Gabriel Ngo

A personal account of the ways in which AI can preserve memories and facilitate the grieving process. “We should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that … With artificial intelligence, we’re summoning the demon.” – Elon Musk, businessman and entrepreneur, Tesla, SpaceX and X “Artificial intelligence will never be a match for natural stupidity.”– Unknown “A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.” – Alan Perlis, computer scientist and professor, Purdue, Carnegie Mellon and Yale University “In a sense, artificial intelligence will be the ultimate tool because it will help us build all possible tools.” – K. Eric Drexler, engineer and author I usually begin my writings with a quote – sometimes sage, sometimes satirical – to highlight the general […]

SCENARIO: Randall T. Smith and his wife, Petaluma (“Peta”), had owned and operated their own funeral home and crematory business, Mesa West Funeral Home & Crematory in Midland, Texas, for nearly seven years serving their community with the highest level of service at affordable prices. Then, in 2019, Randall was diagnosed with liver cancer, and in 2020, he passed away. Before Randall died, he told Peta that, “if you ever sell the business, I think it’s worth at least $1.4 million.” Randall and Peta, who were both licensed funeral directors and embalmers, had built Mesa West Funeral Home & Crematory on money they had saved up from years working for a corporate consolidator. Mesa was serving a solid 210 families a year, with total annual Revenue just north of $1 million by 2019. During peak COVID periods between 2020 and […]

“So to the best we can, what we do is focus on creating value for others, and how do we do that? We do it by trying to produce products and services that our customers will value more than their alternatives, and not just their alternatives today, but what the alternatives will be in the future.” – Charles Koch, Chairman & CEO of Koch Industries Creating value for others involves producing products and services that the customer will value more than their alternatives—not just alternatives of today, but what alternatives there will be tomorrow.  There, I summarized the pithy quote with some inherent wisdom built into it.  The end, right?  Regardless of how you might personally feel about oil companies, billionaires, Koch Industries, or the Koch brothers in general, I believe this quote applies to this profession now more than […]

Scenario: Robin John Blake and his wife, Barbara, own and operate Rio Grande Funeral Home & Crematory in Laredo, Texas. For the past 17 years, they have grown their business by serving the community with an excellent reputation. In 2024, Rio Grande served over 350 cases two years in a row for the first time. Laredo, as a funeral service market, is unique in that the city and its surrounding areas still have a relatively low cremation rate, especially when compared to other border Texas towns like El Paso as well as the Rio Grande Valley further south toward Brownsville. Robin was born in Laredo, and after traveling the world having worked in hotel and restaurant management, he came back to his home state and met his wife, Barbara, in Austin years ago. While Barbara’s background was in event planning […]

Transparency’s Importance in Deathcare’s Online Pricing It almost seems as though The Dalai Lama’s quote is specifically directed at this crossroads where we are, concerning consumer sentiments and online pricing of funeral and cemetery services and goods. I know that you all are probably tired of hearing or reading about online pricing. In the future, we all anticipate having online pricing become a requirement by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in some form, shape, or fashion. For some of you, your state already has mandated that you publish your pricing online. This article, however, is not about the FTC, any mandates, or requirements, etc., it is about what consumers want in this ever-advancing technological world, and why you should give it to them: As of 2022, Baby Boomers make up roughly 21% of the population in the United States. Generation […]