After outcry, Betterment 86's (but not on purpose) a blog post inflaming advisors
BrightScope and Josh Brown lead charge against up-and-coming web-based investment management companies for their bad-itude against advisors
Related Moves
Jon Stein ousts himself as Betterment CEO and taps Sarah Levy, who joins an exclusive club of top women executives, with a mission -- an IPO
The co-founder of the New York robo-advisor headhunted the ex-Viacom brass through Harvard professors on the down low to ostensibly scale operations.
December 8, 2020 at 5:27 PM
Alan Moore is the No. 2 busiest man in the RIA business and he just convinced the No. 1 busiest man to budget $200,000 to hire a 'rockstar' to replace him
Alan Moore is CEO of both XY Planning Network and AdvicePay -- and he has three young kids; Michael Kitces agreed to let him hire a full-time replacement CEO for AdvicePay -- with some giant reqirements for the new exec.
February 14, 2023 at 3:15 AM
Josh Brown and Barry Ritholtz want rock-star culture and rocketing growth in one RIA so they hired Jay Tini to manage the paradox
The dynamic New York City super-blogger duo now have a $2.8 billion AUM RIA and a 'massive fanbase' to cultivate, but they also foresee a need to rein in and retain
November 22, 2022 at 2:38 AM
Five RIA Doubletakes: An RIA-only law firm breaks away • Kitces launches picker of 'best of breed' RIA software bundles • Vanguard targets 2070 just as media targets TDFs • SEC fishing for RegBI Scofflaws, including RIAs • CFP appoints first African-American chair
RIA Lawyers will reject RIA custodians• Kitces Nascar montage is now interactive and helpful • Vanguard's super long TDF draws critics• SEC supply lines are stretched with new battle front • Kamila Elliot is ex-DFA, diverse and calling CFP shots
January 12, 2022 at 3:13 AM
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Kitces.com
Consulting Firm
Top Executive: Michael Kitces
Betterment, LLC
Financial Planning Software
Top Executive: Jon Stein
Michael Kitces
The irony is that Betterment’s ignorance of the difference between brokerage salespeople and real fiduciary advisors is the same reason they don’t actually understand why their comments are so insulting.
The fact that their comments are based on an egregiously flawed and non-representative study just exacerbates the problem: http://www.kitces.com/blog/archives/303-How-The-Advisor-Sting-Study-Completely-Missed-The-Mark.html
Steve Swicegood
Most of Betterement’s clients are coming from companies like Fidelity, Vanguard, or E-Trade
The most interesting (and telling) sentence in the article.
Mr. J.L.Livermore
Ms. O’Mara
The lemmings (John Q) are lead along by the power of the Schwartz. Online financial self-management systems will proliferate as long as the lemmings are willing to outsource their most important financial decisions to an impersonal and bucket of technology.
I think it is unfortunate that certain RIAs responded with banter that really didn’t move the ball to their advantage. Why didn’t the RIA industry respond in whole and use the power of the Schwartz? Probably because Betterment’s little piggy wasn’t worth responding to. However, it does make one ponder the lack of marketing misinformation countermeasures as noted above.
Yours truly,
JLL
Justin Wisz
“Finally, a Financial Advisor you don’t have to talk to.”
That’s a direct quote from a Wealthfront advertisement.
We all identify closely with this article at Vestorly. Vestorly is using advanced tech to help people find better investment help, but we aren’t going so far as to assume a computer can manage someone’s wealth. This is something the folks at Betterment, Personal Capital, Wealthfront, etc. just “don’t get.” It’s kind of lazy and rather ignorant for folks of our generation to assume advisory services can be replaced by passive algorithms, especially after market volatility like ’08.
Justin Wisz
Vestorly.com
