CPAcon, A Gaming Convention for Accountants! Is This The Future?! - Ep. 40

Drew Carrick: But so, so you're the big game guy.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: And so I wanted to start this show off with a game.

Kendall King: Okay.

Drew Carrick: Um, it's called this or that.

Kendall King: Okay.

Drew Carrick: So I started this thing back, uh, on Long Island. I kind of got into those, like, man on the street sort of videos. And I was, like, wondering, like, the type of content that goes viral typically, a lot of it is just asking people and getting genuine takes. Yeah. That's how Hawk 2, I feel like, became famous.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: And so, so I had this concept of, like, this or that, and we actually started it when we were filming season three of pbc. So I actually have some, some cool footage. Find out the plans for PBC Season 3. We'll be able to showcase this. I, uh, asked the different cast members. You know, it was a fridge or cabinet debate. Does this item go in the fridge or does it go in the cabinet? Like, some people put peanut butter. They're like, no, no, that's supposed to be in the fridge. And so people like, that's crazy. It's going to be cold. You got to put in the cabinet.

Kendall King: But this, I am a peanut butter connoisseur, so I love peanut butter. I, I, I mean, it's so much that I had to take a break. I was like, I'm recovering peanut butter, you know, uh, addict.

Drew Carrick: I typically will, like, every protein shake that I have, it's always like, it

Kendall King: needs to have peanut butter in it. That was, that's my, like, my, uh, compromise, because I used to, I would smash peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Like, I would eat that every day, all day. Like, that was the only thing I needed to eat.

Drew Carrick: Yeah.

Kendall King: And then, um, I met my wife and can't do that.

Drew Carrick: It's like, Kendall, you're an adult.

Kendall King: Exactly. It's just like, you what? I was like, yeah, I would eat this for the rest of my life if I had to. So. Yeah.

Drew Carrick: But so I, I had this, uh, I did it back on Long island with just people out at my summer community for the fourth of July. I just made a lot of references to specific Long island situations and I said this or that. Would you rather have rocket, ah, fuel or Zippies? And these are two drinks that are unique to the Long island region. You know, would you rather go, you know, North Shore or South shore of the island and stuff like that? And so you can obviously isolate that to any area. You know, you could talk to people in la. Are you, you know, east side or west side?

Kendall King: Right, right.

Drew Carrick: And there's different types of things. Are you more in the more into the Valley or more into South Bay or Orange Bay, you know. So um, this is a game of this or that but these are a little more generic.

Kendall King: Okay.

Drew Carrick: We'll just. It'll just be rapid fires thing. So let's get people to get to know who you are. So tea or coffee?

Kendall King: Neither.

Drew Carrick: Neither. No caffeine?

Kendall King: No. Wow. All ah. All you know, natural energy.

Drew Carrick: Okay.

Kendall King: For me.

Drew Carrick: Heck yeah. Fiction, uh, or non fiction?

Kendall King: Fiction.

Drew Carrick: I'm a, I'm a non fiction guy. I love uh history and so I. For me it's hard to. Maybe it's the accountant in me. I have a tough with the imagination portion of it. I like to have a basis.

Kendall King: I have a vivid imagination and I love. I can. I could do the non fiction if it has a little fiction in it. So like Hamilton.

Drew Carrick: Sure.

Kendall King: You know, was a great, you know a great thing where it's like making a little bit.

Drew Carrick: I like the science fiction of like a non fiction event. So for example an alternative history and you kind of can like reformat it. That's like a kind of cool thing.

Kendall King: Uh.

Drew Carrick: Okay. So time travel to the past or to the future?

Kendall King: Future. Mhm. Just be real A much back there for me.

Drew Carrick: Looks fun. Beach or mountains?

Kendall King: Beach.

Drew Carrick: Okay. I'm a beach guy for sure. Uh, reading or writing?

Kendall King: Writing.

Drew Carrick: Yeah. I'm a again content creator. So I lean more into the writing.

Kendall King: It's interesting too because I just. I know for a fact like reading specifically. I'm not like a huge, huge reader. I like. I watch stuff, you know, I watch TV and everything. But you know I do like writing like TV shows myself and like you know, other stuff.

Drew Carrick: So I like the consumption of. This is a modern thing that's happened is people are more into consuming and reading like the shorter form. Like the two to three minute reads.

Kendall King: Yeah, yeah.

Drew Carrick: Just give you some quick facts. It's not a whole burden when you have to invest yourself in reading this whole thing. Like you don't mind reading the description on an Instagram post. So how do you make an article essentially that's just like quick hit.

Kendall King: That's like. Was uh, it blink or something. It's like some other one small like get those like really short take it and then you know, uh, like learn this in like five minutes. Five minutes a day or something like that.

Drew Carrick: 100%. Then daytime, uh, or nighttime.

Kendall King: Um, nighttime is the right time, baby.

Drew Carrick: I'm a big daytime person. I'm like I need. So if it comes to like a party, I'd rather I'd rather be out during the day.

Kendall King: For me, it's like nighttime is like chill, it's like a chill time. It's like day when I'm waking up in the morning. You know, I'm not a, I'm not a morning person per se. Um, not that I'm like sluggish or anything, but like, if I didn't have nothing to do, I would go, I would stay, sleep. Um, but by the time we get to the night, it's like, all right, I'm, I'm good. I'm, I'm ready to, to do, I

Drew Carrick: need to do, uh, invisibility or super strength.

Kendall King: Strength.

Drew Carrick: Nice.

Kendall King: I feel like I could do way more with the strength than invisibility.

Drew Carrick: I'm a, I'm an invisibility guy for sure. Which is, uh, ironic because I'm very much so visible as a person. Right. I'm out and about and I'm like, give me the attention and what. But I, I, I feel like there's obviously advantages and disadvantages to both. But when it comes to like, for me, like, I kind of want to, I like being a little sneaky. I like kind of like hearing things that I'm not supposed to hear. So invisibility, I would maybe go.

Kendall King: I feel like for me, it's the practicality. I feel like it's more practical uses for super strength than invisibility.

Drew Carrick: I don't know. It's kind of useful to invisibly slide into a bank and take on.

Kendall King: But also I can just rip the

Drew Carrick: thing out the wall. You need one of each? You need one of each. Um, all right, so here. Tax or audit?

Kendall King: Audit.

Drew Carrick: Yeah, yeah, big audit guy.

Kendall King: Yeah, I'm audit for sure.

Drew Carrick: Comedy, uh, or action? Action.

Kendall King: M. Action. I, I love that. That's not even, that's not a thing. I'm not saying that very like, I was question that was. Cuz I love me a good comedy, but I think more to the fiction and I think it's the action for me it's like, you know, a good story. I like a, I like a good story at the end of the day.

Drew Carrick: Yeah, for sure. And then the last one. Sports, uh, video game or first person shooter type of game?

Kendall King: First person shooter.

Drew Carrick: Yeah.

Kendall King: Okay. I, I love playing sports. You know, obviously not as much as I used to, you know, uh, when I was younger. But um, yeah, Call of Duty over. Um, Madden for me. Sure, sure. Yeah.

Drew Carrick: I was always, I, uh, was always big into the, the sports ones. I think it's because I was never, I was Just never good at the other one. So I was like, all right, well, I can, I can BS my way enough to be like amongst the better players in this one. But I, I'm just getting killed left and right. You know, I'm like, I'm like, I don't even know where the people are shooting from.

Kendall King: I actually like. You know, my favorite type of game is more of the strategic, um, like games or thinking games or like, so there's a game called Smite, you know, and it's kind of like a League of Legends type of thing, um, where you got a, you know, team base or like, you know, you got, you got all these options. You got to like, figure out how to, you know, basically capture the base and stuff like that. So things where you got to think a little bit more or even, um, board games, you know, I like anything that strategies involved thinking. It's like, oh, okay, let me, let me see what I got going on here. And obviously any money related games too. Sure, yeah.

Drew Carrick: Uh, but there's money related games like Monopoly.

Kendall King: Like Monopoly is one. Um, uh, Catan is one. Um, uh, that's a canva earlier or that's it. I thought I said Canva. It's Catan. Sorry if I say Canva. Um, but Katan is another one. Cash flow again. I still, I actually enjoy that. Sure. Um, you know, I either big roller

Drew Carrick: coaster tycoon guys like a, like a

Kendall King: mobile sim type of game where, you know, they be getting me with the ads too, because if I see it and they let you play it, and I'm gonna play it like every time, you know, they only give you like 20 seconds of play, but I'll play

Drew Carrick: it, you know, every time.

Kendall King: Yeah, every time.

Drew Carrick: Those ads are so funny that they just get you, get you hooked by just giving you a little taste.

Kendall King: Exactly. And it's like you're working. But I'm. I refuse to download this. Cool.

Drew Carrick: Well, I'm excited for today's show. So, uh, with all that being said, let's get flowing.

Kendall King: Hey, let's get flowing. Let's do it. You are now entering the fl.

Drew Carrick: All right, so this is the, uh, season two new finale episode, actually episode 40. So I've been doing 40 of these fintech flow episodes. Um, my progression, I think over the course of time has been, has been a lot in any of the audience that's been with us knows me, Drew Carrick, producer at Flocast Studios, strategy and planning director at Flocast. Um, the rapping cpa. Um, back in action. So, uh, I want to let you, as my guest, introduce yourself, give us a little bit of your backstory and who you are.

Kendall King: Um, well, I'm glad you saved the best for last of season two. Um, but, uh, my name is Kendale King. I'll look in this. Kendall King. Uh, I'm a cpa. Uh, I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio, and, you know, currently reside in la. But, uh, it took me a couple states to get here. So I started my college degree, um, career, technically. I started it in high school. I did, like, dual enrollment. Um, and so I was able to take class at my community college. Um, and I ended, actually ended up getting my associates in accounting before I walked the stage of my college degree, before I got my walk the stage of my high school diploma. Um, that's how much. Okay. I put in. Yeah, I got 94 credits by the time I graduated high school.

Drew Carrick: Wow.

Kendall King: From college. And I took that to Morehouse College as an HBCU in Atlanta, and then went back to Cleveland, to Cleveland State for my master's, and then started in Deloitte, um, and that was in Florida. But I knew I wanted to get to the entertainment space eventually, so I was like, all right, you got to go to where you need to. You know, where is that? And so I ended up leaving Deloitte to work for a company called the Siegfried Group. Stayed, uh, there for a little bit, um, until Netflix popped up. And I was like, well, this is where I came here for, you know, a company like this. And so I worked for Netflix for a very short amount of time because while it was important that I got in the entertainment space, it was also very important that I was challenged and that I was, like, growing and, you know, for them at the time, you know, once you, you know, I, uh, did the, the spot. And to credit to them, they knew nothing wrong, but credit to them is that, you know, they look for higher level people to work lower level jobs, right? So they're getting managers, other places to be seniors, where they were at their company and their thought and their mindset, at least is back when I was there, the mindset was that, um, you know, we're getting somebody who's overqualified for the job, so they'll do it right. Um, we pay them, you know, quite well. And then again, they paid very well. It was all that. But it was just like, I wanted to, to grow, I wanted to be challenged. I'm like, give me the next thing. And, um, and so I went to a smaller production company. Um, I Call itv. Um, it was like a. They just. ITV is a huge company in uk, but they had a spin off for the scripted in the US And I basically came in, um, you know, they were replacing somebody and so I came in, built the accounting department basically from the ground up and stayed there. That was during the pandemic. Um, so we were remote basically the whole time. And then they wanted me to come back into the office. Now, I love itv, but they wanted me to come back into the office. I was just like, yeah, I don't really need to do that. You know, like, we just proved it for two years that I could do this. And then also I was getting the itch for entrepreneurship. Um, and so, because even throughout that time, I was also kind of doing some side jobs too, you know, during the pandemic. Um, and so I was like, you know, I could do this full time. And so that's when I went full, full time into entrepreneurship. And, uh, you know, never really looked back since though.

Drew Carrick: It's the Netflix reminds me of when you have these big name companies, they have such equity in their brand that you can command that sort of power as the company because people. You want to get that on your resume.

Kendall King: Yeah.

Drew Carrick: And you'll, you'll do what it takes. And like, I feel like a lot of the big four often will underpay their employees compared to other smaller firms because the growth opportunity is there and the experience is there. And then the brand name and resume accolade.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: Is there.

Kendall King: So that's the thing with Netflix, though, that they did it the other, other way around. They were like, we're going to pay you more. You know, we're going to pay you a premium for your position and give you, you know, less difficult, um, work. So for, you know, for a person who is like, you know, all right, come in here, collect my paycheck. It was a great job. Yeah. For me. Um, you know, I'm actually, you know, intrigued. I'm actually, I'm, you know, one of those actual accounting nerds for the. I actually like accounting for, for the sake of like an accounting, um, you know, I can have a back and forth debate on, you know, accounting codification if we had the time, like, I could do that. Um, but, you know, uh, especially for me at that time, it's like I really needed a place where I could feel like I was growing and like my ambitions were being, like, fueled.

Drew Carrick: Yeah, I always talk about, this is a thing that people have heard me say a million times. And I say it almost on every episode. And I say it to everybody that I meet out in, like, leadership. My whole mantra is the three different types of employees, the managers, the innovators, and the technicians. And it sounds like that's a very technician oriented thing. We don't need a bunch of people breaking, uh, the fourth wall here.

Kendall King: Exactly.

Drew Carrick: We need people that are crushing their job and getting it done and will pay you well to do that job and get it done well. And there's a. There's a role for all of this.

Kendall King: Total sense for some people out there. For me, for sure. There's a fourth wall. Is there a fifth one?

Drew Carrick: Right, that's me.

Kendall King: You know, I'm like, let me. Let's keep going. Let's figure it. Like, how am I continually growing and. And am I better than what I was yesterday? Um, and, you know, that ambition, for better or for worse, you know, has, like, driven me, you know, throughout my career and continues to drive me even to this day. Um, you know, had to, you know, had to pull some of it back, you know, you know, being a little bit more mature, you can understand. All right. You know, maybe I was. I was love tripping back then. Sure. Yeah.

Drew Carrick: Well, look, we all realize, I think as we get older that. And I've. I've stopped saying anything with absolute certainty because I know that in five years, I'm gonna look back and be like,

Kendall King: that was not right. Yeah, it's like, you know what? I could have. I could have did that differently, you know, could have thought about that in a different way. And, uh, that clarity, you know, uh, of, like, it hasn't really. That didn't really show up until a few years ago, you know, for me, like, you couldn't tell me how you couldn't tell me nothing 10 years ago. Right. You know, um, and a lot of people try to. And I always try and be as, you know, as respectful as possible, but, like, I didn't really care for people telling me how my path should go. And honestly, to this day, I still don't like that. But I do it a little bit more humbly, I guess. Um, but, you know, when I first started with Deloitte and it was just like, um, yeah, you do two years as a staff, you do two year, three years as a senior. You know, all this good stuff, I was just like, well, how can I skip all that? Like, I don't. I'm good. I don't need all this. I'm not good here, let me be a manager. It's like, um. And I Did end up, uh, bumping heads with my previous manager at the time because she was a new time manager, like a first time manager. I was a first time senior. So we both want to impress for our positions. Like, we just here, we make it happen. I had a hard time. And again, I'm taking responsibility. Sure. Yeah, I'm taking responsibility. Okay. I'm sorry, um, that I'm still, I'm trying to show, like, hey, this is what I can do, you know, don't you know where you coming from, like, out of nowhere type thing and making this happen and, you know, and to be fair, she was also, you know, a little, you know, she was a little aggressive sometimes too.

Drew Carrick: Yeah. But micromanaging.

Kendall King: Yes, very much so in the beginning. Um, but then, then she was like, all right, well, I'll let you, I'll let you fall on your face. And I actually thought, I liked that though. I was like, I'll take that. You know, I'll take my lump. You know, I, I, I take, take my step out there. I'll take, I will take the repercussions of that. Um, but you're just looking back, I know. You know, that could have been.

Drew Carrick: Well, it's one of those things that there's no, there's no actually great playbook. We talk about the importance of training, and you can train somebody all you want, but it's until you actually go and experience the thing that you won't really be able to apply the practices and find out whether you're a good fit for that.

Kendall King: True.

Drew Carrick: And everybody steps into this new role and there's no, it's like being a parent, I'm sure.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: There's no, there's no playbook on how to like, raise your kids properly. Just like with diet, every culture and society and genetic makeup has a different optimal diet that they're supposed to take. And you can't just open up a book and be like, oh, well, it's obvious. You just follow this. Because if it was that easy, we'd all do it. Well, actually, I don't think everybody would do it. Um, true. But I do think those of us that like, I'm very much. If you give me a playbook, I can, I can follow it to a T. Yep. Um, but the question, the thing is, is that there's no one playbook that

Kendall King: actually works, that works for everybody, because even you can give me a playbook. I'll see him. All right. But what's not in here? Right. You know, and so that's my Thought it's like, all right, this is what you do. This is how you think it should happen. And I think mine is very much so in the sense of, all right. You know, I had a conversation with Denise, uh, Fremy, who's, like, the CEO of Cal, uh, cpa, not too long ago, and we were talking about, um, different pathways, you know, and going, you know, looking for that new role. And instead of taking the role that everybody takes, it's like. Like, you know, finding that other road less traveled type thing. Um, and, you know, that's me to a T. It's just like, all right, we know that works, but what about that? You know, that's kind of my mindset. Um, and so to your point, you know, that even if that one Playbook had all the answers you needed to have, you know, people like me or some other people out there, you know, that might not even be enough. You know, it's like, you might need to give me an empty book, you know, and let me figure it out, and then I can be humbled, and then I can come and see. It was just like, different people, different stages in their lives. Um, but like you said, you know, everybody has their own thing that they need to.

Drew Carrick: You know, another name for Millennials is Generation Y. And I've always embodied that. We're the kids that were like, why? Why do we have to do it like that? And that's. That's me to a T as well, where I. They're like, well, this is the Playbook. This is what's proven to work. I'm like, well, it's proven to work in the situations where it worked, but how about the situations where maybe it doesn't? And I think we live in a future now, especially with AI and how customized everything can be and catered to individual needs. Like, your algorithm feed is feeding you specifically what you want.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: Products are being suggested that would be ideal for you. It's not being blanketed across the board.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: You have to throw out the Playbook and just say no. The new Playbook is being able to adapt the Playbook.

Kendall King: Yes, that's.

Drew Carrick: And it's customizing. So with that being said, I do want to jump into, uh, you know, adapting to changing times. Right. With the first article, um, you had sent this over to me. Governor Newsom pumps California's film and TV tax credits to drive Hollywood back to business. And this is obviously something where we've seen a lot of shifting of films to places like Louisiana, which offers a 40% tax credit. Georgia, with a 30%, that's a lot being filmed in Atlanta and even like New York and New Jersey are popping in there. I know, uh, earlier this year I talked about the movement of. I think they were upping from 400 something million up to 700 something million in incentives for New York. And they're building a whole facility in New York City and they're trying to bring it there. So this seems to be California's way to combat it and be like, no, no, no, we still got it going on here.

Kendall King: Exactly. And that's a big thing because even. And that's just within the states. I know Canada is another big one because when I used to work, you know, for those production companies, that was a big thing, you know. You know, my entertainment experience, you know, includes the thought, ah, like how to take advantage of these tax credits. I mean, a lot of people don't even know that they can take advantage of them. You know, a lot of the producers and we live in the a, um, a, uh, world now where like honestly all these content creators are production, you know, studios, you know, themselves. Right. Um, and that's what, you know, when we look at this, you know, this, um, this mandate, this order is great because it'll, you know, um, more than double what, you know, we have here in California. I believe it's the, going to be the highest, you know, out there as far as, you know, the, you know, tax credits. Um, and this is clearly a move by, you know, by the governor to pull most like, all that back in here and like really, you know, push um, forward Hollywood specifically filming in California. But there have been some, um, some opposition towards it that it's only going to, it's going to disproportionately, you know, contribute um, and benefit like the bigger productions. Right. Um, I think that this is important to realize is because number one, he should take that into consideration and maybe create some, you know, lines like, all right, well, this portion is specifically for, you know, um, this group of studios or, you know, 50 people or less or 10 people or less or something like that or your, you know, revenue or something where, you know, you can allocate, you know, that before because if they were doing 330, you know, for you for already, then you know, who say you can just push 100 to the side, you know, and then give them the rest. So, um, I think that that's important though because um, if they use that to really, um, like provide this to content creators, I, um, think that's, you know, as accountants, you know, that's something that we can really help them with and push it forward because I don't think the content creator economy is going anywhere in my opinion. Um, I think it's going to just continue. It's probably going to be you know, centralized um, maybe to certain people and it might be a little harder to get into to really make a, an impact point.

Drew Carrick: Yeah, yeah.

Kendall King: When you look at like Kai you know and you know he, his dude, he's doing ah, it's called the Mafia thon, um, where it's just like a 24 hour stream all of November. He's, he's probably, he's not probably, he's for sure streaming right now, live streaming right now and hit the level of production that that's taking. Um, you know they can get, they, well they should be able to get tax credits, you know, based off of that because it is creating content, you know. And so I think that's where my interest in this article is really, you know, cool. Number one, obviously bringing that money, um, and you know, trying to you know, incentivize the market. But I think number two is how can that benefit this new content creator economy that um, is now in full effect.

Drew Carrick: Yeah, I think the notion of the large studios versus the individual creators is the perfect example of how times have shifted. So the playbook again, if you go back 20 years and you said how do we get films to come back to California or what's going to be the impact of increasing the tax incentives and credits for doing filming, you'd say well this is the strategy that works. But in you fast forward 20 years in a content creator economy where you have these individuals who are basically running their own mini mini studios as, as a solo creator or they have a very small team that they work with and they're churning out content on a, you know, every other day basis and throwing something up on social media, you have to factor that in. SAG had to factor it in when it comes to new media. Um, and you have this, this digital platforms that was never a consideration in the past and now it's, it's the main way that people are consuming content. So it would be interesting if they were to carve out a certain amount for the individual creator market. Because you think about it, if you can bring those people to California and their incentive is, and I mean enough still come to LA for it, but obviously not as much. And also people are going to other cities but if you can incentivize them to come, then everybody still benefits by having those people there because it gives that allure of like, no, this is where creators go. Yeah. And if I want to be around other creators, that's where I want to go. And obviously having the incentive and I think about from an accounting and accounting standpoint, that's a huge incentive to be like, none of us are ever going to get the gig to go help the tax incentive at you know, Marvel Studios or any of these massive studios. But your friend who's a content creator who could use some help in getting this can definitely tap into all the smaller accounting practices and firms for sure.

Kendall King: And I think another thing is number one, when we're in college and you know, being a production accountant or being an accountant in entertainment isn't really a thing that's pushed. And I say this all the time, is that, you know, we should be raising the awareness of the different pathways you can take in accounting. Um, because to be real, the production accounting, you know there's a lot of times not actual act, they're not actually accountants. Right. You know, a lot of the production accountants. And again this is no shade. So don't, don't get mad at me. I'm just being real. Is that a lot of times there are people who wanted to get into the industry. Maybe they were part of the crew and they were just kind of given the job or maybe it was just there. It's just like, hey, we need somebody to do that. But they're not like actually trained accountants, you know, or CPAs or anything like that. Not saying everybody, um, but some of them, you know, I think honestly a majority of them, you know, are not that. And so, you know there is a. I think that the industry as a whole is pretty behind when it comes to having good accounting, you know, standards or quality. Honestly, at the end of the day

Drew Carrick: I think I ah, think one of the biggest things that the AICPA should be doing is doing spotlights on the different people who have their role because they started you know, from a traditional accounting or they just have an accounting background and that's what enabled them to have a sort of position because you don't. You're only really familiar with tax audit and like bookkeeping is like, it seems to be that it. And then there's always like the uh. They throw an advisory as, like a blanket, as a blanket catch all everything else. Yes. But nobody has any idea what that exactly means. And so showcasing this is an actual role that somebody can do. If this is of interest to you, it touches on this stuff of accounting. But it also touches on this stuff of finance and this stuff of entertainment. That's what makes that role. And if you're this type of personality or if these are your interests, then perhaps this is a role for you. And I think it's just the same old thing. It's like this person is the CFO of a company now and they started as, as a regular account. It's like, we know about that track. Everybody knows about the. Eventually you can maybe become a cfo, if you, if you follow.

Kendall King: It's very general. Yeah, it's very general. We don't go into industry specific things or we don't go into um, you know, specific roles that these accountants take. It's uh, going to audit, going to big four audit, tax advisory. And then you figure it out that. And. Or go into private and then. But it's, it's very general. It's never like go into. I, uh, actually just met ah, uh, somebody at um, this accounting conference I went to John, um, and he uh, does farming. You know, he's accountant for like. I, um, think he's specifically made like farming, but dairy specifically, like that's his thing. Um, and so even that I'm like, it sounds. It's not probably something I would be interested in, but it's like that, that's that specificity of it. It's just like being able to, to be aware of that. It's like, no, I didn't know that. You know, I didn't know you could, you know, do he built. You build your practice or you build your, you know, um, your job and your role around dairy accounting. That's Is a very niche.

Drew Carrick: And I, and the thing is, is I'm thinking as you're saying it of like, I don't even know how to. What that would entail because all we've ever been trained on is our perception of what accounting is. And you're like, okay, so you're just accounting for eggs and for milk and it's like, no, there's probably a whole other aspect to it that we just

Kendall King: don't even, you know, is that. Is that inventory or is it an asset? Right. Yeah, it's like what type of asset is it?

Drew Carrick: You know, that's a really fascinating.

Kendall King: Yeah, it's like when it creates the milk, like, how do you value that? You know, it's like it's, you know. Yeah, it's, you know, again, I told you I'm a nerd. I can go there.

Drew Carrick: It's interesting. When I had to do. I did A, uh, on site of St. George's University, which is a medical school. And they have on their assets list cadavers.

Kendall King: Yeah.

Drew Carrick: And it's. What's the. What's the useful life of a dead body? It was like kind of a funny joke of it, right? And I was like, well, they. They last for seven years. I was like, well, I don't know how long they last. They're dead.

Kendall King: Yeah. They don't have a useful life, but, uh, they're useful.

Drew Carrick: That's funny.

Kendall King: Yeah.

Drew Carrick: So anyway, the, the. To wrap up with this one, uh, the current plan is $330 million annually, and that's supposed to go approximately up to 750 million each year. So this, uh, obviously has to still be passed by the state, but this is a proposal from, uh, Governor Nome, and we'll see how that pans out. Talking about big, uh, money. We also had this other article. Uh, at 70, Alpacino was broke, but found his way back from misfortune. He said, I was broke, I had 50 million, and then I had nothing. And this is from, uh, his memoir, Sunny Boy.

Kendall King: Yep.

Drew Carrick: And it just talks about, you know, this part of it, it talks about, uh, the financial downfall due to just mismanagement of. Of funds. And that included an accountant, a corrupt accountant involving him, uh, which led to losing a $50 million. I mean, what's. What was your first reaction to this and any context around it?

Kendall King: I, When I first see anything like this, because this is not a, um, unicorn story. This happens quite often in entertainment because. And I think again, goes further to my point that that industry as a whole is usually based on, like, relationships, especially in the past. Right. Um, heavy on relationships. Not necessarily heavy on, um, you know, CPAs and degrees and stuff like that. Again, I don't think in this particular case that's what's happening. I'm just. Just saying it in general. Um, and so with that being said, you have people who build these reputations who, um, portray this certain aura, uh, or like, all right, well, this person is this person's accountant, so he must be good, you know. Um, and I think that what I wanted to highlight the opportunity that exists, that number, um, one, you can. You can have all this money and still need help. That's why I don't think AI is, you know, I know that's a topic on people's minds. I don't think AI is going to go away. I mean, sorry, it's going to take away accountants jobs. It's. It's going to get you know, um, rid of a lot of the mundane stuff for sure. You know, and I think you should use that as a tool to help you do your job. But it's still going to be this human aspect where people who have money, for example, they mismanage. He mentioned he took a responsibility of his own stuff. He was just like, I had like 16 cars that, um, I didn't, you know, I was paying for $400,000 in, you know, keeping a landscape for a

Drew Carrick: house he wasn't living. Yeah.

Kendall King: That he wasn't living in. And then, um, you know, it was just a whole bunch of stuff that he was doing. 13 cell phones or 20 something cell phones that he didn't know that he was even paying for. Um, and so you're still. I think the, I just say that because the opportunity to still be a financial partner to people will always exist. AI, you know, because he could have had an AI assistant and been in the exact same situation. Right. Um, and so I think you always gonna have that human element. And again, it's just another opportunity that I like to point out and I just kind of, you know, um, these type of stories are interesting. Yeah. Um, so for sure. Yeah.

Drew Carrick: I feel like when it comes, this is where, like when it comes to real people's money, it's not company's money. And I try to always think about it the same way. Like if I'm spending money on behalf of the company, I think about it as if it's my own money.

Kendall King: Yeah, right.

Drew Carrick: And obviously there's a limitation to that because you also can't be thinking like, well, we don't want to spend the $2,000 on that because in the grand

Kendall King: scheme of things, got to take the swings. Right.

Drew Carrick: But um, there's something about this materiality where when you're at this scale and you're just one person, because a company has hundreds of people working at it. So they have people to monitor all these different things and segment it. When you're an individual and you're, you're a, uh, hundred million dollar individual, you need people to help you manage your life because your life is an entity in and of itself.

Kendall King: Yep.

Drew Carrick: I mean, think about how many people could have just thrown on, oh, we need this phone for something, you know, all these things and next thing you know you're paying for everybody's and you don't even know because it's immaterial. But it adds up over the course of all these different. And expenses.

Kendall King: And he wasn't signing his own checks, apparently you know, he was let in this particular account and again, this is a, um, an example of somebody who took advantage. Right.

Drew Carrick: So they knew that he wouldn't be able to look in the details. Yeah. And discover the stuff. And they say, oh, he's not going to notice a hundred dollars extra a month on this or 100 on that you could pay for your whole life.

Kendall King: The re. The way he found out was because, number one, they, some uh, of his friends or something like, they warned him, number one, that this particular account was a little shady. But, um, he found out from the story, apparently that he went on this lavish vacation with, um, his family and everything. And when he looked back in his account, like he realized like nothing had really changed. And so the accountant, you know, who's doing this just didn't properly reflect, you know, the expense. So he was actually like, wait, I look like I got more money than I should have. What's going on here? And then he realized, actually, I don't have any of this because the accountant was doing a Ponzi scheme where again, just taking other people's money and funneling it in, uh, and everything. And you know, once you, you know, obviously you, you build that pyramid up too much, you know, it's hard to continue keeping, uh, you know, all the plates spinning, as they say. Right. And so in this instance, he was found out not because where my money go, but it's like, where, why didn't my money go? Right. And he found out that, oh, it is gone.

Drew Carrick: One thing I learned about Ponzi schemes is that if you're going to do it, you have to make sure you could project that out for 50 years and don't overscale yourself that they is, they want to, you know, it's a five year plan and all of a sudden five years goes up and now you're, you've grown this thing so massive and there's nobody left to replenish it.

Kendall King: Yes. I can't get out of this. And it's like, what's going on? But so that's, it's just like a cautionary tale in my opinion. Um, number one, to, to creators, to entertainers and stuff is always have that you don't just have one person do everything. You know, Um, I, I like this concept of having a, like a board of directors essentially for you as a person. Right. Um, we do it for business. All the stuff that I tell my clients all the time is that, you know, all the stuff that businesses do, you know, we make budgets for businesses and Forecast. And um, and we do all this stuff like that should be happening for you as a, on a personal level at the same time. Um, and so finding somebody and as accountants providing that service to um, to individuals, especially high net worth individuals. Um, and you look at, you know, creating them financial statements, you know, and treat them as a business, you know, like they got, he, you know, he got, I'm probably like at least seven or eight different streams, revenue from acting, from his, you know, just active, you know, payment, the royalties, the, you know, speaking gigs. And so it's just like you should be looking at all that.

Drew Carrick: And if you make enough to not have to pay attention to it, then you means you make enough to pick somebody to pay attention. And again, if you only make enough to afford one accountant, then you also, you know, don't make enough to not be paying attention to what they're doing.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: So you would be checking it.

Kendall King: So you should always, always check the. This, this accountant's actions is not indicative of accounting as a whole. But I know a lot of people because I think I saw this, what was DJ Khaled too. He had a, he had a, um, mindset like I don't, I don't trust accountants and everything. It's like it's not accountants in general. It's people who are, you know, um, you know, doing.

Drew Carrick: There's always going to be someone trying to take advantage.

Kendall King: Exactly. Yeah.

Drew Carrick: So speaking of the unethical accountants, the last article that we have here is, uh, EY fired dozens of staff members who attended two video training meetings simultaneously. Uh, that's obviously a headline. This is essentially taking cpe, doubling up on it because you need to get it done.

Kendall King: Yep.

Drew Carrick: So just uh, this happened last month, but it's just one of those things that EY was in the news two years ago because in 2022, EY was told to pay $100 million to the SEC after staffers were found to have cheated on, on their ethics exams. Required to obtain and maintain of course, their CPA license.

Kendall King: Yep.

Drew Carrick: Uh, and it's funny to be cheating on an ethics exam, but so obviously now is very focused on making sure this doesn't happen again. So that's why they're highlighting this. And the employees, you know, they no longer work at ey, but they did tell Financial Times that they were just trying to take advantage of all the sessions that they could attend because they had to get it done by the deadline, the end of the year. And that added that the company bred a culture of multitasking which is not uncommon in modern society. We're always trying to do a million things and, uh, be as efficient with time as we possibly can. Um, they were also never told that. They claim that EY never told them that they shouldn't be attending multiple meetings at once. Seems like it would be common sense. But what my question, you know, on this is, is does this speak to the culture of just not taking continuing education seriously? Like, people just don't. It's just like a chore, so they're not viewing it as of any value, so might as well do to it this same time.

Kendall King: I think that is exactly it. Um, I think that CPE and I think this is a personal thing as an accountant, but I think this is a institutional thing as well. Is. It's. CPE isn't pushed or, you know, um, incentivized by firms. You know, it's just like, you will want your people to learn. You know, you should want your people to grow. You should want your people to take these CPEs, not just because it's a requirement to hold your license, but this genuinely makes people better. Right? But that's not how I see. At least in my opinion. You know, uh, just in general, how I look at it from, you know, the firms is like, yeah, we got to get it done. You know, um, and being on the audit, you know, it's like, all right, well, yeah, you need to get it done. You know, take. Do it on your own time, you know. But then it's just like, wait, uh, you know, I ain't got no. On my own time because you taking that, right? And so, like, how am I supposed to get that done and this done at the same time, you know, and so that multitasking thing goes on. Again, you know, take responsibility. They did that. It is what it is, for sure. Is it the end of the world, in my opinion? No. Um, but, um, and I will be. You know, when I was studying for the CPA exam, for example, I would, you know, I would play the game I liked. I play the game and then listen to, uh, Tim Garrity or, uh, you know, like, speak in the background, basically. Um, and that's how I retain the information, because I needed to be engaged, you know, so just like, I think this shows. This tells a story of needing to make CPE more engaging, number one. And then for firms to back that up to show, like, look, this is important to us. This should be important to you. This should be important to our industry. Um, and then I think the, you know, and Obviously, you know, I'm not putting this all on the firms. You know, uh, individual professionals should be taking this seriously, too. Um, but I think that it has just been a. Um. It's like the thing that's like the. You just put to the side. It's just like, all right. Oh, damn, I gotta do that now. I gotta, like, let me just hurry up.

Drew Carrick: Right?

Kendall King: And I ain't gonna lie. I've been victim to that too. It's like, let it. You let it slide, you know, you let it catch up. And a lot of people are actually foregoing their CPA license because they don't even think it even means much, you know, these days, like, if you're not

Drew Carrick: signing off on a statement or audit.

Kendall King: Yeah. It's just like, you're not. You know, you don't, um. The actual credential doesn't give you much more, um, if you're not doing audit. Right. Um, it does set you apart 100% if you're in the market and people are looking for CPAs. 100%, I agree. But after you get that job or after you get that thing, it's just like. It's not as, um, valuable if you're not doing a specific thing. And I think that's also some work that we should be doing in general just to make it more valuable. Um, but that also goes hand in hand with making CPE more engaging and more, um, more of a thing that you want to do instead of just something that you have to do.

Drew Carrick: Well, I think CPE across the board. And you could apply it to any business. Right? You can apply it to. To legal.

Kendall King: Yeah.

Drew Carrick: With CLE in medical, and. And I can't attest to those professions, but my, uh. My cousin is a lawyer, and he told me, when I told him that we had this. This platform where we're trying to make, you know, just a little bit better CPE content.

Kendall King: Yeah.

Drew Carrick: He's like, if you could do that for. For law, that would be great. He's like, this is a absolute pain in the butt that I have to do every single year. It's terrible. He's like, I don't even know what it is. They just send us a link at the end, and we just try to, like, cram it all in, and it's. It's annoying. So it seems to be just across the board that professional development and professional education, uh, is not really being embodied in the best possible way. And there's some people that are always going to be focused on it, but the content isn't being made enjoyable for those people either. So it's. It's kind of a chicken or the egg. Like, well, we're not going to invest in it because nobody cares.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: But nobody cares because it's not good. And you can't make it good unless you invest in it. And it's just. This is kind of like chicken or the egg theory.

Kendall King: Yep. And I think that, you know, um, especially in this day and age with trying to understand this new wave of accountants. Right. You know, trying to figure out this pipeline everybody keep talking about. Um, that's important. You know, that's important just for the, you know, the authenticity or the, the necessity. The necessity of a CPA license credential. Right. At the end of the day. Um, and so, you know, I mean, as you know, you know, you're doing stuff here flowcast with, you know, trying to make it more interesting. I'm also doing, trying to do the same thing, trying to make it more interesting and more engaging as well.

Drew Carrick: So one of those things which is, uh, what I want to talk about here in this next section, bullish or bearish, talk about, you know, one topic that's close to home for you and I think is a first stab at, or one of the many stabs at addressing this CPE issue. Or like you said, it's not engaging and it's not interesting. So how do we make it more fun? Um, so let's talk about CPA Con. You know, so this is the first year that this is going to be happening. So just, uh, give me a little backstory on that. And I think it might tie to, you know, your experience with, with building a DreamCon and the methodologies that you might be applying from that to, To CPA Con.

Kendall King: Yep. So like you said, the context is I am the cfo, um, ahead of partnerships for a, uh, anime gaming, entertainment culture Convention, uh, called DreamCon. It's a event that's put on by RDC World, which is a group of influencers. Um, they realized that there was a hole in the market basically for what, you know, the, for this particular type of event. Um, and so they created it. Back when I joined the team, um, they had already kind of gotten to about 2,000, you know, about 2,000, um, attendees. Um, and since I've joined the team, we've been able to get to about 23,000. So it's been, you know, huge scale, um, and growth over these past few years. Um, obviously mainly, you know, catered to the fact that of them and their marketing um, ability, but also the culture that's being created. And I help with making sure, you know, the, you know, we bring. We're bringing in money, you know, outside of just ticket sales, and then we're using that wisely. And, you know, and it's obviously a growing process and everything like that. But, um, I took that methodology because I see, you know, doing those live events, um, I see, like, how invested people are, how much. How fun, you know, they are, and, you know, like, the. The smiles on their faces, you know, walking through the house, the halls and just having so much fun and everything. Um, and I had initially started with adding some business to this. I'm like, we got all these people together. Why not talk about how to make money if you're a creator, right? Um, why not, you know, figure out how we can get them a career, you know, and, you know, from some of our sponsors, we got Nintendo here, we got Twitch here, we got YouTube. Let's do a career fair, you know, um, that's kind of outside the box of what these anime and gaming conventions usually do. But I'm just like, why not? Let's, you know, we got them here. Let's make it happen. Um, and so, you know, when planning that and making that happen, I was actually watching the super bowl, um, and also the NBA All Star Weekend. It was also like, you know, war season. Um, and I was just like, man, this is all this fun stuff that, you know, people are doing. I'm like, why don't accountants have something like this? You know, and from that method, like, from that, like, you know, thought process, I was just like, you know what? Let's make it happen. And so I started with creating games. You know, I'm a huge gamer, um, and I say gamer in a sense of any type of form of game. So board game, video game, uh, like I mentioned earlier, uh, so I am a huge gamer in the sense. So I was like, you know what? Let's add the gaming element. Um, but essentially, CPA Con is supposed to be bridging together the entertainment piece, um, with the learning, with the networking and building the community, um, and just really changing the narrative of how we all look at accounting in the accounting space and finance space. And so, um, it's. It's bridging all that stuff together. And where CPE comes in is that, you know, these events are, you know, where you can also get CPE at them. Um, now an accounting convention is nothing new. You know, there's tons of events and tons of things that people go to the thing that is new, um, that I'm, you know, really pushing through is the engagement piece, the entertainment piece, um, you know, those factors as well that will make it interesting. And it's like, oh, I want to come. You know, I want to participate. You know, I want uh, to, you know, because this is, in my mind, this is actually a financial sports league I want to create, you know, just like, you know, based on these games. It's like get, you know, um, students, get professionals, um, to really compete in this and really do something. Um, there's also an event like the financial esports, um, thing like Excel. They have like a, you know, Excel battle, like hardcore Excel. Like, you know, they'd be doing some crazy functions and stuff in there. Um, so they've proven that, you know, you can take this kind of model and apply it, right? And I'm doing that same type of thought process and applying this entertainment model to cpacon. So, you know, one of the games I always like to mention is like the Labyrinth game, right? So, um, we're going to build an actual life size labyrinth, um, in the venue where you have to navigate through as a team. Um, find the questions within the labyrinth, answer them and then get out the fastest. Um, whoever obviously gets out the fastest at the fastest with the most correct answers, then they, you know, win that round or get those many points and stuff, right? Um, and so that's one game. Another game is actually modeling the CPA exam. So imagine just me and you. Like it actually could be in this little setup right now. And you know, uh, you just get the question. All right? You know, a question that you would find on the CPA exam, you would answer it, but you wouldn't know if it's right or wrong. You know, so you got to just keep, you know, answering, um, and you know, it'll be certain rounds. So the first round, 10 questions. I say you got 10 minutes to answer all the questions. We ask the question, boom, boom, boom. You answer them, but you don't know if it's right or wrong. Same way as CBA exam, right? You'll get, you know, certain, you know, uh, abilities to like, you know, uh, say, all right, let me, I want to review one of these things just to, you know, to automatically get it right. So you, you'll have like, different perks and stuff throughout the game where you can, you know, activate, you have a team that you can probably call friends.

Drew Carrick: Like who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Kendall King: Exactly. And so it'll be like that where, um, again, CPA exam, you know, where we all dread and don't want to be a part of nothing like that. Um, but now we're making it more interesting is now it's competitive, now it's fun, um, and you can learn at the same time. And so I think Those are just two events that we're going to be doing on, uh, NCPACON, which is December 3rd, uh, out here in Los Angeles. But, um, you know, and. And just to be. I've also talked to this, you know, this event with some other states as well, who, you know, we haven't even seen the event yet, and they already want, you know, CPA con over there too. And so, you know, really want to get the proof of concept, like, look, this can work. This can happen. People will be engaged, um, m. And get people to think outside the box. I'm like, I think nobody's told me this is a bad idea, but a lot of people are just like, ah, we'll wait to see what happens, you know, And I'm just like, okay, all right, bet, you know, so I got it, you know, so now the chicken or the egg, to your point is, you know, I'm investing in it. You know, I'm taking that step, you know, to make it happen. And, you know, I'll be. I'll be the egg or the chicken, I don't know which one. You know, I am in this situation, um, to. To. To blaze the path forward. Um, but in my mind, I see a CPA con in each major state. Um, and then we'll do the best of California against the best of New York and the best of, you know, Texas and a national one. Then we do international. I got big plans.

Drew Carrick: Yeah, I love it.

Kendall King: So that's the. That's the thought process. And, you know, we'll start with the events, but then we'll go into really changing how accounting conventions in general are done. I have a feeling that either they're gonna hit me up and be like, hey, we want you to, you know, kind of help us with this, or they're going to try to figure out themselves, but, you know, kind of take the. The. The, um. You know, the. The roadmap, essentially.

Drew Carrick: I think every state society. And because people tell me this all the time, like, oh, you really got to, you know, help these societies out. They keep doing the same boring keynotes that people don't want to hear and whatnot. And I think when they see the popularity and the potential, it's something that it's going to be, you know, Some states are a lot more, you know, action oriented and they're, and they're jumping on it. Um, I had Dr. Sean Stein Smith on here, and I think I forget he was talking about one state. It might have been like Wyoming, like, that already has their own, like, like cryptocurrency. Like, they're like very on top of it. Uh, I know I can speak personally about Texas CPA society. They're very, very much so on top of it. Other states are a little bit slower. They don't have the same sort of community, so they stick to the more traditional routes. But I think to your point, you'll start to see this become a more popular. Like, how do we reinvigorate because all of these societies are losing membership.

Kendall King: Exactly.

Drew Carrick: And it's not just because there's less CPAs, it's just there's less interest just in CPAs to even join it. What's the value I'm getting out of this and what makes it exciting? And if your membership came with going to an event that was really cool, then that would be, It'd be rewarding. Yeah.

Kendall King: And I went to, I was actually having a conversation with the CPA society, um, and they asked me directly. This is like, it would. So what do you think is going on? Like, um, or what. What do you think the opportunities right now that exist for, um, for societies? I'm just like, the thing is, in the past, before the Internet, before, you know, you know, uh, where you, you were just told, like, you need to have an account being, doing like being accountant and, you know, uh, you'll get a job and everything like that. You guys were important, you know, because you were, you gave access to community, you were able to connect the people together. Now we have the Internet where we can do that. And now a lot of other people are building their own communities, um, that are more targeted, more specific. So when you look at some of our thought leaders in the space and stuff, they're building their own communities around it and serving needs that, that way. And then you have, um, you know, again, the cpe. You know, you guys were a great source of cpe, but now you can get CPE anywhere, you know, uh, for free, you know, and it's just like, for less hassle, you know. Um, and so now you now, outside of those things, what do you really bring to the table? And I told him, like, I think you still have the, you know, the volunteer aspect. People still want to give. People still want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And so you guys still have that. But then also, in my opinion, I think that they have that legitimacy, that stamp of approval, the, the history, you know, and so like, um, where I thought it was very important, I wanted Kyle cpa, you know, they're huge partners, you know, with, you know, CPA kind. They see the vision and like, yes, you know, we here. Um, but it was important for me to, you know, to have that, you know, um, legitimacy. Because Kendale King, you know, people like, who is he? Yeah, they wouldn't know from nothing. I could be saying the gospel truth, but they don't know and they don't care, you know, um, but, you know, my thought is, all right, now I got, look, they, they believe in me. You know, they're, they're stamping this, they're saying, this is good, this is cool. Also got the California Board of Accountancy as well doing the same. And so it's just like, all right, I know the idea is foolproof regardless, but now you got two trusted, you know, people in, you know, organizations in the space who are also backing it up. And I told them like, y' all still have that, you know, right at this point in time. And you also have the ability, um, or at least the closer ability to make, to enact change. Um, so like when we're looking at the 150 hour rule, you know, and all this, all that type of stuff, you, y' all are the ones who are talking about this with the legislators and the boards and stuff like that. You guys are pushing that and so you're able to still do that and enact change. And so all you need to do is just include the younger people. They want to be involved. They want to, I want to be involved. You know, I want to be, have a part of what I, ah, what's going on, um, and not just be a bystander in the industry. And so with cpacon, that's the goal is to have, number one, to be like the communities event, right? All you, all these communities are building up. You can come to cpacon because I'm not a software company. You know, this is not me trying to push you any type of software, me trying to push you any type of methodology or anything like that. I'm just trying to have an unbiased ground where we all can meet together, um, have fun first and foremost, um, but also learn, collaborate, connect and move on and move forward. So, um, and that includes pushing for the industry. Um, that includes taking the reins, you know, from the folks who are about to, you know, exit out. So. Because, um, I think they said like 75% of the accounting field is about to retire or something in the next 10, 5, 10 years. Something like that is insane.

Drew Carrick: Yeah, it's moving that way. So appealing to the young people is just going to be such an important thing.

Kendall King: It's necessary.

Drew Carrick: And we're, I think, Millennials generation, why we're that bridge gap where we, we saw how it was done, we see the way that things are trending, and it's going to be on us to sort of carry that forward and involve, uh, the next generation Gen Z and then, and the next crop.

Kendall King: Uh, and they loved it. I've, like, I'm actually kind of surprised. I was like, I went to student events and everything and I just did like a, a snippet of kind of what, what's to come. Cool. And they're like, oh, man, this is cool. This is fun. This is like, yeah, let me go. I'm going to come to CPA Con. I was like, hey, I love it. I love it.

Drew Carrick: Yeah. So that's actually, uh, what the top firms that are being recommended as, like, top employers are doing these things to. How do you appeal to the, to the next generation?

Kendall King: Right?

Drew Carrick: Those who are locked into the profession, they're locked in, they know their career, they know what they're doing. But it's, of course, how do you utilize, engage, retain, attract this next generation of talent? So that's the business philosophy section here.

Kendall King: And it's a big thing. Just one more set on the. Because I think a lot of people always think it's just for students, you know, but I think it also helps with the retention. You know, to your point, the millennial, um, Generation Y, they're looking for a place. They're, they're, you know, we're, we're deciding, you know, what are, what are we going to put our stock in, you know, what are we going to end up doing? Um, and, you know, we have a voice, but we don't really, you know. And so, like, and then we are very scattered. So, like, coming together, I want a place for us to come together, um, to have that and like, start, you know, pushing that stuff forward.

Drew Carrick: So I'm looking forward to it. It's definitely going to be an exciting, exciting event. So you, anybody that's listening, that's, uh, in the LA area, make sure you check it out. We'll have a link in the bio and you can, uh, you know, grab your ticket and you'll see us there. And so uh, when it comes to the young generation, like I said, business philosophy here that we're talking about, uh, recently came out was the 2024 list of best accounting firms or best firms for young accountants. Uh, and then even going further, this is all from accounting today was inside the 2024 Best Firms for young accountants. So there's a whole list here, uh, a lot, surprisingly, from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, which I thought was, was, was pretty interesting. But in order to qualify for the best firms for young accountants, they must have a minimum of 15 employees, be under the age, uh, be under the age of 30 regardless of the firm size, while those with more than 150 employees must have a minimum of 10% of employees under 30. The response rate for those, uh, age 30 and under must be greater than or equal to 40%, 80% for employers with fewer than 25. Um, and finally, they must have an 80% average positive response for employees under the age of 30. So what's the secret to recruiting and retaining the next generation of talent? And summarized it came down to three things. It was trust, flexibility and investment. And that's internship experiences that help you build trust and familiarity with the brand. Remote work flexibility, I think is huge. Um, that's, that's, that jinxes. I wonder if the young generation does jinxing. Still my age.

Kendall King: That's crazy.

Drew Carrick: Transparent. Transparent leadership and upper management. I think this one is probably the most most important and the most critical. Uh, because you want to have management that has a consistent message and they walk the talk. M. Because we now live in a world where there was a time frame where nobody talked the talk and nobody walked the walk and nobody cared because, you know, employer was in power and you want a paycheck.

Kendall King: Sucks for you, right?

Drew Carrick: Then it became a no. They care about this, but you could fake it and you could just talk about it, but not actually do it. And optically it looks good. Then it got to the point now where information is so easily spread and people talk to each other. You know, between social media and the world's become so small because of that fishbowl type of stuff or a glass door type of stuff, where now you have to actually walk the walk. You can't just talk about how you have a great culture while you have a terrible culture. You actually, actually have to exhibit the traits that you're talking about, how you are. We really care about your people, and then do things that show that you care and not just say that you care. Yep. Um, other tech techniques are like groups and committees which give Employees, some sort of connectivity. Right. You want to feel a stake in your future and you want to have a stake in the company and the outcome and not just be a cog in a wheel. And again, there's always going to people that don't mind being the cognitive wheel. You pay them well and they, their job's consistent and it's, and it's easy and you're like heck, I get paid a lot. My job's easy. Like I don't need anything more out of life. I'm gonna go, you know, climb, you know, go hiking. Yep, that's, that's fine. Some people, they get their fulfillment out of like progressing and moving forward. You know, we're in that category of people who want to see our actions make an impact and then be rewarded from that which gives you that dopamine hit to then go try to do something even greater and more successful and keep tracking forward. So having that stake, even if it's not financial stakeholder, some sort of stake and then uh, the best one I thought was just keeping things real. And now for example, Wilkin Guten plan uses a commitment based schedule instead of set hours. So they start the day. You basically say, you know, what do you want to work? What do you want to hit as your bill at your target? You know, billable targeted hour.

Kendall King: Mhm.

Drew Carrick: Or targeted billable hours. Um, and then you find out what works for you and what's the compensation that that's worth. And then there's obviously a conversation to get that calculation and it's like, let's just be honest about it. I was like, well I really don't want to work more than this many hours and I understand I'm probably not going to get paid as much as somebody that wants to put in 2500 hours if I only want to put in 1800 hours. Um, but at least you know what you're giving up and you're going into that with open, transparent communication and have that flexibility. I work better from 10 o' clock in, in the morning until 7 o', clock, 8 o' clock p. M. Or I work better from noon until, until 9 and that's your hours and, and it works for you. Some people want to get up at 5am Just start cranking away and be done by 2, then so be it.

Kendall King: Them do it. Yeah, I think that's the big thing is stop treating people like their children. You know, it's just uh, I think we went from, and I heard this from a while ago and I might mess this up, but that the whole school complex is. Was just because of farming, you know, where it's just like, you needed people in, you know, a place to stay, uh, like to get them to do something during the, you know, the colder.

Drew Carrick: While everyone's working.

Kendall King: Yeah.

Drew Carrick: Or. Yeah, during the winter.

Kendall King: During the winter. And then when it was back where, um, you know, when this, you know, when crops needed to be, you know, done and everything is like, all right, school's out because you need to come help on the farm. And so I bring that up because we live on and operate so much in predated, like, normalcy, um, you know, like, predated operating systems and operating process. Like, no one has, like, rebooted and upgraded, you know, our, like, our operating system or how we do things. And when you do it or you try, you're like, oh, what you doing? You know, hold on, hold on now. We don't. We don't need to do all that. And I think that, um, when you even look at any type of new industry, right, you know, the Internet, when that came in, people just like, oh, my goodness, no. And crypto, oh, my goodness, no. You know, it's just like, all right, um. And like, remote is like, they wouldn't. Couldn't even conceive that before, but then when you had to do it, it's like, oh, okay, this can work. And then now it's like, all right, now, okay, we don't have to do this anymore. You know, we're not mandated to, like, do this, but all right, let's go back to where, you know, what we were doing before. And it's just like, but why, you know, again, I. I made this. That was a big part of my decision for, you know, quitting my job is that, uh, I didn't think that was necessary. You know, it's just like, sure, I'm like, I can come in there if I want to. You know, if I come in there for specific things. Cause I agree 100% that being in person is a different level of connections. A different level of stuff is like, I've been in that space where it's just a room and a whiteboard and we trying to figure it out together. I totally understand that that is a necessary thing at times, especially in certain careers. Like, um, creative. Like when I was in entertainment, it's like, it's creative, you know, it makes sense for them to come in. It's like bounce ideas off each other, fill off the energy, you know, it's. It's real time. Accountants don't need that, you know, not all the time. You know, it's just like you. More times than not, we're working on something and we'll have that to you and we're all good and then maybe we can come together for a meeting or come together. Like, I got a problem, I got a conundrum that I need to like

Drew Carrick: talk through and figure out.

Kendall King: That's cool. But it's just like mandating it for the sake of mandating it. Of like, okay, well, we need to go back to what it was. And it's just like because of that, it feels very forced. You know, you're forcing me to do something. And I think in this, in like this day and age, in this generation, people, uh, don't want to be told to do certain, certain things. You know, they want to have the impact. They want to have that voice. They want to have, you know, um, you know, entrepreneurial. That entrepreneurial spirit. Right. Is just like. And even when you just made that, you know, talked about, you know, that firm's doing, it's just like I'm in charge of my own schedule. You know, I can feel like I'm an entrepreneur without actually being one, without the risk of not getting paid. You know, I can put in this amount of time and I know I get this amount of work, but is up to. Is on my standards and is on my, um, you know, my terms. Yeah. And as long as it makes sense for the defer, you know, and then, then what's the problem? Why. Why are you trying to fit everybody in the same box? It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to me.

Drew Carrick: And I mean, it all circles back down to this whole playbook notion of people take this old playbook that worked. The reference that I always make is, um, back in the 1800s, there was a manual on how to fire a cannon.

Kendall King: Yeah.

Drew Carrick: Right. And it was, you know, you needed three people. So for the next hundred years, you know, military training, they would say, okay, this is the setup for how to fire a cannon. 3. Three person setup.

Kendall King: Y.

Drew Carrick: And the reason that there was a three person setup is because one person loads one person preps and the other person holds the horse.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: But guess what? We don't have any more horse drawn cannons. But they still had that third person there just as. Because it was part of the playbook.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: It's like, well, that's what the manual says you're supposed to do. And obviously, you know, they know the manual has been written. This is what's been effective and it works. Why are we going to tamper with it? And it's like, well, because we're living in a different time and now with how quickly things change, you can't just rely on, on a playbook that even worked five to 10 years ago. Right, right. It's changing so quickly and you have to be able to adapt and that's not to throw out all those old practices. Right. But like you said, if our uh, school system is based off of the farming schedule, maybe it just needs to be revisited and thought about in perhaps a different way.

Kendall King: Yeah.

Drew Carrick: So, uh, I do want to get on to our final section here which is. Have you read it? Um, I normally do it as a, ah, make meme.

Kendall King: Lol.

Drew Carrick: But I want to do a little throwback because we started off with. Have you read it? When I first started this and this is uh, the accounting, accounting community I think, loves Reddit is perhaps one of the favorite platforms. Very vocal, very active.

Kendall King: Um, unless you get off all the things you can, you didn't want to, you can't say, yeah, that's true too,

Drew Carrick: that that's, it could be dangerous. But it's also um, just one of those places where, you know, Reddit people love trolling, they love digging, they love research, they love figuring stuff out and they love sniffing out, you know, who's trying to do self promo and all that sort of stuff. So I, I thought what was interesting is there was a post and this came from a non accountant friend that sent it over to me and some of my friends who are accountants from back home. You know, there's an accountant shortage. KPMG says the 150 hour rule needs to go per fortune. And this was posted by Unusual Whales and this was posted into Reddit. So there's these, you know, reactions that of course everybody starts going off about this 150 hours rule thing and not everybody I think has the full context. And the reason I say that is, um, you know this, this individual here had wrote, uh, this will hurt the profession in long term, short term. Also higher barriers to entry create a walled garden where CPAs can command higher wages. Lower entry allows more offshoring and lower wages. The hours are already terrible at most places. Now that's, some people are like oh yeah, 100. I totally agree. Right? I, I look at that and I said, I was like no, you can, you can take 30 credits of whatever classes you wanted in community college. You could literally take 30 hours of dance class. That doesn't help you whatsoever. In the profession. So that's not really safe walling anything. It's not making you more qualified. Um, under this 150 hour rule to add clarity to those you know, who aren't familiar with it, like, it actually requires you to do 2000 hours of like competency credits to actually make you better at your job, which in my opinion makes the job more enjoy. If I had spent 2,000 hours learning how to audit more effectively when I actually started full time, and again, maybe this is part of the full time, you could at least get paid. And even if you're just as an intern and you're doing that, but you're doing real work that you have to get competency in, that makes me a lot more confident in doing the job and getting that technical expertise as opposed to learning another 30 credits of theory. Because I think we all have learned at this point and there's a reason why colleges are kind of plateauing with enrollment is because you can only learn so much theory. Like people need actual hands on skills. And of course with AI, you know, involved now too, there's always the, the skepticism around that. But like you can't replace knowing that having that technical experience because yeah, AI can, can tell you the theory, it can read you the textbook, it can go retrieve and summarize it for you, but you need to actually have done the work in order to know how to do the work.

Kendall King: Need to apply the concepts.

Drew Carrick: Right.

Kendall King: Yep.

Drew Carrick: So I think uh, so that was where I kind of jumped in here too. And I actually sent the in in the friend group. I had a friend who um, I've shot. I shouted him out on here before because he works for the big four. And he said, I agree. I learned nothing from college that I actually used in getting my masters. I could have saved the 40k and got to work a year earlier.

Kendall King: Yep.

Drew Carrick: Um, and again, so it's, it's not reducing the barrier to entry, it's actually just making more qualified CPAs.

Kendall King: Yep.

Drew Carrick: Getting the credits to get the license. You still have to pass the exam.

Kendall King: Still got to do that.

Drew Carrick: Don't make the exam easier. That's my, my one thing is don't make it easier.

Kendall King: So my opinion, because I agree with you, um, and just on that notion, I was a lucky enough, you know, I applied to a whole bunch of different scholarships and stuff. So my undergrad was paid for. You know, I didn't come out with any debt, but I had in order to, to get the CPA, you know, I need the 150. I went to the master's program where I had to take on some debt because some of the scholarships that I had didn't transfer over um, even though I didn't use all four years. Like they don't transfer over to a master's program. Which I felt was like, this is stupid. You already earmarked this for me for four years. Why is that's another problem. But um, I ended up having to take that to. The only debt I had was because of my master's program which is only was the only reason I really did it was to get the 150 credits. Because um, I was like, if I got to get 150 credits, well I might as well get a master's degree. Um, at this point. And I can 100% say that my master's degree doesn't, you know, doesn't really help me. The CPA 100mhm. Definitely helps. Definitely differentiation myself. But I don't, I'm not, I'm not Kendall King MACC cpa. You know, it's just like I'm not, you know, I'm cpa, you know, I don't put all the other stuff, the other stuff there. So I 100 agree that that rule, the 150 credit hour thing is something I would agree that does need to be there. And I 100 agree that it's being replaced with the additional time to, you know, on the job, working everything. 100 and I 100 agree on not making a CPA exam easier because you don't want to dim the quality of what a CPA should be able to do. Again, not all CPAs, you know, you can still take the test and still be poor quality can do that for sure. But that it's not about, you know, I don't want us to get to a place where we're desperate and we have to just take anything and you know, for anybody because then we're devaluing ourselves as a profession. Right. Um, it's really to, it's just to reduce the barriers of entry to get to that test, you know, then that's the test is going to prove, you know, and figure, figure it out. Like, you know, the test should be where it needs to be. I, and I will say I don't use every single thing I study for on the CPA exam on a daily basis. However, I do use the concepts. You know, I do. I um, am. Because I did all that work, I'm able to understand how to apply concepts into real life situations. To your point, AI for sure is a Thing that I think we all should be using once we understand the concepts, right? Um, understanding how to apply those concepts and then using AI to help with that research to help with, um, you know, like, you know, getting through a lot of information really quickly summarizes for me what's going on. All right, what's the actual problem here? All right, now I don't have to worry about all this stuff. Here's the actual problem. I can focus on that and I think it'll save us a lot more time. Um, but the, at the end of the day, accountants because. And another misconception in my opinion is that people think accountants are. You need to be, you know, super duper. It's all math based focus. I'm like, it's not really.

Drew Carrick: No, there's numbers. That doesn't mean you're doing math with them.

Kendall King: Yeah, it's not, it's like you're only doing basic math. You're doing addition, subtraction, you know, division and multiplication. It's like, now if you got a problem with that, then 100% don't do it. But, um, but more times than not, we're using a calculator, we're using Excel to do that stuff. Where I see accountants are, they're ones who apply logic. You know, understanding a set of rules and being able to apply logic in, you know, under those, under those, like, um, you know, barriers, essentially. And so, um, if you are, I'm talking to you now, if you are somebody out there who's listening, thinking that accounting isn't for you because it's heavily based in math and everything, you're just not good with numbers. I would caution you to say, hold on and challenge you. Are you good with applying logic? Are you a strategic thinker? Can you think outside the box? Can you think inside the box?

Drew Carrick: Really?

Kendall King: Either one. But it's not so much based on the math of it, but more on, based on applying the concepts of the rules that are generated. Because again, we are very rules based specifically in the U.S. you know, you have a list, you got the tax code, you have the classification, you have this. It's like, all right, now applying that to the situation is really what it is.

Drew Carrick: I, I love logic. I studied logic as part of my philosophy minor, you know, and so I think, think being an accountant gives you that logic based mindset which is so useful in so many places. And we like categorizing things and we like following sequences and following procedures and setting up rules and have predictable outcomes based off of those rules. And I think that's the mindset that we need to be advertising the accounting. It's not just that. It's not, it's not, oh well, you're just number people. It's like, no, I mean we like numbers or whatever, but it's because of the cleanliness of it. It's not because of the super brain calculator that we might have. Like.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: Those are the people that could become physicists perhaps.

Kendall King: Right.

Drew Carrick: You know, because you need to think

Kendall King: about it in that sort of exact chemists and stuff. No.

Drew Carrick: So to your point, to wrap this up on the, on the AI portion is somebody had then commented not a lot more AI can do at this point. It's one of the jobs that will disappear shortly, in my opinion. Um, and it's just so not true. They, you know, and they said if accountants are gone, so is every other white collar job. And somebody responded this. Cosby Sweaters 1992 Shout out to 1992. Love that. Uh, nah. They will decrease short term and cause labor disruption. Then people will figure out how to use AI in combination with humans to be more productive and new job titles will be created. The same thing always happens. Fear mongering about all the jobs going away happens every time a new disruptive technology comes out. Same thing happened with the Internet. Humans plus technology is more productive than technology on its own. And that just couldn't be more true. It's exactly like you said, it's an evolution and a transformation of what accountants are, uh, and how we can use our minds in coordination with AI and with technology to achieve a better, more innovative and successful future.

Kendall King: Because I'm sure they were having the same conversation. Maybe they were doing their version of a podcast back, you know, 50, 40 years, 60 years ago, whatever. Whenever this happened, I probably went back too far. But um, when Excel was brought up, it's like, what is Excel going to do? It's going to, you know, we're going to lose our jobs. You know, when they were doing everything, you know, with, in pen and paper, um, and you know, having to backup files on, on the drive and like on like in the location and stuff. So I'm sure they were having conversations like, is it still going to get rid of accountants? Right?

Drew Carrick: Yeah, that's probably, I'm sure they had the conversation. Totally true.

Kendall King: Yeah. But like, I don't think we don't have a problem. We don't have a problem with, you know, the, the um, the amount of jobs. We have a problem with the supply now. Um, and I do think AI will help reduce that, but I don't think it's going because that's another people's thought, you know, to his thoughts. The other people's thoughts are that, you know, AI is going to like take over. But I'm like, I don't think it really is going to take over in that sense, like what people think. Um, because again, same thing with Al Pacino. Same thing with, uh, um, you know, all this stuff is like, you still need somebody to operate it. You still need somebody to explain the concepts and apply them, you know, you

Drew Carrick: know, who became the best accountants, the ones that were most talented about doing the shortcuts in Excel.

Kendall King: Yep. Yeah. And now they have a competition. Uh, Right, right. Who can do that?

Drew Carrick: And that's how it is. But that brings me to the uh, concluding cyc, um, which is just, you know, our little, a little wrap out. This has been a great conversation with you, Kendale. Um, you know, as we wrap out now, 2024, obviously. So CPA con December 3rd.

Kendall King: Yep.

Drew Carrick: Um, tickets are. What's the website?

Kendall King: Uh, the cpacon.com.

Drew Carrick: okay.

Kendall King: Um, or you can go. If you're a Cal CPA member, you can go on Cal CPA's website and you can find it there. Awesome.

Drew Carrick: Yeah. So first year and hopefully this is the start of a whole movement to, you know, make accounting exciting and, and inspire other conferences to follow similar methodology. And, and we love gamification. This has been a, an age old psychological, you know, tactic of just getting people engaged and inspired through doing entertainment and through, you know, gamifying things. And that's how people become more productive too. You gamify cutting the lawn. How fast can I cut the lawn?

Kendall King: Exactly.

Drew Carrick: How accurate can I do it and turn chores into.

Kendall King: And you retain so much more of it.

Drew Carrick: Exactly. So what are your, uh, do you have any big learnings, final 2024 learnings that you've had or aspirations for 2025

Kendall King: that um, so in 2024 this year I, you know, took one of the biggest life changes I've had by having a son. So my son was born in January. Um, and he has been instrumental in like figuring out my mindset and changing things and understanding what's going on. And so, um, my key takeaways for 2024 and like, what I'm looking at for 2025 is, um, don't let, don't let yourself get in the way of what you need to do. Um, I think for a long time we, we think that we can't do something or we feel, um, like, you know, oh, that's just not in the cars for, for me right now or anything like that. But we're the only ones really stopping ourselves from that. Um, and so if, you know, my takeaway from 2024, you know, when. And having a son and doing CPA con and, you know, developing that and, you know where it is, it's like, don't let nothing stop you. You know, learn how to pivot, learn how to keep going, take risks. Um, you know, you only got one life to live. Um, go down that path that a lot of people didn't go down. Don't be afraid. Um, really just live, you know, and it's okay. You know, some things might not work out. It Very, very popular. I don't want to put it on, on the thing, but it's very possible that CPA con doesn't do what I wanted to do. Um, and I would have to be prepared to accept that whatever reality that is going to be right. The same way as, um, if my son, you know, again, I'm m teaching him and, you know, raising him up, he's like, I'm have to teach him. You have to be okay with, you know, disappointment and, you know, things might not go your way, but what are you going to do? How are you going to react? And so, um, I know that this year has been a lot of uncertainty in the world and a lot of, um, you know, figuring out, like, what's, what's next. And so 2020. So going into 2025, my opinion is bring that energy that, you know, you, if you haven't taken any risk this year, take your risk next year. You know, calculated risk. I ain't saying go crazy. Don't blame me. Um, and so really take that. Ah. And, you know, see what you can do, see what you can be. And as an accountant, have fun. You know, I, uh, think that's one thing that we haven't really done as a. As a whole. And so just have fun. Um, come to CPA con. That's a big one.

Drew Carrick: Yeah.

Kendall King: You know, so make support and everything like that. But, um, honestly, I think my biggest thing is take a risk. Um, do the thing that you want to do. Figure it out, Figure out how to make it happen and make it happen.

Drew Carrick: Yeah. We can only control the things that we can control and the things that we can't control. We can control how we respond to.

Kendall King: Exactly.

Drew Carrick: Yeah.

Kendall King: And that's, that's a can't control.

Drew Carrick: You can't control anything. But you can control your response to only control yourself.

Kendall King: Exactly. Yep, that's, that's it.

Drew Carrick: So that's a wrap on bar. Barring a special, you know, year end wrap, uh, up episode, this is a wrap on the fintech flow of 2024, episode 40, season two. Um, thanks everybody for sticking with us over the course of the whole season. Kendale, thank you for being my final guest here on this. Um, it's been super exciting. We'll see as we continue to iterate again. The playbook's always going to be changing so we'll see how we iterate the show, um, moving forward and into next year and what that has in store. But it's been a, ah, it's been an evolving year, transformative year and I'm excited to see how the profession grows, how all of the connections grow and good luck to you and uh, thanks to everybody for listening. Good luck to everybody else. Wrapping up your CPE credits on the end of the year and we'll see you in the new year.

Kendall King: All right, thank you.

Drew Carrick: Thanks for checking out the fintech flow. As a reminder, this episode is available for CPE credit and you can get that at Flow Academy or on the earmark app. Details are in the description below.

Kendall King: It.