Inside Robinhood’s ‘apocalypse’ team: Vlad Tenev reveals his elite 150

Imagine a world in chaos, a disaster so profound that society—and your multi-billion dollar company—has crumbled.

Who would you choose to help you rebuild from the ashes? For Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, this isn’t just a thought experiment; it’s the dramatic framing for the company’s most exclusive internal club.

In a revealing interview on the “Cheeky Pint” podcast published Wednesday, Tenev pulled back the curtain on a secretive group of 150 top-performing employees he has hand-picked to be the firm’s ideological and strategic core.

This is not just a list of high-achievers; it’s a designated survival crew.

The ‘apocalypse’ spiel

The criteria for entry into this elite circle is simple: be one of the absolute best at the company. But the initiation is pure drama. “When I induct people into this community, I usually give a spiel,” Tenev explained. 

“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.”

This “founder’s club,” as he calls it, is Tenev’s way of ensuring he maintains a direct line to the brightest minds across his organization, breaking free from the traditional constraints of the executive hierarchy.

From budget tool to brain trust

What began as a practical, compensation-focused tool to award budgets to the best performers has blossomed into something far more significant.

Tenev, who co-founded the stock trading platform in 2013, said the group has since evolved into an “actual community” at the heart of the company, which went public in 2021 and is now valued at approximately $98.4 billion.

This inner circle now serves as a high-level focus group and a vital feedback channel. “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.”

Merit over management

Crucially, Tenev is adamant that the group is not just a reflection of the corporate ladder. With 2,300 full-time employees as of December 2024, he said he didn’t want the group to become 150 people “at the top of the org chart.” 

Instead, it includes individuals who demonstrate the most profound impact at every level of the company, ensuring that ground-level innovators have a seat at the table.

This philosophy, he added, extends to the company’s broader culture, which “very much” concentrates promotions and rewards on the “best people in the company.”

Robinhood declined to provide further comment to Business Insider on the initiative.

Tenev isn’t the first Silicon Valley leader to create a clandestine club for top talent. In 2011, Fortune reported that Apple had a highly exclusive group called the “Top 100.”

It was described as an invitation-only, off-site summit for the 100 most influential people at the company, where they would engage in three-day strategy sessions on top-secret projects. It served as a powerful reminder that within the world’s most innovative companies, there often exists an even more elite inner sanctum.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment on whether the practice continues.

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