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Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

wsj.com

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Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#251

Post by kemitchell »

BeetleB wrote: post #188
jonas21 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the ~$800M in stock-based compensation described here [1]? Nearly all of that only vests if Robinhood stock hits price targets between $120 and $300 per share. The remainder requires a price of $50.75 to be sustained for 60 days. Since none of these goals have been met, Vlad has not received any of it. And unless the company turns around dramatically - it's currently around $9/share - it's likel…

Exactly - all these articles about CEO compensation are misleading. Case in point: Intel's CEO's 2021 salary was reported as almost $180M. In reality, he got only about $10M. He hit literally none of the targets that would allow him to get the rest of the compensation (although in theory he has a few years to hit those targets).

It’s case by case. I have seen some accurate CEO comp headlines. Some publications certainly bat better than others.

As for Intel: $10m a year is still a lot of money.

I have also heard that targets are occasionally hit. ;-D

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#252

Post by [deleted] »

paxys wrote: post #29

> As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory—this is on me Reminder that Vlad Tenev received $800M in compensation in 2021. In the same year the company made terrible bets on crypto and banking, took an irreversible reputation hit among its core user base because of the GME fiasco, had multiple user data breaches, was subject to several investigations and was fined hundreds of mi…

[deleted]

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#253

Post by fleddr »

maronato wrote: post #201
fleddr wrote: post #85

We live in such morally bankrupt times. You can just say "you take responsibility" without actually taking responsibility at all. Our expectations have become so low and we've become so complacent that just the statement is enough. In similar vain, "we care about your mental health" as is the common internal email from HR. No actual care is offered though. Giving staff a day off is a tangible example of doing at leas…

I don’t think humanity has ever not been morally bankrupt. Politics has always been immoral. Industrialism has always been immoral. Slavery was commonplace. We used to have feudalism and nobility. Morals are only applicable to those who have no choice and power to choose otherwise.

Each of those statements are rather simplistic, but for the sake of argument true-ish enough. I'm not at all surprised that there are sociopaths willing to leverage the twisted incentives in our system.

The sociopath comes natural, the system does not. It's malleable.

In a more balanced world, this behavior is corrected. That CEO should be chased down the streets or do prison time. Their assets seized and given back. Even more ideal would be for legislation to fix the twisted incentive.

The above stuff matters. Instead we focus on canceling somebody over an offensive tweet containing a word not at all offensive 3 days ago.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#254

Post by lxe »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #18
88840-8855 wrote: post #5

What they write: "As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory – this is on me. " What he totally forgot to mention: "I also take a pay cut to reduce the opex burden on the company and to retain as many FTE as possible"

Silicon Valley (the satire TV show) already covered this exact scenario. Mike Judge is a brilliant writer. https://youtu.be/u48vYSLvKNQ?t=17

Amazingly on-point. The entire show, at least the first few seasons, is still a mirror of reality in SV.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#255

Post by gruez »

alasdair_ wrote: post #221
gruez wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robinhood is a public company. There's no difference between getting stock/RSU compared to getting paid in cash and then using it to buy stocks.

There is if you are an executive that is privy to non-public information.

That's insider trading, and a whole different accusation than the one levied above, which is implying some sort of wealth inequality issue that executives are compensated in stocks and non-executives are compensated in cash.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#256

Post by tjr225 »

bastardoperator wrote: post #228
twblalock wrote: post #118

A lot of Robin Hood's growth in particular was driven by people gambling their stimulus money because they didn't need it to make ends meet, and by the Fed juicing the markets with low rates for far too long, and by the ridiculous meme stock phenomenon. It was a perfect storm of stupidity. Personally I'm glad that some sanity is returning to investing, and we are still a long way from getting back to normal.

people gambling their stimulus money because they didn't need it to make ends meet How did you quantify this statement?

They didn't, but I think most people would guess that is accurate. I know I do. I supported one of their open source infrastructure solutions(that they weren't paying for mind you) when SHTF.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#257

Post by xpe »

slickrick216 wrote: post #211
fleddr wrote: post #85

We live in such morally bankrupt times. You can just say "you take responsibility" without actually taking responsibility at all. Our expectations have become so low and we've become so complacent that just the statement is enough. In similar vain, "we care about your mental health" as is the common internal email from HR. No actual care is offered though. Giving staff a day off is a tangible example of doing at leas…

Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against t…

Yes, money is _one_ barometer.

I get it -- I often say "we're doomed" -- but very few of us get into the details of what that means. Maybe you have? What does the descent into doom look like? Any predictions?

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#258

Post by throwaway27727 »

paxys wrote: post #29

> As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory—this is on me Reminder that Vlad Tenev received $800M in compensation in 2021. In the same year the company made terrible bets on crypto and banking, took an irreversible reputation hit among its core user base because of the GME fiasco, had multiple user data breaches, was subject to several investigations and was fined hundreds of mi…

How much of that compensation was in Robinhood stock, which dropped 90%? How much of it vested?

These aren't rhetorical questions, I'd like to actually know these details.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#259

Post by oldgradstudent »

kevinpet wrote: post #197
paxys wrote: post #29

> As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory—this is on me Reminder that Vlad Tenev received $800M in compensation in 2021. In the same year the company made terrible bets on crypto and banking, took an irreversible reputation hit among its core user base because of the GME fiasco, had multiple user data breaches, was subject to several investigations and was fined hundreds of mi…

His job is to make big ambitious bets. These didn't pay off. CEOs are not hired (or retained) for the benefit of employees or customers, they are hired by boards for the benefit of shareholders, and shareholders in Robinhood were not buying for stable reliable dividends.

Shareholders have a residual interest.

Debts, taxes, regulations, suppliers, and other liabilities and requirements come first.

The CEOs making ambitious bets should take those into account.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#260

Post by throwfh80h82 »

jmyeet wrote: post #137
paxys wrote: post #29

> As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory—this is on me Reminder that Vlad Tenev received $800M in compensation in 2021. In the same year the company made terrible bets on crypto and banking, took an irreversible reputation hit among its core user base because of the GME fiasco, had multiple user data breaches, was subject to several investigations and was fined hundreds of mi…

> ... took an irreversible reputation hit among its core user base because of the GME fiasco God I'm so sick of hearing this. It comes from people who seriously don't know what happened. let me explain: RH had (and still has) a service that you can trade immediately on signing up and sending funds rather than waiting for them to clear. This mostly works out fine because people buy different things and you have the un…

This is not true, and it's rare to see someone so confidently be so wrong.
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