There was a time when retirement accounts were something you opened in your 30s, maybe after buying a house or having kids. But according to Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev, that timeline may already be outdated. The generation known more for side hustles, digital wallets, and instant everything is now opening Roth IRAs at 19—and not because anyone told them to.
Tenev recently appeared on the “Uncapped with Jack Altman” podcast, where he described what he called “a broader trend of things that are old and kind of… maybe that your grandparents would use, being cool again.”
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He was talking about vinyl and cassette tapes, but the retro revival has crept into the financial world too. “Now Gen Z’s are opening retirement accounts at 19 years old,” he said. And not just as a quirky experiment.
The cultural shift is real—and backed by numbers. A 2025 report from Vanguard found that 47% of Gen Z workers are on track to be financially ready for retirement. That’s higher than Gen X at 41% and even Millennials at 42%.
According to Fidelity’s most recent analysis, 95% of Gen Z IRA contributions are going straight into Roth accounts—a move that suggests they’re thinking decades ahead, not just living in the moment.
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For Tenev, this isn’t just a curiosity—it’s changing how Robinhood thinks about its own identity. “We don’t really think of ourselves as a trading app anymore,” he said. “The way to describe what we are and what we’re increasingly becoming is a financial super app.”
He said younger users aren’t graduating from trading into investing—they’re building mental “buckets” for different goals. “They always want to have a little bit, at least, that they’re making decisions on,” Tenev added, while still parking long-term funds into passive investments.
Robinhood now offers over 10 types of accounts, from retirement savings to cash management and even access to human advisers. It’s part of what Tenev calls a strategy to “conform to how customers like to use financial products,” rather than try to change their behavior outright. The platform’s $25 billion in retirement assets reflects that shift.
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Still, not every data point is rosy. A 2024 TIAA study found that only 20% of Gen Zers are actually saving for retirement, and a 2025 Bank of America survey noted that more than half of young adults lack even three months’ worth of emergency savings. The intention may be there, but economic headwinds—rising rent, inflation, student debt—are slowing the follow-through.
Even so, the idea that a generation often seen as short-sighted is thinking long-term flips a familiar narrative on its head. And for older readers watching their own children or grandchildren take an interest in retirement before their 20s, it may feel like a surprising but welcome development.
Vinyl is back. So are Walkmans. And if Tenev is right, so is planning for the future.
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Image: Imagn
