Acorns CEO Noah Kerner’s Quest to Make Fintech ‘Do Well By Doing Good’

Noah Kerner, CEO of Acorns, standing outdoors with his arms crossed" width="970" height="793" data-caption='Noah Kerner traces his path from nightlife to fintech and explains why slow investing wins. <span class="media-credit">Courtesy Acorn</span>'>

Over slices at an East Village pizza place where he often takes meetings, Acorns CEO Noah Kerner made a case for an unconventional idea: the fintech industry’s biggest problem isn’t access to money, but the psychology around it. Fear, bad incentives and the fantasy that wealth can be built quickly, he said, distort how ordinary people think about saving and investing. Kerner’s answer was to “put the purpose first and figure out the business next,” he told Observer.

Acorns, founded in 2012 by father-and-son team Walter and Jeff Cruttenden, is best known for its Round-Ups feature, which automatically invests spare change from everyday card purchases. Since then, the company has expanded into retirement accounts, checking and savings, kids’ products and newer money management tools. It says it has served more than 14 million customers and helped them save and invest more than $30 billion. “I aim to build businesses that do well by doing good,” Kerner said.

Kerner joined Acorns two months after the company’s inception as an adviser, investor and board director before becoming CEO in 2014. Before that, he spent years in hip-hop and nightlife, worked as Jennifer Lopez’s stage DJ at one point and built Noise, a creative agency aimed at Millennials. Today, he runs one of the largest consumer finance subscription services in the U.S. Acorns, notably backed by PayPal and Comcast, was last valued at $2 billion in 2022, after scrapping a plan to go public.

Kerner says his anti-hype philosophy shapes everything from Acorns’ subscription model to its refusal to offer trading. It also shows up in a new round of products and marketing: Money Manager, launched in October 2025, automatically splits deposits across savings, retirement, spending and investing; “Ask Acorns” is an A.I.-powered chatbot for education and support; and, in March, Acorns unveiled a “Compounding Vending Machine” in Chicago designed to show what a single dollar can become over 25 to 35 years.

Observer spoke with Kerner in March about his own relationship to money, why he thinks much of fintech still encourages self-defeating behavior, and where he sees Acorns going next. 

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What first shaped your relationship with money?

It would be my father’s job and an understanding that there was something at the intersection of finance and public good. He worked at NatWest in what was called Community Development. 

I started collecting and selling baseball and basketball cards very young. I probably started at 10, 11. That was my first experience understanding how to make money and that different objects have different values. I loved watching stats rise and the corresponding increase in the value of the cards. 

When I was 17, I had a summer job as a bank teller. That was my first experience understanding the psychology of money and how money makes people feel. 

And at around 16 or 17, I started making real money as a hip-hop DJ at NYC nightclubs and parties. 

How did you go from hip-hop and nightlife to fintech?

There were three chapters in my career. There was the creative chapter: DJing, turntableism, hip-hop nightclubs. I worked with various artists. I became Jennifer Lopez’s stage DJ. That was a different life. Then, at 21, in the second chapter, I started three companies in the creative industry, one of which became the leading product development and marketing agency for the young adult market.

But somewhere in there, I got this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to work on things that were exclusively high-impact and serve society in a more meaningful way. I thought: What are the pressing problems we face? Financial empowerment, wealth inequality, health, education and environment. If you get to choose what you work on, why would you not work on these things? I decided from then on that I would put the purpose first and figure out the business next. So I’ve been focusing primarily on financial empowerment and literacy in this career chapter with Acorns and other startups. Back to purpose first, our central mantra at Acorns is “your money first, ours next.”

How did that philosophy shape the way you run Acorns? 

I have these mantras in my mind that my mother espoused to me as a child. One of them was “shut up and let the work speak.” Another, ironically, was “never go into business.” But that is actually one of the most influential pieces of advice that has guided the way I approach business. I aim to build businesses that do well by doing good, that put the best interests of consumers first. 

This is embedded in all of our decisions at Acorns. For example, we chose subscription pricing very intentionally because it creates alignment in an industry that is often lacking it. In finance, the products are almost always about the company first, and the customer second. Subscription is simple: here’s what you get, here’s what you pay. It’s transparent. There’s alignment. We avoid monetizing behaviors that tend to get people into trouble, like borrowing and trading. We focus on helping the customer invest for the future. I’m a big believer that the root of integrity can always be traced back to the business model. 

Where do you think the fintech industry fails the average person?

The promotion of get-rich-quick schemes, from prediction markets to crypto trading. We don’t believe in quick hits. We don’t believe in shiny objects. We don’t believe in hype. We’re a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race company. We don’t offer trading. We’d have more revenue if we did. That’s a hard line.

Who is Acorns built for?

Everyday Americans. The middle class. We very intentionally do not serve the wealthy. 

Wealth isn’t created by one decision. It’s thousands of small decisions made over time. Patience, commitment, small amounts of money invested, years of commitment to this, and getting smarter with money. That’s what it takes. If you think it happens any other way, you’re dreaming.

Even if you don’t have a lot of money, investing small amounts really adds up over time. We don’t advise anybody to use Acorns for two months and then stop. It’s about learning and building, saving and investing over the long term. Our most important metric is retention because we focus on people sticking with it. I don’t publicly share [the retention rate], but it’s very good. 

What do people most misunderstand about money?

That cash is safe. It’s not. You’re losing money to inflation. The other huge misunderstanding is that when the market goes down, you lose money. You only lose money if you pull your money out of the market after it goes down. 

The No.1 emotional driver of bad money decisions is fear. I had terrible fear in my 20s. There was money anxiety in the house growing up. I remember what it was like, and I remember what inhibited me from making good, long-term decisions. It was all fear. Every time I operated from that place, I regretted it later. 

You’ve said Acorns is trying to build empathy into the company, even at the level of language. Why do you ban the word “user” internally when talking about customers?

They’re not cells on a spreadsheet. They’re people. There’s a psychological abstraction when you call someone a user. At Acorns, they’re not over there. They’re right here. And I want you to feel what our customers feel: their pain and their fear. 

Tell me about Acorns’ latest products, like “Money Manager” and the vending machine in Chicago.

Historically, Acorns has offered different accounts, but “accounts” are an industry construct. From a consumer perspective, that’s complexity. “Money Manager” sets up all the accounts for you automatically. Every dollar you put in, we automatically get it to the right place for you. The vision is to make sure every dollar is put to work.

A normal vending machine takes your money and gives you Doritos. Our vending machine does the opposite. You put in a dollar, choose a time horizon, and it shows you what your dollar would become over time. We literally give you the money on the spot, too, and then a matching amount is available in Acorns if you sign up. It’s a way of making compounding feel real. I’m always thinking about how to bring that idea to life, because compounding is the number one way to convert someone to long-term investing.

What are you most excited about next? 

Family finance. It’s the biggest market and the most wide open. Money is a family affair. Family dynamics create long-term money problems: anxiety, shame, lack of conversation, parents not teaching their kids, and parents not even knowing how to teach their kids. That’s both an impact opportunity and a business opportunity.

Acorns was very close to going public in 2021 in a deal that valued the company at $2.2 billion. Why was that plan scrapped? Is IPO still part of your goal?

Yes, it’s still the ambition. It wasn’t the right time. The market has to make sense; that’s always a moving target. 

There are compelling things about being private, but a lot of people have invested in Acorns, both money and time. I look at my team and feel a responsibility to deliver for them. They backed the company. I want them to be rewarded for that. That’s one of my very central responsibilities. 

What have you learned about yourself through being a CEO?

My reflection on leadership is that it’s one of the greatest journeys into your own soul if you’re wide awake while you lead. I’ve learned that I’m complicated. I’m empathetic, but I’m also incredibly demanding. I care, but I’m also tough. I want the best for people, and the way that manifests is pushing them to move past all previous thresholds of possibility. I’m about as unfiltered as a CEO can get.