Ryan Knudson

professional investors are trying to make sense of this and are maybe a little skeptical of these aggressive investors.

And I think Vlad's instinct is to say that Robinhood is not necessarily synonymous with this group of investors.

At one point, Robinhood's market cap is about equal to the cash in its bank account, which is kind of like... It's like saying the company is like worthless.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah, I would say it's kind of like a failing grade from Wall Street, like giving your company an F, so to speak.

So it's a really challenging time for Vlad and for Robin Hood.

And as he told this to me, he basically decides to take a little bit of time with his family, go on a trip and try and get some perspective.

So he goes on a family trip to Maui and...

He gets this call, hey, we're hearing that Sam Bankman Freed, the now infamous crypto founder.

Right, this is pre-jail.

He's looking to buy a piece of Robinhood.

And this is basically a sign that Robin Hood looks so weak that it's now a potential takeover target.

This is a real low point for Vlad.

Right, exactly.

So I guess it's as low as you can get when in Maui.

He essentially decides to take this back to basics.

He even thinks to himself, let's say the board fired me tomorrow and they brought in my replacement.

Like, what would that person do?

And how can I kind of start from the ground up?