Thread regarding Fidelity Investments layoffs

managers are just high paid secretaries that kissed the right butts. they don't do the work. always remember that fact.

Newsflash

Fidelity doesn't have top talent people anywhere except for maybe the funds groups.

Dismissing Fidelity as a “discount brokerage” is underselling the company. And I am no shill for it. Fidelity has credibility with millions of customers primarily in PI but also WI. Trillions held for clients, vast amounts of data, and the ability to wield these advantages to expand into so much new lines of business.

But I agree the intellectual caliber here is a bit underwhelming. I was recruited by a person who put “telephone skills” on their LinkedIn (something I discovered after the fact of hire, they were otherwise nice. Just d-mb). This low average IQ manifests in everything from worship of metrics that don’t matter, meetings that accomplish nothing but time waste, projects that could be accomplished in days taking months if not years. The list is endless. If only Abigail Johnson knew how much was being wasted. Or does she even care?

The problem though is the higher one is in intelligence there is a price paid in sociability. Smart people tend to come off as jerks and therefore don’t move up. So the nice but d-mb dominate the middle ranks of power and hire their own kind.

Note: this response is comically long so please make fun of me for that. Sh-t looks like it’s an APA format college essay.
——————————————————
Hahah I posted this. I also referenced this post in the “walk out” post comment section earlier today because so many of the avg ppl I’m talking about (including MLL) think the FINRA thing is actually true.
It underscores what I’m talking about. Not knowing better, happy to be here, secure, etc.

I’m not gonna give any demographics of who I am, where I’m located, etc. (sorry person wondering if I’m help desk!) In fact I’m partially suspicious this whole post is a trap for me. I really don’t care that much but I do sort of like my job I just wish Fidelity didn’t gas light as to the reasoning for their decisions, I have standing job offers from colleagues and other businesses due to my experience and credentials, I just don’t want to move from my current location quite yet. Being intentional.

I come here to vent because my thoughts and ideas are provocative and can get me in trouble at work. Our company, imo, is a net positive for society (at least in the capitalist system that we exist in). We have made a fantastic platform that is cheap, scaled from the bottom up, offers fantastic investment options for industry leading low costs. We have helped make investing accessible to people, that even just 5-10 years ago, was not possible. Even our planning and advice side is decent for the costs (most of our FCs are mo--ns that know how to talk to ppl and are working in a wholesale model that doesn’t annuitize itself and you don’t own your clients, good place to learn about investments but not really other aspects that come with FP) but we have guard rails in place so they rarely ever do anything “bad”. Well place you in a .85% PAS account and most of our clients were way better off having paid that .85% fee than if they had never met their advisor. BUT what I’m saying is not synonymous with quality advice or holistic planning. Just because someone is better off does not mean asset management is worth 1%.

However the person refuting that this is not true I think is wrong. First and foremost I’m an investor and owner, I could lose my job tm and live off my investments. I’m not trying to gloat, I’m making the point that without being in the top 5% you couldn’t possibly know how Fidelity makes it’s money bc we are not public. The best we can do is look at similar discount brokers public earnings and business strategies. A good analog I have found is Schwab (it’s not perfect, they have a banking side of the house which makes their business model substantially different than ours) but it’s close-ish. I’ll tell you right now how we probably make a lot of our money using Schwab as an analog. This is strictly me using public info and nothing internal ofc, I myself am not privy to internal business numbers besides the earnings stuff they post to the employees and would never cross that line in a public forum even if I was privy just bc I’m grumpy. But I’ll rattle off a few of my best guesses.

1. Net interest Margin - easy money at 10%+ interest rate right now

2. Some non competitive core positions (won’t name them) - wooo this one is a gold mine. Non competitive interest rate on idle cash as a core position. We are RAKING clients with this one. I suspect bc of the crack down on low interest sweeps from regulators that will be gone soon.

3. Asset management fees from our advisory services - this makes sense scraping .85%+ of AUM and giving clients very little attention (most of our clients probably don’t get hurt from this, but smaller RIAs offer much better value for more services; but to be good at a holistic RIA YOU as the person and planner are the value, not the brand). Because of this quick low effort planing and advice it is scalable, especially when tapping into our WI side for roll ins. Although very wealthy clients are not coming to fid (generally) for management only self directed (think 13mm+ NW) we might be scraping off WAS referrals for true wealth management tho.

4. Maintenance fees and record keeping fees for the qualified plans we offer is also likely a significant source of income and ARR.

I think there is an argument here where it is our ppl who help us keep money at fid. Look at our public Reddit posts and general reviews. Clients like calling us for the most part, our colleagues offer great customer service and I truly believe that. But this brings up another point. You don’t need to have above average intellectual capacity to connect with ppl and be authentic and genuine. These soft skills are much more valuable than geeky skills for most roles at fid and in life.

The reality is we could have average nice hospitable ppl do the grunt work for probably 85%+ of the jobs here and our scale, efficiency and reputation would keep us dominate. The top 15% of the ppl who are very smart and savvy will do what they can to stop competitors or follow them if that doesn’t work (ty Robinhood for free trades…following the puck) and our stake holders and the Johnsons will remain happy.

Think of fidelity as the Costco of finance. We have mastered scale and efficiency and offer decent value at a good price to a lot of people.

If you start young at fidelity and are an average person you hit the jackpot. There’s almost a 100% chance you will get rich slow you’ll be able to retire younger with a nice pile of money and financial security for the rest of your life.

But if you’re looking to make a life changing salary, get equity in a company (not the sh---y phantom shares with no voting power and cash payouts), work under your own terms (remote, in office, etc.) and be an irreplaceable person it’s very very unlikely it’s going to happen at fid unless you’re a nepo baby. There’s nothing wrong with being an average person with a fat retirement account. I just know my wealth and success is not dependent on Fidelity and they are lucky to have me. I control that and will do that with or without fidelity.

TLDR: our scale, reputation, easy to use app/website, and low costs is the reason we are successful. Combined with young average bubbly ppl who don’t ask questions and answer phones, are empathetic and fine with average wages.

It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care. It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my a__ off I don't see another dime; so where's the motivation? And here's something else: I have eight different bosses right now. Eight. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

Someone already wrote this same message in a recent thread or comment

OP sounds like a help desk rep that’s been there for 15 years in the same job and believes they know everything Fidelity. This is simply just not true.

Aka ya’ll overpaid people better quit now the Utah folk are coming for yur jobs. We will eat the cats and dogs if need be.