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Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

wsj.com

51–60 of 717 posts

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#51
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His salary is like $300k and the stock options he was granted as the pandemic growth hit break even at some $300/share (it's $9/share right now).

In the past year he sold $55 million of shares. Let's don't be too credulous about cries of poverty.

Sure but that's not opex (the context of this thread). That's stuff he has by virtue of founding the company.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#52
post #17

> As CEO, I approved and took responsibility for our ambitious staffing trajectory—this is on me So, find a decent replacement for CEO.

It's just a turn of phrase... usually "it's on me" just means I've acknowledged what you might be thinking and I'm going to continue doing whatever I want.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#53

"Last year, we staffed many of our operations functions under the assumption that the heightened retail engagement we had been seeing with the stock and crypto markets in the COVID era would persist into 2022..." We are now at the point when we will find out which of the changes to behavior (financial and otherwise) that came about with the onset of the covid-19 pandemic are going to be lasting, and which are not. I…

It should have been obvious to anyone that people would do less day trading once they had anything better to do.

Hindsight's 20/20? Why would we feel sure that people wouldn't keep up with habits they picked up during COVID? That seems like it could have been similarly likely to me -- someone picks up day trading, gets hooked, and now it's a regular habit.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#54
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…

I realize it's not something that happens, but I would say "taking responsibility" would mean taking, oh, I dunno, $50M of that $800M in compensation in 2021, and distributing it to those laid off? (How the hell is your life different with $750M instead of $800M anyway?)

Lots of execs take "only" $100ks of compensation in salary and the rest in stock.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#55
post #43
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…

Taking responsibility would mean returning a significant portion of that compensation.

Wait, shouldn't this be returned back to whom the money belonged (investors)?

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#56

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"

His salary is like $300k and the stock options he was granted as the pandemic growth hit break even at some $300/share (it's $9/share right now).

Elsewhere in the thread, others mention he was paid 800 million in stock awards in 2021. Do you have some other supporting info?

The 800 million number seems to be better supported via a quick search - https://www.execpay.org/executive/vladimir-tenev-42307/r-186...

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#57
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…

I realize it's not something that happens, but I would say "taking responsibility" would mean taking, oh, I dunno, $50M of that $800M in compensation in 2021, and distributing it to those laid off? (How the hell is your life different with $750M instead of $800M anyway?)

Sure, go ahead and ask those laid off if they'd feel better if they were given a nice grant of $HOOD, which was worth about 500% more in 2021.

The post-IPO 2021 price stabilized for a while around $50, so $50M is about 1M shares. The article says about 1,000 people were laid off, so if split equally that's 1,000 shares per employee. Since then, the price has come down to about $9, so it's a severance of $9,000 today.

I would hope everyone getting laid off receives at least that much.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#59
post #42
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…

If you crash a company against the wall resulting in such a disaster and having to cut so much staff, resigning isn't enough. CEO's should have to pay back big parts of their compensation.

executives should be compensated for the performance of the company in the future, not the current quarter or year. this is the board's fault for failing to set effective incentives.

Re: Robinhood lays off 23% of staff

#60
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 $800M was in stock vs cash?
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