Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Here's my question, tim at least two of these stocks
Speaker 2: makes money when people are in the markets, when they're trading, whether.
Speaker 3: Things go up and down. But if the risk.
Speaker 2: Appetite turns like this, the question is how much money
Speaker 2: will there to be made until risk appetite comes back?
Speaker 2: When will that be?
Speaker 1: Certainly a good question, a good place to start with.
Speaker 1: Robinhood chair and CEO of Lad Tenev, who joins us
Speaker 1: right now here in our Bloomberg studio of Lad. Good
Speaker 1: to see you, Welcome, you heard from Shinali just now.
Speaker 1: Robinhood stock down nine and a half percent as we speak.
Speaker 1: It's not more than thirty percent from that high on
Speaker 1: February fourteenth. Look, not an awesome place to start, but
Speaker 1: you're here in the chair with us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I should have time this better. Shit, have
Speaker 3: timed it better.
Speaker 1: I know CEOs don't often look at the short term
Speaker 1: moves in a company's stock, But what's your message for
Speaker 1: investors on.
Speaker 3: Today like today?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean if you look at what has actually
Speaker 4: happened in Robinhood world where we report or earnings just
Speaker 4: a week ago, a week and a half ago, and
Speaker 4: we had our first billion dollar revenue quarter in the
Speaker 4: company's history. The business has been doing tremendously well. I mean,
Speaker 4: record net income, profits, record net deposits. Twenty twenty four
Speaker 4: we had fifty billion of net deposits into the platform.
Speaker 3: So business is doing well.
Speaker 4: And if you look back rewind to the day after earnings,
Speaker 4: I think the stock had a very positive reaction. So
Speaker 4: I think that's why to your point, we don't really
Speaker 4: try to look at the stuff day to day because
Speaker 4: then we get wrapped up into the macro and things
Speaker 4: that are outside of our control. But we're executing. Some
Speaker 4: days it'll go up, some days it'll go down.
Speaker 3: Speaking and going.
Speaker 2: Down, we are looking at a market right now, the
Speaker 2: magnificent seven, as tracked by Bloomberg is actually in correction territory.
Speaker 3: How are your clients.
Speaker 2: The people training on Robinhood behaving on a day like
Speaker 2: today when you've pick went also down below eighty seven thousand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, generally speaking, when we see days like today, our
Speaker 4: customers tend to be long innovation, and they're long some
Speaker 4: of these technology names, and they view these as buying
Speaker 4: opportunities because I mean, another way of looking at it
Speaker 4: is you can get high quality companies and assets at
Speaker 4: a discount relative to where they were in previous days.
Speaker 4: I think our customers, which might surprise some people, have
Speaker 4: a long term perspective on these things. They'd like to
Speaker 4: be owners of. Technology and innovation.
Speaker 1: Is in volatility, though, just a good thing for your
Speaker 1: platform sort of doesn't matter if it goes up or down,
Speaker 1: especially with the launch of the new active trader platform,
Speaker 1: Robinhood Legend, just a few months ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what you're saying is right.
Speaker 4: Active traders tend to be more sophisticated, and for those
Speaker 4: types of customers, they have trading strategies that they can
Speaker 4: deploy regardless of market conditions. So when markets are going up,
Speaker 4: you know, obviously they have a set of strategies. When
Speaker 4: they're going down in sideways among different derivatives and even
Speaker 4: equity and option and crypto positions, active traders have the tools.
Speaker 4: And you know, we announced robinhood Legend at our Hood Summit,
Speaker 4: which was our event in Miami. We rolled that out
Speaker 4: over the last couple of months. You guys probably saw
Speaker 4: that's already up to fifty million in annual revenue run rate,
Speaker 4: so that product's been doing extremely well. And yeah, kind
Speaker 4: of what might surprise a lot of people, Active trading
Speaker 4: is more of a it's a business that is more
Speaker 4: sustainable even in down terms, because the more sophisticated customers are,
Speaker 4: the more they sort of trade regardless of what's happening
Speaker 4: in the macro and they deploy different strategies to take
Speaker 4: advantage of opportunities as they see them.
Speaker 2: I understand that you're maybe not concerned about a one
Speaker 2: day move in your stocks. It's the CEO of Robinhood.
Speaker 2: You have more people actively training as we're talking about
Speaker 2: the vix is at twenty right to the extent, there's
Speaker 2: one market metric that you watch when you wake up
Speaker 2: in the morning, what would that be?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I really try not to watch the
Speaker 4: market myself too much.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm aware.
Speaker 4: Of I think it's hard to ignore some of these things.
Speaker 4: But what I'm focused on is how well are we
Speaker 4: supporting customers. What's the rate of product velocity, because the
Speaker 4: rate of product innovation velocity is, at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, what matters. It's what matters in the economy
Speaker 4: and it's what matters in our business because day to
Speaker 4: day things go up and down, but over the long run,
Speaker 4: We're in a technology business, so all that matters is
Speaker 4: the rate of innovation and the rate of positive technological change.
Speaker 4: And I think we feel pretty good. I mean, you
Speaker 4: look at what we've rolled out, what we've delivered to customers,
Speaker 4: what we're continuing to do this year with three major
Speaker 4: product events coming, and we're going to continue to versify
Speaker 4: the business.
Speaker 2: Let's double down on one of those products, cryptocurrencies. Of course,
Speaker 2: this is the crypto show. What is the grand opportunity
Speaker 2: for Robinhood. You have sell side analysts taking a look
Speaker 2: at what you're doing and starting to compare you to coinbase.
Speaker 3: Are you after their business?
Speaker 4: Well, I think we compete in the general sense of
Speaker 4: offering crypto to customers. But also this is a nascent
Speaker 4: industry and not very many companies have entered yet. It's
Speaker 4: still even though bitcoin has now been around for fifteen years,
Speaker 4: institutions and other companies have been waiting for signals to
Speaker 4: enter the market. So from that sense, it's still quite early.
Speaker 4: And I wrote about in an OpEd that I did
Speaker 4: for the Washington Post. We're still in the US generally
Speaker 4: not allowed to connect crypto technology to real assets like
Speaker 4: stocks and other security tight on.
Speaker 2: That We're going to spend like ten minutes with you
Speaker 2: on tokenization next.
Speaker 1: Okay, hey, before we get there, though, I do want
Speaker 1: to touch on the news yesterday. Robin Hood said, yesterday
Speaker 1: the SEC closed that investigation into your crypto operations. It's
Speaker 1: not pursuing any enforcement action. It does raise the question, though,
Speaker 1: about regulators in general. Do you see a role for
Speaker 1: financial regulators.
Speaker 4: I do see a role for financial regulators. I think
Speaker 4: customers want to know that their assets are safe and
Speaker 4: that someone is watching over the companies that are providing
Speaker 4: financial services to them and holding them accountable. And we've
Speaker 4: been regulated company for a very long time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: We started as a as a FINRA and a SEC
Speaker 4: regulator broker dealer and expanded from there. So I actually think,
Speaker 4: you know, regulation is good for our business, not just
Speaker 4: good for customers. And we know how to operate in
Speaker 4: a highly regulator arena.
Speaker 1: All right, Sit tight with Lad. We're going to do
Speaker 1: some news and then come back in just a minute.
Speaker 1: We have much more coming up with lad Tenev in
Speaker 1: a just a moment, and with.
Speaker 2: Robinhood, CEO of Lad Tenev and Vlad. You spoke to
Speaker 2: us a couple weeks ago about the for tokenization. You
Speaker 2: were talking about that op ed you wrote in the
Speaker 2: Washington Post, And a day like today, I was watching
Speaker 2: Okay and Vidio down almost two percent. You know it's
Speaker 2: probably not down two percent. SpaceX is private stock, right.
Speaker 2: You made this point that it was ludicrous that investors
Speaker 2: could buy meme coins without reallybitting it from the regulators.
Speaker 2: But you cannot get access to private stock. How soon
Speaker 2: can you buy SpaceX on Robinhood?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good question.
Speaker 4: We need a few things to happen in order for
Speaker 4: this to be possible. The accreditation rules have to be rethought.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of these rules were created in
Speaker 4: a different time where the problem was lack of information.
Speaker 4: You know, it was before the Internet, there was no information,
Speaker 4: So the regulators, I think rightly, were worried about investors
Speaker 4: not having access to not having any knowledge about these companies.
Speaker 4: I think now with basically an infinite amount of information
Speaker 4: on the Internet AI that can help you distill it
Speaker 4: and synthesize it, a lot of those concerns just don't
Speaker 4: make sense. So I think that's why the rules have
Speaker 4: to be rethought. I think they will put in for
Speaker 4: good reasons, but those reasons no longer hold, and then
Speaker 4: we need to, aside from the accreditation, allow for the
Speaker 4: capability of connecting crypto technology with real companies. So comprehensive
Speaker 4: registration rules platforms, clarity for how platforms can list platforms
Speaker 4: such as ourselves listing cryptosecurities.
Speaker 3: I think all of that is going to be necessary. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I seen you argue that it's good for investors because
Speaker 1: then they get access to a company such as open
Speaker 1: ai or SpaceX, but also good for these companies because
Speaker 1: then they get access to that capital. What would you
Speaker 1: say to somebody who's watching or listening right now, says,
Speaker 1: wait a second, for every anthropic or open ai or SpaceX,
Speaker 1: there's a fairhose out there. There's a we work out there,
Speaker 1: and these accreditation rules are supposed to protect the investors
Speaker 1: who are not venture capitalists, those investors who don't have
Speaker 1: the ability to do that due diligence on those private companies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there's ways. Those are legitimate problems that
Speaker 4: have solutions. I think we can solve those problems through
Speaker 4: disclosure requirements. In particular, if you're a platform that's offering
Speaker 4: these securities, whether they be crypto based or otherwise you
Speaker 4: should have disclosure requirements. You should clearly delineate between you know,
Speaker 4: a company like SpaceX that perhaps has high quality audited
Speaker 4: financials and something that's earlier stage that doesn't.
Speaker 3: And I think at the end.
Speaker 4: Of the day, the user should have the ability to
Speaker 4: decide and self certify. And actually, you know, the platforms
Speaker 4: can clarify what type of risk different assets and which
Speaker 4: buckets fall into.
Speaker 2: When you say SpaceX or open AI or talking about
Speaker 2: single companies, and you're talking about companies you can imagine
Speaker 2: being public one day, maybe just trading more in private
Speaker 2: hands until then, or maybe indefinitely. But there are a
Speaker 2: lot of financial firms that are looking to tokenize private
Speaker 2: funds also, Are you in talks with any of them?
Speaker 2: I mean, this is Apollo, it's Blackrock, it's everybody really
Speaker 2: hoping to make these private equity funds available to retail investors.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think we've been talking to you.
Speaker 4: You should assume we're generally in conversations with anyone trying to.
Speaker 3: Do interesting things in the space.
Speaker 4: I think what we have to decide is what's interesting
Speaker 4: to retail and right now, if I had to pick
Speaker 4: the biggest pain point, that a retail investor has. It's
Speaker 4: we're in the midst of perhaps the biggest technological revolution
Speaker 4: that we've ever seen. AI is like transforming everything, And
Speaker 4: what can you invest in? I mean in Nvidia and
Speaker 4: to some degree Tesla, but no open AI, no Anthropic.
Speaker 4: All these companies that are doing humanoid robots, a lot
Speaker 4: of them are private. So I think it's tough right
Speaker 4: now if you want to be in the AI sector
Speaker 4: as a retail investor, there's relatively few options that you
Speaker 4: can actually that you can actually invest in.
Speaker 1: You said, you're talking to anyone who's doing interesting stuff
Speaker 1: in this space right now? What about on their regulation side?
Speaker 1: Are you talking to folks actively in the Trump administration
Speaker 1: who are working on crypto, who are working on AI.
Speaker 2: Right who have given you some indication of how soon
Speaker 2: you can get this done?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean, I'd say that when we talk to folks
Speaker 4: in the administration, everyone's really motivated to make the US
Speaker 4: the leader in this industry.
Speaker 3: You know they have.
Speaker 4: There's these two technological shifts that are happening, crypto and AI,
Speaker 4: and they're happening simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Have you been able to speak with David Sachs.
Speaker 4: I have yeah, yeah, you know, I've known him for
Speaker 4: a while. I think I'm excited about David Sachs coming in.
Speaker 4: And actually, if you saw our Investor Day, crypto and
Speaker 4: AI are the two technology trends that we believe will
Speaker 4: shape Robinhood's future in the future of the financial industry.
Speaker 4: So actually seeing that the government is aligning itself with
Speaker 4: these trends and making sure that the US is number one.
Speaker 3: I think it'll help us.
Speaker 4: It'll help the companies like Robinhood that are trying to
Speaker 4: be on the leading edge of these industries.
Speaker 2: You know, I appreciate your note there on regulation having
Speaker 2: its place, because more recently a lot of people in
Speaker 2: the crypto industry very excited about a pullback. And while
Speaker 2: you can understand that the way the last couple of
Speaker 2: years have gone, you have seen this exuberance that has
Speaker 2: pushed many many retail investors into very many meme coins.
Speaker 2: You have seen an acknowledgment here that listening standards might
Speaker 2: start to loosen up. What do you make of the
Speaker 2: meme coin frenzy that probably doesn't look that good to
Speaker 2: many people today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think that this is a new thing.
Speaker 4: I think the use cases of different types of coins
Speaker 4: are yet to be discovered. People are innovating very fast
Speaker 4: in the space. But two things. One the fact that
Speaker 4: it's so easy to create a coin and tap into
Speaker 4: global liquidity and actually like the creation process. You know,
Speaker 4: you can sit down in front of some software, create
Speaker 4: a coin and have it be trading and you know,
Speaker 4: access to investors in five minutes. That's also that's a
Speaker 4: scary thing, but it's also an incredibly powerful thing if
Speaker 4: you juxtapose it with how cumbersome the IPO process is
Speaker 4: and it takes months.
Speaker 3: Companies aren't doing it.
Speaker 4: And that's why I think tokenization is so interesting, because
Speaker 4: if you juxtapose these things, it's so clear what the
Speaker 4: benefits would be of bringing cryptotechnology. In particular these like
Speaker 4: the ease of listing and tapping global liquidity into real
Speaker 4: world productive assets.
Speaker 1: You said that you want Robin to be the place
Speaker 1: where customers can buy, sell, trade any financial asset, or
Speaker 1: conduct any financial transaction.
Speaker 3: What is your ultimate vision here?
Speaker 1: I mean, is this going to be a place where
Speaker 1: people could buy and sell real estate one day?
Speaker 4: I think so, I think whatever a customer wants to invest,
Speaker 4: and there actually is an overlap with real estate between
Speaker 4: you know, assets that you actually utilize and are also investments,
Speaker 4: and a lot of our customers are interested in that.
Speaker 4: So yeah, every asset that's investable, and even you know,
Speaker 4: some assets that you'd like to hold in physical form
Speaker 4: are all in scope of the vision.
Speaker 1: Hey, before we let you go, I want to hear
Speaker 1: a little bit about the new startup, new Ish Harmonic,
Speaker 1: that you co founded back in twenty twenty three. You're
Speaker 1: looking to build the world's most advanced reasoning engine. You're
Speaker 1: also executive chairman there. How do you divide your time
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 4: Well, so I'm chairman, which is a board role, and
Speaker 4: I'd say I'm more involved than I'm much more involved
Speaker 4: than a typical angel investment. But there's an amazing CEO
Speaker 4: and a great team at Harmonic that are operating day
Speaker 4: to day, and you know, they let me help them
Speaker 4: out and hang out from time to time. But I'm
Speaker 4: not operating like like I am at Robin.
Speaker 2: Hood mathematical super Intelligence. So I hear very complicated things
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 4: I think solving a real problem. I mean, like the
Speaker 4: models need to right now. The models are very confident
Speaker 4: about spewing wrong information. And then a lot of domains
Speaker 4: like financial services and even news media, those hallucinations can
Speaker 4: be pretty pretty critical, so we're trying to solve that problem.
Speaker 2: Robin and CEO of blad Tennef, we thank you for
Speaker 2: joining us here.