The Library is built in the U.S. by a U.S.-licensed CPA, but the practitioner work is largely portable. This page sorts the catalog honestly: what was built for international readers from day one, what travels with the U.S.-tax sections skipped, what is being adapted right now, and what does not travel and why.
The religious and ethical overlays (Sharia, Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu) sit at equal billing in the front matter of First Principles; the chapter-body integration is uneven and is being deepened. The international quote canon (Australian PE, Asian, Latin American, African, Israeli, Korean voices) is woven into the chapters of the PE Guide. Treasure Assets carries eight regional chapters. Decide. Act. Now. is built around a consciously global cast — Leonidas, Cortez, Honda, Cabrini, Slim. The Business Owner's Playbook was written for the LMM operator wherever the LMM operator works. Wealth Psychology — the shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves problem — is the same dynamic in every culture; the committee said outright that omitting it from the front rank was the page's largest miss. None of this is bolted-on; it is how the work was scoped.
— The Power of the Pack · The Baratelli Institute
Most of practitioner finance is not jurisdictional. The intrinsic-value math is the same in Mumbai as in Manhattan. The six sources of funds an operating company can deploy — cash flow, debt, equity, sales of assets, JV/partner capital, and stock-for-stock issuance — are the same six in Tokyo as in Tampa. The CFO function is the same set of decisions on either side of the date line. The family-office operating model is the same shape at $30M whether the family is in Geneva or Greenwich.
What is jurisdictional is tax, trust law, and statutory structure. The Library is honest about which guides depend on those layers and which don't. The page below is built around that distinction.
Front rank · built international by design
These guides were scoped with the international reader in mind. The case studies are not all U.S.; the cast is consciously global; the language is reviewed for portability. Read them with no skip list — with one calibrated exception noted on the Business Owner's Playbook entry below, where a minimal skip list applies.
The synthesis volume distilling Buffett, Munger, the Outsiders CEOs, and a global cast. Every chapter pairs a principle with a named case study and a Show-the-Math intrinsic-value walk. The international applicability page sits in the front matter; the religious / ethical overlays (Sharia / Buddhist / Confucian / Hindu) sit at parity in framing, with case-level integration in the chapter walks uneven and being deepened in the next edition.
501 pages on the operating practice of private equity. The deepest international injection of the practitioner shelf — the international quote canon is woven into the chapter body, not appended. The Ch 23 cross-border work and the passive-investor withholding discussion sit alongside the U.S. fund-formation chapters as peers, not footnotes.
The corporate-asset discipline for the collection. Eight regional chapters at flagship depth. Wine, watches, cars, art, books, coins, and the rest treated as a balance-sheet category rather than as a hobby — which is how the discipline actually has to read in Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, London, and Riyadh.
The action-companion volume, built around twelve historical decisions. The cast is consciously global — the volume is not a list of U.S. founders. The friction-removal patterns it teaches do not depend on U.S. tax, U.S. statute, or U.S. financial-services structure. It travels because the decision moment is the same decision moment in any language.
For the lower-middle-market operator running the business. Written from the start with translation callouts and a "Letter to the LMM Operator" framing that is jurisdiction-neutral. The discipline of running a real operating company at this size is the same discipline in Mexico City, Manchester, or Melbourne — the playbook reads accordingly.
The shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves problem — how generational wealth dissolves — is the same problem in every culture that has ever transferred capital. The committee verdict (the prior Phil's Why panel said so first, and this panel agreed): Wealth Psychology is the most portable guide in the Library. The clinical-distinction chapter, the rising-gen onboarding sequence, the principal / spouse dynamics, the advisor-relationship architecture — none of these depend on a tax code.
Second rank · concept travels, U.S.-tax sections skip
The framework is universal — the family-office operating model and the CFO desk look the same wherever you are. The U.S. tax / GAAP sections need to be substituted for the local equivalent. The skip-list below is explicit so the reader's time isn't wasted.
The operating-model chapters — governance, IPS, treasury, vendor and AUM-tier compensation, AI and tech stack, cyber, death & succession — are jurisdiction-neutral. The Rockefeller Trust deep-dive translates because it teaches family-office architecture, not U.S. trust law.
The dual-six framework (the six CFO seats / the six Controller seats) is the same in any jurisdiction. The capital-allocation chapter, the close calendar, the AI-readiness scorecard, the cyber scorecard, the audit walkthrough — these read the same in Singapore as in St. Louis.
Working with a local CPA / chartered accountant? Treat these two guides the way you'd treat a U.S.-headquartered firm's group-policy manual: the operating chapters are how the function should run; the local team translates the tax and statutory sections. The companion Excel workbooks travel cleanly — the formulas have no jurisdiction.
In progress · international edition under construction
The wealth-curve framing for the early-peak earner is portable; the structures around it are not. The current published version is U.S.-default (NIL, U.S.-league CBAs, U.S. agent regulation). The international adaptation — covering European football, cricket, rugby league/union, and the cross-border career-arc patterns — is in active development with a target ship window of Q1 2027.
You did not pick the family or the wealth. You are the one who has to keep it together for the next thirty years — in a jurisdiction the founder did not necessarily plan around, with a Pack of advisors who do not always speak the same language. The Library has a four-volume starter set written for exactly that seat.
Read in this order:
Suggested by Anaïs Vidal-Moreno (Mexico City) and Rohan Khurana (Mumbai) on the May 28 international committee.
The honest list · what doesn't travel today
These guides are deliberately U.S.-jurisdictional. The reason for each is below. Re-versioning is on the roadmap for several; until then, this is the honest read.
| Guide | Why it's U.S.-only today |
|---|---|
| Estate Planning Decoded | U.S. estate & gift tax · OBBBA exemption · state estate-tax overlay · §6166 / §303 / §2032A · not portable. |
| Trust Administration | U.S. trust-law framework · corporate-trustee duties under U.S. case law · the five fiduciary-duty operating manual is built around U.S. statutory practice. |
| Liquidity Event Playbook | §1202 QSBS · §338(h)(10) · §382 NOL · U.S. residency-audit defense · the working-capital-peg mechanics travel; the tax wrapping doesn't. |
| Business Buyer's Guide | SBA-7(a) & 504 underwriting · U.S. lender-side mechanics. The search-fund and ETA concepts are increasingly global, but the financing chapters are not. |
| Gentrifying Small Towns | HUD · HTC · NMTC · Opportunity Zones · U.S. zoning & fair-housing law · the mayor / developer mental model is broadly portable; the financing stack is not. |
| AI Integration Decoded | Audit-defensibility is jurisdictional — the work cross-references U.S. SEC, PCAOB, IRS, and state-board posture. The agent templates and prompt patterns travel; the compliance overlay does not. |
Honesty earns more than catalog-stuffing. If you're a U.K. reader looking for a U.K. estate-tax guide, this isn't it — and saying so saves your time and protects your trust.
Adjacent · the financial-literacy series has a dedicated international edition
For the financial-literacy floor, there is a separate International Edition of the high-school volume that does the local translation work natively — bracket math, residency framing, retirement-account terminology localized rather than overlaid. It is the free / low-cost door for student and first-job readers outside the U.S.
When a Brief or Field Note is written with the international reader specifically in mind — or when a guide's international section is materially expanded — we'll send you a one-line note with the link. No drip. No sales sequence. Just the publishing notes that matter for an international read.
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