Building Robinhood, Surviving GameStop & A $500 Million Phone Call | Vlad Tenev
David Senra talks with Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev about the GameStop cash crunch, the investor call that helped save the company, his childhood in Bulgaria, and leaving a math PhD to start companies.
The gist
-
Tenev says Mickey Malka of Ribbit passed on Robinhood's seed at a $10 million cap, then became its only VC promoted to the public board.
-
In March 2020, with volume tripling, Tenev and Malka drew up a standby term sheet so emergency money could arrive the same day.
-
In January 2021's GameStop frenzy, a capital call first set near $3 billion; Tenev says Malka's instant commitment made every later investor call easier.
-
Tenev's dad promised him his SAT score in dollars if he beat 1300; he scored 1370 and bought 3Com, which spun off Palm.
-
Leaving a $18,000-a-year math PhD, Tenev built a trading software firm to about $2 million revenue, then asked whether he'd be proud in 50 years.
Also mentioned
0:25
Ribbit Capital
· "Ribbit got started basically around the same time as Robinhood. I remember meeting those guys when they..."
1:30
Founders
· "Make sure you listen to my other podcast, Founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400..."
21:55
Silicon Valley Bank
· "I learned later, in an odd twist of fate, that he called up the CEO of SVB... I'm going to have to pull..."
25:32
Robinhood
· "At that time, Robinhood was the number one app in the App Store, not just in finance, which is, you know,..."
40:45
Yahoo Finance
· "When we ended up getting internet eventually, I opened up Yahoo Finance and created a portfolio."
Ads in this episode
Router, AppLovin, WorkOS. They're paid, so we keep them out of the picks above.
See what David recommends without being paid →
◎
Related episodes
Episodes covering similar topics
30 Years of Business Advice in 13 Minutes (from a Billionaire)
entrepreneurship
More from David Senra