Bloomberg Talks: Adam Dell

Summary

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Bloomberg Talks: Adam Dell (June 26, 2026)

Overview

This episode features Adam Dell, Founder and CEO of Domain Money, speaking with Bloomberg’s Carol Massar and Tim Stanwick live from the Uncharted Summit in Southampton. The conversation centers on the evolution of fintech, the unique positioning of Domain Money as a flat-fee, tech-forward wealth management platform for the "emerging affluent," and the transformative role of AI in financial services. Dell discusses democratizing financial advice, the pitfalls of traditional advisory models, client needs, and the real-world impact of new technology in wealth management.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Evolution of Fintech and Consumer Empowerment

• Fintech’s Journey: The hosts open discussing the vast changes in fintech from its "pre-digital" early days to today’s AI-driven landscape. Adam Dell is noted for being a pioneer in this space since before there was "tech in finance." (00:46)
• Empowering the Consumer:
  • Adam Dell frames Domain Money’s mission as giving consumers more leverage and transparency in their financial lives.
  • He argues that while the Internet initially provided access to information, today’s AI tools offer consumers even more power and options.
  • Quote:

    "We're trying to blow apart the 1% AUM fee that most people pay to their financial advisor, which if you do the math over the course of a lifetime is essentially the equivalent of giving your advisor a house." – Adam Dell (01:22)

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2. Why Are Traditional Advisors Still in Demand?

• Persistence of High Advisory Fees:
  • Carol asks why, despite robo-advisors and digital solutions, high-priced human advisors still flourish across all wealth brackets. (02:21)
  • Adam identifies two factors:
    • Complexity and Stakes: People seek human experts when financial decisions are complex and mistakes are costly.
    • Limitations of Robo-Advisors: Robo platforms only cover basic taxable accounts and miss nuanced life planning (529s, RSUs, cash flow, etc.).
  • Quote:

    "If you want a digital AI advisor today, you can get it from ChatGPT for free... but people want interaction with someone who has judgment and understands... the nuances of their family and their lives, and they'll pay for it." – Adam Dell (02:46)

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3. Domain Money’s Approach and Target Demographic

• Service Model & Flat Fee Structure:
  • Clients get a dedicated Certified Financial Planner for continuous, holistic advice, investment management, tax filing, estate planning, and ongoing financial coaching. (04:02)
• Demographic Target:
  • Average client: 42 years old, household income $364k, net worth $1.3 million—just below the "traditional" private client level. (04:27)
  • These clients feel underserviced by both mass-market robo-advisors and traditional wirehouses.
  • Quote:

    "Nobody wants to feel like a second-class citizen wherever they go." – Adam Dell (04:45)

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4. Client Needs: Strategy Over Exotic Assets

• Planning and Tax Efficiency Matter Most:
  • Clients aren’t seeking private credit or alternative assets.
  • Core needs: proper tax strategies, optimal allocation across all accounts (401ks, RSUs, etc.), and consistent goal-focused saving.
• Long-Term Relationships:
  • The goal is to serve clients as their wealth and financial complexity grow over time, aiming to evolve Domain Money’s offerings as clients’ needs mature.
• Product Roadmap:
  • Expanding scenario planning, integrating estate planning with partners like Trust & Will, and improving digital/human experience. (06:16)

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5. Crypto’s Role for This Segment

• Client Interest Follows the Cycle:
  • Interest in crypto spikes with price surges but wanes during downturns.
  • Domain Money advises on prudent allocation rather than promoting speculation.
  • Quote:

    "There's always an interest in the thing that's going up the most... But we absolutely have lots of clients who have crypto and we help advise them on what allocation would be an appropriate risk." – Adam Dell (07:03)

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6. The Business Vision: Solving for the "Emerging Affluent"

• 100M+ Potential:
  • There are 29 million Americans in Domain Money’s target segment underserved by current wealth management models.
• Exit/Acquisition Question:
  • Dell says the focus is on solving client problems rather than preparing for a specific acquirer, though he acknowledges strong institutional interest.
  • Repeated on Tenure:
    • Dell is noncommittal about how long he’ll stay as CEO.
    • Memorable Banter:

      Carol: "Because you are a serial founder, you're a serial entrepreneur... How many years are you going to be running it, do you think?"
      Dell: "That's a great question. I'll let you know when I, when you answer that." (08:10–08:24)

• Unique Client Experience:
  • Domain Money "maps the journey" for clients, rather than leaving them to drive the service agenda, differentiating from most traditional advisers.
  • Focus on real-life planning (“Can I go on vacation this year?”) over theoretical investment strategies.
  • Quote:

    "You go to a traditional wealth management firm... they'll give you a 60 page analysis, Sharpe ratios and Monte Carlo simulations... What you really care about is how much can you spend on vacation this year?" – Adam Dell (09:40)

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7. AI’s Transformational Role in Wealth Management

• AI Across the Enterprise:
  • Domain Money employs AI in sales, engineering, marketing, and service delivery.
  • Fast-declining token costs are making operations cheaper and more efficient.
  • Quote:

    "The rate at which these foundational models are learning and improving is just astounding... The cost of tokens is declining so precipitously that really our costs are declining." – Adam Dell (10:54)

• AI: Universal Impact:
  • Adam stresses any business not embracing AI for efficiency and cost reduction is falling behind.
  • Memorable Moment:

    Tim: "So it sounds like ROI, you're finding in a big way."
    Dell agrees, signaling optimism for AI's continuing disruption. (11:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On traditional advisor fees:
  "We are trying to blow apart the 1% AUM fee... which is essentially the equivalent of giving your advisor a house." – Adam Dell (01:22)
• On the persistence of human advisors:
  "People want a bespoke human experience... want to sit down with somebody that they trust." – Adam Dell (02:46)
• On client experience:
  "We really define the journey clearly and map it out for the client rather than let the client drive..." – Adam Dell (08:48)
• On wealth management priorities:
  "People wake up every day and they're not thinking about asset allocation, they're thinking about 'can I go on vacation' kind of reality." – Adam Dell (10:04)
• On the speed of AI:
  "The rate at which these foundational models are learning and improving is just astounding." – Adam Dell (10:54)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:22] – Adam Dell explains Domain Money's mission to disrupt the traditional % fee model.
• [02:46] – Why human advisors remain attractive despite AI and robo-advisors.
• [04:02] – Dell details Domain’s flat-fee model and end-to-end services.
• [04:27] – The true demographic of Domain Money’s users.
• [07:03] – Discussion about crypto and investor behavior.
• [08:48] – How Domain Money leads the client experience and why institutional buyers are interested.
• [10:54] – Deep dive into how AI is reshaping both Domain Money’s business and the industry.

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Summary

Adam Dell offers an incisive look at why traditional models persist, how Domain Money is filling the service gap for the “emerging affluent,” and why blending technology, human expertise, and financial planning matters most. He is passionate about leveraging AI for better client outcomes and business efficiency, while remaining committed to guiding clients through life's real financial decisions—not just portfolio management. The episode leaves listeners with a clear picture of where fintech is heading and how meaningful change is coming for a neglected class of investors.

Transcript

[Indiana University Announcer]

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[Tim Stanwick]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, Radio News, Carol Massar, Tim Stanwick live here at Uncharted in Southampton. And you know, think about finte. I mean there's things like nowadays, agentic AI, digital and tokenized assets, programmable money compliance. I mean, fintech has come a very long way. When you think about years ago when it kind of first came on, certainly the landscape and how we talked about it.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah. Somebody who's been in fintech really since the very beginning is Adam Dell. He's the founder and CEO at Domain Money. He's known for a lot venture capital, Clarity Money, which sold to Goldman Sachs reportedly $100 million just a few years ago. He's also former principal over at Crosspoint Venture Partners. He joins us here at the Uncharted Summit in Southampton. Welcome, welcome. How are you?

[Adam Dell]

Thanks for having me.

[Carol Massar]

Hey, thanks for joining us. As we mentioned, you have been in fintech really since there was no tech in finance, like this is like what you've been doing for such a long time. What was the opportunity that you identified right now with Domain Money?

[Adam Dell]

Well, really it's about the empowerment of the consumer. The Internet was the first wave of giving access to consumers information about choice and options and really helping them understand what pricing power they did have relative to their bank, their financial advisor, their investments. And that opened up the mind of the consumer to really delve deeper into what their options are. And of course now with AI and with these incredibly powerful tools at the hands of consumers, they have much more leverage when they are dealing with things like retirement. Their financial advisor, which is really the opportunity we're pursuing at Domain Money, we are trying to blow apart the 1% AUM fee that most people pay to their financial advisor, which if you do the math over the course of a lifetime is essentially the equivalent of giving your advisor a house.

[Carol Massar]

Okay, so here's what I don't get. Okay, here's what I don't get. So many rich people are super smart, hence how they got their money. They are still paying huge management fees that end up eating into returns. Even people who don't have a ton of money are paying huge management fees. I thought the robo advisors were going to kill this. But you know what? Quarter after quarter we hear from the banks, wealth management business is booming. We're bringing in more and more clients, we're bringing in more and more money. Why?

[Adam Dell]

So, a couple of things. One is, is that when the complexity is high and the cost of being wrong is high, you want an expert. And while Robo advisors solve one part of that problem, which is just your fundamental taxable investment accounts, what about your 529plan for your kids? What about your RSUs? What about your 401k? What about how you manage the cash flow and budgeting to fund the various goals you have for the long term? Robo advisors don't do that. And people want a bespoke human experience. They want to be able to sit down with somebody that they trust and understands the nuances of their life and help them navigate all of those pieces. And so, you know, people continue to seek out a human advisor and will continue to seek out a human advisor. If you want a digital AI advisor today, you can get it from ChatGPT for free, essentially. But people don't want that. They want the, you know, interaction with someone who has judgment and understands, again, the nuances of their family and their lives, and they'll pay for it. Unfortunately, most people don't appreciate that. That 1% fee is enormously erosive to their long term net worth.

[Tim Stanwick]

One of the things I'm curious about too, flat fee you guys do, you've got one advisor, one, you know, that works with one client, and you do that through the duration as much as you can.

[Adam Dell]

That's right. With domain money, you get a dedicated certified financial planner, which is the highest level of designation in the advisor business. They stay with you out throughout your journey and we handle everything. We manage your investments, we file your taxes, we get you an estate plan, we give you a financial plan, obviously, and we work with you and coach you along the way to help you stay on track as your life unfolds and as things change.

[Tim Stanwick]

Adam, who's your demographic? Give us an idea of who is mostly on the platform.

[Adam Dell]

Yeah. Our average customer is 42 years old, household income of 364, net worth of 1.3 million. So they're right smack below the traditional wealth management sector. And they are frustrated because their options are call Vanguard, get sold an ETF with somebody with a headset on trying to get another account.

[The Hartford Announcer]

Yeah.

[Adam Dell]

Or they go to a traditional wealth management firm and they say you don't really have enough investable assets. We'll take you because you're an accommodation client, a friend of the firm, but they'll end up assigning you a junior person and the quality of advice you get and the attention you get is quite low. And nobody wants to feel like a second class citizen wherever they go.

[Tim Stanwick]

What are the assets they want? I'm curious about. We've spent a lot of time, I feel like, over the last couple years talking about private credit, alternative assets. What is it that they want?

[Adam Dell]

Great question. Our client is not looking for private credit or access to alternatives. It's really about the correct tax allocation and strategy and minimizing those taxes. It's about allocation of their investments given what's in their 401k and their RSU's. And it's really about planning, ensuring that you're consistently saving towards your goals. Given the permutations of life as it unfolds.

[Carol Massar]

Are they going to stay with you throughout their financial journey?

[Adam Dell]

Yeah, that's our ambition.

[Carol Massar]

It is, yeah. So they'll grow with you because they won't, you know, start making more money and then go and become a private client at one of the big banks.

[Adam Dell]

That's right. So this client will have $5 million in 20 years and they'll inherit 84 trillion over the course of the next 20. And our ambition is to evolve our service offering and serve clients as their complexity increases. And to that point, we do have clients today who are in their late 50s and have five or six million dollars and are looking for the proper allocation.

[Carol Massar]

What's, what's the, I guess the, the stuff that you're missing right now, like what do you still need to build out to accommodate people who have even more complex financial lives?

[Adam Dell]

Well, we've partnered with trust and will to help with things like estate planning, where there are much more complex trusts in place rather than just a straightforward will. So we feel like we can serve clients pretty well today. But of course, over time we'll enhance the platform. One of the things that we're working on is building out our scenario planning capabilities, which is what clients really want is to be able to interact with a digital platform that's modern and next gen, but also have a human advisor. And so we're working on expanding our scenario planning tools to basically serve clients as they get more mature in their life.

[Tim Stanwick]

Got to ask you, because you guys, I love talking with folks like you because you see stuff on the, on the platform, what real investors are interested in, are they still interested in cryptocurrencies? Like, I'm curious, you've been involved in this world and what's, what's going on? As we've seen, certainly bitcoin fall Back dramatically from the highs.

[Adam Dell]

Yeah, I mean, there's always an interest in the thing that's going up the most. And when crypto is tearing, people are very interested in it. When it sort of falters or goes down, people are less enamored by that asset class. But we absolutely have lots of clients who have crypto and we help advise them on what allocation would be an appropriate risk to take given their timeline, their horizon and their again, essentially their willingness to bear risk.

[Carol Massar]

I mentioned that you sold Clarity Money to Goldman Sachs reportedly for around $100 million. Who, who buys domain money?

[Adam Dell]

I get that question a lot. You know, we really focus and at the same. And I felt the same with Clarity Money, I like to focus on solving a problem. And there is 29 million people in the United States who fall within the demographic that I described earlier that really can't get good wealth management services. And we're trying to solve that problem. I think if we do that well with technology and our teams, there will be no shortage of institutions that would be interested in our business.

[Carol Massar]

What would your timeline be for that?

[Adam Dell]

I don't really have that in mind.

[Carol Massar]

Are you in this for the long haul or you, I mean, because you are a serial founder, you're a serial entrepreneur, like this, you know, you, you invest in a lot of different places too. Like how. I understand you're committed to this, but how many years are you going to be running it, do you think?

[Adam Dell]

That's a great question. I'll let you know when I, when you answer that.

[Tim Stanwick]

Are you working for investment bankers or something, I don't know, on the side.

[Adam Dell]

You know something? I don't know.

[Carol Massar]

It is, it is. Well, it is a time when, when there are so. It seems like there are so many opportunities for exits and there's so much growth in this area. And like you were saying, I think a lot of financial institutions would find this demographic interesting, one that they don't traditionally pay attention to because it doesn't necessarily make sense for them. Them. But you found a way for it to make sense financially.

[Adam Dell]

Yeah, I mean, we can serve this client segment profitably given our technology and the way we serve this client. And part of the magic that we've uncovered is that we really define the journey clearly and map it out for the client rather than let the client drive, which is typical in the industry. Because it's a service oriented business, you tend to let the client do whatever they want, which is if they want to call and talk about the machinations of the market, you Talk to them. We've come up with a service delivery model that really locks down the experience. And we found that clients appreciate it because they feel like they were being led down a path that helps them end up at the goals they care about, rather than just talking about the market, which really isn't very useful. What's most important is do you have the right allocation? Do you have the right long term strategy? Are you sticking to that strategy and will that strategy yield the result you want? But to your point about the institutional interest in our business, you know, we believe that there's no shortage of the large wirehouses, the large consolidators in the RIA space who would find our business model, and most importantly our technology incredibly compelling. What we have built is it is a product that serves the actual needs of the emerging affluent. And the needs are connecting cash flow and budgeting with long term goals. You go to a traditional wealth management firm and what they focus on is investment management. They'll give you a 60 page analysis, Sharpe ratios and Monte Carlo simulations of your investment portfolio. And if you're 42 and you make 360 as a household, what you really care about is how much can you spend on vacation this year? Not am I getting this nth degree of yield on my Monte Carlo simulation if I were to change my allocation in my portfolio? People wake up every day and they're not thinking about asset allocation, they're thinking about can I go on vacation kind of reality. Can I buy the house I want, can we afford to send the kids to private school which we believe they need? It would benefit them. Those are the life decisions that we help people navigate through in the context of their long term goals.

[Tim Stanwick]

If we could just kind of broaden out the lens for a moment and just think about the conversations we have so often at Bloomberg about artificial intelligence and where this is all going. And I think about things in the financial world, prediction markets. What do you find interesting right now?

[Adam Dell]

Well, AI is just incredible. I mean, I know I'm not alone in that, that proclamation, but we use AI in every part of our business. Whether it's the sales side, engineering side, marketing side, the service delivery of our financial plans and the rate at which these foundational models are learning and improving is just astounding. The other incredible thing is how quickly the costs are declining. You know, we consume a lot of tokens in the utilization of our service delivery. We ingest a lot of documents, we parcel out of documents, we extract a lot of data. And the cost of tokens is declining so precipitously that really our costs are declining. And so I'm just incredibly excited by the disruption in business process innovation that AI presents for our business, just on a pure operational level.

[Tim Stanwick]

Yeah.

[Adam Dell]

And so I think about that in the context of all the millions of businesses that are out there. And if you talk to any small business owner or even a large business owner, they are really focused on finding ways to use AI to improve cost and improve efficiency. If you're not, you're really not doing the right thing.

[Tim Stanwick]

Yeah. So it sounds like roi. You're a finding in a big way. This was really fun. Thank you so much.

[Adam Dell]

Thank you for having me.

[Tim Stanwick]

Yeah, thanks for finding time for us. Adam Dell, Founder and CEO of Domain Money so much more too, but just a great voice on everything that's going on in the world and certainly on

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