Robinhood Fires 9% Of Full-time Staff, Share Price Falls Near All-time Low

Robinhood’s CEO Vladimir Tenev announced on Tuesday that the company is downsizing 9% of its full-time employees. The firm’s share price shortly afterward took a hit, and at the time of writing stand at $10.00.

Tenev explained in his blog post that Robinhood experienced a period of hyper-growth from 2019 to 2021. Net funded accounts grew from 5 million to 22 million, and revenue from $278 million to $1.8 billion.

As a result of the fast growth, the company added its headcount from 700 to 3800 employees, leading to many “duplicate roles and job functions”. This has increased complexity and reduced efficiency in the company, which as led to the recent decision to downsize.

Tenev said:

“While the decision to undertake this action wasn’t easy, it is a deliberate step to ensure we are able to continue delivering on our strategic goals and furthering our mission to democratize finance.”

Robinhood aims to continue its international expansion efforts, and be introducing new brokerage, crypto, and spending & saving products.

The trading app gained huge popularity in the crypto space, especially among the Dogecoin community. Nearly one-third of all Dogecoin in circulation is currently owned by Robinhood – on behalf of its clients.

In contrast, the Grayscale Bitcoin fund is the largest single (known) owner of Bitcoin, but it only owns 3% of the coins in circulation on behalf of its clients.