Kevin Busque
Co-founder & CEO, Guideline · 1 appearance on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
43statements → 26claims → 11claims resolved → 64%fully supported → 3.98/5average certainty → 1.49/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →
7 supported 1 partly supported 3 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 14 not checkable as stated how the 26 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
26 assertions · 2 opinions · 2 insights · 12 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 26 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 11 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 14 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Kevin argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Kevin Busque on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Kevin Busque said on In Depth that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Busque: 100% of Guideline's 401(k) plans require automatic enrollment
“Today. A hundred percent of our plans are auto enrolled. So we don't have anybody that's opted out. If you don't want auto enrollment, you don't get a guideline plan.”
Busque: Guideline created the SMB 401(k) market with Gusto's help
“We totally made this market with the help of gusto in our early days.”
Busque: Guideline was first in US to charge SaaS-based 401(k) fees
“We're the first one charging a SaaS-based fee for a four one K benefit in the country.”
Busque: Integrated 401(k)s cut payroll churn in half and double LTV
“When you take that into account and you attach a four one K or an integrated four one K solution to the payroll product, it cuts it in half. Right. So their LTV doubles, which is fantastic for them.”
Busque: The first 10 Lyft drivers were recruited from TaskRabbit
“Like the first 10 Lyft drivers were TaskRabbits because John at the time didn't know how to do background checks and like we wrote background checks. For TaskRabbits, right?”
Busque: Tackling the hardest foundational problems first isn't the standard YC playbook
“I think starting at the bottom and doing the hard things first isn't necessarily like the MO of YC, at least not out of the gate. Not that they don't do really hard things they do, but they don't do them first.”
Busque: Guideline's technical infrastructure cuts out middlemen to create a pricing moat
“Our technical moat led to our pricing moat. You couldn't compete with guideline on pricing still. It's very difficult to compete with us on pricing because we don't have to pay all these middlemen.”
Busque: Plaid was Guideline's first customer
“And they became our first customer before anybody else. And it was guideline and plaid early on.”
Busque: 65% to 70% of 401(k) participants don't know they pay fees
“It's like, 65, 70% of people don't understand they're paying asset-based fees in their for one K. No idea.”
Busque: Average 401(k) asset-based fees have dropped to 80-90 basis points
“It's not that way anymore. And I think guideline had a lot to do with that. But that industry average has come way down. It's now maybe like 80 basis points, 90 basis points or something like that, just fee compression over time.”
Busque: Relying on legacy 401(k) providers like Ascensus was the wrong path
“Where a lot of other people were going to come from it from a financial point of view and think, why would you do that? Just hire a census or hire a matrix. And I knew they were going to go down the wrong path. And for us as software engineers, we're like, let…”
Busque: Legacy providers like ADP and Paychex weren't selling 10,000 plans yearly
“And you look at ADP and paychecks and like, they weren't selling 10,000 plans in a year.”
Busque: Guideline services nearly 60,000 businesses with 400 employees
“We're 400 people at guideline, but we service almost 60,000 small businesses at this point.”
Busque: Operating a full-stack 401(k) requires compliance across SEC, IRS, and DOL
“So if you wanted to be completely full stack or bundled solution, you also had to become an RIA. Becoming a registered investment advisor means you have to register with the SEC. The SEC has all of these different things. Now you have the SEC, the IRS, and the…”
Busque: 401(k) startups cannot run beta tests due to IRS regulations
“There is no beta at guideline because you can't sign up for a Free for one K like the IRS does not care. Like promise you that like you better be licensed day one.”
Busque: Guideline charges $8 per active participant instead of per eligible employee
“On guideline. We charge on participation. We still only charge you if you use the product. So if you have a 10 person company and seven of you are using it, we're only charging you know, seven times eight.”
Busque: Guideline uses asset-based fees to eliminate loan and withdrawal charges
“We charge asset-based fee, but that really covers just every transaction on our platform. So if you want to have a loan, you don't pay a loan origination fee. You want to have a withdrawal, you don't pay for that, et cetera.”
Busque: Guideline manages nearly $17 billion in assets
“So we managed almost seventeen billion dollars in assets now.”
Busque: California retirement mandate affects 200K Gusto and Intuit businesses
“So if you have one or more employees in California, you now have to meet this mandate, which is just a huge, that's 200,000 small businesses across Gusto and Intuit alone.”
Busque: I swore to never build a transaction-based company again after TaskRabbit
“The thing that I also said I would never do again would be a transaction-based company. I love the recurring revenue model, like AR is, like, just where it's at. At TaskRabbit, it was like, all right, get all these tasks posted, and then at the end of the day,…”
Busque: TaskRabbit launched five years too early for the market
“If you look about, you know, look at TaskRabbit, we were too early. Like we should have waited five years, followed on Uber or something like that. Like we could have done that a totally different way, but definitely some timing, right time, right place, solvi…”
Busque: Guideline replaced routine executive 1-on-1s with a group 'CEO Council'
“So some of the things that we did early on is we came up with a CEO council. This is just a council where I bring all the executives together. I talk to them in a group. I don't have to relay what one said to the other. We just kind of all do it together. It's…”
Busque: Founders cashed out IBM pension to bootstrap TaskRabbit
“Most people don't know, but we actually, Leah and I, at the time when we founded TaskRabbit, we actually cashed out some IBM pension to go and start TaskRabbit. We bootstrapped TaskRabbit for a couple of years before we took the first investment.”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Inside Guideline's mission to modernize 401(k)s | Kevin Busque (Co-founder and CEO) | Feb 20, 2025 | 1h 7m |