The Quarterly Review: Public’s Leif Abraham on three new products, simplification, and AI-washing
- In this edition, we check back in with Public's Leif Abraham to see how his plans to build towards guided portfolios and AI integrations in the investment flow panned out.
- Abraham dives into how Public's new products are helping the company differentiate and crystalizing its role in the industry.
Notes from the desk: Hello and welcome to The Quarterly Review, where I dive into what executives from some of the best brands in financial services are focusing on in this quarter. For the past 5 months, we have surveyed executives from both banks and fintechs about their intentions and goals for the year.
Today, we are checking back in with Acorns’ CFO Seth Wunder.
Our review articles in this series are an exclusive offering for our TS PRO subscribers. If you want to dive into the juicy stuff and read the details of their labors —beyond the executive summary below— please consider becoming a TS Pro subscriber.
In this edition we will check back in with co-CEO & co-founder of Public,
Leif Abraham.
Executive Summary:
When I last spoke to Public’s co-CEO and co-founder Leif Abraham in July, he was gearing up for a couple new product launches as well as envisioning a bigger role for the firm’s Gen AI-powered digital assistant, Alpha.
It was apparent that these goals served a larger purpose in Abraham’s vision:
“This generation of investors is self-directed first. As they grow their wealth, only parts of their portfolio will be managed. We expect that these managed products will look more like ‘guided products’, where the investor decides themselves which strategy to pursue, with help from the platform and AI. Once they have initiated a strategy, it will run autonomously from there. Hence it starts guided and ends up being managed.
For Public, this means we can be truly a place where one manages their entire portfolio. They run parts of their portfolio entirely themselves and parts are run on their behalf — all in the same place,” he said at the time.
As we inch closer to the end of the year, Abraham is here to report success on one front and progress on the other.
- Public’s recent Bond Accounts product builds directly off of the firm’s announcement of enabling fractional bond investments earlier this year.
- The firm is gradually leveling up its Gen AI digital assistant Alpha, using both its products and Alpha’s assistive capabilities to help Public go from guided to managed portfolios.
The Full Review: Leif Abraham on how Public’s product development is making it
Notes from the desk: Hello and welcome to The Quarterly Review, where I dive into what executives from some of the best brands in financial services are focusing on in this quarter. For the past 5 months, we have surveyed executives from both banks and fintechs about their intentions and goals for the year.
Today, we are checking back in with Acorns’ CFO Seth Wunder.
Our review articles in this series are an exclusive offering for our TS PRO subscribers. If you want to dive into the juicy stuff and read the details of their labors —beyond the executive summary below— please consider becoming a TS Pro subscriber.
In this edition we will check back in with co-CEO & co-founder of Public,
Leif Abraham.
Executive Summary:
When I last spoke to Public’s co-CEO and co-founder Leif Abraham in July, he was gearing up for a couple new product launches as well as envisioning a bigger role for the firm’s Gen AI-powered digital assistant, Alpha.
It was apparent that these goals served a larger purpose in Abraham’s vision:
“This generation of investors is self-directed first. As they grow their wealth, only parts of their portfolio will be managed. We expect that these managed products will look more like ‘guided products’, where the investor decides themselves which strategy to pursue, with help from the platform and AI. Once they have initiated a strategy, it will run autonomously from there. Hence it starts guided and ends up being managed.
For Public, this means we can be truly a place where one manages their entire portfolio. They run parts of their portfolio entirely themselves and parts are run on their behalf — all in the same place,” he said at the time.
As we inch closer to the end of the year, Abraham is here to report success on one front and progress on the other.
- Public’s recent Bond Accounts product builds directly off of the firm’s announcement of enabling fractional bond investments earlier this year.
- The firm is gradually leveling up its Gen AI digital assistant Alpha, using both its products and Alpha’s assistive capabilities to help Public go from guided to managed portfolios.
The Full Review: Leif Abraham on how Public’s product development is making it