ACCESS with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger

Summary

Podcast Summary: ACCESS with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger – Interview with Vlad Tenev (Robinhood CEO)

Podcast: On with Kara Swisher (Vox Media)
Episode: ACCESS with Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger
Date: January 1, 2026
Host: Alex Heath & Ellis Hamburger
Guest: Vlad Tenev (CEO, Robinhood)

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Episode Overview

This episode features a deep-dive conversation with Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood. The key themes revolve around the rise and future of prediction markets, Robinhood’s evolving product strategy, tokenization of assets, the intersection of social and finance, and how Tenev manages highs and lows as a public company CEO. The interview addresses both the implications and controversies surrounding Robinhood’s rapid expansion, especially in making complex financial products accessible to the masses.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Current State of Robinhood (Post-Earnings, Product Roadmap)

• Vlad Tenev shares that post-earnings weeks are “just back to work,” focusing on the product roadmap and the next financial plan ([17:55]).
  • "We spend very little time actually digesting the earnings. I mean, we know them ahead of time. So pretty much that same day we're, we're back to work, working on what's the next product we're shipping." ([17:56])

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2. Prediction Markets: Hype, Mechanics, and Promise

• Concept: Prediction markets as a “new asset class” and “truth machines” ([19:20]).
• The markets provide a real, incentivized mechanism for forecasting outcomes more reliably than polls or opinions.
  • Quote (Vlad Tenev, [19:21]):
    "I've called them truth machines. They're actually a mechanism for discovering truth when you're talking about the future."
• They are especially accurate, sometimes predicting elections faster and more accurately than traditional media ([19:56], [23:54]).
• Incentive Structure: Participants wager real money, leading to less flippancy than poll respondents.
  • Quote (Vlad Tenev, [22:47]):
    "If you're putting money on something, it indicates that you have...you're not being flippant, you're not answering a poll. That's probably the best expression of belief I can come up with."
• Regulatory Environment:
  • Prediction markets on Robinhood are CFTC-regulated, not a "wild west," but there are areas needing clarification compared with classic sportsbook regulation ([25:09]).
  • Quote (Vlad Tenev, [25:09]):
    “It’s not exactly the wild west. I mean these are CFTC federally regulated products. It is a new product. So there’s a lot of questions that I think as an industry we have to figure out...”

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3. Product Strategy: The Financial “Super App”

• Robinhood’s vision is to be both the primary and secondary financial account for users ([26:59]).
  • Integrating products (brokerage, retirement, credit card, now prediction markets) increases user engagement in all areas.
  • Quote (Vlad Tenev, [26:59]):
    "We believe that Robinhood can be the place where all of your assets and all of your dollars are held and we can process all financial transactions."
  • Success with new products increasing overall engagement (retirement accounts, gold card, etc.) ([29:12]).

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4. Controversies: Gamification, Conflicts, & Personalization

• Competitor criticism, especially around combining brokerage and prediction/gambling elements.
  • Robinhood emphasizes that prediction markets are exchanges, not "the house" like a sportsbook ([29:46]).
  • Quote (Vlad Tenev, [29:46]):
    “There’s no house that is incentivized to have customers lose. Right. So that’s sort of the retort to the specific bookie comment.”
• The challenge of personalizing the platform as it grows more complex; working on showing customers only the relevant products ([31:19]).
• External skepticism around "gamification," but Tenev insists they monitor risk and seek to align with users' long-term financial health ([41:04], [42:42]).
  • Robinhood’s incentives align with asset growth — not with users losing money.

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5. Prediction Markets: Beyond Sports

• Rapid growth — recently expanding to non-sports topics (politics, economics, technology) ([32:53]).
• Envisions a future where individuals can hedge personal risks (flood, fire) in real prediction markets, disrupting insurance ([34:34]).

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6. Democratization & Speculation

• Robinhood is criticized for enabling "speculation," but Tenev argues that speculation is essential for markets to function ([37:22]).
  • Emphasizes educative warnings and tools for risk, but careful not to overburden sophisticated traders ([39:00]).

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7. Tokenization of Assets: Global & Technical Barriers

• Why Tokenize?
  • Outside the US, access to US stocks via crypto is easier than through traditional brokers. Tokenization = 24/7 trading, instant settlement, potential for more transparent lending/borrowing ([46:00], [48:31]).
  • Quote (Vlad Tenev, [46:00]):
    “If you get the stocks on the blockchain, you get certain benefits like 24/7, instant settlement, better economics...But the main thing outside the US is access.”
• In the US, the advantage is more incremental, but tokenization could help avoid repeat of “GameStop” situations.
• Resistance from incumbents, but Tenev predicts widespread adoption within two years — more retail access to both IPOs and private markets ([49:36]).

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8. Leadership & Company Culture

• Tenev credits Robinhood’s resilience to experienced GMs and battle-tested teams (GameStop crisis, IPO, crypto market swings, SVB collapse) ([54:11]).
• He manages with over 20 direct reports, few if any regular one-on-ones, focusing on a culture of fast iteration and course-correction ([54:11], [54:45]).

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9. Media & Social: Towards a Financial Social Network

• Robinhood is experimenting with its own embedded hybrid of media/social features — live streaming earnings/events, user Q&As, and the possibility of a finance-first social network ([58:06], [59:13]).
  • Aims to be the “place where ideas are generated and shared...the first place you actually post something interesting that has financial or economic content” ([59:13]).
• Unique advantage: Can verify transactions, avoid fake trading posts, and deepen user trust.
• Joked about possibly being on Elon Musk’s radar for competing with Twitter/X on finance discourse ([60:42]).

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10. Digital Addiction, Engagement, and Founder Fatigue

• Tenev expresses concern about digital addiction despite leading a digital platform ([62:59]).
  • Quote (Vlad Tenev, [62:59]):
    “If I had to think about one personal cause that I really am worried about, it’s just digital addiction. I don’t have all the answers.”
• Finds himself becoming somewhat of a Luddite: “I think it’s unnatural to be in front of a screen for so much of your life.” ([63:12])

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11. Making Earnings Engaging

• Robinhood has made “earnings calls” into media events, live-streamed with interactivity, inspired by NBA postgame interviews ([64:09]).
  • Quote (Vlad Tenev, [65:02]):
    “If they could make it so that an NBA postgame interview is worth watching, we should be able to make earnings worth watching as well.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Cycle of Public Perception:
  "I know, inevitably, I've been through so many of these cycles—there's going to be a time in the future where everyone thinks we're shitheads again...it's always cyclical to some degree, and that's just what we sign up for."
  — Vlad Tenev ([57:11])

• On Risk, Regulation, and Welfare:
  “We actually do a little bit. I mean...when you have a leveraged ETF or...a high risk instrument, we let people know...if something’s like gotten to a point of large volatility...but it’s also a delicate balance.” ([39:00])

• On Tokenization Resistance:
  “You first pitch this with OpenAI and SpaceX, I don’t think they took to it too well. Do you find that you’re still meeting resistance?”
  — Alex Heath ([49:13])

• On Digital Fatigue:
  "I'm becoming more of a Luddite as we keep rolling out more business lines" — Vlad Tenev ([54:48]) "I think it’s unnatural to be in front of a screen for so much of your life." ([63:12])

• On Making Financial Content Fun:
  "If they could make it so that an NBA postgame interview is worth watching, we should be able to make earnings worth watching as well.” ([65:02])

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Important Timestamps for Segments

• Introduction & Post-Earnings Rhythm: [17:45–18:29]
• Why Prediction Markets Matter & “Truth Machines”: [19:20–22:22]
• Accuracy & Incentive Structure of Prediction Markets: [22:30–23:54]
• Regulation vs. “Wild West” Concerns: [24:52–26:10]
• Robinhood’s Product Strategy and Vision: [26:37–29:12]
• Competitors & Criticism: [29:45–31:13]
• Personalized Prediction Markets & Insurance Disruption: [34:34–36:22]
• Democratization, Gamification, and Speculation: [37:22–41:04]
• Tokenization of Assets – Why and How: [46:00–49:36]
• Resistance to Tokenization, Growing Acceptance: [49:36–53:53]
• Leadership, Management Style, Resilience: [54:11–55:36]
• Media/Social Platform Ambitions: [58:06–61:55]
• Digital Addiction & Founder Perspective: [62:59–63:44]
• Making Earnings Entertaining: [64:02–66:58]
• Parting remarks: [67:02-end]

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Episode Tone & Style

• The hosts keep the conversation fast-paced, informed, and often irreverent; they mix sharp questions with casual banter.
• Vlad Tenev is candid, reflecting both ambition and self-awareness, with frequent references to the cyclical nature of tech/business perception.
• The episode is informative for anyone interested in fintech, the future of financial markets, and how tech CEOs steer growth and controversy.

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Summary prepared for listeners who want the heart of the episode, major themes, strategic insights, and the voices of its key participants.

Transcript

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[Kara Swisher]

Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is on with Kara Swisher. And I'm Kara Swisher. Happy New Year. We're off for the holiday, but we still got something special for you today. We're bringing you an episode of Access, another great Vox Media podcast. It's hosted by Alex Heath and Ellis Hamburger and it features conversations with Silicon Valley's most influential leaders. On this episode, they're talking To Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev about the rise of prediction markets, his priorities as a CEO and more. Alex and Ellis always ask smart questions, so don't go anywhere.

[Vlad Tenev]

We have to remind ourselves to not get complacent. I try to remind our employees of that as well. And I'm saying it to the employees as much as I'm saying it to myself. Right. Like I know, inevitably I've been through so many of these cycles. There's going to be a time in the future where everyone thinks we're shitheads again, hopefully less acute than times before. And generally I believe the trend will be up. But you know, it's always cyclical to some degree. And that's just what we sign up for.

[Alex Heath]

It's access, part of the Vox Media podcast network. We're back, baby. From San Francisco day trip. Feeling fresh, feeling alive. At least I think I am. Maybe more so than you. Ellis. Ellis. Hamburger. What's up?

[Ellis Hamburger]

Yeah, I'm not quite as well practiced as you are yet, Alex, with the like go to three Facebook events in one week. Yeah, all three separate day trips. This was my first San Francisco day trip. It was fun. I liked it.

[Alex Heath]

It wasn't a day trip. You spent the night with your brother.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Yes, technically, but it was like 24 hours. I guess I would say that's. That's a day I need. We established I need a cooler suitcase.

[Alex Heath]

Yes.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Since toting around a 10 year old travel pro suitcase is like no remova. I think as you said, Ellis, at least get in away suitcase. And I think you were, you were 100% right about that. If anyone is listening. Forming my Christmas list. Yeah, hint, hint.

[Alex Heath]

It was great. We. We had some good partner meetings and then we did our first live show with the fine folks at Google Ventures. That interview is going to air next week. That was great. What did you. What did you think of the first live pod experience?

[Ellis Hamburger]

It. It was fun. I mean, I'm not much of a stool guy. I don't love to sit on stools. I don't know, I don't want to do like The Donald Trump Jr. Like hyper straight sitting on the stool posture. But I also don't want to slouch. You know what I'm saying? I was also holding my daylight tablet, which was misbehaving a little bit and I could not get Android to increase the size of the font on the screen. So. You're right, Alex. I was squinting at that a little bit. Yeah, but I thought it went well. I mean, it was a good vibe. Our guest, Winston Weinberg of Harvey, which for the life of me, I cannot remember that name, was a lovely guest. And, yeah, I guess we'll see how the audio and video look and sound. First time we've done that thing live.

[Alex Heath]

Yeah. AI for lawyers. I appreciated his candidness on things that CEOs normally dodge. Uh, I don't want to spoil too much, but I thought it was a pretty good convo. And you know what? We got like three or four Google digs in at a Google Ventures event, and they loved it. So I say that's a win, win.

[Ellis Hamburger]

I think we scared some of the Google Ventures folks a little bit with our first question about the worst advice Google Ventures ever gave you. But we. We brought it back around and they loved us by the end of it.

[Alex Heath]

Yeah. I think for me, what it showed is that we should do live more often. Like, I think when you and I are together, it's just way easier to pick up on little things and interject. And some most fun moments are when you can just react in the moment, you know, and it's just so much harder virtually.

[Ellis Hamburger]

It is. I mean, with virtual, all I've got is like, are you marginally opening your mouth to indicate that you may want to speak? That's all I've got in terms of body language.

[Alex Heath]

We've got Vlad Tenev, the CEO of Robinhood, on the show coming up very soon. Very excited about that, to discuss a lot with him. But there's some other news in your world this week, right?

[Ellis Hamburger]

Yeah. Had a big launch for a company I'm advising and have been helping since they were an itty bitty baby startup a couple years ago. They were actually one of my very first clients at meaning back when they were called M1. And they've been building in stealth, which isn't quite as common these days. But the reason for that is because they've been evolving the product from something similar to maybe what Granola and some of the other note takers were offering a couple years ago to being very vertical, specific, kind of in the way that, like Harvey, as we talk about on that next episode, is building for lawyers. I think we're starting to see that creating the right interface for different audiences takes something from being a rapper, which, as you say on the show, is like, used to be a derogatory thing, to actually being a potential smash hit. And so essentially what beside is. Is it's kind of like they rebuilt the phone and the Messages app with a new phone number for you, for people who Work on their phones all day. Like, as they wrote on their blog, there are like a hundred million Americans, like real estate agents, contractors, plumbers, truck dispatchers, who like, work on their phone. Like, phone phone, not journalists. FaceTime audio.

[Alex Heath]

I'm on calls.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Yeah, journalists as well. And yet they can answer less than half of the calls that they get just because they're working all day.

[Alex Heath]

I have too many sources calling me, Ellis. I can't. I can't answer at all.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like a combination of an AI receptionist with an AI note taker that deeply gets to know you and apparently it's taken off. Yeah, they just raised $32 million. And so, yeah, I'm excited to have Maxine, the CEO, on the pod in a few weeks. Yeah, I think my favorite thing about their launch today though is they did like fashion photoshoot with like, less glamorous users. I guess I would say, like in tech. I mean, we just got back from San Francisco and like every single billboard is for like your chief people officer. Yeah, like how about the grandma who runs the winery or the, you know, Joe the plumber or someone who does insurance or something like that? Like, these are people who probably need the tech more than we do to increase our to do list efficiency by 8%. People who, like, can't stand the busy work that they have to do all day, every day. And so, yeah, I like that they're trying to build for a different customer than the average.

[Alex Heath]

Yeah, I saw your tweet. What is grandma centric design?

[Ellis Hamburger]

I just like the idea that everybody in tech always talks about user centered design, but the user is usually like a designer in San Francisco that they're designing for. See, I'm bullish on grandma centered design. I actually think AI is like absolutely perfect for this. Like, grandma doesn't know how to vibe code, nap or even what that means, let alone create her own receptionist for like her, her small business. But with this software, you can essentially tell the AI how you want to answer the phone, what questions you want it to ask, have it input it all into a document or a form for you, and then it's done. It's like, is that not the dream of like natural language programming or coding and for an audience that, like I said, probably needs it more than we do.

[Alex Heath]

Yeah, it is funny, when you go to SF, we're at shack 15, which is this new buzzy kind of co working space in the Ferry Building where GV was having the, the live pod taping. And man, the Stuff you just overhear in there. It's like, yeah, this is such a bubble, you know, like you. I was walking to the bathroom and it was multiple people talking about their VC funds. Like you'll walk by all day. Oversubscribed. The rounds full like, you know, just like things that would feel Mimi or like something on a TV show if you were outside of San Francisco, but are just so normal. And I like leaving and coming back. I am going back tomorrow for another AI conference, Cerebral Valley. Shout Out Eric Newcomer. It's a great AI conference, but I like leaving, leaving and going because it gives me a little bit of a outsider's perspective. Even though I'm there a ton and I still am routinely like, I can't believe this is actually this place. I mean, maybe this is how San Franciscans feel when they come to LA and they go to a coffee shop and it's people talking about their script or something. Right. Like every city has this microcosm. But just the opposite of GCD is what we experienced at, at the Ferry Building, I think.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Yeah, I mean, if you're into this stuff, it's pretty fun, right? Like, I remember my first trip as a reporter to San Francisco and I went to this coffee shop called the Mill. And there's Mike Krieger, like the co creator of Instagram, just like doing something on his laptop. And you know, to us those kinds of people are celebrities. Right. And then on the plane ride back today, I'm on the plane with Aziz Ansari and Queens of the Stone Age.

[Alex Heath]

Are you serious?

[Ellis Hamburger]

On the. Yeah, so I guess I got a. I got a bit of. Yeah, yeah. We make an eye contact a couple times. Shout out Aziz.

[Alex Heath]

Did you get him to subscribe?

[Ellis Hamburger]

Oh, I played it cool. I played it cool. So what are you going to tomorrow worth going to San Francisco twice in one week?

[Alex Heath]

Yeah, I mean it will have been over by the time this comes out. But Eric Newcomer, who does a great newsletter on Substack Newcomer and podcast, does this Cerebral Valley AI Summit every year. This is like the third year I've gone every year, I think. And he has a bunch of great AI founders, investors all get together for a big pow wow and there's a bunch of like networking and it's a really good for me just temperature check on the state of the industry. It's fun to look back at each year when I do my recap to see how the conversation shifted. Like, I think the last time I went, everyone was paranoid about the scaling laws and has AI hit its Limits. You know, this was, I think, you know, this was way before GPT5, but it was like, are we going to keep getting gains out of training? And you know, because it's also like a bunch of researchers are there and so it's always fun. I'll be curious to see what the temperature is. I imagine it's going to be a lot of AI bubble stuff this time, but yeah, I'm going to go back for that. And I mean, lord willing, right? I tweeted this the day we left for sf. Protect Flighty at all costs. It actually went pretty viral because, you know, the flights are. Flights are rough right now and if you are not a flighty user, they are not sponsoring us. But shout out Flighty. It is a great app for tracking your flights. It actually saved me from being stuck on the tarmac until about 3am last night. So move my flight up because of the tarmac tracker it's got. So that's a great app.

[Vlad Tenev]

Really great.

[Ellis Hamburger]

How many hashtag sources are you hoping to come out of this event with? Do you have like a quota for each event you go to?

[Alex Heath]

No, I'm going to see existing sources. I always make new ones. You know, I really think pounding the pavement, so to speak, is. The returns are very hard to quantify in the near term, but very real in the long term. It's almost impossible for me to point to the impact of all of this in real life networking that I have always made a concerted effort to do, like the impact of it on my career, but it's been immense. I mean, it's obviously easier when you don't have kiddos, but. And your flights make it on time, so we'll see. But for now I'm going to do it as long as I don't keep getting sick.

[Ellis Hamburger]

So what does one say? I would love to add you as a source on Signal.

[Alex Heath]

Like where you.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Where do you add someone these days?

[Alex Heath]

Yeah, I mean, signal is where it gets real. Sometimes the best source is. You never have that conversation. It's just a natural thing. It's like falling in love, you know, it's like falling in source.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Sure, yeah. Can you give us a pickup line for making a new source?

[Alex Heath]

I usually lead with like something I've heard. It's not a line, but I lead with like a little gossip to try to stir the pot, you know, you can't just be a taker, you got to be a giver.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Yeah, that's actually interesting. That reminds me back when I feel like back when I was at Snap. Sometimes you would say something to me like oh, I heard blank. And you wouldn't even ask me a question. But what am I going to do? Just sit there and then I just start talking? Not that I shared anything. No, you didn't exactly what you were doing. Yeah, but it is a good strategy because no one wants to like be awkward when someone says something and they share something interesting and like, it makes you want to say something back.

[Alex Heath]

So sometimes the best question is not a question at all. Perfect.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Okay, well, let's ask Vlad some questions. Shall we kick it to Vlad?

[Alex Heath]

Yeah, let's kick it to Vlad.

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[Vlad Tenev]

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[Alex Heath]

Vlad, good to see you. What's a post earnings week like for you? I'm curious, especially lately it's only Tuesday when we're recording this, but what's it been like?

[Vlad Tenev]

It's just back to work, I think. We spend very little time actually digesting the earnings. I mean, we know them ahead of time. So pretty much that same day we're, we're back to work, working on what's the next product we're shipping, you know, now, now we're towards the end of the year, so we're finalizing the product roadmap and the financial plan for next year. So back to business, you know, and we've got a product event coming up in early December, just in a couple of weeks. So kicking that's starting to kick into high gear.

[Alex Heath]

I think where we'd like to start, though is prediction markets, because it's something that everyone's talking about. I think a lot of people are starting to experience it for the first time through the context of sports betting. But elections. I was@kalshee HQ in New York with Tarek last week for the New York Merrill race, watching them, the dashboards kind of live and seeing how that was playing out on prediction markets. It was really interesting to see how early everything was getting called and how definitively it was getting called before traditional media. And I know you have a lot of thoughts about prediction markets and how they relate to the future of media. But for people who are new to this idea of prediction markets, can you just kind of take a step back and help us understand why you think the world needs this? Why this is a, I've heard you call it a new asset class, is that right?

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah, it's, it's definitely a new asset class. They're also, I, I've called them truth machines. They're. They're actually a mechanism for discovering truth when you're talking about the future. And, and what I mean by that is it's not. There's all sorts of times where we want to know what the likelihood of something happening is. Presidential election, probably the best example. What's the likelihood that, you know, Trump or Harris would have won the election? The New York City mayor was a recent one. What's the likelihood that, you know, AI will achieve superhuman Performance. We have all these questions and, you know, this is a mechanism where it's not a guess, it's not a poll, but it's a real price set by market actors with real skin in the game. And as you've pointed out, they've turned out to be pretty remarkably accurate, especially when compared against alternatives, which are just opinions or polls. And I think the reason this is needed is there's so much information out there right now. I mean, it's easy to create content and to share one's opinion on the Internet. Social media has enabled that at large scale. And you're just flooded with content, flooded with opinions. And it's become much more difficult to actually sort out what's reliable and what's not. Back, you know, 30 to 40 years ago, you used to have Walter Cronkite in the CBS Evening News, and you basically knew that if Walter Cronkite was telling you something, that not only should you believe it, but everyone else around you was probably watching it and would believe it as well. And now that sort of like uniformity of shared belief and opinion is gone. And I think prediction markets are a digital and financial answer to that. It's kind of like social media and financial markets coming together to give you really reliable forecasts about the future. I think as a trading product, it's interesting because a lot of people talk about, you know, it as a trading product and you get these questions about, well, is it just gambling? Is it trading? But what you have is the traders are actually creating the information, and the information is digestible by a much wider audience. So actually, the vast majority of the people that are touched by prediction markets are those that just want the information. And the folks that are trading and generating that information and doing the work are a minority of the participants. And I think that's what makes it super interesting because, you know, the traders are actually creating this ecosystem which has much broader mass market value and appeal.

[Alex Heath]

I want to know what else thinks about this. I have, I have a lot of things that I love about the idea of prediction markets and some questions, but. Ellis, what do you make of this?

[Ellis Hamburger]

I have a lot of questions, but first, I'm just so fascinated in this idea of accuracy. Why, why would they be accurate? I realize the incentives are there, but why are they accurate, would you say, if they're kind of taking the temperature of what people think?

[Vlad Tenev]

Well, it's, it's, it's empirically demonstrated. I think there have been studies put out there that, you know, the accuracy is quite high. Even one month before the event closing date. So obviously as you get closer, the accuracy typically improves. But what surprised me was I saw some numbers that, you know, 90% of the time they get it right. Even if you look one month before the closing of the event, which, which frankly surprised me, the degree to which they're accurate. I think that they're accurate for many reasons. Probably the most important of which is people are actually putting money on, onto, you know, the, the informed decision and the trade. And so if you're putting money on something, it indicates that you have, you don't just care about it, you're not being flippant, you're not answering a poll. But that's probably the best expression of belief that I can come up with.

[Alex Heath]

At least my skepticist hat is that I don't know who's on the other side of the trade. If I could see who was making all of these bets, I think I would trust it more. I mean, I trust the results. I mean, you're right, the majority of what I've seen, especially in the context of elections, is they do call it really early. I mean, I remember at Kalshi when I showed up, there was a CBS crew there and they had just called a race and then Kalshee had called it like an hour before. And that's pretty common. And so, you know, you see the results. But at the same time, just my journalist hat is, am I getting like fleeced here somehow? Like is there someone making money on this other side that has information that I don't? Because this does feel relatively unregulated. Right? There's not like SEC oversight, is there, of insider trading or even a concept of insider trading? Because like as a journalist I sometimes get non public material information or report it about companies. Right. Like what is the next Gemini model coming? Right. There could be a prediction market for that. If I get it confirmed and I report it, I can make a lot of money theoretically. I haven't looked into this, I haven't done it, I'm not saying I would, but I'm just saying it feels like this is a wild west that doesn't have any regulation. And I'm wondering how you feel about that.

[Vlad Tenev]

Well, it's not, it's not exactly the wild west. I mean these are CFTC federally regulated products. It is a new product. So there's a lot of questions that I think as an industry we have to figure out. But you know, it's more often compared to Sportsbook on the sports side. And I Wouldn't say that the sportsbooks have it exactly figured out either. And there's a lot of advantages to it being brought into a federally regulated realm because, you know, we, we have the machinery to do market surveillance, to do transaction monitoring. I mean, there's lots of stuff that you have to do when you're monitoring securities transactions. There's pipelines for reporting. So in, in my opinion, the best companies that are set up to do this are financial services companies that or the stakes are so high that they've, we've had to build machinery to monitor transactions and to look out for market integrity over many decades.

[Ellis Hamburger]

I was looking through your app store screenshots and I believe that the prediction markets for some sports betting is like the very first screenshot at this point. How do you kind of prioritize the product development internally, you know, between something like this and then you've also got these products for like working on your, you know, IRA or something like that. How do you focus your internal team on where things are heading? So those feel like two pretty different things.

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah, I mean, those are under sort of separate teams. So it's, it's not, it's not an exact trade off. I mean, we have to worry about prioritization and trade offs on a business level. And that's what I spend a lot of my time thinking about or just.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Even like the vision for the company. Those two, those feel like different paths conventionally, I would say.

[Vlad Tenev]

Well, the vision for the company is to become your financial super app. And what we mean by that is, you know, for a long time Robinhood was people's secondary financial account. Right. But so I would say it probably does fit into the secondary financial account vision. But we don't want to just be your secondary financial account. We want to be your primary and secondary. So we believe that Robinhood can be the place where all of your assets and all of your dollars are held and we can process all financial transactions. And what we've seen is that as we add new products, a lot of times engagement and usage of our existing products increases. So when we launched retirement, for example, there's a big question internally about whether retirement was going to cannibalize our trading business. And the argument makes some sense theoretically. Right. Some people have a certain amount of money. If you believe that, you know, that money's going into Robinhood and maybe before it was going into the individual brokerage account, now if half of it goes into the retirement account, maybe we would end up hurting ourselves because it would now be going to a place where we would monetize it less. But actually that didn't end up happening. And what we saw was that the folks that were using retirement actually increased their activity in their individual brokerage accounts. They used us more because it started clicking in their heads that this is now my financial account, right? I do all of my finances here. We saw a similar effect with the credit card. When someone became a primary Gold Card user with. With a credit card, we saw a positive impact to brokerage. And again, same reason I'm a Gold member. I'm doing everything with Robin Hood. Let me look around and see if my Gold membership actually gets me any other benefits. And if those other products are good, I'll give Robin Hood a fair shake and probably first shot at my business.

[Ellis Hamburger]

I think when you've spent as long as and as much time as you have on trying to build trust, as you built all these things over time, I think it makes a lot of sense that that aggregate value would be increased. The customer's consideration for each new product would be higher than it would have been had it would have been a separate app. But I saw an ad today in the Wall Street Journal that said, if you're looking for a broker that's not also your bookie, we invite you to try public a different perspective on maybe some of the conflicts from the producer and of this product point of view.

[Alex Heath]

Do you have a.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Do you have any response to that?

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah, that's a funny one. One of the differences between traditional sports betting and prediction markets is that the trades are happening on an exchange with buyers and sellers. And so there's no house that is incentivized to have customers lose. Right. So that's sort of the retort to the specific bookie comment. The other thing is a lot of these brokers, you have to understand there's a competitive marketplace here and not everyone can match our product velocity and how we serve our customers. And obviously the business has been going very well, not just prediction markets. But you know, last quarter we had record net deposits into the platform. Retirement accounts have just been on a huge influx of assets. 25 billion plus gold card had half a million plus card holders.

[Alex Heath]

So.

[Vlad Tenev]

So the ecosystem as a whole is very, very strong now. Prediction markets are the fastest growing business we've ever had. And I think we've seen these criticism before. But what's happening under the hood is our competitors are working as hard as possible to like replicate this. I mean, I think that company was making a lot of hay about how company, how you know, retail shouldn't be trading options and they were kind of against it. And then of course until they launched.

[Ellis Hamburger]

It, until they launched options trading and classic comms tactic.

[Vlad Tenev]

And now they're, now they're incentivizing another incentivizing by, by giving, giving you contract rebates and things like that. So I think this is just, people have their interests. If I was in their position, I probably try to have some kind of media strategy that stems the tide and prevents them from losing customers. And I do think there's a legitimate, like some customers just don't like to see it and some customers don't like all the products we offer. So there's a legitimate challenge that we have as we add more products. How do we make the experience cohesive and how do we make sure that we only show to customers what they want to see? And I think that's going to push us towards solving some really interesting challenges with, you know, personalization and machine learning and making sure that actually your Robinhood experience is what you want it to be. And we're giving you the products that you know you're most suitable for and that you want to engage with. And I think we're in the early days of that. There's, there's a lot more to do there.

[Alex Heath]

I think. On the last earnings you said that the prediction business in October was bigger for you all than the whole last.

[Vlad Tenev]

Quarter combined and have been doubling quarter over quarter.

[Alex Heath]

So what is, what is driving this? Is it, is it mostly sports? Is it, is this just speed running all the sports betting companies or what is it really fundamentally?

[Vlad Tenev]

I mean sports is, is a big chunk of it for sure, but we're also seeing engagement across in non sports categories. For a while our prediction markets business was like sports only. And we recently started rolling out to other categories like economics, technology, politics. Now we have over a thousand contracts and one of the things we believe is that the non sports landscape is going to evolve very, very rapidly and there's really interesting things that you'll be able to do that haven't been built yet. But yeah, sport sports has been a huge driver. Also anytime we roll out a new product, it takes time for customers to understand it. A lot of people have never heard of prediction markets. It's a little bit more technical and arcane and you know, the dynamics are different than what they're used to with traditional sports books. So as, as they become familiar with it, as there's more events that they hear about, as we get a little bit better at incorporating it and integrating it into the product experience, which I think there's a lot of room for us to improve even further. We see growth, so. And I think there's tailwinds as well. I don't think that there's so many ways we can continue to improve it and make it more useful and better.

[Alex Heath]

Look at you. You're a veteran public CEO already. Tailwinds. You got all the verse.

[Vlad Tenev]

I love the word tailwinds, actually. That's a. I think I picked that up from my cfo. It's like, it's a romantic. It's like you're a sailor out at sea, you know?

[Alex Heath]

Yeah.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Any particular contracts you hope to see personally in the near future?

[Vlad Tenev]

I'm really interested in contracts that are more personalized. And what I mean by that is not that, you know, you'll be trading a contract on Alex's status or whatnot, but really that, you know, let's say you were concerned about flood or fire risk in your primary residence. I mean, maybe you submit some information about yourself to a transparent market and you get a real time price for market makers. And I think you can imagine that that could be disruptive to the insurance industry. Right. Like, there's no reason why I have to pick up the phone and, you know, have these giant companies pricing my risk in a opaque way when, you know, the entire financial market with all of its liquidity and everyone plugged in, can. Can kind of do that.

[Alex Heath]

I mean, regulators are going to come crashing in on this if it gets to that level, don't you think?

[Vlad Tenev]

Well, I think you already see it with weather contracts, precipitation. You have it sort of in a generalized sense. There's fire contracts, wildlife. That's the whole purpose. That's how this industry started. Right. Is people hedging their risk. Now, why does it have to be only available to farmers and people running large institutions when individuals would like to have certain risks that they're legally required to hedge in some cases. And so, yeah, not to say that there's not going to be stakeholders that are going to fight prediction markets. You're already seeing it, but I think the power and the efficiency is just undeniable.

[Alex Heath]

What you were saying about farmers and hedge funds and stuff having access to this already made me think about. I wonder if this is something you have felt leading the company is you often get criticized, I think, for, you know, quote unquote gamification or bringing these things to the masses that potentially have negative externalities or could get people, you know, down a bad path if they get too levered or whatever. And then frequently I, I think the other side of it that I hear from you and others is also, well, look like this, this was already available, but it was for a select few. And so kind of, it seems like the mission you've had since the beginning is democratizing. I mean, I know that's been, that was the thing that you would say, but like the prediction market's idea is I think taking what, yeah, farmers, hedge funds, what they already do and bring it to everyone. And that is disruption in the classic sense and it has positives and negatives to it. No, I mean, I'm sure you're also thinking about like, yeah, there are going to be unforeseen externalities of this at scale. Right?

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah. And by the way, there's no leverage in, in our prediction markets currently. So they're, they're, they're fully cash collateralized. It's a long standing criticism of every financial market that they're speculators. But I think, I mean when you look about, when you look at the futures markets, when they became accessible to retail several decades ago, it was the same thing. You know, people were trading grain and oil and orange juice futures and pork bellies and you know, there, there were speculators in there and a lot of people had concerns about that. Every financial market had speculation. But I think the thing most people don't understand is speculation is actually an important part about, it's necessary for the functioning of these markets. You can't just have people hedging, you can't just have arbitrage. Even if you read the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, you know, one of the seminal books of value investing, he talks about how speculation is actually integral to the proper functioning. So I don't think we can get rid of it now. I don't think everyone should be speculating and certainly not with a huge chunk of their capital. But you know, we believe in markets and so I think this activity is actually crucial to the proper functioning of, of all of the markets.

[Alex Heath]

Would you ever bake that idea into the products where Robinhood says, hey, like you can do this, but just FYI, you're about to put 40% of your portfolio in something that's a little YOLO. Like are. Could you guide people more that way?

[Vlad Tenev]

We, we actually do a little bit. I mean, for example, when you have a leveraged ETF or you know, a similar high risk instrument, we let people know, you know, this is something that's, that's leveraged. It's not for long term holding. We also, you know, indicate if something's like gotten to a point of, of large volatility. Like we, we give those little alerts if a company is bankrupt, you know, or has filed bankruptcy. So there's examples where we definitely let customers know. I think it's also a delicate balance because if you're an active trader and you know what you're doing, we don't want to put so many frictions in your way because then you'll just get annoyed and start, you know, using the products of, of our competitors that don't do those things. You know, the state of Massachusetts was like historically very protectionist about this stuff. So I, I don't know if you guys remember. There's a story about how they banned their citizens from participating in the Apple IPO in the 80s. You know, I don't remember this time. It was like, oh, this is risky. Most people shouldn't be. And I think in general it was from a good place. But then imagine multiple decades later, this is like an example of, it's sort of a negative example of nanny statism gone, gone completely wrong. I mean, you've prevented people from like exercising their point of view and in hindsight making a lot of money.

[Alex Heath]

Yeah, I think that's true.

[Ellis Hamburger]

But I also feel like there's a big difference between like an outright ban and like those commercials you see on TV that say we're going to give you $500 for free if you bet five that know that when someone shows up, they're probably going to lose it because that's the only way that they can make that offer. You know, how do you think about that stuff when you see it on TV or maybe even when PMs come to you with ideas that, you know would work but might feel a little icky.

[Vlad Tenev]

I think we're generally pretty conservative about, about those things. I mean, obviously there's, there's always a gray area where there's discussions, but we benefit. I mean, if you look at Robinhood as a business, our revenue scales with assets under custody. And so the healthy customer relationship for us is someone whose account balance monotonically increases over time. So, you know, it does, it doesn't bother us if you're allocating some of your portfolio and you're trading options, you're trading futures, you're trading prediction markets. But we're actually quite aligned with our users in the sense that like we, we benefit as their account balances grow and their relationship deepens with us. And that's kind of how we've been successful. If you look at asset growth on the platform over time, it's not a churn and burn business where people put money in and then their account goes to zero. Like this is a, a compounding asset business.

[Ellis Hamburger]

I'm just, I'm a product person. I'm just so fascinated by, you know, this kind of conceptual idea that maybe you bring some money into a product and there's two buttons there. One is to put it in retirement and one is to put it on the packers. You know, if times are ever tough, you could see a world where someone comes and says, hey, let's make the packers button a little shinier or a little bigger or make it number one in the rankings. And that's what I think brings some interesting decisions, being a platform that includes both. So, yeah, your job is not an easy one.

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah. And I think that historically it's been very difficult for a regulated business to.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Actually.

[Vlad Tenev]

Make recommendations at that level. Right. Because the areas where you could make recommendations are pretty circumscribed. You know, there are all kinds of things govern making a recommendation to open a new account or how much money you should invest in a certain thing. And our solution to that is not to get away from it. We make recommendations, but they have to be in specific areas where we make it clear that, yeah, we're, we're telling you we have a fiduciary duty. We think that, you know, you should invest in this.

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[Alex Heath]

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[Podcast Sponsor Announcer]

I'm a little skeptical about how he's.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Gonna get everything done.

[Vlad Tenev]

I think that's what a lot of people are promised, so many things. Yeah, okay, free buses, you know, housing and all that. Promises, promises.

[Today Explained Narrator]

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[Alex Heath]

Another thing I know you're thinking a lot about is tokenization. And, and I know this is a big priority. You've tokenized, quote, unquote, a lot of companies so far. You want to do more. As someone who is even versed in these topics, it's a little heady for me to understand why the world needs this. And I know crypto is a big thing for Robinhood. It's a huge business. This has synergy with that. But explain it to me like I'm a middle schooler. Why in the world are you trying to tokenize companies?

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah. On public companies outside the U.S. it's quite difficult to get access to public companies. A lot of people don't have a traditional broker that's available in their country, but they do have crypto firms. So crypto firms have become the gateway to get access to US dollars. I think in the same way tokenized stocks will become the gateway to US assets. There might not be a local broker that is low cost, but if you get the stocks on the blockchain, you get certain benefits like 24 7, instant settlement, better economics on stock, loan and borrow. But the main thing outside the US is actually just access. Now within the US it's a little bit more incremental. And so I think adoption will be slower. I think this will be. I think tokenization of public stocks will be an ex US phenomenon first, as we've demonstrated. I mean, we've gone live with it. Ex us, right. But in the US it's a little bit more incremental. You're going from 24. 5 trading, which we offer, to 24 7, you've got instant settlement, which means that a GameStop situation can never happen again. So that's, that's a, that's a nice benefit for me, maybe less so for, for most people I think stock, loan and borrow could be disrupted. It's a very opaque lending and borrowing market for shares that I think could be improved. And you have some benefits of portability and self custody which, and this is maybe slightly contra interest to say, but you can make it so that your stocks can just easily leave your brokerage like you're, you're not going to be dependent on a broker. You can transact and trade tokenized stocks as long as the blockchain is up. So private companies are a different story, very hard to get access to even in the US and there's problems because even if you're accredited and you want to transact in private shares, your options for doing that in a simple and easy way are pretty manual. And the alternative trading systems that exist that try to provide real time matching generally don't have very much liquidity. So you could be waiting quite a while before you could make a trade. And when you do make that trade it's, it's kind of a manual process where you're sending docusigns to people if, if you guys have done that.

[Alex Heath]

Not a ton of liquidity in the secondary market, unless it's like a really hot name.

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah, but if you plug it into crypto technology, and I wrote a piece on this in the Washington Post a little bit under a year ago, you solve the liquidity problem because you're just plugging this into a network, a global network where you know, you've seen meme coins get billions of dollars of, of liquidity within a few hours. And I think, I think blockchains have shown that they've been very effective at directing and aggregating liquidity to assets that people actually want. So you, you don't have to build a whole exchange from, from the ground up. The, you can leverage the existing usage and liquidity on crypto.

[Alex Heath]

That makes sense. But I've heard you also say that there's this digital nimbyism going on with companies to this idea when you go to them and you're like, let me put your stock on the blockchain. They're not huge fans. You, you first I think pitch this with OpenAI and SpaceX. I don't think they took to it too well. Do you find that you're still meeting a lot of resistance here or are you optimistic where Are you at now?

[Vlad Tenev]

I think eventually it'll happen, and we're looking to accelerate it. But, I mean, we, we, we know which way this is going to go. It's very, very clear. We have a product, IPO Access, which we launched for our own IPO in 2021. And our own IPO was, for its size, the largest retail allocation at the time at, you know, north of 20%. And we had some other companies use it as well, who are willing to go on the journey with us. But by and large, in 2021, when I had this product, it took a lot of cajoling and a lot of just like asking for favors to make sure retail gets access to these IPOs. And we got, when we would get the allocations, they were pretty small. It was like, okay, we'll do Vlad a favor. We'll give them 1% of the IPO, 2%, whatever. But there was skepticism. You know, executives were hearing from their bankers. That is a bit of a strange thing. And if you're an executive taking your company public, most of the time, it's just, let me get through this so I can focus on my business. I don't necessarily want to be an innovator in providing retail access to, to these instruments, but I do want to be an innovator in that. So I worked very hard and I pounded the pavement. We got a good IPO suite, and then the market basically shut for a couple of years. And an interesting thing happened in the interim. I think it became more obvious to the public. It had been obvious to me for a long time, but more obvious to the entire startup community that public companies that have retail fan bases and followings get rewarded in some cases with pretty, pretty high multiples. Right? You see Palantir, you see some others. And now when the IPO window opened, basically everyone's coming to us and asking us if they could have feedback on their retail strategy, how can they engage retail more? And, you know, large number of the IPOs that have been on consequence have come to us and actually listed on the platform and in some cases given retail bigger and bigger chunks, and now they're talking about it. So I think the same thing's going to happen with private markets as well. We're kind of in the phase where it's a new thing. We're kind of the only ones that are, that are trying to do it. Nobody really wants to innovate when they're raising a financing ground. But the setup is very similar to IPO access. Like, it's, it's the same set of constraints. And my prediction is within the next two years it'll probably be faster than IPO access, probably even, probably even one year. It'll be normalized and you'll have the best companies available to retail because they'll just see that having that retail fan base and the supporters as early as possible is going to be immensely valuable. You look at AI in particular, where are the fans? I mean it's a very popular technology. Adoption is very, very quick. But who's defending the AI companies in public? It's basically their investors and like the community of AI researchers and the general perception, I would say if you're looking at, you know, what's happening in the media and even in public discourse, there's a lot of fear and uncertainty and it leans negative. I think there was an article talking about how this is like at the same time the fastest adopted technology, but also the least popular. Right. And, and, and that's, I don't think that's a healthy combination because I think that if the public is against AI, it's going to, it's going to, it's going to be a, a headwind, not, not a tailwind for, for the industry and for innovation. And I think the best way is to get people owning this stuff and not just have it go to the high net worth individuals and the institutions, but get it distributed to regular people. I think it'll be good for the technology and I think my opinion will at some point hopefully be a little bit more widespread.

[Ellis Hamburger]

You're working on a lot of things right now. I saw you launch 10 new product suites in 2025. Curious how you're running the company differently now than previously. I feel like I heard that you don't have any one on ones. You have over 20 direct reports. How do you think about all that?

[Vlad Tenev]

I've got great GMs, a great team, the core Robinhood team, the people that are running the company, making decisions. A lot of them have been around for a long time and gone through our share of, of crises together. Right. Not just GameStop, but also the IPO and the subsequent market correction, the crypto market and the SVB crisis. So we've gone through some ups and downs and I think how's your blood pressure?

[Ellis Hamburger]

That's a lot of crises right there.

[Vlad Tenev]

I stopped tracking it for a while. I was very, I don't know if you guys felt the same. Was wearing my Apple watch and I was thinking about all this health stuff and now I've gone very mechanical I'm like, I don't want to see it. Yeah, I kind of know when I haven't slept well, so I don't need the device. I'm becoming more of a Luddite as we keep rolling out more business lines. But yeah, that's really the short of it. I think I have a great team around me. I think we're working well together. Culture is something you evolve over time when you make mistakes and you fix them. And I think we iterate pretty quickly. I think you have to. But we're sort of not apologetic about being a company that wants to move fast and actually innovate.

[Alex Heath]

And yeah, you've seen some crazy lows and it feels like right now you're at this insane high. I think you're the second top performing stock this year. You're on this product terror.

[Vlad Tenev]

I know. I wish we did the interview a week ago.

[Alex Heath]

We're the top. Well, there's still weeks left in the year, but do those lows.

[Vlad Tenev]

Let's recheck it. It might have changed today, I don't know.

[Alex Heath]

We'll recheck it. Also, on the last earnings call, I caught the joke about your. You had like a CO award that kicked in because of the stock gains and I think your salary is going back to like 40k or something. Is that right?

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah, pretty much. I think this was. Not a lot of people caught this, but I had some grants back in 2019. We were a private company that had share price targets of around fifty dollars and a hundred. And you know, a year ago the stock was trading at, I think in the 20s. And then of course with the tariffs, it dipped back down. So I don't think that we had forecasted all of those rewards hitting, but here we are.

[Alex Heath]

There you are.

[Vlad Tenev]

So that was the cause for our miss on tax expense and employee bonus accrual.

[Alex Heath]

What's your bonus? Okay, cool. How do you keep yourself grounded in a moment like this, especially when you're going into next year? You are full on founder mode. I'm sure your board trusts you immensely after this year. Not that they didn't before, but how do you. How do you ground yourself and. And keep looking around the corner for what could disrupt you, so to speak?

[Vlad Tenev]

Look, there's. We have to remind ourselves to not get complacent. I try to remind our employees of that as well. And I'm saying it to the employees as much as I'm saying it to myself. Right. Like, I know, inevitably, I've been through so many of these cycles there's going to be a time in the future where everyone thinks we're shitheads again, hopefully less acute than times before. And generally, I believe the trend will be up, but, you know, it's. It's always cyclical to some degree, and that's just what we sign up for.

[Alex Heath]

Who didn't want to talk to you before? Who wants to talk to you now? Let's. Let's name some names.

[Vlad Tenev]

I mean, honestly, I don't know. No, I didn't get too many podcast invites back in 2022.

[Alex Heath]

That's fair. That's fair. Well, we're glad to have you on. We met over a year ago. I don't remember where the stock price was, but it was early on in the predictions markets thing. It was before the US really opened up.

[Vlad Tenev]

Before the election is.

[Alex Heath]

Yeah, before that. And you were talking to me about it in the context of the media and how you were thinking about the media because you have a media arm, you're doing a social network now, and I hadn't really heard of it that way. And actually, yeah, we should, we should actually just go to that. The, the social network thing. I think Ellis and I are both fascinated by me as someone. Well, we both covered social networks and then Ellis worked at one. But you're rolling this out. It's not fully out, but are you really taking on finance Twitter here? Is this the goal? You're going to go toe to toe with Elon on this?

[Vlad Tenev]

I mean, maybe it's not the way we think of it, but the. I think we have certain advantages. We have a highly engaged customer base that's rather large. We have the ability to build great technology. I mean, you might have seen where we've been live streaming our product events and our earnings with live video in the app. And we've been able to include interactivity as well. So we could run polls and different sort of like UI elements.

[Ellis Hamburger]

I thought you were going to say the users could slime you or something if they felt like it.

[Vlad Tenev]

Next earnings if they felt like it was too boring. Yeah, we should add that. But Open Door last week actually live streamed their own earnings in our app. So we, we've been, we've been working on building this, like, earnings information and data ecosystem. You can ask shareholder Q and A. And I think the, the interesting opportunity for us is actually becoming the place where the ideas are generated and shared. And can we be the first place where you actually post something interesting that has like financial or business or economic content? And I think the advantage that we have is because we're going to be where the social network is and the transaction we can solve the verification problem to make sure people aren't faking their trades and posting inaccurate information and the more assets we add. So now with prediction markets and options and futures and equities and you can imagine the stronger kind of that network effect would be like, you could actually get diverse content. It's interesting, lots of opinions. And can we become the place where you actually post first? I think that's going to be the challenge. But if we get that, I think it could be the best source of business and financial content out there.

[Alex Heath]

You know, if this works, you are going to get the call from Elon and he's going to go, what the hell are you doing? You know that's coming.

[Vlad Tenev]

I don't know that that's the case necessarily. And I think to some degree a lot of the big social media products are looking to add finance in there. So, you know, rather than us just sitting around and getting disrupted, can we try to figure out what the best way is to integrate that into one experience?

[Ellis Hamburger]

It's definitely a compelling package with social. 24. 7 markets. I think I saw the top replies to one of your tweets about these kind of always on markets idea was a bunch of memes of people looking very tired. Like, I'm tired, boss. We all know this is fun, but it's also addictive. I mean, I don't even bet any money on fantasy sports, but I had to stop because every single time I was on the toilet or up late at night and couldn't sleep, I'm looking at it. I wonder, what advice do you give to young people today to kind of come up with these new norms and modulate that behavior, you know, because it is fun. You feel like there's always more to learn, whether it's with stocks or the prediction markets.

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah, I think it's very, very tough for a young person now when you have so much you're bombarded by digital stimulus. And, you know, I recognize that I have a mobile app that people use, but I actually legitimately don't think mean if, if my, if my kids spend more time investing and learning how to trade on. On Robin Hood, I don't think I would feel as bad because, you know, it's just, there's social media, there's YouTube, there's Minecraft, and better than shrimp.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Jesus. Doom scroll what we're saying.

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah, I, I just think that it, it is a problem and it's something that I, I worry about and I'd like to contribute to making it better for sure and eventually scale that. But yeah, if, if I had to think about like one personal cause that I legitimately really am worried about, it's just like digital addiction. So I don't, I don't have all the answers.

[Alex Heath]

But you said. Yeah. You said as Robinhood Scales, you find yourself wanting to be more of a Luddite. I mean, that's interesting, right? A lot of the founders who run these different digital products and these platforms, you talk to them and it's like you, you get drained yourself. Right? It's a lot.

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah. I think it's unnatural to be in front of a screen for so much of, of your life. And you know, when the smartphone came out, it was just this superpower. Right. The people that were good at using smartphones I think had an advantage. But now, you know, we're spending so much of our time on smartphones that it's become a tax. It's almost like, you know, if the person next to you is, is using it more, you're at a disadvantage. And, and I think it's unfortunate that technology kind of evolves in, in that direction.

[Alex Heath]

Well, maybe we can end it here. You're, you're live streaming your earnings. You just did it at the Chase Center. I imagine these will get more ornate. Each earnings. I'm expecting more spectacle. Are we going to get a pre earnings walk in where you're, you've got the, the designer bag, the, the jacket.

[Ellis Hamburger]

You know, the shape of Countdown is playing?

[Alex Heath]

Yeah, Final Countdowns playing. Are we going to, is that coming or are we just going to do post post game.

[Vlad Tenev]

You know, the, the inspiration for earnings was a NBA post game interview. Right, right. Where, where we thought to ourselves, okay, after, let, let's say the, the analogy is like game three of the NBA Finals. It's not over. It's not game seven. It's actually you're, you're somewhere near the beginning of, of the series. But if you have a good quarter, it's sort of like interviewing LeBron after the Lakers win, he's got a little bit of swagger. You know, he's thanking his teammates, he's looking good. Maybe he's wearing his, his shades. If the Lakers lose and you're interviewing LeBron, he's got the towel on his head. Maybe he throws some shade on his teammates, but it's informative and entertaining either way. So if, if, if they could make it so that an NBA post game interview is worth Watching, we should be able to make earnings worth watching as well.

[Ellis Hamburger]

I mean, it's not easy, is it? It's like, how much can you really say that you aren't prepared to say?

[Vlad Tenev]

Well, I mean, we, we've been able to do quite a lot turns. It turns out quite a lot. And it's been baby steps. Like we went on video and. And now I'm at the point where if I'm reading a script, it's hard for me to not sound robotic. It's hard enough even without a script, to be honest. So I operate best when I just have an idea of what I want to talk about. But the rest of it is kind of extemporaneous in a sense. So I think we've been able to make it more engaging while still obviously providing the necessary information and communicating the results well. And hopefully it leads to an investing public that's more informed because they're actually watching and listening to the earnings calls. And I think in order to do that, we have to make them a little bit more engaging. It's a nice microcosm of the Robinhood product strategy as well. It's like, you know, yeah, if, if people are more interested in this stuff, they'll engage with it more. And I think in the same way, if people are more interested in their finances, they'll engage with their finances more and you'll get great outcomes as a result.

[Alex Heath]

Well, next time, if you walk out with the shades on in the pre game walkout, we'll know that it was a good quarter. Right? That's good.

[Vlad Tenev]

Well, I've tried the shades thing actually. If you saw my France event. Oh, yeah, I wore shades now. There was a debate about this and you know, the, the folks that I was working were like, don't do the shades if people can't see your eyes. It's untrustworthy and they're not going to like it. And the funny thing was, after that event, if you see the Twitter photos, the ones where I'm wearing shades, people are like, oh, he looks like a scammer. And then, you know, the ones without the shades were flying. So.

[Alex Heath]

Okay, that's bad advice.

[Vlad Tenev]

I learned that it's actually true. Yeah, shades are no good.

[Alex Heath]

Shades are no good. Vlad, really appreciate this. Thanks so much.

[Vlad Tenev]

Yeah, always a pleasure.

[Alex Heath]

Thanks to Vlad for coming on the show.

[Ellis Hamburger]

We're new here, so please follow, like, subscribe. You know what to do on all your favorite platforms of choice at AccessPod, including YouTube, where we have full video of the show and timecodes. So you could jump around.

[Alex Heath]

If you like this episode, please leave a five star review or thumbs up and share it with a friend. It means a lot.

[Ellis Hamburger]

You can find me at Hamburger on Twitter and at Meaning Company.

[Alex Heath]

You can find my newsletter at Sources.

[Ellis Hamburger]

News Access is part of the Vox Media Podcast network. Our producer is Shiraz Dumay.

[Alex Heath]

See you next week.

[Ellis Hamburger]

Bye.

[Alex Heath]

You always got to do the buy, don't you?

[Kara Swisher]

Thanks for listening to this special episode of Access. Happy New Year. We'll be back with a new episode of on on Monday.