#223 Baiju Bhatt - Co-Founder of Robinhood & CEO of Aetherflux

**Shawn Ryan** (0:05)
Baiju Bhatt, welcome to the show.

**Baiju Bhatt** (0:07)
What's up, man?

**Shawn Ryan** (0:08)
Oh man, I'm excited about this one.

**Baiju Bhatt** (0:09)
Me too.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:10)
I'm really excited about this one. So, but I want to dive right into this. I'm sorry I cut you off on that conversation. We got to have this on the show. But you were looking at the bar over there and asking if people drink on the show. And I said, no, I actually haven't had a drink in over three years now. I did the psychedelics thing. And you had brought up that there seems to be like a movement of the younger generation, and just booze doesn't have a place. And I think that's a good thing, but you brought up a good point.

**Baiju Bhatt** (0:40)
Yeah. So I feel like the contrary take here is that alcohol has gone out of vogue in society, I think especially with young people. And it's at the same time that we see a precipitous drop in socializing, romance, all this stuff for the younger generation. And I was making this point earlier, I think alcohol is a very important part of human society. I think it's a very important social lubricant. And yeah, my contrarian view on it is alcohol is actually really important.

**Shawn Ryan** (1:18)
That's an interesting concept. You're the only one that I've ever heard say that. But I mean, I don't know, I mean, you know, I'm in my 40s now, so I don't know how young people are socializing. Unless I go to downtown Nashville on Broadway, then I...

**Baiju Bhatt** (1:34)
Then you see it.

**Shawn Ryan** (1:34)
There's no shortage of alcohol there. But I wonder, I mean, how are people socializing that don't drink nowadays?

**Baiju Bhatt** (1:43)
On the Internet?

**Shawn Ryan** (1:45)
That's where it seems.

**Baiju Bhatt** (1:46)
Are they not socializing? I don't know. I mean, I think this is like a broader thing, right? It is like the era that we grew up in, went to college, went to high school, all this stuff. There weren't phones around, right? You'd get bored. You'd have to sit and think about shit, entertain yourself, right? That whole thing, like long-form thinking, like being bored.
Yeah, and alcohol was like the universal social lubricant when I was in my early 20s, right?

**Shawn Ryan** (2:14)
Yeah, me too. I think it started at like 13 But, yeah, that's all.

**Baiju Bhatt** (2:20)
But what happens if you get rid of it, right? It's like you have a lot of people that probably just socialize a lot less.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:28)
I mean, it's got to be replaced with something. Unfortunately, you're probably right. It's probably replaced with Instagram and X and...

**Baiju Bhatt** (2:35)
Yeah, I think it's social media.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:37)
Damn.

**Baiju Bhatt** (2:40)
Yeah, I don't think that's great. I don't think the human brain is wired like that, right?
We are social animals. Like, we're animals, right? We're like, we're creatures that take on the human form, but we're an incredibly social species. And it's weird if that sort of gets replaced or like augmented in a way that doesn't line up with how our brains work with the Internet.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:03)
People say the same thing about cigarettes, too.

**Baiju Bhatt** (3:07)
Wait, do they?

**Shawn Ryan** (3:07)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I used to smoke. You never smoked?

**Baiju Bhatt** (3:11)
I've smoked.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:11)
Yeah. I mean, you step outside of the bar and you talk to the other people that are smoking. Now I feel like I'm condoning drug cigarettes and alcohol, which is absurd for this show.

**Baiju Bhatt** (3:23)
I mean, like going, like living in New York in my early 20s, right? And if you go outside and have a cigarette with somebody, like that's...

**Shawn Ryan** (3:30)
There's a connection.

**Baiju Bhatt** (3:31)
You make friends, right? Yeah, yeah.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:34)
Or work or anywhere.

**Baiju Bhatt** (3:36)
Although I, yeah, that, it's just, I think nicotine, I think, cigarettes, I think are bad for you. Like, I think makes it hard to breathe. Like probably going to give you cancer someday.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:47)
Well, I think, I mean, you know, on the flip side with the alcohol, all the broken homes, I mean, a drink with excess.

**Baiju Bhatt** (3:53)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:55)
It's, it's, and I think it's ended a lot of relationships as well. I mean, I know in my prior relationships, you know, you get to talk on the bottle a little bit too much and everything goes off the rails. But, but that's me.