“The more you can create that context in the family owner’s manual, the more important it is and the more it is NOT the ‘in-case-of-emergency’ file. Because the in-case-of-emergency file is going to say I’m an LP in Fund VII from so-and-so and my withdrawal rights are such and such. Or here’s the document. You go figure out what my withdrawal rights are, if I have any.” The owner’s manual teaches future generations what to prioritize and why. – Josh Kanter
Josh Kanter is the family office principal at Josh Kanter Wealth Advisory Services. He is also the founder & CEO at leafplanner, a comprehensive solution on planning for the 100-year time horizon for a family office, birthed out of his own need with his own family of creating an everlasting institution.
After decades as a lawyer, he went on to focus on his family business where he also currently serves as President of Chicago Financial, Inc., a single family office overseeing a complex organization of trusts, investment and philanthropic entities for a multi-branch and multi-generational family.
You can find Josh on his socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-kanter/
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.
OUTLINE:
[00:00] Intro
[04:01] Art, sculptures and Jun Kaneko
[12:30] The inception of Walnut Capital Corp
[15:36] How Josh defines creativity
[17:03] Creating the “freedom trust”
[17:56] Where did the name leafplanner come from?
[20:03] How did Josh get involved in the family venture business?
[23:22] Top lessons from being startups’ legal advisor
[25:48] Lessons as an investor and LP
[27:57] Investing in America’s biggest fraud
[30:01] The origin of leafplanner
[38:15] How do you start a family owner’s manual
[40:03] The importance of prioritization and context in the manual
[45:35] How do you make a owner’s manual searchable?
[49:50] The five kinds of capital (intellectual, human, social, financial, spiritual)
[53:15] What is the role of luck in Josh’s life?
[54:31] Josh’s primary vice when saying no
[56:51] Post-credit scene
SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Josh Kanter’s website
- leafplanner
- Kauffman Fellows
- Burton Kanter
- Pritzker family
- Hyatt
- Obama administration
- Cablevision
- Ticketmaster
- Hugh Hefner
- Bobby Hull
- Scott Saslow
- “How to Start a Single Family Office” with Scott Saslow
- Jun Kaneko
- Leo Castelli
- Richard Feigen
- International Sculpture Center
- John Raymond Henry
- Sculpture Magazine
- University of Chicago Law School
- Ree Kaneko
- Madame Butterfly
- Temple Har Shalom
- The KANEKO
- The USA PATRIOT Act
- Ryan Hamlin
- Aspen trees are a part of a single organism
- Sonicare Electric Toothbrushes
- Oprah Winfrey
- ZZZZ Best
- Barry Minkow
- Box
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- Microsoft OneDrive
- Microsoft Sharepoint
- Richard Orlando
- James Hughes
- Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family by James Hughes
SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“You’ve got great founders. That doesn’t make them great CEOs.” – Josh Kanter
“I may not be the CEO of this company at some point. If I am not the person to take this forward, then let’s bring in the person who is. Success is more important than my ego.” – Josh Kanter
“The more you can create that context, the more important it is and the more it is not the ‘in-case-of-emergency’ file. Because the in-case-of-emergency file is going to say I’m an LP in Fund VII from so-and-so and my withdrawal rights are such and such. Or here’s the document. You go figure out what my withdrawal rights are, if I have any.” – Josh Kanter
On cloud storage providers like Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and so on: “Every one of those systems relies on the brain that built the architecture of how you organize them. So I use Box. I have 225,000 documents in Box. Those 225,000 documents are organized on how Josh’s brain works, so the folder structure [etc.].” – Josh Kanter
“Financial capital should be looked at merely as a tool to grow the other capitals: [Intellectual, human, and social].” – Josh Kanter