Vlad Tenev

How Calacanis got into Robinhood: a bar pitch with Elon present

Calacanis recounts meeting Robinhood's founders in a Palo Alto dive bar while having a drink with Elon Musk. Vlad's pitch was to get commitment-phobic, debt-laden millennials to trade stocks for free at a time when retail investors had vanished since 2008, and the absurdity of the pitch is exactly why Jason invested.

“He said, "Well, we're going to make it free." I said, "So your idea is to go after a group of people who are on their parents' Netflix accounts to save money, get them to trade stocks, and your business model is free?" He's like, "Yep." I was like, "I'm in." So I invested.”