The key innovation of tokenization lies in the idea that "it can function without the company being tokenized choosing to participate," which is precisely the breakthrough that Robinhood is able to drive.
Source: The Twenty Minute VC
Compiled by: Ye Zhen, Wall Street Insights
In just eight months, Robinhood's market value surged from $35 billion to $85 billion, a remarkable growth driven by the ambition of this retail trading platform to transform into a comprehensive financial infrastructure platform.
Recently, Robinhood founder and CEO Vlad Tenev appeared on Harry Stebbings' well-known podcast "The Twenty Minute VC," where he outlined a blueprint for redefining the boundaries of financial services, including AI-driven operational efficiency, disruptive stock tokenization, private banking services, and cash delivery services.
In this in-depth conversation, Tenev revealed a core insight: what people truly want is not complex financial instruments, but "capital as a service"—press a button, and funds can enter your account.
After the launch of stock tokenization services, both OpenAI and SpaceX expressed dissatisfaction, issuing statements warning investors to "be cautious." However, Tenev revealed that while this reaction is understandable, it is not fair. He used a vivid analogy: it is like "digital NIMBYism"—in principle, everyone supports tokenization, but when it actually happens to them, the appeal diminishes.
More importantly, Tenev pointed out the fundamental issue in the private market: the best companies have too many options and do not actively consider retail investors, leading to a "adverse selection problem." The key innovation of tokenization is that "it can function without the company being tokenized choosing to participate," which is precisely the breakthrough that Robinhood is able to drive.
The "NIMBY Effect" of Tokenization: When Innovation Meets Resistance
"In principle, everyone likes tokenization, but when it actually happens to you, it becomes less appealing. It's a bit like digital NIMBYism."
Tenev's understanding of stock tokenization is extremely profound. He believes this technology has two core values:
Global access: providing the simplest way for investors outside the U.S. to access U.S. assets
Democratization of illiquid assets: allowing retail investors to invest in private companies, real estate, and other traditionally inaccessible assets
When Robinhood launched tokenized products for SpaceX and OpenAI, it encountered predictable resistance. OpenAI issued a statement warning investors to "be cautious," which Tenev was not surprised by:
"The last thing they want is for someone to tokenize their stock. They don't even understand what it is, but at best, it's just a confusing distraction."
This resistance reflects the fundamental issue in the traditional private market—adverse selection. The best companies have ample financing options and therefore do not consider retail investors. This is precisely why Tenev believes tokenization must "function without the company choosing to participate."
Evolution from Trading Platform to "Capital as a Service"
Robinhood's business model has far exceeded the initial concept of zero-commission trading. Tenev revealed that the company now has nine product lines with annual revenues reaching hundreds of millions, ranging from options trading to cash management, from cryptocurrency to the upcoming private banking services:
Stock trading, options, cryptocurrency (traditional core)
Robinhood Gold subscription, cash management (sticky services)
Instant withdrawals, tokenization (innovative value-added)
Private banking, prediction markets (high-end expansion)
But most notably is Tenev's vision for the future:
"What people want is capital as a service. If you are an entrepreneur, you want funds to enter your bank account quickly and with as little friction as possible… you press a button, and the funds enter your bank account, allowing you to go back to running your business."
The potential impact of this "capital as a service" model is revolutionary:
Lowering the barrier to entrepreneurship: companies at any stage can quickly access funding
Market-driven pricing: allowing the market to determine valuations rather than a few institutional investors
Liquidity release: converting illiquid assets into tradable digital assets
AI-driven efficiency improvements are also key to this transformation. Tenev revealed that Robinhood's AI applications in customer support "are actually even stronger than dedicated customer support AI companies," with the engineering department's AI adoption rate approaching 100%.
Redefining the Boundaries of Financial Services
Most impressive is Tenev's way of thinking about product innovation. From cash delivery services akin to armored trucks to digital private banking services for high-net-worth clients, Robinhood is redefining the boundaries of financial services.
"What high-net-worth individuals enjoy in private banking is cash delivery… We ask ourselves, what would a mass-market product look like? Can we solve the problem of needing to go to an ATM?"
This mindset reflects Tenev's core philosophy: democratizing high-end financial services. Whether it's a civilian version of cash delivery services or allowing retail investors to access SpaceX equity, it points to the same goal—eliminating artificial barriers in financial services.
In terms of customer strategy, Robinhood is also undergoing a fundamental transformation. From initially focusing on the simple investment needs of millennials to now serving "active traders of the digital native generation"—these individuals "have some similarities to gamers… locked into their own systems and have very specific needs."
The following is the full transcript of the conversation, translated by AI:
Vlad Tenev 00:00
In principle, everyone likes tokenization, but when it actually happens to you, the appeal diminishes. I think it's crucial that the tokenization mechanism works without the company being tokenized choosing to participate. I do believe that retail investors not being able to access Stripe's stock is a big problem. I shared this view with Patrick and John, and their response was something like, "Oh, well, we're just a small family business in Ireland. Please don't tokenize my stock."
Harry Stebbings 00:28
Are you ready? Man, it's great to have you back. You know, interestingly, the last time you sat in that chair, the market cap was $35 billion, and today it's about $85 billion. So it's been quite a good eight months.
Vlad Tenev 00:56
Was that eight months ago? Really? That's incredible. I felt pretty good back then. You know, a rising market cap is always a good thing. Things get easier. You walk straighter. People listen to you. So we won't look at—of course, that's what they tell you; you can't help but notice—but…
Harry Stebbings 01:14
Is this the most exaggerated nonsense in the company? You know, I'm friends with Daniel from Spotify, and Spotify's market cap is $145.4 billion; I think he felt a lot better at $14.8 billion.
Vlad Tenev 01:22
Yes, he did. I find it difficult. I don't know if other companies find it easier, but my product pushes stock price information into your brain, and once you use it, it's hard to ignore. So I think it's especially difficult for companies like ours.
Harry Stebbings 01:40
That's the most abstract thing, isn't it? You're all looking at Robinhood's stock price, so what I'm saying is—doing a podcast about podcasts. I just wanted to start with that because it's so crazy. I tweeted last night that it's a bit like a funny story on Wall Street, the crazy rise of Robinhood last year. If you had to attribute it to one or two things, what do you think Wall Street has realized now that it didn't before?
Vlad Tenev 02:03
I think we've been saying the same thing for the past two years and clearly articulating our strategy; it just takes time to validate whether it works. In a way, we've been lucky that many things have gone smoothly.
Harry Stebbings 02:22
When you consider cost stabilization / reduction, to what extent is this management efficient and just becoming more streamlined rather than introducing AI, with AI being the driving force?
Vlad Tenev 02:32
AI is a significant part of it, but I think we've been quite secretive about our internal use of AI. We've been discussing it in general terms and have started rolling out AI products. In fact, our AI system, Robinhood Cortex, was just launched to customers earlier today. But its impact on internal teams—from software engineering to customer support—really large internal teams—is enormous.
Harry Stebbings 03:06
In the software engineering space, Benioff says, what percentage of new code at Salesforce today is new? What do you think yours is?
Vlad Tenev 03:12
I think that sounds good. I mean, for these agent systems, it's hard to say, right? We've transitioned from GitHub Copilot (an autocomplete system) to Cursor, and now we have things like WindSurf—I mean, almost all code is written by AI, and the adoption rate in our engineering department is close to 100%. It's even hard to determine what code is human-generated. If I had to guess, it should be a minority.
Harry Stebbings 03:51
Yes. You mentioned customer support as another important pillar.
Vlad Tenev 03:54
In terms of the work we do, we are the best at this—actually even stronger than dedicated customer support AI companies.
Harry Stebbings 04:04
Built it, or used off-the-shelf?
Vlad Tenev 04:06
We've built our own.
Harry Stebbings 04:07
Why did you decide to do that instead of using off-the-shelf products?
Vlad Tenev 04:10
First of all, when we started, off-the-shelf companies like Sierra were just getting started. Big companies—we were a big customer of Salesforce—weren't that mature yet. So we developed a lot of things. Then, for a company like Robinhood, a lot of the complexity lies in system integration. That is, we need to pull all the data to answer customer queries. And we also started taking action—like, based on your query, we need to take some action. This requires deep integration with our backend systems, and I think most vendors haven't really figured out how to do that yet.
Harry Stebbings 05:00
Why have you remained silent while Wall Street clearly appreciates the AI efficiency story of public companies?
Vlad Tenev 05:08
Yes, I mean, we've been thinking about how to better tell that story. One thing we've been considering is whether we should hold an event, like a product launch, similar to the one we just had in the south of France?
Harry Stebbings 05:22
That's the structure; geographically, man, why did we choose it? Let's just go with the south of France.
Vlad Tenev 05:26
Yes, well, we might still go to the south of France because we've been there before. But there are many great places to hold events. Yes, and I think there are now enough topics and content to discuss that it should be a really cool event.
Harry Stebbings 05:41
Would you turn your customer support tool into a SaaS product and open-source it for everyone? The people at Revolut have done that with their HR tool.
Vlad Tenev 05:48
We've discussed this internally. I think the challenge is that its value lies in the deep integration with our proprietary data, and I don't know if we want to get into the enterprise space and deeply integrate with their proprietary data. But overall, I always ask one question when I do anything: if we developed a great tool internally, can we really offer it as a service to others? Because that's the way to ensure it stays excellent—external pressure from customers, not just internal teams. So I am very supportive of this platformization.
Harry Stebbings 06:26
In what areas do you think AI has not yet reached the level you hope it would?
Vlad Tenev 06:30
I mean, I think hallucinations are still a problem, and there's a lot of work to be done to address that. This is actually one of the reasons I chair Harmonic. The question is: can we design a system that inherently prevents hallucinations and ensures that every step of reasoning is logical and corresponds to the previous step? So I think this requires a different approach to generating AI outputs—every output needs to be checked before it is produced, and there should be a very clear measure of correctness. I think that would be an interesting system that would change everything.
Harry Stebbings 07:25
We will discuss Harmonic because it's super exciting—congratulations on the Series B, super exciting. The product expansion is crazy. I previously spoke specifically with Neil Mather. He talked about the speed of product development. From our perspective, you started with young first-time traders, added options and cryptocurrency, attracting potentially higher-risk investors, then speculative traders and high-volume onlookers. Robinhood Gold and cash management brought more…
Harry Stebbings 07:51
I guess my question is: how do you view the different types of customers you serve today? Given the recent massive product expansion, how have your thoughts changed over time?
Vlad Tenev 08:02
I think there's been a significant shift, which is that recently we've started to consider not just millennials and the new Gen Z customers, but also active traders—yes, like active traders of the digital native generation. This is a very different type of customer. I mean, you can almost imagine that these people have some similarities to gamers. They have screens, headsets, fancy keyboards, but they are locked in. They are locked into their systems and have very specific needs. They need to be at the forefront of technology and innovation. They care about speed; they care about latency. We really need to understand what these customers are thinking in order to design products like our futures ladder and Robinhood Legend.
Harry Stebbings 08:50
Why did you decide to enter this market?
Vlad Tenev 08:53
Back in 2019, we realized that this market was important to us, but we hadn't really committed to it at that time. So we devised a strategy: to create an extremely simple and easy-to-use zero-commission mobile app. Our target was first-time users because our argument was: first-time users would benefit from it—they like ease of use, and if you're just starting to invest a hundred dollars, commissions are indeed a significant barrier. This was not possible before. The result? After launch, we started to attract some active traders, by the way, who had high trading volumes, but we weren't really targeting that customer segment. This is because the value proposition of zero commissions was so strong that if you were paying a thousand dollars a month in commissions, you would do all your tedious research on Robinhood. Even though Robinhood was not designed for that, its value proposition was still very strong. So we inadvertently built an active trader business without even trying, and we realized that a significant portion of our revenue—far exceeding our expectations when modeling for the first-time investor business—was driven by a clearly defined, limited customer group. We had overlooked this because our previous approach was very effective. But by 2022, we found that we weren't serving this customer well, and they were even more important because they were actually very resilient. Because they were active, they had bearish strategies: when the market was down, they stayed active; when the market was sideways, they could do long leg options. From that point on, we realized that we weren't serving them well. They were turning to other platforms; their growth was outpacing ours. So we assigned some of our core employees to focus on making Robinhood the best platform for active traders—not just providing them with a half-hearted service. I think this was actually the primary reason for our business transformation. We realized that this was actually at the core of our business, and we needed to invest in it to have the resources to do other things well.
Harry Stebbings 11:21
Do you think stock memification is a good thing or a bad thing?
Vlad Tenev 11:27
What does stock memification mean?
Harry Stebbings 11:29
When you have something that directly attracts public attention and really captures the spirit of the times—like, I think you're directly putting CoreWeaves and Circles in the mix, but the GameStops of the world— is this a good thing? Because it actually brings more people into the market—they can learn; they are entering the market for the first time—or is it fundamentally a bad thing because, frankly, it is exaggerated; it is small-scale, artificially inflated—because it is real, but it is not based on fundamentals?
Vlad Tenev 11:59
I think the reasons people buy these stocks are often very different from what you know about meme coins, or even the GameStop of 2021. I think they have reason to believe these stocks will become huge industries. For example, CoreWeave is one of the few opportunities for public market investors to really invest in AI—the growth of the AI industry. I mean, if you want to invest in AI as a retail investor, what options do you have? You have Nvidia—
Harry Stebbings 12:35
AMD.
Vlad Tenev 12:36
Yes, I mean AMD, but Nvidia's price is $4 trillion, right? Tesla, AI might be, I don't know, 10, 20 percent of that story. So, in areas valued below a trillion, you won't have many opportunities. So when CoreWeave came along, it was just a lower-level entry into AI, and people were interested in that. Then there's Circle—you have the stablecoin industry, right? People are betting it will become a big deal, which can be seen as a direct exposure to stablecoins.
Harry Stebbings 13:10
In terms of exposure, you have created a very attractive new product, which can be said to be the tokenization of private companies. Please tell me about the decision-making process for this new product. Take me into that room—how did the discussions go? How did you decide to create this product?
Vlad Tenev 13:30
Yes, I mean, it was clear from the beginning. In fact, I wrote an article in January for The Washington Post advocating for tokenization.
Harry Stebbings 13:41
You said tokenization would be the biggest innovation in finance over the past decade.
Vlad Tenev 13:46
When I published the column, it might not have been that clear yet. But I think tokenization has two very significant benefits. One is like stablecoins: if you are outside the U.S., this will be the simplest way to access U.S. assets, so stablecoins—very popular for those wanting to obtain dollars outside the U.S. Similarly, I believe stock tokens will become the best way to invest in U.S. stocks and other assets. That's the use case outside the U.S. Even within the U.S.—we can actually easily invest in U.S. stocks through Robinhood and other platforms—there will also be very strong use cases for those illiquid assets that have not yet successfully achieved trading or allowed retail access, such as private companies, as well as real estate and even art. So I think this makes a lot of sense in the U.S. We want to prove that we have the technology to achieve this. Outside the U.S., it will work—it really will—the rest is just a matter of details, and in the U.S., it requires regulatory transparency. We wanted to start with two companies that I think are significant, hard to access, challenging but in high demand, which are SpaceX and OpenAI. Coincidentally, when I was writing a commentary on this issue, I used these two companies as examples.
Harry Stebbings 15:30
Absolutely right. Now more and more LPs are calling me, asking if they can get these two tokens. Yes, so I completely agree with your point about demand. My question is, to help me understand—if it is a token, it is not equity, or it is a representation of equity. What exactly am I buying to get it?
Yes, what I mean is, it's analogous to stablecoins. Basically, if you think about it, we put some traditional assets in a box; we tokenize them one-to-one, and then these tokens are actually placed on a tradable blockchain. So for stablecoins, for example, Circle has wrapped some U.S. Treasury bills and cash in a box to support freely tradable tokens. In this way, we can gain access to private company stocks or other types of investment opportunities because OpenAI doesn't have stock—they are a nonprofit—so they have profit participation units and convertible interest securities that will provide stock once they successfully convert to a for-profit entity. OpenAI is particularly complex, but you can think of it as an investment opportunity within an SPV, like a traditional tool, and then held by Robinhood, tokenized, and sold to retail investors.
Harry Stebbings 16:50
They are a bit unhappy about this. Are you surprised by their dissatisfaction? Do you think it's unfair?
Vlad Tenev 16:58
I think part of it is unfair. They issued a statement saying "please be cautious," which I think is a bit excessive, but I think it could be worse. I mean, I understand from OpenAI's perspective that they have a lot on their plate—they're trying to transition to a for-profit entity. The last thing they want is for someone to tokenize their stock. They don't even understand what this is about, but at best, it's just a confusing distraction.
Vlad Tenev 17:33
But I want to say that this aligns with their mission. Their stated mission is to create general artificial intelligence and ensure it benefits all of humanity. Therefore, one way to ensure it benefits all of humanity (and not just executives and wealthy investors) is to give humanity ownership of it, which has not yet been achieved. Some of the most important companies of our time have not been accepted by retail channels, and I think that's a huge problem.
Harry Stebbings 18:05
Do you have anything different you want to do regarding releases or information dissemination?
Vlad Tenev 18:09
I think there’s always something to learn. For example, I think this notion of "it's somewhat unsafe" is not very positive for us. I mean, if you look at the Twitter feed of OpenAI's newsroom, that tweet is actually their most popular tweet ever. It received the most likes and retweets, which surprised me. So I didn't expect it to resonate so much. I don't know—it's too new; I don't know if I would make different choices.
Vlad Tenev 18:47
I think the issue is that, in principle, everyone likes tokenization, right? But when it actually happens to you, it’s not as appealing. It's a bit like digital NIMBYism, right? Everyone will say, "Oh, great, tokenization—let's make that happen." Yes, the problem in the private market is that the best companies have many options. They can raise funds from anywhere, so they don't consider retail. This leads to a problem of adverse selection, where basically only those companies with no other options will consider retail. That's why all the initiatives to get retail access to these opportunities have failed so far. So I think it's crucial for the tokenization mechanism to work without the tokenized companies choosing to participate, and I think that's actually the innovation we can drive: we found a way to make it work without companies choosing to participate.
Harry Stebbings 19:56
Are you worried that regulation will block this model? Because if this model works, it could be your biggest source of revenue in your current business.
Vlad Tenev 20:03
I think it could bring about huge changes. I want to say that in the EU, this is very clear—I mean, the EU has established clear regulations for crypto assets in the form of MiCA. In the U.S., there definitely needs to be more work done. This involves two elements: the accredited investor law and cryptocurrency law; both need to be enacted to truly realize this. I believe—one of the reasons we showcase this in the EU, besides allowing our EU customers to access all these amazing products—is that it can demonstrate the real value of this to other countries around the world. You hear SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce say that tokenization is an innovation, and the SEC must stop setting barriers and start embracing these innovative technologies. So I think we actually have support from both sides to improve this.
Harry Stebbings 21:05
How do you view inventory? I mean—you mentioned before that inventory is the gold standard. Can you minimize inventory down to the series level? B? You know, looking at Harmonic's situation—I know you announced a funding round today, and Perkins was involved; you are the chairman—if you put Harmonic's tokens on Robinhood, many people would want to buy them. Would the price be that low? Where do you think the accessibility limit for Harmonic is?
Vlad Tenev 21:32
That's a good question. My goal is to minimize costs as much as possible. It's interesting because we are somewhat straddling the line between cryptocurrency and traditional finance. If you talk to people in the cryptocurrency industry, they will tell you, "Well, the future is on-chain issuance. What you're doing now is not ideal compared to on-chain issuance because equity is on-chain from the start." And I tell them: nobody cares about on-chain issuance. The only place people will consider on-chain issuance is in your head. What people want is capital as a service. If you are an entrepreneur, you want funds to flow into your bank account quickly and with as little friction as possible, and I think that ultimately is the end result. You should be able to use Robinhood—or other services—maybe upload some information, and you will actually be competing in the market, so the market will force you to provide the clearest, most engaging information possible. You press a button, and the funds go into your bank account, and you can go back to running your business. I think that's a logical conclusion: all stages need capital, but perhaps the most interesting stage is the early stage. I think if we succeed in doing this, there will be more startups—like, starting a startup will become easier.
Harry Stebbings 23:06
I mean, that's incredible; it's actually paying homage to the promise of crowdfunding that has never really been realized. So I completely understand. Now, looking at the 6 to 12-month tokenization phase, what will it look like? What assets will you tokenize? When will you do it? And how will you do it?
Vlad Tenev 23:21
Well, currently in Europe, the fully listed assets are publicly traded stocks; we have about 200 of them—all the large stocks are listed. So we will continue to promote until we reach thousands. We will also make private equity tradable, so we—
Harry Stebbings 23:37
Inventory—sorry, pause for a second—when you really focus on trading volume and see where the trading volume is concentrated among companies, why is it so important to have inventory from thousands of companies? Do you need more than 200?
Vlad Tenev 23:50
I think you never know what will become popular. The market always has a long tail effect; you know, something interesting can happen with a random company, and we really don't want to be in the business of picking winners and losers and deciding what stocks you want to buy. We want to keep it simple; generally speaking, if it's listed—we want to truly offer it to all listed companies. Unfortunately, there are some issues with stocks that have a low earnings per share and take too long to list, some of which have turned into scams, and I think we want the listing exchanges to address this issue. So we have to deviate from this model to some extent. But ideally, if it's listed, we just want to open it up.
Harry Stebbings 24:42
So from 200 to 1000, that's amazing. What else?
Vlad Tenev 24:46
So there are a few things. In terms of publicly traded stock tokens, the product will be rolled out in several phases. We are currently in the first phase, and every time we mint or burn a new token, we will release it to the market—Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, which are the physical exchanges—for trading. So every time you buy a token, a new token will be minted. The second phase is that we will put these tokens on our exchange, Bitstamp, so you can trade these tokens directly with other cryptocurrencies and dollars. This requires phase 1 because we need to mint a large number of tokens to achieve liquidity. So phase 2 unlocks 24/7 trading. Then there's phase 3: you can interact directly with the blockchain for self-custody; you can do all lending and borrowing—all DeFi, self-custody—and that's when things really start to get interesting. I think crypto wallets will provide a first-class experience for all these tokenized assets.
Harry Stebbings 25:55
Is this a billion-dollar revenue line for you? Because now you have nine products that have reached the billion-dollar revenue line.
Vlad Tenev 26:01
Crypto wallets only recently achieved monetization. I think we are just beginning to monetize.
Harry Stebbings 26:09
When you look at these nine, which one do you think is the most undervalued?
Vlad Tenev 26:14
Yes, I think I haven't even thought about it that way. I mean, we break it down into nine revenue sources, but I just think, you know, customers will become subscribers to Robinhood Gold, and once you become a subscriber to Robinhood Gold, we will encourage you to use all our products and increase your average revenue per user on the platform. So, you know, we do break it down into business lines—we consider that—it’s like a world map, right? What I really care about is how many customers we have, how much they are putting into the platform, and whether we are meeting all their financial needs. I think you can segment it in many different ways, but if they put all their money into Robinhood, I think we would be very happy.
Harry Stebbings 27:12
Five years from now, which do you think will be the biggest source of revenue?
Vlad Tenev 27:17
I think cryptocurrency is interesting because, at the moment, cryptocurrency is somewhat an independent part of the business. The way we look at it, the outside world sees it as a different asset, right? It's like: how big is your cryptocurrency business compared to your options business or stock business? It's like: you are trading an independent asset. But what we are starting to see is that cryptocurrency will become the underlying layer behind everything, right? In some ways, everything will be driven by cryptocurrency.
Harry Stebbings 27:58
What do you mean by that? Did I understand correctly?
Vlad Tenev 28:00
Well, let me give you an example. Right now, Robinhood Gold has an interest component where you can earn interest on cash. Once we stabilize the stablecoin, cryptocurrency will also have this feature—you will be able to earn interest on your stable assets, which will be a significant business, and you might think of it as part of cryptocurrency. But it's similar to a savings account. Predictive markets—over time, you will see overseas companies like Polymarket—this is a predictive market business, but it is also driven by cryptocurrency.
Harry Stebbings 28:40
My fun comes from the fact that I have no ego, so I'm not afraid to ask very stupid questions. I went out with Jack from Airwallex—I don't know if you know him, but he's smart and one of the most underrated founders. He is very pessimistic about the future of stablecoins. How do you view the stablecoin market in the next three years? Would you share his negative sentiment?
Vlad Tenev 29:01
I don't know if I would go that far. There are definitely use cases. I mean, I'm just giving an example. Robinhood uses stablecoins; our company would use Bitcoin. So we have this use case where we trade a large amount of cryptocurrency, which requires settlement with counterparties. I mean, if our customers buy a large amount of Bitcoin, we need to remit dollars to the counterparty, and then they will send the cryptocurrency back to us. Everything goes smoothly during trading hours from Monday to Friday because we can settle intraday—we can send them dollars, and they will send the cryptocurrency to our wallet, and everything goes smoothly. But what happens on the weekend? If the banks are closed, and something goes wrong in the cryptocurrency market, and our retail customers want to buy billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency, what do we do?
Vlad Tenev 30:00
So you might find yourself in a difficult situation because we can't transfer funds. So the next situation is either you have to take on counterparty risk—that means you have to trust one party to ultimately deliver the dollars when they are able and send the cryptocurrency to them in advance—that's tricky because if you have many counterparties, the counterparty risk multiplies; or you have to have credit lines, right—credit lines with counterparties are costly; or you have to pre-fund your bank accounts, which may be different—you know, unless you force them to centralize, all counterparties tend to have different bank accounts—so you have to pre-fund and plan for potentially huge transaction volumes, which is very capital inefficient. But stablecoins—
Harry Stebbings 30:52
Hearing about these different options gives me goosebumps—
Vlad Tenev 30:56
These are not good options. You know, we had to deal with this issue back in 2021, and our solution was to raise a lot of capital and pre-fund, hoping that the funds would be sufficient, right? But now with stablecoins, we can send you dollars on the weekend—they will arrive at our counterparties immediately; they can send the cryptocurrency back—problem solved. So this is a real use case that prompted us to adopt it. So, the 24/7 real-time flow of dollars is real, and I think you can't deny that outside the U.S.—especially in developing countries—stablecoins have become the most convenient way for retail to access dollars, and I think that's real. They have essentially replaced American Express traveler's checks, and foreigners living in countries with currency devaluation hoard dollars to keep their money safe.
Harry Stebbings 31:52
Are you ready for a truly unfair trial? Let's wait and see. Among the nine products, if I forced you to shut one down today due to focus, which one would you shut down?
Vlad Tenev 32:02
Oh, good question. Well, let me tell you one that I wouldn't mind—even if it disappears over time, I wouldn't mind: instant withdrawal revenue. So we make money by allowing customers to instantly withdraw Robinhood funds to their bank accounts. You know, it's a good business for us.
Harry Stebbings 32:28
How big is that business?
Vlad Tenev 32:30
I would say it's nine figures. Yes, I mean, we can verify that, but I think it's one of those—whether realized individually or combined with other related factors. But yes, it's a big business. You know, our general manager over there is very proud of this business; he hates me saying this, but I tell him, "Hey, if your business goes to zero, I won't be sad," because that means no one is withdrawing from Robinhood. If everyone keeps their money in Robinhood, we would feel great. So one of our goals is to eliminate all the reasons people want to transfer money to external bank accounts.
Harry Stebbings 33:10
Good answer! That's a brilliant answer. It's like being asked in an interview what your biggest weakness is, and you say, "I just work too hard." Well, I'm with you on the whiteboard—we're planning a new product.
Vlad Tenev 33:24
Blackboard.
Harry Stebbings 33:25
Come on—oh my god, I hate your store, just near the school. What product do you most want to create but haven't yet?
Vlad Tenev 33:33
In the financial services space? I mean, the private market is an area I've always been very interested in. I think we already have plans, and the time gap between conception and launching new products has shrunk significantly. I mean, if you told me six months ago that I would be embroiled in controversy over tokenizing the private market and delivering it to customers, I would have been surprised, but our team executed very well. I think what we talked about before—this is still a future thing—providing this capital as a service: as long as you press a button, the money will be deposited into your account, whether it's a business account or a personal account, I think that will make a lot of sense.
Harry Stebbings 34:34
A market that no one can crack, and everyone wants to crack—many have tried; Nick, what Revolut wants is this market—that is, those ultra-high-net-worth individuals working at Goldman, BlackRock, or JPMorgan. Do you want this market?
Vlad Tenev 34:49
Yes, I think—yes, we are interested in that market.
Harry Stebbings 34:55
How do you win in a space where others have not?
Vlad Tenev 34:57
Well, to be honest, I don't know if many people are really working very hard. I mean, I think those earning $100,000 a year—it's a very good market. And I feel like you might be tempted to say, "Well, why don't we serve those earning a million, five million—ultra-high-net-worth individuals?" For example, if you could really become my family office, I think that's an attractive proposition, and that's actually my goal: I want to put all my personal assets under Robinhood. And I think we are not far from being able to fully meet my needs—probably a few years away.
Harry Stebbings 35:42
What are we missing today, but what do we need to meet your needs?
Vlad Tenev 35:46
Yes, private banking—by the way, we are promoting this business; it is progressing very quickly. As far as I know, this is the first truly digital private banking product designed for… I mean, private banking has always been a very physical experience. All functions require branches; no one has been able to crack how to provide this service without branches. Let me give you an example.
Vlad Tenev 36:11
Cash delivery—I don't know if you've heard of this cash delivery innovation, but I'm very excited about it.
Harry Stebbings 36:11
Please tell me.
Vlad Tenev 36:11
One service that high-net-worth individuals enjoy in private banking is cash delivery. I was really a bit shocked, but First Republic Bank (which unfortunately has now failed) had this service where they could deliver cash to your home. You don't have to go to an ATM; they provide this service for withdrawing large amounts of cash, and the cash is delivered in an armored truck.
Harry Stebbings 36:47
I haven't heard of anyone using an armored truck to deliver thousands of dollars in cash. I'm from Goldman—I feel like you guys don't do armored trucks. Does that really exist?
Vlad Tenev 36:59
It's a big deal. That's why we liked First Republic Bank; you know, going to the bank and using an ATM is annoying—it's much more convenient to have the bank bring cash to you.
Harry Stebbings 37:11
Do you still use cash?
Vlad Tenev 37:17
For tips.
Harry Stebbings 37:19
Oh, you're American—this is an American thing. Why do you need $50 in cash?
Vlad Tenev 37:26
You have to tip. A lot of people provide me services—you know, you have to tip each of them.
Harry Stebbings 37:32
That's amazing.
Vlad Tenev 37:33
My employees also use my services, and they need to tip people too, so it's like a complete operation.
Harry Stebbings 37:40
So are you going to participate in cash delivery?
Vlad Tenev 37:43
So we ask ourselves—
Harry Stebbings 37:45
Brand—can you imagine an armored truck for a dollar a ride?
Vlad Tenev 37:50
What would a mass-market product look like? Well, not everyone needs an armored truck for home delivery—and that's expensive—but everyone has DoorDash or Deliveroo, right? So, can we solve the problem of you needing to go to an ATM to withdraw cash, so that whether you're at home or out, you can have cash delivered directly to your home? I've encountered this situation many times—my wife goes to the hairdresser, and she wants to pay in cash, and then I have to go find an ATM. It's annoying. So yes, we will solve this problem by combining on-demand delivery logistics with all our work in finance, so you can have cash delivered to your home.
Vlad Tenev 38:42
Yes, actually—first of all, for a digital bank without branches—nothing ruins the private banking atmosphere more than having to go to a 7-11 convenience store or CVS to get cash. That's not a premium experience. You also don't want to send customers to other banks—like, I’m sure Citibank is great, but if my clients are private banking clients, I don't want them going to Citibank.
When people still have needs, and you would typically go to a branch to handle them, how do you implement a branchless model? Well, you should bring the branch to the customer. This is exactly what we want to emphasize; high-net-worth individuals also have this service—they have people come to meet all their needs. If you need notarization, they will come to you. If you need to buy a watch, they will also come to you. This is our goal—I think this is also how we serve our customers.
Harry Stebbings 39:44
The most interesting part of your business is that different participants will take different entry points. If you look back at your business, you will find that commission-free trading was your entry point into the first customer group.
Harry Stebbings 39:55
Look at Revolut; foreign exchange is core. Then look at Monzo, which initially only had a hard-to-get checking account, but that was core, and every project expanded from there.
Harry Stebbings 40:05
To be honest—I hope I can say this, after all these years I know quite a bit about you—I previously thought your commission-free trading mechanism was the most lenient. It felt relatively relaxed and youthful—but I was clearly wrong. Looking at what you do, why is commission-free trading the best entry point? Or is it not—just because of execution?
Vlad Tenev 40:32
Yes, that's a good question. I think you can build a big business through any entry point, and Monzo and Revolut have done very well, achieving impressive results. I do believe that ultimately…
Harry Stebbings 40:49
Are you more impressed by Revolut or Chime?
Vlad Tenev 40:51
I think Revolut impresses me more. Revolut's product speed is fast, international scale is large, and the founders are impressive. I feel there won't be much conflict between us. The same goes for Chime; there won't be much conflict because their target customers are those living paycheck to paycheck—they actually don't invest. But we also want to enter this space; we want to continue to delve into the lower-end market and ultimately serve those who have no money to invest.
Vlad Tenev 41:26
I do believe that Robinhood's ultimate goal also involves checking accounts—we need to get people's paychecks. If everything is handled through Robinhood, it becomes easier.
Harry Stebbings 41:37
What’s the timeline?
Vlad Tenev 41:39
The private banking business will soon be launched to the first batch of customers—I mean, it's about to launch, depending on when it rolls out.
Harry Stebbings 41:47
What do you think about the regulatory strategies companies like Monzo, Revolut, and Starling are taking to compete for banking licenses? When you sit down and analyze these strategies, what are your thoughts?
Vlad Tenev 41:59
I think it depends on different jurisdictions. In the U.S., the approval process for banking licenses has traditionally been very cumbersome—your board members must approve new products, so it’s tricky.
Harry Stebbings 42:13
In the UK, Monzo—
Vlad Tenev 42:17
As far as I know, Revolut does not have a full banking license here, but they are not affected.
Harry Stebbings 42:23
Well, frankly, that’s an advantage—it allows for product speed that Monzo cannot achieve because they have regulatory capital requirements, which means they cannot act as quickly.
Vlad Tenev 42:32
Yes, but, you know, on the other hand, there are certain advantages—if you want to be someone's bank, you can say, "We are a bank, 100% insured," and some people do care about that.
Harry Stebbings 42:43
I completely understand. There’s actually a machine operating behind all this—you know, Neil—I think it’s this machine that makes us fundamentally different from you. When I asked him, he replied in all caps: "I love Vlad," which made me very happy. He asked very specifically: How did Vlad evolve from a culture and company that hardly shipped anything to—sorry, it was his own words—shipping at an incredible speed today? He asked as specifically as possible.
Vlad Tenev 43:13
In 2020 and 2021, we were busy expanding and a bit overwhelmed. At the end of 2019, we had 800 employees, and now we have about 200 million dollars in annual revenue—that's still a big business—but by the end of 2020, our annual revenue was close to 1 billion dollars, so our business grew about fourfold. It was tough because all of this happened while we were working remotely in response to the pandemic. We hired all these people, and in hindsight, we took in too many—operations became difficult. These were all newcomers who didn’t know how to work with us; we were all remote; we had to scale customer support—this was before AI emerged—so if we quadrupled our customer base, we had to scale support by more than four times. This was to ensure we had truly excellent talent, involving some cultural changes to reposition the company’s direction in the post-pandemic era, bringing employees back to the office so we could integrate better.
Harry Stebbings 44:37
How important is being present in person? I make sure everyone in the company is present in person.
Vlad Tenev 44:42
I am someone who values face-to-face communication very much. I feel our operations have improved significantly since then—in fact, it was very painful for us because we started out working remotely, so I had to completely cancel remote work, which annoyed a lot of people.
Harry Stebbings 45:00
Was it really as bad as you thought? Many people would say, "You can't bring it back." I think very few doors are one-way.
Vlad Tenev 45:06
Not at all; I haven't encountered a one-way street. It’s doable, and we’ve done it, and I think that’s a great example.
Harry Stebbings 45:16
Okay, we’re back in the office, and we have new employees—what did you do to really enhance product delivery, iteration, and shipping?
Vlad Tenev 45:25
It’s crucial to ensure everyone is accountable for their business outcomes. This may involve a dozen small things—you just have to do them—if you really want to deliver quickly, you must adjust your corporate culture to optimize towards that goal. In financial services, this is difficult because you also have to protect people's funds. The key is not to pit speed against safety: I want you to do your work in a high-quality (i.e., safe) manner—but once you know what to do, you must persistently execute.
Harry Stebbings 46:19
Steve Jobs: "No, I want it beautiful—and today." I completely understand. What’s your framework for deciding which new products to pursue and which to avoid?
Vlad Tenev 46:29
I think I largely follow my intuition.
Harry Stebbings 46:34
In the future—I agree with this—it will be dictatorial yet solid leadership.
Vlad Tenev 46:36
It definitely has to be top-down—the vision must be top-down.
Harry Stebbings 46:50
How many direct reports do you have?
Vlad Tenev 46:53
I think it’s about 15 to 20. You know when it’s necessary, and when you need top-down is very clear: when people disagree, they disagree with each other, and if this situation persists for too long and is not intentional, it may be a sign of dysfunction—that’s when you need top-down.
Vlad Tenev 47:17
But I don’t think it has to be extremely top-down. I will strive to clarify our goals and ultimate objectives and give those who are detail-oriented and able to focus on their work a lot of autonomy to decide how to achieve those goals. This way, they will become owners of the projects and take responsibility. So I won’t micromanage everything. For some things, I will have some opinions—like products I’m familiar with, how events are held, how launches are done—but I make it clear that my general managers, product leads, and those close to me can veto my opinions if they feel my opinions are wrong; I encourage them to call me out loudly and say I’m an idiot.
Harry Stebbings 48:16
Do you know what bad aspects of your leadership style you still continue to do despite everything?
Vlad Tenev 48:23
I feel I get criticized for having low emotional intelligence.
Harry Stebbings 48:30
Will you work on that, or do you just accept it as part of who you are?
Vlad Tenev 48:36
I try to improve a bit. Maybe I’m not very capable, but I think my emotional intelligence is decent.
Harry Stebbings 48:46
Do you link your happiness to the company’s performance?
Vlad Tenev 48:50
I try not to think about it, but sometimes it’s really hard to avoid. I’m quite happy now—in 2022, I was a bit down and worked hard to get out of that state.
Harry Stebbings 49:02
Have you ever felt frustrated, thinking this just won’t work?
Vlad Tenev 49:08
It just won’t work is relative. I never really felt the company was in danger of bankruptcy—we raised 6 billion dollars in 2021, and he will receive billions of dollars in cash, which could be a good thing or a bad thing.
Harry Stebbings 49:32
Before you went public?
Vlad Tenev 49:33
This was after the IPO; we raised a large amount of money, about 1.5 billion to 2 billion dollars, and during the GameStop period, we raised 4 billion dollars. So we had a lot of cash, but that time was painful, and I did ask myself if I was suited to do this. I went from leading a growing startup to going public—many people see this as the pinnacle of a company’s development—to managing layoffs and leading the company to profitability.
Harry Stebbings 50:11
Do you enjoy being in the public eye? I’ve never seen a CEO in the public eye who really enjoys being in the public eye.
Vlad Tenev 50:15
In fact, I enjoy being in the public eye.
Harry Stebbings 50:16
You know? Why?
Vlad Tenev 50:18
I think this is great because, at least from my perspective, we have shifted from viewing everything related to public companies—like earnings—as a hassle to seeing it as an interesting opportunity to connect with shareholders and retail investor communities. In our recent earnings call, we had a lot of fun. Our vision is to make it feel like a post-game press conference: with the Robinhood logo behind me—just like after a game, it’s interesting whether the team wins or loses.
Harry Stebbings 51:44
Really? Do you think Stripe should go public?
Vlad Tenev 51:46
There are two points: I think Stripe can do whatever it wants—they can raise unlimited funds privately. I do believe that retail investors not being able to access Stripe's stock is a big issue, and Stripe has always been a defining company in the industry. I shared this view with Patrick and John, and they gave me the impression of, "Oh, we’re just a small family business from Ireland—please don’t tokenize my stock."
Harry Stebbings 52:21
I love it. Dude, I’d love to chat with you quickly—I could talk to you all day. What’s something you’ve changed your mind about the most in the past 12 years? A few months?
Vlad Tenev 52:31
In the past 12 months, the prediction market has sparked a lot of thought. Some people see it as gambling, while others see it as investing—we are dealing with these challenges. There’s also the issue of being regulated by the state, under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), independent applications, independent brands, and full integration—we’ve basically fully integrated. This is a cutting-edge field. The private market will be tough; some people don’t like what we’re doing, but I’m motivated to make it work and believe we will succeed.
Harry Stebbings 53:47
Which competitor do you respect the most? Why?
Vlad Tenev 53:50
I think Revolut is a good choice—you can see their culture is very victory-oriented, and I respect them a lot. I respect Coinbase—they are founder-led and a tech company in our field. Of course, there are also some smaller companies that are eager to succeed and are doing well.
Harry Stebbings 54:30
Are there any other less obvious but super interesting ones?
Vlad Tenev 54:33
I find Altruist very interesting. They are our competitors in the RIA custody business (we provide products to advisors). Their tagline is "We are the Robinhood of advisors." We believe we can also be the Robinhood of advisors. Their CEO is a nice person and often attends various advisory meetings. A few months ago, we entered this space through an acquisition, so it should be interesting.
Harry Stebbings 55:29
We put this up yesterday, right? I must have driven you crazy—your level must be impressive. I heard you have a personal trainer now, after many years without one; you used to train by yourself.
Vlad Tenev 55:43
Well, you didn’t see my article in Men's Health, did you? I was in Men's Health about a year and a half ago—but I didn’t make the cover, and I was pretty disappointed; I felt I deserved that cover.
Harry Stebbings 55:56
If you want, I can order you an armored truck.
Vlad Tenev 56:04
Anyway, there was an issue of Men's Health where I trained with my coach. In that episode, I deadlifted nearly 400 pounds. But for some reason, they showed a picture of me deadlifting 135 pounds.
Harry Stebbings 56:18
We’ll publish it—it will be made into a beautifully visualized video. Wow, great job! What changes have you made in your training?
Vlad Tenev 56:28
I started training with a coach. When I had my first child, I injured my back—I was lifting very heavy weights, and my disc herniated. I had surgery scheduled but backed out at the last minute; it took me two years to get rid of the pain. During the pandemic, I trained with a coach—the first year was remote training, just bodyweight and dumbbell exercises, then gradually returned to weightlifting, completely restructuring my training approach from scratch.
Harry Stebbings 57:41
Yes, when I heard you were in Men's Health, I was hooked—that’s the coolest thing you’ve said in the past hour. What’s the most impactful purchase under $500 in your life?
Vlad Tenev 57:53
TOTO Washlet smart toilet seat.
Harry Stebbings 57:54
What is that?
Vlad Tenev 57:55
It’s a toilet seat—if you need to poop, just press a button, and it cleans you, no toilet paper needed, very eco-friendly.
Harry Stebbings 58:12
You don’t need toilet paper?
Vlad Tenev 58:14
Yes, but just for drying.
Harry Stebbings 58:18
When you go somewhere and don’t have it, you must feel disappointed, saying, "I have to go back home."
Vlad Tenev 58:24
It’s really disappointing.
Harry Stebbings 58:26
We’ll get you one next time you come.
Vlad Tenev 58:30
You should buy one. I just try to avoid using the bathroom elsewhere.
Harry Stebbings 58:36
You’ve shown me armored trucks and Japanese toilets.
Vlad Tenev 58:43
There are even portable ones—if you don’t want to spend $500, you can get a battery-powered little gadget for about $30. If you’re willing to spend $10,000, you can get a fully functional toilet.
Harry Stebbings 58:56
Well then—
Vlad Tenev 58:56
—yes, it has some nice features.
Harry Stebbings 58:58
Make sure to ask about it at Christmas. What’s the most important advice about marriage?
Vlad Tenev 59:04
I’ve only been married once, so I don’t have much advice.
Harry Stebbings 59:09
But you’ve been through the towns—Christ, Vlad—and you’re still together.
Vlad Tenev 59:16
My wife and I have different opinions on this: she prefers to come home after work without thinking about it, strictly separating work and life like in the show "The Office." I prefer to be fully integrated—colleagues at my home, meetings during holidays, kids coming to work. It can’t be just one way; both must be balanced. Also, you have to be fully and unconditionally invested—believe you can solve any problem.
Harry Stebbings 01:00:11
Second to last question: what difficulties turned into good things? For example, I was expelled from school when I was 17…
Vlad Tenev 01:00:26
Going public in 2022—seeing our stock price drop from irrational highs to below cash levels—was disheartening, but it prompted us to make some decisions and investments, and now we are benefiting from them.
Harry Stebbings 01:01:13
Final question: where will Robinhood be in five or ten years?
Vlad Tenev 01:01:24
Our vision is to enable everyone—whether individuals or businesses—to buy, sell, or hold any financial asset or conduct any financial transaction. This means moving from serving just the U.S. market to going global, from only serving retail institutions to serving businesses and institutions.
Harry Stebbings 01:01:51
Dude, I’m so grateful to you. You’ve always been so good to me—thank you for playing along; it’s been a blast.
Vlad Tenev 01:01:59
Always a pleasure—thank you for the invitation.
Harry Stebbings 01:02:01
I’m now looking forward to buying that toilet seat.
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
