Mentoring At Scale. Each entry takes one thing I read that morning, teaches one concept from the practitioner library, references the chapter and section, and links to a free tool you can use on your own numbers.
A Field Note is a four-part unit: the news anchor, the concept taught in 100 words, the chapter-and-section reference for the deeper read, and the free hands-on tool to test the concept. This is where I weigh in on the subjects worth a practitioner read. New notes go up when a moment in the market deserves one — not on a fixed calendar.
A $300M family operates a 12-person SFO. A $30M family can run the same operating quality with one strong fractional CFO and an eight-vendor stack at one-tenth the cost.
Section 1202 of the Internal Revenue Code excludes capital gain on the sale of Qualified Small Business Stock. Stack the exclusion across multiple non-grantor trusts and the savings compound. Eleven-state conformity table included.
With the $15M / $30M federal exemption now permanent, the three plays that move from defensive holding to offensive structuring — GRAT, dynasty trust, and family LLC sequencing.
The CFO desk's single most useful artifact. Why a rolling 13-week cash forecast catches the failure pattern earlier than any GAAP statement, and how to actually build and maintain one.
Most founders run their company on a cash-in / cash-out spreadsheet and call it finance. The three-statement model that links income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow is the artifact that separates a real CFO desk from a glorified bookkeeper.
A wave of boomer business owners is exiting over the next decade. Four buyer paths — strategic, sponsor, search-fund, and management buyout — and which one fits which seller profile.
"Life is short. Buy the classic Corvette." The founder's voice piece on treasure assets — why the right one belongs on a personal balance sheet, why most pass through the family because nobody ever wrote down the why.
High earners change their address. Their old state changes its mind. The domicile audit catches more "Florida residents" with New York apartments than most movers expect. The evidence trail that holds up — and the four-state shortlist that fights hardest.
Three Internal Revenue Code sections most estate plans never use, each one quietly worth seven figures on the right estate. The §6166 election. The §303 redemption. The §2032A special-use valuation. Each in primer form — the Brief-length workup is in production.
A clean buy-sell isn't a death document — it's the structural agreement that lets co-owners scale a business together. Five clauses that most 2010-2018 buy-sells got wrong against current §2703 case law.
The trade-press rule of thumb says family offices form at $100M. The actual formation pattern starts at $30M, driven by complexity and time, not net worth. Two archetypes that show why the math has changed.
EGI buys John Deere dealerships and bluefin tuna fisheries on a 10-12 year hold. The trade has a new name (HALO) but the structural edge is old — permanent capital out-bids the sponsor fund on asset-heavy cash flow. The succession architecture for it is a separate conversation most families have not started.
NIL money, year-round training academies, and Florida's tax/climate concentration have turned high-school athletics into a wealth-planning problem most families are not staffed for. The advisor seat is being created in real time.
The career-arc question is the harder one. The rookie contract gets the headlines; the second contract and the post-peak phase determine whether the wealth survives the career.
Practitioner commentary tied to the library — when the moment warrants. Plain prose. No flourish. Free; unsubscribe with one click.
When the topic warrants, the field note also posts to LinkedIn.