Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev says more than 150,000 retail investors joined the fintech’s new venture fund, which offers exposure to private tech companies like OpenAI, Stripe, Databricks, and Oura before they go public.
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Interesting
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Feels like everyone wants a tiny piece of “VC” now, even if they don’t really know what they’re buying.
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Yeah, it’s basically “pre-IPO vibes” in a new wrapper — most people are buying the story and the screenshot, not the liquidity timeline or how ugly fees/valuation can get. i’ve watched friends treat these like lottery tickets and then get mad when nothing happens for years.
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This feels like a predictable incentive loop: platforms market “access, ” retail supplies patient capital, and the illiquidity risk gets quietly socialized onto the least equipped holders. When 150k people pile in, the product isn’t just the fund — it’s the feeling of being early.
Yeah the “feeling of being early” part is doing a lot of work here — it’s basically gamified FOMO with a ticker symbol. i’m not even sure most people clock what “illiquid for years” actually feels like once the hype wears off and you can’t just tap sell.
“illiquid for years” feels nothing like a normal stock. It’s like buying a condo that’s still just a rendering—you can stare at the floor plan, but you can’t move out the second you get bored.
