Building Robinhood, Surviving GameStop & A $500 Million Phone Call | Vlad Tenev

With David Senra, Vlad Tenev · Wednesday, November 11, 2026

Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev sits down with David Senra to break down the dramatic inside story of surviving the GameStop short squeeze and clearinghouse capital requirements in January 2021. Tenev details his background growing up in hyperinflationary Bulgaria, transitioning from a pure mathematics PhD program at UCLA under Terence Tao into high-frequency trading software, and the critical relationship with Ribbit Capital's Micky Malka that saved Robinhood from collapse.

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Key takeaways

Pure mathematics at elite levels narrows your audience to roughly twenty people worldwide who can understand a single paper. Read more →
In 1997, Bulgarian inflation hit 1,700% in a single year, destroying Vlad Tenev's family savings and driving his relatives to hoard physical copper cookware as currency. Read more →
Robinhood's clearinghouse deposit requirements exploded from under $100 million to $3 billion overnight during the January 2021 GameStop retail trading peak. Read more →