How WealthAtlas estimates net worth
The methodology behind the Net Worth card: why every figure is a range, what liquidity counts, which filings support which number, and how to defend an estimate when someone asks.
The methodology behind the Net Worth card: why every figure is a range, what liquidity counts, which filings support which number, and how to defend an estimate when someone asks.
The Net Worth card is the first thing on a person's profile: an estimated net worth range, an estimated liquidity range, a short Key Takeaway, and below them the income and asset rows the estimate is built from. This page is the methodology behind those numbers — where each one comes from, how precise it is, and how much weight it will carry when someone asks you to back it up. If a figure looks wrong for someone you know well, contact support and we're more than happy to look at it with you.
Nobody outside a person's accountant knows their net worth to the dollar, and we don't pretend to. Parts of the picture are exact: an insider's holdings are reported share by share, and a proxy statement reports named-executive pay to the dollar. Other parts — a partner's economics in a private fund, a stake in a company that hasn't priced a round in three years — can only be bounded.
So every figure is a range, graded by the evidence behind it. The low end is what the documents support on their own; the high end is what they support at the most generous reasonable read; the best guess sits in between. A Section 16 position comes back tight. Wealth spread across private partnerships, family entities, and closely held operating businesses comes back wide, and it should.
Lead with the low end when you'll have to defend the number, and the best guess when you're planning. A wide range is information in its own right: it usually means the wealth is held privately rather than that it isn't there.
Ranges also move. Each one reflects the evidence as of the last time we researched the person, not the moment you're reading it — a new Form 4, a priced round, a closed deal, or a fresh deed narrows it the next time research runs. The Last updated line at the top of the profile tells you how current the page is.
Below is the wealth section from a sample profile, running the real product components. It's interactive — hover the bars and open a row:
You'll see the same estimate in two places on a real profile: the Estimated Net Worth metric near the top of the page, and the full Net Worth section further down that carries liquidity, the Key Takeaway, and the tables. Hover the bar for the best guess. Where a publication has put its own figure on record, it appears under the bar as a Published estimates chip linked to the article, so you can see where we agree with the public number and where we don't.
Estimated Liquidity is the slice of net worth that could reasonably become cash within a year without a structural event: realized proceeds already banked, accumulated pay, marketable positions. It excludes what can't move on that timeline — concentrated insider stock, private stakes, undistributed fund interests, and property. The two-tone bar shows the liquid fraction at each end of the net-worth range, and the info icon carries the sentence explaining what we counted and why.
Liquidity, not net worth, is what sizes a near-term conversation. Someone worth $400M who holds 95% of it in one restricted insider position is a different prospect from someone worth $400M with $70M liquid. Treat a concentrated insider position as nominally liquid and practically not: trading windows, 10b5-1 plans, volume limits, and market impact all sit between that position and cash.
Time the outreach to the event, not to the headline number. A lockup expiring, an acquisition closing, a fund entering its distribution years — each moves wealth from paper into cash on a date you can see in the filings. Those dates live in the income table.
Income is the cash side: pay, fund compensation, partnership profit share, performance earnings, and the proceeds of a completed exit. It answers what recurs each year, and what has already landed.
Non-Cash Assets is the stock side: what they hold right now, position by position — listed shares, private stakes, real estate, deeded property. It answers how big the balance sheet is and how much of it can actually move.
One event often lands in both tables at different stages. While a founder holds their shares the position sits in Assets; when they sell into an IPO, the proceeds appear in Income as a realized row and the retained shares stay in Assets. The two rows share a case, so each one links to its counterpart, and no dollar is counted twice.
Every estimate is built from documents, and each kind of document supports a different level of precision:
| Source | What it pins down | How exact |
|---|---|---|
| Section 16 filings (Forms 3 and 4) | Insider share counts, and every purchase, sale, and option exercise | Exact as filed — the position is rebuilt filing by filing |
| Proxy statements (DEF 14A) | Named-executive pay, year by year, split into salary, bonus, stock, options, and other | Exact as reported, for the years the company reports it |
| Registration and deal filings (S-1, 424B4, 8-K, DEFM14A) | Offering price, shares sold, debut market cap, headline deal price, consideration mix | Exact for the event; one person's share of it is estimated |
| Form ADV | Which firm runs the money, its AUM, and who owns the management company | Ownership is disclosed in bands, so partner economics come back as a range |
| County deeds, assessments, and mortgage records | Who holds title, what was paid, what was borrowed, and when | Exact for the record; today's market value is modeled |
| Priced rounds, exits, and press coverage | Private valuations, cap-table position, and the timeline tying events together | Estimated, anchored on the last priced round |
Nothing is unsourced. Expand any income or asset row and the documents behind it are at the foot of the row, with filing cards that open the original on SEC.gov. The Key Takeaway at the top of the card is a summary our models write from that same evidence, not a separate opinion.
Some people hold nearly everything privately, with no filings and no deeds in their own name. Their tables are sparser and their ranges wider — that's the honest answer rather than a manufactured number. And if nobody has run wealth research on a person yet, the card shows a modeled range with no rows underneath it: a screening estimate, not research. The button on the profile replaces it with cited rows.
When someone asks where a figure came from, the answer is on the profile. Expand the row: the Key Takeaway states the conclusion, the sections show the inputs, the info icons carry the reasoning behind each estimate — the round we priced against, the basis for an ownership percentage, what we counted as liquid — and Sources links the documents themselves.
Two habits make a number hold up in a meeting: quote the range rather than the midpoint alone, and quote the date it's anchored to. A stake priced at yesterday's close and a stake anchored to a Form 4 sale from two years ago look identical in the Value column and are worth very different amounts of confidence.
This is research, not a compliance file. WealthAtlas is assembled from public records to help you qualify a prospect and time a conversation. It is not a KYC, source-of-wealth, suitability, or accreditation check, and it shouldn't be used in place of one.
For the rest of the section row by row: the guided walkthrough opens every income and asset type on a sample profile, and the income and assets articles go deeper on each one.