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David SenraBuilding Robinhood, Surviving GameStop & A $500 Million Phone Call | Vlad Tenev
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EPISODE INFO
- Released
- November 11, 2026
- Duration
- 1h 10m
- Channel
- David Senra
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Vlad Tenev is the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood. He was born in Bulgaria in 1987 and moved to the US at age five, a few years before hyperinflation wiped out his grandparents' savings. His parents kept the family afloat on a grad student's budget, and Vlad grew up as a latchkey kid teaching himself computers and tracking stocks on Yahoo Finance. When he scored 1,370 on the SAT at 12, his dad gave him that many dollars to invest. He went on to Stanford and then a math PhD at UCLA under Terence Tao, before his friend Baiju Bhatt convinced him to start a company during the 2008 financial crisis. Vlad tells the story of the near-collapse of Robinhood during the GameStop frenzy in January 2021: how a deposit requirement jumped from under $100 million to $3 billion overnight, why he called Micky Malka of Ribbit Capital first, and how a term sheet they had drafted after the outage in March 2020 made the rescue possible. He also explains why Micky passed on Robinhood's seed round but later became the only investor promoted to its public board, what his first startup taught him, and the legacy test that led him from selling trading software to hedge funds to building Robinhood. Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/vlad-tenev Made possible by Ramp: https://router.com AppLovin: https://applovin.com WorkOS: https://workos.com Deel: https://deel.com/senra David Senra X: https://x.com/davidsenra Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidsenra LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidsenra Facebook: https://www.linkedin.com/company/senrashow Threads: https://www.threads.com/@davidsenra Spotify: https://spti.fi/TVrr557 Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4msoZtb Website: https://www.davidsenra.com Vlad Tenev Website: https://investors.robinhood.com/management/vlad-tenev X: https://x.com/vladtenev LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vlad-tenev-7037591b Chapters 00:00:00 Why Ribbit passed on Robinhood's seed round 00:02:19 "You're going to want me on your board" 00:05:35 The day-long trading outage of March 2020 00:09:22 A term sheet for a crisis that hadn't happened yet 00:15:00 Crypto goes from zero to a top revenue stream 00:16:27 The $3 billion deposit requirement 00:18:35 "Vlad, you have to call work right away" 00:21:34 The first call: Micky Malka 00:24:31 "Time kills all deals" 00:25:33 Number one app in the App Store, ahead of Instagram and TikTok 00:27:01 $10 billion of demand 00:29:33 Hyperinflation and copper cookware in Bulgaria 00:35:34 "Manhattan just seemed like science fiction" 00:47:15 His SAT score in dollars to invest 00:50:53 Studying under Terence Tao 01:00:22 "You want to be businessman, huh?" 01:03:48 The best parts of math without the bullshit 01:05:56 Would I be proud of this in 50 years?
SPEAKERS
David Senra
hostHost of the podcast “Founders,” known for studying and discussing biographies of history’s greatest founders.
Vlad Tenev
guestCo-founder and CEO of Robinhood, a brokerage platform central to the 2021 GameStop/meme-stock trading episode.
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of David Senra, featuring David Senra and Vlad Tenev, Building Robinhood, Surviving GameStop & A $500 Million Phone Call | Vlad Tenev explores Crisis capital, GameStop shocks, and the origins of Robinhood’s drive Vlad Tenev describes how Robinhood’s relationship with investor Micky Malka evolved from an initial seed-round pass to deep trust, culminating in rapid crisis financing during January 2021.
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