Vlad Tenev

I'd say the the genesis of prediction markets being like a real useful thing For me was always the election so I remember

I first discovered prediction markets in the 2016 presidential election, which was Hillary Trump, right?

And the usefulness for me was how do you cut through the noise, right?

You're watching the news, you're trying to figure out who's likely to win this election, which way is it gonna go?

The incentives of the news isn't to give you the information right away that you're looking for.

It's to keep you engaged and entertained so you keep watching.

So I think over time, the news has kind of shifted from being the place where you get your information to the place where you get entertainment.

And so that's kind of created a gap because there is a use case for how are these things gonna go?

Who's gonna win the next election?

What's the Fed gonna do with rates?

And so prediction markets are the best tool that has been created to get to ground truth on the likelihood of a future event happening.

And I think that's what makes them super interesting from my standpoint, because it changes Robinhood's place from just being a transactional platform to now you can get your information.

And that's really the goal.

Can we get it so that Robinhood gives you your information?

And if you want to know what's happening with news, current events, sports, you just go and you can really quickly see it.

Was it obvious to add prediction markets or no?

To me, it was super obvious.

I mean, we were the first to add it, right?

And we just knew that this would change the world.

Now, what was not obvious was, is this going to be, at first, was this going to be every four years, like election type thing, right?