HOW BIG CAN ROBINHOOD ALLY GET?

CEO VLAD TENEV AND THE FINTECH UPSTART HAVE CHANGED THE WAY AMERICANS INVEST. BUT TO MAKE SERIOUS MONEY, THEY'LL HAVE TO ELEVATE THEIR GAME.

- JEFF JOHN ROBERTS

THE RED LOTUS Esprit slips past the security gate, leaving behind the large, Spanish-style house and its sumptuous backyard pool. Vlad Tenev smiles as he grips the wooden-sphere stick shift and nudges the sports car into higher gear. Soon, the car is lapping up the oak-shaded curves of a Los Altos Hills back road as it winds toward the heart of Silicon Valley.

The 1987 Lotus is a striking vehicle, with couch-like leather seats barely off the ground, and mini cigarette lighters and ashtrays on each armrest. The car’s top speed is a modest 148 mph. It’s an unusual ride for a billionaire who could easily spring for a garage full of McLarens and Bentleys, but it clearly delights Tenev.

For the CEO of Robinhood, the Lotus is the fulfillment of a dream, held by many overgrown boys, of owning the car you drove in a childhood video game. It also embodies the values of unconventional design and rule-breaking that Tenev has sought to emulate at his company.

Cars can be a metaphor for going fast, achieving independence—or driving off a cliff. All of those feel appropriate for Tenev and the company he cofounded, which in barely a decade has worn very different identities, including feel-good startup and archvillain. Today, for the first time in a while, Robinhood’s road is smooth and wide open.

Love or hate Robinhood, there’s no denying it has, more than any other company in recent memory, changed the way Americans invest. It popularized rash mass purchases of stocks like GameStop and Dogecoin, but also spurred the broader brokerage industry to copy its no-cost, mobile-first approach. Robinhood has grown fast: It had 24.1 million funded accounts at the end of May, up from 12.5 million in 2020, and its assets under custody have bulged to $135 billion. And it has transformed the demographics of investing, helping millions of people get a piece of the stock market for the first time.