The Situation

Soo-jin is a 37-year-old staff software engineer at Meta in the Bay Area. Between her base salary and four years of RSU grants, she and her husband were comfortably into the high six figures, with a toddler at home and a second on the way. By most measures they were doing everything right — maxing her 401(k), contributing to a 529, and letting her vested shares accumulate because the stock had been good to them.

That last habit was the problem hiding in plain sight. Every vest added more META to a pile she never sold, and over four years it grew to roughly $500,000 — about 62% of the family's liquid net worth tied up in a single stock and a single employer. Her paycheck and her portfolio were now betting on the same company at the same time.

The Gap We Found

Soo-jin's CPA filed clean returns, and her 401(k) was invested sensibly. But no one was looking at the concentration itself. A CPA reacts to what already happened in April; an investment advisor she didn't have wasn't watching her vest schedule. The result was a textbook concentration risk — well past the 20–25% single-stock threshold where it's worth acting — with no plan to unwind it without triggering a large capital-gains bill all at once.

What We Did

We started with the shares that cost nothing to sell. RSUs are taxed as ordinary income at vest, so selling a lot the moment it vests usually means $0 in additional capital gains on that lot. We routed her future vests straight into diversification, so the concentration stops growing the day we start.

For the existing $500K position, we used specific lot identification to sell the highest-cost-basis shares first — the lots with the smallest embedded gain — and spread the sales across two tax years to keep her out of a higher bracket. Alongside that, we moved the proceeds into a direct-indexing portfolio with tax-loss harvesting, which rebuilds broad market exposure while banking realized losses we can use to offset the gains from trimming META. We parked her near-term cash needs in a Treasury ladder so the money waiting to be reinvested still earned a competitive, tax-efficient yield.

Finally, because larger sales and vests change what she owes, Alphanso's AI agents track the gap between what's been withheld and what's actually due, and flag the right quarterly estimated payment before each deadline — so the diversification doesn't quietly create an underpayment penalty.

The Result

• Reduced single-stock concentration from 62% to about 20% of liquid net worth over two tax years, without a single surprise tax bill.
• Harvested roughly $11,000 in losses through direct indexing to offset gains realized on the META sales.
• All future vests now diversify automatically — the concentration problem doesn't come back.
• Soo-jin stopped checking the stock price every morning. Her family's plan no longer rises and falls with one company.

Why This Worked

None of these moves are exotic. They worked because someone was finally looking at the whole picture at once — the vest schedule, the tax brackets, the cost basis, and the cash needs — instead of each piece in isolation. That's the difference integration makes, and it's why a flat-fee, fiduciary model matters: we're paid to make the right call, not to manage the assets we happened to talk you into keeping. If your paycheck and your portfolio are both riding on the same ticker, it's worth a conversation. Talk to an Alphanso advisor.

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.