person is not knownit is not unusual to have a small group of people managing a family office industry sources said although by contrast billionaire jeff bezos family office is reportedly staffed by more than 100 peoplethere is no regulatory requirement for family offices to publicly disclose their assets or their key personnel and excessions holdings and the value of its assets and number of employees could not be learneda graduate of brigham young university birchall started his career working at goldman sachs group inc in new york in 1999 as a financial analyst according to his linkedin profile he then joined merrill lynch in los angeles for about a decade as a wealth managermerrill lynch discharged birchall in 2010 for conduct resulting in managements loss of confidence that included sending correspondence to a client without management approval according to financial industry regulatory authority finra records reuters could not ascertain more details about birchalls termination and finra and merrill lynch did not respond to requests for commentless than a month later birchall began working at morgan stanley as a wealth managera morgan stanley spokesperson said birchall was wellregarded when he worked at the bank and left on good termsprotect muskbirchalls role has extended beyond financein 2018 he hired a private investigator to look in to a british diver who criticized musks idea of using spacexs minisubmarine to rescue a boys soccer team trapped in a cave in thailand according to court documentswhen musk called the diver a pedo guy in a response on twitter the diver sued him for defamation in the ensuing trial it emerged that birchall going by the name james brickhouse hired a private detective to investigate the diver birchall said in court testimony he had an instinct to protect muskmusk won the casethe idea of loyalty especially in the family office is profoundly important said the wharton schools amit because youre exposed to the most intimate and private issues that families have