This week, Jack Sharry talks with Andrew Ang. Andrew is a leading voice in quantitative investing, factor research, tax-efficient portfolio construction, and AI. He spent 15 years as a professor at Columbia Business School and 10 years as Managing Director at BlackRock, where he led work across factors, sustainability, and investment solutions. Today, he is the Co-Founder of Tau Balance, where he applies technology, tax expertise, and AI to wealth management.
Andrew talks with Jack about factor investing and tax-efficient portfolios, why taxes can significantly affect what investors actually keep, and how advisors can think beyond pre-tax returns when building portfolios. Andrew also shares his vision for the "self-driving portfolio," an agentic investment strategy where AI agents can specialize across asset classes, challenge one another's assumptions, and continuously learn.
In this episode:
(00:00) - Intro
(01:37) - Andrew's background and career journey
(03:47) - The evolution of factor-based investing
(06:16) - Andrew's transition from academic research to portfolio management
(07:40) - Taxes as the biggest factor in investment returns
(11:35) - The vision behind the "self-driving portfolio"
(17:11) - Using investment policy statements as guardrails for AI
(18:34) - Andrew's interests outside of work
Quotes
"Taxes constitute the biggest wedge between returns that you seem to participate in, or that are reported, and the returns that you actually get to keep." ~ Andrew Ang
"The really big gains come when we don't just substitute something for AI, but completely change the way that we work with it." ~ Andrew Ang
"Where the agents disagree, those are the most interesting and important areas for investing. That's probably where alpha lies, or where we actually have to be very careful to construct robust portfolios." ~ Andrew Ang
Links
Andrew Ang on LinkedIn
Tau Balance
BlackRock
SEI Ang Research Enhanced U.S. Large Cap ETF (ANGU)
Connect with our hosts
LifeYield
Jack Sharry on LinkedIn
Jack Sharry on Twitter
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