The Power of Long-Term Thinking with Noah Kerner

The Playbook With David Meltzer

David Meltzer, Entrepreneur.com

Entrepreneurship, Business, Careers

4.6 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode, I sit down with Noah Kerner, CEO of Acorns, to talk about how great companies are built by prioritizing talent, fostering accountability, and rejecting the illusion of fast success. We get into the value of in-person energy in a remote world, why a good sense of humor is his top hiring trait, and what he’s learned from seeing the world through his infant son’s eyes. Noah shares how Acorns encourages personal agency and long-term thinking, offering tools designed to help people grow wealth slowly and responsibly—no get-rich-quick gimmicks, no shortcuts. Just simple, consistent steps rooted in discipline and clarity around timing and risk tolerance.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Entrepreneurs the Playbook. This is David Meltzer, and I am super excited. Every once in a while,
0:06.0	I meet an executive, and from the very start, we have the same frequency. And Noah Kerner,
0:12.1	he is the CEO of Acorns, which is right up my alley because I'm a timing and risk tolerance guy.
0:18.5	And whenever we're talking about investments, the first questions are always related to,
0:22.8	how do we get people truly to trust
0:25.2	their timing and risk tolerance?
0:27.0	Then they can pick the best resources,
0:29.6	which with your extraordinary growth,
0:31.5	800 employees, unbelievable investments
0:35.0	and track record in customer service and expectations.
0:38.3	Noah, Kerner, welcome to the Playbook.
0:40.3	Thanks for having me.
0:41.3	So we were talking about frequency,
0:43.3	and you're having an off-site, on-site,
0:46.3	corporate meeting here in Southern California.
0:49.3	Yeah.
0:50.3	And this is indicative and aligned
0:53.3	with financial investment, because in the old days when I invested
0:59.1	with a fiduciary or a broker, he had to come in and meet me in person. He had to have a relationship
1:07.0	me, play golf with me, buy me dinner. This was a given when I started to invest in
1:12.2	my 20s. And it took me a while to get comfortable because people are different online than they
1:19.2	are in person as well. We talked about your own employees being different. You meet some people
	...

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