All Segments
Robinhood CEO: Making Everyone An Owner
15 segments available
Vlad Tenev built Robinhood by breaking every rule Wall Street wrote: zero commissions when competitors charged $10, mobile-first when "serious" investors demanded desktop, a brand that made finance feel like rebellion instead of a club you'd never join. By 2021 they'd forced every major brokerage to slash fees and attracted millions who'd never owned a stock, but then GameStop happened: trading restrictions during the meme stock frenzy triggered congressional hearings, user fury, and a two-year brand crisis that nearly buried them despite the real culprit being antiquated clearing mechanics no one understood. Now Tenev's pushing an even more radical vision—tokenizing private company shares so retail investors can own stakes in AI giants before IPO, turning prediction markets into "truth machines" that beat polls and pundits, and building what he calls the end of financial nihilism: a platform where your seventy-year-old parents and your Gen Z cousin both manage everything from retirement accounts to election bets in one place. The question isn't whether traditional finance survives this; it's whether Robinhood can move fast enough to own the entire wealth transfer before someone else does. Timestamps 0:00 - Introduction 2:53 - Financial Relationships vs. Pinterest Boards: The Higher Bar 4:28 - Building in a Regulatory Catch-22 7:16 - Three Simultaneous Contrarian Bets 12:00 - From Institutional HFT to Retail Revolution 17:21 - January 28th: The Day Trust Died 27:40 - “Simple Lie More Powerful Than Complicated Truth” 29:03 - Tokenization: The Antidote to T+1 Settlement 32:34 - IPO Access: From Asking For Favors to Everyone Wanting In 38:22 - "Series D Was Called an IPO" 43:07 - WTF Happened in 1971? 46:42 - Going Broad While Going Deep 52:27 - The $120 Trillion Wealth Transfer 57:17 - Debunking “Financial Nihilism” 58:45 - “Speculation Is Critical For Functioning Markets” Follow Vlad Tenev on X: https://x.com/vladtenev Follow Alex Rampell on X: https://x.com/arampell Follow Erik Torenberg on X: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: [https://x.com/a16z](https://x.com/a16z) Find a16z on LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z](https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z) Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: [https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX](https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX) Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711) Follow our host: [https://x.com/eriktorenberg](https://x.com/eriktorenberg) Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see [a16z.com/disclosures](http://a16z.com/disclosures).
Segments Timeline
Introduction
"I came out with a statement a couple months ago about how I think prediction markets are truth machines. Like we're constantly being bombarded by all this information and noise. Anyone can be an influ..."
Financial Relationships vs. Pinterest Boards: The Higher Bar
"very few financial services companies number one because having a financial relationship is a lot different than having like a Pinterest board. Nothing against Pinterest, right? or having like a Faceb..."
Building in a Regulatory Catch-22
"fintech as a category didn't really exist. I mean you can look at the Google trends uh and around the time A16Z made their seed investment which I think was 2013 mid 2013 nobody was really talking abo..."
Three Simultaneous Contrarian Bets
"simultaneously challenging things uh that helped make us successful. I think the first thing was we actually had a pretty simple value prop from the very beginning. You know, everyone else was chargin..."
From Institutional HFT to Retail Revolution
"a previous company which was a software firm that provided highfrequency trading software to hedge funds and banks and what we noticed there well well two things one was our customers were trading man..."
January 28th: The Day Trust Died
">> Well, I definitely remember the uh the the GameStop round. I don't know if you have like a name for that round. Um >> uh that was the uh >> fun day of my life round, right? Is that what it was call..."
“Simple Lie More Powerful Than Complicated Truth”
"lessons. A simple lie is much more powerful than a complicated tradition. >> So yeah, the Robin Hood's colluding with hedge funds, right? >> It's very compelling story. It's like, ah, Robin Hood, look..."
Tokenization: The Antidote to T+1 Settlement
"biting me a little bit I guess. >> But it feels like you're getting even now because it's like going back to the whole like it took 5 days to settle a trade then three then two then one. >> Yeah. >> R..."
IPO Access: From Asking For Favors to Everyone Wanting In
"product IPO access and and the idea is pretty simple. IPOs have been dominated by institutional investors since the dawn of time and we're going to just make it so that retail can participate in IPOs ..."
"Series D Was Called an IPO"
">> like 25 years ago or 30 years ago, like the normal like there was no such thing as a series D, >> right? Series D was called an IPO. >> Um, and it's funny, uh, there's a company in our portfolio th..."
WTF Happened in 1971?
"this is one of there's a there's a funny website called uh WTF happened in 1971. This is kind of when you decoupled from the gold standard amongst other things. But wages were kind of stagnant but ass..."
Going Broad While Going Deep
"to-do list. Um, but you can you started off with this kind of narrow thing and then you've built a deeper financial relationship with customers. That's kind of how I thought about it, which is I can n..."
The $120 Trillion Wealth Transfer
"Like who would have guessed two years ago that prediction markets would be our fastest growing business. So you know it's a lot of this is just conversations with me and the GMs and the leadership tea..."
Debunking “Financial Nihilism”
"people sort of like look at this as two different users. Like you have your active traders or nihilists or degenerates and then the folks that are doing respectable things. But in reality um the most ..."
“Speculation Is Critical For Functioning Markets”
"about every new financial asset that gets traded. There was a big debate when futures uh was created as an asset whether people are just speculating here and it's because speculation is just critical ..."