The Situation

Mateus is a 36-year-old senior hardware engineer at Cerebras in Sunnyvale. He grew up in Sao Paulo, came to the US for grad school, and joined Cerebras in 2019 when it was still a bet most of his friends had never heard of. Six years of RSU grants and refreshers later, the IPO turned his paper wealth into something very real: roughly $2.6 million in company stock once the lockup expired.

He and his wife Larissa, a physical therapist, had done plenty right. They maxed both 401(k)s, kept their only debt to a reasonable mortgage, and never touched the shares during the lockup because they could not. But when the lockup lifted, they were left staring at a number: 90% of their net worth was riding on a single volatile chip stock. Every product announcement and every earnings call moved their family balance sheet by six figures.

The Gap We Found

Nobody was doing anything wrong. His CPA saw the tax return once a year and did it well. A brokerage rep had told him to "sell some when it feels right." But no one had the lot-level cost basis, the current-year tax picture, and the family goals in one view. Selling everything at once would have stacked enormous capital gains into a single year. Doing nothing meant the family stayed one bad quarter away from a very different net worth. The problem was not advice quality, it was that the advice was fragmented.

What We Did

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First, defense. We built a staged 12-month unwind using specific lot identification, selling the highest-basis lots first so each dollar diversified triggered the smallest possible gain. We also changed the default for every future vest: new RSUs are now sold immediately at vest. Since RSUs are taxed as ordinary income at vest anyway, selling right away means essentially zero additional capital gains, and it stopped the concentration from quietly rebuilding.

Second, offense. Sale proceeds moved into a direct indexing portfolio, which holds the individual stocks of an index rather than a fund. That let us harvest losses on individual positions all year and use them to offset the gains from unwinding his low-basis Cerebras lots, meaningfully cutting the tax cost of diversifying.

Third, foundation. A seven-figure sale year is exactly when withholding falls apart, so Alphanso’s AI agents parsed his payroll, tracked the gap between taxes withheld and taxes actually owed, and calculated each quarterly estimated payment before the deadline. And because most of the family’s wealth had just become liquid, we put a revocable living trust in place and updated every beneficiary designation so the assets would pass cleanly.

The Result

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• Concentration cut from 90% of net worth to 24% in twelve months, without a panic sale
• $54,000 in harvested losses offset gains from the unwind
• Zero underpayment penalties despite a seven-figure sale year
• A written rule for every future vest, so decisions are automatic instead of emotional

Why This Worked

None of these moves is exotic. What made them work together was that one team could see the whole picture: the lot-level basis, the tax year, the vest schedule, and what Mateus and Larissa actually wanted their money to do. Because Alphanso charges a flat fee rather than a percentage of assets, there was no incentive to rush money under management or to keep him concentrated. As a fiduciary, the only job was the right sequence of moves for his family. If your net worth is concentrated in one stock after an IPO, we would be glad to walk through your situation: request a callback.

This case study is a composite illustration based on real Alphanso client scenarios. Names and identifying details have been changed for privacy. Results are not guaranteed and will vary based on individual circumstances. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Alphanso LLC is a registered investment adviser.