The 100 Year Conversation continues with Vlad Tenev. Vlad was born in Bulgaria and moved to the United States as a child. When he was ten or eleven, he was figuring out investing on dial-up with a pretend portfolio on Yahoo Finance. At twelve, he made a deal with his father. If he scored above 1300 on the SAT, he’d get his score in dollars to invest. He scored 1370. You can see the beginnings of Robinhood in that story. Owning stocks felt like collecting to Vlad. He read the shareholder materials he got in the mail and was proud to be an owner. Years later, he helped millions of other people become owners too. Vlad has a fondness for difficult things. He talks about Robinhood’s toughest moments with a warmth I didn’t expect. “Those are memories I cherish,” he told me. “My only regret was that I didn’t enjoy it more at the time.” @vladtenev