All right, here we go. Today we have Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, the app that took commissions off stock trades and has since become one of the biggest stock trading apps in the world with almost $400 billion in total platform assets. And Vlad himself having a net worth of over 7 billion. Vlad, welcome to Vlad TV.
Great to be here finally after all these years. You know, this is actually the first time ever that the two most famous Vlads in America are sitting down facing each other.
Yeah. Are we the two most famous Vlads?
I looked it up on ChatGPT. I said, "Who are the two most famous Vlads in America?" And it's me and you.
Oh, so we beat out Vladdy Jr.?
Yeah, exactly. Vlad Tenev and DJ Vlad.
Yeah. And even though it's up for debate who's the more famous person, what's not up for debate is who's richer. Because you are way, way richer than I. It's not even close.
Well, you know, you still have time.
I still have time. I still have time. Well, you know, the thing is I think I have the advantage cuz I named my company after myself.
Yeah, but you don't have the .com, right?
vladtv.com, not vlad.com.
Well, you know, if you didn't actually name your company Robinhood, if you named it like Vladhood, then you'd be way, way more famous right now.
Oh, I missed my chance. Yeah, but I could... Yeah, the advantage is I can draft off of Robinhood, the historical figure's name.
Well, first time here, I want to start in the very beginning. So, you were born in Bulgaria.
And you came over here when you were 5 years old.
So, but your parents came over first, right?
And they left you behind.
They abandoned me. I lived with my grandparents.
Then they got you when you were five.
Yeah. So, um, 1991 my dad who was a professor at the economics university in Varna. He, um, he had an opportunity basically. This was after, you know, the Berlin Wall fell and the Iron Curtain was lifted. So before then there wasn't really easy travel between the Eastern Bloc and the rest of the world, as I'm sure you remember.
So after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it got a little bit more liberalized. And so these folks from the University of Delaware came to visit Bulgaria. And of course, I was very small, so I don't actually remember this in great detail, but as my dad explains it, they were kind of expecting to find Bulgaria in the stone age of sort of like modern economic thinking, but instead they were pretty impressed and they gave my dad and one of his colleagues an opportunity to sit for a test.
And they gave my dad an option, right? You can either take the test in Bulgarian or take it in English. Didn't know any English at the time. But my mom was like, "You're going to be at a huge disadvantage if you don't take this test in English." So he took the overnight train from Varna, Bulgaria, which is where I was born, to Sofia, the capital,
learned English on that train ride.
So he says, "Learned English on the train ride." By the way, he learned English on the train ride from one city to another in the same country.
Well, he never took English in school. He took French.
So, of course, you know, a little bit, but it sounds like a tall tale. I'm just going to put that out there. But go ahead.
My dad was always this sort of like paragon of look at how well I did in school. You have to do at least as well as me. So, there was a competitive element to my childhood. But yeah, he was a pretty smart guy, still is, of course, and he got the best result in the country on the test. And so him and number two got a scholarship to University of Delaware.
And of course back then we didn't have any money, the family. Bulgaria was going through hyperinflation. And so he went and it was really unclear whether we would have a future in America. The assumption was kind of he would go there and maybe come back. But one thing led to another. He had an opportunity to continue to another graduate program at University of Maryland. So a year later, my mom came to join him. And then 6 months later, when I finished school, so I stayed with my grandparents and I was still in school in Bulgaria. So I finished my kindergarten. And then my aunt who was, I want to say, 19 years old. She was like a punk rocker, kind of alternative. Yeah, she was really into, I don't know, Soundgarden and Nirvana. I think it was kind of that era. So she took me and I came with her to JFK airport. So that was the first flight of my life leaving Sofia, Bulgaria and coming to the US.
Yeah, we have the same story pretty much. Like I came over from Ukraine when I was four or five.
You know, and Russian was my first language. So Bulgarian, is that what they speak in?
Bulgarian was your first language.
So yeah, as a four or five-year-old, you learn very quickly.
Very, very quickly. Like you have no accent. I have no accent.
Right. I'm sure your mom and dad probably have accents.
Exactly. And I didn't know any English when I came and I was dropped right into school. So I came into kindergarten and I remember this like I don't know how to ask for the toys or so you just it was really being dropped in the deep end, all these types of people that I've never seen before. Different races, different nationalities.
Yeah. Exactly. In Ukraine, everyone was white. So I didn't really see black people, Spanish people, Asian people until I came over here.
Yeah. Same thing for you.
Exactly. Okay. So, you get through high school and you were a top student.
