A tech-focused registered investment advisor founder and former CEO of PayPal has launched a new RIA touting an artificial intelligence-driven advice platform and tax-aware investing.
Bill Harris, who founded tech-focused wealth manager Personal Capital in 2009, said at a launch event in New York that his new Evergreen Wealth will combine human expertise and technology for high-net-worth and affluent clients, far exceeding that earlier “hybrid advisor” model.
“We have a goldilocks formula combining man and machine to really give deep advice to people who need it,” Harris said. “AI alone is good but not adequate—AI with human-guided AI is, I think, for the next couple of years, the best form.”
Evergreen Wealth is launching with $100 million in assets under management and 50 employees, half of whom are focused on technology development and the other half on advice, client services, operations and marketing.
The AI backdrop is combined with an investment approach that Harris calls Dynamic Portfolio, a personalized focus on after-tax returns.
“For high-income taxpayers, particularly those in high-tax states, this ‘tax alpha’ can be more consequential than the expected gains, if any, from trying to beat the market,” Harris said.
The firm’s investment philosophy eschews ETFs and mutual funds for a direct indexing approach—though Harris noted a dozen strategies as part of the platform—where investing in individual securities can help reduce or eliminate taxes.
“It’s not what you earn, it’s what you keep,” Harris said. “If you do direct indexing tax loss harvesting, you can bring the tax rate on capital gains down to zero. … In some instances (with other strategies), you can eliminate the taxes altogether.”
Harris was CEO of Intuit for six years before taking the same role at PayPal. After those roles, he started RIA Personal Capital, which grew to about $23 billion in assets before selling in 2020 to retirement plan provider Empower in a $1 billion deal.
At the launch presentation, Harris laid out four generations of investing, starting in the 1870s with brokerage accounts. In the 1960s came mutual funds, then exchange traded funds in the 1990s. Today, Harris sees his “dynamic portfolio,” with a dozen strategies to mitigate taxes and put more into investing.
Among the strategies Harris cited were tax-gain harvesting, or shifting to family or charitable giving. Harris said identifying and implementing such strategies is possible due to stronger computer power than in his Personal Capital days.
“We did some of the same things for some of the same customers, but we didn’t have this kind of computing capability,” he said.
Harris also focused on Evergreen Wealth’s individual financial advisors, some of whom were at the launch event. Evergreen Wealth clients will have a dedicated advisor assigned to their account and a personalized portfolio that considers tax circumstances.
“Having a dedicated advisor always ready for you is an incredible thing that helps you sleep at night,” Harris said.
An AI-backed private app will also support the humans, whether advisors or clients, by interacting with the client’s financial information.
“If AI is combined with your own personal information, then you are taking information and putting it into context and turning it into actual advice based on what you need to know,” he said.
Harris is self-funding his new venture, which he said “saves a lot of time” that would otherwise be spent on seeking investors.
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