Robinhood Founder & CEO, Vlad Tenev: Robinhood’s $85BN Resurgence & Tokenizing SpaceX & OpenAI

1. 0:00 – 0:43

   Intro

   1. VTVlad Tenev0:00

      Everyone likes tokenization in principle, but it's not really as attractive when it's being done to you. I think it's important for the tokenization mechanism to work without the opt-in of the companies that are being tokenized. I do think it's a big problem that a retail investor can't get access to Stripe shares. I've shared this viewpoint with, uh, Patrick and John, and they give me some variant of, "Oh, well, we're just a, a small Irish family company. Please don't tokenize my shares."

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:28

      Ready to go? Vlad, dude, it is so lovely to have you back

2. 0:43 – 3:05

   How Robinhood 4x’d Its Market Cap in 8 Months

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:43

      in the studio. Do you know what was funny, is when you were last in that chair, you had a market cap of 35 billion, and today, I think the market cap is about $85 billion. And so it's been a pretty good eight months. Like-

   2. VTVlad Tenev0:56

      That was, uh, was that eight months ago? Really?

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:58

      Yeah.

   4. VTVlad Tenev0:58

      Yeah. That's amazing. And I felt pretty good back then. You know, it's, uh, it's always nice when the market cap goes up. Things get easier, you walk a little bit straighter, people listen to what you have to say. So, uh, we don't, we don't look at it, of course. That's what they tell you. You can't pay attention to it. But-

   5. HSHarry Stebbings1:14

      Is that the biggest load of BS in the company? Like, you know, I'm friends with Daniel at Spotify, and it's 148 billion now, and I think he feels a lot better now it's 148.

   6. VTVlad Tenev1:22

      Yes. He does, yeah. It's, uh, I think it's very difficult. I don't know if it's easier, uh, with other companies, but my product pushes stock prices into your brain. By using it, it's just hard to ignore.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings1:37

      (laughs)

   8. VTVlad Tenev1:37

      So I think it's especially difficult for a business like ours.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings1:41

      It's the most meta thing, isn't it? If you (laughs) do like, you guys looking at stock prices on Robinhood.

   10. VTVlad Tenev1:46

       Yeah.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings1:46

       It's like talking to a podcast about podcasting. Um, I did just wanna start on that 'cause it has been insane. I, I tweeted last night that it's kind of the story of Wall Street, bluntly, which is just this insane rise of, of Robinhood in the last year. If you were to put it down to one or two things, what do you think the Street has appreciated that they did not before?

   12. VTVlad Tenev2:03

       I think that, uh, we've been saying the same things and articulating a strategy pretty clearly, uh, over the past two years really. And I think it just takes time to understand that it's working. And we, we've gotten fortunate in a sense that many things have worked very, very well.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings2:22

       When you look at cost stabilization slash reduction, to what extent is that efficient management and just becoming leaner versus AI introduction and AI being the driver of that?

   14. VTVlad Tenev2:33

       AI is a big part of it, and I think we have been pretty mum on how much we've been using it internally. I think we've been talking about it in very general terms, and we've started to roll out AI products. Actually, Robinhood Cortex, our, uh, AI system, rolled out to customers today, just, uh, just a little bit earlier. But the impact that it's had on internal teams, ranging from software engineering to customer support, like, the really big internal teams,

3. 3:05 – 3:50

   AI Writes 50% of All Net New Code at Robinhood

   1. VTVlad Tenev3:05

      has been huge.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings3:05

      In terms of software engineering, you know, Benioff said it was 50% of Salesforce new code today. What would you say yours is?

   3. VTVlad Tenev3:12

      I think that, that, uh, that sounds right. I mean, it's, it's difficult to say with these agentic systems, right? We've moved from, you know, GitHub Copilot, which is an autocomplete system, to Cursor, and now things like Windsurf, where, I mean, nearly all of the code is, is written by AI, and the adoption rate within engineering for, for us is, you know, close to 100%. It's close to 100%. So it's, it's hard to even determine what the human-generated code is. If I had to guess, it's the minority.

4. 3:50 – 7:24

   Why Robinhood Built a Secret ChatGPT for Support

   1. VTVlad Tenev3:50

   2. HSHarry Stebbings3:51

      Totally get that. Customer support-wise, you said that is the other big pillar.

   3. VTVlad Tenev3:54

      I think we're best in class there, actually. Even, even stronger than the, like, dedicated customer support AI companies, in terms of what, what we've done there.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings4:03

      And so you've built your own, or you use off-the-shelf?

   5. VTVlad Tenev4:06

      We've built our own.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings4:07

      Wow. Why did you decide that versus use off-the-shelf?

   7. VTVlad Tenev4:10

      Um, well, first of all, when we started, the off-the-shelf companies, like Sierra, for instance, they were just getting off the ground. The big companies that we were using, we're a big Salesforce customer, were, uh, not as developed yet. And, and so we, we built a lot of things. And then, uh, for, for a company like Robinhood, a lot of the complex work is in system integration. So it's getting all of the data to answer customers' queries and also, uh, we're, we're starting to do actions. Like, based on your query, we need to do some kind of action, and that requires a deep level of integration with our backend systems that I think most vendors haven't really figured out how to do yet.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings5:00

      Why have you been quiet around it when the Street clearly appreciates AI efficiency stories within public companies?

   9. VTVlad Tenev5:08

      Yeah, I mean, I, I think we've been thinking about how to tell the story, uh, better. And one of the things we, we've been thinking about is should we just have an event, like a product event like we just had in the South of France? But, uh, sort of like-

   10. HSHarry Stebbings5:22

       Oh, that sucks for a location, dude. Ugh, where are we gonna choose it? Oh, let's do the South of France.

   11. VTVlad Tenev5:27

       Yeah. Well, it's probably not gonna be in the South of France again, 'cause we just did that. But, um, there's lots of great places to have events. Yeah, no, I, I think there's now enough meat and enough things that we can talk about that it would actually be a really cool event, so-

   12. HSHarry Stebbings5:41

       Would you ever make your customer support tool a SaaS product that you would open source to everyone? I mean, Revolut has now done this with their HR tool.

   13. VTVlad Tenev5:47

       Yeah. Uh, we've had discussions about that internally. I think that the challenge is, the, the value is in the deep integration with our proprietary data, and I don't know if we wanna get in the business of, like, going into companies and doing deep integrations with their proprietary data. But generally, I ask the question for everything, can we, if we build a great tool internally-... can we actually make it available as a service to others? Because that's the way to ensure that it stays great. It's like, there's external pressure from customers, not just internal teams. So I'm, I'm a huge fan of that type of platformization.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings6:26

       Where do you think AI is not where you would most like it to be?

   15. VTVlad Tenev6:30

       I mean, I think that there's still a problem with hallucinations, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done to kind of, like, scaffold against that. And that's actually one of the things that was the origin for the company that I'm, I'm chairman of, Harmonic. Uh, it's, can we design a system that prevents hallucinations by, by design and ensures that every step of the reasoning is logical and follows from, from the previous one? So, I, I think that that entails a different approach to, uh, generating AI output, one where every piece of output is checked before it comes out, and there's a very clear measure of correctness. So I think that's gonna be a- an interesting system that will change

5. 7:24 – 11:21

   The One Customer Type That Transformed the Business

   1. VTVlad Tenev7:24

      everything.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings7:24

      We're gonna get to Harmonic 'cause it's super exciting, and congrats on the series B. Uh, super exciting there.

   3. VTVlad Tenev7:29

      Thank you.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings7:30

      The product expansion's been insane. You know, I spoke to Neil Mehta specifically before. He said about the speed of, uh, product build. When we look at it, though, you started with, like, young, first-time traders, added options and crypto, attracted maybe higher risk profiles, then speculative traders, high volume spec traders. Robinhood Gold and Cash Management led to more. I guess my question is, how do you think about the different customer profile types you serve today, and how has that changed over time in your thinking, given the massive product expansion recently?

   5. VTVlad Tenev8:03

      I think that, uh, there's been one big change, which is recently, we started thinking about not just the millennial and Gen Z customer, but also the active trader.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings8:13

      Yeah.

   7. VTVlad Tenev8:13

      Like, the digitally native active trader, and that, that's a very different type of profile. I mean, these are folks that, you, you can almost think of them, they, they have some similarity with gamers. They've got, like, the screens, the headphones, the fancy keyboards, and they're just locked in. They're locked into their, to their system, and they have very specific needs. They are like, they need to be at the frontier of technology and innovation. They, they care about speed. They care about latency. And we really had to get into that customer's head to design products like our Futures Ladder, like Robinhood Legend.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings8:50

      Why did you decide that was a market that you wanted to go after?

   9. VTVlad Tenev8:53

      We were kind of aware of this being a market that was important to us back in even 2019, but we weren't really doing much about it. So we had our, we had our strategy that was, we're gonna make an extremely simple-to-use mobile app with zero commissions, and we were targeting first-timers, 'cause the thesis was, well, first-timers would benefit from this. They like ease of use, and commissions are really a big barrier if you're starting with $100.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings9:24

       Yeah.

   11. VTVlad Tenev9:25

       Like, that would- wouldn't have been possible before. And what happened was, when we went, we, when we went live, we started getting active traders that were high volume incidentally, without actually, like, going after that customer base, and that was because the value prop of zero commissions was so strong that if you were someone that was, you know, paying $1,000 a month in commissions, you would do all of the fancy research elsewhere and just do your trading on Robinhood. The value prop were str- was strong even though it wasn't explicitly designed for that. And so we built an active trader business incidentally, without even trying, and we were aware of this. We were like, "Wow, there's a lot of..." (laughs) A lot of our revenue, which was much higher than we anticipated when we modeled this first-time investor business, is driven by, you know, a, a, a, a well-defined kind of circumscribed chunk of our customers, and we ignored that for a while, because what we were doing was working very, very well. But in 2022, it became apparent that we weren't treating this customer base well, and they were even more important, because they, they're actually resilient. Since they're active, they, uh, they have, like, bearish strategies. When the market's moving down, they remain active. When the market's moving sideways, they can do multi-level, multi-leg options. And, uh, a- and from that point on, we realized we weren't serving them well. They were turning to other platforms. They were outgrowing us, and so we put some of our most hardcore people on the task of making Robinhood the best platform for active traders, and not just serving them incidentally. And I think that was actually the number one reason behind our business turnaround. It's realizing that that was actually the core of our business, and if we had to, uh ... And, and we needed to invest in it in order to have resources to do other things well.

6. 11:21 – 15:30

   “CoreWeave Is Retail’s Way Into AI” - The Meme Stock Defense

   1. VTVlad Tenev11:21

   2. HSHarry Stebbings11:21

      Do you think the memefication of stocks is a good thing or not?

   3. VTVlad Tenev11:27

      Uh, what do you mean by the memefication of stocks?

   4. HSHarry Stebbings11:29

      When you have things that, bluntly, take public attention and really capture the zeitgeist, like a, I think you bluntly put the ............................ in the circles in the match here at this point, but the GameStops of the world, is that a good thing because it actually brings more people into markets, they can learn, they're entering the market for the first time? Or is it fundamentally bad because, bluntly, it's inflated? It's, it's not artificially inflated 'cause it is real, but it's not based on fundamentals.

   5. VTVlad Tenev11:59

      I think that people are buying these stocks generally for a very different reason than, you know, um, a meme coin, for example, or, or even GameStop back in 2021. I think they legitimately believe that these are gonna be...... like, gigantic industries. CoreWeave in- for instance, is one of the few opportunities that as a public markets investor, you can actually buy into AI, the growth of the AI industry. I mean, if you think about it, what are your options if you wanna invest in AI as retail? You've got NVIDIA-

   6. HSHarry Stebbings12:35

      AMD.

   7. VTVlad Tenev12:36

      Yeah. I mean, AMD, but really NVIDIA's 4 trillion, right? You've got Tesla where AI is maybe, I don't know, 10, 20% of the story there. So you don't have too many opportunities at sub-trillion valuations. So when CoreWeave comes along, that's like AI exposure at a lower level and, and people are interested in that. And then Circle, you have the stablecoin industry, right? And, and people are betting that that's gonna be a big thing, and that's sort of like clean exposure to, to stablecoins.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings13:10

      In terms of, like, availability of exposure, you guys did the fascinating, uh, kind of new product, so to speak, in terms of the tokenization of kind of private companies. Talk to me about the decision around that new product. Take me to that room. What was the discussion like and how did you come to the decision that this was a product you wanted to do?

   9. VTVlad Tenev13:30

      Yeah, I mean, it was very clear, uh, from the beginning. I actually wrote an article in The Washington Post in January that argued for tokenization, and-

   10. HSHarry Stebbings13:41

       You said that tokenization will be the biggest innovation in finance in the last decade.

   11. VTVlad Tenev13:46

       Yeah. Yeah, I said that yesterday. Uh, yeah, I wasn't quite as clear, I guess, back in January for my Washington Post op-ed.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings13:54

       (laughs)

   13. VTVlad Tenev13:55

       But I think, um, I think there's two benefits of tokenization that are very, very extreme. One is, like stablecoins, it's gonna be the easiest way to get exposure to US assets if you're outside of the US.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings14:09

       Mm-hmm.

   15. VTVlad Tenev14:10

       So stablecoins, very popular outside the US for people that wanna get their hands on dollars. In the same way, I think stock tokens will become the best way to get exposure to US stocks and other assets. So that's like the ex-US use case. The, uh, use case that's gonna be very powerful even within the US where we actually have decent access through Robinhood and, and other things to US stocks is illiquid assets that actually have not been successfully made tradable or accessible to retail, like private companies, but also real estate and, and even things like art. So I think in the US, uh, that, that actually is very, very meaningful, and we wanted to demonstrate that we have the technology built to do this, uh, outside the US. I mean, it, it will work, it works, and, uh, all, all that's left is just details and, in the US, regulatory clarity. So we wanted to start with the two companies that I think are significant, hard to get, uh, challenging, but also in, in demand, and that's SpaceX and OpenAI, which incidentally were the two that I used as ex- examples when I, when I wrote my opinion piece on this.

7. 15:30 – 21:05

   Inside Robinhood’s Tokenized Private Shares Product

   1. VTVlad Tenev15:30

   2. HSHarry Stebbings15:30

      I totally... I have more LPs now that call me about access to both of them.

   3. VTVlad Tenev15:34

      Yeah.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings15:34

      Uh, so completely agree with you in terms of those being the demand side. The question I have for you is just so I actually understand then, b- if I'm... If it's a token, it's not equity or it, it is, is a reflection of equity? What am I actually buying? Just so I get it.

   5. VTVlad Tenev15:48

      Yeah. Um, I'd s- I'd say the analogy is to a stablecoin. Basically, if you think about it, we have some traditional assets in a box. We tokenize that one for one, and the, the tokens actually get put on blockchains where they're tradable. So for stablecoins, Circle, for example, has some US treasury bills and notes in a box that back the tokens that are freely tradable. So in, in this way, we have access to private company shares, uh, or other types of exposure, because OpenAI doesn't have shares. They're a nonprofit, so they have profit participation units and convertible interest securities that give shares upon a successful conversion to a for-profit. So OpenAI is particularly complicated, but you can think of it as exposure in an SPV, like a traditional instrument that then gets held by Robinhood and tokenized and, and given to retail.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings16:50

      They were a little bit upset by this. (laughs)

   7. VTVlad Tenev16:52

      Yes.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings16:53

      W- were you surprised that they were upset by it?

   9. VTVlad Tenev16:56

      Um-

   10. HSHarry Stebbings16:56

       Uh, do you think that was unfair?

   11. VTVlad Tenev16:58

       I thought part of it was unfair. They, they issued a, a statement that said, you know, "Please be careful." Um, which, which I thought was a little bit gratuitous. Uh, but I think, I think it could have been worse. I mean, I understand from OpenAI's perspective that they've got a lot of stuff going on. They're trying to convert to a for-profit. The last thing they want to deal with, um, is, you know, some, some guy tokenizing their stocks. They don't even understand exactly how that works, but it's sort of like a confusing distraction at best. Um, but I, I would say it's in line with their mission. You know, their stated mission is to build artificial general intelligence and make sure the benefit... It, it benefits all of humanity. So one way to make sure it benefits all of humanity and not just, you know, executives and wealthy investors, is to make humanity have ownership of it, which up until now hasn't been possible. You know, o- some of the most important companies of our time have not been accessible to retail, and I think that's a huge problem, so...

   12. HSHarry Stebbings18:05

       Is there anything that you would've done differently about the launch or the messaging?

   13. VTVlad Tenev18:09

       I think that there's always things to, uh, to learn. Uh, for example, I, I think this, like, statement that it was somehow unsafe was not very positive for us. I mean, if you look at OpenAI newsroom Twitter, this was actually...... the most popular tweet that they tweeted, ever. It has, like, the most likes and, and reposts, which surprised me. So I, I didn't quite think that it would resonate so much. Um, so I don't know. I don't know. It's so new, I don't know if I would have done much differently. I think the problem is everyone likes tokenization in, in principle, right? But it's not really as attractive when it's being done to you. It's sort of like a digital nimbyism, right? Everyone's like, "Oh, great, tokenization. Can it ... make it happen over there." And, uh, yeah, the, the problem that's happened in private markets in general is the best companies have lots of options. They can raise money from anywhere. So they sort of, like, don't consider retail. Oops. They don't consider retail. Uh, and that leads to this adverse selection problem where basically the only companies tapping retail are the ones that don't have any other options. And that's why all of the initiatives to give access to retail to these opportunities have, have failed thus far. And so I think it's important for the tokenization mechanism to work without the opt-in of the companies that, that are being tokenized. And I think that's actually the innovation that we've been able to drive. Like, we can ... We, we figured out how to make this work without actually having the, the companies opt in.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings19:56

       Are you fearful that regulation will stop that? 'Cause if it works, this could be the biggest line of revenue in your business, no?

   15. VTVlad Tenev20:03

       I think, I think it could be big. I would say that in the EU, it's, uh, it's, it's pretty clear. I mean, EU has clear crypto asset regulation in, in the form of MiCA.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings20:15

       Yeah.

   17. VTVlad Tenev20:16

       Uh, in the US, more work needs to be done, for sure. Like, there's two elements to it. Accredited investor laws, and also, uh, crypto laws. Which, which both need to happen in order to, to truly unlock this. And my belief is par- part of the reason why we're demonstrating this in the EU, aside from just giving our EU customers access to all these amazing products, is that it could show the rest of the world that there's real value here. And you heard the SEC chair, Paul Adkins, say, you know, tokenization is an innovation, and the SEC has to stop putting up roadblocks and start embracing these innovative technologies. So I, I think we've got support from both sides, in effect, to, to, to improve this.

8. 21:05 – 25:55

   “Capital as a Service” - Vlad’s Wild Vision for Startup Fundraising

   1. VTVlad Tenev21:05

   2. HSHarry Stebbings21:05

      How do you think about inventory? And what I mean by that is, you mentioned the two then, that are kind of the gold standard. Could you go as low as a Series B? I mean, when you look at Harmonic, and it, I know you announced around, uh, you know, today.

   3. VTVlad Tenev21:18

      Yeah.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings21:19

      Um, I- I think I added it, Kleiner Perkins did it, you're the chairman. There's a lot of people who would love to buy into that Harmonic token right now, if you put it on Robinhood.

   5. VTVlad Tenev21:28

      Yeah.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings21:28

      Does it go that low? How do you think about where the line ends in terms of accessibility?

   7. VTVlad Tenev21:32

      It's a great question. My intent would, would be to go as low as possible.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings21:37

      Yeah.

   9. VTVlad Tenev21:37

      I think that ... And, and it's funny, because we're kind of straddling the, um, crypto and the traditional finance side. And if, if you talk to crypto people, crypto people will tell you, "Well, the future is on-chain issuance. What you're doing right now is, like, not ideal, compared to on-chain issuance, where the equity goes on chain from the very beginning." And what I tell them is, "Nobody gives a shit about on-chain issuance." Like, the only place where people are even thinking about on-chain issuance is, like, in your head.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings22:15

       (laughs)

   11. VTVlad Tenev22:15

       What people want is capital as a service.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings22:18

       (laughs)

   13. VTVlad Tenev22:18

       Like, if you're an entrepreneur, you want capital in your bank account quickly and with as little friction as possible. And, and I think that's where this eventually ends. You, you should be able to go on Robinhood or maybe other services as well, maybe upload some information, and, and actually you'll be competing in a marketplace, so there will be pressure, market pressure, to make information that's clear and as compelling as possible. You push a button, and then money enters your, your bank account, and you can get back to running your business. I think that's where it ... That, that's the logical conclusion. It's capital at all stages, but perhaps the most interesting is the earliest stages. And I think if we succeed in doing this, there will be more startups. Like, it'll become easier to create a startup.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings23:06

       I, I mean, it's incredible, and it kind of actually kind of pays homage to what crowdfunding always promised to be.

   15. VTVlad Tenev23:11

       Yeah.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings23:11

       But never actually was. Um, so I totally get that. What does that look like then, in terms of the roll-out from that six to 12 months of tokenization and what assets you tokenize when, and how you do it?

   17. VTVlad Tenev23:21

       Well, what's live right now in Europe, fully live, is public stocks.

   18. HSHarry Stebbings23:24

       Yeah.

   19. VTVlad Tenev23:25

       And we've got about 200 plus of all the, all the big ones, so we're gonna continue to roll that out and, and get to thousands. We will make the private stocks tradable as well. So we'll get those on chain.

   20. HSHarry Stebbings23:38

       Why does inventory ... Sorry. Just p- pause there. Why does inventory matter in the thousands? When you actually look at, like, trading volumes, and you see the concentration of names the trading volumes go towards, do you need much more than 200?

   21. VTVlad Tenev23:50

       I think that you never know what's gonna become popular.

   22. HSHarry Stebbings23:53

       Mm-hmm.

   23. VTVlad Tenev23:54

       There's always a long tail, and, you know, something happens in a, in a random company, right? And, uh, it's, it's interesting. And we don't really wanna be in the business of, like, picking winners and losers and what stocks you wanna buy. We- we'd like to keep it simple and just say, generally speaking, if it's, if it's listed, and it ... I mean, we, we'd like to actually offer it to all listed ones. There have been issues where, unfortunately, you know, sub-dollar stocks are left listed for too long, and some of these have turned into scams, and, and I think that's a problem that we'd like the listing exchanges to deal with. So we, we, we've had to deviate from that to some degree. But ideally, if it's, if it's listed and we just turn it on, and, and we're good to go.

   24. HSHarry Stebbings24:42

       So we move from 200 to 1,000 there. Great.

   25. VTVlad Tenev24:44

       Yeah.

   26. HSHarry Stebbings24:44

       What else?

   27. VTVlad Tenev24:45

       Uh, so there's a couple of things. So on the, on the public stock token side, this product will progress in a couple of stages. We're in stage one, where every time we mint or burn a new token, we actually go to the market, to, to the NASDAQ or NYSE, to an actual exchange for every trade. So every time you buy, one new one is minted. And the second phase is we put these tokens on BitStamp, our exchange, and so then you can trade the tokens directly against other cryptos and, and also dollars. And that needs, that needs stage one because we need to have a supply of a significant number of these tokens minted before we can enable the liquidity. So phase two unlocks 24/7 trading. And then phase three, you, you can actually interface with the blockchain directly, and you can self-custody, you can do all of the collateralized lending and borrowing, all the DeFi, the self-custody, and that's when things start to really get interesting. I think the crypto wallet will be a first-class experience for all these tokenized

9. 25:55 – 27:12

   The $100M Revenue Line Vlad Wishes He Could Kill

   1. VTVlad Tenev25:55

      assets.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings25:55

      Is that $100 million revenue line for you? 'Cause you have nine products that are $100 million revenue lines now.

   3. VTVlad Tenev26:01

      The crypto wallet, uh, up until recently has not even been monetized. I think we're just starting to, to monetize it.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings26:09

      When you look at the nine, which do you think is most underappreciated?

   5. VTVlad Tenev26:14

      Yeah, I guess I don't really even think about it that way. I mean, we break it down as nine revenue streams, but I- I just think of it as, you know, we get customers. Customers become Robinhood Gold subscribers, and once you're a Robinhood Gold subscriber, we, um, we- we get you to use all of our products and increase your average revenue per user on the platform. So, you know, uh, I do... We do break it up into business lines. We consider that, and i- it's... But it's sort of, um, a map of the world, right? And what I really care about is the reality of: how many customers do we get? How much money are they putting in the, in the platform? Are we serving all of their financial needs? And I, I think you can slice and dice it by, by, uh, you know, lots of different ways. But if, if they're putting all of their money into Robinhood, I think we're, we're happy.

10. 27:12 – 35:42

    What Line of Business Will Be the Biggest For Vlad in 5 Years Time

    1. VTVlad Tenev27:12

    2. HSHarry Stebbings27:12

       In five years' time, which do you think will be the biggest revenue generator?

    3. VTVlad Tenev27:17

       I think that crypto is interesting because right now crypto is sort of this, like, separate segment of the business. We, we kind of look at it and the outside world perceives it as a different asset, right? It's like, how big is your crypto business gonna be relative to, say, your options business or equities business? It's very much like this is a separate asset that you're trading. But what we're starting to see already is crypto is gonna be this layer that is behind everything, right? Ev- everything is gonna be powered by crypto to, to some degree. So, uh-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings27:58

       What do you mean by that? Just so I understand.

    5. VTVlad Tenev28:00

       Well, I'll just give you an example. Right now we have, uh, like, uh, Robinhood Gold has a interest piece where you can earn interest on your cash. Well, if we, uh, as we get stablecoin out, crypto will have that as well. You'll be able to earn interest on your stablecoins, and that'll be a, a significant business. And you might consider that part of crypto, but that's, uh, you know, that- that's something that's akin to a savings account. Prediction markets over time, uh, you, you see overseas things like Polymarket. That's a prediction market's business, but it's also powered by crypto.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings28:40

       Uh, the joys of me is I have no ego, and so I am not afraid to ask very stupid questions. I hang out with-

    7. VTVlad Tenev28:46

       Yeah, go ahead.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings28:46

       ... Jack Zhang from Airwallex, who I don't know if you know, but he's fucking brilliant and one of the most underappreciated founders. He's very negative on the future of stablecoins. Um, how do you see the next three years of stablecoins, and would you share his negativity?

    9. VTVlad Tenev29:01

       I don't know if I would go that far. Um, there's definitely use cases. I mean, I'll, I'll just give you an example. Robinhood uses stablecoins, like, for, for our corporate purposes. So we have this use case where we trade a lot of crypto, and that requires settling with counterparties. I mean, if we buy... If our customers buy a bunch of Bitcoin, we have counterparties that we have to send dollars to, and they send us the, the Bitcoin back. And during market hours, Monday through Friday, everything works fine because we can settle intraday. We can wire them dollars. They send us the crypto to our wallets, and, and everything's fine. But what happens on a weekend, right? What happens on a weekend where the banking rails are closed and something's happening in the crypto markets and we've got retail customers that wanna buy billions of dollars of crypto? You have a difficult solu- uh, you have a difficult situation potentially, so... Because we can't move the money. So what happens is either you have to take counterparty risk, meaning you have to trust that, you know, one side will deliver the dollars eventually, when they can, and send them the crypto ahead of time, which is a tough one because counterparty risk multiplies if you have lots of counterparties. Or you have to have lines of credit, right? Lines of credit with your counterparties that are expensive. Or you have to pre-fund in the bank accounts that you have, which can be different. You know, all the counterparties tend to have different bank accounts unless you force them to centralize. And so you have to pre-fund and plan for what could be a... an insane amount of, of volume, and that's very capital inefficient. But stablecoins coming-

    10. HSHarry Stebbings30:53

        I lit- I literally have goosebumps listening to these different options. That's shit.

    11. VTVlad Tenev30:56

        Yeah, it's not good options. And, you know, we had to deal with this in 2021, and, and our solution was to raise lots of capital and pre-fund, um, and hope that it was enough, right? But now with stablecoins, we can just send you the dollars over the weekend, they instantly get to our counterparties, they can send the crypto back, problem solved. So that, that's a real use case, and that's led to us adopting it. So the, the 24/7 movement of dollars in real time is, uh, is a, is a real thing. And I don't think you can argue that outside of the US, particularly in developing countries, stablecoins have become the easiest way to get access to dollars for retail. And, and I think that's a real thing. They basically obsoleted American Express Travelers Checks, which, you know, foreigners in countries with depreciating currencies would like stockpile these things to, to keep their money.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings31:52

        Are you ready for a really unfair one?

    13. VTVlad Tenev31:53

        Let's see it.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings31:55

        Of the nine products that do 100 million in revenue, if I forced you to shut one down today because of focus, which would you shut down?

    15. VTVlad Tenev32:03

        Oh, good question. Um, well, I'll tell you one that I, I wouldn't mind, uh, I, I wouldn't mind if it disappears over time, uh, instant withdrawals revenue. Yeah, so, so we make money from customers, uh, withdrawing money from Robinhood into their bank account instantly. You know, it's, it's a good business for us. And-

    16. HSHarry Stebbings32:28

        How, how big a business is that?

    17. VTVlad Tenev32:30

        Uh, I wanna say this is nine figures. Um, yeah, I mean, we, we can check that-

    18. HSHarry Stebbings32:35

        Yeah, yeah.

    19. VTVlad Tenev32:35

        ... but I think that's one of them. Or e- either by itself or in combination with some, some related thing.

    20. HSHarry Stebbings32:41

        Close enough.

    21. VTVlad Tenev32:42

        But yeah, it's a big business. And, you know, we've got a... Our, our GM there is very proud of this business and he hates when I say this, but I tell him, "Hey, if your business goes to zero, I would not be upset because that would mean nobody's withdrawing money from Robinhood." If, if it's just like everyone just keeps their money in Robinhood all the time, we feel, we feel pretty good. So one of the goals we have is remove all reasons why someone would wanna move their money out to an external bank account.

    22. HSHarry Stebbings33:11

        Great answer. That's a phenomenal one. It's like being in a job interview and being asked your biggest weakness, and you're like, "I just work too hard." (laughs) Um, okay. Me and you have got a whiteboard, we're planning a new product.

    23. VTVlad Tenev33:24

        Chalkboard, please.

    24. HSHarry Stebbings33:26

        Oh, God, I hate chalkboards. Reminds me of school. Um, what product have you not done that you would most like to do?

    25. VTVlad Tenev33:33

        In, uh, financial services? I mean, pri- private markets is one that I've been very excited about. I think we have a plan to, uh, we have a plan to do it. Um, and the time between having an idea and executing on it with, with a new product has decreased quite a bit. I mean, if, if you told me six months ago that I'd be sitting here embroiled in some controversy because I've tokenized private markets and, uh, we- we've been able to deliver that to customers, I would have been surprised, but, like, the team has been executing unbelievably well. Uh, I think what we talked about earlier, um, which is still in the future, of having this, like, capital as a service offering, um, where you just press a button and money is deposited in your account, whether it be a, a business account or a, or a personal account. Uh, I think, I think that would be quite meaningful.

    26. HSHarry Stebbings34:34

        The one that no one can crack and everyone wants to, people have tried, Nick at Revolut wants it, is the, like, ultra-high-net-worths and the super high-net-worths who are with Goldman or with Pictet or with JP. Do you want that market?

    27. VTVlad Tenev34:49

        Yeah. And I think that... Yeah, we- we're interested in that market. I think-

    28. HSHarry Stebbings34:55

        How do you win it where others haven't?

    29. VTVlad Tenev34:57

        Well, um, I don't know if, if, if a lot of people have really tried very hard, to be fair. I mean, I think that the people making $100,000 is a very nice market too, and I think it can be very, very tempting to go up and say, "Okay, why don't we serve the people making a million, five million?" Ultra-high-net-worth, like if, if you can literally be my family office, um, I th- I think that is an attractive proposition. And actually that, that's my goal. I'd like to have all of my personal stuff on Robinhood. Um, and I, I don't think we're very far from being able to service my needs, uh, adequately, like maybe a couple

11. 35:42 – 42:45

    Robinhood Is Building... Cash Delivery Trucks?!

    1. VTVlad Tenev35:42

       of years.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings35:42

       W- w- what do we not have today that we do need to service your needs?

    3. VTVlad Tenev35:46

       Yeah, so private banking, which, by the way, we're rolling out. It's happening very, very quickly. And, um, yeah, to, to my knowledge this is the first digital private banking product that's really designed for... I mean, private banking has been a very brick and mortar experience. All of the features require a branch. Nobody has been able to crack how to deliver that service without a branch. And I'll give you an example, cash delivery. I don't know if you heard about this cash delivery innovation, which, which I'm very excited about.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings36:16

       (laughs) Please tell me.

    5. VTVlad Tenev36:18

       Yeah, so one thing that high-net-worth individuals have access to from private banking is, uh, a cash truck. So I was like floored by this when I got to the level where this could happen. But, like, First Republic Bank, which is now sadly defunct, had this service where cash would be delivered to your house-... and, you know, you don't have to go to an ATM. They offered it for larger amounts of cash, and it would come in an armored vehicle.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings36:47

       I don't know anyone that has ordered a cash (laughs) delivery in the thousands from a cash truck. I'm with Goldman. I don't think they-

    7. VTVlad Tenev36:56

       Yeah.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings36:56

       ... fucking do cash trucks. Like, is that actually a thing?

    9. VTVlad Tenev36:59

       It was a thing. It was, it was why I loved, uh, why we love First Republic Bank because, you know, going to the bank and going to an ATM is annoying. Much more convenient to have the cash brought to you. And-

    10. HSHarry Stebbings37:11

        Do you still use cash?

    11. VTVlad Tenev37:13

        Uh, yeah, yeah.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings37:16

        Wow. For what?

    13. VTVlad Tenev37:17

        Yeah. Tipping.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings37:19

        Oh, you Americans.

    15. VTVlad Tenev37:20

        You don't tip?

    16. HSHarry Stebbings37:21

        This i- no, this is an American thing, huh?

    17. VTVlad Tenev37:23

        Yeah.

    18. HSHarry Stebbings37:23

        Why do you need like 50 grand in cash?

    19. VTVlad Tenev37:26

        You gotta tip, w- I got a lot of people that give me services.

    20. HSHarry Stebbings37:29

        (laughs)

    21. VTVlad Tenev37:29

        You know, you gotta tip them all. Um.

    22. HSHarry Stebbings37:32

        That is amazing. So, cash. Uh-

    23. VTVlad Tenev37:34

        And also, I have people that work for me that use services too, and they have to tip people. So, there's like a-

    24. HSHarry Stebbings37:39

        So, so-

    25. VTVlad Tenev37:39

        ... whole operation.

    26. HSHarry Stebbings37:41

        So you're gonna do cash trucks?

    27. VTVlad Tenev37:43

        So what we've, what we asked ourselves-

    28. HSHarry Stebbings37:45

        Amazing branding. Can you imagine like Dollarhood cash trucks?

    29. VTVlad Tenev37:48

        Well, what we-

    30. HSHarry Stebbings37:49

        Driving around cities.
12. 42:45 – 53:46

    “We Were Shipping Nothing”: Vlad on the 2020–2022 Culture Crisis

    1. HSHarry Stebbings42:45

       Um-Behind all of this is actually the machine that makes it. You know, Neil at Maters, uh, I think a very dear friend of yours, and he responded when I asked him, "I LOVE VLAD," all in caps. Uh, and that actually, uh, made me very happy. Uh, he asked very specifically, "How did Vlad go from a culture and company that shipped almost nothing to-"

    2. VTVlad Tenev43:07

       (laughs)

    3. HSHarry Stebbings43:07

       ... sorry, it was his words, "to now shipping at the most extraordinary pace? As specific as possible."

    4. VTVlad Tenev43:13

       We were kinda gummed up in, uh, 2020 and 2021 just, uh, trying to scale. You know, we, we went from end of 2019 we had 800 employees, and we had, uh, maybe 200 or so million in annual revenue. Still a big business, but by the end of 2020, we had, uh, close to a billion in annual revenue. You know, so we, we quadrupled the business roughly. And that was tough because it happened while we were remote, we were dealing with pandemic, we hired all these people, and I think in hindsight, we ingested too many people, it became hard to operate, and, you know, the- these were new people that didn't know how to work with us, we were all remote, um, and we had to also scale customer support. This was before AI, so if we quadrupled our customer base, we had to more than quadruple our customer support team because w- frankly we weren't even doing a, a great job with the folks we had back in the day. Um, so it was making sure we have really, really good talent, that involved some cultural changes to reorient the company post-COVID, bringing people back into the office so we could onboard better. I-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings44:37

       How important is being in-person? I make sure everyone's in-person for all of our companies.

    6. VTVlad Tenev44:42

       I'm a, I'm a big in-person bull in general.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings44:46

       Mm-hmm.

    8. VTVlad Tenev44:47

       Yeah. Um, yeah, I think, I think we've operated much better since we... And it was actually very painful for us because we went remote first, so I had to, like, pull that back entirely which pissed a lot of people off, but, um, we can-

    9. HSHarry Stebbings45:00

       Is it as bad as you think? A lot of people are like, "Well, I can't pull it back." I think very few doors are actually one way.

    10. VTVlad Tenev45:06

        Totally. Yeah, no, there's no one-way doors that I've encountered. It can be done, and, uh, you know, we've, we've done it which, which I think is, is a great example.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings45:16

        Okay, so we're back in office, we have new personnel.

    12. VTVlad Tenev45:19

        Yeah.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings45:19

        Anything that you've done to really fucking supercharge product delivery, iteration shipping?

    14. VTVlad Tenev45:25

        I think making sure that everyone feels accountable to their business results is, is important. I think there's probably, like, 12 little things that you just go and do, and if you, if you really wanna ship fast and deliver fast, you have to orient your culture towards optimizing for that. And I, I think it's, it's difficult in financial services especially because you also have to protect people's money and, and be safe, and I think it's an important thing to not treat these two things as things that, uh, sort of counterbalance each other, "Oh, well, we can't ship fast because that compromises safety," you have to say, "No, I want you to do it at high-quality which means delivering it safely, but, but also once you know what to do, executing relentlessly."

    15. HSHarry Stebbings46:18

        That's why I say it like Steve Jobs, "No, I want it beautiful and today." (laughs)

    16. VTVlad Tenev46:24

        And fast. (laughs)

    17. HSHarry Stebbings46:24

        I totally understand that. What's your framework for deciding what new products to do versus not do?

    18. VTVlad Tenev46:29

        I think I follow my intuition quite a bit. Yeah. Um, which is funny, I'm-

    19. HSHarry Stebbings46:34

        Do you agree, do you agree with dictatorial style of leadership?

    20. VTVlad Tenev46:36

        The which kind?

    21. HSHarry Stebbings46:37

        Kind of dictatorial? Top-down?

    22. VTVlad Tenev46:40

        Um, I think that certain things have to be top-down, for sure. Whi- which is, uh, the vision has to be top-down because there's just... And, and you know-

    23. HSHarry Stebbings46:51

        How many direct reports do you have?

    24. VTVlad Tenev46:53

        Um, I think it's about 15, 15 to 20. I, I think you know when it's necessary because it's very, very clear when something needs to be top-down because you have people that aren't agreeing with things, they're, like, disagreeing with each other, and I think if that goes on for too long and it's not intentional, that's probably a sign of some form of dysfunction, um, and that's when you need to be top-down. But I don't think you have to be top-down to an extreme degree. I think that... And, and that's, that's the difficult part. What I try to do is be clear about where we're going and what the end state is, and give people who are in the details and can focus on their thing a lot of autonomy to, to how you achieve the, the actual thing, right? And, and then they become owners of it, they become accountable to it. So, I, I wouldn't be top-down and dictate exactly how everything is done. For some things I'll have opinions, like the, the products that I'm very close to, how the events are done, how it's announced, but, um, I, I, I wanna make it clear that, you know, my GMs, the product leaders, the folks that are close to the ground can overrule me, and I, I just encourage them to actually yell at me and tell me I'm being an idiot when, when they think so.

    25. HSHarry Stebbings48:16

        What element of your leadership do you know is bad but continue to do regardless?

    26. VTVlad Tenev48:23

        I, I think I've been, uh, I've been accused of having low emotional intelligence. (laughs)

    27. HSHarry Stebbings48:30

        (laughs) Do you work on that or do you just accept that, "Hey, that's part of me"?

    28. VTVlad Tenev48:34

        Um, I try to work on it a little bit. I mean, it's always, I... Maybe, maybe I'm inept, but I don't know, I consider myself, uh, uh, somewhat emotionally intelligent, so.

    29. HSHarry Stebbings48:46

        Do you tie your happiness to the performance of the company?

    30. VTVlad Tenev48:50

        I try not to, but it's, it's sometimes hard to avoid. I mean, just think about it, I- I'm pretty happy now. In 2022-
13. 53:46 – 57:41

    The One Competitor Vlad Actually Respects

    1. VTVlad Tenev53:46

       there.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings53:47

       Which competitor do you most respect, and why them?

    3. VTVlad Tenev53:50

       I think Revolut's a good one. Revolut, you know, you can tell the culture is, is, is, uh, in a good place. Like, that's the no bullshit company that is... that cares a lot about winning. I think it's pretty clear. So, respect them tremendously. Uh, I respect Coinbase, you know. I think they're a technology company in our space. We come across them quite a bit. We collaborate in some ways, but, uh, you know, no bullshit, founder led. Uh, I, I think they've done very well. And I think there's a lot of, uh, smaller players that also are hungry and, and doing well.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings54:30

       Any that are non-obvious but super interesting?

    5. VTVlad Tenev54:33

       I think, I think Altruist is somewhat interesting as a competitor. Have you heard of Altruist?

    6. HSHarry Stebbings54:38

       Mm-hmm.

    7. VTVlad Tenev54:39

       Yeah, so, uh, it's funny, it's, it's great. We have all these competitors, uh, in all these different fields. Um-

    8. HSHarry Stebbings54:45

       Well, you do everything, dude. (laughs) There's quite a lot to compete with.

    9. VTVlad Tenev54:48

       Yeah, so, so Altruist is kind of our competitor in the RIA custody business. So this is sort of like the products we offer to advisors to, uh, serve their end clients. And, you know, their, their pitch was, "We're Robinhood for advisors." Um, and, you know, they, they do some things very, very well, and, you know-We believe we can be Robinhood for advisors. But yeah, they have, uh, a CEO who's a good-looking guy. He's kind of the, you know, hanging around all these, uh, advisory conferences, and, uh, you know, we entered that space via acquisition a couple of months ago, so that should be interesting.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings55:28

        (laughs) We put this in yesterday, right? And I stalk the shit out of you. And you'll be impressed, I think, by the level of stalking the shit out of you I did.

    11. VTVlad Tenev55:36

        Let's see.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings55:36

        I hear that you now have a personal trainer, and you didn't for many years. You solo-trained for many years. Uh-

    13. VTVlad Tenev55:43

        Well, you didn't see my Men's Health article, did you?

    14. HSHarry Stebbings55:46

        No.

    15. VTVlad Tenev55:47

        So I was in Men's Health about a year and a half ago.

    16. HSHarry Stebbings55:49

        (gasps) .

    17. VTVlad Tenev55:49

        I didn't get the cover, unfortunately.

    18. HSHarry Stebbings55:51

        Fuckers.

    19. VTVlad Tenev55:52

        Which I thought was, uh, very disappointing. I think I deserved the Men's Health cover.

    20. HSHarry Stebbings55:56

        Why didn't you buy a Men's Health? (laughs)

    21. VTVlad Tenev55:57

        (laughs) I didn't have the money back then.

    22. HSHarry Stebbings55:59

        D- Do you-

    23. VTVlad Tenev55:59

        I don't know how much they're worth. Uh-

    24. HSHarry Stebbings56:00

        I can order you a cash truck if you'd like one. (laughs) .

    25. VTVlad Tenev56:04

        (laughs) But anyway, there's a Men's Health, uh, feature on me working out with my trainer and, you know, I, I think for that one I deadlifted close to 400 pounds, but they, they showed the picture of me deadlifting, uh, 135 for some reason that I, I can't fathom.

    26. HSHarry Stebbings56:18

        We're gonna put this up like here. It's gonna be beautifully visualized for this video. Wow. Well done.

    27. VTVlad Tenev56:25

        Thank you. Yeah.

    28. HSHarry Stebbings56:25

        How... So, so how did like tr- training change?

    29. VTVlad Tenev56:28

        Uh, so I started working with a trainer. Uh, I had a bad, uh, back injury. Right around the time I had my first child, I was like lifting incredibly heavy weight and I popped a disc in my, in my back. So I had surgery scheduled because I literally couldn't get up from a seated position without excruciating pain going up my leg. So I had the surgery scheduled. At the last minute, I kind of bailed from it. I'm like, "Ah, it's feeling a little bit better." It took two years to, to become pain-free from, from the time I popped the disc. So, um, then I kind of like rebuilt from first principles. So during COVID, I started working with a trainer, and for the first year, when we were all remote, we were doing body weight and dumbbell stuff only. And then gradually over time, I got into like lifting heavy, doing barbell work again. But it was just going from working out by myself, as you said, to like rebuilding my form and doing like from the ground up, like, uh, like just... It's, it's like a basketball player rebuilding their free throw. I had to just do everything properly, starting with very little weight.

14. 57:41 – 1:00:25

    From Men’s Health to Japanese Toilets

    1. VTVlad Tenev57:41

    2. HSHarry Stebbings57:41

       Did you... I, I, I was sold when I heard that you were in Men's Health. That's the coolest thing that you've said for the last hour. I'm still super impressed. Uh, what purchase under $500 has had the biggest impact on your life?

    3. VTVlad Tenev57:53

       Toto Washlet.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings57:55

       What is that?

    5. VTVlad Tenev57:56

       It's a bidet. So if you're taking a poop, you can just push a button and it cleans you without, uh, without needing toilet paper.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings58:05

       No.

    7. VTVlad Tenev58:05

       Very environmentally friendly.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings58:07

       No.

    9. VTVlad Tenev58:08

       You've never, you've never heard of this Japanese toilet?

    10. HSHarry Stebbings58:11

        No.

    11. VTVlad Tenev58:12

        Yeah.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings58:12

        You don't use loo roll?

    13. VTVlad Tenev58:14

        Uh, I do, but for drying only.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings58:17

        Ah.

    15. VTVlad Tenev58:18

        Yeah.

    16. HSHarry Stebbings58:18

        This must be so disappointing when you go to a place without it and you're like, "Shit, I've gotta go back to the old way."

    17. VTVlad Tenev58:25

        Y- it is disappointing, yeah. And-

    18. HSHarry Stebbings58:26

        I'm sorry. Le- let me just make sure, next time you're here, we'll get one of these for you (laughs) .

    19. VTVlad Tenev58:30

        You should get one. Uh, yeah.

    20. HSHarry Stebbings58:32

        (laughs)

    21. VTVlad Tenev58:32

        I mean, it's, it's fine. I just, uh, try to avoid using the bathroom if, if I-

    22. HSHarry Stebbings58:35

        Y- y- y- you've opened my world to cash trucks and not... (laughs) That's amazing.

    23. VTVlad Tenev58:40

        Japanese toilets.

    24. HSHarry Stebbings58:41

        Japanese toilets, dude.

    25. VTVlad Tenev58:42

        Yeah.

    26. HSHarry Stebbings58:42

        Um-

    27. VTVlad Tenev58:42

        They even have a portable actually, if you don't wanna spend the $500 for, you know, 30 bucks, you can get this little thing that's battery operated and you can take with you.

    28. HSHarry Stebbings58:52

        Uh-

    29. VTVlad Tenev58:52

        If you wanna go to 10,000, you get the full toilet.

    30. HSHarry Stebbings58:56

        Oh, well, I'm sold.
15. 1:00:25 – 1:01:13

    “I Was in the Dumps”: What 2022 Taught Vlad About Resilience

    1. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:26

    2. VTVlad Tenev1:00:26

       Yeah, I mean, I, I wanna say being public through 2022, seeing our stock go from, I don't know what it was in 2021, irrationally high perhaps, but it was still high after we went public, down to being worth below cash, um, was a very-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:47

       I mean, that's offensive, isn't it?

    4. VTVlad Tenev1:00:48

       It was below cash, so people were betting that we would just like waste our cash and never be profitable. Um, yeah, uh, it was offensive in hindsight. But, you know, uh, it was tough and, and I think that in hindsight led to us making a bunch of decisions and investments and like, um, responding to it in a very positive way that now we're, we're reaping the

16. 1:01:13 – 1:02:05

    Where Robinhood Is Headed: The Next Decade of Financial Infrastructure

    1. VTVlad Tenev1:01:13

       benefits of.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:14

       Okay, final one for you. Where is Robinhood, and you can choose the timeframe, in five or 10 years time? But where is Robinhood in five or 10 years time?

    3. VTVlad Tenev1:01:24

       Well, the vision behind Robinhood is to make it possible for everyone, whether they be an individual or a business, to buy, sell, or hold any financial asset or conduct any financial transaction. So that involves us going from US primary to fully global and from retail only to serving not just retail, but business and institutions.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:51

       Dude, I so appreciate you. Uh, I so appreciate all you've done for me. You've always been so good to me. Thank you for joining me and it's been so much fun.

    5. VTVlad Tenev1:02:00

       Always a pleasure.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:01

       Uh-

    7. VTVlad Tenev1:02:01

       Thanks for having me.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:01

       I look forward to buying this bidet now (laughs) .

    9. VTVlad Tenev1:02:05

       (laughs) .

Episode duration: 1:02:15