00:00:00 · Ty Morse, Baiju Bhatt
[00:00:00] S0: Today, I have the pleasure of sitting down with Baiju Bhatt, who is the cofounder of Robinhood and the founder of Aetherflux. You just were mentioning you basically did a rock climbing trip with Jared Leto. I did. Let's start [00:00:10] S1: with that. I was in the Mediterranean on this boat with Jared Leto and a couple of his, like, rock climbing friends. Jared's a good friend of mine. He was a very early investor in Robinhood, and I would say maybe my hair idol. Uh-huh. [00:00:24] S0: Do you have one of those? [00:00:25] S1: He's a handsome dude, man. Yeah. Okay. So he invites me on this trip with with a handful of people to go in the Mediterranean for a couple of days, and it's with a bunch of rock climbing friends of his, like the like the dudes that pioneered, deep sea free soloing. So I go to this and, like, I'm an entrepreneur. Right? Like, I work out, but I don't... It's not like the it's not like the alpha and the omega of my life. And I go to this event or I go to this this trip with these guys, and I'm just like, you know what? I'm a fat piece of shit. Like, I was like, I gotta do something. You're this [00:01:01] S0: shape. Right? Or were you in this shape?
00:01:01 · Ty Morse, Baiju Bhatt
[00:01:01] S0: shape. Right? Or were you in this shape? [00:01:03] S1: Were you Plus or minus ten pounds. I was a little I was a little softer in the midsection. But I'm like, I'm a fat piece of shit. And I was on full display because I'm around all these beautiful rock climbers. And not only am I not good at rock climbing, but I'm also not good to look at when I don't have my shirt on. I was like, gotta do something about this. So I come back, and I'm like, I'm gonna get a trainer. And I convinced Vlad also that we should start working out together. So we had this trainer together, in 2019 working out together. This guy was hardcore and he was French and he would yell at us and be like, [00:01:40] S0: you guys are pieces of shit. You work out harder. [00:01:43] S1: So all the workouts were really hard. [00:01:46] S0: Little bit Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.
00:01:46 · Ty Morse, Baiju Bhatt
[00:01:46] S0: Little bit Arnold Schwarzenegger voice. [00:01:48] S1: Little bit. Yeah. That's my French voice, I guess. So I... So working out with this guy, then COVID happens, right, which was wild. Wild. But our workouts, we keep working out, and we're, like, working out digitally. Right? So we're, like, we're doing a video chat with this guy over Zoom, and the two of us are, like, in our respective houses working out. And long story short, I was doing a workout. I was, like, basically doing bench press with free weights. Felt a little tickle in my nose. I kind of tried to go for one of these numbers, and the weight, it was this arm, starts falling backwards. And I stabilize it, but shoulder was fucked after that. And mind you, this is in COVID. And so what are you gonna do? Are you gonna go to the doctor? Like, no. So I just put my arm in a sling for a while. All this to say, like, that was kind of a bummer because I stopped being able to do push ups. Yeah. And all this started from the conversation around [00:02:44] S0: Yeah. So basically, Pavel Durov, who's the founder of Telegram, has a training regimen where he does a 100 push ups and a 100 sit ups every single day. And so before I can interview him, I am going to do a 100, you know, a 100 and a 100 every day for thirty days straight with no interruptions. Yeah. And right now we're on day five of that. [00:03:03] S1: Know? I didn't realize this was day five. You made it sound like this was day 45.
00:03:03 · Baiju Bhatt, Ty Morse
[00:03:03] S1: Know? I didn't realize this was day five. You made it sound like this was day 45. [00:03:07] S0: So it's it's day, like, of getting up to the point where I can actually do a 100 a day. Okay. And now I'm doing a 100 a day, and I have for five days. So... Yeah. You... In a month, we'll be able to do this interview. Assuming I can lock in. Yeah. Do you have any other crazy stories like that? You said Jared Leto was the first... Like, one of the first investors in Robinhood? Yeah. [00:03:26] S1: Yeah. He's a he's a really he's a really, like, very intelligent human being. And also in the... In my experience, like like a modern renaissance man. He has thirty seconds to Mars. He's an actor. He's a very active tech investor. He's like a very cerebral dude. A little [00:03:44] S0: bit similar to the Chainsmokers where they just, like, started in music and want to now invest in a bunch of startups. [00:03:49] S1: Is that right? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. I guess kinda like that. But, anyways, all this to say, like, I ended up hurting my shoulder from that, and I was out of the game for a while. And after COVID, got some... Got my shoulder checked out, realized nothing was actually wrong with it. I just needed to work out more. And, I'm back in the same boat right now, actually, unfortunately. I started doing boxing, like, maybe a year and a half, two years ago, and it has wrecked my shoulders, man. Like, I can barely do push ups. It's a it's a big problem because when you're boxing, you're like you're like doing this kind of shit all the time.
00:03:49 · Baiju Bhatt, Ty Morse
[00:03:49] S1: Is that right? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. I guess kinda like that. But, anyways, all this to say, like, I ended up hurting my shoulder from that, and I was out of the game for a while. And after COVID, got some... Got my shoulder checked out, realized nothing was actually wrong with it. I just needed to work out more. And, I'm back in the same boat right now, actually, unfortunately. I started doing boxing, like, maybe a year and a half, two years ago, and it has wrecked my shoulders, man. Like, I can barely do push ups. It's a it's a big problem because when you're boxing, you're like you're like doing this kind of shit all the time. [00:04:29] S0: Mhmm. [00:04:30] S1: And what you're actually doing is you're just Just torquing that. You're just... Yeah. You're just, like, compressing your shoulder the whole time. [00:04:36] S0: When I was doing, rock climbing, I started training a bunch of, what is it, like, crimping? [00:04:41] S1: Mhmm. [00:04:41] S0: And at one point, I decided that it would be smart for me to train two finger crimps because you have to do like pockets. [00:04:47] S1: Yeah. [00:04:48] S0: And of course, if you do this, you kind of can like basically put strain here. So I go do that and immediately just tear both my both my hands, like the muscles attaching those two things. [00:04:58] S1: Did you?
00:04:58 · Baiju Bhatt, Ty Morse
[00:04:58] S1: Did you? [00:04:59] S0: And... And it was like, what was interesting is it takes so long for that to fully heal that I would wait, you know, I did this like three or four times where I waited a month. I completely chilled for an entire month. And then I tried something again, got a little too overconfident after thirty minutes of nothing happening, tore it again. And I did this like four or five times, and I finally healed it by just not rock climbing at all for like six months straight. [00:05:22] S1: It's because you're you're young blood, man. You heal all that stuff quickly. [00:05:26] S0: Six months, it feels like a long [00:05:28] S1: ass time. Yeah. I'm thinking about like what would happen if I rip hand muscles. I don't know if they'd ever heal at this point. Yeah. Be out of commission for, like, two years. Yeah. But I'm glad I'm glad they're healed. That's, like, that's a big deal. [00:05:39] S0: Yeah. That's one of those things where when it happens, you're kinda questioning, like, will it heal properly? [00:05:44] S1: Yeah. Yeah. [00:05:45] S0: But, yeah, Let's jump to like company culture and talk a little bit about that. Most of the people that I've interviewed have only been working on like a hard tech company. You've actually had like this full transition from starting a software, starting a fintech, building up that culture to, like, many thousands of people Yeah. And suddenly now you're jumping to a hardware startup. What's the difference? What have you learned?