The Exchanges

Q When we look at it there, you started with, like, young first-time traders, added options in crypto, attracted maybe higher risk profiles, Then speculative traders, high volume spec traders, Robinhood Gold and Cash Management led to more. I guess my question is, how do you think about the different customer profile types you serve today, and how's that changed over time in your thinking, given the massive product expansion recently?

A I think that, uh, there's been one big change, which is recently we started thinking about not just the millennial and Gen Z customer, but also the active trader, like the digitally native active trader. And that, that's a very different type of profile. I mean, these are folks that you can almost think of them. They have some similarity with gamers. They've got like the screens, the headphones, the fancy keyboards, and they're just locked in. They're locked into their, to their system. And they have very specific needs. They're like, they need to be at the frontier of technology and innovation. They, they care about speed. They care about latency. And we really had to get into that customer's head to design products like our futures ladder, like Robinhood legend.

AI assessment note: “recently we started thinking about not just the millennial and Gen Z customer, but also”

Q me is I have no ego. And so, I am not afraid to ask very stupid questions. I hang out with Jack Zhang from Airwallex, who, I don't know if you know, but he's fucking brilliant. They're one of the most underappreciated founders. He's very negative on the future of stable coins. Um, how do you see the next three years of stable coins, and would you share his negativity?

A I don't know if I would go that far. Um, there's definitely use cases. I mean, I'll just give you an example. Robinhood uses stable coins. Like for, for our corporate purposes. So we have this use case where We trade a lot of crypto, and that requires settling with counterparties. I mean, if we buy, if our customers buy a bunch of Bitcoin, we have counterparties that we have to send dollars to, and they send us the, the Bitcoin back. And during market hours, Monday through Friday, everything works fine because we can settle intraday. We can wire them dollars, they send us the crypto to our wallets, and, and everything's fine. But what happens on a weekend, right? What happens on a weekend where the banking rails are closed and something's happening in the crypto markets? And we've got retail customers that want to buy billions of dollars of crypto. You have a difficult solution. You have a difficult situation potentially. So because we can't move the money. So what happens is either you have to take counterparty risk, meaning you have to trust that You know, one side will deliver the dollars eventually when they can and send them the crypto ahead of time, which is a tough one because counterparty risk multiplies if you have lots of counterparties, or you have to have lines of credit, right? Lines of credit with your counterparties that are expensive, or you have to pre-fund in …

AI assessment note: “I don't know if I would go that far. Um, there's definitely use cases.”

Q Amazing branding. Can you imagine, like, dollar hood cash trucks?

A Well, yeah, I don't think we want to operate the trucks, but we asked ourselves, what would this look like if this was a mass market product? Okay, not everyone needs an armored truck going to their house, and that's quite expensive, but everyone gets a DoorDash or a Deliveroo like you have here, right? So can we solve the needing to go to an ATM problem for you and just get the cash delivered to you? Either if you're at your house or if you're out somewhere and you need cash. And this has happened to me a lot of, a lot of places. You know, my, my wife gets her hair cut. She wants to pay in cash. And then I have to go look for an ATM. It's, it's annoying. So

AI assessment note: “I don't think we want to operate the trucks”

Q Wow. Why did you decide that versus use off the shelf?

A Um, well, first of all, when we started, the off the shelf companies like Sierra, for instance, they were just getting off the ground. The big companies that we were using were a big Salesforce customer, were, uh, not as developed yet. And, and so we, we built a lot of things. And then, uh, for, for a company like Robinhood, a lot of the complex work is in System integration. So it's getting all of the data to answer customers' queries, and also, uh, we're, we're starting to do actions. Like, based on your query, we need to do some kind of action, and that requires a deep level of integration with our backend systems that I think most vendors haven't really figured out how to do yet.

AI assessment note: “when we started, the off the shelf companies like Sierra, for instance, were just getting off the ground”

Q Are you fearful that regulation will stop that? Because if it works, this could be the biggest line of revenue in your business, no?

A I think, I think it could be big. I would say that in the EU, it's, it's, it's pretty clear. I mean, EU has clear crypto asset regulation in, in the form of MECA. In the US, more work needs to be done for sure. Like, there's two elements to it. Accredited investor laws and also crypto laws, which, which both need to happen in order to, to truly unlock this. And my belief is part of the reason why we're demonstrating this in the EU, aside from just giving our EU customers access to all these amazing products, is that it could show the rest of the world that there's real value here. And you heard the SEC chair, Paul Atkins say, you know, tokenization is an innovation and the SEC has to stop putting up roadblocks and start embracing these innovative technologies. So I, I think we've got support From both sides, in effect, to, to, to improve this.

AI assessment note: “I think, I think it could be big. I would say that in the EU”

Q me is I have no ego. And so, I am not afraid to ask very stupid questions. I hang out with Jack Zhang from Airwallex, who, I don't know if you know, but he's fucking brilliant. They're one of the most underappreciated founders. He's very negative on the future of stable coins. Um, how do you see the next three years of stable coins, and would you share his negativity?

A I don't know if I would go that far. Um, there's definitely use cases. I mean, I'll just give you an example. Robinhood uses stable coins. Like for, for our corporate purposes. So we have this use case where We trade a lot of crypto, and that requires settling with counterparties. I mean, if we buy, if our customers buy a bunch of Bitcoin, we have counterparties that we have to send dollars to, and they send us the, the Bitcoin back. And during market hours, Monday through Friday, everything works fine because we can settle intraday. We can wire them dollars, they send us the crypto to our wallets, and, and everything's fine. But what happens on a weekend, right? What happens on a weekend where the banking rails are closed and something's happening in the crypto markets? And we've got retail customers that want to buy billions of dollars of crypto. You have a difficult solution. You have a difficult situation potentially. So because we can't move the money. So what happens is either you have to take counterparty risk, meaning you have to trust that You know, one side will deliver the dollars eventually when they can and send them the crypto ahead of time, which is a tough one because counterparty risk multiplies if you have lots of counterparties, or you have to have lines of credit, right? Lines of credit with your counterparties that are expensive, or you have to pre-fund in …

AI assessment note: “I don't know if I would go that far. Um, there's definitely use cases.”

Q What one to two things do you need to do to be a hundred billion dollar company?

A I think that we have a couple of different vectors of getting there. I think one of them is being number one in the active trading space, so winning the active trader market. And I think just that is, is a large space. You know, you have Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade, which, ah, the combination is kind of the market leader right now. They've got very little international presence, but they serve active traders pretty well. We've been growing our market share. Options was up 20%, close to 20% last year. Equities up 14%. So we are on the path to being number one, and we're getting net inflows. And that, that's going to require a bunch of things, but, but I think that's kind of our core business, so it's a predictable path. The second opportunity, and the one we're putting more and more focus, focus on, but it's sort of like an arc that'll play out over five plus years, say, that would be being the place where millennials and, and Gen Z, uh, keep the majority of their assets. I think that one is interesting because There's over 70 trillion of assets that's gonna be moving from silent generation and baby boomers down to Gen X, millennials, and younger. And we've got more millennial customers than our main brokerage competitors put together. Same with Gen Z. So, if we can actually build a better service for them and, uh, make it a no-brainer to move their accounts over, then, you…

AI assessment note: “one of them is being number one in the active trading space”

Q I ask you one final one just on market, which is like, when you think about like interest rate changes, volatility, it's a really hard business for you in the way that actually your business can change so much dependent on something completely outside of your control, which is like interest rate changes will drive a mass amount of buying or pull back. Do you just get comfortable with that?

A The best way to, uh, actually compensate for that is diversifying the business. So now Robinhood has eight business lines that generate, uh, a hundred million a year or more in revenue. And that's up from, I think three a few years ago. So we've got eight unique business lines that are nine figures a year. Uh, and some of them benefit from higher rates. Some of them benefit from lower rates. For example, when rates are low, money tends to move from interest on cash and kind of yield products, low risk products, into equities, crypto, and options. When rates are low, margin is more compelling. So you tend to see increases in your margin book, and we're getting more, we've gotten more competitive there. So we've been growing our market share. So I think over time, um, I, I do think Robinhood is, is actually stronger as in a declining interest rate environment than in a rising. But over time, uh, as we continue to diversify the business, I think.

AI assessment note: “The best way to, uh, actually compensate for that is diversifying the business.”

Q Well, I would love to start, say, with a little bit on you, though. So tell me, you know, we look at Robinhood today, and it's this incredible company, but it's all going to start somewhere. So how did you come to make your way into the world of startups, and how did you come to found one of the biggest rocket ships of the last decade with Robinhood?

A Yeah, so let me start with the very beginning. So Beiju and I, Beju Bhatt, my co-founder, and one of my best friends. We met and became friends at Stanford University, where we were both studying physics, and we graduated in 2008, and his first month at a job, my first month at grad school, Lehman Brothers went under, and we had the, uh, the global financial crisis. So as any two enterprising entrepreneurs are often to do, we thought that the middle of the Global financial crisis was a great time to start a financial company. And so we moved to New York, founded a couple of companies in the financial software space. In 2011, uh, realized that, you know, we were transitioning more to software and we really didn't need to be in New York and yearned to go back to California where we could hire more software engineers and where we just generally considered home after, after being at Stanford. And there was the confluence of two events at around that time that were very interesting. One of them was the Occupy Wall Street movement, which when we were in New York, you know, I still remember walking through the cities with the tents and the young people protesting the financial system. And then when we moved to San Francisco in 2011, then our office was on Market Street in Soma. And I remember the Occupy Wall Street tents extending basically from our office all the way down to the ferr…

AI assessment note: “let me start with the very beginning. So Beiju and I, Beju Bhatt, my co-founder”

Q Well, I would love to start, say, with a little bit on you, though. So tell me, you know, we look at Robinhood today, and it's this incredible company, but it's all going to start somewhere. So how did you come to make your way into the world of startups, and how did you come to found one of the biggest rocket ships of the last decade with Robinhood?

A Yeah, so let me start with the very beginning. So Beiju and I, Beju Bhatt, my co-founder, and one of my best friends. We met and became friends at Stanford University, where we were both studying physics, and we graduated in 2008, and his first month at a job, my first month at grad school, Lehman Brothers went under, and we had the, uh, the global financial crisis. So as any two enterprising entrepreneurs are often to do, we thought that the middle of the Global financial crisis was a great time to start a financial company. And so we moved to New York, founded a couple of companies in the financial software space. In 2011, uh, realized that, you know, we were transitioning more to software and we really didn't need to be in New York and yearned to go back to California where we could hire more software engineers and where we just generally considered home after, after being at Stanford. And there was the confluence of two events at around that time that were very interesting. One of them was the Occupy Wall Street movement, which when we were in New York, you know, I still remember walking through the cities with the tents and the young people protesting the financial system. And then when we moved to San Francisco in 2011, then our office was on Market Street in Soma. And I remember the Occupy Wall Street tents extending basically from our office all the way down to the ferr…

AI assessment note: “moved to New York, founded a couple of companies in the financial software space.”

Q Wow. Why did you decide that versus use off the shelf?

A Um, well, first of all, when we started, the off the shelf companies like Sierra, for instance, they were just getting off the ground. The big companies that we were using were a big Salesforce customer, were, uh, not as developed yet. And, and so we, we built a lot of things. And then, uh, for, for a company like Robinhood, a lot of the complex work is in System integration. So it's getting all of the data to answer customers' queries, and also, uh, we're, we're starting to do actions. Like, based on your query, we need to do some kind of action, and that requires a deep level of integration with our backend systems that I think most vendors haven't really figured out how to do yet.

AI assessment note: “when we started, the off the shelf companies... were just getting off the ground.”

Q Why did you decide that was a market that you wanted to go after?

A We were kind of aware of this being a market that was important to us back in even 2019, but we weren't really doing much about it. So we had our, we had our strategy that was, we're going to make an extremely simple to use mobile app with zero commissions. And we were targeting first timers because the thesis was, well, first timers would benefit from this. They like ease of use and Commissions are really a big barrier if you're starting with a hundred dollars. Like that wouldn't have been possible before. And what happened was when we went, we, when we went live, we started getting active traders that were high volume incidentally without actually like going after that customer base. And that was because the value prop of zero commissions was so strong that if you were someone that was You know, paying a thousand dollars a month in commissions, you would do all of the fancy research elsewhere and just do your trading on Robinhood. The value prop was strong, even though it wasn't explicitly designed for that. And so we built an active trader business incidentally without even trying. And we were aware of this. We were like, well, there's a lot of, a lot of our revenue, which is much higher than we anticipated when we modeled this first time investor business is driven by You know, uh, uh, a well-defined kind of circumscribed chunk of our customers, and we ignored that for a wh…

AI assessment note: “it became apparent that we weren't treating this customer base well, and they were even more important”

Q Where do you think AI is not where you would most like it to be?

A I mean, I think that there's still a problem with hallucinations, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done to kind of, like, Scaffold against that. And that's actually one of the things that was the origin for the company that I'm, I'm chairman of, Harmonic. Uh, it's can we design a system that prevents hallucinations by, by design and ensures that every step of the reasoning is logical and follows from, from the previous one. So I, I think that that entails a different approach to Uh, generating AI output. One where every piece of output is checked before it comes out, and there's a very clear measure of correctness. So I think that's going to be an interesting system that will change everything.

AI assessment note: “there's still a problem with hallucinations”

Q Where do you think AI is not where you would most like it to be?

A I mean, I think that there's still a problem with hallucinations, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done to kind of, like, Scaffold against that. And that's actually one of the things that was the origin for the company that I'm, I'm chairman of, Harmonic. Uh, it's can we design a system that prevents hallucinations by, by design and ensures that every step of the reasoning is logical and follows from, from the previous one. So I, I think that that entails a different approach to Uh, generating AI output. One where every piece of output is checked before it comes out, and there's a very clear measure of correctness. So I think that's going to be an interesting system that will change everything.

AI assessment note: “I think that there's still a problem with hallucinations”

Q Sorry, just pause there. Why does inventory matter in the thousands? When you actually look at like trading volumes, and you see the concentration of names that trading volumes go towards, do you need much more than 200?

A I think that you never know what's going to become popular. There's always a long tail and, you know, something happens in a, in a random company, right? And, uh, it's, it's interesting and we don't really want to be in a business of like picking winners and losers and what stocks you want to buy. We, we'd like to keep it simple and just say, generally speaking, if it's, if it's listed and it, I mean, we, we'd like to actually offer it to all listed ones. There have been issues where, unfortunately, you know, sub-dollar stocks are left listed for too long, and some of these have turned into scams, and, and I think that's a problem that we'd like the listing exchanges to deal with. So we, we, we've had to deviate from that to some degree, but ideally if it's, if it's listed and we just turn it on and, and we're good to go.

AI assessment note: “I think that you never know what's going to become popular. There's always a long tail”

Q Amazing branding. Can you imagine, like, dollar hood cash trucks?

A Well, yeah, I don't think we want to operate the trucks, but we asked ourselves, what would this look like if this was a mass market product? Okay, not everyone needs an armored truck going to their house, and that's quite expensive, but everyone gets a DoorDash or a Deliveroo like you have here, right? So can we solve the needing to go to an ATM problem for you and just get the cash delivered to you? Either if you're at your house or if you're out somewhere and you need cash. And this has happened to me a lot of, a lot of places. You know, my, my wife gets her hair cut. She wants to pay in cash. And then I have to go look for an ATM. It's, it's annoying. So

AI assessment note: “Well, yeah, I don't think we want to operate the trucks”

Q You mentioned kind of funding through crypto that one of your investors said, the hard question, depends if you want to go hard, Harry, that one should ask is, why are you not bigger on crypto?

A Well, on retail, uh, in the US, um, we're kind of like close to the same size as Coinbase. We charge a lot less, so we have less revenue. Um, but in terms of volumes and, and retail volumes, It's pretty close, uh, particularly if you look at supported coins. So, you know, even though we started later, we've generally grown market share quite substantially, uh, over time. And, you know, it's expanding internationally, although we were, uh, we've done that more recently. So we've, we've launched crypto in the EU a few months ago. So I, I think that we weren't, uh, originally offering crypto. That was kind of An area we moved into. So we didn't, we didn't launch, uh, at the same time as, you know, some of the original crypto companies, but I think we've been picking up market share and building the product and getting more aggressive over time. We have the Bitstamp acquisition and that's a global company. That's actually one of the OG exchanges. So I think we're going to continue to invest, but I'd say, I'd say we've done quite well in, in crypto relative to most of our competitors.

AI assessment note: “in the US, um, we're kind of like close to the same size as Coinbase.”

Q Do you think you can replicate the service? Like, when you think about nuance, ambiguity, risk profiles, preferences, how they change at different times?

A Well, so I think that, um, there's a couple of different things there. One is, uh, I think the asset allocation algorithm side of it, Taking a risk profile and recommending a portfolio that doesn't actually require AI. And a lot of advisors are, you know, using software to do that. And I think that the real value is kind of in this concierge service. I mean, if you have a wealth manager or a family office, they can kind of like abstract your entire financial life for you. They take care of your budgeting. They take care of your trust in an estate. They take care of your insurance. They help you with any legal things managed well simultaneously. And these are expensive financial professionals. So if you can deliver that type of service to the mass market, to people that don't have, you know, millions of dollars, I think that would be very valuable. And I think AI, you'll see it kind of impacting the space in two ways. One is a tool to existing advisors. I mean, some people aren't going to be comfortable You know, trusting a machine with all of those things, but it can help an advisor serve more clients simultaneously. And then some, some customers will be comfortable with a full technology solution, as long as it does more than just the asset allocation. Um, and so I, I think you will see that in the next couple of years, really, uh, really start taking off and good products. Ha…

AI assessment note: “some customers will be comfortable with a full technology solution”

Q That's a fun board meeting, isn't it? That's a nice draft to give. Yeah.

A I mean, at, at the time it was fun, but it was also a little bit disconcerting because I was like, well, we haven't really done anything. You know, this thing happened, now we're growing, and you, I think if you're not careful, you can like, there's a tendency to think that you're doing a great job as a leader. I mean, revenue's going up, people are using my product, all these other companies that maybe Uh, were hit hard by, by COVID or doing poorly. Does that mean I'm a better chief executive than, than the chief executives of those companies? I think at the time, um, I was getting some positive feedback, but there were things that were breaking that we had to deal with as well. I think what was kind of Not very fulfilling to me. It was, we didn't really ship that many products in 2020 and 20 21. We were just kind of trying to, trying to keep the train on the rails, you know, because we were, we were dealing with infrastructure issues, historic volumes, lots of load, customer support we had to grow.

AI assessment note: “at the time it was fun, but it was also a little bit disconcerting”

Q You mentioned kind of funding through crypto that one of your investors said, the hard question, depends if you want to go hard, Harry, that one should ask is, why are you not bigger on crypto?

A Well, on retail, uh, in the US, um, we're kind of like close to the same size as Coinbase. We charge a lot less, so we have less revenue. Um, but in terms of volumes and, and retail volumes, It's pretty close, uh, particularly if you look at supported coins. So, you know, even though we started later, we've generally grown market share quite substantially, uh, over time. And, you know, it's expanding internationally, although we were, uh, we've done that more recently. So we've, we've launched crypto in the EU a few months ago. So I, I think that we weren't, uh, originally offering crypto. That was kind of An area we moved into. So we didn't, we didn't launch, uh, at the same time as, you know, some of the original crypto companies, but I think we've been picking up market share and building the product and getting more aggressive over time. We have the Bitstamp acquisition and that's a global company. That's actually one of the OG exchanges. So I think we're going to continue to invest, but I'd say, I'd say we've done quite well in, in crypto relative to most of our competitors.

AI assessment note: “in the US, um, we're kind of like close to the same size as Coinbase.”

Q Final one, Vlad. What does the next five years hold for you and for Robin Hood? Paint that picture for me. Now we've got a fresh start. What does the next five years hold?

A Well, I think despite all the growth and all the things we've accomplished, there's still a lot more to do. We're still available only in the United States. I'm disappointed that we can't serve your grandmother in the UK just yet. We'd like to change that. There's also lots more products that people want in their financial lives and already use their, their wallets for. So I think Robinhood can really evolve to be the money button on your phone, just like Truly your mobile wallet. And then I also think, even look at our core business of equities, options, and crypto. There's more to do. Still a little bit under half of households in the U.S. are investing, but we'd really like to think about what does that number look like if it was 95 plus percent? What if 95 plus percent, close to a hundred percent of people are investing? I think you realize that Robinhood's had some impact, but there's a lot more to be done, and it's A huge opportunity.

AI assessment note: “Robinhood can really evolve to be the money button on your phone”

Q I can't remember who it was, but someone asked, did you ever feel in the dumps that it actually wouldn't work?

A That it actually wouldn't work? I guess as a relative question, um, I never really felt like The company was in danger of going bankrupt or anything. I mean, the good thing about twenty-twenty-two is we'd raised six billion in cash in twenty-twenty-one, uh, which, you know, can be a good thing and a bad thing, but we had before you went public. This was after we went, twenty-twenty-two was after we went public. We raised a bunch of cash in the IPO, I think 1.5 to two billion, but also during GameStop, we raised like Four billion. So we had a lot of cash, um, but it was painful, and I did ask myself whether I was, like, the person to, to do this, right? Because I went from, you know, leading a growing startup that went public, and that was a nice capstone. Many people consider going public to be sort of like a end goal in and of itself, and then I was, like, administering a reduction in force and, Leading a turnaround.

AI assessment note: “it was painful, and I did ask myself whether I was, like, the person”

Q Series B? You know, when you look at Harmonic, I mean, I know you announced around, you know, today, um, Iliad did it, Kleiner Perkins did it, you're the chairman. There's a lot of people who would love to buy into that Harmonic token right now if you put it on Robinhood. Does it go that low? How do you think about where the line ends in terms of accessibility?

A It's a great question. My intent would, it would be to go as low as possible. I think that, and it's funny because we're kind of straddling the, um, crypto and the traditional finance side. And if, if you talk to crypto people, crypto people will tell you, well, the future is on chain issuance. What you're doing right now is like not ideal compared to on chain issuance where the equity goes on chain from the very beginning. And what I tell them is nobody gives a shit about on chain issuance. Like the only place where people are even thinking about on chain issuance is like in your head. What people want is capital as a service. Like if you're an entrepreneur, you want capital in your bank account quickly and with as little friction as possible. And, and I think that's where this eventually ends. You should be able to go on Robinhood or maybe other services as well. Maybe upload some information and actually you'll be competing in a marketplace. So there will be pressure, market pressure to make information that's clear and as compelling as possible. You push a button and then money enters your, your bank account and you can get back to running your business. I think that's where it, that that's the logical conclusion. It's capital at all stages. But perhaps the most interesting is the earliest stages. And I think if we succeed in doing this, there'll be more startups. Like, it'…

AI assessment note: “My intent would, it would be to go as low as possible.”

Q Do you worry more about Revolut or Chime?

A I think I'm more impressed by Revolut. You know, Revolut's got product velocity, international scale, uh, strong founder, you know, impressive guy. Um, I don't think we like butt into each other very much, but I, I think, I think it's going to be more. Chime we don't butt into very much either because they're targeting sort of paycheck to paycheck customers. Their customers aren't really investing. So, uh, but, but we'd like to get into there too. We'd like to continue to go down market and eventually serve someone that doesn't have money to invest. I do think that the end state of Robinhood involves the current account as well. Like we, we have to get people's paycheck. It's just easier that way if you can Have everything go through Robin Hood.

AI assessment note: “I think I'm more impressed by Revolut.”

Q Do you worry more about Revolut or Chime?

A I think I'm more impressed by Revolut. You know, Revolut's got product velocity, international scale, uh, strong founder, you know, impressive guy. Um, I don't think we like butt into each other very much, but I, I think, I think it's going to be more. Chime we don't butt into very much either because they're targeting sort of paycheck to paycheck customers. Their customers aren't really investing. So, uh, but, but we'd like to get into there too. We'd like to continue to go down market and eventually serve someone that doesn't have money to invest. I do think that the end state of Robinhood involves the current account as well. Like we, we have to get people's paycheck. It's just easier that way if you can Have everything go through Robin Hood.

AI assessment note: “I think I'm more impressed by Revolut. You know, Revolut's got product velocity”

Q the machine that makes it. You know, Neil at Meters, I think a very dear friend of yours, and he responded when I asked him, I love Vlad, all in caps, naturally made me very happy. He asked very specifically, how did Vlad go from a culture and company that shipped almost nothing, sorry, it was his words, to now shipping at the most extraordinary pace, as specific as possible?

A We were kind of gummed up in, uh, 2020 and 20 21, just, uh, trying to scale. You know, we, we went from end of 20 19, we had 800 employees and we had, uh, maybe 200 or so million in annual revenue. Still a big business, but by the end of 2020, we had, uh, close to a billion in annual revenue. You know, so we, we quadrupled the business roughly. And that was tough because it happened while we were remote. We were dealing with pandemic. We hired all these people. And I think in hindsight, we ingested too many people. It became hard to operate. And, you know, these were new people that didn't know how to work with us. We were all remote. Um, and we had to also scale customer support. This was before AI. So if we quadrupled our customer base, we had to more than quadruple our customer support team because frankly, we weren't even doing a great job with the folks we had back in the day. Um, so it was Making sure we have really, really good talent that involves some cultural changes to reorient the company post COVID, bringing people back into the office so we could onboard better.

AI assessment note: “cultural changes to reorient the company post COVID, bringing people back into the office”

Q What would you have said differently? There was another one of Mickey's, which is like, when you review kind of what you did say, what did you say or not say that you wish you had done the opposite of?

A I think that when I, uh, when I did, uh, I, I did a clubhouse with, uh, Elon Musk on Sunday, it was like, uh, thir, Thursday was when the GameStop trading restrictions, uh, were put, first put into place, and then we were a little bit nervous about sharing all of the details. Part of it, part, part of it was we wanted to make sure we didn't get anything wrong because If we got anything wrong, then we would have to correct it, and that looks bad. That, that, that tends to, uh, I mean, you've got people into all sorts of conspiracy theories, right? And we were, you know, people thought there was this whole collusion narrative with, uh, with Citadel that ended up being disproved, and so we wanted to make sure that we communicated, we communicated everything correctly, and we didn't leave anything out or make any mistakes. That made us communicate a little bit Later than perhaps I would have liked. Um, but it came out in pieces. It was like one detail here, the other details there. And then it was, um, Sunday when I kind of gave the full play by play on a clubhouse, uh, being interviewed by Elon Musk. And of course, uh, in all the lawsuits and litigation that followed all the other details came out over the following several years. But I think in hindsight, maybe like not saying anything until giving the entire story of, of how everything happened, I think would have, would have pr…

AI assessment note: “in hindsight, maybe like not saying anything until giving the entire story”

Q I'm just intrigued, like, is it, Is the investing product a better entry wedge and anchor product than a current account?

A I think both work. I mean, obviously, um, and I think that it kind of depends on what time scale, uh, you, you look at things by, right? I'm kind of reminded of, uh, I, I was reading the, the Amazon book, and, you know, eBay initially was a much larger company than Amazon, and they kind of thought it was very silly that You know, Amazon would build their own fulfillment centers and run their own warehouses. And, you know, if, if you're just kind of a software layer buying, connecting buyers and, and sellers, um, yeah, the perspective was like, that's a much better business, much higher margin. Um, but like Amazon did something that was very hard and very difficult to replicate. And I think it took, I mean, in their case, 20 plus years, but eventually that started compounding. And so you, you can also look at, uh, NVIDIA as an example. I mean, NVIDIA started in the early nineties. It was sort of like the last Silicon Valley company that wasn't really doing software. They were still a hardware company. So it's this strange kind of alien thing. And 30 years later, they kind of started taking off. So sometimes it's difficult to judge these things in the first, Five to 10 years, or in the case of Robin Hood, the first one year.

AI assessment note: “I think both work. I mean, obviously, um, and I think that it kind of depends”

Q Sorry, just pause there. Why does inventory matter in the thousands? When you actually look at like trading volumes, and you see the concentration of names that trading volumes go towards, do you need much more than 200?

A I think that you never know what's going to become popular. There's always a long tail and, you know, something happens in a, in a random company, right? And, uh, it's, it's interesting and we don't really want to be in a business of like picking winners and losers and what stocks you want to buy. We, we'd like to keep it simple and just say, generally speaking, if it's, if it's listed and it, I mean, we, we'd like to actually offer it to all listed ones. There have been issues where, unfortunately, you know, sub-dollar stocks are left listed for too long, and some of these have turned into scams, and, and I think that's a problem that we'd like the listing exchanges to deal with. So we, we, we've had to deviate from that to some degree, but ideally if it's, if it's listed and we just turn it on and, and we're good to go.

AI assessment note: “you never know what's going to become popular. There's always a long tail”

Q Oh god, I hate chalkboards. Remind me of school. Um, what product have you not done that you would most like to do?

A In, uh, financial services. I mean, private markets is one that I've been very excited about. I think we have a plan to, uh, We have a plan to do it. Um, and the time between having an idea and executing on it with, with a new product has decreased quite a bit. I mean, if, if you told me six months ago that I'd be sitting here embroiled in some controversy because I've tokenized private markets and, uh, we, we've been able to deliver that to customers. I would have been surprised, but like the team has been executing Unbelievably well. Uh, I think what we talked about earlier, um, which is still in the future of having this like capital as a service offering, um, if you just press a button and money is deposited in your account, whether it be a, a business account or a, or a personal account, uh, I think, I think that would be quite meaningful.

AI assessment note: “capital as a service offering, um, if you just press a button”