To be fair to Cardone (more than his "wisdom" deserves), he's right that 401k plans limit your investment options to mostly stocks and bonds (via funds). He's big into rental real estate, so he's saying he'd forgo the employer match in order to have more capital for buying properties.

However, not everyone wants the headaches of owning a portfolio of properties, when you can get real estate exposure via REITs, and get very nice returns on stock funds.