Episode June 26, 2019

Josh Brown: 'Standardize the Process, Personalize the Advice'

Our guest on this week's episode of the Long View is none other than Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management. Brown's story is unique and inspiring. He began his career as a broker but grew disillusioned with the industry's skewed incentives and practices, eventually pursuing a career as an independent Registered Investment Advisor. Along the way, Brown managed to author an acclaimed book, Backstage Wall Street, and build an enormous following around his blog, "The Reformed Broker," as well as his twitter handle, @reformedbroker. Now he oversees Ritholtz's day-to-day operations in addition to his other duties, which include serving as a regular contributor on CNBC, as a member of fintech firm BrightScope's advisory board, and most recently as a technical advisor on the Showtime hedge fund drama Billions.

Introduction and Background

Origin Story
"A personal crisis." Josh describes the epiphany he had in leaving the brokerage industry for the advice business after 10 years (1:20-3:41).

"It worked immediately." How the Reformed Broker blog was born and led to a chance meeting with Barry Ritholtz, which gave rise to an RIA (3:42-5:21).

Barry Ritholtz bio
Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy by Barry Ritholtz
"How I Met Barry" by Josh Brown, The Reformed Broker blog

The Advice Business
"If they haven’t figured it out by now, they probably don’t want to." Observations on how the advice business has changed (5:22-7:29).

"Brokerages in name only." Why wirehouse clients aren't necessarily being ill-served by the system (7:30-8:09).

Lending: The key difference between a fee-based account at a Wall Street wirehouse and a fee-based account at a traditional RIA (8:10-10:34).