Vlad Tenev (@vladtenev) is the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood. In January 2021, in the middle of the meme stock frenzy, Robinhood's deposit requirement went from under $100 million to "something like $3 billion" almost overnight. The total capital the company had ever raised was about $700 million. His first call was to @mickymalka: "He's like, 'How much do you need?' I said, 'I don't know, 250 million, 500 million. I'm not sure.' He's like, 'I've got it.'" Back in March 2020, the two of them had put a term sheet in place so the money could be "wired in your account same day." Once Micky was in, everyone else followed: "We probably had $10 billion of demand at the first term." "It was a consequence of too much success, which is quite rare." Vlad came to America from Bulgaria at 5, not knowing a word of English. His grandparents stored their wealth in copper cookware during hyperinflation. His dad told him he'd give him his SAT score in dollars to invest. He went on to study math under Terence Tao, then took a leave from his $18,000-a-year math PhD to take a shot at starting his own company. This was an awesome conversation: 0:00 Why Ribbit passed on Robinhood's seed round 2:19 "You're going to want me on your board" 5:35 The day-long trading outage of March 2020 9:22 A term sheet for a crisis that hadn't happened yet 15:00 Crypto goes from zero to a top revenue stream 16:27 The $3 billion deposit requirement 18:35 "Vlad, you have to call work right away" 21:34 The first call: Micky Malka 24:31 "Time kills all deals" 25:33 Number one app in the App Store, ahead of Instagram and TikTok 27:01 $10 billion of demand 29:33 Hyperinflation and copper cookware in Bulgaria 35:34 "Manhattan just seemed like science fiction" 47:15 His SAT score in dollars to invest 50:53 Studying under Terence Tao 1:00:22 "You want to be businessman, huh?" 1:03:48 The best parts of math without the bullshit 1:05:56 Would I be proud of this in 50 years? Includes paid partnerships.