Andrew Tarver: Tens of millions of trades and no one is ready

Tens of millions of trades are coming to private markets in the near term. 

In this episode, Andrew Tarver lays out math that should get everyone interested in scaling private markets very focused indeed:

Tarver is one of private markets' most important builders. He's co-founded a unicorn, dozen other companies, ran Capco UK as CEO at 35, and now helps lead private markets strategy across Motive Partners' portfolio - including InvestCloud, which runs $4 trillion in managed accounts.

Here's the problem:

The industry is staring down a whole new version of the Paperwork Crisis with even a 7-8% model portfolio shift (it'll likely be higher). 

That's hundreds of billions in new allocations. And it's not just the initial orders. After a big public markets move, model portfolios automatically rebalance. Markets drop 15%, you're suddenly over-allocated to privates, and the system triggers a wave of redemptions to get back in line. 

Every quarter, every drift correction, every strat change generates more orders. 

At $10K-$20K ticket sizes, that's tens of millions of orders. Per year.

Today's infrastructure handles about 1,000 orders per operational FTE annually. The industry's current NIGO (failed trade) rate sits at 8%.

Do the math:

• At current staffing ratios, scaling this requires 48,000 new operational staff
• At $200K–$300K per head, someone needs to find $10 billion to pay them
• And that's just one platform — before RIAs, 401(k)s, or fintechs like Robinhood and Revolut enter

Tarver's analogy is perfect: private markets today are where payments were 15 years ago: paper slips, manual processing, three copies of everything. 

The industry needs to go from imprinter to tap-to-pay.

His answer: digital standards, rules-based infrastructure, and accountability at every node... the same playbook he ran at Goldman, UBS, and Merrill's for two decades.

"We are no longer in the Wild West."

This is the most important infrastructure conversation in private markets right now.

Congratulations to Tarver and the entire Motive team - including Rob Heyvaert - for leading this charge. 

Huge episode. Listen to the full thing!