The Evolution of For Profit Businesses and Non-Profit Organizations in Northern Nevada. June 12, 2025

Sage International, Inc. is a leading provider of financial education, business development and wealth protection strategies.  As president, Cheri S. Hill has been working with small business owners, entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, and nonprofit founders for 32 years by putting a proper foundation under the business owner’s dream. She helps them start and grow a successful company. She knows that to win in business you need to be tough, think big and become skilled. As a gutsy successful business owner and creative mentor to many, she loves to give back. She serves as Trustee for the Community Foundation of Northern Nevada (Connecting people who care with causes that matter) and board member for Nevadaworks (Building a stronger workforce in Nevada), is a national speaker, best-selling author of Incorporate & Get Rich!, and host of the weekly broadcast Cheri Hill Radio Show www.CheriHillShow.com.

From legacy manufacturers to emerging tech giants, corporations wield significant power over our lives, our economy, and our politics. Some celebrate them as engines of progress and prosperity. Others argue that they recklessly pursue profit at the expense of all. 69 of the top 100 economic entities are corporations rather than countries. This shows the extent of control, and the magnitude of the domination corporations have. This lively and informative discussion will center on whether you think corporations are providing more positives or negatives to our world. Do we continue to support large corporations because it’s easy (providing them with more money and therefore more power) or must we improve our efforts to support more local businesses and other smaller companies, the “Main Street Economy” whenever we can? Wall Street vs. Main Street…who Wins?

Cheri S. Hill, also known as the Wealth Protection Diva, has been a successful entrepreneur and
business owner and premier business strategist for the past 33 years as president and CEO
of Sage International Incorporated.
She is a national speaker, best-selling author of Incorporate and Get Rich, and motivational
teacher of financial education, business development, and wealth protection strategies.
Cheri speaks from the heart about the joys and frustrations of being a business owner.
Her insights are motivating, her frankness inspiring.
She invites a cadre of brilliant core industry experts that delight and share their personal
experiences, profound insights, powerful suggestions, and timely advice so that you can move beyond
just surviving into thriving.
She has a radio show in Reno, 93.7 radio, Mondays at 1130 a.m., Sunday at 1 p.m.
Her goal is to empower all of her listeners through positive interactions, life-changing
ideas, unique educational opportunities, and shared mastermind principles so you can stay
focused on a successful business track.
Whether you’re just starting out or trying to grow an existing company, tune in and experience
why Cheri is one of the most sought-after creative mentors to business owners.
Cheri, please join us.
All right, well, thank you very much.
That was actually the bio on my radio show, so thank you for that.
I wanted to talk about Mark reached out to me, I’ve known Mark for many years, and about
three weeks ago he says, come be our speaker.
I’m like, oh, okay.
What should I talk about?
So, what I want to talk about is kind of the foundation of what I do for a living.
What I want you to think about is the foundation of capitalism and where it all began.
And so I’m going to give a little history about where the first corporations started
and how we’ve evolved from then to now.
And so I want you to understand that a study by Global Justice Now revealed that 69 of
the world’s top 100 economic entities are corporations, while 31 are countries.
This data was based on comparing annual revenue, not GDP.
So the top 10 corporations alone generated over $3 trillion in revenue, and the list
includes companies like Walmart, Amazon, Apple, and CVS Health.
In the beginning, corporations were kind of designed to promote the common good.
Throughout history, we have experiences of where they have and where they haven’t.
In America, capitalism is an economic system, and whether it’s considered good or bad is
really individual perspective and value.
So economic growth under capitalism, which the essential feature is to make a profit,
has surpassed any other economic system anywhere else in the world.
But inequality is what its most controversial attributes.
So do the dynamics of private capital accumulation inevitably lead to concentration of wealth
in fewer hands, like those 69, or do the balancing forces of growth, competition, and
technological progress reduce inequality?
So we look at where did all this begin?
Where did business actually begin?
So if we go back to Roman times, from 6th century to 1st century, this is where they
all of a sudden realized that the Romans were awesome at conquering.
But the more you conquer, all of a sudden you need to administer.
And so they tried to figure out who’s going to build the roads and the bridges, and who’s
going to bring bread to the people and circuses, and who’s going to collect the taxes.
And so at that time they had to reach out to some of the more wealthy and pool their
resources and from that, even though they don’t look like corporations today, it was
the beginning of what our shareholders.
Then you move into 1300, Toulouse, France.
And what they had were, they called them ship mills because they floated, and this
is where they produced all the grain.
And so they, all these mills came together and said, well wouldn’t it make sense if we
pool our capital and we share our resources and our expenses and the risks?
Then you move into 1398, Renaissance, Florence, and the Medici Bank.
So this was the beginning of banking as we know it.
And it’s Europe’s greatest financial institution founded by Giovanni Medici, who through everything
that he did ended up with sky high profits and international reach, lifting that family
from absolute obscurity into the heights of dynastic power.
They put in four popes, two queens, to France.
That’s how powerful the Medici family was.
So through that bank and that family, think about what Renaissance was.
I mean the art, right?
Everything that was produced during that time, literature, architecture, I mean it’s never
been equaled.
And through that, these businesses that they created were really helping foster the ambitions
of nobles, churchmen, and a burgeoning class of merchants across the European continent
that literally paved the way for all these nations to emerge from the Middle Ages to
a new era of prosperity.
When you go to Elizabethan England, corporations were created to expand the borders of the
kingdom and open up new markets for trade and navigation.
The East India Company was chartered as a joint stock company in 1600 to trade with
India, China, and other parts of Asia.
So it evolved from a trading entity to a powerful force, even wielding political and military
control over vast territories of India.
New York was the first state to formally enact a corporate statute, and this was built around
1811, and it was known as the Act Relative to Incorporations for Manufacturing Purposes.
So it allowed the creation of these corporations with limited liability specifically for manufacturing
businesses.
Then we move into the American Civil War.
Corporations were viewed as the saviors of the Union.
So the Union’s industrial capacity was a key factor in military advantage.
When you think of major firms that existed then, DuPont, American Express, and the Brooks
Brothers, they were the ones that were producing all the war materials, the weapons, the uniforms,
keeping the Union army well-equipped.
The South didn’t have that.
It was the North that was providing all of that.
So government spending during the Civil War boosted the fortunes of many of these Northern
corporations, of course leading to increased wealth and influence.
Plus, all during the war, it spurred a lot of new developments in advancements regarding
machinery and production.
At that time, these businesses also used newspapers to really talk about how they were doing and
portraying themselves as patriotic and crucial to the war effort.
So for my husband, marketing was good.
That’s our favorite subject, marketing.
More recently, we’ve seen corporations rush in the era of big tech.
So when we talk about the five largest technology companies that have significant dominance
and the impact they have on our daily lives and pretty much everything we’re doing today.
So these tech titans are Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, and their influence has
been extended across the global economy.
So the continual development of the corporation has paved the way for the creation of an entirely
new class of citizen, the capitalist.
There’s always been rich people, but now with a corporation, I can put my money in, I can
let other people do all the work, I can sit back, I don’t have to do anything, and I can
watch my money grow.
So understanding that, this literally marked a sea change in the nature of business.
But just because corporations were created to protect the interests of society, does
that mean that they will or that they do?
I mean, history is littered with examples of these companies that have failed spectacularly.
So if you think of the Roman Republic, what ended up happening, they went out to collect
taxes, but instead they ended up enslaving all of the subject populations and corrupting
the Senate.
The Medici Bank usurped political power, they went around the guilds and the bank’s assets
to fund the personal ambitions of the Medici family.
The East India Company entangled the English crown in disputes all across the globe, from
India to Boston.
And after the Civil War, the Union Pacific Railroad defrauded the US government to the
tune of about $44 million because they overcharged for railroad construction and expenses, they
bribed a whole bunch of people, top officials, manipulated contracts, and this resulted in
a massive government scandal, and it also was the result of now the public distrust
of the US government.
So sometimes corporations are the hero, sometimes they’re the villain, but they’re always on
the stage.
So is it inevitable that corporations are always going to fall into vice and greed?
Is the history of corporations simply a story of great expectations and disappointing results?
Or are societies simply naive about the role that corporations play on the world stage?
So I would argue, no.
One thing throughout history that corporations have beautifully demonstrated is the remarkable
ability to channel human effort into productive enterprises.
So there’s something magnificent when you think about Henry Ford, who figured out how
to make a car, and then over the course of a decade, figured out how to make 10,000 every
day.
There’s something awe-inspiring about Exxon.
Those engineers that back in 1882 hunted the world for caches of oil, and then inventing
the ways to extract them from the bottom of the ocean and the frost-ridden lands of
the Arctic.
What about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, who through one website connected millions and
millions of people around the globe?
Now what about Amazon, who recently has changed the face of retail?
In fact, they just produced a report that more than 55,000 of their independent sellers
each earned over $1 million last year.
And of course, that number is going to grow.
So sure, there’s roguery, right?
There’s also something mystical.
The corporation is at its heart a testament to the power of cooperation, of people working
together toward a common goal.
Corporations work economic miracles because people can accomplish so much more together
than they can apart.
This is cause for celebration and optimism, both about human nature and about our capitalist
system.
If we created corporations to serve the interests of society, how do we know if they’re doing
their job?
Well, it’s clear people totally disagree about what society’s interests are.
So should corporations be involved in shaping public opinion or politics?
If a corporation is in pursuit of maximizing profits, does society always benefit?
Well, many of you in this room will remember the early 2000s.
We experienced several very large-scale scandals in the realm of corporate accounting and financial
fraud, similar to Enron, such as the bankruptcy of WorldCom, the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme,
which his fraud perpetuated so many people to lose everything, and the Lehman Brothers
collapse in 2008, which was then the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history, costing
nearly $6 billion.
So as these crises highlighted the importance of corporate governance and ethics, leading
to more scrutiny and corporate behavior, there was a push for better oversight.
So many companies, I saw the trend, started to change and think about how do we be better
stewards for our stakeholders, our shareholders, people, planet, all of that.
And from that, guess what was born?
The B Corporation.
So the B Corporation movement started in about 2006.
B Lab is the one that certifies them.
And this is really about purpose-driven business, people, planet, and process.
And so they started to really look at, what is our footprint?
And you see this a lot, you read this a lot, you go into Costco.
If you bought something in Costco four years ago, it probably came in a big plastic container.
Now it’s in a bag.
So constantly looking at how are we affecting everything and everyone around us.
Interesting that one of the main functions of the B Corp is transparency.
So telling everybody what it is that you’re doing.
Interesting that the young people, anyone 25 and younger, they really get B Corps because
they really have come under the impression that companies should be doing good for the
employees, the stakeholders, the planet, environment, everything.
So Nevada, the entire state of Nevada, you know how many B Corps we have?
Eight.
Eight.
So why do you think that is?
Well our economy is based on mining, not really environmentally friendly, tourism, also not
very environmentally friendly, and just not a lot going on in the B Corp world.
So Delaware, people always ask me, why aren’t we forming in Delaware?
What’s so good about Delaware?
And it was for many years the top place for people to go to form their corporation because
of their laws and everything, however, everything changed in 2024 when a Delaware judge struck
down Elon Musk’s 56 billion dollar compensation package.
So the court cited board conflicts of interest and insufficient shareholder transparency
as reasons for nullifying the record setting pay deal.
So Musk’s response was swift and loud, and he basically announced that Tesla would no
longer be a Delaware corporation and encouraged many others to follow, which they did.
It’s called Dexit.
Many of these companies chose the state of Nevada and also Texas, but Nevada, yahoo.
Because we have a super friendly business, regulatory, tax environment, Nevada is a very
big go-to state.
In fact, over the past few years, more than 100 new companies have landed here, including
Tesla, Switch, Apple, Panasonic, and Rackspace, to name a few, and Northern Nevada is really
experiencing a substantial surge in manufacturing, logistics, and the technology sectors.
We anticipate more than 50,000 jobs are going to be happening over the next five years,
and Reno was recently ranked one of three alternative tech startup cities.
One of the other things that I do is I’m on the board for Nevada Works, which were the
funnel for the money coming into the state from the feds in the state for workforce development.
Originally, it seemed like all we were funding were truck drivers, and now we have a lot
going on in healthcare and bio and all kinds of good things.
So again, diversifying our economy.
So economic development, obviously, is crucial because it drives our growth, our prosperity,
and overall wellbeing, which leads then to higher incomes, better living, and the creation
of value through the entire economy.
So one of the things that really helped Nevada make the shift was back in 2008, remember
the Great Recession, a whole group of us came together, and this is, I had met Mark Pingle,
this is about, I met him before, but really, we were part of that initial group that came
together to figure out how do we diversify our economy.
Our economy is based on mining, which in 2008, globally, it was over for them.
Construction, which that led to all kinds of job losses and bankruptcies and just a
real problem, and of course, gaming, which California is now and was becoming the number
one Indian gaming casino state in the nation.
So we all came together and said, what are we going to do?
How are we going to diversify this economy?
So we got EDON on board, we had a lot of meetings, we did a lot of brainstorming, and that’s
when we figured out that we really need to start doing some marketing to get out there
to bring all these companies specifically out to the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center to
really help our economy grow so that we don’t have this bust cycle every time something
happens.
So that was pretty profound, and we’re seeing the results.
It’s very exciting.
But that’s also where Main Street comes in, the small business.
So I have spent decades now teaching, advocating, and making sure that small businesses get
started and small businesses get supported.
I put a proper foundation under every business owner’s dream, and this month, literally,
on June 15th is when we celebrate our 33 years in business.
So I have been a Nevada corporation since 1993.
Fun fact, you guys talked about Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad, I’m in that book.
He was my client.
So when he first came to me saying, Cheri, you’re talking about asset protection and
tax reduction and all this stuff through these entities, I’m surrounded by all these
great people, CPAs and attorneys, and no one has ever talked to me about that.
So we got him structured, we got him set up, and he came back and he says, I’m gonna write
this book, we’re putting you in it, your 800 number, are you going to be ready?
I’m like, Robert, it’s a book, what do I need to be ready for?
I was not ready.
We went from like, I don’t even remember what year, like 280,000 a year to over four million
in one year.
I was not ready.
But thank goodness, and I appreciate Robert and everyone and everything that I learned
specifically from him, and his messaging and his complete thought revolution was fantastic.
So let’s talk about Main Street, the small business, and if you understand, that’s still
a significant component of capitalism.
Small business is 99.9% of every business in our country is small business.
They are the backbone.
They’re excited.
So why are they capitalist companies?
Because I, the owner, put in capital with the intent to make profit.
And so in order to really grow my business, I need to hire employees, I need to support
other businesses in the community, and everything around what it takes to be a successful company,
but they face a very uphill battle.
Because they are competing against the larger companies, and they are competing against
each other.
There was a time here in our community where I was on a soapbox talking about what I call
economic dilution.
And a great example was on Wells, there’s been a liquor store on that corner for gosh
knows how many years, there was an empty building across the street, sat there empty,
and then all of a sudden the city of Reno granted somebody a license to open a liquor
store.
I just said, are you kidding me?
That liquor store didn’t even make it a year.
But I think about who started that business and the capital and the energy and the effort
that they put in, and it was like, why are you competing directly across the street from
somebody else?
Anyone from the city of Reno here, who in their right mind would think that was okay?
Economic dilution, every time another hair salon or a tattoo parlor or whatever opens
up, they’re not creating more, they’re taking away.
Sometimes that’s great, sometimes that’s not great, but you have to think about that.
And I really encourage people when they’re starting businesses to think about that, right?
Are you diluting the economy or are you expanding the pie?
So small business, it’s a powerful engine.
It employs people, it works with other businesses.
I look at my own company and I probably support at least 30 plus, I can’t even count how many
suppliers and vendors and all the people that I support in my own business who in their
business are supporting their employees and all their suppliers, and so all together we
have this beautiful economic engine going on right here across the nation, but specifically
here in our own community.
Small business adds to the character of our town.
Think about what we have here, right?
So when you think of the coolness of what small business brings to our community, I
think of things like art town, right?
Nobody else has an art town.
I think of all the cool events and the fun shops and all the different places you can
go and share because really the importance is when we talk about the buy local movement,
keep your money in our community, this is who you’re supporting.
It’s small business, and small business is the backbone, and so when you think about
how to create value and should we be balancing small business and large business, the real
key is that yes, we need them both.
Large business is crucial for a healthy economy.
Look at how many people the trick is employing out there, right?
And small business brings the color and the flavor and the fun and the uniqueness that
we need to see.
And so what I want to kind of share is that everything you think about as far as business
and capitalism and free market and trade and how do we keep this country moving forward,
it has always been moving forward because we have those people who are innovative and
challenging and excited and want to do something different and unique and that’s what it takes.
So my company, we form all 50 states, I have formed, I can’t even tell you how many thousands
and thousands and thousands of companies we have formed throughout the nation and every
one of them is unique and different and doing something within their own community and even
some are really have just surprised me at how successful.
And now because I’m old, I seem to be forming companies for all my original clients’ kids.
Feels good though because you know what that tells me?
Those parents taught those kids how to be self-sufficient and what it means to have
freedom, financial freedom, the economic freedom and all of that.
And so whether companies are large or small, the American people want companies to create
value for all their stakeholders as a path to creating more value for their shareholders,
for themselves and for society at large.
I have liked this trend that has been going on in companies and how they’re thinking about
business and what they’re doing to support people and planet and all of that.
And so that question of inequality, right, that was the question of capitalism.
If they’re all big, is there inequality?
Because only those top 69 are making all the wealth.
But when I look at a company like Amazon who’s funding and helping 55,000 small businesses
grow economically, that’s got to be applauded.
You may not like all their practices, you may not like everything that they’re doing,
but my gosh, you talk about spinning out entrepreneurs, I love it.
So in conclusion, I don’t know how much time I have and I know we’re going to have questions
but corporations are not soulless, faceless entities.
They’re institutions for bringing people together to work toward common ends.
And they do so by channeling our work into productive avenues from growing crops to building
houses to inventing new technologies.
Their goal is to create value and increase the size of the economic pie.
The history of the corporation reminds us of a simple truth, humanity works best when
it works together.
Yes, sir.
First of all, thank you for a great presentation.
An example of how even big corporations are good for us is at the beginning of World War
II, the Roosevelt administration reached out to GM and the other folks and the CEO of GM,
I believe it was, took charge of organizing American industry to produce for the war.
Now nobody hates war more than I do, but it was one that we needed to fight and they provided
the means to prevail over the fascists.
That was a good thing.
The second thing is basically what capitalism does is it takes those low tawdry instincts
to make a profit and it turns them into serving the public interest because under capitalism
you get wealth and income by delivering value to other people.
I think that’s the most important thing.
You don’t get it by taking it from somebody, you don’t get it by coercion or anything like
that.
You deliver value to other people and thereby you get income and become wealthy.
Let me just add to that.
That’s where competition comes in because if someone is doing that and not providing
the value and somebody else is, those companies don’t last.
Exactly.
Since you’ve been doing this for such a long time, I’m curious if you have seen patterns
or indicators as to when there’s going to be a big increase in the number of small businesses
formed or you’re like, oh, we’re going to be slow for the next.
I’m curious as to what those indicators that you’re seeing in the field.
It’s interesting and for some reason it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the economy, we’re
always busy.
The reason is because it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the economy, there’s always opportunity.
When the 2008 financial crisis hit and I saw this as a trend, a lot of the hospitals around
the country said, we’re going to get rid of all our doctors and surgeons and all you guys
got to go out and become independent contractors.
Healthcare system really pushed that so we were doing a lot of professional entities
at that time.
Obviously, when times are good and because of my relationship with Kiyosaki, a huge chunk
of my clients were, are, and will always be in the future real estate investors.
Right now, it’s slow in the real estate investing side because of interest rates and everything
else.
I can always tell trending what’s going on around the country and some of the conversations
that I have with our clients in what they’re doing.
Right now, the opportunities are fantastic when you think of just that concept of people
and planet and I wish somebody would figure out how to turn Yucca Mountain, use that nuclear
waste to incinerate all the plastic in the ocean.
But from an environmental standpoint, I mean, everything that everyone’s complaining about,
climate, all that stuff, there’s tons of opportunity for that, right?
And so, yes, I see trends but for some reason, we just stay going so that’s the good news.
Do you discuss any of this with local community leaders because it appears that Reno is way
behind in infrastructure and we have lots of space, we have lots of, we need infrastructure,
we need transportation, we need energy and we could expend much more if the local community
would get behind it.
Well, I’m always shocked that our entire state has a population of less than 4 million people
and we can’t seem to pull it together.
So it’s like, where does all that money go?
So obviously, education is constantly fighting for it, infrastructure is fighting for it
and to me, a lot of that is, and I always put this on, who’s leading the charge and
right now, it’s the governor.
And have you heard a vision out of our governor?
You have?
For infrastructure and education but he has to fight and battle a legislature that doesn’t
share that same vision.
So that’s where part of it comes from is because you can have a visionary but if you don’t
have the people around you to help push it through or carry it through, that’s why we’re
always stuck.
So I have a question, what’s your opinion of these communities or people who want to
develop communities using blockchain financials?
It’s here already.
It’s already here, just like everything else and so again, it’s an industry that was new,
it’s been around now probably quite a while, almost 10 years, 8 years, I mean it’s, yeah.
So 10 years and to me, everything, technology, innovation, if it’s used well and it’s used
right, there’s always something good that’s gonna come out of it.
If it’s not, I mean we’ve seen a lot, like how many of you, Meta, Facebook, you know,
there’s a lot of issues with that.
So while we did a whole bunch of good, there’s still a whole bunch not going good and who
controls that?
They do.
So same thing with blockchain, it has its purpose, it’s powerful and when used the way
it should be used, then absolutely, it’s innovative, it’s all that good stuff.
What do you think the likelihood is of blockchain adoption for consumers with the small businesses?
Just the sentiment of the area since the law’s been in place since 2015, are people
willing to do it or are they still waiting for somebody else to do it first?
Probably waiting for others to do it, also cost, expense, I mean it’s like AI and all
those things, they sound great and they’re wonderful and the big companies are using
them but how do you drill that down to mom and pop?
Could I use AI for stuff?
I don’t know.
Yes and no.
The reason people come to me is because they want to talk to me.
They don’t want me to ChatGPT and go here’s your answer, right?
And so in some of the industries, AI is not going to be as well received where others
I can see in a lot of, you know, massive amounts of data and all that, absolutely, let’s free
up the mind to do more interesting things.
So it probably will take a little while and a lot of that is cost, expense and necessity.
Cheri, you’ve done a great job.
You all have been a great audience.
Thank you.