The criteria to get into Robinhood’s founders club: Be among the 150 best-performing people at the company.
In an episode of the “Cheeky Pint” podcast published on Wednesday, Robinhood’s CEO Vlad Tenev said he has created a community of the best people across the company to ensure he is not just interacting with direct reports.
“When I induct people into this community, I usually give a spiel,” he said. “If there was a disaster or some kind of apocalyptic scenario, and we had to rebuild Robinhood with 150 people, you would be in that group.”
Tenev, who cofounded the company in 2013, said the founder community was initially compensation-focused and a way of awarding budgets to the best performers. But it has since become an “actual community” at the stock trading company.
“I go through the updated strategy or vision, we get those folks together, we get their feedback,” he said. “We do events. We have events in each city, and we get them together for dinners.”
Robinhood went public in 2021 and is now worth about $98.4 billion. It had 2,300 full-time employees as of December 2024.
Tenev said he didn’t want the group to become 150 people “at the top of the org chart,” and includes people who have the most impact at every level of the company.
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The CEO added that the company “very much” concentrates promotions within top performers and rewards the “best people in the company” very well.
Robinhood declined further comment to Business Insider.
Tenev isn’t the first to launch a secretive, invite-only company club.
In 2011, Fortune reported that Apple had an exclusive club for top performers called the Top 100. It was described as an invitation-only, off-site meeting held for the 100 most influential people at Apple, regardless of their official position or tenure. Employees participated in a three-day strategy session focused on top-secret projects and how upcoming products will be unveiled.
Apple did not respond to a comment asking if these off-sites or similar events for top employees still take place at the company.
