Robinhood

Robinhoodies,

We've made the difficult decision to say goodbye to some of our team members today. Those departing are being notified, and we're offering them full support through this transition, including severance. These are good people who helped build the foundation we stand on today, and I am deeply grateful for their contributions to Robinhood.

Translation: We have decided that certain employees are now more valuable to us as a one-time severance expense than as recurring payroll expenses. Many of the people leaving did exactly what we asked them to do and helped create significant shareholder value. Unfortunately, past contributions generate gratitude, not future budget allocation.

I want to be transparent about why this is happening now. Robinhood's business has never been stronger. But to achieve the massive scale of our mission, we cannot default to operating as a heavily-layered organization. We must be a lean, hyper-focused team where every single individual is empowered to make a massive impact. Our execution is strong today, but our ambitions require us to continuously raise our own bar. To achieve that, today we are flattening our org structure and reducing our overall team size by 10% of headcount.

Translation: Since business is going exceptionally well, we have the luxury of conducting layoffs from a position of strength rather than necessity. Wall Street generally prefers companies that produce the same revenue with fewer employees, so we are removing 10% of the employees and setting the expectation that the remaining 90% will figure it out. We call this "flattening the organization" because "asking fewer people to do more work" sounds less strategic.

Because our financial position is strong, we are making this change proactively. The goal is to maximize our talent density and ensure that our culture is defined by an absolute elite performance bar and a superlative commitment to our customers. This transition creates even more opportunities for our most talented people to grow and take on greater responsibility. We will also continue hiring strategically, investing heavily in top-tier talent, and utilizing frontier technologies to push our execution even further.

Translation: We are not cutting costs because we have to; we are cutting costs because the spreadsheet says we can. "Talent density" means concentrating compensation, influence, and opportunities among a smaller number of people while eliminating everyone who falls below an increasingly subjective definition of exceptional. The employees who remain will inherit additional responsibilities, and a select few may even receive promotions. We will continue hiring in anticipation of future rounds of layoffs and to ensure remaining employees recognize the axe is ever-dangling.

I know it can be painful to say goodbye to teammates. It is the hardest consequence of committing uncompromisingly to our values of being "Lean & Disciplined" and demanding "High Performance."

Translation: Fuck you.