What you Missed on Clubhouse Last Night - Elon Musk and Vladimir Tenev (CEO of Robin Hood)
Last night at 10pm Pacific, Elon Musk took part in a conversation on Clubhouse - a new networking app that facilitates live podcasts. He was the esteemed guest of the "Good Time" show, hosted by Clubhouse Execs: Sriram Krishnan and Marc Andreesen (of a16z).
A broad range of topics were covered during the hour and a half long talk. From a shared love of memes for their simple transfer of deep encrypted messages, to interplanetary colonization, and the harsh conditions that can be expected by voyagers of the final frontier.
Dogecoin, and bitcoin — subjects everyone seemed to be waiting for — made their way onto the table. Musk was very careful, and intentional in his statement — acknowledging the gravity his words tend to bear on the market.
ON DOGE: "Fate loves irony". Dogecoin originated as a joke - a bit of a mockery on the crypto scene. However, Musk says that we tend to gravitate towards what is entertaining, and that it would certainly be the "most entertaining and ironic outcome if DOGE became the currency of earth in the future".
ON BITCOIN: "It's a good thing". Though self admittedly a late adopter of the bitcoin craze, Musk is as pro-crypto as is twitter bio would imply. He also said that he "thinks bitcoin is on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people". A statement that set off an immediate $600 uptick in Bitcoin.
ON ROBINHOOD: It's hard to boil down the Robin Hood segment to a single quote...
Just before wrapping up the call, Elon asked Sriram to patch in Vlad Tenev - CEO of Robin Hood. Clubhouse rooms have a 5k member capacity, and there were about 30,000 listeners huddled into echo rooms to hear the conversation. Despite the new platform's bandwidth being put to the test, it performed its key feature with ease, and pinged Vlad into the room.
In stark contrast to the more seasoned richest man on earth, Vlad sounded like a kid in his dad's suit. The magnitude of last week's market craze was noticeably in his head as he tried to field question after question, primarily being pushed by Elon.
Some questions felt like a ball on a tee for the young CEO. Elon asking him "who had the gun to his head" to make the decision to stop his clients from purchasing shares. Despite what seemed like a prompt from Elon, Vlad fumbled through his response, once steering away entirely and towards his acceptance of simulism theory.
Musk's line of questioning was hardly sugar coated. "How do your clients know you aren't selling them up the river?" he asked. Vlad again referenced the magnitude of last weeks trades on Robin Hood relative to their volume to date. He defended the decision as what had to be done, and that it was ultimately better to limit purchases than the sale of holdings.
Overall, Twitter seems to be happy with Musk's hard hitting questions. Some say he was "the voice of the people".
In "after party" rooms on Clubhouse, there was some mention made to the fact that this interview took place in the wee hours of a Sunday night. Was it a strategy to bring attention to Clubhouse without breaking the servers? Did it have to do with the excitement (tension/anxiety) of Wall Street's opening bid on Monday? I guess we'll see.
My favorite takeaway of the night however, was Elon's answer to a moderator's question: "what do you think is the best way to teach a 5 year old".
He said that the learning objectives need to be embedded in a narrative. It doesn't make any sense to sit around and learn about screw drivers and wrenches, what really teaches you is getting out and pulling an engine. You quickly realize that a screw driver is for screws, and wrenches are for bolts, etc.
Musk noted that he was using an "outdated analogy", as the best cars are electric now... However, the point remains. We learn best when we're entertained, and have a reason to understand what's being presented.
What an awesome time to be developing a personal finance app! Please check out FreeLCPL.com for more.