Wealthfront CEO flames Betterment's 'outrageous' fees and 'abhorrent' ways; Betterment strikes back labeling the screed a Trumped-up PR play
In all-out blog war, Adam Nash accuses Betterment of 'payday lending' and Jon Stein decries Wealthfront's cynical 'hatchet job'
Nanana
Well, I 100% agree that charging anything over 1% fee to any investor is just wrong. Let alone on the small guys. Should be 0.25% fee all around, no matter what.
Pete Giza
Hey Biz,
This is rather amusing. Its “Robobashapalooza 2015” :D Soon robos will be charging negative 1% to grab marketshare. John Q will be elated.
Pete
James Nasium
I like Rock’em Sock’em Robison better :-{)
Jeff
Wealthfront sounds desperate. Understandable given that Nash doesn’t have experience in providing personal financial advice, but good at raising VC money. He didn’t exactly quit his job at LinkedIn in order to follow his passion of changing the world of personal finance for common-folk. Rather, he was a VC at Greylock Partners before jumping into an unprofitable robo-mess.
Anyone remember Ka-Ching? That was the company Andy Rachleff started before that game-based venture became Wealthfront. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the company that proceeded Ka-Ching. While Ka-Ching was all about active money management, if your company fails then just reinvent yourself and borrow more money.
It might not be unusual to hear a Valley CEO preach growth over profit, according to Wealthfront’s press releases they have raised in excess of $130M in VC money. So they are burning through other people’s money and now owing $130M is a good thing??? Luckily, VC firms are notoriously reasonable – maybe Wealthfront will only have to pay them 200-300% in return. Ka-Ching.
Clark
I think betterment is an amazing service. The argument that was made about their three dollar fee is just outrageous. You only have to contribute $100 a month and that is non existent. If you cant invest $100 a month you probably ought to be contributing to a emergency fund before an investment account.
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