After a corporate restructuring in 2023, I had an intentional chance to reflect on my career for the first time in 16 years. I had built a successful career at a world-class firm, doing what I had considered meaningful work with some extraordinary people. New opportunities came about much faster than I could have expected - interesting roles at great firms with all the things that would normally have been part of my search process – the right title, the right compensation, and designing and contributing to strategy in places where I could have real impact. What should have felt great, didn’t. This inflection point for me wasn’t loud. Or dramatic. There was a quiet and personal truth that became impossible to ignore. Somewhere along the way, I had become much more of a mercenary than a missionary. Not because I lacked values, but because building a great career in the industry today rewards something different. I had mistaken achievement for fulfillment. The real issue wasn’t being out of work or the prospect of starting over somewhere new. It was an awakening. I no longer felt connected to work that looked good on paper but felt empty in purpose. Success has a strange way of dulling your instincts – until one day, you realize you’re no longer proud of the system you have spent your career trying to scale.
What could have become a breakdown became my breakthrough. I didn’t want just another job; I wanted to build something that I genuinely thought could make a difference. Rather than the typical vanities of career - compensation, title, company name on the business card, etc., I needed harmony between ambition and authenticity. I needed to work on something that I thought really mattered in the world. And I have never felt that more strongly, and been more fulfilled, than when I have helped people find well-being, freedom, and purpose in their financial lives.
Unfortunately, today's financial services industry suffers from systemic misalignment, often placing what is most viable and feasible for the firm above what is most desirable for the client. Today’s industry wasn’t designed for most people. 100 million households in this country do not have access to financial advice. And, in my opinion, many of the other 60 million households deserve something markedly better. People don’t need more financial products; they need better financial partners. There are two inconvenient, but undeniable, truths about our industry. First, advice should be built around the individual complexity of people’s lives, not the strategic priorities, product roadmaps, or compensation grids of those who provide it. Second, access to high-quality advice SHOULD NOT be determined based solely on your wealth. Unfortunately, the industry is not just moving, but accelerating, in the wrong direction on both counts – focusing on fewer, larger clients - due to incentive schemes that reinforce these challenges. And whether the reason for this is to maximize revenue, drive efficiency, or even just a “supposed” method for survival, this is not a market failure; it’s a moral one. It’s no surprise that trust in the system is at a breaking point. Across generations and geographies, people are losing faith in the institutions that once claimed to serve them. As a result, some of the more recent meaningful evolutions in the industry (crypto and decentralized finance) are likely just as much a cultural referendum on traditional financial services as it is about pure innovation.
To be clear, I am not condemning the financial advisory business as a whole – in fact, very much the opposite. I have met some extraordinary advisors, but they are the exception, not the rule. Most advisors are either overextended or under-resourced and are focused more on running a great, scalable business, rather than being the best possible advisor to every one of their clients. Aside from extremely limited accessibility to great advisors, the industry at large is plagued by fragmented (and mixed quality) advice, misaligned incentives, the conscious sacrifice of dynamic, personalized advice for scalable (and often, static) “solutions”, high costs, the neglect of many non-investment goals, an alarming lack of technological innovation and adoption, and a highly inconsistent service standard across the industry (across education, experience, and motivation). Perhaps even more frustrating, the industry has not only protected itself but thrives from the complexity it creates. This is compounded by limited efforts to truly empower clients through education. And the rise of DIY capabilities that were supposed to democratize the industry? Many of the innovations here have simply made it easier to make painful mistakes without even knowing it.
I didn’t set out to start a company. I set out to fix a problem. However, it’s easier to reimagine than reform. Real, lasting change requires new rules, new incentives, and a fundamentally different business model. Most companies simply cannot disrupt themselves without cannibalizing their core business. After all, it is incredibly difficult to lead necessary change in the very system they are being paid to maintain. However, just as Jack Bogle and Vanguard showed with an explicit focus on the cost of investing, one simple, principled idea can reshape an entire industry. I want to carry the legacy of client-first thinking forward, extending it beyond investments into the full financial lives of people. There is a real need to build something different, something better. Access to great advice should be a right for all, not a luxury for the privileged few. My ambition is to build something that should already exist – a movement built on empowering people, removing complexity, eliminating conflicts, restoring truth, and helping every person chart their path to accomplish the things that matter most to them. While I know that this is THE hard path, I want this business to design a new system from the ground up, with new, fully aligned incentives, built by true believers, and fiercely maintain the singular commitment to do what is ALWAYS in the best interest of the client. Building trust, creating well-being, and operating with integrity shouldn’t just be printed in the mission statements of financial services firms. They should be the actual mission.
What I have said here are thoughts shared privately by many in the industry, even if they are never said. I want to press reset on an industry that genuinely needs it. I am hopeful that this will spark interest and energy in others to join me in changing this industry for the better. However, I realize that it will take some time. True growth is evolutionary in process, revolutionary in consequence. After all, every revolution starts with one person saying this simply isn’t working anymore.
If you’re building in this space, investing to make an impact, or just want to collaborate on making holistic, objective, and conflict-free advice truly accessible, let’s connect.
* Jerry Maguire is a 1996 movie about a sports agent, chronicling his journey following a crisis of conscience about who he was and the business he was in. His evolution begins when he writes a mission statement (not a memo) called “The Things We Think and Do Not Say”.
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