Talking Wealth

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Josh Brown sits down with Onur Erzan, President of AllianceBernstein, to discuss what it really takes to serve America's ultra-high-net-worth families. They explore how wealth management changes at the $200 million level, why investment performance alone isn't enough, the growing importance of succession planning, governance, and multi-generational wealth transfe...

Jon Stein founded Betterment — one of the first companies to deliver real financial advice to the mass affluent at scale. Now he's back with a new company, Warmer, a platform for helping people find the right human financial advisor. It's a fascinating moment to build it, with AI increasingly able to deliver quality advice to that same mass affluent client. So where do human advisors fit in — and...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson is joined by David Lau, founder and CEO of DPL Financial Partners. They discuss the evolving role of insurance and annuities in financial planning, why many advisors remain wary of these products, how annuities can help manage retirement income and longevity risk, and the impact AI could have on the future of the insurance industry. For more from Talk...

There's never been a more disruptive moment in wealth management — and few people are shaping it more directly than my guest this week. Jason Wenk is the founder and CEO of Altruist, the modern custodian built exclusively for RIAs that's grown into one of the largest custodians in the country, serving nearly 5,000 advisory firms. But the conversation everyone's having right now is about AI. When A...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Josh Brown and Sarah Solomon discuss why financial planners are reporting record-high compensation and job satisfaction, Robinhood's aggressive expansion into wealth management and advisor recruiting, and how SpaceX employees are teaming up to negotiate lower advisory fees ahead of the company's anticipated IPO. This episode is sponsored by TEMA. Learn more about...

SpaceX just filed to go public, and this isn't just another IPO — it's shaping up to be the biggest one in history. The company is targeting a valuation around $1.75 trillion and looking to raise as much as $75 billion, which would make it roughly three times the size of the largest U.S. IPO on record. It's set to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, with June 12th cited as the expected listi...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, we’re going to talk about one of the biggest challenges advisors face in portfolio construction: How do you improve diversification and add alternative return streams without sacrificing your core equity and bond exposure?  Jeremy Schwartz from WisdomTree is here to talk about capital efficiency in portfolio management, how to think about the intelligent use of l...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick is joined by Brent Sullivan to discuss the rise of tax-aware long-short investing and how it’s changing wealth management. They cover direct indexing, 130/30 and 250/150 strategies, why traditional tax-loss harvesting dries up in bull markets, the risks advisors may be overlooking, and why firms like Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab Corpora...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Downtown Josh Brown is joined by Manish Khatta, CEO of Potomac Fund Management, to discuss what it really takes to build a modern asset management firm in today’s advisory landscape. They talk about growing Potomac from a struggling boutique into a $3 billion powerhouse without outside capital or acquisitions, the “content bazooka” strategy that helped the firm b...

On this episode of talking Wealth, Michael Kitces joins Michael Batnick to separate what's real from what's hype in AI's impact on wealth management. Is technical expertise really being commoditized, or is this robo advisor redux? They discuss the future of an industry that is changing faster than it wants to admit, but maybe not in the way everyone assumes. This episode is sponsored by YCharts. T...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson is joined by Joe Mallen, CEO of Modelist, to discuss how financial advisors can scale their investment process while maintaining control. They cover how Modelist helps advisors build and manage custom portfolios, how it differs from traditional Turnkey Asset Management Platforms (TAMPs), and the role of direct indexing, reporting, and AI in modern por...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Josh Brown is joined by Louis Diamond, CEO of Diamond Consultants, to break down the surge in advisor movement, with over 11,000 advisors switching firms in 2025. They discuss what’s driving the trend, where top teams are landing, and whether a “winning model” even exists anymore. The conversation also covers what 2026 could look like, the impact of the LPL/Commo...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson is joined by Ehren Stanhope, a key leader behind OSAM’s Canvas platform, to break down how investors can create real tax alpha. They discuss OSAM’s evolution from a quant shop to a full portfolio solution for advisors, the growing appeal of direct and custom indexing, and why the concept “clicks” once you understand it. The conversation covers tax los...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick is joined by John Giovannucci to discuss a shift few in wealth management say out loud: has the advisor’s role drifted away from doing the actual work? For years, strong markets made it easier to look smart and harder to tell skill from environment. Along the way, more of the thinking behind portfolios was outsourced to platforms, products, and ma...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick is joined by Stephen Caruso, Associate Director of Wealth Management at Cerulli Associates, to unpack the rise of the RIA and the growing pains that come with scaling it. They discuss insights from Cerulli’s The RIA Marketplace: Solving for Scale, including asset growth across channels, whether clients differ between wirehouses and RIAs, and what’...

On this episode of Ben with Benefits on Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson sits down with Joe Mrak, CEO of Foundation Source, to discuss the often-overlooked role philanthropy plays in wealth management. Joe shares his background in the nonprofit investment world and explains how Foundation Source provides the technology and infrastructure advisors need to make charitable giving easier, more strategic, a...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, On this episode of Talking Wealth, Josh Brown speaks with Dynasty CEO Shirl Penney about OpenArc Corporate Advisory’s $129 billion breakaway from Merrill Lynch. They discuss how a team of that size makes the leap to independence, what they couldn’t build inside a wirehouse, how Dynasty won the mandate, and whether this deal signals the next wave of mega-team brea...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Ben Carlson is joined by Joseph Wang, co-founder and CRO of SyntheticFi, a company that helps clients borrow against their portfolios for lower financing rates using box spread loans. They cover how box spreads work, how to use the options market to borrow at more competitive rates, box spread loan use cases, how SyntheticFi works with financial advisors and more...

Last week, Anthropic’s Claude announced integrations with Orion and LPL — not as a demo, not as a side tool, but embedded directly into the advisor workflow. That’s a big deal. When AI plugs into the plumbing of wealth management, it stops being optional. What happens when your custodian has a brain? When reporting, research, client communications, compliance workflows, and portfolio analysis are...

For years, private credit investors were told they could have it all — higher yields, low volatility, and relatively little risk. Semiliquid funds became the bridge between Wall Street’s private deals and Main Street’s capital. Smooth returns. Quarterly liquidity. No drama. Until there was. When redemption requests surged at a major private credit fund managed by Blue Owl Capital, the illusion cra...

On this episode of Ben with Benefits, Ben Carlson sat down with Eric Finnigan, Vice President of Demographics Research at John Burns to break down why demographics are destiny in the housing market and what that means going forward. They discuss: How today’s young people are different from past generations. Where people are moving to find more affordable housing. How trillions of dollars in home e...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Michael Batnick sits down with Matt Middleton, the founder and CEO of Future Proof, the fastest-growing and now largest event in wealth management. What started as an ambitious idea — to reimagine what an industry conference could look and feel like — has quickly become the most talked-about gathering in financial advice. With thousands of advisors, asset manager...

Secondaries used to be a niche corner of private markets — a way for institutions to quietly offload old fund positions. Today, they’re becoming a core feature of modern finance. In this conversation, Marc Rubinstein and Michael Batnick dig into the rapid rise of secondaries: why private assets are staying private for longer, how liquidity is being engineered rather than waited for, and what this...

On this episode of Ben With Benefits, Ben Carlson is joined by Mike Piper, creator of the Oblivious Investor blog and author of a number of books including Social Security Made Simple. They discuss Social Security from every angle. Is the trust fund going bankrupt? When should you file for benefits? What are the pros and cons of filing early? What are the most important variables in determining wh...

On this episode of Talking Wealth, Josh Brown sits down with Kevin Thompson, Founder of 9i Capital Group, to unpack the biggest issues facing financial advisors and investors today. They break down Wealthfront’s rocky IPO and cash-heavy business model, and debate private market exposure in 401(k)s as BlackRock pushes forward. Plus, why retirement assets just hit a record $48.1 trillion and why som...