The financial services industry is built on one lie — that you need a human advisor to manage your money well. You do not. You need discipline and diversification. A robot does both better.
I co-founded Benchmark Capital. I know what great investing looks like. And I can tell you — most financial advisors are not doing it. They are selling products and calling it advice.
Tax-loss harvesting alone can add 1 to 2 percent to your annual returns. Most advisors do not bother because it is tedious. Our software does it automatically, every single day.
We built Wealthfront for the generation that does everything on their phone. They do not want to sit in an office with a guy in a suit. They want to open an app and be done.
Product-market fit is not when customers tell you they like your product. It is when they tell other people. Wealthfront grew almost entirely by word of mouth in the early years.
UBS tried to buy us for a reason. The big banks know their model is dying. They just cannot cannibalize their own advisor fees fast enough to compete with us.