Robinhood CEO Demands Internal Wartime Footing to Protect Velocity

Robinhood CEO要求保持内部战时状态以捍卫执行速度 初创企业必须摒弃和平时期的安逸，保持由内驱动的战时紧迫感，因为结构化的规划周期会拖慢执行，而常规的授权方式无法有效应对规模扩张带来的混乱。 Robinhood首席执行官Vlad Tenev详细阐述了他应对严峻企业挑战的经历，并将GameStop交易狂潮带来的突发冲击与2022年市场下行期长达500天的艰难煎熬进行了对比。他认为，初创企业必须以内驱的“战时”紧迫感运作，利用外部产品发布事件作为倒逼机制，在不牺牲质量的前提下保持执行速度。Tenev还概述了他基于第一性原理的规模化方法，包括减少僵化的规划周期以支持更具适应性的10年愿景、推行任人唯贤的内部协同，并通过直接参与客户支持业务让管理层保持脚踏实地。 宏观经济下行带来的漫长煎熬往往比突发的短期危机更加艰难；真正的领导力定力体现在既能扛过严峻低谷，又能在顺风期不受干扰地把握战机。 (5:08) 初创企业应将内部自发的“战时”状态作为默认模式以保持高执行速度，而不是等待外部危机迫使团队产生紧迫感。 (8:05) 公关动作无法瞬间挽回受损的声誉，客户信任与 NPS 评分的修复是一个漫长的复利过程，唯有依靠持续改进核心产品且坚决不犯相同错误。 (11:01) 追求执行速度与保障产品质量并非二选一的伪命题，高密度的高绩效人才能够在极高迭代节奏下交付最优质且 Bug 最少的产品。 (14:24) 应避免陷入 MBR、QBR 等耗时数周的笨重规划流程，将规划压缩至数天内完成，并善用高规格产品发布会作为强效的外部倒逼机制。 (20:46)

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev argues that surviving market volatility and operational crises requires an internally driven 'wartime' footing, agile planning, and unrelenting proximity to customer experience rather than rigid corporate processes. Acute Emergencies Versus the Sustained 2022 Downturn (5:08) Tenev distinguishes between brief, intense shocks and protracted market declines. Acute emergencies—such as the full-day pandemic outage in early 2020 or the early 2021 GameStop frenzy, where Robinhood had to raise $3 billion overnight to satisfy clearinghouse margin requirements—inflict their worst impact immediately. Once the initial shock is stabilized, the remaining operational effort centers on containment and execution. In contrast, Tenev identifies the macro-driven downturn across 2021 and 2022 as significantly more grueling. Spanning 400 to 500 days as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, the contraction wiped out half of Robinhood's active user base and drove its stock from a post-IPO peak in the $80s to below $8, briefly trading below cash value. Navigating this environment required enduring internal anxiety, bearish public markets, and a prolonged strategic shift to diversify away from zero-interest-rate trading dynamics. Rebuilding Public Trust Through Product Reliability (11:01) Following high-profile disruptions like the GameStop trading restrictions, Robinhood’s Net Promoter Score dropped sharply. Tenev emphasizes that customer trust cannot be restored through public relations campaigns or explanatory blog posts; it requires years of continuous, iterative product improvements. Tenev points to turnarounds at companies like Nike, Apple, and Domino's Pizza as evidence that fixing underlying product flaws is the only viable path to regaining reputation. To facilitate this compounding recovery, leadership must ensure the company never repeats the same mistake, viewing novel mistakes as survivable only if handled with full transparency. Maintaining Execution Velocity and Lean Planning Cycles (14:24) Tenev rejects the notion that companies must choose between speed and quality, asserting that top-tier engineers consistently produce the cleanest work while moving the fastest. To preserve execution speed at scale, he cautions against the high employee turnover associated with extreme models like 996 or 180-hour workweeks, while also avoiding heavyweight waterfall planning cycles such as quarterly business reviews. Robinhood relies instead on a 10-year vision that is worked backward and updated primarily when fresh data emerges. To keep priorities aligned, Tenev convenes a merit-based group of roughly 150 top performers—including junior contributors alongside executives—once or twice annually. He also leverages live product summits as external forcing functions to hit tight deadlines, enabling real-time re-prioritization, such as pivoting to launch Kalshi-partnered election prediction contracts ahead of futures outrights. First-Principles Leadership and Front-Line Proximity (38:23) Tenev advises rising executives to disregard online advice and avoid managing through analogy. In place of conventional startup playbooks, he advocates for direct operational awareness, noting that dual-leadership structures like his early co-CEO arrangement can succeed if founders maintain a distinct division of labor—such as design versus engineering—and eliminate decision friction. To prevent critical operational feedback from being diluted by middle management, Tenev mandates that leaders stay near front-line workflows. He regularly visits support centers in Texas, Florida, and Denver to answer customer tickets directly via chat and phone, complementing these sessions with in-home user experience research to observe actual customer interactions with current products and prototypes. Host Brian Halligan observes that operating with a permanent wartime posture provides clarity during turbulence, though Tenev notes that this intensity must be balanced against sustainable work patterns to prevent long-term talent attrition.

Robinhood 联合创始人兼首席执行官 Vlad Tenev 认为，初创企业应当主动保持常态化的“战时领导”状态，通过第一性原理执行、精简规划周期和贴近一线客户来抵御周期性危机并保持高执行力。 危机管理与战时领导哲学 (5:08) Tenev 带领 Robinhood 经历了多场重大危机，包括 2020 年初 COVID-19 疫情初期的全天系统宕机、2021 年初的 GameStop 交易风波、2021 年末至 2022 年股价较 IPO 高点跌幅超 90% 并失去半数活跃用户的宏观低迷期，以及 2023 年硅谷银行（SVB）的倒闭。Tenev 强调，急剧的突发危机虽然强度极大，例如 GameStop 期间需在一夜之间筹集 30 亿美元满足清算所保证金要求，但往往在第一时刻就迎来最坏状况；相比之下，2022 年因加息和通胀引发的长达 400 至 500 天的漫长市场熊市更为严酷，期间公司股价一度跌至现金价值以下。 Tenev 认为初创公司不应依赖外部市场冲击来激发紧迫感，而应在内部主动建立“常态化战时”（always war time）机制。他指出，和平时期的平稳表象往往掩盖了执行力度不足的缺陷；领导者必须深入掌握具体业务细节，在危机突发时迅速召集最优秀的人员并提供资源支持，以此维护执行速度。 组织速度与工作制边界 (14:24) 针对规模化后团队执行力下降的现象，Tenev 驳斥了速度与质量之间不可兼得的观点，认为顶尖工程师不仅编写代码最快，而且错误最少。他主张在方向不确定时保持耐心收集信息，而在目标明确后则需施加最高战术紧迫感，并践行“若有要事，交给最忙的人”这一原则。 在组织工作强度方面，Tenev 明确划定了极端工作文化的界限。尽管“马斯克式”每周 180 小时睡在办公室或“996”工作制能在特定阶段奏效，但他指出这类模式会导致严重的员工流失，使长期留存核心人才几乎不可能。可持续的高效工作制应当大于 40 小时，但远低于 180 小时，以此平衡工作与家庭生活。 重塑规划流程与十年战略 (20:46) 为避免繁琐的官僚作风，Robinhood 避免将团队束缚在季度业务审查（QBR）或月度业务审查（MBR）等冗长流程中，而是力求在几天内快速完成规划。公司通过一份可长达十年的宏观愿景来维持对齐，目标是让用户的所有财务需求均在 Robinhood 上完成；该愿景平时基本保持稳定，每年仅微调一次。每年一至两次，Tenev 会召集涵盖各层级优秀基层个人贡献者与高管在内的约 150 名高绩效员工，共同探讨公司方向。 在资源分配上，Robinhood 如今已将算力开销和部门 AI 杠杆率作为标准财务规划指标。面对突发市场机遇时，公司倾向于实时重新排序优先级而非预留闲置资源。例如在关键法庭裁决落地后，Robinhood 迅速借助已搭建一年多的期货基础设施与 Kalshi 合作上线选举预测合约，主动推迟了原定的常规期货合约上线；同时，Tenev 告诫应通过逆向推导来制定长期愿景，及早为进展缓慢但杠杆效应巨大的十年复合增长曲线进行实质投资。 产品倒逼交付与一线客户反馈 (26:28) Robinhood 采用高规格的产品发布活动作为工程与产品团队的外部硬性截止节点（forcing function），先后举办了推出 Robinhood Gold 信用卡、以装饰艺术为主题的“The New Gold Standard”发布会，以及面向活跃交易者的“Hood Summit”，在发布 Robinhood Legend 的同时开展面对面客户社群交流。 为防范规模化扩张带来的管理脱节，Tenev 警示创业者不要将社交媒体（如 Twitter/X）上的通用建议作为运营手册，而应基于第一性原理推导交付路径。他要求领导层深入一线，自己每年也会前往佛罗里达州、得克萨斯州或丹佛的客服中心，作为持牌经纪人亲自通过电话和聊天工具处理客户工单，并通过入户探访等深度用户体验研究（UX research）获取未被多层汇报过滤的原始真实数据。Tenev 强调，Net Promoter Score（NPS）在危机中会骤降，恢复则需要数年时间持续优化核心产品，且绝不能重复犯下完全相同的错误。 针对管理模式，Tenev 认为双首席执行官（Co-CEO）架构在权责清晰、分工明确的早期阶段具备互补推力，但在重大决策层面存在决策延迟与内部政治的潜在成本；此外，早期的导师神话并不切合实际，行业核心人脉往往只在企业证明自身商业价值后才会真正打开。

[8:05] Vlad Tenev: it's always war time [11:01] Vlad Tenev: Trust is easily lost and hard gained [14:24] Vlad Tenev: If you need something done, give it to your busiest person. [18:24] Vlad Tenev: you're not going to get people that are sticking around the company [18:24] Vlad Tenev: some number greater than 40, but perhaps less than 180 [20:46] Vlad Tenev: beholden to a structure [23:24] Vlad Tenev: I feel better as like a shareholder and an employee knowing that they're in the room. [29:57] Vlad Tenev: naive approximation [38:23] Vlad Tenev: figure out what you actually need to deliver and work backwards from that [38:23] Vlad Tenev: reasoning by analogy [39:48] Vlad Tenev: high signal [41:38] Brian Halligan: I never waste a crisis [41:38] Brian Halligan: foggy

[0:00] that the GameStop stuff, for instance, [0:03] the things that I had to do was figure [0:05] out how we communicate to the public [0:08] what was going on with this very complex [0:10] situation. [0:12] And then also raise billions of dollars [0:15] overnight. [0:24] >> [music] [0:35] >> You're woken up at 5:00 a.m. by a [0:36] telephone call saying you need to raise [0:39] $3 billion [0:40] by the end of the day [0:42] or you're toast. [0:44] It's a CEO's worst nightmare. [0:45] Vlad, the CEO of Robinhood, lived [0:48] through this story, came out the other [0:50] side stronger than ever. [0:53] Vlad's become legendary for this [0:55] unflappable leadership through some of [0:57] the most intense crises in startup [0:59] history. [1:00] Robinhood's now a financial services [1:02] juggernaut. But Vlad's journey was a [1:05] roller coaster from the start. [1:07] From the GameStop trading frenzy that [1:09] made headlines worldwide and landed him [1:12] testifying before Congress [1:14] to a full day outage during the COVID [1:16] pandemic [1:18] to navigating the 2022 market crash that [1:20] saw their stock price plummet by more [1:22] than 90% [1:25] Vlad's been in a 4D CEO roller coaster. [1:27] While most CEOs panic under pressure [1:30] Vlad gets clarity. [1:32] While others make reactive decisions, he [1:34] builds methodically with a long-term [1:37] road map. Today you'll hear how to stay [1:39] calm and make clear decisions when your [1:41] company's in crisis mode. [1:44] Why wartime mentality should be your [1:46] default and not the exception. [1:48] The art of rebuilding trust after public [1:51] failures. [1:52] How to maintain speed and urgency as you [1:54] scale to thousands of employees. [1:57] And how to balance long-term vision with [1:59] short-term agility. [2:01] If you're a founder trying to build [2:02] resilience into yourself or your company [2:05] or if you want to understand what [2:06] separates good CEOs from legendary ones [2:09] keep listening. [2:10] Vlad, good to see you again. [2:12] Good to see you. My partner at Sequoia, [2:15] Andrew, said of you [2:19] you're the steadiest hand he's ever met. [2:22] What do you think he meant by that? [2:24] Maybe compared to him, he can be a [2:25] little bit jittery. [2:28] Bit of a jittery guy, always nervous, [2:31] when am I going to get the next deal, [2:32] but I I love Andrew. I think what he [2:35] probably meant was um [2:38] you know, he's seen Robinhood go through [2:40] some downs, not just ups, and [2:44] maybe, you know, a lot of people would [2:46] have just [2:47] called it in and and given up, but uh [2:51] we persevered and and we we worked [2:53] through it, and now I believe we're a [2:56] much stronger company than [2:59] we've ever been. [3:01] And I think that's an important quality [3:03] of a of a founder. It It's really just [3:06] about [3:07] how do you handle the situation when [3:10] things are maybe unexpectedly [3:13] getting worse, and and you have to [3:15] respond and make changes. [3:17] And also unexpectedly getting better [3:20] because [3:21] that can also be an opportunity, you [3:24] know, things change, maybe your business [3:27] gets some tailwinds and you you also [3:29] have to be in a position to kind of [3:31] capitalize on that without being [3:33] distracted. I think maybe by steadiness [3:35] he refers to being able to capture [3:38] things when when things are going in our [3:41] favor and also not getting too [3:43] discouraged and being able to pivot [3:45] strategically when uh when things are [3:48] not. I think so, too. When I look back [3:51] at HubSpot, I used to describe HubSpot [3:53] as a roller coaster. [3:55] Uh you guys are more like a 4D roller [3:58] coaster where you're upside down the [4:00] whole time. Like there's been a lot of [4:03] Those are my favorite ones. Yeah, and [4:06] you're in one. And like just to name a [4:08] few, like every year for a while, like [4:11] you had one. The beginning of COVID, you [4:13] guys had that big outage for a whole [4:15] day. [4:16] Uh 2021, of course, all the GameStop [4:19] stuff. Uh they make a movie about you, [4:21] you're testifying in front of Congress. [4:23] Uh 2022, the economy shifted, you lost [4:26] half your users, pivoted the whole darn [4:28] company. [4:29] 2023, the SVB stuff was pretty bad. [4:33] Which was the worst? [4:35] And can you talk a little bit about like [4:37] what it was like going through it and [4:39] how kind of your body reacted and how [4:41] you engage with the company and the [4:43] market when that was going on cuz most [4:45] people freak out. Yeah, a lot of people, [4:47] I think, when they talk about our [4:49] crises, they probably would say GameStop [4:53] because that was the most public. [4:55] And and I think [4:57] each one tends to drown out the previous [4:59] one. So, before GameStop, there was a [5:01] lot of chatter about the outage right at [5:04] the beginning of the COVID pandemic that [5:06] that you mentioned. Those things, I [5:08] think, in hindsight [5:10] weren't that bad to navigate through [5:13] because it was an acute moment, the [5:16] worst of it is right at the beginning, [5:18] and then once you kind of like make it [5:20] through and you're in the clear, it's [5:23] clean up. [5:24] You probably You've probably been [5:25] through some of those yourself. I'd say [5:28] 2022, the market turning was more [5:31] extreme for me because that was like a [5:33] little bit of a slow burn. First, there [5:36] was signaling by the Fed that interest [5:38] rates were going to go up because [5:41] inflation was looking bad. So, it [5:43] started out as this general signaling, [5:45] but the market got it. Right? And I [5:49] would say as one of like the recently [5:51] IPO'd growth companies of that era, end [5:55] of 2021, we kind of got hit first [5:58] because [5:59] when when people start taking these [6:01] macro things into effect and [6:04] you know, adjusting their portfolios [6:06] they they take risky assets off first, [6:08] and so you have crypto for those that [6:10] are interested in that, and recently [6:12] IPO'd growth stocks are are in that [6:14] bucket. [6:16] And you know, we were among the most [6:19] recent IPOs. We just like snuck in kind [6:21] of right at the end of that window in [6:23] hindsight without realizing it. [6:26] I I think that if we'd waited a couple [6:28] more months, we probably wouldn't have [6:29] been able to go public until [6:32] maybe 2024. And so [6:35] yeah, it was just a slow burn. Stock [6:38] price consistently and steadily [6:40] decreasing from a high of, I think, in [6:42] the '80s right after our IPO to [6:46] below $8. I think maybe even below $6 [6:49] would have been our all-time low. We [6:51] were trading below cash. And that was [6:53] tough because you have employees [6:55] wondering what's going on. The street [6:58] just like turned very bearish, but [7:01] behind that was a business whose [7:03] fundamentals did work very, very well in [7:05] a zero interest rate environment where [7:07] there was a lot of trading. But in a [7:09] high interest rate environment, we [7:11] weren't really built to succeed in that [7:14] environment. [7:15] And I took a little bit of solace in [7:19] the fact that I felt like we had a lot [7:21] of levers. We ultimately used that as an [7:24] opportunity to diversify the business. [7:26] And a lot of other companies didn't have [7:29] those levers. So, if you were a mortgage [7:30] company, you basically had to batten [7:32] down the hatches and figure out how to [7:34] make it through till rates went back [7:36] down again. [7:37] Which still hasn't really happened. So, [7:40] I think those companies had a tough [7:41] situation. But it was painful [7:43] throughout, and that was a little bit [7:46] more of like a okay, each day is a [7:49] little bit worse than the last, and [7:52] there's a lot of challenges, and that [7:54] goes on for 400 to 500 days at least [7:58] before you start seeing some of the [8:00] fruits of of the labor that ended up [8:03] turning things around. [8:05] And like inside of your body [8:08] you get a call probably at 2:00 in the [8:10] morning about the GameStop thing. Going [8:13] on in your head, do you get clarity, do [8:15] you get confusion? You bring your team [8:16] together? Like you remember when you got [8:18] the call? Yes. Um [8:22] you go through a few things, right? Uh [8:24] are the best people awake? Are they in [8:28] need of anything? Uh and of course, if [8:30] the answer to [8:32] the first one is no, you have to make [8:34] sure you get them in the room, get them [8:36] right away, and you have to know who the [8:38] best people are. [8:40] Which I think requires being intimately [8:42] familiar with the details. [8:44] And if they need anything, we drop [8:45] everything and make sure they they have [8:48] those things. And then are there things [8:50] that I need to do that perhaps [8:53] only I can do in that situation. That [8:55] the GameStop stuff, the things that I [8:57] had to do was figure out how we [9:00] communicate to the public what was going [9:02] on with this very complex situation. [9:06] And then also raise billions of dollars [9:09] overnight. [9:10] >> [laughter] [9:11] >> Yeah. So, then and then, you know, that [9:13] was actually kind of nice because those [9:14] were pretty clear [9:16] goals. My guess [9:19] is when those things are happening and [9:21] you gathered the team at 5:00 in the [9:23] morning on a Zoom [9:25] I would imagine people are pretty [9:26] panicked. [9:27] And that my guess is what Andrew meant [9:30] is in the face of big adversity and some [9:33] weird going down that you didn't [9:35] expect [9:37] you get clarity [9:39] and you're very clear with your team and [9:41] you calm them down. I think that's the [9:43] opposite reaction of 99% of humanity. [9:45] Yeah. And I I think that's part of your [9:47] special sauce. [9:49] Yeah, I think that's right, and I [9:50] wouldn't [9:52] oversell it too much. I mean, I I don't [9:54] know if I always make the right [9:55] decisions in that moment, but you [9:57] probably the variance between a decision [10:00] under fire and one where [10:04] or just like in a normal meeting is is a [10:06] little bit lower. I think of HubSpot we [10:09] had times of relative peace and some [10:11] times of war. I kind of enjoyed the war [10:14] time. Do you think about it like that or [10:17] is it always war time or how do you [10:19] think about that? I think it's always [10:21] war time. [10:23] Yeah. Yeah. Ideally actually the war [10:25] time is [10:26] internally created. [10:29] Cuz then it's under your control. You're [10:30] not subject to like some some other [10:32] people's wars that are being imposed on [10:34] you. I think if you get into, oh, this [10:36] is peace time, [10:38] you know, things are going smoothly. In [10:41] hindsight I've had moments where, you [10:42] know, I'm sitting around the table with [10:44] my co-founder or my executive team [10:46] that's like, oh, there's really not too [10:47] many problems going on right now. And at [10:50] the time it felt good, but in hindsight [10:52] I was like, [10:53] we probably weren't executing [10:55] aggressively enough. [10:56] I see. [10:58] And in all of these cases you sort of [11:01] tested your customers trust in you. [11:04] And you kind of lost a ton of trust in [11:06] all those cases, but built it back. [11:10] Can you just talk about how you thought [11:12] about building that back? How do you [11:13] build back trust? [11:15] What metrics are you looking at? Like [11:17] you're obsessed with NPS or It's easy to [11:19] lose trust. It's very hard to build it [11:21] back and you've done it multiple times [11:23] here. What advice do you have for others [11:24] on this channel? [11:25] >> Yeah, we do look at NPS and, you know, [11:28] NPS definitely took uh a dive during the [11:31] COVID times, during during GameStop in [11:34] particular. [11:35] You see it in these [11:38] public incidents, [11:40] whether it's the outages or sort of like [11:42] the the GameStop incident. [11:44] And it's true that it can go from very [11:47] high to low practically overnight, Yeah. [11:51] but the reverse is rare, right? I mean, [11:53] maybe if you have a really big [11:55] announcement people get excited about, [11:57] you'll gain five points of NPS, [12:00] but the gains are always slower and more [12:04] gradual than the losses. I didn't really [12:06] believe it when I heard it that, you [12:08] know, trust is easily lost and hard [12:11] gained, but but I think it's true in the [12:13] data. [12:15] So, [12:16] we kind of like looked for magic [12:18] bullets. Like can we [12:20] say these magic words or issue a blog [12:23] post, you know, and and make everything [12:25] okay or come up with some gesture, but [12:27] really what it is is just improving your [12:29] products over time. And if you keep [12:34] doing good things, [12:35] and then invariably there will be [12:38] some mistakes along the way for sure, [12:40] but minimize those mistakes, make sure [12:43] you don't do the same mistake over and [12:45] over again. I think that's a big killer. [12:47] Then you you see that gradual increase. [12:50] And over many, many years that compounds [12:53] and, you know, you could be back at [12:56] all-time highs. I think you've seen it [12:58] happening with some of the great [12:59] companies. You know, Nike had had their [13:01] challenges uh back in the early '90s. [13:05] Uh Apple certainly had their challenges. [13:07] Domino's Pizza or was it Papa John's? [13:10] One of the one of the two I think was a [13:11] a famous uh a famous trust case study. [13:14] The pepperoni wasn't that good, but they [13:16] really just fixed it. So, [13:19] it can happen. [13:20] So, in all those cases trust took a hit. [13:23] NPS went from way down. [13:26] In your head you're like, in 12 months I [13:28] can get it back up to where it is in 6 [13:30] months or like how do you how do you [13:32] think about that? So, we had a few of [13:34] these we had an outage at HubSpot in [13:35] 2019 on the last day of the quarter and [13:38] we lost a lot of customers. Our NPS [13:40] tubed. [13:41] And it was a it was about a year and a [13:42] half before the NPS caught back up to [13:44] where it was. Yeah, I think it it can [13:46] take years. Uh of course we have [13:50] goals. We try to [13:53] minimize it, but there's really no [13:55] better way that I found than just [13:59] improving the other things other than, [14:02] you know, maybe the the acute brand [14:04] episode that you had. I don't think you [14:06] can kind of counteract that, but if you [14:08] just keep making your business better, [14:10] then [14:12] the effects of, you know, any individual [14:14] crisis over time will fade, but then the [14:17] the effects of improving your product [14:19] are persistent, right? Those those just [14:21] uh will continue. [14:24] Okay, I spend a lot of time, Vlad, [14:26] coaching about 20 different scale-up [14:28] CEOs. [14:30] A lot of the companies there's there's [14:31] scaling get frustrated [14:34] that the intensity in the company goes [14:36] down, the tempo goes down. My sense of [14:40] you guys is the tempo has stayed high [14:43] and you're very quick. Like CowShare got [14:46] approved as a trading platform. Within a [14:48] couple weeks you were live with that [14:50] that system. What advice do you have for [14:52] founders that are scaling that don't [14:54] want to turn into a big slow company? I [14:57] think the main thing is you actually [14:58] have to care about it. [15:00] You know, a lot of these people are [15:01] sitting around uh around the table [15:04] saying, gosh, you know, we're we're [15:06] moving a lot slower now. They complain [15:08] about it, but do they really care enough [15:11] to [15:12] to fix it? I think that you have to talk [15:14] about it, not just [15:17] to the public or to your friends, but [15:19] also to your team. You have to measure [15:22] it. So, if if you if you say, oh, we [15:25] want to move faster, we want to have [15:27] high velocity, we want to ship more, [15:30] how do you do that? And how do you know [15:32] that you've got that? So, I I think [15:33] measurement is important. You have to [15:36] communicate that it's important. You [15:37] have to measure it. You have to have [15:39] strategies for how to improve it. [15:43] Right? And that involves looking at [15:45] areas where maybe it's not doing so well [15:47] and comparing it with the areas where [15:50] you are moving a little bit faster [15:52] and seeing, you know, what are those [15:54] folks doing over there that that you [15:56] should incorporate. There was always a [15:59] struggle in my mind at HubSpot. Like [16:00] we'd roll something out and some things [16:03] take a while. [16:05] And sort of uh a tension in my mind [16:08] between kind of urgency and patience on [16:10] stuff. Do you feel that tension in your [16:12] head? Like you got to be patient. This [16:14] is going to take time. These big [16:15] initiatives can take a while. versus [16:17] like always pressing and creating [16:19] urgency on everything. I think that [16:22] there's sort of a difference between the [16:24] tactical and the strategic urgency. I [16:27] think that if you have a lot of [16:29] uncertainty in in [16:31] what the right [16:33] thing to do is, it makes sense to gather [16:36] more information. When the right thing [16:38] to do is clear and everyone is aligned, [16:42] uh at that point you you have to move [16:44] through with maximal urgency. [16:47] And I think a lot of times what can be a [16:48] trap is sort of like uh urgency quality [16:52] trade-off, right? If we move fast, we'll [16:55] end up having to cut corners. My [16:57] experience is you have to demand both. [17:00] It's like you have to move fast and I [17:03] don't want any corners cut. If you look [17:05] at a really good [17:07] engineer, the best engineers move the [17:09] fastest and also have [17:13] high quality code with no bugs. It's not [17:15] really a trade-off. It's sort of like [17:17] you can find it within one person. [17:20] And then if you get a team of those [17:22] people together and you sort of like [17:25] create the right incentive structures [17:27] for you to have incredibly high density [17:29] of of great people like that, [17:32] then I think you don't have that [17:34] trade-off. You know, for some people [17:37] moving faster does lead to more [17:39] mistakes, but but not for everyone. I [17:40] think you have to find you have to for [17:42] the best people it's not true. [17:44] I used to call that the tyranny of or. [17:46] Everyone bring me or and I'm going to be [17:48] like, how about an and? Just once let's [17:49] do an and. [17:50] >> [laughter] [17:51] >> Yeah. [17:53] And they also say if you need something [17:54] done, give it to your busiest person, [17:56] right? So, there's some counterintuitive [17:58] advice there where, [18:00] you know, people just great people just [18:02] find a way. [18:04] I kind of agree. [18:05] Um okay, one of the hacks that some of [18:07] these founders are doing [18:09] is they're requiring people to be in the [18:11] office 7 days a week. [18:13] Yeah. [18:14] What's your take on that? What I notice [18:17] like my generation, we sort of followed [18:19] the Steve Jobs playbook. It feels like [18:21] this generation follows the Elon [18:22] playbook and [18:24] and both playbooks are great. Elon's [18:25] playbook is a little bit of like, you're [18:26] working 180 hours a week, you're in the [18:28] office, you're sleeping in the office. [18:30] Yeah. And a hack is a minimum of the [18:34] 996, 9:00 to 9:00, 6 days a week, but a [18:36] lot of them are like 7 days a week. And [18:38] it doesn't scale, but I'm seeing them [18:40] push it beyond 100, 200 employees. It's [18:42] interesting. What any take on that? [18:44] That's an extreme approach. It works for [18:47] some people. [18:48] The trade-off is you're not going to get [18:51] people that are sticking around the [18:52] company Yeah. [18:54] >> right? Because [18:55] it's hard to work 7 days a week for [18:59] 10 years if, you know, [19:02] you want to have a girlfriend or [19:03] children that you see. So, there there's [19:05] an extreme for sure. The right balance [19:07] is like some number greater than 40, but [19:11] perhaps less than 180. [19:15] And I'm not exactly sure [19:18] what the number is. I mean, obviously we [19:21] uh we we like to push it and work hard [19:24] here and [19:26] hold ourselves to a high standard. Okay, [19:29] related to this, I met with the founder [19:31] yesterday of a red hot AI company [19:34] >> [snorts] [19:35] >> and he showed me his phone and he just [19:37] showed me all the Slack messages, all [19:38] the email messages, all the texts, all [19:40] the WhatsApp. And he's like, since we [19:42] closed our round and we're getting a [19:44] little bit famous here, [19:46] I'm completely overcome and inundated [19:50] with just inbound stuff and I spend all [19:52] my day trying to get through that. And [19:55] he said, "Brian, how did you manage the [19:57] chaos?" Yeah. [20:00] I thought that was a good question. I'm [20:01] curious how you'd answer that. There's [20:03] really [20:04] a finite amount of time and a finite [20:07] number of those messages that probably [20:10] deserve and benefit from [20:13] the founder's attention and [20:15] decision-making ability. [20:17] It's tricky because you want to see [20:18] them, you know, sometimes automatic [20:21] delegation doesn't work because [20:23] someone's not going to know how to [20:25] handle it. [20:26] But you you don't want to [20:29] spend all of your time processing them. [20:32] >> [clears throat] [20:32] >> So, [20:33] I think the the best way is to just have [20:36] people around you and, you know, if you [20:38] don't add them one at a time [20:40] deliberately, [20:41] that you can offload the the majority of [20:44] that work to. You seem to be very good [20:46] at aligning your vectors over there. How [20:49] do you decide which bets to play? How do [20:52] you keep your vectors aligned? How often [20:54] do you rejigger the priorities? What's [20:57] your planning look like? Like, how's all [20:58] that work as you're scaling it up? I [21:00] think it depends a lot on what's going [21:03] on. There like market conditions, what [21:06] we see doing really well in the [21:08] business, what we see that we could [21:10] devote more resources to. [21:13] I think a lot of times [21:15] you're kind of like beholden to a [21:17] structure, right? Annual planning or [21:20] >> Yeah. [21:21] quarterly planning Yeah. You know, MBRs, [21:24] QBRs, monthly business review, quarterly [21:27] business review. [21:28] There there's these structures that make [21:30] it so that you either have to plan when [21:33] you don't really need to plan [21:35] or you're just [21:38] waiting too long to respond to things [21:39] because maybe, you know, something [21:41] happened, but you just had your [21:42] quarterly business review where you fix [21:45] the plan and it's locked in and it's [21:46] this heavyweight thing. My push has been [21:49] to just minimize the time spent [21:51] planning. [21:52] Minimize it to like a couple of days. [21:55] That's that's the goal rather than [21:56] having it be this multi-week waterfall [21:59] thing. Can Can we do our all of our [22:01] planning in, you know, less than a week [22:04] and then just keep pushing on that until [22:06] you reach a point where it's obviously [22:08] too little and then and then we can [22:10] readjust. [22:11] How's this cycle work with your fiscal [22:13] year? Like, how do you actually do it? [22:14] Usually what we do is we have kind of [22:16] our long-term vision [22:18] that goes out 10 years. How often do you [22:21] change that? [22:22] Uh I think from time to time when [22:24] something major changes, like we have a [22:26] very clear epiphany or some data from [22:29] some projects that are at some level of [22:32] maturation, there can be a a pretty big [22:34] change. [22:35] So, we had a pretty big one a couple [22:37] years ago and [22:39] it then led to [22:41] an overhaul of our vision and how we [22:43] communicated it. I think the the core of [22:45] it was the same throughout the entire [22:48] life of the company. We We know where we [22:50] wanted to get to, which is just everyone [22:52] using Robinhood for all of their [22:54] financial needs. The path became more [22:56] clear. We We got better at articulating [22:58] it and it culminated in an investor [23:00] event that we held in New York in [23:03] December of last year [23:04] where we actually invited [23:07] our public company analysts, [23:09] retail analysts as well, this community [23:11] of folks on YouTube that that analyzes [23:14] companies. We had a nice event where we [23:16] sort of like brought out our general [23:18] managers. We talked a lot about the arcs [23:20] of our business. We answered some [23:22] questions. I think that was very, very [23:24] good. Roughly every year we we try to [23:27] look at the document, revisit it. We get [23:30] our best people around the company. I [23:32] try to get together people at all levels [23:35] or just, you know, the highest [23:37] performers. That's about [23:39] uh 150. [23:41] And we we like to and, you know, there's [23:44] individual contributors, there's folks [23:46] that are more junior. [23:48] And we like to bring them together from [23:50] time to time to, usually once or twice a [23:52] year. [23:53] How painful is it coming up with that [23:55] list and how pissed are people when [23:56] they're like a director or VP don't get [23:58] invited to that and the individual [23:59] contributor that works for them does? [24:01] You just have to make it as meritocratic [24:03] as possible and generally I find people [24:06] know who the best people are. If you ask [24:09] someone, they're like, "Oh, yeah, of [24:10] course. That that person should be [24:13] in that gathering. I feel better as like [24:15] a shareholder and an employee knowing [24:17] that they're in the room." [24:19] I often found that the individual [24:20] contributors were the best in those [24:22] settings. [24:22] >> Yeah. What What you don't want is just [24:24] like a meeting of the top executives at [24:26] the top of the org chart. Right. I agree [24:30] with that. Okay, so once a year you do [24:32] it. So, your fiscal year starts Is it [24:33] the month before? Is it 3 months before? [24:35] And how rigid is it when you set it for [24:38] the next year? I think there's a couple [24:40] of things, right? So, we have the [24:41] financial plan. [24:43] And the the financial plan, I think we [24:46] we try to hold ourselves to. We have the [24:48] vision [24:49] which [24:51] is a slightly higher level document [24:54] where we kind of talk through the big [24:56] trends that we have in our business and [24:58] macro, how we're going to respond to [24:59] them. [25:01] And then we do a diff essentially. We [25:03] say, "Okay, this is what we thought the [25:04] world was going to be in our business [25:05] was going to be last year. This is where [25:07] we were wrong." And that happens about [25:09] once a year. [25:11] I'd say that's the first part. Then it [25:13] feeds into sort of like uh [25:16] resource allocation financial plan that [25:20] we try to hold ourselves to because [25:23] it ends up being what [25:26] analysts actually start modeling and [25:29] you know, you're public and you have to [25:31] you have to have some level of revenue [25:33] and cost predictability. For a while [25:35] that's been headcount, resource [25:38] allocation, what bets are we funding? [25:41] Now we've been moving towards thinking [25:44] of AI as another component of that. So, [25:47] how much computer we are we investing [25:49] in? Can we actually track each [25:52] department or business and compare them [25:54] to businesses that, you know, we [25:57] consider best in class, they're using AI [26:01] as another point of leverage. That's [26:03] starting to like [26:04] get into the planning a little bit more. [26:07] We try to limit the blast radius. So, I [26:09] mean, with with the financial plan and [26:11] the projections, the finance team's very [26:13] tightly involved and [26:15] uh everyone's aware of it, but it's not [26:17] like [26:18] thousands of people are are [26:21] collaborating to to create this [26:22] artifact. I think the folks that own it [26:24] is a relatively limited group of people. [26:28] We sort of did the same and then kind of [26:30] beneath the financial plan it was like, [26:32] what are the bets this year? What are [26:33] the things we want to like when we do [26:35] the diff, there's a big diff year on [26:37] year. We'd have three or four. I have a [26:40] comment and a question about that. One [26:41] of my comments is it seemed as we got [26:43] bigger, we could do less of those big [26:46] things, but we did them very, very, very [26:48] well. Like, they actually worked. Yeah. [26:51] Like, ironically, as the bigger you get, [26:52] the less you get done, but man, is there [26:54] a lot of leverage in it. Do you feel [26:56] that? One thing that we've experimented [26:59] with relatively recently [27:01] and I think it's worked well is having [27:03] these product events. [27:05] So, this started for us early 2024. [27:08] We're like, "We should have a product [27:09] event. We have some cool products that [27:12] are very close to being announced. Can [27:15] we do it a little bit better than just [27:17] blog post and, you know, I I post a few [27:20] tweets on social media." [27:22] Right. And and that became our first [27:25] gold event, which we called the new gold [27:27] standard. It was in New York. It had [27:29] kind of [27:30] art deco theme. We had a lot of fun with [27:33] it. And I thought it was it was unique. [27:36] Yeah. We announced the gold credit card, [27:38] the Robinhood gold card. [27:40] And and that product has done very, very [27:42] well. So, I think it helps when the [27:43] first event has like [27:46] something very nice you can announce. [27:49] And then we followed that up with with [27:50] Hood Summit, our active trader event [27:52] last year where we announced Robinhood [27:54] legend. [27:55] And that that was very good, too. That [27:57] was a little bit of a different [28:01] our active traders to the event. And so, [28:04] it wasn't just a keynote where we [28:05] announced products, but there was also [28:07] community building and they could talk [28:09] to each other and we had like [28:11] lunches where I would talk to the [28:13] customers. [28:15] And and that was very good. That was in [28:16] Miami. So, we did two last year. [28:19] And this year we've already done three [28:21] with Hood Summit V2 coming in a couple [28:25] of months. So, we had our crypto event [28:27] just now. We had a small active trader [28:30] live stream [28:31] which we're experimenting with as well. [28:33] Can we do an event where we announce [28:34] products, but it's not like huge [28:37] production value where we're flying [28:38] people around. I think that worked very [28:40] well. [28:41] And we brought our gold event to San [28:43] Francisco. I think it's been fun and it [28:46] also [28:47] lets you put a specific deadline where [28:51] external things happen. I think that can [28:53] be very, very effective where you're [28:54] trying to move fast. When you know [28:55] there's a deadline and you have to have [28:57] things ready and they have to be ready [28:59] in a state where you show them to [29:01] customers. [29:02] That that that can be a powerful forcing [29:05] function. Okay, so underneath the [29:07] planning process is, "Hey, we have these [29:09] deadlines we need to meet. Uh let's make [29:11] sure we nail these projects." I got [29:13] that. [29:13] >> Yeah, a lot of the planning when I meet [29:16] with the individual GMs and teams, [29:19] the event provides some structure around [29:22] that, right? It's sort of like, "What [29:24] are you going to have ready for Hood [29:25] Summit 2025?" And increasingly it's [29:29] like, "Let's look ahead to [29:31] how Hood Summit 2026 can be even better [29:34] than that." Cuz we have to put the [29:35] pieces together for for that. We haven't [29:38] started thinking about Hood Summit 2030 [29:40] yet, but I think that's probably the [29:42] sign of uh [29:44] an organization that's that's [29:46] functioning very well. You should also [29:48] have a view as to [29:50] what the long-term event is that that [29:52] you're culminating towards and it it [29:54] could be, you know, multiple years of [29:55] work. [29:57] And talk about slack. Like the world of [29:58] AI is changing extremely fast. Even [30:00] within your annual planning cycle, [30:02] things change that are important, I'm [30:03] sure, to you. And even that Cal-she [30:05] thing around the election, like that got [30:07] approval and like within a couple weeks [30:09] you did it. Like you must build in some [30:11] slack so you can spin up teams to do [30:14] things outside of the normal big launch [30:16] events and things like that. How do you [30:19] do that? How much slack do you build in? [30:21] Is it purposeful? How's that work? [30:24] Yeah, we we try never to have slack. I [30:27] think for that particular case, when new [30:28] information comes in, you have to [30:31] re-prioritize in real time. So, for the [30:35] election contracts thing that you're [30:37] referring to, [30:39] we we were somewhat lucky in a sense [30:41] that or [30:42] the past year plus, we had been working [30:46] on a derivatives business. [30:48] You know, we have a licensed futures [30:50] commissions merchant. [30:52] We brought in a GM to run that [30:55] who's been very good. And the plan was [30:58] Hood Summit [31:00] 2024, [31:01] we would launch futures outrights. So, [31:04] the ability to trade futures 24/5 in the [31:07] Robinhood app. [31:09] And we knew that event contracts were a [31:11] thing, right? That we're excited about. [31:14] We thought that markets were very [31:18] interesting. It was a new asset class [31:20] and we saw a lot of potential [31:22] for that to be the way that futures and [31:25] derivatives enter the the mainstream. [31:27] Cuz futures been very it's sort of like [31:29] a niche technical asset class. [31:33] Only the most hardcore active traders [31:35] have traditionally been been trading [31:36] futures. With event contracts, [31:38] prediction markets, we saw that [31:40] changing. [31:41] And we we sort of like knew that [31:43] politics [31:45] was going to be very important, but we [31:47] didn't see a path. So, when that Cal-she [31:49] decision came, [31:51] we got together and we were like it it [31:53] looks like this is going to happen for [31:55] the election. Yeah. And we were [31:58] fortunate that we had a lot of the [31:59] regulatory infrastructure in place to do [32:02] it because we'd been working on the the [32:03] futures outrights offering. And we had [32:06] to flip some things around. So, rather [32:07] than outrights first and then prediction [32:10] markets, [32:11] we we decided to do prediction markets [32:13] first to customers. Punt outrights a [32:16] little bit. It wasn't like free and we [32:18] had slack in the system and people were [32:20] just sitting around that could pick up [32:22] the work because if you have that, [32:25] you got to make sure those people are [32:27] are contributing. I mean, not just for [32:28] your business' sake, but for for their [32:30] own sake. There's too many critical [32:32] things to have people just [32:35] not working on them. So, 10-year [32:37] mission, [32:38] annual strategy sessions with 150 people [32:41] contributing. [32:43] Um big product launches kind of [32:45] structure your year. No slack in the [32:47] system, but if something big comes up, [32:49] you kind of rejigger. I think I've got [32:51] the Vlad. Well, I think there's also [32:53] another thing with the the 10-year [32:56] vision. We've tried to have 10-year [32:58] visions before. [33:00] And I don't know if you've come across [33:02] this issue with them, but [33:05] I think at the first approximation to a [33:07] 10-year vision is you just [33:10] put all the things that you want to do [33:12] that are in your mind right now onto a [33:16] timeline. And what ends up happening is [33:18] all the exciting initiatives are like [33:21] years one and two. [33:23] And then as you get further along [33:25] and you get to like year 10, [33:28] you look at this thing and you're like, [33:29] "Wow, all all of my low priority [33:31] initiatives are are just there." So, I [33:34] think in that a naive approximation, it [33:36] doesn't actually reflect the reality. [33:39] And the reality is [33:40] the 10-year vision you should work [33:42] backwards from. That should be really, [33:44] really big. And you're not going to work [33:47] on those things 9 years from now. You [33:49] actually have to work on them now and [33:51] they have to like build upon [33:53] one another so that [33:54] you actually get to to where you think [33:56] you should be in 10 years. [33:58] I like to think of them as arcs. [34:01] And and you have like uh an arc that [34:04] you're in right now and then you have a [34:05] medium-term one and then we have our [34:07] 10-year arc [34:09] which is going to feel slow at first, [34:12] but eventually it's just going to [34:14] take over the entire business. And and [34:16] you have to invest in that 10-year arc [34:18] right now knowing that the ultimate [34:21] return is going to be big, but but [34:23] actually delayed. And I think you have [34:25] to communicate that to [34:28] the company and to the street in our [34:29] case and make sure that they understand [34:31] the investments. I think Meta actually [34:34] did a good job of this. [34:36] Yep. You know, you probably seen that [34:37] slide from [34:39] you know, 2018 or so where they talk [34:41] about the long-term bets and it's [34:44] AI reasoners and, you know, virtual [34:47] reality and I think they had a a plan [34:49] around giving internet to everyone. And [34:51] then you look back and that was almost [34:53] 10 years ago. A lot of it is actually [34:55] things that they've been building [34:57] towards. [34:58] Yeah. [34:59] Uh Vlad, you strike me as being a very [35:01] good CEO. Your market cap would indicate [35:03] so. Who's on your Mount Rushmore of [35:06] CEOs? Who do you look up to emulate? Who [35:11] taught you how to do all this [35:13] When I was getting started, I thought [35:15] that that was sort of uh the model. If [35:17] you're successful, you have to have [35:19] someone [35:20] take you under their wing when you're [35:23] young and you don't know what [35:25] what you're doing and they can kind of [35:26] show you the ropes. Cuz I think you hear [35:28] these stories of [35:30] Steve Jobs calling up uh Bill Hewlett [35:34] and asking for some kind of like part [35:36] for a a radio and then Bill Hewlett [35:38] invites him over to his house, gives him [35:40] the part and he ends up interning at [35:43] Hewlett-Packard. When I was, you know, a [35:45] seed stage entrepreneur trying to make [35:47] it work, [35:49] not a lot of these big people wanted to [35:51] waste their time helping me out, right? [35:53] Like they were just too busy. When [35:57] it became clear that [36:00] we were an important company and we had [36:03] done very, very well, that [36:06] you know, those opportunities came up. [36:09] I've had, [36:10] you know, mentors. I've had board [36:12] members. My co-founder, obviously. But [36:15] yeah, I I wouldn't say there's been one [36:17] CEO in particular that [36:21] has like helped me tremendously. [36:23] >> You were co-CEOs the first several years [36:25] of the company. [36:26] And my sense is investors in Silicon [36:29] Valley kind of cringe at that and is [36:31] discouraged. Should there be more [36:33] co-CEOs? Is it a better idea than [36:36] investors think? [36:38] Um you pulled it off for a while. Like [36:40] what are the [36:41] you know, what's the magic? How did you [36:43] get it to work? I keep seeing it more [36:45] and more, actually. I think there's pros [36:48] and cons, obviously. I think at early [36:49] stage it can actually be rather helpful [36:53] Mhm. because the downside is when you [36:56] have important decisions that you have [36:58] to make and two people have to align on [37:01] on those decisions. That can slow you [37:03] down. It can cause [37:05] politics and issues when you have some [37:07] executives. [37:09] But the upside is that when there's not [37:12] too many of those things, you got two [37:13] people that are pushing hard and [37:14] extremely aggressively as as partners. [37:17] And and I think that can be very, very [37:19] good. So, you know, in the in the early [37:21] stages, we didn't have a ton of decision [37:24] overhead. It was very clear what we had [37:25] to do. [37:26] We had to ship the app and one of us was [37:30] doing design, the other one was doing [37:31] engineering and [37:33] you know, it was like the app had to [37:35] work and it had to be successful and [37:37] robust and we had to figure out how to [37:39] grow it. I think it worked very [37:40] successfully for us. You think it's an [37:42] emerging idea and it's a better idea [37:44] than investors think. Like there should [37:46] be more of them, particularly in the [37:47] early stage, but maybe it doesn't scale. [37:49] I'm putting words in your mouth, but is [37:51] that what you would say? I wouldn't even [37:53] say necessarily that I'd make a [37:55] generalization. I mean, some businesses [37:56] probably do it for a while. You look at [37:59] I mentioned Hewlett-Packard. I think [38:01] those guys were [38:03] in and out of the business for multiple [38:05] decades, right? They were like I don't [38:07] know if they were technically co-CEOs. [38:10] They're pretty rare, actually. Well, you [38:12] got Netflix, right? Netflix, Oracle. I [38:15] don't know how many CEOs Oracle has. [38:17] Salesforce at one point had at least two [38:20] CEOs. Um okay. A lot of the listeners, [38:23] Vlad, are [38:24] young CEOs on their way up trying to [38:26] scale their companies. [38:29] Advice for them. What are the big [38:30] mistakes that people make? What are the [38:32] best practices? [38:34] What's the non-obvious stuff that they [38:36] should be doing? [38:37] I think a lot of the advice that you [38:40] read and that people parrot around is [38:43] wrong or misguided. I mean, I I wouldn't [38:46] I wouldn't spend a lot of time just like [38:48] looking on Twitter and gauging how to [38:51] run your company. I think the most [38:53] important thing is to figure out what [38:55] you actually need to deliver and work [38:57] backwards from that. So, the more real [39:00] feedback you can get from customers and [39:03] from actual things that [39:07] relate to the functioning of your [39:08] company. They then then you have a loop [39:11] that you can iterate on, right? I need [39:13] this thing to happen for my business. I [39:15] need this thing to happen internally and [39:17] you can like focus on that. [39:19] Then you can improve it. Yeah, generally [39:21] like reasoning by analogy and saying, [39:23] "Oh, you know, this person tried this [39:25] thing here. Let me incorporate it." [39:27] I think is a is a less effective way to [39:29] run the company. [39:30] What does the Twittersphere get wrong [39:32] about being a CEO and scaling a [39:33] business? [39:35] I try to not even read it, to be honest. [39:37] Like I think when I come across it, I [39:39] actually say, "You know, I'm I'm not [39:41] interested in this." Okay, I think that [39:43] was really good advice. Like get locked [39:44] into the customer, follow the customer, [39:46] get feedback. As it scales, like you've [39:48] scaled to 15,000 employees, how do you [39:50] stay on the coal face? How do you keep [39:52] getting the feedback from the frontline [39:54] employee, from the customer, and not [39:57] lose it in translation through the [39:58] layers? Yeah, I think that can be very [40:00] challenging. I encourage all of the [40:03] executives, everyone in my in my broader [40:05] leadership team, to do two things. [40:09] One, do customer support calls. We built [40:12] some structure around this. Like you you [40:14] can visit a lot of our locations and [40:16] actually sit down. We We do customer [40:18] support out of lots of places around the [40:21] country. [40:23] Florida, Texas, Denver, to name a few. [40:26] At least once a year, I do a trip where [40:29] I'm actually just sitting around and and [40:32] doing tickets, right? [40:34] By phone, by chat. I'm licensed now, so [40:38] I can do [40:40] uh more tickets. I'm a licensed broker. [40:43] Uh but yeah, it's it's something that I [40:44] care a lot about and there's always high [40:46] signal because even though I'm only [40:49] doing it for, you know, one or two days, [40:51] you get to see patterns, you learn [40:53] things, you hear the same thing over and [40:55] over again. You know, it's not usually [40:56] the things that get serviced [40:59] through through the multiple layers. [41:01] But they're important. And then I also [41:03] like to encourage people to sit down, [41:05] talk to customers, and do UX research. [41:09] So, we do that both for existing [41:12] products that are out and trying to see [41:14] how customers are actually using the [41:15] products. And also products early in the [41:18] life cycle where, you know, we go to [41:20] customers' homes or we go on location [41:22] and we actually try to get in their [41:25] heads a little bit deeper. And we try to [41:28] open that up as much as possible. So, [41:30] that if you want to participate and [41:31] observe research, uh [41:33] we we have mechanisms to do that here in [41:36] person. [41:37] Got it. [41:38] Okay, Vlad, I think we're out of time. [41:40] You're a You're a mensch. You're [41:42] fantastic CEO. I really admire what [41:44] you've done, and hopefully the listeners [41:46] will get a lot out of this. Thank you [41:47] very much. Likewise. Yeah, thank you so [41:49] much. [41:50] Okay, I hope you enjoyed the interview [41:52] with Vlad. I enjoyed speaking with him [41:54] and learned a lot. I've actually [41:56] interviewed recently Matt Mullenweg from [41:58] WordPress, Parker Conrad from Rippling, [42:02] and kind of blended it with my own [42:03] experiences. [42:05] They've all been through major crises. [42:08] The best CEOs use the term, "I never [42:10] waste a crisis." I use that over and [42:13] over and over again at HubSpot. And [42:17] yeah, I should have that tattooed on my [42:19] arm. In the fog of war, things are [42:21] foggy. [42:22] I I'll admit I was a little foggy during [42:24] crises. Vlad's very clear. The other [42:26] thing he said that I loved is [42:30] it's always wartime. Even when there [42:32] wasn't a war, he created a war. [42:35] And HubSpot wasn't quite like that. It [42:38] was sort of like we would have crises [42:40] and then peacetime. And [42:42] I was very much a wartime person and [42:45] didn't really enjoy the peacetime as [42:46] much. But I like the way he keeps the [42:48] pace on and the pressure on inside of [42:51] Robinhood. He said something that I [42:52] found was true in HubSpot. If you need [42:54] something done, give it to your busiest [42:56] person, which is the exact opposite of [42:58] what you would think, but really worked [42:59] for me in crises and big moments in [43:01] HubSpot. [43:03] Those are some of my takeaways. I [43:04] thought he I think he's very sharp. He's [43:07] built an amazing company. I'm super [43:08] impressed. I hope you liked it. If you [43:10] want to keep the conversation going, [43:12] ping me on X at @bhalligan. [43:15] Take care. [43:19] >> [music]