Manish Jain, CFA

Advisors have a hundreds of neat wall st tricks to manage wealth BUT, consistently, here’s what clients ACTUALLY end up liking about their advisors: (it’s not what you think) 1) Wiring money / moving large money - it sounds silly, but ppl get VERY nervous wiring $. We help fund almost-every home purchase and we access funds <24-hrs. We’re like private bankers for deal makers. 2) Inconsistent Cash partner - our clients make large, choppy amount of cash/RSUs. So we regularly have the “what should we do with this $” convo. It’s boring + grounding convo we have ALL the time. 3) Having someone to talk to - this is big. Wealthy ppl are on an island. Parents/friends start looking at you funny. You’re a little uncomfortable. New skin. Advisors don’t judge, and you can tell them anything. 4) talk you out of dumb stuff - your new-rich friends will constantly try to get you into their friend’s new deal/hot fund. You think “this is what rich people do,” so you invest. This goes on until you die. Advisors help ground the convo, and talk you out of deals that don’t move your life forward, or would stress you out. 5) make sure your family gets your wealth if you die - sounds simple, but it keeps people up at night. You want to not screw up your kids, you want your spouse to live stress-free, and you want everyone to be on the same page. Hiring an advisor is like buying Insurance on your estate plan. It will get done. —- These topics are wild, bc I can’t sell those on a website. People call us bc they “tax issues” or “my options expire in 90-days” or ask “how do I diversify out of startup equity without paying too much tax?” But in reality, it’s all those intangibles that people REALLY hire for (and never give up) It’s a luxury that not all families can have. A true partner and resource. But the ones that have it, will never give it up.

CEOs are uniquely prone to AI psychosis because they’re sufficiently distant from the last mile of work that still has to happen to generate most value with AI. So when they play with AI, they see the happy path results, often not considering the next 10 or 20 things that have to happen to get sustainable results from agents. “Look I made this awesome product prototype”. Yes but you didn’t have to review the code before it went into production and fix a bunch of issues. “Look I generated a contract”. Yes but you didn’t verify all the terms before it goes out to the counterparty and didn’t have to wire up all the past contracts to work with. The best thing you can do as a CEO is to use AI a *ton* to figure out the real implications of agents in the enterprise, and come out the other side with an appreciation for both the upside and the real work that goes into them.

CEOs are the most delusional about AI. Detached from reality.

the personal finance product openai launched is actually one of the worst personal finance tools i’ve ever used in my entire life. borderline hazardous for people with low financial literacy to be using i had chatgpt tell me everything it messed up:

A preview for Pro users: a new personal finance experience in ChatGPT. Pro users in the U.S. can securely connect financial accounts, see where their money is going, and ask questions based on the information they choose to connect. Your full financial picture, now in ChatGPT.

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen. Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation). Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there. Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI. As a result, 1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb. Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more. 2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future). Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire" 3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed. Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies. 4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either. No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money." I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here. Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success". Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.

The solution to all of this is to have kids.

A preview for Pro users: a new personal finance experience in ChatGPT. Pro users in the U.S. can securely connect financial accounts, see where their money is going, and ask questions based on the information they choose to connect. Your full financial picture, now in ChatGPT.