20VC: Robinhood Founder Vlad Tenev on His Biggest Lessons Managing Through A Crisis, The Events of The Congressional Committee, Raising $2.4Bn Fast and Why It Was Necessary & Why It Is Ludicrous To Suggest Robinhood Put The Business Ahead of it's Customer

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The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2021

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Vlad Tenev is the Founder & CEO @ Robinhood, the company that provides commission-free investing, plus the tools you need to put your money in motion. To date, Vlad has raised over $5.6BN with Robinhood including a $2.4Bn raise this month and some of their investors include the very best in the business; Ribbit, Sequoia, Greenoaks, Index, IVP, Thrive, GV and more incredible names. Before Robinhood, Vlad started two finance companies in New York City.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Vlad made his way into the world of startups and how the "Occupy Wall St" movement spurned much of the inspiration for the founding moment of Robinhood?

2.) Looking back over the last month, does Vlad believe Robinhood is a victim or an enabler of the crisis? What does Vlad believe upset customers the most? With the benefit of hindsight, what would Vlad have done differently? What does Vlad believe are some of the biggest misconceptions about how the last few weeks played out?

3.) Funding: Why did Robinhood need the scale of funding that it took, so fast? What are the capital requirements for a business like Robinhood? Who regulates their compliance? Was Robinhood forced to put the interests of the business ahead of the interests of their customers? Why does VAR need to be changed as a risk estimation mechanism?

4.) What has Vlad learned as CEO about managing through a crisis? What did Vlad do to ensure morale remained high internally, despite the external events? What works? What does not work? What did Vlad learn about himself through the experience of the congressional committee and testifying before them?

As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbing. So what a timely episode we have in store for you today.
0:04.2	The world has been talking about a little other than Robin Hood and GameStop over the last month.
0:08.3	And so I thought who better to have back on the show than Vlad Tenev found and CEO
0:12.3	Robin Hood? Now, I know Vlad's been on a couple of other podcasts, and so I really went for some
0:16.6	different and quite untouched angles today. And wow, what a show we have in store. But for those that
0:21.4	do not know, Robin Hood provides commission-free investing, plus the tools you need to put your
0:25.6	money in motion. To date, Vlad has raised over $5.6 billion with Robin Hood, including a $2.4 billion
0:31.7	raise just this month. And some of their investors include the likes of Ribbitt, Sequoia, Green Oaks,
0:37.3	Index, IVP, Thrive, GV, and
0:40.1	more incredible names. Before Robin Hood, Vlad started two finance companies in New York City, and we
0:45.3	dive into that founding journey in the show today. But before we dive into the show today,
0:49.2	did you know that more than 80% of US public stock is owned by just 10% of Americans?
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1:07.0	through Carter, whether you're just getting started or getting ready to go public, the team that Carter can help. Check them out at Carter.com. And then another incredible product you
1:15.3	have to introduce is Secureframe. Secureframe helps companies get enterprise ready by streamlining
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1:34.5	and 20 VC listeners get 10% off at secureframe.com forward slash 20VC. And finally, I've always been
1:41.0	a big history fan, and so I want to talk about Culi, the global law firm built around startups and venture capital.
1:46.8	Since forming the very first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Kooleys formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world, with 50 plus years working with VCs.
	...

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