Welcome to Bigger Insights Technology

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Welcome to the Bigger Insights Technology podcast, where we’ll help you stay ahead of the curve.

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The goal of this podcast is to give you the education and insights that you need to understand

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and implement the right tools for the job – tools that serve you, not the other way around.

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In this podcast, we’re going to be discussing pretty much all things technology, including

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apps, services, operating systems, IoT, storage systems, artificial intelligence, and so on.

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I have an extensive engineering background, so we may also be discussing topics related

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to software development and engineering.

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Also FYI, it’s a pretty nice day outside today, so I’ve got my window open here in

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the Bigger Insights studio, so I hope you don’t mind the bird noises.

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If you do, go ahead and file a complaint to complaints@biggerinsights.com.

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We started Bigger Insights because we recognized that a lot of the most fundamental concepts

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of technology are not being taught in our homes or schools.

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And also we noticed that the internet is just absolutely flooded with shallow clickbait.

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We’ve noticed over the years that a lot of these creators in the technology space don’t

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really know what they’re talking about. They’re really there to do one thing, and that is to

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shill sketchy products and services to you, the consumer.

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Another thing that really bothers us is a lot of these people are either ignorant of

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or they just don’t care about privacy and security. Which by the way, we also produce

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a Privacy & Security podcast where we will be producing a lot of content to help you

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live a more private and secure life.

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So that’s where we come from on that front, so go ahead and subscribe to the Bigger Insights

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Privacy & Security podcast as well, if you know what’s good for you.

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And the reason that we bring this up is to help temper your expectations.

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Because we value our privacy and security, and we value your privacy and security, you’re

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not going to hear a lot of content on this podcast like you will on others in the technology

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space.

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For example, we’re probably not going to review any Samsung phones because they have a pretty

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atrocious privacy and security track record.

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I mean, you’re not going to hear things like, “Oh, check out this new Samsung phone.

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It’s got a 30 inch screen and it rolls up like a map and it’s got 16 cameras on it.”

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I mean, let’s be honest, what difference does it make

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how good a phone screen is, or how long the battery life is, or how many cameras it has

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on it, if the thing is spying on you, and it’s about a secure as a Cheeto door lock?

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All right, so let’s keep going with this and go over some caveats.

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First of all, some of the information in this episode is subject to change as our business

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evolves.

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If some of those changes are minor, we might just revise the description or something like

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that.

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But if the changes are significant enough, we might re-edit and republish this episode.

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We’re going to try to keep things as civil and friendly as possible in this podcast

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with respect to politics and language.

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You know, we like a good F-bomb as much as anybody else, but we don’t want to alienate

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our younger listeners.

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Also keep in mind that some of the items that we discussed in this podcast either might

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not be applicable to your situation, your jurisdiction, or might actually change by

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the time you hear it.

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Another thing to keep in mind is we’re still fleshing out the direction for this podcast.

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So if you have any ideas for things that you’d like for us to cover, go to biggerinsights.com/contact

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where we list like eight different ways you can contact us, including Signal

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and Session and Briar and Matrix, things like that.

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So go ahead and let us know what you’re interested in.

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And the reason we bring this up is because we’re really just not interested in covering

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a lot of the things that other technology channels cover for one or two reasons, either

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because we think they’re just a solution in search of a problem, like who needs an internet

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connected toilet?

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You know what I mean?

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Or they just present very serious privacy and security concerns that we’re just not

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comfortable with.

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We’re also big believers in digital minimalism, which is ironic because we’re up to our eyeballs

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in technology.

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However, we recognize how detrimental an excess of technology can be in a person’s life, whether

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that be their ability to focus and be productive, their mental health or their relationship.

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So this will also limit how much content we produce in this podcast, because we’re not

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going to discuss things that we think aren’t worth the average person’s time, money, or

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attention.

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Now let’s talk a little bit about who we are.

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Bigger Insights is an Ohio limited liability company founded in 2020. Considering how much

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of a dumpster fire 2020 was, we like to say that perhaps makes us the only good thing

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to come out of 2020.

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Technically we’re located in Cincinnati, but don’t get too hung up on that because we serve

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our clients almost anywhere as the vast majority of the work that we do is remote.

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We do make onsite visits to some of our clients in the Cincinnati area, but this is pretty

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rare.

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Almost everything that we do is through web meetings and text messaging and email and

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things like that.

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We have a website, biggerinsights.com, where we publish things like our blog and podcast

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content. We also list other things like our contact information and certain resources

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and FAQs and things like that.

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But depending on what platform you’re listening to this on, you might want to check out our

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podcast on our website because that might include video content, transcriptions, blog

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content, links and other things that you might just not see in whatever platform that you’re

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listening to this on.

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In addition to our podcast and blog content, we provide one-on-one consulting services

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with people like you.

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We help our clients live more prosperous and secure lives by providing them financial, technology,

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and privacy and security services in one-on-one sessions.

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In addition to this Technology podcast, we also produce the Bigger Insights Finance and

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Bigger Insights Privacy & Security podcasts as well, so go ahead and take a gander at

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those.

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Right about now, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Well, this sounds a little bit

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strange.

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I mean, what do finance and technology and privacy and security have to do with one another?

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Why not just focus on one thing?”

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The reason for that is we’ve recognized that these are interrelated and we believe that

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you will live a more fulfilling life if you can master these topics.

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So in other words, Bigger Insights isn’t just about finance.

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It isn’t just about technology.

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It’s about sovereignty and resilience.

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If you want to be sovereign and resilient, we believe you need to master these skills

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going forward.

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So if you can master technology, you can be more productive, make more money, and ideally

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not be replaced by AI like ChatGPT.

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I’m going to read one of our favorite quotes about technology by someone named Christian

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Lous Lange or something like that.

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I apologize if I mispronounced his name.

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And this quote is very prescient because he said this in 1921.

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He said, “Technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous master.”

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Now that was a very big brain thing to say because keep in mind, this was long before

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computers and the internet and AI and I hate to say it, but a lot of us really are servants

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of our technology and we believe that trend is going to continue moving forward.

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So we’re here to help our listeners, our readers and our clients master technology so that

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technology doesn’t master them.

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And we should also caution everybody listening to this, that this will apply to almost everybody

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no matter who you are or what you do.

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I don’t care if you’re a farmer, plumber, lawyer or a baker, if you can’t leverage technology

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as well as your competitors, you’re probably going to fall behind.

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Just as an example, I worked at an engineering firm once.

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We hired someone to do some pretty basic work and operations.

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Now this was not a technical role, but it became very clear very quickly that she could

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hardly use a computer or cloud services.

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I remember one time I was trying to explain to her the difference between a Google Doc

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in Google Drive versus uploading a Word doc to Google Drive through the desktop app.

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And I could tell just by looking at her face that she had absolutely no idea what I was

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saying.

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Needless to say, she didn’t end up sticking around for very long, which I had nothing

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to do with by the way.

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And maybe there are other things going on there, but the point is that despite not having

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a technical role, her lack of technological understanding made it very difficult for her

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to perform her job.

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Now let’s talk about finance for a minute.

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Finance and money-related issues obviously affect everybody.

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So regardless of whether you’re in finance or not, or how much money you’re making, we

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think everyone should try to master finance.

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So you use technology to make more money.

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Then you use your financial skills to manage, grow and protect those assets.

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Now let’s talk about privacy and security.

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You leverage technology to make more money.

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You use your financial skills to manage your money. And you use your privacy and security

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skills to protect your assets, your identity, your reputation, your business, your family

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and your future.

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We believe everyone should invest in their privacy and security, because this is a very

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risky and creepy digital world that we’re hurtling toward. Spending time and money improving

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your privacy and security isn’t exactly exciting, but we like to think of it like insurance.

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So if you’re picking up what I’m putting down, these skills work together to help you succeed

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and secure your future.

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If you’re going to ignore some or all of these disciplines, we’re of the opinion that you’re

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taking on significant risk or opportunity cost.

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And we understand the principles of trade and economies of scale and outsourcing and

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things like that.

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So some of you are probably thinking, “Well, I don’t need to worry about my finances or

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whatever because I have a guy for that and he manages all that for me.”

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And that’s great.

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We’re not going to tell you that that’s a bad idea, but we do suggest that everyone

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should be educated in essentially any area that has a significant impact on your life.

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This reminds me of something that Robert Kiyosaki said in Rich Dad Poor Dad, if not some of his

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other books as well. And I’m going off memory,

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so I apologize if I mess this up a little bit, but he said something like “The rich want

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to know a little about a lot and the poor want to know a lot about a little.”

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So basically what he’s talking about is this balance or debate between becoming an expert

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on one thing versus spreading out your risk and trying to understand a little bit about

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a lot of different things.

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Now there’s no easy answer there.

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If you’re just going to be an employee, then being an expert definitely has a lot of advantages

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like being able to earn a higher salary or charge a higher rate.

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But the advantage of knowing a little about a lot is it helps you see the forest through

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the trees.

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It helps you make connections that a lot of other people just can’t make.

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So for example, we hear a lot of these financial experts talk about how great Bitcoin is and

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how it can’t be confiscated and it’s outside the system and things like that.

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But because of their lack of technological and privacy understanding, they’re not seeing

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what a disaster Bitcoin and other cryptos are going to end up being for their users

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because of their transparent blockchains.

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You know, we don’t call those coins surveillance coins for no reason.

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I mean, if you’re worried about confiscation or something like that, the last thing that

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you want is an asset that keeps transparent, immutable, definitive, permanent records showing

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what you own and every transaction that you make.

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It boggles my mind that people don’t see this, but we think it’s only a matter of time until

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they do.

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And there’s going to be a lot of tears when they find out just how anonymous that they

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are not and who really holds the cards here.

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You might have heard about this, but some people in the financial space are being sued

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for shilling FTX.

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Now we’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt on that.

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But anyone who knows anything about security and how crypto works knows that centralized

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exchanges carry a lot of risk.

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This is just classic “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

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We couldn’t see whether FTX was up to no good either, but we’ve always recommended that

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our clients avoid centralized exchanges and most KYC’ed services.

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But the point is that we have an advantage over these people because we see the privacy

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and security pitfalls that they cannot.

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And that doesn’t just help us with our financial services.

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This helps us in our technology services as well, because we’re not going to recommend

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technological services or products that we believe present serious privacy and security

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risks to you.

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So just keep this in mind, you know, even if you intend to outsource these matters or

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responsibilities, it still pays to have some knowledge.

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Otherwise, how else are you going to know things like who to hire or whether they’re

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giving you a good value?

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How are you going to hire a good lawyer if you don’t know anything about the law?

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How are you going to hire a good accountant if you don’t know anything about finance

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or taxes?

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Or what if you hire somebody like Geek Squad to, you know, fix your laptop or something,

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how are you going to know what they’re doing or whether they’re doing it correctly or check

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their work if you don’t know anything about technology?

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So if you’re just going to ignore these things and just let them be someone else’s problem,

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just be aware that you are flying blind and you’re just going to have to trust anybody

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that you’re dealing with.

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So now let’s talk a little bit more about what we do.

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In addition to making the best podcast and blog content in the history of podcast and

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blog content, we serve clients like you in one-on-one sessions.

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We charge an hourly rate, which we don’t publicly disclose at this time for a number of reasons.

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One of which being it’s subject to change, I mean, especially with the way that the dollar (USD)

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is going, who knows what it’ll be worth in a year.

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And we like to sit down with prospective clients and talk about what we offer and what’s charged

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and what’s not charged so that they can make a more informed decision about what our hourly

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rate means to them.

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I do have about a decade of experience in consulting, so I know from firsthand experience

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how misleading hourly rates can be.

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For example, a big chunk of the work that we do goes unbilled.

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As of the time of this recording, we do complimentary initial consultations.

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We also do quite a bit of pro bono work, depending on the circumstances.

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We can’t guarantee this for everyone, but it is quite common that we help our clients

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for free via text messaging.

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For quicker requests, I’ll sometimes help clients as late as three in the morning for

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free.

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You know, good luck finding someone else who will do that for you, but the point is that’s

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not reflected in our hourly rate.

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This reminds me of what Warren Buffett famously said.

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He said, “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.”

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So our hourly rate is the price that you pay.

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The question is, what value do you get?

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We focus very heavily on the value that we provide our clients, which is obviously very

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difficult to put a price on.

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For example, how much do you value your time?

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How much do you value not getting caught up in a serious security event or a data breach?

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Last year, one of our clients was interested in starting with a password manager.

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Now we recommended that he use KeePass and we helped him get set up with that.

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Let’s just say for the sake of argument that we charged him $50 for that.

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So the $50 is what he paid.

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Now the question is, what’s the value?

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We’ll compare that to the hours that would have taken him to compare the different password

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managers out there, test a few of them out, potentially pay for them because it’s kind

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of hard to test some of the features that are paywalled and then decommission the ones

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that he doesn’t want and implement the one that he does want.

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Also consider that we potentially saved him from getting caught up in the LastPass hacks,

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which we discussed in a couple of episodes in our Privacy & Security podcast, by the

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way.

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So go ahead and check that out.

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I mean, think about how much damage that he may have suffered from if he wasn’t a client

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and he ended up going with LastPass because let’s be honest, that’s what most people

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will do.

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Now compare all of that to $50 and we think that that’s a great value.

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Now that’s just one of many examples.

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We see stories all the time of things like people getting arrested over location data

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that Google collects.

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We can help you avoid issues like this by helping you implement technology that doesn’t

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abuse your privacy like this.

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How do you put a price on that?

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How much do you value not being abused and harassed by law enforcement and companies

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like Google?

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That’s a difficult question to answer, but we think that there is value there and we’re

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confident that we can help you with that.

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Let’s switch gears and talk a little bit about how we serve our clients.

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You might be wondering, what does a meeting look like or under what circumstances might

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you reach out to us for help?

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When we look at requests that we typically get from our clients, we can sort them into

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three different buckets.

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The first one being acute issues.

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You might come to us with requests like, “Hey, I want to switch to Linux and I want you to

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show me how to install it and install applications on it and switch everything over and implement

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it.”

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The second bucket we’ll just call education.

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Our clients sometimes come to us with requests like, “Hey, can you teach me how to effectively

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learn how to use git?”, git the source control software.

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The third you could consider to be ongoing maintenance.

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For some of our clients, we sit down with them on a regular basis and talk about their

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needs, what technology they’re using and what recommendations we have for helping them be

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more productive or meet their goals or just simply simplify things.

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Sometimes getting rid of certain things is the best approach.

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We’ll also consider things like upgrading systems, which can be to get new features or

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maybe a privacy or security concern.

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We see a lot of people, for example, using old operating systems or devices that no longer

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get security updates, which is basically a disaster waiting to happen.

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Now let’s talk about a few things that we do not do.

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We do not give any kind of professional advice in this podcast or our website.

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We do not perform any direct IT services.

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For example, you’re not going to mail us your Xbox and have us clean it out and repair it

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or something like that.

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That’s just not what we do.

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We do not sell our customers data or sell sketchy products or services.

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We’re not opposed to recommending specific products or services, but we have very high

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standards for what those might be, especially when it comes to privacy and security.

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So like I was talking about earlier, we’re not going to recommend, no matter how much

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they pay us, we’re not going to recommend Samsung phones because of their privacy and

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security track record.

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If we do recommend a specific product or service, it’s because we believe in it or we use it

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and we think that it performs well without abusing you or sacrificing your privacy or

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security. Which obviously we would never be able to guarantee,

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so just keep that in mind.

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I mean, obviously there’s some level of trust in almost anything that you’ve used, especially

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if it’s connected to the internet.

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Now let’s talk about some things that make us different from our competitors.

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First of all, if you haven’t picked up on it by now, we take your data and your privacy

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very seriously.

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That starts by collecting a very minimal amount of information from her clients.

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So obviously we can’t sell or leak or hand over information to authorities, for example,

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that we just don’t have in the first place.

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We actually know very little information about a lot of our clients.

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And this is like the Mullvad approach.

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I don’t know if you heard about this, but Mullvad very recently got raided by police

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and as far as we can tell, that did not result in the compromise of their customers’ data

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because they collect virtually zero information on their customers in the first place.

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With very few exceptions, our clients’ data is stored locally on encrypted systems that

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we physically control.

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We do have accounts with some cloud storage providers, but that’s not where we keep our

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customers’ data.

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Now some exceptions to that might be like if you email us, obviously a copy of that

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email is stored on our email provider’s servers, which currently is Proton, and a copy of that

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is stored on your email provider’s servers.

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If you were to contact us through the form on our website, then the information from

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that submission is stored on our website.

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But even in those cases, just keep in mind that we clean that stuff up on a regular basis.

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Pretty much every time I go into our website to update it, I’ll look at the submissions

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and I’ll download the ones that we’re interested in and trash the others and empty our trash.

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And if any of that concerns you, you can contact and communicate with us directly using Signal

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or Session or Briar or other methods that we list on our website, biggerinsights.com/contact.

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But one of the key things that makes us different is we take a very comprehensive

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approach to serving our clients.

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The services that we provide our clients are engineered not only to satisfy their technology

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goals, but also to do so within a framework that takes their financial, privacy, and security

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needs into account.

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We focus on our clients’ individual needs.

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Every client’s situation is different in terms of requirements, budget, threat model, etc.

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So we tailor our services to each client’s specific situation and needs.

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Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of our clients have a nine to five JOB.

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Now if that’s you, you know how difficult and frustrating it is to work with a professional

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advisor because most of them work nine to five Monday through Friday as well.

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A lot of the services that we provide are actually after hours.

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So you know that could be in the evening, that could be late at night, that could be

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on weekends or holidays.

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That’s very unique.

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And also we do almost all of our work electronically.

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That means that we and you can spend more time working together and less time doing things

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like driving and parking and doing things like that.

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Another thing that makes us unique is we aren’t married to any particular platform or service

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or product, which allows us to help you implement the right tools and technology to meet your

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goals.

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You know, for example, we like Linux a lot, but you know, we acknowledge that Windows and

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macOS have their merits as well.

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We’re not going to tell you that you’re an idiot if you want to use those or something

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like that.

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So for you and your use case, this might be the right tool for the job and we’ll help

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you with that.

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You know, despite the biases that we have against them for the privacy and security

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risks that they pose to their users.

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Another thing that sets us apart is we are honest.

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We tell our clients what we think they need to hear, not what we think that they want

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to hear.

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Like I said, I have extensive experience in the consulting business, and I can tell

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you from firsthand experience that this is a very serious problem.

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We started Bigger Insights with this in mind.

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We’re here to try to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

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And finally, we have integrity that’s difficult to find elsewhere.

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I can tell you from professional and personal experience that one of the things to look

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for in an advisor is whether they’re willing to decline a request if it’s either not appropriate

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for your situation or if they believe that you’d be better served by someone else.

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So just keep that in mind when you’re hiring an advisor, if you find that they’ll do pretty

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much anything no matter what the circumstance, that’s a bad sign. Because that means that

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they’re just there to take your money.

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They don’t care what the situation is.

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They don’t care whether the service that they’re providing is what’s really best for

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your needs or if they’re even competent in whatever you’re asking them to do.

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You know, if you come to us with a request that we think is beyond the scope of what

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we have to offer or is not appropriate for you for one reason or another, we’ll tell

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you that.

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All right.

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So to start wrapping this up, let’s go over some action items.

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First of all, visit our website, biggerinsights.com.

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There you can read our blog or listen to this podcast or look at other things like our FAQs

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or our contact information.

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Go ahead and subscribe to our podcast because we’re going to be producing a lot of great

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content. And go ahead and reach out to us.

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We’re very easy to contact.

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You can chat with us via Signal, Session, Matrix, email, SMS, Mastodon, and Twitter.

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Although I should say that we prefer Signal or Session, so you’ll probably get a quicker

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response out of us if you contact us via those methods.

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And you can reach out to us to say “Hi” or, you know, ask us some simple questions.

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You can reach out to us to request an initial consultation or give feedback or requests,

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questions, things like that.

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If there are certain things that you want us to talk about in the podcast, go ahead

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and let us know.

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And if you spot any errors in this podcast, please reach out to us directly and give us

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the chance to correct it.

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We also request that you reach out to us

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ff you see anybody who you think might be posing as Bigger Insights and trying to run

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some kind of scam. Unfortunately, this is becoming pretty common.

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There are scams, for example, where people pretend to be a creator of business and reach

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out to their community members to run a crypto scam or something like that.

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So if you see any such shenanigans, please let us know so that we could do something

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about it.

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All right, that’s it.

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Thanks for staying until the end.

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Make sure you subscribe and have a great rest of your day.