There’s an interesting statistic floating around that investors are 50% more likely to become entrepreneurs than non-investors. Whether that’s causation or correlation is anyone’s guess, but it does highlight something we already know: people who start businesses tend to think about money differently.
Enter Sterling Stock Picker, an AI-powered investment platform that’s currently running a lifetime subscription deal for $55.19 until mid-February. The pitch is simple: entrepreneurs are busy, stock research takes time, so why not let artificial intelligence handle it?
The AI Financial Coach Angle
The platform centers around what they call “North Star technology,” which supposedly uses OpenAI-driven insights to tell you when to buy, sell, hold, or avoid stocks entirely. You take a five-minute questionnaire about your values and risk tolerance, and the system builds recommendations from there.
There’s also Finley, an AI financial coach that answers questions about your portfolio and general business strategy. It’s the kind of feature that sounds helpful until you remember that AI chatbots are essentially sophisticated pattern-matching systems trained on historical data, not crystal balls that predict market movements.
The Done-For-You Portfolio Promise
The “Done-for-You Portfolio” feature is where things get hands-off. Based on your questionnaire answers, the platform will apparently select everything for you. This might appeal to someone who genuinely has zero interest in learning about investing, but it’s worth asking whether that person should be investing in individual stocks at all.
Index funds exist for a reason. They’re boring, they’re reliable, and they don’t require AI assistance to manage. The appeal of platforms like Sterling Stock Picker seems to be that they make stock picking feel accessible and automated, which might actually be more dangerous than helpful for inexperienced investors.
The Testimonial Problem
The promotional material mentions user testimonials like Chris claiming a “200% return” and Jade seeing a 32% gain in her first year. These numbers mean nothing without context. What timeframe? What market conditions? What was the overall market return during that period?
A 32% gain sounds impressive until you realize the S&P 500 had years where it returned similar numbers. And a 200% return could mean someone invested $100 and made $200, or it could mean something entirely different depending on the calculation method.
Financial technology platforms love to showcase best-case scenarios while burying the disclaimer that past performance doesn’t guarantee future results. That’s not unique to Sterling Stock Picker, but it’s worth keeping in mind.
The Lifetime Subscription Consideration
Fifty-five dollars for lifetime access is cheap enough that it’s not a major financial risk. But lifetime subscriptions for software-as-a-service products always come with an asterisk. Companies pivot, get acquired, shut down features, or simply disappear.
The fact that this is being heavily promoted through affiliate marketing channels (note the disclosure about Entrepreneur magazine getting a cut of sales) suggests this is primarily a volume play. Get enough people to bite on a low-price lifetime offer, hope some percentage converts to higher-tier services later.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that business model, but it does make you wonder about the long-term viability and whether “lifetime” really means what you think it means.
The real question isn’t whether AI can help with investment decisions, it probably can to some degree, but whether outsourcing those decisions entirely is actually teaching you anything valuable about managing your money.
