Stock brokerage app Robinhood announced that it is laying off roughly 9% of its full-time employees and cutting back on duplicate roles it added when the investment platform exploded in popularity fueled by coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. Laying off Employees Amid Receding ‘Hyper Growth’ According to an announcement from the CEO and co-founder of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev, the investment platform grew sharply at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic as more people started investing in cryptocurrencies and memestocks like GameStop. During the period, the company’s head count also grew from 700 to 3,800. That “hyper growth” also led to duplicate roles and functions, leading to the decision to cut jobs, Tenev wrote in the blog post. “After carefully considering all these factors, we determined that making these reductions to Robinhood’s staff is the right decision to improve efficiency, increase our velocity, and ensure that we are responsive to the changing needs of our customers,” Tenev wrote. The same period, the company also saw its growth from 5 million to 22 million, with revenue going to over $1.8 billion in 2021. Robinhood Users Big on Dogecoin Robinhood app grew popular in the crypto community as a Dogecoin trading app and currently owns nearly one-third of all Dogecoin in circulation on behalf of its clients. In contrast, the Grayscale Bitcoin fund is the largest single owner of Bitcoin, but only owns 3% of the coins in ci...
