The WealthTech Podcast Transcript

Host: Mark Wickersham

Guest: Michael Thrasher, Founder Modus News

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Mark Wickersham: All right, Michael, welcome to the Wealth Tech Podcast. I am happy to have you on the show. We have a lot to talk about today. We have certainly, an ever-evolving landscape in both the family office market, as well as

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Mark Wickersham: the changing media landscape, which I'd like to kind of get into both of those subjects, but…

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Mark Wickersham: Michael, would you mind kind of giving an introduction of yourself in, MODUS News?

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, thanks so much for having me on the, on the program. Sure, so the short version is, I'm Michael Thrasher, I've been a long-time financial journalist. I most recently, and I'm based in New York City, and I, most recently was working at Institutional Investor Magazine.

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Michael Thrasher: And then, a year ago, started an independent media company, and what that really is, is this weekly newsletter that I send out to people that work at family offices, and that's… that's it. That's Motus.

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Mark Wickersham: So, tell me a little bit about… why did you start ModUs? Tell me a little bit about your founder's journey.

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Mark Wickersham: what was the impetus to kind of go out on your own? And then, you know, kind of taking a look at the past year of launching the newsletter and the independent news service, like, what has surprised you the most?

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Michael Thrasher: Sure, so I'll start, with some of the, the former there.

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Michael Thrasher: a couple years ago, there were basically sort of, like, two things happening at the same time. I was… I was working in Institutional Investor Magazine, and, 

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Michael Thrasher: I was just sort of thinking about… I had been there for a little while, and thinking about what I was going to do next, in my career. And the other thing happening simultaneously. 

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Michael Thrasher: Was, at least, like, anecdotally,

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Michael Thrasher: I felt like I knew a growing number of people that were leaving, either some institution, an endowment, foundation, pension system, or whatever, or an asset manager. Those were really, like, the organizations that I was covering at the magazine.

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Michael Thrasher: I felt like I knew a growing list of people from those places that were going to work for a private investment office.

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Michael Thrasher: And I really wasn't writing many stories or anything, but I was just curious, because this was sort of like the last group of investors that I had not had any kind of, like, regular engagement with, or had done much reporting on, ever.

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Michael Thrasher: And as I, spoke to some of these folks, one of the things that I sort of kept hearing was that they felt

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Michael Thrasher: like, there was a disproportionate amount of journalism, sort of, like, about them as a group of investors, but not really for them as a group of investors. And… or at least not, terribly good journalism, or terribly good journalism consistently. And so,

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Michael Thrasher: I just had, like, alarms going off in my head when I heard that, after so many… after so many times, of all groups to feel… 

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Michael Thrasher: underserved, that felt like a really weird one, right? Like, there's, in 2025, there is, like, a newsletter, I mean, one narrowly focused for, like, every type of professional.

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Mark Wickersham: Right, exactly.

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Mark Wickersham: Model train enthusiast, or whatever, like, any.

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Michael Thrasher: Oh, yeah.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, right?

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Michael Thrasher: There's probably, like, 5 different ones just for that, right? Like, you know, there's… and so,

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Michael Thrasher: So, I… I… I felt like there was this good opportunity. The good thing about financial services is

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Michael Thrasher: You know, you still have to think hard, but there's still, a good commercial opportunity, to, like, sell ads against something, and or have some kind of subscription,

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Michael Thrasher: And even at, like, a relatively small scale.

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Michael Thrasher: And then, I just also had, like, a very…

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Michael Thrasher: I had a very specific idea, or sort of vision for how I thought that, like, can or needed to be done for all these things for it to be successful. For all this to sort of happen, I thought all this sort of… it needed to happen in concert is maybe, like, a good way to describe it.

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Michael Thrasher: And so that's, that's sort of how I came to the conclusion to leave and start an independent company. I intentionally bootstrapped the business.

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Michael Thrasher: And it's, you know, thankfully gone really well since then.

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Mark Wickersham: Well, that's great, and it's obviously a great addition and service to the family office community.

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Mark Wickersham: Tell me a little bit about the name. Where'd the name come from?

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Mark Wickersham: Sure, I mean, most people are familiar with a modus operandi, right? Yeah.

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Michael Thrasher: You know, the modus is just, like, the, the means or way, procedure of doing something, whether it's, like, living life, or whatever. And, I just felt like if I was gonna be to…

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Michael Thrasher: doing journalism for professionals and helping them do their jobs. It…

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Michael Thrasher: It felt like a fit, and the domain was available.

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Mark Wickersham: That could be the hard part, right?

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Mark Wickersham: come up with a lot of great names, and then you find out the thing's trademarked, or the name's not available, and… there you go, got the mug going. So what has kind of surprised you over the past year when you look back at, you know.

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Mark Wickersham: What you were thinking about, and where you are now.

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Michael Thrasher: Oh, well,

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Michael Thrasher: I did, I did write some notes here so I don't fall into some rabbit hole for, you know, 30 minutes about all these, like, little things. You know, I guess, actually, I think the best way to answer this question,

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Michael Thrasher: Is that it feels like almost every adage about starting a business that you hear from entrepreneurs and founders or whatever, it feels like so many of those are actually true.

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Michael Thrasher: For better or worse, there's a ton of things that are extremely, extremely fulfilling, and there's a ton of things that are really difficult, or that, you just would not be able to consider unless you

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Michael Thrasher: Had actually done it previously.

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Michael Thrasher: So, so there's been a lot of surprises, you know, no, like, huge singular surprise, or, or good or bad. I would sort of describe it as, like.

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Michael Thrasher: you know, every day, it's… to be, especially, like, solopreneering, like, I've worked for, either, like, with or for a startup, many years ago during a hiatus from journalism, and that was a small group, but I was not the only one. Like, solopreneering is, like, the ultimate, sort of,

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Michael Thrasher: like, death by a thousand cuts. Like, none of these things that I'm doing are, like… There's no idea.

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Mark Wickersham: There's no nothing, right?

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, totally, and…

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Michael Thrasher: And, you know, the business of sending a newsletter to people is, like, not terribly complex, or so you would think, until you start doing it. And none of these things that come with, like, running any kind of small business, no matter what that is.

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Michael Thrasher: or this business specifically, are… are, it's… I'm not doing anything that someone out there has not done before, and they are not individually terribly hard, but when you put all that together, and then you realize, oh, I…

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Michael Thrasher: short of working 80 hours a week, you just have to sort of live with some things and pick and choose your battles and, like, do the best that you can, and also, like, remind yourself that you're in it, like, for the long haul. You know, it's… it doesn't really do much good to, like, check things

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Michael Thrasher: off the…

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Michael Thrasher: List this week, if it's gonna, like, you know, make me exhausted and unenthusiastic about it next week.

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Mark Wickersham: I guess it's all those cliches about, like, you know, having kids, or all the cliches, once you become a parent, kind of become true. I guess the same's for starting your own business.

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Mark Wickersham: Talk to me about the role of independent media. I think we've seen the, really, kind of, the media landscape shift a lot. I think you've… you certainly have seen a lot of…

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Mark Wickersham: I don't know if mainstream media is the right word for it, but certainly a lot of…

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Mark Wickersham: news people have shifted off of being part of network news and gone independent, or have started their own podcast. Certainly podcasting is…

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Mark Wickersham: Become a big outlet for a lot of firms, but…

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Mark Wickersham: How has the media landscape shifted over the past few years, and why is it so important to have independent media, even in the family office space?

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Michael Thrasher: Sure.

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Michael Thrasher: there's, I… I feel… this is… could be, like, a podcast series in itself, but, but, like, the really succinct…

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Michael Thrasher: Probably two general answers that,

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Michael Thrasher: Media generally has faced, like, two massive headwinds. One, where people are choosing to spend their ad dollars has changed dramatically over the last two decades.

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Michael Thrasher: And so, even though the number of ad dollars has continued to just go up and up and up.

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Michael Thrasher: The portion of that pie going to legacy media companies, whether it be broadcast networks.

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Michael Thrasher: newspapers, whatever. That… That portion of the pie is getting smaller.

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Michael Thrasher: Now… There's another huge headwind, as well, which is,

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Michael Thrasher: and these two are actually very connected, or I guess sort of arguably one of the same, is that people are… only have so many waking hours of the day. Only so much of that can be dedicated to something informational entertainment or whatever in front of a screen.

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Michael Thrasher: And people are increasingly

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Michael Thrasher: choosing other things that are far more engaging. All kinds of stuff, across all kinds of platforms. Yeah. So…

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Michael Thrasher: So news has, like, kind of been hit with a double whammy, which is, like, you know, like, not more resources, if anything less, for many organizations, and they have this, like, totally new…

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Michael Thrasher: you know, these, like, constantly emerging, growing, and increasingly better, like, competitors for attention. So, I think it's a big mistake, actually, for a lot of media companies to sort of talk about, like, their shortlist of competitors, or, like, writing about the same things.

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Michael Thrasher: You actually are…

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Michael Thrasher: I think that's important. Not like I obviously, like every media person does this, but I think it's really important to sort of zoom out and think about just, like, you know, how, you know, what is it that you're doing, and, like, how well is that competing with just, like, someone's attention in general? So those are, like.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, the attention economy, right? Like, you're competing against Cat videos, really.

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Michael Thrasher: Exactly, exactly. So that's, like, at a high level, some of the shifts. So it doesn't really matter whether you're writing about, like, family offices, you do a newsletter, you do a podcast, you know, like, all of this is all competing in that attention sphere, right? Okay, so, like, why is… I'll talk about, like, family offices and modus and, like, independent media and why that's important.

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Michael Thrasher: There… there's a ton of…

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Michael Thrasher: great resources for family offices, right, that have been around for a long time. And they… they… this stuff comes from all kinds of places, like banks, asset managers, there's a lot of… there's membership organizations, there's independent research organizations, there's, journalists.

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Michael Thrasher: There… I mean, there's a lot of stuff.

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Mark Wickersham: Great surveys come out every year by some of the major institutions, right? Yeah. Certainly got some great memberships.

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Michael Thrasher: Exactly.

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Mark Wickersham: and peer organizations.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, exactly. And

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Michael Thrasher: I don't really think of a lot of those folks as competitors, actually, because what they're doing is valuable, but, they're…

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Michael Thrasher: they aren't gonna be able to go places and do things that independent journalism, can and should do, right? And I think that's part of the reason why MODIS has been successful, is that, I'm…

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Michael Thrasher: you know, not just coincidentally, but I'm, like, looking for things that are timely, relevant, and that I know people who work at offices are interested in.

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Michael Thrasher: That, other organizations, either because they won't, because of the type of organization that they are, the type of work that they're doing, or they can't because they don't have the resources.

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Michael Thrasher: And so… being independent is really important, because that's really what enables you to do that type of journalism.

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Michael Thrasher: And,

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Michael Thrasher: And that's ultimately, you know, if you are a news organization, which is the only business that MODIS is in, and that's something I should have maybe explained earlier, I only generate revenue from ads in the newsletter. I don't take fees from recruiters, I don't do capital introduction, I don't consult for asset management.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, exactly, yeah. I mean, I have, like, advertisement is, like, clearly marked in the newsletter. Yeah. And that, like, also gives me that, that freedom. There's a lot of, like, great,

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Michael Thrasher: business reasons also to, like, bootstrap a company, and I could talk a lot about, the importance of, of, like, ownership independence, you know, an independence in terms of ownership of a title and publication, and capital structure and all that kind of stuff, but in terms of, like, the actual work.

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Michael Thrasher: That is also, like, really important to keep in mind, and was really the…

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Michael Thrasher: you know, in some ways, the kind of North Star for…

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Michael Thrasher: basically every decision that I've made about the company.

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Mark Wickersham: Well, it's an important role that you fill in,

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Mark Wickersham: I've been enjoying the content. It's certainly… I think it's been actually even complimentary to some of the other firms that are putting out content, like the… highlighting the recent B of A Family Office Report. They have a new inaugural

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Mark Wickersham: report, which I, I thought was interesting. Would you mind talking about that, that, their new report for a little bit?

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Michael Thrasher: Sure, you know, I guess…

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Michael Thrasher: in some ways, it's just another report from one of the large banks that is working with a lot of offices in, like, some capacity or another. But I did, you know, spend at least a little bit of time, talking to Elizabeth there, and, who, who, she's the woman who runs their, family office

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Michael Thrasher: I can't remember if theirs is called Services or Solutions, but effectively the group dedicated to helping

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Michael Thrasher: Primarily single-family offices.

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Michael Thrasher: And also some other ultra-high net worth that are,

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Michael Thrasher: clients of the bank in some capacity. Just sort of navigate the firm, and

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Michael Thrasher: you know, they've obviously seen a lot of the reports, so they, you know, every report is, at a high level, pretty similar, but, like, has its own nuances and things that they're really trying to get at. You know, I can't remember, actually, if I had written this…

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Michael Thrasher: in that newsletter or not, but, but she actually, like, comes from, like, corporate cash management, and, has worked at the bank for many years, and is arguably, like.

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Michael Thrasher: You know, that's one of the best skills and sort of knowledge sets that you could have to work with offices, because especially if you're newly established or really trying to professionalize,

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Michael Thrasher: the starting place is actually, you know, knowing where everything is, and managing the coming and going and all of capital and all the accounts and things, and then once you understand that, and you have that foundation, you can start

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Michael Thrasher: Making better informed investment decisions, because you actually know how much money you have, and can have expectations, right, around those capital calls and everything else, and

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Michael Thrasher: So, so it really is, like, you know, this is why, like, the first employee or whoever is, like, oftentimes someone who's, like, an accountant, or the controller from the operating company, because that's… it's the… it is, for many offices, like, the logical starting.

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Michael Thrasher: starting place. So they dug a little bit into there that a lot of the reports, they went a little bit deeper there than a lot of the reports, haven't, I don't think, so far. So that… that was one thing that I talked to her about, and…

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, I thought that was an interesting aspect of how many accounts that they… how many bank accounts that they have that these family offices are dealing with. There's basically a, you know, like you said, there's a full-blown treasury function within these family offices, and in some cases, they may not be using institutional rails to be able to manage

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Mark Wickersham: their liquidity, their payment, their transparency into how much cash they have, where cash is in flight. Obviously, I think you couple that with family offices that…

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Mark Wickersham: could also invest in a high concentration in a liquid securities that you can, you know, that what liquidity you do have becomes really important, so I thought that was really kind of an interesting aspect of the study.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, yeah, I… I… I agreed, and I don't know, that newsletter performed as well as any, so it seemed… it seemed that readers were, they agreed, or at least agreed enough.

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Mark Wickersham: Let's talk about some of the other big stories, that, that I've broke, and then I also want to kind of then pop it up a little bit higher, but, Aseta, so they, they had, seed round funding, you had a chance to, to, interview one of the co-founders there.

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Mark Wickersham: Dean Pometier, would you, would you mind talking about that, that,

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Mark Wickersham: That story for a little bit?

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I met Dean and became a little familiar with a set of…

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Michael Thrasher: I think that was actually, like, early, early… pretty early this calendar year.

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Michael Thrasher: And,

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Michael Thrasher: And I… I can't remember what happened first, if this was something that he and I had, that Dean and I had spoken about, or if I had seen this on LinkedIn, but, but they obviously did the rebrand, and

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Michael Thrasher: You know, you don't work on anything for a year or longer and invest all that time and energy, money, and then just, like, willy-nilly decide to, like.

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Michael Thrasher: change the name. So, without reason. So, I thought that was a great example of, something that, you know, even if the company, you know, even if this is not a secret,

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Michael Thrasher: you know, there's an op… there's often an opportunity for a news article to, explore some of those decisions a little bit more deeply, and then, you know, a lot of those stories, also serve as sort of

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Michael Thrasher: this isn't an imperfect way to describe it, but, like, a lot of these stories, I think, also serve as, like, really good breadcrumbs, because that's a business that has obviously gone on to, like, continue to raise capital, they have a bit of runway, they're gonna be trying to attract offices as customers for, you know, the near and foreseeable future.

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Michael Thrasher: And obviously they hope beyond.

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Michael Thrasher: And so, that's a business I know I'm gonna continue to cover. So, not every story

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Michael Thrasher: has to be an absolute home run. But if there's a timely reason to share some new information with, like, their existing customers, prospects, and their competitors, and other observers, I mean, there's a huge variety. The ecosystem is, like, pretty diverse.

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Mark Wickersham: In terms of modus readers, but they all have some kind of, stake.

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Michael Thrasher: in that journalism, to some degree, usually. So… so that's a good example of,

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Michael Thrasher: you know, maybe how I… how I think about…

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Michael Thrasher: stories and make some decisions about certain things, and… and then there's…

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Mark Wickersham: press release is worthy of covering, but certainly some…

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Mark Wickersham: Some are kind of bigger than others, some announcements are bigger than others, and then, as you say, as you start to…

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Mark Wickersham: to layer these breadcrumbs together, you start to get kind of… an overarching story kind of starts to present themselves. I think you certainly see…

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Mark Wickersham: with, with these guys, you're starting to… you see an investment being made in family office-specific technology, right? Not only is it, you know.

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Mark Wickersham: it's not legacy, it's AI-native technology, which is interesting in its own right, but, you know, family office, purpose-built software, which you're seeing more and more of, and they're certainly not the only ones. You have Alex Lin over at…

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Mark Wickersham: Summit, you have a number of different firms that are coming out there that are… you know, previously, I think, in the family office industry, you really had to…

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Mark Wickersham: you're either using retail software, which too many family offices still do with, say, QuickBooks, or you're using maybe software that was maybe a little bit more horizontal, maybe a little bit more…

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Mark Wickersham: You know, for advisors or, you know, portfolio accounting and whatnot that maybe wasn't the best for the family office specific requirements in terms of the entities and the layered entities and the multi-asset class, and now you're seeing a lot of different

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Mark Wickersham: Options available, and then you're also seeing other…

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Mark Wickersham: providers, like Archway getting pulled out of SEI. Tell me a little bit about the bigger picture and the bigger trends that you're seeing in the market.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, that's… I… I…

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Michael Thrasher: This is, like, a good, a good time to segue to that, since we were talking about a site. Like, another reason that I'm really interested in those venture-backed, upstarts is that they are…

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Michael Thrasher: you know, I… I… and you and I, I think, actually have… have talked a little briefly about this, or corresponded about it,

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Michael Thrasher: The number of offices has obviously grown pretty significantly in recent years, and that's expected to continue. And with that little bit more scale, there's that many more…

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Michael Thrasher: companies and people interested in tapping this market in some capacity or another. Now, there's obviously been, like, many companies that have been around and doing this

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Michael Thrasher: working with offices in some capacity for a long time. So, there's… and because, especially when you're talking about technology, this stuff can change pretty quickly, and AI has certainly

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Michael Thrasher: poured fuel on that fire. Ai has definitely not, like, slowed adoption or changes, that's… that's for sure. So, and so…

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Michael Thrasher: I'm, you know, at a high level, I don't know if this is a great way to describe it. I'm sort of, like, road testing this idea with people as I talk about it.

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Mark Wickersham: At a Tay Club with us.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, with some… with a lot of salt on… on this, I… I sort of visually think about it like this, like, offices are trying to get to this destination of improved efficiency.

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Michael Thrasher: And, you know, most of the stuff that they're doing is not… like, this is, you know, how offices are operating and the breadth of things that they're responsible for, generally, like, that's not…

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Michael Thrasher: really changing much. They're just trying to be more efficient and get better, and because they're getting bigger and wealthier, and because… especially depending on their… the investing that they're doing, like, this job is only getting harder and more complex. And so there's, like, there is that incentive, even though it's not some, like, commercial endeavor, or this is, like, effectively a cost center for a family in, you know, most or all cases, pretty…

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Michael Thrasher: Arguably.

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Michael Thrasher: There's still… there is… there's still this impulse, and there still is some kind of pull to get to this, like I said, this sort of destination more efficiency.

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Michael Thrasher: And I think that there are…

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Michael Thrasher: Legacy org… legacy service providers that are trying to, like… and as well as these upstarts, that are trying to sort of get to that destina… meet them at that destination first, or be waiting there for them.

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Michael Thrasher: Obviously, many of them are, like, existing customers, so this is, like, an imperfect way to think about it, but it is a little bit, at least, like, journalistically, how I think about and frame stories. There's, like.

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Michael Thrasher: two very different groups that are, you know, at a high level, communicating that they do the same thing for this customer, and this customer wants better service. So whoever's going to be able to deliver that better service before the other is going to have an advantage.

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Michael Thrasher: as business. And,

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Michael Thrasher: And I think, like, Aqualine purchasing Archway is, like, a really fascinating, part. I think if there were, like, no GPs coming into the space and investing or acquiring some of those legacy businesses, it would be…

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Michael Thrasher: tempting to just sort of look at the upstarts and be like, oh.

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Michael Thrasher: the tech debt and everything else is gonna lose out, and in 5 years, everybody's gonna be on one of these, or they're gonna still be stuck in Excel and QuickBooks or whatever. But, like, there's obvi… you know, that's… that's just not… that's not the reality, obviously. There's, like, a ton of… those businesses are quite good at what they've done, they've been doing it a long time. There's, at least enough opportunity for improvement and growth.

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Michael Thrasher: that, you know, one of them has been acquired, and…

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Michael Thrasher: I don't… I wouldn't be, like, shocked if there's more activity on that side. Like, they will need capital to materially, change a lot of them, I suspect.

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Michael Thrasher: So, at a high level, like, this is… there's, like, never… you know, I always say that MODIS, it primarily covers two things. I write about investment management at the offices.

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Michael Thrasher: not markets and macro stuff, and I'm not trying to break news on any individual deal, or, like, report about a deal that's done. I don't really know what a reader's gonna do with that. Like, you… you… that opportunity has come and gone, so beyond a curiosity, I don't…

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Michael Thrasher: I've got other ways, like, as a solopreneur, I can spend my time.

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Michael Thrasher: But there's a very, like, meaty middle there about, like, how they think about their portfolios at a high level, and then how they're, like, broaching certain asset classes and why. And then the other, sort of, half of my time, more time than I even expected.

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Michael Thrasher: Is really reporting on the software and service providers that the offices are reliant on, because there's basically, like, an utter void

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Michael Thrasher: of that independent reporting about those companies. And in every other industry, there's journalism. This is, like, one of the main pillars of, like, accountability journalism, is, like, for the reader, reporting on companies that they are reliant on, and informing their decision-making about them. So… so I'm very interested in

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Michael Thrasher: all of that going on, everything going on in tech and services, like, at the highest level, like, I was sort of, you know, poorly communicating, maybe, like, in that visualization, but also all the way down…

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Mark Wickersham: The family office tech map. I like that the family office tech map, and it continues to evolve, but yeah, I think…

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, yeah. The tech map is a great example, I think, actually, of the… of, like, you know, sort of another… a different, imperfect visualization. These are just companies that I know are, you know, pretty active in the space, they work with a lot of offices, and,

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, that's… for anyone who's not… who's listening, but, like, not familiar with the map, this is just a list of, I don't know, maybe 35 or 40-some-odd companies that are in these categories. For anybody in the space, I don't think there's anything about that map that would, like, surprise anyone.

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Michael Thrasher: And I should also add, like, the map is just purely a, like, a journalistic

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Michael Thrasher: construct. This was something I was actually sort of already doing for myself, and then I just thought, well, I might as well…

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Mark Wickersham: market.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, and then I just was like, oh, I might as well, like, put this up there, because it might be… I get questions about this occasionally from people, and this is just a thing that they can reference. Nobody pays to be on that map, there's no, you know, that's just purely my own thing.

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Michael Thrasher: And, yeah, anyone who thinks, there's something missing or should be changed should, should send me an email. It's my, my best intent to make it as, like, you know, have as much utility as possible, even if that ceiling is pretty low.

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Mark Wickersham: I like it, I think, I do think your, your, your, your take there is… is…

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Mark Wickersham: a good one is, I look at the family office market, and you can kind of break it in the…

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Mark Wickersham: two components, right? The multifamily office market, which is commercial and profit-motivated.

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Mark Wickersham: RAA-based, offering family office services, but to a higher-end client.

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Mark Wickersham: And then, you know, we can get into… there's a whole other discussion about how that kind of gets… that term gets used and abused, but there are certainly legitimate multifamily offices out there that are… that are profit centers. And then you look at the single-family office.

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Michael Thrasher: Cost center, to your point. But they've always…

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Mark Wickersham: been trying to do more with less. So maybe on the multifamily office side, you call it scalability, because it's a… it's a profit-motivated, you're trying to…

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Mark Wickersham: scale the business, and the business is growing as you're adding on more clients, but family office side has been kind of a… a single-family office side has been similar in that they've always… they've always run really lean, and they've… they've… they handle a tremendous amount of complexity

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Mark Wickersham: And they're trying to do more with less, and the technology, like you said, is… those platforms are trying to provide a state for those clients where they can do more for less, that… especially, I think you're seeing with AI, and just technology and workflows in general, kind of

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Mark Wickersham: really reducing that first mile, low value. Data aggregation. It used to be, you know, tons of people were re-keying a lot of information into a lot of different spreadsheets and systems.

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Mark Wickersham: Now you're seeing these systems talk to each other, you're seeing that kind of…

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Mark Wickersham: data aggregation capabilities, especially on alternatives, there are point solutions that are available to these family offices that are allowing them to do more with less, so I think it's… I think it's a good take, and I think that's where…

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Mark Wickersham: You've seen a lot of activity, and that… certainly the family office… as the number of family offices explode, it becomes a more…

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Mark Wickersham: Attractive investment opportunity, but it was interesting that the…

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Mark Wickersham: FOTech Hub conference, they had a panel with a number of investors.

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Mark Wickersham: on their, Motive Partners, which was… did… wasn't part of the…

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Mark Wickersham: a set of, seed round funding. They were talking about that they're still interested in these vertical

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Mark Wickersham: markets, not necessarily looking at broad-based horizontal markets and trying to find solutions for that. These broader ERP systems can be an example of that, but really looking at firms and founders that are trying to build solutions for…

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Mark Wickersham: specific niches, specific verticals, and getting deep on those, so… and there's plenty of room to play. These institutional…

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Mark Wickersham: providers that have been out there for a long time, like Artway, have a ton of institutional knowledge, and then also you're seeing that these

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Mark Wickersham: new tech providers are coming in on that kind of second mover advantage, at least from a technology standpoint. So, like I say, it's the golden age of family office technology, but I will say that the good news is that family offices have more options than ever. The bad news is family offices have more options than ever.

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Mark Wickersham: It's creating a little bit of buyer's confusion, so that's why I think your newsletter is helping with that, to try to provide that kind of…

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Mark Wickersham: these storylines. What has been more… one of the more underrated stories that… that has kind of been out… out in the market that you've been thinking about?

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Michael Thrasher: Underrated story,

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Michael Thrasher: Okay. I guess I'll answer… I'll answer it this way.

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Michael Thrasher: I think that the AI story is, like, a bit overblown.

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Mark Wickersham: was underrated.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, like, so I think, like, the underrated is, like, all the other stuff, because AI has, like, sucked up so much of the oxygen.

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Michael Thrasher: you know… Most offices…

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Michael Thrasher: like, the typical office is, like, probably, like, a couple hundred million in assets, maybe, I don't know, give or take, and it, like, it might have 10 people, like, a lot of them have fewer, right? And so, like.

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Michael Thrasher: so many of the problems that offices have are, like, really not actually super unique to, like, a family office. Like, these are just small business problems in a gen… generally. It's just like, you know, it's like, you've got something pretty successful, you've got some resources, you've got some people.

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Michael Thrasher: But you don't have an unlimited amount of these things. In fact, in some cases, like, pretty limited. Like, there's only so many people, there's only so many hours in the day. And they also, sort of, like, by definition, then a lot of them have to be generalists, or they're wearing more than one hat. So…

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Michael Thrasher: So… And they are typically not… great technologists.

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Michael Thrasher: when you think about all these folks. And so, like, I mean, even in, like, pretty, like, tech-savvy organizations, like, you know, friends of mine, or former colleagues, people that work in, at software companies and all kinds of other businesses.

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Michael Thrasher: like, we've even talked about this, like, what kind of AI are you using? And I'm like, I'm using, you know, whatever is already within the software and systems that I'm using, because it's easy, and I don't want to add another thing, because, especially for the offices, you know, okay, great, better…

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Michael Thrasher: reporting about our alts, or document, you know, ways to manage this, or that, or to visualize… you know, there's so many other things you could… if you wanted, like, a specific thing for every single task, you'd have, like, a tech stack of, like, 40-odd

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Michael Thrasher: you know, a list of 40-odd things, and they don't want to do that, because, like, who's going to manage that, right? So, I think the AI, like, it's… is it going to have an impact? Of course, because it's going to have an impact on all kinds of businesses and offices, but I think…

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Michael Thrasher: It's all, like, how much is gonna change, especially in the immediate future, is…

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Michael Thrasher: up for grabs. There could be a huge impact, but I don't really know if it's necessarily gonna, like, dramatically change, like, the people at the office, or, you know, how they're… I don't know, that's, like, very unknown, at least to me. So I think…

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Michael Thrasher: the, the… Like, some of the underrated stories are about, like,

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Michael Thrasher: you know, a lot of those, like, the performance reporting, and better document management, and, like, simultaneously much greater accessibility, and

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Michael Thrasher: huge, huge, huge universe of, like, products for alternative investments that's growing, you know, around family offices. Not them specifically, but, like, they're part of a group of investors, private clients that all these firms are trying to attract.

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Michael Thrasher: Okay, all of that's getting easier, cool. But like, I've been, like, often thinking and repeating, like, that line from Jurassic Park, which is like, you know, we were so obsessed with, like, whether or not we could, like, did enough people, you know, did we stop to ask, like, if we should?

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Michael Thrasher: So I don't know, I feel like that's, like, an underexplored thing. Everybody's, like, really excited about all the changes, and that's great, but, you know, there are also, like, potentially consequences. And when you're talking about illiquid investments.

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Michael Thrasher: That… those consequences might actually not be, like, super apparent,

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Michael Thrasher: In, you know, the foreseeable future.

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Mark Wickersham: It is, it is a… it is an interest. I do think AI, in some ways, the hype…

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Mark Wickersham: the hype's real, I mean, for one thing. It is changing every industry and every aspect of it. I think a lot of family offices are experiencing…

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Mark Wickersham: the benefits of AI, because it's being incorporated into the fundamental platforms that they're currently using.

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Mark Wickersham: They may… it may not be kind of immediately, prevalent, you know, say, data reconciliation, for example. The ability to apply AI to

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Mark Wickersham: big data sets and to start to find anomalies quicker, faster, earlier has been available for a while. I do think alternative investments, which…

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Mark Wickersham: you know, progressed to 1996 and was stuck in a document, and it was really… the amount of friction that was involved in that complete life cycle on the LP side was…

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Mark Wickersham: really arduous. You're seeing a lot of capabilities with AI being able to break that down in a successful way. That low-value first mile,

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Mark Wickersham: capabilities being kind of cleaned up and nearly eliminated, and you still need for the human in the loop, but the ability, instead of taking a look at 100 investment opportunities, they can look at 1,000 investment opportunities.

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Mark Wickersham: In these smaller towns can just be so much better. I do worry, I think one of the things that I worry about…

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Mark Wickersham: with AI, there's a couple things. One is the more… I look at the workforce and that entry level, you know, one to five years, like.

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Mark Wickersham: part of the way people learned was by doing stuff, doing stuff manually, and if all that manual work goes away, how do they learn? And then the other thing is, you know, I think from a society standpoint, like, social media didn't really go great, and we gotta repeat it with…

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Mark Wickersham: AI, but that's… that's another podcast for another person, I think, but that's…

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, yeah, I think that,

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Michael Thrasher: you know, there's a… there's a lot of unknown about the benefits in terms of investment management. So, like, okay, AI has already… you know, so many companies have, like, just in the last, like, couple years, like, pretty dramatically improved, like, the process, of…

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Michael Thrasher: of making these investments. Whether you're investing in companies directly, across stages, whether you're, investing in alternative

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Michael Thrasher: Alternative funds, or whatever.

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Michael Thrasher: But, you know, I don't totally know how much better the due diligence

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Michael Thrasher: How much better is it gonna make due diligence? And also, the…

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Michael Thrasher: the, you know, like, deal flow is a thing that, like, offices are constantly talking about. Like, you know, AI can't really, like, go out there and shake hands. It can't put you on the short list with the manager that you're really seeking for some reason or another.

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Michael Thrasher: And… you know…

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Michael Thrasher: If it's accessible to you, it's probably accessible, or, you know, or if it's accessible to me, it's probably accessible to…

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, like, if you're using AI, if you think, oh, okay, this is great, we're gonna be able to do due diligence on, or narrow our focus from, you know, 100 companies, early stage, or Series A companies this year that we, you know, in this sector that we're familiar with and we're excited about, or whatever.

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Michael Thrasher: we're gonna be able to do a thousand this year. Like, if you don't think every single GP is also using that tool or some better version of that, also plugged in with their own data and information, historical, if they're somebody that's been around a while, which you don't have in most cases as an office, right? There's just a lot of,

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Michael Thrasher: you know, I don't know, I have a lot… I have many more… there… I… I personally think there are many more questions than there are answers about, like, is it gonna have a big impact, and… and is it, you know, net gonna be better? Yes. But, like.

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Michael Thrasher: I don't think it's a panacea for actually most of, like, the core problems, or challenges is maybe a better way to describe them, the headwinds of, like, being a really good private market investor.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think that there's always going to be a need for a human in the loop.

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Mark Wickersham: And if everybody has the same tools, how are you gonna be…

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Mark Wickersham: different. I do think family offices have historically and continued to have mainly a data problem. They sit on a ton of data, but they can't harness it, because it's not necessarily accessible, it's in silos, it can be in different spreadsheets, you may even forget that you have some of that data.

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Mark Wickersham: To be able to kind of have… if you can get good, clean, consolidated data, if these family offices can harness the…

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Mark Wickersham: The mountains of data that they can sit on, they're certainly going to have better results, especially with this type of

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Mark Wickersham: Of technology, but, long-term, I think, you know.

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Mark Wickersham: there's still more questions than answers, and I think, ultimately, at the end of the day, the family office business is a relationship business, and AI is not…

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Mark Wickersham: taken that away, and hopefully AI takes away some of the manual tasks that gets in the way of being able to spend time in those relationships, whether it's developing a relationship with a GP or the family itself.

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Mark Wickersham: Hopefully, it can free up more time for the…

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Mark Wickersham: Let's talk about the future of family offices. Obviously, AI is a big component of it, but Michael, when you take a look 5 years out on the family office industry, what do you see?

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Michael Thrasher: I guess I should preface with, I've…

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Michael Thrasher: You know, I'm only, you know, 11 months into MODIS, barely a year. So, you know, there are certainly better authorities or other perspectives on this, but I'll give mine whatever it's worth. I mean, you know.

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Michael Thrasher: I… I believe what a lot of, like, the reports, seem to predict or estimate that there's gonna be many more offices in the future, for no other reason than, you know, through markets up and down.

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Michael Thrasher: over the course of these cycles, at the end of it, at least, like, in the States, there are that many more…

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Michael Thrasher: wealthy people, and those people are getting wealthier. So, you know, there's going to continue to be people who are worth, you know, whatever threshold you want to choose, 1, 2, $300 million, or, you know, maybe be… and certainly beyond. There'll be more of those people at that level of wealth that decide.

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Michael Thrasher: you know, for some reason or another, hiring some people to work only for me, dedicated to this task for these tasks, is… is worth it. So, that's… you know, that's only going one direction.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah.

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Michael Thrasher: now and in the next 5 years, I don't… I don't really see anything that's gonna…

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Michael Thrasher: stop that. I don't think there's gonna be, like, fewer billionaires in 5 years.

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Michael Thrasher: You know.

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Mark Wickersham: The number is definitely towards that. There are more, ultra-high net worth individuals and families out there. The number's expected.

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Mark Wickersham: to grow. I think the other thing that you're seeing is obviously the great wealth transfer, which we've been hearing about forever, but it is starting to happen.

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Mark Wickersham: Where there is going to be a younger generation that is going to be taking over these family offices. Really, probably more likely starting their own family offices.

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Mark Wickersham: As well as this increase in the total population of individuals that can start a family office.

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Mark Wickersham: I think you combine that with this kind of democratization

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Mark Wickersham: Of the family office capabilities via technology, that these new technology capabilities are coming out there that previously, to be able to support that.

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Mark Wickersham: I don't know, $500 billion family office was really tough. Now firms can do it, and it can do it in an economic way, and there's lots of

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Mark Wickersham: providers to do it, so I think that kind of…

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Mark Wickersham: All those factors are gonna come together, that it's really gonna be…

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Mark Wickersham: The golden age for family offices, certainly the golden age for family office technology, that there is

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Mark Wickersham: Not only, I think, a democratization of family offices, we're going to see more of them, because the ability to create your own, those barriers go away. I'm hoping that it's going to even happen on the greater wealth spectrum that

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Mark Wickersham: where you take a look at, even on the REA side today, that they could really…

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Mark Wickersham: they only serve, or can only scale… scalability-wise serve the affluent? Can they start to come downscale and serve the mass affluent? Because if people have access to better investment advice earlier, they can have better outcomes.

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Mark Wickersham: I hope on both sides, with the… with the… with the ultra-net-worth individuals and families, that they're going to be more…

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Mark Wickersham: Family offers creations, because you can, and that's coming down, but also people, in more of the mass affluent side will have a greater access to, quality financial advice as well.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, yeah, it doesn't really matter whether you're worth, you know, 100,000 bucks, a million bucks, 100 million bucks, a billion, like, asset location.

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Michael Thrasher: Asset allocation and location are, like, ultimately what makes hay. The rest is, like, short of anomalies and all kinds of other, you know, less common or unique factors, like, the rest is sort of making a difference relatively on the margin.

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Michael Thrasher: that's just, like, a fact. And so, as software… I think, actually, you bring up a really good point. As, like, software and all kinds of other things get better, but also probably cheaper, there's a huge… like, the aperture… I actually think about this,

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Michael Thrasher: Periodically. There's…

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Michael Thrasher: And this is why I write about, like, the private banks and some… and, you know, a short list. I haven't done much reporting about this in the newsletter, but I pay very close attention to some of those large, independent private wealth management firms and others that really are, you know, there's a lot of people, I think you sort of alluded to this earlier, there's a lot of people that, you know, threw multifamily office over the door, but aren't really, like.

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Michael Thrasher: you know, but, like, their wealthiest client is, like, you know, worth, like, 10 million bucks. But on the flip side, there are a lot of those firms that actually…

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Michael Thrasher: Do have families that are worth, in some cases.

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Mark Wickersham: Sure.

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Michael Thrasher: way beyond that, like, in excess of 100, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. And so, like, the aperture gets shockingly wide when you go from, like, 150 to $100 million to 75 million to $50 million to $25 million, like, you're talking about an, like.

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Michael Thrasher: An actually, like, pretty crazy number of people.

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Michael Thrasher: I'm talking about in the States. The addressable market, yeah, if you… if you can… if you're providing a set of services, and it makes sense for you commercially, to do it at these various levels, if you can do the same… provide the same quality.

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Michael Thrasher: And you can figure out a way to do it.

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Michael Thrasher: For the people that are worth, you know, like, $25 million and not $75 million or $100 million, you're gonna probably have a good… if you haven't figured that out, cracked that nut already, you're probably gonna have a very good business.

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Michael Thrasher: Because there's just so many of those people. Yeah, yeah, and I'm not saying that that's, like, easy. There's obviously… I'm… this is hardly novel. I'm, like, the last person, I feel like, in financial services to state this opportunity. But, but…

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Michael Thrasher: I… whole reason I sort of started down this rabbit hole, a lot of those, like, family office-specific software companies and service companies, like, they also see that opportunity. So there's tons of people that have sort of been, like, you know, Betterment and all, you know, the sort of self-directed investment platforms, they've always been

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Michael Thrasher: sort of intrigued by how to grow their account sizes and fees, and offer access to advisors, and sort of move upmarket. And simultaneously, a lot of these, like, software and service providers really, like, focus on family offices.

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Michael Thrasher: Like, they are also…

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Michael Thrasher: Thinking hard about, like, well, wait a minute, like, if we can do this for somebody worth 100 million bucks.

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Michael Thrasher: Like, how different, actually. You know, there's tons of people that are worth 50 or 75 million bucks that actually have more complexity and arguably, like, more needs.

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Michael Thrasher: Than some others. Like, the number is just the number. It's really about, like, people, right, and family offices always talk about this, like, the number's just the number. Like, it's really about, like, your needs and expectations and complexity, and then, like, can you afford and do you have, like, the appetite to do it on your own?

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Michael Thrasher: Maybe? And if not, then, like, you know, you find other ways to do it.

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Mark Wickersham: Yeah, it's a good point. I do think some of these family office service providers are kind of a… even on…

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Mark Wickersham: whether it be banking or technology, whatever, if you can tackle that, kind of, the hardest use case, then you can start taking a look at, hey, can I take a look at some of these other use cases where I've developed these skills, I have this muscle memory, I can do these capabilities, and then provide a… at a broader scale, and like you said, the…

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Mark Wickersham: It gets exponentially bigger when you start moving those numbers down.

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Mark Wickersham: All right, Michael, I love these rabbit holes, these are great. I'd like to end the podcast on a personal note with 3 questions that have nothing to do with wealth tech.

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Mark Wickersham: Let's talk a little bit. Why'd you get into the news? Why'd you get into journalism? What do you love about it?

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Michael Thrasher: Oh, wow. I got into journalism a little bit by accident. I, I, I…

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Michael Thrasher: grew up in a house where, like, the paper got delivered every day, and, like, people made a coffee or a tea and sat and looked at, like, however much of the paper they could get through, like, before work or whatever. So that was, like, part of a routine that I guess I… I sort of took with me, I don't know, or started with me.

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Michael Thrasher: when I was younger, so I've always been, like, a big news reader. But but I didn't decide to… I was always… and I was always sort of interested in business and finance. I started as an economics major in college.

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Michael Thrasher: And then… just, like, I think a lot of people in college was like, okay, I'm doing this thing, but I don't really… I don't have any…

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Michael Thrasher: What am I gonna do with this? And I don't really know, I didn't know anybody in those industries, I didn't really, you know, and so, then, you know.

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Michael Thrasher: I do actually remember thinking to myself, like, periodically reading, like, especially some kind of, like, long magazine article about a person or thing, and thinking to myself, like, I can't believe somebody got, like, paid to do this.

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Michael Thrasher: You know,

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Michael Thrasher: And, there's unfortunately, like, you know, the pay today, there's not many people that have that… have that time, and…

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Michael Thrasher: as journalists, or given that time, there's not many publications, there's fewer doing that kind of work.

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Michael Thrasher: But I was like, oh, that's really cool, so I… a friend actually suggested, they were like, well, if you're interested in business finance, and you're, like, the biggest news reader that I know, maybe that's, like, you… maybe you should try to combine these things. So that's how I sort of started.

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Mark Wickersham: Started down the path.

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Michael Thrasher: I think that Question.

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Mark Wickersham: You live in New York City, I love New York City, one of the great cities on the planet. I'm in the U.S.

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Mark Wickersham: What's your favorite spot in New York City?

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Michael Thrasher: I feel like I shouldn't…

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Michael Thrasher: I feel like there's a fair… I feel like there's a… I feel like there's a disproportionate readers or listeners to this podcast that, like, might live in New York area, so I don't want to give it up, no. you know…

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Michael Thrasher: Oh, man. I don't actually make it there very often, but there's a, a cool, there's a bar called Anae in Boreham Hill, in Brooklyn. It's… it's actually on the street that I live on, but I… but I… but you gotta walk, like.

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Michael Thrasher: 30 minutes. And and it's cool, because there's never a tourist in there, and a lot of people, like, take a book or something and hang out.

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Mark Wickersham: And, I don't know, it's a little…

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, and it's… yeah, yeah, and it's, I, like, I don't personally care, like, a ton-ton about this, but the other thing that's kind of fun is, like, it is, like, a little bit scene-y, like, some of the celebrities and people that live in Boreham Hill or Brooklyn Heights, like, will pop in there and, or around that area, so… I don't know, it's… it feels like a very New York…

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Michael Thrasher: experience when you're in there, yeah.

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Mark Wickersham: There's a hundred places like that, that's one of the great things about New York.

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Mark Wickersham: Is there a book you've read recently you'd recommend?

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Michael Thrasher: Oh, man,

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Michael Thrasher: You know, I've probably read fewer books this year than any year, due to MODIS, but, but I did… the book I read most recently was,

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Michael Thrasher: When the Going Was Good, which is a memoir by Graydon Carter, who is the longtime Vanity Fair editor.

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Michael Thrasher: And… it's…

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Michael Thrasher: If you're someone that likes to read magazines, and you want a little bit of, like, the curtain.

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Mark Wickersham: Golden Age of magazines, yeah.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, the Golden Age of Magazines, like, he's, he's, you know, he's had a pretty interesting life, and

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Michael Thrasher: And he was there from, like, basically sort of the beginning through, effectively, you know, I don't…

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Michael Thrasher: I want to say, you know, magazines are over, but that golden age of those types of publications,

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Michael Thrasher: You know, it's… and he's obviously, like, quite a good writer, so you could blow through it, like, pretty quickly, like, if you were into that…

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Mark Wickersham: If the writing's good, it makes it much more entertaining.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, like, if you were… if you already had, like, some kind of interest in that kind of stuff, like, I would say you should get it, and it won't take you too long, and, like, too many glasses of wine, like, during the holidays, so you should… you should go for it. And then if you're somebody that, like, I've started reading, if you're somebody… there's sort of a…

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Michael Thrasher: Not really competing, but a very complimentary book, by,

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Michael Thrasher: media reporter at the Times that is, like.

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Michael Thrasher: you know, not memoir, this is, like, you know, a pretty robust, like, 300 and some page thing about this golden era, and not just about Vanity Fair, but sort of, like, spans all the titles, at Conan Astin. So I don't know, I…

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Michael Thrasher: you know, The grading card, the memoir is, like.

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Michael Thrasher: I would recommend that to more people. If he weren't a journalist, I would…

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Michael Thrasher: think before I recommended the other one.

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Michael Thrasher: You know, one other thing I would add, actually, that even though I haven't, like, read many books this year, and that's especially, like, for your listeners, maybe not, like, the most, like.

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Michael Thrasher: The most exciting recommendations. If people, if they didn't read them the first go-round, like, last year and then through the big… through this year.

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Michael Thrasher: There was some really…

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Michael Thrasher: really… there were some really, really good, long stories in… especially the New York Times, but also some other places, about the Murdochs and the families tussling over, the news assets, News Corp and everything like that.

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Michael Thrasher: That… I mean, it is… that is…

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Michael Thrasher: it is not often that there are, you know, like, thousands and thousands and thousands of words, like, exploring and really… yeah, like, really exploring, like, so many parts of that. Like, the trust and the ownership itself, the dynamics of the family.

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Michael Thrasher: I mean, they… like, they are a media family, so that sort of adds, like, a layer of…

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Michael Thrasher: you know, they are… you know, I always say, like.

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Michael Thrasher: you know, Modus's were, like, really for the sausage makers, so I'm not… things have to meet, like, a certain threshold, you know, like.

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Michael Thrasher: you know, like, two family members fighting. I mean, I don't know, if you want a good story about two family members fighting, like, I could introduce you to some people who don't have a family office. You know, like, that's not really, like, the thing that MODIS is interested in or covering, but but obviously a lot of these folks, they… the implications for some of these… the dynamics, and then, like, the implications for some of these things for, you know, massive companies.

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Michael Thrasher: That are hugely influential, either in their industries or because they're news organizations or whatever. I mean, that's, like.

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Michael Thrasher: You know, you can… you can see why there was a lot of time, energy, and, like, really good journalists who dedicated that to, to that story.

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Michael Thrasher: that, you know, has, you know, potentially some kind of, you know, sort of, like, you know.

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Michael Thrasher: in many cases, like, you know, material impact on a lot of people. So, anyways, not like a full book, but, like, if you're interested in that kind of stuff.

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Mark Wickersham: Who's junkie.

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Michael Thrasher: If you're a news junkie, and you're interested in family offices, you're interested in, like, some of these kinds of stories, there's, like, a really great archive of stories that are 5, 10, 15,000 words long about, like, all that stuff. I, like, I would…

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Michael Thrasher: I would recommend… to most listeners and, like, a MODIS reader, I would recommend those.

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Mark Wickersham: Awesome. All right, Michael, we're gonna do this again soon. This was fun. I appreciate you being on.

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Michael Thrasher: Yeah, thanks for having me, this was great, hopefully it was, I certainly had fun, hopefully it was interesting.

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Mark Wickersham: Good, good stuff. Alright, I'll talk to you soon.

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Michael Thrasher: Alright, bye.