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Jon Stein Discusses Fintech and Robo-Advisers · Masters in Business

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Speaker 1: This is Master's in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
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Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest.
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Speaker 1: His name is Jonathan Stein, and he is the founder
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Speaker 1: of essentially the very first of the robo advisors to
0:21
Speaker 1: come out UH and enter the world. Betterment is the
0:25
Speaker 1: name of the company. They manage most twenty billion dollars,
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Speaker 1: quite a substantial sum of money. And you will find
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Speaker 1: that Jonathan Is or better known as John is a
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Speaker 1: UM enthusiastic advocate on behalf of investors. UH. He does
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Speaker 1: not like the way much of Wall Street does business,
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Speaker 1: the way fees are hidden, the way people are not
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Speaker 1: fiduciaries to their clients, and he is looking at Betterment
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Speaker 1: as a way to UH change the institution of money
0:59
Speaker 1: management if you are at all interested in the use
1:03
Speaker 1: of technology to manage both investments and cash and everything else,
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Speaker 1: how things are done right and wrong in the industry.
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Speaker 1: And also here some inside dirt about what he thinks
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Speaker 1: about some of his competitors. Well, you're gonna find this
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Speaker 1: conversation fascinating. So, with no further ado, my interview of
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Speaker 1: John Stein. My special guest today is Jonathan Stein. He
1:32
Speaker 1: is the founder and CEO of Betterment, which is a
1:36
Speaker 1: algorithmic asset allocation also known by some people as a
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Speaker 1: robo advisor. He graduated from Harvard got his NBA from Columbia.
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Speaker 1: Betterment currently has about twenty billion dollars in assets. They
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Speaker 1: have a digital advisory platform for advisors known as Betterman
1:54
Speaker 1: for Advisors, as well as a four oh one K option.
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Speaker 1: Jonathan Stein, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you, Barry, so nice
2:01
Speaker 1: to be here. It's nice to have you. So before
2:04
Speaker 1: we start, I have to do a quick disclosure. I
2:07
Speaker 1: mentioned in the intro that you have a B two
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Speaker 1: B product offering called Betterment for Advisors. My firm, Ridholtz
2:16
Speaker 1: Wealth Management is a user of Betterment for Advisors. Are
2:20
Speaker 1: robo advisor called Liftoff is powered by your back ends.
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Speaker 1: So we like to engage in full disclosure around here,
2:26
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get that out. So let's start
2:28
Speaker 1: with your undergraduate You went to Harvard. What did you
2:32
Speaker 1: study there? Did you have any plans on going into finance. Yeah.
2:36
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm so excited to be working with
2:38
Speaker 1: you and lift Off. I think that's really a great
2:41
Speaker 1: thing where you and Josh and the whole team have
2:43
Speaker 1: been wonderful to work with, and we're excited to be
2:45
Speaker 1: on boarding clients and all of that. We're a fun group. Yeah,
2:48
Speaker 1: you guys, are you really are? Yeah. In college I
2:52
Speaker 1: studied economics was my major, and I studied a lot
2:55
Speaker 1: of psychology on the side, and I was really interested
2:58
Speaker 1: in the union or the interest section between those two fields.
3:02
Speaker 1: My my economics professor freshman year was Marty Feldstein, who
3:05
Speaker 1: was one of Reagan's economic advisors. He was super efficient markets.
3:10
Speaker 1: And you know, if we're all just rational and we
3:12
Speaker 1: have the right incentives in place, people will obviously do
3:15
Speaker 1: the right thing and so uh in the world will
3:17
Speaker 1: be a better and and then I love the fantasy
3:19
Speaker 1: world of economists professors. It's an amazing world to live in. Right,
3:23
Speaker 1: It's like you know, it's it's it's a beautiful place, right,
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Speaker 1: no bubbles, no crashes, everybody's perfect. Everything is priced efficiently incorrectly,
3:30
Speaker 1: and all information is But on the behavioral side, I
3:34
Speaker 1: was so fascinated with how people actually work, which is
3:37
Speaker 1: not at all like the economic models to predict. We're crazy, irrational,
3:40
Speaker 1: we do the wrong thing all the time. And I
3:43
Speaker 1: really wanted to reconcile that. You know, there's like Diccartian
3:45
Speaker 1: sort of duality and in our lives of like if
3:49
Speaker 1: I know the right thing to do, but I never
3:50
Speaker 1: end up doing it because I'm driven by short term impulses,
3:54
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to do something. They're coming out
3:56
Speaker 1: of college. No one was recruiting for people who just
3:59
Speaker 1: wanted to help will make better decisions. But that's what
4:01
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. So so coming out of college,
4:03
Speaker 1: what was your first job? What did you go post Harvard?
4:06
Speaker 1: I went to a company called First Manhattan Consulting Group. Okay,
4:11
Speaker 1: now again, no, the disclosure years ago we sublet space
4:15
Speaker 1: from them, Is that right? And the legend had preceded
4:18
Speaker 1: you because over on On Park and M and ninety
4:23
Speaker 1: Park Avenue, and when we were discussing what we did,
4:26
Speaker 1: when we were having the conversation, oh, have you ever
4:30
Speaker 1: heard of betterment? Yes, we have work for us. Just
4:33
Speaker 1: a hilarious coincidence. Yeah, it was a great firm, so
4:36
Speaker 1: many smart people. You know, I'm still still friends with
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Speaker 1: a bunch of people there. And I got from that
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Speaker 1: vantage point to work with big banking clients all around
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Speaker 1: the US and around the world brokers as well, and
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Speaker 1: got to understand how the big financial institutions work and
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Speaker 1: how they're very well intentioned but oftentimes haven't innovated around
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Speaker 1: the customer. And I started to see opportunities to you think,
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Speaker 1: financial services, to really change it, and I just wanted
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Speaker 1: it all to happen, you know, Like I. Change was
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Speaker 1: too slow, and by the time I was leaving there,
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Speaker 1: we were moving into the financial crisis years right, two
5:12
Speaker 1: thousand and eight and on. So, So from FMGC, did
5:16
Speaker 1: you go right to betterment or was there something in between?
5:18
Speaker 1: I went to business school in between. Okay, so you
5:20
Speaker 1: went to Columbia and then you come out of business
5:23
Speaker 1: school two years later, and what where did you go
5:26
Speaker 1: from there? Then? I started Betterment right away, so right
5:29
Speaker 1: out of business school, and I knew I wanted to
5:31
Speaker 1: start Betterment going into business school, I had the name
5:33
Speaker 1: right and I started. I was talking about it on
5:35
Speaker 1: day one and I said, We're going to make financial
5:37
Speaker 1: services better. Uh. And some people would say, well, why
5:40
Speaker 1: didn't you just go and do that? And for me,
5:41
Speaker 1: business school was necessary. It was a good spot to
5:45
Speaker 1: test the ideas to get to work. And I worked
5:48
Speaker 1: with the dean of the Business school as my betterment
5:50
Speaker 1: was like my case study for my final presentation and
5:53
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial finance. So I got a lot of good feedback.
5:57
Speaker 1: You could wait out the financial crisis exactly. It was
5:59
Speaker 1: it Actually it was a good time to to not
6:01
Speaker 1: be fundraising. So you had the idea. How fully formed
6:06
Speaker 1: was it on your way into business school? And what
6:08
Speaker 1: did you learn that might have had an impact on
6:10
Speaker 1: on the company that exists today? I learned a lot
6:14
Speaker 1: about myself and my management style that my my favorite
6:18
Speaker 1: classes were things like top management process and you know,
6:22
Speaker 1: I didn't think about myself as having like a leadership
6:25
Speaker 1: style or management style, but you know, in small groups
6:28
Speaker 1: and in sessions like breakout sessions, I learned that like
6:30
Speaker 1: the types of things that I do, like wanting to
6:33
Speaker 1: hear from like everyone in the room, like you know,
6:35
Speaker 1: hearing all that feedback before coming to a decision. Like
6:38
Speaker 1: those kinds of things can be effective. And you know,
6:40
Speaker 1: there's not one right way to lead or manage. Was
6:44
Speaker 1: it was a thing that I took away, But you
6:46
Speaker 1: kind of have to lean into your own style. So
6:49
Speaker 1: you participated in one of the tech crunches. I think
6:52
Speaker 1: it was oh nine, is that right. My familiarity with
6:55
Speaker 1: that comes from the HBO show Silk on Value. Yeah,
6:58
Speaker 1: what was the experience. That's pretty accurate depiction of the
7:02
Speaker 1: Tech Crunch. Yeah, like Striking Lee. So as as with
7:04
Speaker 1: a lot about that show, Well, it true. That's what
7:07
Speaker 1: makes it so, and it's hilarious. Um So the sort
7:10
Speaker 1: of frenetic last minute things are glitching and nobody really
7:14
Speaker 1: knows who's going to be the breakout star, and everybody's
7:17
Speaker 1: sort of looking over the shoulders. That was your actual
7:20
Speaker 1: It was so intense. It was one of the most
7:22
Speaker 1: tense days in my life. I mean, and I didn't
7:24
Speaker 1: have kids at that time, right, I was, I wasn't
7:28
Speaker 1: even married, right, And I just I was up all
7:31
Speaker 1: night the night before. And I know because I looked
7:34
Speaker 1: back at like my BlackBerry and I was writing into
7:37
Speaker 1: it every thirty minutes one am, one thirty am, two am,
7:40
Speaker 1: some idea of like how I wanted to reframe my presentation.
7:42
Speaker 1: I memorized the entire thing, you know, which you should
7:45
Speaker 1: never do. It was. It was a five minute speech
7:48
Speaker 1: and I knew every word and it was all exactly memorized.
7:51
Speaker 1: And I was just so nervous about it because it
7:54
Speaker 1: was our coming out party, right, it was like this
7:56
Speaker 1: was it was. We actually launched on that day, and
7:59
Speaker 1: to me that was a big deal, Like this was
8:02
Speaker 1: our chance to debut or a chance to get customers,
8:04
Speaker 1: and if we did it, we were going to be
8:06
Speaker 1: successful and if not, no one would ever hear about
8:09
Speaker 1: us again, you know. So there's a lot writing on
8:11
Speaker 1: that moment. Let's talk a little bit about the process
8:15
Speaker 1: of raising money and what was like to be a
8:18
Speaker 1: venture founded start up. What was that like. Some people
8:22
Speaker 1: have described it as exhausting and draining and harrowing, and
8:25
Speaker 1: other people have said, you know, if you have the
8:27
Speaker 1: right idea, money seems to find it. What what was
8:30
Speaker 1: your experience. I remember saying to my co founders when
8:34
Speaker 1: we started out, at least we're going to raise some
8:36
Speaker 1: money with this thing, right, Like this is a good idea,
8:39
Speaker 1: Like people want this. We were confident that people would
8:41
Speaker 1: want it and at least we get there and maybe
8:44
Speaker 1: a little too confident, right. I We went into tech
8:46
Speaker 1: Crunch thinking, yeah, we'll get some attention and this would
8:49
Speaker 1: be the thing everyone gets funded coming out of these things.
8:52
Speaker 1: We talked to a bunch of people there at the
8:54
Speaker 1: actual conference, and honestly, we didn't know what we were
8:58
Speaker 1: asking for. Remember thinking maybe I wanted million dollars and uh,
9:02
Speaker 1: you know, frankly, in retrospect, that was way too little money,
9:04
Speaker 1: you know, but at the time it just seemed like
9:06
Speaker 1: an impossible amount of a million dollars. Think of how much?
9:10
Speaker 1: Think of like how long that'll that'll feed us for
9:12
Speaker 1: a good long time. That's almost a really nice car,
9:16
Speaker 1: right framework the framework reference is kind of crazy. So
9:19
Speaker 1: are you guys done raising capital or is there going
9:22
Speaker 1: to be more capital raises in the future. Where we
9:24
Speaker 1: were lucky in that first, you know, in those first
9:27
Speaker 1: conversations to meet Bessemer, who letter Series A, and they've
9:31
Speaker 1: been great partners for a number of years. Over the years,
9:34
Speaker 1: we've met a number of other firms that have just
9:35
Speaker 1: been awesome to work with, who share our long term vision,
9:39
Speaker 1: who have deep pockets genetic big big Swedish firm is
9:43
Speaker 1: the most recent one. Great like long term family office
9:47
Speaker 1: style investor. And all of these firms have given us
9:50
Speaker 1: enough capital where we don't have to worry about raising
9:52
Speaker 1: money again. We have you know, we we are our
9:56
Speaker 1: ambitions are to be a public company. That's the past.
9:59
Speaker 1: So you have to be watching this. I P O
10:01
Speaker 1: market and saying, what's going on? You bet you've got
10:03
Speaker 1: My friend Near Cassir, who writes for Bloomberg Opinion, said, um,
10:08
Speaker 1: Uber basically waited too long to come public. You know
10:12
Speaker 1: you need to go public sooner. There has to be
10:14
Speaker 1: some upside left on the table, and this could dog
10:16
Speaker 1: them for a good couple of years. Are you paying
10:18
Speaker 1: attention to this? I P O market. I think it's
10:21
Speaker 1: really interesting to see that gap between the private markets
10:25
Speaker 1: and the public markets. And however, you know, frankly, I
10:28
Speaker 1: don't think anyone should be that surprised by the Uber story.
10:32
Speaker 1: I mean evaluation alonguationwise, we were all saying, like three
10:35
Speaker 1: years ago, I was thinking sixty billion dollar valuation, Like
10:38
Speaker 1: pretty hi. I think someone said anybody who's in a
10:41
Speaker 1: private investor into Uber over the past four years is
10:44
Speaker 1: underwater as of May nineteen, which is pretty pretty astonishing.
10:50
Speaker 1: All right, So let's pivot from the capital structure side
10:53
Speaker 1: to the business side. I know you guys are um
10:57
Speaker 1: Matthey and you look at a lot of data. Have
11:00
Speaker 1: you figured out what the qust of acquiring a new
11:03
Speaker 1: client is like? And how do you deal with that
11:07
Speaker 1: in terms of marketing and just looking for new business.
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Speaker 1: So a lot of financial services firms are effectively marketing engines, right, Like,
11:17
Speaker 1: they have a product that they make and then two
11:20
Speaker 1: thirds of the company is they're pushing that riot, pushing
11:23
Speaker 1: that product into market. We are not built that way.
11:26
Speaker 1: Most of our team is R and D. We're building,
11:29
Speaker 1: we're building technology right and of course we have an
11:32
Speaker 1: amazing programmatic marketing team helping us understand our funnel, helping
11:37
Speaker 1: us make sure that if you've visited the site, you're
11:39
Speaker 1: getting the content that you want. We might retarget you
11:42
Speaker 1: and bring you back. Uh. And we do some sponsorships
11:45
Speaker 1: and podcasts and we just had Maggie Stiff, you know
11:49
Speaker 1: from from Billions and and so and do do a
11:51
Speaker 1: campaign for us. So we've done a good bit of
11:53
Speaker 1: marketing to raise awareness and drive that top of the funnel,
11:57
Speaker 1: awareness to betterment. By and large, were so efficient. We
12:01
Speaker 1: keep becoming more and more efficient every year. We acquire
12:04
Speaker 1: more customers and spend less doing it per customer less
12:08
Speaker 1: per customer, so that's been great. So there are a
12:12
Speaker 1: number of different companies that do what you do. How
12:15
Speaker 1: do you differentiate yourself from the competition? Having competition is
12:20
Speaker 1: a blessing I know, if you you know, go to
12:24
Speaker 1: some like monopolists, they might disagree, right, they might say
12:27
Speaker 1: that it's it's great to be alone. But for us,
12:31
Speaker 1: I don't you know, we started this category right, this
12:33
Speaker 1: is smart money manager. Thing didn't exist before, and we
12:37
Speaker 1: said on stage at tech Crunch. At that launch, I
12:40
Speaker 1: was asked, Hey, how are you going to deal with competition?
12:42
Speaker 1: Do you think other people would do this? And I said,
12:43
Speaker 1: if we're successful, we're going to have lots of competition.
12:47
Speaker 1: So so let's talk about some of the giant names
12:50
Speaker 1: that have are late to the space. Schwab rolled out
12:54
Speaker 1: their version. Um, it's a little bit of an odd
12:57
Speaker 1: portfolio coast. They make their money on the banking side.
13:01
Speaker 1: There's a big I think it's like ten percent or
13:03
Speaker 1: eight percent is cash and that's the really there is
13:06
Speaker 1: nothing free, so the cash is what covers the cost
13:10
Speaker 1: of it. And then there's Vanguard, which I believe across
13:13
Speaker 1: the hundred billion dollars in their robot, they're they're just immense.
13:18
Speaker 1: Any concerns is at a different audience, a different demographic.
13:21
Speaker 1: How do you deal with those two giant firms breathing
13:25
Speaker 1: down your neck? So they're not taking customers from us.
13:28
Speaker 1: It's important to know that we're getting customers from them,
13:32
Speaker 1: and we're getting customers organically from from other firms and
13:35
Speaker 1: people who are sometimes new to saving and investing. But
13:39
Speaker 1: no one's going I'm leaving betterment because honestly, we just
13:42
Speaker 1: have a better product than these other firms. We're doing
13:44
Speaker 1: more for our customers. We've run an analysis recently that
13:48
Speaker 1: shows that if you sum up all of the investment management,
13:52
Speaker 1: tax management, portfolio diversification, etcetera. That we do for you
13:57
Speaker 1: and compare it to what you would get through doing
14:00
Speaker 1: it yourself, even net of our fees, we're earning people
14:06
Speaker 1: more in retirement than they could get on their own.
14:09
Speaker 1: And that's the value of great advice and management. So
14:12
Speaker 1: I'm very bullish on advice and these other these incumbent
14:15
Speaker 1: firms are not primarily advisors, right. They're trying to pivot
14:19
Speaker 1: to become that. They're talking a lot about it, but
14:22
Speaker 1: it's not their d n A right. Vandguard a wonderful firm.
14:25
Speaker 1: I have incredible respect for Jack Bogel. He's we wouldn't
14:29
Speaker 1: be here without him. However, that firm today is just
14:33
Speaker 1: a mutual fund sales machine. They just want to push
14:36
Speaker 1: their their their mutual funds. And there's an old kind
14:40
Speaker 1: of you know, orthodoxy that says, as long as you're
14:43
Speaker 1: diversified and have low costs, that's the best thing you
14:45
Speaker 1: can do, and like, we do that the best and
14:47
Speaker 1: that's it. Well, I'm here to tell you that's not
14:49
Speaker 1: good enough anymore. The world has changed, technology has changed,
14:52
Speaker 1: and you really need an advisor to make the most
14:54
Speaker 1: of your money today because smart money management is here
14:57
Speaker 1: and it's not going away. Um. I can say the
15:00
Speaker 1: same about Schwab. I mean, these guys did a lot
15:02
Speaker 1: to innovate. I mean, Chuck, you know, like was one
15:05
Speaker 1: of the very few people who said we're going to
15:09
Speaker 1: take commissions down, not up. That was great in the
15:11
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies when they did it. They've continued to drive
15:14
Speaker 1: that that trading price down. Now there's folks out there
15:16
Speaker 1: like Robin Hood or whatever where you can trade for
15:18
Speaker 1: absolutely free. Does that mean that's what people should do
15:21
Speaker 1: or that's a good thing. No, Absolutely, it's not a
15:25
Speaker 1: good thing. Uh. And I don't think that they're encouraging
15:27
Speaker 1: good behaviors over there, Schwab. They want you to keep
15:30
Speaker 1: a lot of money in cash, and they're robbing you
15:32
Speaker 1: with that. They're just taking your money, They're just taking
15:34
Speaker 1: it away from you. And I think that needs to
15:36
Speaker 1: be exposed and they should be held to account for
15:39
Speaker 1: that behavior. Wow, those are those are strong words. So
15:42
Speaker 1: so let's talk a little bit about UM what Vanguard
15:45
Speaker 1: has called Advisors Alpha and you have discussed in detail. Uh,
15:50
Speaker 1: tax lost harvesting is one thing that the computer does
15:54
Speaker 1: much faster than sending an accountant with a green ice
15:57
Speaker 1: shade to go through every transaction you've had. How much
16:01
Speaker 1: can the average portfolio garner in in some tax loss
16:06
Speaker 1: harvesting when we some across all of our features like
16:11
Speaker 1: smart rebalancing which figures out when you have a dividend paid,
16:14
Speaker 1: where to put that so you don't actually trigger a
16:16
Speaker 1: taxable event, or UM are lot sorting which instead of
16:21
Speaker 1: just doing FIEFO or LIFEO like most first and you
16:24
Speaker 1: know first and last and first out, which are kind
16:26
Speaker 1: of common algorithms, we will actually choose the right lot
16:29
Speaker 1: to sell or buy at any specific moment. And my favorite,
16:33
Speaker 1: which is tax coordination that looks at your roth IRA,
16:36
Speaker 1: your traditional IRA, your four own K accounts, etcetera, and
16:39
Speaker 1: puts the right assets into the right ones, to shield
16:41
Speaker 1: your dividends, to shield things that might have long term appreciation.
16:44
Speaker 1: You some across those features. And we're earning our average
16:48
Speaker 1: customer net of our fees after our fee, one point
16:51
Speaker 1: six one percent per year of alpha. It's an incredible
16:56
Speaker 1: as it's big. That's a big number, right, It's like
16:59
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's incredible, it's incredible. But we have
17:03
Speaker 1: we've run amazing you know, scenario analysis on this, and
17:06
Speaker 1: it's not like, you know, I can show you the picture.
17:08
Speaker 1: It's not like in of outcomes, you're guaranteed to be
17:11
Speaker 1: better if there's nothing like that in in investing. However,
17:14
Speaker 1: in the average case, you're one point six one per
17:17
Speaker 1: year better off with our algorithms then without them. So
17:22
Speaker 1: what does that mean in terms of returns? It's one better,
17:26
Speaker 1: but that's not that's as a percentage of the total
17:30
Speaker 1: pl How much does that show up in actual returns
17:33
Speaker 1: over over time? Well, that is that that is the
17:36
Speaker 1: net return to a customer, that's after our fees, that's
17:38
Speaker 1: after all taxes. So if the market gives you ten,
17:43
Speaker 1: theoretically someone who's just invested in equities should see eleven
17:47
Speaker 1: six one exactly. And it's not that linear, right, it's
17:50
Speaker 1: not one per year guaranteed. But if you compound that,
17:55
Speaker 1: you know, and we've run a bunch of you know,
17:57
Speaker 1: scenario analyzes and things, and if you compounded over third
18:00
Speaker 1: years investing for retirement, and that's how you end up
18:02
Speaker 1: with more cash in the end. Let's talk a few
18:06
Speaker 1: moments about this business. There's been some pushback into the
18:11
Speaker 1: concept of automated advice giving. What do you say to
18:15
Speaker 1: people who say, this is just a temporary technology fed
18:20
Speaker 1: and people need live advisors. Being able to do this
18:24
Speaker 1: with just software isn't going to get it done. I
18:27
Speaker 1: believe live advisors provide a tremendous value to their clients.
18:32
Speaker 1: Sometimes advisors, we have a product for advisors, it's Betterment
18:35
Speaker 1: for advisors, as as you know. And sometimes advisors come
18:39
Speaker 1: to us and say, what's to keep my clients from
18:42
Speaker 1: just leaving me and going straight to betterment? And they
18:45
Speaker 1: might worry about that, and we say, well, number one,
18:48
Speaker 1: what's to stop them from doing that today? Why are
18:52
Speaker 1: they with you? And they say, well, because I tell them,
18:56
Speaker 1: I give them a full financial plan, I'm talking to
18:58
Speaker 1: them about all their needs I see or fears I'm
19:00
Speaker 1: there when the market's bad to talk to them, and
19:02
Speaker 1: we say exactly, and that is a service that they
19:06
Speaker 1: value very highly and are happy to pay for it
19:09
Speaker 1: because you're giving them a lot of value. So that
19:12
Speaker 1: kind of that relationship, all of that advice that advisors
19:15
Speaker 1: are giving is still very valuable. What we can do
19:18
Speaker 1: is we're a smart money manager, right, so we'll we'll
19:20
Speaker 1: automate like the right kinds of things with your money
19:22
Speaker 1: will help you make more on your money. And uh,
19:25
Speaker 1: and we we we try. We also, um, you know,
19:28
Speaker 1: work very hard to make it a convenient experience, right.
19:30
Speaker 1: Our mobile apps are web apps make everything very accessible.
19:33
Speaker 1: So originally you launched as a B two C as
19:36
Speaker 1: a business to consumer, and there was a pivot to
19:40
Speaker 1: add exactly what you were just describing, UM, you as
19:43
Speaker 1: a business to business being the back ends for any
19:46
Speaker 1: form of r I A or investment advisory firm. UM.
19:51
Speaker 1: How did that pivot come about? And how challenging was
19:53
Speaker 1: that transition? Getting to work with advisors was a thing
19:58
Speaker 1: that we knew we wanted to do for a while,
20:00
Speaker 1: It just it wasn't top priority we had to get.
20:03
Speaker 1: You know, we had to build I RA s for instance,
20:06
Speaker 1: we had to build a mobile at back in two
20:07
Speaker 1: thousand twelve when we were just just getting our feet
20:10
Speaker 1: under us. And it took some partners coming to us
20:14
Speaker 1: and and saying, hey, we really want to do this,
20:16
Speaker 1: we'll invest with you. Uh, if you'll, if you'll help
20:19
Speaker 1: make this a reality for us. Uh. Steve Auction was
20:22
Speaker 1: one of those early early partners uh and uh. And
20:26
Speaker 1: working with them, we had an instant client, right, so
20:30
Speaker 1: we had someone that we were building for and that
20:32
Speaker 1: was with which firm. So that was with advice period
20:34
Speaker 1: at the time. Uh and uh. And we've grown from there.
20:38
Speaker 1: We now work with thousands of advisors all across the country.
20:41
Speaker 1: Quite quite intriguing. Now, some of your competitors have tried
20:44
Speaker 1: some interesting variations UM. One of them rolled out a
20:48
Speaker 1: risk parity fund, sort of well maybe we're not in dextors,
20:52
Speaker 1: maybe we can beat the market. Didn't seem to work
20:55
Speaker 1: out too well. Uh. If you're a Bridgewater or a
20:58
Speaker 1: Q you are, Hey, that's one thing. But Wealth Front
21:01
Speaker 1: had some problems with this. I know a few other
21:03
Speaker 1: companies had looked at it. Uh. What do you think
21:07
Speaker 1: of this idea of UM? People still being enthusiastic for
21:13
Speaker 1: trying to beat the market. Everyone wants to beat the market.
21:17
Speaker 1: You do, I do, and if we could do it well, like,
21:20
Speaker 1: you know, that'd be amazing. The reason that Vanguard has
21:24
Speaker 1: the big business that they do is a lot of
21:26
Speaker 1: people came around to believe that it's really hard to
21:28
Speaker 1: beat the market net of fees, right, and the old
21:31
Speaker 1: technology of having you know, somebody who's just picking stocks
21:35
Speaker 1: for you, it was probably not the most efficient way
21:38
Speaker 1: to to deploy your assets. Now today that idea of
21:42
Speaker 1: just pure indexing is you know, it's a little bit
21:45
Speaker 1: boring and maybe it's no longer the cutting it. So
21:47
Speaker 1: people are trying alternative indexes. And to me, it's very
21:51
Speaker 1: hard to tell the difference between active and passive anymore
21:53
Speaker 1: because there's so many different types of passive out there. Well,
21:56
Speaker 1: we've and is an algorithm active or passive? Right? Is it?
21:59
Speaker 1: You know? If you in in index? Is an active choice? Right? Like?
22:02
Speaker 1: Which index? Are we going to track what gets added
22:05
Speaker 1: and what's and what's not? Do we put in companies
22:07
Speaker 1: that don't have you know, equal equal share voting things
22:10
Speaker 1: like this? Uh? And so I think those lines are
22:14
Speaker 1: going to continue to be blurred, But ultimately what what
22:18
Speaker 1: drive performance is low fees, optimizing for the things you
22:22
Speaker 1: can control, and not worrying about the things that you
22:24
Speaker 1: can't control. The things you can can control include your
22:27
Speaker 1: own behavior, right, So like auto deposit invest very regularly.
22:32
Speaker 1: They include taxes, so account for that over time. UM.
22:36
Speaker 1: They include having the right types of account set up
22:38
Speaker 1: for things so that you don't need to go and
22:40
Speaker 1: raid your retirement account to meet some short term expense.
22:43
Speaker 1: Uh So advice and planning can help with all of
22:46
Speaker 1: these things that you can control and help you make
22:48
Speaker 1: the most of your money. So some people dislike the
22:51
Speaker 1: phrase robo advisor. What what's your view on that phrase
22:55
Speaker 1: and what's your preferred terminology. I think robo advisor is fun,
22:59
Speaker 1: it's it's a hand all. It's been around for for
23:01
Speaker 1: a bit now, and it's how it's how we're now.
23:03
Speaker 1: And I use smart money Manager because I think of
23:06
Speaker 1: us like a smart home or a smart car. There's
23:09
Speaker 1: just better technology now that's available and people should all
23:12
Speaker 1: be using it. Eventually everyone will be. Uh, there's just
23:16
Speaker 1: there's a lot of inertia in our space. Well, you know,
23:18
Speaker 1: the pushback is it's not necessarily advisor and there's no
23:22
Speaker 1: robots involved. We call has has been the pushback. Um
23:29
Speaker 1: so so, given the technology that we've seen, given how
23:32
Speaker 1: it's deployed, what is the next logical step for this
23:37
Speaker 1: sort of advice we we've you've rolled out a four
23:40
Speaker 1: oh one K department seems to be fairly um human intensive.
23:46
Speaker 1: There's so many people along the lines that sales arc
23:49
Speaker 1: has to take forever. What else are you looking at
23:52
Speaker 1: as a possible way to use your technology to make
23:56
Speaker 1: investing more efficient. I'm so bullish on the four own cabinus.
24:00
Speaker 1: The better effort for a business line has been great.
24:02
Speaker 1: We've been growing that quickly. Uh and I I just
24:07
Speaker 1: keep trying to lean into that, Like, more of that
24:08
Speaker 1: we can do that the better because all these employers
24:11
Speaker 1: are really concerned about employee wellness and the best benefits
24:14
Speaker 1: to retain the best talent. And that's where we really
24:17
Speaker 1: stand out as having this great client experience and personalized
24:20
Speaker 1: advice for every participant. Nobody else offers that, right, It's
24:23
Speaker 1: a it's a really great plan. But as I look
24:26
Speaker 1: towards the future, the things that I'm excited about now
24:29
Speaker 1: are around your everyday cash management. Right, UM, When I
24:34
Speaker 1: think about um our mission to begin. Going all the
24:38
Speaker 1: way back to the launch, we said we want to
24:40
Speaker 1: help customers do what's best with their money so they
24:43
Speaker 1: can live better. And people took that to mean when
24:47
Speaker 1: we launched investing that we were all about being just
24:50
Speaker 1: a financial advisor and just sort of a wealth manager.
24:52
Speaker 1: Maybe we're sometimes put in that category. I've always thought
24:55
Speaker 1: of us as this holistic smart money manager, and that
24:58
Speaker 1: includes your every day checking and savings and all of
25:02
Speaker 1: these kinds. So so Schwab has effectively become a bank.
25:07
Speaker 1: Goldman Sachs is a bank. Are you saying Betterment is
25:10
Speaker 1: becoming a full FDIC in shored bank. Is that the plan?
25:14
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. I'm saying, you know, I'm saying
25:17
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to get you to tell me whether
25:19
Speaker 1: or not that's gonna happen. You know, In the last
25:23
Speaker 1: last December, we launched smart Saver, which was our high
25:28
Speaker 1: yield savings account alternative. Then we launched two ways Sweep
25:32
Speaker 1: early this year, uh, and that allowed people to automatically
25:35
Speaker 1: move money back and forth from their checking account. And
25:38
Speaker 1: your sweep is a reasonable fee. You mentioned Schwab. They
25:42
Speaker 1: there's a big Wall Street Journal article their sweep is
25:45
Speaker 1: no longer a high paying short term um fund. It's
25:49
Speaker 1: really a low paying cash account. It's crazy that they
25:53
Speaker 1: were able to get away with that, isn't it. It's
25:56
Speaker 1: complicated enough that nobody really understood what they were doing.
26:00
Speaker 1: But it's real money. And in my office and I'm
26:02
Speaker 1: sure in yours, it meant that anything we custody to
26:05
Speaker 1: SWAB there had to be a decision made. Hey, for
26:09
Speaker 1: this much money, for more than this many days, it
26:11
Speaker 1: has to come out of cash and go into this
26:14
Speaker 1: bond short term bond fund. Because it's a substantial difference
26:18
Speaker 1: and interest rates. I think people, customers, citizens need to
26:24
Speaker 1: stand up and demand better. I just it just frustrates
26:28
Speaker 1: me to no end that these banks and brokers can
26:32
Speaker 1: get away with this kind of behavior because that's where
26:34
Speaker 1: they make most of their money. Right, SCHWAB makes more
26:36
Speaker 1: than fifty of their profits off of your idle cash.
26:41
Speaker 1: If you're a SWAB customer, you don't know how much
26:42
Speaker 1: you're just giving them money, just giving it away, and
26:45
Speaker 1: they are lending it out for mortgagees and whatnot, and
26:47
Speaker 1: you're getting nothing off of that, well, practically nothing. It's
26:50
Speaker 1: a very low amount. It's nothing, but They're not alone
26:53
Speaker 1: in this, right, you know, Bank America is doing this,
26:56
Speaker 1: JP Morgan is doing this. This is how they're all
26:58
Speaker 1: making their money. So those retail accounts is where all
27:01
Speaker 1: the money is in banking, and I think it's time
27:04
Speaker 1: for a change there. I don't think most people are
27:06
Speaker 1: aware of that because you're taught, oh yeah, just put
27:08
Speaker 1: your money in your checking incot your savings account. That's
27:09
Speaker 1: a safe place to put it. I'll tell you. As
27:11
Speaker 1: a consultant back at First Manhattan Consulting Group, I saw
27:14
Speaker 1: some really bad practices with those checking accounts, crazy amounts
27:17
Speaker 1: of fees charged to people, and then and then the
27:20
Speaker 1: interest is silly low. But it's a collective active problem.
27:23
Speaker 1: Where collective collective action problem, I mean where uh you know,
27:26
Speaker 1: basically you're only losing a few hundred dollars a year,
27:29
Speaker 1: you don't care that much. You have to band together.
27:32
Speaker 1: We all have to demand better. And that cash management,
27:34
Speaker 1: to me is a super exciting spot for us where
27:36
Speaker 1: I think we can make a real impact on all
27:39
Speaker 1: of americans lives. So let's talk a little bit about
27:42
Speaker 1: the different model portfolios that you guys run there, mostly Vanguard.
27:47
Speaker 1: Last time I looked old Vanguard, mostly Vanguard. In our
27:50
Speaker 1: core portfolios that we recommend for customers, something like seventy
27:54
Speaker 1: percent of every of every dollar would go into one
27:59
Speaker 1: of a couple of dozen Vanguard funds. Now. The other
28:02
Speaker 1: thirty percent is across black Rock and Schwab funds, and
28:07
Speaker 1: and there's there's others in there as well. What we
28:09
Speaker 1: do is we're independent. We don't make any money off
28:12
Speaker 1: the funds that we offer. We don't offer any of
28:15
Speaker 1: our own funds, and that makes us virtually unique, by
28:18
Speaker 1: the way, in this in this space, you're a fiduciary
28:21
Speaker 1: to your clients or a fiduciary to our clients. So
28:23
Speaker 1: you're not a broker. You're not selling shelf space, you're
28:25
Speaker 1: not getting kickbacks. There's none of that, right, And and
28:28
Speaker 1: all these all these other firms do right, even Vanguard, right,
28:31
Speaker 1: they're only selling their own funds. Schwab has their own
28:33
Speaker 1: funds in their portfolio. So all of these guys are
28:36
Speaker 1: double dipping. In my view, they're charging you not just
28:38
Speaker 1: for the fund, but also for the advice on top
28:40
Speaker 1: of We get paid for advice, and that's it. And
28:43
Speaker 1: I think that advice, that simplicity of what we do
28:46
Speaker 1: is how you know that we're acting in your best interests.
28:49
Speaker 1: So talking about Van Goard and the fiduciary um obligation,
28:55
Speaker 1: you wrote a very lovely tribute after Jack Bogel, founder
28:58
Speaker 1: of Vanguard, passed away. Um tell us about what motivated that,
29:03
Speaker 1: what was your relationship with Jack, and what did he
29:06
Speaker 1: mean to you. Jack. I wouldn't be here without his
29:09
Speaker 1: influence and example. When I was initially thinking about doing
29:14
Speaker 1: something in this space, the examples that inspired me were
29:17
Speaker 1: the investing efficiency of Vanguard and the online simplicity of
29:23
Speaker 1: iron g Direct. And now this was back in two
29:25
Speaker 1: thousand and six when iron g Direct was an independent
29:28
Speaker 1: brand and you know, it was innovating in web financial
29:31
Speaker 1: services and that's nowther part of Capital One and it's
29:33
Speaker 1: no longer the case. But I was inspired by Jack,
29:37
Speaker 1: and when I met him, it was just like it
29:39
Speaker 1: was like meeting you know, your idol. You know, I
29:41
Speaker 1: just couldn't believe it. And he talked to me and
29:43
Speaker 1: he signed my book and he said, uh, you know,
29:46
Speaker 1: you're going to do a lot of good for a
29:47
Speaker 1: lot of people. And I was just so touched by that.
29:50
Speaker 1: I was really encouraged and inspired to to move on
29:52
Speaker 1: and over the years we kept in touch. I went
29:54
Speaker 1: to his office, we we talked a number of times
29:57
Speaker 1: at conferences and this and that. I uh, I just
30:01
Speaker 1: I think he was such a good person and he
30:04
Speaker 1: cared about his people. He cared about his customers. That
30:07
Speaker 1: example is with me all the time. So, so let's
30:11
Speaker 1: talk about the fiduciary rule. Since we're discussing um, caring
30:15
Speaker 1: about your customers or at least doing what's in their
30:18
Speaker 1: best interest. We were supposed to have at least four
30:22
Speaker 1: retirement accounts UH a moderated version of the fiduciary rule,
30:28
Speaker 1: and that in April twenties seventeen got a killed at
30:33
Speaker 1: least temporarily set back. What are your thoughts about this?
30:38
Speaker 1: And again full disclosure, You're a fiduciary your clients. I'm
30:41
Speaker 1: a fiduciary to my clients, so I'm not arguing against this.
30:45
Speaker 1: We're on the same side of of the street with this.
30:48
Speaker 1: But there's always a lot of pushback anytime the fiduciary
30:52
Speaker 1: rule comes up. I think this is why we have
30:55
Speaker 1: a collective action problem. There are so these these firms.
31:00
Speaker 1: I'm making so much money off of recommending the wrong thing,
31:03
Speaker 1: off of suggesting that you keep more money in cash
31:05
Speaker 1: off of suggesting that you should just buy our mutual
31:08
Speaker 1: fund because it's just as good as anything else out
31:10
Speaker 1: there that is such a profitable thing, because it's a
31:13
Speaker 1: way of hiding a fee from you. Now, the thing
31:16
Speaker 1: you might say, why can't regulatory actions solve this? Why
31:19
Speaker 1: why don't they do something about it? Well, it takes
31:22
Speaker 1: a crisis. And in the mortgage crisis, we had that moment.
31:26
Speaker 1: We had you know, people on TV who had lost
31:29
Speaker 1: everything because they had gotten a mortgage that they didn't understand,
31:32
Speaker 1: and so we regulated mortgages. And now, frankly, I just
31:35
Speaker 1: got a mortgage, and so I can tell you it's
31:38
Speaker 1: still a pain in the neck, but it is pretty
31:40
Speaker 1: clear at least what you're paying and what you're getting.
31:42
Speaker 1: Those disclosure forms are good. Now, all we are asking
31:46
Speaker 1: for with the fiduciary rule or with the SEC's Best
31:50
Speaker 1: interest rule, is to have clarity around disclosure, around what
31:54
Speaker 1: you're paying for and what you're getting. And of course,
31:57
Speaker 1: these financial firms are arguing against the with all of
32:00
Speaker 1: their might because they love burying fees, They love taking
32:03
Speaker 1: advantage of your behavior and hiding fees in places that
32:06
Speaker 1: you won't notice them like, oh, this money is just
32:08
Speaker 1: sitting here, we won't pay you any interest on it,
32:10
Speaker 1: or oh, you'll only pay us if you overdraft her,
32:13
Speaker 1: if you pay late, because people think, well, I'm smart,
32:16
Speaker 1: I won't pay late and I won't keep very much
32:18
Speaker 1: money in that account. I'll manage this. And the firms
32:21
Speaker 1: have all your data and they know you won't do
32:23
Speaker 1: those things. You will misbehave, you will accidentally forget something,
32:26
Speaker 1: you won't actively manage it because you don't have infinite time.
32:29
Speaker 1: And so what you need increasingly as an advisor in
32:32
Speaker 1: your corner doing these things for you. You need an advisor,
32:35
Speaker 1: You need a smart money manager, You need the best technology.
32:38
Speaker 1: You need both of those things. So, if I recall
32:40
Speaker 1: under the Obama administration when they wrote the white paper
32:44
Speaker 1: about the fiduciary rule just in retirement accounts, they claimed
32:49
Speaker 1: excess fees were north of seventeen billion dollars a year.
32:54
Speaker 1: That's a lot of money collectively that should be going
32:57
Speaker 1: towards people's retirements and it's not. So is this just
33:01
Speaker 1: is the fujuciary rule just about money? Is that why
33:04
Speaker 1: people are opposing this? That's it, that's that's seventeen billion
33:08
Speaker 1: dollars that should be going to clients is going to
33:11
Speaker 1: the industry. Right. The industry didn't argue with that number.
33:14
Speaker 1: They just said, if this rule goes through, it will
33:16
Speaker 1: impact our profits by seventeen billion dollars. Okay, So do
33:21
Speaker 1: you want that money to go to consumers, to individuals,
33:26
Speaker 1: or do you want it to go to the financial
33:27
Speaker 1: services industry. Personally, I'm all about the consumer. I'm super
33:31
Speaker 1: passionate about making things more transparent, about giving letting people
33:35
Speaker 1: know what they're getting, letting them know what they're paying for,
33:37
Speaker 1: and let them make the decision. If they want the
33:39
Speaker 1: high priced option, you can have it, but just have
33:42
Speaker 1: the transparency. Uh. That's that's fair enough. So from your perspective,
33:47
Speaker 1: you you sit at the nexus of technology and financial services.
33:52
Speaker 1: I won't use the terrible phrase that that everybody else uses, um,
33:56
Speaker 1: but looking forward, what does the next twenty years or
33:59
Speaker 1: so in that space look like? What changes should we expect.
34:05
Speaker 1: We think about the self managing wallet, we think about
34:10
Speaker 1: the self driving car. Right and if if, if you
34:13
Speaker 1: like me, I I believe that sometime over the next
34:16
Speaker 1: twenty years, we're going to have self driving cars. Right,
34:18
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's going to be twenty is
34:20
Speaker 1: probably less than that, it could be, right and uh,
34:24
Speaker 1: and eventually that's just going to become the way that
34:26
Speaker 1: we get around and everyone's going to be used to it.
34:29
Speaker 1: Right now, it still seems a little bit far fetched. Well,
34:31
Speaker 1: I look at the self managing wall at the same way.
34:33
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that you're going to get in a
34:35
Speaker 1: self driving car to take you to work, and then
34:37
Speaker 1: at the end of the day you're still going to
34:38
Speaker 1: have to figure out how much to putting your wrath
34:40
Speaker 1: versus your traditional I RRA And did I actually balance
34:43
Speaker 1: my checking account this much? Of course, that's going to
34:45
Speaker 1: be managed by, you know, a smart system, and that
34:49
Speaker 1: system exists right now, and it just keeps getting better
34:52
Speaker 1: every day, so it's time to start using it. Do
34:54
Speaker 1: you look at companies like Amazon as potentially coming into
34:58
Speaker 1: the financial service the space? I know lots of people
35:02
Speaker 1: of UM positive that thesis, But what else is coming
35:06
Speaker 1: along to disrupt financial services? We see the financial services
35:12
Speaker 1: a broad space, and certainly Amazon and Apple are interested
35:16
Speaker 1: in the payment side, the sites closer to commerce, which
35:19
Speaker 1: is their core right. They would rather earn that three
35:22
Speaker 1: percent interchange than you know, have some other third party
35:25
Speaker 1: earn it for them to get into, say, managing on
35:29
Speaker 1: wealth is a little further afield. But maybe in between
35:33
Speaker 1: some of this everyday cash management that I was talking about,
35:35
Speaker 1: maybe they will play there. I think certainly the large
35:40
Speaker 1: incumbents and financial services could use some challengers. Frankly, so
35:44
Speaker 1: could these large uh, these large I T companies use
35:47
Speaker 1: some some challengers. I think they're They're in a lot
35:50
Speaker 1: of businesses right now. And um, Fortunately in financial services
35:55
Speaker 1: we have a pretty good regime of competition being good. Right,
35:58
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of laws around mack size of banks
36:01
Speaker 1: and competitive pricing to keep it a dynamic competitive market.
36:06
Speaker 1: You see prices continuing to go lower even in your
36:09
Speaker 1: space or is that you know, twenty five basis points
36:12
Speaker 1: is a pretty reasonable price point. How much lower could
36:15
Speaker 1: that possibly go? If you have a competitive market like
36:19
Speaker 1: financial services, prices will generally follow to uh to the cost.
36:25
Speaker 1: Right if if there's you only get real difference divergence
36:29
Speaker 1: between price and costs when you have more monopolistic areas. Now,
36:33
Speaker 1: I think one of the interesting things that's going on
36:34
Speaker 1: is there is a monopolistic tendency in retail banking right now.
36:38
Speaker 1: So the banks that control fort of retail branches opened
36:44
Speaker 1: eight percent of accounts over the last five years. If
36:48
Speaker 1: you go back thirty years, the five biggest banks had
36:51
Speaker 1: less than ten percent of the total deposits. Now it's
36:55
Speaker 1: practically fifty. It's amazing how how much consolidation and there's
37:00
Speaker 1: been in that space, especially after the crisis. So there's
37:03
Speaker 1: less and less competition. And none of those banks, those
37:06
Speaker 1: big ones, those big four or five, are price leaders.
37:09
Speaker 1: None of them are actually giving customers the best deal.
37:11
Speaker 1: The reason they're growing is because technology is becoming a
37:15
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger asset to these institutions, and those who
37:19
Speaker 1: can afford to invest in it are And I do
37:21
Speaker 1: worry about the smaller institutions who can't make those kinds
37:24
Speaker 1: of investments. Were empowering investment advisors with the best technology,
37:28
Speaker 1: who's empowering the banks. I mean, I'm sure there's a
37:30
Speaker 1: bunch of like B two B businesses out there, but
37:32
Speaker 1: it's hard to compete with like the the big consolidated say,
37:36
Speaker 1: you know, JP Mortgage and Bank of America's, any of
37:39
Speaker 1: the money center banks are not under the same price
37:42
Speaker 1: competition that smaller companies are is that is that the
37:45
Speaker 1: argument they have different ways that they compete. Let's say, yeah,
37:50
Speaker 1: I think that's right, and it's getting harder for say
37:53
Speaker 1: small regional retail banks to to raise deposits. That's a
37:57
Speaker 1: spot where I think we want to help them. Uh So,
38:00
Speaker 1: you know, we're looking broadly at the financial services landscape
38:03
Speaker 1: and thinking about how can we make things better for
38:06
Speaker 1: and consumers. I think competition is great in the space.
38:09
Speaker 1: We want to continue to encourage it, and people have
38:11
Speaker 1: to speak up and demand better. We have been speaking
38:14
Speaker 1: with Jonathan Sedin, founder and CEO of Betterment. If you
38:20
Speaker 1: enjoy this conversation, well, be sure and come back and
38:22
Speaker 1: check out the podcast extras when we keep the tape
38:25
Speaker 1: rolling and continue discussing all things robo Advisor related. You
38:30
Speaker 1: can find that at iTunes, Overcast, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Bloomberg, wherever
38:36
Speaker 1: your final podcasts are sold. We love your comments, feedback
38:41
Speaker 1: in suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at
38:45
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. Check out my daily column on Bloomberg
38:49
Speaker 1: dot com slash Opinion. Follow me on Twitter at rid Holts.
38:53
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Hults. You're listening to Masters in Business on
38:57
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast. John, Thank you so
39:12
Speaker 1: much for doing this. I've been looking forward to this
39:14
Speaker 1: for a while. UM. I think you guys are in
39:17
Speaker 1: a really interesting space, and I've followed your progress over
39:21
Speaker 1: the years. Although I'm astonished how effective you have been
39:27
Speaker 1: on the the space has been on the venture capital side,
39:31
Speaker 1: because unless and until there's an I p O, exits
39:36
Speaker 1: are becoming fewer and further between. We've seen a lot
39:38
Speaker 1: of people say well, we don't have to buy. We've
39:41
Speaker 1: seen a few companies get bought, but a number of
39:44
Speaker 1: the latter entrance said well, we could build this ourselves.
39:47
Speaker 1: Vanguard built it themselves. Schwab built it themselves, although I
39:50
Speaker 1: know they had a series of small UM related acquisitions.
39:54
Speaker 1: UM some of the big first round robos that had
39:58
Speaker 1: achieved some a UM scale got purchased primarily for the
40:02
Speaker 1: a U M. What's the what's the exit strategy? Is
40:07
Speaker 1: it I p O or a big, a big entity
40:11
Speaker 1: down the road. We've always said since we launched that
40:14
Speaker 1: we want this to be an independent public company. If
40:16
Speaker 1: we're to have the impact we want, that's the route
40:19
Speaker 1: that we have to take. We want to have such
40:20
Speaker 1: a strong relationship with our customers and constantly reinvest in
40:24
Speaker 1: that in their well being, which is not what the
40:27
Speaker 1: typical incumbent is trying to do. Right, They're great at
40:30
Speaker 1: making money for themselves, not necessarily for their customers. You
40:33
Speaker 1: get any any pushback on that philosophy from hey, it's
40:36
Speaker 1: been a decade since your first venture capitalists back to you.
40:40
Speaker 1: I know, these guys have a tendency to want to
40:42
Speaker 1: see something eventually, what what's the relationship like, and what
40:47
Speaker 1: are they what are they pressing you to do. Our
40:49
Speaker 1: investors have been fantastic from day one. They've they've known
40:53
Speaker 1: that this is a long term, generational type opportunity. We
40:56
Speaker 1: went into it. I was open. We said this is
40:59
Speaker 1: not going to be a thing that we quickly flip
41:01
Speaker 1: and sell. We're trying to build an institution here. And
41:03
Speaker 1: if you look at the cycles in this space, it's
41:06
Speaker 1: every thirty or forty years you get another generation of
41:09
Speaker 1: companies that grow up. And so the last major one
41:12
Speaker 1: was back in seventies when Schwab and Vanguard both launched
41:16
Speaker 1: about seventy five, and they're big companies today. They didn't
41:21
Speaker 1: displace the old companies. They didn't put Merrill Lynch out
41:25
Speaker 1: of business. They didn't put more against Stanley out of business.
41:27
Speaker 1: Those continue to beat companies to the more recent one.
41:29
Speaker 1: There were sort of like a mini one when E
41:32
Speaker 1: Trade and so on launched in the early nineties. Right,
41:35
Speaker 1: and today, I think we're in a new era. We
41:38
Speaker 1: are in the smart money management era, and we are
41:43
Speaker 1: the leader in that space. Nobody is close to us. Right,
41:46
Speaker 1: we have more assets, we have a bigger reputation than
41:49
Speaker 1: any other firm. And sure there's companies saying, hey, we
41:53
Speaker 1: you know, do something about recommending portfolio too. That's nothing new.
41:56
Speaker 1: That's not smart money management. Where the smart money manager? Right? Like,
41:59
Speaker 1: where the one that's actually doing all the right things
42:01
Speaker 1: with your money? Quite quite interesting, all right, So let's
42:05
Speaker 1: jump to our favorite questions. These are what we ask
42:07
Speaker 1: all our guests. Are our speed round. Um, you might
42:11
Speaker 1: be the first person who can't answer for this question.
42:14
Speaker 1: What was the first car you ever owned? Your making model?
42:16
Speaker 1: I started driving when I was fifteen. In Texas, where
42:20
Speaker 1: I grew up, you can get a hardship license, and
42:23
Speaker 1: my hardship was that both my parents worked and I
42:25
Speaker 1: lived a long way from school and there was no bus,
42:27
Speaker 1: so I got to get a license early. I got
42:29
Speaker 1: a Nissan Stands. It was a red Niscense Stands. It
42:32
Speaker 1: was the nerdiest car that I probably ever could um So,
42:37
Speaker 1: so you mentioned Jack Bogel as a mentor. Who else
42:40
Speaker 1: were some of your early mentors. I gotta think my
42:43
Speaker 1: parents and my grandparents. My family was just such fantastic influences.
42:46
Speaker 1: I mean, my parents were city planners. They taught me
42:48
Speaker 1: a bad efficiency and the value of good design. And
42:52
Speaker 1: I learned to love business through my my grandparents, who
42:56
Speaker 1: ran a furniture furniture factory and and upstate New York.
42:59
Speaker 1: And I love their style of just building a community
43:02
Speaker 1: around that factory. I thought was so fantastic. Who influenced
43:06
Speaker 1: your approach to invest him? Well? Aside from Jack Bogol
43:10
Speaker 1: obviously was huge. I learned a lot from the Chicago School.
43:14
Speaker 1: So one of my professors at Harvard and undergrad was
43:19
Speaker 1: worked with the Chicago guys. He worked with Dick Taylor,
43:21
Speaker 1: and so I learned about Richard Taylor, I learned about
43:24
Speaker 1: Fama and French And now you know, we've partnered with
43:27
Speaker 1: Dimensional Fund advisors Dave uh and it's almost coming full
43:31
Speaker 1: circle back to to that relationship, right. I always thought
43:34
Speaker 1: that like Fama and French and Taylor were onto something,
43:37
Speaker 1: and Fama and French were big advisors to d f
43:40
Speaker 1: A and have been pretty much from from the beginning,
43:43
Speaker 1: So everybody's a favorite question. Tell us about some of
43:46
Speaker 1: your favorite books. I love Sapiens, big fan of that,
43:51
Speaker 1: But probably my favorite is Dan Kneman's Thinking Fast and Slow.
43:54
Speaker 1: It is a tome, right it is, you know, a
43:57
Speaker 1: thick one, and but it's a page turner too, So
43:59
Speaker 1: for three quarters of that you just really blow right
44:02
Speaker 1: through it. Yeah, fascinating, absolutely how we think. It's how
44:06
Speaker 1: we work, and it's that I talked about that union
44:08
Speaker 1: of like rational and irrational. He explains it right, He
44:12
Speaker 1: gets it and got a Nobel for getting. Any of
44:16
Speaker 1: the books you want to mention or just leave it
44:17
Speaker 1: with those two leave it there. What do you do
44:20
Speaker 1: for fun? What do you do out of the office.
44:23
Speaker 1: All of my time outside of work these days is
44:25
Speaker 1: occupied by my family. I've got a three year old
44:27
Speaker 1: and a four year old, two daughters, and I just
44:31
Speaker 1: love spending time with him. It's such a precious age
44:33
Speaker 1: right now, I can't do anything else. What are you
44:37
Speaker 1: most excited about in the financial services industry today? I
44:43
Speaker 1: think this idea of what happens with everyday money management
44:46
Speaker 1: is hugely exciting. I know I keep coming back to it,
44:49
Speaker 1: but it's ripe for change, and integrating that with this
44:53
Speaker 1: long term financial plan is the realization of our mission.
44:56
Speaker 1: It's a thing we've been talking about for years. But
44:58
Speaker 1: we can't really help you with your long term unless
45:00
Speaker 1: we help you with How do you save more today?
45:03
Speaker 1: What sort of advice would you give to a recent
45:06
Speaker 1: college grad or a millennial who came to you and said, um,
45:10
Speaker 1: interested in a career in fintech? How would you How
45:13
Speaker 1: would you advise them? I think having real passion is important.
45:18
Speaker 1: We always look for passion obviously, like you gotta have horsepower.
45:21
Speaker 1: That's like you gotta work hard and get things done.
45:24
Speaker 1: But showing like something that you have real passionate about
45:26
Speaker 1: is important. The other thing is openness. Can you listen?
45:30
Speaker 1: Can you You know if somebody's got all the ideas
45:33
Speaker 1: and not listening to others that that's not really a
45:35
Speaker 1: recipe for success. And our final question, what is it
45:38
Speaker 1: that you know about the world of investing technology? Uh,
45:42
Speaker 1: anything else related today that you wish you knew uh
45:46
Speaker 1: ten plus years ago when you were first started well
45:50
Speaker 1: back when I was a student, I was learning all
45:52
Speaker 1: this stuff about how to invest, and to that I
45:56
Speaker 1: was just as dumb as the next person. And of
45:58
Speaker 1: course then I went out and started managing my own money,
46:01
Speaker 1: and I bye end Ron on the way down. You know,
46:02
Speaker 1: I made some of the same dumb mistakes that I
46:05
Speaker 1: had read about, and I wish I hadn't done that,
46:08
Speaker 1: and I wish, you know, I learned my my lesson.
46:11
Speaker 1: We're all just as as as as dumb as the
46:13
Speaker 1: next person. In the end, I certainly am anyway, quite
46:16
Speaker 1: quite interesting. We have been speaking with Jonathan Stein, founder
46:21
Speaker 1: and CEO of Betterment. If you enjoyed this conversation, we'll
46:25
Speaker 1: be sure and look up an intro down an Inch
46:27
Speaker 1: on Apple iTunes. Well, you can see any of the
46:30
Speaker 1: previous let's call it two hundred and forty three such
46:33
Speaker 1: conversations that have taken place over the past five years.
46:37
Speaker 1: We love your comments, feedback, end suggestions right to us
46:42
Speaker 1: at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. If you
46:45
Speaker 1: enjoyed this conversation, well give us a review on Apple iTunes. Lastly,
46:50
Speaker 1: I would be remiss if I did not thank the
46:52
Speaker 1: Crack staff that helps put this conversation together each week.
46:56
Speaker 1: Blatka val Bron is our project manager. Medina Irijuana is
47:00
Speaker 1: our producer, Slash audio engineer Taylor Riggs is our booker producer.
47:06
Speaker 1: Michael bat Nick is our head of research. I'm Barry Ritolts.
47:10
Speaker 1: You're listening to Master's in Business Von Bloomberg Radio