Basis Northwest 2026: self-selected
Sufficiently specific content
Thank you to our sponsors, speakers, and everyone who attended Basis Northwest from near and far.
We’ll be back soon…
I was at a private wealth conference a while back, and maybe 10% of the sessions mentioned tax.
At the happy hour afterward, one attendee asked me why anyone would care about how investments were taxed as long as they were making money. He thought tax management was a joke.
My conference, Basis Northwest, in Seattle, WA, wrapped up last week. We had 350 people in the building and about 80% were from out of state.
Over and over, folks approached me and said everyone at Basis Northwest “self-selected” into attending.
In other words, everyone there cared deeply about tax management. There was approximately zero chance I’d bump into anyone who thought tax management was a joke.
One advantage of this is that we didn’t have to unpack direct indexing, for instance. Everyone took it for granted, and we simply moved into newer or more nuanced material.
I ran a survey at the end of the conference and awkwardly waited in the auditorium until we had 101 responses about where we should go next… here are the top 10:
NYC, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Denver, Miami, Nashville, LA, Austin, DC.
I also asked for general feedback, and one common theme was “too much long/short!” which I found delightful and probably correct.
I want content that spans the accumulation, management, decumulation, and estate phases and weaves them together thoughtfully.
I also want deeper technical and educational content.
No one… not one person… said they cared about making the content continuing-education-eligible.
CE content usually conflicts with the 25 min slots, which nearly everyone said they really liked.
So anyway, I have more content work to do, but I have a plan…
And here’s what people were saying during/after the conf.
Thank you again to everyone who attended.
Enjoy the balance of the weekend.
I’m taking a breather!