How to Build AI Products in FinTech ($100B Robinhood VP Lessons)

1. 0:00 – 1:34

   Intro

   1. AGAakash Gupta0:00

      Robinhood has just crossed $100 billion market cap. It five and a half x-ed its stock in the last year. It is one of the hottest companies in FinTech, and I sat down with the VP of Product behind it all, Abhishek Fatehpuria.

   2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria0:12

      Robinhood Cortex is an AI assistant. We bring together news, research reports, how trading is happening on Robinhood, and SEC filings to, like, help customers make sense of it. US stocks are still a lot of the envy of investors around the world. You ask your average person in an international country what company they wanna invest in, very, very frequently they're gonna say Apple, Tesla, and Video, and those are all US companies.

   3. AGAakash Gupta0:40

      Well, there have been tons of other amazing IPOs that's pretty much the only way for the retail investor to get access. And I believe that's one of your products, so tell me the story about that.

   4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria0:49

      The mission's very broad, to democratize finance for all. And that, to a lot of us, means, like, everything. We're expanding into credit cards and banking. Vlad wants to be in every country in the world over time.

   5. AGAakash Gupta1:01

      Wow.

   6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:02

      We're starting to roll it out for stocks. We've got some pretty cool stuff coming up as well for it.

   7. AGAakash Gupta1:09

      Really quickly, I think a crazy stat is that more than 50% of you listening are not subscribed. If you can subscribe on YouTube, follow on Apple or Spotify podcasts, my commitment to you is that we'll continue to make this content better and better. And now on to today's episode. Abhishek, welcome to the podcast.

   8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:30

      Thank you for having me. Yeah. I'm excited.

2. 1:34 – 8:01

   Robinhood's AI Assistant: Cortex

   1. AGAakash Gupta1:34

      So your latest launch, an AI assistant. Tell me about this. What can it do?

   2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:39

      Yeah. Uh, so Robinhood Cortex is an AI assistant help to, designed to help with your investing. So we started with a few things. So the first thing we started with was what we call Stock Digest. So one thing we really wanted to do when we took a step back is fit the AI into the customer's existing workflows. And one thing we learned when we talked to customers, it's a very universal problem, is you get this push notification from Robinhood. Stock's moved, like, 5% up or down. You open the stock. You see the chart, and the first question you have is, like, "Why did it move?" And the first goal of the feature is just to help customers, like, figure out why it's moving. So we bring together news, research reports, how trading is happening on Robinhood, and SEC filings to, like, help customers make sense of it. So, uh, we're starting to roll it out for stocks. We're bringing it to crypto pretty soon. But the idea is to just help customers invest in their existing workflows, and we've got some pretty cool stuff coming up as well for it.

   3. AGAakash Gupta2:57

      So building products with AI in FinTech, it seems like a hazy area, an area where you wanna-

   4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria3:03

      Yeah

   5. AGAakash Gupta3:03

      ... be really sensitive. What were the key things you guys thought about as, like, guardrails or, like, these are some restrictions around building this product?

   6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria3:11

      Yeah. I mean, it, it's hard in FinTech, you know? You have a lot of regulatory constraints. You're pe- you're dealing with people's actual money, so you need a high degree of trust. So I think the first thing that we started is, what data do we want going into the AI? So we curate almost all of the data that's going in. We secure licenses with the news providers we're using. We're getting research reports. We're getting-- we're using our own market data on the pricing we're getting directly from the exchanges. And so we're spending a lot of time curating upstream what data's going into the AI. And then we're spending a lot of time figuring out how to prompt it and how to coach it to not make mistakes and to not make recommendations, and really be an informational tool for investors. But I think the thing I'm excited about is we're figuring out how to make it work in a regulated landscape, which should help us do a lot more in the future.

   7. AGAakash Gupta4:18

      So it sounds like you were very careful to point out that it doesn't make recommendations. Is that one of the important elements, being a brokerage and those kind of things?

   8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria4:26

      Yeah. Right now, yes. In the future, we want to be able to do stuff like advisory and recommendations, potentially with AI. But right now, it's really a tool designed to help, help customers, like, make their own investment decisions.

   9. AGAakash Gupta4:44

      And how'd you guys, like, decide this sequencing?

   10. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria4:47

       The bar's a lot higher for recommendations. You have to be really, really careful. You have to consider their existing portfolios. You have to consider all sorts of other data. So where we thought it would be best to start is most of our customers come to Robinhood to make their own investment decisions.

   11. AGAakash Gupta5:08

       Yeah.

   12. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria5:08

       So how do we aid that process? And the early feedback's been awesome.

   13. AGAakash Gupta5:14

       Okay. So is it safe to say that I can make more money if I start to use more AI tools like this to improve my information digest?

   14. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria5:24

       Um, I don't think that's necessarily true. I mean, ultimately, you have to do your own research and make your own decisions. Our goal is to sort of optimize your workflow. So the thing that we notice a lot of people do is they read a lot of news. Or they read news, and then they read research, and then they look at analyst upgrades. So how do we condense that process and optimize it-

   15. AGAakash Gupta5:52

       Mm

   16. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria5:52

       ... and make it faster?

   17. AGAakash Gupta5:53

       Mm. And what did it look like, uh, in terms of the product development steps for building this AI feature?Like, how long have you guys been working on this? What type of discovery did you do? What type of solutions did you explore?

   18. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria6:05

       Yeah. I mean, so back in March, we announced Robinhood Cortex. We sort of demoed two features. So one was the digests I told you about, and the second was a trade builder that helps you sort of understand potential price targets for a stock, different types of analyses, and then helps you screen the market for potential trades based off of your hypothesis. So I think our approach was generally, like, we don't want to build AI products for the sake of building AI products. We want it to fit into problems we know customers already have. So I mean, so the first... So we basically looked through all of our research, and we're like, "What are the problems that people have that AI could help solve?" So the first one was helping understand why a stock is moving up or down.

   19. AGAakash Gupta7:03

       Yep.

   20. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria7:04

       It's a really, really fundamental question, uh, that almost every investor has. And actually, funny enough, even in internal meetings sometimes, we're, like, looking at a stock and someone's just like, "What's Cortex say today about it?"

   21. AGAakash Gupta7:18

       Okay.

   22. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria7:19

       So it's honestly, like, been useful to us as well. Um, and the second one was helping customers construct trades. So a customer will come into the app and they'll be like, "Hey, I think this stock's gonna go up or gonna go down," but then they don't know how to turn that hypothesis of theirs into, like, an actual trade.

   23. AGAakash Gupta7:44

       Mm-hmm.

   24. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria7:44

       Or they don't know, like, hey, I could buy s- the stock, but what if I wanted to trade options? How would my opinion map to a trade? So those were two problems we identified pretty early, and we designed the products around those.

3. 8:01 – 12:10

   Advice for Products in Fintech

   1. AGAakash Gupta8:01

      Okay. Okay. If you had to generalize advice for FinTech PMs building AI products, what would it be?

   2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria8:08

      Um, oh, man. That's a tough one. Um, I think the first thing is, like, you have to... I think you have to understand what's, like, possible given the technology, and then you need to, like, really understand the regulatory landscape-

   3. AGAakash Gupta8:27

      Yeah

   4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria8:27

      ... you're working in. Because if you don't understand that landscape, you're gonna go to your legal partners or whoever else, and they're gonna think you're kind of crazy.

   5. AGAakash Gupta8:38

      [laughs]

   6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria8:39

      So I think you have to really become, like, really understand what can be done with the tech, and then also become, like, a reasonable expert in, like, what's possible from a regulatory perspective. And then I think the third thing is be patient. Like, it's okay if you have this, like, large vision that will manifest over a couple of years, which we do, but, like, it's okay to start small, like, and build comfort. You know, one thing that we learned a lot from customers, too, is that, you know, they don't always trust an AI when it comes to, like, their money. So even for them, like, doing little steps and incrementing all the way there, it's, it's best for you as the product team, it's best for your legal car- counterparts explaining this to regulators, and sometimes it's best for customers.

   7. AGAakash Gupta9:37

      Mm. Mm. I wanna move on to another product of yours-

   8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria9:40

      Yeah

   9. AGAakash Gupta9:40

      ... that's pretty exciting, which is... Well, I want you to explain it, actually, because all of us have f- seen these images-

   10. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria9:46

       Yeah

   11. AGAakash Gupta9:46

       ... of Vlad Tenev, your CEO, presenting at Cannes. What is it that he presented?

   12. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria9:52

       Um, well, it's not my product. I think the crypto team has done an incredible job with it. But, uh, we announced tokenization earlier this summer in Cannes, um, and basically announced two products with it. First was stock tokens, which is basically taking sort of what the stable coins did for the US dollar, but doing that for US stocks.

   13. AGAakash Gupta10:20

       Mm.

   14. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria10:20

       So making, building the rails to tokenize stocks outside of the US. Ultimately, you know, stocks, US stocks are still a lot of the envy of investors around the world. You ask your average person in an international, like, s- country what company they wanna invest in, more often than not, they'll either mention a local company, but very, very frequently they're gonna say the companies you and I love, like Apple, Tesla, Nvidia or whatever, and those are all US companies, and it's actually pretty hard for them to access it. So if you think about what the stable coins did for the US dollar, which is make it really accessible to get dollars overseas, these stock tokens sort of make US stocks much more accessible overseas.

   15. AGAakash Gupta11:15

       Mm.

   16. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria11:16

       The second thing we talked a lot about was private stocks and tokenizing them. And I, I think to a certain degree it's almost, I think the reason why so many people were talking about them is sort of independent of the tokenized aspect of it. It's that so many of the valuable companies nowadays choose to stay private for longer, so retail investors can't get in. They can't-

   17. AGAakash Gupta11:43

       Yeah

   18. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria11:43

       ... participate. And I think we really, like, tapped into this, like, latent demand for, like, I wanna invest in these private companies. Like, I'm using ChatGPT every day. Why can't I invest in OpenAI? So I think that the private company aspect, I think we actually almost tapped into something else, which was people really wanna invest in these private companies.

   19. AGAakash Gupta12:09

       Hmm.

4. 12:10 – 14:37

   IPO Stories

   1. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria12:10

      Yeah.

   2. AGAakash Gupta12:11

      So the other product, talking about giving access to retail investors-

   3. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria12:15

      Yeah

   4. AGAakash Gupta12:15

      ... that you guys are really well known for is IPO Access, right?

   5. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria12:17

      Yeah.

   6. AGAakash Gupta12:17

      Most recently, you guys let thousands, I don't know if you've disclosed the number, but many, many people-

   7. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria12:24

      [laughs]

   8. AGAakash Gupta12:24

      [laughs] ... of my friends in my network, so I know it's thousands of people-

   9. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria12:27

      Mm-hmm

   10. AGAakash Gupta12:27

       ... get access to the Figma IPO.

   11. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria12:29

       Mm-hmm.

   12. AGAakash Gupta12:29

       There have been tons of other amazing IPOs that it's pretty much the only way for the retail investor to get access.

   13. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria12:35

       Yeah.

   14. AGAakash Gupta12:36

       And I believe that's one of your products, so tell me the story about that.

   15. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria12:38

       Yeah. We launched, uh, IPO Access in 2021, in May of 2021. Um, we started working on it in late 2020, and it was sort of around the time we started thinking about going public ourselves. And we, I think part of the place where it started was, like, how do we... We're really the home of retail investing. How do we give our customers access to our own IPO? And we sort of turned that into a product. So, um, we've done a lot of IPOs since then, but basically the way that it works is we're a part of what's called the selling group as part of the IPO. We can collect demand after a company submits a prospectus. So we're collecting orders. So while the company is doing the roadshow and the bankers are collecting institutional orders, we're collecting orders from retail customers, and we're sharing the demand data with the bankers-

   16. AGAakash Gupta13:48

       Mm-hmm

   17. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria13:48

       ... for that stock, or the underwriters. And then the night of the IPO, they basically tell us how many shares does the Robinhood retail base get, and then we allocate that to our customers who requested stock. Now, very frequently, we don't get access to as many shares that customers requested, um, so we do our best. But, you know, it's something that a lot of people didn't ac- have access to before. And even other brokerages that did, they tended to reserve this product for, like, high-net-worth customers or their most valuable customers, so it was really hard for the average retail customer to get access.

5. 14:37 – 16:31

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6. 16:31 – 21:30

   How To Build Innovative Products

   1. AGAakash Gupta16:31

      I think you guys are just an engine of-

   2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria16:32

      Yeah

   3. AGAakash Gupta16:33

      ... products like these, whether it was fractionalized stocks-

   4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria16:35

      Yeah

   5. AGAakash Gupta16:36

      ... before that, or even just giving buyers with the initial inception of the app an easy way to sell-

   6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria16:41

      Yeah

   7. AGAakash Gupta16:41

      ... in one click. If you try to sell at your big bank, if you're keeping your stocks there, it's like 20 clicks just to sell.

   8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria16:47

      Yeah, yeah.

   9. AGAakash Gupta16:47

      So that's, like, been the history of Robinhood. What is it about you guys? How can somebody else who's trying to reverse engineer-

   10. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria16:54

       Mm-hmm

   11. AGAakash Gupta16:55

       ... from the outside kind of understand the DNA of building these innovative products in a regulated industry?

   12. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria17:01

       Yeah. I think our general approach to any new product is we wanna give the most value back to customers, and we wanna have the best experience, and that's kind of our recipe. You can't have... We don't, we rarely ship a product that only has, uh, one of those. So whenever we're talking about, like, a net new product, it's like how do we give the most value back to customers, still in a profitable way for us, but in a way that really, really benefits customers, and then how do we build a delightful experience? And that recipe has worked really well for us. One thing that I like to do when we start new products is, one thing that's unique about the financial space is that it's very rare to, like, invent a new product. I use this example with retirement accounts all the time. Like, no Rob- Robinhood didn't invent IRAs or Roth IRAs. Like, they kind of are what they are. It's a regulatory thing. It's legislated. So-The, the challenge that we put in front of our PMs and our team is, like, okay, so we're building IRAs. You can't really change the rules of the road behind an IRA, but what is, what are, like, three or four things that our IRA is gonna do infinitely better than any other IRA out there? So it- we're, we have these, like, constraints by default because the products are what they are, uh, regulatorily, and then we have to sort of push the boundaries from within. So one exercise I love is we have, whenever we launch a new product in the app, we have these things called swipeys. They're, like, these little four screens that tell the customer what the product is, and I love just writing what are the swipeys for this product going to be-

   13. AGAakash Gupta19:08

       Mm

   14. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria19:08

       ... before we build anything. Because it forces you to, like, succinctly summarize the product to a customer in, like, four small sentences.

   15. AGAakash Gupta19:20

       Mm.

   16. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria19:20

       So I think that exercise has worked well for us.

   17. AGAakash Gupta19:24

       The swipeys are the full-screen takeovers, right? They have, like, an animation and a little text, one sentence.

   18. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria19:28

       Yeah. It is usually, like, an animation, gorgeous illustration that our team put- that our design team does. Like, a little bit of text explaining the product, and you can, like, swipe through them, and there's-

   19. AGAakash Gupta19:40

       Mm-hmm

   20. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria19:40

       ... usually, like, three or four for any g- any given product.

   21. AGAakash Gupta19:45

       Mm-hmm. So it's kinda like Amazon's working backwards, but-

   22. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria19:48

       Yeah

   23. AGAakash Gupta19:48

       ... from a swipey [laughs] point of view.

   24. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria19:49

       Yeah, yeah. I mean, we were a mobile-first company, so, like, we think in, like, mobile screens.

   25. AGAakash Gupta19:55

       Yeah.

   26. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria19:56

       So it's like if you can't convince a customer to hit the Get Started button in, like, one sentence, we don't have a great product.

   27. AGAakash Gupta20:06

       Yeah.

   28. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria20:06

       That's kind of the bar we try to hold.

   29. AGAakash Gupta20:09

       So IPO access, like, let's break that down in detail even further, right? We got the timeline. We got the high level.

   30. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria20:15

       Yeah.
7. 21:30 – 27:15

   Why Most Fintech PMs Fail at Experimentation

   1. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria21:30

      pain people felt versus, like, speaking to, like, this ... It was like the classic, like, painkiller versus, like, vitamin phrasing-

   2. AGAakash Gupta21:39

      Mm

   3. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria21:39

      ... of the product. And then the second thing was, like, how do we make, like, getting a share part of this IPO, like, a really memorable experience, like something that you emotionally connect to? And the team put together this gorgeous, like, animation of every t- when you receive these shares, like, this hot air balloon goes in the sky, and you get, like, the stock certificate that shows you, like, you were the nth investor in whatever company.

   4. AGAakash Gupta22:11

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria22:12

      So we, like, really just dialed in the details of the experience.

   6. AGAakash Gupta22:17

      And those things, like those animations, why isn't every other brokerage doing things like that?

   7. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria22:24

      I think it comes down to, like, what you value, you know? I think ever since day one, we pay so close attention to the pixels and, like, to the experience, and just not a lot of other brokerages do, and it's infused in the DNA of the company. Like, Vlad spends a lot of time with the pixels.

   8. AGAakash Gupta22:48

      Mm.

   9. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria22:49

      Like, I spend a lot of time with the pixels. Like, everyone ... It's a, it's not just, like, the design team is making these beautiful designs. It's, like, a lot of the entire company really thinking about how do we craft the best experience. I haven't worked at other brokers, but I would imagine that the CEO of the company or, like, the leaders of the companies at other brokerages aren't spending a large share of their time thinking about how are we gonna make this experience feel great. What's the animation gonna be, you know? So I think it's, like, it's infused into the DNA of the company in a lot of ways.

   10. AGAakash Gupta23:31

       Mm. And then I guess your harshest critics, they would say, "Well, that's actually a good thing that those other companies, you know, are putting up walls because you shouldn't really trade often."

   11. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria23:41

       Yeah.

   12. AGAakash Gupta23:41

       "People who trade a lot lose a lot of money. The average retail investor is not beating the S&P 500." How do you guys kinda grapple with that?

   13. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria23:50

       Um, yeah. I mean, for IPO access, for example, I would argue that getting, having the ability and having the option to invest in an IPO for a company that you've personally been using for such a long time is a really valuable, like, option to have. So I think our general principle is, like, people should have access and great desi- like-You shouldn't use bad design as a way to, like, keep people out-

   14. AGAakash Gupta24:24

       Mm-hmm

   15. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria24:24

       ... or like high guardrails or high walls. Like, we, like, as a company, like, deeply believe that people should have access to the financial tools that they need to be successful. And I think historically, you know, people have been, have said, like, "You need, like, this much money to participate." And in a lot of ways, I don't, especially with the internet and people having more access to information, I don't know if, like, net worth is, like, necessarily correlated with, like, sophistication.

   16. AGAakash Gupta24:58

       Yeah.

   17. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria24:59

       So I think some of the old constructs around, like, how do you, how do people, like, qualify for certain products, or how are they eligible for certain products don't make that much sense anymore.

   18. AGAakash Gupta25:10

       And I think having been a PM in FinTech myself, sometimes, you know, the PMs on my team, sure, we're coming up with great ideas that do-

   19. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria25:17

       Mm-hmm

   20. AGAakash Gupta25:17

       ... remove friction, but then what ends up happening is, uh, like, death by a thousand departments, you know? The legal team comes in and they say, "Oh, we need to add, uh, this line here, and it needs to be visible right under the CTA." And then the privacy team comes in and says, "Oh, we need to add this step." And then, you know, the KYC legal team, another legal team come. And all of a sudden, after 25 departments have it, you know, your product is a total Frankenstein. But Robinhood's products somehow, they don't fall into that trap.

   21. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria25:45

       Yeah.

   22. AGAakash Gupta25:45

       Is it something like, is it Vlad at the top just pushing all the teams? Is it a culture where the type of people you're hiring in those departments aren't putting up those roadblocks? How do we dissect that?

   23. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria25:54

       Yeah. I think we've got, um, an incredible legal team and a compliance team, and I think a lot of it starts at, like, they are so, they're so deeply, like, experts in this space. Like, a number of them worked at the SEC. A number of them have worked as regulators, or they've worked in this space before. They've worked at other BDs or broker-dealers. So they're so familiar, and they're such deep domain experts in these problems that they're actually, like... They're actually very effective at solving the problem and getting to a really, really good product solution.

   24. AGAakash Gupta26:36

       Mm-hmm.

   25. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria26:37

       So I mean, so many... I love our legal partners. So- so many of them, like, they get excited about the product, and they wanna find ways to, like, build the best experience for customers. So I think some of it comes down to culture. Sometimes when there's disagreements, I mean, obviously, we escalate. And sometimes, you know, they're the ones pushing, like, how do we make this a better product? So it's, like, infused into the culture and who you hire. And, you know, our chief legal officer's done an incredible job building, like, a really, really, like, expert team there.

8. 27:15 – 28:54

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9. 28:54 – 30:48

   Training the Team

   1. AGAakash Gupta28:54

      When you're coaching your own PMs about working with legal, what do you tell them?

   2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria28:58

      Um, I tell them, I think the biggest thing is you have to assume good intent. Like, they're not there, like, they're not there to make the product worse. Like, they have a role to play. Their job is to make sure that we are-

   3. AGAakash Gupta29:14

      Yeah

   4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria29:14

      ... safely shipping the products we wanna ship in accordance with the regulations. So it's like you have to start with good intent. I think the second thing is you wanna make everyone on the team, regardless of what function they're in, buy in to the vision of the product. When you have a legal partner or a compliance partner who's bought into the vision of the product, the outcomes of that product are so much better than if they don't believe in the product in the first place.

   5. AGAakash Gupta29:47

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria29:47

      So, like, in the same way that you get buy-in from the engineers or the designers, you gotta get, like, buy-in from the legal team that the thing you're building is gonna be awesome. Um, and that leads to great outcomes. And I, I think the third is, like, to actually, like, deeply understand the issues that the legal team is bringing to you, um, and actually understand, like, what's the rule? Like, what is the issue that we're trying to solve?If you become an expert in it and you empathize with it, you'll find that most of the time there's a reasonable solution to it.

   7. AGAakash Gupta30:29

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria30:30

      And, you know, it's like 10% of the time it's like black and white, and then like 90% of the time you're dealing in gray areas. So you wanna like empathize, you want them to buy into the vision, and then you, you find usually a good solution.

   9. AGAakash Gupta30:46

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

10. 30:48 – 39:40

    Abhiskek Journey at Robinhood

    1. AGAakash Gupta30:48

       So you joined Robinhood in 2016.

    2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria30:50

       Yeah.

    3. AGAakash Gupta30:51

       Quite a long time. What stands out to you, you know, revenue, people, culture? How has this company scaled?

    4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria30:59

       Um, I think the thing that convinced me to join was the people. I, uh, I mean, the talent density at the company, even when it was at the stage of post product-market fit but pre-seri- pre like serious revenue was insane, and I felt like I was learning all the time. And I f- I felt like that was the type of environment I really wanted to be in. So that's what attracted me. In a lot of ways, that's like what's kept me. I think the second thing is this like laser focus on building like the best product. I think Robinhood is a great example of like great products tend to win in the market. Uh, great products with great distribution win in the market, and it's not just about like being first or, like being first to market doesn't always matter. Like, we spend a lot of time c- crafting the product, paying attention to the details, and that makes a huge difference, and that's the type of place I wanted to work. And then the last thing is, I mean, the ambitions of the company are insane. The mission's very broad, um, to democratize finance for all, and that, to a lot of us, means like everything. We're expanding into credit cards and banking. You know, Vlad wants to be in every country in the world over time.

    5. AGAakash Gupta32:30

       Wow.

    6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria32:31

       So I think like the mission is so broad, and there's like no end to the types of things we can do. So the one thing that I reflect on is no si- after nine months, it always feels like my job is somewhat different. Um, so it keeps it fresh.

    7. AGAakash Gupta32:51

       Mm. That's crazy.

    8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria32:53

       Yeah.

    9. AGAakash Gupta32:53

       So what are all those products?

    10. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria32:55

        I mean, you have stock trading, you have options, you have crypto, you've got margin, securities lending. Um, what else? Um, I actually-

    11. AGAakash Gupta33:08

        Robinhood Gold maybe?

    12. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria33:10

        Robinhood Gold. Yeah, that's a good one. But-

    13. AGAakash Gupta33:13

        So we're not stock market experts. This is not financial advice. But how would you break down the elements of why your guys' stock has had this phenomenal five and a half x-ing the past year?

    14. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria33:27

        Oh, I mean, I don't wanna speculate on that, and I'm not sure I'm supposed to speculate-

    15. AGAakash Gupta33:34

        Mm

    16. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria33:34

        ... on that. But I mean, you see the metrics online the same that we have when we publish quarterlies. Uh, the revenue's been really strong. Um, I think we have figured out how to sustainable- sustainably really grow assets on the platform ever since we launched retirement with the match. That's been a very effective strategy-

    17. AGAakash Gupta33:57

        Mm

    18. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria33:57

        ... for us. And then I think the thing that I'm most proud of and that, you know, we love to talk a lot about is product velocity. I think that's the hardest thing to like think about when you're like just analyzing a stock. Like Robinhood, like our teams are so focused. It seems like we ship some stuff every week at this point. So I think the product velocity to me is like the most, uh, most impressive thing when I look back at it.

    19. AGAakash Gupta34:30

        Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think it's that combination of you're proving it in the metrics-

    20. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria34:35

        Yeah

    21. AGAakash Gupta34:35

        ... but then there's all this potential we see with what you're shipping just regularly, and it's-

    22. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria34:40

        Yeah

    23. AGAakash Gupta34:40

        ... always coming out faster and faster. And so that's a really incredible... How does it feel to pass $100 billion in market cap?

    24. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria34:48

        You know, um, I don't really think about it. I'm like, I'm like so, so we have this, uh, we have our next keynote coming up in a month, so I'm like so focused on that-

    25. AGAakash Gupta35:01

        [laughs]

    26. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria35:01

        ... that I'm not, I haven't really even been thinking about the stock price and the market cap, you know? To me, those are like, those are like, it's a little bit... I mean, I check it and stuff, but I don't really process it as much.

    27. AGAakash Gupta35:16

        Yeah.

    28. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria35:17

        Um, yeah.

    29. AGAakash Gupta35:18

        It's just a distraction. [laughs]

    30. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria35:20

        I mean, yeah.
11. 39:40 – 47:02

    Layoffs

    1. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria39:40

       Uh.

    2. AGAakash Gupta39:40

       And did Robinhood, did Robinhood have to go through, like, one of those tech shrinkages? Did you guys have a layoff? I think I heard-

    3. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria39:46

       We did

    4. AGAakash Gupta39:46

       ... about that.

    5. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria39:47

       We did in-

    6. AGAakash Gupta39:49

       Those-

    7. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria39:49

       ... 2022. Yeah

    8. AGAakash Gupta39:50

       ... those are also very tough.

    9. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria39:52

       Yeah. Yeah, the period of... Yeah, that whole period was, like, a really tough time-

    10. AGAakash Gupta39:58

        Mm

    11. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria39:59

        ... uh, at the company. But, you know, I think so many learnings from that whole, like, COVID plus 2022 experience, so-

    12. AGAakash Gupta40:10

        Yeah

    13. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria40:10

        ... I feel like I grew a lot.

    14. AGAakash Gupta40:12

        Yeah. So now we've come to the topic that all my listeners, when I told them I was interviewing you, they said I had to ask you about, which is how you guys build products.

    15. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria40:23

        Yeah.

    16. AGAakash Gupta40:23

        Because I don't think there has been any information on the internet anywhere. This is gonna be new information for everyone. Like, what, what does the Robinhood product team look like? How is it structured, to start?

    17. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria40:35

        Um, so we are in GMs, so we're sort of structure into, like, three big business units, call it brokerage, crypto, um, money-

    18. AGAakash Gupta40:49

        Mm-hmm

    19. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria40:49

        ... which is the credit card and banking and stuff. I hope I'm not missing something.

    20. AGAakash Gupta40:56

        [laughs]

    21. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria40:56

        Um, and then within those sometimes we have, like, sub-businesses, like the futures business or-

    22. AGAakash Gupta41:02

        Mm-hmm

    23. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria41:03

        ... international and stuff. Um, and sort of each business unit has a product team. So I work on the product team for brokerage.

    24. AGAakash Gupta41:13

        Mm-hmm.

    25. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria41:14

        Um, so that's sort of how we're structured today at a high level. Um, and then, you know, we have design and engineering. We made the switch to GMs from, like, functional actually around the time that we did our reduction in force-

    26. AGAakash Gupta41:32

        Mm

    27. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria41:32

        ... in 2022. Um, and you know, I think it was just amazing for the company, 'cause I mean, you were asking about, like, working with legal and stuff, but it brought a lot of functions, like product, engineering, operations, compliance, all under the same, like, org.

    28. AGAakash Gupta41:55

        Mm-hmm.

    29. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria41:55

        Not legal. Legal's still separate, but it brought all of those functions under the same org for each business, gave them, like, some shared goals and some shared purpose, um, and that made a big difference. Suddenly felt like everyone was rowing in the same direction.

    30. AGAakash Gupta42:13

        [lip smack] What was the implication for life as a PM? Did it mean that you might be working on more of a wider platform team, and now all of the sudden you're working on a very specific product? Did it mean that you, the nature of your metrics changed? How did it change your job?
12. 47:02 – 52:54

    Robinhood's Scaling Journey (2016-2025)

    1. AGAakash Gupta47:02

       Mm-hmm. And some companies, actually every company I've worked at at planning, they have, like, certain units that they really care about. So at a firm it was, like, GMV. Like, that's the unit that we're looking at almost everything through the lens-

    2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria47:16

       Yeah

    3. AGAakash Gupta47:16

       ... of how is it driving GMV. Or when I was at Apollo.io, it's, like, incremental ARR-

    4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria47:22

       Mm-hmm

    5. AGAakash Gupta47:22

       ... is what we really cared about, or net revenue retention, depending on the phase-

    6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria47:26

       Yeah

    7. AGAakash Gupta47:26

       ... that we were talking about. So, uh, is, do you guys do something like that? Like, how do you guys think about what are the things you pay most attention to in this planning process?

    8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria47:34

       Yeah. So we, um, sort of have three p- like, s- strategic arcs to the business. So the first is to be l- number one for active traders.

    9. AGAakash Gupta47:48

       Hmm.

    10. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria47:48

        So the key metrics we look at for that are, like, market share, uh, along our key businesses. Um, one challenge that we have is that our business is very dependent on the market, so it's very hard to be like, "Hey, we wanna set these, like, volume goals"-

    11. AGAakash Gupta48:08

        Mm-hmm

    12. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria48:09

        ... 'cause something happens in the market, you're not, you may just blow past it.

    13. AGAakash Gupta48:14

        [laughs]

    14. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria48:14

        You may not hit it. So we look at market share.

    15. AGAakash Gupta48:17

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria48:18

        The second strategic arc is number one in wallet share for millennials or the next generation, um, mill- millennials and Gen Z and soon to be Gen Alpha-

    17. AGAakash Gupta48:30

        Mm-hmm

    18. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria48:31

        ... hopefully. Um, for that we tend to look at, like, net deposits. Like, are people-... depositing more money into the platform, and we look at gold subscriptions.

    19. AGAakash Gupta48:43

        Mm-hmm.

    20. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria48:44

        Uh, the last is global financial ecosystem, which is sort of international, um, where we sort of look at how many international customers do we have. That is at its most nascent stage. Number one in active traders is probably the most mature of those three.

    21. AGAakash Gupta49:08

        Mm-hmm.

    22. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria49:08

        So we have a fairly diverse business, so that means sort of looking at a lot of metrics.

    23. AGAakash Gupta49:14

        Mm-hmm.

    24. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria49:15

        But it's worked for us so far.

    25. AGAakash Gupta49:17

        Mm-hmm. And then where does, like, responsibility allocation go? Do you guys use OKRs for that? How do you handle that?

    26. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria49:26

        Yeah. We don't use OKRs necessarily. We have, like, goals. They're like functionally OKRs, they're just, like, simpler.

    27. AGAakash Gupta49:36

        Mm-hmm.

    28. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria49:37

        Typically, like, either a goal will be qualitative, like ship XYZ by this event, and that's typically for, like, the big projects.

    29. AGAakash Gupta49:49

        Mm-hmm.

    30. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria49:50

        Or you'll have grow net deposits by, like, this much. So they're not as, like, complicated as the OKRs. We had OKRs at some point, and sometimes we just ended up debating the difference between an, an objective-
13. 52:54 – 1:05:40

    Should Prototypes Replace PRD's

    1. AGAakash Gupta52:54

       mm-hmm. And what's your take on the PRD actually? These days a lot of people are talking about how AI prototypes should just replace the PRD.

    2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria53:01

       So I think in FinTech it's hard, 'cause sometimes the PRD covers so much of the, like, detail behind a product, you know? Like, here are the rules and the regs, and here are the edge cases we need to capture. So I don't think you can ever effectively, like, get rid of it.

    3. AGAakash Gupta53:22

       Yeah.

    4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria53:23

       But I will say, and for a long time, I don't like personally doing product reviews with, like, PRDs.

    5. AGAakash Gupta53:31

       Mm-hmm.

    6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria53:31

       I find them to be not that, like, high signal on, like, are we going to build a good product? Um, so I typically try to avoid doing, like, a live product review with someone on my team until we have some semblance of either the swipeys to talk about, like, value props, or we have an actual mock or prototype. Because ultimately, it's like I'm gonna experience the product. Like, our customers are not gonna get to read your beautiful PRD-

    7. AGAakash Gupta54:07

       Yeah

    8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria54:08

       ... to understand what, why, and why they should use this thing.

    9. AGAakash Gupta54:12

       Yeah.

    10. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria54:12

        So why should I as the reviewer get that assistance, you know? So-

    11. AGAakash Gupta54:19

        And are you guys using AI prototyping tools?

    12. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria54:21

        Um, not that much, honestly, right now. I mean, we're using it a lot in, like, engineering and stuff.

    13. AGAakash Gupta54:29

        Okay.

    14. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria54:29

        Uh, the engineering team uses all the AI tools, but not as much in, like, prototyping. I, I'm excited to see what we can do with, like, early stage design and stuff.

    15. AGAakash Gupta54:40

        Mm-hmm.So you've hired a lot of PMs who haven't worked at Robinhood, even though you've worked entirely at Robinhood. What do you find is, like, those things that they're finding, "Oh, this is different about how Robinhood builds product"?

    16. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria54:53

        Yeah. Oh, I've had a lot of conversations about this. I think the attention to detail in the pixels-

    17. AGAakash Gupta55:01

        Mm-hmm

    18. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria55:02

        ... that is expected by a PM at Robinhood is very, very high. Um, like I've had people join my team, and they're doing super well now, but, like, going from outside to inside and being like, "Oh, like, I have to, like, pay attention to, like, these level of pixels in the product and ma- and push the team to get to this degree of polish," is typically a pretty big, uh, shock-

    19. AGAakash Gupta55:34

        Mm

    20. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria55:34

        ... to people, and it's an adjustment that people have to make. Um, but that's what makes our product, like, special.

    21. AGAakash Gupta55:42

        Yeah.

    22. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria55:42

        So it's something we've really tried to protect. But I've also heard that everyone loves it after some time.

    23. AGAakash Gupta55:51

        [laughs]

    24. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria55:51

        Like, it's very painful at the beginning. You might have something, like, get delayed because you didn't, like, pick up on something, and then someone went in, was like, "This doesn't feel right. We're not shipping. Like, fix it first." So it's, like, painful at first maybe for new people, but I've never really had someone on my team come to me, like, a year down the road and be like, "I'm, like, frustrated at the level of detail I- that is expected of me in the product." Because ultimately, I feel like they feel prouder of what they're shipping-

    25. AGAakash Gupta56:28

        Yeah

    26. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria56:28

        ... because of it. So that's usually, I think, the biggest adjustment.

    27. AGAakash Gupta56:33

        And all the PMs are gonna be raising their finger and saying, "But, but, but Abhishek, what if I don't work at a company where design is so open to me just being in the pixels? What is the right way to work with design?"

    28. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria56:47

        I think you need to establish trust. I'm, I mean, I think it's... And what I mean in the pixels, it's not just in, like, Figma. It's, like, also, like, once it's been built, like, using it, tearing it down, making sure thing, the product feels great. Like, ultimately, what I hold the product team accountable to is, like, did we ship a great product that had impact? So if it's not good or it doesn't feel polished or it doesn't feel like it's up to the bar, um, they should feel accountable for that. Um, and I think on the design stuff, it just comes to a high degree of trust, um, between the teams. Uh, and it's like, it's like asking questions. It's like, "Hey, is this the right way to do it," or, "Did we miss something?"

    29. AGAakash Gupta57:39

        Mm-hmm.

    30. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria57:39

        It's not like going in there and editing it yourself.
14. 1:05:40 – 1:10:48

    Why most Fintech PMs are Failing

    1. AGAakash Gupta1:05:40

       That's a great example of, I think, why you guys succeed, going back to the very beginning, right? It's, like, this crazy amount of iteration and testing on these growth levelers. Why, why are most fintech PMs not doing that? Why are most fintech PMs failing at that?

    2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:05:57

       Are they?

    3. AGAakash Gupta1:05:58

       I think so, yeah.

    4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:05:59

       Oh, really? Um, I don't know. I mean, I think we, I think we're, like, fairly successful at it. So I didn't know that people aren't, are, like, failing. Why do you say that?

    5. AGAakash Gupta1:06:12

       I don't think many people are doing it. I mean, most people, they launch a referral program. They do 2020 because that's what Amazon or Uber did, and that's-

    6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:06:20

       Yeah

    7. AGAakash Gupta1:06:20

       ... like, the end of it, you know? They're not, like... You just talked about a series of, like, 10 different successful tests, which tells me there's probably 50 failed tests as well.

    8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:06:29

       Yeah.

    9. AGAakash Gupta1:06:29

       So you did, like, 60 tests on the program-

    10. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:06:32

        Yeah

    11. AGAakash Gupta1:06:32

        ... and you were able to think of very unique hypotheses-

    12. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:06:34

        Mm

    13. AGAakash Gupta1:06:35

        ... and kept iterating.

    14. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:06:35

        Yeah.

    15. AGAakash Gupta1:06:36

        That's just your product velocity that you guys have that very few fintechs have.

    16. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:06:40

        Yeah. I don't, I don't know. I think one thing is, like, you have to take inspiration from, like, other companies and, like, what's working, but you have to, like, think about what's gonna work for your product, and you have to, like-You also have to take whatever someone else is doing with, like, some grain of salt because, like, you can't assume they did everything, like, perfectly. You know? It's like the same laziness that you have inside the company probably existed at Amazon or Uber too.

    17. AGAakash Gupta1:07:13

        Yeah.

    18. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:07:14

        So I, and I think specifically with the referral program, our thing was, like, we wanna give you a unit of this service. Like, the insight from Amazon or Uber especially is not that they give you 10 bucks, it's that they give you a ride.

    19. AGAakash Gupta1:07:32

        Yeah.

    20. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:07:33

        So it's like, okay, so you stretch that further, it's like what is the ride equivalent of Robinhood? It was a stock. It wasn't 10 bucks.

    21. AGAakash Gupta1:07:42

        Yep.

    22. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:07:43

        So I, I think you have to dig a little bit deeper-

    23. AGAakash Gupta1:07:47

        Mm-hmm

    24. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:07:47

        ... than, like, just what the surface tells you.

    25. AGAakash Gupta1:07:51

        Yeah. So you probably hired some PMs from other FinTech companies. What advice are you giving them to succeed in FinTech?

    26. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:08:00

        Um, I think FinTech's really unique. Um, you have a broad set of cross-functional partners, probably larger than most other companies-

    27. AGAakash Gupta1:08:13

        Yeah

    28. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:08:13

        ... or most other, like, traditional tech companies. So I, I think the biggest thing is you have to, like, the same way you would treat, like, engineering or design, you have to treat, like, all your partners because they are essential to getting the product out and it being successful. So it's, the first thing is you have to recognize that you have a broader set of partners, and they're not there to be, like, blockers. They're there to be a part of the team. They're there to be effective, and that mindset shift is, like, a really big one. It's not just, like, engineering product and design. There's a lot more involved in shipping product, uh, in financial services. And I think that's why you also tend to see some of the ratios of eng to PM a little bit lower in FinTech-

    29. AGAakash Gupta1:09:12

        Yeah

    30. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:09:12

        ... because there's just so much more for the PM to do. So I think that's the first thing. I think specifically at Robinhood, um, it's like pay attention to the design and care deeply about the experience. Uh, that's something, like, everyone resonates with. Um, and then I think for FinTech, those are, like, probably the big things.
15. 1:10:48 – 1:18:08

    How To Build a Real Product

    1. AGAakash Gupta1:10:48

       And how do you deal with, like, building a product? Like, what's the philosophy you have of buil- building a product that has real money, real mi- risk, real emotions behind it?

    2. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:10:57

       Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the first thing is, um, you have to, like, really understand, like, what is it that your product, like, what, what is it that your product is gonna do better, uh, than other products out there. So I mean, a lot of the first steps that we do, which I'm sure others do, is, like, you're building IRAs. Go understand all the other retirement accounts on the market. Like, what do they do well? What do they not do well? One thing we have to, like, think about early is, like, what do we want someone to, like, feel when they use this product?

    3. AGAakash Gupta1:11:37

       Mm-hmm.

    4. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:11:37

       Like, what emotions do we, like, want to elicit? And I think for, I'll use retirement as an example. Like, we were like, "Hey, we wanna make the act of saving for retirement feel, like, really, really special so it feels like a moment that you connect with. It's a moment you wanna, like, do over and over again. Um, and it's, like, something that a lot of people are proud of, right-

    5. AGAakash Gupta1:12:05

       Yeah

    6. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:12:05

       ... when they save for retirement. So I think you need to, like, connect to a certain degree on a, like, human level of, like, what are the objectives people are gonna associate with your product. Like, with buying a stock, a lot of people remember the first time they bought a stock.

    7. AGAakash Gupta1:12:23

       Yeah.

    8. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:12:23

       They remember what platform they bought it on. It's a really meaningful moment for a lot of people. Um, so you really wanna, like, pinpoint, like, what is it that we want you to, like, feel in that moment? And to me, for, like, saving for retirement or buying your first stock, I think we want people to feel, like, happy.

    9. AGAakash Gupta1:12:44

       Yeah.

    10. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:12:44

        We want them to feel like they're doing something, like, positive and good for themselves. Um, so I think there's, like, that emotional aspect of it that you have to understand what is it you want people to feel.

    11. AGAakash Gupta1:12:59

        Mm-hmm.So we've walked through your career story from intern to VP in less than nine years.

    12. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:13:08

        Mm-hmm.

    13. AGAakash Gupta1:13:08

        What do you think are some of the career habits or the ways you treat your career that's different from others that has enabled you that really rapid success?

    14. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:13:17

        Um, yeah. I think Robinhood wa- I think there's a, a little bit of luck. Actually, there's probably a lot of luck, like right place, right time. Um, I think there is like... I think the biggest thing is, like, not being afraid of, like, the, the, like, the, like, work you may n- like, not, like, the detail-oriented, like, grunt work. I think that's, like, the thing I've always, like, never shied away from, and I think it builds a really strong degree of, like, trust with people. Like, when a product manager or a product leader, like, digs in and is like, "Okay, great, we've got this issue," like, let's, like, deeply understand what's going on and really digs in to empathize with the other person. Or, like, if there's, like, an engineering problem, the, like, the p- the PM or the product leader is, like, there. Even if they're just there for, like, moral support, like, those things make a big difference. So it's, like, always asking how you can help. I mean, obviously having an impact on the business. And then, you know, being, like, treating not j- I think the one thing that I like to do is, like, my team is, like, more than just, like, the product managers. It's, like, everyone who works on the brokerage product. They're all, like, in a lot of ways, like, I like to think of them as my team. Um, and that, like, I think builds, like... It just, like, points you to think in a different way-

    15. AGAakash Gupta1:15:00

        Mm-hmm

    16. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:15:00

        ... which builds trust with people.

    17. AGAakash Gupta1:15:02

        Especially over the long term, right?

    18. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:15:04

        Yeah.

    19. AGAakash Gupta1:15:04

        Because then you're making, I guess, like, decisions that, to use Adam Grant's language, is more, like, giver than taker.

    20. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:15:11

        Yeah, hopefully. I mean, I'd like other people to say that about me.

    21. AGAakash Gupta1:15:15

        Mm-hmm.

    22. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:15:15

        So.

    23. AGAakash Gupta1:15:16

        Makes sense. So let's say you have your cousin and he's trying to, he's trying to become you. He's, he's in college. He's saying, "Abhiskek, I need to find this next company like Robinhood."

    24. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:15:29

        Mm-hmm.

    25. AGAakash Gupta1:15:29

        "Because you just told me right place, right time was a really important part of it."

    26. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:15:32

        Yeah.

    27. AGAakash Gupta1:15:32

        How do they go about doing that?

    28. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:15:34

        Um, I think it's hard, and I got lucky. I think the thing with Robinhood, and I think it's increasingly true with companies today, was it was post product market fit.

    29. AGAakash Gupta1:15:48

        Yeah.

    30. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:15:48

        So when I, even when I was interning, it just felt like... I mean, I definitely drank the Kool-Aid, but it felt like there was some sort of inevitability to the company-
16. 1:18:08 – 1:18:47

    Outro

    1. AFAbhishek Fatehpuria1:18:08

       Thank you.

    2. AGAakash Gupta1:18:08

       All right. Bye, everyone. So if you wanna learn more about how to shift to this way of working, check out our full conversation on Apple or Spotify Podcasts. And if you want the actual documents that we showed, the tools and frameworks and public links, be sure to check out my newsletter post with all of the details. Finally, thank you so much for watching. It would really mean a lot if you could make sure you are subscribed on YouTube, following on Apple or Spotify Podcasts, and leave us a review on those platforms. That really helps grow the podcast and support our work so that we can do bigger and better productions. I'll see you in the next one.

Episode duration: 1:18:57