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When companies beat revenue and earnings expectations as much a Micron Technologies did in its most recent quarter, the market often heaps on praise for stellar results. Not this time, though. We'll get into why as well as Uber Technologies' deal with Rivian Automotive and Alibaba's $100 billion in AI revenue target Tyler Crowe, Matt Frankel, and Jon Quast discuss: - Micron Technologies earnings - Is it different this time for memory companies? - Uber & Rivian teaming up for autonomous vehicles - Alibaba's AI targets and investing in international AI plays. Companies discussed: MU, NVDA, AMD, ASML, UBER, RIVN, LCID, TSLA, GOOG, AMZN, MSFT, BABA, LYFT, STLA, GM Host: Tyler Crowe Guests: Matt Frankel, Jon Quast Engineer: Dan Boyd Disclosure: Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. The Motley Fool and its affiliates (collectively, “TMF”) do not endorse, recommend, or verify the accuracy or completeness of the statements made within advertisements. TMF is not involved in the offer, sale, or solicitation of any securities advertised herein and makes no representations regarding the suitability, or risks associated with any investment opportunity presented. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult with legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions. TMF assumes no responsibility for any losses or damages arising from this advertisement. We're committed to transparency: All personal opinions in advertisements from Fools are their own. The product advertised in this episode was loaned to TMF and was returned after a test period or the product advertised in this episode was purchased by TMF. Advertiser has paid for the sponsorship of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite! Chris Sands and Brent Saunier are on the podcast to talk about the hottest topics in the dental accounting world. Founding partners of Pro-Fi 20/20, these dental CPAs chat with Kiera about how to reduce overhead and expand the number of patients coming in, expense metrics from the hundreds of offices Pro-Fi works with, a tax rule you NEED to live by, what to stay away from financially with your business, and a ton more. Pro-Fi 20/20 is an accounting business that the Dental A-Team recommend. This episode is a goldmine of information from two fellows who know what they're talking about — especially with regard to the dental industry. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today we are bringing you something so special. I am so excited because this is one of our most popular episodes from the archives. Whether you're hearing this for the first time or catching it again, I am so excited because it's jam packed with a ton of takeaways that you can start using right now in your practice. We have released thousands, literally thousands of episodes. And I wanted to start bringing a few of these amazing episodes back for you. So I hope you enjoy. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time. on the Dental A Team podcast. speaker-0 (00:31) today I wanted to bring on two special guests. These are actually CPA in the CPA world. Believe it or not, Dental A Team actually consults this company. So we definitely love them. They went a step above most CPA companies and they really wanted to get to know the ins and outs of the dental world. So I'm super jazzed to bring them on and to just have them dive into some of the hot topics in the accounting world. ⁓ two people that I trust and recommend heavily. ⁓ I They are one of my top three CPA firms that I refer and recommend constantly. So I'm excited to welcome Chris and Brent from Pro-Fi. How are you gentlemen today? speaker-1 (01:06) Awesome, Kiera. Thanks so much for having us. We're excited to be with you. speaker-0 (01:10) Yeah, absolutely. Brent, how are you doing today? speaker-2 (01:12) I am doing great. I appreciate the invite. I'm looking forward to this 30 minutes with you. speaker-0 (01:17) Yeah, absolutely. Well, who knows? We'll see how long this ends up going, guys. Brent, can't put a time on us. It could be dangerous zone. speaker-1 (01:24) You're lucky he said he's doing great because we're in the heat of extended tax season, so he's kind of in the trenches. Lucky he's in a good mood. speaker-0 (01:32) I know Tiffany has been trying to get back out to you guys to see you and Beth you heard this awesome rock star in the company She keeps saying like tiff. It's like extended tax time or it's this or it's that deadline I'm like, my gosh, you guys just have I think you're secretly adrenaline junkies of CPAs even though you don't come across that way But I think you love it cuz tax season I feel is just like adrenaline rush like trying to get to the deadline. I just can't imagine that stress like Every quarter every year you just hit it. So props to you guys. That's not my world but super jazz to have you guys on here. ⁓ so Chris let's dive in I know there's some things so we're gonna kind of hit on overhead we're gonna talk about some taxing some Some things to be aware of i'm just so excited because this is a world I don't know and I do purposely bring really really talented and educated cpas and financial advisors onto the podcast because I'm we have a three-fold approach in our company. It's focusing on Money and finances making sure your business is profitable you as a person and as an individual and then systems and teams top to bottom So I am big I think as a business owner. I wasn't profitable when I first started. I didn't know how to look at my numbers I didn't even know what the heck over influence. I was like googling how to figure it out So i'm just jazzing you guys are here. So Chris kind of take us away I know you had some great topics for today and i'm excited to just Rift a little bit with you, dive into these things, things that are really tangible for our practices now, especially where you guys work with hundreds of offices across the nation. Lots of good data to be pulling out for our practices listening. speaker-1 (03:04) Sure, well, ⁓ Kiera, I think that there's a lot of discussion around, does the DSO world seem to do a better job with overhead than the private practice world? I think a lot of private practice doctors are wondering that, they're frustrated or how do I get my overhead down? And a lot of times, I think when you focus on expenses, you tend to attract expenses. And in our world of accounting, I will often tell doctors that, ⁓ Accounting cannot make you money, it cannot generate revenue. The expenses part is the easy part for us that we can work on trying to reduce some things, but you either have a revenue problem or an expense problem. And in most cases it's actually, you creating enough revenue on your fixed expenses? And most of dentistry doesn't understand how simple that is to scale the dental business model when you look at it from a high level. You scale a business and reduce overhead with doctor production. Okay. And so that means you need enough patients to see the practice that I worked in from my experience was 40 to 60 new patients a month per doctor, per full-time doctor. And it means you need to be reinvesting enough into marketing. And I'll talk about that, that expense or reinvestment of marketing in a minute to get those new patients. And you need to be. monitoring the phones that get answered properly and there's conversion rate of those inbound calls to appointments scheduled. And then the real job is case acceptance. Okay, and so here I am in an accounting firm coming on your podcast and I bet you didn't think I was gonna like be talking about case acceptance. speaker-0 (04:46) was like, wonder we didn't talk about all your time. I'm just kidding. speaker-1 (04:49) So, know, dentistry is really the product that's being delivered. And if you're ethically diagnosing the need and creating the treatment plan, your job is to help the patient understand the urgency and necessity of fixing the problem and paying you to do that work. So your job isn't really the dentistry itself, it's case acceptance. And your first task is to become great at case acceptance yourself as a practicing clinician. But then the real task as the owner is to be able to teach other doctors to become good at it. So I think, you know, the only the only variable overhead that the dental business model has is paying doctors a percentage of the dental collections that they create. And then you have labs and you have supplies. associated with the dentistry that's delivered. those expenses are variable. They track with the amount of dentistry that gets done. Everything else is fixed overhead when you really think about it. Marketing is fixed and it only changes based on your choosing. Your team expenses are fixed and they only change when you hire or fire. Your rent and facility costs are fixed. Your equipment costs are fixed and only changed by your choosing. And the various required admin costs, they're all pretty much fixed. They only change by your choosing. So if you can create more doctor generated collections with the same team and fixed expenses, your profit margin goes up, your percentage overhead, your percentage overhead to collections ratio goes down. Okay. And so I guess we see most private practice or single, should certainly say single location, solo doctor practices. We see them failing at this because they choose not to reinvest enough. back into the business, into that marketing for new patients. They're not monitoring the phones. They're not training their team. They're not training their doctors on case acceptance. And they're too closely focused on just the clinical delivery of the dentistry. Don't get me wrong, that's required, but that's not what makes you successful or financially successful. So I can give you ⁓ some generic ranges for expenses, but the real thing is that You know, the real way to scale a business is to generate more revenue on the same overhead. That's kind of the definition. speaker-0 (07:20) And isn't that basically then probably the DSO model because they have lower fixed costs per se. They've figured out how to have centralized billing, centralized call center, centralized. So many things centralized that they don't need all these different things. So solo practices, if I'm understanding correctly, they've got all the costs associated, but they only have X number of revenue where when you start to add in those multiples of practices, That's where your fixed costs, it's going, yes, of course your fixed costs will increase a bit, but I mean, I do know our fixed costs did not go up that much more when I added our second practice to it because I already have my base of fixed costs there and then we're just able to add more revenue. Is that kind of what you're saying? Am I understanding? speaker-1 (08:01) Yeah, I mean, you know, that, part about centralizing is, know, when you, when you do have multiple locations, I would say three or more, then you can consolidate the amount of team that's working the front desk into one location. Instead of needing three to five team members at the front desk in every office, you may only need three to five team members for all three offices. You're having one of the best things by the way, as kind of an aside, one of the best things that private practices can do as they grow is to get those phones off the front desk. You know, let. speaker-0 (08:20) Right, right. I agree. speaker-1 (08:30) You know, like there needs to be, that needs to be in a totally separate admin space. But, ⁓ you know, I get asked that question a lot. Like my overhead is 65 % and how can I afford to hire another associate doctor and pay them 30 or 35 %? Well, you know, that doctor is going to create new collections. That's the point. It's not to give them your patients. It's to grow the number of patients coming in that, that you as one doctor maybe are stressed. and you hire the next doctor and you've got to continue to invest in the marketing to keep your job as the owner is keep the chairs full, right? As long as the chairs are full, if that associate doctor is ethically diagnosing like you are, if you guys have a ⁓ clinical standard of care in your practice, if you guys talk about how you treatment plan and your treatment planning the same way, that's all required. But here's the real test. You know, how do they connect with people? How do they, how do they, establish a relationship, establish trust and get them to move forward with that treatment. So I think dentists hate to use this word in dentistry, but the job is kind of sales. You know, if you believe in your product of dentistry to solve this need and like, again, if you diagnose decay and they don't get rid of it, you failed. I could go on a tangent on that, but the new doctor will bring new collections and you might have to hire at most, you know, an additional speaker-0 (09:46) Yeah. speaker-1 (09:55) Assistant or two and that would be a new fixed overhead. You would increase your fixed over it slightly But other than that the doctor covers all their costs with their their percentage pay the labs that are associated with it that the supplies are associated with it and You should net somewhere in the ballpark of 40 to 50 percent on the new collections they create and that that just adds to your profit Because all the other fixed overhead stays the same speaker-0 (10:19) So I think there's a few things on there of like, I just, think it's a matter of realizing a lot of people bring on associates though, because they're tired, they want more free time. They don't want to be working as much. And I think it's important to clarify that if that's your model, that's totally fine. Everybody knows on the deadline team, I am not somebody who judges. I think everybody has their own personal path. And so whatever jives with you and resonates with you. So if you're wanting to bring on an associate to have more free time, to not have to produce as much, fantastic, but realize that that overhead might not trickle down because now you're kind of replacing your cost with an associate that you're paying. And some doctors I know don't take as much pay as they would pay an associate per se, which to me, I think is a somewhat failed model. I'm really big on prepping and preparing for that associate, paying yourself as if you were an associate. So you know, these costs before you bring on an associate. ⁓ but I really think it's important to note that because like you're saying that overhead will go down as long as the doctors are producing. And as long you're able to bring on that other doctor and have them produce, cause they should cover themselves. I definitely agree with that. ⁓ also I'm sure people are saying, yeah, but Chris, like in order to bring on another associate, I'm going to have to build out ops. That's a huge cost and expense. So I am curious, what have you guys found in Brent? You might have some answers to this Chris, you might. ⁓ but if an office is having to say, build out two more ops. in their practice to be able to bring on an associate, how long does it usually take when you're doing build outs for that cost to be recouped and start being more profitable? Because oftentimes I do think that that gets into the problem with a lot of doctors is they're constantly building more to bring on these other doctors. So they're always adding more and more expenses. Like when do they ever break even? So what have you guys seen with build outs and different things like that of that break even point? How long should they plan for it to not be as profitable? speaker-1 (12:09) Okay, I'm gonna give you a lot of answers on this. So number one, we use a metric called revenue per chair. So, you know, every, you speaker-0 (12:17) What do recommend? What do you guys recommend per chair? speaker-1 (12:19) So yeah, everyone has a space and you have only a fixed number of spaces or operatories you can have in it. And there's only a fixed amount of time and days and hours and a number of doctors that you have. And revenue per chair capacity, we see a range between 25,000 to 40,000 per chair per month. And it does not matter when you do this. This is just, take collections and divide it by the number of chairs you have. ⁓ This does not matter how many chairs are for hygiene or how many chairs are for dentistry. That's your choice. Actually, you know, there are models where every chair can do everything and the patient never, but the 25 to 40,000 at 35,000 of revenue per chair, you're running fairly efficiently and you're going to need to be planning to expand. You're going to start to run out of space. So that's our metric first and foremost. And so if somebody tells us, well, speaker-0 (12:53) Sure. speaker-1 (13:09) I've got four chairs right now, but I have space for seven. I haven't built out the other three. I tell them, you don't need to build out the other three until you're approaching that $35,000 a month of revenue per chair. Question you asked, how much does it cost and when do you recoup that? So in my experience, typically it's around $25,000 per ⁓ operatory to equip it, assuming it's already plumbed. ⁓ after you just take that number and say, so let's say you were equipping a few operatories, so $50,000, you ⁓ essentially, your cost of the doctor plus the lab and supplies should max out at 50%. Okay, now they have to be producing. So until you get them, they've produced over $100,000. All right, let me do it per chair. They need to do over $50,000 per chair for you to get your costs back. After that, you're in the money. speaker-0 (14:09) which I think is also smart because I don't know. think dentists kind of err on two different sides. Sometimes they're too slow to actually build out. They are so cost conscious and so concerned about that build up, about the cost of the chair, about all the other things that they're missing, that that one chair is going to generate several thousands of dollars of revenue. I've had a few doctors where I'll say, sure, no problem. We'll do a deal. I will happily pay for that one chair and you pay me all. the revenue that comes through from that chair for the next three months. That's all I ask is three months. and I know I'm going to come out way ahead of you because it will generate and it will produce, especially in high producing practices. So I think so often people are just so scared to do those build-outs because they see the cost or they do the flip side where they believe like, if we build it, they will come and they're overly aggressive and they don't have necessarily the patient base or the doctors in play to be able to accommodate that. So I love, I need to agree. It's either cut costs or increase your revenue. Like that's really overhead. speaker-1 (15:12) One more way to think about it is, you know, if they have patients that are having to wait so many weeks or months to schedule out to come in. if you can calculate your collections divided by the number of patients seen for any given time, for year to date or for a full year, you can get your average revenue per patient. Okay. And if you know your average revenue per patient, you know how many either new patients or how many more patients you need to fill that chair to cover the cost. Okay. So if your average revenue per patient was, you know, $1,500 per patient, um, and the cost of that chair is 25,000, just take 25,000 divided by 1500. And that'll tell you how many patients have to be seen in that chair before you pay for that chair. Sure. You're to be in the money, you know, it's in terms of the construction. That's another basically upfront, one time fixed costs that you're going to cover. And then all the future revenue that it's going to generate. So. Maybe if you like, think before we end this topic on overhead, I'll give you kind some of our expense metric. ⁓ speaker-0 (16:18) Sure, yeah, absolutely. Well, hang on, before you go into expense metrics, I want to bring up one piece that I think often gets missed, because you're saying like we're in the money. But I also want to bring up something that I really love to point out, and that is return on emotion. Some people don't want to bring on an associate. Yes, like as a business model, you can be more financially successful with an associate. Yes, you can, having more chairs, more build out, more practices. ⁓ But I also want to point out there is a return on emotion. There are sometimes Bigger headaches, they're also sometimes less headaches with bigger organizations. I personally love to consult larger practices. The pettiness, the cattiness, the smaller drama is way less in larger practices or multiple locations. So like that drastically drops down. They figured it out. They're dialed into systems. But at the same time, I think it's important for people to assess that return on emotion. You might have a dreamy life. You might be doing exactly what you want and sure you could produce more. But if you're off work at say two or three o'clock every day and you work two or three days a week and you're shelling and seven fifty to a million in profit, not a bad lifestyle. So I think it's also important to assess like what you ultimately want and what your return on emotion is before just saying like, I'm going to build because this is the way to do it. I think if you're looking at your practices as a business model, which I personally think a lot of us should look at it that way, ⁓ just to see what you what you ultimately want, what's your end game. And that's also where I love financial advisors of Like what is your total term? Like where do you want to get? Does it make sense to grow? Does it make sense to stay where I'm at? ⁓ I think oftentimes we, we forget that return on emotion and how that is. We always think of like return on investment, but what does that return on emotion too? So just want to put a plug of like, I think everyone's on their own path, their own journey. Definitely agree. There are lots of ways that you can be insanely profitable and having multiple practices is a great, great, great business play. And you're able to help more practices. I'm all in favor. You're gonna have multiple locations. Make sure you're doing awesome dentistry because sure, it can be very lucrative. Just be ethical because I think that plays out long-term. So Chris, with that, what are some of the metrics you guys look at? Because I agree, I love to hear people's metrics. I think we're pretty closely aligned with you guys on metrics, which is another reason I really love working with you guys and your clients. speaker-1 (18:32) So I think if you ⁓ were to survey the Academy of dental CPAs and all of their, what you see them put out statistically, they're gonna tell you the metric of one to 2 % for marketing. When you go and you immerse yourself in the DSO world and their conferences and get to know what they're doing, you're gonna see more of an average of six to 8 % reinvestment into marketing. DSOs have a harder time with retention. They have more patients going out the back door. Private practices. degraded retention, but they don't often invite enough people to the party. So we don't go by the one to 2 % number. think that's an area where people try to, they're trying to keep costs down. You know, your business is the greatest asset that you own that provides the greatest return and you have the most control over. So you should be reinvesting in it more than you reinvest in the stock market or anything else. So our metric for marketing is three to 8%. Private practices, like to see at least three to five. I mean, excuse me, in GP practices, in specialty practices, especially like orthodontics, needs to be on the higher end. Team expenses between 20 to 30%. We certainly try to keep that under 30%. Team expense does not include doctors. Okay. So that's all of your, all of your, uh, your, your entire team, including a hygienist as well, but not doctors, uh, dental supplies somewhere five to nine, five to 10 % labs. speaker-0 (19:36) Yes, absolutely. speaker-1 (19:58) four to 7%. So again, those dental supplies and labs really should not be greater than roughly 15 % total. Rent and facilities, five to 9%. What does that mean? So if you have a high percentage in your rent and facility costs, if your rent facility is let's say nine, 10, 11%, that means you're probably not maximizing the space and getting the collections that is possible there. Again, using that revenue per chair metric. When you're on the lower end, if you have 4 to 5 % rent of facility, means you're running very efficiently. You're probably going to be running out of space and need to expand or potentially relocate or get another location. And then there's general administrative costs somewhere in the range of 4 to 10%, depending on the practice type and what additional folks they have. speaker-0 (20:48) Cool. speaker-1 (20:50) That's it on everything. speaker-0 (20:51) No, I love it so much because I think so often people don't look at their P &Ls and they don't even know what they should be targeting for. It's just like, well, do I have money left over or do I not? And then I don't know. like all of that combined should equal about 50 % there. Is that correct? Those are 50 % and then doctor pays 30 % to give a 20 % profit margin. And then you subtract debt services from that. that kind of your guys' model? That's what I've heard. It's what I typically recommend. speaker-1 (21:18) Roughly. mean, yeah. You know, I, the most ideal is that I think when the average doctor starts to work with us, their profit margin is in the twenties, the 20 % range. our goal is to get them into the forties. Okay. And everyone does chase this like 50 % number, but I will tell you that eventually if you have to scale again, if you have to reinvest, that's the part like you're, drive yourself nuts. Would you rather have, you know, 50 % of 1 million or do you rather have 40 % of 3 million? Right. You know, and that's that. So it's not always just about that overhead percentage. Uh, it is about if you choose to scale and you're, you're buying, you're reinvesting some of your, your overhead percentage, you're reinvesting some of your money to buy back your time. Like you said earlier, okay. Um, whether that's on multiple doctors or not, you know, being a slave to the chair is difficult and high risk to you as a business owner. It's one of the riskiest business models there is. speaker-0 (22:12) Right. I think that that's such a good point. But guys, you don't know, can, Pro-Fi is fantastic. You can reach out to them, have them help you with your PNLs. Also your current CPAs, you can get a chart of accounts and give them these percentages and say, this is where I want it to be. Help me get there, give me some information because a lot of CPAs are not dental specific and they might not know these industry standards. And I agree with you. I also think it's important to think of growth years and also profit years. Some years you are definitely massively. reinvesting into the practice and you might not be sitting at as high of an overhead, but you're doing it with the intent. Like when I bring on new team members, when you bring on new doctors, your overhead is going to go down. It should go down because you are investing and you're growing, but you need those people. This year on Dental A Team is a growth year. I am heavily bringing on new team members. My overhead is not as great as it has been in the past years. But if I, like you said, chase that X number of overhead and never invest in that growth, I can't get to the next level of where I wanna go. So I thought that was really, really helpful. Thank you for that, Chris. And I know now we wanna spin over to Brent. Brent's been hanging out silently over there of some tax things. And I do love that you guys ying and yang on practice metrics because that's what we're all about. And then the tax world that I'm like, here's the thing. Here's my take on taxes. I am so grateful to live in a country where I get to pay taxes to have my own business. Like I truly think that is a massive blessing of the country we live in. With that said, I also think it's my responsibility as a business owner to be as savvy as I can on taxes and not overpay on taxes because I'm just dumb and I'm not actually looking at strategy using smart people beyond myself to do it. So Brent, I'm so jazzed. Talk to us kind of about some tax things that you've been thinking of that your clients are dealing with. speaker-2 (24:00) Yeah, absolutely. So I remember a few early evening calls with you and you're calling and saying help. speaker-0 (24:06) It was in December last year, like literally right before the end of the year. And I was like, Brent, I owe so much dang money in taxes. Any ideas? It's fine, guys. It's fine. speaker-2 (24:19) One of the foundations of Pro-Fi that we built it on is education. So we are very big believers in educating our clients to understand, first and foremost, how do you even generate taxes? So the number of conversations we have with dentists that just don't have a basic understanding is really astounding to me. So we first take an approach of, you have to understand how do you generate income tax? You generate income tax by the salary or W-2 you take. and profit. The key thing here is it does not matter if you take a dollar of that profit out of the business, you still owe tax on the profit. So here, when you're looking at your P &L, let's say a doctor has a half a million dollars of profit and they choose not to take it home and leave it in the business, they will still pay tax on half a million dollars. I had a call today, the exact conversation is like, why didn't take any of the money home? speaker-0 (25:18) It doesn't matter. were profitable brother, sister, like rock on. Happy day for you. speaker-2 (25:23) You know, as Chris was alluding to, if you choose to reinvest in the practice, do marketing or other items like that that are deductible, that will obviously reduce your burden. The second thing, the second biggest mistake is don't underestimate your effective tax rate. So Chris and I have, we call it, I guess the golden rule or the 40 % tax rule. And that is geared towards over-preparing a business owner when it comes time to send in those quarterly estimates. And I'll come back to that one in a minute, but the 40 % tax rule, if you have a pen, I would write that down because that is a rule to live by. And also ask your CPA advisor, whoever they are, whether it's us or your other another CPA, ask them before you make the decisions. So I got a call yesterday from a doctor in South Carolina. He's like, hey, I want to buy a machine that's going to cost me $85,000. My equipment rep said I'd get a 40 % tax deduction. Just about that much. speaker-0 (26:23) That was a clever salesperson. speaker-2 (26:26) Yeah, they all do it. We love equipping reps. No badging equipment reps. But understanding, depending upon your entity type, whether or not you will be able to deduct that in the current year is a huge thing that you have to understand. Chris and I have seen so many doctors over the years that have come to us after the fact. And I think we've done a great job of educating, hey, I bought this equipment, it's $100,000. When we do the tax return, it's like, you're not involved deducted. They're like, why not? The equipment reps that I could. So just make call your advisor before you do it. That's the best thing you can do for yourself. speaker-0 (27:02) Well, and I, to that point, I just say like, you should have experts on your board as a business owner, people that you genuinely trust for taxes. And like you said, ask them, ask your rep about the best products and what they're seeing of results within the patient's mouth. Cause that's where they're experts. But I'm just going to put a massive plug, like, gosh, the number of dollars I have spent personally, because I didn't ask, If we can save anybody even a couple of grand, like you're welcome. You're welcome. Just ask, ask before you do it. speaker-2 (27:36) Right, absolutely. Then I kind of look at what are some things that you can do to make sure you're not blindsided by that tax surprise? ⁓ One thing we do is we always recommend in your business, you have to run multiple bank accounts. And one of those bank accounts is a tax savings account. Your business should fund and pay for your personal tax bill. So think about like ⁓ grandmother's cash envelope system. create different buckets in the business, move the money out of your OpEx account because, know, like for me, if I have 20 bucks, $20 in cash in my pocket, I'm going to spend it. But if I put it away in the bucket where it's intended, it'll be there when I need it. speaker-1 (28:18) My bucket, right? speaker-0 (28:19) Yes, you can just send them my way this year Chris. It's fine Brent. It's fine I'll take him but Brent I want to speak so highly to that because ⁓ It really does help. I will also put a plug of like have really good financial planners and tax planners with you because I am actually really really good at saving money for taxes What I really get frustrated with is when it comes to December and I have been saving and I have been putting that away ⁓ And then they're like, Kiera, you owe an extra X amount. And I'm like, what the heck? I've even saved this. So that's where I also think it's really pro to have really good CPAs that are that actually no tax. So I am curious. You guys tell me the truth, because I don't know how this works. I'm not a CPA, but I swear every year I get a call December 1st and it's like almost a double what I've already saved for the whole year. And I'm a saver. Like I don't spend a dime in my business. speaker-1 (29:14) call you get all year long, Kiera. speaker-0 (29:16) It's not well, I have a monthly call with them and we even plan for taxes, but this year my quarterly taxes It's okay guys. I'm interviewing new cpas. It's okay. my cpn doesn't listen to the podcast I don't think if so, it's great. We've had a good run for several years But like that's where I get a surprise. Is it common? Should you be getting a surprise call on december 1st? If you've got good tax people, and you've been planning and preparing and putting money aside all year long is that speaker-1 (29:41) As you answer this question for her and I would go over safe harbor estimates, but Kiera to set you up for what Brent's going to say. What happens is somebody tells you a number and you kind of start to operate like a zombie and you're like, okay, I put that number away, put it away and you did it. And you're like, okay, I put the number where you told me, but at the same time you're trying to grow your business. speaker-0 (30:06) To that point though Chris I'm gonna like back on this because I think I'm actually a really smart business owner But every freaking year this happens. I'm trying to fix this and hopefully someone speaker-1 (30:15) I think it has to do with your growth. speaker-0 (30:18) I overestimated what my growth would be this year. So I said I was going to be double what I was last year and we're coming in at about a 70 % growth of what I was last year. So I gave my CPA a 30 % extra window to project on me and we're still coming up a hundred, I'll say a different number, but I'm coming up more than I had saved. almost three times as much as they had saved for me. cause I get burned every single year. So I'm like a squirrel with nuts and I put away for tax savings in my company because I never know what I'm going to owe. And it scares me. So with that said, I agree with growth. If you can, if you can project where you're going to go and you're having consistent quarterly meetings with your CPA, is it common to still have a massive like uptick in December? I would ask. speaker-1 (31:04) No, it's not. So look, to keep it simple, like, you know, I'm kind of talking on the managerial accounting side of things and Brent's talking on the tax side of things. If you're meeting with that accountant and you look at that bottom line profit, okay, you owe 40 % of that profit, whether you took it home or not. And then if you made any estimated tax payments, you can subtract those tax payments from that 40%. Okay. ⁓ And then you can apply some deductions and maybe bring the number down. speaker-0 (31:24) Agreed. I'm asking for a friend hashtag myself right now I mean I get better every year around taxes because I hate the surprise and I think most people do but I also wanted to point out I'm like I think I'm pretty savvy with business I talked to a ton of CPAs like this isn't like my first day running a business So and I'm happy to hear and with that 40 % So here's another thing that I've also which maybe I'm just dumb Maybe I'm just coming around the block to this so you guys can tell me ⁓ but it's 40 % of the profit correct like And that profit also includes my W-2 as a business owner. So I've got to like... speaker-1 (32:10) That profit is after your W-2. Hopefully your W-2, you have normal withholdings. Sure. you're like zero or one, you can kind of pretty much say, hopefully the federal and state taxes are all withheld from that for you. Right. have to worry about it. Okay. It's the profit that's left over after your W-2 and all the other expenses of the business you have 40 % on. So Brent, tell her about what happens at the beginning of the year. When we talk, they those first estimates. think everybody starts to like, they get glued to the estimates and they never update them. speaker-2 (32:41) Yeah, so a couple things. So, Kiera, speaker-0 (32:45) Call you in December, Brent. We're going to have this conversation in year two. speaker-2 (32:49) Maybe we should start in January for next. speaker-0 (32:51) I like that strategy is much better. I'm like I've even I started my tax meetings in July this year guys Like this is how much I'm paranoid and I'm like they're just shelling a ton on me again And I'm like how does it happen every year? I don't I don't understand so speaker-2 (33:05) Here's a trend I noticed over the last four years. you know, there was in 2017, there was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which changed the tax code. also changed. There's also been changes to the payroll tax tables. So I would take UW2, look at your federal tax withheld and divide that by your taxable wages in box one. More than likely, it's going to be in the 10 to 12 % range. If you were in the 40 % tax bracket, you're already 30 % short on your taxes. Let's say you pay yourself $100,000. If you're 30 % short, that's a five digit dollar. So that's where I'd first start. And that is very, very, very common. You will not see any withholding in a W-2 being over 25 % unless you manually requested that from the payroll company. speaker-0 (33:39) Right. speaker-2 (34:01) bonuses or automatically taxed at 25%, but your regular payroll is probably in the 10 to 12 % range. So that's one reason it's happened. What Crystal's talking about, so let's say that we prepare your return in April. So let's say your 2020 return and every accountant will do what's called a safe harbor tax estimate, which basically says your estimates will be 110 % of your prior year tax. speaker-1 (34:30) The IRS wants you to put 10 % more than last year away, like pay them in advance. They like you to do it quarterly because collecting money once a year is a bad business model. speaker-0 (34:40) And it's a bad business model. speaker-2 (34:42) So like Chris said, when a client gets those estimates, and let's say they're $25,000 a quarter, they are fixed on $25,000 a quarter. So what we do is with all of our clients in June and early July, we actually run tax projections or mock tax returns the upcoming year. We pull their year to date profit, we get all their deductions and we project out if that original safe harbor estimate has changed. Then we do it again in November and early December to make sure that you're still on track and also looking for additional ⁓ tax strategies. But to answer your question from earlier, should you be surprised with a big number? No, not if you're doing proper planning. speaker-0 (35:30) with like a little variance, but I just want to point that out because I think so many business owners get scared of taxes and this year, don't worry guys, it's on my vision board by the age of 36. I will be a tax expert. I look at it every single night. I have no desire to be a CPA, but I really think it's important as business owners to educate yourself on taxes and like you said to plan and to save for it because otherwise it's just this always surprise bill that creates stress. For me as a business owner, I know often I just feel like I don't dare spend money because I'm gonna get hit with this big unknown. And so I'm like this girl, I literally have four tax savings accounts in my business right now. And they're in like four different business accounts, so my CPA can't see them all. Because I'm like, you come to me every year with this huge surprise and every year it's like double what I thought you were gonna say. And like I'm grateful to be very successful in what we do. However, I don't think business owners should be surprised, especially if you have a good CPA. So I just wanted to like find out like, that normal? I feel like I'm on the anomaly, but good to know on that. speaker-1 (36:33) Tax surprises cause cash flow problems. speaker-2 (36:39) So Kiera, let me quantify that one of speaker-0 (36:41) Guys, don't worry. Everyone on the podcast, this is a Cura therapy session. You're welcome to be attending this. So we're glad. speaker-2 (36:48) So can there be a tax surprise? Yes. The reason the tax price might happen is if you told your CPA, hey, I'm going to be doing these improvements and they're going to be done by December 31st. If in December you tell them, well, it didn't work out and I'm not going to have all these expenses. And yes, you're going to, you're going to get a surprise because you didn't, your plan didn't follow through. The other thing is talking about the separate tax account in the business. It's, speaker-0 (37:12) That's fair. speaker-2 (37:18) Absolutely recommended, but the most important part is you cannot spend it on anything but your tax bill. You cannot not rob Peter to pay Paul. That is probably the biggest mistake you could make is saying, well, I'll take it now. I have eight months to put it back in. speaker-0 (37:34) That's like that makes my heart stop. I feel so stressed for people and also for anyone who wants to know like you I wish you could see the zoom right now with me Brent and Chris You know these guys love what we're talking about because Brent is literally getting like so excited and so animated talking about this So that's just when you know people are good at what they do I get so geek I'll geek out on dentistry and systems and like how we can help you and they're jazzing about some some tax benefits here So I agree. I think that if you aren't doing that, I also like the thought of 40 % Do you guys recommend, because I know another piece to it, which I realized this year was like charitable contributions. I'm LDS. And so having charitable contributions, 10 % is something that I was like, that was funny. We didn't prepare for that. So that's like another check that I wasn't planning. And then also like SEP and 401ks. Do you guys have anything that you recommend for that of having a tax savings fund, but also building up those other funds and those payments that you'll be making to reduce your tax bill? Yes. but those are also pretty big expenses, depending upon how your business does every year. How do you guys manage or navigate that? Or should I just be saving more? Because again, I'm like building these funds up to this, I've got four accounts, because I stress out about it. speaker-2 (38:44) So Chris, I'm gonna let you take that one on the cashflow. It's really cashflow planning. speaker-1 (38:48) Yeah, a lot of questions in there. speaker-0 (38:50) Cool, like I said, this is why I podcast guys, because I can ask my own personal questions. speaker-1 (38:57) In terms of okay, should you be doing okay. what do you want me to start a chair charitable chair? speaker-0 (39:03) Just like I think that a lot of people might get quote-unquote surprised at the end of the year because not only do we have a tax bill to pay, we have charitable contributions that we're paying. We also have 7401Ks. Like there are quite a few other funds that need to be paid out again to reduce our tax bills to help us. But those are also cashflow that you need to have on hand as a business owner to be able to front that money. So I've been also thinking that could be why other people feel like it's a surprise at the end of the year, just all lumped into taxes when it is just other pieces to help reduce that tax bill for you. speaker-1 (39:33) if something is important to you, then it needs a separate bank account. if charitable giving is important to you, I think you should have a separate bank account so you can visually see that you've got it ready to pay. And in order to make it tax deductible, it does need to be a 501C3. can't just be any random, say, it's... Right? So ⁓ when it comes to all of the retirement accounts, mean, ⁓ 401Ks and IRAs and simple IRAs and all of that, speaker-0 (39:51) about last year. speaker-1 (40:02) Roth, that's like the smallest fraction. That's like the, you know, the entry level league of the tax code in terms of savings. And it's, it's really kind of the stuff that the masses can do. I certainly think it's important to save and save for retirement. think when you're a business owner and let me say this, mean, upfront, I'm a contrarian. I think when you're a business owner, you have to be a contrarian and know that not everything applies to you the same way as everyone else. Sure. I, my bias is I have a much. stronger tendency to say, you know, spend the money in your business or put the, I should say, invest, reinvest the money in your business for growth, because it's going, there's an asset value to that, to that business. need to learn what that is and what you one day can exit it for. And it creates, gives you the most, you know, income. ⁓ If you put money into a 401k or you put money into marketing in your business, you get the same tax deduction. So that's a question. If you're looking for like year end stuff, you know, You could put the money into the, into the retirement plan, or you could prepay some expenses for next year. ⁓ You lot of people, think don't trust their business, which is weird because it's the thing you have the most control over, but they don't trust their own business. Typically it's cause they're not really great at managing their own cashflow and having discipline. And so they're, they're hesitant to invest the money in the business. And they'd rather go roll the dice and put it in the stock market. And at the time of this podcast recording, let me tell you. We are in a recession. It has already begun. Everything is very high. Stock market's high. Real estate is high. Your business is one of the safest places to put your money right now. It provides you an inflation hedge, okay? And it creates revenue. ⁓ And it's tax deductions. I'm a big believer in putting the money into your business or getting another business. I think Brent can talk about, know, people ask us like, what are some of the largest speaker-0 (41:47) Right. speaker-1 (41:56) deductions you can play in. Like what, are the bigger things you can do outside of a 401k? Tax deductions. Generally speaking, the tax code rewards you for doing things that improve our economy. And that's primarily investing in businesses, you know, adding another location, employing people and commercial real estate, commercial real estate is a big one. Again, commercial real estate's really high right now. It may not be the perfect time to be buying or building. Cause all of the costs are really high. save that cash, even if you have to pay some taxes, save the cash for liquidity for the tough times. when this recession happens, most practice owners are going to stop investing in their business, they're to stop marketing. And you got to do the opposite. That is the time where you can do all of that at its lowest cost. that's when millionaires are really made is during recession. So I'm going on a tangent now. You got me passionate speaker-0 (42:50) No, I like it. I like hearing it because I like thinking of other things. think so often you said it really well of business owners want to contract. They want to not reinvest in themselves. It's like, well, like let's put it in the stock market because that's what I heard that we should do. But I really do love that mindset. And that's why I love podcasting. That's why I love talking to different people. This is why I bring you guys on here because I purposely, intentionally bring different ways of thinking out there. You've got to make your own decisions. But I'm a big like when people are zigging, I want to zag. So right now real estate's hot. Commercial's hot. The stock market's hot. Like I literally am sitting here just thinking like, here, just sit on some cash. Like, like you said, I might have to pay more taxes on it, but sit on that cash because you know, it's going to drop. And during that time, that's when you do the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing. So I really love that advice. And I think it's wise and it's prudent. I also love what you said, Brent, of having the 40%. A lot of people say do 30%, but agreed a lot of dentists do tip into that 40 % tax bracket. And I would much rather over prepare than under prepare. Chris, to your point, I really love also having the buckets for like we said, charitable contributions, if you're going to do ⁓ 401ks, but I really, agree with you too. I think reinvest in your business. Look to see, I do end of year spending. I look to see what I could reinvest in, what things are gonna propel us the most. I look at marketing, I look at website rebuilds, I look at. Different softwares that are going to propel us forward different ways to make our our practice more efficient What things are really going to invest in our company and our team? To make it and then I just do fun things like, know trips places I definitely don't get much ROI on that except for emotional ROI, but I know I know this is a longer podcast guys I really hope and I also hope team members listening realize that this is not just for business owners. I think that this is also Individual tax prepping make sure you are preparing look for ways that you can reinvest in yourself What things could you prepare for what things can you build out? Do you have separate savings accounts for different things that you're going to maybe you don't have to save for taxes But guess what maybe one day you will be a business owner So teach yourself the discipline to save now to look for reinvestment. I also think is super valuable. So I want speaker-1 (45:05) team members, for those team members, what side hustle can you create? What side of business can you create? know, and what, what commercial or what even residential property, rental property could you create to give yourself rental income? And there are deductions that come along with that. But if all you do is just do your day to day job, whether you own a business or don't own a business, you're not going to save anything in taxes, nothing significant. got it. You got to create some value in the world out there. speaker-0 (45:29) Agreed. say deliver the biggest and best value. So you guys teased me. So I want to wrap up our podcast with some things to not be doing. You guys have kind of like a hit list right now of some things, some tips that a lot of us might be doing that are cracking down. I know I have been privy to some of these things as well. So take us away. We'll wrap this up with just some, some of that hit list of what not to do. ⁓ and you know, as we get in there, thank you guys for sharing all that you have. Thank you for doing a personal session with me already. So I'm excited for the hit list now. speaker-2 (46:01) So I would say the biggest one that I've seen is the fascination that doctors have with crypto. speaker-1 (46:01) Go ahead, Brent. speaker-0 (46:12) Brent, it's because we're bored. We don't know what else to do with ourselves, so we're like, why not throw a little into crypto? speaker-2 (46:17) Here's the problem. So I have about a half a dozen doctors over last six months. They called me and said, Hey, I put $200,000 into the crypto market, Bitcoin. And I'm like, really? Where did you, where did you write the check from for that investment from the practice? Here's the problem. If that practice is an S corporation and they invest that money in crypto and they hit it big, they could potentially blow up their IRS S corp election. and the IRS will take it away from you. So if you're gonna do investments, do not write the check from your practice. You can take the money home as a distribution, then put it into crypto, but do not do it through your business. speaker-0 (47:01) This is a moment where I just had like a, I'm like, good. I'm glad I did that at least right. even knowing. Why is that? speaker-1 (47:03) Sorry. So that one, I mean, that one can cause some serious damage. ⁓ But the other ones that I think nobody wants to hear when they're listening to this, and I get in all these battles on social media, Facebook groups and all that. But the two things that come up over and over and over again that everybody's kind of cheating on and they're going to get busted on is number one, paying employees and especially dentists and hygienists, paying them as 1099 contractors. This is going to get you in trouble not only with the IRS, but with the Department of Labor. And there are some significant penalties. There is a black and white 20 question checklist that the IRS provides. You can Google that. You can find it directly on the IRS website. And it goes through a checklist of yes or no questions to determine if you qualify to be a 1099 independent contractor or if you fit the requirements of a W-2. And to simplify it, The main thing is the element of control who controls the schedule, who tells you which patients you're seeing and when who's providing all the materials and the tools and equipment. And 99 % of the time, anyone in dentistry falls under the category of an employee. Pretty much have to be a specialist that owns their own separate practice already coming in part time in order for you to 10 99 them. And if you're 10 99ing them, you're 10 and you have to do it to their business. The other thing that doesn't work is when, you know, they're like, Oh, I'm an individual doctor. I'll just set up an S corp and you can 1099 my escort. The IRS is not stupid. Again, they're they're looking at what are your what is your role within that that place that you're receiving the income from the revenue from. So anyway, everybody hates that. But I'm telling you, I speaker-0 (48:58) I don't think it's a, it's not a good place to play with fire. Um, I have a really, really, really awesome unemployment lawyer, um, and employment lawyer. He represents Uber Lyft Red Bull. He's in, um, San Francisco. If you guys need him, he's amazing. Reach out to us. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Um, but he told me he said, Kiera Uber and Lyft, which I personally think I'm no lawyer guys. I'm not there. Uber and Lyft to me are the epitome of 10 99 contractors. but they are, ⁓ they're coming down, they're cracking down on it. And ⁓ I have heard that it is no longer just a small offense. It's a pretty big offense if you misclassify. To me, really, I'm a risky person, but I believe in being smart and also paying people the way they should be paid. As much as it's not fun, we transitioned our whole company and I just think play that one safe because labor laws are not something to ever mess with, in my opinion. speaker-1 (49:51) Yep. And you know, the government has shelled out a lot of money through this pandemic and they've got to collect it and get it back. And they're going to get that back from small business owners. And, ⁓ you know, our, our dependent care systems of Medicare and social security are very fragile right now. And that's the one thing they do not want you to screw with. And so they collect that money through W2 payroll. They're going to, they're going to force more and more than everybody's W2, especially in the occupation of dentistry. Second thing is the cars. Okay. Everybody wants to run their cars through the business. You might be allowed to run a car through your business. It depends on what type of business you're in. If you're in real estate and you're showing houses and you're driving your clients around, you can probably write your car off through your business. But in dentistry, you're going to sit across the table from an auditor and they're going to say, what does a car have to do with the business of dentistry? The IRS tax code says that your business expenses must be ordinary and necessary to the business for them to be deductible. What does the car have to do with the business of dentistry? How is a vehicle ⁓ justified as 100 % business use as a necessary use in order to do dentistry? speaker-0 (51:00) What if it's a wrapped vehicle that's marketing? speaker-1 (51:03) That's different. there are very specific guidelines in the IRS tax code about what is marketing for a vehicle. must be fully wrapped. It can't just be magnets. It can't just be stickers. But it has to be significant that's used for marketing. What we find is not a lot of doctors want to wrap their test up. speaker-0 (51:23) Because they're ticked off with the patient that Ruekinaal didn't go super well and they're cutting people off on their drive home and you don't really want your flashy business to be that car. speaker-1 (51:31) Right. I mean, and to make it legitimate, mean, the car has to be legally registered in the business name. It has to be covered under business insurance, not your personal insurance. The loan has to be under the business name, not your personal name. And there's a, you know, most people are not doing that. They're doing, they're buying it personally. They're just making the payment out of their, out of their business. And they think that they can deduct the whole thing. And this is not true. There's even greater scrutiny if the business tries to buy, if the dental business tries to buy a vehicle. and depreciate it, take it as 100 % use. So I know people hate to hear that, but I would just caution everyone listening, stay away from 1099 and cars in your business. But everyone's. speaker-2 (52:12) doing it! speaker-0 (52:13) I heard a really great quote one day and they said Kiera everything's deductible until you get audited and I was like That's really good advice. I appreciate that. So guys, ⁓ Chris and Brent. Thank you guys for coming on the podcast Thank you for being people that I can call Brent. Thank you for being my December, you know midnight hour friend I loved last year. You said care. There's really not much we can do. Maybe we should have done this in January. So ⁓ But truly, I just appreciate you guys helping so many doctors. know you help a lot of our clients. Shout out to those clients that we mutually work together. I love working with CPA companies. I think we're a good peanut butter and jelly together. We help grow the practice, make them more profitable. You guys make sure that their books are in line. Give us the guiding stars of what levers to turn to help the practices. You take care of the taxes. So it's a really good yin and yang and I hope all of you listening today found a lot of value. Team members, look at this for yourselves. Get the side hustle. I hope this spurred some, some topics, some conversation. Team members, can also help your practices reduce that tax bill. look for ways that you can spend end of year, just different things. So I definitely think team members have a lot of play in this as well. So Chris and Brent, thank you guys so much. It's super fun. If people want to connect with you, ⁓ maybe they're done with their CPA. Maybe they just want to find out if. There might be another option out there. How can they connect with you? I know you guys specialize in DSOs, larger group practices, but also the solo practices as well. How can people connect if they're interested? speaker-1 (53:40) Sure, so check us out online at our website, Profi2020.com. That's P-R-O-F-I-2-0-2-0.com. ⁓ speaker-0 (53:47) You did that because 2020 was such a great year that you guys want to remember. ⁓ speaker-1 (53:53) That marketing plan went out the window. It was 20-20 clarity to give you clarity on your finance. speaker-0 (53:54) No. I just thought I'd throw it out there. So no one will forget Pro-Fi 2020. 2020 was most memorable year guys. Don't forget it. They don't want to forget it ever. speaker-1 (54:07) We have tons of free videos, a lot of great content on there. Check us out on our YouTube channel, all social media, know, at Profi2020. We're very easy to find. ⁓ But we're managerial accountants. It's way different than financial accountants out there. Make sure you look up that difference and know what you're asking for. ⁓ And we always do free consultations for anyone who would like it. speaker-0 (54:29) Awesome. Well, Chris and Brent, thank you again so much, guys. Go check them out, Profi2020. Chris and Brent, they are the owners of the organization. So super grateful for you guys coming on here. Kiera Dent (54:38) I hope you all loved today's episode as much as I did. It is crazy to think that this many episodes have been released since we started the Dental A Team Podcast. And I started looking to say, my goodness, our listeners need to be reminded of some of the things they may have learned a year ago or two years ago or five years ago, because so many things in our practices weren't relevant back then when we heard them, but they are relevant today. And I would be doing you a huge disservice if I didn't re-release some of these episodes for you to remember, to refine. to optimize and really truly if you ever need a topic or you're like, my gosh, I wonder if the Dental A Team has anything like this, go onto our website, TheDentalATeam.com, click on our podcast tab and you can literally search any topic. So whether it's overhead or hiring or firing or team morale or engagement or case acceptance or hygiene onboarding or whatever it is, we have so many episodes for you. And so I am going to intentionally be re-releasing some of the top best episodes for you, pulling back some of the ones that I needed to remember, some of the things that I feel for you to really, really relearn right now and to re-remember, or if it's the first time, welcome. I'm so happy you're listening to it, but I hope you truly enjoyed today's episode. I hope that you share this with somebody. I hope that you go and implement today because we only have one day. We only get today. And so making today the best that it possibly can be. If we can help you in any way, shape or form, reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. And as always, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.
Since October 2024, people in South Cobb have been able to reserve on-demand transit through the CobbLinc Go pilot program. The public transit, two-year program, provides "curb to curb" service for passengers over 26 square miles across Austell, Powder Springs, and southwestern Marietta. It’s similar to requesting an Uber or Lyft, but at a cost of $2.50 per ride. Drew Raessler, who serves as the director of the Cobb County Department of Transportation, joins "Closer Look" to discuss the success and challenges of the program and to provide an update about the possibility of expanding the program to other cities in Cobb County. Also on today’s “Closer Look,” The performances of Echoes of the Storm: 20 Years After Katrina recalls the tragedy and resilience of those impacted by the massive Category 5 hurricane. The Apollo Theater, the National Black Arts Festival, and Spelman College collaborated to produce the six 10-minute plays. Leatrice Ellzy, president and CEO of the National Black Arts Festival, and Aku Kadogo, a senior instructor in Spelman’s theater department, spoke with “Closer Look” host Rose Scott about the production.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chicago's bike and scooter share system operated by Lyft says it plans to open 200 more stations in the city this year. The city says Divvy saw its highest annual ridership in 2025 with 6.8 million trips. The city also says Divvy is continuing its 5-dollar annual membership for people in Equity Priority Areas in parts of the South and West sides of Chicago.
(March 11, 2026) Amy King and Neil Saavedra join Bill for Handel on the News. US says it destroyed 16 Iranian minelayers. Pentagon says 140 US service members wounded since Iran war started. Georgia, Mississippi elections: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s replacement and other key takeaways. LAX board approves rate hike for companies like Uber, Lyft and others.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Join Lionel on The Other Side of Midnight for a hilarious and unfiltered dive into life's everyday absurdities and media inaccuracies. In this episode, Lionel and his callers tear apart ridiculous Hollywood tropes, laughing at weightless luggage, endless bullets, unplugged DJ gear, and movie criminals who bizarrely turn off the television right when the news story is about them. The rants don't stop at the silver screen; buckle up for hilarious critiques of the cultural obsession with Stanley mugs, the strange allure of Buc-ee's immaculate bathrooms, ridiculous Lyft cleaning fees, and the bizarre true saga of a serial police impersonator. Featuring behind-the-scenes secrets from a Hollywood stand-in who earns insulting 35-cent residual checks, this episode is a wildly entertaining journey through the quirks and annoyances of modern life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to Show Me The Money Club live show with Sergio and Chris Tuesdays 6pm est/3pm pst.
A new women‑only ride‑matching option from Uber is at the center of a lawsuit brought by male drivers. We examine the arguments, safety concerns in the rideshare industry, and how similar features from Lyft have functioned for riders.
Oil is on the minds of the worlds most wealthy nations and today they made a decision they hope will bring down its price. That story is where we begin this evening. This is The Business News Headlines for Wednesday the 11th day of March, thank you for listening. In other news, inflation is still with us and we'll share the latest. Drones and the sons of Donald Trump made the news today. A wild Lyft story comes to us out of Minnesota. The partial shutdown of the government is, once again, impacting travelers. A major chemical company announces the end of a substance that is banned in 70 countries. We'll check the numbers in The Wall Street Report and new news from Target on price reductions as the company eyes…affordability. Let's go! Thanks for listening! The award winning Insight on Business the News Hour with Michael Libbie is the only weekday business news podcast in the Midwest. The national, regional and some local business news along with long-form business interviews can be heard Monday - Friday. You can subscribe on PlayerFM, Podbean, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio. And you can catch The Business News Hour Week in Review each Sunday Noon Central on News/Talk 1540 KXEL. The Business News Hour is a production of Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications. You can follow us on Twitter @IoB_NewsHour...and on Threads @Insight_On_Business.
This week, we start the episode off detailing Minkis's near-death experience with a Lyft driver who drove off with his coat stuck in the door. Lyft has some 'splaining to do! We wrap up the Jim Carrey doppelganger incident, before running down the list of random sports that have seen an uptick. We cap the episode off with a war being fought on our own shores... the Burger CEO wars, we also relearn Travis's past employment at fast food restaurants.Next time you're maxin' and relaxin' on the john, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube, and like and follow us on all of our socials!
March 9, 2026- We chat about the lack of wheelchair accessible rides provided by services like Uber and Lyft. Our guests are Justin Wood and Eman Rimawi-Doster, from New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
I spent time this week in a musical improv class, and it was a masterclass in one thing: staying on the beat. In improv, if your mind wanders for even a second, you're out of sync with the whole team. It made me think about a request my son made when he was little for my "phone-free attention." That request stuck with me because giving someone our undivided focus is the most basic act of leadership we can offer. In this micro-lesson, I'm exploring why inclusion isn't a grand gesture—it's the radical, simple act of being fully present. Takeaways: The Gift of Presence: Why undivided attention is a non-negotiable leadership skill. Mental Leftovers: How to stop dragging the energy of your last "scene" into your next meeting. Tactical Grounding: Why staying in the moment sometimes requires tools like compartmentalizing (or even fidget toys). Your Challenge: Where are you finding it hard to stay on the beat today, and what's one thing you can do to tune back in? Good Vibes to Go: Watch the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light on Apple TV. It's about poet Andrea Gibson navigating their terminal diagnosis. It sounds dark but it's actually joyful, love-filled, and even funny. Connect with Me The Newsletter: This week in the newsletter, I wrote about prime-time disability leadership in Major League Baseball coverage, funding the first Inuit-led university, and more! Subscribe to the 5 Things Newsletter here. Work with Me: Let's talk. Watch 5 Things on YouTube. Join thousands of readers by subscribing to the 5 Things newsletter. Enjoy some good vibes every Saturday morning. https://5thingsdei.com/
This week… Uber and Lyft drivers say there's too much competition on the road. Washington and British Columbia are now in different time zones. And the King County Library is throwing it back to the 90s by letting adults read for free pizza. Drag Queen and Entrepreneur Chase Burns and Stranger News Editor Vivian McCall are here to break down the week. We can only make Seattle Now because listeners support us. Tap here to make a gift and keep Seattle Now in your feed. Got questions about local news or story ideas to share? We want to hear from you! Email us at seattlenow@kuow.org, leave us a voicemail at (206) 616-6746 or leave us feedback online.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What is a Nice Guy™ to do when the sub he's playing with refuses to enumerate her wants/needs? Is it pressure-y to insist on a discussion? And, more broadly, how are nice and good men supposed to operate as Doms? Lina chimes in this week on one of her favorite subjects — Men! Not to bash them, but to encourage them along the road to constructive masculinity and their best selves. Become a Patreon member to gain access to all the Ask A Sub benefits including our discord server, archive of premium audio and written posts, as well as our new podcast within a podcast, OTK with Lina and Mr. Dune. Submit questions for this podcast by going to memo.fm/askasub and recording a voice memo. Subscribe to the subby substack here. See the paid post archive here. Wherever you're going, Lyft will help you get there. Download Lyft today! Get 20% off your order at http://www.momotaroapotheca.com with code LINADUNE Twitter | @Lina.Dune | @askasub2.0 CREDITS Created, Hosted, Produced and Edited by Lina Dune With Additional Support from Mr. Dune Artwork by Kayleigh Denner Music by Dan Molad
Welcome to Show Me The Money Club live show with Sergio and Chris Tuesdays 6pm est/3pm pst.
We would love to hear your feedback!We trade late-night rideshare stories with real safety lessons, then dig into Uber's background check controversy, the pace of misconduct reports, and what policy changes could actually protect people. We also explore Uber's EV charging push, a new trash-day gig app, Life360's family integration, Waymo's assertive maneuvers, and DoorDash's retail surge.• fast-driving Uber and Lyft rides, phone mount risks, rating and reporting choices• lifetime bans for sexual offenses and violent felonies, extended lookbacks for others• Uber's $100m EV charging network, DC fast charging economics, hybrid advantage• Crew Home app for short-term rental trash routes, route density, and payout clarity• Life360 and Uber linking for teen rides and real-time location• dashcam value, boundaries when riders leave kids or push unsafe requests• Waymo lane aggression and how autonomy should yield• DoorDash growth in flowers, retail partners, and on-demand convenienceThank you, guys, for supporting the show. If you would like to support the show, go to patreon.com/thegigeconpodcastPlease fill out the survey for a chance for a 25.00 Gift Card! The SafeWork Advantage PodcastMost workplaces react to violence—SafeWork Advantage shows employers how to prevent it.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showEverything Gig Economy Podcast Related: Download the audio podcast Newsletter Octopus is a mobile entertainment tablet for your riders. Earn 100.00 per month for having the tablet in your car! No cost for the driver! Want to earn more and stay safe? Download Maxymo Love the show? You now have the opportunity to support the show with some great rewards by becoming a Patron. Tier #2 we offer free merch, an Extra in-depth podcast per month, and an NSFW pre-show https://www.patreon.com/thegigeconpodcast The Gig Economy Podcast Group. Download Telegram 1st, then click on the link to join. TikTok Subscribe on Youtube
Shawn O'Malley and Daniel Mahncke break down the ride-sharing giant Lyft Inc. (ticker: LYFT) and discuss whether the company can regain ground against Uber, or whether it's always destined to be #2. While Lyft has clawed back some market share, finally attained profitability, and is now growing internationally, Shawn finds Lyft most interesting as a potential acquisition target for a company like DoorDash, Amazon, or Alphabet. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:18 - Why Lyft could be such an interesting acquisition target 00:11:58 - How the company has actually managed to regain market share versus Uber 00:13:36 - What Lyft did to achieve operating profitability for the first time this year 00:24:24 - How Zimbabwe became the inspiration for Lyft 00:31:30 - How Lyft's co-founders used viral marketing to gain traction 00:32:05 - Why scrappiness is in Lyft's DNA 00:33:14 - Why Lyft made sure to IPO before Uber 01:16:05 - How to think about modeling LYFT's intrinsic value 01:19:00 - Whether Shawn and Daniel add LYFT to their Intrinsic Value Portfolio *Disclaimer: Slight timestamp discrepancies may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES The Investors Podcast Network is excited to debut a new community known as The Intrinsic Value Community for investors to learn, share ideas, network, and join calls with experts: Sign up for the waitlist(!) Sign up for The Intrinsic Value Newsletter. Learn how to join us in Omaha for the 2026 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting. Track The Intrinsic Value Portfolio. Shawn & Daniel use Fiscal.ai for every company they research — use their referral link to get started with a 15% discount! Learn how to join us in Omaha for the 2026 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting. Acquired podcast's coverage of the Lyft IPO. Lyft's CEO on the shift to robotaxis. Value Investor's Club pitch for Lyft. Lyft's S1 filing. Check out our previous Intrinsic Value breakdowns: Transdigm, Salesforce, Berkshire Hathaway, FICO, PayPal, Uber, Nike, Amazon, Airbnb, Alphabet. Related books mentioned in the podcast. Ad-free episodes on our Premium Feed. NEW TO THE SHOW? Follow our official social media accounts: X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | Facebook. Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) here. Try Shawn's favorite tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance. Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts. References to any third-party products, services, or advertisers do not constitute endorsements, and The Investor's Podcast Network is not responsible for any claims made by them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm
Just Killin Time 03/08/26 Show by Radio TFI
Invest Like the Best: Read the notes at at podcastnotes.org. Don't forget to subscribe for free to our newsletter, the top 10 ideas of the week, every Monday --------- My guest today is Dan Sundheim. Dan is the founder and CIO of D1 Capital Partners. He thinks about markets and businesses constantly, and has built a career entirely around that obsession. He manages over $30B across both public and private markets, with investments in SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, and a public portfolio of names you may never have heard of. Dan shares the story of the short case he wrote on Orthodontic Centers of America and posted on Value Investors Club, which crashed the stock, and helped him land his first job. He shares why he backed Anthropic at a moment when many people told him it was the Lyft to OpenAI's Uber, what reading Dario Amodei's essays reminded him of Jeff Bezos, and how he thinks about LLM business models through the lens of Netflix and Spotify. We spend time on the extraordinarily stressful moment in early 2021 when GameStop hit the firm, and what Dan believes is the single biggest tail risk facing the global economy right now. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- Become a Colossus member to get our quarterly print magazine and private audio experience, including exclusive profiles and early access to select episodes. Subscribe at colossus.com/subscribe. ----- Ramp's mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. ----- Trusted by thousands of businesses, Vanta continuously monitors your security posture and streamlines audits so you can win enterprise deals and build customer trust without the traditional overhead. Visit vanta.com/invest. ----- WorkOS is a developer platform that enables SaaS companies to quickly add enterprise features to their applications. Visit WorkOS.com to transform your application into an enterprise-ready solution in minutes, not months. ----- Rogo is the AI platform for finance. They're building agents for Wall Street that are trained to understand how bankers and investors actually do work: from diligence and modeling, to turning analysis into deliverables. To learn more, visit rogo.ai/invest. ----- Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Visit ridgelineapps.com. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Timestamps: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:02:43) Intro: Dan Sundheim (00:03:58) The State of Public & Private Investing (00:07:32) Investing in OpenAI and Anthropic (00:10:22) LLMs Business Model (00:14:13) How LLMs are like Netflix and Spotify (00:17:08) Focus v. Scope (00:22:43) The Bear Case for Hyperscalers (00:26:36) The Software Sell-Off (00:31:08) If Scaling Laws Stopped (00:32:18) Advice to a 12-Year-Old Investor (00:33:54) GameStop: D1's Darkest Hour (00:37:14) The Pivotal Dinner with LPs (00:40:56) Staying Calm and Confident (00:42:08) Economic Optimism vs. Societal Uncertainty (00:44:26) Investing on SpaceX and Rivian (00:48:09) Why Dan Loves Shorting (00:48:51) Sources of Inefficiency in Today's Markets (00:51:45) The Importance of Loyalty (00:53:11) Dan's Group Chat for Founders (00:55:39) What Motivates Dan (00:57:28) Posting on Value Investors Club (01:01:46) What Dan Learned at Viking (01:04:22) The Beauty of Art (01:06:49) Under-appreciated Parts of the Global Economy (01:08:00) The US-China-Taiwan Collision Course (01:12:10) Good Leaders vs. Good Businesses (01:13:15) The Kindest Thing
Welcome to Show Me The Money Club live show with Sergio and Chris Tuesdays 6pm est/3pm pst.
Ted och Kaj talar om kraften i ett bra mysterium. Ted har fått en österbottnisk överraskning och Kaj är besatt av ett batteri.
My guest today is Dan Sundheim. Dan is the founder and CIO of D1 Capital Partners. He thinks about markets and businesses constantly, and has built a career entirely around that obsession. He manages over $30B across both public and private markets, with investments in SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, and a public portfolio of names you may never have heard of. Dan shares the story of the short case he wrote on Orthodontic Centers of America and posted on Value Investors Club, which crashed the stock, and helped him land his first job. He shares why he backed Anthropic at a moment when many people told him it was the Lyft to OpenAI's Uber, what reading Dario Amodei's essays reminded him of Jeff Bezos, and how he thinks about LLM business models through the lens of Netflix and Spotify. We spend time on the extraordinarily stressful moment in early 2021 when GameStop hit the firm, and what Dan believes is the single biggest tail risk facing the global economy right now. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- Become a Colossus member to get our quarterly print magazine and private audio experience, including exclusive profiles and early access to select episodes. Subscribe at colossus.com/subscribe. ----- Ramp's mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. ----- Trusted by thousands of businesses, Vanta continuously monitors your security posture and streamlines audits so you can win enterprise deals and build customer trust without the traditional overhead. Visit vanta.com/invest. ----- WorkOS is a developer platform that enables SaaS companies to quickly add enterprise features to their applications. Visit WorkOS.com to transform your application into an enterprise-ready solution in minutes, not months. ----- Rogo is the AI platform for finance. They're building agents for Wall Street that are trained to understand how bankers and investors actually do work: from diligence and modeling, to turning analysis into deliverables. To learn more, visit rogo.ai/invest. ----- Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Visit ridgelineapps.com. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Timestamps: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:02:43) Intro: Dan Sundheim (00:03:58) The State of Public & Private Investing (00:07:32) Investing in OpenAI and Anthropic (00:10:22) LLMs Business Model (00:14:13) How LLMs are like Netflix and Spotify (00:17:08) Focus v. Scope (00:22:43) The Bear Case for Hyperscalers (00:26:36) The Software Sell-Off (00:31:08) If Scaling Laws Stopped (00:32:18) Advice to a 12-Year-Old Investor (00:33:54) GameStop: D1's Darkest Hour (00:37:14) The Pivotal Dinner with LPs (00:40:56) Staying Calm and Confident (00:42:08) Economic Optimism vs. Societal Uncertainty (00:44:26) Investing on SpaceX and Rivian (00:48:09) Why Dan Loves Shorting (00:48:51) Sources of Inefficiency in Today's Markets (00:51:45) The Importance of Loyalty (00:53:11) Dan's Group Chat for Founders (00:55:39) What Motivates Dan (00:57:28) Posting on Value Investors Club (01:01:46) What Dan Learned at Viking (01:04:22) The Beauty of Art (01:06:49) Under-appreciated Parts of the Global Economy (01:08:00) The US-China-Taiwan Collision Course (01:12:10) Good Leaders vs. Good Businesses (01:13:15) The Kindest Thing
What if the difference between scaling up and burning out comes down to just one overlooked decision you make today?In this exclusive Second in Command episode, Cameron Herold sits down with Jon McNeill, former President of Tesla and COO of Lyft, and current CEO and Co-Founder of DVx Ventures, for a bold, eye-opening deep dive into the raw realities of being second in command at companies that redefine entire industries.You'll hear battle-tested lessons on navigating visionary founders, eliminating organizational bloat, and building operating systems that drive exponential growth, plus what most leaders get dead wrong about innovation, hiring, and execution at scale.If you crave real-world playbooks and not more recycled platitudes, hit play now. Miss this conversation and risk falling into the same chaos that sinks even the greatest companies. Listen today to steal field-proven COO frameworks you won't hear anywhere else before your competition does.Timestamped Highlights[00:03:16] – The $108 million mistake: why Jon McNeill turned down Uber and Tesla before they became giants[00:07:22] – From Bain to boardrooms: how Cameron Herold went from $1.8B to $20B in 30 months[00:14:49] – What it really feels like to drop into Tesla's leadership team—no roadmap, only chaos[00:17:04] – The pivotal moment Cameron Herold broke the rules at Tesla and why Elon Musk said “You'll fit right in”[00:21:09] – The “Big Thing” meeting—the deceptively simple method Cameron Herold stole from Facebook's top minds[00:26:43] – How to push back (and win) with the world's most demanding CEO[00:36:11] – The ruthless self-topgrading system that kept Tesla lean—could you survive it?[00:47:11] – Tesla's “Algorithm” revealed: the counterintuitive systems any leader can stealAbout the GuestJon McNeill is the former President of Tesla and COO of Lyft, a renowned serial entrepreneur, and current CEO and Co-founder of DVx Ventures. Recognized for multiplying company valuations and pioneering operational mastery at the world's most innovative companies, Jon now empowers founders and operators to scale with speed and discipline. His latest book, The Algorithm, reveals the operating system behind Tesla's success and is quickly becoming a must-read for growth-focused leaders.
Following a historic supermajority win for Japan's governing party, the Nikkei 225 surged 5% to record highs. We will discuss the return of foreign capital to Japanese markets and the strength of the Yen.Today's Stocks & Topics: Graco Inc. (GGG), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL), Market Wrap, Japan's Political Shift & The Nikkei Surge, Onto Innovation Inc. (ONTO), Roper Technologies, Inc. (ROP), The Commodity Industry, Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNQ), Lyft, Inc. (LYFT), Jobs Report.Our Sponsors:* Check out Anthropic: https://claude.ai/invest* Check out Pebl: https://hipebl.ai* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/INVESTAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Nelson Nigel is the founder and CEO of Kidmoto, a tech-enabled transportation company that provides safe airport transfers with properly installed child car seats. What started in 2016 as a frustrating observation while driving for Uber turned into a seven-figure business operating in 80+ cities globally. After losing everything in real estate during the 2008 crash, driving a New York City yellow cab, and grinding through years of failed ventures, Nelson bootstrapped Kidmoto with just a few hundred dollars and two car seats. Today, the company has completed over 40,000 rides and reached a $25M valuation—without raising outside capital. On this episode we talk about: Identifying a gap Uber and Lyft ignored Bootstrapping a tech company with no outside funding Expanding from one city to 80+ global markets Recruiting drivers in a niche no one believed in Building a profitable, purpose-driven business Top 3 Takeaways Your Best Business Idea Might Come From Your Day Job.Nelson spotted the problem while driving Uber full-time. Instead of complaining, he built the solution. Relentless Work Ethic Wins Early.4:15 a.m. to midnight. Seven days a week. Years of grind before traction. There's no shortcut for showing up consistently. Solve a Real Pain Point.Traveling with kids is stressful. Kidmoto eliminates one major headache—safe airport transportation with car seats—making it a service parents gladly pay a premium for. Notable Quotes “You just have to be relentless.” “When you're happy and you love what you're doing, that's what it's about.” “Shoot for the stars—because if you land on the moon, it's not a bad place to be.” Connect with Nelson Nigel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonnigel/ Other: https://kidmoto.taxi Travis Makes Money is made possible by High Level – the All-In-One Sales & Marketing Platform built for agencies, by an agency. Capture leads, nurture them, and close more deals—all from one powerful platform. Get an extended free trial at gohighlevel.com/travis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When you're exploring New York City, you will be quite reliant on your phone for navigating, finding restaurants, and buying tickets for attractions and events.Make sure you download some essential apps to avoid long lines, save money, and make the most of your time in the city.1. CitymapperCitymapper is a fan favorite for effectively getting around New York City. Many users highlight its feature of calling out exactly which car to ride in for transfers and fastest exits. 2. Google MapsGoogle Maps is our personal go-to app for getting around NYC. I love having all my saved spots (access all our Google Maps lists for free here), transit options, and reviews in one spot.3. MyMTA and/or TrainTimeMyMTA is great for the subway. TrainTime is vital when using Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. You can even buy and activate/use train tickets within the app!4. CurbCurb makes it easy to pair and pay for taxi rides. You can also hail taxis from within the Curb app, though we don't do it often.5. Uber & Lyft (for bikes, too)Uber & Lyft are great apps for New York City. Most people are familiar with the concept, but it allows you to hail rides from any location at any time. If you're new to Uber, you can get 50% off your first two rides here!
Anya Cheng, Founder and CEO of Taelor, is making personal styling accessible to everyday professionals with an AI-powered clothing-on-demand service built for busy men and influencers. After 15 years leading product teams at companies like Meta, eBay, McDonald's, and Target, Anya turned her own frustration with shopping and laundry into a mission-driven business that helps people look great, feel confident, and save time—while also supporting sustainability by keeping more clothing out of landfills. We explore Anya's Product Management Framework, the structured approach she uses to build and scale products. Instead of starting with technology, she begins by Identifying the Right Problem, then Looking at the Persona, Validating the Buying Journey, and Identifying Pain Points. From there, she Selects Decision Criteria to prioritize what matters most, Brainstorms Solutions, and finally Identifies the Right Solution based on impact, feasibility, and business value. She explains how this framework guides everything from launching Taelor to deciding which AI features to build next. — 7-Steps to Winning Products with Anya Cheng Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here, Founder of the Summit OS Group. And my guest today is Anya Cheng, the Founder and CEO of Taelor, an AI-powered clothing on-demand service for men and social media influencers. Anya, welcome to the show. Hello, this is Anya from San Francisco. I’m the founder of Taelor. We use AI to pick clothes for busy men. In the old days, only celebrities had their own human stylists. Now everyone can have their own AI stylist, and we send people real clothes to rent. Before starting the company, I spent 15 years in big tech companies. Most recently at Meta, where I helped build Facebook and Instagram Shopping. I was Head of Product at eBay and helped them launch new businesses in the US, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. I was also a Senior Director at McDonald’s, where I helped build their food delivery business globally when Uber Eats just started, and I helped Target build a tech office here in Silicon Valley. I’m excited to share more. Okay, well we already got a lot out of you, so thank you for giving this quick bio. What I’m very interested in is what drives you. So you worked for Target. I think you worked for Amazon, at least with Amazon. You worked for other big tech. EBay, McDonald’s, and Facebook. Yes, so big tech companies like Meta. What makes someone who is a successful leader in big tech break out start as an entrepreneur? What is your personal “Why” that drives you and that you want to manifest in your business? Yeah, it actually start with my personal problems that I had. When I was working for Meta, I was a few female leaders there leading large technology team. So I felt a little bit of imposter syndrome. I wanted to look great, but I don’t want people to find out that I’m freaking out every day. So I tried some subscription boxes like Stitch Fix, which is similar to the old Trunk Club. It's good that someone styles you. But once you receive those boxes, you have to decide right away: how many times am I going to wear these clothes? And you have to buy before you can wear them. So can I find something even cheaper somewhere else? How do I pair these items? And once I buy them, I have to do laundry, ironing, and folding. It's just a lot of work. So I started using rental companies. I rented from companies like Nuuly, which is a $500 million revenue company, or companies like Rent the Runway, which is a public company. They are all great—you can rent, you don’t have to buy. But they require people to pick from hundreds of thousands of garments. You spend two hours picking, picking, picking, browsing, browsing, browsing. And I’m not into fashion. I don’t like fashion. I don’t have time to do shopping. I'm not fashion-forward, so I don't even know how to pick. That was the “aha” moment for me— I realized most fashion companies are designed for people who are into fashion, not for people like me who just want to get ready for the day and be successful.Share on X So I started doing research. Are there other people like me—who hate shopping and laundry but need to look good, be socially active, go to meetings, close deals, get jobs? It turns out there are a lot of people like me: busy men, single guys, salespeople, consultants, pastors, recruiters, professors. There are 15 million single men, 14 million sales professionals in the U.S., and it turns out we started Taelor to help people like me look great without having to think about fashion. Well, I don't know—if you look at my shirt, I probably could also use some Taelor treatment, an AI telling me how to dress better. So what drives you? I understand this is a great idea and definitely necessary, but what makes you excited about it? I think I've personally always been passionate about helping people achieve their goals. I started as a blue-collar kid—my mom is a housewife, my dad is a factory worker, originally from Taiwan, and they've been in the U.S. for 20 years. As an immigrant, I came to the U.S. and was very lucky to have a lot of people help me. I got a student long ago, went to Northwestern University, got my MBA from the University of Chicago. I came to the U.S. without knowing anyone here, but many people helped me achieve the American dream. So it has always been in my heart to help more people achieve their dreams. What I realized was that dressing well really helped me—almost like a student who buys a textbook and feels ready for the exam even though they haven't read it yet.Share on X People using amazing software or tools will buy books or start learning and already feel smarter than before. It's really a peace of mind that helped me. So I've always been passionate about how I can help more people achieve their goals, their dreams, and their full potential. I realized this business helps me do that. I've tried to do that in other ways before: I've published books, created online courses, and taught at Northwestern University. But this business is an additional way to help people achieve their goals. At the same time, my co-founder, Phoebe, who is originally from Malaysia, she has been in the U.S. for 20 years. Growing up, she wanted to be a fashion designer, but in an Asian family, she became an accountant and finance professional, eventually a CFO. She always had a little spark in her heart to do something related to fashion, and she is very passionate about sustainability. She constantly talks about how today, 30% of clothes go directly from factories to landfills, generating 10% of carbon emissions and polluting 20% of the world's water. Sustainability is really close to her heart. By the time she had worked for 15 years, she felt ready for a change, and we both shared the same vision. That's how we started the business together. Love it. It's really a mission-driven company. I didn't realize this when we first talked, but a lot of people are held back by not being well-dressed. Again, I don’t want to be the example here. I also like the idea because my daughter talks a lot about throwing away clothes and how much damage it does to the environment. I really like that you help people wear and buy only the clothes they actually need and send back the ones they don't. This is awesome. So let's switch gears here. I'm really curious about how you develop your products because this is a very creative business. You have to develop a new, revolutionary concept and product. Do you have a framework for developing these products? Yeah, absolutely. We always start with the problem we are solving. I teach product management at Northwestern University, and most people, when they think about building a product, their first thought is, “Hey, what product am I building? How do I build it? What technology should I use?” We use AI to build this—we build AI agents—but in fact, you should take a step back. There are two equally important questions you need to ask: what problem should I solve, and what solution should I pick? Most people spend 95% of their time thinking about what solution to pick. But first, you need to figure out what problem you should solve. The problem you solve is actually the most important thing, because if you're solving the wrong problem—one that people don't care about, or one that won't help your business, or one that you can't actually solve—then no matter how great your solution is, it's going to be a waste of time. For example, what we found is that we are totally different from women's rental companies. The problem we are solving is for guys who are busy but socially active. They have dreams. As a realtor, I want to sell one more house. As a small business owner, I want to grow my business to open a second restaurant. So they have a dream. Dressing well and looking good is something that helps increase their chances of success—getting a job, closing a deal, showing up confidently.Share on X What we are really selling is a concierge service, an executive assistant, a fairy godmother, a gadget guy behind the superhero—it's peace of mind. If you look at women's counterparts, like Nuuly or Rent the Runway, they have hundreds of millions in revenue each, but they are solving a problem for women like me. So we want to look great every single day and want to wear different things. So wearing different thing versus, I don’t want to think about it, is actually totally different problem. So if you think of our business model financially is different. For example, in women's rental businesses, margins are very low because people rent clothes and don't buy. On top of typical e-commerce costs like shipping, there are additional costs like laundry, so margins remain low. But in our business, customers use the service as “try before you buy.”. They want to save time and save space. So a lot of our revenue actually also come from people actually buying the secondhand clothes. And those people are people who would never buy secondhand before because they don’t have time. So those are white-collar, busy men renting clothes and also buying them. In addition, they ask me where to buy shoes or accessories, Valentine's Day gifts, where to get haircuts, even where to go on vacation. They treat us more like an executive assistant service. They give us lots of feedback, and we monetize that feedback back to fashion brands to help them predict what's going to sell. Okay. That’s fascinating. So it's a two-way business because you are also selling the data that you’re collecting from people. Customer feedback, like “the sleeve is too long,” “the fabric is too tight,” “this isn't flexible,” and also insights like, “This is an amazing brand, but it's too expensive compared to 90% of our other brands on the platform, so you should lower your price.” We give that feedback to brands so they can improve. Yeah, which is basically data they don't have—and it's very valuable. That’s fascinating. So, going back to the framework—because we're a podcast about frameworks—I want to make sure we have a clear framework. You identify the right problem first, and then you reverse-engineer from there. What are the steps to get from the right problem to the right solution? Yeah, so going from the right problem to the right solution—that's step number one. To solve the right problem, you first need to understand your personas. For example, a simple persona for us is a busy man who isn't into fashion, such as a single guy, a busy dad, a sales professional, a consultant, or a pastor. Then you map out their journey. For example, they might need to go on a business trip, attend a meeting, go to a birthday party, or go on playdates with their kids. Along that journey, they realize their clothes are old or out of style, and they need different outfits. But when they look at what they have from last year, the clothes are already too small or too big. So you identify the journey. So for example, they realize they need new clothes, and there’s a moment they say, “Okay, I can either buy exactly the same thing as last year, or… hey, I heard people are actually renting through women’s counterpart—maybe there's something like that for me.” It's like when you're bored and deciding whether to stick with Comcast or try Hulu, Disney+, or Netflix. So identify the journey. After mapping the journey, the third step is identifying the pain points. A simple feature, for example—Facebook. We all use Facebook, and one feature is the birthday feature. The personas are people who have a birthday and people who want to wish their friends a happy birthday. The pain point for the birthday person is: “I'm not sure if I should tell people, but I also don't want everyone to forget my birthday.” For friends who are close to the birthday person, their pain point is: “I forgot my friend's birthday.” So you have a lot of different pain points. Once you have your persona, their journey, and their pain points, the fourth step is to define your selection criteria. For example, you want to pick the biggest problem to solve. What should your selection criteria be? How many people are impacted, how painful it is for those people, and how likely you are to be able to solve the problem effectively. Then you choose one pain point to focus on. For example, for Taelor, we pick that we want to help busy men who are not into fashion to dress well. The pain point we addressed is helping them save time and look great.Share on X We didn't try to solve other problems. For example, a luxury menswear company might offer Louis Vuitton or Burberry for rent. The pain point they address is helping people who want luxury clothes but can't afford them, which is very different from our focus. The key is to use your selection criteria to pick the right pain point to solve first. Now you have the pain point. For example, for me, it is helping people have peace of mind and achieve their goals. Now you start using exactly the same framework for your solution. You pick your selection criteria and identify different solutions. Take Facebook birthday as an example. Oh, the problem I want to solve is that for people who are birthday boys or girl’s friend, they want to host a party. Now you can come out with plenty of solution. For example, the solution one could be AI generating party locations. The solution two is AI generate invitations. The third could be AI suggesting a party game or activity. Then you do the same thing—you identify your criteria. There are so many solutions, so what’s my criteria? The criteria are: which solution solves the pain point better? Which one requires fewer engineering hours? Which one can drive more engagement, traffic, or revenue for the company? Then you use the framework to pick the solution. Yeah. Love it. Okay. That’s fascinating. So you find the right problem. Then you look at the persona that has that problem. Then you identify the pain points that really bother these people. You find those persona and journey. That’s how you find a problem. The journey as well. So the persona. Okay. And these are busy men, so you map their journeys. They need to go to church, they need to go to meetings. Then you use your criteria to select the solution. That’s right. And then you basically stress test. Is this the right solution? Does it fit the criteria? Does it handle the pain points? Fascinating. Yeah. So you’re selecting criteria for your problem. And after you pick the problem, you have the same different selecting criteria to pick your solutions. Yeah. Got it. So how do you decide what features to develop? You have your product—you've got the clothes. People can order them, try them out, and send them back. You take care of the laundry. They don't have to worry. AI gives advice. How do you know what features to develop to define your product further? Yeah. So the features to develop use the same framework. We start with the problem. Then we ask, what feature—or solution—solves that problem? For example, our customers say, “I hate shopping.” The solution is our AI shops for them. But they also say, I have a little bit points of views. So then we offer them a chance, they have a style quiz. They can upload a picture, say “I don't wear pink, blue, or green,” And they can say, “I never wear turtlenecks.” And then they show a few pictures of the style that they like, if they have any, or we show them pictures to like or dislike. This way, we understand their preferences and pain points. And then when they decide a feature, we're thinking about the solutions to address their pain points.Share on X So for this example, and in terms of getting into the Product Management framework: If you are really going into product management, how do you find out the solution using quant and qual? For example, you interview your customers, run focus groups, check Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Shopify data, QuickBooks—your data points. Then you have qualitative and quantitative numbers. From there, you see the opportunity for a feature. You might identify a pain point: everyone comes to our homepage, but they drop off on the second page. Why? The homepage isn't very clear. There's no clear call-to-action button; the button was hidden. It was below the fold. Users have to scroll three times before they see the button. So, okay, I have a hypothesis. The hypothesis is that people drop off because they don't see the call-to-action button. So I'm going to come up with a solution. Solution one: move the button to the top. Solution two: have a floating button that is always visible. Solution three: show a pop-out button. And then using the same framework, like, okay, these are three great solutions. Which one take less engineering hours? Which one will potentially solve the problem better? Which one do we think will be more effective or generate more revenue? And then you decide. That's how we decide on the features. Yeah, that’s great. Then the AI keeps learning your criteria, keeps refining, and keeps suggesting better and better-fitting clothes. It gets faster from there, I presume. Yeah, because the customer provides feedback. Your Netflix shows—when you start, you might watch all the true crime. But after a few weeks, you start watching other things, like romcoms or Korean dramas. They see what you watch, and you start seeing those suggestions too. At the same time, what's different at Taelor is that we know the problem we're solving: helping people try something a little out of their comfort zone, because that's why they want a stylist.Share on X So we also tend to recommend something new. We work with over a hundred different brands, so we might suggest something they haven't tried before. “Oh, you've never tried purple? Why not try these light purple shirts? They look really good, similar to blue.” “Oh, you've never tried pink? How about this spring pink t-shirt? It's really nice.” It's a rental, so they don't have to commit, and they're willing to try something new—just like with Netflix. “I'm not sure if I'll like the show… watch five minutes, we'll see.” And then, is this a global business, Taelor, or is it focused on the U.S.? It's focused on the U.S. We serve nationwide—anywhere the post office can reach. After people sign up, shipping takes one to three days. They wear the clothes for a couple of weeks. After that, they return the clothes in a prepaid envelope. They can go to the post office, or use a post office app with one click to schedule a free pickup. You can also drop it in blue collection boxes on the street. If you're traveling—say, to New York for business—you can just return it at the hotel lobby. It's prepaid, just like any package. You ask, “Can I mail it back?” It’s prepaid. They always say yes, and then you go home, and new clothes has arrived. You don't have to do any laundry when you get home. And you don’t have to check in your luggage. Exactly. You don’t have to. And to get on and off the plane quickly. I love it. That’s great. So if people would like to learn more, or they’d like to check this service out, or want to connect with you personally, where should they go? Where can they find you? Yeah, go on https://taelor.style. Use the code PODCAST25 to get 25% off your first month or use the code PODCASTGIFT to buy a gift card with 10% off. And if you are great suppliers or business owners, you also want to tap on and work with your product, perfect for man who are busy. We love to partner with you. We work with dating sites, fitness centers, career coaches, and executive coaching companies. We also do holiday gifting, employee gifting, and new hire gifting to help your employees look great and save time. For investors, we are now backed by some of the largest consumer investors in the U.S., such as Goodwater Capital, the investors behind Lyft and Socar, Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify. Reach out to me at anya@taelor.ai. That’s perfect. So, just so we don't forget, you're an AI-driven company. That's amazing. So, if those of you listening to this enjoyed this conversation and learned something, you learned how to build a product: starting from identifying the right problem, looking at the personas, determining the persona, the journey, the pain points, selecting the criteria, and then picking the right solution. So, if you want to learn more about that and similar frameworks that accelerate your business, make sure you stay tuned, because every week I bring an exciting entrepreneur or thought leader who's going to help you fast-track your business. Anya, thank you for coming, and thank you for listening. Important Links: Anya's LinkedIn: Anya's website: Anya's email: anya@taelor.ai
Just Killin Time 02/22/26 Show by Radio TFI
A stranger glances at you in line at Starbucks. Ninety seconds later their phone knows your name, your job, and your last three Instagram posts. Today, Kim breaks down Meta's facial recognition push, what you can do to protect yourself, and why a leaked internal memo makes the whole thing even more alarming. Plus what parents need to know about Lyft riding solo, a security flaw that left businesses wide open to hackers for nearly a year, and a podcast episode you are not going to want to miss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We will break down the foundational concept of asset allocation and why deciding how to divide your capital across different asset classes is statistically more important than picking individual winning assets.Today's Stocks & Topics: Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd (CRDO), Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), Market Wrap, Lyft, Inc. (LYFT), The "Core and Explore" Portfolio Strategy, DraftKings Inc. (DKNG), Riskified Ltd. (RSKD), Federal Reserve and Inflation, Gold, Crane Company (CR), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC).Our Sponsors:* Check out Anthropic: https://claude.ai/invest* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/INVESTAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
The ride-sharing industry has transformed the way we commute, especially in today's fast-paced society where everyone is on the move. What is it like to be a CFO in this exciting space? Jack McCullough takes a deep dive into the financial side of Lyft with their CFO, Erin Brewer. She dives into the critical metrics guiding their strategies, how they deal with the rise of autonomous vehicles, and how they integrate AI tools into their customer-facing and internal processes. Erin also emphasizes the importance of doing a regular self-audit to continuously improve yourself and how leaders should create close-knit relationships through impactful communication.
Recorded between SOLD OUT shows at the harrisburg comedy zone in Pennsylvania, Galyn sits down with Rachel Fogletto for a hilarious episode. Galyn gets his uber driver fired, and then the pair swap stories about driving for Lyft! They also recap the Friday show, and Galyn talks about the time he got a gun pulled on him in Philadelphia.. Enjoy This Episode!!
Mark Mahaney expects about 20% organic revenue growth in DoorDash's (DASH) earnings. He believes the company needs to continue delivery initiatives beyond food to distinguish itself from competitors like Uber Technologies (UBER) and Lyft Inc. (LYFT). As for DoorDash's future around AI, Mark thinks the company's focus on evolving tech offers an advantage that trumps long-term fears. Tom White offers an example options trade for DoorDash ahead of earnings. ======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Options involve risks and are not suitable for all investors. Before trading, read the Options Disclosure Document. http://bit.ly/2v9tH6DSubscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about
Episode Summary Alexis Haselberger is a time management and stress reduction coach who has helped over 215,000 people do more and stress less through coaching, workshops and online courses. Her clients include Google, Lyft, Workday, Capital One, Upwork and more. Who's your ideal client and what's the biggest challenge they face? What are the common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem? What is one valuable free action that our audience can implement that will help with that issue? What is one valuable free resource that you can direct people to that will help with that issue? What's the one question I should have asked you that would be of great value to our audience? When was the last time you experienced Goosebumps with your family and why? Free Class: 3 Secrets to Always Having Enough Time for Your Work, Your Family, and Yourself Do More, Stress Less Podcast Get in touch with Alexis: Website, YouTube, Instagram Timing Validation Focus Validate your strategic timing with precision using the KAIROS assessment system. Book your 30-minute KAIROS Strategic Assessment (€147) and transform intuition into data-driven confidence. When you know exactly WHEN to move, not just HOW, transformation becomes inevitable. https://www.uwedockhorn.com/research
This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss whether Waymo has finally solved the supply constraint question following reports of a deal for 50,000 Hyundai vehicles by 2028. They break down the economics, theorizing a $50,000 per-vehicle cost that likely includes line-fit sensors, a price point that Grayson argues destroys the bear case that autonomous vehicles cannot cost-effectively scale.The conversation then shifts to hardware as Walt puts on his inspector hat, spotting a hidden Class 8 truck graphic in Waymo's latest blog post. This revelation sparks a debate on if Waymo is planning a return to trucking in 2027 to coincide with the new Daimler Truck's new Freightliner Cascadia redundant chassis platform. They also analyze Waymo's 6th Generation Driver, noting the emphasis on custom silicon and aggressive camera cleaning systems seems to mimic Tesla's approach.On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, they discuss Lyft's plan to launch Baidu RT6 robotaxis in London and Uber's deployment of Chinese robotaxis in Dubai. While Uber touts its partners, Grayson provides ground truth on the Chinese market, arguing that strict geofences and residency restrictions mean the technology is not as far ahead as Western media portrays.Looking at the broader ecosystem, Grayson and Walt analyze Aurora's pivot to upfitting International trucks, a strategy shift that mirrors competitor Kodiak, along with Kodiak's new defense partnership with the United States Marine Corps.Closing out the show, they discuss the current regulatory environment for autonomous vehicles and NHTSA's Automated Vehicle Safety Public Meeting upcoming in March and Waymo calling for D.C. residents to advocate for autonomous vehicles.Episode Chapters0:00 Waymo's Reported 50,000 Robotaxi Hyundai Deal03:26 The $50,000 Robotaxi Economics06:20 Zeekr & Waymo/Magna Mesa Upfitting Plant10:11 Scaling to 750,000 Autonomous Vehicles17:09 Waymo Gen 6: Custom Silicon & Improved Cameras23:21 Uber's Narrative vs. Waymo's Reality28:09 Lyft's Flexdrive Advantage31:52 Inspector Walt: Waymo's Autonomous Truck Tease33:41 Aurora's Pivot & Kodiak's Marine Corps Deal41:39 Foreign Autonomy Desk: Lyft in London & Uber in Dubai45:09 The Regulatory Tide Turns48:38 Hyundai: The Arms Dealer of AutonomyRecorded on Friday, February 13, 2026--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy is the definitive media brand covering the Autonomy Economy™. Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary market intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In this episode: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is about to get cut off from an emergency-response fund he raided to rush construction of an immigrant detention facility in the Everglades. There's a showdown brewing between Republican leaders in the state House and Senate over whether he should get to keep it. Plus: The DeSantis administration admits spending opioid settlement money on anti-marijuana TV ads; car dealers are once again using the Legislature to keep themselves between consumers and new cars; and Uber and Lyft want to spend less money insuring their drivers. An update from Day 30 of Florida's 2026 legislative session.Show notesThe bills discussed in today's show: Senate Bill 7040 — Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund/Executive Office of the GovernorPassed the Florida Senate by a 29-10 vote (vote sheet)Senate Bill 7040 amendmentFailed in the Florida Senate by a 12-27 vote (vote sheet)Senate Bill 1562 — Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, Importers, and Distributors and Franchised Motor Vehicle DealersPassed the Senate Transportation Committee by a 7-0 vote (vote sheet)Passed the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee by a 9-1 vote (vote sheet)House Bill 989 — Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, Importers, and Distributors and Franchised Motor Vehicle DealersPassed the House Industries & Professional Activities Subcommittee by a 16-1 vote (vote sheet)Senate Bill 632 — Transportation Network Company, Driver, and Vehicle Owner InsurancePassed the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee by a 6-3 vote (vote sheet)Senate Bill 1296 — Public Employees Relations CommissionPassed the Senate Governmental and Oversight Accountability Committee by a 6-3 vote (vote sheet)House Bill 1119 — Materials Harmful to MinorsPassed the Florida House of Representatives by an 84-28 vote (vote sheet)The stories discussed in today's show: Florida emergency agency ran up $405 million immigration tab in six monthsAn immigrant detention camp in the Everglades, financed with hurricane-response fundsFlorida state official acknowledges opioid money funded anti-weed campaignFlorida's top cop uses his power to prop up car dealersThe billionaires financing union-busting in FloridaQuestions or comments? Send ‘em to Garcia.JasonR@gmail.comListen to the show: Apple | SpotifyWatch the show: YouTube Get full access to Seeking Rents at jasongarcia.substack.com/subscribe
Lyft CEO David Risher sits with Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow and Caroline Hyde to discuss the company's Q4 results. Wall Street was disappointed with ridership numbers, leading shares to to drop 15% on Wednesday. Despite this, Risher has defended the numbers, saying that Lyft had a "blowout quarter" with a record number of ride bookings and profits.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In der heutigen Folge sprechen die Finanzjournalisten Philipp Vetter und Holger Zschäpitz über sprunghafte Anleger, das krasse Cloudflare-Versprechen und ein furioses Comeback von Luxus. Außerdem geht es um Alphabet, Seagate, Western Digital, Robinhood, Lyft, Mattel, Hasbro, Marriott, Hilton, Ferrari, Kering, Marsh, Arthur Gallgher, Aon und Willis Towers Watson stürzen in den USA ab, dann in Europa: die Aktien von Allianz, Zürich, Axa, Aviva, Raymond James, Charles Schwab, Micron Technology, Cisco, Intel, Verizon, Qualcomm, Toyota, British American Tobacco, Siemens, Novartis, Bayer, Total Energies, GSK, General Motors, AT&T, Bank of America, Applied Materials, Citigroup und Ford, Amundi Global Luxury ETF (WKN: A2H564), iShares Edge MSCI World Value Factor ETF (WKN: A12ATG), iShares Edge MSCI Europe Value Factor ETF (WKN: A12DPP), iShares Edge MSCI USA Value Factor ETF (WKN: A2AP35), iShares Core MSCI World ETF (WKN: A0RPWH). Wir freuen uns an Feedback über aaa@welt.de. Noch mehr "Alles auf Aktien" findet Ihr bei WELTplus und Apple Podcasts – inklusive aller Artikel der Hosts und AAA-Newsletter. Hier bei WELT: https://www.welt.de/podcasts/alles-auf-aktien/plus247399208/Boersen-Podcast-AAA-Bonus-Folgen-Jede-Woche-noch-mehr-Antworten-auf-Eure-Boersen-Fragen.html. Der Börsen-Podcast Disclaimer: Die im Podcast besprochenen Aktien und Fonds stellen keine spezifischen Kauf- oder Anlage-Empfehlungen dar. Die Moderatoren und der Verlag haften nicht für etwaige Verluste, die aufgrund der Umsetzung der Gedanken oder Ideen entstehen. Hörtipps: Für alle, die noch mehr wissen wollen: Holger Zschäpitz können Sie jede Woche im Finanz- und Wirtschaftspodcast "Deffner&Zschäpitz" hören. +++ Werbung +++ Du möchtest mehr über unsere Werbepartner erfahren? Hier findest du alle Infos & Rabatte! https://linktr.ee/alles_auf_aktien Impressum: https://www.welt.de/services/article7893735/Impressum.html Datenschutz: https://www.welt.de/services/article157550705/Datenschutzerklaerung-WELT-DIGITAL.html
Jeremy Bird, Executive Vice President, Global Growth at Lyft joined Grayson Brulte on The Road to Autonomy podcast to discuss the company's strategic partnership with Waymo in Nashville and the deployment of a hybrid network that integrates human drivers with autonomous vehicles. The operational backbone of this strategy is FlexDrive. A best-in-class operation that manages depots, charging, and maintenance for robotaxis. FlexDrive gives Lyft the operational rigor needed to scale robotaxis globally. In Nashville, FlexDrive is supporting the Waymo partnership, while in Europe, Lyft is utilizing FlexDrive to power expansion, including a key partnership with Baidu in the UK and Europe.Looking ahead, Jeremy envisions a marketplace defined by customer obsession where luxury experiences and robotaxis coexist, utilizing operational excellence to fuel future growth.Episode Chapters0:00 Lyft's Partnership with Waymo in Nashville4:44 Robotaxi Fleets & Depots8:50 Freenow11:15 Deploying Robotaxis in the UK and Europe14:41 Autonomous Vehicle Policy in Europe17:35 Expanding Robotaxi Deployments in Europe19:05 Baidu Partnership23:09 Global Robotaxi Partnerships & Lyft's Marketplace 26:04 Luxury Market27:53 Future of LyftRecorded on Wednesday, January 28, 2026--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy provides market intelligence and strategic advisory services to institutional investors and companies, delivering insights needed to stay ahead of emerging trends in the autonomy economy™. To learn more, say hello (at) roadtoautonomy.com.Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletter: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/ae/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Astronomer's Steven Hillion reveals how OpenAI, Anthropic, Uber, and Lyft use Apache Airflow to orchestrate AI and machine learning pipelines at scale on AWS.Topics Include:Steven Hillion leads data and AI at AstronomerApache Airflow surpassed Spark and Kafka in community metricsAstronomer coordinates data flow like conductor orchestrating instrumental platformsOrganizations with data engineering teams use Airflow at scaleCustomers already used Airflow for ML before official promotionUber and Lyft orchestrate pricing models using AirflowAstronomer runs on AWS with close integration partnershipsOpenAI Anthropic and GitHub Copilot use Airflow for operationsInternal data team uses Airflow creating feedback loopsEvolved from constrained AI reports to agentic workflowsPlatform monitors generative AI output quality at user interactionsMetadata and context increasingly critical for AI applicationsLearn more at Astronomer's Data FlowCast podcastParticipants:Steven Hillion – SVP, Data and AI, AstronomerSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/
Lyft Inc. (LYFT) reports earnings after Tuesday's close, so Morning Movers hitches a ride to the technical analysis from Rick Ducat. He drives through the acceleration in share prices at the end of 2025 before hitting the brakes so far in 2026. Rick describes the recent roadmap for its downward trading range and highlights its moving averages ahead of the earnings report. Later, Rick demonstrates an example options strategy for Lyft, using a call vertical trade with a neutral to bullish stance. ======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – / schwabnetwork Follow us on Facebook – / schwabnetwork Follow us on LinkedIn - / schwab-network About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about
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Today's Headlines: This weekend was a lot. The Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics kicked off in Milan, and Vice President JD Vance managed to make himself the main character by getting booed at the opening ceremony and delaying U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu with his massive motorcade — after reportedly flying a plane full of food to Italy, of all places. Embarrassing, but not even close to the most serious news. The FBI has invited election officials from all 50 states to an unusual “election briefing” later this month, amid growing concerns about Trump's repeated calls to nationalize elections. At the same time, DHS has reportedly used administrative subpoenas to try to obtain user data on critics of the Trump administration, including people sharing information about ICE activity or emailing officials to oppose deportations. The Tulsi Gabbard saga also deepened, with new reporting revealing that she allegedly blocked the NSA from circulating a report about a suspicious phone call involving someone tied to foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump — a move that ultimately triggered the whistleblower complaint now under scrutiny. Meanwhile, fallout from the Epstein files continued, with multiple high-profile figures in the U.S. and Europe facing investigations, resignations, or calls to step aside. European governments in particular have moved quickly, launching probes into Epstein's ties to human trafficking, Russian intelligence, and elite institutions — while U.S. consequences remain scarce. Elsewhere, China announced a renewed crackdown on crypto trading loopholes, reports emerged that U.S. service members were pressured to attend screenings of a Melania Trump documentary, the Trump administration allegedly threatened to freeze $16 billion in infrastructure funding unless major transit hubs were renamed after the president, and New York City lawmakers overrode a veto to strengthen labor protections for Uber and Lyft drivers. Resources/Articles mentioned in this episode: The Daily Beast: Vance's Lavish Motorcade Wreaks Havoc at Winter Olympics NBC News: FBI invites state election officials to an 'unusual' briefing on the midterms The Guardian: NSA detected foreign intelligence phone call about a person close to Trump | US national security Tech Crunch: Homeland Security is trying to force tech companies to hand over data about Trump critics CNN: LA Olympics chief faces calls to resign after flirty emails with Ghislaine Maxwell are revealed in Epstein files Bloomberg: World Economic Forum Opens Probe Into CEO Over Epstein Meetings X: US Ambassador to Poland Yahoo Finance: China Reiterates Crypto Ban While Cracking Down on Tokenized Assets and Yuan Stablecoins The Daily Beast: Military Pressured to See ‘Melania' Against Their Will Rolling Stone: 'Chaos': Behind the Scenes of Amazon's Melania Trump Doc NYT: Officials Pressed Schumer to Help Name Penn Station and Dulles Airport for Trump Gothamist: City Council puts limits on how often Uber, Lyft can boot drivers off their apps Morning Announcements is produced by Sami Sage and edited by Grace Hernandez-Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Anish Acharya is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where he leads consumer and fintech investing at Series A. He serves on the boards of standout portfolio companies including Deel, Mosaic, Clutch, Titan, and HappyRobot and has led early bets in companies like Runway and Carbonated. Before a16z, he founded and exited two startups—Snowball (acquired by Credit Karma) and SocialDeck (acquired by Google) and scaled Credit Karma's U.S. Card business to over 100 million members. AGENDA: 00:03 - Why building an AI company today requires being in San Francisco 06:58 - The "SaaS Apocalypse" myth: Why "vibe coding" everything is a lie 09:11 - How AI agents are finally breaking the lock-in of legacy software providers 10:13 - Incumbents vs. Startups: Who actually wins the AI distribution war? 14:39 - Why the developer tool market looks more like Cloud than Uber and Lyft 22:43 - The death of the Chatbox? Why browse-based interfaces are still preferable 27:14 - Why power users are 10x more valuable in the age of AI consumption 28:36 - Do margins matter in a world of AI? 34:46 - Why we are definitively not in an AI bubble right now 38:58 - Why the Legal and Customer Support industries will have dozens of winners 39:44 - Lessons from Marc Andreessen: Why the "quality of being right" supersedes process 44:51 - Is "Triple, Triple, Double, Double" dead? The new physics of growth 01:10:41 - The a16z Playbook: How to win 100% of the deals you chase
We start the show with #sodachat as Todd is drinking a new bevvy from home, which of course led to us going deep into the sodas we drink, and the how, and the why. We then shift to discuss the death of a comedic legend (12:20), Catherine O'Hara. We shift again (22:40) and discuss modern day radio, and then talk about our ratings on Uber and Lyft. We then discuss (49:15) the upcoming Super Bowl, and Todd is willing to put down...none of his money. We then end the show (62:00) with some Sib Dribs where I tell Bron where he can shove it.Sponsors: ScottyJ's album, 7Up, Mt Dew, Uber, LyftScotty Js YouTube Page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV3WWSlwDKYf7P5k4XdP3zAIG & Twitter: the_bro_pod, littleBquotesE-mail the show!: thebropodnetwork@gmail.comBuy Merch!!: thebropod.threadless.comOur Website: www.bropodnetwork.com#GroundhogsDay#sodachat#TheOffice#CatherineOHara#SCTV#radio#Uber#Lyft#SuperBowl#Seahawks#SiblingDribblings#LebronJames#podcasts#bropod#bropodnetwork
How do you keep in touch with old leads and old customers in your database? Or, how do you keep in touch with your family and friends? Our guest today is CEO/Founder of Warmstart, Dave Sifry, who has created a solution to help all of us do a better job of keeping those relationships with the people we care about.TODAY'S WIN-WIN:Missionaries or Mercenaries, decide which one you are and find others that are aligned with you.LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:Schedule your free franchise consultation with Big Sky Franchise Team: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/. You can visit our guest's website at: https://warmstart.ai/Attend our Franchise Sales Training Workshop: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/franchisesalestraining/Connect with our guests on social:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsifry/ABOUT OUR GUEST:Dave Sifry is the founder and CEO of Warmstart, a platform built to help founders and executives grow through reconnecting with the people who know and love them, but haven't heard from them in a while! Warmstart centers on one idea: people move faster when their network works for them, so the product makes it easy to build and surface warm paths into customers, investors, and partners. Dave is a nine-time founder. He created Technorati, the world's largest blog search engine, and was an executive at Lyft and Reddit. Based in San Francisco, he has built multiple B2C and B2B companies, and has raised multiple rounds of venture funding, scaled teams, and led products used by millions. He has also been through hypergrowth at 3 different companies, giving him a view of how organizations succeed as they grow, and how relationships shape opportunities at every stage.ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/.The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, legal, or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any business decisions. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host, Big Sky Franchise Team, or our affiliates. Additionally, this podcast may feature sponsors or advertisers, but any mention of products or services does not constitute an endorsement. Please do your own research before making any purchasing or business decisions.
It's episode 467 and our brains have left the train station. This week Em takes us to the Czech Republic for the tale of the mysterious Houska Castle aka Hrad Houska and its terrifying “Hole to Hell”. Then Christine covers the unsolved case of the Oslo Plaza Woman aka Jennifer Fairgate and the many conspiracies behind who she was and what happened to her. And can anyone let us know what rockabilly music is? …and that's why we drink! Photo Links:Houska CastleOslo Plaza Woman's MealOslo Plaza Woman Sketch Catch our bonus Yappy Hour intermissions on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3L28lDw or subscribe on Patreon: http://patreon.com/ATWWDPodcast!___________________Shop my favorite bras and underwear at http://www.skims.com/drink #skimspartner Get 40% off your first Hungryroot box plus a free item in every box for life—visit https://hungryroot.com/DRINK and use code DRINK. Join the loyalty program for renters and earn points on rent and mortgage payments to redeem toward flights, hotels, Amazon.com, Lyft rides, and more at https://joinbilt.com/drink promo code DRINK. Get Boxie at https://boxiecat.com/DRINK and enjoy 30% off with code DRINK. Go to https://helixsleep.com/drink for 20% off sitewide, exclusive for listeners of ATWWD. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Dave and Chuck the Freak talk about a listener sent a faux fur coat to Chuck, Dave's massage with heavy woman, delivery driver ran over bushes and landscape light at Dave's house, National DJ Day, shootings over parking spot and cutting in bathroom line, kids on bikes attack guy who told them to slow down, massive car pileup on highway, guys stuck in manhole for hours, Navy rescue swimmer happens to be nearby when woman's SUV was sinking in water, UPS driver saved old lady when he noticed her house on fire, CFB Championship Game, NFL playoffs, 100 person fight caused youth sports game to be cancelled, update on Kiefer Sutherland arrest, feud in Beckham family, Ashton Kutcher says his family does shower, Kelly Clarkson will not renew daytime talk show contract, Poison's anniversary tour cancelled, Dolly Parton turned 80, school bus driver quit in middle of her shift with kids still on the bus, woman ordered a Lyft and stole the car, woman cut in line at theme park and hit security guard in face, fake tow truck driver, homeowner used frying pan to defend himself from intruder, Stephen Hawking impersonators, Scarousal, does fear make you horny?, irritable male syndrome, guy with shoe cam was filming up skirts at mall, man was walking around naked at campground, video of Crumbl cookies employee resting feet on stack of baking sheets, another Pokémon store robbery, airline facing backlash for removing 2 inches of leg room, dog stuck on Detroit River, and more!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Lyft won't get left behind by robotaxis… that's why it's 1 of our 3 stock picks of 2026.Japan just sold 1 single tuna fish for $3.2M… The “Tuna King” is doing Sushi Stimulus.Lego launched “Smart Bricks”... because to fight screens, you need a screen.Plus, 1 out of 5 Americans got a Starbucks Gift Card this year… Happy Gift Card Swiping Wednesday.$MAT $LYFT $SBUXBuy tickets to The IPO Tour (our In-Person Offering) TODAYAustin, TX (2/25): https://tickets.austintheatre.org/13274/13275 Arlington, VA (3/11): https://www.arlingtondrafthouse.com/shows/341317 New York, NY (4/8): https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0000637AE43ED0C2Los Angeles, CA (6/3): https://www.squadup.com/events/the-best-one-yet-liveGet your TBOY Yeti Doll gift here: https://tboypod.com/shop/product/economic-support-yeti-doll NEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today's top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.