#118: What a money coach learned from 200 conversations about wealth | Vaibhav Goel (Money Coach, ex-Doordash, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Lyft)

We are live Vivi. Thank you so much for being here. I'm excited for this. Thank you so much. It's nice to be here and yeah. Nice to meet both of you and, and very excited for this conversation. Amazing. Okay. So I wanna start here. I'm looking at your, um, you know, your, your LinkedIn and it's quite impressive, you know, summer analyst and Morgan Stanley, then, you know, silver, uh, development engineer at Microsoft and also, uh, you did an internship on Amazon group PM at LinkedIn, uh, product leader lifts, uh, product leader, Google director of product at DoorDash. Then you scrolled all the way to the top. And I see this new thing called, you know, money coach. How did that happen? So like you, like it's, you've had such a, you know, kind of amazing high slope trajectory and it all makes sense until like this money coach thing. So, so yeah. How did you get into money coaching? Yeah, no, I think it's, um, I'm happy to kind of share the story. I think like many people in the Valley, you know, I, you know, I come from humble backgrounds, like grew up in India and kind of followed the traditional path. Like, you know, I wanted to do, do better for myself, for my family. And like education was the way forward. So like, you know, focused on, you know, getting good grades, getting a good college, getting a good job and, and always being kind of on the traditional path. And once you get a good job, it's like, Oh, how do you get to like a better job, more senior role, a bigger title, more responsibility, more compensation. And you know, I think it's, um, it's been a great journey and I'm very thankful and very grateful for a lot of people who've helped me get to where I got in my career. But I think I got to a point, um, you know, maybe like last few years where I felt like I'm, I'm enjoying myself. I love the PM gig, um, but I could be doing more like, um, I want to wake up like super energized every single morning and, and, you know, and that wasn't happening as often as I'd like. Um, so, and I think also you get to a point in your life where you're comfortable financially. I also have kids, I have three kids now, and that changes your perspective on what you value. You start to get older, like I'm like in my late thirties now. Um, and, and I think you start to think about like, you're kind of like at the midlife point, like, what do you want the next 40 years to look like? Um, how old are your kids by the way? My kids are, I have a eight year old, a four year old and a one year old. So, so yeah, they, they teach me a lot, a lot. Um, I, you know, I kind of, it's all, I talk, talk to people and tell them kids are like, it's like a little AI model that keeps getting better every day. Right? So like the six month old can't do much. They need to be handheld. And the one year old is like, I don't know, maybe like chat GPT 4.0. And then, you know, the four year old is maybe like, I don't know, like the 5.0 version. And the eight year old is really like, you know, 5.6. Um, and they're really smart. They have opinions. They, yeah, they learn from you and they teach you things. But going back to the story, like, I think, um, I got to a point where I'm like, Hey, I want to be like more excited when I wake up every morning. And I, you know, I, I started a small business like about five years ago, like I started like a dropshipping business. And that was my first taste for entrepreneurship. And that business is small, like by, you know, kind of like classic Silicon Valley standards. Um, but, but it just gave me a lot of fulfillment. I was having a lot of fun watching it grow, building it out. Um, and what was the business by the way? Yeah, the business is, it's a, it's a store. It's a Shopify store that sells Indian ethnic clothing. So I'm like the least fashionable guy out there. I know nothing about fashion and I started a women's fashion brand. And, um, and you know, that business does like about a million dollars top line and sales, you know, brings in like, you know, you know, some, some reasonable margin. But, but still small compared to, you know, Silicon Valley tech salaries. Right. But it just gave me a disproportionate amount of fulfillment kind of working on that business, building it out, growing it, building a small team around it. Um, and I was like, okay, I, I've always been really scared to take the plunge into entrepreneurship. And, and I was like, now's the time I got to do it. And, and so here I am, um, last six months, I've kind of pivoted to a money coach. And what I do is really help tech professionals, um, get smarter with their money and make, make sure that money is working hard for them. And, um, yeah, it's been really fun. It's something that I've always long been passionate about. Spent a lot of nights and weekends reading red credit threads and talking to different like agencies and consultants and advisors. And now I'm, I'm excited to kind of bring that playbook to, to, you know, the tech folks at large. I'm curious, when do, when do you feel like you first started developing a sense that you have something to say about money? Are you, you're in a position to, you know, help people think through that? Um, like I'm curious how long that's been the case for you. And what, what was the light bulb moment, if any? Yeah, I would say it's been over a decade. You know, I've been kind of the informal, like money coach to my closest friends over the last eight or 10 years. Like people would call me up and they'd be like, hey, uh, how do I get the best mortgage rate or my RSU is just vested? How should I invest? Are you buying the SpaceX IPO? How should I think about leverage? And, you know, all these questions, like, what's the, should I do this backdoor rot thing? What is that? And I kind of became the trusted source that people would lean upon and, and, you know, over the years I've created a lot of value for people and people have referred me to their friends. And so that's how kind of like, you know, kind of made me feel like I have something to contribute in an area that I'm really passionate about. I think I'm pretty knowledgeable about it and a lot of people can benefit from that information and knowledge. Were you like, it sounds like, you know, maybe started around 10 years ago when you have maybe your closest friends asking you for those like specific like money questions. And were you charging at the time or like, did you just started charging recently? And, uh, I'm kind of like, how is that? I'm curious, like, how is that shift of like, you know, going from, you're just like, you know, talking to a friend or talking to a friend's friend to all of a sudden now I'm like, okay, like I'm actually getting paid to do this. Like, was that a hard transition? Yeah, certainly. Obviously never charged my friends. Like, you know, it's the easiest way to kind of get unfriended. Well, I might, I might push back on that moving forward, but historically I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah. But, and, and I think also it was just something I was doing for fun. Like I was not trying to make a business out of it. It's an area I was passionate about. You know, different people are passionate about different things. Like, you know, I'm sure you have someone in your friend circle who's passionate about cars. So if you're thinking about a new car, you like go to them. Some people are really passionate about real estate. And so if you're looking to buy a new home or apartment, you go ask this person like, Hey, what are the factors I should look out for? Some people are really passionate about like fitness, right? And if you are trying to like hit a fitness goal, you go talk to them. And they love doing it because they are so into it. And, you know. That's how I feel about job, like interviewing and like job searching. Like that's, I've always been that guy for my friends and now I get to, so I know exactly what you mean. A lot of people are not excited about that, but for some reason I like it. Yeah. Most people are not like, you know, interviews like stress people out and, and, you know, to you, like, it's probably fun. Like, especially like even more fun if you can help somebody and see them succeed. Sure. So, so yeah, I think that's how it started. And then when I kind of quit my full-time gig and started doing this full-time, that's when I felt like it's the right moment to kind of pivot and start charging for it. My friends are still grandfathered into the free advice for life, but I think anyone You know what, one thing that's interesting about the free thing, I'm curious to get your take on this, but I've, I've actually found some of my friends would take, would be very comfortable taking a very small amount of my time for free, but they would actually hold back from asking for more advice because there was no, they started to feel guilty about taking up too much of my time. And then the moment I started to be able to, like they knew I was doing it for professionally, it gave them permission to take more of my time and not feel bad about it by paying me. And so I, I, I agree with you that it's kind of a little, it felt initially uncomfortable to charge my friends to give them advice, but what I noticed is I've actually been able to help more of my friends because they don't feel bad getting, asking for help. And I give them a friend's rate, like I don't charge them my full rate, but it still makes them feel better, you know, asking for my help. So I don't know if you've ever, if you've, if you'll notice any of that in the coming years, but that's been kind of an interesting thing. Now that you mention it, like, yeah, it definitely rings a bell. I've definitely had conversations with friends where they're like, Hey, I would want to pay you for this. And I've said no. And, and I feel like they are maybe more resistant to, to use more of my time or, or ask for more help. So I think that's a really good point. I suspect they want to pay you. It's less about compensating you and it's more about making them feel comfortable about taking up your time, if I had to guess. Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think I like that strategy. Maybe have like a friend's rate that's different from like the kind of the broad public rate and that way it feels like, you know, they're still getting the friend discount, but, but there's enough value exchange where they don't feel guilty reaching out to you. Yeah. I've seen some of my friends just make like such unforced errors in interviews and I'm like debriefing with them after the interview. And I'm like, why didn't you share this with like, you know, for example, a take-home assignment? Like, why didn't you ask me to like review your take-home assignment before you submitted it? It's got like some pretty big like gaps. I'm like, oh, I didn't want to bother you. And I'm like, well, you know, like I want you to get this gig, you know, I'm rooting for you. So don't, don't hold back asking for advice just because you're, you're worried about it. So that's a really good point. Yeah. I think definitely makes me reconsider kind of the friend policy on this. But that's really cool. Mark, where are you going to go? No, I was curious, like, you know, like we were talking that before this, like, you know, we've, you've probably talked at this point, like maybe like over, you know, 200, we've had over like 200 coaching sessions and it seems like your ICP is like, you know, high earning tech employees, either like people that are wealthy or like on their way to become wealthy. Right. So I'm curious, like, I'm always so curious, like to see kind of what, what do you see across the board? I'm like, what are some like commonalities? What are some kind of exceptions? But it's just like, I'm sure it's like, you know, what, what have you learned from like this, like this bunch of calls you've done? And that could be interesting for, for us to listen to. Yeah, no, it's been, it's been really fascinating, even for me, like I, I, you know, I think money as you mentioned, especially personal finances, not a topic you'd discuss and disclose to a lot of people. It's typically held very personal. And especially in Silicon Valley, I think there's a culture where like people don't talk about money. It's not the currency to talk about, like, talk about like, you know, what are you doing for your fitness? Like what hike you're going to, or where are you vacationing next? Or where you get to go, you know, what your kids are up to this summer. Like that's the conversation, not, not money. So, you know, most people have no idea, like kind of how they stack up and, and what, what else they could be doing or what is it that they don't know yet? So I've done over 200 plus like money coaching conversations. I would say these are generally like, you know, well-to-do Silicon Valley individuals or families. I would say the net worth range is usually like a million dollars to, you know, like almost like $40 million. And, and I've seen like all kinds of income ranges, you know, people making like 500k a year to like people making over $5 million a year. And, and it's been really fascinating to learn about like, you know, their spending habits, their saving habits, their investing strategy, their relationship with money. You know, some people are very fearful. Some people are very aggressive. So it's been, it's been really fascinating. I think, I think maybe I can share like one, maybe I can share some client anecdotes anonymously, of course. You know, one of the most interesting individuals I met with was someone who has like $7 or $8 million portfolio and it's a hundred percent in Tesla stock, a full a hundred percent. Like they, they took their retirement account and they made it, they converted into a self-directed retirement account, which takes a lot of effort to, to not use the default kind of like index options your retirement plan offers. And they put all of that into Tesla as well. And, you know, they recently lost their job. I mean, there's a lot of like, you know, job transitions and layoffs happening in the Valley and their spouse also lost their job and they still, they still hold a hundred percent of their investments in Tesla. And, and they refused to change it. Like there's nothing I could tell them to, to, you know, But what, what, what drives this, what, what drives this persona to even reach out to you as a money coach? Isn't it asking, should I start liquidating some of this or should I diversify? They just want to get your basic opinion on how to get through this period now where they're both unemployed. Yeah, I think it's, it's looking for that second opinion or a check. Because these are large financial decisions that have big implications on your life and future life and wellbeing and happiness. People want a second opinion. And I think a lot of people reach out to me because they're like, Hey, you've kind of lived the life that I'm living, right? You've been in tech, you've been in a few different places, probably dealt with concentrated stock positions, you know, large expensive home purchases in the Bay Area, New York or Seattle. Um, and you know, I mean, I trust you more than I would trust like, uh, you know, a traditional financial advisor. And so that's kind of like what the motivation is for these people to reach out to me. Doesn't mean I can, I can change their perspective. So it starts open-ended. It's more like, here's the situation. What do you think? Or like, how do you even start to unpack, you know, um, as a, as a money coach, like what's the first place your head goes when someone comes to you in that kind of situation? Yeah, I maybe bend before I do that. Like, just to make sure I'm clear too, like it is a situation here, like, for example, for this specific, um, example, like, you know, it sounds like they lost their job. Their, their partner lost their job too. They have this, you know, um, eight, seven to $8 million NASDAQ in Tesla. Um, and it's, and they're just, Hey, like, we need some sort of like, uh, cashflow right now that the cashflow is, is over because, you know, either our severance is going to run out or whatever. And what do you, they come to you and be like, Hey, what do you think we should do? Right. And it sounds like maybe they have got another opinion, maybe from their bank or whatever, like their financial advisor is like, Oh, like, you know, you should put like, you know, like a million dollars in like T-bills and maybe like, so like, yeah, like what, like, what do you think is their, yeah. Like kind of to answer now that if that, if that is correct. Yeah. But maybe like kind of to answer, but yeah, but we can get to Ben's question. Yeah. Yeah. I think, um, I think it's probably right. Right. Like they, they are, you know, looking for a second opinion or gut check on their kind of overall portfolio investment strategy, cashflow strategy. And, um, you know, I think usually what I do is I do like an intro call where I have a little template. We walk through, you know, like high-level financials in terms of like what they make, what they spend, um, you know, how they are investing the savings, what tax strategies they're using potentially, you know, do they have an estate plan in place? Do they have the right insurance and protection? So it's a kind of like one pager that just covers like a broad stroke of your overall financial life. And based on that, like it can give them, you know, some ideas on like, Hey, here are some things you can consider doing. Um, and if they like what they see, then, you know, they can sign up for like a paying sort of coaching plan in which I work with them, you know, kind of like every two weeks we meet and we knock out like one action item over the other. Interesting. How long, so working two weeks at a time, how long do you anticipate typical engagements to run? And is it one of those things where people keep you forever in the back pocket? Like instead of two weeks, every two weeks, it starts like the status quo becomes every like three to six months. They meet with you once everything's kind of cruising altitude. Yeah, that's kind of like, um, how it's gone. Like, you know, folks I started working with in Q1, like we met a couple of weeks and then it kind of became monthly and then, you know, quarterly check-ins. Um, but yeah, kind of the idea is that people, and you know, some people are like, Hey, great. I've worked with you for four months and that's enough. I'm good. And some people are like, no, actually I like this relationship. I like having a sounding board and there's always like some new thing they want advice on and they want to keep me on a retainer. So, you know, like the Trump accounts. Yeah, go ahead. Like an example would be like the Trump accounts just came out and, you know, people are asking, Hey, like I already do 529. Should I do this over the 529? Or should I do this in addition to the 529? What should be the priority order for investing for my kids? And, you know, it's a very. Oh, what's a 529? Sorry, as someone who doesn't have a kid. You can put it. Can I tell you what I think it is as like someone who's stupid about this? So we looked into this. I think what it is, is you could put a certain amount of money into an account starting when your kid is born and it can grow until the age, I believe of 18 and it can grow kind of like tax free in some sense. And then you could use it for educational purposes when your child reaches like the age of 18, I think. Is that feel free to tell me how that's wrong? Yeah, that's broad strokes. The right answer. I would say like a few things I would say 529, you can start it even before the child is born. So you don't need to wait for a kid to be born. The money you contribute goes in, you know, usually without any tax benefits. I mean, some states do offer tax deduction, like a state tax deduction for contributing money as a way to incentivize contributions. You can usually contribute about $38,000 per year, per child, per couple. But, you know, there's something called super funding where you can contribute five years worth of contributions all at once. So you can put almost like $180,000, $190,000 into the account for the child, you know, at any time. And then that money grows tax free. Like that's the biggest advantage, right? So let's say you put like, you know, $100,000 over a few years, the child, that money can probably become like $400,000, $500,000, you know, maybe a million dollars by the time kid is 18, 20, and they're ready to go to college. And all of that gain is tax free. Let's say it becomes $100,000, it becomes $500,000. Normally on that $400,000 in California, you'd pay long term capital gains. And, you know, that can range anywhere from 30 to 38%, including the California state tax. But with the 529, all of that money comes out tax free. Some other like cool things about the 529 is that you can change beneficiaries at any time. So a lot of people worry about like, hey, what if a kid doesn't use this money? What if like AI takes over the world and college is not a thing? Well, the good thing is you can change the beneficiary at any time. So your grandkid can be the beneficiary or your, you know, your niece or nephew can be the beneficiary or your second kid can be the beneficiary. Money can also be used for like executive or adult education. So, you know, you're like 55 and you're like, I want to go take a cooking class in Italy. And so you can pay for that cooking class in Italy using a 529 account. So it's a very, very useful. Yeah, because you can be the beneficiary of your own 529 account. Ben is like, oh shit, I should, I should open up. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. So if you have three kids, right? As you do. So there's five people in the household. Has your decision been that each person in the household gets their own 529? Or how have you chosen to use 529s? Yeah, that's what I've personally done is just create a bucket for each of them. You know, I think I plan to like. I'm already starting to teach my kids about personal finance. Like it's something I'm really into. So telling my daughter, hey, this is your five. into so telling my daughter hey this is your 529 account like I'm kind of like trying to explain to her what a stock is and what an index is and and like how that money is growing and and so having three separate buckets makes it easier to kind of understand um and the idea is that you and your spouse also each have your own 529 or have you chosen not to do that? No we have chosen not to create one for ours because the primary goal is to like fund it for the kids um and if there's money left over you know we can you know use it for our own education later in life or you know for the grandkids or for our nieces and nephews. You would just change the beneficiary if you ever want to use the funds for someone else? Yeah I think the quick class in Italy when you're 60 is a little bit of like a you know creative use of the account I would say um that's not primarily it's yeah you can call it a loophole yeah yeah. That's okay that's a that's um that's a really yeah we still need to set up ours um for Gaia for my daughter I think you just convinced me what's the fastest way to set up a 529 for someone who's like me uh who wants to just kind of start one? Yeah you should absolutely do it I mean even if like you're contributing small amounts it's so invaluable um I would it depends on which state you're in if you're in California. I'm in New York. Okay you're in New York so check if like New York state offers any tax benefits to use the New York plan because every state has a separate 529 plan um but if your state does not offer any unique tax benefits for opening the New York 529 plan then I would just do the Vanguard 529 plan. Vanguard uses the Nevada 529 plan um and offers like a suite of like low cost index index options um and and it's fantastic I think the money I put in for my daughter like my daughter was born in 2019 uh I put in some amount of money in that time and you wouldn't believe it it's like up like three and a half x since then in just a span of like you know seven years it's it's mind-boggling. Wow yeah and I didn't do anything fancy it's not like I got lucky buying Tesla or Nvidia or like Micron I just put it in like an index fund and just did it the market did its thing. Yeah well I'm curious what would um back to like what you do and the people that you work with like when I think about so um as of the time we're recording this SpaceX IPO just happened uh SpaceX bought uh X you know a while back uh they just announced they're gonna buy Cursor for 60 billion dollars we're about to see an Anthropic IPO happen we're about to see an OpenAI IPO happen um a lot of these companies are headquartered in San Francisco or in California um which means a lot of the people that are at these companies are now newly millionaires deca millionaires um some of them maybe centa millionaires based on how well they did um I'm sure some billionaires um who are newly minted billionaires um I'm curious to get your take on like the people that you've spoken with have you had a chance to spend a lot of time with people who are just like have gone from nowhere close to like wealthy to wealthy in a very short amount of time and I'm curious like how do they even think about like what what are they telling you it feels like what what is the initial reaction what is it I'm just I'm just curious to get in their heads from your perspective on what you typically see with that that kind of audience yeah yeah um yeah definitely met a lot of people who have experienced like sudden kind of increases in their wealth as a result of the company going public or um you know or in a lot of cases like just even like you know you worked at Meta for like seven years I worked at Google for 10 years like you know the stock prices are up like and you just held on to your stock and the stock public stock went up like 10x in 10 years um and I would say there's no one size fits all like money is just very very personal and it impacts everyone differently and usually it's rooted in some like childhood like memory or psychology or the environment or the family setup you grew in um so some people are like in shock they're like I can't believe that I've the last year I made more money than my parents have made in their entire lifetimes like they're just in shock like I met with someone who who was um you know dad works at like FedEx and they've been a delivery driver and they're like yeah I can't I just can't believe it like this is just like an ungodly amount of money for me um there are people who are like yeah I have this money but I don't know what to do with it like should I should I spend it should I not spend it how do I invest it um some people are like yeah this is great I'm gonna go buy a big house like I've always dreamt about buying you know a five or seven dollar house in Los Altos or Atherton that's what I'm gonna do like that's what makes me happy um so yeah people have all kinds of different reactions I mean generally I would say for folks in tech who um you don't typically see the lottery syndrome right where like you hear all these stories of like crazy athletes the lottery winners who go like spending like crazy amounts of money at clubs and bars and gambling uh usually like the people who are working at SpaceX, Anthropic, Meta, Google like don't end up doing that um but or maybe maybe they do and they just haven't haven't run into that yeah maybe like yeah I agree I think there's an element of like almost like baseline education maybe like IQ maybe or IQ is not the right word I think probably maybe education mainly like mature maturity too right like maturity I think exposure too right like I think like a lot of the people that you're around especially work with are like you know I would say values like values the kind of like work ethic that got you here like um just you're not just gonna squander all your money on something stupid like spend all go put 100% of the money you made working your ass off for 15 years into like NFTs or something sure some people have done that I have seen I've seen some people like that like I think there are people who you know we can talk about that but um yeah I also think Silicon Valley is more like you know there's more of this culture of like not showing how rich you are like it's very different from like Wall Street New York where just like flexing and like who has the biggest Hamptons house like there's a little bit of that but like I think like you know like the CEOs like a top tech companies or billionaires are still wearing t-shirts to work now maybe some of them now are wearing chains and nicer watches but for the most parts for the most parts um you know like are you hitting on Zuck's chain it's kind of fashionable isn't it maybe maybe yeah is he making chains cool again or not I don't know I think he is I saw Alexis Ohanian the other day like when he was cheering for Serena in in Wimbledon like wearing a chain too so it's definitely having an effect and it's shaking shaking the fashion scene in Silicon Valley which I think was very much needed but maybe I'm curious like you know it sounds it sounds like you know a lot of these tech workers are now like kind of going in and like you know spending you know Louis Vuitton bags for them and all their childhood friends um but I'm curious like what are some of the mistakes that you're seeing happen maybe they're they're kind of like different or like the common like patterns you see like maybe that was not the right first step or the right second step you're seeing yeah I think like um there's actually a lot like I would say um I wouldn't call them mistakes but just like personal philosophy like you know I used to be because I think I'm I'm pretty savvy with with personal finance or or at least I think I am and and you know I always felt like and it comes so naturally to me it feels so easy doesn't feel complicated I just assumed that everyone else was like me just assume that this is so natural people read about it people follow people understand what indices are people understand how taxes work people understand capital gains and people understand different like mortgage and and borrowing strategies but I was just so wrong you know after doing 200 plus sessions I would say maybe 10 or 15 percent people are like highly optimized in their personal finance stack and they don't really need a lot of help but I would say 80 plus are leaving like a lot of money on the table they you know probably tens of thousands hundreds of thousands even millions of dollars on the table by not getting like professional help with their money is one of is one of the most unforced errors like just leaving all of your money in cash and like a checking account and just like basically just not doing anything with it is that like yeah no that's certainly the case like I've seen people you know either too much cash too much concentration in one company typically their current or past employer stock like no or you know being worried to take on debt like kind of paying out their mortgage too early not taking advantage of like basic or not basic but like fully legal like tax strategies like you know not met people not maxing out the 401ks not doing the 529s not doing HSAs so these are like very common things that that people aren't taking advantage of and it can it can really compound to like a lot of money like for example just doing a single tax strategy called called the backdoor Roth if you do that consistently for 30 years it allows you to put about you know $7,500 per person so $15,000 per couple per year into a tax advantage account just doing that consistently for 30 years creates a million dollars of delta at the end of 30 years so you know I think people people don't understand how money compounds the compounding is like really the eighth wonder of the world where $15,000 per year sounds like a small amount of money you're like yeah maybe it's not worth my time but when you compound it over 30 years you can create a million dollars of offer tax delta and people are like wow I'd never thought about that yeah I'm curious maybe like like what are the different strategies at different like net worths do you think are like you know like this is where you should focus your energy and maybe you can start like under a million then like the one to five to five to ten like almost like kind of like someone is listening like here are the things like that you really need to focus at this point at this point because you know and I think let's focus more like on the 2080 because I think like you know you can optimize it's like almost like you know like I don't know if any of you are bikers but like you know like when you start getting into like road bikes like you know like you know once it's spent like over like I know like three thousand four thousand on a bike like you know the gains that you get in weight it's like marginal and so I feel like it's the same with finance too so I'm curious yeah let's let's go through that those like almost like levels no no fascinating yeah I'm happy to go through that like so yeah if you're like under a million dollars in net worth I would say there's like probably like three things you need to do number one is just like maximize your retirement accounts and benefits so you know take advantage of like your 401k plan your backdoor rot your HSA number two is just like I would say good spending and investing habits right like you want to build a good relationship with money you want to save a certain portion of your earnings every year you want to invest it in a disciplined way like you know just buy like your favorite index fund or don't go too crazy like don't go put all your savings into an NFT or bitcoin or gold or you know an international currency arbitrage like don't do anything fancy and number three is honestly like maximize your earnings right when you're still under a million dollars and again I'm talking about like Silicon Valley tech folks in New York Bay Area I'm not talking about rest of America I understand how privileged we are to be in this area but yeah number three is just like maximize your earnings like you know do better at your job like grow get a promotion get more you know go work at at a you know higher paying company so I think those are the three things you should do if you are like under a million dollars in net worth in in the tech space. Makes sense. Yeah maybe we can go to the next one up yeah let's say like yeah you know I think that's when things start to get more interesting let's say you're between one and five million and there's a lot of people in in the tech circles in that network range I think this is where you know I would say like you know probably like five things you should do at that point are number one like really get a living trust and estate plan put together right you're maybe thinking about getting married or having kids or maybe you already have kids yeah make sure you get a trust and estate plan get a will in place number two is start getting serious about taxes like taxes are probably a large expense once you're in this network bucket so start thinking about like tax aware investing strategies number three I would say is like really start like thinking about your RSUs and options. Yeah one question on the tax advantage well what does it mean to start getting serious on taxes like I'm not like I know it's not like you know like maybe triple check what triple tax is doing for you and like what does that actually mean like is it mean like you need to get like a better accountant does it mean you need to like like get multiple options you need to like yeah what does that mean I think it just means like yeah getting like good professional help be it be it like a good usually like accountants are like filing your taxes they're not doing tax strategy so either like you you know you get like a tax strategist or work with a good investment advisor or a money coach like me or a friend or like learn about this stuff but for your unique tax situation be it like public company stock private you know ISOs or NSOs figuring out what are the set of tax strategies that can benefit you because you're probably spending hundreds of thousand dollars a year in taxes at that point and and you know minimizing the tax liability using all the possible legal means is like worth its weight in gold and so things like you know backdoor rods mega backdoor rods it just says direct indexing long short you know you can and then you can keep ratcheting up the complexity but I would say those are probably the 80 80 off that 80 20. What is long short? Yeah so long short is like a you know I would say it's a more advanced strategy probably like more more applicable if you're in the kind of like 5 million plus or 10 million plus camp but but basically what it does is that you know like it basically like lets you get returns of an index but generate a lot of losses in your portfolio so you know let's say you put like a million dollars into a long short fund you know usually you can choose to track S&P 500 and it'll probably deliver performance in aggregate that's close to S&P 500 but it'll probably generate like you know 20 to 30 percent of that million dollars worth of losses in the first year so you start getting like 200 or 300 k of losses capital gains loss that can offset capital gains in other parts of your portfolio so if you are like you know selling appreciated stock or you have capital gains from real estate sales you can start to offset those and if you're in a high tax state like California it's it's worth a lot because even on long-term basis like you know you're paying like 30 to 25 37 percent capital gains tax long term. Interesting and is the only downside that probably like the there's a higher fee to putting that money in in those type of like indexes and probably also that the minimum amount of money that you need to invest is way higher like like the price to play is way higher are those maybe the main downsides to something like that? Yeah I would say like there's a few more risks I mean like with any like sort of strategy you should understand what you're getting into like you know Warren Buffett says that he doesn't invest in anything he doesn't understand I think that's a good general principle to have like don't like do something that you don't fully understand so I would say like long short yeah like there are like the minimums are actually coming down there's a lot of like newer startups like you know Freck and Cash that are offering long shorts direct to consumer at very low minimums probably like 100k or so at fairly low fees I mean you pay more than an index fund like you know maybe you pay like one and one and a half percent but but like the value is still there for the right person right if you are generating a lot of capital gains you're going to pay 37 percent taxes on that if you can avoid that now you're okay paying a higher fee there's also like more risk like you're taking on leverage like with long short the way it generates these really like outsized losses is by taking on leverage but that means that you're borrowing additional money against your initial capital and so in crazy market conditions you can you can sort of deviate significantly from the index um so that's you can get underwater right you can you can get underwater I would say like like the goal of the strategy is to try and stay very close to the index but if the market moves very quickly and very volatile and you can underperform the index and so that's the the biggest risk one of the things I wonder about um as we're talking is you know I studied finance there's people have to get like cfa certifications some people have to get licensed to be cpas obviously um financial cfps financial planners um do you in order to be like a money coach do you need to have any like um disclaimers or things that people sign that kind of waive your I'm assuming you don't have these certificates and if you do feel free to my question is no but do you have these certificates and if not how do you how are you how can you be a money coach without those yeah yeah no that's absolutely right like so I think it's really important to clarify like I think if you're I cannot like if you want to be a financial advisor that's a very heavily regulated sort of term that requires like licenses and and courses and exams you need to pass so I'm not a financial advisor I'm a money coach so what that means is that a lot of what I do is like educational and and sort of the goal of educating you to make the best decisions for yourself I don't prescribe like specific investing strategies or specific stocks that's the kind of boundary that the state typically and the sec draws between like educational services versus like you know financial services but I am in the process of getting licensed so I start as a money coach because it's an easier barrier to entry allowed me to kind of like get my feet wet to see if I enjoy this work am I able to create value and I did so I got my series 65 exam which is like kind of like a 3R SAT or GMAT type exam that you have to pass as a first step so I luckily passed that exam and then I have applied for registration with the state and federal authorities to get registered as a financial advisor but as of right now I'm not a financial advisor I have to disclose that I can get into a lot of trouble if I misrepresent myself as a licensed financial advisor. If you're enjoying this conversation please check out the links in the show notes to support the podcast. Mark and I do this out of love but to keep it going we also need your support. Thanks and now back to the episode. And why are you getting that license? I'm curious like what are you hoping that that will allow you to do that you cannot do now? Yeah I think it'll allow me to like practice as a financial advisor and and offer like more specific financial advice to individuals and and I think it's also like a trust symbol like you know when people see you licensed and SEC regulated on your you know LinkedIn or your personal website they're more likely to trust you and you know a lot of people are like they reach out they're like hey baby are you doing this for serious or is this like a part-time fun thing for you like and and so once you have the license and prudential then it's like a little bit easier to say like no I actually have actually made this pivot and I'm doing this for reals. So just just to make sure I'm clear where the um the SEC draws the line if you recommend to me that I get that I start putting money into a 529 account does that is that literally where they draw the line that's like now you're giving specific advice or is it like I know what the safe space is I don't know exactly where that boundary is so I like to stay in the safe area where I will if you tell me you have kids I will be like Ben let me educate you about 529 accounts here's like all the reasons why 529 accounts are great and you know for most people and accounts are great, and you know, for most people it's a great fit, and you and your family and your spouse should consider putting money there. That's sort of where I like to stay in the clean area. What's funny is I've talked to some financial advisors and they kind of basically stay in the same realm. You know, it's like they don't go much further than that either. Because at some point it's like, okay, yeah, I want to do it, and then it's like, well, here's how you do it. That's basically all that's remaining, is like how much should I put, and when do I put, and where do we put it? But it's interesting that the SEC considers that education, because I feel like that's kind of what I've gotten from the financial advisors. Yeah, so I think financial advisors, it was a really cool episode, a sorcery episode, with the chief investment officer at Anderson Horovitz. And they're talking about like what the incentives of financial advisors are and how it limits the kind of advice they can provide. So financial advisors are typically compensated on an assets under management model, right? So they typically will do whatever, naturally human beings react to incentives, and they'll do whatever it takes to grow those assets under management. Anything that doesn't directly grow those assets under management, they're less incentivized to educate you and guide you on. So typically like a 529 account, you will open that like separately, and like a Vanguard or your favorite provider, and wouldn't necessarily be managed by the advisor. And so they have less of an incentive to kind of coach you and guide you and help you on that. Similarly, a lot of the retirement like sort of plans and benefits like backdoor, mega backdoor, HSA, a lot of advisors don't talk about it because those accounts are not held with the advisor and don't contribute to the assets under management on which they build their face. So I think there's a gap in the market where like, I think if you are like 30 million plus or so in net worth, like you get access to what's called a family office or a fractional family office, and you get like really holistic advice, not just on your investments, but on your mortgages, on your leverage strategies, on your insurance, on your estate plan, all in one place, and it's done holistically. But I think if you're like in this kind of like three to 20 million, three to 25 million, which is a lot of people in tech, they're underserved by a lot of traditional advisors because they're not getting that holistic advice, just like because of how the incentives are set up. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's- That's crazy. Yeah, and that's interesting. I feel like kind of back to the point of like, why that person with like the highly concentrated Tesla stock went to you versus maybe a financial advisor or maybe in their bank, whatever bank might be, is for those reasons, right? Because I think, you know, yes, you can argue that their incentives and yours are aligned because they wanna grow the pie, but like they might be growing the pie in a way that's not like task efficient or they're not using it holistically. So it almost sounds like you're like, your long-term interest might not be fully aligned and they are just kind of like, they're basically like trying to maximize your wealth with the tools that they have available, but maybe like the, so it's almost like a local maxima, but like the global maxima might require you to like think more outside the box. And I think probably that's what you're bringing to the table in a way, right? Yeah, I think the other thing I would say is like, you know, there's a lot of like uncomfort and lack of trust with financial advisors in the market generally, right? Like people generally view financial advisors as, hey, this person is out here to get my money. Like they're gonna charge me this 1% fee and it's gonna be too much. And there's a lot of content on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn telling you not to pay a 1% financial advisor. And I used to believe that. I used to be like, yeah, like, you know, people shouldn't be paying for financial advice. And after doing 200 plus calls, I'm like, actually 80 plus percent of the people would be better off paying a financial advisor despite the high fees they charge because they would help you. Because they're leaving so much money on the table. They're leaving so much money on the table. They're not invested the right way. They're paying too much in taxes. But I think like the reality is that in the realm of financial advisors, actually a lot of like bad financial advisors. And so, and you know, if you're like 30, 40, 50 million plus you generally get really good advice. Like that range of the market, like that's what all the best advisors go, right? Like if you're a great advisor, you'll rise up and you'll serve kind of the wealthy and the rich affluent households. So whoever, you know, at this kind of like three, four, five, $7 million, like the advisors you were left, they're generally not that good. And is good determined, is this like one of those things where it's all about the scoreboard? Is it just literally about performance or like how do you define good or bad in the sense? I think it's hard to, I mean, you hit the nail on the head. There's no objective metric for it. Cause the goal is not to beat the market. I mean, it's very hard to beat the market, but the goal is to like, you know, make sure you have the right asset allocation, you have the right insurance, you are not paying more taxes than necessary. You're not like buying and selling based on like, you know, market movements. You're not holding too much cash, not holding too much equity in a single stock. So is it almost like trying to kind of thread that needle to get you to as close as like, almost like textbook optimized as possible? Yes, in some ways, but I would say like, start with the textbook optimization, but personalize it to your needs and your relationship with money, right? Like some people feel comfortable having a three month emergency fund in cash. Some people feel like they need two years worth of runway in cash. So I think there's no right or wrong answer, but it's about like kind of, I would say a good advisor would kind of like understand your personal needs and your relationship with money and your risk and reward appetite and combine that with the textbook best practices and help like define the path forward. Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense, right? It's almost like the best advisors, it's almost like product, right? They do the customer discovery and then they build like the product that solves like, or like modify the product they have to that person to make sure that it meets their goals. And I think the other benefit is, it adds that additional friction that avoids making mistakes, right? Like if you have to talk to your financial advisor before you sell something, all of a sudden the market is down 20% and you're about to sell and you have to talk to this person and they're like, oh shit, okay. Like, actually I wouldn't do that. Like, you know, like here's like, and maybe they come up with a plan, but hey, if it actually goes down more than 20% more, maybe we'll sell like, you know, 15% of like our allocation. I mean, if that happens again, we'll do that. So it's almost kind of like, it builds a plan that you can sign off and feel comfortable with. But like, sometimes like, if you don't have that sounding board and you end up doing stupid stuff, right? And. Yeah, and I would say like, you know, we talked to the one to five, I think like at like five million, I would say like 10 million plus, like there's a lot of like more interesting strategies that become available that unless you are like spending a lot of time learning about the space, you just don't know about. So kind of like, you know, most people end up with a standard 30 year mortgage, but you know, there's an interest only mortgage where you only have to pay interest per month. You don't have to pay back the principal for the first 10 years. And that can be really, you know, kind of like really great instrument to build wealth because usually like the market returns exceed the mortgage interest rates. You know, we talked a little bit about long short, that's quite a popular strategy at that cohort. There's also like really advanced borrowing and leverage strategies, like something called a box trade. So, you know, if you go try to take, like, you know, here's a classic example, like somebody wants to do a renovation project on their house and they're looking to like borrow some money for that. And, you know, the first instinct is to take out a HELOC. They're like, I have a mortgage, I'll take a HELOC. HELOC rates probably right now are like six to 7%, maybe even higher. But still a HELOCs, and a HELOCs is that basically like an extension to your, for your mortgage, basically, you're using the same credit line, basically. You're basically using the equity you have in your home and borrowing against it. And it can typically be stacked on top of the mortgage. But, you know, in a lot of cases, like the house values have appreciated, right? So if you're in like Seattle, New York area, like house values appreciate. So if you had the house for four or five years, you might be better off doing a cash out refi, where you actually can refinance your mortgage at the current rate, which, you know, you can probably get 5.5, 6%. You can take a bunch of cash out. Alternatively, if you're locked in at a very low mortgage, you might consider what's called a portfolio margin line. So you probably have a healthy portfolio, like the stocks and ETFs and RSUs. And you can borrow like, you know, a couple hundred K for your home remodel against that stock portfolio. And that usually can borrow at like close to 5%. And so it's like, you know, things like these that become available and, you know, a good advisor will help you navigate these decisions and, you know, help you kind of just optimize your financial wellbeing. Is there anything else that, because I know we were on the one to five and we talked about the will and trust. We talked about taxes. Is there anything else on the one to five do you think it's important to get right or optimize? Yeah, I think on one to five, a common mistake I see is like either holding too much cash or holding too much in one stock or buying and selling stocks. Like a lot of people in our industry, we feel like we understand tech, we know the next big thing. So we'll go buy Micron or Nvidia or, you know, Nabeus or whatever is the, Corvi is the hardest stock. And what people don't realize is like, you gotta look at long-term after-tax returns of your individual stock picking. And, you know, I did a lot of individual stock picking in 2015, 2016. And up until like 2020, 2021, I felt like the world's best stock picker. Like my portfolio was crushing every single index out there. And I was like, man, like, what are these people like talking about? And 2022 humbled me, right? Like all the high growth crazy stocks that I'd bought, they crashed and I lost a lot of money. But it taught me a really good lesson that you gotta like measure your portfolio returns on an after-tax basis and over the long period of time. And so what I advise people in this kind of like one to five bucket is, I think people still wanna pick stocks. Like there's sort of this psychological need to try and beat the market and get that 10X upside, right? Or you know of a friend who got that 10X upside through Bitcoin and you want that too. So what I encourage people is to have like two pots of money, do an 80-20. 20% is your fun pot of money and you can do whatever you want with it. Go take some crazy bets. But 80% put it towards long-term discipline investing. Buy like a broad market ETF or like, you know, broad market world index that you're comfortable with. And I find that that's a good way for people to be like, hey, I can exercise kind of like my fun, kind of like risk-seeking appetite. And I want that opportunity to have that 10X upside. It's gambling money, right? Like I would say like most people in Silicon Valley with, you know, kind of like one to five million bucket, they're not gonna buy lottery tickets because they think they're smart enough to understand the math and the odds. They know that, you know, when you buy a dollar worth of lottery, you're probably gonna, expected probability output of that is like 40 cents or something or 30 cents. But I almost think like buying individual stocks is like the rich person's lottery ticket, right? You're like, I'm too good for the California lottery or whatever, but I'm gonna go buy like Micron and Nvidia and try to guess like the next big 10X stock. But don't you think there's something to be said, this is since I use Robinhood and I'm not like trading millions of dollars in Robinhood, but you know, there's like a good amount of cash floating around there for me. It does feel like putting money into something like Google, for example, feels way more solid than buying a lottery ticket, right? Like putting money in Google feels closer to like putting money into an index fund than buying penny stock, right? So don't you, do you agree with that? Or do you think that buying a stock is buying a stock regardless of which company it is? Yeah, I think like, look, I think Google is obviously like way better than, I mean, the odds are, the expected probability is much better than like a lottery, California lottery or something for sure. But I would say people aren't really buying Google. Like Google is not the hot company because it's not likely to 10X in the next year. Like a lot of people, a lot of behavior I see is like people try to buy stocks that have that five to 10X potential in the next year or two. Like they're trying to get rich quick. Okay, that's the problem. Yeah, the getting rich quick thing is the problem. But to me, I look at, I think back 10 years and I don't even know if we, how many trillion dollar companies did we have 10 years ago? Maybe not any. I don't know if we had a trillion dollar company 10 years ago. Apple was the first one, I think in 2016 or 2017, yeah. Okay, so maybe just about 10 years ago. And so I look at it and I'm like, well, we don't have a five trillion, do we have a five trillion dollar company yet? NVIDIA might be close to a trillion, yeah. But the point I'm about to make is that I would be very surprised if we don't have a $10 trillion company or multiple $10 trillion companies in five years. And so maybe I'm not trying to like 10X my money in one year but I still think if you could double your money over the course of five years, that still would be a pretty big win for, I think most people would consider that a pretty big win. And so I look at like the Googles, I look at the NVIDIAs, I look at potentially SpaceX, I look at Tesla, some people will fight me on Tesla. But I do look at companies that have exceeded the trillion dollar valuation and I'm like, okay, I think your chance of going from a trillion to 10 trillion feels more likely than going from a trillion to like zero or 500 billion. Like if the fundamentals are good and there's like strong leadership and stuff. I don't know, that's kind of like how I'm thinking. Like I think it seemed inevitable it was gonna be $10 trillion companies. The question just becomes like, which companies will those be? And I'm sure you could say it's gambling to figure out what the answer to that is. But I think it's more than a coin toss to me that like a company like, you know, Google's gonna be a $10 trillion company in five years. And I feel like the counter example there, right, is like, hey, like, okay, but you could live it in the S&P 500, right? Historically in the last like 40 years, it has been, you know, increasing at 7% or 8% like a year, which means in seven years you'll double your money, right? Like, so like, I think that's like the counter argument and that there's just more consistency there. And I guess S&P is always gonna be easier. So I think that's like someone who's very like, you know, quote unquote financially disciplined would say that, that would be my, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think like there's like a middle route, right? Ben, I think you're right. Like, you know, if you're buying like tech stocks has been the kind of the free lunch of investing in the last decade or so, right? They've just massively outperformed the market. So I'm not saying like go buy S&P 500, that's the answer for everyone, right? I think if you're, if you're bullish on tech, go buy like a tech index fund and we can play a quick game here. Like a QQQ or something? Yeah, QQQ is one of the most popular, or VGT, FTECH, XLK, it's a bunch of these index funds. And we can play a quick game here. Like, I'll ask you like a question, like, okay, do you think Meta has outperformed QQQ or underperformed QQQ in the last five years? Five years, I'd say it's underperformed. Yeah, okay, you're right. Yeah, a lot of people don't know that. Do you think Microsoft has overperformed or underperformed QQQ in the last five years? I'd say it's overperformed. No, Microsoft has underperformed QQQ in the last five years, yeah. Have any of the big tech, has any one big tech stock other than NVIDIA? I'm guessing NVIDIA is probably, yeah. Micron is probably another one, but like, you know, has Apple or Google outperformed QQQ? Yeah, like, I mean, obviously certain stocks outperform. Can we share screen? Will that show up in the? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Okay, okay, I'll just share like a browser window because I think this is a really like fun exercise or like not fun, but like people don't realize. So, you know, like kind of the trajectory of companies is that if you look at Microsoft, like one of the longest standing tech companies, it was kind of like flat for like two decades or so, right? Like, I mean, I worked at Microsoft in 2010 and I think, you know, my stock drop was like 25 bucks or something. When it hit 32, I've sold it. I was like, wow, this is highest it's ever been. And I was like, Microsoft's growth is tapped out. It's never gonna grow beyond that. And look what happened around like 2015, 2016. It just kept growing, growing, growing, and like from 2015 to the Satya effect, they invested in the cloud business and it did phenomenal. I mean, look at that, it started in 2014, right? Like it says it right there, 2014. And what was the stock at when you joined? Like 40 bucks, like less than 40 bucks. And now it's at almost 400. Yeah, so it's done really well. But I think most of the growth came in like 2015 to 2020, 2021. If you look at the last five years, it's delivered only 37% returns, which are great and absolute, but if you compare it to QQQ in the same timeframe, it's up 96%, right? Same thing with Meta. If you look at Meta, a lot of people, you know, really believed in Meta. And, you know, Meta has done really well since IPO times, but in the last five years, it's like underperformed QQQ, right? And the problem is that let's say you held, you were great, you bought Microsoft right at the perfect time, 2015, and you held it through the rally, and now your stock is up like 5X or 7X. What do you do? Like with all the AI fears and the risk that SaaS is no longer as valuable as it used to be, because software is just so cheap to build. Do you still want to hold like a huge percentage of your portfolio in Microsoft? And I'm not picking on Microsoft because I have anything against them. I mean, I love Microsoft. I think it's a great company, but all I'm saying is that I'd rather hold QQQ or another tech index, where if you look at the composition, let's see if I can pull it up. That's what I was gonna ask about. Yeah, it's like a mix of like these companies. And the best part is that it sort of like auto rebalances itself. I think it's taking forever to- You're basically getting exposure to the best, almost like the best tech companies. That's basically what you're buying. And it keeps adjusting itself based on the market cap of the company. So like Nvidia, again, like if you look at the Nvidia chart, it's like, you know, crazy. That's gonna be a fun chart. Like they've been a public company forever, forever, right? And there's this really crazy story where Masa of SoftBank sold, I think he had a significant, like a couple of billion dollar Nvidia stake. And he sold it in 2019 at like three or five bucks a share. So Masa, presumably like one of the, you know, well-informed investors of our time in tech, sold Nvidia and- He needed some money for WeWork, dude. He needed some of that cash to put into WeWork. It was the big bet. Man, can you imagine if you sold your Nvidia stock to fund WeWork? Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. So I think like- I think it was in that timeframe. Am I crazy or is that the right year? I think it was like 20- That's like the right timeframe. Around the same timeframe, yeah. So nobody predicted this kind of like 10X growth in Nvidia. And I'll share another personal story. I mean, I had a bunch of Tesla stock that, I mean, I got into electric cars early, really bullish. I mean, I was driving the Nissan Leaf when it had like 80 miles of range and everyone used to make fun of me because I would go to the city and run out of charge and have to go charge my car. But, you know, it really got me into electric cars early and I bought some Tesla and, you know, thankful for, it did really well. But it did really well like from this like timeframe of like 2018, 2019 to like the span of two or three years, like 2021 or so. And over the last five years, Tesla has underperformed QQQ, right? Like not by much. Right. Like not by much, but, but still it has underperformed. So now I am sitting on this appreciated Tesla holding and I'm like, what do I do? If I sell it, I'm going to pay 37% long-term capital gains on it, which like cuts my capital and really hurts long-term compounding. Um, so, so I think, so what do you do? Oh, well, if you, so if you really want to get out of Tesla, there's actually like a lot of interesting options out there. And maybe we can stop sharing here. Um, so a lot of people don't know of these options and what they end up doing is they just end up selling their stock. And I've heard countless stories where somebody was like, Hey, I have Tesla, Amazon, Nvidia, whatever, pick your favorite, Meta, Google, and I'm buying a home and I need like, you know, 500K, you know, homes in the Bay Area are expensive. I need cash. And I would, I would just sold my stock to pay for the down payment. And, and you pay, end up paying those capital gains taxes. Um, but I think there's multiple strategies. There's something called an exchange fund, um, where you can contribute. Let's say, you know, Mark, you have Google stock, you contribute to Google stock, and Ben, you have Meta stock, you contribute your Meta stock. And they basically pull, pull like individual stocks from multiple individuals, put it in a fund and give you ownership of that fund. And there's a fully legal IRS structure. Like, you know, the, there's some restrictions, like your money is locked, kind of locked for seven years. And after seven years, you, basically you get instant diversification. So the moment you contribute your individual stock, instead of the individual stock, you own a, a percentage share in the fund. So you get instant diversification. And at the end of seven years, you can withdraw your money. And when you withdraw your money, you get a diversified portfolio of stock in return for that individual stock you had contributed. Um, so it's like bartering. Yeah. It's kind of like you are, you're buying, um, uh, you know, uh, ownership interest in, in a fund, which holds a bunch of diversified positions. It's like the burden of finance. But, but then when you take, yeah, when you take your money out after seven years, do you still have to pay long-term capital gains tax on the appreciation, appreciated value of your share of the asset? No, you don't. Like, so what you get back is you don't get cash back, you contributed stock and you actually get stock back. So let's say, you know, Mark had contributed Google stock, a single position, uh, Mark would get back maybe 15 or 20 different stocks, you know, some Google, some Tesla, some Microsoft, some, you know, Qualcomm and some Chevron, um, which will be a diversified. Do you have to report, but do you have to report the, let's say I put in a million dollars of meta stock and then seven years later I, I pull out, um, $5 million of, um, you know, a bunch of, a basket of, of stocks. Do I have to then report capital gains tax on like, do I, do I have to pay capital gain, long-term capital gains tax on $4 million? Do I report $4 million as income for that year? And like, I'm just curious how the IRS views that. The only one you sell, right? Correct. So let's say I sell immediately. Let's say like right out of seven years, I take out my $5 million and I sell. Yeah. But, but the strategy is not to sell, right? Like kind of the, the key sort of whole point of the strategy is to hold. The whole point is like to just like keep compounding and not sell and, you know, or sell in the most tax efficient way if needed, I mean, you hear all these billionaires where they never pay taxes because they never sell. They just let their equity compound and they borrow money against it. So, so that's sort of like the, it's called the buy, borrow, die strategy. Just like you buy assets, you borrow against this assets and then you die. And, and then it resets basically. Right. The cost space is everything gets reset and you never kind of like, um, pay taxes. Um, you know, it's unfortunate. Like I wish, like, you know, you know, I, I wish like we all contributed in a fair way to, to like the tax system, but, but, but I, you know, these are legal strategies that exist and I think everyone should be taking advantage of them. It sounds like it might change in California, but let's not get political. Um, anyways, I know we're at time. So let's, should we start wrapping? Yeah, this was awesome. Yeah. I, I, I really enjoyed this. Even if no, none of the audience cares, which I suspect they will, but even if they don't, I found this to be really, really interesting. Yeah. I find this like super fascinating. I can talk about this for hours and hours and days and days and weeks and weeks. And, but for most people, it's a really boring topic. They don't want to think about it. I think a common psychology of on earth is that if you're in the valley, you generally make good money, money is not a limiting factor in your life. And so you don't think, don't think about it. You're like, ah, I'm enough to pay my bills. I can go to restaurants. I can, you know, take two vacations a year. And as a result, people don't invest any amount of time. Like people are working like 60 hours a week, 80 hours a week on their job. And they stress out about every little detail. As a PM engineer, you optimize every little button and every email and every growth tactic and every millisecond of site load times, but you don't like apply the same rigor to your financial life. It's arguably like more important. Right. So they're like, I work so hard, so I don't have to think about money. And then you're like, yeah, but you work so hard, so you don't have to think about money, but then you need to think about money so that you don't leave money on the table. And then it's like, shit, like even, yeah, it's, you're right. I mean, but that's why, um, working with someone like you, and we're about to ask how people can learn more about what you do and how they can help you. But we're working with someone that can help you think through this stuff is what you have earned by earning all of that money. Like basically all that hard work you do in your craft to acquire cash and acquire assets, um, it allows you to then work with someone who can help you make sure you're not leaving money on the table. Totally. It's funny. Like I have so many friends in like tech and like some of them are very like, you know, quote unquote responsible for money, but I feel like in the wrong ways that they're like, oh, I shouldn't buy that latte. That's like $7 or I shouldn't spend like $300 on this like course or whatever. And then I'm like, you're spending like no time on taxes. You're literally just having TurboTax do your freaking taxes. Like that's the most expensive thing you have in your life and you're like sweating about a stupid $7 latte, but don't, you're not spending any energy. Yeah. Like, you know, like taxes are 50% of your costs. Like, and you're like, just the, the investment to ROI is just like, it's just so disproportionate that it just blows my mind that I just don't know. A hundred percent. Like call it the guacamole paradox. Like you go to Chipotle and you always wonder, can I, can I get guacamole or not? Like that's, it's a common problem and it's like, you know, three bucks. And, but, you know, to your, to your point, like, yeah, you're making these big decisions about like, Hey, should I hold or sell my equity? My ROC is my options. The timing of the exercise, the AMT associated with that, you know, mortgage rates. You know, I'm working with a client. I helped them refinance their mortgage from like 6.5% to 5.5%. And they have a 2 million mortgage on a 3 million house, which is very, very common in, in, in this area. And so they'll save like $20,000 a year. They just didn't know that you can refinance and that rates have gone down from the initial time they bought that place. So yeah, you can, you can buy a lot of guacamoles and a lot of lattes with that $20,000. You would save by, by, you know, being smart about your mortgage strategy. All right. Well, on that note before we do our very special gratitude corner I'll, I'll just ask if people are listening and they want to learn more about what you do, what you're thinking about, where would you direct them to kind of stay up to speed and, and follow along and, and, you know, also how can they just be helpful to you beyond maybe visiting whatever that is? Yeah, no, I think I'm on LinkedIn and you know, if you go to my LinkedIn page you can find a link to book an appointment with me and I do like a free intro call. And I'd be happy to kind of like learn about your situation and see if there's ways I can add value. That's the primary way. Once I get my financial advisor license, then, you know, I'll be opening up, you know, a website that's all about to go live and I'll be available there and maybe we can put the link to my LinkedIn and my Calendly booking in the, in the recording. For sure. And then if you want, once you, once the site is live, once you're ready to, to take on the financial advising stuff, or if you have something new, you can just ping us and we'll add that link to, to, to keep the show. Awesome. I appreciate it. Yeah. I think my real goal is like helping people get better with money. Like I, it's less about like, I don't care if you work with me, I just want you to like, like either like spend the time, read up, learn about this stuff and do a better job or find a friend or find an advisor or find a coach, like, just like do it, like you work too hard to, to not have your money work hard for you. Yeah. What a, what a cool legacy, right? To live, if you were able to help maybe one or two people just live their life, maybe retire early, enjoy things more. Like, and I think that I think your content has the potential to do that. I think, I mean, that's why I was excited to talk to you. I read one of your posts. It was like, okay, this guy clearly is very savvy, very intelligent, and has spent a lot of time thinking about these things. And I think you have a way of breaking things down in a way that are complex things that are, that make it feel simple. And I also think your demeanor is very approachable and very honest and sincere, and I think, again, that's hard to find sometimes in this industry, especially for that like earlier wealth bucket. So I, I would encourage you to continue doing what you're doing, continue writing, because I think a lot of those free resources are probably having a tremendous impact, even though maybe you don't know it yet. And. So we just love, we just love talking to people carving their own, their own path, you know, off outside of the traditional path where you did really well. And so it's, it's just, I love hearing where your natural skills and natural interests and curiosity took you. And I love that you're giving yourself a chance to just do more of the thing that it seems like you're just naturally really strong. Yeah. And then the final question in order of time is, um, you know, I mean, you look at your, I mean, we started, we'll finish the same way we started, but, you know, you look at your career, your arc, you know, you've had to kind of almost like the dream resume for someone who was starting in Silicon Valley, you worked in some amazing companies. Now you're have the ability and the freedom to do your own thing. You obviously have done really well for yourself. And so maybe we just wanted to give you the chance to maybe thank a couple of people that have played a key role and kind of to get where you are today. Yeah, no, I think, um, definitely like a lot of people have contributed to, to sort of my, um, sort of my bringing in where I'm at today. I think, um, I would say like, I would start with, it's hard to pick three, but maybe I can, I can pick four. I can cheat and pick four. I would say like, number one is like my grandparents, like they, they instill a lot of great values, a lot of good work ethic in me from an early age. And, and I, I owe a lot, a lot to them. Number two is I would say I had a math teacher, maybe in like grade seven or eight, uh, Ms. Menezes, and she was fantastic. She, she really like whipped, like literally she had a cane that she would come and I grew up in India, went to school in India and, you know, getting caned in school was very common. And she caned, uh, me into like getting better at math. I used to be like very, very, I used to be in the bottom 50th percentile of my class, like, you know, growing up, up until like seven or eight standard. And she really whipped me into getting like, you know, in the upper quartile or whatever. Um, I think the number three I would say is, um, an anonymous donor funded my education at Cornell. And that was really like a life changing moment for me. And, um, I, I've been able to write letters to them over the years, but I don't, I don't know who they are. Um, but, but that was really life changing. Um, because, you know, I was, did, I was doing my high school in Singapore and like coming to the U S and getting access to the U S university system was just like incredible. And that changed, put me on a different career path, um, changed my life. And number four, I would say is my wife. Like, I think she actually really inspired me to, to break out of this like traditional kind of tech career ladder and go pursue my passion. Like, um, you know, we've had multiple chats and she's like, dude, like you love this personal finance thing. Like spend so much time talking to all our friends about it. Why don't you do this as your profession? Like, um, and I'd always like thought about it, but never had the courage to take the lead, but, but she really pushed me to take that lead. So I'm really grateful to her. Amazing. That is beautiful. And I had no idea that people were going to college based on anonymous donations. Like, I don't think I've ever met anyone who had their college paid for by an anonymous donor. So first of all, that's amazing. Secondly, if anyone is listening and they know someone who funded someone who went to Cornell, I think VB is looking to potentially meet his anonymous donor. So that would be, that'd be pretty sweet. They set up like a scholarship program and yeah, I think, um, it's incredible. I'm super grateful. And, you know, I aspire to do that as a get order, like, you know, create, kind of pay it forward. Then I think that the last point is choosing who you, who you marry, who's your partner, and it's probably the best financial decision you can make at some point too, right? At like the best hours in this case, like just, you know, inspire you to do all these cool things and doing what you do today. So that's awesome too. Yeah, that's certainly true for like life happiness, right? Like, um, who you marry, like, you know, their values, your values need to align and, and, you know, they encourage you, inspire you to do bigger, bolder things. Amazing. Okay. This is awesome. That's a wrap. Uh, VB, thanks so much for, for making the time. I really enjoyed this. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Ben. Um, super fun and thank you. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you.