Baiju Bhatt

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Baiju Bhatt
TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2018 - day 2 (43802635144).jpg
Bhatt in 2018
Born
Baiju Prafulkumar Bhatt

1984or1985(age 39–40) [1]
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Stanford University
OccupationEntrepreneur
Known forCo-founder and co-chief executive officer, Robinhood
SpouseAdrienne Sussman [2]
Children1

Baiju Prafulkumar Bhatt (born 1984/1985) [1] is an American entrepreneur [1] [3] of Indian descent. [3] He is the founder of Aetherflux, a space-based solar energy company, [4] and the co-founder and former co-chief executive officer of Robinhood, a US-based financial services company. [1] [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Bhatt, the son of Indian immigrants, grew up in Poquoson, Virginia. [5] His father worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center, sparking an interest in space during Bhatt’s youth. [4] He earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Stanford University, where he also completed a master's degree in mathematics in 2008. [3] Bhatt and Vlad Tenev, the other co-founder of Robinhood, met during their time at Stanford. [6]

Career

Robinhood

In 2013, Bhatt co-founded the zero-commission stock trading platform Robinhood with Vlad Tenev. [1] In 2015, Robinhood launched a mobile app, [7] of which Bhatt focused on the product and design elements. Bhatt emphasized the importance of user research and he and team members would approach students on Stanford’s campus, asking for feedback on new features, eventually leading to an Apple Design award in that same year. [8]

Following a funding round in May 2018 which increased Robinhood's valuation to $6 billion, Bhatt and Tenev became billionaires. [1] [9] He stepped down as co-CEO in November 2020. [10]

In March 2024, Bhatt stepped down from his executive role of chief creative officer at Robinhood with the intent to focus on another venture. He retained his role as a member of the company's board of directors. [6]

Aetherflux

In October 2024, Bhatt announced the launch of a space-based solar energy startup based in San Carlos called Aetherflux, of which he is the founder and chief executive. The company intends to create a satellite constellation to collect solar energy in space and beam it back to Earth using infrared lasers, distributing energy to remote regions of the world where delivering power is expensive, difficult, or dangerous. [11] [4] Space-based solar power can be traced back to science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s 1941 short story, Reason , while the name of the company was inspired by the idea of aether theories. [4]

Bhatt is an investor in several private space companies, including Reflect Orbit, a company with the goal of building mirrors in space to reflect sunlight toward solar farms on Earth during the night, and Apex, a producer of satellite buses, among others. [11]

Awards and recognition

Bhatt has received recognition from several groups and media outlets. [12] [13] He appeared in a Fast Company list, "Most Creative People", in 2017, [14] and a Fortune "40 Under 40" list in 2018. [15]

Personal life

Bhatt is married to Adrienne Sussman. They have one child. [2] As of December 2024, Forbes has estimated his net worth at US$2.5 billion. [16]

Bhatt is portrayed by Rushi Kota in the 2023 film Dumb Money , a drama about the GameStop short squeeze. [17]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Robinhood Founders Are Billionaires in Silicon Valley Minute". Bloomberg News . 11 May 2018. Retrieved 23 July 2018.
  2. 1 2 Fontana, Francesca (February 21, 2020). "Where Robinhood's Founder Found His Faithful Band of Advisers". WSJ.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Vix, Bill (2020). "20 Things You Didn't Know About Baiju Bhatt". moneyinc.com. Archived from the original on 29 January 2021. Retrieved 29 Jan 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Karlin, Susan (October 11, 2024). "Robinhood cofounder Baiju Bhatt wants to create the Starlink of solar power". Fast Company.
  5. ↑ "I'm Baiju Bhatt, Robinhood CEO, and This Is How I Work". lifehacker.com. 2 August 2017. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  6. 1 2 Glickman, Ben (21 March 2024). "Robinhood Co-Founder to Step Down as Creative Chief". The Wall Street Journal.
  7. ↑ "Online Brokerage Robinhood Will Offer Bitcoin And Ethereum Trading In February". Forbes . 25 January 2018.
  8. ↑ Kauflin, Jeff (19 August 2020). "The Inside Story Of Robinhood's Billionaire Founders, Option Kid Cowboys And The Wall Street Sharks That Feed On Them". Forbes.
  9. ↑ "Meet the 11 new tech billionaires that emerged in 2018" . Retrieved 23 July 2018.
  10. ↑ Roberts, Jeff John (November 20, 2020). "Robinhood co-founder steps down as co-CEO, leaving Vlad Tenev as sole chief ahead of a rumored IPO". Fortune.
  11. 1 2 Einhorn, Bruce (October 9, 2024). "Billionaire Backs Space-Laser Solar Startup After Robinhood Exit". Bloomberg News.
  12. ↑ Constine, Josh. "Robinhood aims at IPO as the fintech startup seeks CFO". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  13. ↑ "Kamala Harris, Chloé Zhao, Blackpink Among Gold House's 100 Most Impactful Asians". Variety. May 3, 2021.
  14. ↑ "MOST CREATIVE PEOPLE Baiju Bhatt". Fast Company. January 24, 2017.
  15. ↑ "The Ledger 40 Under 40". Fortune . 2018.
  16. ↑ "Baiju Bhatt". Forbes. Retrieved 2024-12-05.
  17. ↑ "'Dumb Money' First Look: The GameStop Stock Frenzy Is Now a Movie". Vanity Fair. 2023-06-21. Retrieved 2023-08-19.
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