have increasingly conceptualized the job of a ceo as “make intractable problems tractable” — for a team, about a market, for investors, etc

Ep. 27 - Mackenzie Burnett - Accounting for America Mackenzie Burnett (@ciaomack) is the co-founder and CEO of @AmbrookAg, financial software for independent businesses starting with farms and ranches. We trace her arc from a policy-first upbringing (USDA household, Congressional internships, climate-security research at Stanford) to a building software for rural America. We talk about why Mackenzie loves America and cares about agriculture, the challenges of aligning sustainability with business and government, and pragmatically building resilience. Mackenzie talks about the American Dream and why independent small businesses are the foundation of it in many ways. Then we get into Ambrook’s product philosophy: why “all roads lead to accounting,” how multi-P&Ls and biological inventories make farms deceptively complex, and why understanding bookkeeping and money movement enables better decision making and understanding over the long run for big and small businesses. We also talk through Mackenzie's broad ambition for Ambrook; her growth as a leader; brand, aesthetics, and environment; Ambrook's editorially independent research division, @OffrangeAg, and more. Mackenzie is one of the most quietly ambitious and focused people I've met, and yet under her impressive and serious exterior is a life and love for America and its people that is all heart. Timestamps: 1:11 - Intro 2:51 - The American Heartland 5:21 - Agriculture, Policy, and Government 12:29 - The Challenges with Prioritizing Climate Risk: "Long Term and Abstract" 18:04 - Pragmatic Environmentalism and Resilience that Drives Business 21:49 - The American Dream 25:52 - The Importance of Independent Small Businesses 28:58 - Entrepreneurship on the Frontier: America's First Entrepreneurs and Ambrook's First Customers -- Farmers 36:28 - Biological Factories: Why Farms are Complex Businesses 40:41 - Why Everything Goes Back to Accounting 44:30 - Why Money Movement Matters 51:13 - Ambrook as a Twenty-Year Container 57:27 - The National Importance of Agriculture 1:00:49 - The Features of Illegibility 1:04:49 - Ambrook's Long Term Vision 1:10:17 - Making the Intractable Tractable (And Doomscrolling Your Company's Slack) 1:14:42 - De-Risking and Becoming Friends with Anxiety 1:17:26 - Building Something That Takes on a Life of its Own 1:20:07 - Ambrook's Culture in Three Words 1:21:26 - Brand and Storytelling 1:26:11 - AI Enabling the Middle Class 1:30:57 - California History and J.G. Boswell 1:34:05 - Niche Subjects and History and "The Land Where Lemons Grow" 1:36:46 - Disney's Magic Band 1:39:15 - Strange Math and Happiness and Sadness in Parallel 1:41:31 - Aesthetics, Beauty, and Physical Design Systems 1:47:31 - The Draw to Start Things Transcript and all links below.