Ross Gerber's deal to sell Joe Duran a minority stake in his $4-billion RIA fell through, but he took Duran's advice to wean his company off LPL -- and gave Altruist the nod as 'primary custodian'

Ross Gerber just committed to Altruist as the ‘primary custodian’ for his $4 billion RIA, a move that's the unexpected windfall of a negotiation with Joe Duran that otherwise came up empty.

The bolt from the blue came in the form of a 2024 cold-call from Duran, co-founder and managing partner of Rise Growth Partners, offering to buy a stake in his firm. 

“I said we weren’t for sale, but sell me on why we want to, and they sold this big pitch about [growth and investment], and wanted to do a deep analysis," said the co-founder, president and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, in Santa Monica, Calif.

"So we went through this due diligence for four months … [and they said] a major issue with your business is you’re on LPL only, and [it’s] very hard to scale,” Gerber explains in an exclusive interview with RIABiz.

“They were going to help us grow, building a platform … [and add] the roll-up model, and we got toward the end of the [process] in Summer 2024 … agree[ing] an 18x EBITDA [multiple], plus a kicker … [then] they got cold feet over price.

“I nicely said [go away, and it was] one of the hardest decisions of my life … but my team was really supportive," he continues.

Lacking a fit

Duran disagrees with how Gerber relays the sticking point that ended discussions between the two firms about purchase of a minority stake. The Rise CEO says it became apparent to him that the two firms lacked a “cultural fit."

“We had some early-stage discussions with Gerber Kawasaki, and sometimes the cultural fit just isn’t there,” says Duran, via email. 

"That said, we’re pleased they are implementing our advice … [and] we wish Ross and team all the best,” he adds.

“We were all like, 'they’re typical private equity, and they don’t get it, we’re about to explode … but we’re going to implement what they told us … so we went from one custodian to three,” with Schwab, Fidelity, and LPL," adds Gerber.

Honing focus

Now he's added Altruist to the mix, taking his firm's custody count to four, not including small digital assets relationships with Vontobel and Gemini.

Gerber is putting Altruist ahead of Schwab, Fidelity and LPL, the broker-dealer giant that helped his firm leap to $4 billion of AUA today from $175 million in 2012.

Altruist is slated to get the bulk of all Gerber Kawasaki's new investor clients, or at least the business of those with up to $2 million of assets. 

Altruist will also have a fighting chance against Fidelity for any client with up to $5 million of assets, according to the firm.

His next target is $10 billion by 2031 built on a high-volume strategy, and the 55-year-old executive is honing his focus on the technology he'll need to make that happen.

Growing friction

Duran's advice about switching from a broker-dealer platform to a pure RIA custodian landed with Gerber because of the friction he was experiencing with LPL in getting it to move at his pace, he says.

“It became difficult,” says Gerber, who praised LPL's technology, in 2012.

"If I try to have a meeting with LPL about their technology and what we need, they’ll say ‘thanks, it was wonderfully productive,’ but it won’t be done for a long time.

“They got bigger and bigger, and we ran into this wall … then Joe Duran calls up and says we want to buy you,” Gerber continues.

“We're still using Schwab, and all these people, but it's not the future,” he says.

The future demands meeting the needs of Gen Z and millennials, Gerber explains, and Altruist's digital advances seem best in that regard.

Yet it wasn't until Gerber spoke with Altruist founder and CEO, Jason Wenk, that he found the ‘ideal’ home for his firm's small-to-mid-size clients.

“We got on Orion, [and] Salesforce, [then] spent two years building this incredible system … a lot of time and money … but I don’t want two logins, [or] extra staff to open eMoney accounts for accounts we’re opening on Salesforce," Gerber explains.

"Then Altruist comes along with a custodial platform with eMoney in it, billing in it, CRM in it … it’s a modern LPL and everything we wanted.

Only Wenk was “crazy enough,” to build a custodian from scratch, Gerber says, citing the $601.5 million Altruist has raised to date.

Work in progress

The Gerber Kawasaki deal tops off an astonishing month for Altruist, including its recent market rattling “AI” software. See: Jason Wenk caught off guard in Mexico when 'DeepSeek' moment triggered 'Big 3' Wall Street meltdown.

“Their culture is very much aligned with ours … [and] 2026 certainly feels like a breakthrough year,” says Altruist founder and CEO, Jason Wenk, in an email exchange.

“If the last few weeks is any indication, we're already competing [with Fidelity and Schwab] – and winning … [including] Hazel becoming the 'leading' AI platform, [and] Altruist moving into the enterprise segment with a lot of momentum,” he adds.

Yet for Gerber Kawasaki's ultra-high-net-worth clients, Altruist remains a work in progress.

"Altruist can’t do everything yet," Gerber explains.

But "we serve thousands of younger and small clients so it makes much more sense for our new clients that aren't ultra-high-net-worth to go to Altruist" he adds.

No nightmares

Industry analysts have long said Altruist works well for smaller RIAs, but a number of critics say it lacks some of the more advanced capabilities of Schwab, Fidelity and Pershing.

“That's still the case … it's somewhat limiting … Would it hurt us, if we were only on Altruist? Probably not much," Gerber says.

"We’re building stuff with them ... [Altruist has said] thanks for helping us do this … … [and] they start working on [problems] straight away.

"There’s no corporate nightmare … it’s exciting,” he says.

A case in point is that when Altruist and Gerber first began negotiations; the custodian lacked a full integration with Salesforce* and Orion, until Gerber Kawasaki agreed to take part in its development, according to Gerber.

Without the integration, “we [couldn’t] use them, so we built a platform," he adds. 

“Now they integrate, so even if you’re a big firm, you can use Altruist."

Anything you can do …

The fact that Altruist's offices are a short drive away doesn't hurt either, Gerber continues.

“It’s so easy to work together, they come over to the office, we go over there, and that’s a huge advantage … [while others ask] can you come to Omaha.”

Wenk adds that Altruist also offers a service Schwab, Fidelity et al. simply can’t match, namely, it’s easy to use.

“We’re years ahead of every other custodian or wealth platform regarding user experience," he says.

“Ross [Gerber] and the Gerber team value this, and many others do as well."

In April 2025, Altruist offered a degree of custody to at least 20 firms with assets of over $1 billion, although this number represents just 1.3% of the estimated 1,500 RIAs managing in excess of that amount. See: Altruist signals shift to $1-billion-plus.

Today, Altruist serves 3,500 RIAs, according to the firm.

Money stays put

Schwab, Fidelity, and LPL aren't out of the picture, however.

When Gerber Kawasaki determines the best place to custody new assets, each will still gain, despite Gerber's pledge to move “all new business,” to Altruist.

Nor will Gerber Kawasaki move assets away from their current custodians, according to the firm.

Instead, clients with more than $5 million to invest, which the firm defines as ultra-high-net-worth, will still largely flow to Fidelity, due to its support for cryptocurrency, private assets, REIT development, and Gerber Kawasaki’s own GK ETF.

“Fidelity does a lot of things that are hard to do in other places," Gerber explains.

“Is it easy to use? No, [but] they’re good people, [and] they work well with us. We want to be able to offer different types of investments … [and] Fidelity solved that problem.”

As for Schwab Advisor Services, Gerber Kawasaki largely uses its custody to "take-over" assets won from other Schwab RIAs, including Schwab itself.

It’s “easier” to win current Schwab clients, if they don’t have to repaper, says Gerber. “It’s really effective for us in gathering assets."

Leaving LPL

Gerber Kawasaki also continues to custody a sizable chunk – $3 billion – of its assets at LPL, but it slowly decoupled from its software and services, following now the aborted discussions with Duran.

Fourteen years ago, LPL successfully wooed a younger Gerber, courting his firm away from SagePoint. 

LPL promised greater independence, better technology, and the ability to support Gerber Kawasaki's social media-sourced mass-affluent business (clients with less than $150,000), and its high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth businesses.

At the time, Bill Morrissey, then LPL executive vice president for business development, also praised the firm’s early embrace of social media as “really special,” and profitable, even at the smallest levels of wealth.

In a slow motion breakaway from LPL, Gerber Kawasaki began adding custody options two years ago – first adding Schwab, then Fidelity. But the youthfulness of its staff, its buzzy media approach, and its focus on “HENRY” (High Earners Not Yet Rich) clients, sets it apart as a top proof case for Altruist. See: Gerber jumps to LPL with social media-fueled strategy.

With a new target of $10 billion of managed assets by 2031, Gerber says his firm is now better off relying largely on Altruist, and Fidelity.

“Fidelity helped us a lot with the transition,” but the industry keeps “building on DOS … legacy on top of legacy,” he explains.

With Altruist, “I can build models, I can manage this all on one system," he says.

The two firms, for example, intend to finalize a smartphone app for mass-affluent investors, which Gerber describes as an anti-Robinhood through which clients can manage assets and cash in consultation with advisors.

No Hazel factor

Altruist’s in-house "AI," Hazel was not a factor in the Gerber Kawasaki custody deal, however. See: Altruist AI goes upscale.

“We didn’t know about Hazel when we were making the decision," Gerber explains.

“We’re [also] doing much more interesting things than they are in ‘AI,’ as we have an accounting firm … we’re building a tax ‘AI’ … [and, with Claude], we built our own ‘Hazel’ internally, in a week … it took our training book and learned it.

“There’s still a lot to do with personal information safety … that’s why Hazel works so well. 

"It’s built internally, on their systems … that’s a huge value-add … the beginning of something great,” he says.

The software, which is also sold separately from Altruist custody, has “opened a lot of doors lately,” adds Wenk.

“We're in active discussions about making Hazel the ‘AI’ platform for dozens of the largest RIAs and broker-dealers in the US,” he says.

Demographic switching

A passionate musician and typical for Bay Area guitarists, a big Grateful Dead fan, Gerber is also one of several executives to thrive off the back of an early embrace of social media in the 2010s. 

His early established following helped the 2010-founded firm grow its assets under management by 2,286% between 2012 and 2026, from $175 million, to $4 billion.

The firm is also one of the most consistently youthful in the industry, and the 32-year-old average age of its advisors – in 2012, the average Gerber Kawasaki advisor was 28 – is 24 years younger than the industry average of 56.

Gerber says advisors too far outside of a client's age range have little chance of closing sales, especially not to Gen-Z.

“Because our advisors have grown up with their demographic, they're crushing it … [but] we’re hiring the 20-year olds for the next generation, [and] they do not look like Goldman Sachs people. They’re a different breed,” he explains.

"What builds trust for them is a very different thing, than for our generation,” he adds.

* Salesforce invested in Altruist, in April 2025, when it was still midstream in developing a “very deep integration” with the firm. See: Altruist wins 'unsolicited' $152-million raise, including capital from Salesforce.

** Gerber Kawasaki invests its lower net-worth clients partially into its proprietary actively-managed ETF, which mirrors the directly managed portion of its higher-net-worth investors portfolios.