Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev on tokenizing stocks, expanding access to private shares, fintech's future
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Who is Vlad Tenev and how did he build Robinhood?
I am Vlad Tenev, the founder of Robinhood.
We're talking about Robinhood. The stock's more than doubled since its last report. Its stock surged 180% this year after nearly doubling in 2024.
Shares of the trading platform now up more than 400% in the last year.
Vlad, your presence there speaks volumes. Robinhood Gold, which hit a record 3.5 million subscribers.
Most financial services get worse the more money you have, but we wanted to kind of invert that.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenerth.
Good
to see you,
brother.
Chamath, good to see
you.
Good to see you.
How did Jason’s early investment shape Robinhood’s growth?
Vlad,
it's so great. You're the reason J-Cal's here. I mean, it is a great story.
It's so true. J-Cal bumbles into eight shares of Robinhood. Vlad builds a $100 billion company. It's unbelievable. I mean, people know me for the Uber
investment. It was a $4 or $5 million valuation. When do I flip that? Well, yeah, it's going to take a little more. They've got 20x left to go, but...
Wait, was J. Cal the third or fourth investor in Robinhood?
It was
$20
million valuation, but it's a good story, I think, because you hadn't launched, and we're at Antonio's Nuthouse. I went for a drink with my friend Adeo. He brought his college roommate, Elon. We're hanging out at Antonio's Nuthouse in Palo Alto. Rest
in peace, Antonio.
Keep dropping these names. So
Vlad comes
over, and we... Vlad and I knew each other a little bit, and Vlad pitches me on this idea, and he says, I'm a quant. I said, what's a quant? He said, quantitative analysis. I said, yeah, I heard of it. Hit me with the idea. And then he goes, is that Elon Musk? I said, yeah. Just hit me with the idea. I know you've got a startup. He says, well, I want to get... this generation, these millennials, these Gen Zs, I wanna get them to trade stocks. I said, love it. They don't care about getting a driver's license.
What is tokenizing securities and why are OpenAI and SpaceX tokens controversial?
They're still on their mom and dad's Netflix. You're gonna try to get people who don't care about the future to trade stocks. He says, yeah. I said, what's the business model? He said, that's the best part. We're gonna let them trade for free. So I said, okay, let me repeat this back to you, kid. You want to get a group of people who don't have any interest in the future to trade stocks, and then you're going
to make money. Thank you, Vlad.
I said, I'm in. I'm in. Not only that, but he said, this is probably the best idea you'll ever have. I did say that to
him, too. I was like, this is the best idea. What if it works? And here we are 10 years later. What's worked? And last week, you were added to the S&P 500.
i was last week or yesterday
two days ago
it was friday i
mean what a huge accomplishment
thank
you i mean i
think i think it was because i rejected you for a job right it you heard about that this is a tale of two stories yeah thank you guys for upgrading me by the way i guess that's been the best part of being added to the snp going from just a jason interview to to the whole squad here we were doing the rehearsal
yesterday and everyone wanted to do the interview so we said let's all
do it together why don't we all get in here. Can I, let's maybe start. So look, you've built an incredible business. There's a part of it that looks like the, you know, what comes after the E-Trades of the world, etc. But there's an enormous other part of your business and there's all these emergent paths. I want to just start by double-clicking in something that you announced a few months ago in France. And maybe you want to talk us through it, what the goal was. You got a lot of support, but you got a lot of blowback as well. There was a lot of people that were like, wow, this is a little too disruptive, tokenizing these stocks, putting them on the blockchain. Maybe talk us through the business and then just double click on that narrow thing so we can understand what you're up to.
Yeah, so we had an event in the south of France that we called To Catch a Token. And the idea behind that event was we wanted to show what Robinhood, the app, the platform would look like if it was built from the ground up on crypto technology.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Vlad Tenev and how did he build Robinhood?
0:01–0:52
2
How did Jason’s early investment shape Robinhood’s growth?
0:52–2:09
3
What is tokenizing securities and why are OpenAI and SpaceX tokens controversial?
2:09–7:06
4
How does the political environment (Trump vs. Biden) affect tokenized securities for private companies?
7:06–14:13
5
What are the main criticisms of expanding access to sophisticated financial products?
14:13–16:01
6
How is Robinhood positioning itself against incumbents in the evolving fintech landscape?
16:01–18:38
7
What is the roadmap for tokenizing private shares and what regulatory hurdles exist?
18:38–25:37
8
Why is building a mathematical super‑intelligence (Harmonic) critical for Robinhood’s future?
25:37–26:02
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