“We aim to take market share and usurp, but we’re very much operating within the system.” ~ Vlad Tenev
In 2013, Vlad Tenev launched the “Robinhood” platform to democratize financial markets. So what common ground does the Bulgarian-American entrepreneur share with Entitled Opinions host and humanist Robert Pogue Harrison, who claims that teaching, thinking, and writing about cultural history has been his lifelong vocation?
The Stanford professor made a guest appearance on Tenev’s half-hour podcast series “Under the Hood” to explore the connections. Here’s an obvious one: the CEO also started at Stanford, where he envisioned a trading platform to encourage young investors by not requiring minimum accounts or charging commissions. You can listen to the conversation at the Los Angeles Review of Books here.
The fugitive “Robin Hood” was another link. Tenev suggested that Robin Hood’s intent was to democratize resources, adding that “he wanted to open up the forest and have it not just the purview of the king, but open for everyone to hunt.”
Harrison, the author of Forests: The Shadow of Civilization, drew an analogy between the outlaws’ Sherwood Forest and the markets of Wall Street, adding, “Your platform is trying to get the underdogs or the least privileged into a system which traditionally enriches the already rich.”
Both men also share an interest in the work of the late French theorist René Girard, who taught at Stanford for decades. Girard said society’s last taboo is envy, which drives today’s social media. Recalling Girard’s most famous protégé, the early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, Harrison observed, “Facebook is a machine of engendering envy, and people keep upping the ante of how happy they are, how beautiful their kids are, and how wonderful their vacations and meals are. You enter into this mad mimetic escalation of self-representation on one hand, and the envy of your friends and rivals on the other. “ Yet Tenev noted that Robinhood also started with social media, allowing people to interact in ways unimaginable a decade before.
“In our capitalistic society, there’s not just one king. There are several kings. They are the banks, the corporations, the hedge funds, the investment bankers.” ~ Robert Pogue Harrison
The recording of the conversation is over at the Los Angeles Review of Books here.
More potent quotes:
“In our capitalistic society, there’s not just one king. There are several kings. They are the banks, the corporations, the hedge funds, the investment bankers.” ~ Harrison
“You can’t just throw prudence out of the equation altogether.” ~ Harrison
“Do these trading platforms have a declared sense of responsibility in caring for the investors who use it? How does one go about trying to protect the users?” ~ Harrison
“Your Robinhood platform is not revolutionary because it’s not trying to overthrow.” ~ Harrison
“You can’t just throw prudence out of the equation altogether.” ~ Harrison
“We aim to take market share and usurp, but we’re very much operating within the system.” ~ Tenev
Tags: Peter Thiel, René Girard, Robert Pogue Harrison, Robin Hood, Vlad Tenev