3. Choose the group that you are trying to delete.

4. Near the top right, underneath of the settings button, click "Manage group."

Click "Manage group." Melanie Weir/Business Insider

5. At the bottom of the menu on the left hand side, under the heading "Information," click "Advanced." It should be the very last option.

Click “Advanced.” Melanie Weir/Business Insider

6. Click "Delete this group."

Click "Delete this group." Melanie Weir/Business Insider

7. A box labeled "Delete group confirmation" will pop up, warning you that deleting a group is permanent. If you are certain you would like to proceed, click "Delete group."

Confirm that you want to delete the group. Melanie Weir/Business Insider

Few can hold a candle to Brad Feld’s list of accolades in the startup, tech and venture world. As a multi-time founder of both startups and venture firms alike, Feld is widely known for having co-founded the Techstars accelerator — now a Silicon Valley and startup institution — as well as Foundry Group, the early and growth-stage venture fund that has raised nearly $2.5 billion over seven funds, in just over a decade.

Feld is equally, if not more, recognized outside of the investing world as a thought leader through both his widely followed blog “Feld Thoughts” and through authoring a number of books and guides to the startup and venture worlds. Feld recently published the fourth edition of his acclaimed and seemingly timeless book “Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer And Venture Capitalist” (which he co-authored with Foundry Group co-founder Jason Mendelson), which acts as a manual to raising venture capital by walking through tactical advice around negotiating a term sheet, what to consider when selling your business, arguments for and against convertible debt and much more.

TechCrunch’s Silicon Valley editor Connie Loizos will be sitting down with Brad for an exclusive conversation this Thursday, October 10th at 11:00 am PT on Extra Crunch. Brad, Connie and Extra Crunch members will be digging into the latest edition of “Venture Deals,” Brad’s advice to founders and investors and his take on hot-button issues of the day (including dual-class shares, direct listings and what happened at WeWork).

Extra Crunch members will also have the opportunity to ask questions! We will pause during the call to take questions from Extra Crunch subscribers. Alternatively, you can email questions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Tune in to join the conversation and for the opportunity to ask Brad and Connie any and all things venture.

To listen to this and all future conference calls, become a member of Extra Crunch. Learn more and try it for free.

A mysterious, 'fairly abrupt' extinction

Wrangel Island is about 86 miles northeast of Chukotka, Siberia, a 3,000 square-mile chunk of land in the Chuckchi Sea that broke off from Asia about 10,000 years ago. The population of mammoths that went along for the ride was seemingly spared the global extinction of their species, until about 4,000 years ago when they all disappeared.

Radiocarbon dating of skeletons from Wrangel Island showed that the mammoth population's extinction was "fairly abrupt" without any warning signs, according to the study authors.

But the reason behind this sudden die-off wasn't clear.

A previous study found that the mammoth inhabitants on the other similarly isolated island of St. Paul perished from environmental factors. That island, about 1,000 miles to the south of Wrangel Island in the heart of the Bering Sea, was only 42 square miles in size. By examining fossilized DNA, pollen, and spores, scientists discovered that the St. Paul mammoths had likely run out of fresh water as their tiny island dried up, before finally going extinct 5,600 years ago.

That story was reflected in the composition of the St. Paul mammoths' bones, which showed drops in certain types of elements just before the creatures went extinct.

Looking for clues inside mammoth bones

So the researchers behind the new study decided to look for the same telltale clues in the Wrangel mammoth bones to discern whether their island population had met the same fate.

They analyzed the collagen in 4,000-year-old mammoth bones and teeth from the island, and compared those results to bones from mammoths that had died in other parts of the world like Alaska and Siberia as old as 40,000 years ago.

The scientists were looking for drops in the levels of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur isotopes in the bones — which would indicate changes in the mammoths' diets due to environmental changes.

Their results showed that the compositions of the Wrangel Island fossils, unlike those of their mainland counterparts, had not changed as the climate warmed 10,000 years ago when the ice age ended and almost all the other mammoths worldwide went extinct.

Even just prior to their extinction, the Wrangel Island mammoths' bones showed no signs of dietary or environmental stress — meaning these creatures died off in the middle of unchanging, if not propitious, ecological conditions on an island that wasn't affected by a changing climate.

In fact, the authors said their study shows that Wrangel Island "maintained environmental conditions suitable for a typical mammoth ecological niche ... possibly until the present day."

So if a changing environment didn't kill them, what did?

Given that it seemed unlikely the Wrangel Island mammoths died of thirst or climate change, the researchers sussed out other possible reasons behind the extinction.

It was unlikely that human hunting contributed to the sudden die-off, the authors wrote, because there's only a single site of human occupation on Wrangel Island, and archaeological evidence shows the campsite was used for hunting marine mammals and geese. Plus, the site is dated several hundreds of years or so after the last mammoth disappeared.

A previous genetic analysis of some of the Wrangel Island mammoths revealed that the creatures were interbreeding, which caused a severe loss in genetic diversity.

Another 2017 study revealed that the island population had shrunk 43-fold compared to previous mainland mammoth population sizes by the time it went extinct. The study also concluded the mammoths had accumulated "detrimental" genetic mutations that diminished the population's ability to survive disease outbreaks, famines, or natural disasters that could cull large numbers at once.

Ultimately, scientists still aren't sure what the smoking gun is, but "a short-term crisis" tops the list, the authors of the new study wrote.

"It's easy to imagine that the population, perhaps already weakened by genetic deterioration ... could have succumbed after something like an extreme weather event," Hervé Bocherens, a co-author of the study, said in a press release.

One of Bocherens and his colleagues' suggestions was a rain-on-snow event — during which an impenetrable layer of ice freezes on top of the snowpack — that prevented the mammoths from grazing on the vegetation they needed to survive.

In October 2003, a severe rain-on-snow event killed 20,000 musk-oxen on Banks Island in northern Canada, reducing the herd by 25%. Thousands of reindeer on present-day Wrangel Island have perished from similar icing episodes in the past century, according to a 2018 study.

"These events can be catastrophic to the population and appear to occur fairly often," Bocherens and his co-authors concluded.

Perhaps rain-on-snow killed off the last mammoth, too.

Maveron, Slow Ventures and Female Founders Fund have invested $10 million in a startup that claims it’s carving a new path to sobriety.

Tempest offers a $647 eight-week virtual “sobriety school” to help people, particularly women and “historically oppressed individuals,” get sober. The program is led by the company’s founder and chief executive officer Holly Whitaker, who conducts weekly video lectures and Q+As for participants. Offering their expertise as part of the package is marriage and family therapist Kim Kokoska; Valerie (Vimalasara) Mason-John, the co-founder of Eight Step Recovery; and wellness coach Mary Vance, among others.

Tempest teaches the underlying causes of addiction and the “importance of purpose, meaning and creativity in breaking addiction,” as well as how to manage cravings, how to navigate social situations as a non-drinker, how to develop a mindfulness practice and more. At the end of the program, participants can pay a $127 fee for an annual membership to the Tempest online community, where one can communicate with others who’ve completed the program.

Tempest Syllabus
Week 1: Recovery Maps + Toolkits
Week 2: Addiction & The Brain
Week 3: Habit and Night Ritual
Week 4: Yoga, Meditation and Breath
Week 5: Nutrition & Lifestyle
Week 6: Relationships & Community
Week7: Trauma & Therapy
Week 8: Purpose & Creativity
Week 8+ Wrapping Up + Next Steps

A holistic approach

Founded in 2014, New York-based Tempest has raised about $14.3 million in total VC funding. Whitaker previously spent five years at One Medical, where she was the director of revenue cycle operations. Since founding Tempest, which has enrolled 4,000 participants to date, Whitaker received a two-book deal from Random House to document her methodologies and path to sobriety. Her first book, ‘Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol,’ will be released on December 31.

Today, her business has 28 employees and plans to build out its team, invest in marketing — where it’s historically had very low spend — and explore business opportunities within the enterprise using cash from the $10 million Series A.

The company is careful to clarify it’s not a detox or 12-step program, like Alcoholics Anonymous, which is structured around the Twelve Steps to recovery. Rather, Tempest can be used in combination with other programs or therapies, or as a first step down the path to recovery. Whitaker explains Tempest isn’t only for the clinically addicted or those who consider themselves addicts or alcoholics. The company welcomes people who have rejected these labels or simply want to cut alcohol out of their life.

“Tempest grew out of my own experience,” Whitaker, who has previously struggled with alcoholism and an eating disorder, tells TechCrunch. “It was a response to the lack of desirable and accessible options to address problematic drinking, the lack of options available for people who don’t identify as alcoholics but struggle with alcohol and the lack of options that have been created for women and other individuals. Everything had been created for men.”

Tempest is tailored to the needs of women and historically oppressed individuals, says Whitaker, though all genders are welcome to complete its course. Taking a holistic approach to recovery, participants are encouraged to address the factors that led them to drink in the first place, including “love lives, poor nutrition, stress, anxiety, crap friendships, consumerism, lack of purpose, unresolved family of origin issues, disenfranchisement, poverty, tight or unmanageable finances, lack of connection, fear, shitty jobs we hate, depression, unprocessed trauma, lack of meaning, unfulfilled dreams, never-ending to-do lists, never-measuring-upness,” the company writes.

But what about A.A.?

I had the same question.

Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), the most popular and accessible approach to recovery, is free and open to anyone willing to acknowledge they have a drinking problem. A nonprofit organization, A.A. has more than 115,000 groups worldwide. The 84-year-old program is built on peer-support groups that gather regularly for discussion meetings. Over time, more seasoned members can become “sponsors,” helping newer entrants work through the Twelve Steps.

Tempest, alternatively, is taking a for-profit approach, charging for its tech-infused method. And where A.A. emphasizes in-person support groups, Tempest relies on video streams. Increasingly, telemedicine startups are enticing customers with convenient options for health and wellness care but whether people will truly pivot to telemedicine, tele-therapy or virtual sobriety schools is still up for debate. As for Tempest’s similarities to A.A., Whitaker says: “The only thing they have in common is that they are working to help people quit alcohol.”

In selling its sobriety school, Tempest evokes a sense of coolness, with phrases like “Sober is the new black” and “Your hangover goes away. Your social life doesn’t,” plastered on its website. In providing a priced and more exclusive route to sobriety, one might question Tempest’s ethics and motivations as it builds a business that capitalizes off of substance abuse. Whitaker, in defense, explains a virtual school fit for the historically powerless is a necessary addition to existing options: “Our program is centered on individuals who have been held out of power, who have been told to shut up and listen,” she said. “We aren’t looking at white, upper-class men. We are looking at a queer person from 2019.”

According to survey data published by Recovery.org, 89% of A.A. attendees are white, while 38% are female.

Refusing ‘alcogenic culture’

Tempest’s branding takes a cue from the D2C playbook. The company, led by women, has the opportunity to become the brand that represents sobriety, and it’s taking it. Tempest’s Series A, coupled with the influx of new-age non-alcoholic beverage brands backed by VCs, is representative of the perceived shift away from alcohol among the younger generations.

Millennials are drinking less alcohol and, according to the World Health Organization, there are 5% fewer alcohol drinkers in the world today than in 2000. Tempest’s school seems to cater more to the cohort of people who view ditching alcohol as a lifestyle perk, not those who stop drinking due to addiction.

Seedlip, a non-alcoholic spirits company, and India’s Coolberg Beverages, which makes non-alcoholic beer, recently raised VC to cater to a similar demographic. Meanwhile, CBD-infused beverage brands like Sweet Reason, Cann and Recess are trendy and raising venture money. None of these, of course, are solutions for someone struggling with alcohol. Capital flowing into these brands merely indicates venture capitalists’ belief that consumers are steering away from traditional liquor and toward new products fit for a generation that is drinking less alcohol.

“By just trying on sobriety or questioning our drink-centric culture, you are profoundly ahead of the pack and among good company,” Tempest writes on its website. “Remember: 70-80% of adults drink depending on where you live; drinking is basic. Sobriety, and the refusal to partake in alcogenic culture, is subversive, rebellious, and edgy.”

Tempest says it has completed an efficacy study performed in consultation with researchers affiliated with the University of Buffalo and Syracuse University. In several years’ time, we’ll know whether the countless think pieces claiming millennials are done with alcohol were indeed true and whether the VC money into these upstarts was wasted or pure genius. As for Tempest, even if just providing a designated place on the internet for discussions around the struggles or benefits of sobriety, it has the potential to make a big impact on those in recovery or those seeking a lifestyle change.

“Alcohol is very similar to cigarettes,” Whitaker said. “We are in a time that we think drinking alcohol is natural, that we are supposed to do it. I thought that would change because to me, alcohol is entirely toxic. We are approaching this tipping point of realizing how toxic and unnecessary it is.”

Tempest is also backed by AlleyCorp, Refactor and Green D Ventures. Maveron’s Anarghya Vardhana has joined the startup’s board of directors as part of the latest deal.

From food and drink to health and wellness and beyond, there’s one plant we can’t seem to get enough of: cannabis. It seems like every consumer product nowadays is taking part in reefer madness.

Home cooks are taking edibles to new heights. In places like Denver and California, you can take cooking classes specifically centered around food made with Mary Jane. The editors of Vice’s “Munchies” even put out a cookbook last year called Bong Appétit: Mastering the Art of Cooking with Weed. And it’s only one of many.

But marijuana culture today isn’t all based around the stuff you (er, people you know) smoked in college. Cannabis, long known for its medicinal and therapeutic purposes, is a hot commodity in food tech and other consumer products nowadays. Far more than just a way to get high, cannabis in its various forms has been used medically throughout history and in modern times as a treatment for pain and nausea, and has been found anecdotally or in limited studies to treat glaucoma, epilepsy and anxiety, among other conditions and symptoms. Businesses have caught on, and not a moment too soon.

The food products that utilize marijuana are a far cry from the old classic pot brownies (not that there’s anything wrong with those!). Thanks to modern science, producers are able to separate the two main chemical compounds found in marijuana: THC and CBD. THC has therapeutic benefits, but it’s best known as the part of weed that gets you high. This is because it’s a psychoactive compound. CBD, on the other hand, is not psychoactive — it can (supposedly) provide many of the anti-anxiety, analgesic benefits of the plant without producing a high. For obvious reasons, this gives marijuana a new appeal. It’s now possible to reap the benefits of the plant without experiencing intoxication, so you can lessen anxiety or pain while still functioning normally.

It’s worth noting at this point that many of the health benefits of CBD and cannabis in general are not scientifically proven in statistically significant, peer-reviewed studies. This is for a number of reasons, most significantly that marijuana is still a Schedule 1 controlled substance under federal law in the U.S., making legality an issue in its study.

But what CBD and other cannabis products lack in evidence, they make up for with enthusiasm. Companies and consumers alike are eager to try CBD in various products, from food to oils to skincare, in hopes of treating anxiety, sleeplessness and other woes. If you live in a place where CBD products are legal, you’ve probably seen them everywhere. Newsweek reported that CBD sales are estimated to grow 40-fold in the next four years, reaching a value of $23 billion. The big business of marijuana and CBD — California-based Arena Pharmaceuticals is the biggest publicly traded cannabis company in the world — is only growing.

You can already find CBD candies and oils at major national retail chains like CVS and Walgreens, and in states and municipalities where it’s legal, green connoisseurs can order CBD-infused lattes and cocktails. Even retailers like Sephora, Neiman Marcus and Barneys are selling curated displays of CBD-infused beauty and skincare products. The aforementioned Newsweek article reports that big names like Coca-Cola and Molson Coors Brewing are among the hordes of companies already working on their own CBD products. Clearly, the lack of scientific evidence isn’t diminishing anyone’s desire for herbal refreshment.

Except for the FDA, that is. The legality of marijuana and CBD is a confusing and often contradictory topic, and a hard one to keep track of because it’s changing all the time at the federal, state and municipal levels. But what can be ascertained is that because so much of the CBD industry is operating outside of any kind of government oversight, legally or otherwise, the quality of products can vary widely. This is something about which the FDA and independent doctors and pharmaceutical experts have raised concerns. Apart from companies making unfounded claims about the effects of their products, the actual ingredient makeup may be inconsistent, with some products containing less CBD than their labels claim. Little regulation and nascent standards of quality mean consumers might not always know what they’re getting.

But given the broad interest in CBD, that’s unlikely to remain the case forever. The FDA may have started cracking down on extralegal CBD product sales, but in the grand scheme of things, that only means that the agency recognizes the significance of the compound. CBD probably isn’t going away anytime soon, and among the food, drug, health and cosmetic industries, the race to do it best and biggest has already begun.

7. The page will show all subscriptions associated with your account, both active and expired. Click the small, blue "Edit" option next to "Apple Music."

8. Here you'll find all of the settings for your Apple Music subscription, and you can even change your package — including student or Family Sharing options. Click the "Cancel Subscription" button.

9. Click "Confirm" to finalize the process.

You will be asked to confirm your decision to cancel Apple Music from your Mac. Marissa Perino/Business Insider

After canceling, you will still have access to Apple Music for the remainder of the current billing cycle. If you change your mind, you can easily resubscribe to the service from iTunes again.

The reMarkable tablet is a strange device in this era of ultra-smart gadgets: A black and white screen meant for reading, writing, and sketching — and nothing more. Yet the company has sold 100,000 of the devices and now has attracted $15 million in series A funding from Spark Capital.

It’s an unusual trajectory for a hardware startup exploring a nearly unoccupied market, but CEO Magnus Wanberg is confident that’s because this category of device is destined to grow in response to increasingly invasive tech. Sometimes an anti-technology trend is the tech opportunity of a lifetime.

I reviewed the reMarkable last year and compared it with its only real competition, the Sony Digital Paper Tablet. It was launched not on Kickstarter or Indiegogo but with its own independent crowdfunding campaign — and considering we’ve seen devices like this attempt such a thing and either let down or rip off their backers, that alone was a significant risk.

The device has been a runaway success, though, selling over 100,000 units — and attracting investment in the process. When I talked with Wanberg and co-founder Gerst about their new A round, the conversation was so interesting that I decided to publish it in full (or at least slightly edited).

How did they get here? What would they have done differently? Is the threat of the “smart” world really a thing? Why fight tech with more tech?

Devin: So you guys raised some money, that’s great! But it’s been a while since we talked. I think it’s important to hear about the progress of unique companies that are doing interesting things. So first can you tell me a little about what the company’s been busy with?

Magnus: Well, we’ve created this wonderful product, the reMarkable paper tablet. We’ve been very focused on that effort, based on a love for paper and a love for technology, to see if we can find some ways to join these two together to help people think better. That’s sort of the the whole ethos of the company.

So for the last six years, we’ve just been grinding away… you know, we’re a small player up against the big guys on this. So we’ve been sort of fighting guerrilla warfare trying to trying to establish ourselves.

And we were successful, fortunately, when we did our pre-order campaign, because as we found out, we weren’t the only ones who who love this notion of thinking better with the paper tablet, seeing paper as a powerful tool for thinking and for creating.

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 460th FREE online 1Mby1M mentoring roundtable on Thursday, October 10, 2019, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious...

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European startup studio eFounders has shared some metrics about its portfolio companies. The startup studio has launched 23 companies with a focus on software-as-a-service enterprise products.

While eFounders might not be a familiar name, some of the companies in its portfolio have become promising startups with impressive growth, such as Front, Aircall, Forest, Spendesk, Mailjet and others. Front is also company No. 85 in Y Combinator’s list of top 101 companies of all time.

And the big new metric is that the total valuation of all 23 companies has now reached $1 billion. Of course, eFounders is just a shareholder in those 23 companies, so eFounders itself isn’t a unicorn. But it’s still an impressive number.

At the end of 2018, eFounders’ portfolio valuation was at $541 million. At the end of 2017, the same metric was at $385 million.

Overall, eFounders companies have raised $254 million from VC funds and business angels, and employ 1,000 people, mostly in Paris, San Francisco and New York. And when you add up the annual recurring revenue of all those startups, they generate $107 million in ARR together.

If you don’t know the eFounders model, it’s quite simple. At first, the core eFounders team comes up with an idea and hires a founding team. In exchange for financial and human resources, the startup studio keeps a significant stake in its startups.

After a year or two, startups should have proven that they can raise a seed round and operate on their own. This way, eFounders can move on to the next project and start new companies. Up next, eFounders is already working on five new companies.

Sramana Mitra: Give me a couple of examples of use cases where major problems can be solved by automation. Chris Petersen: I’ll give you a more detailed example around phishing. Phishing is something...

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This time it actually has insurance. Zero-fee stock-trading app Robinhood is launching Cash Management, a new feature that earns users 2.05% APY interest on uninvested money in their account with the ability to spend it through a special Mastercard debit card. The waitlist opens today in the U.S. with the first users to be admitted soon. “If you have $5,000 in your account while you’re thinking about what to invest in, you’d have an extra $105 at the end of the year” thanks to Robinhood Cash Management’s interest, co-CEO Baiju Bhatt tells me.

The $7.6 billion-valuation startup first attempted something similar in December with Robinhood Checking, promising a stunningly tall 3% interest rate. But the product turned into a PR disaster when the Securities Investor Protection Corporation that was supposed to insure users’ funds declared Robinhood ineligible, with its CEO noting it had never agreed to cover checking accounts. That led Robinhood to shelve the feature, scrub its site of any mention of Checking and apologize.

Now despite Bhatt claiming “Cash Management is a brand new program built from the ground up,” it will offer the same debit card design and network of 75,000 ATMs. It’s even using an identical promo image for its half-translucent green, black, white and American flag debit card designs. But each user’s funds will be covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation up to $1.25 million. To get around the $250,000 FDIC limit per bank, Robinhood is partnering with six banks that it will spread a user’s cash across as necessary to bundle up to that sum. Robinhood earns money by taking a chunk of the interchange fees from transactions on its debit card run in partnership with Sutton Bank, and from a fee paid by the six banks cash gets swept into.

To help it avoid further regulatory missteps, Robinhood yesterday added former SEC commissioner Dan Gallagher as its first independent board member. He joins the startup’s recently hired COO, CFO, chief compliance officer, VP of Risk & Compliance and VP of Legal & Regulatory to bring more supervision to Robinhood.

The opt-in feature prevents users from missing out on earning interest if they keep money in their Robinhood account, and makes funds from stock sales quickly accessible via the debit card for spending or withdrawal. That convenience could give Robinhood an edge as its loses one if its key differentiators. Last week, its top incumbent competitors Charles Schwab, E*Trade and AmeriTrade all dropped their $4.95 to $6.95 fees on stock trades to match Robinhood’s free offering. That makes Cash Management and Robinhood Crypto even more critical to its continued growth. That’s necessary to justify the $7.6 billion valuation from its recent $323 million Series E raise led by DST Global that brings it to $860 million in total funding.

How Robinhood Cash Management works

“We decided the best thing to do is giving people the peace of mind that their money is held at these banks, while trying to pay back the very best interest rates,” Bhatt tells me. [Disclosure: I know Robinhood’s co-founders from college.]

With Cash Management, once users deposit cash into the Robinhood accounts and opt into the program, they’re eligible to earn interest. Any balance on their account, including returns from sales of securities or cryptocurrencies, is swept into the FDIC-insured partner banks via Promontory’s debit suite system. Those banks include Wells Fargo, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, U.S. Bank and Bank of Baroda. If one of those banks folds, the FDIC will make customers whole for up to $250,000, equaling $1.25 million across all six working with Robinhood. Users are able to opt out of specific banks.

There the cash earns a variable annual percentage yield (APY) that may fluctuate based on market factors like the Fed fund’s rate. Currently Robinhood offers a 2.05% APY, but refused to compare it to competitors. However, it ranks relatively high amongst popular banking options like these, according to Bankrate, especially given it has no minimum balance:

Robinhood Cash Management will also compete directly with Wealthfront Cash that launched in February and now offers 2.07% APY interest, but lacks a debit card or ATMs. Betterment Checking & Savings does provide a Visa debit card, but its current APY is 1.79%.

Cash Management users can select from the four debit card styles that are accepted anywhere that takes Mastercard, plus 75,000 ATMs. It also works with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. There are no foreign transaction fees, maintenance fees or account minimum.

A variety of new Cash Management features are being added to the Robinhood app. You can get notifications and emails for all your transactions, and lock the card from your phone if you suspect fraud. You also can opt for location protection, which alerts you if your card is used too far away from your phone. An in-app ATM finder shows users where they can get cash without a fee.

“Partially we want this to be a good business but we also want this to be a big part of customer’s lives,” says Robinhood VP of product Josh Elman. Instead of nickel and diming Cash Management users, the startup monetizes by charging its partners. But the bigger strategy is to get more users on Robinhood in hopes some will subscribe to Robinhood Gold. There users pay a variable monthly fee depending on how much they want to borrow from the startup to trade on margin.

“I think the main takeaway over the last year has been that since last December, our company has been very committed to building an organization that has a really strong culture [of compliance]” Bhatt concludes. “We’ve grown the leadership team over the last year with experience from risk and finance backgrounds. We think that’s reflected pretty clearly in how Robinhood operates and the diligence that went into building this new program.”

No longer a scrappy startup, the budding fintech giant must now grapple with much greater regulatory scrutiny. With more than 6 million users, the SEC won’t stand for it putting people’s finances in in jeopardy.