Robinhood is opening 2 new offices in New York and Seattle as it plans for a 'distributed workforce' where only some employees report in-person
- Robinhood is opening two new offices in Seattle and New York to help it grow and hire new talent.
- Robinhood's workforce will continue working remotely until at least August 2021.
- The new offices come after Robinhood found itself in the center of the GameStop saga last month.
Robinhood is opening two new offices in New York and Seattle, the company said Thursday.
In a blog post announcing the news, Robinhood said the new locations will help it grow and better hire talent. A New York office would be Robinhood's first East Coast hub, which will allow for "coast-to-coast market coverage," Robinhood said. The Seattle location will become the company's center for "infrastructure, security, and privacy."
Expanding to two new cities will also give Robinhood access to new talent as it hires for dozens of open positions, the company said.
The stock-trading app is currently based in Menlo Park, California, just a few miles from Facebook and Stanford University. The new offices will put Robinhood in the company of both more established financial firms on Wall Street, as well as tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon in Seattle.
Robinhood's blog post noted that the new offices come even as its employees continue to work remotely, which the company expects will continue through August 2021. Long-term, Robinhood said, it plans to use "a distributed workforce model" where some teams will be permanently remote while others will report to the office some or all of the time. When employees do begin returning to the office, Robinhood will take a phased approach, it said.
Robinhood's expansion comes after a tumultuous few weeks for the company. Last month, a Reddit group called WallStreetBets sparked a rush of trading in GameStop stocks, as well as other so-called "meme stocks," in an effort to squeeze short-sellers. As the share price of GameStop spiked 1,700%, Robinhood restricted trading on those stocks due to "volatility."
Its decision to restrict trading resulted in blowback from users, as well as public figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Cuban, famed investor Michael Burry, and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. Users then took to Google's app store to pelt Robinhood with one-star reviews.
Next week, the House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing with executives from Robinhood, as well as those from Melvin Capital, one of the hedge funds whose short positions were targeted by WallStreetBets, which resulted in billions in losses. The hearing will examine online trading platforms and gamification, as well as the impact of short-selling on the markets.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated Citadel's relationship to the GME frenzy. The company injected $2.75 billion in Melvin.