Edelman continued. “And if he doesn’t put you out of business, someone like him will. And I’ll take this further—it probably won’t be Adam; it’ll be Adam’s successor, because I don’t necessarily believe that Adam will survive.”

He quickly clarified that his comments weren’t directed at Nash’s own personal survival, but rather were a commentary on his belief that other, larger companies will enter the automated investment service space and eat Wealthfront’s lunch. “Adam will be fine; Wealthfront is toast.”

Guffaws filled the room, adding to the entertaining nature of the debate. Indeed, Edelman’s tone wasn’t confrontational. It was more a basic assessment of what he believes the current state of technology and consumer expectations mean for financial advisors.

“We [Edelman’s company] compete with advisors all of the time, and the reason we’re able to win so often is because we find most advisors have as their value proposition price and performance. If that’s your value proposition, you will get crushed by this guy,” Edelman said, alluding to Nash and Wealthfront, “because you cannot do it cheaper and you cannot make more money for your clients.

“So it’s vital to us to offer something else as a value proposition,” he continued. “At least at our firm, that something else is a personal relationship with broad-based financial planning and a goals-based environment covering every aspect of a client’s personal finances. Which is something Wealthfront and the other online financial advisors simply cannot do—at least not yet.”

Edelman proposed that Wealthfront and it rivals have yet to be tested in a bear market. “Until they do, we really don’t know how sticky those assets will be and how loyal those customers truly are.”

“It really doesn’t matter to us [financial advisors as a whole] because as Adam pointed out, the person likely to become his client is a person you don’t really want anyway—a young person with only 90 grand to invest,” Edelman said. “Give it 10 or 15 years when that person is 50-plus and the 90 grand has become several hundred grand, that person will realize they need far more help than they can obtain from an online advisor—at least in their current iteration. And that’s when they will come searching for us.

"So yes, they’re a huge threat,” he continued. “And that’s why we’re spending a huge amount of energy and technological innovation in our company because if we don’t innovate and don’t stay state-of-the-art technologywise, we too will get crushed by the technology revolution.”

In his reply, Nash said he understands why advisors feel threatened by the “young, fast new model.”

“The technology wave doesn’t move backwards,” he said. “I think you’ll be shocked at the services we’ll be able to roll out as we achieve our goal of building a client-centric firm that uses software as its core advantage.”