{"slug":"the-story-behind-autopilot","title":"The story behind Autopilot, from co-founder Chris Josephs","description":"Co-founder Chris Josephs on how Autopilot started: quitting finance, a viral TikTok about public trade filings, a social investing app called Iris, and the pivot to a marketplace of investors you follow in your own brokerage account.","category":"About","publishedAt":"2026-10-08","updatedAt":"2026-10-09","author":"Chris Josephs","url":"https://start.joinautopilot.com/journal/the-story-behind-autopilot","markdown":"https://start.joinautopilot.com/journal/the-story-behind-autopilot.md","agent":"https://start.joinautopilot.com/journal/the-story-behind-autopilot/agent","contentText":"The story behind Autopilot: from a ski slope in New Hampshire to a marketplace of investors\n\nI'm Chris, one of the co-founders of Autopilot.\n\nOpen it in the Autopilot app. https://link.joinautopilot.com/eXKr?c=the-story-behind-autopilot&af_sub1=intro\n\nI was on a ski slope in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn't stop thinking about stock trades.\n\nLet me explain.\n\n1) I quit finance and taught snowboarding\n\nI used to work in finance until I saw how it all actually worked. So I quit my job, moved to New Hampshire, and became a full-time snowboard instructor.\n\nMy fancy dinners in New York City became two roommates and a shared kitchen. I didn't care.\n\nI kept thinking about a little piece of information I learned while working in New York.\n\nThe stock trades by some of the most powerful people in the country (politicians) are legally required to be published.\n\nFor those unaware, the STOCK Act makes members of Congress and senior officials report their stock trades no later than 45 days after the trade. Big investment managers file a Form 13F every quarter listing their US stock holdings.\n\nAnyone can read all of it. For free.\n\nHardly anyone does.\n\n2) Talking about political trades on social media\n\nIn 2022, while my co-founders and I were building our first app, I started covering politicians trading stocks more closely. First it was an Nvidia trade. Then a Tesla trade. Then the dots started connecting, and I realized there was something bigger to all this.\n\nWell, what did I do? I kept talking about it on social media, more and more.\n\nTikTok kicked it off, which led to X, which led to Instagram. CBS put the tracker account at more than a million followers this year.\n\nThrough all of that, the question I kept getting was “Can I trade alongside the politicians?”\n\nI obviously thought it would be a good idea, too.\n\n3) First, we tried to build the Facebook of investing\n\nIt wasn't just me. I started the company with three friends: Brian Schardt, Aaron Langley, and Scott Schardt.\n\nWe each left our jobs. We didn't take a salary for a year to a year and a half. This was during Covid, and we were living in the office.\n\nThe first app was called Iris. It was a social investing app. If I had a brokerage account and you had one somewhere else, we could both connect and get notified of each other's stock trades.\n\nWe set out to build the Facebook of investing.\n\nYou can still see that history. SEC records list the company as Autopilot Holdings Corp, formerly Iris Social Stock App Inc. And if you look at our App Store listing, the seller still says Iris Social Stock App Inc.\n\nBut we quickly realized everyone just wanted two things.\n\n1. The automation.\n2. To follow people better than them at investing.\n\nThat's where we pivoted to Autopilot. It launched in 2023.\n\n4) Why I actually care about this\n\nThe problem I see retail investors have is there are really only two options:\n\n1. They invest on their own, and they're pretty much guessing.\n2. They put it in passive ETFs.\n\nThere should be a third option.\n\nIf you needed surgery, you're not going to do the surgery on yourself. You're going to go to a surgeon. It's the same with stock picking.\n\n5) From public filings to a marketplace\n\nWe started with public filings, because anyone can check them.\n\nAutopilot Advisers builds tracker Portfolios from them. The Buffett Tracker, for example, takes the largest 15 holdings in Berkshire Hathaway's quarterly 13F.\n\nBut here's the problem. A 13F can show up 45 days after the quarter ends. 13Fs don't have a purchase date. They only have the ending date.\n\nIf you're going to put real money behind someone, you want to know how their Portfolio changes and why..\n\nSo we opened Autopilot to investors who publish their own Portfolios. We call them Pilots.\n\nI don't think the best investors are all stuck in hedge funds on Wall Street. Some of them are in Idaho. Some are in Iowa.\n\nIf one of them wants to share their strategy with other investors, the usual options are expensive and slow.\n\nTwo Pilots show you the range:\n\n- Brooker Belcourt. The profile in the app opens with \"I'm a former analyst at Citadel and Coatue.\" The Oligopolies Only Portfolio holds what Brooker calls the 10 best companies with more than 30% market share in growing industries. The profile also links to a public page that lays out the strategy. I respect that.\n- Dr. Lira's AI Finance Labs. Alejandro Lopez-Lira is an assistant professor of finance at the University of Florida with a PhD in finance from Wharton. Dr. Lopez-Lira designs Portfolios picked by large language models, and the GPT Portfolio has been on Autopilot since April 20, 2023. I broke those down in Is there an app that picks stocks with AI?\n\n6) How Pilots get on, and how they get paid\n\nIt's not an open thing. Not anyone and their mom can launch a Portfolio.\n\nPilots apply to us through a waitlist. We interview them, have a real conversation, and look at their prior experience.\n\nOur help center lists what we look for: a verifiable track record, a clear investment philosophy, and Portfolios designed to be followed at scale. There's no hard follower requirement.\n\nThird-party Pilots set their own subscription price through our Pilot portal, and they get a share of what their followers pay.\n\n7) How it works today\n\nAutopilot is actually even simpler than people think it is. It really is just three steps.\n\nStep one, you connect the brokerage account you already have. Step two, you pick a Portfolio. Step three, you allocate the money.\n\nYou give Autopilot Advisers limited authority to place trades. It can’t move or withdraw your money.\n\nYou give Autopilot Advisers limited authority to send orders to that account. When the Portfolio changes, we send them and your broker fills them.\n\nThe brilliance of it is that the money stays in your account. It stays in your account. It never gets transferred out, and Autopilot can't withdraw it.\n\nThe app is run by Autopilot Holdings Corporation. The advice comes from Autopilot Advisers, LLC, which registered with the SEC as an investment adviser effective July 30, 2024. You can look it up yourself on IAPD. It's CRD 331749.\n\nTo put that into context, more than $2 billion is invested through Autopilot. As of October 8, 2026, there are 391 live Portfolios on the marketplace. We have over 250,000 users, and our app is rated 4.6 on the App Store and 4.7 on Google Play.\n\nKind of crazy for something that started on a ski slope.\n\n8) Where it's going\n\nThe goal hasn't changed. Find the best investors, wherever they are, and let everyday people invest alongside them in their own accounts.\n\nI want to be honest with you. This is not a get rich quick app. Some Pilots go up for years, some Pilots are flat for years, and some do lose money.\n\nDo some research on the investor and the strategy.\n\nHonestly, just go spend 10 minutes on the app. Look through the Portfolios. Find one that works for you.\n\nTLDR: I quit finance, taught snowboarding in New Hampshire, and couldn’t stop thinking about the trades that are legally required to be public. Three friends and I built Iris, a social investing app, in 2020. In 2022, I started covering those filings on TikTok, X and Instagram, and the question I kept getting was “Can I trade alongside them?” Everyone wanted automation and someone better to follow, so we pivoted to Autopilot in 2023. Today it’s a marketplace of Pilots, from tracker Portfolios built on public filings to independent investors like an ex-Citadel analyst and a University of Florida finance professor, that you follow in your own brokerage account.\n\nFrequently asked questions\n\nWho founded Autopilot?\n\nFour of us: Chris Josephs, Brian Schardt, Aaron Langley, and Scott Schardt. We started the company in 2020 as Iris, a social investing app. SEC records now list it as Autopilot Holdings Corp, formerly Iris Social Stock App Inc. Everyone wanted automation and someone better to follow, so we pivoted, and Autopilot launched in 2023. The advisory side, Autopilot Advisers, LLC, registered with the SEC effective July 30, 2024.\n\nWhat is the story behind Autopilot?\n\nI left finance and taught snowboarding in New Hampshire. In 2020, three friends and I built Iris, a social investing app. In 2022, I started covering trades that are legally required to be published on TikTok, X and Instagram, and the question I kept getting was “Can I trade alongside them?” People wanted to follow better investors automatically, so Iris became Autopilot in 2023. It started with Portfolios built from public filings and grew into a marketplace of Pilots you follow in your own brokerage account.\n\nWho is Chris Josephs?\n\nI’m one of Autopilot’s four co-founders. I worked in finance, quit, and became a snowboard instructor in New Hampshire, then co-founded Iris, the social investing app that became Autopilot. In 2022, I started posting about public trade filings on TikTok, X and Instagram. These days I’m the one you’ll see explaining Autopilot on social media and TV.\n\nIs Autopilot a registered investment adviser?\n\nYes. Autopilot Advisers, LLC is registered with the SEC as an investment adviser, effective July 30, 2024, under CRD 331749 and SEC file number 801-130594. Don't take my word for it. Look it up on IAPD. The app is run by the parent, Autopilot Holdings Corporation. Your money stays at your own broker, and Autopilot can't withdraw it.\n\nWhat is a Pilot on Autopilot?\n\nA Pilot is the person or firm behind a Portfolio. Some Portfolios are built by Autopilot Advisers from public filings, like the Buffett Tracker. Others are created and managed by independent Pilots who applied through our waitlist, like Brooker Belcourt, a former Citadel and Coatue analyst, or Dr. Lira's AI Finance Labs, run by a University of Florida finance professor. You follow a Portfolio, and its page in the app tells you who publishes it. https://link.joinautopilot.com/eXKr?c=the-story-behind-autopilot&af_sub1=body\n\nHow do Pilots get paid on Autopilot?\n\nThird-party Pilots set their own subscription price through our Pilot portal and get a share of the subscription fees from their Portfolios. The split isn't published. Pilots also pay Autopilot an annual marketplace fee, which our Form ADV says is paid by Pilots and not by clients.\n\nOpen it in the Autopilot app. https://link.joinautopilot.com/eXKr?c=the-story-behind-autopilot&af_sub1=end\n\n\"Autopilot\" refers to Autopilot Holdings Corp and Autopilot Advisers, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. The Oligopolies Only strategy is managed by Brooker Belcourt, an independent Third-Party Pilot. The GPT Portfolio strategy is managed by Dr. Lira's AI Finance Labs, an independent Third-Party Pilot. Third-Party Pilots are unaffiliated with Autopilot and Autopilot does not manage, validate, or guarantee their portfolios. Not a recommendation. Past performance is no guarantee of future results; investing involves risk of loss. Figures current as of 10/08/26. View our Customer Relationship Summary and other important info at https://joinautopilot.com/disclaimer.\n\nChris Josephs\nhttps://start.joinautopilot.com/figures/chris-josephs.jpg\n\nAutopilot\nhttps://start.joinautopilot.com/figures/autopilot-app-icon.png\n\nPortfolios and pilots mentioned in this article:\nBuffett Tracker (Autopilot): https://start.joinautopilot.com/strategies/buffett-tracker-28825\nReturns as of October 19, 2026. Month +0.90%, 3 months +0.01%, YTD +12.5%, 1 year +9.0%, Since start +74.4%.\nDr. Lira's AI Finance Labs: https://start.joinautopilot.com/strategies/pilots/dr-lira-s-ai-finance-labs-5\n8 public portfolios.\nGPT Portfolio (Dr. Lira's AI Finance Labs): https://start.joinautopilot.com/strategies/gpt-portfolio-63080\nReturns as of October 19, 2026. Month +4.2%, 3 months +13.6%, YTD +27.4%, 1 year +35.0%, Since start +106.6%."}