The guy who told you to buy the AI boom is now building the infrastructure to fund it.
The Summary
- Dan Ives left Wedbush Securities after 8 years to co-found Yorkville Ives, a "modern merchant bank" combining investment banking, equity research, institutional trading, and principal investment focused on AI and tech infrastructure
- Ives calls this moment "building the Vegas Strip in 1955" — the early infrastructure play on AI before the real buildout begins
- The bank will be a 10-20 person operation with no specific hiring plan or ideal client profile yet, aiming to "disrupt Wall Street" through methods Ives kept vague
- Ives acknowledges AI has a "PR problem" but sees himself as proof that conviction in the tech shift requires skin in the game
The Signal
For 25 years, Dan Ives made his living telling other people where to put their money. Now he's putting his career where his mouth is. The move from Wedbush to Yorkville Securities is more than a job change. It's a bet that the AI infrastructure layer is still early enough that a new kind of financial institution can claim territory before the big banks wake up.
Ives framed it to Fortune as "building the Vegas Strip in 1955" — the moment when you're still laying foundation and stringing power lines, before the casinos and crowds arrive. That's the thesis: AI infrastructure is pre-boom. The companies building the picks and shovels, the data centers, the chip fabs, the agent platforms — they need capital, advice, and market access from people who actually understand what they're building.
"My career is trying to figure out what's around the corner. With any change, there's risk and opportunities."
The "modern merchant bank" model combines four functions under one roof:
- Investment banking (raising capital, M&A advisory)
- Equity research (the analysis work Ives built his name on)
- Institutional trading (executing deals)
- Principal investment (putting the firm's own money into deals)
That's the old merchant bank playbook, pre-Glass-Steagall. The difference now is focus. Ives told Business Insider the bank will be 10-20 people with no specific hiring plan or ideal client. Translation: he's building for flexibility, not scale. Small, fast, opinionated. The opposite of a bulge bracket bank's AI "coverage team."
Ives also admitted AI has a "PR problem" but called himself "an example of what I've preached." He spent years on TV saying AI was the biggest shift since the internet. Now he's leaving a secure, high-profile analyst job to build a business on that thesis. It's the kind of bet that either looks prescient in three years or becomes a cautionary tale about analysts who believed their own research.
The Implication
Watch what the people with the best information are doing with their own lives. Ives had a platform, a following, and a paycheck at Wedbush. He's trading all of it for operational risk and equity upside in a bank that doesn't have a client list yet. That's not hype. That's conviction.
If you're building in AI infrastructure, data layer companies, or agent platforms, firms like Yorkville Ives are your new capital partners. They understand the tech, move faster than legacy banks, and have principal capital to co-invest. If you're a founder, this is the kind of firm that might actually get your pitch without needing a deck full of comps to MongoDB.