Having worked as a vendor to the financial space for many years, I think it is easy to underestimate how hard it is get off the ground in finance (either banking or money management). There are many obscure regulations, and often the numbers just don't add up. In the end, this probably was a fair deal for Simple.<p>I think WealthFront is another good example of the difficulty. I like the direction they are going, but they had to pivot many times to get to were they are now, and they are still a fraction of the size of established players in the market. It still isn't clear if their business model is going to work.<p>With that said, the inefficiency in the money management business is pretty ridiculous. I think companies built from the ground up on new technology will eventually replace existing players in the market, but the margins will probably be a lot less as well.