Vladimir Tenev | |
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Born | 1986/1987 (age 34–35)[1] |
Nationality | American, Bulgarian |
Education | TJHSST (HS) Stanford (BA Math) UCLA (PhD Math) (dropped out) |
Occupation | Entrepreneur |
Known for | Co-founder, Robinhood |
Net worth | $1 billion |
Children | 1 |
Vladimir Tenev (Bulgarian: Владимир Тенев; born 1986 or 1987)[1] is a Bulgarian-American billionaire entrepreneur who was the co-founder (with Baiju Bhatt) and CEO of Robinhood, a US-based financial services company.
Tenev was born in Bulgaria, and his parents migrated to the U.S. when he was five.[2] His parents both worked for the World Bank.[3] He attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology[4] in Fairfax County, Virginia.
He earned a degree in mathematics from Stanford University, where he met Baiju Bhatt.[1] He studied for a mathematics PhD at UCLA, but dropped out to work with Bhatt.[3][5]
In 2010, Tenev and Bhatt started a high-frequency trading company called Celeris. By January 2011 they abandoned it to create Chronos Research, which sold low-latency software to other trading firms and banks.[6]
In 2013, Tenev and Bhatt co-founded the trading platform Robinhood.[1] Following a funding round in May 2018 which increased Robinhood's valuation to $6 billion, Tenev and Bhatt became billionaires.[1][7]
On January 28, 2021, Tenev defended Robinhood's decision to prevent users from buying stock or options in a variety of securities, notably GameStop, during the GameStop short squeeze;[8][9][10][11] the decision had sparked widespread criticism from users of the app as well as politicians in both major American parties.[12] On February 18, 2021, Tenev testified before the United States House Committee on Financial Services regarding Robinhood's role during the GameStop short squeeze.[13][14] Tenev came under heavy criticism from members of both parties and was criticized for struggling to provide answers to a number of questions.[15][16][17]
In the aftermath of the GameStop event, Tenev was interviewed by Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, who called Tenev "a rat and a liar."[18]
Tenev was included in a Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2013.[19] He was invited to be the keynote speaker at UCLA's 2019 Math Commencement Ceremony.[20]
Presented content of the Wikipedia article was extracted in 2021-06-13 based on https://en.wikipedia.org/?curid=57971100