Ep. 37 Michael Lane- Head of Asset Management at SEI

Michael Lane: Don't get so hung up on the first job out of college being your dream job. Just get experience, you know, and do not, do not, I was the commencement speaker at Binghamton two years ago. And that was one of my things is the killer of careers is entitlement.

Evan Delaune: Welcome to Y'all Street. Today I speak with Michael Lane, the Head of Asset Management at SEI. Mike, you want a cup of coffee?

Michael Lane: Absolutely.

Evan Delaune: All right. I got, I got you an awesome tennis themed coffee mug that sadly did not come in in time and I am pretty bummed about it, but, um, I got you a Texas Precious Metals Depository coffee mug.

Michael Lane: So it's good branding.

Evan Delaune: Yeah, we'll, we'll start with that. But you are a heck of a tennis player. As I hear, how does a man do what you've done in business and also be a heck of a tennis player?

Michael Lane: It's because I don't play golf anymore. It's a little bit less time and there's some truth to that. Uh, finding balance in life is actually really, really important because work will consume you. Uh, you know, when I used to work at BlackRock, uh, the, the phrase was, you know, BlackRock will take what you're willing to give. Uh, and if you're willing to give, you know, 24 hours a day, they will take it. Uh, and that is very common in the workforce. And so I think that the beauty of tennis is it enables you to get out and have a full body workout in an hour and a half. Uh, you can be on and off the court and it's, it's something you can do at 6:30/7 o'clock. You can still have a very committed life to your work, but you can also still have fun and it's social, you know, whether it's singles or doubles, there's a social aspect to it, which I think is super important for work-life balance.

Evan Delaune: So let's talk a little bit about what you do now, just briefly. And then I really want to understand how you got there. And I want to go as far back as you'll take me, maybe childhood, college years, but what do you do now? And, um, then we'll go back.

Michael Lane: Sure. Uh, what I do now is I lead the asset management business for SEI, which is a company has been around 57 years out of, uh, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And the asset management business that I oversee is a combination of multiple businesses. It's, uh, our financial advisor support and business where we serve financial advisors and where we're independent of them. Uh, and we provide technology and investment services to them. Uh, it is the institutional business, which is largely OCIO where we, yeah, OCIO is where a company decides that rather than hiring one or two people to run the money, they will outsource it to a very scaled, uh, company like SEI. And instead of having a couple of people running the money, they'll get our 170 people running their money for them. And so that's a good business for us.

Evan Delaune: Meaning their strategy, you know, how you're doing portfolio allocation, all of that.

Michael Lane: Exactly. And it could be that they have a defined benefit plan still from the past. Uh, and they'll turn that over to us. It could be an endowment and a foundation, uh, endowment or foundation from a university, a not-for-profit, and they'll hire us to, to manage the money. Um, and a lot of that comes down to helping them achieve the income goals that they want from that, uh, that, that asset. And so that's something we specialize in. So there's the financial advisor business, the institutional business, our wealth business, where we, uh, recently, uh, made an acquisition of Stratos.

Evan Delaune: A large acquisition.

Michael Lane: Large acquisition. They're about a $40 billion, uh, RAA out of Cleveland. Uh, and I just spent a few days with their CEO, Jeff Concepcion and great, um, great strategy session with him. And so that, that acquisition enables us now to also learn more about the, uh, the work that is done by a financial advisor for the end investor and use that information so that we can provide better services to the independent advisors we work with. So there's those three businesses plus all investment management globally. So the, when you turn over the investments to us or you work with us on investments or buy investments from us, those products and solutions, uh, you know, are created and managed around the world by SEI and that that's part of the asset management business as well.

Evan Delaune: How big is SEI?

Michael Lane: You know, it, it's interesting. SEI is hard to define when somebody asks the question, how big is SEI? So there's different ways of defining it. Uh, we have over 5,000 employees. Uh, we have a market cap that, you know, ranges right now between 10 and 11 billion, depending upon markets. Uh, but we have very scaled businesses. So when you look at our, uh, bank technology business, where we are the backbone of bank wealth management, uh, businesses, there's around $7 trillion of assets on our blank bank wealth platform.

Evan Delaune: Wow.

Michael Lane: I know significant. Uh, and so that's a very scaled business. When you think about our investment management services business, which is a business where we are the backbone, we're the back office, middle office for other investment managers, uh, firms that are in the private markets, uh, that, uh, that provide, you know, private equity funds. And we, we are the back office for those.

Evan Delaune: You're creating those funds so that they can actually be bought by an investment manager.

Michael Lane: Yeah. Sometimes we create them. Sometimes they're created and then we do all the administration of them. And that's a two and a half trillion dollar business. And then you look at our investment management with our own capabilities in house, our fund to fund management, uh, our ownership interest in LSV, uh, an investment arm out of Chicago, you know, that's another four or $500 billion business as well. So we, you know, we have, we have several businesses were highly diversified, sort of like Kaspar, uh, highly diversified business. And so when somebody asked me, you know, how big is it? Well, it depends, uh, which business are we talking about? If we look at the overarching though, you know, we have offices all over the world, 5,000 employees, 10 to 11 billion market cap.

Evan Delaune: Is it fair to almost think of SCI as a holding company?

Michael Lane: You know, it's a great question. Uh, I think that that is something over a course of time, maybe that that's what SCI could become is a holding company of multiple companies. Um, but today everything just rolls up under one umbrella. Uh, but yes, it is a way to think of SCI itself as a company that holds multiple companies.

Evan Delaune: And so you clearly are, are up at the very top of, of that conglomerate, if you will. But how did you get there? Did you always want to do finance? Talk me through when you were little or when you were in college, what did that look like?

Michael Lane: Yeah. So when I was little, I, you know, I grew up in a small town, Corning, New York, uh, upstate New York, uh, right on the Pennsylvania border, sort of in the middle of the state between Buffalo and Manhattan, right in the middle of there. Uh, you know, I grew up, uh, my dad was a, uh, a school teacher, um, or science teacher for high school, uh, for, uh, for freshmen. And for a period of time, you know, he was a single dad. And so, uh, you learn quickly when you're really little, uh, how to take care of yourself when you're in a, uh, four kids, single father, um, environment. And so for me, you know, some people look at that and they think that, you know, that's unfortunate and that would be a hard life for me. It was a fantastic because I, I had to take care of myself. I had to learn how to cook and clean and do my own laundry when I was super little. Um, and so that was, that was an important time for me. And that also, uh, you know, I was always one of those kids that, that wanted more, uh, wanted to do something, you know, uh, meaningful and, and different. And so, uh, I think I was, I was largely influenced by that type of surrounding that I grew up in, uh, to, uh, to seek out an opportunity that I could make a difference, but also be, you know, um, rewarded financially for the work I do. When I came out of college, I went to school in Binghamton, New York, a university in Binghamton. When I came out of college, my first job out of college, I didn't have a salary.

Evan Delaune: I was, what was that?

Michael Lane: So I was a financial advisor and I only got paid if clients, um, did business with me.

Evan Delaune: Yeah.

Michael Lane: And so I had no salary and that is unheard of in today's world. Uh, but I was offered a salary or they would be willing to give me a higher percentage of the revenue I would generate, uh, if I took no salary. And so you had to make it a, a bet on yourself or you could take a salary and make less of the work you actually performed. And so I chose to take the no salary option. And again, there is no bigger motivator early in your life than to wake up and know you're not getting paid today unless you actually can find a way to add value to somebody and build trust with them to do business with you. And so that was right out of college first day, you know, after graduation, I was working in that environment as an advisor.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. What was the psychology that that led you to do that? Was it the belief that because of your childhood that you could just take care of yourself? And then once you made that decision, did it really reinforce that risk taking aspect of yourself?

Michael Lane: No, it's a great, great question. I, I think that because over the course of my young, you know, young life growing up, I had to bet on myself. I had to prove, uh, that I could do things that maybe most people wouldn't expect could be done. Uh, and so for me, I think I had had enough success paying, you know, paying my way through school, uh, working multiple jobs, uh, through school, being a tennis pro when I wasn't practicing or playing in a tournament, I was teaching others and making money that way. So for me in my life at that point, I think I, I was accustomed to getting paid for the work I did. I, and so whether it was waiting tables or bartending or teaching tennis, it was always, you know, eat what you kill kind of thing, you know, no salaries in those jobs back then. And so I don't think it, for me, it was that unusual. I think for people coming out of school today, that would be unheard of. Uh, but I think it was just the way I was brought up in the jobs I had throughout high school and college to pay for those things. They were always basically, uh, I got paid for the work I did. I didn't just get paid a salary.

Evan Delaune: And so were you picking investments for clients? How did you get your first clients walk us through that first job?

Michael Lane: Yeah. So, um, one thing I was 21 years old when I graduated. And so I came right into this business, uh, at 21 years old, I probably looked like I was about 14 at the time.

Evan Delaune: People ask me that all the time. Are you 16? I'm like, I promise I'm not.

Michael Lane: Exactly. You do look younger. Uh, and so I was in a similar situation as you, I looked very young. And so how do you build credibility with somebody you're sitting across the table with? It's 55 years old, working at IBM in Binghamton, New York, thinking about retiring, maybe taking an early out option. They were very popular back in the late eighties, early nineties. And why would they trust you? You know, this kid. Um, and so humility came into play, which was don't pretend that you know more than they do, uh, be willing to listen, be willing to learn from the person sitting across from you and hat and be humble enough to explain. My job is not to, uh, tell you how to run your money or how to manage your money or how to retire or what to money to spend. My job is to learn as much as I can about you bring that information back. And then we, we have discussions about what would be the right solution for somebody like you. I have a team behind me. It's not me. If it was just me, I wouldn't give me the money. And so I got very good at helping people understand that I know my, you know, I know what I was talking about. I S I was a student of everything I did, but I made sure that people knew that there were other people around me that had much more credibility and experience than I did. And that built trust. Sometimes I bring some people with me to illustrate that there was something, somebody that wasn't 14 sitting in front of them looking, but that, that is important. And it carries through in the rest of your career is people are much more willing to do business with a team, particularly than an individual, when they're very young and inexperienced. And so building that credibility through a team environment will, will help you, you know, uh, yes, you may have to share in the revenues that you create, but you wouldn't create it otherwise. So it's okay.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a big thing for young people, college kids, early college kids have a fear of not being hired because of all of this AI stuff. But it seems like you said, you know, you're always a student, right? Being a student of the game. It seems like that played a big role and would even play a big role now, even though it's a different world.

Michael Lane: Yeah.

Evan Delaune: The relational aspect of it. Talk about that.

Michael Lane: Well, you're right. Everybody right now is, um, petrified that everything will be AI and consistently AI experts will say the one thing that can't be AI is relationships. And when you think about a few of the things that are most important to most people, uh, and also most personal, difficult to talk about, uh, one of those tends to be money. It tends to be their, their wealth. Uh, it's like religion, politics, wealth, you know, those are difficult things to talk about in groups. And so, uh, there is going to be, I think, a benefit of, uh, tools that will help people do some exploration on their own to learn more. And AI is a great tool at expediting information returns, not always accurate. So we have to be super careful. Uh, and if you ask an, you know, a Google AI, uh, bot, you know, five days in a row, the same question, you'll get five different answers. So you have to be super careful how you use AI right now, but it is good at at least giving some education to give people more comfort before they walk into the room and have a conversation. But I have yet to see anybody, uh, succeed in wealth without human interaction of, of helping people manage wealth. Uh, I know people that date back to when I was, you know, at racing school and I met the first person that ever was going to create a robot, a robot advisor, a robotic advisor. Uh, and it didn't work, you know, but the person was super brilliant, uh, later created a car company called Tesla. Uh, so brilliant guy. Um, but wait, wait, wait.

Evan Delaune: Yeah.

Michael Lane: That's a whole different story.

Evan Delaune: Tell that story.

Michael Lane: Great story. So, uh, uh, I was, I was, uh, still early in my career. Um, looking back, it had to have been right around 97, 98, you know, it's been a while. So about 30 years ago, uh, a group of us, four of us decided to go to racing school. Uh, we wanted to get SCCA, you know, race car licenses. So we could race cars. Uh, we're all car fanatics. And so we went to Laguna Seca, uh, to the Skip Barber Racing Academy and we're all outside, you know, the, the racetrack. Uh, we were about to go in for the first day and we're sitting there standing there talking and the four of us, and here comes a McLaren F1 car pulls up, you know, there's only like 38 in the world. It's I remember it was silver and the person gets out and you sit in the middle of the car and your passengers sit behind you, either side of you, he gets out, his girlfriend gets out and nobody knows who this guy is, but we all want to know who he is, you know, cause even then the car was over a million dollars. And so we were, we were curious. So we asked him to go to dinner with us. And, uh, we went out to dinner and, uh, he was telling us he had sold a company, made good money on it. And he was going to create this online advisor, which would basically put financial advisors out of business.

Evan Delaune: Just explicitly. We are talking about Elon Musk.

Michael Lane: Yeah. And, uh, he was a very young, uh, person. He told us, you know, about his experiences in South Africa, which was amazing. I look back, I spent a lot of time in South Africa later in my life on business deals. And it was an incredible dinner of like learning from somebody that was so advanced, uh, in his thinking. Um, but the one element of, of again, wealth management and money management that was proven and has been proven over and over again, that is difficult to do is to create an online source where people feel comfortable when they've accumulated wealth, to just turn it over to somebody that they'd never met, felt they don't know them. They don't trust them. They don't know what their real desires are. And so that company pivoted several times, I think eventually became PayPal, you know, was basically the concept, uh, of what was being done there with using online, uh, uh, systems and the internet to be in the wealth space. It just, it became more of like a payment transaction instead of managing money. But that was Elon Musk. And I remember, I remember like it was yesterday, sitting there at dinner, listening to him. Uh, first person I'd ever met from South Africa, first person, uh, that was explaining this concept of using the internet to manage money for people. It was, it was a, uh, uh, really an incredible experience for me at a very young age to be sitting there across from him, who was also very young and then to see, you know, his incredible career, uh, progress.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. And so this all ties back to relationships. So that first job, were you successful in it, would you say? And what happened after that? How did your career progress?

Michael Lane: So interestingly, I, I was moderately successful, you know, won some awards for being a young person coming into the business. Um, but it wasn't the level of success that, you know, when you look back that I would love to have achieved, but I learned so much. I mean, I would sit across from, you know, somebody that was two to three times my age who would be treating me like they're, you know, which was great. They treat me like their son. And, uh, I would just, I, I, I got an, I had such an experience sitting there and asking questions and learning about, you know, a person who owns a construction company, a person who worked in a machine shop, who was retiring a person who was a school teacher and what, you know, what the dynamics of them saving for retirement and all these things that I learned. And what I really learned was over time, how do I influence people to make better decisions for themselves? And people all the time think sales is like a dirty word, you know, that in order to sell something, you have to trick them into something or convince them, or, you know, there's all sorts of bad connotations. I think of sales as influence. Can I influence you to do the right thing for you? Well, the only way I can do that is first I have to understand what's important to you. Then I can help influence your decision-making to improve the outcome for what's really important to you. And that I learned from that first job, I had moderate success. I did it for four years. I got promoted at 23 to district manager, which meant I managed the office of 14 people that were twice my age or more. And so moderate success to get promoted at 23 to be in the district manager. But, you know, the career really took off, I'd say, after I left that first job.

Evan Delaune: It seems like on the sales part, the relationship is so important because you have to know someone to see how much integrity they have.

Michael Lane: That's right.

Evan Delaune: It seems like that's a really big, big piece of that as well. Was that an easy thing for you to understand and be able to communicate that you're doing this for your client and I'm attempting to learn about you so that I can help you?

Michael Lane: I went through training early in that role. I think when I was 22, I had to go through a series of trainings, some of which were inappropriate trainings in terms of how to influence people the wrong way. You know, have a pen roll down the paper so they grab it and then they'll be more likely to sign something because the pen's in their hand. Like literally they teach you these really bad techniques of how to get somebody to do something that I didn't like and I would never practice those. But there were things I did. I did learn that were incredible, like learning about people's body language, repeating back to somebody when they tell you something, what they said, so that they know that they're being heard. I sit through now, you know, I sit through these events that are called Tiburon, Tiburon events that are run by a guy named Chip Rome. And they're always interesting because he has seven individual investors on stage every time to begin these sessions, these events. And when you ask these people why they choose their financial advisor, why do they work with somebody, it always comes down to the same thing is trust, belief, they listen to me. Why do you leave your financial advisor and hire a new one? They stopped listening to me. They stopped understanding what I needed. We didn't have a good communication. So to your point, it always is about that communication capability, trust. And the only way you build that, in my opinion, is face to face.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. And so as your career progressed, you never saw that change. And how did your career progress going from your 23? You're running an office of 14 people. What happened next?

Michael Lane: Yeah. So one of the clients I had that I was able to earn the business from was a gentleman who lived on Skinny Atlas Lake up in near Syracuse, New York. And I went to his house one day and I was like, wow, this is crazy. The guy's got a beautiful home. He's on the lake. He's got a cool car. And he's doing really, really well. I want to find out what he's doing. And could I do what he does? I was doing well for who I was and where I was working as an advisor. But I looked at his lifestyle and the success he was having. And so I got to know what he did better. And what he did was very similar to what I did, except it was one level removed. Meaning I was sitting across from the individual investor every day. He was sitting across from financial advisors.

Evan Delaune: Providing them services to help them serve their clients better.

Michael Lane: Exactly. And so I asked him if he would introduce me to somebody that would be able to help me find a job like that. I thought that would be like the natural next step is I'd learned in four years of doing what I was doing, how to have good dialogue with an individual investor. Could I take those lessons and then become somebody that could provide better conversations and investment knowledge to a financial advisor who was looking to build portfolios for their clients? And so he did. He introduced me to a couple of people. And I ended up getting a job within six months. And that was the next step in my career from working with individual investors to now working with financial advisors. And I did that and I moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And my wife and I got married the same age as you just got married at 23. And we moved there and we were just getting started. And so it was a great experience. We moved to Pittsburgh and I became what we call in the industry a wholesaler, which was basically just I represented an investment management firm, working with financial advisors to educate them more about what the products that investment management firm was distributing.

Evan Delaune: And that was a lot of travel at that age.

Michael Lane: Oh, yeah.

Evan Delaune: What was that like being young, married and traveling a lot?

Michael Lane: Are you asking this for your own benefit? You know, yeah, I you know, that is it actually means that you have got to trust one another. And when you're young, that's hard because you haven't been around together very long. My wife and I now have been together for over 38 years.

Evan Delaune: So congratulations.

Michael Lane: Thank you. Yeah. So we we built that trust because I still travel, you know, virtually every day. But it was hard and there weren't cell phones.

Evan Delaune: That's a big difference. I mean, that really is. I mean, yes, we've got used to calls and FaceTime significantly. I mean, completely different relationship dynamic without very different.

Michael Lane: No cell phones, no email.

Evan Delaune: Wow.

Michael Lane: So the only way you communicated back then was through the hotel phone and it was expensive. So you could only do like two minute calls. You know, you had to be really quick, but you needed to make sure you did it every day. Always touch base every day with your spouse. If you can't touch base because you're stuck in a meeting or you're out of service, like just prepare that you're not going to be able to do it. But for me anyway, and my my wife, Lisa, we were able to every day at least even have just a two minute conversation just so that we would touch base. But that that I think set the foundation for our relationship because I've traveled extensively. We've moved many times. And I think that the trust that was built early in our in our relationship, we met in college and were dating through college and then and then got married, you know, right shortly after graduating. I think that that touching base, keeping informed, it doesn't mean that it's never going to be rocky, by the way, they're going to have your moments. We've had our moments. But the foundation we built early on, I think makes a huge difference.

Evan Delaune: And so you get married, you move, you start working, providing services and and wholesaling products to financial advisors. How did you start working at DFA?

Michael Lane: Ah, OK. So DFA, as David Booth would say, he'd correct you and say dimensional dimensional. In 1994, a recruiter called me. I was I was working at a firm called Providian. And then they they they later got acquired by Agon. But a recruiter for a firm called Providian called me and it was just it was the timeliness of it was crazy because one of my trips that I had taken as the wholesaler was to this place in Kentucky.

Evan Delaune: I got. So you you between when you first got your wholesaling job and when you worked at DFA, you worked as a wholesaler, but at a couple of different firms. Is that correct?

Michael Lane: So I went from that wholesaling wholesaling job to then I became the manager of the wholesaling operation. So I became like what they call the national sales manager at another company. Another company came and recruited me to take over, which was, again, very quick sort of promotion when I was young. But that's how I met Dimensional. So in 1994, they they were looking for somebody to come in that would build help build a product and then work, you know, to bring that product to market for a new marketplace called Registered Investment Advisors. It was a very new market. RIAs. People didn't even know what RIA was. I was just as guilty as everybody. I call it IRA. And I'm like, no, IRA is a qualified plan. RIA is an individual is a type of advisor. And so it was a brand new marketplace just getting started. And this this product we were creating, one of the fund managers we first worked with, which is ironic, I'll share why it's ironic, was DFA, Dimensional. The second was SEI, which is kind of ironic in 1994. And so I got to know the Dimensional people. It was David Booth and Gene Fama and Ken French and all these, you know, two, you know, they all became, you know, Nobel Prize winners, Merton Miller and Myron Scholes, Bob Merton, all these incredible luminaries. And so I got to I got to meet them. I got to spend time with them. And I became very enamored with the investment philosophy of the firm. And so I worked with them for 10 years while I worked at Agon. They, you know, I built products with them and we distributed together. I spoke at all their conferences and really became very deep, you know, deep relationships. Still, David Booth's, you know, super close friend who was the founder of Dimensional. And in 2004, I remember calling David, it was a night and I was like, I think I'm ready to, you know, I think we've always kind of said someday I'm going to come work for you. I think it's time, like, I want to come work at Dimensional. And so we, we talked that night, we, he said, you know, fly on out to Santa Monica, and I flew to Santa Monica, and we figured out a role that would work. And I went to work at Dimensional in 2004. And I stayed with DFA for 14 years.

Evan Delaune: And how old were you at the time? And how big was Dimensional? I mean, you're just calling David Booth. I mean, today, that sounds ridiculous, right?

Michael Lane: He's a legend in the business. And so when I started working with them in 1994, they had $8 billion under management. When I became an employee of David's in 2004, and moved to California, the day I started was the day they hit $50 billion under management. And then when I left, we had $615 billion under management. So yeah, it was a great, you know, 14 year run of working there and seeing the growth and the scaling of going from 8 to 50 to 614, you know, 15.

Evan Delaune: What did you learn at Dimensional?

Michael Lane: I learned about having a philosophy. I learned about belief. There are different ways that you can approach things in any industry in any business. But what you learn at Dimensional, I'd say more than any other firm I've ever worked at. Each firm you learn something, you have to learn something from every firm you work at, there will be takeaways, some good, some bad. At Dimensional, what was amazing was the philosophy and the discipline around the philosophy. They would not waver. David and crew do not waver, will not waver. There's no trends they're going to follow in terms of like, you know, the dot com boom and bust and the tech boom and bust, all these different things that that happened. They sort of stayed out of that fray. They're a big believer that there has to be evidence behind every decision that's made. Every investment that is developed has to have academic research and rigor behind it. And so what I learned was discipline. I learned about precision, because David was tough. You had a typo in your memo, he would call you out. And I used to watch him call out certain individuals that worked there for just a spelling error. But the purpose wasn't to put you on the spot. The purpose was to continue to refine the level of precision required to manage money the right way for investors. And so that's what I learned. Yeah.

Evan Delaune: It's like in Remember the Titans when he says perfection in everything you do.

Michael Lane: Yes. Yeah. And it's really easy to get sloppy. Speed is the enemy of precision.

Evan Delaune: Yeah.

Michael Lane: If you want to be super fast, you sometimes get sloppy.

Evan Delaune: We talk about it at TPM a lot, and it's very similar to you guys, but that you are dealing with people's life savings. I mean, you're not just dealing with money, you're dealing with 40 years of sweat and blood and tears. You are dealing with everything that people have. And that should carry a level of pride for you that you get to deal with that. People have entrusted that to your hands, but also should have a lot of responsibility in it.

Michael Lane: Yeah.

Evan Delaune: Because it's an important thing. It seems like Dimensional had the right mindset on that.

Michael Lane: They did. They had the right mindset, very precision driven, and always. And this was something else I learned that I try to carry with me in every conversation I have to this day is every conversation that you're having in the office or outside the office, you should not have if you would not be comfortable with your best client sitting next to you during that conversation.

Evan Delaune: It's a good one.

Michael Lane: It's a great one. Think about it. You're talking about people's money. You're talking about how do you manage it? How do you help them accumulate more and achieve their goals? Everything you said about, you know, this is one of the most valuable things, important things in people's lives so that they can either take care of themselves or even generations after them. And there are a lot of businesses that the focus is not necessarily on the individual and their desires, needs and wants, but the economics of how much can you make on it. And that's the challenge in our industry sometimes is I'm client centric. My focus is on first and foremost, how do we make sure that we're doing the right thing for the investor. But there are a lot of people who it's about the economics of the business and the stock price and things like that. You have to be careful. You would be a bad fiduciary to your investors in your firm if you don't care about that. But I'm a huge believer if you do what's right for the client, the rest will take care of itself. And so that that also is a great lesson from how Dimensional runs.

Evan Delaune: Yeah, we had Brent Johnson on the podcast, and he was talking about when he worked at at big banks that they wanted to make money. And if the client made money as well, that was great.

Michael Lane: Yeah.

Evan Delaune: Right. That was not a downside, but it was definitely not the first most important thing. And that's when he said, I'm just going to go out on my own. It's difficult, though, in a big company. It's maybe not surprising, but it's it's interesting that that Dimensional was even able to keep that mindset as you grew to six hundred and fifteen billion dollars. What was that? Was that just discipline at the top?

Michael Lane: I think it was a combination of two things, which is which is difficult in today's world. It was a combination of discipline at the top. And David was always very client centric, but also not being publicly traded. Yeah, because when you're publicly traded, you have a responsibility to the your fiduciary, to those shareholders, you know, the people that are investing in your firm. And and it's quarterly. And so when you're not publicly traded and you're private and, you know, like, you know, dimensional is there's not that quarterly pressure. And so it's a little easier to focus one hundred percent on the client because there's nobody breathing down your back every day of, you know, on the quarterly. So that is one of the challenges we face in the public markets. It's something Larry Fink at BlackRock has been a vocal advocate that we should move away from quarterly earnings.

Evan Delaune: Yeah.

Michael Lane: Quarterly earnings creates, you know, some bad behavior, some bad decision making, because at the end of the day, you have to show up and look good every quarter. Well, that sometimes means you don't invest long term, you know, in the growth of your firm. So I'd say that, you know, there's lots of different reasons why, you know, you know, one firm might be more client centric than another. But being public is tough because of that that demand every quarter. So that's why you see, you know, more and more companies are going private because they want to be able to invest longer term with and not, you know, have the risk that the street is going to penalize them because they're making investments, strategic investments in the firm.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. Well, let's talk about that, because then after Dimensional, you go work at BlackRock and then now SEI, both publicly traded companies. So you've had to deal with that. But first, how did you get to BlackRock? You had an amazing run at Dimensional. Talk about that.

Michael Lane: Sure. And this is, you know, one of the things that Dimensional has solved for. But at the time, you look at what was happening in the marketplace. We're moving from a world of mutual funds are what most people were buying for, you know, packaged investment solutions and ETFs were becoming the next big trend. And ETFs were basically just an improved technology over mutual funds in the sense that the prices were like a stock or a bond. It was, you know, updating every minute, you know, mutual fund updates every 15 minutes, 10 minutes at the end of the day, at the end of it or when you can buy it. Yeah. So, you know, you buy it at nine or 10 a.m. You don't know what your price is. You're you find your price out at four o'clock or four thirty or five is exactly after close. And so in the ETF, you buy it at 10 o'clock. You know what price you got. And so ETF started to become much more attractive to investors and also to financial advisors. And when BlackRock called, they asked, you know, the the the opportunity and it wasn't really the BlackRock called per se. It was a relationship. Going back to the relationship, I was on the board, the foundation board at Binghamton University where I went to school and they they asked me if I would get to know somebody by the name of Rob Goldstein, who was the chief operating officer of BlackRock, Rob's alumni of Binghamton. And so they wanted Rob and I to get to know each other better and largely, I think, so that we could get Rob more engaged, you know, in the school. And he was such a great example of the level that you can achieve coming out of Binghamton being in the role he's in that they set up a meeting. And so Rob and I got together and purely for the benefit of like getting to know each other better as two alumni that had never met, never at any moment during those meetings that I ever expect I would end up going to work at BlackRock. So I was super happy at Dimensional. And then we we kept getting together and getting to know each other better. We both met our wives at Binghamton. He was still married to his wife from Binghamton. I was still married to my wife from Binghamton. We started getting together with our wives, Abby and Lisa. And so he started introducing me to other people, Saleem Ramji, who's now the CEO of Vanguard. And so these these other people started coming into our discussions and meetings. And and then, you know, I got to meet Rob Caputo and Larry Fink. And all of a sudden, I realized I wasn't just getting to know Rob and networking anymore. You know, we were talking about something else. And so eventually, after about eight months of just really getting to know people better, the opportunity came up to work at BlackRock and be involved in what the future of the market was, which was the ETF business. And so as hard as it was to leave what I deeply believed in, in terms of what I was doing with David Booth at Dimensional, the opportunity to go be part of where the market was going and the business was going, which was the ETF business, and with a leader, the largest asset manager in the world in BlackRock, that's when I made the move in 2018.

Evan Delaune: And so then is it safe to say you went and ran iShares, the behemoth?

Michael Lane: So I ran iShares for wealth, which was the biggest business at the time, became the biggest business for BlackRock. And I did that for a little over five years and unbelievable experience. And you talk about, you know, what did you learn at Dimensional? I'm seeing that question come out of you and what was about to come. So you learned discipline and philosophy at Dimensional. What did you learn at BlackRock? Scale. At BlackRock, you learn scale, pace, balance of precision and pace, like, you know, because you have to work much quicker. You work longer hours at BlackRock. BlackRock is that firm that you work 24-7. And you do because there's so much to do, because the scale is so big. You know, the amount of assets that flow to BlackRock on an annual basis is mind-boggling of how much money that people entrust there every year. And so I learned a whole different strategic mindset, urgency, pace, scale, all of those things at BlackRock, which quite frankly was, you know, probably the most important lessons I've learned in my career that I'll carry through because you also learn there's no room. If you want to be the biggest precious metals business in the world, you can't do pet projects. You can't do these little sideline items that will never scale. It sucks resources, and you'll spend a ton of time on them, and they're not going to be materially important for the success of the firm. So you have to just let them go. And that's hard to do because some of these really are meaningful to you personally, but you have to walk away because it can't scale to the level it has to when you're a $13 trillion business.

Evan Delaune: And it might be mildly lucrative in the short term, but is it going to take you where you need to go?

Michael Lane: Right.

Evan Delaune: I think a lot of people have almost a negative view of BlackRock just because of the size. Oh, you know, the BlackRock owns everything kind of thing. Is that true? Talk about the reality peeked behind the curtain of the, you know, big, scary BlackRock that people talk about. What is it actually like? I mean, you've talked about it a little bit, but is it malicious?

Michael Lane: Oh, no. BlackRock. BlackRock's an amazing company. And there was a time I live in Texas, you know, I live in Austin. There was, you know, we used to have a lot of discussion about BlackRock in the news because there was a lot of misinformation being shared. But also, you know, there was a point where Larry took a stand on a topic, and that topic was in conflict with many in Texas, you know, in the oil and gas business. And as I used to say, you know, Larry took a stand for multiple reasons. One, it was something that he believed in based on the information he had. And two, he's a commercial guy. And he saw that there was an opportunity to also improve the value of BlackRock by being a leader in it. And so there's nothing malicious. I remember walking into the office, you know, in Hudson Yards one day, and there was a guy standing there with one of those sandwich boards. And it said something like, how is it possible that BlackRock owns the top 500 companies in America? And I'm like, because we have an S&P 500 fund.

Evan Delaune: You own the top 500.

Michael Lane: We all own, if you have an S&P 500 fund, we all own the top 500. But that was the mentality, which is like, there was so much misinformation coming into the market about BlackRock being like, you know, this firm that, you know, was so large that it was, you know, sort of dominating the world. And, and at the end of the day, the scale of the firm, they were able to drive down prices, improve outcomes for clients. And I worked there for almost seven years. I never met a malicious person at that firm ever in my life, in my seven years. So a great firm, great people. But, you know, when you, when you take a stand on something, you're gonna, you're gonna annoy a population. There was a stand taken. And, you know, it, it was a stand based on the information that was known as more information was learned within the BlackRock, you know, halls that evolved. And, and I know that, you know, the state of Texas and BlackRock are on really good ground now. But yeah, there was a little bit of a moment there because the stand was starting to cause some harm to, you know, the people in the oil and gas business, which is a critical business for the success of the United States. So it was a, it was a moment in time. I think, I think luckily we've passed largely that.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. Yeah. It seems like when we talked about your, your background and earlier in your life, it seems like integrity is a huge piece. It sounds like you probably wouldn't go work at a firm that did not have integrity in some way, shape or form.

Michael Lane: Yeah. If I didn't, if I don't believe that at the end of the day, the executive team that I'm sitting alongside have the client's best interests in mind, I won't work there. I just won't.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. Yeah. I was mentored by, by Britt Harrison in college and his Titans program. Amazing. And you get in a class with Britt and you think that you're going to talk all about markets and geopolitics and you do, but it is always preceded by the pushing of wisdom and integrity are the first thing that matter and nothing else matters if you don't have that.

Michael Lane: Yep.

Evan Delaune: What happened to lead you to SEI? How did you, was it just time? Talk about that story.

Michael Lane: Yeah. So there will come times in your career, there's it's, you know, it, it hadn't happened really to me until around 2023, 2024 where you'll be asked to do something that maybe you just don't want to do. Um, and it's not that I was asked to do something that wasn't, you know, uh, moral, ethical, it was take on a new role that wasn't part of what I saw as my personal, you know, progression. And, and that's okay. When that happens, you have to speak up and say, this isn't exactly what I see as my path. And, uh, and so when those moments happen and they happen to, you know, most people in the workforce, there's going to be a time where it's like, gosh, that's not really the path I want to take. I, I want to go a different path. Um, that opens the window of opportunity for other companies to come calling and to, uh, start to, uh, entice you and influence you to maybe go do something else. And so I started to listen to, you know, other opportunities because of, uh, uh, you know, there's a rotation that takes place at, at BlackRock where, you know, every few years, five years, you know, six years, they start to sort of move you around. And quite frankly, I just didn't like the, uh, the, the path I was going down, uh, for my next role. And I was open and honest about it. I wasn't, I didn't hide my feelings on it, but it did open the window where I started to listen as recruiters were calling and saying, Hey, we have this CEO job, this CEO job, this CEO job. Would you be interested? And there were some that were very, very interesting that I started to listen to. And then, uh, a recruiter called me about SEI. And what I said earlier in our discussion is the first two fund managers in that deal when I moved to Kentucky, uh, was, you know, Dimensional and SEI. And so I remember SEI because in 1994, you know, 30 years later, uh, 30 years earlier, I had done a deal with them, but I'd lost touch with them. They'd become this sleepy company where, uh, they weren't showing up in any of our competitive analysis reports at BlackRock, you know, we weren't really paying attention to them. Uh, so I wasn't that familiar with what they had become, who they were today. I knew them still like basically 30 years earlier. And so, uh, I started to take the time to actually learn, you know, who are they, what are they, what are they doing these days? And so it, uh, it turned out that they had incredible capabilities that just nobody knew that they existed. And so it was one of those opportunities where you look at it and you say, okay, scaled firm, uh, diversified business, incredible balance sheet, no debt, tons of cash, but they needed a better strategy in certain businesses and leadership.

Evan Delaune: Mm.

Michael Lane: And, uh, you know, uh, a tribute to Ryan Hickey, who's the CEO, the hardest job on the planet is to succeed the first CEO in a founder led company, hardest job on the planet.

Evan Delaune: I believe it.

Michael Lane: And in this situation, even harder because the founder stayed on as CEO for 54 years.

Evan Delaune: Wow.

Michael Lane: So what, you know, the hardest job on the planet is what Ryan Hickey took over. Um, because there's been a way of doing business and the leadership in place. Uh, and if you're going to make a material impact on that firm, you probably have to change how it's been done.

Evan Delaune: Yeah.

Michael Lane: And that's going to be unpopular among some people. Uh, and so what Ryan did a great job of was he went outside and he looked for talent that had great experiences from outside SEI. And he blended that with a longstanding talent and experiences from within SEI. And so if you look at our executive committee, it's a combination of new talent and very longstanding talent that's been at the firm for 25, 30 plus years. And so you get the history, but you also get people that have come in from the outside that have worked at a BlackRock or worked at a, you that's scaled and successful. And so bring those ideas in, bring that sense of urgency in and marry that with the existing businesses and the knowledge and the understanding of how things get done. And I think that together now we've been able to do something really unexpected where when I looked at SEI and I started getting called on him, I was like, sleepy, quiet, don't hear much about him. And now one of the biggest compliments I get all the time is how many people will say, my God, every time I turn around, I see SEI now. Like what's changed? Yeah.

Evan Delaune: Was Ryan a long-term SEI guy?

Michael Lane: Yeah. He's 26 years. It's the only place he's ever worked. So he's been a student of SEI from the time he graduated college at St. Joe's. I think he just got elected to the hall of fame at St. Joe's from a business perspective. So that is hard if you've grown up in one firm to go out and bring in new ideas. That can be hard to bring in new ideas to your firm that you've worked at your whole life. But if you don't do that, you will get stale.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. It seems like in that founder-led CEO for a long time, the company almost is the founder in a lot of ways, right? Like for a lot of people, Dimensional is David Booth.

Michael Lane: A hundred percent.

Evan Delaune: Right. And so that is an incredibly just tough act to follow, right?

Michael Lane: Yes. It is an incredibly tough act to follow. That's why it doesn't work very well for the second CEO.

Evan Delaune: Most of the time.

Michael Lane: Most of the time it doesn't work so well because a very different personality. Also, typically with these very successful firms, you're going from a very successful CEO that has had incredible financial success to somebody that's been an employee. And that's hard in succession planning. But I will hand it to Ryan. He's been doing it for four years and he's found that balance. And he's had, I would say, probably there's some people out there that he's had unexpected success. And I think Ryan's a confident guy. He probably expected the success he's had.

Evan Delaune: So you're a senior executive at Dimensional, at BlackRock and at SEI.

Michael Lane: Yeah.

Evan Delaune: You've done all this. You've had a fantastic career. But one theme that I've seen just knowing you for the past few months, being on some calls with you, getting lunch with you today, and then just seeing you on LinkedIn is you told me at lunch today that you always try to get lunch or coach young people, college students. Why do you do that? Is that a good use of your time? And why is it?

Michael Lane: Yeah, I think there's probably some people that support me sometimes that are like, why are you spending time there? You've got so much on your calendar already, but it's important. So I didn't have that. I didn't have mentors. I didn't have people I could lean on and ask questions of. I just wasn't surrounded by it. And so for me, I've been fortunate. I've had a great career. I hope to have many more years ahead still. I feel like I'm a very young, you know, 50. My human scale says I'm only 45.

Evan Delaune: Yeah, you're that metabolic age.

Michael Lane: Very young. So I still got time to go. I do find that it's super important to get back. And as I get back, I want the people that I coach to get back. So I'm still very involved in my university. I try to coach three to five young people on Fridays a week, little 20 minute sessions, you know, to just hear them out. What's important to them? What do they want to ask me? And I'll do like, ask me anything, just 20 minute, ask me anything. I'll ask them questions to back. I will coach them on sometimes what they did well and what they didn't do well. Sometimes the people won't listen. No matter what you tell them, they will just continue to make mistakes that do not serve them well in terms of building a network. And others impress you to the point where you will make five or six calls to other people and say, you need to talk to this person and hire them. And I've done that for many people. And I've got a very high, you know, success rate of placing people who wow me that are young people that are juniors or seniors in college and blow you away. You're like, my God, you know, they're better. They're 100 times better than I am today. And they're, you know, 21, 22 years old. So I feel it's important to do. It wasn't done for me. I feel it's important to do for others. But I also am building this incredible network now of young people that are helping other young people.

Evan Delaune: What are the biggest themes you're seeing from young people right now?

Michael Lane: Fear. I just spoke to several young people at an event I was at. Every one of them came up and said, I need a job. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know how I'm going to get a job. AI is going to take my job. There's gonna be no way for me to break in because AI is going to do all the para planning or the entry level work. It's like there's fear. So we have to figure out how our young people don't pay a fortune for college, come out of college, and what were the entry level jobs are all used up by AI and machine learning and quantum computing someday. That scares them. It scares me that we have to make sure that we keep finding ways to come into the business. And so I'd say fear is one. The biggest question, how do I stand out in a world that my not being read by a humanist, being read by AI and looking for keywords?

Evan Delaune: Someone told me in college, everybody's resume is good. At these top interviews.

Michael Lane: It better be now.

Evan Delaune: Exactly. Everybody's resume is good. Everybody can have a good verb to start your sentence. Everybody has a decent GPA who's interviewing at these top firms. It's like the resume might crack the door open, but it sure as heck does not open it.

Michael Lane: It definitely can eliminate you if you don't use AI to double and triple check your resume against what the tools that are being used to eliminate. So you definitely can be eliminated because of it, but it's not going to get you the job. What's going to get you the job is, and I say it all the time, is leaning on people that can continue to get your resume at the top of the stack and building those relationships and those networks. It's amazing. I will do a talk for 800 college students and I will say on that, either on a virtual or in person, LinkedIn with me. Go out, find me on LinkedIn. It's really easy. Michael Lane, SEI. I'll pop up. You can follow me, friend me, whatever it is, and shoot me a note and I will respond. If it's worded correctly, if you send me the right type of note, I will respond and I will have my assistant set up a time for us to talk. 800 people, I'll get 50 notes.

Evan Delaune: Why do you think that is? That seems mind-blowing to me because I went to UT and there was a lot of opportunities to do that, but a lot is relative. You got really only a few good opportunities. Somebody who actually meant it. It blows my mind that people don't take advantage of that. Why do you think that is?

Michael Lane: It blows my mind too and I don't know if it's people don't believe that they'll get a response.

Evan Delaune: No way this guy's actually going to message me back.

Michael Lane: I'm not going to spend my three minutes to send a note. I dismiss that as being a rational argument, but I tell myself that. I tell myself that maybe it's because of the 800, only 75 of those were actually people that want to be in the business I'm in, so maybe the rest just don't care. And so they're not interested. But it is startling because that's the thing that I also get frustrated sometimes with young people who become very myopic and they think, well, I don't want to go into the financial services business so I'm not going to network with this person. I also have a lot of friends in multiple other industries that if you were an outstanding individual who wows me in a 20 minute chat, I can introduce you to a lot of different industries, but they just won't do it. And so somebody at one day, I asked him, why haven't you called on these 10 different firms that we gave to you? And they're like, well, I don't know anybody there. I'm like, my God. Life is about finding a way to get in the door, getting a bat. That's what life is all about, is getting a bat. And if you can't figure out how to get in a door with somebody you don't know, you're going to struggle. So go the extra mile, find the way to get in the door to get the shot.

Evan Delaune: Yeah, I had a job in high school and I don't remember the details around it, but I remember I went to my boss at the time with a problem that was like a real problem, not like something simple, something that I could not do. And he said, figure it out, left and went home. And I figured it out. And I feel like that's kind of what we have to do for kids who come to you in fear. What do you think college kids, young entry-level people, what do you tell them to do?

Michael Lane: Don't get so hung up on the first job out of college being your dream job. Just get experience and do not, do not. I was the commencement speaker at Binghamton two years ago. And that was one of my things is that the killer of careers is entitlement.

Evan Delaune: Yeah.

Michael Lane: You know, you're coming out of school, you know, Jeannie Singfeld was the head of trading at Dimensional way back in the day. And I remember she used to walk into the, you know, the new, the training and she'd just look at him and say, all yours is risk. Let's be clear. None of you are going to do anything that is going to help the firm. You're just risk. You don't know anything yet. So learn, engage, get to know what people do and don't be risk, you know? And so, so that's one of the things that she would always say. And from, from my perspective, when you think about young people coming into the workforce, I hear it all the time. I'm like, yeah, I got offered a job, but it's not what I want to do. I'm like, oh my God, you do realize that you can take that job. And within 12 to 14 months, if there's another role you want to be in, in that firm, most firms will let you apply for that role within. Now you're in the infrastructure. You're part of the ecosystem. You've built hopefully some credibility that you're good. You're not just pure risk. And now you can transition into another role. So I, that's one of the lessons I say to the young people is, you know, don't get so hung up on, on the job having to be exactly what you want. You may not find the perfect job for the first six, seven, eight years of your career. That's okay. You know, sometimes it's a means to an end those first few jobs.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. And it, at once you get that first job, it's now somebody knows who you are, right? Just get out there. I saw a study a while back that said that Harvard students were polled and that I think it was like 83%. It was something super high would rather make $160,000 with their counterparts, making a hundred thousand dollars, then make $200,000 with their counterparts, making $225,000. And that blew my mind, but it really is. I mean, I'm, I'm Gen Z and it really is the, the social media effect, the highlighting the 1% effect that we have to get away from. And the AI fear, I mean, it's real. I mean, it is undoubtedly real and it's something to be concerned about, but if you allow it to just freeze you, you have no chance.

Michael Lane: You have no chance. And there are a lot of people that want to help. There's a lot of people that want to help you find that first job, you know, help you at least maybe position yourself better. I always get a kick out of when somebody will say, could you review my resume? I'm like, that I don't have time for, but like, let me help you with like a few ways of networking and, and finding somebody that, you know, you could take to lunch that is in an industry that you want to be in and wow, that person, and they'll refer you to five or six more people. And that's, that is going to trump chatbots and AI bots and everything else, reading through your resumes and doing online interviews with like a screen with literally a robot, like asking you questions and looking at your eye contact and stuff like that. And that'll all get washed aside relative to somebody saying you should hire Evan.

Evan Delaune: Yeah.

Michael Lane: That wins every day. So people just have to better at that.

Evan Delaune: Well, I mean, I think the fact that Michael Lane, the head of asset management at SEI is willing to do that is a case study for there are men and women out there who have done it and are willing to actually go out and try to help you.

Michael Lane: Absolutely. And what I love is because I've done this for hundreds, those hundreds are like a multiplier effect.

Evan Delaune: Yeah.

Michael Lane: So I can refer people out to those hundreds, those hundreds will refer to other hundreds. And now, you know, at the end of the day, it's a feel good thing. Like, I know I can make a material difference in the lives of lots of people. And some are super grateful, and they'll call you when they get the job and stuff. And that's, that's, that makes my day. And some you'll never hear from again, but that's okay. You know, you made an impact.

Evan Delaune: Yeah. Well, I mean, it speaks to character, speaks to character view, and it speaks the character of kids to be willing. It's, it's intimidating. I mean, I'm sure getting on a zoom call with Michael Lane is, is intimidating for college kids.

Michael Lane: Try to make it not intimidating. But yeah, I think about myself back in the day, I would have been intimidated. Yeah.

Evan Delaune: Yeah, totally. Well, Michael, thank you so much for coming on. I actually did get you a quick present. All right, that I want to give you. It is a one ounce silver Y'all Street coin. I love it coming on the Y'all Street podcast.

Michael Lane: Thank you.

Evan Delaune: And I respect significantly all that you do and the career that you've built and how you you give back and thanks for coming on the pod.

Michael Lane: Thanks for having me and thank you for silver. One of the most appreciating and fastest appreciating assets out there right now. Thank you very much.