.com/slayerbookThis week's show is in three parts: For the first two, Ferris revisits some of previous profiles, deconstructions, and examinations of Jeff... with updated content and statistics. In the third, we hear directly from Jeff in the band, in audio snippets from the following interviews. To get the full effect, you really should watch them.ESP Guitars: Flashback Interview - Jeff Hanneman (Slayer)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LliZPI3UR2k​ from the Combat Tour/Ultimate Revenge video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89IDtggjnW4 1986, Monsters of Rock UK special. Mostly Tom, but...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahDPXwvAmKY 1995, backstage at Donnington:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM-1SvUjfFo&t=16s 1998, Vh1's Tommy Vance:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et7r02ES3PI 1998, for Concrete, Kerry & Jeff:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WehYsViE0sg 2001, Much Loud's George Stroumboulopoulos:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLtOwHvq9qY 2006, in Brazil. Jeff: "No."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbAl2mRPbS0 Jeff in OZ, Beat TV, 2007. Great quote about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEfHVpXZY5Y ESP Guitars, 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LliZPI3UR2kESP Guitars, 2010: "Five Things I Hate":https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiA5l3kMp9I 2010-ish, everyone on The Henry Rollins Show:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwvq7pZd7qo&tMTV2, 2010:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVzn_w4MMSE 2010, Golden Gods. Jeff doesn't have much to say. Lemmy playing with Foo Fighters? No reaction. As I Lay Dying? Reaction.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJoiZG2Ord4 2011, Unholy Alliance:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f-JlxRDNiY Musique Mag, 2012-ish:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsfSwTFEza8 PLUS, listen to this:Circle of Beliefs' Best Jeff Solos compilation:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRZvzZwUSdo As referenced in the show:Consquence's Paolo Ragusa presents Kerry King's Top Six Guitarists:https://consequence.net/2025/04/kerry-king-slayer-favorite-guitarists/The book host D.X. Ferris reads from most weeks:The NEW AND MASSIVELY EXPANDED 4th edition is available in four formats. For a limited time, they're at a discount. OUR PRICES ARE CRIMINALLY INSANE!! Your options are...1) The Uncut Standard Version: Paperback, 6x9”, 639 pages, includes a full index, annotated endnote citations, and a works cited / bibliography section.2) The Oversize Version: This monster paperback is 8.5x11”, 580 pages, with larger type. The format has size limits, so it omits the standalone works cited section and a few of the less awesome photos. It still includes the full annotated endnote citations and 50 b&w photos. The full real content is there.3) The ebook has no index, but it's cheap, and it features two additional appendices, with mostly color photos.4) The paperback 6x9” Long Story Short… and Cheaper Version runs 400 pages. It features full research citations, and most b&w photos, but no appendices, index or standalone works cited section. It's the story of Slayer, and nothing but. You're missing a ton of good stuff. But, hey, it's your money and time. Do what you will. We get it.If you want to buy an autographed copy directly, reach out: slayerbook@gmail.com

In this special episode of the Oracle University Podcast, Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham, along with Principal HCM Instructor Jeff Schuster, delve into the intersection of HCM and AI, exploring the practical applications and implications of this technology in human resources. Jeff shares his insights on bias and fairness, the importance of human involvement, and the need for explainability and transparency in AI systems. The discussion also covers the various AI features embedded in HCM and their impact on talent acquisition, performance management, and succession planning.  Oracle AI in Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/learning-path/oracle-ai-in-fusion-cloud-human-capital-management-hcm/136722 Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM: Dynamic Skills: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ou/course/oracle-fusion-cloud-hcm-dynamic-skills/116654/ Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Oracle_Edu Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode. -------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started!  00:26 Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs here at Oracle University, and with me, is Nikita Abraham, Team Lead of Editorial Services. Nikita: Hi everyone! Last week's conversation was all about Oracle Database 23ai backup and recovery, where we dove into instance recovery and effective recovery strategies. Today's episode is a really special one, isn't it, Lois? 00:53 Lois: It is, indeed, Niki. Of course, all of our AI episodes are special. But today, we have our friend and colleague Jeff Schuster with us. I think our listeners are really going to enjoy what Jeff has to share with us. Nikita: Yeah definitely! Jeff is a Principal HCM Instructor at Oracle University. He recently put together this really fantastic course on MyLearn, all about the intersection of HCM and AI, and that's what we want to pick his brain about today. Hi Jeff! We're so excited to have you here.  01:22 Jeff: Hey Niki! Hi Lois! I feel special already. Thanks you guys so much for having me. Nikita: You've had a couple of busy months, haven't you?  01:29 Jeff: I have! It's been a busy couple of months with live classes. I try and do one on AI in HCM at least once a month or so so that we can keep up with the latest/greatest stuff in that area. And I also got to spend a few days at Cloud World teaching a few live classes (about artificial intelligence in HCM, as a matter of fact) and meeting our customers and partners. So yeah, absolutely great week. A good time was had by me.  01:55 Lois: I'm sure. Cloud World is such a great experience. And just to clarify, do you think our customers and partners also had a good time, Jeff? It wasn't just you, right? Jeff: Haha! I don't think it was just me, Lois. But, you know, HCM is always a big deal, and now with all the embedded AI functionality, it really wasn't hard to find people who wanted to spend a little extra time talking about AI in the context of our HCM apps. So, there are more than 30 separate AI-powered features in HCM. AI features for candidates to find the right jobs; for hiring managers to find the right candidates; skills, talent, performance management, succession planning— all of it is there and it really covers everything across the Attract/Grow/Keep buckets of the things that HR professionals do for a living. So, anyway, yeah, lots to talk about with a lot of people! There's the functional part that people want to know about—what are these features and how do they work? But obviously, AI carries with it all this cultural significance these days. There's so much uncertainty that comes from this pace of development in that area. So in fact, my Cloud World talk always starts with this really silly intro that we put in place just to knock down that anxiety and get to the more practical, functional stuff. 03:11 Nikita: Ok, we're going to need to discuss the functional stuff, but I feel like we're getting a raw deal if we don't also get that silly intro. Lois: She makes a really good point.  Jeff: Hahaha! Alright, fair enough. Ok, but you guys are gonna have to imagine I've got a microphone and a big room and a lot of echo. AI is everywhere. In your home. In your office. In your homie's home office. 03:39 Lois: I feel like I just watched the intro of a sci-fi movie. Jeff: Yeah. I'm not sure it's one I'd watch, but I think more importantly it's a good way to get into discussing some of the overarching things we need to know about AI and Oracle's approach before we dive into the specific features, so you know, those features will make more sense when we get there?  03:59  Nikita: What are these “overarching” things?  Jeff: Well, the things we work on anytime we're touching AI at Oracle. So, you know, it starts with things like Bias and Fairness. We usually end up in a pretty great conversation about things like how we avoid bias on the front end by making sure we don't ingest things like bias-generating content, which is to say data that doesn't necessarily represent bias by itself, but could be misused. And that pretty naturally leads us into a talk about guardrails. Nikita: Guardrails? Jeff:  Yeah, you can think of those as checkpoints. So, we've got rules about ingestion and bias. And if we check the output coming out of the LLM to ensure it complied with the bias and fairness rules, that's a guardrail. So, we do that. And we do it again on the apps side. And so that's to say, even though it's already been checked on the AI side, before we bring the output into the HCM app, it's checked again. So another guardrail.  04:58 Lois: How effective is that? The guardrails, and not taking in data that's flagged as bias-generating? Jeff: Well, I'll say this: It's both surprisingly good, and also nowhere near good enough.  Lois: Ok, that's as clear as mud. You want to elaborate on that?  Jeff: Haha! I think all it means is that approach does a great job, but our second point in the whole “standards” discussion is about the significance of having a human in the loop. Sometimes more than one, but the point here is that, particularly in HCM, where we're handling some really important and sensitive data, and we're introducing really powerful technology, the H in HCM gets even more important. So, throughout the HCM AI course, we talk about opportunities to have a human in the loop. And it's not just for reviewing things. It's about having the AI make suggestions, and not decisions, for example. And that's something we always have a human in the loop for all the time. In fact, when I started teaching AI for HCM, I always said that I like to think of it is as a great big brain, without any hands.  06:00 Nikita: So, we're not talking about replacing humans in HCM with AI.                                                                         Jeff: No, but we're definitely talking about changing what the humans do and why it's more important than ever what the humans do. So, think of it this way, we can have our embedded AI generate this amazing content, or create really useful predictions, whatever it is that we need. We can use whatever tools we want to get there, but we can still expect people to ask us, “Where did that come from?” or “Does this account for [whatever]?”. So we still have to be able to answer that. So that's another thing we talk about as kind of an overarching important concept: Explainability and Transparency. 06:41 Nikita: I'm assuming that's the part about showing our work, right? Explaining what's being considered, how it's being processed, and what it is that you're getting back. Jeff: That's exactly it. So we like to have that discussion up front, even before we get to things like Gen and Non-Gen AI, because it's great context to have in mind when you start thinking about the technology. Whenever we're looking at the tech or the features, we're always thinking about whether people are appropriately involved, and whether people can understand the AI product as well as they need to.  07:11 Lois: You mentioned Gen and Non-Gen AI. I've also heard people use the term “Classic AI.” And lately, a lot more about RAG and Agents. When you're teaching the course, does everybody manage to keep all the terminology straight? Jeff: Yeah, people usually do a great job with this. I think the trick is, you have to know that you need to know it, if that makes sense.  Lois: I think so, but why don't you spell it out for us. Jeff: Well, the temptation is sometimes to leave that stuff to the implementers or product developers, who we know need to have a deep understanding of all of that. But I think what we've learned is, especially because of all the functional implications, practitioners, product owners, everybody needs to know it too. If for no other reason so they can have more productive conversations with their implementers. You need to know that Classic or Non-Generative AI leverages machine learning, and that that's all you need in order to do some incredibly powerful things like predictions and matching. So in HCM, we're talking about things like predicting time to hire, identifying suggested candidates for job openings, finding candidates similar to ones you already like, suggesting career paths for employees, and finding recommended successors. All really powerful matching stuff. And all of that stuff uses machine learning and it's certainly AI, but none of that uses Generative AI to do that because it doesn't need to. 08:38 Nikita: So how does that fit in with all the hype we've been hearing for a long time now about Gen AI and how it's such a transformative technology that's going to be more impactful than anything else? Jeff: Yeah, and that can be true too. And this is what we really lean into when we do the AI in HCM course live. It's much more of a “right AI for the right job” kind of proposition. Lois: So, just like you wouldn't use a shovel to mix a cake. Use the right tool for the job. I think I've got it. So, the Classic AI is what's driving those kinds of features in HCM? The matching and recommendations?  Jeff: Exactly right. And where we need generative content, that's where we add on the large language model capability. With LLMs, we get the ability to do natural language processing. So it makes sense that that's the technology we'd use for tasks like “write me a job description” or “write me performance development tips for my employee”. 09:33 Nikita: Ok, so how does that fit in with what Lois was asking about RAG and Agents? Is that something people care about, or need to? Jeff: I think it's easiest to think about those as the “what's next” pieces, at least as it relates to the embedded AI. They kind of deal with the inherent limitations of Gen and Non-Gen components. So, RAG, for example - I know you guys know, but your listeners might not...so what's RAG stand for? Lois & Nikita: Retrieval. Augmented. Generation. Jeff: Hahaha! Exactly. Obviously. But I think everything an HCM person needs to know about that is in the name. So for me, it's easiest to read that one backwards. Retrieval Augmented Generation. Well, the Generation just means it's more generative AI. Augmented means it's supplementing the existing AI. And Retrieval just tells you that that's how it's doing it. It's going out and fetching something it didn't already have in order to complete the operation. 10:31 Lois: And this helps with those limitations you mentioned? Nikita: Yeah, and what are they anyway?  Jeff: I think an example most people are familiar with is that large language models are trained on this huge set of information. To a certain point. So that model is trained right up to the point where it stopped getting trained. So if you're talking about interacting with ChatGPT, as an example, it'll blow your doors off right up until you get to about October of 2023 and then, it just hasn't been trained on things after that. So, if you wanted to have a conversation about something that happened after that, it would need to go out and retrieve the information that it needed. For us in HCM, what that means is taking the large language model that you get with Oracle, and using retrieval to augment the AI generation for the things that the large language model wouldn't have had.  11:22 Nikita: So, things that happened after the model was trained? Company-specific data? What kind of augmenting are you talking about? Jeff: It's all of that. All those things happen and it's anything that might be useful, but it's outside the LLM's existing scope. So, let's do an example. Let's say you and Lois are in the market to hire someone. You're looking for a Junior Podcast Assistant. We'd like the AI in HCM to help, and in order to do that, it would be great if it could not just generate a generic job description for the posting, but it could really make it specific to Oracle. Even better, to Oracle University.  So, you'd need the AI to know a few more things in order to make that happen. If it knows the job level, and the department, and the organization—already the job posting description gets a lot better. So what other things do you think it might need to know? 12:13 Lois: Umm I'm thinking…does it need to account for our previous hiring decisions? Can it inform that at all? Jeff: Yes! That's actually a key one. If the AI is aware not only of all the vacancies and all of the transactional stuff that goes along with it (like you know who posted it, what's its metadata, what business group it was in, and all that stuff)...but it also knows who we hired, that's huge. So if we put all that together, we can start doing the really cool stuff—like suggesting candidates based not only on their apparent match on skills and qualifications, but also based on folks that we've hired for similar positions. We know how long it took to make those hires from requisition open to the employee's first start date. So we can also do things like predicting time to hire for each vacancy we have with a lot more accuracy. So now all of a sudden, we're not just doing recruiting, but we have a system that accounts for “how we do it around here,” if that makes any sense.  But the point is, it's the augmented data, it's that kind of training that we do throughout ingestion, going out to other sources for newer or better information, whatever it is we need. The ability to include it alongside everything that's already in the LLM, that's a huge deal.  13:31  Nikita: Ok, so I think the only one we didn't get to was Agents. Jeff: Yeah, so this one is maybe a little less relevant in HCM—for now anyway. But it's something to keep an eye on. Because remember earlier when I described our AI as having a great big brain but no hands?  Lois: Yeah... Jeff: Well, agents are a way of giving it hands. At least for a very well-defined, limited set of purposes. So routine and repetitive tasks. And for obvious reasons, in the HCM space, that causes some concerns. You don't want, for example, your AI moving people forward in the recruiting process or changing their status to “not considered” all by itself. So going forward, this is going to be a balancing act. When we ask the same thing of the AI over and over again, there comes a point where it makes sense to kind of “save” that ask. When, for example, we get the “compare a candidate profile to a job vacancy” results and we got it working just right, we can create an agent. And just that one AI call that specializes in getting that analysis right. It does the analysis, it hands it back to the LLM, and when the human has had what they need to make sure they get what they need to make a decision out of it, you've got automation on one hand and human hands on the other...hand. 14:56 Have you mastered the basics of AI? Are you ready to take your skills to the next level? Unlock the potential of advanced AI with our OCI Generative AI Professional course and certification that covers topics like large language models, the OCI Generative AI Service, and building Q&A chatbots for real-world applications. Head over to mylearn.oracle.com to find out more. 15:26 Nikita: Welcome back! Jeff, you've mentioned the “Time to Hire” feature a few times? Is that a favorite with people who take your classes? Jeff: The recruiting folks definitely seem to enjoy it, but I think it's just a great example for a couple of reasons. First, it's really powerful non-generative AI. So it helps emphasize the point around the right AI for the right job. And if we're talking about things in chronological order, it's something that shows up really early in the hire-to-retire cycle. And, you know, just between us learning nerds, I like to use Time to Hire as an early example because it gets folks in the habit of working through some use cases. You don't really know if a feature is going to get you what you need until you've done some of that. So, for example, if I tell you that Time to Hire produces an estimated number of days to your first hire. And you're still Lois, and you're still Niki, and you're hiring for a Junior Podcast Assistant. So why do you care about time to hire? And I'm asking you for real—What would you do with that prediction if you had it?  16:29 Nikita: I guess I'd know how long it is before I can expect help to arrive, and I could plan my work accordingly. Jeff: Absolutely. What else. What could you do with a prediction for Time to Hire? Lois: Think about coverage? Jeff: Yeah! Exactly the word I was looking for. Say more about that.  Lois: Well, if I know it's gonna be three months before our new assistant starts, I might be able to plan for some temporary coverage for that work. But if I had a prediction that said it's only going to be two weeks before a new hire could start, it probably wouldn't be worth arranging temporary coverage. Niki can hold things down for a couple of weeks. Jeff: See, I'm positive she could! That's absolutely perfect! And I think that's all you really need to have in terms of prerequisites to understand any of the AI features in HCM. When you know what you might want to do with it, like predicting the need for temp cover, and you've got everything we talked about in the foundation part of the course—the Gen and the Classic, all that stuff, you can look at a feature like Time to Hire and then you can probably pick that up in 30 seconds. 17:29 Nikita: Can we try it? Jeff: Sure! I mean, you know, we're not looking at screens for this conversation, but we can absolutely try it. You're a recruiter. If I tell you that Time to Hire is a feature that you run into on the job requisition and it shows you just a few editable fields, and then of course, the prediction of the number of days to hire—tell me how you think that feature is going to work when you get there. Lois: So, what are the fields? And does it matter? Jeff: Probably not really, but of course you can ask. So, let me tell you. Ready? The fields—they are these. Requisition Title, Location, and Education Level.  Nikita: Ok, well, I have to assume that as I change those things… like from a Junior Podcast Assistant to a Senior Podcast Assistant, or change the location from Redwood Shores to Detroit, or change the required education, the time to hire is going to change, right?  Jeff: 100%, exactly. And it does it in real time as you make those changes to those values. So when you pick a new location, you immediately get a new number of days, so it really is a useful tool. But how does it work? Well, we know it's using a few fields from the job requisition, but that's not enough. Besides those fields, what else would you need in order to make this prediction work? 18:43 Lois: The part where it translates to a number of days. So, this is based on our historic hiring data? How long it took us to hire a podcast assistant the last time? Jeff: Yep! And now you have everything you need. We call that “historic data from our company” bit “ingestion,” by the way. And there's always a really interesting discussion around that when it comes up in the course. But it's the process we use to bring in the HCM data to the AI so it can be considered or predictions exactly like this. Lois: So it's the HCM data making the AI smarter and more powerful. Nikita: And tailored. Jeff: Exactly, it's all of that. And obviously, the HCM is better because we've given it the AI. But the AI is also better because it has the HCM in it. But look, I was able to give you a quick description of Time to Hire, and you were able to tell me what it does, which data it uses, and how it works in just a few seconds. So, that's kind of the goal when we teach this stuff. It's getting everybody ready to be productive from moment #1 because what is it and how does it work stuff is already out of the way, you know?  19:52 Lois: I do know! Nikita: Can we try it with another one? Jeff: Sure! How about we do...Suggested Candidates. Lois: And you're going to tell us what we get on the screen, and we have to tell you how it works, right? Jeff: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Ok—Suggested Candidates. You're a recruiter or a hiring manager. You guys are still looking for your Junior Podcast Assistant. On the requisition, you've got a section called Suggested Candidates. And you see the candidate's name and some scores. Those scores are for profile match, skills match, experience match. And there's also an overall match score, and the highest rated people you notice are sorted to the top of the list. So, you with me so far?  Lois: Yes! Jeff: So you already know that it's suggesting candidates. But if you care about explainability and transparency like we talked about at the start, then you also care about where these suggested candidates came from. So let's see if we can make progress against that. Let's think about those match scores. What would you need in order to come up with match scores like that? 20:54 Nikita: Tell me if I'm oversimplifying this, but everything about the job on the requisition, and everything about the candidate? Their skills and experience? Jeff: Yeah, that's actually simplified pretty perfectly. So in HCM, the candidate profile has their skills and experience, and the req profile has the req requirements.  Lois: So we're comparing the elements of the job profile and the person/candidate profile. And they're weighted, I assume? Jeff: That's exactly how it works. See, 30 seconds and you guys are nailing these! In fairness, when we discuss these things in the course, we go into more detail. And I think it's helpful for HCM practitioners to know which data from the person and the job profiles is being considered (and sometimes just as important, which is not being considered). And don't forget we're also considering our ingested data. Our previously selected candidates. 21:45 Lois: Jeff, can I change the weighting? If I care more about skills than experience or education, can I adjust the weighting and have it re-sort the candidates? Jeff: Super important question. So let me give you the answer first, which is “no.” But because it's important, I want to tell you more. This is a discussion we have in the class around Oracle's Embedded vs. Custom AI. And they're both really important offerings. With Embedded, what we're talking about are the features that come in HCM like any other feature. They might have some enablement steps like profile options, and there's an activation panel. But essentially, that's it. There's no inspection panel for you to open up and start sticking your screwdriver in there and making changes. Believe it or not, that's a big advantage with Embedded AI, if you ask me anyway.  Nikita: It's an advantage to not be able to configure it? Jeff: In this context, I think you can say that it is. You know, we talk about the advantages about the baked-in, Embedded AI in this course, but one of the key things is that it's pre-built and pre-tested. And the big one: that it's ready to use on day one. But one little change in a prompt can have a pretty big butterfly effect across all of your results. So, Oracle provides the Embedded AI because we know it works because we've already tested it, and it's, therefore, ready on day one. And I think that story maybe changes a little bit when you open up the inspection panel and bust out that screwdriver. Now you're signing up to be a test pilot. And that's just fundamentally different than “pre-built and ready on day one.” Not that it's bad to want configuration. 23:24 Lois: That's what the Custom AI path and OCI are about though, right? For when customers have hyper-specific needs outside of Oracle's business processes within the apps, or for when that kind of tuning is really required. And your AI for HCM course—that focuses on the Embedded AI instead of Custom, yes? Jeff: That is exactly it, yes. Nikita: You said there are about 30 of these AI features across HCM. So, when you teach the course, do you go through all of them or are there favorites? Ones that people want to spend more time on so you focus on those? Jeff: The professional part of me wants to tell you that we do try to cover all of them, because that explainability and transparency business we talked about at the beginning. That's for real, so I want our customers to have that for the whole scope.  24:12  Nikita: The professional part? What's the other part?  Jeff: I guess that's the part that says sure, we need to hit all of them. But some of them are just inherently more fun to work on. So, it's usually the learners who drive that in the live classes when they get into something, that's where we spend the most time. So, I have my favorites too. The learners have their favorites. And we spend time where it's everybody's favorite. Lois: Like where? Jeff: Ok, so one is far from the most complex one, but I think it's really elegant in its simplicity. And it's the Celebrate feature, where we do employee recognition. There's an AI Assist available there. So when it's time to recognize a colleague, you just need to enter the headline or the title, and the AI takes it from there and just writes up the recognition. 24:56 Lois: What about that makes it a good example, Jeff? You said it's elegant. What do you mean?  Jeff: I think it's a few things. So, start with the prompt. It's just the one line—just the headline. And that's your one input. So, type in the headline, get the recognition below. It's a great demonstration of not just the simplicity, but the power we get out of that simplicity. I always ask it to recognize my employees for implementing AI features in Oracle HCM, just to see what it comes up with. When it tells the employee that they're helping the company by automating routine tasks, bringing efficiency to the HR department, and then launches into specific examples of how AI features help in HCM, it really is pretty incredible. So, it's a simple demo, but it explains a lot about how the Gen AI works. Lois: That's really cool. 25:45 Nikita: So this one is generative AI. It's using the large language model to create the recognition based on the prompt, which is basically just whatever you entered in the headline. But how does that help explain how Gen AI works in HCM? Jeff: Well, let's take our simple prompt for example. There's a lot happening behind the scenes. It's taking our prompt, it's doing its LLM thing, but before it's done, it's creating the results in a very specific way. An employee recognition reads really differently than a job description. So, I usually describe this as the hidden part of our prompt. The visible part is what we typed. But it needs to know things like our desired output format. Make sure to use the person's name, summarize the benefits, and be sure to thank them for their contribution, that kind of stuff. So, those things are essentially hard-coded into the page. And that's to say, this is another area where we don't get an inspection panel that lets us go in and tweak the prompt.  26:42 Nikita: And that's generally how generative AI works? Jeff: Pretty much. Wherever you see an AI Assist button in HCM, that's more or less what's going on. And so when you get to some of the other more complex features, it's helpful to know that that is what's going on.  Lois: Like where? Jeff: Well, it works that way for the About Me part of your employee profile, for goal creation in performance, and I think a really great example is in performance, where managers are providing the competency development tips. So the prompt there is a little more complex there because it involves the employee's proficiency rating instead of free text. But still, pretty straightforward. You're gonna click AI Assist and it's gonna generate all the development tips for any specific competency listed for that employee. Good development tips. Five of them. Nicely formatted with bullet points. And these aren't random words assembled by an AI. So they conform to best practices in the development of competencies. So, something is telling the LLM to give us results that are that good, in that particular way.  So, it's just another good example of the work AI is doing while protected behind the inspection panel that doesn't exist. So, the coding of that page, in combination with what the LLM generates and the agent that it uses, is what produces the result. That's generally the approach. In the class, we always have a good time digging into what must be going on behind that inspection panel. Generally speaking, the better feel we have for what's going on on these pages, the better we're able to get the results we want, even without having that screwdriver out. 28:21  Nikita: So it's time well-spent, looking at all the individual features? Jeff: I think so, especially if you're anticipating really using any of them. So, the good news is, once you learn a few of them and how they work, and what they're best at, you stop being surprised after a while. But there are always tips and tricks. And like we talked about at the top, explainability and transparency are absolutely key. So, as much as I'm not a fan of the phrase, I do think this is kind of a “knowledge is power” kind of situation. 28:51 Nikita: Sadly, we're just about out of time for this episode.  Lois: That's too bad, I was really enjoying this. Jeff, you were just talking about knowledge—where can we get more?  Jeff: Well, like you mentioned at the start, check out the AI in HCM course on MyLearn. It's about an hour and a half, but it really is time well spent. And we get into detail on everything the three of us discussed here today, and then we have demoscussions of every feature where we show them and how they work and which data they're using and a whole bunch more. So, there's that. Plus, I hear the instructor is excellent. Lois: I can vouch for that! Jeff: Well, then you should definitely look into Dynamic Skills. Different instructor. But we have another course, and again I think about an hour and a half, but when you're done with the AI course, I always feel like Dynamic Skills is where you really wanna go next to really flesh out all the Talent Management ideas that got stirred up while you were having a great time in the AI course.  And then finally, the live classes. It's always really fun to take live questions while we talk about AI in HCM.   29:54 Nikita: Thanks, Jeff! This has been really interesting.  Lois: Yeah, thanks for being here, Jeff. We've loved having you on. Jeff: Thank you guys so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.  Lois: If you want to learn more about what we discussed, go to the show notes for today's episode. You'll find links to the AI for Human Capital Management and Dynamic Skills courses that Jeff mentioned so you can check them out. You can also head over to mylearn.oracle.com to find the live sessions for MyLearn subscribers that Jeff conducts. Nikita: Join us next week as we kick off our “Best of 2024” season, where we'll be revisiting some of our most popular episodes of the year. Until then, this is Nikita Abraham…  Lois: And Lois Houston, signing off!   30:35 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

Acts

From King to Exile to King Again: The Inside Story of Sam Altman's Whiplash Week OpenAI's Misalignment and Microsoft's Gain – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Ilya Sutskever on X: "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company." Altman Argued With OpenAI Board Member Toner Before Ouster Microsoft exits OpenAI drama with 'one of best possible outcomes' Dear Elon Musk, here are five things you might want to consider about AGI DeepMind releases new music model Google is embedding inaudible watermarks right into its AI generated music Introducing Stable Video Diffusion — Stability AI Google Meet can now detect when you physically raise your hand Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024 Google Maps' new look may frustrate Calif. drivers as Thanksgiving travel begins Google will work with Apple on implementing RCS on iPhone Anthropic Introduces Claude 2.1 With 200K Context Window Sarah Silverman Hits Stumbling Block in AI Lawsuit Against Meta Congrats To Elon Musk: I Didn't Think You Had It In You To File A Lawsuit This Stupid. But, You Crazy Bastard, You Did It! What Spotify's New Royalty Model Really Means MC HAMMER on X: "Salute and congratulations to the 710 plus @OpenAI team members who gave an unparalleled demonstration of loyalty, love and commitment to @sama and @gdb in these perilous times it was a thing of beauty to witness. Salute Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over 'Video Game Addiction', Because That's Easier Than Parenting Picks: Paris - a beautiful 2 minutes in live caller history. Stephen A. Smith vs a guy who tries to ask about Cars Paris - And.... from the mind that brought you basement eel guy: TikTok tunnel girl Jeff - No evidence screen time is negative for children's cognitive development and well-being: Oxford Study Ant - Great Review From Mr Sargent and Mr Nielsen - Shot on iPhone 15 Ant - LumaFusion Update Includes Editing on SSD Ant - Bittersweet and Grateful Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Paris Martineau, and Ant Pruitt Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: securemyemail.com/twit Use Code TWIT discourse.org/twit vanta.com/twig

From King to Exile to King Again: The Inside Story of Sam Altman's Whiplash Week OpenAI's Misalignment and Microsoft's Gain – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Ilya Sutskever on X: "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company." Altman Argued With OpenAI Board Member Toner Before Ouster Microsoft exits OpenAI drama with 'one of best possible outcomes' Dear Elon Musk, here are five things you might want to consider about AGI DeepMind releases new music model Google is embedding inaudible watermarks right into its AI generated music Introducing Stable Video Diffusion — Stability AI Google Meet can now detect when you physically raise your hand Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024 Google Maps' new look may frustrate Calif. drivers as Thanksgiving travel begins Google will work with Apple on implementing RCS on iPhone Anthropic Introduces Claude 2.1 With 200K Context Window Sarah Silverman Hits Stumbling Block in AI Lawsuit Against Meta Congrats To Elon Musk: I Didn't Think You Had It In You To File A Lawsuit This Stupid. But, You Crazy Bastard, You Did It! What Spotify's New Royalty Model Really Means MC HAMMER on X: "Salute and congratulations to the 710 plus @OpenAI team members who gave an unparalleled demonstration of loyalty, love and commitment to @sama and @gdb in these perilous times it was a thing of beauty to witness. Salute Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over 'Video Game Addiction', Because That's Easier Than Parenting Picks: Paris - a beautiful 2 minutes in live caller history. Stephen A. Smith vs a guy who tries to ask about Cars Paris - And.... from the mind that brought you basement eel guy: TikTok tunnel girl Jeff - No evidence screen time is negative for children's cognitive development and well-being: Oxford Study Ant - Great Review From Mr Sargent and Mr Nielsen - Shot on iPhone 15 Ant - LumaFusion Update Includes Editing on SSD Ant - Bittersweet and Grateful Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Paris Martineau, and Ant Pruitt Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: securemyemail.com/twit Use Code TWIT discourse.org/twit vanta.com/twig

From King to Exile to King Again: The Inside Story of Sam Altman's Whiplash Week OpenAI's Misalignment and Microsoft's Gain – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Ilya Sutskever on X: "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company." Altman Argued With OpenAI Board Member Toner Before Ouster Microsoft exits OpenAI drama with 'one of best possible outcomes' Dear Elon Musk, here are five things you might want to consider about AGI DeepMind releases new music model Google is embedding inaudible watermarks right into its AI generated music Introducing Stable Video Diffusion — Stability AI Google Meet can now detect when you physically raise your hand Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024 Google Maps' new look may frustrate Calif. drivers as Thanksgiving travel begins Google will work with Apple on implementing RCS on iPhone Anthropic Introduces Claude 2.1 With 200K Context Window Sarah Silverman Hits Stumbling Block in AI Lawsuit Against Meta Congrats To Elon Musk: I Didn't Think You Had It In You To File A Lawsuit This Stupid. But, You Crazy Bastard, You Did It! What Spotify's New Royalty Model Really Means MC HAMMER on X: "Salute and congratulations to the 710 plus @OpenAI team members who gave an unparalleled demonstration of loyalty, love and commitment to @sama and @gdb in these perilous times it was a thing of beauty to witness. Salute Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over 'Video Game Addiction', Because That's Easier Than Parenting Picks: Paris - a beautiful 2 minutes in live caller history. Stephen A. Smith vs a guy who tries to ask about Cars Paris - And.... from the mind that brought you basement eel guy: TikTok tunnel girl Jeff - No evidence screen time is negative for children's cognitive development and well-being: Oxford Study Ant - Great Review From Mr Sargent and Mr Nielsen - Shot on iPhone 15 Ant - LumaFusion Update Includes Editing on SSD Ant - Bittersweet and Grateful Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Paris Martineau, and Ant Pruitt Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: securemyemail.com/twit Use Code TWIT discourse.org/twit vanta.com/twig

From King to Exile to King Again: The Inside Story of Sam Altman's Whiplash Week OpenAI's Misalignment and Microsoft's Gain – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Ilya Sutskever on X: "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company." Altman Argued With OpenAI Board Member Toner Before Ouster Microsoft exits OpenAI drama with 'one of best possible outcomes' Dear Elon Musk, here are five things you might want to consider about AGI DeepMind releases new music model Google is embedding inaudible watermarks right into its AI generated music Introducing Stable Video Diffusion — Stability AI Google Meet can now detect when you physically raise your hand Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024 Google Maps' new look may frustrate Calif. drivers as Thanksgiving travel begins Google will work with Apple on implementing RCS on iPhone Anthropic Introduces Claude 2.1 With 200K Context Window Sarah Silverman Hits Stumbling Block in AI Lawsuit Against Meta Congrats To Elon Musk: I Didn't Think You Had It In You To File A Lawsuit This Stupid. But, You Crazy Bastard, You Did It! What Spotify's New Royalty Model Really Means MC HAMMER on X: "Salute and congratulations to the 710 plus @OpenAI team members who gave an unparalleled demonstration of loyalty, love and commitment to @sama and @gdb in these perilous times it was a thing of beauty to witness. Salute Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over 'Video Game Addiction', Because That's Easier Than Parenting Picks: Paris - a beautiful 2 minutes in live caller history. Stephen A. Smith vs a guy who tries to ask about Cars Paris - And.... from the mind that brought you basement eel guy: TikTok tunnel girl Jeff - No evidence screen time is negative for children's cognitive development and well-being: Oxford Study Ant - Great Review From Mr Sargent and Mr Nielsen - Shot on iPhone 15 Ant - LumaFusion Update Includes Editing on SSD Ant - Bittersweet and Grateful Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Paris Martineau, and Ant Pruitt Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: securemyemail.com/twit Use Code TWIT discourse.org/twit vanta.com/twig

From King to Exile to King Again: The Inside Story of Sam Altman's Whiplash Week OpenAI's Misalignment and Microsoft's Gain – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Ilya Sutskever on X: "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company." Altman Argued With OpenAI Board Member Toner Before Ouster Microsoft exits OpenAI drama with 'one of best possible outcomes' Dear Elon Musk, here are five things you might want to consider about AGI DeepMind releases new music model Google is embedding inaudible watermarks right into its AI generated music Introducing Stable Video Diffusion — Stability AI Google Meet can now detect when you physically raise your hand Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024 Google Maps' new look may frustrate Calif. drivers as Thanksgiving travel begins Google will work with Apple on implementing RCS on iPhone Anthropic Introduces Claude 2.1 With 200K Context Window Sarah Silverman Hits Stumbling Block in AI Lawsuit Against Meta Congrats To Elon Musk: I Didn't Think You Had It In You To File A Lawsuit This Stupid. But, You Crazy Bastard, You Did It! What Spotify's New Royalty Model Really Means MC HAMMER on X: "Salute and congratulations to the 710 plus @OpenAI team members who gave an unparalleled demonstration of loyalty, love and commitment to @sama and @gdb in these perilous times it was a thing of beauty to witness. Salute Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over 'Video Game Addiction', Because That's Easier Than Parenting Picks: Paris - a beautiful 2 minutes in live caller history. Stephen A. Smith vs a guy who tries to ask about Cars Paris - And.... from the mind that brought you basement eel guy: TikTok tunnel girl Jeff - No evidence screen time is negative for children's cognitive development and well-being: Oxford Study Ant - Great Review From Mr Sargent and Mr Nielsen - Shot on iPhone 15 Ant - LumaFusion Update Includes Editing on SSD Ant - Bittersweet and Grateful Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Paris Martineau, and Ant Pruitt Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: securemyemail.com/twit Use Code TWIT discourse.org/twit vanta.com/twig

From King to Exile to King Again: The Inside Story of Sam Altman's Whiplash Week OpenAI's Misalignment and Microsoft's Gain – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Ilya Sutskever on X: "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company." Altman Argued With OpenAI Board Member Toner Before Ouster Microsoft exits OpenAI drama with 'one of best possible outcomes' Dear Elon Musk, here are five things you might want to consider about AGI DeepMind releases new music model Google is embedding inaudible watermarks right into its AI generated music Introducing Stable Video Diffusion — Stability AI Google Meet can now detect when you physically raise your hand Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024 Google Maps' new look may frustrate Calif. drivers as Thanksgiving travel begins Google will work with Apple on implementing RCS on iPhone Anthropic Introduces Claude 2.1 With 200K Context Window Sarah Silverman Hits Stumbling Block in AI Lawsuit Against Meta Congrats To Elon Musk: I Didn't Think You Had It In You To File A Lawsuit This Stupid. But, You Crazy Bastard, You Did It! What Spotify's New Royalty Model Really Means MC HAMMER on X: "Salute and congratulations to the 710 plus @OpenAI team members who gave an unparalleled demonstration of loyalty, love and commitment to @sama and @gdb in these perilous times it was a thing of beauty to witness. Salute Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over 'Video Game Addiction', Because That's Easier Than Parenting Picks: Paris - a beautiful 2 minutes in live caller history. Stephen A. Smith vs a guy who tries to ask about Cars Paris - And.... from the mind that brought you basement eel guy: TikTok tunnel girl Jeff - No evidence screen time is negative for children's cognitive development and well-being: Oxford Study Ant - Great Review From Mr Sargent and Mr Nielsen - Shot on iPhone 15 Ant - LumaFusion Update Includes Editing on SSD Ant - Bittersweet and Grateful Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Paris Martineau, and Ant Pruitt Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: securemyemail.com/twit Use Code TWIT discourse.org/twit vanta.com/twig

From King to Exile to King Again: The Inside Story of Sam Altman's Whiplash Week OpenAI's Misalignment and Microsoft's Gain – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Ilya Sutskever on X: "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company." Altman Argued With OpenAI Board Member Toner Before Ouster Microsoft exits OpenAI drama with 'one of best possible outcomes' Dear Elon Musk, here are five things you might want to consider about AGI DeepMind releases new music model Google is embedding inaudible watermarks right into its AI generated music Introducing Stable Video Diffusion — Stability AI Google Meet can now detect when you physically raise your hand Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024 Google Maps' new look may frustrate Calif. drivers as Thanksgiving travel begins Google will work with Apple on implementing RCS on iPhone Anthropic Introduces Claude 2.1 With 200K Context Window Sarah Silverman Hits Stumbling Block in AI Lawsuit Against Meta Congrats To Elon Musk: I Didn't Think You Had It In You To File A Lawsuit This Stupid. But, You Crazy Bastard, You Did It! What Spotify's New Royalty Model Really Means MC HAMMER on X: "Salute and congratulations to the 710 plus @OpenAI team members who gave an unparalleled demonstration of loyalty, love and commitment to @sama and @gdb in these perilous times it was a thing of beauty to witness. Salute Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over 'Video Game Addiction', Because That's Easier Than Parenting Picks: Paris - a beautiful 2 minutes in live caller history. Stephen A. Smith vs a guy who tries to ask about Cars Paris - And.... from the mind that brought you basement eel guy: TikTok tunnel girl Jeff - No evidence screen time is negative for children's cognitive development and well-being: Oxford Study Ant - Great Review From Mr Sargent and Mr Nielsen - Shot on iPhone 15 Ant - LumaFusion Update Includes Editing on SSD Ant - Bittersweet and Grateful Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Paris Martineau, and Ant Pruitt Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: securemyemail.com/twit Use Code TWIT discourse.org/twit vanta.com/twig

From King to Exile to King Again: The Inside Story of Sam Altman's Whiplash Week OpenAI's Misalignment and Microsoft's Gain – Stratechery by Ben Thompson Ilya Sutskever on X: "I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company." Altman Argued With OpenAI Board Member Toner Before Ouster Microsoft exits OpenAI drama with 'one of best possible outcomes' Dear Elon Musk, here are five things you might want to consider about AGI DeepMind releases new music model Google is embedding inaudible watermarks right into its AI generated music Introducing Stable Video Diffusion — Stability AI Google Meet can now detect when you physically raise your hand Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024 Google Maps' new look may frustrate Calif. drivers as Thanksgiving travel begins Google will work with Apple on implementing RCS on iPhone Anthropic Introduces Claude 2.1 With 200K Context Window Sarah Silverman Hits Stumbling Block in AI Lawsuit Against Meta Congrats To Elon Musk: I Didn't Think You Had It In You To File A Lawsuit This Stupid. But, You Crazy Bastard, You Did It! What Spotify's New Royalty Model Really Means MC HAMMER on X: "Salute and congratulations to the 710 plus @OpenAI team members who gave an unparalleled demonstration of loyalty, love and commitment to @sama and @gdb in these perilous times it was a thing of beauty to witness. Salute Parents Sue Gaming Companies Over 'Video Game Addiction', Because That's Easier Than Parenting Picks: Paris - a beautiful 2 minutes in live caller history. Stephen A. Smith vs a guy who tries to ask about Cars Paris - And.... from the mind that brought you basement eel guy: TikTok tunnel girl Jeff - No evidence screen time is negative for children's cognitive development and well-being: Oxford Study Ant - Great Review From Mr Sargent and Mr Nielsen - Shot on iPhone 15 Ant - LumaFusion Update Includes Editing on SSD Ant - Bittersweet and Grateful Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Paris Martineau, and Ant Pruitt Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: securemyemail.com/twit Use Code TWIT discourse.org/twit vanta.com/twig

What you'll learn in this episode:   How to know when to walk away from a purchase, and how to trust your intuition when buying Why you should always ask for a detailed receipt, even if it feels awkward Commonly misunderstood phrases dealers may use to confuse buyers How Jeff does due diligence before making a purchase How to navigate the many platforms where you can purchase jewelry today   About Jeff Russak Jeff Russak is principal of Lawrence Jeffrey Estate Jewelers. Jeff's expertise in antique and 20th century jewelry combined with an uncompromising attitude toward quality, condition, and style directs the acquisition process. His proficiency in signed pieces and hallmarks is especially useful in identifying and dating each piece. In demand as a speaker on antique jewelry at museums and shows, he also volunteers as a guest appraiser for charity.   Additional Resources: Website Facebook Instagram Twitter   Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com   Transcript:   When it comes to buying jewelry, nothing is more important than trust. That's why Jeff Russak, principal at Lawrence Jeffrey Estate Jewelers, won't hesitate to leave a purchase behind if his inner voice tells him something is wrong. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how he vets his purchases and the dealers he works with; what red flags buyers should watch out for; and why a receipt is more powerful than you might think. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it's released later this week.    Today, my guest is Jeff Russak, one of the principals of Lawrence Jeffrey. They are estate dealers located in Litchfield, Connecticut. Jeff has had decades of experience buying and selling. He's also extremely knowledgeable about estate jewelry. Along the way, he has learned about what a good dealer should be doing and what you should know in order not to be taken advantage of. There are lots that dealers know about good dealers that the ordinary buyer doesn't know. He will fill us in on some of that today. Jeff, welcome to the podcast.    Jeff: Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.   Sharon: I'm so glad to have you. This is the second time you've been on. I'm glad you decided to come back.    I bought a diamond tennis bracelet several years ago—well, a long time ago—that I was told was Art Deco. Then, when I showed it to somebody else, they said, “That cut wasn't done until the 80s.” I still like the bracelet, but how could I have avoided that without knowing everything there is to know about diamonds?   Jeff: That's a really great question, and it's actually kind of a complicated one. The person who looked at it did something which is very basic. They looked at the cut of the diamonds. That's one of the things I do when I'm determining the age of any piece. We look at the stones. We have a good general idea of when different cuts, for diamonds or otherwise, were established.    The short answer is I think the only way you could have avoided that would have been to have a better handle on whether this dealer is expert enough to make that determination or not. That can be a hard thing to do. We've talked about how to buy, and a lot of how to buy is all about who you decide to trust. I think for the average buyer, figuring out who you trust and who you feel comfortable with is really the bottom line.   I'll tell a story about one of our better clients. We didn't know this for years, but they're people who have become friends. They started buying from us when we were very new to the business. They didn't buy just jewelry, but they bought decorative arts. We didn't know it, but every single piece they bought from us was going to one of the top appraisal firms in New York and being appraised and verified. After quite a number of years, they told us this. That that was one of the reasons why they kept coming back, because everything was O.K. We passed the test for authentication and for value. Perhaps that's a bit extreme for most people, but it's certainly one way.    I would say it's listening to that little voice in your head. I think today a lot of what I'd like to talk about is how I buy, because the way I buy is no different from the way I recommend that everybody buys. Of course, there are things I know that an average buyer is not going to know, but a lot of what I do is simply being a good detective and listening to that voice in my head. When the voice in my head says, “Don't buy something,” even a little bit, I just don't buy, or when the voice in my head says, “I don't know if this relationship is for me.” Maybe I think the person is a lot smarter than I am. That happens. So, how am I going to know I'm making the right connection, buying for the right price so I can present pieces to my clients for the right price? A lot of it is your instincts. Trust your instincts. It's so tempting to buy something that looks great or you've been told is great or you've been told is a good deal, but if you don't have that sense, that feeling you should, then you shouldn't.   Sharon: Is that how you buy all the time or most of the time?   Jeff: That is definitely part of what I do. It's a big part. We tend to make relationships, and we buy a lot from individual relationships. Some buyers are like bees who are busy pollinating every flower in the field. I think that's really funny. If that's your style, I think you should do it and you should enjoy it. That's a different risk level and a different set of rules. If find people who I really trust, people who are open and transparent with me, who answer my questions in a very forthright way, then those are the folks I go back to again and again. I have the same advice for anyone.   Sharon: Are they here or are they in Europe? Are they everywhere?   Jeff: They are everywhere. I have great contacts in the U.S., and I mean contacts from dealers that I might see in a flea market. I have a couple of local folks who run estate sales. One of them is the finest generalist I know. He is so incredibly smart and knowledgeable. I totally trust him. If I ask a question, he tells me what he knows and what he doesn't know.   Sharon: If he or one of these people that you trust called you up and said, “I have a piece I think you'll really like. I don't know anything about it, but I think you'll really like it,” and maybe they're far away or you don't want to go, will you buy it sight unseen?   Jeff: This goes back to what you and I discussed briefly. I think it's all about the return policy. Yes, I will agree to buy something, but I don't think it's sight unseen anymore. They're naturally going to send me a picture using smartphones. That technology is great, but the pictures don't always tell the whole story. Someone who's really honest doesn't have any fear of taking something back if it doesn't work for the client. I don't think there's anyone I deal with who won't take a piece back if it's not quite right for me.   Sharon: It's interesting you say that. It's probably true, but I hadn't thought about it. There probably isn't anything that's sight unseen anymore with the internet and everything.    We talked a little bit about receipts. Should we make sure we have the receipt?   Jeff: The rules for everyone are the same. There are a lot of laws in place, mostly federal laws. Some of them are laws that relate specifically to jewelry. There are several pages of regulations, and also there are laws that simply are contract law. Your receipt is your contract. You need to ask that every piece of information is included on the receipt.    Let's say you're buying a diamond ring and it's supposed to be by Cartier. You want to know that it's 18-karat gold. You want to know what the diamond grade is. You want to know about the color and clarity. I want to be clear that I'm not trying to create an environment that's very hidebound. We all understand that people do their best to approximate, but they need to be close, let's say. So, you're going to want the diamond colors and clarities, and then you're going to want it to say, “authentic Cartier” or “this ring is by Cartier.” Here's a little trick: if they say, “This ring is signed Cartier,” that doesn't mean it has to be made by Cartier.   Sharon: Who is it made by?   Jeff: It could be made by you and me and we got someone to engrave the word “Cartier” on it. Signed Cartier does not mean it is Cartier. It means they are guaranteeing that the word “Cartier” is on the piece. “Authentic” Cartier or “by Cartier” means that it is Cartier. There are quite a number of situations, especially online, where you do often see the phrasing “signed Tiffany,” “signed Cartier,” “signed Van Cleef & Arpels.” Now, they may fully mean that it is, but I've seen quite a number of situations where it was clear it wasn't.    Sharon: You're asking for a lot; maybe a lot that people don't put on the receipt normally. Have you had any push back? Were people getting annoyed with you?   Jeff: No, I think this is really simple. At my shop and at shows, I have definitely been asked to include all the information on my tag, which is all the information I've mentioned and more. People have said, “I would really like that on the receipt. Could you make sure it's on there?” I think if you get pushback, then I would decline to buy the piece no matter what. If they're someone who can't write that information on a receipt, for me, suddenly, there are alarm bells. Something is wrong. Now, maybe it's just a person who doesn't like doing that. That's possible, and they're a totally honest person, but if they don't want to put the information regarding the piece on the receipt, that's a problem. You have no recourse because your receipt does not state the proper information.    Here's the deal: that contract is forever. People will tell you you can't return things. People will tell you, “Oh, that was two years ago. That's expired.” If it says 10 carats of diamonds and it's only five carats, you can return it. You can return it tomorrow. You can return it in five years. Your grandchildren can return it in a hundred years. That's a contract that has to be accurate. It doesn't matter. It could be tractor parts.   Sharon: It's easier for you. If I see a piece and I have fallen in love with it—if you want it, you overlook a lot, whereas you can say no to a lot and pick out one where you think the person is trustworthy. Is it easier for you?   Jeff: I think you're making a good point. I made some notes before we started. Here's what I wrote about this: this is how I buy, but there are various rules. Let's just say we've discussed them. If I think I should start spouting the law, I remind myself to zip it and just move on. There's lots and lots to buy. It's not my job to tell people what the law is. It's not my job, except on this podcast.    The thing I'm not comfortable with is when someone skirts the law and won't make a proper contract. If you were buying a house and they refused to get a survey, I would say, “Hey, something's up.” I think it's reasonable to ask for a proper receipt, always, and it doesn't matter whether it's Walmart or Sotheby's or any number of famous dealers I can name all over the country. It's perfectly fine, and anyone who is selling things in an honest way won't have any problem with that. If it is what they say it is, why not write it? This shouldn't be any issue. I understand it's uncomfortable.   Sharon: I'd rather somebody tell me, “I don't know,” than guess and say, “I don't know what it is. I don't what it's made of,” that sort of thing.   Jeff: That's a great point. I would much rather people tell me, “I don't know.” But here's the thing: the “I don't know” price should be half of the “I think it's a sapphire” price, or maybe a quarter. “I don't know” means the price should be falling, falling, falling. If you say, “Oh, this is a beautiful turquoise necklace,” is it natural turquoise or is it reconstituted? Now, by law, they're required to tell you. If they say, “I don't know,” the law then requires you to insist they find out.    Once again, it's uncomfortable. If they say, “I don't know,” chances are you really should just walk away. Let's say this gorgeous turquoise necklace is gold. It's got all of these stones, and it's $12,000. Well, $12,000 is a lot in my world. Maybe it's not that much money to other people, but “I don't know” doesn't go together for me.   Sharon: That's interesting. I'm coming from the items I bought when I started getting into jewelry. Now I know a little bit more. For instance, there are people who seem to have a natural affinity for detail I don't have. They can tell. I'm thinking of a girlfriend who once said, “That's not an Art Deco. That's an Edwardian piece.” It was, and I thought it was Art Deco. I thought she was ridiculous.   Jeff: I think it's amazing when people know. There are lots of people who are so good at that. I think as a buyer, you should—I'll go back to what I said in the beginning. You find someone who you trust and who's going to explain to you what you're buying, and who will rely that on the receipt and who wants to have an ongoing relationship with you. If you have a problem, they will sort that problem out. Look, Jeff Russak at Lawrence Jeffrey is not made of sold gold. He does not have a brain the size of a Volkswagen. We make mistakes. When we make mistakes, we have to fix them. That's the way it is.    Sharon: I've heard the phrase, “Somebody has a dealer's eye.” Do you think there's such a thing as a dealer's eye?   Jeff: I think there is. I think what that refers to is someone who just knows when something is a good deal. I have a customer. When I get a piece I know is a good deal, that we bought well and the retail price is a great price, I tease her and say, “You're like a hound. You can smell the jewelry, that there's a deal.” I think that's totally true, absolutely.    Sharon: That's interesting. Well, I certainly don't have that. If a display case says that all the gems or stones inside are certified, what does that mean?   Jeff: That actually doesn't mean anything at all. It's meaningless. This is where we need to start being detectives. The question is certified by whom?   Sharon: Well, who can certify them?   Jeff: People often think it's a government agency, or they think, for instance, that it's a lab like the GIA, or they think the dealer is certifying. A dealer who's smart, who's on the up and up, isn't going to certify anything. Certifying means you agree that the information is true. Most appraisals, for instance, are very careful to have at the end something that says, “We've done our best job to approximate, to use our knowledge to establish what things are,” and then when they say, “I duly sign,” or “I hereby certify,” all they're certifying is that the signature is theirs. They're not certifying the information. They're saying, “We've done our best job.” They probably have, and the information is probably correct, but certifying is different.   Like at the GIA, when you study to become a gemologist, they wrap your knuckles with a ruler if you say certificate or certify. They don't certify things. They produce laboratory reports. It's a report, not a certificate. It doesn't certify anything. It is a laboratory process they have performed to the best of their abilities, which is pretty darn good.   Sharon: We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.

About JeffJeff Smith has been in the technology industry for over 20 years, oscillating between management and individual contributor. Jeff currently serves as the Director of Production Operations for Basis Technologies (formerly Centro), an advertising software company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Before that he served as the Manager of Site Reliability Engineering at Grubhub.Jeff is passionate about DevOps transformations in organizations large and small, with a particular interest in the psychological aspects of problems in companies. He lives in Chicago with his wife Stephanie and their two kids Ella and Xander.Jeff is also the author of Operations Anti-Patterns, DevOps Solutions with Manning publishing. (https://www.manning.com/books/operations-anti-patterns-devops-solutions) Links Referenced: Basis Technologies: https://basis.net/ Operations Anti-Patterns: https://attainabledevops.com/book Personal Site: https://attainabledevops.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffery-smith-devops/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DarkAndNerdy Medium: https://medium.com/@jefferysmith duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Fortinet. Fortinet's partnership with AWS is a better-together combination that ensures your workloads on AWS are protected by best-in-class security solutions powered by comprehensive threat intelligence and more than 20 years of cybersecurity experience. Integrations with key AWS services simplify security management, ensure full visibility across environments, and provide broad protection across your workloads and applications. Visit them at AWS re:Inforce to see the latest trends in cybersecurity on July 25-26 at the Boston Convention Center. Just go over to the Fortinet booth and tell them Corey Quinn sent you and watch for the flinch. My thanks again to my friends at Fortinet.Corey: Let's face it, on-call firefighting at 2am is stressful! So there's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that you probably can't prevent incidents from happening, but the good news is that incident.io makes incidents less stressful and a lot more valuable. incident.io is a Slack-native incident management platform that allows you to automate incident processes, focus on fixing the issues and learn from incident insights to improve site reliability and fix your vulnerabilities. Try incident.io, recover faster and sleep more.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. One of the fun things about doing this show for long enough is that you eventually get to catch up with people and follow up on previous conversations that you've had. Many years ago—which sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but is increasingly actually true—Jeff Smith was on the show talking about a book that was about to release. Well, time has passed and things have changed. And Jeff Smith is back once again. He's the Director of Product Operations at Basis Technologies, and the author of DevOps Anti-Patterns? Or what was the actual title of the book it was—Jeff: Operations Anti-Patterns.Corey: I got hung up in the anti-patterns part because it's amazing. I love the title.Jeff: Yeah, Operations Anti-Patterns, DevOps Solutions.Corey: Got you. Usually in my experience, alway been operations anti-patterns, and here I am to make them worse, probably by doing something like using DNS as a database or some godforsaken thing. But you were talking about the book aspirationally a few years ago, and now it's published and it has been sent out to the world. And it went well enough that they translated it to Japanese, I believe, and it has seen significant uptick. What was your experience of it? How did it go?Jeff: You know, it was a great experience. This is definitely the first book that I've written. And the Manning process was extremely smooth. You know, they sort of hold your hand through the entire process. But even after launch, just getting feedback from readers and hearing how it resonated with folks was extremely powerful.I was surprised to find out that they turned it into an audiobook as well. So, everyone reaches out and says, “Did you read the audiobook? I was going to buy it, but I wasn't sure.” I was like, “No, unfortunately, I don't read it.” But you know, still cool to have it out there.Corey: My theory has been for a while now that no one wants to actually write a book; they want to have written a book. Now that you're on the other side, how accurate is that? Are you in a position of, “Wow, sure glad that's done?” Or are you, “That was fun. Let's do it again because I like being sad all the time.” I mean, you do work Kubernetes for God's sake. I mean, there's a bit of masochism inherent to all of us in this space.Jeff: Yeah. Kubernetes makes me cry a little bit more than the writing process. But it's one of the things when you look back on it, you're like, “Wow, that was fun,” but not in the heat of the moment, right? So, I totally agree with the sentiment that people want to have written a book but not actually gone through the process. And that's evident by the fact that how many people try to start a book on their own without a publisher behind them, and they end up writing it for 15 years. The process is pretty grueling. The feedback is intense at first, but you start to get into a groove and you—I could see, you know, in a little while wanting to write another book. So, I can see the appeal.Corey: And the last time you were on the show, I didn't really bother to go in a particular topical direction because, what's the point? It didn't really seem like it was a top-of-mind issue to really bring up because what's it matter; it's a small percentage of the workforce. Now I feel like talking about remote work is suddenly taking on a bit of a different sheen than it was before the dark times arrived. Where do you land on the broad spectrum of opinions around the idea of remote work, given that you have specialized in anti-patterns, and well, as sarcastic as I am, I tend to look at almost every place I've ever worked is expressing different anti-patterns from time to time. So, where do you land on the topic?Jeff: So, it's funny, I started as a staunch office supporter, right? I like being in the office. I like collaborating in person; I thought we were way more productive. Since the pandemic, all of us are forced into remote work, I've hired almost half of my team now as remote. And I am somewhat of a convert, but I'm not on the bandwagon of remote work is just as good or is better as in person work.I've firmly landed in the camp of remote work is good. It's got its shortcomings, but it's worth the trade off. And I think acknowledging what those trade-offs are important to keeping the team afloat. We just recently had a conversation with the team where we were discussing, like, you know, there's definitely been a drop in productivity over the past six months to a year. And in that conversation, a lot of the things that came up were things that are different remote that were better in person, right, Slack etiquette—which is something, you know, I could talk a little bit about as well—but, you know, Slack etiquette in terms of getting feedback quickly, just the sort of camaraderie and the lack of building that camaraderie with new team members as they come on board and not having those rituals to replace the in-person rituals. But through all that, oddly enough, no one suggested going back into the office. [laugh].Corey: For some strange reason, yeah. I need to be careful what I say here, I want to disclaim the position that I'm in. There is a power imbalance and nothing I say is going to be able to necessarily address that because I own the company and if my team members are listening to this, they're going to read a lot into what I say that I might not necessarily intend. But The Duckbill Group, since its founding, has been a fully distributed company. My business partner lives in a different state than I do so there's never been the crappy version of remote, which is, well, we're all going to be in the same city, except for Theodore. Theodore is going to be timezones away and then wonder why he doesn't get to participate in some of the conversations where the real decisions get made.Like that's crappy. I don't like that striated approach to things. We don't have many people who are co-located in any real sense, nor have we for the majority of the company's life. But there are times when I am able to work on a project in a room with one of my colleagues, and things go a lot more smoothly. As much as we want to pretend that video is the same, it quite simply isn't.It is a somewhat poor substitute for the very high bandwidth of a face-to-face interaction. And yes, I understand this is also a somewhat neurotypical perspective, let's be clear with that as well, and it's not for everyone. But I think that for the base case, a lot of the remote work advocates are not being fully, I guess, honest with themselves about some of the shortcomings remote has. That is where I've mostly landed on this. Does that generally land with where you are?Jeff: Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at. I completely agree. And when we take work out of the equation, I think the shortcomings lay themselves bare, right? Like I was having a conversation with a friend and we were like, well, if you had a major breakup, right, I would never be like, “Oh, man. Grab a beer and hop on Zoom,” right? [laugh]. “Let's talk it out.”No, you're like, hey, let's get in person and let's talk, right? We can do all of that conversation over Zoom, but the magic of being in person and having that personal connection, you know, can't be replaced. So, you know, if it's not going to work, commiserating over beers, right? I can't imagine it's going to work, diagramming some complex workflows and trying to come to an answer or a solution on that. So again, not to say that, you know, remote work is not valuable, it's just different.And I think organizations are really going to have to figure out, like, okay, if I want to entice people back into the office, what are the things that I need to do to make this realistic? We've opened the floodgates on remote hiring, right, so now it's like, okay, everyone's janky office setup needs to get fixed, right? So, I can't have a scenario where it's like, “Oh, just point your laptop at the whiteboard, right?” [laugh]. Like that can't exist, we have to have office spaces that are first-class citizens for our remote counterparts as well.Corey: Right because otherwise, the alternative is, “Great, I expect you to take the home that you pay for and turn it into an area fit for office use. Of course, we're not going to compensate you for that, despite the fact that, let's be realistic, rent is often larger than the AWS bill.” Which I know, gasp, I'm as shocked as anyone affected by that, but it's true. “But oh, you want to work from home? Great. That just means you can work more hours.”I am not of the school of thought where I consider time in the office to be an indicator of anything meaningful. I care if the work gets done and at small-scale, this works. Let me also be clear, we're an 11-person company. A lot of what I'm talking about simply will not scale to companies that are orders of magnitude larger than this. And from where I sit, that's okay. It doesn't need to.Jeff: Right. And I think a lot of the things that you talk about will scale, right? Because in most scenarios, you're not scaling it organizationally so much as you are with a handful of teams, right? Because when I think about all the different teams I interact with, I never really interact with the organization as a whole, I interact with my little neighborhood in the organization. So, it is definitely something that scales.But again, when it comes to companies, like, enticing people back into the office, now that I'm talking about working from home five days a week, I've invested in my home setup. I've got the monitor I want, I've got the chair that I want, I've got the mouse and keyboard that I want. So, you're going to bring me back to the office so I can have some standard Dell keyboard and mouse with some janky, you know—maybe—21-inch monitor or something like that, right? Like, you really have to decide, like, okay, we're going to make the office a destination, we're going to make it where people want to go there where it's not just even about the collaboration aspect, but people can still work and be effective.And on top of that, I think how we look at what the office delivers is going to change, right? Because now when I go to the office now, I do very little work. It's connections, right? It's like, you know, “Oh, I haven't seen you in forever. Let's catch up.” And a lot of that stuff is valuable. You know, there's these hallway conversations that exist that just weren't happening previously because how do I accidentally bump into you on Slack? [laugh]. Right, it has to be much more it of a—Corey: Right. It takes some contrivance to wind up making that happen. I remember back in the days of working in offices, I remember here in San Francisco where we had unlimited sick time and unlimited PTO, I would often fake a sick day, but just stay home and get work done. Because I knew if I was in the office, I'd be constantly subjected to drive-bys the entire time of just drive-by requests, people stopping by to ask, “Oh, can you just help me with this one thing,” that completely derails my train of thought. Then at the end of the day, they'd tell me, “You seem distractible and you didn't get a lot of work done.”It's, “Well, no kidding. Of course not. Are you surprised?” And one of the nice things about starting your own company—because there are a lot of downsides, let me be very clear—one of the nice things is you get to decide how you want to work. And that was a study in, first, amazement, and then frustration.It was, “All right, I just landed a big customer. I'm off to the races and going to take this seriously for a good six to twelve months. Great sky's the limit, I'm going to do up my home office.” And then you see how little money it takes to have a nice chair, a good standing desk, a monitor that makes sense and you remember fighting tooth-and-nail for nothing that even approached this quality at companies and they acted like it was going to cost them 20-grand. And here, it's two grand at most, when I decorated this place the first time.And it was… “What the hell?” Like, it feels like the scales fall away from your eyes, and you start seeing things that you didn't realize were a thing. Now I worry that five years in, there's no way in the world I'm ever fit to be an employee again, so this is probably the last job I'll ever have. Just because I've basically made myself completely unemployable across six different axes.Jeff: [laugh]. And I think one of the things when it comes to, like, furniture, keyboard, stuff like that, I feel like part of it was just, like, this sort of enforced conformity, right, that the office provided us the ability to do. We can make sure everyone's got the same monitor, the same keyboard that way, when it breaks, we can replace it easily. In a lot of organizations that I've been in, you know, that sort of like, you know, even if it was the same amount or ordering a custom keyboard was a big exception process, right? Like, “Oh, we've got to do a whole thing.” And it's just like, “Well, it doesn't have to be that complicated.”And like you said, it doesn't cost much to allow someone to get the tools that they want and prefer and they're going to be more productive with. But to your point really quickly about work in the office, until the pandemic, I personally didn't recognize how difficult it actually was to get work done in the office. I don't think I appreciated it. And now that I'm remote, I'm like, wow, it is so much easier for me to close this door, put my headphones on, mute Slack and go heads down. You know, the only drive-by I've got is my wife wondering if I want to go for a walk, and that's usually a text message that I can ignore and come back to later.Corey: The thing that just continues to be strange for me and breaks in some of the weirdest ways has just been the growing awareness of how much of office life is unnecessary and ridiculous. When you're in the office every day, you have to find a way to make it work and be productive and you have this passive-aggressive story of this open office, it's for collaboration purposes. Yeah, I can definitively say that is not true. I had a boss who once told me that there was such benefits to working in an open plan office that if magically it were less expensive to give people individual offices, he would spare the extra expense for open plan. That was the day I learned he would lie to me while looking me in the eye. Because of course you wouldn't.And it's for collaboration. Yeah, it means two loud people—often me—are collaborating and everyone else wears noise-canceling headphones trying desperately to get work done, coming in early, hours before everyone else to get things done before people show up and distracted me. What the hell kind of day-to-day work environment is that?Jeff: What's interesting about that, though, is those same distractions are the things that get cited as being missed from the perspective of the person doing the distracting. So, everyone universally hates that sort of drive-by distractions, but everyone sort of universally misses the ability to say like, “Hey, can I just pull on your ear for a second and get your feedback on this?” Or, “Can we just walk through this really quickly?” That's the thing that people miss, and I don't think that they ever connect it to the idea that if you're not the interruptee, you're the interruptor, [laugh] and what that might do to someone else's productivity. So, you would think something like Slack would help with that, but in reality, what ends up happening is if you don't have proper Slack etiquette, there's a lot of signals that go out that get misconstrued, misinterpreted, internalized, and then it ends up impacting morale.Corey: And that's the most painful part of a lot of that too. Is that yeah, I want to go ahead and spend some time doing some nonsense—as one does; imagine that—and I know that if I'm going to go into an office or meet up with my colleagues, okay, that afternoon or that day, yeah, I'm planning that I'm probably not going to get a whole lot of deep coding done. Okay, great. But when that becomes 40 hours a week, well, that's a challenge. I feel like being full remote doesn't work out, but also being in the office 40 hours a week also feels a little sadistic, more than almost anything else.I don't know what the future looks like and I am privileged enough that I don't have to because we have been full remote the entire time. But what we don't spend on office space we spend on plane tickets back and forth so people can have meetings. In the before times, we were very good about that. Now it's, we're hesitant to do it just because it's we don't want people traveling before the feel that it's safe to do so. We've also learned, for example, when dealing with our clients, that we can get an awful lot done without being on site with them and be extraordinarily effective.It was always weird have traveled to some faraway city to meet with the client, and then you're on a Zoom call from their office with the rest of the team. It's… I could have done this from my living room.Jeff: Yeah. I find those sorts of hybrid meetings are often worse than if we were all just remote, right? It's just so much easier because now it's like, all right, three of us are going to crowd around one person's laptop, and then all of the things that we want to do to take advantage of being in person are excluding the people that are remote, so you got to do this careful dance. The way we've been sort of tackling it so far—and we're still experimenting—is we're not requiring anyone to come back into the office, but some people find it useful to go to the office as a change of scenery, to sort of, like break things up from their typical routine, and they like the break and the change. But it's something that they do sort of ad hoc.So, we've got a small group that meets, like, every Thursday, just as a day to sort of go into the office and switch things up. I think the idea of saying everyone has to come into the office two or three days a week is probably broken when there's no purpose behind it. So, my wife technically should go into the office twice a week, but her entire team is in Europe. [laugh]. So, what point does that make other than I am a body in a chair? So, I think companies are going to have to get flexible with this sort of hybrid environment.But then it makes you wonder, like, is it worth the office space and how many people are actually taking advantage of it when it's not mandated? We find that our office time centers around some event, right? And that event might be someone in town that's typically remote. That might be a particular project that we're working on where we want to get ideas and collaborate and have a workshop. But the idea of just, like, you know, we're going to systematically require people to be in the office x many days, I don't see that in our future.Corey: No, and I hope you're right. But it also feels like a lot of folks are also doing some weird things around the idea of remote such as, “Oh, we're full remote but we're going to pay you based upon where you happen to be sitting geographically.” And we find that the way that we've done this—and again, I'm not saying there's a right answer for everyone—but we wind up paying what the value of the work is for us. In many cases, that means that we would be hard-pressed to hire someone in the Bay Area, for example. On the other hand, it means that when we hire people who are in places with relatively low cost of living, they feel like they've just hit the lottery, on some level.And yeah, some of them, I guess it does sort of cause a weird imbalance if you're a large Amazon-scale company where you want to start not disrupting local economies. We're not hiring that many people, I promise. So, there's this idea of figuring out how that works out. And then where does the headquarters live? And well, what state laws do we wind up following on what we're doing? Just seems odd.Jeff: Yeah. So, you know, one thing I wanted to comment on that you'd mentioned earlier, too, was the weird things that people are doing, and organizations are doing with this, sort of, remote work thing, especially the geographic base pay. And you know, a lot of it is, how can we manipulate the situation to better us in a way that sounds good on paper, right? So, it sounds perfectly reasonable. Like, oh, you live in New York, I'm going to pay you in New York rates, right?But, like, you live in Des Moines, so I'm going to pay you Des Moines rates. And on the surface, when you just go you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, but then you think about it, you're like, “Wait, why does that matter?” Right? And then, like, how do I, as a manager, you know, level that across my employees, right? It's like, “Oh, so and so is getting paid 30 grand less. Oh, but they live in a cheaper area, right?” I don't know what your personal situation is, and how much that actually resonates or matters.Corey: Does the value that they provide to your company materially change based upon where they happen to be sitting that week?Jeff: Right, exactly. But it's a good story that you can tell, it sounds fair at first examination. But then when you start to scratch the surface, you're like, “Wait a second, this is BS.” So, that's one thing.Corey: It's like tipping on some level. If you can't afford the tip, you can't afford to eat out. Same story here. If you can't afford to compensate people the value that they're worth, you can't afford to employ people. And figure that out before you wind up disappointing people and possibly becoming today's Twitter main character.Jeff: Right. And then the state law thing is interesting. You know, when you see states like California adopting laws similar to, like, GDPR. And it's like, do you have to start planning for the most stringent possibility across every hire just to be safe and to avoid having to have this sort of patchwork of rules and policies based on where someone lives? You might say like, “Okay, Delaware has the most stringent employer law, so we're going to apply Delaware's laws across the board.” So, it'll be interesting to see how that sort of plays out in the long run. Luckily, that's not a problem I have to solve, but it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out.Corey: It is something we had to solve. We have an HR consultancy that helps out with a lot of these things, but the short answer is that we make sure that we obey with local laws, but the way that we operate is as if everyone were a San Francisco employee because that is—so far—the locale that, one, I live here, but also of every jurisdiction we've looked at in the United States, it tends to have the most advantageous to the employee restrictions and requirements. Like one thing we do is kind of ridiculous—and we have to do for me and one other person, but almost no one else, but we do it for everyone—is we have to provide stipends every month for electricity, for cellphone usage, for internet. They have to be broken out for each one of those categories, so we do 20 bucks a month for each of those. It adds up to 100 bucks, as I recall, and we call it good. And employees say, “Okay. Do we just send you receipts? Please don't.”I don't want to look at your cell phone bill. It's not my business. I don't want to know. We're doing this to comply with the law. I mean, if it were up to me, it would be this is ridiculous. Can we just give everyone $100 a month raise and call it good? Nope. The forms must be obeyed. So, all right.We do the same thing with PTO accrual. If you've acquired time off and you leave the company, we pay it out. Not every state requires that. But paying for cell phone access and internet access as well, is something Amazon is currently facing a class action about because they didn't do that for a number of their California employees. And even talking to Amazonians, like, “Well, they did, but you had to jump through a bunch of hoops.”We have the apparatus administratively to handle that in a way that employees don't. Why on earth would we make them do it unless we didn't want to pay them? Oh, I think I figured out this sneaky, sneaky plan. I'm not here to build a business by exploiting people. If that's the only way to succeed, and the business doesn't deserve to exist. That's my hot take of the day on that topic.Jeff: No, I totally agree. And what's interesting is these insidious costs that sneak up that employees tend to discount, like, one thing I always talk about with my team is all that time you're thinking about a problem at work, right, like when you're in the shower, when you're at dinner, when you're talking it over with your spouse, right? That's work. That's work. And it's work that you're doing on your time.But we don't account for it that way because we're not typing; we're not writing code. But, like, think about how much more effective as people, as employees, we would be if we had time dedicated to just sit and think, right? If I could just sit and think about a problem without needing to type but just critically think about it. But then it's like, well, what does that look like in the office, right? If I'm just sitting there in my chair like this, it doesn't look like I'm doing anything.But that's so important to be able to, like, break down and digest some of the complex problems that we're dealing with. And we just sort of write it off, right? So, I'm like, you know, you got to think about how that bleeds into your personal time and take that into account. So yeah, maybe you leave three hours early today, but I guarantee you, you're going to spend three hours throughout the week thinking about work. It's the same thing with these cellphone costs that you're talking about, right? “Oh, I've got a cell phone anyways; I've got internet anyways.” But still, that's something that you're contributing to the business that they're not on the hook for, so it seems fair that you get compensated for that.Corey: I just think about that stuff all the time from that perspective, and now that I you know, own the place, it's one of those which pocket of mine does it come out of? But I hold myself to a far higher standard about that stuff than I do the staff, where it's, for example, I could theoretically justify paying my internet bill here because we have business-class internet and an insane WiFi system because of all of the ridiculous video production I do. Now. It's like, like, if anyone else on the team was doing this, yes, I will insist we pay it, but for me, it just it feels a little close to the edge. So, it's one of those areas where I'm very conservative around things like that.The thing that also continues to just vex me, on some level, is this idea that time in a seat is somehow considered work. I'll never forget one of the last jobs I had before I started this place. My boss walked past me and saw that I was on Reddit. And, “Is that really the best use of your time right now?” May I use the bathroom when I'm done with this, sir?Yeah, of course it is. It sounds ridiculous, but one of the most valuable things I can do for The Duckbill Group now is go on the internet and start shit posting on Twitter, which sounds ridiculous, but it's also true. There's a brand awareness story there, on some level. And that's just wild to me. It's weird, we start treating people like adults, they start behaving that way. And if you start micromanaging them, they live up or down to the expectations you tend to hold. I'm a big believer in if I have to micromanage someone, I should just do the job myself.Jeff: Yeah. The Reddit story makes me think of, like, how few organizations have systematic ways of getting vital information. So, the first thing I think about is, like, security and security vulnerabilities, right? So, how does Basis Technologies, as an organization, know about these things? Right now, it's like, well, my team knows because we're plugged into Reddit and Twitter, right, but if we were gone Basis, right, may not necessarily get that information.So, that's something we're trying to correct, but it just sort of highlights the importance of freedom for these employees, right? Because yeah, I'm on Reddit, but I'm on /r/sysadmin. I'm on /r/AWS, right, I'm on /r/Atlassian. Now I'm finding out about this zero-day vulnerability and it's like, “Oh, guys, we got to act. I just heard about this thing.” And people are like, “Oh, where did this come from?” And it's like it came from my network, right? And my network—Corey: Mm-hm.Jeff: Is on Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit. So, the idea that someone browsing the internet on any site, really, is somehow not a productive use of their time, you better be ready to itemize exactly what that means and what that looks like. “Oh, you can do this on Reddit but you can't do that on Reddit.”Corey: I have no boss now, I have no oversight, but somehow I still show up with a work ethic and get things done.Jeff: Right. [laugh].Corey: Wow, I guess I didn't need someone over my shoulder the whole time. Who knew?Jeff: Right. That's all that matters, right? And if you do it in 30 hours or 40 hours, that doesn't really matter to me, you know? You want to do it at night because you're more productive there, right, like, let's figure out a way to make that happen. And remote work is actually empowering us ways to really retain people that wasn't possible before I had an employee that was like, you know, I really want to travel. I'm like, “Dude, go to Europe. Work from Europe. Just do it. Work from Europe,” right? We've got senior leaders on the C-suite that are doing it. One of the chief—Corey: I'm told they have the internet, even there. Imagine that?Jeff: Yeah. [laugh]. So, our chief program officer, she was in Greece for four weeks. And it worked. It worked great. They had a process. You know, she would spent one week on and then one week off on vacation. But you know, she was able to have this incredible, long experience, and still deliver. And it's like, you know, we can use that as a model to say, like—Corey: And somehow the work got done. Wow, she must be amazing. No, that's the baseline expectation that people can be self-managing in that respect.Jeff: Right.Corey: They aren't toddlers.Jeff: So, if she can do that, I'm sure you can figure out how to code in China or wherever you want to visit. So, it's a great way to stay ahead of some of these companies that have a bit more lethargic policies around that stuff, where it's like, you know, all right, I'm not getting that insane salary, but guess what, I'm going to spend three weeks in New Zealand hanging out and not using any time off or anything like that, and you know, being able to enjoy life. I wish this pandemic had happened pre-kids because—Corey: Yeah. [laugh].Jeff: —you know, we would really take advantage of this.Corey: You and me both. It would have very different experience.Jeff: Yeah. [laugh]. Absolutely, right? But with kids in school, and all that stuff, we've been tethered down. But man, I you know, I want to encourage the young people or the single people on my team to just, like, hey, really, really embrace this time and take advantage of it.Corey: I come bearing ill tidings. Developers are responsible for more than ever these days. Not just the code that they write, but also the containers and the cloud infrastructure that their apps run on. Because serverless means it's still somebody's problem. And a big part of that responsibility is app security from code to cloud. And that's where our friend Snyk comes in. Snyk is a frictionless security platform that meets developers where they are - Finding and fixing vulnerabilities right from the CLI, IDEs, Repos, and Pipelines. Snyk integrates seamlessly with AWS offerings like code pipeline, EKS, ECR, and more! As well as things you're actually likely to be using. Deploy on AWS, secure with Snyk. Learn more at Snyk.co/scream That's S-N-Y-K.co/screamCorey: One last topic I want to get into before we call it an episode is, I admit, I read an awful lot of books, it's a guilty pleasure. And it's easy to fall into the trap, especially when you know the author, of assuming that snapshot of their state of mind at a very fixed point in time is somehow who they are, like a fly frozen in amber, and it's never true. So, my question for you is, quite simply, what have you learned since your book came out?Jeff: Oh, man, great question. So, when I was writing the book, I was really nervous about if my audience was as big as I thought it was, the people that I was targeting with the book.Corey: Okay, that keeps me up at night, too. I have no argument there.Jeff: Yeah. You know what I mean?Corey: Please, continue.Jeff: I'm surrounded, you know, by—Corey: Is anyone actually listening to this? Yeah.Jeff: Right. [laugh]. So, after the book got finished and it got published, I would get tons of feedback from people that so thoroughly enjoyed the book, they would say things like, you know, “It feels like you were in our office like a fly on the wall.” And that was exciting, one, because I felt like these were experiences that sort of resonated, but, two, it sort of proved this thesis that sometimes you don't have to do something revolutionary to be a positive contribution to other people, right? So, like, when I lay out the tips and things that I do in the book, it's nothing earth-shattering that I expect Google to adopt. Like, oh, my God, this is the most unique view ever.But being able to talk to an audience in a way that resonates with them, that connects with them, that shows that I understand their problem and have been there, it was really humbling and enlightening to just see that there are people out there that they're not on the bleeding edge, but they just need someone to talk to them in a language that they understand and resonate with. So, I think the biggest thing that I learned was this idea that your voice is important, your voice matters, and how you tell your story may be the difference between someone understanding a concept and someone not understanding a concept. So, there's always an audience for you out there as you're writing, whether it be your blog post, the videos that you produce, the podcasts that you make, somewhere there's someone that needs to hear what you have to say, and the unique way that you can say it. So, that was extremely powerful.Corey: Part of the challenge that I found is when I start talking to other people, back in the before times, trying to push them into conference talks and these days, write blog posts, the biggest objection I get sometimes is, “Well, I don't have anything worth saying.” That is provably not true. One of my favorite parts about writing Last Week in AWS is as I troll the internet looking for topics about AWS that I find interesting, I keep coming across people who are very involved in one area or another of this ecosystem and have stories they want to tell. And I love, “Hey, would you like to write a guest post for Last Week in AWS?” It's always invite only and every single one of them has been paid because people die of exposure and I'm not about that exploitation lifestyle.A couple have said, “Oh, I can't accept payment for a variety of reasons.” Great. Pick a charity that you would like it to go to instead because we do not accept volunteer work, we are a for-profit entity. That is the way it works here. And that has been just one of the absolute favorite parts about what I do just because you get to sort of discover new voices.And what I find really neat is that for a lot of these folks, this is their start to writing and telling the story, but they don't stop there, they start telling their story in other areas, too. It leads to interesting career opportunities for them, it leads to interesting exposure that they wouldn't have necessarily had—again, not that they're getting paid in exposure, but the fact that they are able to be exposed to different methodologies, different ways of thinking—I love that. It's one of my favorite parts about doing what I do. And it seems to scale a hell of a lot better than me sitting down with someone for two hours to help them build a CFP that they wind up not getting accepted or whatnot.Jeff: Right. It's a great opportunity that you provide folks, too, because of, like, an instant audience, I think that's one of the things that has made Medium so successful as, like, a blogging platform is, you know, everyone wants to go out and build their own WordPress site and launch it, but then it like, you write your blog post and it's crickets. So, the ability for you to, you know, use your platform to also expose those voices is great and extremely powerful. But you're right, once they do it, it lights a fire in a way that is admirable to watch. I have a person that I'm mentoring and that was my biggest piece of advice I can give. It was like, you know, write. Just write.It's the one thing that you can do without anyone else. And you can reinforce your own knowledge of a thing. If you just say, you know, I'm going to teach this thing that I just learned, just the writing process helps you solidify, like, okay, I know this stuff. I'm demonstrating that I know it and then four years from now, when you're applying for a job, someone's like, “Oh, I found your blog post and I see that you actually do know how to set up a Kubernetes cluster,” or whatever. It's just extremely great and it—Corey: It's always fun. You're googling for how to do something and you find something you wrote five years ago.Jeff: Right, yeah. [laugh]. And it's like code where you're like, “Oh, man, I would do that so much differently now.”Corey: Since we last spoke, one of the things I've been doing is I have been on the hook to write between a one to two-thousand-word blog post every week, and I've done that like clockwork, for about a year-and-a-half now. And I was no slouch at storytelling before I started doing that. I've given a few hundred conference talks in the before times. And I do obviously long Twitter threads in the past and I write reports a lot. But forcing me to go through that process every week and then sit with an editor and go ahead and get it improved, has made me a far better writer, it's made me a better storyteller, I am far better at articulating my point of view.It is absolutely just unlocking a host of benefits that I would have thought I was, oh, I passed all this. I'm already good at these things. And I was, but I'm better now. I think that writing is one of those things that people need to do a lot more of.Jeff: Absolutely. And it's funny that you mentioned that because I just recently, back in April, started to do the same thing I said, I'm going to write a blog post every week, right? I'm going to get three or four in the can, so that if life comes up and I miss a beat, right, I'm not actually missing the production schedule, so I have a steady—and you're right. Even after writing a book, I'm still learning stuff through the writing process, articulating my point of view.It's just something that carries over, and it carries over into the workforce, too. Like, if you've ever read a bad piece of documentation, right, that comes from—Corey: No.Jeff: Right? [laugh]. That comes from an inability to write. Like, you know, you end up asking these questions like who's the audience for this? What is ‘it' in this sentence? [laugh].Corey: Part of it too, is that people writing these things are so close to the problem themselves that the fact that, “Well, I'm not an expert in this.” That's why you should write about it. Talk about your experience. You're afraid everyone's going to say, “Oh, you're a fool. You didn't understand how this works.”Yeah, my lived experiences instead—and admittedly, I have the winds of privilege of my back on this—but it's also yeah, I didn't understand that either. It turns out that you're never the only person who has trouble with a concept. And by calling it out, you're normalizing it and doing a tremendous service for others in your shoes.Jeff: Especially when you're not an expert because I wrote some documentation about the SSL process and it didn't occur to me that these people don't use the AWS command line, right? Like, you know, in our organization, we sort of mask that from them through a bunch of in-house automation. Now we're starting to expose it to them and simple things like oh, you need to preface the AWS command with a profile name. So, then when we're going through the setup, we're like, “Oh. What if they already have an existing profile, right?” Like, we don't want to clobber that.SSo, it just changed the way you write the documentation. But like, that's not something that initially came to mind for me. It wasn't until someone went through the docs, and they're like, “Uh, this is blowing up in a weird way.” And I was like, “Oh, right. You know, like, I need to also teach you about profile management.”Corey: Also, everyone has a slightly different workflow for the way they interact with AWS accounts, and their shell prompts, and the way they set up local dev environments.Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. So, not being an expert on a thing is key because you're coming to it with virgin eyes, right, and you're able to look at it from a fresh perspective.Corey: So, much documentation out there is always coming from the perspective of someone who is intimately familiar with the problem space. Some of the more interesting episodes that I have, from a challenge perspective, are people who are deep technologists in a particular area and they love they fallen in love with the thing that they are building. Great. Can you explain it to the rest of us mere mortals so that we can actually we can share your excitement on this? And it's very hard to get them to come down to a level where it's coherent to folks who haven't spent years thinking deeply about that particular problem space.Jeff: Man, the number one culprit for that is, like, the AWS blogs where they have, like, a how-to article. You follow that thing and you're like, “None of this is working.” [laugh]. Right? And then you realize, oh, they made an assumption that I knew this, but I didn't right?So, it's like, you know, I didn't realize this was supposed to be, like, a handwritten JSON document just jammed into the value field. Because I didn't know that, I'm not pulling those values out as JSON. I'm expecting that just to be, like, a straight string value. And that has happened more and more times on the AWS blog than I can count. [laugh].Corey: Oh, yeah, very often. And then there's other problems, too. “Oh, yeah. Set up your IAM permissions properly.” That's left as an exercise for the reader. And then you wonder why everything's full of stars. Okay.Jeff: Right. Yep, exactly, exactly.Corey: Ugh. It's so great to catch up with you and see what you've been working on. If people want to learn more, where's the best place to find you?Jeff: So, the best place is probably my website, attainabledevops.com. That's a place where you can find me on all the other places. I don't really update that site much, but you can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, from that jumping off point, links to the book are there if anyone's interested in that. Perfect stocking stuffers. Mom would love it, grandma would love it, so definitely, definitely buy multiple copies of that.Corey: Yeah, it's going to be one of my two-year-old's learning to read books, it'd be great.Jeff: Yeah, it's perfect. You know, you just throw it in the crib and walk away, right? They're asleep at no time. Like I said, I've also been taking to, you know, blogging on Medium, so you can catch me there, the links will be there on Attainable DevOps as well.Corey: Excellent. And that link will of course, be in the show notes. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I really do appreciate it. And it's great to talk to you again.Jeff: It was great to catch up.Corey: Really was. Jeff Smith, Director of Product Operations at Basis Technologies. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice or smash the like and subscribe buttons on the YouTubes, whereas if you've hated this podcast, do the exact same thing—five-star review, smash the buttons—but also leave an angry, incoherent comment that you're then going to have edited and every week you're going to come back and write another incoherent comment that you get edited. And in the fullness of time, you'll get much better at writing angry, incoherent comments.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Fred Zinkie is joined by Todd Zola (pinch-hitting for Jeff Erickson). Fred and Todd review the news of the day and their recent FAAB pickups. The duo then cover closer scenarios and discuss whether to drop or hold some underperforming hitters and pitchers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join Our Free Podcast Community HERE!Want to solve a leaky sales funnel? Get Signup for your Free RevenueGrid trial HERE! Want Your Reps Hitting Quota in 2022? Get Your Wingman Free Trial HERE!HIGHLIGHTSJeff's Sales StoryExperiencing the pains of working in salesDiscovering the importance of mental resilienceMisconception of mental health as mental illnessHow sales leaders deal with their mental healthQUOTESJeff: “I started to realize that anxiety and sales are not optional. It's really part of everyday life, and when teams start to become anxious, depressed and burnt out, their performance really starts to suffer.”Jeff: “Salespeople are corporate athletes and need to help them provide them with tools to help them navigate these unique stresses in sales in a mentally healthy way.”Jeff: “I always say sort of the mental health strategy that too many sales organizations implement is Having a really fun drinking culture as a way to kind of blow off steam. But that really just perpetuates the ability to take care of yourself and lean into what these emotions are trying to tell you and sort through them in a healthy way.”Jeff: “Many people are still defining mental health using a definition closer to mental illness, where mental health is, in fact, the spectrum of well being that we fluctuate along, based on what's happening in our internal environment, like our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, as well as our external environment.”Jeff: “No one's immune to it, and leaders kind of overcome that vulnerability, vulnerability paradox, they absolutely need to share first to create that safe space and it doesn't happen in one massive swing, like leading a wellness initiative or bringing me in to kind of leave a little one hour session with your team.”Learn more about Jeff in the link below: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jeffriseleyWebsites:sales-health-alliance.teachable.com/  (Company Website)saleshealthalliance.com/  (Company Website)Connect With Collin on LinkedIn Want to Start, Grow or Monetize Your Podcast? Book a Free Strategy Call HERE!  

COVID-19 might be shutting down the NHL, but it won't stop Jeff and Joey from bringing the holiday cheer. Welcome to the 1st annual Kraken Christmas! Jeff and Joey break down last week's games against the San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks, and the Edmonton Oilers, both the good and the bad. The boys' pontificate on if there's an issue between the team and Grubauer and why it feels different when he's minding net versus Chris Driedger before Joey sounds off on Jeremy Lauzon and the issues he's bringing to the Seattle Kraken when he's on the ice. Moving forward, all of the games have been postponed with the exception of December 27th's match up at the Vancouver Canucks, for now. Next, for Kraken Christmas Jeff and Joey each share the three gifts that they would bestow upon the franchise at this point in time before sounding off on their five most hated Christmas songs of all time and why they should be banned from being played in any vicinity during the holiday season, or ever and Jeff shares an intimate story of drinking with Michael Bublé. #NoDumbQuestions covers the exact definition of boarding and how it's subjective and can change depending on many factors throughout a game and the boys' go on to explain the difference between a referee and linesman. Last, Hockey History with Jeff covers when the NHL used to have Christmas day games, why that ended, and what they would do if they were Commissioner. For those that celebrate, have a merry Kraken Christmas! SubscribeOn All podcasting apps, rate & review on iTunes and Apple Podcasts!Presented by The Hockey Podcast Network with new episodes every week. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook at @KrakenPodRelease the Kraken!#WhatLiesBeneath#SeaKraken NHL TeamsAnaheim Ducks Arizona Coyotes Boston Bruins Buffalo Sabres Calgary Flames Carolina Hurricanes Chicago Blackhawks Colorado Avalanche Columbus Blue Jackets Dallas Stars Detroit Red Wings Edmonton Oilers Florida Panthers Los Angeles Kings Minnesota Wild Montreal Canadiens Nashville Predators New Jersey Devils New York Islanders New York Rangers Ottawa Senators Philadelphia Flyers Pittsburgh Penguins San Jose Sharks Seattle Kraken St Louis Blues Tampa Bay Lightning Toronto Maple Leafs Vancouver Canucks Vegas Golden Knights Washington Capitals Winnipeg Jets

COVID-19 might be shutting down the NHL, but it won't stop Jeff and Joey from bringing the holiday cheer. Welcome to the 1st annual Kraken Christmas! Jeff and Joey break down last week's games against the San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks, and the Edmonton Oilers, both the good and the bad. The boys' pontificate on if there's an issue between the team and Grubauer and why it feels different when he's minding net versus Chris Driedger before Joey sounds off on Jeremy Lauzon and the issues he's bringing to the Seattle Kraken when he's on the ice. Moving forward, all of the games have been postponed with the exception of December 27th's match up at the Vancouver Canucks, for now. Next, for Kraken Christmas Jeff and Joey each share the three gifts that they would bestow upon the franchise at this point in time before sounding off on their five most hated Christmas songs of all time and why they should be banned from being played in any vicinity during the holiday season, or ever and Jeff shares an intimate story of drinking with Michael Bublé. #NoDumbQuestions covers the exact definition of boarding and how it's subjective and can change depending on many factors throughout a game and the boys' go on to explain the difference between a referee and linesman. Last, Hockey History with Jeff covers when the NHL used to have Christmas day games, why that ended, and what they would do if they were Commissioner. For those that celebrate, have a merry Kraken Christmas!   Subscribe On All podcasting apps, rate & review on iTunes and Apple Podcasts! Presented by The Hockey Podcast Network with new episodes every week.  Follow us on Twitter and Facebook at @KrakenPod Release the Kraken! #WhatLiesBeneath #SeaKraken   NHL Teams Anaheim Ducks Arizona Coyotes Boston Bruins Buffalo Sabres Calgary Flames Carolina Hurricanes Chicago Blackhawks Colorado Avalanche Columbus Blue Jackets Dallas Stars Detroit Red Wings Edmonton Oilers Florida Panthers Los Angeles Kings Minnesota Wild Montreal Canadiens Nashville Predators New Jersey Devils New York Islanders New York Rangers Ottawa Senators Philadelphia Flyers Pittsburgh Penguins San Jose Sharks Seattle Kraken St Louis Blues Tampa Bay Lightning Toronto Maple Leafs Vancouver Canucks Vegas Golden Knights Washington Capitals Winnipeg Jets

The next installment of the 2021 rookie draft hopefuls - Dwellers' top 5 RBs and Interior DLs are the hot item in this one. Some NFL news and notes, FCS and Bison/YSU recap (sort of...) - and we wrap up this episode with some big, fun news!

Max: Hello and welcome back to The Recruitment Hackers Podcast, I am your host Max and today I am delighted to welcome Jeff Wald. Jeff Wald is the author of two books including The end of jobs, The rise of on demand workers and agile corporations hot topics, kicking off into 2021, Jeff, welcome to the show.Jeff: Max, thank you so much for having me.Max: It's a pleasure. And we're at opposite sides of the planet Jeff is logging in from Florida, I'm in Hong Kong. But I think the world is smaller than it has ever been. With so many of the so many of those jobs being kind of remote, being advertised as it doesn't matter where you're, where you're hiring you know it's anywhere in the world as long as you've got the skills. So, it must have been a busy year for you, promoting the cause of the remote worker and the on demand worker.  I'm even more excited about the international dimension of that, as opposed to, let's say, the creation of a new job category. I just like the fact that now the talent pool is universal and global.Jeff: I agree, I will say this man. Let's not gloss over this small little fact that you're sitting in Hong Kong, I'm sitting in Florida. This is mind blowing to me if your mind's not freakin blown by this anyone that's listening to the fact that the two of us are sitting on literally opposite sides of the planet. That is amazing. You know pre pandemic I'd said a bunch of times in the book down the hall, on another floor, down the block, or halfway around the world. You don't need to be in the same place to be on the same team. And that has become all the more true during the pandemic or I should say all the more true, it's always been true. Over the last few years it has been all the more aware than people become of that. And this is exemplified here I mean we had a wonderful conversation, prior to you know hitting record here, as if we were colleagues on a project, just working and it to me there was no difference the conversation we had then are having now than you, me sitting in your office.Max: Yes, yes, Well all the mess in my office is outside of camera view. It looks a lot better. Actually, I  control this environment better. Jeff: I'd probably be wearing pants. Those are all things that are slightly different than if I were in your office. But still, it's all amazing to me.Max: That's great. So far listeners out there. Jeff is pantless.Jeff: Allegedly, allegedly!Max: Well. So Jeff, maybe you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, before you became an author on the topic of employment. It's probably not what you grew up, dreaming to become a kind of happened with life. Can you walk us through the main steps in your career. Jeff: Sure, I started my career in finance with JP Morgan,moved to venture capital, which was just an amazing, amazing experience working with entrepreneurs, and getting to see men and women that were just trying to change the world. So exhilarating that I left and started my first company, that failed miserably and basically bankrupted me. But that's the thing with entrepreneurship, pick yourself up dust yourself off and keep going. Second company we built up, and eventually got sold to Salesforce and that was a good outcome not a great outcome. And then this last company Work Market, founded 10 years ago. Work Market is enterprise software that enables companies to organize manage and pay their freelance population, raised about 70 million from Union Square ventures SoftBank and a few others sold the company to ADP almost three years ago. So it's been a great, great journey and the sale to ADP specifically gave me the space, Max to finally sit down and finish this book because I've been working on it for like four years prior to the purchase of ADP. Max: Okay. Well, congrats on that entrepreneurial journey. I haven't read that. After you sell your business, there was a moment. It's a moment where most entrepreneurs kind of struggle with depression. Suddenly a drop, drop in activity and energy. But apparently, you made the most of that sort of drop.Jeff: That's super super interesting. I guess I understand it conceptually. It's one of the silliest reasons to be depressed, not that I wish to ever make fun of depression. I will tell you having your business fail and going bankrupt. I'd say bankrupt as bankruptcy is a technical term. Have your business fail and virtually going bankrupt. That is something that did in general did a lot of depression in me. And, you know, having not leaving my apartment for some time. As I was super bummed out by that, but I had no experience like that with the sale of joy upon  joy and gratitude and fortune. Max: Yeah. Good, I am really happy to hear that because you know who knows maybe one day I'll have to sell some of my shares. And I'd like it to be a happy moments as well. Jeff: God will. God will.Max: So, your new book, The end of jobs, The rise of on demand workers, I'm excited about this topic, because it is all of our, our mission in the corporate world and the enterprise world, to, to create a performance driven culture, and an output driven culture where people are measured on, you know what they produce, as opposed to you know how why they smile. And I think that the transition towards task base job assignment, as opposed to job descriptions, is one for the best because it actually gives more freedom to be able to just get the job done in as much in as little time as possible, which is giving people more freedom to run their lives the way they want. I mean it could be looked at. It could be looked in that way it could be looked at on the opposite side of the spectrum as like a cold market driven approach to employment. Instead of where many employers to position themselves as we are family. But I think the 'we our family' message is a bit outdated personally. How do you feel about that transition? Do you think that we're moving towards a world which is, is that what's covered in your book?Jeff: So there are a number of things that are ever covered in the book about the future of work. The first and the most important is to look at the history of work. I wrote the book because I get very frustrated with people that make predictions about the future of really anything quite frankly without evidence, specifically in the world of work. We have the history of work and how companies workers have come together to produce goods and services throughout different societal changes different technological changes. So let's study those. And the second body of evidence is data. What does the data, tell us how to data trends and patterns, play out. Currently, and obviously through history as well. The third is how companies actually engage workers. You know a lot of people think the labor resource planning meeting goes like this, CEO walks in and says, 'All right, what are we gonna do ot her workers. Let's hire the cheapest ones, meeting adjourned'. That is actually not how those meetings go, there's a lot of variables that go into that equation. And so understanding how companies actually engage workers, understanding the data and the data trends and understanding history, and how society has coped with some of these struggles before. That to me is a very thoughtful way to think about, or start to make predictions about the future of work and that's what we endeavour to do with the book.Max: So the book has a historical component that goes back to the the history of work. I was excited when I read about the time of Abraham Lincoln when they were talking about what's it called wage slaves, or where it was considered that every man should be his own employee, there was a vision that was articulated at the time that you know you were to be on a regular wage is somehow less envious, that everybody should be self employed as kind of coming back a little bit right from one or two years ago.Jeff: It certainly is coming back to the whole idea behind freelancing is the idea that you get to have flexibility and choose your own path that is a very very powerful thing it's something very encoded in our DNA to want to have control of our own destiny, of course, and all the things that the freelancer faces are starting to permeate the full time workforce. So, like called the book The end of jobs the rise of on demand workers. That is not to say I think everyone's going to be a freelancer, that is to say that all the things that the freelancer deals with task based labor, personal responsibility, algorithms, allocating work data driven HR all of those things Max are permeating the full time workforce and all workers are dealing with kind of things.Max: Okay, so, everybody who's looking at Uber drivers thinking, I'm glad I don't have an algorithm, looking over me. Time is coming up. Yeah,Jeff: it is coming. No question. It is coming.Max: Okay. From a talent acquisition perspective which is really my focus. How does this affect recruitment How does the rise of the on demand worker affect recruitment? Do you think that. Are you noticing that they're, they're being hired in a different manner than the permanent staff?Jeff: Well I think there are a few ways that all of these changes impact recruiting. The first is the recruiting is that tip of the spear right your listeners are the first people out there that are dealing with the changes and how companies are structuring their workforces. We need more of X we need less of Y. We need more people in this geography, fewer in that geography. And so recruiting is seeing in real time, the shifts in labor resource management, and that is super super interesting in and of itself. And we can spend some time talking about the types of recruiting they're gonna be more important as we get into skills based labor, and more remote work, and more on demand work and how robots and AI are going to impact the workforce with large. That's one conversation set that is a very interesting conversation to be had. The other part is how does that specific function change, given all of these things is more recruiting going to be done in an on demand capacity? is more recruiting going to be done via robots or AI systems going to be doing more recruiting? And that's another very big impact that quite frankly we don't know how that's going to play out yet. You know there are just way too many variables and it's way too early in the game, but we certainly have seen some trends around on demand recruiting. And we've certainly seen some trends around some of the tasks inherent recruiting starting to be done by machines.Max: With the start of the new year. Are you talking to companies who are setting targets around. I'd like to move, you know, 10, or 20% of my workforce to on demand, does that come down from the board to the operational level?Jeff: Short answer is, look from the board down the answer to that is usually No, that is. You'd hope, but boards, I don't think, sitting on a few public boards myself boards don't get involved that tactically even though I would argue it is strategic and they should be having that type of conversation. Those conversations are very nuanced very complex, and so I've never seen somebody come down and see any point out. When I was running Work Market because if you wanted to increase your usage of freelancers there weren't any really other places to go, if you wanted to manage a large freelance workforce and Work Market. So, I would usually get that call. And I will tell you we very very very rarely got the labor force transformation call. The call of a we're getting into the change how we're doing things we need to bring in, and we're frankly, what I would get those calls, I kind of was like this is going to be a two year conversation, this sucks, but it usually, the call will come from real big companies so you take it and start having obviously if we could work with fortune 50 company we're going to do it. What the call, we would get Max, the calls that we would get all the time is we currently manage a freelance workforce. It is a very large part of our labor force strategy and it has been for years or decades, in some cases, but it's a mess. We don't know who's where who sent what legal Raymond who is working on what is good and what we need a piece of software to help us efficiently and compliantly manage this workforce, that call, I would get all the time. But the idea that, whether it's on demand work or robots and AI, that there's going to be some huge shifts that data doesn't support it. History doesn't support it, and how companies actually engage workers does not support an argument that oh my gosh all those jobs are gonna go next year, 10% of those jobs are gonna go. Labor force statistics and labor resource planning happens very slowly and very methodically and that's that's just the reality. So it's that reality that people should be mindful of when thinking about the future of work.Max: And there's a huge regulatory component where a change in the law, and how easy it is to hire and fire will immediately impact the percentage of the staff, which is on demand right because it drives a lot of the demand.Jeff: It is a incredibly powerful maybe the most powerful, powerful variable and what I call the labor equation, very complex equations series have a system of equations, I should say that guide how companies actually engage workers, and the regulatory environment, especially when it comes to freelance workers, I would argue is the biggest variable in that equation. And the problem with that variable is that that variable itself is all over the map. It's very different how you engage worker in California than what you do in Louisiana. Workers comp board in Wisconsin has an entirely different point of view than the Labor Department in Portugal. So you got to be super super mindful of how complex it is and that's why most companies go, oh my god it's too complicated just keep everybody employed. Obviously that's a bit glib of an interpretation, but it's not that far from accuracy.Max: Yeah. Yeah, I believe it for sure. For me, I experienced it the other way I was like oh my god it's so complicated I have all these full time employees and be better I'd just have contractors, but either way. Either way, the decision towards a simpler way of doing things. I mean, I imagined that it's a little bit easier to decentralize, the compliancy, meaning. Instead of putting the onus on the employer to be in charge of everybody's, you know, being compliance is to say to the on demand worker, it's your responsibility. And by the way, here's a little bit of money to help you file your taxes or, you know, manager, your stuff.Jeff: That is a really good point there. A increasing number of companies out there that are helping the freelancer set up a corporate structure, which really makes it a vendor relationship, and that stuff certainly helps shield the company, but in no way can the company. And I would not pretend to understand laws in China, or anywhere else. But in the United States, you can't pass that liability down to the worker. So when the State Department of Labor comes, you can't say well I, you know, they all signed these legal agreements indemnify me the department labor's we go okay I don't care. There, we view them as your employees, where is our back payroll tax? Where's Social Security payments? Where's unemployment insurance? let's go gimmy gimmy gimmy. They couldn't care less. But there are ways to your point, that companies can certainly mitigate their risk.Max: Great. Well, what else can corporations think about your talking to you know it was in your title the Agile Corporation. What are some of the trends Do you foresee in 2021 for companies who want to become more agile, Besides that, besides work market. What other what other tools or methodologies do you recommend?Jeff: Well I don't anticipate a huge increase in the size of the on demand workforce. But the on demand workforce as a number shrank. So there were over 240 million workers in the on demand workforce now there are high 30 million workers in the workforce, but the labor force as a whole film. And so we're still trying to parse together, did the percent of the on demand workforce shrink grow or stay the same? My guess is that it probably that stayed about the same. So I don't anticipate in 21, a huge movement back. I think it will stay about the same. percent of the labor force, because companies are just focused elsewhere, right now, right they're trying to make sure their teams are safe they're trying to make sure that their supply chains are safe and trying to make sure that their employees are being productive and they're not thinking about labor force transformation and 21. 22 might be a very different scenario. And as we discussed earlier regulation I think it's going to be the biggest variable in that equation. But when we talk about agile Max there there are a host of different ways in which a company can be agile. The best way is managing an army of freelancers. They are completely agile. The next you know you can move into temps and the vendors to other types of relationships. The biggest change that we saw in the labor market unquestionably in terms of how work gets done, I think the biggest change was unemployment and obviously horrific impacts on labor because of the pandemic. But the biggest change in how work actually gets done was clearly remote. It was moving to remote work and does that make a company more agile? of course it does. Allow your workers to be able to work where they want how they want is a very important step in kind of breaking that bone of the one office one manager 9-5 job. And that's the job by the way that is referenced in the title the end of jobs. Robots are taking all of our jobs, far from it, they are not, that is a very clear conclusion from the book. But this idea that you have one office, one manager, you work 9-5 that job is dying and it gets replaced by people being nomadic people having flexible work arrangements, people working in different contexts so that certainly on demand. Temps of freelancers and all that jazz. Those are the kinds of changes that were sped up by the pandemic as companies had to become more agile, there was no everyone's got to come to the office from 9-5, that wouldn't happen in almost anywhere in the world, in  April of 2020. So, that is a huge step forward in the Agile corporations.Max: Actually, to your last points on, I've noticed the same trends and of course but the 9-5 aspects, there are still a bunch of companies that still look at the nine to five hour. And, and there's a strong case to be made for for the work life balance to say, yeah, starts at nine five so you don't invade people's lives, but on the other hand, it does remove you know to do so because you, you say we want to create boundaries and we want to create overlap or people working at the same time. It does also mean you're removing a little bit of freedom from your employees, from your staff, let's say, to decide when they work. Jeff: Of course.Max: It's not that great right, like. I would argue like work whenever, and we try to minimize the number of conference calls if we can.Jeff: That is a fine way to think about it, but when we're thinking about 164 million people in the US labor force actually 154 million now, 164 at the beginning of the pandemic. That is not the way all of them are gonna work. If you have a shift at H&M. That's when your shift is, there's no hey I want to work from Barcelona this weekend no no your shift is here in the store and that's when your shift is, if you're working on the line at Volkswagen your shift is nine to five, or maybe, whatever it is, there is no a I'm going to you know come in late. And I'll stay later, I don't know, that's when the shift starts like you have to be there. So it's important to think about the full context of the labor force. When we have conversations about the future of work it's easy to slip into this idea that everybody works in these remote first type jobs that are very enabled by remote work and digital work and all these other things. The reality is most people don't, that's just not the reality for most workers in any labor force.Max: Agreed. Agreed. And I work in these industries where people do have to physically come a lot of the time, so I know that's the case, but I guess, for the knowledge worker. I still see, I still see people trying to cling on to this office. You know way of work, sure where, whereas all communication, eventually, as much communication as possible should be moved to the asynchronous. So because we can read faster than we can sit through a meeting.Jeff: I completely agree. But to your point, some people do enjoy it. And there are tremendous benefits to it. I saw a study that 93% of remote workers still live within a commutable distance of the office. Because going remote doesn't mean you never go to the office, there are benefits to having everybody come together and have brainstorming sessions and do small talk. Those serendipitous encounters at the watercooler, they're actually incredibly good for productivity, do they need to be every day? Of course not. Can we allow people to flexible work arrangements, those that want it and those that can do it. Sure. But here's another important thing 42% of the US workforce can work remotely. That's it. Max: yeah.Jeff: And the US by the way is the highest percentage of any workforce on the planet that can work remotely. But another way to say that is 58% of workers, cannot do this digital lifestyle, cannot work remotely their jobs won't allow it. So we need to be mindful of that when having these types of conversations.Max: Alright, so it was a bubble 2020 bubble and the narrative, to a certain degree that was not really supported by hard data. In fact, most people will still be coming into the office and, and the on demand worker or while it's an ongoing transition. We haven't seen a huge rise in the percentage of the workforce that goes on demand. And the robots will now take our jobs. I'm sure that there's a lot more depth to this book, than my cliff notes here. How do people find your book, I'm gonna put a link to where do you want to sell, are we selling through Amazon or is there another place?Jeff: There are tons of other places but 98% of the books that have been sold have been bought on Amazon and, you know, certainly when the book came out in June, there was almost no other place to buy the book. That's not true actually was on barnesandnoble.com, a few other web sellers but it's funny I'm down here in Florida now and Florida's COVID restrictions are much looser than my normal home in New York, and I passed the Barnes and Noble today. As I was going school, get my office set up down here. Home Office, and I'm super excited to go tomorrow and see if my book is there, so hopefully it is in bookstores where it's supposed to be but it'd be the first time I get a chance to go into an old school Barnes noble I'm super excited. Max: All right. Don't forget to put on your protective gear for that Barnes and Noble experience.Jeff: No question. No question.Max: And, well, how do people get a hold of you? What's the best way to reach you?Jeff: Well, you can certainly follow me on twitter at @Jeffreywald, that's the only place that I go by Jeffrey for wells I go by Jeff, but I couldn't couldn't get Jeff Wald, and LinkedIn, I'm always I will always accept connections on LinkedIn and Amazon is certainly the best place to find the book.Max: Wonderful. Well thanks Jeff for sharing your insights and coming on the show and. Well, I look forward to my FREE copy in the mail. No, I'll go and get myself a copy I've got a bunch of books,I am a little bit behind on my reading, and I'll go get myself a copy right now.Jeff: I appreciate it thank you so much. It was so great to chat and I look forward to listening to many more episodes of this podcast.Max: Thanks, Jeff. Jeff: Thank you.

Jeff Jordan is President and Executive Creative Director of Rescue: The Behavior Change Agency. Rescue offers a broad range of marketing services for government agencies (public health departments, state and federal agencies) and non-profits seeking to promote positive changes in public health related behaviors.  Jeff started his agency when, as a high school student, he volunteered for his local health department's youth-targeted anti-tobacco program. He transitioned from volunteer to contractor, tweaked the anti-tobacco program to approach teens in an innovative way, and grew the agency through “a lot of referrals.” He opened his first office while he was in college and continued his focus on behavioral change for social good.  In this interview, Jeff tells us that marketing tactics that are used to sell products don't necessarily work in changing “fundamental behavior.” His team has to be expert, not just in marketing, but also in behavior change theory, psychology, and sociology . . . and know how to appeal to different subsets within targeted cohort groups. Jeff says that it can take years for a consistent message to bring measurable change, and although there is nothing equivalent to “sales data” to gauge message impact in “real time,” he has found there are some measurable interim “markers” on the path to behavior change. Tracking and measuring specific behavior-related attitudes or beliefs or pieces of knowledge over time can predict subsequent behavior changes. About 7 years ago, Rescue won a $150 million FDA youth tobacco prevention contract. These funds allowed the agency to increase in size from 50 to 150 employees in 3 years. Today, Rescue's 175 employees work out of 6 offices around the country. They serve government agencies and nonprofits in 30 states. Rescue creates programs for these organizations, but also has a library of campaigns that can be licensed. Over the years, Jeff has learned to say “no” to opportunities that are not right for his agency. Budgets that are too small can limit a campaign's success . . . . and blame for poor results will invariably fall on the agency . . . not on the tight budget. The smaller a client is, the more they tend to demand. Jeff has observed that agencies end up over-servicing smaller accounts to keep them, tie up senior personnel in servicing these smaller clients, and underservice their larger accounts. Jeff warns that really small accounts can hold an agency down. Jeff applauds the move away from condemning people who choose unhealthy behaviors and the increasingly broad awareness of underlying lifestyle situations that contribute to these behaviors. Jeff's agency attracts employees who want to do something good in their careers. He describes the agency as “responsibly rebellious,” and explains that is manifested in the way the agency encourages clients to take risks in a responsible way. Jeff can be reached on his company's website at: Rescueagency.com. The agency runs what Jeff describes as a “pretty robust YouTube Channel” at: youtube.com/rescueagency. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Jeff Jordan. He's the President and Executive Creative Director at Rescue: The Behavior Change Agency. Welcome to the podcast, Jeff. JEFF: Thanks so much, Rob. ROB: It's excellent to have you here. Why don't you kick us off by telling us – it's right there in the title, a little bit – Rescue: The Behavior Change Agency. But tell us a little bit about Rescue and where you excel. JEFF: We are a public health behavior change-focused agency. What that means is that we exclusively work for campaigns that strive to change health behaviors for social good. Almost all of our clients are public health departments, state and federal agencies. When we say behavior change, we refer to actually changing a fundamental behavior that a person is performing. So rather than changing what we would describe as a brand preference of someone who drives one car, changing them to drive a different brand of car, we're looking to change that fundamental behavior of actually driving the car and converting them to ride a bicycle instead. Or in other health arenas, things like quitting smoking or eating healthier, etc. ROB: Perfect. Is that something you've actually engaged in? Encouraging people to ride a bike instead of driving a car? JEFF: Not that one. [laughs] But it's an example people tend to understand. ROB: What are some examples, digging a little deeper, of campaigns? You mentioned smoking cessation. There's probably some other interesting things you've worked on. What are some examples? JEFF: We work from simple behaviors like quitting smoking or not using drugs or not vaping and things like that to more complex behaviors like healthy eating, where we're actually promoting specific types of foods, specific changes to what they eat, as well as mental health behaviors that are even more complicated – trying to get people to reduce stigma and recognize when to seek help, when to do something about the feelings they're having, and whatnot. ROB: Very interesting. You mentioned brand preference; in some cases, I think people think of brand preference as being kind of pliable. Maybe it is just as difficult to change as some health behaviors. How do you think about, or how do your clients even think about, measuring these behaviors over the long term? I imagine the feedback loop on one of your campaigns might be rather long in some cases, given the research required to gather those results. Or maybe there's something unexpected I'm not thinking of. JEFF: You're absolutely right. Behavior change, we usually say you need a couple years at least of consistent campaigning to really see a measurable change. Unfortunately, we don't have sales data to look at to see what's happening in real time, so we rely on self-reported surveys and things like that that either our clients perform or that we help them perform to see what people are saying about the behavior. You do have some interim steps that you can measure on the path to behavior change. Whatever your underlying theory is of what you think is changing in order to change the behavior, such as specific attitudes or beliefs or pieces of knowledge about a behavior, you can measure those, and then those can be pretty predictive of a behavior change later down the line. ROB: One benefit it seems like you might have in your industry – is the behavior change industry perhaps a little bit more open about what works and what doesn't than maybe some particular vertical market, like marketing soda or something? JEFF: I think it's a double-edged sword there. It's more open in the sense that you can survive on theory for a longer period of time. In the commercial world, you can have a great theory, but if it doesn't turn around sales in a quarter, you're kind of out of luck there. In public health, you can survive on theory for a few years. So that does allow you to explore more options. But that also allows bad work to remain for a long time. We see that there's a lot of mistakes and common pitfalls that clients fall into, usually when they work with traditional agencies, that just happen over and over again because it works to sell a product, but it doesn't work to change a fundamental behavior. ROB: What about openness in terms of tactics? In some cases you have organizations like the UK's famous – I may be misattributing it, but their Nudge Unit there. You have probably published research in some cases around behavioral change. How much of your work is synthesizing and adapting those things to a community and to availability of resources versus cooking up something completely out-of-the-box and new? JEFF: There's a lot of theory and approaches already within public health behavior change. I think the UK is interesting in that they tend to have movements that occur there within behavior change. 10-15 years ago, they were really social marketing, and then it switched to Nudge, and they seem to all move a little bit more cohesively, maybe because it's a smaller country. Here in the U.S., we don't see as much cohesiveness in the approaches. The latest and greatest CDC strategy or FDA strategy, those do have a big influence on the work, but a lot of states are making decisions for themselves and applying the theories and approaches that they're comfortable with – everything from states that might still be using hardcore scare tactics like the '90s in their drug prevention work, all the way to other states that are more open-minded in realizing things like adverse childhood experiences influence how people make decisions about risk behaviors later in life. That's something that the state of California is really looking at. You have a really wide range of approaches and comfort level with those approaches. One of the things that we have to do that is kind of unique to our industry is we often have to share some of that education and some of those case studies from other states with potential clients so that they can understand, these are your options. You don't have to just do the scare tactics. That's not the only thing out there, and actually it often doesn't really work. So, we have to be the experts not just in marketing itself, but in behavior change theory, psychology, sociology, all these things that go into it. ROB: It sounds like there's a difference of tactics, a difference of outcomes. Are you seeking cessation? Are you seeking some sort of treatment? Are you just seeking a reduction of use in something that is now legal in certain places? It sounds like you are able to pool that expertise and help – in the ways that many agencies are, but you don't think about it so much in public health – bring those best practices and learnings from other clients. That makes me want to pull back and dig in. You're in a very unique area of focus. I think we've done probably 120 or so episodes right now, and we have not been in a conversation with an agency owner who is in public health and behavioral change. You mentioned you've been in the agency, at least, for 20 years. Did you start off with that area of focus? How did Rescue come to be? JEFF: We are definitely a unique agency. I actually started the agency when I was in high school. I was a volunteer for my local health department's anti-tobacco program. That was a youth program. They worked with a local agency, and after volunteering for about a year, I noticed that the kids we were reaching, the teenagers we were appealing to, were not current smokers, and they were never going to be smokers, whether we existed or not. These were good kids. They were leaders. They wanted to put this on their college application. There was really no change I could see that we were causing, even though we were successful from the sense that there was a lot of youth involvement and we were doing a lot of things. Fortunately, we had an advisor at the health department that was also pretty savvy in terms of youth culture. I like to joke that she was a break dancer when she was in high school, and she was maybe 7 years older than me. So, she was still pretty connected with what high risk youth culture might look like versus low risk youth culture. I said, “Why are we spending all our money on these youth?” She was open to allowing me to move from being a volunteer to being a contractor to start to provide some of these services that would change who the program appealed to. That continued for the next year or so in high school, and very quickly we started to innovate in a way that just wasn't happening in public health, particularly with teens. That turned into a lot of referrals. While I was in college, we grew a lot through referrals and got our first office when I was in college and things like that. So, we really grew organically, and from Day 1 have been exclusively focused on public health. ROB: What does the team look like today? What are some of the scale points and key hires to where the team of the agency is now? JEFF: Today we have about 175 employees, six offices around the country. We are the largest marketing agency in San Diego, but most San Diego businesses can't hire us. [laughs] Our work, though, is spread around the country. We don't have a specific geographic footprint. There's not one place where our clients are clustered. We work with about 30 different states and with the federal government, with the FDA, as well as Veterans Affairs and others. Some of the big scale points that have occurred – there's been a few. The biggest one was about 7 years ago, when we were about 40 or 50 people at the time and we won a contract with the FDA to do youth tobacco prevention. That contract was a $150 million contract for an agency of 50 people. We very quickly grew thanks to that contract. We brought on our CEO, Kristin Carroll (who's still with us today), at that time, who helped us grow quickly. Within a matter of 3 years, we went from about 50 people to 150 people. But in that time, we've continued to grow with other clients as well. Some other notable wins are the California Department of Health's nutrition campaign as well as some other states that have brought on larger contracts. ROB: You mentioned that many San Diego businesses probably can't work with you. Does that reflect a change in the overall deal size that you've pursued? JEFF: No, no, that's just mainly because we don't do commercial marketing. You have to be a public health oriented campaign. We work with the local county health department, we work with the local school district, and we also work with the district attorney's office. So, we work with a lot of local government agencies, but we don't have any commercial customers here or anywhere else. ROB: I see. Once many agencies scale, and especially north of 100 people, I think a lot of times they become very focused on just the FDA size deals. How do you manage that different granularity of client size within one organization and not become really fixated on hitting those homeruns? JEFF: That has definitely been a problem of scaling up. There aren't that many FDA size deals in our space, so we're forced to continue our more modest deal size – which we're very happy with. But I think the biggest challenge that has occurred is being careful not to try and apply universal lessons to the entire agency. Some things that we do for our largest client don't necessarily apply to our smallest clients. We've gotten in trouble sometimes in starting to do things for our smaller clients the way we do it for our larger clients and then going over budget and overcomplicating things when they don't need to be. And vice versa, also making sure we don't get too simple with our biggest accounts. We have to operate in this limited budget standpoint for some of our accounts and then a more open budget to explore different things with our largest accounts. That's probably the biggest thing we have to remind ourselves of and be cautious with. Really, we're operating like two different agencies within one. ROB: We are chatting here right in the middle of the spring 2020 COVID-19 epidemic. How has that changed your mix of business? Do you have clients that are working within – do you have some stay home campaigns running and that sort of thing as well? I imagine any work you've done, you've had to learn very quickly. JEFF: Surprisingly, we haven't gotten into any stay at home work, mainly because we tend to focus on long-term campaigns so that we can measure these long-term changes. It does affect COVID because a lot of the reasons that people are passing away because of COVID is because of preexisting conditions that we're trying to prevent with some of our other behaviors. So in a way, they're all connected. But when there's an emergency like this, communications get out pretty quickly and go viral pretty quickly. You don't really need the traditional long-term campaign to figure it out. The one thing that has changed the most for us is the production of new creative and new messages. Right now we're focused almost exclusively on creating animated work and infographics and things like that. Our clients still want to produce the work, still want to put new messages out there. Right now, people are consuming media more than ever before, so we're still cranking away new stuff. ROB: That's excellent. Jeff, you've been at this for a little bit; you've built the largest agency in San Diego, which is quite a thing. What are some things that you've learned along this journey that you might do a little bit differently if you were starting Rescue all over again? JEFF: There's so many lessons you learn, but you almost need to learn them in order to grow from them. I think that one of the things that we learned was not to be afraid to say no to an opportunity if that's not the right opportunity. I have to teach this lesson to every new business development person we bring on or client service person we bring on. It might feel weird to say no to a small client, but keep in mind that if they don't have enough funds for us to do a good job, they won't blame the budget; they will blame us for not doing a good job. And without fail, the smaller the client, the more they ask for. Oftentimes I've seen a lot of agencies get stuck in this world where they are over-servicing smaller accounts to keep them and underservicing their larger accounts, and it's usually top-heavy. It's usually more senior people that are servicing these smaller accounts, who are now not able to go out there and pursue bigger work. So, you really have to be careful of the really small accounts holding you down. ROB: How do you think about positioning and communicating the scope with the small accounts so that their expectations are aligned? Or have you found it's hard to manage them and you just have to pick the right ones and let someone else have the ones that are going to ask for the full buffet for 5 bucks? JEFF: We definitely let someone else have those. [laughs] It's about being transparent upfront and saying, “Look, this is what it takes to do good work, and this is why. These are all the components that need to go into something.” We have found ways of being able to accept smaller accounts with different strategies. For example, something that's completely unique to our space is we actually license campaigns. We have about four different preexisting campaigns that governments can license from us and that are reused over and over again across the country. That has allowed us to open the door to some smaller – not the smallest, but some of the smaller accounts that don't have the funds to create new campaigns, but do have enough funds to implement a licensed campaigns. That's something that could never happen in the commercial world; no one would ever want to share anything. But in our space, the government loves to share, and they actually love the reduced risk that comes with knowing this has already run somewhere else. ROB: Right. I can see you coming with some results, and they can see what the campaign looks like out in the world. They can probably even go and visit and see in some other place how this campaign looks in the wild, which you can't do, to your point, for most businesses. Maybe you could get away with it in – I don't know, if you were just serving one lawyer per market, or one plumber, or something crazy like that. But even then, they probably wouldn't want to share. JEFF: Right, exactly. There's so many things that we do here because we are focused on this space that would just not be possible if we were a generalist agency. And that's part of our argument for potential new clients: look, you can hire your local ad agency that everyone has heard of that has done all the car dealerships and local banks and things like that, or you can hire a specialist in public health. What's going to happen if you hire a specialist in public health is you're going to get all this institutional knowledge about how public health marketing is different from commercial marketing and be able to be more effective, more efficient, and have all this research and tools at your disposal. ROB: Jeff, at 175 people, you're up above that 150-person Dunbar number that many people talk about as that maximum number of people you can be in relationship with, or people might phrase it differently. How have you thought about structuring, organizing, and persisting culture as you break through dozens and then triple digits and then over 150? JEFF: We had a pretty strong culture before I knew that company culture was a thing. It comes from the culture being embedded in the work. A lot of times, folks try to put this layer of culture on their organization that doesn't really have anything to do with anything. That's where culture tends to fail or feel shallow. Where culture is really strong and real is where it manifests through the work. For example, one piece of our culture is that we describe ourselves as “responsibly rebellious.” What that means is that we want to push our clients to take risks within a responsible way. That is manifest through a lot of decisions that we make for our clients, things that we present to our clients, ways that we approach how we work with our clients. Then, when we say that's a part of our culture, it's true. It is a part of our work. It's part of what we do. When we talk about being science-based, we have a giant in-house research team that does presentations for us that is then infused in the creative and in the strategy. So, I think the best way to maintain culture is to just have an identity that is real and that you truly apply every single time you do the work. ROB: It almost seems like some of the culture would be self-selecting. Not to say that people might not view Rescue as a very attractive place to work, but it seems like an odd company to sign up for unless you have a real interest in messages of public health and in helping people and helping communities. Do you find that in the interview process? JEFF: Yeah. This millennial generation that's now dominating our workforce, we are the ideal kind of company to work for. They want to cause social change. They want to have an impact, and we can allow them to have that impact. So, definitely the people that come in are people who have an interest in doing something good with their career. And that helps. Everybody in the agency wants to have a good outcome from that campaign on a deeper level than just simply delivering for a client. ROB: That makes sense. Jeff, what's coming up for Rescue that you are excited about? Or maybe it's even something in terms of either broad messages that you're seeing trends in, or even tactically? JEFF: One thing that's pretty exciting is that we're seeing a broad awakening of the underlying lifestyle situations that lead people to choose unhealthy behaviors. The best example of this is what's happening in California with the new – California has a Surgeon General for the first time, and she is focused on infusing adverse childhood experience understanding, which is this area of health research that talks about if you had these really, really big things happen to you when you were a kid – things like divorce or a parent dying or domestic violence or mental health in the family, these heavy things – those things set you on a trajectory to take on much higher risks later in life. And if you can embed an understanding of who people are and where they come from in your work, you can be more effective with these populations. So, an understanding of that, an understanding of mental health, an understanding that people don't do risky things in isolation. They do them from a complicated equation of everything that's happened in their life. That was just not existent for the past 20 years, particularly in things like drug and alcohol prevention, where it's like “people who use drugs are just making a bad choice, they're just stupid, they're just bad and they need to be told to stop doing bad things.” [laughs] That's just not how it works. It's really nice that a lot of public health is moving away from that perspective and instead moving towards a deeper understanding of the complexity of human identity. ROB: Absolutely. It brings to mind for me – you have a responsibility; the messages you're putting out there are not messages for any particular – you probably work with governments of every political party possible. JEFF: That's right. ROB: But we live in a world where – what you're saying even hearkens back to partisan politics. How do you think about putting messages out into the world that have to transcend politics and party? JEFF: I think we all suffer, across industries, across topics, from talking to ourselves and not understanding someone who's different. One of the things I like to say that I feel makes this so different is applied empathy. It's not just that we have more empathy than someone else, but that we actually apply that empathy to how we create our messages and can articulate, when we're going to create a campaign for rural men, why that campaign has to be so different from a campaign, for example, for African American women. What is different about their life experience, their attitudes, their worldview, their values that will change the way we communicate to them – but also change what we're saying. A great example of this is that we do a ton of tobacco prevention work, still, with teenagers, and you can talk to an alternative teen in an urban area who listens to rock and things like that – you can talk to them about the evilness of the tobacco industry and all the horrible things they've done, and they will get fired up. They'll say, “I don't want to support an industry that's destroying the world and manipulating people.” So, you can motivate them not to smoke just by talking about the tobacco industry to them. But then you take a rural teen, a country teen who maybe is a younger version of the right side of our political spectrum, and you talk to them about the tobacco industry and it just doesn't even faze them. They're like, “Well, that's their right as a company and you have the right to choose what you're going to do, whether you do that behavior or not. It's all about personal responsibility.” If you don't know that difference and if you don't know that they are processing information differently and caring about different things, then you're just speaking to yourself. You're just speaking about what you care about. And that can apply to so, so many different things. Within politics, its' so interesting to see people just yell within their bubbles about things that they care about and are baffled by why no one else cares about them or why the other side doesn't care. All you have to do is just spend a little bit of time on the other side and you'll understand why they don't care about what you're talking about. ROB: It's a great thought for all of us on meeting people where they are instead of where we think they are. Jeff, when the audience wants to get in touch with you and with Rescue, where should they look for you? Where should they find you? JEFF: Yeah, definitely. Rescueagency.com is our website. There's contact information there for different folks. But also, if you're just interested in what I was talking about and learning more about public health marketing and behavior change and things like that, we have a pretty robust YouTube channel, youtube.com/rescueagency. Lots of actual workshops and videos that we've done explaining our approach and research and some examples of the work. ROB: Perfect. Jeff, thank you for joining us. Thank you for the thoughtful work that you do. We're grateful for it, and look forward to a lot more of it in the future. Congrats on all the success. JEFF: Thank you. Thanks for having me on. ROB: Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

Today’s guest — Sector 5 Digital‘s Jeff Meisner — hopes to put grave robbers out of business, among other things. He pops in to talk to Alan about all the experiential learning experiences his company has developed, from digital cadavers to study anatomy, to the VR design process of Bell Helicopters. [Editor’s Note: due to an uploading error on my part, this episode was previously released last week with the wrong audio. We’re re-releasing today with the correct audio. We appreciate your understanding, and in particular, Jeff Meisner’s understanding in this matter – Chris, Podcast Editor] Alan: Hi, I’m Alan Smithson. And today, we’re speaking with Jeff Meisner, CEO of Sector 5 Digital, about their pioneering work on the Fantastic Journey Anatomy VR Ride, Fork Lift Training Simulator, and the work they did with Bell Helicopters, shortening design times from years to months. All of this and more on the XR for Business Podcast. Jeff, welcome to the show, my friend. Jeff: Thanks, Alan. Alan: I am super excited. So, Jeff, you are doing some incredible work at Sector 5. Let’s start with the Fantastic Journey Anatomy VR. Right. This just blows my mind. Jeff: Yeah. Yes. Just as a historical perspective on this, we’ve been working with this particular healthcare client for a couple of years now. And we started out initially doing a 3D digital cadaver, basically, that allowed them to do facial anatomy. And the company is in the business of doing injections into the face and hand. And so they needed a way to have safe areas so the injectors would have training. So we created a basic virtual training tool and that was initially in 3D, not in VR, but it was driven through our tablets and things like that. So it had kind of an AR component to it. Alan: You will learn in 3D dramatically better than even just on a 2D screen. Jeff: Yeah, exactly. And we actually did a conference which had over somewhere between 200-300 of their folks training with a massive 3D screen in front of them. So it was used as a training aid, and really now, it’s gone global. So it started initially in the U.S. and got picked up by this company, because they are a global company. And what they wanted to do was take that next step, if you will. And so We’re creating this, what we call a VR Fantastic Anatomy Journey. We’re going to be taking their folks through… well, if you know what Fantastic [Voyage] is —- as most people do — but taking them through the human body. So you’re going to have a really cool edutainment-type experience, whereby you're going to be on somewhat of a of a VR roller coaster, although it being through the body, we’re going to be adding some elements of teaching at various points. So it’ll stop and you’ll be asked questions. It’s really, the major focus is to be very much a learning experience. But one of the things we’re finding —- and I know you are too, Alan —- is if you make it fun or people, it becomes a much more memorable experience and they want to do it again and again. We’re combining kind of that gaming-type element, if you will, but with actual data and experience, to make it something that their injectors are going to be learning from, and not just the entertainment element. Alan: When you guys started rolling out the 3D digital cadaver, how are they measuring against baseline? So, what was their baseline learning before? Just a textbook? Or..? Jeff: No, they were actually using “live” cadavers, and cadavers — and this may sound a little gruesome — but they’re somewhat h

Today’s guest — Sector 5 Digital‘s Jeff Meisner — hopes to put grave robbers out of business, among other things. He pops in to talk to Alan about all the experiential learning experiences his company has developed, from digital cadavers to study anatomy, to the VR design process of Bell Helicopters. [Editor’s Note: due to an uploading error on my part, this episode was previously released last week with the wrong audio. We’re re-releasing today with the correct audio. We appreciate your understanding, and in particular, Jeff Meisner’s understanding in this matter – Chris, Podcast Editor] Alan: Hi, I’m Alan Smithson. And today, we’re speaking with Jeff Meisner, CEO of Sector 5 Digital, about their pioneering work on the Fantastic Journey Anatomy VR Ride, Fork Lift Training Simulator, and the work they did with Bell Helicopters, shortening design times from years to months. All of this and more on the XR for Business Podcast. Jeff, welcome to the show, my friend. Jeff: Thanks, Alan. Alan: I am super excited. So, Jeff, you are doing some incredible work at Sector 5. Let’s start with the Fantastic Journey Anatomy VR. Right. This just blows my mind. Jeff: Yeah. Yes. Just as a historical perspective on this, we’ve been working with this particular healthcare client for a couple of years now. And we started out initially doing a 3D digital cadaver, basically, that allowed them to do facial anatomy. And the company is in the business of doing injections into the face and hand. And so they needed a way to have safe areas so the injectors would have training. So we created a basic virtual training tool and that was initially in 3D, not in VR, but it was driven through our tablets and things like that. So it had kind of an AR component to it. Alan: You will learn in 3D dramatically better than even just on a 2D screen. Jeff: Yeah, exactly. And we actually did a conference which had over somewhere between 200-300 of their folks training with a massive 3D screen in front of them. So it was used as a training aid, and really now, it’s gone global. So it started initially in the U.S. and got picked up by this company, because they are a global company. And what they wanted to do was take that next step, if you will. And so We’re creating this, what we call a VR Fantastic Anatomy Journey. We’re going to be taking their folks through… well, if you know what Fantastic [Voyage] is —- as most people do — but taking them through the human body. So you’re going to have a really cool edutainment-type experience, whereby you’re going to be on somewhat of a of a VR roller coaster, although it being through the body, we’re going to be adding some elements of teaching at various points. So it’ll stop and you’ll be asked questions. It’s really, the major focus is to be very much a learning experience. But one of the things we’re finding —- and I know you are too, Alan —- is if you make it fun or people, it becomes a much more memorable experience and they want to do it again and again. We’re combining kind of that gaming-type element, if you will, but with actual data and experience, to make it something that their injectors are going to be learning from, and not just the entertainment element. Alan: When you guys started rolling out the 3D digital cadaver, how are they measuring against baseline? So, what was their baseline learning before? Just a textbook? Or..? Jeff: No, they were actually using “live” cadavers, and cadavers — and this may sound a little gruesome — but they’re somewhat h

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Jeff Lindsay on the Crime Cafe podcast. Read along with the podcast or, if you're in a rush, download a copy of the show notes here. Debbi:   Hi everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense and thriller writing. I'm your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two ebooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website, debbimack.com, under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book, if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so. Debbi: Hi, everyone. I'm thrilled to have with me today, the creator of my favorite serial killer, or at least one of them, Dexter Morgan, and he now has a new book out called Just Watch Me featuring his new protagonist Riley Wolfe. I just finished it and it's great, and my guest today is New York Times bestselling author, Jeff Lindsay. Jeff, it's wonderful to have you on. Jeff: Well, it's great to be had. Thank you very much. Debbi: Thank you very much. Tell us about Riley Wolfe and what prompted you to write this book. Jeff: Riley Wolfe is a master thief, maybe the best in the world. And the thing about him is for Riley, it's not about the money, it's about the challenge. He had a sort of traumatic childhood that made him grow up with two really overwhelming compulsions. And the first is to steal things that are impossible to steal. It just can't be done. And the second is, if possible, to steal them from the 1%. He has a real deep seated grudge, almost a hatred for the hereditary entitled people who just, in his mind, wallow in the money and sort of walk on everybody else with their ingrained privilege. So, it came because I wanted to do a new series and quite honestly I sort of needed to. And it was what we like to call a job of work there. I had to go through a lot of different changes, a lot of evolution. And I started with a conman and I realized that it'd be more interesting to make it someone that uses being a conman as a tool rather than an end. And so Riley Wolfe has those skills and he has an incredible skill for disguises and dialects and accents, but he uses those to get inside where you would think no one could go and steal things from the 1% that can't be taken. "Riley Wolfe is a master thief, maybe the best in the world. And the thing about him is for Riley, it's not about the money, it's about the challenge. " Debbi: Very interesting. I don't know if you did this consciously or unconsciously or if there's even a relationship, but there was part of what I saw in Riley was the Saint actually. Jeff: What's the what? Debbi: The Saint, if you're familiar with the character, the Saint. Jeff: No, I'm not. I'm sorry. Debbi: Oh, well that's, you should familiarize yourself with that character. Jeff: No, then people would say I was stealing. Debbi: Well, we don't want that. But it just reminds me of that, that mentality, that whole ability to transform themselves and then doing things just for whatever personal reason and having a deprived childhood also. Jeff: Well, so far I've also been compared to Les Mis and a couple of other things. So I guess I'm used to it. Debbi: Well, it's a very interesting psychological makeup on this character, and I have to say that he's capable of doing some really nasty things when he has to, which would make him awfully hard to like if you didn't know his backstory. So what did you do? I mean, what sort of research did you do to get into his backstory? Jeff: Well, I worked with a psychologist and I came up with a couple of basic things about him and ran them past her, and then she helped me refine it and bring it to a point. I don't know, every writer who is any good at all is at least part ...

Show Notes Jeff: Welcome back to EMplify, the podcast corollary to EB Medicine’s Emergency Medicine Practice. I’m Jeff Nusbaum and I’m back with Nachi Gupta. Nachi: For our regular listeners, you probably noticed a lapse in recent episodes as we pulled away from our usual monthly releases. Jeff: With both of us having increasing demands on our time -- myself with business school and the busiest 21 month old in the world and Nachi with yet another entrepreneurial endeavor on the horizon -- we decided that it would be best to pass the podcast on to another host, so EMplify can continue to create and deliver the high quality materials that you deserve. Nachi: We have obviously really enjoyed creating this podcast and working closely with EB Medicine to produce it. We are deeply appreciative of you, our listeners, and your wonderful feedback and comments over the years. Without you, there would be no point in us working so hard on this. Jeff: And keep the feedback coming as we hand the reins to Dr. Sam Ashoo as the new host of EMplify. Dr. Ashoo is an Emergency Physician based out of Tallahassee Florida with a keen interest in informatics who has been featured on several other podcasts you may have heard. We can’t think of a better person to take over for EMplify. I’m sure you’ll really like him and the content he produces. Well, with that, let’s get started on our final scheduled episode of EMplify! Nachi: As we are just about to see one of the busiest travel days of the year, that would be the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we thought there would be no better time to discuss the September 2019 issue of EMP: Assisting With Air Travel Medical Emergencies: Responsibilities and Pitfalls. Jeff: This was a fantastic issue, thanks to the hard work by Drs. DeLaney and Greene, both of the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Medicine. Thanks as well to the peer editors, Dr. Knight, and Dr. Hill of the University of Cincinnati. Nachi: And I think you have a bit of a disclosure for this month... Show More v Jeff: Well, this is a first! Finally at the point in my career where I can announce a disclosure, though it’s more of a potential conflict of interest than an actual disclosure, but certainly still worth noting. I currently spend some of my time working for STAT-MD - which is an airline consultation service run by the Center for Emergency Medicine and UPMC. Though I’m certainly a junior member of the team, in some sense, I’ve responded nearly 500 inflight emergencies over the last two years. Nachi: And this definitely places you are in a particularly nice position to share some information with our listeners this month, and I’ll have some questions scattered throughout the episode for you too. Jeff: Sounds great, so let’s dive in, starting with what I think is the most important point - qualified, active, licensed, and sober providers should volunteer to assist in the event of a medical emergency rather than decline out of fear of medicolegal concerns. Nachi: I couldn’t agree more, so let me reiterate, please trust the evidence. And volunteer to help should you hear the call. We’ll get to this in a bit but there is little medicolegal concern and you owe it to the sick passenger to help. Jeff: So what are the chances you are called - well, they are not particularly high, but certainly not negligible either. In 2019, of the 4 billion passengers expected to fly, there will be an estimated 60,000 medical emergencies. That means there will be about 1 emergency per every 604 flights. Nachi: So, I fly about 4 times a month for work. At 4 times per month, over the next 12 years I can expect about one medical emergency. Already excited! Let’s start with some physiology. Cabin pressurization varies, but is typically equivalent to an altitude of 8000 feet. Jeff: And this has a huge effect, in one study of healthy volunteers, this change in pressure resulted in a 4-10 point decrease in oxygen saturation and a 35 point drop in arterial oxygen partial pressure from 95 mm Hg to 60. Nachi: In another study of healthy volunteers on a long haul flight, this change caused 7% of passengers to report symptoms consistent with acute altitude illness. Jeff: Due to the principles of Boyle’s law, decreased cabin pressure also causes expansion of gases within anatomical spaces in the body such as the eye, GI tract, sinuses, middle ear, etc. This expansion can potentially threaten surrounding structures. Nachi: So there must be guidelines for those recent post-op for flying - right? Jeff: There certainly are, but I don’t think we need to get into the weeds on this one since nobody listening will likely be doing pre-flight screenings. I think one thing to remember here, is that though cabins are pressurized to several thousand feet, they CAN be pressurized even further if necessary. The airlines don’t do this because it takes a tremendous quantity of fuel to do so, but if pressurization will defer a diversion, this option may peak their interest. Though an anecdote, the only time I’ve ever suggested it is on a flight from someone recent post-op eye surgery who went blind midflight. We pressurized the cabin from 8000 to 4000 and then finally to sea level and his vision returned. Pretty cool stuff. But getting back to the text, next we have air quality. Only 50% of inflight air is recirculated, all of the flow is compartmentalized between sections of rows, and all the air is run through a HEPA filter. The authors note that the air is actually comparable to that of an operating room. Nachi: Then why are people always getting sick after flying…? Jeff: Well it’s hard to prove, but experts believe that most post flight respiratory illnesses are likely caused by exposure to fomites on high-risk surfaces of airplanes and in airports - like the trays on the seat back. Nachi: Interesting. Jeff: It’s also worth noting that the air is quite dry, though this is unlikely to produce any clinically significant events. Most of the dehydration that occurs is more likely due to inadequate water intake and excess caffeine and alcohol consumption depending on the time of day. Nachi: Don’t judge. Even though it may be 8 am, some of our night shift locums friends may prefer an airport cocktail after a long week away. Jeff: Oh I’m definitely not judging, facts only over here. Anyway, let’s move on to a little epidemiology. Nachi: Syncope and cardiac events account for a large proportion of in-flight emergencies, with cardiac events accounting for the largest percentage of diversions. Jeff: Gi, endocrine and respiratory emergencies follow syncope and cardiac events, with specific percentages varying based on which study you look at. Nachi: Thankfully obstetric emergencies are relatively rare, accounting for less than 0.1% of all emergencies. Jeff: Trauma and substance abuse related complaints have also been reported, but represent only a small percentage of inflight emergencies. Nachi: I think that covers the main pathologies you may encounter. Next we should touch upon the actual responders. Physicians reportedly respond 44% of the time, followed by nurses at 20% and EMS providers at about 4%. Interestingly, despite physicians being there only 44% of the time, they were involved in the care for over 70% of diversions. Jeff: It might seem crazy, but that’s definitely my experience. Many physicians, especially non-ED physicians are not familiar with caring for the acutely ill. Additionally, most physicians are very uncomfortable actually witnessing someone syncopize and then immediately checking vitals and finding the passenger to be bradycardic and hypotensive as is the case with many patients immediately after a vasovagal syncopal episode. I cannot tell you how many times we get called by pilots considering diversion based on a physician’s request only to have the symptoms completely resolve in just 10 minutes. Be patient, this is a common in flight pathology. Nachi: Your experience has not failed you - data from your own group showed that 31% of cases resolved before arrival. Even in cases where EMS was requested, patients were only transported 37% of the time and of those, only 8% were actually admitted for further work up. Death is also a very rare phenomenon, occurring in only 0.3% of cases. Jeff: Alright, so let’s move onto the actual logistics of responding. Each airline has its own protocols and policies with respect to medical responders - some will require credentials, others may not. In some instances, you may be the first responder, in others, the flight crew may have already been in contact with their ground based medical control. Nachi: In terms of supplies, the FAA requires an emergency medical kit and an AED on all commercial flights. These kits cannot be opened without direction from a medical professional on the ground or on board. Jeff: And while airlines may add additional drugs at their discretion, the FAA mandates certain supplies. You can remember these supplies by thinking of the 5 A’s - asthma, allergy, altered mental status, ACS, and ACLS. The 5 As should help you remember the bronchodilators, epinephrine, antihistamine, dextrose, nitroglycerine, aspirin, and lidocaine as the one antiarrhythmic available. Of course, there are also gloves, an IV start kit, and a few other basic supplies. Nachi: AEDs are also required and have been since 2001 and amazingly when a shock was delivered in flight, 40% survived to hospital discharge with a good outcome. Jeff: Just as on the ground, shockable rhythms do well with good BLS care. And lastly, airlines also have a portable oxygen tank in addition to the emergency oxygen that is stored in the event of cabin depressurization. The exact quantity varies, but portable cylinders are certainly available. Nachi: So next we have to talk about a topic that I’m sure many of you have wondered about - what are the medico-legal risks of intervening? Jeff: As with most incidents of concern over medico-legal risk, we really just shouldn’t be too concerned over the potential legal ramifications. Though we’ll get into specifics, the short answer is that you should definitely volunteer your services - there are lots of protections in place with a paucity of case reports of legal actions against medical volunteers who volunteers in flight. Nachi: Perhaps most importantly, remember that ultimately the captain is in charge and you are functioning in a strict advisory capacity. Remember that most airlines can handle most emergencies with their ground based medical control, their typical staff, and predefined protocols - you are an added bonus. Jeff: For many ED providers, functioning as a consultant will be unfamiliar. Nachi: If I’m a consultant, I’m going to demand a WBC before seeing the patient, as I’m fairly certain that’s rule number 1 in consultant school... Jeff: It’s actually rule #12, now get out of your seat and come see the patient…. But back to medicolegal issues. In the US, health care professions are protected by the good Samaritan law and the 1998 federal aviation medical assistance act. Nachi: The Good Samaritan law provides legal protection to medical providers who perform their services in response to medical emergencies outside of the hospital. The exact verbiage of the law differs from state to state, but all 50 states have some version of it in their legislation. Jeff: Similarly the aviation medical assistance act applies to “medically qualified individuals and offers broad medico-legal protection to the airlines in the event that a medical volunteer is accused of malpractice as well as to medical providers who respond to an in-flight emergency.” Nachi: More specifically, the act states that “...an individual shall not be liable for damages arising out of the acts or omissions of the individual in providing or attempting to provide assistance in the case of an in-flight medical emergency unless the individual, while rendering such assistance, is guilty of gross negligence or willful misconduct.” Jeff: That’s a bit of a mouth full to get out. But basically, you need to remember that the AMAA protects you from everything shy of gross negligence. Because of this, there have been no reports to date of a medical professional falling below that standard. Nachi: There is one caveat to all of this though: don’t forget about your own mental status - for example if you have taken any sleeping aids or had any alcoholic drinks. Though this may not preclude you completely from rendering care, do so only with extreme caution. Jeff: And I don’t think we were clear enough about this up front. Up until this point we have mostly talked about US based flights. Flights run by International airlines are a somewhat different ball game for a number of reasons. First, medication kits will vary widely. Many will carry medications similar to those mandated by the FDA, but there certainly is no international standard. Next, the availability of ground based medical consultation is similarly widely variable, with many in the middle east contracting for this service and almost no airlines in Africa offering such services. Nachi: And lastly, with respect to legal risk - the international laws also vary widely. According to French law, for example, a French physician who does not volunteer may be committing willful negligence. Similar laws exist in Germany, Australia, and Canada. However proving you were there and refused to provide care would be quite difficult. And lastly, it’s unclear how to determine which countries’ laws apply when - for example, is it the sending country’s laws, the receiving country’s laws, or the country whose airspace you are currently in? Jeff: All excellent points. Next, we are moving to my favorite topic of the article - diversion. This is a tremendously complicated topic and I think the authors handled it quite well. Remember, the decision to divert is multifactorial and you are only there to communicate your medical opinion about the passenger - leave the decision for diversion up to the flight crew. I cannot stress this enough. Getting on the radio with the pilot and ground based medical control and demanding a diversion is often very unhelpful and simply not the right approach and can really be quite costly. Nachi: All of this is so interesting. I can’t believe you do this and divert planes.... Can you go into a bit more detail about everything the pilot considers when they are deciding to divert? Jeff: So there’s quite a bit, but I can touch on some of the main considerations. First, you have to consider the medical needs of the passenger - can he or she be temporized to get to the destination? Is there a suitable airport for diversion with an accessible local hospital with the required resources? Logistically, you need to find an airport that can not only safely accommodate the plane you are on but also one in which the airline can refuel and guarantee that the passengers and crew are safe. Remember, if you are on an A380, there are only so many airports with runways long enough for a safe landing. Fun fact: planes also take off heavy - with tons of fuel that will be burned prior to landing. Say you were to take off from London, bound for the US. To turn around and land back at London Heathrow, you may have to literally dump thousands of gallons of fuel to get the plane to a safe weight for landing. Alternatively, you may have to fly in circles for some time to burn fuel off in planes that cannot dump. A heavy landing necessitates a thorough maintenance overhaul of the landing gear and can cost the airlines not only money but significant time, which is equally as valuable. Nachi: Speaking of cost - while exact costs are unknown, one airline estimates that the cost can be as high as $600,000 - we are not dealing with small numbers here... Jeff: No definitely not. That’s why it’s so frustrating when medical volunteers demand the plane divert without talking through the medical scenario with the crew and ground based control - often temporizing measures are adequate. Nachi: And we alluded to this earlier - Physicians advise diversion more frequently at 9% of the time followed by EMS providers and nurses. When the airlines are left to their own means, they divert at rates roughly half that - just 5% of the time. At half a million dollars for some diversions, and an overall very low level of morbidity and mortality, a 50% reduction amounts to massive savings for possibly no clinical difference. Jeff: I can’t stress this enough - you are a consultant, helping the captain and the ground based medical control to come to most appropriate plan of action. When your advice causes the airlines to deviate from their standard protocols, that’s where they potentially run into trouble. Nachi: There are just two controversies to discuss this month and I actually think they are extremely pertinent. The first one relates to using personal medication or medications from other passengers. Given the relative paucity of medications in most airline medical kits, it may occur to you that someone else may have a helpful medication on board. While there is no strict rule against this, it could result in an increased level of scrutiny if there is an adverse event. So consider this a last resort. Jeff: The next controversy to discuss is the issue of gifts. There is a widespread belief that accepting gifts from the airlines would void legal protections. To date, there is ample airline-based data to suggest that medical providers’ legal protections are not negated in the event that the airlines wanted to reward a medical volunteer. Additionally, there are no reported cases of providers losing legal protection for receiving compensation for their services in flight. Nachi: Interestingly, some international carriers even offer points or other bonuses for registering as a medical volunteer. While I’m hesitant to call this controversy a myth, it seems like there isn’t much evidence to support it. Jeff: Agreed, don’t expect a gift, but if you do receive one, you can keep it and enjoy it without concern for your legal protections. Nachi: Alright so that wraps up the new material for this special edition of EMplify - let’s close out with some key points and clinical pearls. Jeff: Aircraft cabins are typically pressurized to about 8000 ft, resulting in a 4-10 point drop in oxygen saturation in healthy adults as well myalgias, fatigue, and generalized discomfort on long haul flights. Nachi: Only 50% of the cabin air is recirculated. When recirculated, it is subjected to HEPA filtration, which is adequate to prevent infection by airborne pathogens but not the infectious respiratory viruses, which are spread by droplets. Jeff: Dehydration on long flights is likely due to inadequate water intake and the increased use of diuretics such as caffeine and alcohol. Nachi: There is about 1 in-flight emergency per 11,000 passengers or 1 in 604 flights. Syncope and cardiac events are most common followed by GI, respiratory, and neurologic events. Jeff: Most in-flight emergencies are minor. When EMS is requested upon arrival, roughly 1/3rd are transported and less than 10% are admitted, with mortality estimated at 0.3% of cases. Nachi: AEDs are required on all US-based flights. Jeff: Airlines have a limited supply of supplemental oxygen for use in medical emergencies in addition to that provided to the entire plane in the event the cabin becomes depressurized Nachi: All US airlines have some form of ground-based medical assistance. Ultimately any decisions are the responsibility of the pilot in command – medical volunteers function in a strictly advisory capacity. Jeff: Medical volunteers are protected by both the Good Samaritan law and the 1998 Aviation Medical Assistance Act. Nachi: The Aviation Medical Assistance Act protects medically qualified individuals, unless they are guilty of gross negligence or willful misconduct. Jeff: International laws and protections vary widely. In some European countries, for a physician to not offer their services during an in-flight emergency may constitute willful negligence. Nachi: The decision to divert is multifactorial and can cost as much as $600,000 in some circumstances. Jeff: When physicians and EMS providers respond to in-flight emergencies, diversion rates are nearly double that of when the airlines work solely with their ground based support, increasing diversion events from 5% to 9%. Nachi: It is largely a myth that accepting any gift or payment after responding to an in-flight emergency would void your legal protections; the AMAA has no language regarding compensation and to date there are no such reported cases of lost legal protection. Jeff: And that’s the end of this months episode of EMplify: Assisting With Air Travel Medical Emergencies. This also marks the end of our run as your hosts. Over the past 3 years, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed hosting EMplify and having the unique opportunity to share high quality evidence based medicine with you all. As health care continues to move towards a quality over quantity paradigm, understanding evidence based practice will be increasingly more important. Nachi: We thank you all for giving us your ears and your time to help hone your clinical practice. Naturally, a big thanks also goes out to all of the contrubutors to Emergency Medicine Practice -- authors, peer reviewers, and of course the kind and thoughtful staff at EB Medicine. Jeff: We have no doubt that Dr. Ashoo, who will be taking over, will keep you on the edge of your seat as he brings new material to you. Couldn’t be more excited to have him as our successor. Nachi: As always, additional materials are available on our website for Emergency Medicine Practice subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber, consider joining today. You can find out more at ebmedicine.net/subscribe. Subscribers get in-depth articles on hundreds of emergency medicine topics, concise summaries of the articles, calculators and risk scores, and CME credit. You’ll also get enhanced access to the podcast, including any images and tables mentioned. PA’s and NP’s - make sure to use the code APP4 at checkout to save 50%. Jeff: The [DING SOUND] you heard throughout the episode corresponds to the answers to the CME questions. Lastly, be sure to find us on iTunes and rate us or leave comments there. You can also email us directly at EMplify@ebmedicine.net.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: So, Jeff, we're talking about your trip down the Amazon, and so you took a truck to the Amazon and then you got a canoe. You got on a canoe. Can you talk about your journey down the Amazon?Jeff: The Amazon... What people think of the Amazon is a beautiful river with a nice green jungle and lots of animals, and it's not like that. It's not a beautiful place. It was... the river was muddy and dirty. It looked like coffee. The side of the river, the side of the Amazon was very overgrown and full of mosquitos and black flies. We didn't see any wild animals because the canoe was just a long, thin wooden canoe piled high with things like rice and food other materials that the villagers needed and it had an outboard motor that was very noisy, so it wasn't romantic at all, the ideas of the Amazon river, and the beauty and the adventure. It was difficult and dirty and hot and dangerous, so it wasn't romantic at all.Todd: It doesn't sound like it. Where did you stay as you would go down? Would you sleep on the canoe?Jeff: No. Every night they would stop at a little village, and it was just made out of little village, a little cluster of bamboo thatched houses just on the side of the river. They'd clear a little spot out of the jungle and then they'd have a, say a dozen bamboo houses there and we'd sleep say on the floor of one of their houses in our sleeping bags.Todd: Were these houses made especially for travellers?Jeff: No, no. There were no travelers. There's no houses for travelers. These are just with the villagers. There's no restaurants or no hotels. There are no internet cafes. Half the villages didn't have power, so it was real basic village life.Todd: Wow!

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: So, Jeff, we're talking about your trip down the Amazon, and so you took a truck to the Amazon and then you got a canoe. You got on a canoe. Can you talk about your journey down the Amazon?Jeff: The Amazon... What people think of the Amazon is a beautiful river with a nice green jungle and lots of animals, and it's not like that. It's not a beautiful place. It was... the river was muddy and dirty. It looked like coffee. The side of the river, the side of the Amazon was very overgrown and full of mosquitos and black flies. We didn't see any wild animals because the canoe was just a long, thin wooden canoe piled high with things like rice and food other materials that the villagers needed and it had an outboard motor that was very noisy, so it wasn't romantic at all, the ideas of the Amazon river, and the beauty and the adventure. It was difficult and dirty and hot and dangerous, so it wasn't romantic at all.Todd: It doesn't sound like it. Where did you stay as you would go down? Would you sleep on the canoe?Jeff: No. Every night they would stop at a little village, and it was just made out of little village, a little cluster of bamboo thatched houses just on the side of the river. They'd clear a little spot out of the jungle and then they'd have a, say a dozen bamboo houses there and we'd sleep say on the floor of one of their houses in our sleeping bags.Todd: Were these houses made especially for travellers?Jeff: No, no. There were no travelers. There's no houses for travelers. These are just with the villagers. There's no restaurants or no hotels. There are no internet cafes. Half the villages didn't have power, so it was real basic village life.Todd: Wow!

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: So, Jeff, we're talking about your trip across the Amazon. So you met this guy, this Russian guy, who was going to go with you across the Amazon, and you were in Lima, Peru, so how does your journey start?Jeff: The beginning of the journey is we had to get a truck. We had to get in a truck and the roads are terrible. They're not really roads. They're dirt tracks, and because it was monsoon season, the roads were really bad - just muddy and deep mud and the rivers were overflowing across the road so... there's no buses. There are no cars. So we had to get in the back of a big truck, a logging truck, and the Russian guy and myself and say twenty peasants, Inca Indian peasants, rode in the back of the truck down the... through the Andes Mountains and then down the backside of the Andes Mountains for four days in the back of this truck.Todd: That must have been so uncomfortable.Jeff: Oh, it was terribly uncomfortable, and it was raining quite often during the day, so you had to pull a big piece of plastic over the back of the truck, so it was dark and wet and damp and hot and humid and the road was bumpy and the truck got stuck many times, and it was... yeah it was a real adventure.Todd: That was for four days?Jeff: Four days, yeah. Yep. Yep. And you'd sleep in the truck overnight, and yeah, you just... everyone had big bags of food with them so they could eat along the way cause there's no restaurants. Yeah, it was interesting.Todd: So, in this rough beginning to the trip, did you start to think maybe you wanted not do it, postpone it and go back?Jeff: No, I never thought that. I like that kind of challenge and adventure but you just wonder how difficult it's going to get because each day gets a little more difficult and then the truck gets in really deep mud and you wonder can we get out of this? Are we going to have to start walking and maybe wait for another truck to come along and climb into that truck, so you never... I didn't want to go back, but you just.... it's great suspense cause you never know what's going to happen on a trip like that.Todd: And then the truck took you all the way to the beginning of the Amazon.Jeff: Yep. It was a transport truck so it had supplies and it was going to the... to a little town at the Amazon River and then from there we transferred into a canoe, a wooden canoe and the canoe would take the supplies into the little villages along the Amazon River.Todd: Amazing.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: So, Jeff, we're talking about your trip across the Amazon. So you met this guy, this Russian guy, who was going to go with you across the Amazon, and you were in Lima, Peru, so how does your journey start?Jeff: The beginning of the journey is we had to get a truck. We had to get in a truck and the roads are terrible. They're not really roads. They're dirt tracks, and because it was monsoon season, the roads were really bad - just muddy and deep mud and the rivers were overflowing across the road so... there's no buses. There are no cars. So we had to get in the back of a big truck, a logging truck, and the Russian guy and myself and say twenty peasants, Inca Indian peasants, rode in the back of the truck down the... through the Andes Mountains and then down the backside of the Andes Mountains for four days in the back of this truck.Todd: That must have been so uncomfortable.Jeff: Oh, it was terribly uncomfortable, and it was raining quite often during the day, so you had to pull a big piece of plastic over the back of the truck, so it was dark and wet and damp and hot and humid and the road was bumpy and the truck got stuck many times, and it was... yeah it was a real adventure.Todd: That was for four days?Jeff: Four days, yeah. Yep. Yep. And you'd sleep in the truck overnight, and yeah, you just... everyone had big bags of food with them so they could eat along the way cause there's no restaurants. Yeah, it was interesting.Todd: So, in this rough beginning to the trip, did you start to think maybe you wanted not do it, postpone it and go back?Jeff: No, I never thought that. I like that kind of challenge and adventure but you just wonder how difficult it's going to get because each day gets a little more difficult and then the truck gets in really deep mud and you wonder can we get out of this? Are we going to have to start walking and maybe wait for another truck to come along and climb into that truck, so you never... I didn't want to go back, but you just.... it's great suspense cause you never know what's going to happen on a trip like that.Todd: And then the truck took you all the way to the beginning of the Amazon.Jeff: Yep. It was a transport truck so it had supplies and it was going to the... to a little town at the Amazon River and then from there we transferred into a canoe, a wooden canoe and the canoe would take the supplies into the little villages along the Amazon River.Todd: Amazing.

In today's podcast Mason chats to Jeff Chilton. Jeff has been working in the medicinal mushroom industry since 1973 and is an absolute specialist in his field. Jeff is the founder of Nammex, the leading supplier of organic mushroom extracts in the world today. With over 40 years of mushroom growing experience, Jeff was one of the first people to bring mushroom extracts to the North American market. All you medicinal mushroom nerds out there make sure you catch this episode, Jeff is a deep reservoir of knowledge and insight!   The gents wax lyrical over: The ins and outs of mushroom harvesting. The difference between products made from mushroom mycelium as opposed to their fruiting body.  Cordyceps Cs-4. The inferior nature of grain grown medicinal mushroom products. The nature of the medicinal mushroom industry at large, and what to look out for in regards to quality and authenticity. Following your passion in business. Retaining your integrity in the mushroom industry. Polysaccharides and betaglucans. China as a superior source Who is Jeff Chilton ?   Resources  Q: How Can I Support The SuperFeast Podcast?   A: Tell all your friends and family and share online! We’d also love it if you could subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes. Or  check us out on Stitcher :)! Plus  we're on Spotify and Soundcloud!   Check Out The Transcript Here: Time to talk tonic herbalism people. Maybe some medicinal mushrooms and philosophy for longevity, so pour yourself a tonic and get ready to get super human, baby. Let's start the show!   Mason: Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Got one that, I've been really looking forward to doing this interview. Jeff Chilton, I'll go into a little breakdown now, rather than just jumping ahead to why I'm really into his work. He's been in the mushroom industry since 1973. When it comes to mushroom cultivation, back then, he was really pioneering. Especially, a lot of the mushrooms that we have available today via cultivation in the west.   Mason: He had a lot to do with the developing the manufacturing of those. Then in 1989, switched over to the manufacturing of medicinal mushroom extract, so he's OG in this medicinal mushroom world. There was no real trending back then. And I, like him, we met two years ago at a herbal symposium in Oregon. That's when I really ... super aware of him and just how he was just via just his own integrity and just educating the market.   Mason: He became this internal watchdog of the industry. Just in the sense of just calling out real bad practices that are going on in the medicinal mushroom industry, and still today, and educating people, so you can spot a product on the market which is telling fibs, and really doesn't have the good stuff that we have all come to know and love about medicinal mushrooms.   Mason: So NAMMEX is his company, also Real Mushrooms, and I love the fact that we can sit down as colleagues, offering medicinal mushrooms, having more at it from the Taoist perspective and Jeff just rocking gin that specialization of mushrooms and especially being such an originator of the entire industry. I really love to be able to sit down, talk with him and ask him about the history, especially he's really been shining in educating people about the difference between growing medicinal mushrooms on wood and on mycelium. And we dive into nuances of that.   Mason: Basically we talk about the industry and we talk about setting up relationships in China and just how amazing it is to be able to source really incredible, the most high quality mushrooms that you're gonna be able to get in the world outside of a wild cultivated situation. Where we are talking about medicinal qualities. Getting those from China and being able to educate people about the beauty of getting them from China. We talk a little bit about that.   Mason: Also what it's taken for us to develop the relationships with growers and farmers and so I think you'll find it really interesting hearing me from 2011, Jeff from 1989 really navigating the difference in our stories. As well we go into organic because Jeff has pioneered in getting the first certified organic mushroom supplement in the US which is really amazing. We go a little bit into that, I share my two cents on where I see organic is at. More so the reason why I like Jeff is because he's not like most companies that just think the be all and end all is paying for this little sticker, jumping through a couple of hurdles and getting the sticker on your product.   Mason: But what we call going beyond organic. And Jeff does that with the organic certification and I share my two cents on where I'm at with that whole thing. But mostly just how much I love that he's non-stop out there educating people. Not just trying to flog a product, not just trying to grow this crazy big business. But I think that's kind of inevitably happening, it's just a nice slow growth of a business. Because it has a lot of trust and it has a lot of consistency in its messaging. And we talk a lot about that and have a lot of laughs and get a couple of stories about the history of the mushroom kingdom and those mushroom people back in the day. We talk about mushroom conferences and a bunch of other things. I think you'll really enjoy it, I hope as much as I did, here's Jeff Chilton from NAMMAX.   Mason: Jeff, thanks for joining me, man.   Jeff: Hey Mason, thanks a lot for having me.   Mason: Absolute pleasure, so remind me where are you again in the world?   Jeff: I am in British Columbia, Canada. I like on Vancouver Island out on the West Coast. You and I are actually connected by the Pacific Ocean.   Mason: Vancouver Island especially, for some reason that just keeps on calling in. I keep on having friends, awesome friends and now you. You're waiting there. And I'm like "What is the pull?"   Jeff: Yeah. You have gotta come. Definitely come in our summer time because otherwise you'll just be hit by all of those things you don't like, which is rain and all the rest.   Mason: Well, it brings mushrooms, yeah?   Jeff: It's true.   Mason: When is it really on for you there? What months is it on for mushroom harvesting?   Jeff: Mushroom season is really going strong in October. First couple weeks in November still happening but then things cool off too much then it slows down and there's nothing happening. We get rains in August, which really primes things then in the last couple weeks in September we could see things starting to pop up.   Mason: All right, I love it. October, that sounds good to me. Let's dive in a little bit because we met maybe we were chatting it must've been two years ago.   Jeff: At the American Herbalist Guild Conference in Oregon, which was just awesome.   Mason: That was amazing, I mean, we were in Silverton? Is that right?   Jeff: Silverton, exactly, yeah, that's where we were.   Mason: But apparently not the witch one. No, I think that's on the other side. Tony was looking at Silverton but that's where all the witches were.   Jeff: Oh, ah   Mason: That's a different Silverton. I can't remember the name of the hotel but their grounds rolling in and the ginkgo trees, big ginkgo trees as well lining it. And then all the herbalists who came and did their herb walks were just frothing at how much they were able to go and show everyone how to forage, how to identify. Because the array of herbs there was incredible. That place is designed.   Jeff: It was absolutely designed. It was a huge property and they put in all sorts of different plants, herbs and different kinds of trees. It was a beautiful venue there are a great place to have that. Even on the Saturday night when they had a band playing and everybody was dancing. I had a great time.   Mason: That's so good, yeah. I imagine that place gets a lot of herbal symposiums going through it. And man, the best thing, the fig tree was kicking. Did you get up there and face on the fig then, during that symposium? That was the best part of it. Right next to the pine.   Jeff: Oh my goodness, no. I hardly had a chance to get outside which is back to my place where I was staying on the grounds and then down to the venue. But I was locked into my booth most of the time and talking to people. And then in the evenings it was nice. It was a fun thing. And I know you said you had a chance to get to hear Christopher Hobbs while you were there. That had to have been really great because I always enjoy seeing Chris. I know he was really busy in fact, funny thing was Chris told me, he said "God, I'm sorry I didn't spend more time with you. I ran into an old girlfriend."   Mason: Oh, right, I'm happy for him.   Jeff: Me too.   Mason: You're like, 100%, I can't contend with that. So '86 Hobbs wrote the book. Were you aware when his book 'Medicinal Mushrooms' came out, because when was NAMMAX first created?   Jeff: I started the business in 1989. I'm trying to remember whether I knew Chris at that point in time or not, but he was part of the whole herbal industry, so to speak, and Herbalist Guild and all of that back then. I wasn't nearly as much in touch with herbalists until I started my company. Before that it was just pretty much just mushroom people and all the people that were in the mushroom world over here. There are a lot of them. Mushrooms really happening. Long before the herbal industry figured it out and got wind of it.Chris was one of the first because he was an herbalist but also was interested in fungi. So that was really cool.   Mason: Yeah, I think he studied and formally became a mycologist as well.   Jeff: Well, no, he was a botanist, definitely a trained botanist and a history orf botany in his family. Herbalists and things like that. And now he went on and he got a PhD in molecular genetics.   Mason: Okay, he's going down that route. I like that book because he was really able to balance the mystical aspects of the mushroom herbal kingdom especially and then dive deep down into the science. It's something that only him and Steven Hardliner. Steven is the master at going down deep, molecular how a particular compound is interacting with a particular viral passade. And then blowing into full throttle Earth poetry in the next paragraph. It's a real gift. Going back to the 80s, you were running with the mushroom clique in America. Yeah, tell us the story.   Jeff: The thing was in the 70s... Well, first of all in the late 60s magic mushrooms were really great interest. That was one of the things that I was really studying at university. I had this interested in mushrooms in the 60s and I reading all about a man named Gordon Wasson. Are you familiar with Gordon Wasson?   Mason: Just the name and loosely, but not really.   Jeff: Yeah, so Gord Wasson was a New York banker with a Russian wife. He learned about mushrooms being used deep in the mountains of Mexico by Curanderez and went down there in the 50s and spent the next five summers down there. He classified a whole bunch of different psilocybes during that period because he took a French mycologist with him. And so, five summers. But he basically opened up this whole world of Look! Still today after thousands of years there are people in the world that are still using these psychoactive mushrooms in their healing practices. Man, that was a mindblower.   Jeff: So I was reading Watson and other people that were involved in that and they had published these books that were incredible books. I mean Watson went on to publish a book called 'Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality.' He published that in 1968.   Jeff: Then somebody came along a man named John Allegro came and published a book called 'Sacred Mushroom and the Cross,' which talked about mushrooms in early Christianity. So, Mason, listen, think about it for a second. In 1968 two books are published. One says that a mushroom is at the root of Christianity. The other one says a mushroom is at the root of the Hindu religion.   Jeff: And then all of a sudden from there it just... You get going forward and you find that mushrooms, you see symbols of them and you start to hear stories about them used through all sorts of different groups throughout history. Pre-history actually, because as that came out people started looking and discovering this. That was really part of my study in university because I was studying anthropology. And mycology on the side.   Jeff: Going into the 70s in Olympia, Washington where I lived and worked on this big mushroom farm there was a whole core of people that were interested in mushrooms. It was an amazing group of people. Paul Stamos is one of those people. Ultimately he and I wrote the book called 'The Mushroom Cultivator' in 1983. We even had a group. We had four people, Paul and I and two other people, where we had four different mushroom conferences. These conferences were so ... You would have enjoyed it so much. We had people there that were speaking about how to identify mushrooms. I was speaking on cultivation of mushrooms, speaking on the anthropological aspect of mushrooms. We had great people there speaking. There was Andre Wyle was at our conferences. And it was just a great time had by everybody, right? You can imagine. All these mushroom people coming together. 200 people coming together for a weekend. Amazing.   Mason: So good. I mean, it's different, you got this original crew, there's always something special when you've got the original crew.   Jeff: Yeah.   Mason: There's a medicinal mushroom symposium every year that moves around the world. It was in Colombia a couple of years ago and then in Italy. Do you know that one?   Jeff: You're actually talking about the International Medicinal Mushroom --   Mason: Conference?   Jeff: Society IMMS and you know what? And that was more of a scientific group that was formed much later. I know the principles of the group. It started somewhere around 1999. They're having a conference in China on the 18th of September this year. You should come. I'm gonna be over there at this conference. I know lots of other people are gonna be there as well. It's gonna be an interesting time. I'm gonna be giving a paper there, which will be fun. There will be lots of other people too. I don't know what time of year you go to China.   Mason: Yeah, I go in September. I think this year we've got our staff retreat in September. I'm gonna check the dates, but otherwise I've been wanting to get along anyway. I've been trying to revolve it around going to Wudang mountain and doing some Taoist training as well. This is where I've been tossing up this year, what time to get over there. But that sounds a bit serendipitous.   Jeff: Yeah, well, the conference is I believe the 18th to the 22nd of September. That's normally kind of early for us. We like to go over more in November. We go every year. November's really harvest time for a lot of mushrooms like Shiitake, Maitaki, Wood ear. A little bit later is Hericium, Lion's mane. In September it's the Reishi harvest.   Mason: Yeah, Reishi harvest is normally for us in September. Where's your Lion's mane growing? Which region?   Jeff: It's growing in Fujian province.   Mason: Okay. Ours is a little bit earlier, in September as well. In Heilongjiang. In the northeast.   Jeff: Okay, yeah, because in Fujian province it is late, late November when it's quite cold. It's back to the mountains, quite cold. Maybe up in Heilongjiang it's colder in there right?   Mason: It's chilly.   Jeff: (laughs)   Mason: That's spoken like a true Australian.   Jeff: Let's fly in and start up north there and step off. I just can't wait to get to Yunan province.   Mason: (laughs)   Jeff: I can't wait to get down into that tropical vibe. Although, nothing beats that crisp air.   Jeff: Well that's good. I'm at that point where -- I don't know when your periods of this business growth have been -- but I've been real head down, bum up in the business. Not really been in that space of upgrading my information. Of course, I'm always reading and everything, doing all these things. I feel like that's like, you're at a point in your business where you are traveling around and you're educated. You're back at that point where you're free to go and educate and then go and educate yourself non-stop, constantly, which is really nice. I'm nearly back there.   Jeff: Yeah, you know what it's like. We are so swamped right now. We've got so much demand for the product right now. We're growing and over the past two years we've hired four people, two people for lab and another person for regulatory and, can you imagine, we've got one person that's strictly regulatory affairs and deals with all the paperwork that we have to deal with. The paperwork is really monumental. We get forms from companies that are 220 questions!   Mason: Companies that you're doing business with and they wanna know, looking at purity or is it you getting stocked with them that they want all those questions answered?   Jeff: No, they qualify their suppliers. And so this is all about GMPs for the most part and how your product is manufactured. They want to know that everything is according to the GMP, quality, and the standard operating procedures and all the rest.   Mason: I think that's where Real Mushrooms. Was it your son that created Real Mushrooms?   Jeff: Real Mushrooms, yeah. Sky created Real Mushrooms in 2015 as part of NAMMAX so it's just one division of the company. He runs Real Mushrooms as well as other things because he's in training to allow me to go fishing and he can stay and do all the work.   Mason: Great. NAMMAX is providing more providing bulk for people that are putting it into products and stuff?   Jeff: We're a business to business. We sell the raw materials and then Real Mushrooms is retail products and mostly sold online. Maybe getting it into the stores at some point, but right now an online business. But we're business to business where we sell to companies that then put the raw materials out under their own brand.   Mason: Does NAMMAX do... I'm increasingly aware because I think NAMMAX... we get a lot of people asking at SuperFeast but we don't really specialize in that B2B space. But one thing I want to talk a little bit about later is a lot of people who, like NAMMAX has bridged it and made it really accessible. Especially with you and the middlemen not having to deal straight with trying to... I'm still appreciating, it took me quite a few years but you'd know the in's and out's beyond what it's like developing relationships, critiquing, getting the authenticity on the testing. Also developing a relationship based on integrity and qualifying on that level takes so long. I feel like NAMMAX has really made it possible.   Mason: I know a lot of people in Australia who are like "Ah, great, I can just go and NAMMAX can just do it all for me." Which is really great, because there's a lot of people. I like it because there's a lot of people jumping onto the bandwagon, and Australia has got this nice buffer. We don't have too much shit here, which is really good. And that's something that's nice for me to be able to say about my competitors as well. Australian community doesn't need to be as wary, I think, as the U.S. world because the U.S. is a bit...I didn't realize it's a shit fight. I know talking to you a lot back in the day, I don't think I presented that I was from SuperFeast. We were just talking about mushrooms and I was just learning a bunch off you and learning about your history.   Mason: As a company when I started out it was an absolute no-brainer that we weren't gonna use fillers, that I wasn't going to be using mycelium product myself. We'll talk about that, it has its place. Of course, growing on good-quality wood. In Australia we're just small companies. I started in Mum's spare room getting products for me and Mum. Then talking to you I was like... and then reading your blogs and really falling off the back of it just like that. Wow, because you actually really inspired me after that talk going, "Well of course, I do talk about the fact that we don't use fillers and we don't grow on grains." And all these kinds of things, but it was getting to that point I didn't realize people really needed to know the in's and out's of your product and be able to ...   Mason: After seeing what happened in America with how much trickery there is and the percentages of polysaccharides there is, lets' go into it a little bit now. You've been watching it and been the internal watchdog of the industry, which I really like. When did that first start cropping up? When did people start jumping on the mushroom bandwagon and fibbing about the levels of polysaccharides and active ingredients?   Jeff: The interesting thing was that having been in the supplement industry since 1989, the key thing for me was that I was a mushroom grower by trade. So i spent ten years as a commercial mushroom grower on a very big, big farm. Not a hobbyist growing in my basement or a closet or something like this. A commercial mushroom grower, large farm. Millions of pounds of mushrooms every year. So I knew how it all worked, I knew the economics of it all. I realized back in the late 90s, for example. Or even the early 90s that you couldn't actually produce mushrooms in North America and turn them into a supplement, because it's a dry powder it's not a fresh product. Once you dry that thing out it's 90% water you gonna get ten times as much money for that pound of mushrooms. It doesn't work in the supplement world.   Jeff: That's where going to China and I went to farms, I went to factories, I went to research institutes, I went to conferences. The 90s was just amazing to see what was going on. I went north to south, east to west. Yunan province all the way up to Jilin province. It was all over China seeing this industry and seeing the research. One of the things, you talked a bit earlier about quality how do you know. Here I am visiting these companies going to all of these conferences. I'm having people coming up to me all the time saying, "Will you buy my product? Here it is." And they just show me a brown powder and I'm just like, it's a brown powder, I don't know what it is! How can I really know what that is. And then getting to know companies and people that were genuine and you could go to their factories and see what they were doing. Especially if they were only producing mushroom products and then building the relationships to that.   Jeff: Then I turned around and back in the United States here are these companies that come along and they start to produce mycelium on sterile grain. The worst part about it is they sell it as a mushroom.   Mason: Some people might not know what, so, we're talking about the fact, which you alluded to, which I completely agree with, that the only way to make a viable super high-quality product that's a powder is doing it in China. Based on the fact that, say you have 10 or 20 kilos worth of raw product that's gonna then give you a kilo of the powdered product in the end, it's not viable in the U.S. so to make it viable in the U.S., the way it generally works is that it's grown on a grain substrate, like rice, brown rice, oats, this kind of thing.   Jeff: Yeah, and the thing is, what people need to understand is that a mushroom is just one part of this fungal organism. So the other parts would be a spore, the spore germinates in to a fine filament, those filaments come together, they create mycelium, which is the actual body of the fungus. Which normally if you're out there hunting mushrooms you never see that because it's in the ground or it's in the wood. So most people are unaware of that. But that mycelial network amasses nutrients. When the conditions are right it produces the mushroom. That's what we see because up it comes and it's like "Wow, look at that thing there!" And then that matures, it produces spores, and then we have a complete life cycle.   Jeff: The interesting part, Mason, is that growing mycelium, which is the vegetative part of this organism, on sterile grain as a mushroom grower, what that is and what that was developed as mushroom spawn. Which is like the seed that is used to grow mushrooms. Because mushrooms don't have seeds they have spores. You don't plant spores when you grow mushrooms, you plant live mycelium. The mushroom growing world, what they developed is "Okay, we'll take that live mycelium and we'll put it onto some kind of a carrier. Then that carrier we can spread into our compost or whatever it was that they're growing their mushrooms in. If you take a gallon of grain, you've got maybe thousands of grains in there you coat that with mycelium, and then you take those thousands of grains and you can mix them into a big pile of straw or compost or something. Each one of those mycelium grows off of and it grows into this thing. So that myceliated grain actually was developed in the 1930s as mushroom spawn or essentially seed to grow mushroom.   Jeff: It's an easy process, it's done in a lab and people in the United States, we can't grow mushrooms. Why don't we just take that process, we'll grow out the mycelium. Mycelium in and of itself it's got beneficial properties because it is a fungal hyphae that has beta glucans in its cell walls. If you grow it in a certain way like in liquid or something it can produce certain medicinal compounds. But when you grow it on grain and then you don't separate it out from the grain at the end of the process you end up with mostly grain powder. That's what companies started to do. They started to grow the mycelium on grain. At the end of the process they would dry it -- just like you're drying a mushroom, but -- they'd dry it, they would grind it to a powder. No mushroom there at all. No mushroom, it's just myceliated grain, and it's mostly the grain powder. Finally, the worst part about it is then they call it mushroom when they sell it.   Mason: I definitely know I've been surprised, because my first trip to the States I went and bought all the different brands. I was floored by some of the grainy non-mushroom powder that I was buying. That was like white powder, it's in your face.   Jeff: Yeah, white powder and you taste it and you're like, "How's it supposed to taste like mushroom? It tastes kind of like flour."   Mason: Yeah, it's like flour, sawdust. So are there companies doing a mycelial growth that are more on the ethical spectrum, that they're not doing a full grain wash and that they're growing on a particular grain that they're able to separate out a lot of the mycelium? I know that a lot of the mycelium is embodied grain. That's just a reality that you're not gonna be able to get rid of. But I'm trying to play that... is that possible in your experience?   Jeff: In China they grow mycelium in large tanks of liquid.   Mason: Like Cs-4 Cordycep, yeah.   Jeff: Yeah, Cs-4 Cordyceps. They've been doing that for 50 years. But the thing is that it takes a lot of money to put in a big facility that can grow and these tanks are huge and you have to have a steam generator. It's a big investment but to actually grow out the mycelium on sterilized grain does not take a lot of money, it doesn't take a lot of expertise. It's a very simple process. Anybody can do it. In my book that I published in 1983, it tells you how to manufacture mycelium on grain at home in your kitchen. It's not difficult so it's very easy and ultimately, the stuff is so cheap to produce. And these people are selling it as mushroom and making a fortune doing it. It's really immoral in my opinion, and unethical. And especially if you're calling it mushroom.   Mason: I think because we sometimes maybe look at the market and what we subconsciously are looking for when we want a mushroom and most of the studies have been on if you're like... Most of the time we're looking for a fruiting body. That's the mushroom. It's the unspoken that we know that we're talking about is the fruiting body there? And I guess there are some companies that have been quite averse or trying to sign typically validate the mycelium. When I was first kicking around all this there were people going "Look, just have it all. Have the fruiting body, have the mycelium, have all these..." and I very quickly, before I had a company was like "Mmm, no." I'm not in this to justify a particular aspect of the market or go for ease. I'm in it personally, and especially in the beginning, being a dreadful romantic, trying to connect to a herbal system, particularly Taoist tonic herbalism for me.   Jeff: Exactly. The people who grow those products and they say "Oh, we want to have all parts of this. We want to have the spore, we want to have the mushroom, we want to have the mycelium." It's like they say "It's full spectrum." Well, the problem is that they leave out the fact that (A) there is no mushroom in it, and (B) the grain! How can it be a full spectrum product if they've got all of this grain in the product? That's what they don't like to talk about. They don't like to talk about the fact that it's mostly grain and all of this other stuff about "Oh, you know, the fruit body's in there and the spore's in there." Absolutely not. It's really a lot of smoke and mirrors.   Jeff: That's what's so hard to take is that when there are people out there actually espousing that and claiming that they've got a full spectrum product when in fact it doesn't take much in the way of analysis to prove what they do and they don't have. We've run analysis and what's really interesting is if you analyze it, for example, with a proximate analysis, which is proteins, carbohydrates, fats, ash, minerals. Those products line up perfectly with the grain they're grown on.   Mason: Are there exceptions to that?   Jeff: No. All of these products and there, it's the myceliated grain products. If it's grown on brown rice it lines up with brown rice. If it's grown on oats it lines up with oats. Literally the two lines run together. The way I like to think about it too is I talk to people and I tell them what they're growing is tempeh. And they say what tempeh is, it is cooked soybeans with fungal mycelium grown on it. If you look at that tempeh and it's all white that's the mycelium but if you look at tempeh and you cut it open you can see it's mostly the soybeans. And if you were to dry it out, look, Mason, mycelium is 90% water. Just like a mushroom. The soybeans are 50% water. When you dry that tempeh out the mycelium just goes "Fffft!" Just tell me, where's the mycelium? And you've got all of these dried soybeans and you're like, well, it's mostly dried soybeans, that product.   Mason: I'm sure you get it a lot as well. Yours, there's obviously a few brands in the U.S. becoming more aware of the others. I didn't go looking for them but as you move into a market. SuperFeast, I spoke to you about it the other day. We've got so many people ... like [inaudible 00:29:50] story. I've realized in business a lot of the time it's like, same with you, I like the people. I like the unique stories. People are like "Bring SuperFeast over, there's no one doing that like what you're doing over there!" I like, yeah.   Jeff: (laughs)   Mason: And it's the same. When you're upfront about the nuances although there's a lot of companies doing medicinal mushrooms like yourself and Taoist herbs like us, medicinal mushrooms. There's nuances there and the sourcing and there's nuances in the story. What I like is, which is going to get to the polysaccharide claim, and the full spectrum claim for the people growing the mycelium. Because people are in an egoic, competitive make money mentality a lot of the time. They think they have to be everything to everyone. Versus just being very upfront. I'm always quite upfront, I don't really look at that. I don't try and standardize color or anything in any way. I don't try and standardize the constituents. I don't even sell on the percentages of constituents. I don't focus on it. I'll move more in that direction because more and more people want to be satiated. I can say yes, we test for percentages of the active ingredients to ensure that they're in alignment with the Chinese cornucopia and ensure that they're actually active. And all that kind of stuff.   Mason: But going over into the States now and hearing about all these other brands and I'm with you whenever it's growing on grain I can't get behind it. Not to be disrespectful, and I'm always trying to be really amicable in my talks. There's a place for it, but less and less can I find that place.   Jeff: And I understand what you're saying too because if a person is genuine. For example the herbalists, who are at an American Herbal AHG conference. These are people that want to provide good products, they want to provide a body of knowledge to help people. That's who you wanna be, that's who I wanna be. I'm not in this to make a lot of money. I'm not in this to build some big company and go Oh, gee, isn't this great? Because I'm selling $20 million a year of this or that. That does not excite me at all. That has no meaning for me. What has meaning for me is that I'm producing a quality product that I've been working on for years and I can tell you the product is what I say it is and I want it to help you. I want you to be able to take this product and feel confidence that you're getting what the Chinese have used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years. That's what I want.   Jeff: I don't want to sell you something that is not what it really is and is a placebo and expect you to buy the product from me and I walk away going "I'm managing this great at my company. I'm making so much money and it's wonderful." No, I'm sorry, that's not me. I'm not interested. Those people turn me off. It's like the difference between being in a group of people that really understand mushrooms or herbs and being in a group of people that are just talking business and numbers and all that kind of stuff. And I don't give a shit about that.   Mason: Yeah. I think it's interesting. Watching your business I can see in the beginning it probably would've started out that everyone knew Jeff and knew your level of integrity and how you just wanted a good product. In that little circle it was like 'Great, we'll just go and get Jeff's product.' Then as you grow I think what you've done really well ... just to put it as an example of why I'm bringing this up, we're getting to this point where we're growing as a company where it's beyond Mason at the markets and everyone knows that Mason has the badass tonic herbs. Or people are coming along to the talks and all the health clique. We've started emerging.   Mason: I think you would've gone through this years ago when you emerged beyond the health clique. And it's very dramatically people aren't associating directly with you or the founder, it's the company. They don't even know or care who the founder is and therefore you need to have these things in place. We're getting to the point where everyone who's a SuperFeast customer is just like, "Yeah, we don't even care about organic, we know what you guys are doing," and we're going on that old philosophy and we're documenting that and there's all those other checks in place like independent testing for pesticides and metals and all that in place and available.   Mason: But it's getting to that point now where the people on the very outside... I still don't know if we're really gonna shift because I still personally don't care and I don't change my company for perception's sake. But you can see Wow, that organic would be really, really useful for those people on the outside. Or the testing to know what percentage of what's going on inside and being able to present that. I think we'll move in that direction. I think you've done that really well and really maintained the trust in the brand of course, and in yourself. But maintaining you there as the one that's rolling this along and not then just relying, you know, the organic certification or the percentages.   Mason: I think that's what I find really commendable, because most people then they rest on their laurels. Once they change over into, not standardizing but testing for minimum constituents like beta-glucans or organic. they then rest on that. Whereas that means nothing to me at all. Being able to talk to you I'm like, Yeah, because organic, I don't know what your take on that. I know there's some terrible organic products out there. Just the fact that we know we can go organic there's five different companies we can go to, so you just go and find the company that suits you. We can go with the company that's the hardest to jump through.   Mason: I won't go into the details of what's going on, why we're probably not going to go in that direction. For us there's so many little micro-farms that we're being nimble with whom we're working with. When we're beyond mushrooms we've got a lot of other herbs going on. We need to cut that farm out if they need to move on and do something else and we'll go and we've got that team to go around and constantly go and find these people. So every time we want to nimbly adapt and go down a different direction when someone's doing a little more traditionally than the other person, all right, get the organic certify up. Or lie, which is what I think a lot of people are doing. They get the organic certification, then when they change up those little farmers, because we're dealing with independent farmers as well, not a company that can provide the organic certification. I don't know why I went on that rant. So that's why we're not going on down that route.   Mason: It's something I see. I know there's a bunch of companies who are coming to NAMMAX, which I think is just been so good for the Australian industry. For people to know that they're very quickly going to be introducing a really good quality. You can tick off the organic but I hate it when it's just organic that they are going for and not just an incredible product with a story behind it as well. So I really commend you for offering that out.   Jeff: I've always really believed in chemical-free food. Organic is more than just chemical-free it's how it's grown. When you're growing out of soil it's building the soil and not just depleting it. For me organics is a holistic way of looking at things. I've always considered that to be very important and I support that type of agriculture no matter what it is. A lot of these companies that are producing myceliated grain, they're organically certified!   Jeff: It doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be a great product. These companies have what I call all sorts of merit badges. 'We're big and we're organic, we're kosher, we're this, we're that,' which ultimately means nothing at all. There's a lot more to it than just that. The one thing I really like about what you're doing too is that you're introducing the philosophy of it and that's something that you really believe in. That to me is important and that's what people look at. They look at who's behind the company and what that person has to say, is that person ethical, righteous, person or not. You're not up there as a smooth talking business salesman or anything like that, right?   Mason: You should see me try and sell something I don't like. I'm a bumbling mess. I think I told you that back in the markets people used to say god-made...you could sell ice to the Eskimos. But I'm terrible if I'm not talking about herbs or philosophy behind it.   Jeff: That's because you're doing something you believe in. That's where everybody should be. Not everybody has that opportunity, but if you can have that opportunity. I was lucky enough that I followed my passion and I didn't do that because I wanted to be rich. I did it because I loved it. I always say to people, if you really like to do something, whatever it is, just do it. Follow your passion. Maybe you're going to be poor for a long time. Make something that you feel good about.   Mason: Honestly, and I really mean it not just because you're on the podcast talking it up or trying to flatter you. But when I met you, you had a happy disposition to be in business that long. In the beginning I was trying to escape the business side of things. Quite scared about having a business and not coming out the other end alive. You have a sunny disposition and you still have control of your company and the standards and you're still educating about the same thing that you're educating, of course it's evolved, but you were educating about beforehand. And there's something that I've learned a bit about in that. There's something humbling and nice about not being in that pursuit for aggressive growth while still growing at a nice, sustainable rate. But staying true to what you were doing in the first place. I educate about basics of herbalism and medicinal mushrooms in the beginning and then I'll move on and doing other things. The more I go along the more I want to settle back into doing what I did all along.   Mason: I've got a weird thing about going back to the organic, I'll almost shy away from something if it's organic because I see it as a marketing ploy a lot of the time. And I think it is a lot of the time. With little things. When growing Lion's mane there's a lot of people who will use organic fungicide because they don't pick when they're watering out to the Lion's mane. I like to use this example because we don't have a plastic covering, it's just a straw and a hut to keep it nice and dark and it gets watered. That's the only part that gets watered. And one of the things I talked about in the beginning with Lion's mane, I just heard about it through the grapevine, that fungicide is needed if you're watering straw a lot of the time in order to, all right, we know why fungus grows. But found someone who wasn't doing that and found people who were doing organic Lion's mane who were using organic fungicide on the huts. Little things like that they get me so dejected about the marketing ploy behind it. But I think you're the one organic product that I would be over the moon to use.   Mason: And the other example is Ron Teeguarden. I think we talked about him. He was such a rogue in the industry herbally. You were telling me about the acupuncture when he was offering acupuncture because he's a barefoot herbalist and all the acupuncture's guilds are like "Screw you, you need to be regulated." And he's like "Hey."   Jeff: I know, it might've been somebody when you were in LA but it wasn't me. I don't know Ron that well. He's been around a long time. He's done his own thing, he's not out at the shows or anything like that. He's very well-known and in a sense he's been the herbalist to the stars. He's in Los Angeles, right? A lot of people in Los Angeles that are into herbal medicine and living properly in term of what they eat and things like that. They would go to Ron and Ron has one of the very first herb bars where you can walk in and have this type of a drink or that type of a drink. He was really in it very early and doing stuff that nobody else was. He was an outlier in that sense. I don't think he really needed to go into the industry proper. He's done a little more now that before. He didn't have to.   Mason: He, on the level of sourcing philosophy. I bumped into him years ago. I was at that place where I was starting to grow, people are asking why I'm getting my herbs from China and people asking me if I'm organic and all these kinds of things. I want to keep on doubling down on my philosophy, what I'm doing here. One thing that I drew from yourself as well and then be proactive and educating the market. Not in pushing your own product, just generally being happy about the market being educated as well. And Ron was like...In fact I talked with him for about five minutes. More or less he was like "Listen, if you have that spark," I remember, "do not deviate from that sourcing philosophy." And it really stuck with me and from that day I did. I doubled down and I was not going to try and... I'm going to continue to not worry about what's going on and just do me. It's a lot of fun. I was at Dragon Herbs Tonic Bar about three weeks ago. I frequent the Hollywood one when I'm in L.A.   Mason: Before we go too far off the mycelium grown, one of the things you've really educated, not only the market, but businesses in the market around medicinal mushrooms in the market, is how to identify a true polysaccharide read on medicinal mushrooms. Rather than people including 60% polysaccharides or even 30%, yet when you go down into the class of beta-glucan it's actually been tested you've been hoodwinked and they've gone dry from age or whatever. Can you talk a little bit about that?   Jeff: This is something in the herbal industry too that you learn right away, and I learned it back in the 90s, was that so many herbal extracts, when you make the extract they oftentimes need some kind of a stabilizer. Otherwise they can get gummy, they can jut come together if it's a powder. Putting a carrier with a lot of extracts was pretty common. What happened was sometimes companies would cheat a little bit. The next thing you know instead of 10% carrier it was 50% carrier or 80% carrier. And they're not revealing that to anybody. You think you're getting an herbal extract, not just mushroom extract, an herbal extract and it ends up being mostly maltodextrin or dextrose or something like that, and they're not telling you, then it is really deceptive. So there's a lot of companies that were doing that in the industry.   Jeff: As I went along, the whole time that I'm working with people in China I'm like, "Look, I want extracts where we aren't using any carriers. It has to be made in a certain way," because I'm looking for the pure essence. In traditional Chinese medicine they take the herbs and they throw it in a pot and they boil it up and pour it out and "Here, drink this!" There's no carriers in there.   Mason: That's right, not sliding agents.   Jeff: That's right. If you have to put something in a capsule you've got 150 milligrams of different types of fillers and binders and flow agents. Putting it into a pouch is so nice because then you don't have to put those things in with it. It's just the pure herb. Early on in the 90s everybody's testing for polysaccharides and nobody's testing for beta-glucans. And beta-glucan is a polysaccharide. Unfortunately all these carriers are polysaccharides too. A lot of people can hide that from you that you've got carriers on their product. No, no, we don't use carriers, it's 100% mushrooms, stuff like that. That's where with any kind of supplier you have to build up a level of trust. Like I say, they show you a brown powder and say. "Here's our product, it's shiitake mushroom extract. Isn't it great?" You can test it.   Jeff: This is the thing, Mason, it's not like you can take a mushroom product other than a reishi extract, consume it, and then a few hours later or a day later go, "Wow, yeah! Did I ever get a kick out of that!" No, it doesn't work that way. You can organoleptically, I can taste the shiitake extract and I can tell you yeah, that's definitely essence of shiitake. Or with reishi it's so bitter I can taste all those bitter notes in that reishi extract, that is an awesome extract.   Jeff: I used to give a reishi extract to a friend of mine who was a deep herbalist making his own liquid extracts and a big business ultimately. He'd taste some of my extracts in the beginning and he'd go, "Not bad, but it tastes a little bit burnt." And I'm like, "Oh shit." When it was dried it was maybe in the oven a little longer, and he could pick up on it. I thought that tastes pretty good. That was in the early days when I didn't know any better. I thought it's great and high triterpenes and all this. He'd go "Yeah, it tastes a little bit burnt." Those kind of things teach you a little bit about, okay, how's it made. Let me tell you, in the 90s the facilities that were making herbal extracts were nasty. They were old facilities   Mason: Not too much GMP regulation back in those days.   Jeff: It wasn't like stainless steel everywhere, no. Everywhere was dark from all the herbs they'd been cooking for who knows how many years. Now all that's been torn down and you see nothing but brand new factories in China. Everything is stainless steel and it's beautiful and there's none of that anymore. But back then, actually, it wasn't until we got the megazyme test and I started using that. And that was in 2012 or 2013. Up until that point I thought, well, the polysaccharide number was high, that's great. Then we starting testing the products and that's where we really pulled back the curtain. My main supplier, awesome! The test results we got from that. Beta-glucan and alpha-glucan and the alpha-glucan, that was where any of the carriers were revealed.   Jeff: And then another company that was supplying me with some products, only a few, not many, fortunately. And was swearing up and down they never used any carrier. Jesus, their alpha-glucan level was way up there. I was shocked and really upset because I thought their product was good because occasionally I'd test it for polysaccharides it was 50-60% and I was thinking, great product. I could taste it, it tasted okay. Nothing but mushrooms they were producing. But here they were. They were putting them on a carrier and telling me they weren't. That's the kind of thing that you face when you're over there.   Jeff: How do you qualify these products? You can go to the factory. They can show you around, you can look at all the mushrooms in their warehouse, you can look at them cooking these things up, the final products. They don't show you the bags and bags of maltodextrin that are hidden back in the warehouse somewhere that they're using as a carrier for the liquid extract. That literally pulled back the curtain and I went and confronted that with them. They claim no. Finally they actually admitted it and I'm like, okay, see you later. I'm not buying another product from you because you lied to me. Fortunately it was a secondary supplier. They weren't my main supplier at all, but I needed a secondary supplier. I visited them and it was all mushrooms that they were doing and they were in the heart of mushroom country and it was nothing but mushroom. Yet they had all these carriers in there. I was really upset not only with them but with myself because I got taken in by it too. And that's what you have to do.   Jeff: Look, Mason, have you ever been at Ali Baba and looked at all the mushroom products being sold?   Mason: It's always funny, and as you know, everyone's jumping onto the bandwagon right now. You can see people trawling through Ali Baba going "Oh, just tell me which one is awesome." I haven't been in there in a long time. I got curious, to be honest. I think we were in the office having afternoon drinks and seeing what was on Ali Baba. It is insane.   Jeff: It's totally insane. So many companies selling mushroom extracts. Sometimes they're selling at prices where you're like, "No, wait a minute, you can't sell me that extract for $20 for a 10:1 extract. That's impossible. You load it up with starch, that's quite possible, right? That's where analysis, for me, has been very helpful. Especially the beta-glucan analysis because that gives me that alpha-glucan which is the whole carrier. That's what unmasked all of those myceliated grain products. There's definitely a place for analysis. There's also a place for getting to know the grower. I don't believe in organic pesticides. I don't give a shit. Don't use whatever it is, you have to grow this. I know it's more difficult but you have to grow this without sprays and all that.   Jeff: The thing about China is that when you're traveling through China and I've been back in the mountains in all these different places and you go back and you look down and this little valley and here's this beautiful rice fields down there and you're going "Oh, isn't it great, back here. Everything's idyllic." And then you see somebody walking through the rice field and they've got a backpack sprayer. And they're going along spraying chemicals on this rice crop. I'm like, "Ugh, shit. Really? Do you have to do that?" And I think to myself, even the smallest growers out there are using some chemicals. That's where I'm like... And I want to be sure. And that's where we test and test to make sure that everything is staying on track because these things can slip in. Somebody can cheat. You have to ride herd on the whole thing. Otherwise it can slip right through your fingers.   Jeff: That's been good for me in the sense of having an organic product that has meant that we put these constraints on the people that we work with. We say look if your product shows one of these things in there I'm sorry we're not selling it. If you and if you shipped it over to us and we find it in there after you've done the testing that's all good and we find it in there it goes the landfill I'm sorry, we can't sell it. That has been a really good quality, that's how we keep that quality up. In that sense I kind of believe in it all and think it's important. It helps us keep the product a little bit more real.   Mason: As you say said there's all these things that can go by... even though it is organic, you can get organic pesticides and all this kind of stuff. I have taken your product and of course I really love it. You know that you're going to go that extra mile with it. It's a trip around it, there's a stigma around China is isn't that whole thing polluted?   Jeff: Well, that's the other side of it right now, Mason. People are so afraid of anything coming out of China that this gives them a little bit more confidence in it. They can say what they want about organic and all but we've got pesticide tests that can demonstrate what it is and of course the always have to do heavy metals and micros and all of that.   Mason: Alpha-toxins   Jeff: For us, especially as a raw material supplier to companies large and small we have to be able to give them confidence because you know they're selling a Chinese product that they buy from us and lot of people are just like you know when it comes to China it's like no no no no it's like not going to do it so I have to talk to a lot of people. And I say, well, hey look. There's products in the United States that are absolutely full of chemicals. So it doesn't matter where it's grown. It matters where it's grown but it's not this country or that country. You can grow good, clean products anywhere in the world if you're doing it properly.   Mason: It's so good. Of course people are realizing that the ultimate Chinese herbs and medicinal mushrooms are going to be coming out of China. I really like how it's still dominating and making it really easy for people to get One thing that's organic and Two very quickly have all those things to provide so enough people are going to be able to go, Oh, okay, so it's from China and we can trust it. That's something that makes it really easy, because people are going to jump on the mushroom bandwagon. We found it as well, a similar thing. People want to come, they're like okay, tell us about Chins. Okay, tested three times for pesticides before it comes to market, each batch. Plus here in Australia the TGA facility and heavy metals and alpha-toxins and microbes. At some point people go "Hmm, shit, okay." And testing of the water. And when we can going and doing radiation testing in the areas. And then going live and seeing pictures of you at your reishi farm is magic.   Mason: When I was going live around China going, you know we're still going up while we're outside the mountains going to the fields where the eucommia bark trees were grown or up in Yunnan. Just drove five hours in the middle of nowhere to get to the poria farm, where there's wild pine and people are going "Holy shit! Look at that land! The land of the dragon. It's calling me. It's real." All of a sudden popping that thing that first of all, yes, you just need to be vigilant, that's absolutely number one. I've only changed suppliers once. In the beginning I found someone I had really enjoyed their product. And then what I've decided was one of my areas in going forth is I need someone that could absolutely school me. If I'm requesting things and they weren't able to "bang" school me on that immediately, then I'm not going to be able to do business.   Mason: And it got to this point where I was confirming no municipal water. Only springs, only well water. Only creek water in the area. Nothing from the tap every touching the crops. At one point "Okay, sometimes that's a bit hard." I was like "All right, I'm gonna change now." That's when I started going down that route and ended up... developing relationships, developing a friendship first, understanding the intent behind the philosophy behind the business, understanding who owns the business that you're going to be dealing with and what their motives are and what their history is. These are the things where people don't realize what goes into it. People go "Can you tell me your supplier?" And you're like   Jeff: (laughs)   Mason: At this point it's not about me being scared about you having access to that supplier but so much has gone into this relationship. It's not just about finding someone and sourcing off them. Although, it's nice and easy to do that. If I was beginning right now I'd love to be buying just from suppliers on NAMMAX because it's cool. All the certificates, all the independents, and then all the years of vetting and tweaking that leads to this point where trust is inevitable and you become even more switched on to what to look for if anything ever comes up. If anything slips or changes you know the questions to ask and where the slip in quality could possibly be. And large ways you know how to put things in place that would stop that from ever happening to begin with. It's an interesting industry.   Jeff: We go there every year and we'll do an audit. We'll visit farms, the factory we'll be sure we confer with our partners to make sure everything is good. This year we're at the point where we're hiring someone to be on the ground in China that will do a lot of checking and stuff for us on a regular basis. More regular than us going over there once a year. It's gotten to a point where we really need that coverage of somebody right there that we can say "Can you go out to this farm or this factory?" Also, communications because sometimes communications... although some of our partners speak English but some of them not so well and then they have to use a go-between and that's not always the best. So we're gonna have somebody now that's right there in China and can do that for us. Can you imagine going to China and traveling around without having somebody with you to help you through the liaise and talk?   Mason: I have the best intentions of getting my Mandarin up to scratch and as soon as I'm out of it, it all slips out of my head. I haven't fully entered into that poetic language realm. The language is sticking. Can you speak Chinese?   Jeff: No, I speak Spanish, but Sky's learning Chinese. He has three classes a week, an hour each class with a Chinese speaker he does it over Zoom or something like that. He's very diligent about it. We get over there. He's speaking with them in Chinese and they love it. He's learning more, but unless you actually go and live somewhere for a while it's always tough. I've been thinking about it. You go over and spend two weeks, three weeks, whatever, then you leave. That's nothing in terms of really getting in and learning a language. That's swimming on the surface.   Mason: I gotta get onto it because I'm gonna do some Taoist training there.   Jeff: Yeah, that'd be really cool. You're young enough that you still can do that. I'm way beyond doing anything like that.   Mason: Come on, they'd love you up in the temple.   Jeff: Not only that, where I love to be is in Patagonia   Mason: Dude, that's the other place my heart lies, down in Patagonia. I want to become an old Argentinian man. I want to become a cowboy.   Jeff: Exactly, I know where we can get some horses, Mason, so let me know.   Mason: All right, that's it. That's on. China this year, maybe Patagonia next year.   Jeff: Yeah, two years ago Andrea and I went out and spent the day with, we had a gaucho that took us out. We went all over this one area. It was a hot day too. We were on horseback the whole time, cruising through, very slow. Slow living at its best, right?   Mason: Yeah, that's it. Drinking, eating a lot of meat, drinking a lot of yerba mate.   Jeff: Yeah, when you're on a horse you're not going to go very fast. You're going to cruise along. It's life in the slow lane.   Mason: I love it. So before we finish up is there anything that is coming up now that's exciting you about educating people about this market and about this industry with medicinal mushrooms?   Jeff: People really still need a lot of education with mushroom. Part of what I do too which I really like is I talk about the nutritional value of mushrooms. My thing too is eat mushrooms. I think mushrooms may be the missing link in terms of food. A lot of people are like, fungus, never eat it, right? And I'm like, "Dude, you've gotta get on and eat mushrooms, it's a fabulous food. They've got great benefits, you get medicinal benefits as well as nutritional benefits." That's the key for me, I'm pushing that really hard when I talk to people, saying "No, it's a fabulous food." And in China they have this whole thing of food is medicine.   Jeff: That's in Ancient Greece too. Food as your medicine. Everything that you take into your body should be something that is beneficial. And medicine as a very loose way in terms of it's feeding you and keeping you healthy. And that's what we should all be thinking about. What we consume is keeping us healthy and we should look at our food as that. That's providing me with all of these benefits. I say if you want a supplement, you feel you need more, that's great. You can supplement. But definitely use mushrooms for food. That's a big category for me.   Jeff: As a mushroom grower, can you imagine? I'm working on an agaricus farm. For ten years every day I'm going in I'm going through the rooms and each room ultimately is producing 20,000 pounds of mushrooms. There's mushrooms everywhere around me growing and I'm stoked. I love this. I've got mushrooms that I'm eating all the time. I've even got small beds of mushrooms that I bring stuff home and I'm growing them in my house because it's so interesting to me. The farm I was on it wasn't just an agaricus, we had a scientist that was growing shiitake and maikitake and oyster mushrooms. Back in the 70s when those weren't even on the markets anywhere. And I had access to these mushrooms. Besides the wild mushrooms that we were navigating. I'm like, make them part of your diet because it's a wonderful food.   Jeff: That's my message to people is this is a forgotten food, bring it home.   Mason: I love it so much. Thanks for reaching out, I really appreciate you reaching out and having you on here. It's not only do I admire you as a person, admire what you've done and your business. I spoke to you a little bit about it. I like talking to the other people who are perceived competitors. There's so much room in this market and everyone's doing their own thing and has their own story. This whole red ocean we have to fight over a scrap of people who are going to be buying mushrooms and not focusing on educating together is absolutely ridiculous. It's always awesome to meet people who trail-blazed that attitude in the industry. Calling out people that are bullshitting and then coming together and educating together and getting the world healthy together in our little way. There's something really nice about that that makes it possible to be in business for so much time, for so long, see so much shit yet still have such a positive attitude about it.   Jeff: That's absolutely right. I really love what you're doing too and I love the whole Taoist part of what you're taking to people and bringing to people. That philosophy is really awesome. That's what brings something really unique. When I hear you talking about mushrooms up around, what's the lake up there in the mountains?   Mason: Mumbai   Jeff: Yeah, that was so cool and you're hanging out there, talking about the mushrooms really excited about it all. That is really special. I love your energy, Mason, I'm really happy that we've been able to get together and have these meet-ups, speak and let's carry it on, let's keep doing it and stay in touch for sure.   Mason: Absolutely. We'll get some videos in another podcast together, 100%. I'll go check out these dates, see if I can swing a   Jeff: I'll send you the info on it so that you can check it out. If you can come you'll have a ball because there's gonna be lots of mushroom peop

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Jeff: Tim, I'm a teacher, but you can have many, many jobs in the world. If you could pick any job, what do you think would be a cool job?Tim: Well, to be honest, I think it would be pretty cool to be a fisherman.Jeff: Fisherman!Tim: Yeah. Believe it or not I really like the ocean. I like spending time in the ocean and I think if you go out on those boats and get away from the land, you really get in touch with the sea and I just think that you get to work with your hands.Jeff: Is it dangerous though?Tim: Oh, it is dangerous. For sure. You can hook yourself. You can get caught in storms. It can be not so good.Jeff: Do you get paid a lot of money?Tim: Not so much, but that is not necessarily so important. You know. You can work with nature. You can catch your own food. Provide for yourself and I think that's really rewarding. How about you? What do you think would be a cool job?Jeff: I think I would like to be a writer.Tim: Why is that?Jeff: Because a movie star would be good, or a rock star but there is too much fame. Too many people always want to talk to you or want your autograph, but I think a writer, you are doing something you love without all that pressure or media coming after you and you can sort of make your own time and do it where you like. You can write in the country in a cabin or you can write in the city anywhere you like so I think it is a very flexible rewarding job.Tim: Yeah, you got to have the skill for it though. Do you think you have that skill?Jeff: No, I'm a terrible writer, but if I could have my pick of jobs, I'd like to be a writer. How about you? You would like to be a fisherman. Any other jobs you would like to be?Tim: Another job that I think might be cool is a fireman to tell you the truth. Again, you kind of working with nature. I'd really like to be a sort of a slash and burn fireman. Someone that goes out where there's wildfires, things like that, cause you're working with nature.Jeff: Those guys, the slash-and-burn fireman, they get to jump out of helicopters sometimes.Tim: Some of them do yeah, but that's kind of the glamorous one. Yeah, I wouldn't mind just being the guy that's on the ground, and the nice thing about it is you work really, really hard and you get paid pretty well for the time you work but then you get a long time off.Jeff: But, I'm a little bit scared of fires. You don't mind fire?Tim: I don't mind fire so much. You know. It's hot and it can be really, really dangerous but I don't know, it's kind of exciting and I like the idea of being out there in nature and just working hard to survive and working in a team. I think it would be good.Jeff: I want to be an astronaut. I think an astronaut would be good.Tim: Why is that? It's a dangerous job. A fireman's dangerous but it sounds like and astronaut would be pretty dangerous as well.Jeff: A little dangerous but I'd like to go to the moon to see what's on the moon. I think it would be kind of neat to be on the moon and looking back at the earth. They call the earth the blue planet. I think it would be neat to sit up there and look back on the earth and it would be kind of neat I think.Tim: Sounds like you like the ocean. You should think about being a fisherman.Jeff: No way! No thanks.

Jeff & Will talk about their upcoming trip to the 2019 LA Times Festival of Books. They also discuss two series they’ve been watching: Comedy Central’s The Other Two and Freeform’s Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists. Books reviewed this week include Kim Fielding’s The Spy’s Love Song, Ari McKay’s Take Two and Erin McLellan’s Clean Break. Jeff interviews Erin McLellan about Clean Break, the second book in her Farm College series, and about why it’s important for her to tell stories based in her home state of Oklahoma. They also talk about her Love Life series, what got her started writing, her author influences and the TV she likes to binge watch. Complete shownotes for episode 182 are at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. -------- Here’s the text of Jeff’s book reviews: The Spy’s Love Song by Kim FieldingRock star and secret agent on a mission to a foreign country to topple a dictator all wrapped up in a Dreamspun Desires package. That combination pushed all of my romantic suspense buttons and I had no choice but to pick up this book. And I loved it every bit as much as I thought I would. I was in tropey goodness heaven with the rock star thing, a bodyguard vibe plus lovers on the run and some occasional forced proximity. Jaxon Powers is a jaded rock star who’s at the end of a long tour. After waking up in a hotel room barely remembering what happened the night before, he might also be ready for a change in lifestyle. He gets a lot more than he bargained for when his manager brings him to a meeting with the State Department. It seems the dictator that runs the small country of Vasnytsia is a fan and wants Jaxon to perform a private concert as well as a large outdoor one for a worker’s festival. The U.S. wants Jaxon to do this because it’s a chance to improve US relations with the Russia-supported dictator. The only person going with Jaxon on the trip is secret agent Reid Stanfill. Besides keeping Jaxon safe, Reid’s got an agenda that has global ramifications. I fell in love with this book right from the beginning. Kim plays with expectations from the beginning. While Jaxon appears to be the spoiled rock star we quickly find that’s not what he wants to be. He’s a small town boy, doing what he loves to do but he wants more substance to the way he’s living. The trip to Vasnytsia does exactly that as his world view gets a complete makeover. Not only does Jaxon end up traveling without the entourage he’s used to, as Reid’s mission goes sideways the two end up on the run. Reid’s mission is to try to destabilize the country and force elections and that makes him an enemy of the state. Despite his fear, Jaxon won’t leave Reid to fend for himself. Jaxon knows his celebrity can protect both of them and he sticks by Reid even as Reid tries to force the star to safety. Through all of the crazy events that could result in either of them dying, Jaxon and Reid manage to start a romance. Reid tries to keep it from beginning since they’re in a country where homosexuality is illegal but they give in to their passions. That’s just the beginning as they share stories about their pasts, which only endears them more to each other. The mix between the romance and suspense is perfect, giving our guys time to fall in love even while things around them go crazy. I liked that Kim avoided the usual Dreamspun scenario of having alternating points of view. Everything in the story is Jaxon, which works perfectly so we don’t know Reid’s mission or anything else too early. It makes for a very snappy read going on the roller coaster that Jaxon experiences. Kim brings Vasnytsia to life through its people. It starts with the guides taking Jaxon around the country, giving him peek behind the propaganda. As he meets fans who must covertly speak to him as it wouldn’t be proper for anyone to talk with the American he begins to understand why Reid’s mission is so important. Ultimately it’s these people who shelter Reid and Jaxon and help complete his mission–with a particularly awesome assist from Jaxon. Drew Bacca does a great job on the audiobook, including having to sing a couple of Jaxon’s songs. This is the first book in the “Stars From Peril” series that Kim has in the Dreamspun line. The second book, Redesigning Landry Bishop, comes out in May and I’m already looking forward to it.  -------- Clean Break by Erin McLellanI almost didn’t pick this book up because I couldn’t imagine reading a book that included the characters taking care of Madagascar hissing cockroaches. I’m not a fan of bugs and the trigger warning page discusses more about the bugs than anything else. However, I’m glad I listened to the re-assurances I wouldn’t be creeped out because this is a terrific book–and the bugs really are a non-thing. This book, the second in Erin’s “Farm College” series, throws together Connor Blume and Travis Bedford–two guys who very much don’t like each other in the aftermath of an awkward, failed hookup. As their final college term begins, Connor and Travis are taking Entomology 101 and because the professor likes students to sit alphabetically, they’re next to each other and end up becoming class partners. Their dislike for each other radiates from them during that first class. Connor’s OCD and anxiety flare up just being near the guy, who he’s still wildly attracted to and wants to have a real discussion with. Travis has the attraction too but carries the anger from their previous hookup. It only gets worse as they get the assignment that they’ll be caring for Madagascar hissing cockroaches for the semester or that they’ll have to answer discussion questions together. It doesn’t take long for the sparks of dislike to turn into sparks of desire and they end up spending time after class in a storage closet making out. Neither of them is particularly happy that they’re giving in to their desires, which makes the scenes cuter and hotter. Travis wants the fussy farmer and Connor very much wants the stand-offish English major. Even as their make out sessions start to cool their hatred, they realize they’re constrained by time. At graduation, Connor is set to take over management of his parent’s farm, even though he doesn’t necessarily want that. Meanwhile, Travis can’t wait to get out of the small town for his legal aid internship and then on to law school. The guys have their futures mapped out and there’s no space for the other. That doesn’t stop them from getting emotionally entangled. Erin does a terrific job of bringing these two together. As they move their hookups to the bedroom, Travis discovers he likes Connor’s controlling side and gives himself over to it. Connor though never takes advantage, making sure that he’s always got Travis’s consent and that Travis enjoys himself. That continues as Travis reveals he’d like to be spanked. Both guys discover this is exactly what they need. Beyond the sex though, their efforts to not get too attached aren’t helped by their post-sex talks. Travis usually wants Connor to tell him a story and it’s here that he opens up bit by bit about his anxiety, his OCD and his pre-determined future. There’s so much going on for him, as a reader I wanted to wrap him in a hug and do whatever I could to ease the load he carried. Travis talks a lot too and over time we learn what makes him so driven–it turns out he lost one of his dreams due to an accident and he doesn’t want to let anything or anyone cost him this one. Just a she was great at bringing them together, Erin tears the guys apart just as expertly. It’s a tough go as Connor and Travis force themselves apart as graduation nears. Erin does a number on the characters as they emotionally hurt themselves and each other as they keep to their plans. Both guys want to talk to the other so badly and yet they’ve promised not too. For Connor, this is particularly bad for his OCD. Of course, this is a romance, so all must end happy. Thankfully how Erin gets the guys back together his as satisfying as everything she did earlier in the book. There is a way for them to be together–it just takes time for them to get there. -------- Interview Transcript - Erin McLellan Jeff: Welcome, Erin, to the podcast. Erin: Hi. Thanks for having me. Jeff: Very excited to have you here. You’re a new-to-me author and I just finished reading “Clean Break,” which I have to tell you, I adored so much. I’m reviewing it right before we get into the interview segment I’ll have reviewed it to kinda tell everybody about it. Erin: Yay, thank you. Jeff: It is the second book in your “Farm College” Series. So before we dive into “Clean Break,” tell us more about what the “Farm College” Series is about. Erin: Okay. So it’s just two books so far like you said and they are set in a fictional college in Western Oklahoma. And I would say kind of the overarching themes are… Since they’re college stories, they’re new adult that’s kind of coming of age and self-discovery, finding your authentic self, finding a home is kind of a big one. I think that’s kind of important at that age. You’ve moved out of your parent’s house or wherever you grew up for a lot of people and kinda figuring out what is home, what is family, that kind of thing. So those types of themes are kind of follow both books. They’re both kind of angsty to be honest though “Controlled Burn,” more so than “Clean Break” actually. Jeff: Oh, my goodness. Erin: So be prepared. But, yeah, and I think in terms of… The setting is really important to me at least as the author and those books is important to me. I’m from Oklahoma. I live in Alaska now, but I’m from Oklahoma. And it’s important to me to write stories that are set in Oklahoma that have, you know, LGBTQIA+ characters in Oklahoma. And I know as somebody that reads a lot of romance, I don’t see that very often. I don’t see romance set there or it might be… I have seen it where it’s, you know, characters that are like, escaping Oklahoma which certainly is the case for a lot of people, but it’s also the case that people live and love, and make their lives there. And I kinda wanna show that. Jeff: Does a farm college like this exist in Oklahoma? Is it based on a real place? Erin: No. Kind of I guess. A lot of the kind of small details mirror Oklahoma State which was my alma mater for undergrad, but Oklahoma State is so much bigger than the college that I created. So Farm College is kind of a smaller college in Western Oklahoma that I’ve created, but in terms of being, you know, having a strong agriculture program, but also kind of having this liberal arts situation that’s going on and a pretty vibrant LGBTQIA community, I’ve kind of made most of that up. So… Jeff: And I agree that we don’t see, I mean, besides books set in Oklahoma, really the more rural settings kinda, it’s always escaping from those places. And I like that you kind of built a place as if this is what you’d like to see even if it doesn’t quite exist there now. Erin: Right. And I think it’s kind of funny when I started writing “Controlled Burn.” It was pre-2016, right? And I kind of had this, you know, I kind of had this idea that it’s getting better, right? It’s looking up for lots of communities and I’m not sure if that’s necessarily the case anymore. I hope it will be and I hope it is eventually. But, you know, there’s good and bad, I think, about places like Oklahoma and Kansas, and Texas. And, you know, Oklahoma is really special to me. It’s really important to me. Kansas is the same, but there’s also problems and, you know, I wanna kinda write those stories. And I also, thinking about Oklahoma or Texas probably more so, a lot of the romances that I’ve read that are set there are like, ranch, you know, the cowboys, the farmers which there is kind of a farmer in “Clean Break.” But there’s a lot of people that live in Oklahoma and in Texas, in Kansas that aren’t cowboys. So I wanted to tell that story too. Jeff: Right. And you really hinted that a little bit with some of the dialogue between Travis and Connor in “Clean Break” too as they kind of talk about the difference between cowboy and more the farmer type that Connor and his family are. Erin: Right. Jeff: And so, as we kinda move this direction, tell us what “Clean break” is about and kind of who Travis and Connor are. Erin: Right. So “Clean Break” is about Travis and Connor. Travis is…he’s the best friend in “Controlled Burn.” So if you read “Controlled Burn,” you see quite a bit of him. He’s an English major. He’s from Houston, Texas, very ambitious. He’s got these kind of life plans and nothing’s gonna slow him down, right? He wants to go to law school. He’s got an internship after for the summer. He’s planning to move to Saint Louis eventually to work at this legal aid charity. He has this very, you know, set goals and he’s also kind of a unique, quirky, funny character to me. And then you have Connor who comes in and I don’t know if I would say at the beginning of the book, it’s more like pre-book before the book happens, they have a little bit of a failed hookup in a lot of ways. Some misunderstandings and so, they don’t like each other very much. And then in the first chapter, they get paired together as class partners in a class. And Connor is a farm boy. He’s kind of a townie, right? He’s from Elkville which is the city that’s it’s set in. He’s expected to take over the family farm and so, he’s got this, you know, he kind of his future plans are set, right? He doesn’t have a say over them and he’s… I have a big soft spot in my heart for him. He’s got anxiety, he has OCD. I really wanted to kind of write against the archetype of the like, lackadaisical cowboy or even like, the kind of the hard cowboy or, you know, that kind of archetype that I had in my head. I wanted to write a sensitive farm boy who’s in therapy and, you know, it doesn’t really match some of the people or the characters that I have seen written that way. And kind of the main issue between them, first is that they don’t like each other, but they’re attracted to each other, right? But the kind of the main two things that I wanted to do with the book is I wanted to write a complex authentic characters that are really well-rounded and hopefully, I accomplish that. And then the other thing that I really wanted to do was kind of write to people that are heading towards their future which is graduation and then, you know, the future beyond. And then their futures don’t mesh. There’s not really a way to come together at the end of graduation. They’re moving in different directions and I think that’s a really universal thing for people in college that are dating and dating seriously… do you compromise your future for somebody else? Do you change it? How do you make it work? So those are kind of the two things that I really wanted to hit on and of course, there’s, you know, there’s some kink that happens in the book and kind of self-discovery with that especially on Connors’ part. So there’s a lot going on, but those two things. The characterization and the conflict there with their futures not meshing are the two things I really wanted to hit. Jeff: And I think you did them both, I mean, really well. This book has so much going on in it and yet it never…the story also never gets way down either with the weight of everything that’s kind of moving around here. Erin: Thank you. Jeff: And really, you started them off as enemies who sort of move to friends to sort of get to lovers. Erin: Right. Jeff: Just that progression was so fun to watch unfold as they both pick at each other and then also help each other grow at the same time. It’s like, they lift each other up and kinda tear each other down at the same time. Erin: Right. And I hope that that is realistic. I think people… Because in a lot of ways they are kind of mean to each other at certain points and people can be mean to each other in real life. Especially, they’re not very old, you know, they’re 21, 22. So they kinda make stupid mistakes sometimes and say things that can be hurtful and then have to figure out how to make it better. Jeff: And I think with Connor too, you talked about writing against the archetypes and just having kinda the anxiety plus the OCD. And being, you know, a young gay man in that setting really just sets up so much for him in that situation. Erin: Right. Yeah. He has a lot going on. He’s bi actually and… Jeff: Right. I’m sorry. You’re right. Yes. Erin: And so, kind of a lot. I mean, it’s just a lot and I think it’s a lot for him to kind of deal with all at the same time. Jeff: What was your research on the mental health side of it to kind of figure out what traits to weave into his personality? Erin: So I did a lot of research and I had some readers too that read it for me. One of the main things that I really looked at was kind of the myths especially with OCD, kind of the myths surrounding OCD. I think a lot of people think it’s just, you know, a cleanliness thing or even an organizational thing where they, you know, people with OCD have an impulse to organize or clean. And that’s not really how it presents for a lot of people. A lot people have intrusive thoughts which he has or, you know, they have checking where he checks the expiration dates on food and he can’t kind of stop doing that even though he knows he shouldn’t be doing it, and it’s not healthy for him to do. And so, I did a lot of research about the myths and the different ways that it presents for people and kind of the hardships that it causes them. And I also really wanted to make sure that I kind of made it clear. It’s something that he’ll always deal with, right? It’s not going away and so, it’s really… I did a lot of research on how to manage it, how, you know, how to kind of continue life dealing with a mental health problem like that. Jeff: Yeah. I just… So often I wanted to just give him a hug when he was starting to lapse into it. It’s like, “Oh, I’m so sorry this is happening.” What you did through the black moments and I don’t wanna give spoilers for folks who, you know, need to read the book. But what you did to the black moments for both Connor and Travis as they dealt with their emotions and for Connor how those emotions kinda manifest themselves in his OCD was really just, I really liked seeing two young adults kinda come to grapple with all of that. Erin: Yeah. And I think it’s pretty normal when you’re more stressed, right? Or when there’s more and more stress for, you know, the OCD to kind of build on itself. The same with anxiety like, whenever I am really stressed about my anxiety, it’s gonna be worse about small things, you know, you can kind of blow them out of proportion. I know I do that and so, I was kind of trying to show that how it’s like as things got more stressful for him with graduation moving and with kind of this relationship with Travis, that’s not going away he wants it to go. It does kind of snowball for him and it kinda snowballs for Travis too just in different ways because he doesn’t, you know, he doesn’t have anxiety or OCD of course, but, you know, he struggles just kind of the same way. Jeff: Yeah. When you were talking about with this books about you left out one of its major points. Erin: The bugs? Jeff: That is the inclusion of the the hissing cockroaches. Where did that idea even come from? Erin: So I knew I wanted to put them in a class together and I wanted them to be class partners. But Travis is an English major and Connor is agriculture sciences, agribusiness major. And so, I knew it had to be like a gen ed class for at least one of them. And so, I really started thinking about the gen ed class that I had taken as an English major whenever I was an undergrad trying to figure out what class would make sense. And then I realized that I actually had taken an ag class that was Entomology 101. And I loved it, I, you know, I held like, tarantulas and I held millipedes. And I could see myself being that like, weird bug girl a little bit. I just loved it. And so, that’s kinda how I decided to put them in an entomology class. And it’s funny because, I mean, I do think that college is one of those times to take the weird class and do the weird thing. And so, I think it kind of made sense there and I also felt like, I gave a degree of what kind of humor and lightness I thought it would to the story. But I realize now that a lot of readers maybe don’t like bugs. So it’s something that’s like a little distracting to some people. When I had took the entomology class, we had an assignment where we had that exact assignment with the Madagascar hissing cockroaches where we had to take them home and observe them. And so, you know, for an entire semester, I had a Madagascar hissing cockroach in my dorm room with me. I never took it out of its box. I like, you know, I fed it, like, carrots through the little hole that it couldn’t get out and so, that would be fun to put that in the story. And I can tell you for the readers, the cockroaches do not escape ever. They never… There’s no, like, unexpected cockroach scenes. I promise. Jeff: Yeah. And I can vouch for that. There are no unexpected scenes and in fact, I had to check… I had to ask about that before I took the book to read and I’m like, “Bugs, I don’t know about that.” Erin: I know. I have put it in the trigger warnings for the book and on my website, it really does lay out kinda scene by scene where they’re at and kind of the degree that they’re on the page. And they’re not on the page that much. Jeff: No, they’re not and I never got squirmy reading it either because I really don’t like bugs. But I was totally fine with how this turned out. So… Erin: Yeah. I know. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me that it would gross people out. At that point it was too late when it, like, finally hit me. I was like, “Well, I can’t do anything about it.” But I kind of thought that they were funny. Jeff: Well, I think it really fits with the whole ag culture of the college that of course, they’re gonna end up with bugs or whatever and have to learn about them. So it all meshed in together and like you said, there’s no point where they’re escaping or, you know, being gross. They’re just kind of there. Erin: Right. And students… Jeff: I like to, you know, those classes sometimes you take in high school where you’re having to take care of the doll for a week or whatever. And in this case you’re hanging out with a cockroach. So… Erin: Right. It’s kinda like a little pet for them for this semester. Jeff: So is there more plan for the Farm College Series? Erin: I have not kind of set plans. I do want to write a story for Alex. He’s in both books. He’s not in “Controlled Burn” for very much though his part is kind of important in “Controlled Burn.” He’s a friend of Connor’s really in “Clean Break” and I do wanna give him a story and I will. I’ll probably start writing that soon. Kind of be on that. I don’t know how much more I’ll write in the Farm College Series though I do wanna do a spin off that’s kind of several years in the future. So they’re not really in college anymore and I want to do an F/F romance for Desie and Lena. So I would start there for them. Jeff: Yay. Yeah. I would totally read that book because one of the things you did in “Clean Break” and I’m sure you established it back in “Controlled Burn” too, was just the tight community of friends that Travis and Connor both have, and even, like, the strong family presence of Connor’s family and how they support him. So it would be great to see more of all of that. Erin: Yeah. So… Yeah. And I definitely… I think I did a little bit more successfully in “Clean Break” for sure where they have very supportive families and they do have kind of a big wide friend group. And so, yeah, I’m glad that you like that, but I do want to do the F/F romance for Lena and Desie kind of. But Lena is quite young in this book. She’s 20 and so, I wanna give her a little bit of time to grow up, I guess. Jeff: Yeah. That’s cool. Now, you’ve got another series out there called “Love Life.” And tell us a little bit about what goes on in that series? Erin: Sure. So that’s also, they’re both male/male romances. Set in Oklahoma, Eastern Oklahoma for the first book, “Life on Pause.” They’re kind of small town romances there. The first one is about a guy that works at a homestead kind of prairie museum. They’re kind of common in Oklahoma where the people that work there have to dress in like, historical costumes of the time. So he works at that type of museum and then he is paired with a high school choir teacher. And it’s kind of them trying to fall in love and figure out how their relationship will work. It’s definitely kind of lighter in tone than the farm college series, but it’s still a little angsty. The second book in the series, “Life of Bliss,” is more novella link that’s a little short and it’s very tropey. It’s kind of two people that don’t like each other very much, but are fooling around kind of behind their friends’ backs. They agree to be fake boyfriends for a family wedding in Arkansas and Arkansas kind of, well, it has this… Historically in the area, it was the only state that didn’t have a waiting period for marriage licenses. Now, most of the states don’t, but back in the day, you know, they made you like, test for syphilis and all kind of stuffs. But extended the marriage license period. So Arkansas is kind of the place where people go for their shotgun weddings historically. So this is going back quite away, but in this book they go to a wedding in Arkansas, they get drunk at the wedding and basically, end up getting married themselves. It’s set in Eureka Springs, Arkansas for the wedding part and I don’t know if anybody would be familiar with that. But you can get married practically anywhere in Eureka Springs. It’s kind of an economy there. So it’s quite easy to get married and that’s what happens. So it’s kind of fake dating to accidental marriage. Jeff: Fake dating to accidental marriage. I like… Those are favorite tropes right there. Erin: Yeah. It’s a fun one, I think. Jeff: So what is your writing origin story? You’ve got these four books out. How did all this start? Erin: Well, I was a creative writing English major in undergrad, but then I ended up going to grad school for library and information studies. And I was a public librarian. And I had… I kind of had a lot of big changes in my life. I just graduated grad school. I just got married, I just moved away from home like, all of these big changes. I had a full time job for the first time and I had… I was living in Houston, Texas and I had this horrible commute. It was like, an hour and a half each way and… Jeff: Yeah. that’s pretty horrible. Erin: I think most people that have been in Houston know what I’m talking about. And I had all this time to kind of think and I basically on my commute started plotting a book. And some of it came from, I missed kind of the creative outlet writing research papers and stuff like that from school. And so, yeah, that’s kind of how I started writing as I plotted this book on my commute and then finally, I decided that I was gonna sit down and write it. And that book was “Controlled Burn.” Jeff: That’s an awesome story. Erin: Thank you. Jeff: What led you into putting this creativity towards M/M romance amongst all of the genres that were possible? Erin: Yeah. Some of it I think is that I was reading a lot of it at that time, I kind of got into M/M romance I guess if we’re going further back by reading Suzanne Brockmann, right? So she has the “Troubleshooters” series and that has Jules Cassidy who’s the gay FBI agent, right? He’s got that kind of the secondary romance through several books and then the primary thorugh a novella. And then whenever I was in grad school, I kind of didn’t have time to read for pleasure very much. So I wasn’t reading very much and then I took a class about reader’s advisory that we had to read like, the books from the best books of the year for “Publishers Weekly” and “Kirkus,” and stuff. And I just kind of… I can’t remember what year it was, but I grabbed kind of a random book off the romance list and it ended up being “Brothers of the Wild North Sea” by Harper Fox and I didn’t really realize that it was a male/male romance. So I just kinda grabbed it and started reading, and then it became quite clear, you know, very early on what it was. And it’s a beautiful book. Harper Fox is, you know, is a beautiful writer. Everything that she writes is really awesome and so, I kind of gobbled up everything that she had written and then it kind of hit me at that time. There has to be other writers that are doing this and, you know, they weren’t the books that were in the libraries. They weren’t in my libraries. So I kind of started searching them out and, you know, read a lot of K.A. Mitchell and Z.A. Maxfield, and some of those authors at that time that were the most prolific. And I was just very excited because I felt like there are all these authors that I had never heard of that I didn’t know about and they were all really, really good. And they were writing, you know, stories that kind of the themes were very important to me. And so, then when I write finally, eventually, decided to sit down and write a book. I think probably the main thing for me is that I wanted to write characters who are LGBTQIA in Oklahoma and it just happened to be that the first book that kind of came to mind, and that I plotted fully was an M/M romance in “Controlled Burn.” So that’s definitely how I got started. Jeff: That’s very cool and some great authors there to get you introduced to the genre as well. Who do you count as your author influences? Erin: Well, definitely, you know, my gateways were Suzanne Brockmann into romance in general and then Harper Fox. Kind of on a wider scale, I really like Alisha Rai. She kind of, she writes the heroines that are the type of parents that I just love. They are raunchy and rowdy, and wonderful. I would say also Annabeth Albert in terms of contemporary romance. Alexis Hall, I think kind of teaches or his books are like a master class on first person point of view if you look at “For Real” or “Glitterland.” And so, I really, really like his books too. Jeff: Now, your bio mentions that you like binge worthy TV shows. So of course, we have to know what are you binging these days or have binged recently that you would recommend? Erin: So my husband and I have been rewatching “Game of Thrones” of course, because the last season was about to come out. So when you binge that show, you just kind of realize how many awful things happened back to back to back because the first time we watched it, we didn’t binge it. We are watching it week to week, but when you’re binge watching that it’s like, “Oh, my God. That’s so awful, these things that keep happening.” Other than that, I really like… I like true crime, but I’m not watching any kind of true crime right now. And I like comedies. So I’ve watched “Schitt’s Creek” recently which I love, “The Good Place,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “One Day at a Time,” all these sitcoms that I think are really good, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” because I love musicals is really good. And then I also watch a lot of like, reality TV. So I like, like, “Tiny House Hunters,” and “Instant Hotel,” and “Project Runway,” shows kind of like that. Jeff: Very cool. Yeah. Some good stuff on there. Erin: You can tell me I watch a lot of TV. Jeff: “The Good Place” is a particular favorite. Erin: Yeah. It’s so smart. It’s so different than like, yeah, it’s very, very unique. So this is a great list for everybody who’s looking for something to binge the spring right here. So what’s coming up next for you in your release plans? Jeff: So I don’t have anything kind of set in stone. I’m not very good at planning. [I”m working on one about] tornado chasers or storm chasers. That’s a male/male romance that I have on submission right now to a publisher that I’m hoping will pick it up. If they don’t, then, you know, it’ll keep going out and hopefully somebody else will want it. I’m currently writing a book about a rec league softball team and I want this to be really, really tropey and kind of fun and light. The first one is using kind of the one bed trope. So I hope that that would be a lot of fun. I’ll write Alex’s story pretty soon and then I have a book that I wrote. But I’m hoping to put out at Christmas, it’s called “Stocking Stuffers.” And it’s a M/F romance with a bi heroine who sell sex toys. You know, like the Tupperware parties, but it’s like the, you know, the sex toy Tupperware parties kind of. And so, she works for a company kinda is the marketing person for a company like that and she’s hosting one of those parties, get snowed in, you know, with a big red bag of toys basically. Jeff: Yeah. That’s like an interesting forced proximity story. Erin: yeah. So it was a lot of fun to write. Jeff: And I’m very interested in the storm chasers one too because I’m kind of a weather geek at heart. So you kind of got me on that one. Erin: It was a lot of fun to write. Growing up in Oklahoma, you know, tornadoes are such a kind of a constant really. I mean, my parents have lost a house in tornado. I know lots of people that have lost houses in tornado. It’s so common. It’s just kind of a part of your life especially if you’re from Central Oklahoma like me and so, it’s… Yeah. It was a really fun one to write because you are just kind of entrenched in bad weather in Oklahoma in the spring all the time. So… Jeff: Very cool. And how can readers keep up with you online to keep track of all these projects? Erin: So I have a Facebook group called Erin McLellan’s Meet Cute. That’s a good one if you kind of… I do giveaways and book recs, and stuff. On Twitter my handle is @emclellanwrites and I’m on Twitter pretty often. On Instagram it’s @erinmclellanwrites and on Instagram, I would say it’s about 70% Alaska stuff like, every moves that I’ve ever seen and then 30% books. Unless there’s a book released and then it flips. But it’s a lot of Alaska if you follow me on Instagram. And then my newsletter which you can get too on my website or through any of the social media too. You would be able to kind of find the link to my newsletter and that’s probably the best way if you just want like, to know about new releases or sales, or things like that without having to kind of trudge through Twitter. Jeff: Well, fantastic. Well, I thank you so much for coming to talk to us about “Clean Break” and wish you all the success on that one and the upcoming releases as well. Erin: Thank you so much. It was so fun.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: Hey, Jeff this is a very nice apartment.Jeff: Hmm. It's comfortable. It's cozy. Japanese style.Todd: I like it. It's got the tatami mat, small kitchen. Do you live alone?Jeff: I live alone but right now I have a friend of mine staying with me.Todd: Oh, really, a roommate.Jeff: Sort of like a roommate, yes. A short term, he's staying with me short-term, so yes a roommate.Todd: OK, how's that going?Jeff: Ah, I don't like it.Todd: Why?Jeff: He's lazy. He's messy. He drinks too much. He doesn't exercise and he doesn't contribute any money to the rent.Todd: Ooh, so he lives here and he doesn't give you any money?Jeff: Well, yeah, he doesn't give me any money. The money's not so bad, though, it's just that he's lazy and he doesn't do much all day.Todd: That's got to be pretty annoying.Jeff: He's a great fellow. He's a good friend of mine, but, yeah, he's, I try to motivate him to do a few things but he's a tough one.Todd: Are you going to tell him he has to move out?Jeff: Ah, no, he's a smart man. He knows. He knows. He knows the deal. He knows what's going on and I think he's, yeah, I would never ask him to move out because I don't mind having him here but I'm just going to try to whip him into shape.Todd: Oh, so you're just going to try to change him so he becomes a better roommate?Jeff: I'm going to be like a woman and try to, yeah, try to get him a better schedule, a better schedule (yeah) like exercise and eating right and less smoking and less drinking.Todd: Well, what is his schedule?Jeff: Ah, his schedule is, he's like a night owl, he stays up most of the night drinking, and then he sleeps most of the day recovering, and then when he gets up he has a hangover. He's a bit sluggish and slow, so it's not a healthy lifestyle.Todd: Yeah, it doesn't sound like it. Good luck.Jeff: No problem.

更多英语知识，请关注微信公众号: VOA英语每日一听Todd: So, Jeff, let's talk about technology. These days we have all types of new technology, computers,Jeff: Can we just end this right now. I don't like technology, so can we talk about something else.Todd: What? You don't like technology.Jeff: No, I don't like technology.Todd: What do you mean you don't like technology.Jeff: Technology is, I think it's gone against what it was originally invented for, and that is for convenience to make people's lives more easy and to give them more free time, and I think it's totally gone against what it was originally invented to do.Todd: Yeah, but technology does make your lived easier, like it saves us time, it communicates,Jeff: But does it save us time?Todd: I think so. I mean, before you had to type something up, now you can just type it up on a word processor. It's quicker. Before you had to walk to a phone. Now the phone is in your pocket. You can just pick it up and call anytime, anywhere in the world.Jeff: Kind of. I kind of agree with that, but sometimes that walk to the phone is sort of pleasant and you had time to think about other things, but now as you're walking to the phone, you're typing something into your PDA while you're listening to your MP3 player, and then you get into your car and you drive to your office and the first thing you do is check your e-mail and then right after that you check your voice mail and then you send an e-mail to someone and then, I think it's just sort of, it's cluttered. It;s cluttered our lives versus clean it up.Todd: Yeah, but maybe if you did not have that, then you would probably have something else that would just clutter up your life. I'm sure people were busy before they had technology.Jeff: Mm, I agree. I think they were busy but maybe more wholesome things, or less, I think, I think you, we, our mind's are sort of, our minds are always bombarded with images or news and a lot of this stuff is not needed but because it is there we use it. I don't think we have to see so much news or read so many different things on the internet and see so much on television and the DVD player, get our news on our MP3 players and our hand-held, our little hand-held computers, our PDA's. I think it's just, we fill our time now with things that are not really needed or not maybe as useful or as clean as the old days: reading and writing and poetry, and when was the last time you wrote a letter to one of your friends and a nice hand-written letter, and put it in an envelope and put it in the mailbox.Todd: About three or four years.Jeff: Or a postcard even.Todd: Four years.Jeff: So, I think it's, technology is good but I think it's sometimes defeats it's own original purpose.

He's a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist. He hosts the biggest conference, Anarchapulco, for anarcho-capitalism. He's The Dollar Vigilante. Originally from Canada, hailing from Mexico. Jeff Berwick   Stefan: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show, Respect The Grind, with Stefan Aarnio. This is the show where we interview people who achieve mastery and freedom through discipline. We interview entrepreneurs, athletes, authors, artists, real estate investors, anyone who has achieved mastery and examined what it took to get there. Today on the show, I have a very special guest out of the norm, Jeff Berwick. He's a libertarian, anarcho-capitalist. He hosts the biggest conference, Anarchapulco, for anarcho-capitalism. He's The Dollar Vigilante. Originally from Canada, hailing from Mexico. Jeff, good to have you on the show today. Respect The Grind, my friend. Jeff: It's a pleasure. Thank you. Stefan: Yeah. I really appreciate having a guest like you on the show, because we normally talk about like business and making money, and real estate. A lot of people listening to this show, they want financial freedom for themselves, and they're trying to make money. They're trying to invest, whatever that means. It's cool to have a guy like you on the show. We had a mutual friend of ours, John Sneisen, on the show a little while ago, and I love talking to guys like you, because we end up talking about the money system. We talk about freedom in the free world, free speech, all this kind of stuff. For the people at home who don't know you, Jeff, can you introduce yourself in your own words? Who are you, and why is this a relevant conversation for us to be speaking? Jeff: Sure. Yeah. Actually, it's a totally relevant conversation that's everything that I talk about. I've been doing that for about nine years now, since 2010, with The Dollar Vigilante, which is a anarcho-capitalist financial newsletter talking about how to free yourself. Not just financially, but in every way possible. Of course, for people that don't understand the word, "anarcho" means anarchy, of course, and that's a Greek word which means "an," without, "archy," ruler. I just believe that no one should have a ruler and no one should be a slave. I don't know why that's controversial at all, but that's the government indoctrination camps that people have had for about 12 years that most people have been forced into. Jeff: Then the capitalist part, a lot of people actually misunderstand that word, too. They think that what you have in the U.S. today is capitalism. There is a small part of capitalism still remaining, and that's why the U.S. is still standing, but it's mostly fascism, and crony capitalism, and what I call crapitalism. Really, when I say "capitalism," I just mean free market. I've been, and completely free market, so no government involvement whatsoever, no taxation, no regulation, no central banks, and no fiat currencies and things like that. I've been doing that for about nine years. Jeff: I also do a podcast called Anarchast. I've been doing that for about seven years, and it's grown quite a bit. It's nothing too huge, but it's actually spawned an entire conference now called Anarchapulco, as you mentioned. It's now the world's premier liberty and freedom event held in Acapulco, Mexico, every year. It's coming up in February 14th to 17th. We're expecting about 3,000 people, because the freedom, the idea of it is actually growing, believe it or not. I've been doing all that stuff for about, as I said, about eight or nine years now. Stefan: That's tremendous, Jeff. People like you, I really got to salute a guy like you, because it's not easy. It's not easy going against the grain. It's not easy speaking out about this stuff. It's not a popular table topic at the Thanksgiving table or the Christmas table. I remember when I was telling my family years ago about the money system at like at Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner. Everybody got up and left. The average person doesn't want to hear about how they are enslaved. They don't want to hear about the money system. I remember years ago when I was 21, 22, I read a book called Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, and that's the capitalist bible. The communists have Karl Marx, Das Kapital, and then the capitalists have Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. It's number two most influential book in the United States. Stefan: Can you explain to the people at home, that's where I've first heard the word "libertarian." What's a libertarian? Because people, we're from Canada, or I'm from Canada, in Winnipeg, today, and people hear "libertarian," and they think libertarian is liberal, because it's L-I-B. They don't know the difference between the two words. What's a libertarian? Jeff: That's interesting you're up there in Winterpeg. I'm originally from what I call Deadmonton, so up in Canada. Stefan: Dude, that's the other Winnipeg. I'm giving that a gong. Bang. Just gonged it up. Deadmonton and Winterpeg. Jeff: Yeah, so the word "libertarian," I actually didn't even really know the word until about 15 years ago. It's become quite popular. It's become fairly popular since Ron Paul ran for president in 2008. Really, what the word means is, well, it's pretty simple word, "libertarianism." What it means is that if you're a libertarian, then you hold as one of your highest principles liberty or freedom. If you truly hold that as one of your highest principles, then you should actually be a anarchist, because an anarchist believes in complete freedom. It believes in the freedom of the individual that no one has the right to enslave and say they own another person. Of course, whenever you have a government, you're just born somewhere, and they go, "Well, you're ours now," especially in the U.S., where every baby born today in the U.S. has a quarter of a million U.S. dollars worth of debt and liabilities overhanging it from the government that it's supposed to pay off. Stefan: My God. Jeff: That's absolutely criminal and absolute tyranny and slavery. That's what we have in every country today, as well as Canada and every other country. A true libertarian truly believes that no one should be ruled or owned by anyone without their permission. Of course, there's a lot of people who don't mind being owned or being slaves. They're called statists, and if they want to do that, that's fine. I have no problem. As a libertarian or as an anarchist, do whatever you want. Just don't aggress against me. The only problem is, when they get these governments going, they always seem to include us and seem to think that, "Well, you are now owned by whichever government in whatever area you're in." I just completely disagree with that. Stefan: Yeah. I saw Jordan Peterson. You're probably familiar with Jordan Peterson, right? Jeff: Yeah. Stefan: I saw Jordan Peterson speak in the summer. He was speaking here in Winnipeg, Winterpeg, at the Burton Cummings Theatre, and he said something interesting that I thought something that I think people need to hear more often. He said, "The human race for most of history has lived under tyranny. We used to have monarchies. We used to have feudalism. For most, most of the human race, we've had tyranny, and for very brief times, we've had democracies or republics, but democracy lasts for about 250 years. Then it turns into a tyranny, usually, and then after that, turns back into a monarchy." Why do you think monarchies and tyrannies have existed throughout history, and why does it always seem to consolidate power like that? Why can't we just stay as a democracy or republic all the time? Jeff: Well, first of all, I'm not so sure about human history. I think most things we're told about history are lies, and so really, anything beyond a couple of hundred years ago, I really have doubts about what really happened. I really don't know what happened, but I don't trust anything that we're told by the media, or the governments, or the schools, which are all sort of the same sort of people running those sort of things, but what I understand happened is, a few hundred years ago, there was things like kings and queens, and they were doing that quite a bit. They were going around doing similar things that governments do today and say, "Hey, you were born here, so now you have to pay us a certain percentage of whatever you make," and that sort of a thing. Jeff: Really, a few hundred years ago, and it sort of seems to have happened in France, which is kind of interesting, because there's a bit of an uprising happening there again right now, is a lot of people said, "This is crazy. Just because you're born, this whole idea of kings and queens is so insane." I love the Monty Python, I think it was in the Holy Grail one, where the king's walking around, and he's like, "I'm your king." They're like, "You're who?" He's like, "I was born of this mother," and everyone's like, "What?" He's like, "I found a sword in the lake, and therefore I'm your king." They're like, "You're crazy," but for whatever reason, people kind of fell in line with that. Jeff: Of course, a lot of these monarchies were really tyrannical, and they would really, if you didn't pay them, they would kill you, that sort of a thing. That's very similar to governments. A few hundred years ago, people kind of woke up from it, and they said, "Well, this is stupid." The people who were in control at the time really realized they're going to lose a lot of power, and so they came up with an absolutely ingenious idea. That ingenious idea was democracy, which is a totally heinous, evil system of mob rule. If you have 51% of people decide that legally they can kill the other 49%, then everything's fine. Jeff: It's absolutely insane and just keeps people battling each other, but it's absolutely ingenious, because they've managed, through the government indoctrination camps, and through the media, the mainstream media, television, propaganda programming, to tell people that, "Oh, when you have a democracy, then you are the one who rules yourself, and you get to rule yourself by voting once every four or five years. You get to tick a box," and then some guy goes somewhere, and he makes decisions about what you're going to have to give up and how much they're going to extort you and things like that, but it's absolutely an ingenious idea. It's worked now for a few hundred years, and people have really fallen for it, but they're starting to wake up to it. That's what we're starting to see across the world, really. Jeff: We're starting to see that in France right now. Again, they're starting to realize, "This is absolutely insane that we have people ruling us without our permission, and taking our money, and things like that." Even Donald Trump, in the U.S., was to an extent an awakening of people going, "This system is horrible. We've got this total political class that is totally ruling us and just totally enslaving us." Jeff: What they thought was, "Well, we have democracy, thank God. We have democracy, so we can elect someone else," so they elected a kind of a bit of an outsider, Donald Trump, who's best friends with the Clintons and has been involved with central banks and with the Bush family for decades. His family's been very involved with the Bush family, so he's been very involved in the political class, but he came in as sort of an outsider, and you kind of see a lot of people saying, "Oh, he's an outsider, so he can fix things." He's not an outsider whatsoever. It's another sort of ruse in the whole democracy game, but really, that's what we've got today. Jeff: Now, what we've got at The Dollar Vigilante, I cover how bankrupt all these nation states are, how the central banks are printing money until we're going to be, hit hyperinflation very soon, so we're very near the end of this sort of system of these big nation states, of these big welfare states, warfare states, Big Brother nanny states, where everything is controlled, and regulated, and extorted, and taxed, and that sort of a thing. It's all going bankrupt right now, so even if people didn't wake up to what I'm talking about, we're still going to go through a massive amount of change in the next few years as all these systems all go down because they're all bankrupt. Stefan: Yeah. Well, there's a ... Man, Jeff, you said a mouthful there, man. I don't even know where to start, but I'm going to try to weigh in on what you said there at the end. Now, I wrote a book here called Hard Times Create Strong Men. I'm holding it up here for the camera for the people at home, and the cycles of history, as I understand it, goes like this. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times. That whole cycle takes about 80 years, and every 80 years, there's a major war, a major crisis, a major reset. 80 years ago was World War II. 80 years before that was American Civil War, and you can trace this back in history. 80 to 100 years, every 80 to 100 years, is a major reset. Now, if you trace that out to the future right now from World War II to now, 2020 is the next "hard times create strong men." Stefan: That's what the book's about is, the men are becoming weak. When men become weak, the backbone of society falls apart. The family falls apart. The churches and the freedom of that falls apart, and what we end up with is some sort of major crisis. Would you say something like that's coming up? Jeff: Oh, absolutely, and I think those cycles are very true. If you just look at anyone who's like a rich kid, so his father most likely worked really hard his entire life and amassed a fairly large fortune, and then the kid comes along, and he's just pampered, and he never does anything. He never learns how to do anything. He never has to learn anything about life, and they usually become idiots, and they actually end up usually wasting or losing most of their money. This is a very natural sort of a cycle that can happen if you're not smart, if, as a father, if you make a lot of money, you don't just give it to your kids. That's absolutely ridiculous. Talk about a really great way to destroy your children, but the big problem with that cycle that you just mentioned that's been going on now for centuries is the government. Jeff: When you get the government involved, it's not just people who are destroying themselves through the cycle of people having to have hard times to get better and actually learn skills and work hard, and then they get soft afterwards, and then their kids get really soft and that sort of thing. That happens all normally, but when you add the government into it, it gets way worse, because then what, that's exactly what we're seeing today in a place like the U.S., which used to be quite capitalist. It has been fully capitalist, really, since its inception. It hasn't been, definitely has not been capitalist since 1913 when they first put in the Federal Reserve and the income tax acts in the same year, which is no coincidence whatsoever. It's been kind of a mix of the socialism, and communism, and fascism since then. Jeff: About what you've seen because of the capitalism, because of the free markets, there was quite a bit of free markets in the U.S. There isn't any more, but there used to be quite a bit. You build up all this wealth, and when you have a government, it always seems to skew to these people going, "Well, now that we have quite a wealthy place, we should be quite giving." Yeah, that's great. Give, but what they're talking about is, the government should steal money from everyone, extort everybody, and then give some of it to some people, which is absolutely heinous, and evil, and destroys everything. Jeff: Even the welfare system destroys the people on welfare, but as I was mentioning, like that whole cycle would happen probably quite normally unless people start to wake up and realize what they're doing, but the fact that we have governments today makes it so much worse, because that's what we're seeing in the U.S. You even see communism is really catching on in the U.S., because you've got all these pampered little kids. They sit there on their MacBook Pro at Starbucks ranting about how evil capitalism is and saying they want communism, and they don't even look up the last 100 years of what communism has brought a lot of places, like the Soviet Union, or Cuba, or Venezuela, and places like that. Jeff: They just, because they're so soft, and they've never really done anything, that's why they call them little snowflakes and things like that, and they become social justice warriors. Really, they're just non-player characters, NPCs, but yeah, the big problem with that whole cycle is government. If we can get government out of the way, then you'd have families destroying themselves over time over and over and not realizing the problems that they keep creating for themselves, but they wouldn't force it all on the rest of us through government. Stefan: Yeah. Wow. I mean, this is some really good stuff, and the snowflake thing, the snowflakism's a reason why I wrote Hard Times, because I had some of these snowflakes in my company. I have a company. I got 13 employees, and these little snowflakes were crying, "Oh, you're mean, and I don't love this. This isn't my dream job, and you make me feel like a piece of shit," and I had people showing up late. Just snowflakism all day, and I said, "Where does this come from? Where does the snowflakism come from?" I started writing this book Hard Times, and it's interesting, because what you said is absolutely true. Stefan: We've had some communist subversion come in from the Cold War into our schools, into our churches, into our militaries, everything, and we got this virus in our brain that thinks that communism is going to save inequality, but in history, communism has never worked. It has never worked once. It ends in massive, massive killing and massive death. There's something like 100 million people slaughtered in the last 100 years with communism. It's something brutal. It's the biggest cause of unnatural death, and every 80 years, we think it's going to work somehow. Somebody somewhere's trying communism. Stefan: As an extension, I've been studying communism, I was watching a show with Stefan Molyneux on Freedomain Radio, and he was talking about how feminism actually spawned out of communism when they started talking about equality, and men and women are equal, and next thing you know, in communist Russia, in 1917, when they switched over to communism, you had all sorts of major problems, where there was one crazy stat was, more babies were aborted than were born. You think about that, it's just a big, crazy, evil system. Why do we get this idea that we think that communism's going to save us from our own poverty? Like why does that idea keep coming in every 80 years into different societies around the world? Jeff: Yeah. That's a good question. I wish I knew the real answer, because it makes no sense. Obviously, these people don't look at actual history. As you pointed out, there's never been one ... It's not like there's been one that really worked out well, and they're like, "Oh, we screwed it up a few times." It's like every single one turns into disaster. It actually makes total sense why, because of human nature. For someone like yourself who's read books by Ayn Rand, you kind of understand the individualist sort of a thing, and that people will always do what's in their best interest. That just makes total and normal sense as human being. When you have this system that comes in and you say, "Okay, the guy at the top decides everything that we're all going to do," you don't keep anything from your work, so that makes it so a lot of people don't really want to work anymore, because why would you work if all the incentives go away to ... Jeff: I don't know about you, but when I do work, it's because I know I'm going to get something from it. I'm not just doing it because for no reason whatsoever. A lot of these people, especially ... Well, what's really happened in the West is that they've really pumped it up in the government indoctrination camps. That's why I say to people, "Get your kids out of the government schools. There's nothing that can be worse than that than having government actually teaching you ... " Not teaching, actually indoctrinating your child for like 12 of its most important years of its building of its sense of self, of its intelligence, of everything. Even Vladimir Lenin, of all people, said, "Give me your child for four years and the seed I plant will never be uprooted." Jeff: It starts a lot there, and then you go home in places like the U.S., or Canada, or a lot of places, and you turn on the television programming, and it's called programming for a reason. You get pro-cops, and pro-presidents, and, "The government saved us today," and turn on the news, which is total fake news. It's just government propaganda, and they're like, "Well, we saved this today," and all that sort of stuff. With the cycles that you're talking about, and we're in the snowflake cycle now of sort of this millennials that have never seen anything hard their whole life. To them, the hard thing they've seen is like when there's a long line at Starbucks or something like that. Stefan: No Wi-Fi on the plane. There's no Wi-Fi on the plane today. Darn. Jeff: Yeah, like that's the hardest times they've seen. Because they've gone through this indoctrination and that they're really, I actually stay away from colleges and universities, because it freaks me out to hang around, like they're all zombies, and they're the stupidest people I've ever met in my life. They're all indoctrinated and programmed. You go there, and half the classes are talking about communism and socialism, so they've got them in this sort of thing, and they're all going out there now. We've seen that ... What's that, there's that U.S. politician, some young girl, is just complete and total moron who's just got selected or elected into Congress. It's called Congress because it's a con game, and it's called the Constitution because that's also a con, and all that sort of stuff. Jeff: You've got those people out there pushing this stuff, and these kids just go out, and they think, they don't know anything better. It's very unfortunate, but that's why it's really important that we continue to push out what we push out, which is more free market stuff. A lot of people do catch on to it. It's not as bad as it seems. The worst place that it really is in the world today is the U.S. They've got everyone ... Not everyone, but most people, they're so indoctrinated, and so brainwashed, and so propagandized, but you go to a lot of other places like Mexico here, and a lot of people are pretty free market. They don't like government and things like that. That's why they make Mexico look so bad on the news. That's on purpose, because it's a lot more free market down here. Stefan: It's amazing. I mean, you moved to Mexico. I have this prediction that Russia right now is a freedom-growing country. They're getting more freedom over there. It's like the 1950s U.S. over there, and then over here, it's like we're a freedom-losing country in Canada and the U.S. It's interesting with, you're talking about the universities being scary. When I get a stack of résumés, and I'm hiring, I throw the ones with degrees in the trash. Yeah, they don't- Jeff: Yeah, me too. Stefan: The people can't think for themselves. I remember I went out with this 18-year-old girl, and she wanted a job, so we went out for lunch, and I said, "Okay, look. What do you want to do?" She goes, "I want to start a social media company." I'm like, "Great. Start it." We're eating lunch. I said, "Great. Start it." She says, "Well, I'm in the business school, and I'm going to get my MBA, and I don't think I can start, because I don't know how," and I said, "Well, go google that. Just start." "Oh, I don't think I know how. I'm not qualified." The school system literally disabled her mind from figuring out how she could just start a social media company. Stefan: I mean, I got some guys running my social media. They're 18, 19 years old, and I just met them at a restaurant. Boom, they're banging out my social media like crazy, doing a great job, but this same girl in the government indoctrination camp, as you say, the universities and the schools, can't think for herself. I also think it's interesting in the colleges and universities right now, the number one read book on economics is Karl Marx. That's just like, that just doesn't make sense. Why don't you tell me a bit, Jeff, why does Karl Marx as the number one economics book not make sense? Jeff: Oh, my God. First of all, he knows nothing about economics. He was a homeless guy who had no money, and he wrote a ... If I was around when he wrote the book, I would have given it a few minutes, or even maybe a few days, maybe even a month or two, of thought, because it sounds really good. Right? Like what is the communist sort of slogan? It is, "Give to-" Stefan: Seize the means of production? Jeff: No, but they have this slogan like, "Someone's needs ... " Stefan: Oh, "To every man's need," or, "To the best of his ability and every man's need," or something like that. Jeff: Something, but basically what it's saying is ... See, that's how stupid it is. I don't even memorize the stupid quote, but basically, it sounds nice. It sounds like, "Yeah, if people can't do things, then you help them." It's like, "Yeah, sounds great," but the way they're talking about is, you have this giant government. They come around. They steal things from people, and they decide who gets your money, essentially, and things like that. Yeah, and it's shocking that ... It's really mostly caught on in the U.S. Like obviously, if you go to the ... You brought up Russia. If you go to Russia, no one wants to read Karl Marx. They'd probably burn that book if they saw it, just because they'd be so angry at it. Jeff: Anyone who's actually lived through communism, a lot of the old Soviet Union, the Eastern Bloc, Poland, and a lot of those places, even Germany to an extent, they still remember a lot of that. That's all you need to know about communism is live through it, and you realize it. That's one thing that I always thought that's funny is, you have all these people like Bernie Sanders and all these people, and they're so pro-communism and socialism and all these sort of things. It's like, have you ever even just gone to Venezuela even for a weekend? Because I was there like a year and a half ago, and it was pretty bad. Jeff: I remember being there about 15 years ago, and it was really nice. In fact, you can look up Venezuela back in the '60s and '70s. It looked just as nice as what you see in the videos of the U.S. People got around in nice cars, looking all nice. Everyone's looking good and happy, and they have lots of food and all that sort of stuff, and now it's just a complete and total disaster, so ... Yeah, you have some people still ... It's mostly in the U.S., though, I have to say [inaudible 00:23:04]. Jeff: I meet a lot of people from the U.S., and they say, "Man, this whole world's going to hell." It's like, actually, it's not too bad. Most of the world is pretty good. It's really the U.S. is like, and Canada is almost just as bad now, and when you go to the universities, as you pointed out, and I do the same thing, I have only hired one university graduate ever, and it turned into the biggest disaster I've ever had. He was actually a producer at CNBC, I hired him in 1999 to head up a video department of a internet company I had, and he was a total disaster. He was an MBA, and I had all the, all that stuff, and I ended up having to pay him out like two years' salary to get him to leave, that sort of- Stefan: Oh, my God. Jeff: But yeah, so I just stay away from the universities. As you pointed out, if I ... I've got a number of businesses myself, so if someone's interested in working with us, I'll ask them what they do, and if they go, "Well, I just spent the last eight years in university," I'm like, "Well, you don't make very good decisions, do you? You [inaudible 00:24:00]-" Stefan: Bro, I'm going to give you a gong for that. Boom. I want you to instant replay that for the kids at home. "If you're hanging out in university the last eight years, you don't make very good decisions, do you?" Tell me why that's a bad decision in 2019. Jeff: Well, I'm sure there's probably a couple courses you could take in college that make some sense somehow. I've never seen them, though, but I ... There must be a couple, but the reason that it makes no sense in 2018, 2019, is because we have the internet now, and all information is on the internet. You don't have to pay $100,000 a year to go sit in a room with probably a unionized teacher who's never done anything his whole life, that's why he's a teacher, he doesn't know anything, and sit there with a bunch of other idiots like you, because you don't know anything, they don't know anything, and learn about socialism-type stuff pumped into you. It's a complete and total waste of time. Really, the best- Stefan: You mean it's a virgin sex therapy class, so the guy teaching, it's a virgin, but he's teaching sex therapy to everybody? Jeff: Yeah, that's one good way to put it, but yeah. It's just a waste of time. I think trade schools or something, where if you're going to become a mechanic, so you have to work on cars, so you can't really do that over the internet, I think that makes some sense, but 90-percent-plus of what you go to college for is just a complete and total waste of time that you could just totally learn much better stuff on the internet. It actually just came out, I don't know if you heard this, but Google and Facebook just said that they've removed university education as one of the requirements to work there. I think they're really slow and late to do that, but I think they're starting to realize, it's like, "Man, the people we're getting from the schools are just brainwashed idiots, whereas the young guy who's sitting at home just hacking away, and going on the internet all day, and figuring everything out, those are the kind of guys you want." Stefan: Yeah. I got a policy in my office, and when people come to me and ask for stuff, I say, "Google it, or handle it." Those are the two things, handle it, google it. Google and ... I think it was Google, Apple, Facebook, they don't need degrees anymore. I think that's been going on for some time, but it's an official statement now. Right? That's like super, super official. Jeff, let's go back to collapse of society and things like that. One thing that's common in history, and I've studied it over and over again when these collapses happen, it's usually, the people can't buy bread. The nonsense can keep going on. The ... Stefan: I've got the numbers in my book here, Hard Times, about minimum wage, and minimum wage in 1968, indexed to gold, is 103,000 dollars U.S., so you work at McDonald's, you made one cheeseburger, one hamburger, French fries, Coke, and a milkshake, you made 103 grand in purchasing power back then, indexed to gold. Same guy today making a cheeseburger, hamburger, French fries, well, he has to make 150 items down at McDonald's. They got a crazy menu. Stefan: Same guy at McDonald's makes 13,000 a year, so he's lost 90% of his purchasing power indexed to gold, and this shenanigan with the money system where the banks and the government rob people through inflation every year, and then suddenly, at some point, it keeps going, going, going, going until the average man can't buy bread. That's when the Russian Revolution happens. That's when the French Revolution happens. Why does that pattern keep happening over and over again? Jeff: Well, first, let me just mention that the reason that these jobs have gone so far down in value is because of the central bank. It's because of money printing and inflation, and that's why you pointed out those numbers in inflation terms. You have a lot of people out there today who are like, "We need to raise the minimum wage," which is, what you're saying is, "We need these people who extort us, called the government, to go out with guns and force businesses to pay us more because we can't afford to live." Well, the reason you can't afford to live is because you've had most of your stuff stolen from you by the central bank, and the central bank, by the way, is a tenet of communism, and that's why I say the U.S. is nothing even close to capitalism today. Jeff: Actual communism has already destroyed most of these people. You ask about revolutions, and yeah, it seems that people, this is one thing you can say about anarchy, a lot of people think about anarchy, "Well, if there was not government, it'd just be chaos, and horrible, and everyone would just kill each other." It's actually not true. Your average person, and this relates to your question, your average person just really doesn't want to do too much. They want to have a nice little life. They want to have a family or whatever, or they don't, but they want something nice, and that's about it. They don't want to go out and rock the boat too much. Your average person just does not want to rock the boat, and that's what ... Jeff: That's one of the problems we have today is, we have the statist system, and most people are just too scared to change it, but it appears, at some point, when you finally run out of even just food, and you can't even eat anymore, that's when finally people start to wake up, and stand up, and demand some sort of change. When I say demand, the problem is, they're demanding from the government change. What they should really realize is, the government caused it, the central bank caused it, and just break away from this system and stand up and become their own person and not be a slave to the systems, but yeah, it's unfortunate that your average person, for whatever reason, will wait until they're basically starving before they actually face the real problems in the world. Stefan: It's interesting in history, I think Putin kicked out the central banks. Is that right? Jeff: I'm not sure if Putin did, but the ruble basically collapsed. I don't think they had a central bank, definitely, at the start there. Stefan: Well, I've heard Putin's kicked out the central banks. I think it's interesting is, Hitler did that back in the day. I guess Germany was so poor, and they were so messed up, and they couldn't make their war reparation payments. They just couldn't pay, and that's how World War II started is, a bunch of people, super poor, couldn't pay their payments, boom, world war starts. It's interesting, because somehow, in the system, the political system, they go right versus left, and the right versus the left, and the left versus the right. Really, it's the same kind of thing. Nobody points the finger at the central banks. Stefan: One thing I love about America that still stands is, there's 300 million guns in the States and 300 million people, and they keep that gun amendment in there because they know that tyranny's going to come at some point. They left that in there, and if people can't buy bread, or they're really hungry, that's where those 300 million people with guns are going to rise up. Do you think we're going to see something like that in our lifetimes? Jeff: Yeah, definitely, because the U.S. is going to collapse in the next few years. It's not going to be decades, because it's so bankrupt. We have 22 trillion dollars' worth of debt now, so we're basically ... I said when I started The Dollar Vigilante that the U.S. dollar will collapse by the end of this decade, so we've got about a year left. I think we're pretty close to on track. That's how close we are to the end of this system. Yeah, we're definitely going to see collapses anyway. As far as people in the U.S. having guns, I think all people should have the right to defend themselves, obviously. I don't think anyone should be able to say, "You can't have this," if you're not hurting anyone else, and that's what government does, of course. It's very good. That's the only thing left in the U.S. that is keeping it from being complete and total carnage is that the people still can protect themselves, so the government has to be very careful about how they enslave everyone, but they've done an incredibly good job of enslaving people. Jeff: When you think about how the U.S. started, it started over the Tea Party, where it was a tax from England on tea, and that was it. It wasn't a tax on everything else, income tax, and capital gains tax, and smoking tax, and hotel tax, and food tax, and all this sort of stuff. It was just a little tax on tea, and that started the so-called American Revolution. Now you have people in the U.S. today where you have taxes that are over 50%. It's probably closer to 60 or 70% when you add up all the taxes, because literally every single thing in the U.S. is taxed today, including death. Death has a tax, and so when you die you get taxed. You still don't have people wanting to revolt. It's because, again, people are fairly, if they have a decent life, they don't tend to want to change things too much. You look at the U.S. and your average person, even poor people have a television. They probably even have a car. Even poor people have cars in the U.S. Jeff: That's how much free markets, even the poorest people are still ahead of a lot of other people in the world, and so because of that, they don't really want to have a revolt or anything like that. Plus, they don't even ... Because of all the years of government indoctrination and all the war propaganda about how they're trying to save the world by spreading freedom by bombing the entire world in the War on Terror, war of terror. It's absolutely insane, but your average person just doesn't seem to want to even break out of this system. Jeff: What's going to probably happen is, that system's going to collapse on its own because of all the debt and go into hyperinflation. Then hopefully, and you brought up about how Russia's become much more free market now. That's what happens. The same cycles that you mentioned before when you have countries, they usually start off quite small and poor. Even the U.S. was like that when it first started. Because it had a lot of freedom, it becomes quite rich. Then they get soft because of that and because of government and statism, they start doing socialism and all these sort of things which start to destroy everything. They start putting kids into the government schools and all that, and they get worse and worse until they eventually totally collapse, like the Soviet Union. Once it has a total collapse, then you can actually have free markets again. The U.S. actually, once this collapse happens, and after a few weeks or months, and that's sort of what happened in the Soviet Union as well, it takes a little bit of time, like weeks or months, definitely not years, then you can start to rebuild immediately again with free markets. Jeff: We've seen how the free markets, if you just allow people to be free, you just have to look at places like Hong Kong. That was a fishing village like 200 years ago. Look at it now. I don't know if you've ever been there. It's amazing to even go there. Singapore, even 100 years ago, was a fishing village. It's now one of the most luxurious, wealthy places in the world. Dubai was just desert. They just started doing like low-tax, no-tax sort of stuff, and all of a sudden, there you got like indoor ski parks in the hot, 150-degree desert. Once you have like all this tyranny, it will eventually collapse. Then once it collapses, you have freedom again, and then things take off again. Jeff: Really, that's the whole point of what I do at The Dollar Vigilante is, that's our actual tagline, which is, "Helping you to survive and prosper during and after the dollar collapse," because if you can hold on to some of your assets, and if you can get through this collapse that's coming, we're going to go on to amazing, prosperous times again, but if you have no assets, you'll have to work a lot harder to get back up, but if you have kept some of your assets and things like precious metals or cryptocurrencies, once everyone else gets wiped out, and all the banks close, and the currency becomes worthless, you'll be one of the richest guys around, and then you can start rebuilding the new free market. Stefan: Yeah. There's two cycles that are coming to an end. I wrote about this in my book, Hard Times. One is the 2020, which is that 80-year cycle of war. That's an important one to watch. Hard Times Create Strong Men. Then the other one is the 250-year cycle of democracy. Democracies only last about 250 years, so if the U.S. was born in 1776, it's going to be dead by 2026, so somewhere between 2020 and 2026, we know there's probably going to be an end of democracy, probably usually goes democracy into tyranny, and then tyranny back into monarchy usually is what happens. We'll see something happen. Do you think it's going to go back to tyranny and monarchy, or do you think it's going to go just to open freedom? Jeff: Yeah. A really good question. I don't know how it's going to play out. I could definitely see the tyranny part coming after this. What will likely happen, and probably be Trump will be in, his regime will be in as this collapse happens. As everyone's gets wiped out, as the banks close, as it's complete, way worse than 1929, Great Depression, someone like Trump will become sort of like Hitler-like in that sense, in that he will be the strongman who will lead the country out of this. Because of that, we're going to need more laws, and of course, Trump has been pro-asset, civil forfeitures, having the police just take whatever they want. He even came out recently and said that he's okay if the cops go and just take everyone's guns and then figure out if they did the right thing afterwards and go to court in that afterwards, so no due process and things like that. Yeah, I could totally see that we have this collapse in the next couple years. Jeff: It leads into a very sort of like Nazi Germany like sort of like tyranny type thing, and perhaps war, because the U.S. does have a massive amount of military just sitting there, and of course, if you're desperate, and if you're broke, and if your people are all crying out for something to be done, and of course, what do they always say on the news, the television programming? "Well, it's always Russia. Russia's always messing with us." Russia's not doing anything to the U.S. whatsoever, but they've been putting this into place, and they also mention China a lot. Yeah, they'll probably go into some sort of major war at some point. The key for people like us will be to stay outside of it and let them all go through this, again, if they want to go through this again, which is unbelievable. Jeff: There's lots of stories of people surviving through all of these, World War II, World War I, the Great Depression, and coming out way ahead afterwards, and even surviving quite well through it. A lot of them would go to places like Argentina or whatever for a few years, wait till all the craziness dies down with their assets and things like that. That's really the key, and to me, it's, we can't change everyone else. I wish we could, but we can't. Jeff: Actually, I don't wish I could. That'd be a huge responsibility, to change everyone else, but I wish that they would be a bit more able to see what's going on, but if they can't, really all that's left for us to do is to take care of ourselves and to keep spreading this information the ways that we can do it, but if they're going to go ahead and destroy the whole world with their statism, and their craziness, and their communism, and socialism, and fascism again, then it's really just up to us to survive and prosper through it and then try to be there to help rebuild once they get through doing it all again. Stefan: There's two interesting things that come to mind when you say that. There's the Hitler-Trump connection, which I think is super interesting. There's two things I want to allude to. There's the Hitler-Trump connection, and then there's another one, an Abraham Lincoln and Trump connection. When you look back in history, so if we go back 80 years to World War II, Germany was one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet, probably actually was the most advanced in science and medicine. They were so broke, they were so poor, they were so hungry, they were so messed up that the Nazis became popular, because Hitler was offering them a better life. He said, "Look, here's a better life. We can have a better way." People got behind that, the most sophisticated, probably, society on the planet went into absolute terror at that time. Stefan: I think there's a similar thing going on in the U.S. You've got a huge amount of people on food stamps. People are poor. People are pissed off, so they elect a strong leader. It's not ... It's interesting, like if it wasn't Hitler back in World War II, it probably would have been somebody else leading them, because the people were so poor and so messed up ... I like what Jordan Peterson said in the summary. He said, "You don't have an idea. An idea has you." That idea had Nazi Germany. I think there's a similar idea in the Brexit right now. There's a similar idea in the United States, and then that's the 80-year cycle. Stefan: If you go back 80 years before, you got the Civil War, the American Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln got shot. It's interesting, because Lincoln was a guy that wasn't totally popular with half the country. He got assassinated, and those things are all kind of floating around. You got a Trump, Trump-Hitler-like ruler there. I mean, I actually like Trump, personally, but at the end of the day, there's a sentiment in the country and a feeling around that that's Hitler-like, and then there's also an Abraham Lincoln kind of feeling where do you think he could get assassinated? Jeff: Look, I think it's possible. I think most of those sort of things, they're all actually orchestrated. JFK, for example, I believe that was Lyndon B. Johnson and the CIA who took him out. Ronald Reagan, that was the first Bush, the one who just died, George W. Bush, or sorry, George Bush, who was behind the assassination attempt, so-called assassination attempt, on Ronald Reagan. It's usually like an inside sort of a thing. It's really controlled. It's really theater. They actually keep all these things, including Putin, including little Kim in North Korea. They're all controlled by the same people, and it's just this big theater to keep people just mesmerized and watching their CNN and, "Oh, what did Trump say today," and all that. It's just no different than people in North Korea like, "What did little Kim say today? What are we supposed to do today?" Jeff: That sort of a thing, but anything is possible, but it is pretty tough to assassinate the president, as an outsider, but as an insider, it's not that hard, but they also seem to have some sort of weird like almost like protection around them. Like even George W. Bush, when he was in Iraq and the guy stood up at the media thing, and he was very mad, because Bush had been destroying his country and killing his family and all that sort of stuff, and he threw one shoe, and Bush just did the little dodge and just missed him, and then threw another shoe, and he just ... It's like, I don't know what it is with these people. They're kind of like, I don't know what it is, but it seems like he can't really get to them that way, not physically violent sort of thing. I think the only way we get rid of all of this is for people to wake up and realize that these people don't own you, and start to move away from these systems, and these people just go away and have to get real jobs. Stefan: I think one of the problems with human nature and people, I mean, you were talking about human nature and communism, where human nature doesn't work inside of communism, and then there's also another side of human nature, which is, I think humans have a hero worship, innate hero worship ability where we see someone, we see a leader, and we just want to worship them, and we want them to handle our problems. We want to have a personal Jesus. We want to have somebody we can just give it all to. Somehow, that's going to be the easy button. It'll all be solved, and then we don't have to think or deal with anything. Would you say that's true? Jeff: Oh, absolutely. That's exactly what government, it really is. That's what government always does. You look at every election. They come up there, and they give all these promises. "I'm going to solve this for you. I'm going to solve that." They never solve anything. They're just extorting you and destroying everything in the process, and making everything worse in the process, but yeah. That's absolutely the case is, your average person just won't take responsibility for themselves and just say, "I don't need this person to run this entire country for me. I can run myself," and that sort of a thing. Of course, it gets a little interesting how that would all, we've been in statism now for hundreds of years, so to actually break away from it's going to be difficult. Jeff: That's actually why we're starting up numerous sort of countries across the world now, so we've started Liberland in Europe, which is near Croatia and Serbia, which is a new sort of anarcho-capitalist country that's just being started, and there's some few others working on buying some islands, and we're going to start some totally anarcho-capitalist free sort of places there. We're also seasteading, so we're trying to start up in the ocean, start up our own little, what you call countries. None of them are really like countries, because there's no real government, but it's a place that we're going to start up that it's going to be completely free. Then through that, hopefully we could show the world, because they've never really seen it, what life would be like in a true free market. Jeff: If, all evidence seems to point to when you have a totally free market that it's incredibly good for most people. It just increases the wealth dramatically, as we've seen, as I pointed out, in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai. Whenever you have a lot of freedom, everything gets a lot more prosperous. The only sort of question a lot of people have is, "What if you have total freedom? What would happen?" We don't really have any good examples for that yet, so we're hoping to start do that in the next couple of years and try to show the world the light that, really, this governmental sort of statism system with central banks, and all these sort of things, are just absolutely terrible. The best thing for all humanity is to get rid of those sort of things and not have a belief in their authority. Stefan: Sounds like a page out of Atlas Shrugged right now. You got all the productive smart people wanting to go start their own country or start their own island. This is, it's just human nature. It's all written down in the book. It's all happened before, and here's a thought, Jeff. I don't know if you thought about this. At some point, there probably was some nice, true freedom in the Wild West, maybe, Wild West America or some place, and then at some point, the people organized themselves. At some point, there's a government. At some point, there's a king. At some point, there's a good king. He dies, and then you got his son, the bad king. Stefan: Do you think we've had freedom in history at some point, like true freedom, and then it just got consolidated into power? Because it seems to me that whether you look at a market like a real estate market, or you look at a Monopoly board, or you look at anything in life with humans, it seems that there's like always a consolidation going on. There's a consolidation at some point where somebody just ends up taking over, and we just end up in that over and over again, and the dominoes fall down at some point. We reset. Do you think we can actually exist as free people, like truly, or do you think someone's going to seize power at some point? Jeff: Well, the thing is, if you have enough people who actually believe that freedom is the way to go, and they want to do that, then no one can seize power, because there's nothing there to seize. You pointed out rightly that over history, it appears that people have always been okay with giving away their power to someone else and hoping this guy takes care of them all, and that never works out for the best, just like communism, it just never works out well. Jeff: Yeah, that's actually been the case over time is that people seem to have always sort of gravitated into these sort of things, but at the same time, when you think about life even today, we actually live in a state of complete anarchy right now. It just so happens that there's a lot of governments on earth which you can just consider to be criminal organizations who are stealing and extorting people, and kidnapping people, and forcing them to do things they don't want to do, but we actually live in a state of anarchy. Jeff: Your average person, actually, every single day of their life, pretty much lives in anarchy. When you're in your home, or you're talking to your friends, or you go to work, that's just anarchy. That's just day-to-day life, and there's no one there telling you what to do, except for a street cop or whatever, a road pirate who might try to extort you if he thinks you're going a little too fast over a arbitrary speed limit or things like that, but generally kind of already live in anarchy. Really, the important thing to understand is that the word "government," what it really means, "govern" is, the word "govern" comes from the Latin [Latin 00:46:24] which means to control, which makes a lot of sense, and the word "ment." Jeff: There's a lot of different sort of where that came from, but I lived here in Mexico, Spanish, [Spanish 00:46:34] is mind, so really, government is mind control. It's controlling people's minds to make them believe that this thing has authority over them and that it's sort of taking care of them as well. This is where we get into Stockholm syndrome and things like that, where people actually begin to really adore their kidnapper, the person who has basically kept them enslaved. I see [inaudible 00:46:56]- Stefan: I wanted to give a gong. At some point, you got to stop for me to give you a gong. I didn't know that "government" meant mind control. It's really interesting, because if you control the information, you control the thoughts, and if you control the thoughts, you control the stories. You control the stories, you control the beliefs. If you control the beliefs, you control reality. It's almost like ... In Hard Times, I talk about we almost live in a 1984 future from George Orwell, and some of it's like Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, which was Orwell's mentor. We got half of our stuff is the American Aldous Huxley Brave New World future with orgies, and synthetic music, and all these women with narrow hips that don't bear children anymore, and we have alphas, and betas, and gammas, and deltas and all that stuff, and epsilons. Stefan: Then the other part of our world is like the 1984 future where there's three gigantic powers that are always at war with each other, and it's like a Stalinist future. What do you think about those two books right now, Jeff, like 1984, Brave New World, and what we got going on right now? Jeff: Yeah. Both those guys, both, I think they went, both went to Oxford or one of those major schools. They hung out with the same people like the Bush crime family and all those, so they hung out with what you could call the elites, or some people call them the Illuminati or whatever words you want to put to these sort of secret societies that mostly sort of are in these schools like Oxford and stuff like that. They were actually good friends, as you pointed out, and it's really amazing that that long ago, what is it, like 60, 70, 80 years ago, they wrote- Stefan: It was 1945- Jeff: ... these books. Stefan: ... I think. It was like right after World War II the books came out. Jeff: Yeah, so I can't do the math. I went to government schools, but 70 years ago, whatever it was, and they've really just roadmapped the exact both ways that we're going. Actually, they're both happening at the same time. The Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, that was a lot of bread and circuses. The people would be too dumbed down, which we're seeing, through fluoridization in the water, through all the government indoctrination camps, through the television programming, all that sort of stuff. People are just watching the Kardashians and all that. Jeff: The sports, so the sports ball games, and that sort of thing, so people, that's what Aldous Huxley was saying is, people would be too dumbed down and too into these things like sports and entertainment to even notice that they're enslaved. That's what we have today, especially in the U.S. Then on the other side, there was Orwell went the other way with a bit more it's like a hard, top-down dictatorship. You can't say anything. Everything's the opposite of what it means in political speak, which is what we have today. You brought up about how there's these certain sectors of the world that always at war. East Oceania's always at war with whatever the other one was. That's what we have today. It's like, who's at war with who? This War on Terror, it's a war on a feeling. It's a war on, it's like terror is a feeling. It's like, "I was terrified when I saw that. We need a war against that." It's like- Stefan: Well, we got the- Jeff: ... "Who are you [inaudible 00:49:47]" Stefan: ... War on Drugs which doesn't work. We got the War on Terror that doesn't work. You got the War on Cancer that doesn't work. You got all these wars. They keep just funneling money into a couple dudes' pockets, and the War on Drugs makes drugs worse. The War on Cancer makes cancer worse. The War on Terror makes terrorism worse. It's pretty scary how those things just simply don't work. Jeff: Yeah, and it's all by design, like the people who really do these things know this is what's going to happen. It's just sad that people keep falling for it, but people are slowly waking up thanks to the internet. Yeah, I even saw like, who's that blonde, fairly not attractive, woman on U.S. TV who's like a really mean, nasty sort of ... Anyway. She just came out, and she just said all these wars are just stupid. They're just like, like we shouldn't be doing them. She was like a total war sort of a person. This just came out. Jeff: People are starting to wake up, but the biggest issue is, they don't know what the answer is, and so that's why they keep going back to what you pointed out, which is this false left-right paradigm, which they tell everyone that's all there is. There's left or right or somewhere in the middle and there's nothing else, but that's a very narrow range of political spectrum. That's basically statism right there, and you can have left or right in statism, but there's a whole other spectrum of just not having governments whatsoever that could really free a lot of people. It's really growing, actually, like when we first started Anarchast, Anarchapulco, Anarchapulco started five years ago. It was 150 people. We're now expecting about 3,000 people. It's doubled every year. Stefan: Wow. Jeff: My show, Anarchast, a lot of people said no one had ever watched the show, but anarchy, that's crazy. They think anarchy is throwing bombs and all this sort of stuff, but it's catching on. People are catching on to a lot of this stuff now, so we're going to see what happens. We're at an amazing time in human history, because all these things are coming to a head all at the same time. All these governments are bankrupt. The central banks are about to go into hyperinflation. Then we have people waking up and starting to realize what's going on, and then you still have all these people in the universities who think that communism's the way out, so they'll probably try to push for that. Jeff: It's just amazing, incredible time, and there's going to be so much change in the next 10 years. I don't think anyone will believe what happens over the next 10 years. I couldn't even imagine what will happen, but I know it's going to be mind-blowing what happens. It's going to be that much change. Stefan: Yeah. It's unbelievable. Now, Jeff, I got to wrap up the show, but I want to ask you a couple questions I ask every guest, because I think they're cool. If you can go back in time to, let's say, 15-year-old Jeff and give yourself a piece of advice, what's a piece of advice you'd give yourself? Jeff: Oh, man. That's a good question. I would say work on yourself. I really just started working on myself over the last couple of years. I'm like 48 years old now, and it's changed my life dramatically. I didn't deal with a lot of my past issues, childhood issues, a lot of the programming that we get from our cult, our culture they call it, but our cult, through our younger years. That still stays in your head. I think if I would have, if I could go back, I'd say, "Buy Bitcoin as soon as you hear about it," and I'd- Stefan: [inaudible 00:52:55]. Jeff: ... say, "Work on yourself," like- Stefan: [inaudible 00:52:57] man. Jeff: I'd probably also say, "Don't go to the bars that much. Don't be having a lot of drunken sex. It's a total waste of time. Try to find a good girlfriend. Try to fix yourself and work on yourself more than anything." That's what I'd tell him. Stefan: Wow. Great answer. Top three books that changed your life. Jeff: A good question again. We talked about G. Edward Griffin earlier. The Creature from Jekyll Island was one of the first books that got me looking into all this stuff that I talk about today. That was a really important to my life. I'd say The Lord of the Rings is, I read it when I was very young. I used to love to read. I was probably like 12 or something. This giant book, it's even bigger than your book there. What I didn't realize about The Lord of the Rings that is interesting, I love the book, and I loved everything about it, and it wasn't until a couple years ago I realized that that ring of power was actually a metaphor for government power. I actually looked- Stefan: Wow. Jeff: ... into it a couple years ago, and J. R. R. Tolkien, who wrote the book, called himself an anarchist, so that entire book was an allegory about the problems caused by government. Those two books are pretty good. I guess the third book that I thought was really interesting, and it's like a pamphlet. You can read it in about two hours. It's called The Market for Liberty. You can actually find it online for free in PDF format, and it shows what the world could be like without government. When I read that book, it just blew my mind, because I'm sure if you even read it, you'd go, you'd be like me, you'd be like, "Wow, I never thought things could work that way or that ... " Jeff: They actually thought about how things would work without government, so there'd be like private security companies. Well, how would that work? Well, there'd be insurance as well, so the insurance companies ... For example, like people go, "Well, how would you put out fires without the government?" Which is kind of funny, because the government rarely puts out fires [inaudible 00:54:34]. Stefan: Fire insurance. Jeff: Yeah. Fire insurance, and then the insurance companies have all this insurance money, and they'll have to pay out a ton if there's a giant fire, so they actually put out fire stuff, and fire stations, and all that kind of stuff so it can all work in the free market. I think that book really, in just such a small amount of time, can really just show how the free market can handle everything. Stefan: Yeah. Well, that's great. I always, people say, "Well, who's going to pay for the roads?" Well, you just tax cars and gasoline. If you got a car and gas- Jeff: Not even tax, right, but like the businesses would own the roads. You would never put up ... Let's say you're Walmart, and you want to put up a Walmart somewhere and there's no road there. You're going to build the road, because you want people to get to your thing. Plus, not to mention there's already all roads. All roads that already exist. I don't know why people think they'll just disappear, but obviously like gas stations would have a giant interest to making sure there was roads, so they would probably do something. The gas stations would all work together and say, "Okay, let's take 10% of all of our money that we make every month and put it into maintaining the roads." Right? It's fairly basic sort of stuff. Stefan: Right. All right. Second last question today, Jeff. What's the one thing that young people need to succeed these days? Let's talk to the snowflakes. Let's talk to the millennials, the guy with the MacBook Pro at Starbucks. What's something you want to say to h

Jeff Neumeister, Founder and CEO of Neumeister & Associates, joins us today to talk about cryptocurrency taxes, a confounding area of tax law (what isn’t?) and one that you should master if you are an investor in digital currency. Because what you don’t know could have an adverse impact on your pocketbook. That’s what happened to one U.S. college student in 2017 who invested $5,000 in Ethereum and somehow would up owing the IRS $400,000 in taxes. Yes, you stand to benefit greatly from understanding how the IRS views crypto (Hint: It’s in the same category as your house). And you’ll learn the cardinal rule of crypto taxation: The buck stops with you.   This is specially important this year after the 2018 market crash since many investors are selling their cryptocurrency and fleeing the market, without full knowledge of the tsunami of capital gains liabilities that these transactions may be triggering.   A forensic accountant by trade, Jeff brings great credibility to the task of walking us through the minefields of crypto taxes. He offers practical tips on everything from what constitutes a taxable event to what makes crypto taxes so challenging and how mined coins are taxed. That’s just a few of the questions Jeff answers in this episode. You’ll come away feeling a lot more confident about understanding your tax burden as you stagger into your tax prep marathon.     Topics Covered in this Conversation with Jeff Neumeister   What makes crypto taxes so challenging. What constitutes a taxable event? What is the difference between short-term and long-term gains? How are mined coins taxed? What happens if I give some coins as a gift, or someone gives me crypto? Do I have to pay tax on coins that were hacked? What happens if I lose some coins? What are the acceptable ways to report coin gains? What are the biggest obstacles to easily filing crypto taxes? Increasingly, there are charities that accept crypto. Is that something that would be helpful at tax time?  How are exchanges doing in terms of making it easy for investors to file taxes? Can crypto losses be balanced against traditional fiat capital losses. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen or heard with it comes to filing or not filing crypto taxes. Let’s step back a bit and look at the process involved - let’s look at two scenarios: Scenario A: Let’s say you are Sally Fey, a beginner investor in 2017 and you got all caught up in the buying and selling during the Bull Market and you didn’t track all the coins you traded across multiple exchanges nor did you jot down the buy/sell price  for each transaction. Now your taxes are looming and you have your head in your hands. How do you regroup? Scenario B: Unlike Sally Fey, you are Matt Jones -- a beginner investor in 2019 and it’s a Bear Market and you’ve been told now is the time to buy. You’re starting with a clean slate. You’ve set up your exchange accounts, you are ready to trade. What’s good tax hygiene you should follow from Day One and on to Day 365 to simplify your tax headache for the year? Can you get away with NOT paying crypto taxes? What are the penalties for non-compliance? Any closing thoughts on how to make our crypto tax lives easier?   Questions and Comments? chasingunicorns@gem.co   Guest Contact Information Jeff Neumeister Website | LinkedIn | Twitter Resource Links: 3 Ways the IRS Is Taxing Cryptocurrencies Taxes and crypto Turning your 2018 Bitcoin and Crypto Losses into Tax Savings What You Don’t Know About Crypto Taxes Can Hurt You Tax Nightmare: Student Invested $5k in Ethereum & Now Owes $400k in Taxes 4 things to know about your cryptocurrency at tax time Year-End Tax Tips And Strategies For Cryptocurrency Investors IRS Guidelines Transcript: Interview with Jeff Neumeister Interview Recorded On: November 12 Topic: Crypto Taxes Chitra: Hello, and welcome to Running with Unicorns, your portal to the world of cryptocurrency. I'm Chitra Ragavan, Chief Strategy Officer at Gem. It's that time of year again, and your crypto taxes are looming. Here's what you can do about it. Our guest today is going to walk us through the ins and outs of crypto tax filing. Jeff Neumeister is CEO and Founder of Neumeister & Associates, an LA-based tax advisory firm with a growing practice in crypto taxes.   Jeff, welcome to the program.   Jeff: Thank you.   Chitra: What makes filing crypto taxes so challenging?   Jeff: It'd be probably because there are so many different things that are happening in the crypto world. It's not just mining coins or just trading coins, but there are forks, airdrops. There's just a lot happening. Because it's a new space, it's a lot that the taxing authorities are still trying to wrap their heads around.   Chitra: Let's start with the basics. What constitutes a taxable event in cryptocurrency?   Jeff: A taxable event is anything that results in a tax obligation or a potential tax obligation. That could be selling something, it could be generating income, it could be incurring a expense.   Chitra: Is it different than in regular taxes? What are the differences and similarities?   Jeff: It's similar in concept, except with cryptos there's just, again, so much more going on. Normally, if someone is just, say, a W2 earner, they have a paycheck, and that's the sole source of income that is subject to tax. With cryptos, however, if you're mining and trading in the ICO world, there's so many things that are happening that you're constantly subjected to different types of taxes.   Chitra: One of the basic things one needs to know is short-term and long-term gains. How does that work?   Jeff: Short-term gains just refer to anything, anytime you hold an asset or a piece of property for less than 12 months. Long-term is anything above that. Now, they also come along with different taxable rates. With long-term capital gains, it could be anywhere from 0 to 20%, so much better than what most of us pay with taxes for our income earnings. For short-term gains, it's anywhere from 10 to 37%. Short-term capital gains are essentially the same as ordinary income tax rates.   Chitra: Let's look at different types of crypto and how they will be impacted by taxes. Let's start with if you're mining cryptocurrency. How do you account for those?   Jeff: Mining's interesting, because it's kind of two things at once. When you mine a coin, or a fraction of a fraction of a coin, you're generating ordinary income, so whatever the value of the mined coin was, or fraction of a coin was, you have to pay ordinary income taxes on that. Then, that also establishes your cost basis in the coin that you now hold. If you do something else with it later on, trade it or sell it, you'll have capital gains on top of that.   Chitra: Then, let's look at crypto gifts. If you get a gift of Bitcoin, or Ether, or EOS, how do you handle that when it comes to tax time?   Jeff: If you're the receiver of a gift, then you just need to be aware of what the holder's or the donor's cost basis was. If they acquired something for, say, $100 and gave it to you, you need to make sure that you have that down in your records that your cost basis is $100.   There's no tax owed on a gift received. However, if you're the gift giver, you might have to do a informational filing, a form 709. What that is is anytime you gift more, at least in 2018, more than $15,000, you have to file a form 709. You don't have to pay gift tax on that, but if you exceed your gift-giving of $5.6 million during the course of your lifetime, then you have to start paying gift taxes.   Chitra: If only we could all be so lucky.   Jeff: Right. Most of us will never have to worry about that, but make sure that you file a form 709, because there are penalties with not filing.   Chitra: Then, can you give crypto to charity? I see that increasingly, there are a lot of, even the Red Cross and other organizations accepting crypto. When that happens, is that a good thing to do, when it comes to tax time? Obviously, it's a good thing to do in any case, but it probably helps with taxes, doesn't it?   Jeff: Absolutely. It's just like any charitable contribution, except instead of giving clothes, or fiat, or artwork, or jewelry, you're giving cryptos, yeah.   Chitra: It's taxed similarly?   Jeff: Yes, mm-hmm (affirmative).   Chitra: Then, if you're hacked, what happens? You're losing a bunch of coins because you got hacked. Do you have to pay taxes on that?   Jeff: No, but you have to make sure that it's documented. It's the same thing as if someone came into your house and burglarized it, right? It's a casualty loss. That would be an itemized deduction. You have to make sure that you record those things. Chitra: What if you just lose your crypto? Like, they're on some exchange, you don't know where it is, or you've lost the password. Can they figure it out that you have this crypto? How do you account for the missing crypto?   Jeff: That's a little bit more challenging. If you no longer have access, say, to your key, and you'll never obtain access, then that could be construed as a casualty loss, as well. If you just say, "I don't know which exchange it's on," hopefully that won't come up if you're audited, yeah.   Chitra: And if you are?   Jeff: Then, as long as you show a good faith effort in being consistent and transparent with taxing authorities, and they could see that you're not trying to hide anything, then you should be okay.   Chitra: Do you hear of people that are trying to hide crypto by claiming losses, that they've lost it?   Jeff: Some folks, yeah, yeah. More egregious than that, though, we've had, there was one gentleman that was seeking out a CPA, who made a little over 2.5 million in cryptos, and said, "No, I'm just not going to file. If they want the money, they have to come after me."   Chitra: Did they?   Jeff: Well, that's what's going to happen over the next couple years, yeah. The IRS has started mounting a task force specialist specifically to investigate cryptocurrency filings.   Chitra: Is that going to be an easy task? Will they find people that are scofflaws?   Jeff: They will absolutely find people, right? It's going to be interesting in the tax world for the next couple of years, and tax courts, people fighting them.   Chitra: You're seeing a lot of new developments in tax filings, in tax law as a result of this?   Jeff: Not yet. Really, they're just kind of testing the waters, now. The last, about a year ago, they started issuing subpoenas to exchanges, and they were winning, to get transaction records from them, so they could see what people are trading and how much people are earning, so they could compare that with individual tax returns, to find evidence of those that are evading their taxes. They're just starting to institute those audits now and will be taking these folks to tax court as needed. There's a lot of things that will come out of it, but it hasn't happened yet.   Chitra: Because I think, particularly in the early days, there were probably a lot of people who weren't filing taxes. Is there like a statute of limitations, or does it matter if like 10 years ago you weren't filing taxes, and now the IRS is starting to think about this and starting to do these audits?   Jeff: There is a statute. It's, generally speaking, three years from the date of which a filing was due, but that's only if it was an innocent mistake. If you're intentionally evading, there's no statute on that.   Chitra: How do you report, typically, gains and losses? What's the process?   Jeff: The process is usually, you want to have everything calculated, all the transactions. Coin for coin, coin for fiat, and those will be itemized on a form 8949, and summarized on a schedule D, which are attached to the tax returns.   Chitra: Having done my crypto taxes this year, it's fairly complicated. It's just, you have to look at every single transaction. Talk a little bit about what that process is like. It's fascinating for me to see the level of detail and how you actually go about finding those records, if somebody hasn't kept those records, and being able to trace the flow of that currency from the exchange to your wallet, or if you're trading, you've got all of these multiple transactions that have taken place, hundreds, maybe thousands of them.   Jeff: Yeah, it could get very complicated. That's why a lot of our clients have come to us, to help them untangle these complex array of transactions, ranging from, if they have a few hundred coins that they're trading across multiple years, you can end up having thousands and thousands of cost pulls, because you have to trace every single transaction to its cost basis. Its cost basis depend on whether you used FIFO, LIFO, or HIFO.   Chitra: Explain that a little bit.   Jeff: Sure, yeah. Those are the manners in which you inventory the cells of different coins. LIFO, last in, first out, that's saying, when you sell a coin, you go to the last time that you had acquired that coin, and you sell it out of that pool. If you're buying and selling coins all day long, go across multiple months, you have many cost pulls, even thousands or tens of thousands of cost pulls.   FIFO, first in, first out, is where you sell your oldest coin. What that does is it will result in fewer long-term capital gains, but you're kind of eating up your tax obligation now, versus deferring it to later on.   Chitra: Let's say I'm trading, okay? I'm on exchanges, and I'm trading. I'm not really thinking about ... It's not something you think during your trading process, right? It's something you do after the fact. I'm not thinking LIFO and FIFO when I'm like, "Let me find what's my oldest Bitcoin, and let me trade that for Ether." I'm just like, trading. Am I doing the right thing? Is this something you go after the fact, and start to look through it and make those calculations?   Jeff: The easiest thing is to maintain good records, so that whoever, whether you're doing it yourself or outsourcing it to a professional like us, then they could go through those records a lot easier, because it does get complicated. As long as you have the information, it could be all untangled.   Chitra: What's the largest number of transactions you've done, filing taxes, that you've seen? Thousands, hundreds of thousands?   Jeff: Probably in the hundreds of thousands. I think our largest client had a little shy of 200,000 transactions across about 2.5 years. It was a lot. It took a massive amount of manpower, because there isn't a way to fully automate it, yet. We've established a proprietary method to semi-automate portions of it, but not the whole thing. There's still a lot of manual touches that have to be done to it.   Chitra: Were you able to do it?   Jeff: Yeah, yeah. We were able to untangle all of it. He had a massive tax obligation, but most importantly, it'll keep him compliant with the IRS. He had the cash, right? If you make a million dollars in cryptos, and if you have to pay a few hundred thousand in tax, you know, you're still coming out ahead.   Chitra: This is true. What are some of the biggest obstacles today for average investors, when it comes to filing taxes?   Jeff: I think having an understanding about how complex the tax aspect is with cryptos, if you're trading, mining, doing anything else. I think just being aware and mindful of that.   Chitra: There's also the issue of documentation, right? For example, different exchanges can give you different levels of information about your trades, so at the end of the year, some exchanges will give you a lot of information. Other exchanges give you virtually no information. How do you start to do the detective work to find all of your records?   Jeff: That's one of the tricky parts, yeah, because there isn't really any sort of regulation about what all the exchanges have to provide users. There's going to be, and it's moving that direction. For now, it's kind of up to the individual to maintain their own records. If the exchange only provides piecemeal stuff, or in the case of Bittrex that just up and deleted people's information, it's still your obligation to make sure that you're tracking things.   Chitra: What happened in that instance where the information was deleted?   Jeff: Well, they up and decided just to remove information.   Chitra: This was an exchange?   Jeff: Yeah, yeah, Bittrex. It's still the user's responsibility to maintain the records. The individuals that were subjected to that, had they downloaded their transactional information, let's say, every week or every month, they would have been okay, right, just in case something does happen to an exchange. That's something we advise our clients to do is don't wait till the end of the year to start pulling your information, even if you're using a CPA like us, right? Pull the information maybe once a month, just in case something happens.   Chitra: That's interesting. That's something I've never thought to do. It's kind of surprising that they're allowed to even delete information. Is that going to change, in the future?   Jeff: Yeah, there's definitely more pressure in regulation around what the exchanges are doing. Also, keep in mind that a lot of these are foreign exchanges, too, right? The IRS and the federal government only has so much control over what they do.   Chitra: Because this is such a global flow of money.   Jeff: Exactly. It's a global thing. Right.   Chitra: How does the US government, or how is the US government attempting to get a handle on this? Do you feel like the government is kind of playing catch up, now?   Jeff: A bit, yeah. I think there was too much downtime from 2014 to now. You know, the last time the IRS issued any formal guidance was in 2014.   Chitra: What was that initial guidance?   Jeff: It was maybe like a five-page notice, 2014-21, which pretty much just said that it's not legal tender, and to pay your tax on it. There really wasn't much guidance beyond that.   Chitra: What happened before then, like 2009 through '14? Was there any guidance?   Jeff: Nothing formal.   Chitra: What were people doing then?   Jeff: I think, at the time, IRS and other government agencies probably just assumed that this is just a fringe thing, it's a temporary thing, it's not going to last, but look at us now. There are industries being built around blockchain and crypto, and they realize that, now, and the amount of money that people have earned in the sector. They see it as, like, it's a huge nest egg waiting to be tapped.   Chitra: Build your highways and all of that stuff.   Jeff: Right, yeah.   Chitra: Now, when you're filing taxes, can your crypto losses or gains, be balanced against your traditional portfolio?   Jeff: Yes, yeah. The way it works is short-term gains and losses get netted against other short-term gains and losses, regardless of if they're crypto or not. Then, the same thing with long-term.   Chitra: Great. Now, what are the penalties for noncompliance?   Jeff: For failing to file a return, it's a flat 5% of whatever your tax obligation is. For not paying the total amount of taxes owed, it's one half of 1% per month. If it's just one month late, half of 1%, it's not a lot, but if a couple of years go by, a few years go by, it can add up really quick, plus interest.   Chitra: Can you go to jail?   Jeff: Absolutely, unfortunately. If it's deemed that it was tax evasion, like in the example that I gave you of the gentleman that was looking into using our service and decided, no, they can just come after me, a couple million dollars, if they find evidence of tax evasion, then it could be subjected to a felony, which leads up to up to five years in prison and up to a quarter million dollars in penalties.   Chitra: Now, there's a lot of money laundering also going on, right? Does that play a role at all in this?   Jeff: Not so much with the taxes, but it is something that they're mindful about, out there. I see that more in the banking sector, that being an issue. In fact, one of our clients in the crypto space, their bank account was just abruptly closed with no notice. They said, "You can't bank with us," because they are concerned about potential money laundering.   Chitra: What is their fear?   Jeff: I think because they don't know where the money is coming from, right? If you have crypto-related money, it's so easy for it to be maneuvered from overseas. I think that's the concern, because there isn't enough regulation out there yet, right? Some people are just distancing themselves.   Chitra: It seems like there's a whole bunch of areas in which the federal government and governments around the world are now grappling with, how do you make people accountable for all of this wealth that they're generating, and how do we get a piece of that action?   Jeff: Right, that's what it is. They want their cut. As long as you give them their cut, they're not going to bother you.   Chitra: Now, let's look at two scenarios. Let's say you're a Sally Fay, you're a woman investor. You're just starting out. You're super excited. It's 2017. The bull market is in full swing, and you've learned how to trade, and you're just buying and selling without any regard for keeping tabs on your cost basis or the proceeds that you're making. Then, come December, you're stuck with having done thousands of transactions, and you have no idea how to go about finding those records, because every trade that you've done is potentially taxable, correct?   Jeff: Correct.   Chitra: What do you do?   Jeff: In those kinds of situations, because it's a lot of cleanup, the best thing to do is consult with an expert like us, so we can get you cleaned up and caught up. Then, going forward, you're on the right path, right? And to be mindful just about all the tax consequences of all that trading activity.   Chitra: Do you just sort of systematically start to go back and look at every trade you've made?   Jeff: In order to calculate all the gains and losses, historically, yeah. We have to kind of start from inception. If someone started trading in 2014, right, we have to go back to square one.   Chitra: That's pretty daunting.   Jeff: It is, yeah, yeah. At least once we get you caught up, then you should be okay, right?   Chitra: Let's look at scenario B. Let's say that I am a young man, Matt Jones. I'm not in the crypto market yet. It's the bear market, and people are telling me, "Hey, now's the time to come in. Buy low, and you can sell high." I have a clean slate. I've set up my exchanges, but I haven't done any transactions. What are the kinds of things I need to put in place to have tax hygiene, so to speak?   Jeff: Some best practices.   Chitra: Yes.   Jeff: I'd say, first, be mindful that you do any sort of trade coin for coin, that's all going to be a taxable event. Have at it, but just be mindful that there could be a lot of tax compliance to deal with at the end of the year. That affects some people's volume activity.   Another thing, to make sure to pull their records on a consistent basis. We usually, we're advising our clients now to download their transactional history from each exchange they use about once a month. Just make it a month-end practice, just in case either they got locked out, the data is deleted, or something is hacked, just in case anything happens, at least you have the records.   Then, outside of transactions like that, if you're trading on an exchange, if you're gifting coins, jot down somewhere on a Excel sheet or a Word document who you gave it to, when you gave it to them, and how much you gave, right? Just in case if there's any gift tax compliance to do, we could do that as well.   Chitra: Is it advisable to have a notebook and a pen, and when you're making these trades, to actually just jot it down, or put it on an Excel sheet that on this date, I bought X amount of Bitcoin, or I sold X amount of Ether for X amount, and to have that? Is that going to be helpful at the end of the year?   Jeff: It could, but like all the transactional data within the exchanges usually is going to have all that information. If someone wants to just separately track it, and if they're not doing a lot of trades during the year, that could be just as efficient and make their process easier at the end.   Chitra: Now, tell us some war stories. What are some of the anecdotes that you tell people about folks having challenges in filing taxes, or cases that you've seen, or what the government is doing to come to terms with this new source of income?   Jeff: Sure. Probably a couple examples. We have clients that were trading back from, the oldest one is 2013, maybe about a little over $4 million, and of course, they never reported any of it. Thankfully, in contrast to the other individual I was referencing, he said, "You know what, I just want to be compliant, right?" He came to the table. We went through everything, all the records, and got him up to speed.   Going forward, if he's audited, or maybe I should say when, because it's a lot, a big amount, we have work papers in place that we could provide in response to an audit. 90% of the time, that'll just make it go away, almost immediately. As long as the IRS can see that you've made a good faith effort, that there's been due diligence in being compliant, and you have work papers and a CPA to back it up, the audit will go away, right?   Another example, well, with the IRS, it's not so much a war story, but it's come to my attention that they've selected around 1200 to 1300 cases already from the 2017 filings that they're going to move forward with audits. Now, I don't know which ones those are. That comes from a source I have within the audit community, but we suspect that those are probably the larger ones, mostly, people that have generated hundreds of thousands, if not millions.   Chitra: Is the IRS not only trying to get revenue back from these taxable events but also trying to set precedence in some way?   Jeff: Yeah. It serves both purposes, yeah. One, it's a huge amount of revenue just sitting there for the government that hasn't been tapped yet. The second is going through this process, and going through these audits, and taking some people to tax court will set precedence, so that it's clear to everyone else that, one, you need to be compliant. Don't play games with them. I wouldn't be surprised if they send at least a few people to jail over this that have evaded their taxes.   Also, it allows them to kind of establish authoritative guidance, because they're going to take everything they find. They will undoubtedly issue some pronouncements about, "Here's how you calculate this. Here's why you file things this way," which right now, we don't have.   Chitra: What about moving out of the US, like just moving abroad so you don't have to pay your taxes, or even moving to Puerto Rico. You hear a lot about that. Is that going to help you or hurt you, in the long run?   Jeff: I think for taxes, temporarily, it would help, right? But, do you really want to expatriate yourself, denounce the US, in order to just save some money temporarily on taxes? I don't know.   Chitra: Depends, I would say.   Jeff: It depends, yeah, yeah.   Chitra: On what the amount is. Are you hearing about people who are actually doing that?   Jeff: No one I know has actually done it. Some folks that we know have been debating it, and they asked to do some research on expatriation process.   Chitra: It's a fascinating area. When you're doing the forensic work, you've been asked to help, I think, with investigations and things like that. How do you go about collecting the forensic evidence on these cases?   Jeff: Really kind of the same way we do crypto calculations for our clients, right? We pull all the underlying third-party documents. In this case, transactional records. We get their narrative about what happened, hear the story, because any forensic case, anything that we do, it's not just the numbers. It's also the context. It's also what happened, the story, if you will.   With forensic cases, there's usually a lot of other moveable parts, as well, particularly like divorce cases, where people are sometimes hiding funds. Partnership disputes, where one partner is embezzling money. We see that kind of stuff a lot more often than what people realize.   Chitra: What happens in the case of a divorce? Who gets the crypto? How do you actually even split the proceeds, if that's what happens?   Jeff: Same thing with kind of like a house, right? If it was community property, assuming it's a community property state like California, then any assets would be split 50/50, unless it was bought with separate property. If you don't want to cash out the portfolio, then usually one partner would buy out the other half from the other partner, just like a house. If you don't want to literally split the house in half, one person wants to keep it, one partner would buy out the house from the other.   Chitra: Well, that actually raises an interesting question, because let's say one partner is very crypto-savvy and the other partner is not crypto-savvy. It probably is pretty easy to hide your assets in the form of crypto, because the other person has no way of finding out how much you have and where you have this.   Jeff: True. Yeah, there's an opportunity there for someone to try to take advantage. Part of the divorce proceedings process is to come to the table and be transparent with both partners. Usually, like, you're essentially signing off to the court that let the partner know 100% of the assets out there. To try to hide it is essentially perjuring with the court.   Chitra: Where do you see all of this going in the next few years, as more and more people get into the space? There is a prediction that you're going to have a billion new crypto investors, over the next five years, entering the market. Where do you see the field of taxation going?   Jeff: Yeah, definitely, I see a second adoption, as well, coming in the coming years. I think, by the time that happens, there'll be a little bit more infrastructure in place with the taxation piece. One, with the exchanges. They'll start being a little bit better about what they record for their clients and what they issue out at the end of the year. I think we'll get to a point where exchanges are very, very similar to brokerage accounts, where you just get a 1089 of, "Here's your cost basis, here's your proceeds, here's what you report on your tax," and make it much easier for folks.   Chitra: Just as the industry is growing up, the tax piece will grow up, as well.   Jeff: Yup.   Chitra: Yeah. Great. Is there anything I haven't asked or anything really important, closing thoughts?   Jeff: One closing thought, just, I think it's good for everyone to remember that almost everything is a taxable event. If the question is, "Do I have to pay tax on this?" 9 times out 10, it's yes.   Chitra: Sadly.   Jeff: Yes.   Chitra: Thank you so much for joining us. Where can people learn more about you and find out more about the work that you're doing?   Jeff: Sure. Our website is neumeistercpa.com, that's N-E-U-M-E-I-S-T-E-R-C-P-A.com. We're a full-service accounting consulting firm, but we specialize in things like cryptos.   Chitra: Great. Thanks so much for joining us.   Jeff: All right, thank you.   Chitra: That's all for now. Join us again next time for another edition of Running with Unicorns. Until then, enjoy your crypto journey, unicorns.  

We're continuing our conversation with Dr. Jeffrey Chadwick, New Testament scholar at BYU.  We'll talk about why Book of Mormon helps date birth of Christ.  We'll also talk about critics who complain that it says Jesus was born at Jerusalem.  How does Dr. Chadwick respond to that charge? https://youtu.be/ij9HYUHRXbk Jeff:  Bethlehem is just five miles south of ancient Jerusalem in terms of a town in a town. Today. Bethlehem is to Jerusalem the lead the way Orem is to Provo. If there weren't a political barrier there, because Israeli territory separates from Palestinian territory, you wouldn't know you were crossing from Jerusalem to Bethlehem today. They're literally that close. But they were five miles separate anciently. But Bethlehem was easily described in ancient texts as being in the district or county of Jerusalem or what Nephi himself calls, the Land of Jerusalem. In Alma 7:10, it does say Jesus was born at Jerusalem, the land of our forefathers. So, it is referring to Jerusalem as a land instead of a city. In other words, someone is born in Salt Lake County. Whether he's in Salt Lake City or whether he's in... GT: Sandy or Herriman... Jeff:   ...somewhere else there. Well, if you're born in the land of Jerusalem, you're in the vicinity there. There are some ancient texts that do refer to, we think, to Bethlehem as being in the land of Jerusalem, including some Egyptian texts. So, there's nothing wrong with that. GT:  So Egyptian texts say he was born in Jerusalem? Jeff: No, not that. They say that Bethlehem is a town in the district or Land of Jerusalem. One of the el Amarna texts, which actually dates long before 600 BC, notes, Bethlehem, a town in the Land of Jerusalem. So, it was not unusual in ancient times to refer to Bethlehem, if you had any reason to refer to it, as a town in the Land of Jerusalem. Alma 7:10 has never been one of those things that I've lost any sleep over. There are plenty of things you have to work to describe in scripture, but that one is not a problem. We'll also answer other questions, like this: Didn't Joseph Smith say Jesus was born on April 6th? Jeff: Joseph Smith made no statement on the timing of the birth of Christ. What Joseph Smith did was dictate the language of Doctrine and Covenants, section 20. But Doctrine and Covenants, section 20, verse one, which says that the church was established on the sixth day of April 1830 years after the coming of the Lord in the flesh. [This] was to note within the calendaring system, accepted at that time and still in ours, the date of the founding of the Latter-Day Saint Church, not the date of Jesus' birth, in saying, and by the way, this is J. Reuben Clark in his book, 'Our Lord of the Gospels,' which was another Latter-Day Saint commentary on the life of Christ, which appeared 50 years after Brother Talmage's. Brother Clark took the position that Doctrine and Covenants section 20 verse one is not giving the imprimatur of accuracy to our current calendar. That what Doctrine Covenant Section 20 verse one is simply doing is saying the church was established on April 6 in the year we generally refer to as 1830, the year of our Lord. That's all, not more or less. In elder Bruce R. McConkie's series called 'The Mortal Messiah,' he actually asks kind of in an end note to one of his chapters, what was the year of Jesus' birth. Then after saying this is a question about which the learned delight to debate, he goes ahead and debates it. What he does is he states what Elder Talmage's position was in Jesus the Christ where he used Doctrine and Covenant section 20, verse one to suggest that Jesus was born on April 6th, 1830 years before the church was founded, but then he also points out what President J. Reuben Clark said, which was that gospel scholarship in general throughout Christianity, based on historical documents available, particularly about the life of Herod the Great and about Roman dating,

Toby Mathis and Jeff Webb of Anderson Advisors are here to answer all sorts of tax-related questions that focus on everything from applications to forms and QuickBooks. Do you have a tax question? Submit it to Webinar@andersonadvisors.com. Highlights/Topics: Will income earned by lending money to real estate investors reduce Social Security benefits or increase taxes on them? Income vs. earned income; until full retirement age, benefits are reduced; when full retirement age, it doesn't matter what you make How do I get the 20% deduction from Trump's Tax Plan? The 199A Deduction is a 20% deduction on qualified business income, but you need a pass-through entity; QBI 20% deduction vs. 20% of taxable income are compared, and you get whichever is less When you make a contribution out of your own account to your LLC as a member, are you taxed on contributions? No. It’s a contribution to an entity that becomes your capital and money you can take back out tax-free, if you haven't used it to recognize losses What is the best business structure recommended against asset, structure, and personal protection? With any passive activity, use a passive entity - LLC taxed as a partnership/limited partner; whomever has control of entity decides what's distributed What is the best way to set up QuickBooks when I have a Wyoming Holding LLC and several other LLCs holding real estate in other states? Create one set of books with Wyoming LLC as the primary; do a classified income statement for other states What are the tax forms for 501c3? Use Form 1023 to apply to be an exempt charitable organization; yearly recording forms include 990-N If someone has rentals in their self-directed IRA, how are they impacted as UBIT - does it make a difference on the number/dollar amount? No UBIT, if it's a rental; UBIT is for an active business inside an IRA; passive income is almost always exempt Can I have recourse debt in a 401K or IRA? Can I have non-recourse debt? You can’t have recourse debt, but you can have recourse debt What are my options to re-distribute funds from one LLC in several entities to separate investments? You can always move it from one to another with no tax implication Can I write off costs for rehabbing out of the country? Yes. Worldwide profits; if it's income-producing property, you report it to the United States I lent money to a real estate flipper. She gave me a promissory note, but it wasn’t recorded with the deed of trust. Now, she is in default. Can I foreclose? Document it because you can’t foreclose until you file your secured interest Is there anything I can do to reduce my taxable income? Yes. There are lots of things you can do - make contributions to qualified retirement plans, charities, and C Corp I purchased a new computer that cost less than $2,500. Is that a straight expense in the current tax year or some weird depreciation thing? Section 179 deduction; you can buy up to $1 million and write it all off For all questions/answers discussed, sign up to be a Platinum member to view the replay! Resources U.S. Social Security Administration Trump’s Tax Plan 199A Deduction QuickBooks Tax-Wise Workshop 501c3 Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) 990-T 990-N Section 179 Deduction 1244 Election Kiddie Tax Anderson Advisors Tax and Asset Prevention Event Toby Mathis Anderson Advisors   Full Episode Transcript: Toby: Hey, guys. This is Toby Mathis with Jeff Webb again. Jeff: Good afternoon. Toby: If you don't know, Jeff Webb's a tax manager here, and I am one of the partners. I'm not an accountant but I'm an attorney. Jeff is actually a CPA. This is Tax Tuesdays. If you've never been on Tax Tuesdays before, all we do is answer all sorts of questions. Let me see here whether I've got the right question field up. Look at that. We've got a bunch of people asking questions. Let's see. We'll get to all your questions, making sure you can hear us in the question and answer part. Just say, "Yes, I can hear you loud and clear," to make sure that we're getting through to everybody. If you do that, then we appreciate it. There we go. I'm getting a whole bunch of "loud and clear", "loud and clear", "loud and clear". All right, if you don't know the format if Tax Tuesday, it goes like this. We answer a whole bunch of questions. We answer the questions that people ask via the email that I'll be giving you at the end of the webinar, and we grab a whole bunch of them, and we just start answering them. If we can't answer the question or the question that you ask is too complicated, too specific, too long, then I grab it and kick it off to a staff or we answer it the following week, depending on how cool a question it is. That being kind of the overview, this is where we're at. We're going to go through these and we're going to make sure that we're answering all the questions. Let's see if I can actually make these slides advance. Look at that. That's weird. I didn't even know what that W there is. It's kind of cool. "Will the income I earned by lending my money to my real estate investors reduced my social security benefits or increased my taxes on them?" That's an interesting question. There's, "How do I get a 20% deduction?" I'm picking these literally from people's emails so don't yell at me for the typos. "When you make a contribution funds to your own account to your LLC as a member, are you taxed on contributions that you contribute to an LLC?" "What is the best structure–" and that is the weirdest thing I've ever had. "What is the best structure recommended against asset, structure and personal protection for a Multi-Family Home Investor acquiring and holding rental properties, especially if working–" and I'm going to go through each one of these. "What is the best way to set up QuickBooks when I have a Wyoming Holding LLC and several other LLCs holding real estate in various other states?" Those are our opening questions. We have a few more. We're going to go through a ton of them, and I'm already getting a bunch of questions on the Q&A portion. We will get to those but, first, we're going to knock these ones out. The first question: "Will the income earned by lending money to real estate investors reduce my Social Security benefits or increase my taxes on them?" The first thing is there's the benefit itself. In this particular question, I looked it up and I believe there were 61, so they're receiving Social Security benefits before they reach the full retirement age. Full retirement age varies between 65 and 67. The reason this is important is because, once you reach that age, it doesn't matter what you make. Until you reach that age, you will have your benefits reduced on what you're receiving. When you're pulling out Social Security early, 50 cents on the dollar once you get over $17,080.Of course, it's indexed for inflation, but it's a little bit over $17,000. I think this year it's $17,080 or something like that. What that means is, if you are lending money, then that would be counted as income. However, if you're under the full retirement age, they only count earned income. The question here is, "Until you're at full retirement age, will the income earned by lending money to real estate investors reduce my Social Security benefits or increase my taxes on them?" The answer is a big, resounding, "No." This will not hurt you in any way. Once you hit full retirement age, now we have to be worried about how much of your social security becomes taxable. When they look at your tax ability of the benefit, now we're looking at all sorts of income, everything that you make, and it's going to push it up. That's the one where it's not that you reduce the benefit but it becomes taxable. Jeff: Fairly quickly, additional income starts making your Social Security benefits taxable. They're never going to be more than–85% of your benefits are never going to be taxable. I'm saying this totally backwards. Toby: What it means is that the most they're ever going to tax your benefits is 85% of them. If you're getting $20,000 of benefit, the most you'll ever pay tax on is $17,000. You'll still get $3,000, tax-free. The sad part is you didn't get, really, a deduction when they took it out the first place. That's the old double tax that you hear about with Social Security. Anything else you want jumped into? This is kind of stuff. It makes your brain go numb so you're doing it right. You're actually asking good questions. Jeff: Just the matter of when you should take Social Security is such a huge question. Toby: Because you can start taking it. When is the earliest, is it 64? Jeff: I'm going to say 62, but maybe it's earlier depending on their age. Toby: It does depend on their age. There is a before-a-threshold and after-a-threshold. Now, I forget what the threshold is. What you do is you go to the Social Security Administration and you run your scenarios and they'll give them all to you, or you can contact us. We have folks we could send you out to that have software because it is complicated. Depending on what month you were born in and all that stuff, how many days–all of this gets factored in as to what's the earliest you could start receiving benefits. Once you start receiving the benefit, they let you receive that benefit only so long as your income is low and it's your earned income. If you're trying to get the benefit when you're 62 and you make too much money, you're going to lose a bunch of the benefits. If you start making–if you're 62, start pulling out the benefit and you have passive income, not that big of a deal; it doesn't reduce it so that's really cool. Enough of that. It makes my head hurt, Social Security. Do not rely on Social Security. There, I said it. Yeah, Social Security is one of those things that, when it was set up, the average life expectancy of people on Social Security was two years. It was really there to catch you if you're really old and didn't have any other benefits. Now, we use it almost like it's a retirement plan that's not what it was intended for. That's why it doesn't work to do it. Here's the next one. "How do I get the 20% deduction from Trump's Tax Plan?" First off, it's not Trump's Tax Plan. It's the Tax Cut and Jobs Act and it was passed by our wonderful Congress because, technically–though, they seem to forget this–Presidents don't write laws. Now that we got that out of the way, they did put this thing called a 199A Deduction, which is a 20% deduction on qualified business income from pass-through entities. Follow me here. The first thing we need to have–and I'm going to write these up–is we need to have a pass-through entity, and you can be an LLC taxed as–this is a 1065 that's partnership, a sole proprietor or as an S Corp. Those are your choices. Technically, it could also be a trust. Then, you look at other entities, S Corps and just flat out partnerships, including limited partnerships, all that fun stuff. It's passing through; it doesn't pay its own tax. Then, you need qualified business income. I'm just going to call it QBI, which just means income. Generally speaking, it's active income, but they also include real estate, if you are making money on real estate in which you participate in some fashion. The only type of real estate that's not included as far as we can tell–because they're still giving us regulations on it, but the proposed regulations make clear that real estate, rental real estates included, is if you have a commercial building and triple-net leases that you're giving out where you're not really taking on much of the risk, then they're not going to let you have the qualified business income. Then, they compare that qualified business income 20% deduction versus 20% of your taxable income, whichever is less. Why is this important? Because if I'm a sole proprietor–let's say I have $50,000 that I'm making–that I would get a $10,000-deduction under the QBI. Let's say that I take and contribute into my retirement plan–a husband-and-wife sole proprietor is still the same thing, and they both put in–what's a good number–let's just say $10,000. Then, my taxable income is actually $40,000 because I rode off–I made tax-deductible contributions into my IRA of $10,000 so I would take the lesser of that. Then, they do this wonderful thing, is they then say, "Well, if it's a special service company, we're going to put a cap on how much QBI you can actually make." It's not really QBI; it's actually your taxable income, and they say, "We'll only let you ride off so long as your taxable income is below a threshold." If you're single, that threshold is $157,500, and there's a phase-out for the next $50,000. To make your head spin, it goes from $157,000 to $207,500. That's the easiest way to look at it. If you're married, filing jointly, those numbers are $315,000 to $415,000. Jeff: What's an example of a special service? Toby: Special services are something that it is you and your skill that makes the money, and they use–it's going to be doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, real estate agents who are solo, somebody who–it's their skill so like a carpenter who doesn't have a bunch of staff. That's going to be a special service. If you get above those thresholds, you are done. Somebody's asking a question which is pretty interesting. A single-member LLC counts. You have a flow under you so that's when you're sole proprietor or just going under your tax return that's passed through entity so you're fine. The interesting here is that you can control your taxable income. Even on those thresholds–and when we teach this in the class, we actually go through a learning chart where we say, "If this, then this. If this, then this." If you're a special service, we just need to make sure that we can control your income, and the way you control your income is by splitting it with tax-free, tax-exempt or separately-taxable entities. Let me give you an example. If I have a C Corp and it makes a bunch of money, great, that's not income to me. I don't want to pay myself a whole bunch of money and make whatever my other business is that is or where I'm going to meet the threshold taxable because I'm losing that 20% deduction. Let's say I have $200,000 coming in. As an individual, I can get some donations and deductions into a retirement plan and I get myself underneath that $157,000 and I have another $200,000 in C Corp that I pay myself. If I leave the $157,000 as is and I don't take any money out of the C Corp, I'm going to get a 30-something thousand dollar deduction. It's just going to come off the top. It's a 20% deduction so almost like I spent. If I took the money out of the C Corp–and, by the way, that C Corp is a flat 21% tax rate now so it's going to pay 21% so it's not horrific. If I paid myself that money, I push my taxable income over the threshold, now I get 0 deduction on my qualified business income. That's why it's important. If it is not a special service, then those thresholds trigger something else. It takes us to an area where we can write off up to 50% of the W2 income or 25% of the W2 income for the business plus 2.5% of the assets. Jeff: No, you're right. I'm just jumping ahead of you. Toby: Yeah, so what we're looking at, then, is you better have a regular business that actually has salaries. If you, for example, as a sole proprietor, single, are making–what would be a good example–$200,000 and you're over the threshold, you're phasing out, you'd have to go to the second test. You're over the 157 and the second test is now pushing you at 50% of W2 wages, and you have zero so your deduction is going to be zero. You're going to get literally nothing. You might get a few dollars because you're not quite at the 207, which is the top line of the actual phase-out so you'd be phased out about 90% plus of the benefit. Now, let's say you converted that sole proprietorship to an S Corp and, instead, you paid yourself a salary, so same situation, $200,000. Let's say I paid you $75,000 of salary. Then, the QBI or the monies that's flowing through is actually the net income and net profit, so you'd subtract the 75 off. It would be $125,000. You compare 20% of that number, which I should grab the calculator, whatever that number is. Jeff: It'd be 25,000. Toby: Yeah, 25,000, and we would compare it to one-half of the W2 income, which would be 37,500. You'd get the lesser of the two. You'd get a $25,000-deduction just because of the type of entity. That's the one I have to do. Somebody just said, "I have almost 300K in real estate and other income. Is there anything I can do?" A single person? Yeah, there's something you can do because, remember, it depends on whether you're special service and then it depends on the business, and there's one last thing: It always comes down to your taxable income. "What other ways can I use to control my taxable income?" The most obvious is I split it with a C Corp, I give it to charity–and it could be my charity–or I deduct it by putting it into a tax-deferred retirement plan. For example, same situation, I'll use the $200,000 and they do a 401K. They put a husband and wife each–they're under 50. They each contribute 18,500–or, actually, the example I used was a single person so I would have to say I put 18,500 and in, and they get a 25% deduction on the 75,000. They would put in–again, I'm using crazy numbers so what would that be? About $18,750 or whatever that is–around under $19,000. I can put, in essence, about $37,000 right into the 401K, and that reduces my taxable income. The taxable income goes from 200 down to almost the threshold, and now I don't have to worry about it. It makes my life so much easier. I'm just going to get a nice big, fat deduction and I'm happy as a clam. That's how this stuff works, but if you don't do it before the year ends, you're toast. This is going to be my–this is why you need to have some sort of somebody doing tax planning. How do I get the 20% deduction from the new tax act? Very deliberately. You make sure that you have the income flowing under your return and then you make sure that, if there's a disqualifying factor that would cause you to lose it, that you look and say, "What's better? To just walk away from it and not worry about it or would I be better to take a couple of actions to allow myself to take advantage of the deduction?" It's a freebie, guys. If I make $20,000 in real estate, that rental real estate–that's my net after all my depreciation–I get a $4,000-deduction. I'm only recognizing 16,000 under this taxable income so that's a nice little benefit especially if I'm a high-income person so that's what I'd be looking at. Jeff, do you want to do this one because I'm […] barding the answers again? Jeff: No, that's alright. "When you make a contribution out of your own account to your LLC as a member, are you taxed on contributions that you contribute to the LLC?" No, actually, you're not. That is a contribution to an entity that becomes your capital, your owner's equity–we can call it a lot of things–your owner's capital in that company. That's actually money that you can take back out also tax-free assuming that you haven't used it up to recognize losses or maybe other things like that. Toby: We get that a lot. I'll give you a real-life example. Some guys were doing a syndication on apartment buildings and they were telling people, "Hey, we're going to return your capital out of the profits and you're not going to have to pay any tax on the money that you receive up to your investment." I said, "Hey, that's not really the case." Here's how it works: I can always get back my contribution, and it's tax-neutral; it means nothing. If the company makes zero, no profit, it can always give me back my money and I pay no tax, but if the company makes money, I'm taxed on my portion of that gain no matter what even if they're giving me extra. I was like–what they were doing was they were saying, "Here's a little thing. We'll make some profit. We'll just give you your money back. You want to pay tax on it?" I was like, "No, that's not how it works. You actually have to pay tax on the profit in proportion to your ownership, and it's a little bit funky." Jeff: This is a case that, sometimes, we see where a client will tell us, "I had deposits of $100,000 into my business," and what they fail to tell us is that 50,000 of it was their own money. We want to make sure that we're able to differentiate what the owners are putting into the company versus what income they're making in the company. Toby: There's a couple of questions. Somebody says, "My head is spinning." We do record this. If you're platinum, you're going to get a recording of it in your little platinum area. Somebody asks, "Is this pre-recorded?" No, it's not. We're doing it live but I'm answering the questions that people have emailed me first and, yes, we have about 50 questions that are in the queue that we're going to go through here in a second. Jeff: We don't have a three-second delay or anything? Toby: No, I don't think so. I could give you a 10-second delay. All right, "What is the best business structure recommended against asset, structure and personal protection?" I don't know what that means. I'm going to assume they mean to protect the business–for a Multi-Family Home Investor acquiring and holding rental properties, especially if working as a team member with other investors? Here's what I'm going to say: Anytime you have a passive activity–that is, when you buy the property or the cash flow and the appreciation–you're going to want to use a passive entity, meaning an LLC taxed as a partnership or a limited partner. Don't do anything else. That's it. There's maybe some really weird exceptions but I'm going to say, 99% of the time, you're going to end up using an LLC, and it's either going to be disregarded even if you have other people in or it's going to be a partnership. If anybody does anything differently, they're doing some weird stuff. If you have other investors, then it depends on your relationship with those investors. I'm not going to going to get into securities, Reg Ds and all that but, generally speaking, you're going to have it taxed as a partnership, but the most important consideration is always going to be control, who has control of that entity, because that's who decides what's distributed. That partnership agreement or the operating agreement of the LLC is really going to be important. You do not want to do this stuff half-arsed. You want to make sure that you're actually really addressing this stuff. At Anderson, we tend to be very protective of the manager, meaning we want you to have control. If it's your project, we don't want people to force you to do stuff and, on the flip side, if you're investing and you're a client, we're always going to say, "You don't want to be forced to kick in more capital against your will." Those are the things we always look at. Where does that one go? Here we go. "What is the best way to set up QuickBooks when I have a Wyoming–" and this is going to be so you, Jeff, because Jeff loves QuickBooks. "What is the best way to set up QuickBooks when I have a Wyoming Holding LLC with several other LLCs holding real estate in various other states?" I'm going to draw this. There's my Wyoming LLC. It's either going to be a 1065 or disregarded, and it holds all these cute little LLCs in other states. Let's say this is Texas LLC, Washington LLC, Nevada LLC, Georgia LLC, and they're all going to flow up to that Wyoming. I want to keep my books straight because, if you know QuickBooks, they will sell you QuickBooks for this one, this one and this one. You'll end up with four sets of QuickBooks and you'll drive yourself crazy. What do you do, Jeff? Jeff: Here's what we like to do: We like to create one set of books with the Wyoming LLC at the top being the primary set of books. Then, what we do is what we call a classified income statement where each of these four LLCs below the Georgia, Nevada, Washington and Texas where they're all kind of their own set of books within your Wyoming LLC books. All this income is going to flow from those bottom four up to the top one anyway and, while we need to keep the entities separate so we can report them that way, ultimately, what we're reporting is what's coming through the whole kit and caboodle. Toby: Yeah, we only need to worry about setting up QuickBooks for this guy right here, and then we set up these guys as classes. All that means is we have one set of books. Jeff: Yeah. You can still pull an income statement for your Georgia LLC or your Texas LLC to see what's just in that but, all in all, you still have one set of books. It makes it easier and you don't have all these inter-company transfers that you have to track. Toby: Oh my god. I'll tell you, we're horrible on that. He's giving me the look. See, here's the problem, is if you have different companies with different sets of books, you've got to close out the previous sets of books and then open up the new company. It's a process and it takes a few minutes and it's really annoying when you're trying to enter stuff into it. It's going to save you a whole bunch of time to use one set. Jeff: Yeah, then you don't run into things like, "Well, I transferred money from Georgia, the taxes that I did it, I record it in both companies." When you record them on one, you end up re-recording it in both. Toby: Yeah, and there's some fun stuff. Some of them just ask for a basic QuickBooks question, jump in the line. It's hard to set up classes in QuickBooks, not horribly, but if you don’t want to learn–QuickBooks is one of those things where you're going to spend some time with it. You just have a bookkeeper do it. Anderson does that if you want. All right. If you have questions–you guys, I know you do because there's a ton of them already in the little queue here. Here's how it works: If you want to ask a more detailed question, if you have a question that you didn't hear answered on the webinar, you can just email them on in to webinar@andersonadvisors.com, and, that way, we can put it in that queue and we can answer it just like we just did. We're going to break those out. Those will be separate little videos, each one of those, so that you get your answer. Somebody was saying, "My head was spinning about 199A." You can go back and listen to that. Better yet, you can come to some of our other webinars or come, actually, to the Tax-Wise Workshop and we go through this stuff. Spend some time with us. If you invest a little bit of time in taxes, it will pay off in spades. Other questions–some people just answered this stuff. "Can you go over the tax forms for 501c3? Jeff: There's a couple of forms for the 501c3. To apply the BF 5O1c3, there's what's called the Form 1023. It's the application to be an exempt charitable organization. Then, there's several different yearly recording forms. The 990 is the primary one where you report, among other things, what your income was, what your balance sheet looks like, your plan, your purpose, who you've dealt with. What were you going to say? Come on. Toby: Basically, if you're making less than $50,000 in your 501c3, you're doing a 990 post-note card. You're just doing a real basic here. Literally, it looks like a postcard. Jeff: They don't do that anymore. Toby: I thought they're still– Jeff: All these old people still call it postcards, but it's a… Toby: They do that in the 10… Jeff: But it's a 990N and it's filed electronically. Toby: Yeah, I know but it's the same thing. Jeff: It's still close. Okay. Toby: It's a postcard. Oh, my god. Yeah, you do it electronically now but it's really simple. You go above that, then you're going to be filing a little more detail. You get about 250, you're filing very detailed. Never do it yourself. Just hire an accountant to do it, and those guys–we do them. They're not horrifically complicated unless you have a huge void that everybody's taking money. You go American Red Cross, you can go look at the actual tax forms that everybody files because they're all public record. You can go in there and take a look at anybody and see just how complicated it is. What you'll realize is that the more the stuff they're doing, the more complicated it gets, and not doing ton it is pretty simple. We have ones that are $5 million non-profits and it's a few pages. Then, you have ones that are $1 million but they've got everybody and their mother with their hands in the thing, and you're doing a lot of reporting. That one might be more complicated. If you're a church, you don't file anything. If you're religious and you're a religious organization, you don't file anything; you file zero tax forms. Jeff: When you have an accountant do these 990s for you, they're going to ask you a lot of questions because there's a lot of questions on the form that they don't have the answer to, basically about what it is the non-profit does and things like that. Toby: All right. "If someone has rentals in their–" basically, again, if you have those tax forms, this is one other thing, is that's the tax compliance on an annual basis. If you're setting up a 501c3, you are doing–more than likely, 501c3 is an application called a 1023. If you're doing a 501C6 or some of these others, that's a 1024. Jeff: Wow, I'm impressed. Toby: Yeah, sorry. It's stuck in my head. Those are the applications for exempt status. Your business, your non-profit, is in existence and it's considered exempt from Day 1. Even though you haven't gotten your exemption approved, you actually have 28 or 29 months to get approved, and it relates back to the day that you started. You can actually do a 501c3 and be up and running in a matter of weeks if you want to. All right, from Lisa: "If someone has rentals in their self-directed IRA, how is it impacted as far as unrelated business income tax (UBIT) and does it make a difference on the number or dollar amount?" You want to do this one or would you like me to? Jeff: Why don't you do this one? Toby: All right. Self-directed IRA and it has real estate? You have no UBIT if it's just rental. That's not unrelated business income tax. Unrelated business income tax is when you're doing an active business inside an exempt organization, inside an IRA, or church, or something else, and you're running a mini-mart then they tax you on it because it's unrelated business income so not related to your exempt purpose so they tax you on it. Passive income's always going to be–I shouldn't say "always"; it's almost always exempt. I guess there's possible–if you have some royalty stuff, it's possible, if you're advertising, that the exempt organization tax, but for your IRA for rentals, don't worry about it. Here's what you worry about when you're doing an IRA with rentals: It's usually the case–this is what we've seen–is that people will oftentimes want to lever that real estate. In an IRA, you have something called–I'm just going to blank on it–unrelated debt financed income. There we go, UDFI. Unrelated debt financed income means–or just call it debt finance income–the portion of the profits that are coming from the debt. If I have a piece of property, I have a 50% loan on it, then 50% of its income is going to be taxable to the IRA. It's not allowed to have that type of loan and not pay tax on it. A 401K is allowed to have that type of loan, and it doesn't pay tax on it. It's one of those weird things where you're like, "Hey, should I be an IRA or 401K?" More often than not in our world, you're going to want to be the 401K. It has different rules, and one of the big ones is the ability to use debt. Now, here's something for you. I think I had poll questions on this. This is fun. I'm going to send a poll out to see whether you guys are listening. You guys can answer this, and what it is, "Can I have recourse debt in a 401K or IRA?" Let's see about that. Isn't this kind of cool? Jeff: It is cool. Toby: We're going to see whether or not you can have recourse debt in a 401K or IRA. For those of you who don't know what recourse debt, recourse means, "I can go after you. I have recourse, and I can go–" basically, a personal guarantee, personal guarantor. We got a lot of people voting. I will share the results with you once we're there. Jeff: What if Lisa is flipping instead of renting in an IRA? Toby: Then, we don't have any cases on it. Jeff: Great. Toby: What we always say is do five at a max. Here's the thing: If you disqualify an IRA, the whole thing's disqualified. What I want to do is if I'm flipping in a self-directed IRA, I want to make sure only that money is in that IRA so if I have a disqualifying event, it's only for that one little IRA. So, I may have two or three IRAs. Good news: People are listening. That's always good news. We have about–50% of you guys voted. I'm going to go ahead and close this thing in about a few seconds. Let's see. There, I closed it and now I'm going to share it with you. Do you want me to tell you the answer? You cannot have recourse debt. 36% of you guys just disqualified your plans, and you have a 10% penalty plus it's all taxable. Sorry to say that you just destroyed your plan, but you cannot have recourse. This is half the fun. What's the next question I could ask you? I could throw up another poll at you. Let's see. Get out of there. Let me see if I can do this. All right, what's the next one? Here's a better one: Now that you know you can't have recourse debt, I'm going to launch a new poll. "Can I have non-recourse debt in an IRA or 401K?" This is where accountants and tax lawyers have– Jeff: Disagreements? Toby: No, this is where it's so much fun. Are you kidding? Let's see. Somebody's saying, "No." What is non-recourse? Non-recourse means you can't hold the person responsible. There's no personal guarantor. You can only go after the property so the property is truly asset-based lending. There's nobody on the hook for that loan if it goes south. A typical non-recourse loan in a plan–this is kind of cheap because it's going to give you the answer–is they're going to look at the other plan assets and so they're going to secure the other plan assets. They're going to make sure that they're not over-leveraged. In other words, they're not going to give you a 99% loan to value; they're going to give you a 60% loan to value or 50% loan to value. We'll see if you guys still get the answer even though I just basically gave it to you. This is fun. I'm just going to stop this one and I'm going to share it because the numbers are pretty done. It looks like 86% of you said, "Yes." Can I have non-recourse debt? 86% of you are correct. You can have recourse debt. Here's the trick: In an IRA, that non-recourse debt creates debt finance income so you have to pay tax on the portion that you're making but it doesn't disqualify your plan. In a 401K, you do not pay the debt finance income, and some of you guys are not too pleased with me for that, but I'm getting giggles out of it. That's enough with polls. I could have polls all day long and we would have a lot of fun. Last one: "I hold some assets in LLC–"and, by the way, this is the last one from people that have shot it in but it says, "You don't pay tax until withdrawal, correct?" No, if you have debt finance income, you're paying it in the year in which the debt finance income–you actually file a 990 T. You actually have to report it. "I have some assets in an LLC that is a day-trading entity." You're brave. "If this generates sizable profits–" I just love traders. "What options are out there to re-distribute funds from one LLC in several entities to the separate investments?" You can always move–if it's yours, it's like–an LLC is a safe so I can always move it from one safe to another, no tax implication. This is one of the questions we had earlier. I can always put money in, take it out. Somebody was talking about an opportunity zone. The opportunity zone's awesome. It's where you take capital gains and invest them in the opportunity zone. It's actually called the growth opportunity zone, and you defer the tax on that income. The max amount you can defer that tax is until 2025 right now. Then, you get a portion of that as non-taxable. Then, the growth–if you leave it in the opportunity zone for 10 years, all that growth and the gains on the investment itself are tax-free, and that's pretty interesting. Growth opportunities, we'll be talking about that as they give us more information. Somebody says, "Can you take the poll down?" I thought I did. I'll make sure polls, hide. There we go. Sorry about that, guys. Everybody's telling me, "Flip off the poll." I'm flipping it off. I like your opportunity zone discussion, and think about a bank, and loan out funds to other LLCs you use. You could do that. Then, it's interest unless it's all you. In which case, you don't charge yourself interests. "I am told that funds in an LLC are much like funds in a savings account. I pay taxes on the gains my funds make, and funds can be withdrawn at any time." That is true as long as it's disregarded or taxed as a partnership. I want to make sure that we're very clear. LLCs that are partnerships are disregarded. Yes, you can do that. If it's an LLC taxed as a corporation or LLC taxes in S Corp, little bit different. An S Corp probably has a huge difference. Jeff: Yeah. You can even pull securities out–even if it's a partnership–pull securities out and put them somewhere else. Like what Toby's saying, if it's an S Corporation or corporation, if you pull securities out of a corporation, you have to recognize gain immediately. Toby: It sucks. Appreciated assets is considered wages, right? Use an example here. Jeff: We had a client who had a couple of $100,000 of securities in a corporation, wanted to move it somewhere else, and we tried to explain to him that if he pulls securities out that are now worth 250 and he's only got a basis of $100,000, he's going to have capital gains of $125,000 in that corporation. The corporation will pay gains and then, for you to take it out, that's got to come from somewhere else, so either a salary, roan repayments or dividends. It doesn't work out well. Toby: No Bueno. The other one is people that real estate in an S Corp and then they need to take it out to refile it or something. All that appreciation is wages. It's horrific and so we have oftentimes say, "Hey, if you're going to do this S Corp, it's cool." The capital gains still flow down to you; it's just that you can't take it out. You've got to leave it in there. Jeff: Can we  re-running into that more and more where the banks are running to take it out of the LLCs and stuff? Toby: They got horribly hosed during the downturn of people doing weird stuff. What happened is I would do a financing in an entity. Say I'm the owner, and then I would sell Jeff my ownership and the entity and the bank had no idea that I'm no longer the guy that they were dealing with that they gave the loan to in their mind and had sold his interests. They had no idea. One day, Jeff comes back in and says, "By the way, I'm the owner of this LLC, not the guy that you loaned the money to." No Bueno. They don't like that. All right, we got a lot of questions to go through so if you have questions, you can always email them in. I'm going to start going out through these things, and we have questions from almost an hour ago. People were asking questions before we even started. "I did a cash-out refinance from my residence to invest in private lending or to buy rentals. California only allows 150,000 to deduct interest expense for residence." That's actually the new federal rule. "For the portion that is more than 750, can I deduct the interest as investment expense?" All right, so here's the rule–and, Jeff, I'm [...] barding, but I deal with this stuff all the time. Your new limit is–unless you owned your house prior to–during 27 and perhaps during the first quarter of 2018 if your loan was already in process before December 15th of 2017, don't try to remember this stuff; just know that if you're in that weird period, you may qualify, then you're up to a million, but it has to be for acquisition indebtedness. Acquisition indebtedness means, "I bought the house," or, "I improved the house." That's for the mortgage person to be deductible on your Schedule A, which is your itemized deduction. If you're using the money for something else, then it has to be deductible on that something else. For example, if I am buying rental real estate, then the interest–you'd be writing off the interest on your Schedule A, essentially, against the income from that rental real estate. You are no longer writing off your mortgage interest personally as the individual residing in it; you are now writing it off as part of an investment. Anything you wanted to add on that? Jeff: No. If we're talking about buying a piece of investment property like you're just going out and buying more land, hoping that it'll go up in value, then it would be considered investment interests and go back on Schedule A. Typically, we want to keep it–if it's in a business interest or rental property, something like that, we want to keep it there. Toby: Again, the Canadians have been dealing with this for a lot longer than us guys. You cannot write off interest if it's not for your home in Canada unless it was used for an investment. People actually have to go re-file their houses, they get all the cash they could, pay down their house, re-file it so they could show that they used it for an investment so they could actually write off the interest. I think it was called Scotts transactions. It's weird. Hey, I'm not Canadian. This is another question: "Say I deducted a newsletter subscription in 2017 but received a refund for it in 2018. Do I need to add this back as income in 2018 or no?" If you wrote it off and it means your basis is zero, give you the money back, what does that sound like? Jeff: Income. Toby: Income. It is income. At the same time, I see people saying, "Hey, what if I reimburse myself from my cell phone out of two companies?" Now, each reimbursement represents–I said, "Well, you can reimburse yourself up to your expense. Anything above that is income so it becomes taxable." Fun stuff. Yes, you would report it, but only–your cash basis tax first. You report it in the year that you received the money back. "You've saved me so much money. I call y'all my friends." I love that when I get stuff like that. That's not really a question but I'm going to repeat it because it's better than, "Flip off the poll." Not that I had too many of those, but I had a few. "Can I write off costs for rehabbing out of the country?" This sounds like something for Jeff. Can you write off? US taxes. Jeff: Yeah, you do have investment in another country. Toby: Worldwide profits, baby. Yes. Jeff: If it's income-producing property, you're going to be reporting that to the United States. Any expenses you have on that property will go towards that also. Toby: If you're rehabbing a property, it sounds like dealer activity and active business. I may be little interest–I probably want to be looking at structures in the Bahamas if that's where it is. I'd be looking at something that's taxable there so you don't get into treaties and all sorts of fun stuff. "Do I have to pay $800 off the top to the franchise tax board when we start our corporation?" Jeff: No, California has an exemption to corporations that are first year only. Toby: Yeah, and that $800–this is, if you like tax cases, there's Veritas 1, there's Veritas 2, there's Northwest Energetic Services, there's Bakersfield Mall, and they're all versus your friendly–what is it called? Not the franchise tax. No, it's whatever. I forget what they're called. Jeff: We know what it's called. Toby: Yeah. Anyway, I'll remember it as soon as I could. I'm trying to think about it, but they keep suing the Board of Equalization, the BoE. It's $800 and they say that's the minimum tax, but they say, really, it's a fee because if it was a tax, then it'd be an unconstitutional tax because it's not attached to the income. They keep trying to call it a fee. They lose and then they change it a little bit and they lose again. That's just an aside. California is kind of evil. "We live in Washington. We have a Nevada C Corp which fully owns a watch and LLC and employs the kids. What are the recommended strategies to optimize for college tuition?" Wow, so you're doing a great thing. You are going to run them through payroll. When you're applying for things like scholarships, if it's going to be based on income, you're going to show that income. You're going to show those returns, but those kids should–most of that income is going to probably be underneath the standard deduction. Right now, it's $12,000. They're going to pay zero and they're going to pay very little on any amount over that. Plus, if you're smart, you're putting some of that money in a Roth IRA and they're never going to pay tax on that. It's smart to do this with your kids. If I paid tuition out of my tax bracket, it's coming out of my highest tax bracket. If I'm in the highest tax bracket, that's 37%. If my kids pay for their tuition and are working for the company, and they have to do something, then they pay at a third tax bracket, which, quite often, is zero. I do this with my own daughter. Last year, I think we paid $500 in taxes total for the year when it cost me $8,000 if I was doing it, but she has to do something. She has to actually work for the company and do stuff for the company. Other stuff you could do to optimize is dump it into–defer it into a retirement plan. If you want to do a 401K, they can put the first 18,500 of their income and they can defer it. You're still reporting it. I'm not sure it'll have an impact on scholarships or not. I have not seen it have much of an impact, but that's what I'd be doing, is the benefits far outweigh anything with this on the scholarship side. It is huge. Here's one: "I lent money to a real estate flipper. She gave me a promissory note, but it was not recorded with the deed of trust. Now, she is in default. Can I foreclose?" When you loan money to a flipper with no deed of trust, that's called a gift. I'm just kidding. You need to make sure that you're documenting it. You cannot foreclose until you actually file your secured interest. You got to have it filed and then, yes, you can actually start foreclosure proceedings if you want, if they don't pay it. You definitely want to make sure that, when you're giving notes–there's something called "first in time, first in right". You want to make sure you know it's recorded and you have your deed of trust against that house. Otherwise, somebody else could go slap theirs on first. There's also places where they get priority. In Nevada, for example, the HoAs get super liens. They actually step in front of the primary lender. It sounds weird but it's true. You want to make sure that you're documenting your loan and covering yourself as best you can, make sure that you're getting a personal guarantee and, if they have any other assets, you may want to slap a lien on those, too. All right, "With a new company, there's quite a lot of expense reimbursements. Since I don't have a lot of revenue yet, I haven't paid it back. Is it okay to carry it over a year or should I go ahead and pay it back even though I'm still in the red?" Jeff, this sounds like you unless you're zoning out there. She has a new company, she has lots of expenses, she doesn't have any money that she's made yet, so should they pay it back, carry it forward? "Can I pay myself, reimburse myself in the future year?" The answer is yes, you could reimburse yourself whenever. The question really becomes, "Do I want to capture all my startup expenses in the first year?" Jeff: Yeah, I think you do. You want to capture as many expenses as possible even if you're not getting directly reimbursed right away. Toby: Yeah, you have two choices whenever you fund a company. You can fund it with your cash and then it's going to have a loss and it's going to carry that loss forward if it's a C Corp. If it's an S Corp, you can actually take that loss. I've contributed $20,000. That's my basis and it loses 20,000 and, technically, I'd have a $20,000-loss with an S Corp. Usually, we're seeing this in C Corps, and you just carry it is a payable and a receivable. It's payable to you, you would say, "Hey, it owes me some money. It's kind of like this." I always use Krispy Kreme in my examples. I go out for Anderson and I bring in 12 dozen Krispy Kreme for a meeting or something, and the others say, "Hey, I'll pay you back but we don't have the money right now." It doesn't mean that it goes away; it means that I'm sitting there, waiting for them to pay me back. If they pay me back in two years, all it means is they can't write that off as a deduction until they pay me back so they're not going to have a loss if I'm carrying it as an IOU. If I give them the money to buy the doughnuts and they buy the doughnuts, they get the loss right away even though they haven't returned my money to me. They could return that money to me at any time. For me, it's always going to be tax-neutral. "Do I need to be on payroll with my real estate income or can I just take distributions from my LLC?" This is regarding Trump's 20% deduction on the plan. If it's investment real estate, you never have to take a seller as long as it's rental real estate. If it's flipping and it's in an S Corp, then you would have to take some salary if you're taking distributions. I don’t want to twist it. This sounds like it's just an LLC with rental property. You do not have to take it. The 20% is for 2018 onwards. If they think that it has a sunset clause, the end of 2025. Is it the end of 2025 that it ends? Jeff: Yeah. Toby: Yeah, so 2025. Here's a really long one. Boy, this is a really long one. Let me see if I can condense this. "I have a Wyoming LLC that is the sole member of a second LLC that is disregarded entity. I funded the Wyoming with 8,500 and the Wyoming funded the other bookkeeping QuickBooks balance sheet shows an owner equity 100% of 16,500. This is offset a balance sheet with capital contribution. While this does end up with net equity of 85, it gives the impression of the equity, which is incorrect. Is there a different way of handling?" Do you see what they're doing? Jeff: This is what we call–anytime you have combined financials or tax returns, you're going to have a–you may have a payable from one to the other where you've lent money to the other company, but when you do the combined financial or tax return, this is what you call an eliminating entry. If you lent $8,500 to one, those two entries are going to offset each other and it's going to be zero on your tax return. Toby: He's looking at it and saying, "Hey, they took the eight that I put into the second and added it to the 8,500 that I put in the first," and it's only 8,500 and then 8 went to the second LLC. Jeff: Yeah, I think you just need to clarify that it was the same money that– Toby: We're doing it and we'll take a look at it. We'll grab that name and, when we can, I'll print this out. "Can SMLLC, single-member LLC, disregard an entity under an MMLLC, which is a multi-member LLC taxed as a partnership, be converted to a single, multi-member LLC taxed as if–" you guys are killing me, "And would the tax changes be implemented?" What you're really saying, Billy, is, "Can I spin off a single-member LLC, make it into a multi-member LLC and change it to an S Corp?" The answer is yes. We just have to make sure that we follow the S Corp rules, which means there's got to be natural persons owning it, resident aliens–if it's somebody from out of the country, that they reside in the United States in certain trusts and even certain single-member LLCs. All right, to the question about–this refers to qualified business income. Sorry for lack of a better–no, Janet, you've already got it. "Since rental real estate is included for the 20%, are you also required to be a rep for that to be true?" No. You automatically get it. "High-tech network engineer, does it qualify as special services?" If you're not a network engineer and it's just you, then I would say probably yes. If you have a company and it's not so much you but your company has its own–like it's lots of people and it's just known, then the answer is no. Then, you're not. Jeff: Yeah, there were some specific carve-outs. I think the architects got a carve-out of this, but there's a few industries that have been specifically exempted from those specialized industries. Toby: I'm not sure but software engineer–I would say that if it's just you, chances are going to be under the special services. "When I file taxes, the taxes for the rental property show up on my tax showing a schedule form that is Schedule E. I almost $300,000 with my real estate and other income as a single woman." I think we already talked about this one. "Is there anything I can do to reduce my taxable income?" Yes, Janet, you can make contributions to qualified retirement plans. You can make contributions to charities, including your own. You can make contributions to C Corp if it has a business relationship. There are lots of things you can do or, if you have anybody that you need to pay salaries to like kids or somebody that's working with you, that would be something else you could do to lower the taxable income. "If you were writing out another slide, it's not showing up on my computer." Sorry, Sir. I think that's where all they go. "What about an IOL as a tax-deferred compensation for my property management income?" That would not work. An IOL is tax-neutral although you can do tax-deferred compensation where it's taxable to the entity and it's not taxable to you under certain circumstances. If I do tax-deferred income like, "Hey, I'm taking deferred compensation," I need to be at a losing. Usually, non-compete is going to be the thing that makes it work. We use these especially in the non-profit world where somebody says, "I don't want to be paid; I want to work, but I do want to get paid eventually for all the work I'm doing now. Rather than pay me this year, pay me when I'm 65 and maybe I wipe it out or not, but as long as I have a non-compete with that–" it's saying, "Hey, basically, if you go work for somebody else in a competing industry, you lose all that deferred compensation." You should be good. "I purchased a new computer that cost less than $2,500. Is that a straight expense in the current tax year or some weird depreciation thing?" Dean, it's called a Section 179 deduction. You can buy up to $1 million, you're good. You can write it all off. Otherwise, that would be depreciated. They also have 100% bonus depreciation, so we're going to catch it no matter what. Bonus depreciation is, if it's less than a 15-year property, you can write it off this year. You're not required to. Somebody says, "Is 199A or that 20% a 20% tax deduction or a 20% reduction?" No, it's a 20% deduction against your qualified business income. The net effect could be much more than 20% depending on your tax bracket. If you're not in a high tax bracket, then the net effect won't be huge. If I'm in the highest tax bracket in a state that's taxing me where I'm at 50%, that 20% deduction could be worth a ton. It could be worth significant amounts especially if I'm in a company that's not a specialized service and I meet the requirements. I could have hundreds and thousands of dollars of qualified business income being exempted, and that could be worth hundreds and thousands of dollars to me from a tax standpoint. We already did this one. Somebody who had their spinning left. You can go in bite-sized pieces, guys. We're going to break these things down, and I understand that we're going through fast, but that's half the fun. We're not dwindling around here. "My self-directed IRA received a K1 for net rental loss for a passive investment of $50,000. Do I need to file a 990 T to show loss? Does the IRA custodian sign the return or can I sign?" Jeff: Here's what happens: If your IRA is a partner in a partnership, that partnership is required to issue a K1 to all of its partners. That doesn't mean you have to do anything with the K1 in your IRA. You're not going to recognize any taxable income until you actually start taking money out of the IRA, especially since this is a rental property we're talking about. Toby: Cool. Hey, this is a really good one. By the way, if you ever do a 990 T and it says self-directed IRA, your custodian does have to sign, and they like to charge you for that. "401K, 401K." "I have a C Corp with accumulated losses and would rather close it than repurpose it. Is there a way to direct the loss of my personal taxes? Is it possible?" The answer is yes. It's called a 1244 election. It should have been made when you issued your stock. If Anderson did your C Corp, we already did that because I do it with every single corporation. You can then write off as a single person up to $50,000 or up to $100,000 if married, filing jointly, and then it could be used to offset even your W2 income. Jeff: Going back to one of the earlier questions, this is one reason we want to start recognizing reimbursements and stuff as early as possible to establish those debts to you early on. Toby: Yeah, I had this happen and we actually had–the one time this was ever audited was because this accountant refused to give him a $67,000-deduction. It was one of our clients who was a trader who was ready to launch and go into his business and then his employer made him an offer he couldn't refuse and gave him a whole bunch of our money. He took a $67,000-loss. He had never made a dollar in the corporation. We went under audit. We won. Yay. It took two seconds because it was a single letter and we gave him the law, and it's a statute. The IRS is just a policing agency. If there's a statute that's clear, they don't sit there and fight with it. I think it was a $38,000-reimbursement–what do you call it–refund. Awesome first-timer. We love first-timers. Thank you for joining us. "I want to receive an invite, a reminder to a different email." We can give you that. You can always use this when you register for the Tax Tuesday. Just put in your other email. "Interested doing sandwich lease options. What is the best business structure and what document can you provide to protect myself from sellers suing me if a tenant or buyer stops paying rent or if a tenant or buyer trashes the home?" That's a tough one. You're literally leasing it and then re-leasing it with the right to buy. Let me think about this one. How am I going to do this? I'm going to be doing that through an entity. The way you protect yourself is to keep very little amounts of asset in that entity so that if you're sued, it's not you; it's the entity itself, and the entity doesn't have much to lose. That's a tough one. I tend to stay away from stuff like that. I want to buy the property and then you do a lease option in an LLC. Jeff: Make sure you have insurance. Toby: Yup, make sure you have insurance, too. That could happen so the tenant trashes the place and somebody else says, "Hey, wait a second." That's why there's always risk. What you do is you just keep it to a low. "Is it hard to set up classes in QuickBooks? Does Anderson do this?" It's not hard and, yes, we do it. "How long does it take to set up a class in QuickBooks?" Jeff: No, you'd have to ask bookkeepers. Toby: Jeff's such an accountant. Yes, it's actually very easy. Jeff: Actually, the bookkeepers are really good at it. They do it all the time. Toby: It's literally all you're doing, is setting up another class. It's almost like a revenue class so you might have revenue that comes in from plumbing and then selling products in your plumbing business and then, "Hey, I have one that's a consulting," and that might be another class. It literally takes two seconds. "What if the Wyoming LLC owns a C Corp which owns an LLC?" I don't know what that means, but what we mean is–I imagine for the 199A. We're just going to look at it is the C Corp owns an LLC that's not going to be qualified for the 20% deduction. The LLC that owns the C Corp, if it's doing other activities, might qualify for the deduction. Here's the problem: In the qualified business, the part I didn't tell you about is what is qualified business income. Dividends, interest, capital gains are not included in that definition so if you're issuing interest from a C Corp to the LLC that flows under your return, you're not going to be getting the 20%. "If you set up QuickBooks with a single entity and use class as a separate income, can you also print a balance sheet by class?" Jeff: Yes, you can do it if the balance sheet is also classified. Toby: Okay. See, we're good. We're getting there. We only have about 200 more questions to go. I'm just teasing you. We've gone through about three-quarters of them. "What is Jeff's last name?" Webb. "I have a rental company. This will be my first year doing taxes. What can I expect to pay on my capital gains? What are some determining factors?" Isaac, if you're a rental company and you're selling–like if you have capital gains, it's going to be depending on whether you sold it within a year or after a year. If it's less than a year, it's going to be ordinary income to you. If it's over a year, it's going to be taxed with either 0%, 15% or 20%. If you make over 250,000, you're going to get to add no another 3.8% and then whatever your state tax is. What are the determining factors? How much you make. If you're married, filing jointly less than 77,000, your capital gains rate is zero. All those things come into it. You can always write us at webinar@andersonadvisors if you want to ask specific questions. "I'm in the process of setting up QuickBooks account for my C Corp. I have a construction business and a hair salon that are DPA-ed as C Corp. I am flipping single-family residents in Wyoming LLC? I have sub-expense and sub-income accounts for those." This is getting long. This one, we may want to answer next week because this is kind of cool. It's talking about sub-accounts. I'm just going to table that one unless you want to jump on it. Jeff: No, I think there were a couple of issues in there. Toby: Yup, "But you don't pay tax until the withdrawal, correct? That was just with regards to the IRA." Steve, you do need an account and, yes, you don't pay the tax until you withdraw, add up in IRA. If you have unrelated business income tax or debt finance income out of an IRA, you'd pay it in the year that it was generated. "Can I set up an entity to receive W2 income and max out top […]?" Yes, but you can't do it out of a self-directed IRA. The reason being is that you are a disqualified person so you cannot do that unless you do something called a ROBS transaction, and that's going to be a major topic for another day. That's if your IRA invests in a C Corp that you set up and there are ways to do it and then you could actually pay yourself, so there. "I recently rolled over a 401K to equity trust IRA account, lending funds to other investors charging interest. Is interest income taxable to the IRA?" No, you can do that all day long, and equity trust is having to sign all your docs. My recommendation would be to set up your own 401K so you can sign the loan documents. Somebody says, "How many times a year can you roll over from 401K to IRA or reverse rollover?" It depends on whether you're doing a direct rollover. Jeff: You can do a trustee to trustee every day if you want, meaning you're going from TDM trade to Bank of America. You can do those as long as it's directly being transferred. You can pull the money out once to yourself once every 12 months, and it's a rolling 12-month period. If I pulled it out today, then I wouldn't be able to do it again until next October. Toby: Somebody asks, "Can I roll individual stock holding into Roth trading account if the current value is under the 550 limit, and how?" The answer would be, really, no; you're going to have to liquidate the holdings, open up a new account in the Roth IRA and then contribute the 5,500. It's a pain in the butt, I know, but I don't make the rules. It's this whole Bank Secrecy Act and all this stuff since they flew planes into trade centers. "Is the old rule dead on personal residences two out of five years?" No, that's still the rule, and we still use it like crazy. That's exception 121. Jeff: Yeah, they were talking about making it five out of eight years, and that got thrown out so it's still the old two-out-of-five rule. Toby: Yup. "Do my startup costs carry over two years if my net was negative?" It's actually 20-something years. Jeff: 15 years. Toby: 15 years now? Nate, you can carry forward your startup costs. Is it 15? Jeff::Yeah. Toby:  "Hey, wait a second. I have an S Corp. They keep charging me the 800 fee ever

It’s time for Toby Mathis and Jeff Webb of Anderson Advisors to answer your questions about taxes, the IRS, and much more. Do you have a tax question for them? Submit it to Webinar@andersonadvisors.com. Highlights/Topics: What is Nexus? Why do I care? Nexus is a state’s right to tax your income; different types (tax and physical), state laws, and throwback rule - how they affect you Does IRS reimburse me for corporate expenses? Misconception about reimbursement from the client’s company or IRS; IRS doesn’t give you money, but let’s you write it off How do I qualify for a real estate professional status? Requires 750 hours as #1 use of personal professional time; know importance of passive activity loss and logging time What are self-dealing rules for non-profits, IRAs, QRPs? Particular entities can’t interact with a disqualified person - can’t sell them anything; but self-dealing exceptions exist Am I dealer or investor? What’s the difference? Investor is passively involved, dealer is actively buying/selling real estate; can depend on the intent and timeframe Why set up an LLC that does flipping as a C or S Corp instead of a partnership? Because it’s taxed as ordinary income and subject to self-employment tax What is UBIT? Unrelated business income tax is when a plan/non-profit isn’t doing what it’s set up to do; can have passive activity until it competes with active businesses I hold rental property in a self-directed IRA. What can I do? There’s things you can/can’t do, especially add value to a property, so find a property manager and IRA custodian My wife’s previous employer’s stock options were exercised and have peaked. If we cash in, what’ll be the tax consequences/burden? Long-term capital gain and opportunity zone I’m helping a friend with a crowdfunding project. What are tax consequences with no deductions? Does he pay tax on donated money? No tax for less than $15,000 per donor How to aggregate all properties? Disadvantages? Election form that your print with your tax return to identify properties; doesn’t free up large losses tied up If real estate investing part time, are you considered a part-time investor? You’d be a part-time investor, not real estate professional; determining factor is to document time How do I get the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt? Use the 1023 application How do you create an LLC in an IRA? IRA custodian enters into a contract with a company to create an LLC, or set up a 401(k) to roll the IRA into it without a custodian Investing in LLC for holding rental property. How do you avail to a 1031 exchange? Need a 1031 exchange facilitator and LLC must buy or sell the next property within 180 days If I receive social security benefits at 62 and not currently employed, but do receive interest income. Will it affect my SS benefits? Can be isolated into its own taxable entity My wife and I are the only shareholders and both take a ⅓ salary. Is that the right amount? You should take a ⅓ of the net profit as salary instead How do you put an LLC on hold? Do nothing with it or pay the state; file non-activity return Will real estate holding LLC taxes partnership qualify for 20% pass-through deduction? Yes, if not triple net property For all questions/answers discussed, sign up to be a Platinum member to view the replay! Resources Anderson Advisors Tax and Asset Prevention Event Toby Mathis Anderson Advisors U.S. Supreme Court Reverses Long Standing Law On Collection Of Sales Taxes Northwest Energetic Services LLC vs. California Franchise Tax Board Throwback Rule SALT Limit After 24 years, wealthy inventor gets his day in tax court – and wins 10 Tax Deductions That Will Disappear Next Year Passive Activity Losses - Real Estate Tax Tips Real Estate Professional Status - Becoming More Important - Very Hard To Prove Acts of self-dealing by private foundation Unrelated Business Income Tax Opportunity Zones Frequently Asked Questions About Form 1099-INT | Internal Revenue Service Exemption Requirements - 501(c)(3) Organizations Form 1023 Taxbot MileIQ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Provision 11 011 Section 199A - Qualified Business Income Deduction FAQs   Full Episode Transcript Toby: Alright, welcome to Tax Tuesday, this is Toby Mathis joined by our tax manager Jeff Webb. Jeff: How do you do? Toby: We're going to get jumping on here. We're just going to jump right in. no time like the present to just get business done. So first off, happy Tuesday. Second off, let's jump into a bunch of questions that are giving us a steady feed from folks even before we got started. I'm sure I'll be more happy than to answer your questions. I also got emails in from folks that I may be trying to make sure I answer all of those and we'll just make sure that we're getting through each and every question to the extent humanly possible within this hour. So the first one is, what is Nexus and why do I care. Second one is going to be, does the IRS reimburse me for my corporate expenses. Third one is, how do I qualify for real estate professionals, technically real estate professional status. What are self doing rules for nonprofits in QRPs. I'm going to throw in IRAs in there as well. Am I a dealer or an investor, what difference does it make. Those are the ones that we're going to hit one after the other in succession. I'm making sure that we're getting through these. So the first one is, what is nexus and why do I care. Jeff, do you want to hit tax nexus because there's different types of nexus. There's physical presence for lawsuits and there's tax nexus for taxation. I'm going to have Jeff hit the tax and then I'll touch base on the physical nexus. Jeff: So when we're talking about tax nexus what we're primarily talking about is a state's right to tax you on your income. For example, you may live in Nevada, have a rental property in California. California has a right to tax any income on that property because you're doing business within California. There are different roles, there have been numerous cases on nexus. Toby: Most recently, our Supreme Court reversed a physical presence test that the error that Amazon, everybody that was an online retailer use to avoid state sales tax and that was just changed. Jeff: Yeah, on that one in particular the Supreme Court as Toby said, gave the states the right to tax online sales in their states. The thing is, the states now have to write tax walls to accomplish this. Most of the states don't have anything that accomplishes this. Toby: A lot of times, ignorance is bliss. People would avoid sales tax like for example, I live in Washington, Florida, Oregon and avoid the sales tax and they ignored Washington's use tax. A lot of states have this. You don't pay sales tax and you go someplace where there is no sales tax, you still owe sales tax on it but they call it use tax because you brought the physical item into your state and you never paid sales tax on it. So then they would say, "Aha." And the really interesting thing – there were actually some interesting cases that were popping up from the nexus, ones that came out of Washington, was Northwest Energetic Services too and that was a case in California where they tried to tax an organization that was registered to do business there that didn't actually do any business in California but they wanted to tax its worldwide revenue. The franchise tax board of the board of equalization lost that one and they had a few others but what you'll find is that this is a continuously active in generating area of tax law and we tend to fall into the category of ask for forgiveness not for permission all the time because if you ask a state whether you should be paying tax, they will gladly say yes even if it's not a legitimate tax. They'll tell you that you have to pay it even though it's made to be unconstitutional, unlawful, you fill in the blank. Even if you don't owe it, they'll oftentimes just answer, "Yes, of course you should." They can't actually be giving you any tax advice anyway so it's the wrong party to be asking. I'm sure Jeff you get to deal with that more than I do. Jeff: Yeah, in a state like California, it used to be an old joke for the CPA's that you could be flying over the state of California, make enough business phone call and California would want to so you have nexus and we can now tax you. They're also a state that's very difficult to leave if you're a resident. We had a case where somebody, NBA player for the Sacramento Kings was traded to Seattle Sonics and moved there. Toby: Yeah, now the Oklahoma City Thunder, I was there when they move, horrible. Jeff: The state of California wanted to say, "No, you're still resident of California, we're still going to be taxing you because you got friends here and you have club ownership, some relationships. California in particular is very tenacious with Nexus. Toby: Yeah, so you're going to see things evolving over the next few years since the Supreme Court decision was literally this last, I think it was just months ago or end of the year last year. You're going to see the states trying to fill in the blanks. So you have some states for example in drop shipping, Pennsylvania would tax you if you drop ship out of their state where it used to not be, other states did before. We were talking earlier before the webinar, Jeff and I were talking about what is like a claw back. Jeff: Yeah, it's called a throwback rule that says if your sales into a state that doesn't have taxes then where it got shipped from can tax instead. Toby: Somebody's asked, what are the worst three states for nexus. It really depends on what you're doing, but I would say just off the top of my head probably New York, Connecticut and California. They're pretty heinous. Look at the states that just filed a lawsuit against the federal government under the SALT limitation which is the State and Local Tax Limitation. You'll see I think there was four states Maryland was one of them, where they try to hit you with so many different taxes. It's not just business, it's on your personal as well. It's just for nexus, for a person, it's really easy to figure out, "Hey, where do you live?" Because when I say it's easy, it can be difficult if you have two residences that you spend time with equally. They're going to add up things like how much utility you use, where your driver's license is. Where your kids go to school, where your vehicles are registered, you're going to look at those types of things. There's Hyatt v. Commissioner Case or what was it, Hyatt versus board of equalization I think is actually what it was. Where a gentleman moved to Nevada and the California franchise tax board sent agents to Nevada they climbed to his garage and break into his apartment to prove that he was actually residing more in California than he was in Nevada because his tax bill would've been so great and when they got caught, they said they're immune. Our Supreme Court and Scully I remember the opinion was scathing on them saying, "No, you're immune in your jurisdiction. When you cross the state lines, don't expect any immunity." They just harassed that poor guy. They were climbing around his house. So let's just narrow it down though. You asked a question what is nexus. There's two sides, there's tax nexus and then there's physical nexus. In the physical nexus again where you reside, it's pretty easy. If you live there, then you have a physical nexus in that state, it's where you have a house. In the business it's no different. In a business, you have to decide where it's going to have its main presence and the courts have held having a bare office and nothing more isn't going to be sufficient. You actually have to do something there. That's when you actually have to have a physical office space. We use virtual office where it's doing more than just maintaining a registered agent. There we're actually giving conference facilities, phone answering, we'll do document prep and things like that for the governance of the company so the company can actually have a physical presence. The reason that you do that is to make sure it has a home. So if somebody's coming after one of its shareholders or members, one of its owners that it does not draw that entity into the state where they're located. So, if I have owners in a company and I have my company set up in Wyoming and they sue me in Nevada and they sue somebody else in Texas and somebody else in Florida, you don't have a choice between the Nevada, Texas and Florida where the shareholder or where the members of the LLC are located, they would actually have to go to Wyoming where the actual entity is located. That's what you're trying to do. So if Anderson does my meeting notes, that's why that's important. We're not talking about Canadian, US the nexus pass. I could tell you a fun one. We had a client that just got nailed by California. It's actually under the FBAR which is Foreign Bank Account Regulations. They had some interest on a bank account that was there for a condo they had in Whistler and they sold the condo in Whistler and they didn't report, I think it was like $70 or $76 worth of interest. Jeff do you know these off the top of your head? How much the penalty is? Jeff: No. Toby: If the IRS catches you, it's 50% of the account balance per year. But if you go under amnesty which they have taken an amnesty was a $38,000 fine which they paid for that $76. Canada is still offshore. Anyway, so what is nexus and why do I care. It gets a little convoluted but the reason you care is you don't want to draw your company into your state, you want to make it very difficult for somebody to get a hold of your assets if they're coming after you. From a tax standpoint, it matters because we want to keep our business activities to the extent possible in the lowest taxing jurisdiction as humanly possible. So that's that one. Jeff this is one of your favorites, I know. Does the IRS reimburse me for my corporate expenses? Jeff: Of course they do. IRS is really giving out money. We get this question more often than you would think. I think it's a misconception that clients are being told that their companies can reimburse them for certain expenses which will reduce our taxes and sometimes the clients are hearing IRS is going to reimburse us. The only time you get back money from IRS is if you pay money into IRS for taxes and you don't owe them any tax or maybe overpaid them. Toby: Yeah. IRS is a policing agency. Your taxes when you pay it, they don't even go to the IRS, it goes to the US treasury. So the IRS is merely, pay my boss, is all they are. So they don't give any money out whatsoever so the IRS does not reimburse you for your corporate expenses. What the IRS does is it enforced the laws which is the United States code and issues regulations interpreting that code and is basically the enforcement arm for the US department of treasury. What ends up happening for corporation is they're allowed to reimburse shareholders many expenses that are not included on the shareholder's personal tax returns. So it sometimes seems like they're giving you money when in all reality, they're allowing you to not pay tax on your expenses which is always the battle because there's lots of rules out there that say things are not deductible. Nothing more telling them what we just had happened in this tax change where they eliminated all miscellaneous itemized deductions. All of them are gone in case you've been sleeping. In 2018, you do not get to write them off anymore. Jeff: Now that's your union dues, your tax preparation fees. Toby: Any unreimbursed business expense if you're a teacher and you're providing stuff for your classroom, you don't get to write it off. Jeff: If you're paying substantial amounts to your broker for advisory fees. Toby: That's a huge one. We're going to see that one come back and bite people in their touché. Jeff: That's no longer deductible. Toby: So it's horrible. So no, the IRS does not reimburse you for your corporate expenses. Your corporation reimburses you for your corporate expenses and the IRS lets you write it off. How do I qualify for real estate professional status. Jeff do you want to play with this one or do you want me to handle it? Jeff: I'll do a little and then you can correct me. So real estate professional has a hours commitment. I believe it's 750 hours a year. Toby: So it's a minimum of 750 hours. There's a second part to that too, you know that. Jeff: And the 750 hours can be earned by you or your spouse. What's your second one? Toby: The second one is it has to be the number one use of your personal professional time. Jeff: Oh, correct. Toby: The way I always explain this is if you did 1001 hours doing bicycle repair and you did 1000 hours of real estate, you do not qualify as a real estate professional. But if it's reversed and you did 1000 hours of bicycle repair you did 1001 hours of real estate activities, then you do. And the reason this is important is because ordinarily, your real estate expenses are offset your real estate income and you can only take losses from real estate. In other words, the excess depreciation, or repairs, or whatever, your losses are limited to $3000 a year against your other active income. So that's called the passive activity loss rule. Jeff: $25,000. Toby: If you materially participate and then you have $100,000 to $150,000 scale up. There's some little nuances which don't bring your head with. At the end of the day, there are restrictions on taking passive activity loss. Real estate professional status removes that restriction. The other thing that's really important about real estate professional status is it is per property. So if you have three properties, you'd have to meet it for each of the three unless you elect to aggregate all your properties on your tax return. We have seen this missed by accountants who don't do real estate. They don't aggregate and there are actually cases on the book where people had to fight and they literally had tons of properties they easily met the 750 if you aggregate it but their accountants miss the aggregation election. Jeff: And the sum of 750 hours is not just for your rental properties. Toby: Any real estate. Jeff: Any real estate activity. Toby: Yeah. Jeff was actually right when he said your spouse could qualify, either you or your spouse if you're filing jointly. Jeff: So if you have a full time job and you're getting a W2, I can guarantee you that you will not legally qualify. Under audit, you're going to lose. However, if you have a full time job and your wife does not or your husband does not, they can qualify to be that real estate professional. Toby: We had a fun one. A good friend of ours and a colleague in Georgia was making somewhere between $2 million and $3 million a year in his professional practice. His wife qualified as a real estate professional and he quite literally bought enough commercial property and did something called cost segregation where you're rapidly depreciating it where he generated enough loss off the real estate to offset his income. The IRS audited it, he is self represented because he knew the rule. It withheld, he stood up. His wife just did their real estate activities and he did their practice and at the end of the day, she met the requirement for the real estate professional status and the rule is pretty straightforward. IRS didn’t like the outcome but that's not their job. So they picked a fight and lost the audit which is not uncommon. All right, so how do I qualify for a real estate professional. Keep a log of your time and make sure that you're aggregating all of your real estate activities. Even if it's for a closely held company, it's still going to match, it's still going to work. Next one, what are the self dealing rules for nonprofits in QRPs. I'm going to add in there IRAs as well since when we talk about a qualified retirement plan, we're really talking about 401K and 401A. This is going to dovetail in with one of our other questions that came in off the internet as well. But here's how it works. If you are in a particular type of entity where it says you cannot interact and engage in business with a disqualified person, you could not sell them a $1 million building for $1. It is an absolute prohibition against self dealing. The most important first step is determining whether or not you're within one of those rules. Then if you are, then you look and say are there any exceptions to that rule. So for nonprofits, nonprofits are going to fall into broad categories foundations, private foundations are one. These are nonprofits that aggregate money and give money to other nonprofits, they don't do anything. And in that one, you have an absolute bar from self dealing. The next one is an operating nonprofit that is doing something and in that case, you just have to use arm's length transactions. So we look at that, that's our step number one. So let's go back to the first one, private foundations then you look and say, are there any exceptions. The only exception is reasonable compensation, it can always be reasonably compensated. But other than that, no more transactions. So for nonprofits 501(c)(3) you can enter into transactions as long as it's an operating nonprofit. It can give you benefits, it can pay you and it can engage in sales and other transactions between you and the agencies so long as they are arm's length. And the way you make sure it is arm's length is you have non-interested parties looking at it saying, "Hey, that looks okay to me." somebody who doesn't have a dog in the fight. Now we go to QRPs and IRAs. In either one of those, you have absolute prohibitions against self dealing with disqualified parties and disqualified parties are lineal descendants which would be grandparents, children and their spouses, great children and their spouses. It does not include your siblings. So what's interesting is you could actually engage in transactions with your IRA for example, loan money to your brother. You cannot loan money to your mother. You could not loan money to your kids or your grandkids, you could not do a second on their house, you could not do anything between the company. You could not buy a house from them. That is an absolute bar that's called, disqualified party. Jeff: The way I kind of look at it as to whether you may be violating self dealing rules is, are you benefitting from a transaction between you and the nonprofit or the QRP or the IRA. That's really what they're out to prevent. And unfortunately the rules are pretty severe for violations of the self dealing. Toby: If you self-deal, you're just going to disqualify your IRA. If you're using a QRP and you're using a 401K, then we have different rules, and in that particular case, it would just disqualify the money that you actually were utilizing. Their far more lenient. Jeff: I had a client who had a QRP, it was actually defined benefit plan, who had a required minimum distribution to make and the plan was not funded at the time. The client had to make a loan to the QRP, which is a self-dealing but unfortunately there's an exception for that that one was quickly repaid. There was no profit or interest earned on it. Toby: Was it within the 60 days? Jeff: I believe it was within 60 days. Toby: There's some more fun stuff. Then we go into the 401Ks and this is where you get into people acting on behalf of the company. I know that there were some questions, that were already posed in the chat feature here. You're not supposed to be getting any personal benefit or using those funds at all when you have an IRA or a 401K. In an IRA, it's much more severe because you have a custodian. So if a renter for example is paying you money and they pay it to you individually, technically you have a violation of the self dealing rules because you just received money. Even if you go ahead and put it right back in the IRA, you're going to have an issue because technically you weren't supposed to receive the money, the custodian was supposed to be receiving the money. So you should actually have rental money going to your custodian if you’re using an IRA. If you’re using a 401K or 401A, which the profit sharing plan or 401K, then you are the trustee and you're able to accept the money and endorse it right into the account and make sure that the money goes to the right place. IRA's are a little more difficult. To get around this, a lot of people with IRA's will set up an LLC which you can be the manager of. Actually, the IRA is technically the member— you're in non compensated role and we have to make sure that the LLC agreement says that if we drafted it, then we make sure that we're putting in the non-prohibitionals. You cannot personally benefit from these activities. It has to all go back to the retirement plan. People will do the LLC and they will be all right, now I can go ahead and accept the funds through the LLC, that's how they do with an IRA. If you're doing with the 401K, we're going to suggest that you still set up an LLC anytime you have real estate, just because we don't want the liability to flow through to you. But there, now, you don't need the custodian. You could technically do it inside the 401K directly though you should still have the LLC and it's the same scenario where you're able to accept the proceeds. That's not going to be a technical violation because you're acting on behalf of the plan. And that is not a violation of the self dealing rules. So the biggest takeaway from all this, is that you can act on behalf of the plan. The second a just qualified person starts to get personal benefit, you have violated the rules and if it's an IRA, the whole thing is violating—considered a taxable event, which should be that 10% penalty plus income tax on it for the entire amount if it's at 401K or 401A, it would just be the portion that you violated. We tend to be very bullish on using 401Ks and 401A's, profit sharing plans around here also known as QRP. And this is why, because they're far more forgiving and they have a less moving pieces. I hope that explains that. We're going to have—I know there's a couple more questions that are in here, that are going to be relevant to this section as well. Let me jump on to something. The questions, this is something you can ask detailed questions via our email. I will answer them, Jeff or Tony, whoever's from the tax department here. We will answer these on the tax Tuesday. We will also more likely be responding back out to you directly as well because we want to make sure you get your questions answered, but just jot down that address, webinar@andersonadvisors.com and feel free to shoot them in. Since our last one, Tax Tuesday, we had a couple of questions and I want to go through these. Number one was from Karen out of Alaska, "I have a revocable trust in Alaska that owns and sells real property, does the trust to pay income taxes on the profit or does the profit end up on my personal tax return? Is it taxed at the same rate as everything else? So the most important word she used in her question was revocable, because trust come in two flavors, revocable are irrevocable. If they're irrevocable, then we have two choices, we don't have to worry about the irrevocable.. Since it's revocable, it's a grand tour trust is ignored, it's you, for tax purposes until your dead. So you're good, sorry, sometimes I'm blunt. So if you're buying and selling real estate, real property it's taxed no differently than if you're on the real property. Now here's the rub, it also gives you know asset protection. So revocable trust is giving you know asset protection with that real property, so I would really strongly suggest that the revocable trust actually be the owner of an LLC that is buying and selling the real estate and depending on how quickly you are turning this, will depend on whether that say, S or a C-Corp., if it's a flip versus if it is a long-term holds, then we just put it as an LLC. It would either be disregarded or taxed as a partnership. We want it to flow under our return. Those are kind of our choices. There was a question, I don't know if I got to that. I'm going to skip back to our slides. There's something about—Am I a dealer or an investor? So I want to make sure that I'm getting this one right here. Because this is relevant to one of these questions. A dealer and an investor is something that we talk about in real estate, you want to hit on this? Jeff: No, you're doing fine. Toby: An investor is someone who's passively involved, a dealer is somebody who is actively buying and selling real estate. So if you buy real estate with the intent to hold it for its long term appreciation cash flow, then you are an investor. If you buy real estate with the intent to sell it, then you are a dealer. The easiest way to conceptualize this is if I am an investor, I am passive. If I am a dealer, then I am a supermarket with inventory. And I'm putting my real estate on a shelf and it's constantly for sale. Just like at your grocery store, it may take a couple years for something to sell. I'm just imagining the items that are on the shelf. Jeff: Your durable goods. Toby: Right, so you sell something, I used to do liquidation. We would grab all the expired items we would sell them but let's say, it doesn't matter how long you held them. A lot of people think, well if I held it over a year, I can't be a dealer. That's not the case, we actually have cases on the book where they held it over 10 years. What matters is what your intent was when you buy it. And the difference it makes is active income versus passive income. The difference is an investor can 1031 exchange and defer all other taxes. An investor can get long-term capital gains, an investor can do installment sales, an investor can spread out the tax liability over a long period of time. Whereas a dealer is active. It's subject to social security taxes, it's taxable immediately even if you don't receive the money. It is active ordinary income, it's no difference than I just sold that box of Cheerios on the shelf that I've been waiting to sell. It makes a huge difference. Dealer activity we're going to isolate inside of an S-Corp or a C-Corp. Investor activity, we're going to make sure it flows on your personal return either by using a disregarded LLC or a partnership LLC, one of the two. Jeff: Intent has really made a difference in a couple of cases. One, where somebody bought a property that they go allow their child to live in, something end up happening then they sold it after a short time. They were considered to be an investor not a dealer. Toby: It doesn't even matter. It does not matter whether you ever rented it, there's plenty of cases where somebody tried to rent it and they were going to use it as a long term hold and then things change and they sold it. Just know that if you buy or sell within a year, the presumption is going to be that you're a dealer. If you hold for over a year, the presumption is going to be that you're an investor but it's not a guarantee. We're going to get back to these questions. How does Flip LLC income flow into S-Corp and then what will be distributions of the seller? So, we talked a little bit about this last week but I'm going to go and we're going to hit this. When you set up an LLC, it doesn't exist to the IRS. So when you say how does the Flip LLC flow into S-Corp, it doesn't. A Flip LLC is an S-Corp if you elect to have it be treated that way with the IRS. The income is just going into an S-Corp. Then you have to decide what your salary will be because if you know anything about an escort S-Corp, you want to make sure you pay yourself a reasonable salary if it's making money. The rule of thumb to use is, one third of your net income should be paid out as salary. That's just a rule of thumb but it's all in all reality the IRS has this funky test where you're supposed to say, "Hey, what would it be? What could it be paid?" they never tell us exactly. So I'll just say this, pay a third, don't worry about it. If you get too much money, if you start making over $300,000, then we're going to have a chat but where you're going to be on our radar anyway, we're going to be making sure you're paying a reasonable salary anyway. The reason this is important is because the salary is subject to old age death and survivors in Medicare also known as FICA or social security and the distributions are not. So what you would do is you'd be cutting your social security tax by about two thirds if you did it that way. I hope that explains it. So it makes its money and it pays it out. We do need to make sure that if you're flipping, that the money goes into the LLC. Jeff: A quick comment on distributions on an S-Corporation. Distributions are typically the money that's already been taxed are in you're just pulling the cash out. What you don't want to do is go out and get a bank loan in S-Corporation and take distributions from that for several reasons. One, you don't have basis in those distributions. Two, it gets into the whole finance distribution issues and things of that nature. So you really only want to be pulling money out of the company that you’ve already been taxed on. Toby: Fair enough and then if you don't pull any money out of an LLC that's taxed as an S-Corp, you don't technically have to pay yourself a salary. You just let it sit in there and keep growing which your accountant is not going to tell you because they don't know that. The reason I know that is because I have spoken to probably 100 accountants that missed that one. It says, why do you want the LLC that does flipping set up as an S-Corp or C-Corp instead of a partnership? Mark, we were just talking about that because it's taxed as ordinary income as subject to self employment tax. So the reason we want that in an SRC is so that you do not get classified as a dealer because then all of your real estate is dealer real estate and you could lose all your long-term capital gains, you to lose your 1031, you could lose your installment sale. So we want it to be a separate taxpayer from you so the IRS notes clearly who the investor is and who the dealers is and then you can reduce the amount of tax hit by using the S-Corp that will reduce your self-employment tax significantly, if you add a 401K to it, you could eliminate your tax or defer it out into the future. If you use a C-Corp, then depending on what your expenses are, we can also eliminate all your tax or at least reduce it significantly. So that's why we use that. All right, we have a whole bunch of questions to go through so I'll go through this. What is UBIT and UBITA. UBIT is unrelated business income tax and the easiest way to understand this is when you have a tax deferred entity or tax, it's not actually a tax rates, it can be tax rate if it's a Roth but when you have a qualified plan or a nonprofit and it is not doing what it's set up to do, so let's say in an IRA or a 401K or a 401A, or a nonprofit, they're all set up to do certain things. They're allowed to have a passive activity which is rents, royalties, dividends, interest, even capital gains and it can have those and you don’t have to worry about it at all. But once it starts competing with other businesses, active businesses, now you have an issue and that's what's called—let's say that you have these ordinary businesses. Then they would be taxed, generally speaking it's going to be the highest rate at 37% I believe is what it's going to be as kind of a disincentive to engage in traditional businesses inside those exempt organizations. The easiest way to look at this, let's say you set up an IRA and it runs a mini mart, you're going to pay tax on those profits just like anybody else would. The exception is if that IRA owns a corporation that does not pay out the profits directly. It would have to own C-Corp and then it would only receive dividends and then those are considered passive. So it gets funny and a little bit difficult. The other one is let's say you set up a nonprofit, that's for—what's a good one? Helping Vet and then it sets up a pizza business on the side and starts competing, it buys a bunch a Domino's franchises. It's going to pay tax on the Domino's franchise. It doesn't get a big huge competitive advantage selling pizzas because it's a nonprofit. It would have to be for its charitable purpose and that's UBIT. Jeff: One place we see a lot is like hospitals, they're usually tax exempt but they may have a gift shop which they have to pay the business income tax on because it's not directly supporting them but it is a business. Toby: But you're allowed to do that for like what is it, Salvation Army and some these other thrift stores. They'll let you have one for a church and whatnot. If it's ancillary, if it's completely ancillary and it's just being used like thrift stores I think are one of the few exceptions, gift shop absolutely, you're head to head. Here's another one and I think that this may be what Diane was looking at, it's debt financed income. What that is, is if I'm using the leverage, then there's an exception for IRA's where it cannot use loans to generate income, it's considered an unrelated debt financed income. It will be taxable That is not the case for 401Ks and for 401As, which is what—if you've ever been to one of our events, you hear us railing on the idea that if you are going to finance real estate, real estate is considered passive and it's considered okay not UBIT. The only way you make it taxable is if you leverage it inside of an IRA, so don't do that. If you're going to leverage it, make sure your rolling that IRA into a 401K or profit sharing plan which is the 401A. So there, that's my two cents. I figure that maybe they had a funky—UBITA, I have no idea what that is, but it looks neat. I think they were probably referring to get financed income, since those things usually go side by side. All right, we have a ton of questions that have been posed and this is so much fun, we have like literally a jillion questions, if that's the number. All right, so here's the first one, if I cash out refinance or borrow an equity loan from my primary residence, use the money to do private lending by rental property, can I deduct the interest expense as an investment expense beyond $750,000 amount? They're throwing some things in here. This is actually a really long question, I'm giving you the thumbnail sketch of it. Hey guys email those types of questions in, because nobody's going to be out to follow this, but here's what here's what they're saying, we now have a restriction on your mortgage interest, it's $750,000. If you borrow on your house, and by the way it's $750,000 now, if you had a loan on it up to $1 million, you're grandfathered in, if those prior to what was it, 12/15/2017, you're good or if you got your long before April 15th and you already started the process before December 15, don't you make my head hurt. Long and short of it is, let's say $750,000, but your house is worth $1.5 million. You borrow money out of your house. You will not be writing that off personally, you are capped at $750,000 and that's on your schedule A. Whether or not you're getting any benefit out of that is to be seen because you have your standard deduction. I imagine it's going to be above the standard deduction if you're borrowing up to $750,000. Let's just say we have our $750,000 and we borrowed an extra $500,000, it can't go on your schedule A, but it can go someplace else. The someplace else would be, for example, if I put it into my schedule E, because I'm using it to buy rental property. Then I can use the income of the rental property and I can use the interest being paid as a separate expense, it's just going on a different tax form. The other route that you can go is, if I give that $500,000 and I loan it to a corporation and the corporation re-loans, in the words the corporation is going out loaning its money out and it's reimbursing my interest, then in all reality the loan is really to the corp, and I'm not getting any tax benefit but the corporation is reducing its income by reimbursing me the right to use basically my line of credit. This is no different than if you do this with your credit card. It's reimbursing you, so you make no money on it, but you don't pay tax on it, it such a fancy work around. That's number one. Next question, I hold rental property in a self directed IRA. I do tenant screening, manage the rental, hire vendors to do the repair work and I don't physically work on the house. Good, because you can't physically work on the house, you can do everything else, you can hire, do screening. I would actually have a property manager on it. All income expenses come and goes to the same self directed IRA account, hopefully that's with the custodian or you have an LLC, disregarded to the IRA. Somebody asked this, the IRA custodian sets up the LLC, you can't do it. You shouldn't be going out and doing it yourself, paying your money, you should actually have the IRA do it to keep it clean. Is it allowed? Yes, some people say, "If only I don't work on the house myself, that's okay," and they're correct. Some people say, even screening, collecting rent is not allowed, can you please clarify? You should not receive the money, the IRA should receive the money, you can direct you to the custodian though. You can even get the check and hand it to the custodian, forward it to the custodian, whatever, as long as what you're doing is not adding value to the property. That's the big no, no. Don't go get a paint brush and start painting the house because you're increasing the value to your personal efforts. Next question, my wife's previous employer stock options were exercised and we feel have peaked, cost basis 132, market value 280, if we cash in, what will be the tax consequences and how can we reduce the tax burden? We need to pull the trigger shortly. Aziz, this is you, there's two ways you can do this. First off, you're going to end up with long term capital gains, so it's not horrible. Secondly, there's something called an opportunity zone which just enacted at the end of the year and the just published out all these zones. If you reinvest the money in a opportunity zone, you defer to the tax. In the opportunity zones, there's tons of them. It's any neighborhood that is considered—that needs public support and there's a laundry list. I would actually encourage you to go Google, opportunity zone, tax and you'll find a big old list. But the communities in your area that are typically low to moderate income house. If you took your entire amount of increase, so let's say that we have $150,000 of taxable capital gains, you could buy $150,000 of opportunity zone properties and pay zero tax. Now, the question is, what happens when I sell? So there's holding periods and the minimum holding period, I believe, is you're going to be looking at five years, where then you're going to not have to pay tax on 15%, I'm going off of memory. So you'll have to excuse me if I'm not spot on, but it's 15% then it jumps up. At 10 years, the entire $150,000 is no longer taxable. And I believe that you're not going to be paying tax on the gain in the opportunity zone, it's kind of a two pronged, are you familiar with that one, Jeff? Jeff: Somewhat, I know that you replaced the old enterprise some number of years back. Toby: Something to look at, but would be it. The last way to avoid tax is give them, before you exercise it, is give that to your non-profit, if you have one and you would get a $280,000 deduction. And then the nonprofit can sell it zero tax. You'd get a monster tax and you could have these too, you could say, "Hey, I really need to offset a bunch of the tax, so I'm going to make a contribution," it doesn't matter what your basis is, it only matters, the fair market value of those assets and if you transferred let's say $140,000, half of it, let's see transferred $140,000 worth of stock, you would get $140,000 tax deduction and it can offset your income up to 60%. In either case, if you're pretty confident that we can mitigate or eliminate that tax bill if you wanted to. If you keep it out of state, somebody says, if you keep it as state for 36 months, can it be avoided? I am helping a friend with crowdfunding project and due to medical needs, we'll need a large sum, maybe $100 million what would his tax consequences be if he has no deductions? Does he have to pay tax on donated money? Fred, generally speaking, if you're getting these little gifts, as long as they're less than $15,000 there's no tax and when I say $15,000 that's per donor. So if I do a crowdfunding and everybody gives $100, there's no tax to the recipient. So go ahead and raise them a bunch of money. Jeff: Keep in mind when you're doing this crowdfunding, if you're contributing to a crowd funding, it is a gift, it's not a donation. Toby: And it's not a tax deductible donation. In 2017, I sold a rental house and took a $40,000 note. In 2017, I received $944 in interest but have not issued a 1099-INT. I did report the amount on my personal 2017. What should my next step be? Wait until 2019 or file now. So he's the one who holds the note, he was paid interest. What do you have to say? Jeff: This is kind of a darn if you do and darn if you don't. There is a penalty for not issuing the 1099. You did the right thing by reporting the amount of interest. However, there's a penalty for not following the 1099. There's a penalty for filing them late. Toby: What's the penalty like? Jeff: I think it's $50 or $75. I think it's $50 up to $99. Toby: So what you're saying is do it next year? Jeff: I didn’t hear anything. Toby: Hey do it next year unless they start digging in. I've had that, we actually went through a super audit here once and they went through every—they let you fix it. So I just wouldn't do it. I would just do it next year and say, "Hey, oops." How to aggregate all properties. What are the disadvantages to doing. You file an aggregation election, is it a form or you just check in the box? Jeff: It's an election. It prints out a form with your tax return. It says exactly what properties or investments you're aggregating together. The only real disadvantage is. Once you aggregated these properties, let's say you have two houses and one has significant passive losses. When you become a real estate professional, those passive losses gets stuck in there. Normally they get freed up when you sell that property but once you aggregator properties, it's all considered one property. So it doesn't free up those if you have a large losses tied up, it doesn't free them up until you get rid of all your aggregated properties. Toby: Cool. Nicely put. Are the purchase and sale of mortgage notes considered real estate for real estate professional status I'm assuming. Jeff: This is my gut feeling, I would say no. it's more of a lending, more of an investment in the notes. Toby: Depends on whether you're ending up with the properties. It depends on what your intent is and if your intent is just to buy and sell mortgage notes, then you're dealing with lending. In order to be real estate, it's really got to be focused in on the purchase and sale of real estate. Jeff: So we kind of run into the same thing with construction companies and such that they meet the test for certain things but not for other test. There are some input to it so real estate broker is kind of the same thing. Toby: Here's the thing, so this is Dean. Dean, if I am in your shoes, I am documenting the time I'm spending in real estate. so even though I may be going after a note, if the reason that you're going after the note is with the intent that possibly end up with that property and you do the research and you can back it up, then you add it into the real estate column as far as your time and you aggregate all your time. The only time this is going to come up is if somebody audits you in goes through all of your records that thoroughly which is rare that that happens. But let's say that it does, then you're the one who's tracking all of your expenses and your time. Then it would be up to the IRS to sit there and say, "Hey, that was actually for the mortgage." and so the old adage is pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. You don't take all of it but you aggregate that a little bit. Jeff: Can I bring up a pet peeve? I hear on the radio frequently about all these auditors that IRS has hired and they haven't had a real hiring since 2010. Toby: They're so toast right now. Jeff: The last big hiring they did most recently was to deal with Obamacare for that audit purposes. But really, they're dealing with almost a skeleton crew anymore. Toby: We just got proposed tax forms for 2018. We don't even know, we just had proposed regulations issued on the tax changes two weeks ago, three weeks ago. They're way behind the eight ball and sometimes we put ourselves in a disadvantage. Don't be crazy about it, but you can be pretty aggressive and especially if it's the truth. If what you're spending your time on is real estate, count it towards real estate. So if you're doing real estate investing part time, can you be considered a part time investor? Yeah, you'd be a part time investor but you wouldn't be a real estate professional. So the biggest important thing and this is for Darlene and Ken, is to document your time and if you go over 750 hours and it's more than you spend than anything else, then you're going to be a real estate professional. Otherwise, you're just an investor, unless you are buying properties to sell. So when you say investing, that means you're going to hold on to them, you're letting them depreciate a little bit but you get the cash flow. Does time spent lending money on real estate for real estate qualifiers and real estate professional. No investing, didn’t we just answer that one? It depends on your real intent of investing in the note. A lot of people are buying notes to end up with a real estate in which case then I'd say probably. Jeff: No, what if she's gap funding? Toby: If you're gap funding then I would say no, then you're lending. So you really have to take a look at the totality of the circumstances. I wish I could say yes or no. what we want is a yes and there's a way to get there. So it's making sure that you're documenting things to support your position. We could dig into that a little bit more, if you want to shoot us the email then let us dig into it. Then the next tax Tuesday, I can answer that one and Jeff can answer that one with a little bit of research behind it. Nexus question, "I'm a resident in California, I'm moving to Arizona. I plan to keep a single family rental in California. The California houses and the land trust is owned by Wyoming LLC, does California have the right to tax my pension income after I move in addition to my income in California rental." Shelly the answer is, it depends on where the rental was earned and whether you're taking out over a 10 year period then the answer is, no. and my guess is that you're going to be a big no. They will be able to tax technically the rental income that is being derived from California but for the most part, that's going to be zero. Jeff: A really important number to remember when you have a property in more than one state is 183. That's typically the number of days you need to spend in a state to be a resident in that state. Toby: "How do I get the 501(c)(3) tax exempt?" Marie, that’s the 1023 application. Yes, it's the 1023 application. So with a nonprofit, I always look at these things in threes, we file with the state which is a corporation. We document it to make sure there's no shareholders which is for private parties, and then we file with the feds and we're telling them we want to be an exempted organization and that exemption is done via 1023. So we go through that process. When we set them up, we set up about 3,000 of them successfully. "How do you create an LLC and an IRA?" Darlene and Ken, what you do is you have the IRA custodian internal contract with a company like us and we create the LLC, or we set up a 401K, roll the IRA into it and then we'd let you do it so you don't need a custodian. "Is this recorded and will a replay be sent out?" Robin, it's made available to anybody who's platinum and then I'm cutting out a bunch of the Q&As and will throw them all over the internet. The recording, yes we record them. Join platinum, it's fun. "If I sell a partial note to a family member from my QRP, is that disqualified?" it depends on the type of family members. When they're your kids, yes. If it's to a brother or sister, no. then you can do it. When you make a contribution and that's just the whole disqualified person argument we had earlier. So you can always ask again, ask the question specific to your situation, we'll give you a very specific answer. But just know that if you sell a partial note out of your QRP, it depends on the relationship of the family member. If it's lineal, you have a problem. Which means kids, parents, grandparents you have a problem. If it's horizontal, siblings, not a problem. If it's the spouses of the disqualified person, you're going to have a problem. "Investing in LLC for holding rental property, how does one avail to a 1031 exchange?" Here's how it works, so I'm not going to worry about this. The 1031 exchange, you have to have a 1031 exchange facilitator. The LLC has to buy the next property. So you sell one and buy one within 180 days and there's some other roles in there about when you identify it or you do a reverse exchange where you buy the replacement property then sell the other property within 180 days. But neither cases, in the name of the LLC, you don't have to do anything else. "I should be able to still qualify as an investor and still be active in real estate by investing more than 750 hours." yes, but in actually is a full time job. So if you have a full time job as a real estate professional, then you're good. But remember, your activity as a real estate investor has to exceed your activities of any other profit making activity. So if you work and you work 1,500 hours, even if you did 1400 hours as real estate, you are not a real estate professional, still below that 1,500. Investment in LLC for holding rental property, how does or somebody asked that. If you in invest funds to have an equity in a project, oh my god, this one's going to kill me, built by someone else, I'm trying to think what this is. So you're investing funds for a piece of an LLC in which you are passive and they are a builder, are you a dealer? So Judith, no, you are a passive investor in an active business, is what you are. I see what you're saying, what she's asking is, "Hey, I have Bob the builder come up to me and says, 'Hey, we're going to build this big apartment complex, we're going to develop and everything. You put in $100,000 everybody else puts on $100,000.'" You are passive. You are not considered the dealer. Here's a fun one, did you already read this one? Jeff: No, I haven’t read this one. Toby: Okay, I am planning to receive social security benefits at 62, and currently not employed. I do private lending to real estate investors through promissory notes. So I do receive interest income in the amount of $40,000 to $50,000. Will this affect my social security benefits? At what point to social security benefits are taxable? So Joe, the answer is that there are certain types of income that are exempt from calculations, social security, Jeff you know off the top of your head? Jeff: If you're receiving earned income and that's all social securities could ever know about, so we're talking about self employment income, W-2 wages, that's going to affect your social security benefits. Toby: But if you're just receiving interest income, is it going to affect it? Jeff: Well, here's the thing, if you're in the business of lending money, we would typically set you up as a business, either on schedule C or through an S-Corp or something. That interest you receive wouldn't be, interest income, it would be business income. You'd be able to deduct certain expenses from that income… Toby: We got to look at it, because usually you're going to want to be treated as active, in this particular case you're not going to outdo yourself. Jeff: The downside of this is, any money, any net income you have from this business of lending money is going to affect security until you're 65, or 67, full retirement age. Toby: Joe, the answer is, we may one isolated into its own taxable entity, so that it doesn't affect you. We may. Jeff: I kind of feel like this would be in a great place for an S-Corporation. It's not earning income flowing through to them. Toby: Would he have to take a salary? Jeff: Yeah there we go. Toby: I'm going to take a look. Joe, that's a great question, could you submit it to the webinars at Anderson Advisors, so we can research it. In that way we can hit it in two weeks, to get you a much more thoroughly research, because you're asking a very complicated question. That’s just not going to be at the top of our head. We're going to make sure that we don't step on a landmine. Jeff: So the answer's, maybe. Toby: My wife and I are the only shareholders and we both take a one third salary. No, you should take about one third of the net profit as salary, total between the owners. So greater than 2% shareholders or you and your spouse, so you could each take, I'll throw numbers out, let's say you made $100,000, you could each take up to $18,500. If you're under 50 and immediately dump it into a 401K and not pay any tax. So, "Hey we like that." We have a medical coding business, perfect, yeah, so that's when we want to take a look at. "This is so much fun, really appreciate it," I hope that's not sarcastic, Al. "I opened a couple of LLC, I'm going to use to purchase flipping, can I put them on hold until I do? Do I have to do tax returns?" It all depends on what you're doing with those, the answer is, yes you could put them on ice. "Thanks for the answer on UBIT." Diane, no problem. See we actually do answer questions here. "What are the legal benefits of incorporating in Puerto Rico, if any compared to Nevada?" If you live there, I think they give you 4% tax rate, but you actually have to reside there. There's legal benefits, not really any, other than the tax benefits and the fact of the matter is Puerto Rico has Spanish law, which means they could probably take your company from you. But you can still go down there and Jeff… Jeff: Well, I mean, there are certain industries that have great tax benefits pharmaceutical companies was always a big one. Some of those old laws have sunsetted but might be a good opportunity. Toby: Cool, look at all these questions. All right, some people are saying nice things, great. I like nice things better than, "You guys are jerks." In 2017, I was self employed under my LLC, I have not filed my taxes yet and not considering retirement. Would I still be able to do that? What is best options?" Casey, are you under—self employment under my LLC. So it depends on whether—it was an S-Corp. Did you file an extension because you would be able to do a retirement plan either a sub-IRA or if you already had the 401K then you can make a contribution from the company for it. It would either be a 401A or a 401K. or sub-IRA, I think those are going to be your... Jeff: And if you do extension, you have 11 days to get it done. Toby: Yeah, you have 11 days. Casey, get off your butt. All right, Brian wants advice with the start up pre revenue, he is offering 10% stock, "Not sure I want ownership that subject to capital calls, expectation, potential—is it better to take an offshore [inaudible 01:06:53] until there's more value in the company?" It really depends, so Clark, nice to see you. Awesome. I know Clark's brother very well, studs, nice family. All right, friends, if I was going to have a piece, the whole thing is, if I'm putting money into an endeavor, it's going to be, "What am I going to get out?" It would really depend on the agreement, I don't want to be subject to having to put more money in, nor do I want my interest necessarily being diluted by somebody who is. So one of the one of the ways you can do it, is sometimes do it is a convertible note where you loan the money, so you know you can at least get it back, but it's convertible into equity at the fair market value at that time. You guys can actually agreed to this ahead of time. So that if you decide you want to contribute it, you see they're doing what you want but then you convert it into equity. Otherwise it just remains a note that they pay you on. Clark, that's probably the route I would go. Jeff: But the assumption here is, this is a C-Corporation he's talking about. Toby: I don't even care… Jeff: Well if it's an S-Corporation that we wouldn’t be able to have all these secondary notes and stuff. Toby: If it's an S, I could so convert it. Jeff: Could you? Toby: Yep. Jeff: As long as it converts into the same… Toby: Yep. The risk is I don't want to have a convertible debt to anything other than an individual that would qualify for S.. Jeff: Okay. Toby: But I don't see S-Corps raising money this way. It's almost always C-Corps with partnerships. So the ones that I've been personally involved in, we did three levels of financing this exact way with Vegas Tax fund. That's the little Tony Hseih group and they dumped a bunch of money to a company called Role Tech. You can look them up online, because we exited that wanted with the sale to Brunswick. In a way they did all their money was purely—that was a C-Corp, but it was purely through convertible notes. All right, "What are the best tools you can recommend for tracking time mileage and expenses for real estate investors? My desire to be paperless and get everything out…" People use Taxbot for mileage, it's mileage IQ, MileIQ, I think it's the one that I use, but if you're tracking time, it's just using—sometimes is just using your calendar or spreadsheet. Let's see, "Is full time realtor, a real estate professional?" Chances are, you're going to aggregate and all that. "I understand and agree." I'm not sure I understand that. "I executed a 1031 exchange where trust all the owned property, sold it, and took title of the up leg property in the trust using 1031 exchange. But now I want to transfer up leg property into an LLC." Diane, there is no time restriction that you have to hold it as long as you are the one and still the end beneficiary. If you extend loan through an LLC owned by Roth IRA, they want to transfer, sell the remainder, but then season it out to a lower interest rate. Can Roth continue to receive the full payment from the borrower and the relay the portion?" Yes, as lines is non-convertible, same as you do in an S-Corp. "Is the answer the same best self administer S 401K? So what they're asking is," If you extend a loan through—we're just going to call it the Roth IRA, because the LLC looks right into it from a tax standpoint. And then you sell the remainder of that then season notes. So you start collecting and then you sell the note because it's doing really well and you say, "Hey does anybody want to pay me for this?" I know a guy that that's what he does. He puts the notes together and he sells his notes out and so he can get the money to go to another one and he aggregates them altogether, they call it flying in flocks. The lenders flock together and together they do a loan and he sells his portion. Yeah, you could sell it and then you can continue to receive it and keep a portion of it. the only issue you have is if it's a convertible note then you wouldn’t want to do a convertible note because boom, that Roth IRA depending on the type of entity if it's an S-Corp you'd kill the S-Corp's status of it. How do you put an LLC on hold? You get quite literally do nothing with it or you just pay the state and then you file a non activity return. You say it's not doing anything. So you're allowed to do that or you just do nothing. Which is what I tend to do. It just depends on your state. If there's not much penalty then I just kind of sit it and then two years later I might reactivate it. Will real estate holding LLC taxes partnership qualify for the 20% passed through deduction? Yes, it will. Here's the deal, as long as it's not triple net property. What she's asking is, "Hey, I have a whole bunch of LLCs and they all receive rental income and there's a net income amount." let's say it comes through with $50,000 there's something called a 199A deduction that was enacted by the 2017 tax cut and jobs act. And it gives you a 20% deduction off that amount or 20% of your taxable income whichever one is less/ but if you earn over a certain amount so for individuals it's over, $100,575 if it's a married couple it's $315,000 which is going to make your head hurt I'm going to suffer memory here. Then you scale up and then you have a new test it's 50% of the W2 income that's being paid on that particular busine

That Blind Tech Show Rolls Again. Bryan brings Allison and Jeff back to the sho to talk about some of the latest Tech news, gidgets and gadgets and the latest from Sonos. We are proud to announce that Twitterrific for the Mac is Back, Downcast just got an update and AOL Messenger is no longer. Jeff gives us an update on the fire that hit Enchanted Hills Camp above Napa, CA and how we can all contribute and support #RebuildEHC. Be sure to check the links below to learn more about what the heck we were talking about. :) Check out the Twitterrific Blog and Subscribe to keep up with the latest from iConFactory Google Bought Apple or Did they! Twitterrfic for Mac is here How to get apps back in iTunes 10 Safari Long Press Shortcut Gestures. Do you remember to ever long press? Read more about Enchanted hills Camp #RebuildEHCand contribute what you can and lend your support. Give by phone: Call Jennifer Sachs at 415-694-7333   See Transcription below.   Thank you for listening. Send us Feedback via email Follow us on Twitter @BlindTechShow   That Blind Tech Show is produced in part by Blind Abilities Network.   You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Transcription: That Blind Tech Show: Twifferrific on the Mac and Downcast is Back andSonos Gets 1 Bigger. (Transcription provided) [Music] Alison: Sonos One's which are the newest iteration of the play one, are the ones that have Lady A built-in. [Music] Alison: I did put the Eyes Free Fitness app on my phone and I'm hoping that you know buying some of the workouts for that, I will literally have no excuse not to, not to do it because my phone is always with me no matter where I go. Bryan: Somebody in New Zealand had something about unboxing one very early before the rest of the world which..... Alison: Oh yes Jonathan was very very happy that you know when he get, when these items come out he gets them a day ahead everyone else because New Zealand is a day ahead. Bryan: He should let people know that. [Laughter] Alison: He really doesn't gloat about that enough, but yeah. Jeff: So Alison you use your phone on a daily basis. [Laughter] Alison: The face ID, I'm still, I find myself still kind of getting used to this new thing called face ID. Jeff: I want to see the Grinch again this year. Bryan: So you want me to come visit? [Laughter] Big smiles okay, three, two one, welcome back to yet another episode of that blind tech show. I know it's been a very long time since we've been here in fact you've probably heard a lot of us on other great technology podcasts. I know our friend Allison Hartley recorded one of her regular tech doctor podcasts as well as she was on with the great people over at main menu. And you may have heard Jeff Thompson on with AT Banter and I believe he's got another podcast coming out with the good folks over at Mystic Access and you may have heard me on Blind Bargains but we finally got the band back together again and we're here to talk you through some of the holidays and the goings on now, so I'm going to go ahead and say yeah how you doing over there Allison. Alison: I'm doing okay, it's the day three of a four-day weekend so I'm just kind of milking the the time off work for all it's worth, I've been reading good books that I'll talk about later and eating lots of food, lots of pie, so much pie. Bryan: There's never such a thing as too much pie. Alison: No never. Bryan: What about you Jeff, how has your Thanksgiving holiday been? Jeff: Well pie is a continuum. Alison: Yep. Jeff: It's been great here, I've been bacheloring it, the family's been gone, and I'm living it here with the dogs, happy Thanksgiving, it's Thanksgiving everyday now. Bryan: I'm actually down in Florida still recording you see, we're all about bringing you the show. Holidays don't stop us. One thing I was very excited though on the plane ride down here, I was very excited some of you might have heard about therapy pigs getting kicked off planes. [Pig noises] I'm happy to report there was no therapy pig on my plane down here, just get old Nash in me. How about you Allison, have you ever been on a plane with a therapy Pig? Alison: I have never been on the plane with anything more exciting than another guide dog, I have to say. Bryan: What about you Jeff have you ever traveled with any pigs? Jeff: No but it, it would wouldn't be that bad if it was therapy bacon. Alison: Oh yeah. Bryan: That is true, that is true and for those of you not hear about that story it's actually not the first time a therapy pig has gotten kicked off a plane so, go ahead and check that out, it was one of the more humorous stories and, you know, it's great that they stand up for our rights as guide dog service dog users, but seriously, therapy pigs. [Pig noises] Now Allison, I think you're probably the only disappointed one because I'm hearing the Soup Nazi said no soup for you, no home pod for you this year? Alison: Yeah I mean I have really no reason to be disappointed. I have speakers coming out of my ears. [Spring noise and laughter] Alison: Quite literally right now cuz I'm wearing headphones but, I am, I am still interested in getting the home pod when it comes out, home pods I should say, cuz I want to get a stereo pair. I have my Lady A controlled Sonos speakers now, and I'm finding that that is honestly filling a lot of my needs in terms of playing satellite radio and playing any song that I could possibly think of. I do still want to get the home pods because I hear that the sound quality is gonna be even that much better than the Sonos speakers, but I'm not, I'm not tearing my hair out, if these new Sonos hadn't come out I might have been a bit more disappointed, but I'm okay. Jeff: Now you said they're gonna be better sounding than the Sonos? Alison: They are, they're going to have more tweeters and better far-field microphones for understanding you, the only limitation in my opinion it's gonna be Siri, I know this is a controversial subject on an Apple themed podcast but, Siri is terrible. Bryan: You will get no argument out of me, Siri and I, we're not even dating anymore, the relationship is over and.... Unfortunately this is not surprising news, Apple you know when they used to meet their deadlines, we talked about it this summer, it was a little odd that Apple was talking about this, it almost reminds me of you know back 10 years ago when they used to say there's an attack coming, it's not coming today, it's not coming tomorrow, but it's coming, and I kind of feel that's the same thing with (inaudible) Alison: Yeah. Bryan: Apple pod, they're not gonna be out today, they're not gonna be out tomorrow, but they will be out, probably around the same time that the Amazon app comes to the Apple TV. Alison: I would, I would say you're probably right there, and I would say that when they do come out they're gonna be a couple of years behind all of the other smart speakers with better AI. It's really, it's kind of gonna be sad almost. I really I want to see Apple push forward in this arena, but unfortunately you know, I, I've played now with Google assistant, I've had a Lady A in my life, I have been playing even with Bixby on a, on a Samsung phone, and yes you give something up in terms of your data, and in terms of your privacy, but when you're putting security above all, the AI, and the assistance itself becomes very limited in what it can do, and it's really starting to show in Siri when there are so many more worthy competitors. Bryan: Yeah, the Apple really missed the boat on the the home assistant and you know, Tim Cook was wishy-washy on it for several years and now it's just gonna be a speaker, I really have no interest, I mean I'm very happy with my Echo devices, heck, I got a small apartment you know, I've got one in the living room. They're $30.00 now over you know, the weekend... Alison: God Yeah. Bryan: I just don't have, I'm like, well do I really need another one, and I'm like, I've got one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and I don't spend much time in the kitchen so you know it's, there's no point really in getting another one but I, you just can't say no at that price and, how was the Google assistant, did you like it? Alison: I do, I actually I have a Google home speaker that I don't have plugged in at this point but on the Galaxy I mean it's just, you can just ask random questions and instead of saying, let me check the web for that, here's what I found, it actually just gives you the answer to your flipping question. Bryan: Yeah. Alison: It's really amazing and then you can ask like follow-up questions and it jives with what you were talking about and it answers intelligently. I just, you know maybe the home pod speakers will come out and something about Siri will blow us out of the water or something out of the speakers, about the speakers will blow everything else out of the water because they've had a little bit more time, but I'm starting to get a little impatient with Apple's obsession with, I know they want to get it right, and I know they want to have a really polished user experience, but that user experience is starting to suffer because of that need to be so meticulous, and so perfect. Jeff: Well I think they've actually, having it come out next year might be a good plan for their stocks in a way because people are buying the eight, or the ten, those are big items, and you're talking about $349.00 here. It's hard to comBryan when everybody else is you know flooding the market with these $29.00 minis, and dots, and Amazon, what do they have seven different items now in this department? The Look, the Show, the Tap. Alison: Now Google has three, I mean, it's a lot. Bryan: And, I'm hearing about headphones, Bose, I think there is a set of Bose headphones which you know, I couldn't afford those, but that have the Google Home built into them so we're starting to see more and more even headphones with these kind of assistants built into them and, I think Apple, you know, they've just been left behind and, not every company needs a home assistant so, I really don't see what the marketplace unless you are a big music listener, you know, or have capitol to spend, I really don't see the point to it, I guess I don't have a fine ear for music because I think the Echo speaker sounds fantastic and everybody I know that's into music says, "Are you kidding?" Alison: Oh no, oh God, no no no no no. Especially the Dot. The Dot is barely passable for spoken word, but even the big Echo, drives me crazy because it tries to simulate fake stereo, but it doesn't quite get it right on the one speaker so, it's, it drives me nuts. Bryan: What's the opposite of perfect pitch? Because that's what I have. [Laughter] Jeff: Either you have it, or you don't. Alison: Yeah. [Laughter] Jeff: So with the Sonos, you have two of them, that's the Sonos one you have two of them. Alison: Yep. Jeff: That does perfect stereo? Alison: It does, yeah I have them equal distant from each other on a table, and the stereo separation is amazing, it's really beautiful. Jeff: Oh that's great. Bryan: Are there multiple different kinds of Sonos? I've just heard phenomenal things about Sonos speakers, or is there one product line or are there different kind of product lines for the Sonos speakers. Alison: There are in the non smart, non Lady A connected Sonos products, there are three, well four technically different tiers of Sonos products, and it all depends on the number of tweeters that are in each speaker, and with all of them you can pair to get a stereo pair with the Play Ones, Play Threes, and Play Fives, but they become very expensive, and they have a sound bar, and they have a subwoofer for the television, but you couldn't pair Lady A with a skill now, to make all of your Sonos products somewhat controllable via Lady A, but the Sonos One's which are the newest iteration of the Play One, they look exactly the same except they have microphones, are the ones that have Lady A built-in. Bryan: Yeah well everything, everything seems to be getting smarter except Apple News, which you know, I often go through Apple news and my subscriptions when I'm putting this show together and, lately I've been noticing there's about two articles and then everything goes back six weeks, and they just don't seem to be coming out with a lot of content and as Jeff and I were talking about, a lot of ads you'll see an article, title of an article, title of an article, then an advertisement, and then a bunch of text, this is something about Apple and an ad and everything. Jeff have you been using Apple News, and have you noticed how down hill it seems to have gone? Jeff: I've noticed it's changing a little bit at first, the ads you can't even read the ads because that, all it does is give you description of it, and you have to skip over it, so they're not trying to sell to the blind. The thing that I noticed about Apple News is Apple shuts down at about four o'clock on Friday, there's no new news, they just kind of rehash the same stuff until Monday, and it's just like looking for an app update. If I get one on on Saturday/Sunday, someone paid extra to have that pushed out. Bryan: Yeah maybe I should go back to Newsify and actually reading my RSS feed for technology news. I'm not seeing that much content coming through there, I was I was really excited when Apple news came out because I thought it was gonna be great and I enjoyed it at first, I was using it all the time, but now I'm seeing less and less content and a lot of that content, there's nothing worse than when you're reading an article and like a paragraph into the article, all of a sudden advertisement is starts being read to you... Alison: Yep. Bryan: It drives me absolutely bonkers, and Jeff you actually said, and I'm curious because I read a lot of television recaps in Safari, where I'll say, Arrow episode, season six episode three recap, and it will, I'll find an article that will describe the action and a lot of times these articles, a paragraph in it starts reading an ad to me, you just got a pop-up blocker, now do you think those pop-ups might block those in article advertisements, or just really block pop-ups. Jeff: Actually it's not a pop-up blocker, that is native to the Safari app where you can turn that on or off and it blocks pop-ups. Now some colleges, if you're a college student, they use pop-up so you might want to beware that you might be shutting off something and not being able to gain access to so, try it out. What I got was Purify and that's P U R I F Y, it's a content blocker, and when you get that you, you purchase it, and I got it for a dollar ninety nine, I don't know if that was a Black Friday deal or a special over the holidays but, a dollar ninety-nine, it's very popular app according to Nick, my buddy up in Canada, and what it does is it works on your browser. So what you do is you purchase it and then you have to go into your Safari app settings, go down and just below pop-up blocker, you're gonna find content blocker, and then you have to enable it by turning it on. Bryan: Allison, have you ever used any kind of pop-up or ad blockers or anything? Alison: I do also use Purify and I find that that eliminates a lot of the ads on the websites that I use. What I love now also is reader mode for specific websites in iOS11, if you activate reader now, it's an actionable item and you can go to Auto reader and you can tell it that I either want reader to be active on this website all the time or, all the time for everything, so I have some very specific websites for which I just have reader all the time and I never have to worry about any extra crap on the webpage. Bryan: Where is that setting where you could set it specifically for an individual website? Alison: When you actually turn on reader and you've got reader selected, then there's an actions available, it might even be available for you to select it, and one of the actions is automatic reader when you flick down. You double tap that and then it comes up with a message that says do you want to enable reader for all websites or just on this domain and, you could turn it on for just on this website, and so like 9 to 5 Mac for example and a couple of other more the, more of the busy Apple news sites, I have since I do so much Twitter reading on my phone, I've got automatic reader turned on and it's changed everything. Bryan: Yeah that's something I'll have to, you know I I use the reader all the time, but I, and I remember hearing about, that you know, you hear, about so many new settings but I've never played around with it so, that's something I'm really gonna have to make use of, and by the way if you're out there and if you know of any specific ad popup blocker that might work in individual apps, let us know, you could tweet us in at BlindTechShow or shoot us in an email at thatblindtechshow@ gmail.com, let us know about that. This next thing is really interesting because I was down here listening, I have an app where I'm able to get any NFL audio feeds and everything, and the one thing that drives me bonkers because my dad's a little older so sometimes he forgets is I'm watching the Washington Redskins game here on Thanksgiving with him and I'm listening to the Redskins radio, the only problem is streaming audio is a good minute and a half to two minutes behind real time, and he keeps commenting about what's on TV and it's just driving me insane, I'm like Dad, remember it hasn't happened again you know, so, one thing that would be nice is if FM radio actually just worked on your iPhone which supposedly it could according to this article, we'll put in the show notes that it's built into the phone but Apple just will not activate it. Have you guys been following this story? I know it's been in the news a lot lately. Alison: I've heard two things about this, I've heard that Apple for whatever reason has just decided not to activate it but then I've also heard that the newer modems actually don't have the FM radio so it's a moot point. Bryan: Mmm okay, what about you Jeff if you've been following along to this? Jeff: Yeah I have but, you know it's to me it's like, is it, is it, am I dying for it, I don't know, I really don't know. Bryan: I think it'd be nice, just, you know to be in real time. I don't understand why they can't get streaming audio to be at least maybe you know a second or two behind. I mean it's just such a significance difference, I've got it put on do not disturb, otherwise I'll get notifications about a score in a game, you know, before it happened. The fascinating thing is during the, the Yankees playoff run, I went to my local bar with a pair of my head with the headphones with FM radio, and sure enough FM radio would get it like 30 seconds before television would. [Laughter] Alison: So there's no perfect solution. Bryan: No, there's not, I'd be like, I'd yell out "damn it" and people were like "What are you talking about, they've yet to throw the pitch". [Laughter] So yeah, there's there's no perfect solution. Jeff: I like tuneIn radio, I like stuff like that. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: If there's an emergency or something we got those alarms that go off and everything. I don't see myself turning it on, I don't know, it's just, it so interesting, there's so many resources, so many different avenues that I can get information that, just one more to be on the phone and then, where's my antenna. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: You know it's, now that we're Bluetooth everything so, do we have to wrap it in tinfoil? I don't know. Bryan: You just hold it up in the air while you're walking down the street like an umbrella. [Laughter] Am I getting a signal now? Damn it, the signal is better over here. You know it's funny because the one thing my headphones don't get is AM radio. Jeff: I think it's just as important to think about this. Now do we really want that on there because everyone was so excited when like your Amazon device could make phone calls. As soon as you make that phone call you're standing there for about two minutes going I can't walk away. Alison: Yeah, yeah. Jeff: It's not fun. Bryan: No no no, like I've said for a very long time, the worst app on the iPhone is the phone, and it's also my least used app. I wonder if I could take it out of the dock and put it on like page nine. [Laughter] Alison: You could yeah. Bryan: Yeah, you know it's funny yeah I've been down here in Florida like I said for a week and everything, so I've been in a lot of automobiles which in New York City you know I'm not in cars a lot, and I've noticed my phone still thinks I'm driving sometimes. Alison: My phone thinks I'm driving when I'm not even in a car, like I'll be laying in bed and all of a sudden that do not disturb while driving thing will pop up and I'll be like I'm just reading a book, can you go away? [Laughter] Bryan: But do you have a waterbed so maybe you're moving. [Laughter] Jeff: Too much coffee. Alison: Unfortunately no waterbed, but it's crazy I wish, I have it set on activate manually, so it should not be popping up at all, but it's driving me nuts. Bryan: Real quick for a millennial crowd, water beds were beds with water in them in the 1980s. [Laughter] Look them up. Jeff: California has regulations on waterbeds. Alison: Yeah. [Laughter] Right. Jeff: The other thing is someone told me about the notifications you know that, while you're in a car if you turn it to what is that the Bluetooth setting in your car mode, that that's supposed to trigger it, I don't know sometimes that some things are on, some things are off, I don't know. Bryan: Yeah, and I've got mine set the manual where I'm supposed to be able to turn it on, I have read in a lot of places and I think we may all be running different versions of betas, or some people may be having this problem, others may not and supposedly some people claim it's fixed in a certain beta. I don't even know if I'm running that beta, I think I'm one update behind, you know there's been so many betas out that I can't keep up with them, and a lot of updates coming out too, I notice all the time I seem to have like 80 to 90 updates every few days cuz, I self update, what about you? I know you guys self-medicate, do you self update? Alison: Well I'm constantly working on self improvement, self updating, oh oh you mean apps, yeah. [Laughter] Bryan: The apps, I like to make sure tha,t I like to read those little release notes, and the worst is we update our app fairly regularly, we're not going to tell you what we're doing. Alison: Nope. Jeff: If you get a self-improvement app, would that be self defeating? [Laughter] Bryan: I don't know, you know what, email us and let us know what you think. You know a lot of people are big fans of the Star Wars saga, but have you guys been following the blindfold game saga. Alison: It's been it's been rather epic. Bryan: It has, there's been multiple parts you know. We had, we even had my favorite was Blindfold game Strikes Back you know. Alison: And they did to their credit. Bryan: They did, they struck back hard. I'm a, you know I am a big fan of the games. Blindfold Uno, I've bought plenty of them, I know some people don't like them, I think Marty does a phenomenal job and, God I love the trivia games, and there's nothing like when you've got a, you're sitting in the store you got a few minutes to kill. I've actually set my Blindfold Uno to unlimited scoring so I've got like thirty thousand points in there, it just keeps... [Laughter] Every time the computer gets within ten thousand points of me I think it's cheating you know, but, he really does a great job with a lot of those games. Marty is a businessman and he makes these games you know, out of his love of making games for the community as well as to make money and... Alison: Sure why not. Bryan: I couldn't believe what, when Apple was telling him he needed to roll them into tab less apps in the App Store. It really seemed like Apple didn't know what they were talking about I, you know you could Google Marty's website, I'm not sure the exact site but blindfoldgames.com probably, or just google it, and he's got a blog that'll explain everything that happened if you're not aware of it but, I was really shocked at the stance Apple took against him starting out. Alison: I can summarize briefly if you'd like. Bryan: Sure. Alison: I've been fairly involved in reading about it. So essentially what happened was, and there's a whole detailed timeline on the website. Bryan: Start with episode 1. Alison: In episode one Apple was going through the review process for some iOS11 related updates for Marty's games and they noticed that a lot of the games used the same template. Now Apple technically has a rule that apps cannot be clones of one another, and not looking at the content of the games which are all different decided that these games are too similar and so we're going to have to reject these updates because they have the templates are too similar and you have to make the the gameplay different. Well the whole beauty of the blindfold games is once you know how to play one, you can pretty much figure out you know, several more, so Marty defended himself and said look while these templates are all very similar, the content within them is very different, but Apple didn't want to hear it, they heard, they're like 80 apps is too much. You have to compile them into less. Bryan: A handful, yeah. Alison: Amounts of apps. So Marty's stance, with which I agree, is that then that would make the apps too large to download because they all contain different voice files, and sound effects, so they're already you know pretty sizable downloads anyway, and it would hurt discoverability. For example if all the card games were in one app, somebody might only play one or two, and that might hurt his chances at making more revenue, and the man has got to be able to make some sort of money off it. Bryan: Sure. Alison: I get it. So eventually it came down to a lot of members of the community myself included, advocating with Apple to make them understand that this is a different type of situation than just the average you know, Yahoo up there trying to clone a bunch of flappy bird apps for example. And it worked, they understood, they eventually understood and had a conversation with Marty about, hey we understand that these games are different and now it's it's okay, when the review was passed and Marty at one point he was going to be taking down the games because he just didn't have the resources, either financial, or time wise to do the rewrites that Apple was starting with, so I'm really glad that this ended up, ending happily, and I got into some, some real Twitter spats with a couple of people who really think that, that oh, it's just blind people whining. No, it's, it's people advocating for games, which are truly different in the App Store, and yes blindness does have a little bit to do with it because we have a shortage of accessible games as it is, so don't take our choices away. Bryan: Would you summarize saying basically that Marty basically after the the Clone Wars beat the Empire? Alison: He did. Bryan: Yes. Yes. [Laughter] A Star Wars theme, yeah, no, not to make light of it, it was great that Apple reversed it's course and, Jeff, any comments? Where you following along on the Blindfold saga? Jeff: I was more or less following Allison on Twitter, I'm stalking again Allison. Alison: Oh no. Jeff: But Jonathon Mosan wrote a letter, other people in the community got going on, it was nice to see everybody come together for that you know, like some people were pretty negative, they were saying like "oh yeah, they come together this, but not for jobs" Alison: Some people were jerk faces about it, and I will call them out for that. Jeff: Other people were saying like "Oh Apple, they played the blind card to Apple" it's not that, it's like Allison just explained, it's more like that. It is kind of neat to sit back and watch how different people rise up to certain things and other people take sides, you know the bottom line is the guy is doing something. he has to make money. If he bundles them all up, and you only like one of them, you're not going to buy 8 you know, it makes sense, business sense for him, and I'm glad Apple saw it that way. Bryan: I think he's got a great price plan, because you know, yes, he's got a ton of games you know, nobody buy them all. You could test them out, you know he gives you a free amount of games with each one which I think is fantastic. How many mainstream games out there allow you to test it out before buying it? Alison: It's true. Bryan: So basically what we are saying Marty, "Stay Strong!" Jeff: And may the Force be with you. Bryan: You know something that just came to the app store new and I, I've gotta actually take a look at this, because I haven't exercised since last millennium, The Eyes Free Fit, you know Blind Alive some of you may know it as, I looked up Blind Alive, i couldn't find anything related to exercising. But if you look it up under Eyes Free Fitness, and this just came to the app store last week, and I looked through it, you gotta buy the programs, but it looks like they got a ton of different exercises in there, and I know they've been around for quite a while and on a lot of podcasts. Have either of you guys ever done any of their exercise programs? Alison: A long time ago I bought Cardio Level 1, and it is really great, and really descriptive. I did it a couple of times, I'm really bad with sticking with exercise routines no matter how accessable they are. So, it's really a motivation issue, its not an issue with the workouts themselves, but now I did put the Eyes Free Fitness app on my phone and I am hoping that, you know buying some of the workouts through that, i will literally have no excuse not to do it because my phone is always with me no matter where I go. Bryan: Yeah. How about yourself Jeff? You're an outdoor mountain man, have you ever indoor exercised? Jeff: I was actually testing her website with her so I got to get a few of those and she was next to me in the booth at ACB in 2016. It was in Minneapolis, it was really fun, it's really great that she's taken it to this level now that, you can even hook it up to your health app inside your phone too so.... Bryan: Wait a minute, there's a health app in the phone? [Laughter] Jeff: Page 9 Brian, Page 9. Alison: Page 11 yeah. [Laughter] Bryan: It's next to all of my pizza services. [Laughter] Jeff: So I suggest if people want it, it's Eyes Free Fitness, it's well described, that's the whole intent of it. She uses people who are professionally trained to come up with these exercise routines, but then there's also some stretching ones, and all that stuff. So it's pretty versatile, and they got some Yoga stuff in there, and then there's.... Alison: Pilates. Jeff: Yeah, lots of good stuff in there. Bryan: Yeah, yeah, my only complaint about this app and what she does, is she makes the rest of us look lazy. [Laughter] Can I set a New Years resolution in November, where that's my plan is to, exercise and, you know, a lot of people say they want to get in better shape. I would just like to get into a shape so.... [Funny sound effect and laughter] Alison: See it's a good time for me to get back into this because now I'm walking everyday with Gary with our neighborhood in Napa being so walkable that I actually am in a little bit better shape, so I feel like these exercises would be really great, you know especially if on the weekends when we walk less, it would really help me to get in even better shape. I'm still a far cry off from where I want to be and I still eat to much, but that'll never change. [Laughter] Bryan: I don't even eat that much, I just eat all of the wrong things, I've learned if I like it, it's bad for you. Alison: Yeah, that's kinda where I'm at too, I don't find that I eat these ginormous portions, I mean although I do like a healthy portion of food, but yeah, it's not the good things. It's a little light on the leafy green vegetables and such, although I like fruit. Jeff: You know one of the main things about exercise and all this stuff that we're talking about is the mindset and it takes a while to get your mind wrapped around it. I've been using a trainer for, it'll be coming up on a year and I finally got my mind wrapped around it after 10 months. I mean, it really takes something, I used to be in really good shape, I used to do a lot of stuff, I used to run and all sorts of stuff. But I am not being chased anymore so... you know. Bryan: It's may favorite line, "Do you still run?" "Only when chased" [Laughter] Jeff: Yeah, I think people who want to get back into it sometimes it takes a little commitment. You can buy these from $19.00 to $25.00 or something like that, but you have it, you can do it in the privacy of your own home, it's accessible, and it describes all of the stances, all the positions, well described steps, so if that's what it takes to get your mindset involved in it, it might be a good start for you. Alison: Yeah. Yeah can get as of out of breath or sweaty as you want, as quickly as, however quickly it takes and it doesn't matter because it's just you and yeah. Jeff: But make sure you have your phone notifications for driving set right. [Laughter] Bryan: Either that or in my kind of condition make sure you have 911 on speed dial. [Laughter] I got a good work out there, you know we're recording this the day after Black Friday, it's not even Cyber Monday yet but you'll hear this after Cyber Monday, and it was a low tech Black Friday for me because I got some clothes and everything, no technology but I wanted to ask you guys, what about yourself Allison was it a techie Black Friday Cyber Monday for you or no? Alison: No cuz I, I bought what I want throughout the year, I don't, I don't have the the impulse control to wait three months for something to go on sale on Black Friday, I just buy it when I, when I have the money and what I want it / need it. So Black Friday / Cyber Monday are always kind of a bit of a letdown for me cuz I'm like, oh this thing's on sale, oh wait, I already have it, this thing's on sale, wait I already have it. ]Laughter] Bryan: Got it got it got it got it got it need it you know. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: I just went shopping at Allison's place, I just walk to her house. [Laughter] I'll take that, that, that. [Laughter] Ain't got it, ain't got it, ain't got it. Bryan: You know it's not a big tech year for me because I'm not upgrading, I do need to get a new key chain cuz I have one of those key chains with the Lightning charger and for some reason the Lightning charger broke off of the key chain so, one of the things I heard somebody talking about was you know I've got all these kind of what I call lipstick chargers where you have to plug the cord into the charger. I heard they now got a charger out there that has the lightning charger built into it as well as a USB built into it and I think I'm gonna probably get something like that. Alison: Send me that when you find it. Because, send me the link, yeah because that is something, you know, I love my anchor batteries. I have the ones that are like even 20 thousand milliamps witch are a little bit bigger but I just put them in my purse, but yeah you've got to have the little the cables for your Apple watch and for your micro USB devices and your, your lightning cables all together and it's just it's a little bit much, it gets to be a little bit much to carry around. Jeff: Jack really makes a couple of these. One is a six thousand, one is a ten thousand fifty claiming that X needs more power so they made that one. They do have two cords, one is the Lightning port cord and the other is for all the Android stuff, your mini USB plug, and there's a third you can plug a USB into it so you technically you can actually have three by both outputs going at one time. My concern since their dedicated cables on there, are you committed to that if, what if the cable goes bad you know, I, I don't know but it does get a 4.5 out of 5 ratings on Amazon. Myself I like the big ones. Alison: Oh yes send me that one. Jeff: Cuz size does matter. Alison: It does. [Laughter] Bryan: Hey hey, this is a PG podcast. [Laughter] Alison: What, we're talking about, we're talking about batteries. Bryan: Oh. Jeff: I must admit I like big batteries. Bryan: I've heard that about you. Now Allison you've had the iPhone for a while now what are your thoughts? Alison: I basically really like it, it's nice and fast, I like the size, I have it in a leather case because it's glass on both sides and I do not trust myself with glass on both sides and I have dropped it and the leather case has saved me a couple of times. The face ID I'm still, I find myself still kind of getting used to this new thing called face ID. I find that it's very accurate. I find that even when it doesn't get your face it learns from the experience and it has been consistently doing better but it's not as fast as touch ID, the gestures for bringing up home and app switcher are pretty fluid and elegant I think. Bryan: Are you used to doing those after having the press on the home button for so long or does it take a little training yourself? Alison: I'm used to it now, I've had the thing now for a couple of weeks so I've gotten it back into my, into my muscle memory now that this is just what you have to do because there's no home button and luckily I'm not using any other older devices to confuse me, that's convenient but yeah it's it's never going to be as fast I don't think. Jeff: So Alison you use your phone on a daily basis? [Laughter] Alison: Pretty much almost every minute of every day. Bryan: Are you happy with the purchase, are you happy with the upgrade? Alison: I am because I wanted, I wanted the latest and greatest technology and now I've got it and I realized that sometimes that comes with some caveats so I am happy with it, there are some times though when I have just become resigned to entering in my passcode. For example if I'm laying in bed and I want to unlock my phone, I don't want to have to sit up put the phone all the way in front of my face, get face ID to authenticate me, wake up the husband, wake up the dog, so I just enter in the passcode and it's that's even become a little bit faster. Bryan: My dad was having trouble with his phone recently and I finally found out what the problem was. Alison: Yeah. Bryan: He's running an iPhone 4. [Laughter] Alison: Oh for goodness sakes. Bryan: Yeah, I said.... Jeff: Wait, you, you said it's running. Bryan: Yeah, barely, yeah he can make phone calls that's about it, I said no wonder you're having so many issues with everything else and yeah, he's getting ready to get a new one because my mom did order the iPhone 10 and he's gonna get the hand-me-down. I guess he's gonna move up to a 6 which is all he really needs. Alison: Yeah. Oh that'll be quite an upgrade for him. Bryan: Oh yeah, yeah, so but, my mom's got the 10 coming, she's got the, she ordered it online and has the two to three week wait so, I will not, not get to play around with it while I'm down here and everything but I've been you know listening to you on with Dr. Robert Carter not to be confused with Dr. Richard Kimble. Not that anybody but me. Alison: Not to be confused with John Kimble yeah. [Laughter] Bryan: I thought of Richard Kimble immediately but I'm probably the only one that did that so but you know you guys had a great walkthrough of the iPhone 10 and somebody in New Zealand had something about unboxing one very early before the rest of the world which... Alison: Oh yes Jonathan was very very happy that you know, when these items come out he gets them a day ahead of everyone else because New Zealand is a day ahead. Jeff: He should let people know that. [Laughter] Alison: He really doesn't gloat about that enough no but yeah. Bryan: Allison did I hear you do laundry every now and then? Alison: Every now then, you know I, the house-elves or my husband will not comply and I have to do my own. Bryan: Are you testing out that new GE, was it the GE product that you're testing out? Alison: Yeah so, so I have purchased the GE talking laundry box and actually we were in the market for a new washer and dryer anyway so we got the compatible washer and dryer and I've actually been doing a lot more of my own laundry and enjoying the heck out of it now that we have this talking machine because it's so easy to set all you really have to worry about is the start button and the little knob that controls the settings because the different wash cycles, because it verbalizes everything, you turn the knob, it verbalizes if you're on like cold wash, or towels and sheets, or casual wear, or bulky items, and you press Start and it says starting load on bulky items with an estimated 70 minutes remaining and there's a button on the box that you can press if you need an update of what, of time remaining and the dryer is much the same you just mess with the one knob, you can set your cycle and it just works. Our old washer and dryer we had the little arrows marked, but the one thing would spin, and there was another arrow that you could accidentally move, and Jeremy was really the only person who could set it without getting the other thing to spin, so I'm glad to be able to have some agency over my laundry once again. Bryan: And this works with all GE washer and dryers I believe right? Alison: So on the website it does say that it is, should be compatible with most, it should be compatible with the ones that have the ports in the back, the technician ports, but then it says these are the compatible models and it lists just a couple of different models. Slightly more expensive, that are compatible, I think that you can get this to work with older GE models if it has the port for technicians to hook up, but it's better I think in terms of the software working is optimally as it can if you can buy the the newer ones. Bryan: Yeah full disclaimer if your washer and dryers from 1974 and is GE..... Alison: Probably not going to work. Jeff: I do laundry and the thing on my washer and dryer mostly my washer is, there's that plastic cover that covers things up so you can't really tell the dial, so I took a needlenose pliers, it was excruciating sounds but I got that piece off of there, then I put some little markers on there, so now I just put my finger down there and I just turn it and everyone uses it that way so, yeah I don't recommend anybody to take a needle nose and tear that apart unless you know what you're doing but, yeah that's how I access that. Bryan: Yeah when you're like me and you live in New York it's great because I've got like fluff and fold where they pick it up and deliver it and it's pretty cheap and yeah I'm spoiled like that I think I've mentioned that on the show before. One of the things we did want to mention to the listeners if you do not have knfb reader you're just making your life harder, and it's a phenomenal app, I believe and don't quote me on this but I believe it's on sale at least through Christmas for about 50% off. Normally it's $100.00, I believe now it's $49.95. Go ahead and get that app, you'll make your life a lot easier if you want to read your bills or anything along that. Jeff: I really think if you're a student that that's the app to have. Seeing AI is a good app for a convenience, it's just a quick shuffle through the mail, but if you're gonna do bulk reading or if you want to save it and all sorts of things, you know, that's a workhorse the knfb reader app. Alison: I agree. Bryan: Yeah luckily I think all of us have easy names to pronounce, but I have a friend named Keith Strohak, and every time I tell Siri call Keith Strohak, it says did you mean Keith Sholstrum, did you mean Keith Beyer. It drives me bonkers, I have to go in and manually do it and I will put this link in the show notes. Did you know that you could teach Siri how to save names properly? Jeff: Mm-hmm. Alison: Yeah. Bryan: Okay I was the one who didn't. By the way ask Siri to pronounce Charlize Theron because I heard that's another name that she can't pronounce. Alison: Oh boy. Bryan: Yeah so if you're if you're one of those people and your name is Mustafi Mustafasin or something, go ahead and read this link and you know, maybe you could teach Siri how to read your name and everything. Jeff: The trick about it is that it asks you for the first name and then it asked for the second name, well I didn't know it was doing that so I said Laurie Thompson that's my wife, and then I said Laurie Thompson again. I wondered why it asked me twice, so every time she calls, are you sure you want to call Laurie Thompson Laurie Thompson? I left it I thought it was kind of cute. Alison: That is. Bryan: Now Jeff was a great guy and he posted you know happy holidays to everybody on the Blind Abilities Facebook page and I chimed in with my typical bah humbug and he thought that was you know the happiest he's ever heard me, and that's because he didn't hear how mad I was that my old Grubhub app that I've been running for several years because GrubHub has refused update is now officially dead. I finally had to update it and I don't know what I'm gonna do because this happened shortly before I left New York. I kept getting server error, server error, and I could not do anything so I had to update the app, GrubHub prepare for the barrage because I am gonna be hammering you every day now with fixing your heading navigation. I don't know. Alison: Now that your life depends on it yeah. Bryan: Yeah you know. Jeff: It's time to get that Blind Alive app, get that exercise going. Alison: Yeah. Jeff: Screw GrubHub. Bryan: I still gotta order dinner. I still gotta order dinner and everything. Alison: Try Postmates, try Doordash, you said Eat24 doesn't.... Bryan: Doordash I just heard about so yeah that's one I want to check... Alison: Yeah Postmates is also very good. Unfortunately in Napa our only choice really is Eat24, and that only has a couple of options. Bryan: Yeah you know one of the other things I plan to do when I get back from Florida is, because I've been running my old laptop here my Mac air, and it's so nice because it's running Sierra, and things have been running so smooth, as soon as I get home one of my first acts to do, I'm rolling High Sierra back, have you guys, I know Jeff's been playing High Sierra, Allison, are you still using High Sierra..... Alison: I am and for the limited number of things that I do on my Mac it's absolutely fine, I haven't really had any problems. Bryan: Editing text, when you're working with a lot of text and emails or documents and everything, it just befuddles me and everything, you know sometimes you gotta use the option key, and I did report this to Apple, quick nav does you know, when you use quick nav with words, it does not follow the insertion point, we did test it it is getting kicked up to engineers, there is a navigation problem with quick nav in Hi Sierra. Alison: That's unfortunate. Jeff: Yeah I'm using the beta's and you know it keeps on changing so I don't really complain about it I just keep using it and I know, I know it'll get better, so I just putz with it. Bryan: Yeah well Jeff you said you're running the latest beta and it's, you've noticed an improvement so, maybe it won't be the first thing I do when I get back to New York you know, maybe I'll give it one more update. I am not running the beta so I never run the betas on my computer and the word to the wise if you value productivity do not run those betas. Alison: Yeah, or have a partition on your hard drive or a separate hard drive on which to run them. Jeff: Oh my MacBook Pro [Inaudible] I'm not doing the betas on that so I can always go back to that if I need to but, you know I I usually forget that I'm slowly tweaking my muscle memory like you said Allison, and pretty soon I'm just readjusted. Changes happen and I don't know. Alison: Yep. Bryan: Chit chit chit chit oh wait, do we have to play now to use that song? In a more positive segment, I know we've rolled through some some negativity here, we don't want to be negative all the time but you know these are just some things that were pissing Brian off now because, Brian's been known to get pissed off. I always like to hear you know, what you guys watching, what you're reading, you know especially the holiday time of the year, there's a lot of great content out there. Netflix just seems to be piping everything out. Allison what you watching, what you reading? Alison: Well I'm still trying to work my way through Narcos, I have not had as much time for for Netflix recently, but I've been reading this really great book, I'm not sure if it's available on any of the freebies, unbarred or well book sure it's not free but it's practically free. I got off of Audible it's my Brandon Sanderson it's called "The way of Kings" it's part of the Stormlight archive series, it's an epic fantasy series, long long books, the first book I think is 45 hours long and I'm about 2/3 of the way through it, and it is absolutely amazing it's quite frankly taken over a lot of my life this holiday weekend. [Laughter] But it's amazing. Bryan: Well we're thankful that you were able to fit time in for the podcast. [Laughter] Alison: I did, I did have to interrupt my reading to.... [Laughter] Bryan: That 45 hours, that might take me 4 and 1/2 years to get through. Alison: Well I read at speed, I'm not gonna lie, I cranked it up to 3x and I can understand it just fine, so I'll get through it pretty quickly, but there's then two other main books, and then a little novella in the middle to read so. Bryan: That's a, that's a big.... Alison: It's gonna be ten books so... Bryan: Wow, wow, what about yourself Jeff, you been reading anything, watching anything? I know you've had some time alone there or are you just thinking in the dark? Jeff: I really got nothing, I guess I am thinking in the dark, family's been gone and I've been catching up on a bunch of other things that I hadn't been able to get back t,o and yeah, I got to get back to it so sorry you don't have anything to contribute. Bryan: That's okay Jeff. Jeff: Oh sorry. Bryan: I just finished down here with my parents you know I, they they were very nice and they watched, because their sighted with described video, the second season of Stranger Things, and the first season if you have not seen it as phenomenal I said to myself I don't know how they're gonna do a second season. It was really good so, it was very enjoyable, if you have not checked out Stranger Things on Netflix, you're definitely gonna want to check that out. I know we're gonna watch another series on Netflix that just came out I'm blanking on the name, the guy that was in Dumb and Dumber, not Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels is in it, it's a Western that just came out on Netflix. I'm hearing great things about it of course I'm, like I said, God, Godlessness, or Godless or something, it's a Great Western, and I've heard from other people it's very good and everything and, yeah I've still got the same four books. You know it's so funny I'm one of those people that loads up all the audio digital content to all the devices for the travel and then I end up listening to podcasts that I have on my phone. [Laughter] During the travels so, like I said this is a That Blind Tech Show, we're gonna wrap it up here. We are at Blind Tech Show on Twitter. thatblindtechshow @gmail.com if you want to email us in let us know what you think, let us know what you like. You can download our feed through the Blind Abilities podcast speed of your podcast player of choice, victor reader stream or download the Blind Abilities app. Allison what do you have coming up the next few weeks leading into what's that holiday Christmas? Alison: Just a quiet Christmas at home, gonna take maybe a couple of days off and just probably still be reading the Stormlight archive honestly, although I, although I may do a reread of Harry Potter, I lead such an exciting life. [Laughter] Bryan: Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with that. What about yourself Jeff, family coming back or have they given up on you? Jeff: My folks for 17 years they've been going down the Texas but they stayed up this year for the holiday so I got to go to spend time with them Thanksgiving. We were all up there and so they're here so we're gonna have Christmas there and my daughter and grandkids will be coming up mid-December, we try and offset it each year and so yeah, a lot of lot of family holidays and I want to, I want to see the Grinch again this year. Bryan: So you want me to come visit? [Laughter] Yeah I'm not a big holiday person so Thanksgiving I guess is our big holiday and, we just wrapped that up down here and Thanksgiving, I'll be heading back to New York in the next few days and you know, it's funny I'm sitting here in shorts and it's 80 degree weather so it doesn't feel like November, and then I'll go back to the 30 degree weather and, yeah amazingly Nash is not even shedding that much here in Florida, you would think he would get rid of that winter coat, but he is panting like it's August. This is That Blind Tech Show, maybe we'll have one more before the year hopefully, you know, all of our schedules have been so crazy we haven't been on a regular schedule, we plan to hopefully eventually get on it, but for now we are out. When we share what we see through each other's eyes, we can then begin to bridge the gap between limited expectations and the reality of blind abilities. For more podcast with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter at BlindAbilities. Download our app from the app store Blind Abilities, or send us an email at info @blindabilities.com, thanks for listening.

Mighty Mike: What's up, Server Nation? This is Mighty Mike, the Podcast Server, and you are listening to www.ProcessServerDaily.com Mighty Mike: You guys, I'm super excited about today's episode. If you have a story that you want to tell, that you're excited about. Maybe a dog chased you, maybe a guy tried to shoot you with his gun, maybe you had a heart-warming story where you helped somebody in need. Guys, I want to hear the story on this show. Go to www.ProcessServerDaily.Com/BeAGuest.html Find some studio time, go to www.ProcessServerDaily.Com/BeAGuest.html Mighty Mike: I look forward to speaking to you and hearing your story! Let's get to the show. Mighty Mike: What's up, Server Nation? You are listening to Process Server Daily, and I am your host, Mighty Mike the Podcast Server. Our guest today has recently appeared on Vice TV where he has been on the hunt for the most notorious Neo-Nazi of our time. He has been in business for 25 years and he owns and operates Encore Delivery Systems located in Columbus, Ohio. Mighty Mike: Jeff Cremeans, welcome to the show. Jeff C.: Pleasure to be here, Mike. Mighty Mike: Awesome, Jeff. I want to hear from you, Jeff! Tell us a little bit about yourself that wasn't in the intro. Take it away. Jeff C.: Sure. My name is Jeff Cremeans. I've been a process server for about 25 years. I started off, giving my age here, back in 1989 working for a law firm in Columbus, Ohio. Started off as a messenger working in the mail room. Did filings at the court house. Started to do the subpoenas, that type of thing. I'll make a long story short. I had an attorney, of the many duties I did in the mail room, wanted me to go get him a hotdog. So I went and got him a hotdog, I brought it back and he yelled at me, he said, "Why wasn't there mustard on it?" I thought, "You know, I'm gonna start my own business and I'm gonna charge this guy 25 bucks to go get his hotdog." Jeff C.: So I started a company out of law firm called City Wide Legal Messenger Service. Took off really well in Columbus, Ohio. There's a need for that type of thing here. I owned that for a few years. I sold that company to another company. I worked there for 11 years and then I've owned Encore since then. So I've had Encore for about 14 years. So ... Mighty Mike: That's awesome. Yeah, when I was watching the show, it's really cool, your office looks really cool. It looks like you got a pretty good size operation going on there. Jeff C.: Yeah, doing good. In any given time, we'll have eight or nine servers out, serving anything from child support papers to foreclosures. I don't get out as much and serve, certainly on this big case I'm helping out on, the Andrew Anglin case. But, yeah, I have a great group of servers. Very hard workers and do a great job. So ... Mighty Mike: Jeff, one of the most important things as process servers, for anybody, actually, is family. You got a family? Jeff C.: Sure do. I have a daughter at Ken State. Freshman at Ken State University. I've a son that's a sophomore. Yeah, they're pretty much my world, so ... Yeah. Mighty Mike: That's awesome. Jeff, there's a reason why you're on my show. You have a lot going on right now. Full of great experiences. But first, tell me about your worst experience working in the field. Jeff C.: You know, I think a lot of the process servers cross and that start talking about bad stories. Everybody's got a lot of bad stories. I think the one that really stood out to me was one, believe it or not, where I wasn't out in the field. Long story short, I'm sitting in my office, I had let everybody go early. I'm in the office by myself, just doing paperwork and in walks four people. I won't put their description out, but they were not very nice-looking people. I said, "Can I help you?" They said, "Yeah. One of your servers have been pounding on the door at my grandmother's house. We're here to see what's going on." Course, they were not so nice about it. I thought, "Well," I looked up and I saw these four guys. They meant business and they were there to do some damage or something. I thought, "Well, gosh, here we go." I can hold my own, but not with four guys. They were really upset that the server ... Now, how they go to where we were, they did some diligence on finding who we were and our address and everything. I got to give 'em that. Jeff C.: Anyway, I'll be honest with you, I was scared for my life. I thought if these guys want to start one me, there's not a whole lot I can do, but I explained to them. I calmed 'em down, I said, "Look, I'm sorry. This is not the way we do business and I apologize that your grandmother was scared," and all this stuff. Turns out that the server that went out, he was a newbie. He was trained and everything, but he had it to where he thought he could pound on doors and maybe even intimidate people, scare people to come to the door. Boy, did I have a long talk with after him that. I told him, "Hey, look, you're gonna go out, you're gonna go looking for trouble. You're gonna get it." Jeff C.: Fortunately, the trouble came to the office and it affected me. Nothing ended up happening. I talked to these guys and they end up not hurting me, which is a good thing. So the moral of the story, and for everybody out there, whether you're training a server or you're serving yourself, you don't have to ... there's times you have to get creative and aggressive. We can talk about that later in the podcast, but the big thing is, I explained to the server, "There was an old lady in there. You were scaring her to death. She had her grandkids come here and threaten me and want to know what's going on. Take it easy, man. You don't have to do that. If they don't answer the door, you don't have to pound on it." The lady wasn't even avoiding servers, so he learned a big lesson. He learned from that and turned out to be a great server. Not so aggressive anymore after that. Mighty Mike: I've recounted an experience that I've had too in a previous podcast about knocking on a door and being really gung-ho, and then realizing it was a 14 year old girl in there, terrified! She's told not to answer the door and it really helped correct my perspective that you never know ... I just had one yesterday. They told me she's an elderly lady and I've been there at all different times during the day. So I decided to come at night. Sure enough, her car was there, but she wasn't answering the door. The neighbors said, "Oh, she's in there." But I thought, "Man, I'm just gonna come back again at night and maybe she won't be in the shower or in the back room or wherever. Whatever she's doing to keep her from answering the door, giving her the benefit of the doubt- Jeff C.: Right. Mighty Mike: That she might actually answer the door if I come in a different time. Jeff C.: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Yeah, what I take from your story is prudence. Have a little bit of prudence when you come to the door. It's one of the most valuable asset in any industry. Mighty Mike: Jeff, tell us about your greatest experience working in the field. Jeff C.: Well, as many as there are bad, there are some good experiences out there. I think one that stands out to me is, and this is back in my City Wide Legal Messenger Service days, I was young and I was just new to the industry and learning, and doing stuff. I got a job to serve a wealthy person in a domestic case. Long story short, I had attempted many times. Pulled out all the tricks. I dressed up for Halloween, did the whole pizza delivery thing. Nothing worked. This guy, he was a dodger and he knew the game. He had been served before. Jeff C.: I pulled up one day, I just happened to be around the neighborhood. I thought, "Let me go try this guy again." I got there and he was out back, washing one of his expensive cars with his brother. I pulled up and he looked at me and started to run. Then he stopped and he's like, "You got me." He put out his hand and he shook my hand. He's like, "Congratulations, man. You played a good game." He was serious, very nice. We ended up talking there for a minute, so it was kind of ... never had that happen before, but it was nice to know that old game of hide and seek, he was not a sore loser, you know? So, yeah, that's kind of a good story. Mighty Mike: That's cool when they're like that. Some people just have a habit of dodging and ducking and hiding under couches, and things like that. Every once in a while, you'll get that guy that's probably like you would be when you're retired or something like that, or if someone else was trying to serve you. Ultimately, you're gonna accept the responsibility for your own problems, but you don't mind giving 'em a little run for his money. Jeff C.: Sure. Mighty Mike: That's a great experience. Mighty Mike: Jeff, tell me what you're working on right now that you're most excited about. Jeff C.: Well, in the past few years, we've gotten accounts with the Children's Services and the child support. It's a lot of work. It's lucrative, but dodging has increased with the child support papers as everybody knows, especially at that end of the stuff that we serve. So I've been able to hire more servers, it's broadened our horizons as far as learning more about the industry and finding people, the skip tracing, that type of thing. Jeff C.: Then, of course, there's the case we're trying to serve, the famous neo-Nazi. That has been the most challenging serve in my career in 25 plus years. So the reason why this case is so challenging to serve, this guy, he's a national, if not worldly-known neo-Nazi. He's got his own website, the Daily Stormer, that's been very controversial, but he has so much help hiding out. I've never seen anybody have so much support in hiding out. Anything from his father with all his property he owns, and people putting him up in places, this type of thing. But, yeah, it's been a very challenging serve. Worked very hard and done all the skip tracing. Done everything we possibly can to this point. Right now, we're relying on tips from a lot of different people that have maybe spotted him or know where he's at. We had a pretty good tip, as you saw in the Vice show. That's probably our best tip and missed him there. But, so, yeah. Jeff C.: There's a lot of things going on, a lot of good things. Growing at a steady pace and, again, I think any processor out there will tell you each case is different, each server's different. You don't want to get too emotionally involved, especially when someone's dodging, but there comes a time where, "Ask us for help," you know. One person can't do everything. If you feel like you've exhausted all your efforts in getting the serve, get somebody else on it. Get a fresh face, that type of thing. So ... Mighty Mike: Yeah, that's good, Jeff. I'll tell you, when I was watching the video, and you were going over the footage in the store where you were watching him with his protein powder, I got this feeling, almost like that's happened to me before where I've seen someone I was hunting for three months. He was a pot farmer up in [inaudible 00:09:36] Creek. Anyone knows you go up there, you gotta go up there with the AKs and [inaudible 00:09:40] dogs, and ready to go. Mighty Mike: I saw him in a park. He was apparently getting visitation with his kids, and I didn't have the papers, so I ran back, I drove back to my house. By the time I got there, he wasn't there. I was so mad at myself. How did you feel when that- Jeff C.: First, it was just shock and awe seeing him there. My son and I were just walking through the store and it was one of those things, when I first saw him, I thought, "Oh, man. That guy looks familiar," and I got closer. As I got closer, I thought, "Oh my gosh, that's him." No doubt in my mind whatsoever. In fact, I submitted a declaration to the court for the attorney's request to explain that I saw him. I got up, I was watching him. I was standing there as you could see in the video, watching him. Very nervous. He was kind of looking behind his shoulders and just kind of looked really, really paranoid, that type of thing. I thought, "You know, I don't have the papers. They're not even in my car. They're at home. By the time I get it and do that, it's not gonna happen." Plus, I had my son with me. It was really not a whole lot I could have done, like I couldn't leave him there. Jeff C.: As he was checking out, I proceeded to go through the store, past self check out lines. I looked over and I just thought, "You know, I gotta say something to him. I gotta go talk to him. I just can't" ... So as he was walking out, I pulled up right in front of him with my car. My exact words to him was like, "You know, you look like somebody I know. Is your name Andrew?" "Nope." He was gone. He was not gonna hang around. It was him, it was definitely him. Now- Jeff: He was not going to hang around, and it was him. It was definitely him. Now, people, especially his attorney ... What are the odds? What are the odds of tracking somebody down for almost a year and you see them at a grocery store? I don't know, but it happened and it was ... Needless to say, I have the papers with me every time. I have them in my briefcase, I have them in my car, I have them at work. I have other people that have them. All my servers have a copy of this stuff [inaudible 00:11:24] just in case something like that were to happen again. Don't think I'll ever get that opportunity again, but you never know. Mighty Mike: Yeah, I actually keep a bucket now, because of that experience that I had. I'll tell you one fun experience. I was in the courthouse and I'd been hunting this ... trying to serve this professor of Chico State University. He was retired. And so, I had served him like three times before and then he moved. We go to court every day to file papers at the courthouse. And so, I was in line at the courthouse and I heard this voice, and I was like, "I know that voice." And I listened and I heard it. He's just shooting it with a couple guys, "Yeah, no, I'm a professor down over at Chico State." And I thought, "That's him." And I didn't have the documents, but I was at the courthouse. So I said ... I looked it up on my phone, and I bought a copy of the paperwork at the courthouse. I checked the box individual and said, "Here you go." Jeff: Oh, nice. Very nice. Mighty Mike: I felt like such a ninja when I did that. It was cool. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: So I mean, if I would have saw him at the store I would have been in trouble. What I wanted to know, and I'm sure other servers are the same, is what's the next step? You can only skip trace them so much, right? Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: You can only- Jeff: Yeah, there's a lot of people looking for this guy for one reason or another. It's not just to serve him papers. As you can imagine, he's made a lot of people upset with his comments and his viewpoints. Hey, you know, I believe in the first amendment. I think everybody can believe in whatever they want to believe in. You believe clowns should make more money when they go to parties? Fine. Just the fact that threaten violence and harass people I don't think bodes well. Jeff: So anyway, with that being said, a lot of people look for him. We're all trying to put feelers out there and we're all going off tips, whether it be the media, reporters, and other process servers. And from here, where do we go? Waiting on a tip. There's been rumor that he claims he's in Cambodia, then he was in Nigeria, then he was in Russia. Personally, my opinion, I think he's right here, whether it be in town or the state of Ohio, at least in the United States. He's not overseas. So it's going to be off a tip. It's going to get lucky. Somebody's going to see him, he's going to show his self somewhere. That's pretty much all we can do right now, just sit back and wait. Mighty Mike: Yeah, you just have got to post somebody up over by the protein powder. That's what you have got to do. Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Mighty Mike: Okay. So I hope you get him and when you do get him, maybe we'll have you back on the show or even we'll do a Facebook Live so that'll just be [inaudible 00:13:49]. Jeff: I look forward to the day, believe me. Mighty Mike: Now dreams of the day. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Server Nation, Jeff has been dropping some major value bombs on us today, but prepare yourself, because we are headed into the rapid fire round right after a word from our sponsors. Mighty Mike: Server Nation, I know you're with the times and you want to do whatever you can to have all of the resources for your client. That is why I created 123efile.com. As a process server, attorney, or even an improper you can visit the website and file your documents in any of the Tyler courts in California. With it's easy to use one-page operation, you can have your e-filing done in a matter of minutes and get back to what really matters. If your time is important to you, visit 123efile.com. Mighty Mike: Welcome back to the show. Jeff, are you ready for the rapid fire round? Jeff: I think I am. Mighty Mike: If you could recommend one app, what would it be and why? Jeff: I think Road Warrior's a good app. I'm not a humongous app fan. I kind of do a lot of things old school. I think if you're diligent enough and you really want it bad, you can find the right app and it'll get you where you need to be. Mighty Mike: Very good. Road Warrior is ... I swear by the Road Warrior. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: I mean, if another one came out I would try it, but I haven't found any other app like that. Jeff: Yeah, it's a good app. Mighty Mike: And if you have it set to go straight into the Waze app, it works really good in the city. You can pick different navigators, but yeah, Road Warrior's a great one. What case tracking software would you recommend as the best? I would take you as a Process Server Toolbox guy. Jeff: Yeah, yeah, Process Server's Toolbox or like Serve Manager. Again, I don't even ... To be honest with you, I don't use them. Again, I'm- Mighty Mike: Really? Jeff: Yeah, I'm a firm believer in the old fashioned way of doing things, and my customers seem to like it. I've tried to offer them the different softwares and the Process Server's Tool and everything, and my customers like, you know, "Just use the court's return. We don't want this. We don't want that." And I've just kind of been doing that for years, and it works for me so far. Mighty Mike: No, I'm intrigued, Jeff, because, let me tell you something, there's a beauty in simplicity. So I'm just curious, we don't have to go too far into it, but you have like a service request form? Jeff: Yes. Mighty Mike: And they fill that out. And is your return or your field sheet, if you were, is that a part of the same form? Jeff: No, that's a different form in fact. And that's the thing, we kind of create our own affidavits and our own returns of service if they want. For anybody that has just your federal district return of service, we'll start off with that. If somebody wants something different, we've created so many different types of affidavits and non-serve affidavits and returns of service. We've had people say, "Yep, we don't want this notarized. You don't have to notarize it," so we'll just make it a simple proof of service. Mighty Mike: Yeah. Jeff: Of course, as you know, in California they have their own and New York wants certain things. A lot of the different states and people want different things. Mighty Mike: Definitely. Jeff: So we kind of have a variety of affidavits and stuff we use. Mighty Mike: That's cool. Yeah, that's cheaper. Jeff: Yeah, it is. It is. Mighty Mike: I tell you, there's beauty in simplicity. When I first started out, I had a form and I thought I was a genius because I had my service request area on top where I gave the customer's info and special instructions, and then at the bottom it had four spots for first attempt, second attempt, third attempt. And I only did four attempts because most of my customers were for unlawful detainers. In our local area, you had to get three attempts for diligence before you could post or subserve. So yeah, there's beauty in simplicity. I appreciate that. Mighty Mike: What is your favorite skip trace tactic? Jeff: I think what's worked for us over the years are the neighbors. Knocking on the doors next to it. I tell you, there's ... We have had more nosy neighbors help us get people served than anything. It's a simple skip tracing tool. There's a lot of ways of skip tracing, but, boy, just I don't know how many times ... And I'm sure a lot of servers have experienced this. The neighbor's out washing the car, you go over, "Hey, is so-and-so here?" "Oh, you know what? No, they're down the street at this park at the baseball game." "Oh, really? Which park is that?" "You know, blah, blah, blah park." You go down there. Now, if somebody's been dodging for a few weeks and you really want to get them served, I don't mind going to a park at a ballgame and getting them served. It may be the only opportunity to get them. So yeah, I think neighbors are very informative, and can be very helpful for getting somebody. Mighty Mike: Yeah, and actually, you can skip trace a specific address, not a person, and it'll give you the people that live in that general area. Or you can go on Google and find out what the nextdoor neighbor's address is and skip trace them and get the phone number. And then call them up, say, "Hi, is this ..." So if you're looking for Jill, you call up the neighbor and say, "Hi, is this Jill?" And then she's going to go, "Oh no, Jill lives nextdoor." "Okay. Oh, sorry about that." You know? Jeff: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mighty Mike: That's a good one that works a lot. Jeff: Yeah. Mighty Mike: Jeff, what is your favorite tool for defense? Jeff: I think there's weapons and there's this and there's that. I firmly believe in being human with people, talking to them. One thing that taught me about that bad experience, I think if you're there and you're calm and you hear them, and you're honest with them, say, "Hey, look, I got these papers," well I think that's worked more than anything. To be, for lack of a better word, aggressive or cocky or pushy and doing too much, I don't think that's going to help you out. I think really trying to talk to people. And there's a lot of different ways of doing that. Jeff: My biggest thing is somebody that's wanting to avoid service, I try to tell them, "Hey, look, I'm going to come back. I'm going to keep coming back. I'm not going to go away and this is not going to go away." I'm not a lawyer, I can't give them legal advice, but I try to tell them, "Hey, look, you're best off taking this now." So things like that and that nature, that to be me has been the best tool. Call it a tool. Call it whatever you want. I think it's a really good tool to use. Mighty Mike: Yeah, I did a poll on Facebook and, "What was the best tool for defense?" And people came back ... And actually, I gave some options and I gave like a gun, and a knife, and all these things. And then, I gave a few options. It was like common sense ... Jeff: Yes. Mighty Mike: Those things that are inside of you, like in your brain and in your habits, and the way that you treat people, the way that you talk to people, those are the things that had the most hits. I think one of them had like 64. Common sense had like 64, and the next one had 30. And the actual gun I think only had like 16. We all like to talk about the guns that we own, but the truth is, when you're out there serving, using your gift of gab or your ability to control a situation with your words is way more powerful than a gun. Jeff: Absolutely Mighty Mike: A gun is an immediate ... It's not an answer. It's not a resolution. It's a tragedy if you did have to pull it out. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-gun. I'm just saying I agree with you. That's absolutely correct. Jeff: And yeah, guns can be dangerous and they can promote ... get you into a situation where somebody could get hurt or killed. Again, I'm totally not anti-gun either. I totally believe in that, and a lot of people should have one for their protection. I've never been a really big badge guy. Again, I'm just kind of human, old fashioned way of doing things. Mighty Mike: Yeah, in California it's actually become quite a ... most of the server companies, it's quite anti-badge, because a lot of people are getting convicted and charged, and potentially convicted for impersonating an officer. Jeff: Yes. Mighty Mike: Throwing around words like, "Officer of the court," and things like that. Jeff: Mm-hmm Mighty Mike: You know, I used to do it when I first started because that's what they said in my training class, and really we're not. Joe down the street could serve papers, but he can't serve more than 10 in California. I know it's different in every state, but ... Jeff: Mm-hmm Mighty Mike: Jeff, what book would you recommend? Jeff: Anything John Grisham. I'm a huge John Grisham fan. In fact, the older I get, I'm doing a lot more reading. And I love to read, it's just like a lot of people, you just don't have the time. But John Grisham, really just the fact ... You know, he's mentioned process servers in his stories and subpoenas being served. I always kind of liked that part of it, but just his work is just I think is amazing. And the legal aspect of it, I'm really interested in that part of it. http://www.jgrisham.com/books/ Mighty Mike: That's really cool. I'm going to have to check it out, John Grisham. I'm actually writing a book. It's going to be done here in about 90 days is my goal. And it's going to be on process server safety and best business practices. It's going to be great! Jeff: That's awesome! Mighty Mike: Yeah, you can get a free copy at www.processserverdaily.com/freebook.html when it comes out. Mighty Mike: Jeff, did you have a mentor? Jeff: I started off at a young age. I’m the second youngest of 10 children. Growing up, it was one of those things where, as you can imagine, you either go off to college or go get a job. You're not going to hang around the house, that type of thing. My mentor was no doubt about it my father. He was a hard-working man, raising 10 kids, him and my mother. To me, they’re the most awesome people in the planet, but nevertheless, he said, “Work hard and be nice and don’t ever give up.” He was always supportive of all my brothers and sisters, whatever road they took. He was so excited for me when I started City Wide Legal Messenger Service. He loaned me $1,000, which I had to pay him back by the way. He wasn’t that nice! Jeff: He was truly my mentor. Did he know anything about filing stuff at the courthouses, doing certain papers? Absolutely not. Just his life lessons taught me, even to this day, I still use them. It has really taught me a lot and just got me far. Mighty Mike: That’s great. You answered one of the questions. What’s the greatest advice you’ve ever received? Jeff: The greatest advice I’ve ever received is definitely from my father. Be humbler. Be nice. Work hard. I taught my own kids that. I’d tell you. If you're nice … Don’t be too nice. You're going to be taken advantage of. I’m not saying that, but I’d say being nice, being compassionate, being humble will get so you much further in life. I truly believe that, and that’s the way I try to live my life and do my work. Mighty Mike: To provide an abundance of value without expectation just as a business practice, but also just as a person. There are many examples of that, whether it’s in your love life or with your family. If you provide value without expectation, it will come back to you. Like you said, don’t be taken advantage of, but sometimes it might feel like it and then the next day, you're like, wow, I didn’t expect you to do all these nice things for me. Jeff: Right. Mighty Mike: That’s the idea. Jeff, what would you do if you woke up today, had all the same skills and knowledge, had no clients, a smartphone, a car and only $100? What would you do in the next week? Jeff: I would definitely do some work reaching out to other people, advertising to a certain extent. I’d tell you. The best thing that I would do is to get out there and do a good job for folks. I think word of mouth advertisement has been a key for me to my success. It’s one thing to go out and say you're a process server or say you're going to do this and do that, but if you do it, it takes that one paralegal that you do a great job for. You communicate the whole time. You're doing everything you need to be doing. That paralegal could be involved in a group that tells another paralegal and so on and so forth. Jeff: I think part of doing that good job is communicating. Somebody sends you a paper. Don’t take three days to get back to them if it’s a rush and what’s going on. Certainly don’t take another week to send them back to return a service, that type of thing because again, that word of mouth could also hurt you too. It could be a very valuable factor. It could also hurt your business. I would pound the pavement and get out there and try to talk to as many people as I could, talk to paralegal groups, bar association, that type of thing. Mighty Mike: That’s good. One of the things that I take from your story is that, from your methods, is that be diligent. Get out there. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little hand-up, not a hand-out, but the truth is in this example, you only have $100. You have a car. You have the knowledge that you already have, and you have a smartphone so you can give the internet … You can search things. Guys, anybody can do this. You get out there and go after it. I say anybody can do it, like anybody who wants to build a business. Some people, they’re not cut out for serving papers, and if that’s the case, build the business; have someone else serve the papers. There’s a lot of really good husband and wife teams out there. Jeff, what is a parting piece of guidance you want to give to the servers out there? Jeff: Again, what we’ve talked about previously. Stay humble. Treat people with kindness. You have a job to do and certainly do it. In doing so, just remember this thing is bigger than you. Don’t go out there thinking you're Captain Bob, the process server and think that you're better than everybody, that type of thing. Just go out and communicate with your customer. Take good care of your customer. Communication is key. Jeff: I touched base on it earlier. I don't know how times I’ve used servers across the nation where they do 75% of the job. What I mean by that is, hey man, I got this rush. I need to serve right away. This is a big customer, blah, blah, blah. By gosh. They went out and they got it served right away, did a great job. A week later, hey, where is my return of service? I got to get this filed. The attorney is screaming at me. They got to get this filed. Follow through on your job. Do what it all right, not just half of it. Definitely get in the network groups. Meeting new guys and get involved with this and NAPPS members and stuff, a great, great tool. It’s great to get advice to people. Jeff: Again, I’ve been doing this for a lot of years. I still seek advice. I’ll call a server that I’ve been dealing with for 20 years and say, “Hey, man. How would you do this? What’s your viewpoint on this?” Never stop learning because I’d tell you. There’s a lot to learn in this industry. Mighty Mike: You're right, Jeff. There is. A big part of the industry for process servers, what I find most often is that they find themselves in a chasm alone by themselves and the way that they think that every other processor is their competition. The truth is that many process servers out there have too much work and they would be more than glad to give you the work if you can give them a discount. Jeff: Absolutely. Mighty Mike: If that’s what you need to get off the ground and to get your business rolling so you can raise your prices and have some more customers, more attorney clients come in, then that’s what you got to do. Jeff: Absolutely. Mighty Mike: I started out making $20 a paper. How about you? Jeff: When I worked at the law firm, I think I made about $4 an hour. Whether that’d be filing at the courthouse or serve a paper even add to that, yeah, it’s … I think then after that, as time went on, I think I was getting $20 a paper at that point. It’s been a long road. I certainly charge more for that these days. Mighty Mike: Jeff, I appreciate your story. I want to personally thank you for being on the show. I’ve been really impressed with your story and the whole situation with the neo-Nazi. That’s just a side thing. Watching the video and seeing your operation going on, it’s definitely worth being excited about. I’m excited to share it with the world. Jeff, what’s the best way that we can connect with you and then we’ll say goodbye? Jeff: Sure. You can reach us via email. Our email address is jeffENCORE@sbcglobal.net. Definitely a phone a call away, (614) 414-0730. Mighty Mike: Excellent. You can get that information in the show notes at www.processserverdaily.com/jeff.html Until next time, server nation, you’ve been served up some awesomeness by Jeff, the Nazi hunter and Mighty Mike, the podcast server. Mighty Mike: Server nation, I know that you know all about directories and that you know the importance of getting yourself on the web in as many places as possible, but it’s more than that, server nation. It’s about putting yourself on the websites that get ranked on Google, Yahoo and Bing. I’m excited about a new program that I’m starting. Really quickly, let me tell you. As a process server, I don’t cover the whole country, right? We send servers out to other process servers and we call that affiliates. My new program is going to incorporate a system. When my customers come on to my website and they do a location search, try to find a process server in a specific location, many times, I do not serve that area and so I might hire an affiliate in another area and manage to serve that way. That takes time and effort away from my local customers and the local efforts that I have here in Northern California. I want to personally invite each and every member of server nation to add themselves to my directory on my website. This is what’s going to happen. My customers who come to me loyally will search a specific location. If I don’t cover a specific location but you do, guess who shows up? You do. How great is that, server nation? I’m going to share something that means so much to me, my customers. I believe that this will benefit my customers because they will have a resource to go to, to find process servers and to get the best rates nationwide. Oh, but there’s a catch, server nation. There’s always a catch... My directory is free for an affiliate to sign up and get the basic affiliate level. If you do not perform when my customers come and they see that it’s not me or one of my employees or contractors and they see that it’s you, they’re going to see a rating next to your name. If your rating falls, you may not get any business. Server nation, give it a shot. Sign up for the free listing, but please, take care of my customers. I love them like they’re family. Visit www.processserverdaily.com/affiliates.html Mighty Mike: Until next time, server nation, stay safe out there!

Jason Jaynes: @jasoncjaynes Jeff Wilson: @ProfDumpster Show Notes: 00:53 - “Professor Dumpster” and Founding Kasita 05:33 - The Startup Industry 07:45 - Building the Kasita Team and Creating the Design 12:25 - Integrating Devices 16:33 - Challenges of Building These Ecosystems 24:36 - Controlling the Ecosystem: Will there be third-party developers and applications? 30:16 - Device Cohesion and User Experience 33:23 - Privacy Resources: Data for the People: How to Make Our Post-Privacy Economy Work for You by Andreas Weigend Kasita is hiring! Transcript: CHARLES: Hello, everybody and welcome to The Frontside Podcast, Episode 78. My name is Charles Lowell, a developer here at The Frontside and your podcast host-in-training. With me today are Jeff and Jason from Kasita. Now, Kasita is one of the most exciting products that I think we've gotten to work on here at Frontside in the last five years. We're going to be just talking about it because, I think it touches on a lot of the aspects of what makes software development and startups and just the emerging economy exciting. I'm really thankful that we get to have you all on the podcast. Welcome Jeff and welcome Jason. JEFF: Thanks for having us. JASON: Excited to be here. Thanks, Charles. CHARLES: Now Jeff, you are the founder of Kasita, the CEO and I believe your official title over there is 'Professor Dumpster.' Maybe you could actually unpack for us a little bit of what does that title mean? How did Kasita come about and what is it today? JEFF: A couple of years ago, I did a radical, social experiment around housing. I went and sold everything I own for a dollar an item out of a 3000-square foot house and moved into a 33-square foot used trash dumpster for a year. The idea of that project was to live in 1% the size of an average American home and try to use 1% the energy and water of the average American home. The project took a little bit of a twist, you might say and about part way through it when the dumpster started getting tricked out, I started thinking about the whole nature of housing and how we need to do something different and how that grand future probably would not be a gated community of dumpsters. CHARLES: Now, I assume you cleaned out the dumpster before you actually went to live in it. JEFF: Yeah, it was a fixer-upper. We give it a bit of a scrub and did some testing to make sure there wasn't anything nasty left in there. That went for about a year and a couple of months after that, I actually first set down with Jason because he was the only person that I knew in the entire startup scene, in the entire world. He said, "Wilson, you had some crazy ass ideas like this dumpster thing you told me about. This one might actually work, this Kasita thing." Here we are today, we're working together. CHARLES: Wow. This was something you just did on a lark. You didn't have the idea of starting this business but it was actually through the process of actually living in this dumpster for a year that the idea emerged or was there a master plan going in? JEFF: I don't know, Jason do you remember any kind of master plan when I first told you about the dumpster? JASON: No. When we first met to talk about the dumpster, it was an early morning, I believe in 2010 or 2011 and you're incubating the idea. At that point in time, there was nothing on your mind or you aren't looking towards the future of housing at all. You were just trying to figure out how you were going to move into a dumpster and people thought you would be crazy. Of course, I've validate it and I thought people would think you would be crazy. CHARLES: That is a pretty radical idea, the future of housing being 1% of what it is now. How do you see that playing out? How is that possible? How do you shift people's mindset away from that? JEFF: One of the bigger things we're trying to do with Kasita, there needs to be a massive shift in the wider way that we live in our homes. As everything else is moving towards on demand and as a service and as everything's being sort of productized, those are some of the core ideas behind Kasita. We think about Kasita a lot more like an iPhone or a Tesla than we would think about it as a single family home or an apartment block or even a micro-unit. That's why Jason and I are standing together here today is I represent a lot of ways, a kind of vision and origin story of Kasita but in a lot of ways, Jason represents the future of the software and integrated IoT that's going into these things. CHARLES: There is definitely a lot going into these things. I remember when Jason first started telling me about it because it is like an iPhone or a Tesla but, I think especially the Tesla is a great analogy because you have not just like a normal software or even really a hardware project, you've got architectural concerns. You've got manufacturing concerns. You've got, I assumed geopolitical concerns in terms of the politics around zoning and housing and real estate, all rolled up into a big startup. When I think startup, I think let's get a web application up and running and we're providing some service. This is cross-cutting at least five industries, it feels like if not more. I'm curious, what's been the experience in terms of wrangling that aspect because I think it is very unique in a startup today but it got me wondering is this going to be the normal in five years? JEFF: We've seen a movement recently in the venture community. Even a few years ago when we first started raising money was highly-regulated industries are hard, hardware is hard, "Thank you very much. We're going to go looking for our next two Stanford computer science dropouts to shove into a wee work and not have to deal with all of this kind of stuff." I think I've seen a shift to where people from the individual level up to the folks funding these things, see the massive opportunity in highly-regulated complex problems like housing and you're right. Jason and I are looking out over our shop floor here where we've got guys out there that are plumbers or traditional electricians all the way upstairs here to folks that have been mayor pro tem of large cities with PhDs. Bridging all of those individuals into a startup culture and then looking at the complexity of the landscape from a regulatory standpoint, autonomous cars are a breeze relative to the kind of complexity we're dealing with. CHARLES: Did you know this complexity walking in or was it a classic overoptimism? JEFF: No, it wasn't classic overoptimism. I'm always asked, "Are you a designer? Are you an architect? Are you a real estate developer? Are you a technology guy?" and I think if I would have been any of those besides a guy living in a dumpster, I wouldn't ever been crazy enough to try this. It's one of our core precepts as well. Jason had never worked with IoT stuff before. Our head of manufacturing used to build LEDs for Philips. Our quality guy inspected Cadillacs. Our manufacturing engineer built Boeing jets. The ideas that we're not pulling a lot of people from these traditional industries, we're pulling smart people that are passionate about our mission and to solve this, what is really a Rubik's Cube of a problem. JASON: Yeah, I think the other thing to add to that that Jeff is not getting himself enough credit is that from very early on, Jeff always looked at Kasita as a product that was going to incorporate multiple disciplines. He was very careful in how he orchestrate it and built the team to make sure that he was bringing the right expertise and the right areas together and then forcing those different disciplines to figure out how to meld and work together to build the Kasita. But the Kasita was from the beginning just about building a micro-urban home. It was about building a product of which part of that was a home, where people live obviously, but there's a whole lot more to it that we're working towards. I think even go back and Jeff, it might be relevant for you to talk a little bit about the approach that you took to just create an initial design for Kasita, which I think is revolutionary in itself. JEFF: A big part of our DNA was product from conception. When I was living in the dumpster, I recruited a couple of the top architects in the country really to help me turn that dumpster into a home. The way you're trained in architecture school, I think a lot of folks come in there with Buckminster Fuller kind of dreams and you're told pretty quick that you better bring things up to code and you better make things that sell or you're not going to eat when you get out of here. The idea was that we would start off with a product designer and not design a home. The kind of struggles in the dumpster taught me that we needed to go at a different approach so I went and recruited an industrial designer. One of the requirements for that person that he or she had never designed a home. This person had lived under a staircase and never designed a home so I said, "You're perfect." CHARLES: I like that and I'm curious, Jason from your perspective, what was it like to have gone through this? It sounds like what you're doing is asking people to bring their expertise but not their set of expectations like the industrial designer. What was it like for you coming primarily from the software development world to step into this pan-technological realm and what was that experience like and what were the things that stretched you and you found surprising? JASON: I think early on, I realized that it was going to be a bit more challenging maybe than I thought. Really, what it required was me to think outside of my discipline. Obviously, not only from the perspective of what we were doing on the IoT frontend, how we were melding software and hardware together but then going all the way over to the physical building structure and thinking about on a weekly, daily, hourly basis on how we are interacting with the other disciplines. An early example was, and this is one that I remember that's quite funny is one area that we wanted to make sure that we had covered in our research and understanding from IoT perspective was smart locks and how we were going to provide a smart locks for the data. We went out and did a lot of investigation, brought a number of leading smart lock solutions into the lab and tested them and narrow our list down. Then I recall vividly walking over to the architects to excitedly tell them we had selected our smart lock that we were going to use. They very quickly inform me that that lock wouldn't work because we needed a mortise lock and not a standard door lock. I realized that you can't work in a vacuum and just solve your problems. You have to be working together to make sure the solutions and the products you're selecting at work in accord with the overall design. That's continued to manifest itself. Every day, I'm down on the manufacturing floor, working directly with the electricians and others to make sure that our equipment is placed properly, where are we going to place our equipment, how are we routing around plumbing and pipes and other things that exist there and how are we locating things properly. It's an ongoing experience, which has definitely taken me out of my traditional software role but it's done so in a very exciting way and I've enjoyed it. It's just realizing that you have to actively be communicating across the organization with all groups and really, you can't take anything for granted. CHARLES: The number of different disciplines and technologies is really staggering, even if you limit it to just considering the set of devices that you're integrating. I was actually hoping we could talk a little bit about that. Now inside each Kasita, at least the ones that you're building right now, how many different devices do you have? How do you take all these different devices and turn them into a product or integrate them into something that itself is one product? JASON: If you were just to look at the technology bill of materials, what the products are that we're incorporating into our current Kasita design, there is around 50 different products and product parts that we're bringing together to build out the technology solution. If you narrow that down to what the end user is actually seeing and looking at, there are about seven noticeable products that the end user would see or they would recognize everything from a Sonos connecting amplifier to an Amazon Dot to a Nest Thermostat. Obviously, getting to that list of bill of materials and deciding on that 'subassembly of technology pieces,' took us quite some time in a number of iterations and a lot of outside engagement and talking to experts and trying to decide what were the best devices to bring in. But the other side of the equation was something that we kind of decided very early on in the process and kind of thinking the world of first principles was that, we wanted to make sure that Kasita was the primary interface to the user. We didn't want somebody else sitting between us and the end user. We wanted to be able to work with other products but we still felt at the end of the day that the end user, when they were living inside of a Kasita, when they were controlling the Kasita, when they were changing the state of the Kasita, they needed to go through our interface. With that as an initial first principle, you can begin to imagine that all the other parts of the system architecture and the way that we design things, the way that we select products and built things, it begin to derive themselves. Everything from that, immediately we needed an app and lo and behold. We were able, fortunately to work with you guys, the Frontside, to help us get our initial app concept up and going. It went from there and I can talk more about it. CHARLES: I think I really like that as a first principle. I really just want to inject a vigorous sense of agreement because I think it's so important, especially when this is the place where you're living. You want to imbue that inhabitant with a sense of ownership and control. I don't know if you would be able to do that if there were a bunch of different touch points and it didn't feel integrated under one product. In other words, this is my home, this is my Kasita. Is that the idea behind making sure that there was really only one interface? JEFF: We prefer to say 'Mi Kasita.' CHARLES: I love it. JASON: Absolutely, that's the idea. I think from a consumer perspective, if you've ever personally gone out and ventured through the halls of Home Depot or Best Buy and purchased some smart products off the shelf and brought them into your house and try to get them up and running, you very quickly learn that. It's not only challenging to get these devices connected in a way that you can control them but there's also this notion of there's an app for that. Every physical device you ended up putting in your how, has its own app for control and that becomes very overwhelming in a very short amount of time for the user. We did not want that to be the case with the Kasita. We wanted them to walk in the door from day one and immediately feel at home and feel like they have complete control of the Kasita, in much the same way when you go purchase an iPhone or you purchase a new Garmin watch or you purchase a new Android device, you're up and running with that ecosystem and you're interacting with that interface. We wanted people to be interacting with the Kasita interface to control their home because that's part of the product. CHARLES: I like that. It must present some unique challenges because I think you said it best. Every single device that you have comes with its own ecosystem and that ecosystem has its own APIs, its own web interfaces, its own applications and though there are walls around those ecosystems, what are some of the challenges you encounter in trying to punch holes through those walls so that you can hand information and control from one ecosystem to the other while providing a seamless experience to the user? JEFF: When you're talking about that, Jason one of the things that is often left out of this equation is at this specific point in space-time, it's very difficult to do that. But then to have any sort of semblance of planning for the future and future-proofing the system as developers usually call it, one of the reasons why you don't see a lot of Nest thermostats in multifamily development is because a developer knows that they're not going to ever have to replace a normal light switch. If it's a Lutron switch or if it is a Nest thermostat at some point, it's going to have to be replaced. Not only the physical replacement of the stuff but from a software side, making sure that we can continue to communicate with these devices in the future, I think is a big problem to solve. JASON: That's absolutely right. I think very early on, we recognize and realize that we were going to have to build software and a component that acted, if you will as a gateway for sitting between the end user and the end devices and facilitated the control of the end devices. Obviously, being able to accomplish that, one of the challenges is and I think, Charles you've seen this in your world because I know you've got experience with IoT is this whole proliferation of standards and protocols like if we're going to talk to the lightbulb or we're talking via Z-Wave or ZigBee, or do we have to go through a Philips Hue hub because that's the only way to actually communicate with it. Is there a separate way via Thread or Bluetooth you communicate with this device? In a very quick fashion, you get to this point where you can imagine that you've got a physical hardware controller that has four different radios in talking to four different device types. One for talking to Z-Wave, one for talking to ZigBee and it becomes overwhelming. We did a lot of research across the protocols that were available, mapping them across the devices. Early on, we were excited about the potential of Z-Wave but more recently, where we've shifted our attention quite honestly is looking for devices and device manufacturers who see the opportunity and Wi-Fi enabling their hardware devices and then providing either direct control of those devices in an IP-centric way over a local area network or even through the cloud. What that affords us back to Jeff's future-proofing concept is if you have Wi-Fi up and running and the device can get on the Wi-Fi network and there's a way to communicate with it, then it makes it a lot easier for us to sit between the user and that device and send commands and control that device. The other side of that, which I think continues to be a challenge and will be a challenged for the foreseeable future is a lot of the device manufacturers to the point that you brought up are still forcing you to go through the cloud to communicate with their devices. They don't allow for a local area network communication directly with the device and there's good reasons for doing that. But what that means is if you lose internet connectivity, you no longer have control of that device. CHARLES: Obviously, you've got probably pretty strict criteria about what it takes for a device to be integrated with Kasita. Is that a nonstarter right there? JASON: It's actually not. A nonstarter with be the device communicates via protocol that we can't interface with or the device works over a Wi-Fi network but has no API for controlling cloud or local. The third piece of that equation and fundamentally is the final nonstarter and really probably should be the first one and it's one that we take into consideration every time is that there should be a physical override for the user if internet connectivity is lost. What I mean by that is if we select a smart switch and the smart switch goes offline and there's no more connectivity, the user has still be able to walk to the wall and press the power button and the light should come on. There always has to be an ability for the user to fall back to the same old fashioned physical control in the absence of Internet connectivity or local area network connectivity. But the primary things are ability to fall back to physical control, ability to communicate over Wi-Fi or standard IP-based protocol, then the third one would be some form of API access, either remotely via the cloud or locally via the local area network. CHARLES: Wow, that's actually a great list. It's got me wondering, obviously you've encountered devices that have fallen on both sides of that divide. Do you feel like that's just a blip and we're going to be trending more towards devices that are happily and easily integrated or are we still seeing some moving and jostling as people maybe try and corner little parts of the market and make their device deliberately make it not easy so that you'll try and force people into that ecosystem? JASON: The latter, however we have two guerillas in the market right now that I think are helping drive the other direction in the way of Amazon and Google with Google Home and Amazon Echo. What they're doing is they're saying, "If we sit in the center and one of the interfaces for voice control for the user to control their home, then we're only going to work with devices that we can communicate with and that we can control through the cloud," and quite frankly, what that does is it puts the burden back on the device manufacturer. You could actually say three if you threw Apple in there. I don't want to leave Apple out with HomeKit. But my point is that the device manufacturer now has to find a way that the end device can either communicate via standard TCP/IP network-based connectivity that we all know and love from a developer community perspective or they have to insert a hub into the equation that can handle that form of communication and then communicate over its own proprietary wireless connection, which is in the case of Philips Hue, it's exactly what they do. JEFF: I would draw analogies here to some people get really tired of this, particularly the real estate people of me talking about the iPhone but that kind of leap into and integrated piece of hardware and software. There were certain things happening in 2007 that didn't make the iPhone or something like it, something that might happen but something that had to happen. This kind of cold death to the universe that we could see with all of these walled-off ecosystems, go in their directions and iterating into a space to a nobody owns anything and nothing talks, I think Kasita is a solution to that to where we're looking like combine all this stuff under one roof and build a single user experience, much like not having to pull your Palm Pilot out of one pocket, you're Rio MP3 player out of another and you're your Razor or whatever it was out of the other like integrating into a single experience, rather than a sort of convenience, which is what a lot of the IoT spaces right now in these walled-off ecosystems. CHARLES: That actually makes a lot of sense and clarifies it in my mind quite a bit. It clarifies one thing but then, immediately raises new questions. When the iPhone first came out, you had a set of basic integrations between your MP3 player and your web browsing and your calling and calendaring, so and so forth. Then, I don't know what was it like, a year and a half later, they actually came out with an SDK so that you could actually develop apps -- third-party developers could actually develop. Sell and distribute in apps -- to the iPhone. We're all really happy with the way that worked out. I guess my question is does this analogy carry forward then also for Kasita? Is there a future where you have third-party developers who are actually selling integrations or apps that would run on this integrated IoT product that is Kasita or am I stretching the analogy too far? JASON: I think the analogy is good with the exception that we're not looking to control the entire IoT ecosystem in a way that Apple maybe had look to control the mobile phone ecosystem with providing all of that in one box and the iPhone. We want to work with numerous hardware providers and even from that perspective, numerous folks that want to provide interfaces into our system. As we develop an architected Kasita technology system, we've taken an API-first approach and that's allowed us to build our user application layer right on top of that API but in the future, we see the opportunity to work with third-party developers to extend that, up on that and build their own interfaces to the end user. Then on the other side of the equation, if you think about what's actually controlling the devices, we're architecting that system in a way that a hardware manufacturer could take an SDK and add Kasita support for their product directly in and make it plug and play when it gets to the Kasita. We definitely see the opportunity, Charles to reach out and allow everybody to be part of this. We consider it quite frankly, a necessary thing. But we don't also want to pretend that we would look to control the whole ecosystem because we just don't have that level of scale, if you will. JEFF: And you know -- CHARLES: Not yet. JEFF: Yeah, and we try to keep our ego in the dumpster, so to speak as well. CHARLES: What would a third-party app even look like in the context of Kasita? Have you thought of like what are some things that you might be able to do? JEFF: If you don't want to call it directly an app, I think the first stage -- Jason and I haven't talked about this -- maybe more like an Alexa Skill to where you can have the Kasita do certain sets of tasks around a particular experience, which we're already building into the system the idea of moods but I don't know in terms of apps. JASON: Yeah, it's actually a really good idea. Even though we haven't talked about it, it always scares me a little bit when my boss is coming up with ideas on the fly that we have to implement but -- JEFF: But actually we will have our first -- we're going to call it a skill app, a Kasita skill app. We'll be releasing that say, October 1st. CHARLES: You heard it here first, folks. JASON: To take Jeff's idea a little further, I think that is an interesting concept when you think about the Kasita as being an end product and you provide interfaces whether it's the ability for people to write skills that tie into the Amazon Echo or an IFTTT-type capability. The Kasita, as a whole can be controlled -- all the lighting, the sound, all the different temperature, etcetera -- so now you're asking end users to write skills, to control the entire state of the building or of the home and not just doing it on a one-off basis writing skill to turn this light on and off or set the thermostat to this level. You basically box all of that together and make it much easier for people to get from Point A to Point B through our system. JEFF: Could you say that we're turning the entire Kasita into a board for people to play with, like treat the Kasita as your breadboard? JASON: I think there is some opportunity for that to the degree that will allow the user to have that much flexibility on the hardware side. I think it is still up for question but I think there's a lot of opportunity there, Charles and not only inside of the Kasita but then you can begin to see other applications as Kasita begin to multiply and people use them from many purposes. Let's take a sample of somebody owns 10 Kasitas and they use them as Airbnb properties and they allow users that live in Kasitas to come in for a short period of time into their Kasita and bring their Kasita profile with them. Immediately, they can make the Airbnb Kasita feel exactly like their Kasita feels when they're at home. Those are some interesting opportunities and ways that we see this technology potentially evolving. CHARLES: So it will have the same moods, the same behaviors. Any customizations or third-party extensions would also be in effect provided they were software-based? JASON: Yep. CHARLES: That would actually be quite amazing. I guess the other question I have in terms of hackability of Kasita is we're very interested in the IoT space and very interested in these products and we have some side projects here at Frontside also like I do a bunch of hobby stuff at home, where I try to integrate a bunch of these things. But one of the things that I really like about what you all are doing is that it's very much 'omakase' in the sense of there's an option of 10 smart locks, there's an option of this thermostat, there's an option of a million different devices but what we've done or what you've done is selected ones that we know are going to work well together. We've built the software, the control systems, both computer control systems and human control systems to get them to work together as a cohesive product. I would love to do is say, "I would just like to buy that product for my house," even though my lame tinkerings with smart switches, smart locks and audio controls and lighting, which are fun and gratifying the first few times but they don't really play nice together, give you that super sweet feeling. JEFF: This goes to the overall philosophy of Kasita. We want a turnkey, one-click housing solution. Not only for finding you a place to rent so that you're not fishing around on Craigslist for roommate or having to pay some outrageous fee in New York. You don't have to go mattress shopping. At some point, you should just have to show up with your iPhone and your toothbrush. When you start thinking about the technology inside, it's almost like folks don't really care what kind of Foxconn chip is in their iPhone or even if it was Foxconn that put it there, they just want it to work and they want it to be seamless and turnkey. It sets up a whole philosophy around, not only our smart kid in the Kasitas but it shouldn't even be a smart kid anymore. At some point, it should just be an experience so ultimately, what sort of UX inside of the Kasita are all of these things bringing you. I shouldn't have to really look at a blue glowing dot that lights up every time I walk by it to be at a comfortable temperature in my house. I shouldn't need a black tube over on my desktop that I yell commands at. I just talk or it should anticipate those actions. That's a future that I look forward to in Kasita to where we move away from having to tinker with devices and even knowing what those devices are to a true-like depth of experience. CHARLES: I like that a lot. Now, one thing that we haven't covered. We touched on it a little bit at the very beginning of the show when we talked about people feeling in control and feeling like they're truly the owner of the space is the issue of privacy. Obviously, there's a lot of a user's behavior that's going to be passing through software channels as their intentions move through the devices in the Kasita. Of course, all of these devices, they have their own ecosystems, their own vendors so how do you ensure that people's data is going to be protected, especially as it moves through potentially a bunch of different public clouds. JEFF: Yes, we gave a lot of thoughts to this. Actually, Jason put me on to this book called 'Data for the People' by Andreas Weigend. We took some inspiration on that, from that and set out on what we call it the four cornerstones of this future of the connected home. Those are agency, transparency, security and then the actual benefit that you get from this home. I gave a talk at South by called, 'The final frontier of AI is in your living room.' If that isn't black mirror, creepy enough to attract enough people, I don't know what is. In that talk, I won't take them out of order. First, we need to make sure that we're focused on transparency. Do people know what's actually being collected on them? I've been toting around my iPhone for 10 years. I'm pretty sure they know everywhere that I have been since then. I'm not really all that sure. Second, agency. Can I actually do something about it? Are we allowing people the ability to switch off, switch on, control where that data goes? Then third, security. Are we providing another level of security above what you would get out of the box? I'll let Jason talk about that in a minute. Then, the last is benefit. Am I getting ads? Am I getting a slightly better news feed focused on ads or am I getting my rent subsidized? Am I getting a better user experience, better sleep within the connected home? Those are the ways that we think about that in a bigger level. CHARLES: Is the idea that there's no benefit than it's exploitative? You want to make sure that there's benefit? JASON: Yeah, I think that onus is if you taking individual data and using it, then the onus is on you as a data collector to try to provide benefit back to the end user. If you can't do that, then I think the question should be why are you collecting the data in the first place? our goal is really looking at it from the perspective of if we know when users are turning lights on and off and what they're setting the temperature in their house to and when they're going to sleep at night, when they're waking up because we know when they turn everything off and turn it back on -- JEFF: Or where this things on the floor are from the vacuum robot. JASON: Yeah, exactly. If we have insight into that information, how are we taking that information and combining it in a valuable way that benefits the end user? I think that's the first question that we have to ask when we start looking at the data that we're collecting. But at the same time as Jeff said, that data collection really has to be based on this notion of agency, transparency and privacy or security. An agency is simply I have control over whether my data is collected. Transparency, from the perspective of I understand how my data is being used and where it's being sent and then of course, security, I know that my data is being securely transmitted and stored. When you think about security, we spend a lot of time thinking about not only the data at rest -- once it's been collected is it properly being stored and encrypted and protected -- but then how is that data being transmitted and are we putting the proper fail safes in place to make sure that somebody else can easily gain access and take control of my home and of the things that are important to me by finding back doors into the system and ways to breach them? Those are the cornerstones that we think about and we put first and foremost in our mind as we build out our architecture, build out our system and as we begin to take that data and to turn it back in useful and interesting ways for the end user. CHARLES: I think that's really important. I think it's a great comfort to hear that you all have a framework for thinking about this so that it's going to be integrated into every aspect of it. I think it's just so important, especially when it's something as critical as the space in which you're living. It's good to hear that it's not just an afterthought but that it's something that's been integrated from the start. Well, Jeff, Jason thank you guys so much for coming by and talking with us. I really think that Kasita is an exciting product and I think that it was an exciting project, certainly for us to get to work on, even though we were only seeing a very small sliver of it. We still got to perceive the whole enchilada that you guys were working on and see that just what a unique startup that really is, not just you're moving outside of software, integrating a bunch of different devices, integrating that with a unique home that's going to be designed, architected, manufactured and then thinking, then even rolling it up a degree further about how is this going to be integrated into the urban spaces in which we live. I hope that we see more startups that really engaged all those different disciplines. I think that with the technological changes that are happening, that's more and more a possibility. The price on software, the price on materials, the price on these smart devices is all coming down so it really enables people to take on scopes that might have been just completely impossible, even with someone who's overly optimistic. I hope that people look to it as an inspiration and it really was a great project for us to work on. I also understand that if someone does want to jump into this space and get involved, you all are hiring. JEFF: That's right. We are hiring for a broad range of positions. We're expecting to be doing a lot, more hiring soon. You can go to Kasita.com/Work and at the bottom of the page, you can also see that we have an open house here in Austin every Thursday morning from 9:30 to 11:30. The folks can come in and check out the crib. CHARLES: All right. Fantastic. I certainly really enjoyed getting the tour the space, what was that? Back in March? When you revealed the baby units? JEFF: Yeah, it was March at South by. CHARLES: Yeah, it's really something to see. If you are in Austin or you live here, take the time, go see it. It's really cool. With that, I guess we'll wrap it up. Thank you everybody for listening and as always, you can get in touch with us at @Frontside on Twitter or Frontside.io or send us an email at Contact@Frontside.io. Thank you all and see you next week.

Introductions Mark Hofer of the College of William & Mary and Michael Kelly of The Harriet Tubman Free School joined David and Jeff for tonight’s podcast. Essential Question How are we preparing pre-service teachers to be shifted educators? Blog Posts of the Week David: Clay Burell's post on teacher prep programs. Michael: Ben Grey's blog Jeff: No more Encarta, The University of the People Mark: iLearn Technology blog Sign Off *Next show date is not set. *John Mikton will join us. *Essential Question for the show: How can we help teachers take more risks in their teaching? *Don’t forget to post Web sites/blogs to the SOS Diigo bookmarking site that support our upcoming EQ.

Learn how to make a hotel reservation in English in this podcast. Slow dialog: 1:27 Explanations: 4:21 Fast dialog: 14:53 I just finished a huge project at work and I needed some down time. I decided to take a short vacation. I liked the idea of a long weekend out of town. My friend Sara offered to let me crash at her place in San Francisco, but I decided to stay at a hotel instead. Sara has a couple of roommates and I thought it might be too crowded. I called the toll- free reservation number for a major hotel chain. The reservation agent was very helpful, after I got through the long phone tree. Agent: Dutton Hotels. How may I help you today? Jeff: I wanted to check rates and availability for your San Francisco location. Agent: Certainly, I can help you with that. Will that be the downtown or waterfront location? Jeff: The waterfront location. Agent: What date do you plan to check in? Jeff: I'd like to check in on October 12th and check out the 15th. Agent: Okay, let me see what we have. For how many? Jeff: One. And, if possible, I'm looking for a non-smoking room. Agent: Sure, we have a non-smoking queen with an ocean view for $189 or a standard room with a courtyard view for $139 a night. Jeff: I'd like to book the standard room. Agent: Okay, your last name? Jeff: Rama. Agent: And, your first name? Jeff: It's Jeff. Agent: Okay, I have you booked in a standard non-smoking queen, checking in on October 12th and departing the 15th. What major credit card would you like to use to guarantee the reservation? Jeff: A Visa. Agent: The number and expiration? Jeff: It's 7388- 2424-3535- 1818 and the expiration is 05/08. Agent: Your confirmation number is PD672. Is there anything else I help you with? Jeff: No, that's all. Thanks. Agent: Have a nice day and thank you for calling Dutton Hotels. Script by Dr. Lucy Tse