Rick Yang

Everything Rick Yang said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.

20VC Assertion Supported

Rick Yang: Robinhood spent two and a half years building tech before public launch

“This company spent two plus years prior to actually launching to the public of just building, just heads down building. And this was done during a time where Everybody was really adopting that lean startup mentality of like launch first and then build and iter…”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 11:09 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

20VC Assertion Partly supported

Robinhood had an 800,000-person waitlist during its closed beta

“We invested and led the series B and they were still in closed beta at the time, but there were some really Interesting signals at the time, right? They had built this amazing waiting list of over 800,000 people that wanted the product.”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 6:37 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

20VC Disclosure

Rick Yang: NEA calculated $70B in brokerage market cap ripe for disruption

“Because we did have that sort of straight line base case, hey, look, there's seventy billion dollars of market cap that is ripe for disruption, and we see that.”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 7:23 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

20VC Assertion Partly supported

Robinhood spent zero dollars on marketing for years after launching

“There were many, many years from the launch of this company where they didn't spend a dime on marketing and they just kept increasing that account number and engage customers.”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 9:43 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

20VC Assertion Not checkable as stated

Early Robinhood user cohorts achieved 30% to 40% DAU/MAU ratios

“And they were showing, you know, DaoMao in those early cohorts of 30 to 40%, you know, certainly above the benchmark of the average typical consumer app.”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 12:33 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

20VC Assertion Not checkable as stated

Rick Yang: Robinhood founders were natively meme-driven before it became mainstream

“Both Beju and Vlad had it from the very beginning. They understood the consumer. They were part of that piece of consumer culture, and they were very natively meme-driven before it was mainstream and before it was cool, right? And they continue to be.”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 21:27 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

20VC Assertion Supported

Robinhood founders built high-frequency trading software before Occupy Wall Street pivot

“So they had built software for high-frequency trading firms, and you saw sort of this shift in their founding story when they kind of realized that they were part of the problem that was starting to manifest itself at the time with Occupy Wall Street, really t…”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 5:04 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

20VC Assertion Partly supported

Rick Yang: Incumbent brokerages derived only 25% to 33% of revenue from trading fees

“You look at the incumbents and only about a quarter to a third of their top line revenue really came from these trading fees.”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 10:00 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

20VC Assertion Not checkable as stated

Rick Yang: Early Robinhood users consistently increased deposits over time

“And we had already started seeing, even though it was starting from a smaller base than incumbents that yes, like the experience was superior enough that This demographic was still adding funds over time and deposits as they went on.”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 13:01 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

20VC Assertion Supported

Yang: Robinhood was Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt's third venture together

“That's where I first spent time with Vlad, got really excited about what they were building and really hearing the founding story behind him and Beiju coming together for a third time, actually for Robin Hood.”

Rick Yang Jan 28, 2022 ▶ 4:23 20VC: The Robinhood Memo: The Early Metrics That Showed Robinhood was a Breakout Company, The Cost Structure of Robinhood in the Early Days and Why it is a More Efficient Business than eTrade & How Vlad Has Developed as a Leader Over Time with Rick Yang a

The other half of the tape: Rick Yang's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 17 times in 5 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 9David Rogier 7Zach Perret 1

Statements about Rick Yang, by other people (1)

20VC Disclosure

Rick Yang rejected MasterClass's Series A before leading Series B

“Rick Yang, who led our B round and is in a fantastic board member I actually pitched him for the A, and Rick passed.”

David Rogier Apr 26, 2019 ▶ 21:31 20VC: Why Startup Founders Have One Core Job, How To Reduce Risk & Increase Probability In Your Startup & Why You Should Not Send A Pitch Deck Pre-Investor Meeting with David Rogier, Founder & CEO @ Masterclass

Every mention by year

One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Rick's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.

Show	Role there	Eps	Statements	Record
20VCLEDGER	General Partner, NEA	1	10	50% 3/6	full record on 20VC →