Jon Stein. He’s the CEO and founder of Betterment. With his passion about making life better and his career experience advising banks and brokers, he founded Betterment in 2008. Jon is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Business School. He holds a Series 72463 and he’s a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst). His interests lie in the intersection of behavior, psychology and economics. What excites him most about his work is making everyday activity and products more efficient, accessible and easy to use. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Greenhouse How many hours of sleep do you get? — 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Jon could have taken risks a bit earlier in life   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:15 – Nathan introduces Jon to the show 02:05 – Betterment is the largest independent investment advisor online 02:10 – Betterment manages your money in the way old institutions can’t 02:19 – Betterment automates the best practices of investing and the same technology drives the cost down for you 02:32 – Betterment is leading in their industry 02:45 – Betterment charges a fee that is the percentage of the asset finder management 02:50 – It is 2.5%, which is the lowest in the industry 03:15 – “We have to put our customers’ best interest first” 03:30 – Betterment currently manages $8.2B 03:50 – Jon studied economics and behavioral biology as an undergraduate 03:58 – When Jon graduated from Harvard, 80% of the graduates took to the finance industry 04:47 – Jon didn’t want to follow the people he knew in finance 04:31 – Jon wanted to help people so he thought he’d study medicine 04:50 – Jon found himself back in New York, consulting banks 04:58 – It was 2001-2002 when Jon got his pre-med from Harvard 05:13 – Jon was 23 when he went back to New York, in 2003 05:45 – The banks were not paying attention to what their customers wanted 06:58 – Jon realized that the industry was fundamentally flawed 07:12 – There was no scaled advisor that served the market and the people like Jon could 07:28 – Jon started at Columbia Business School in 2008 and he already the idea for Betterment even before he started there 08:10 – Jon didn’t know how to code when he started and just learned in business school 08:46 – Jon didn’t have student debt while he was in business school and he saved some money from his consulting 09:14 – During the early days, Jon and his co-founders didn’t need a lot of money 09:30 – Jon and his co-founders have invested their own money into Betterment 09:39 – Their initial investment was less than 400K 10:14 – Betterment has raised a total of $205M 10:34 – “I always wanted to build a company that would impact the lives of millions of people for the better” 11:04 – From Day 1, Jon knew that Betterment would be a capital intensive business 11:20 – Team size is 220 11:26 – About half of the team are engineers and product managers 11:31 – Most of the team is involved in building the business 12:14 – Most of Betterment’s customers are from word-of-mouth 12:46 – Betterment’s paid acquisition 13:03 – Betterment’s goal as a company is to make noise 13:11 – There’s now a better way to manage money 14:11 – People should put their money in Betterment rather than in Vanguard because they’re burning money 14:18 – Betterment can make them more money on their assets 14:39 – Warren Buffett is an active investor himself 14:45 – Jon thinks that Warren Buffett’s advice was great during his time, but the technology has moved forward 15:11 – Betterment will make you more money than you would make in a single fund 15:27 – Betterment’s website has all the information about how they work 16:00 – Betterment’s role is to maximize people’s money 16:07 – Vanguard is a fund company that sells you funds 16:10 – Betterment is independent from their funds 17:17 – “We are growi