Family Is What Threatens a Family’s Fortune. Tales From Those in the Know.

The biggest risk family offices face isn’t taxes, regulations, or investments that go south—it’s the family itself, according to the executive of one of these offices.

This executive is speaking from experience. The rich, self-made patriarch he works for hasn’t made a succession plan for his family office despite being in his 70s and unhealthy. Without a plan, the patriarch’s wife and two of his three adult children are on a spending path that could deplete half the family’s wealth by the third generation, the executive said in an interview for a Deloitte Private report published on February 28.

“Overspending is the biggest risk—the numerous houses they have bought that need to be managed, the household staff, the drivers, private jets, yachts, et cetera,” he said. “They have become accustomed to a certain lifestyle.”

The interview was one of 10 experiences of anonymous family office executives that revealed the complexity of managing wealth for super large, super rich families. Their stories are offered to lift a veil on these notoriously private enterprises, “to help the family office community learn from the best about how to successfully navigate the complicated world we live in and plan for long-term success,” according to Rebecca Gooch, global head of insights at Deloitte and a report author.

These offices typically oversee investing and wealth management, but also tasks ranging from day-to-day financial management to estate planning. According to a September report from Deloitte, the number of single-family offices globally increased nearly 31% to an estimated 8,030 last year from 6,130 in 2019, while assets under management rose by 63% to $3.1 trillion.

The rich, ailing patriarch is failing to put a succession plan in place because he fears upsetting those close to him who have taken on senior roles in the family office, despite lacking competence, the executive said.

Deloitte included this case study to show that challenges with succession are common within the wealth community, and are rarely discussed in public. “Normally, they are too private to do that, and once a family loses their wealth, they are no longer captured in family office studies,” Gooch said. “In turn, this is a very interesting and personal warning to the community.”

By contrast, the CEO of another family office described how much he enjoyed working for one of the wealthiest and most high-profile people in the world who wants to spend down his fortune by combating climate change and supporting science and research into neurodegenerative diseases. “We are here to look after the principal, manage what he has, and frankly, to give his money away to good causes,” the CEO said.

The way this family tackles issues is innovative, even among family offices, Gooch said. “The team looks at a problem, such as climate change, and thinks about how to tackle it from a variety of perspectives,” she said. “They look at it from a sustainable investing angle, a philanthropy angle, and a political action front to see if policy changes can make a positive difference.”

Another large, prominent global family—with their main offices in Africa and the U.K.—decided it best to split its operations into two branches to cater to separate wings of the family, a move that runs counter to the more common path of keeping a family together to achieve economies of scale and to avoid redundancies, according to a chief operating officer with the family.

“It was a painful process, but in hindsight, it was the right decision,” the COO said. “Families should feel empowered to do good in their respective ways.”

Other families detailed their experiences with cyberattacks, including the CEO of a U.S.-based office that suffered two attacks in quick succession. In separate research published late last year, Deloitte found 43% of family offices had a cyberattack in the past 12 to 24 months, up from 15% in 2016. Yet nearly a third don’t have a cybersecurity strategy in place, Gooch said.

Although many families now have stories to tell, they “still have a long way to go before they are adequately prepared—and the threats around them, particularly with AI and deep fakes, are rapidly growing in sophistication.”

Corrections & Amplifications

The rich, ailing patriarch described in the report is failing to put a succession plan in place because he fears upsetting those who have taken on senior roles in the family office. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was family members who have taken on senior roles.

Yet nearly a third of those surveyed don’t have a cybersecurity strategy in place. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said it was more than a third.

There has rarely, if ever, been so much tech talent available in the job market. Yet many tech companies say good help is hard to find.

What gives?

U.S. colleges more than doubled the number of computer-science degrees awarded from 2013 to 2022, according to federal data. Then came round after round of layoffs at Google, Meta, Amazon, and others.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts businesses will employ 6% fewer computer programmers in 2034 than they did last year.

All of this should, in theory, mean there is an ample supply of eager, capable engineers ready for hire.

But in their feverish pursuit of artificial-intelligence supremacy, employers say there aren’t enough people with the most in-demand skills. The few perceived as AI savants can command multimillion-dollar pay packages. On a second tier of AI savvy, workers can rake in close to $1 million a year .

Landing a job is tough for most everyone else.

Frustrated job seekers contend businesses could expand the AI talent pipeline with a little imagination. The argument is companies should accept that relatively few people have AI-specific experience because the technology is so new. They ought to focus on identifying candidates with transferable skills and let those people learn on the job.

Often, though, companies seem to hold out for dream candidates with deep backgrounds in machine learning. Many AI-related roles go unfilled for weeks or months—or get taken off job boards only to be reposted soon after.

Playing a different game

It is difficult to define what makes an AI all-star, but I’m sorry to report that it’s probably not whatever you’re doing.

Maybe you’re learning how to work more efficiently with the aid of ChatGPT and its robotic brethren. Perhaps you’re taking one of those innumerable AI certificate courses.

You might as well be playing pickup basketball at your local YMCA in hopes of being signed by the Los Angeles Lakers. The AI minds that companies truly covet are almost as rare as professional athletes.

“We’re talking about hundreds of people in the world, at the most,” says Cristóbal Valenzuela, chief executive of Runway, which makes AI image and video tools.

He describes it like this: Picture an AI model as a machine with 1,000 dials. The goal is to train the machine to detect patterns and predict outcomes. To do this, you have to feed it reams of data and know which dials to adjust—and by how much.

The universe of people with the right touch is confined to those with uncanny intuition, genius-level smarts or the foresight (possibly luck) to go into AI many years ago, before it was all the rage.

As a venture-backed startup with about 120 employees, Runway doesn’t necessarily vie with Silicon Valley giants for the AI job market’s version of LeBron James. But when I spoke with Valenzuela recently, his company was advertising base salaries of up to $440,000 for an engineering manager and $490,000 for a director of machine learning.

A job listing like one of these might attract 2,000 applicants in a week, Valenzuela says, and there is a decent chance he won’t pick any of them. A lot of people who claim to be AI literate merely produce “workslop”—generic, low-quality material. He spends a lot of time reading academic journals and browsing GitHub portfolios, and recruiting people whose work impresses him.

In addition to an uncommon skill set, companies trying to win in the hypercompetitive AI arena are scouting for commitment bordering on fanaticism .

Daniel Park is seeking three new members for his nine-person startup. He says he will wait a year or longer if that’s what it takes to fill roles with advertised base salaries of up to $500,000.

He’s looking for “prodigies” willing to work seven days a week. Much of the team lives together in a six-bedroom house in San Francisco.

If this sounds like a lonely existence, Park’s team members may be able to solve their own problem. His company, Pickle, aims to develop personalised AI companions akin to Tony Stark’s Jarvis in “Iron Man.”

Overlooked

James Strawn wasn’t an AI early adopter, and the father of two teenagers doesn’t want to sacrifice his personal life for a job. He is beginning to wonder whether there is still a place for people like him in the tech sector.

He was laid off over the summer after 25 years at Adobe , where he was a senior software quality-assurance engineer. Strawn, 55, started as a contractor and recalls his hiring as a leap of faith by the company.

He had been an artist and graphic designer. The managers who interviewed him figured he could use that background to help make Illustrator and other Adobe software more user-friendly.

Looking for work now, he doesn’t see the same willingness by companies to take a chance on someone whose résumé isn’t a perfect match to the job description. He’s had one interview since his layoff.

“I always thought my years of experience at a high-profile company would at least be enough to get me interviews where I could explain how I could contribute,” says Strawn, who is taking foundational AI courses. “It’s just not like that.”

The trouble for people starting out in AI—whether recent grads or job switchers like Strawn—is that companies see them as a dime a dozen.

“There’s this AI arms race, and the fact of the matter is entry-level people aren’t going to help you win it,” says Matt Massucci, CEO of the tech recruiting firm Hirewell. “There’s this concept of the 10x engineer—the one engineer who can do the work of 10. That’s what companies are really leaning into and paying for.”

He adds that companies can automate some low-level engineering tasks, which frees up more money to throw at high-end talent.

It’s a dynamic that creates a few handsomely paid haves and a lot more have-nots.

Family Is What Threatens a Family’s Fortune. Tales From Those in the Know.

A divide has opened in the tech job market between those with artificial-intelligence skills and everyone else.

Playing a different game

Overlooked