Good morning.
Finance Editor Jeff Roberts here, with some background on a story about Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev that’s out this morning. I’ve covered Tenev for years, as he brought his beloved investing app to the brink of failure, but then found a way to change both the corporate culture and himself. This is a story about how he did it.
I first met Tenev almost a decade ago, after he and fellow Stanford alum Baiju Bhatt came out of nowhere with a buzzy app that made it dramatically easier to buy and sell stocks. Backed by Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists, the duo upended the brokerage industry with commission-free trading–giants like Schwab and Fidelity soon followed–and helped make investing cool among twentysomethings. They grew quickly, going public on Nasdaq in 2021.
You may remember what followed: Robinhood’s IPO quickly proved a bust as stock prices tumbled in late 2021, and shares in HOOD tumbled from $38 to below $7. Meanwhile, many who got burned by the meme-stock craze unfairly accused Tenev and Bhatt of colluding with short sellers. The duo became literal movie villains with Hollywood portraying them as greedy, bumbling party boys in the film Dumb Money.
The pressure resulted in Tenev’s co-founder stepping back from Robinhood, leaving him alone to figure out how to right the ship. In a move few other leaders would emulate, Tenev engaged in a brutal thought exercise: holding quarterly meetings that envisioned him being replaced by a veteran executive like former Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman, who excels at taking over companies in trouble.
“It’s a good way to figure out what things you're holding dear to yourself,” Tenev told me. “Being inconsistent with a prior decision you've made can be interpreted as a sign of weakness. And it's one of those things that someone new doesn't have… Because if you can let go of the need to be consistent with past decisions, and just make the right decision at every point in time, it’s easy stuff.”
Tenev is still CEO of Robinhood (it doesn’t hurt that he and his co-founder hold the majority of voting shares). And the changes he wrought in that difficult period—including painful waves of layoffs—have paid off. The company’s share price has more than tripled since its all-time low, while Robinhood is adding products like credit cards and retirement accounts that put it in a position to compete in the long term with the likes of Fidelity.
Meanwhile, a man who once came across as an entrepreneur created by VC central casting has evolved, too. Now a father of three and approaching 40, he is more reflective and willing to define his company and himself on his terms.
All of this for me is a study in focus and tenacity, and how good leaders are willing to grow and rethink their priorities in the name of making their company stronger. If you want to read more about Tenev’s evolution—along with never-reported details about Robinhood’s unprecedented $3 billion capital call and Tenev’s brush with Sam Bankman-Fried, the full feature is here.
