Commitments to Improving our Options Offering

On Saturday, we learned that Alex Kearns, a Robinhood customer, died by suicide and left a note citing confusion with our product. We quickly reached out to Alex’s family to share our condolences and offer to speak. We are personally devastated by this tragedy.

Over the past week, our team at Robinhood has been focused on identifying how we can improve Robinhood’s customer experience, specifically around our option flows involving multi-leg exercise and assignment. We want to share with you today what we are committing to as a company moving forward:

Eligibility: We are considering additional criteria and education for customers seeking level 3 options authorization to help ensure customers understand more sophisticated options trading.
Educational resources: We are expanding our educational content related to options trading. We have added information on early options assignments to our help center and we will be hiring an Options Education Specialist to further enhance education related to our options offering.
User Interface: In the near term, we are rolling out improvements to in-app messages and emails we send customers about their multi-leg options spreads. We are also adding detail to the in-app history page to help users understand the mechanics of early options assignments. We are also working on changes to our user interface, including the way buying power is displayed. These changes will take a bit of time to roll out, but our teams are hard at work.

While we recognize that nothing can ease the pain that Alex’s family is feeling now, in addition to the steps above, Robinhood is making a $250,000 donation to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. If you or anyone you know is in crisis, please reach out for help.

It is not lost upon us that our company and our service have become synonymous with retail investing in America, and that this has led to millions of new investors making their first investments through Robinhood. We recognize this profound responsibility, and we don't take it lightly. Our aspiration is to innovate, lead, and go beyond the status quo.

We remain ever committed to providing the best investing experience as well as the resources customers need to get and stay informed.

-- Vlad Tenev & Baiju Bhatt, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text TALK to 741741.