March 26 :
Baiju Bhatt, a co-founder of Robinhood Markets, is leaving his position as chief creative officer. The expansion and innovation of the investing platform based in Menlo Park, California has been greatly aided by the contributions of Indian Americans. Along with Vlad Tenev, he co-founded Robinhood in 2013 and led the company as its co-CEO until 2020, when he became chief creative officer. He is going to stay on the board.
Bhatt said he "believed we could change our financial system for the better" when he co-founded Robinhood in 2013 in a statement announcing his departure. The Occupy Wall Street movement and the goal of democratising finance for all served as the inspiration for what he described as "the seed of an idea." He claimed that in his capacity as co-CEO, he "helped grow and transform Robinhood from an idea into a movement - one with hundreds of employees and millions of customers all across America."
"I worked with teams of incredible builders to bring products like Robinhood Retirement to life," he continued, describing his role as chief creative officer. He went on, "Working with some of the most inventive and creative thinkers in the industry has been an honour and a privilege.""I've spent the last ten years living my life in Robinhood, and even though I'm leaving my daily position, I'll still be on the Board of Directors," he continued. "I'm going to stay involved in the work that needs to be done to realise this mission because there is so much more to be done."
According to FinanceFeeds, Robinhood is striving to maintain its goal to making finance accessible to a wide range of people while navigating the competitive and evolving financial services industry. This is why the company has changed leadership. The company "pushed the boundaries of traditional finance, challenging established norms and opening the market to a new generation of investors," according to the website that provides news about the forex industry, noting that this departure "marks the end of an era."
Bhatt was raised in the Hampton Roads neighbourhood of Virginia. His parents are Pragna and Praful Bhatt, immigrants from India. Adrienne Sussman is his wife, and the two of them have a kid. Bhatt graduated from Stanford University with a master's in mathematics and a bachelor's degree in physics. After that, he relocated to New York, where he met Tenev. The two founded two financial firms that provided hedge funds with trading software. They saw problems that were occurring in the financial industry after the Occupy Wall Street rallies in 2011. "We found ourselves at the epicentre of a great deal of angst surrounding the financial system," Bhatt stated in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on February 21, 2020. "A lot of people thought it was essentially flawed."
This is where the concept for Robinhood's founding originated. As stated on the Robinhood website, "With their newfound experience in the world of finance, they realised that most Americans were charged commission for every trade, while big Wall Street firms paid effectively nothing to trade stocks." "They quickly came to the conclusion that it was more crucial to develop products that would enable everyone, not just the wealthy, to access the financial markets." After that, they relocated to California and started the business. According to MEAWW, Bhatt and Tenev "told the users to refer the app to their friends if they wished to move up the list" during the app's pre-registration period, which resulted in over a million users waiting when the software was released on Apple's App Store.
