Welcome to the Family Office podcast. In this episode, we explore how family offices
and investors are adapting to the virtual era, from building trust remotely to
managing global teams and finding the next exciting deal. Let's dive in.
Do you work virtually with your investment team and partners or in person? And any
suggestions on virtual investment tools, software, Anything that helps remote work,
in your opinion, or is that something, is it all in person? I know, like the
Family Office Club, for example, I live in Montana, Daphne's in Miami,
of course, Richard's in Hawaii. So the team is spread out across actually the globe,
and it seems like we're next to each other through Slack or through the different
Zoom or whatever technology that we're using. It's been very effective. Any thought,
is it all in person or is it remote? I mean, it's a hybrid for us. I mean, our
clients are all global. So there's no way we can go and visit every single person
anytime they want us to. So I love Zoom. Zoom is like my best friend. I can be
anywhere in the world and have a meeting with whoever I want at whatever time of
the day that I need to have it at. Yeah, that's great. I agree.
It's really been a game changer that we have this technology and some people started
adopting and using it more during COVID, even though they had been hesitant to use
it before. There's a little bit of a pendulum swing. People are saying, oh, let's
all get back to the office. I don't trust people are really working. But remote
work isn't going to go away. And there is something to be said for meeting people
in person, looking them in the eyes, shaking their hand, and building that
connection. But that doesn't mean that virtual meetings and virtual relationships and
Slack and Skype and Teams chat are not a relationship. That's right. And I certainly
have had multi -year -long working relationships with people I have never met in
person and I have sent them baby gifts and I have participated in all kinds of
life events and feel like I really care about these people and I have not met them
in person. And in a world where we're trying to leverage our relationships build new
relationships all the time, maybe we should become more used to the idea that we
may not meet everybody or we may not see everybody in person as often as perhaps
was the norm before, but that doesn't mean relationship building isn't occurring and
that business isn't occurring or that you can't trust the people because of the
technology. I would say that COVID indeed was the catalyst for this revolution,
and it took time for there to be trust, which was virtual trust. But it's happened,
And I think it will continue to happen, and you can't go back. We and our team,
we have folks in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and we have interns,
which are in Texas and Ohio right now. So, of course, our organization is oriented
in that fashion, but the companies we talked to all over the world, and when COVID
came and everything became virtual, all of a sudden I was looking at companies. I
could start in the morning and look at a company in one side of the world and
then the evening looking at a company in the other side of the world. And so I
felt that was more efficient and effective because previously, obviously, everything
was in person. And I think after all it's said and done, we've grown accustomed to
it and learn to trust what we see in here. Of course,
having a personal connection is always positive yes but it isn't the only way to do
business yes thank you i think it's demographic driven i've struggled with this one
since day one for most of the people in the room who know me i'm a very dominant
people person but efficiency and economies of scale drive the technology so i don't
want anybody to forget from a certain age and up that looking somebody in the eyes,
shaking hands, and having a very personal relationship is how more business will get
done than just sitting on a computer screen. But I think the younger demographics, I
think it's perfectly acceptable to be on the, to be there. I mean, all you got to
do is look around this room, and then you can hear all the noise out there in
the, you know, in the hallway. There's a ton of people here, And you're building
relationships. I think that says something. Absolutely. I used to work at Credit
Suisse and I was a phone got, you know, be on the phone all the time and dinner
meetings and that. And now Zoom is taken, put that to the, you know, taking that
all over. I'm going to ask for questions from the audience or open it up for
questions from the audience. We have two people, Charlie in the back and Daphne
here. So if you have a question to ask the panel, I don't we have about a minute
and a half left, go ahead and raise your hand, and we'll get the quick question
in. Anyone?
Oh.
Each one of yours most fun investments. We all know, you know, a lot of the stuff
that we talk about is boring, but I'm sure you might have had some things that
come across your desk that, you know, we're a little out there and just really fun.
Is there anything like that through your careers? Great question. Yeah, right now,
actually, we're on the board for one of those types of companies. They are building
eco -luxury yachts that run solely on wind, solar, and hydro.
It's very, very unique. We've actually peaked so much interest from the different
islands that we are getting bombarded with deal flow on it. Awesome.
I highlighted briefly a little bit earlier one that I've just recently become
involved with and I'm involved in some of the operational aspect too, as I said,
sometimes I do that for advisory shares, but it's in the AI space. It's a private
credit platform, connect brokers with the capital providers.
And because of the use of the technology, I find it very exciting. It's
revolutionizing something that maybe we didn't think was that sexy before that
exciting. So adding those AI applications and tech to shake things up,
I find very exciting, regardless of industry. On our side, waste -to -energy has
created a lot of exciting opportunities. One of them would be with regards to data
centers. Another would be a vertical operation where waste -to -energy would actually
power green locomotives, and you create the opportunity for your transportation and
your power in close proximity. Same thing with the data centers. And this is a very
exciting and challenging opportunity. The digital asset space. Fantastic.
Well, listen, let's get a big round of applause for panel number two. Thank you for
your great insights. Thanks for listening. Up next, don't miss a powerful five -star
chat with Richard C. Wilson, founder of the Family Office Club featuring Michael's
100 million exit to AI investing journey. He went from broke to scaling fast using
the exact strategies shared inside our community. Stay tuned. You won't want to miss
this story.