CFO Bookshelf Blog

After I listened to Jody’s interview on the producer’s cut, my first thought was, “This is Andrew Warner (Mixergy) material.” That’s the greatest compliment I can give this creative thinker with an accounting and finance background. During this conversation, we fixated on first principles in Jody’s profession, which includes the Peter Drucker directive for effective professionals, the Harold Geneen career path, and why AI is a positive, not a negative. Finally, there is no accounting stereotype in Jody’s world.

When did you start using Excel, and how did you learn it? Jeff Lenning is the founder of Excel University. He discusses the mistakes he sees in Excel workbooks, the differences between formal and informal training, and why both are critical. We walk down memory lane, discussing when we started using Excel and our favorite functions inside this powerful application. Finally, we tip our cap to two famous Excel MVPs and explain why we do so.

What would you be willing to do to feel alive in your work every day? Jack Craven asks executives from all walks of life this question. Jack is the author of Aliveness Mindset: Lead and Live with More Passion, Purpose, and Joy. His book includes more than a dozen tools and frameworks for starting the journey of aliveness. This conversation addresses David Robsen’s expectation effect, the actual vs. the ideal self, anchoring mindsets, accelerants, and magic words.

The Venture Mindset by Ilya Strebulaev and Alex Dang reads fast and reminds me a little of Kahneman, Munger, and books about Buffett. In this episode, we discuss some of the big ideas with both authors, including roof shots vs. moonshots, betting on jockeys vs. horses, winning at the piggy bank game, and what we can learn from student VC partnerships. We also learn about colleganza, vervet monkeys, and the escalation of commitment.

I had never heard of Edmond Safra until I read Daniel Gross’s informative and inspiring biography, A Banker’s Journey. His banks never had to write off loans, and many of his early deals were on a handshake. He never needed a government bailout, nor did he ever head to DC complaining about regulations. Dan Gross gives us compelling reasons to revisit this banker’s remarkable life, whose business career started at fifteen in Milan.

Our special guest may not be a best-selling author on real estate yet, but we’re already predicting this former World Cup soccer player will soon be a household name in Dave Ramsey’s world in a few years. Vaughn Bethell is the founder of REI Junkies based in South Carolina. In this episode, we learn his unique process of providing real estate investors a different way to reduce stress and frustration in their investments.

Randy Wootton could be the most articulate and intelligent chief executive I’ve ever encountered. The three-time CEO now leading Maxio’s growth engine was the perfect candidate to discuss Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive, the best management book ever written. Is he still relevant? Should business readers prioritize his best writing? And what makes his earlier books stand out? Those questions are addressed when discussing time management, knowledge workers, and decision-making.

Consumers and anyone who studies business understand the subscription economy, but what about the usage economy? What is it? How does it differ from the subscription economy? Does it matter? Adam Howatson is the CEO of LogiSense and the author of The Usage Economy. In this conversation, Adam will give examples of companies that got it right with their usage-based pricing models and those that made serious mistakes, such as Wink.

Jeff Hooke’s book, The Myth of Private Equity, left asking the question, “What is going on?” far too often while being educated at the same time. During this conversation, we learned much about the myths of PE funds focused on leveraged buyouts. Some of the big ideas in this conversation include the enormous fees fund managers are collecting, the poor fund performance these funds generate, and the lack of transparency in their reporting to institutional investors.