Wealth management isn't aging well, more WeWork drama, and a private meeting with Elon Musk

Hello!

Wealth management isn't aging well.

As Rebecca Ungarino reported this week, one-third of financial advisers will retire in the next five years, according to some estimates. Meanwhile, many young professionals are being put off from working in the industry. As Rebecca reported: 

Young people working in wealth tell Business Insider that the allure of lucrative fields like tech, the daunting challenge of drumming up business as a newbie, and lingering unease with the industry for those who came of age during the financial crisis help explain why the jobs may have seemed less appealing. 

That comes as many big financial firms look to wealth management as a big business opportunity. Morgan Stanley's bet on winning over unicorn-startup employees is starting to pay off, for example.

These clients promise the potential of steady earnings over generations, as wealthy parents pass on their wealth to their offspring. Morgan Stanley chief James Gorman said Thursday that its massive wealth management business is "clearly stabilizing the firm."

Merrill Lynch has responded to this generational gap by shifting how it handles staff who drop out of its financial-adviser trainee program. Those who exit its trainee program are now often transitioning to other roles within the firm instead of leaving altogether, according to Andy Sieg, the president of Merrill Lynch wealth management.

It's also paying more: Business Insider was first to report that Merrill Lynch hiked trainee financial advisers' starting salaries by $10,000 earlier this year as it looked to attract new talent.

On the flipside, Wells Fargo said this week that retirements drove its financial adviser headcount lower in the third quarter, and it expects to see more retirements as it uses incentives to encourage younger advisers to take over clients. 

Adviser demographics are "one of the realities of the wealth management industry that has not received a lot of attention," Sieg previously told Business Insider, and firms need tackle how to position the next generation.

The inside story

Our mission at Business Insider is pretty simple: to live up to our name and go inside the most interesting and dynamic businesses in the world. With that in mind, I wanted to highlight three stories this week that put readers inside the room at SpaceX, an elite law firm in LA, and digital media company Bustle.

• Inside the 'awkward,' 'tense,' and 'heated' private meeting between Elon Musk and Texans whom SpaceX is trying to buy out to fully realize its vision to reach Mars
• Elite law firm Irell & Manella — where partners make more than $3 million a year — is seeing turbulence and departures after merger talks with a rival firm fell apart
• Insiders say morale at Bustle Digital Group is cratering as it quietly axes staff and loses focus

Another week of WeWork drama

Another week, another deluge of WeWork news. This week: 

• Troy Wolverton reported that WeWork used massive discounts — in some cases, essentially giving away space for 2 years — to try to poach customers from rivals.
• Julie Bort reported that while WeWork says it has 527,000 'memberships,' that's not as straightforward as it seems.
• Jim Edwards took a deep dive into the financials at WeWork International, the British arm of The We Company. Revenues at WeWork International rose 90% for the most recent period recorded. But losses increased by 1,000%.
• Becky Peterson and Meghan Morris shed light on WeWork's Kabbalah connection. Insiders say the celebrity-centered religious sect deeply influenced how Adam Neumann ran WeWork before its spectacular collapse.
• Meghan also reported that, as per a leaked video, Adam Neumann told staff earlier this year his family had 100% control of WeWork and even in 300 years, his descendants would be in control as "the moral compass of the company."
• Lastly, Dakin Campbell had the scoop that Goldman Sachs unloaded some of its WeWork shares before its investment bankers pitched investors on what it once considered a $60 billion-plus IPO. 

Finance and Investing

Bank of America's CEO says that it's saved $2 billion per year by ignoring Amazon and Microsoft and building its own cloud instead

Wall Street CEOs relish proving their critics wrong — and Bank of America's Brian Moynihan is no exception.

BlackRock's bond chief oversees $1.7 trillion and sleeps only 4 hours a night. He outlines his 2 favorite opportunities in a market being reshaped by tech and shifting demographics.

When it comes to investing, hindsight is 20/20. 

A fund manager who's averaged a 16% annual return since the financial crisis shares his 'secret weapon' — and unpacks 3 stocks driving his success

Ronald Zibelli will never forget the dot-com boom. 

Tech, Media, Telecoms

Benchmark's role ousting the CEOs of WeWork and Uber could be the end of the "founder friendly" reputation that made it one of Silicon Valley's hottest VC firms

Martin Roscheisen has been fired twice by the boards of startups he led.

Lambda School is Silicon Valley's big bet on reinventing education and making student debt obsolete. But students say it's a 'cult' and they would have been better off learning on their own.

Erica Thompson has always had an interest in technology. Her father, a municipal transit operator, taught her the basics of programming, which she practiced while he built computers in his free time.  

Google is promoting an ad format that looks like a social post. Here's the presentation Google is using to steal Facebook's advertisers.

Healthcare, Retail, Transportation

Investors just bet $2.4 billion that your gut is the next frontier for the hottest part of healthcare

Testing poop is no easy sell. 

Shopify is quickly gobbling up e-commerce. Its director of product reveals how avoiding the Amazon model helped fuel its meteoric rise.

Shopify has a market cap of $42.3 billion — making it worth more than Twitter, Snap, Square, and Lyft.

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