Robinhood Cuts 9% of Workforce as ‘Hyper Growth’ Slows

CEO Vlad Tenev said the platform’s rapid growth in 2020 and 2021 led to duplication of roles and functions.

By Nelson Wang

Apr 26, 2022 at 8:44 p.m. UTC

Updated Apr 26, 2022 at 8:53 p.m. UTC

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Popular no-commission trading platform Robinhood (HOOD) is cutting roughly 9% of its full-time workforce, CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev announced in a blog post Tuesday afternoon.

Tenev wrote that throughout 2020 and the first half of 2021, the company went through a period of “hyper growth” fueled by coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, low interest rates and government fiscal stimulus. Over that time period, staffing rose by almost six times from 700 to almost 3,800.
That rapid growth led to duplicate roles and functions, Tenev wrote, leading to the decision to cut jobs. “After carefully considering all these factors, we determined that making these reductions to Robinhood’s staff is the right decision to improve efficiency, increase our velocity, and ensure that we are responsive to the changing needs of our customers.”
He noted that Robinhood will continue to introduce key products across its brokerage, crypto and spending saving divisions.
Robinhood’s crypto trading business has increased rapidly, and the company recently activated its crypto wallet for 2 million “eligible” customers.
Shares of Robinhood were trading down 5.5% to $9.50 in after-hours trading on Tuesday.

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Nelson Wang

Nelson Wang is CoinDesk's news editor for the East Coast. He holds BTC and ETH above CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.

Follow @NelWang on Twitter

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Nelson Wang

Nelson Wang is CoinDesk's news editor for the East Coast. He holds BTC and ETH above CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.

Follow @NelWang on Twitter