Financial Advice for Tech Workers

When you join a tech company, you may find yourself navigating through stock options, an upcoming IPO, or a higher salary that suddenly thrusts you into a new tax bracket. It may encourage you to seek financial advice from an expert who understands the complexities that come with being a tech worker.

Compound is a company dedicated to meeting these financial planning needs, specifically geared towards tech workers. The company helps with asset management as well as tax advice. Compound supports those in the technology sector by explaining deals, optimizing tax efficiency during corporate acquisitions, and planning seed funding.

Founded as part of the 2019 Y-Combinator startup accelerator, Compound calls itself the personal finance tech company built by tech people for tech people. The company offers advisory services on personal finance, tax planning and asset management, with a relentless focus on serving people in the technology sector.

Tech employees often earn very high salaries when working for Silicon Valley giants, so sticky financial situations like stock options are common. Tech workers may also be busy joining startups with high capital compensation or working to set up their own business. All of these factors present unique challenges and opportunities.

What does it offer?

Compound offers full-service financial planning and tax advice for tech workers. It allows you to engage with your financial professionals using:

• A single project fee
• One continuous flat rate
• An assets under management (AUM) fee

Help understanding your finances

Compound’s core service is financial advice and offers unique information for tech workers. He helps tech workers through every step of their financial life, including negotiating an offer before joining a startup or tax advice on what to do when a company goes public.

Compound also publishes manuals for seven different profiles of tech workers to help you understand your own situation.

Tax Planning

Compound’s team of financial advisors includes CPAs who provide advice on tax planning. While tax planning is beneficial especially for those who are:

• Working for equity in a private company
• Have stock options
• Looking to sell their companies

Compound comes prepared to help you discover the most tax efficient strategy for managing your finances.

Asset Management

Compound is more than a Robo-advisor. Their asset management service is an automated portfolio management tool that accounts for all aspects of your portfolio, including your non-tradable capital.

You can choose between a “fundamental portfolio” or a custom indexed portfolio that allows you to select your own investments.

data visualizations

Most portfolio analysis tools focus on stocks, bonds, and cash. Some integrate real estate or crypto assets into their portfolio.

Compound’s data visualization and portfolio analysis tool lets you look at every part of your net worth, including the value of capital tied up in a private company.

Understanding how much of your net worth is tied to a private technology company can help you make good decisions with the rest of your portfolio.

Personalized attention

Compound helps you streamline your finances so you can focus more on your life and your tech career. Financial planning often requires frequent contact bases to help you through difficult scenarios or to optimize your finances.

While you will pay for all the care you receive, the advice you receive can help you dramatically increase your net worth or the income you receive.

Compound is a fee-for-service financial advisory firm. It allows people to engage with the company with a variety of fee models. These models include:

• Project-based work: If you want to hire Compound for a one-time activity (such as a financial plan, help navigating an initial public offering, or something similar), you can expect to pay $400 to $30,000 depending on the complexity and scope of the project. Compound will estimate the cost before you start working together. Most of the tax planning will be project based work.

• Annual fees: With a tiered service model, you can receive wealth management and advisory services for a fixed annual fee. The fee ranges from $3,000 to $50,000 per year depending on a variety of factors.

• Assets under management: If you prefer to have the fees taken from your assets under management Composite charges 0.30% to 0.45% depending on several factors. This price is in line with the cost of the main Robo-advisors.

How does the compound compare?

Compound offers to help tech workers in every part of their financial life. It is not just a tax preparation company and does not offer financial plans for everyone. Instead, it’s a high-cost, high-touch company that can help you navigate the parts of financial life that are specific to working in the tech sector.

Whether you work in the tech industry or not, you may be able to find less expensive, high-quality advice by working with financial advisors from WealthFront, Betterment, or Vanguard. You may also consider financial advisors from The financial gym.

Getting personalized financial advice often yields unexpected results. Not everyone needs professional financial advice, but you may be surprised at the ways in which you benefit.

How do I communicate with the compound?

Compound has employees in North America and Europe, but is headquartered in

832 Sansome Street 1st Floor San Francisco, CA 94111.

The best way to contact the company is through the “Get Started” button on the website. Compound also posted its main financial advice phone number as 415-417-1180.

How do I start working with the compound?

To get started with Compound, fill out the “Get Started” form on the website. It will ask for your name and email address along with the reason you contacted Compound.

He’ll set up a 20-minute call so you can get a better understanding of what fee structure makes sense for your needs.

If you commit to working with Compound, you will need to provide further details and documents so that Compound can assist you with tax planning, financial advice or asset management.

Is it safe and secure?

As a company designed for high net worth tech workers, Compound focuses on privacy and digital security. Compound protects personal information and assets with some of the highest standards in the industry.

Initial contact forms ask for very little information so that you can understand the approach and process before providing personal information.

If you choose to work with Compound, you can transfer files and digital assets through a secure, encrypted portal.

As many tech workers know, there is always a risk of data breaches or attacks by malicious actors. Sharing financial information is never perfectly secure, but Compound does everything possible to take the risk out of the situation.

Worth it?

While Compound’s sticker price may seem high, its prices are in line with the cost of receiving professional financial planning advice elsewhere. Because Compound targets tech workers who can benefit from IPOs or work with startups, it has a unique value proposition for many people.

That said, if you’re not part of the Silicon Valley tech scene, you may want to get financial advice elsewhere. Advice tailored to people working at start-ups may not apply if you’re doing data engineering for the government or software development for an established retailer.

Compound’s asset management services are surprisingly affordable. Automated advisers are only slightly less expensive and don’t come with the option of personal financial advice.

If you work in technology, you may want to hire Compound for asset management so you can have access to great financial advice if you need it in the future.