Saving the Planet Through Fintech — Aspiration Co-Founder & CEO Andrei Cherny
“The impossible tasks are the only ones worth taking on!”
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In today’s episode, I come back to the show to host Andrei Cherny, Co-Founder & CEO of Aspiration, a budding financial services platform for people who want to save the planet by neutralizing their carbon footprint. Their mission is massive, with ~5 million members making a difference in the fight against climate change.
Aspiration provides numerous products, including deposit balances completely divested from fossil fuels, a round-up feature like Acorns to plant trees with purchases, 2-day early wage access, carbon offsets for car mileage, cashback on mission-focused retailers, and more. They also are a burgeoning B2B platform for carbon offsets, helping people like Drake calculate the planetary impact of their businesses and offset it.
Andre and I cover a great deal in today’s episode, and shoutout to Ami Naik of Radicle Impact for setting up this episode! We cover:
- How Andrei’s op-eds in Harvard’s student newspaper landed him a job with Bill Clinton
“The White House Communications Director came to campus for a conference. He had been on his school’s newspaper years ago and picked up a copy and saw my column…unbeknownst to me, he shared the column with President Clinton, who really liked it. And President Clinton assigned it to his cabinet to read.”
- How Aspiration works and what inspired him to start the company
“I was working with a large firm doing strategic consulting. Most of the clients I ended up working with were large financial institutions…Mike (my co-founder) and I thought back in 2013…How do you build trust? How do you do so by creating a financial institution that aligned our interests and aligned our values with that of our customers?”
- Collaborating with Drake on carbon offsets
- Raising his company’s minimum wage to $25 during a pandemic (and how his investors reacted)
- How they divested completely from fossil fuels
- Why identity banking is the future of financial services
“I think at its heart, the promise of FinTech is about saying, how can you serve different kinds of communities? And how can you serve communities around shared values or a shared set of concerns?”
- How he thinks about the crowded fintech competitive landscape
- A rapid-fire round including his fintech hero and morning routine
- And so much more
Also at the end, Andrei mentions it being my last show…it will actually not be my last, but it’s getting close. Stay tuned for the finale.
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*Disclaimer: This episode is not securities advice in any way, and this episode is recorded solely for the educational purposes of Wharton Fintech. Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity
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Robinhood’s COO, Gretchen Howard — Democratizing Finance, Navigating a Crisis, & Embracing Change
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Mayor Francis Suarez — Bringing Silicon Valley to Miami!
Kai Cunningham of Limited Ventures: Bridging the Gap Between VC and Pro Athletes + Entertainers
NFL Star & Penn Professor Brandon Copeland — Tackling Financial Education Through “Life 101”
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Ryan Zauk
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Ryan Zauk is a recent graduate of the MBA program at The Wharton School, where he led the Wharton FinTech Podcast. He now works with Morgan Stanley in their Menlo Park Office, focused on technology and fintech. He has a passion for music, media, and all things FinTech.
