Our philosophy
Alignment
We don't believe in management fees.
We will offer financial products with pass-through costs and aligned performance fees.
Custom intelligence optimized to measurably maximize user's utility (health, wealth, and more)
Legibility
All calculations should be done in the open or with verifiable status
All status information should be real-time (<100ms) and 24/7 (no money movements pending that are not real time verifiable at any point of any transaction of request)
Coherence
All financial and monetary modeling done from first principles based on the user's preferences and built with logical and mathematical railings
Privacy
True optimization for a user’s utility function is not possible without total knowledge of all biography, family intentions, future dreams and plans, and existing resources.
A lot of this information is very sensitive.
The only way to achieve the highest quality reasoning is by offering the highest quality personal computation, while maintaining privacy of user data. That means that no single party can read user-provided information, but inference can still be run on it.
[1] Alignment.
We have been annoyed by the archaic design of legacy financial systems for decades, and how nooks of services are jammed with gotchas, ways to extract fees or to skim off the top.
We want a world for ourselves and our kids where skipping the fine print doesn’t mean you get ripped off. It is an outright shame that at the pinnacle of modern civilization people still expect to get ripped off when they move their own money around.
We want a financial ecosystem where infrastructure is responsibly designed from first principles, with transparent incentives and clear, long-term alignment. No bullshit "investment recommendations*” that come from people who only get paid when you invest in what they’re selling. No back doors for institutions to take risks with your money when you’re not looking. No ways to sneak around capital requirements.
*Note: We do not currently provide any investment recommendations.
[2] Speed.
Do you feel rage when a website takes a second too long to load? (Maybe you should consider joining us, but only if your rage is aimed at poor product design, not your teammates.)
We have so little precious time on this planet—it’s finite, and it’s something we can never make more of. You can always make more money, but there is no way to make more time.
We want to build fast, always-on financial services that are responsive, sensibly designed, extensible, and digitally native. Do you really want seven different teams run by pointy-haired suits barking incomprehensible buzzwords at coders at some Faceless Bank* designing an API to your digital wallet?
How about when they introduce a new feature, and you can’t access any accounts for a week?
We didn’t think so.
*Note: We are not currently a Bank, and cannot say that we offer any banking or bank-like services.
[3] OPSEC.
a.k.a. Operational Security. We are paranoid. We have to be, to be in this business. But it means that we will survive.
Remember Equifax? Specifically, how they managed to let personal data (everything from social security numbers to addresses to birthdays) out into the open for nearly 150 million “customers” (many of whom did not know they were customers of Equifax)?
We hate, hate, hate when that kind of thing happens.
We want better security offerings.
We all deserve better.
You deserve better.
[4] Innovation.
So what’s the end goal of fulfilling all of the above?
Why not just create and automate low-fee vehicles that will exist forever?
We care about the above so we can drive forward not only finance, but also the future of resource allocation and optimization for everyone.
We want a future where any person on earth — any child on earth — with an internet connection has universal access via Unitary to ways of securing their financial future.