Debrief
Betterment CEO Built His Business by Not Watching Stock Market
Jon Stein, who helped popularize robo-advising, now manages $20 billion on behalf of 500,000 customers—not bad for a 10-year-old company valued at $800 million.
In 10 years, the man who helped popularize robo-advising has built a company that manages $20 billion on behalf of 500,000 customers and, at last count, was valued at $800 million. And, as he tells Bloomberg Businessweek Editor Joel Weber, he barely pays attention to the stock market.
Jon Stein: I had graduated from college and opened, like, seven different brokerage accounts. And what I found was they were very good at telling me what they wanted me to do for them: “Trade this, buy this fund, do this thing.” But none of them were telling me what was right for me.