Baiju Bhatt

Baiju Prafulkumar Bhatt (born 1984/1985) is an Indian American billionaire entrepreneur. He is the founder of Cowboy Space Corporation and the co-founder and former co-chief executive officer of Robinhood, a US-based financial services company.

Early life and education Bhatt, the son of Gujarati immigrants from India, grew up in Poquoson, Virginia. His father worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center, sparking an interest in space during Bhatt's youth. In 2015, Robinhood launched a mobile app, of which Bhatt focused on the product and design elements. Bhatt emphasized the importance of user research and he and team members would approach students on Stanford's campus, asking for feedback on new features, eventually leading to an Apple Design award in that same year.

Following a funding round in May 2018 which increased Robinhood's valuation to $6 billion, Bhatt and Tenev became billionaires. He stepped down as co-CEO in November 2020 and assumed the role of chief creative officer.

Cowboy Space Corporation

In October 2024, Bhatt announced the launch of a space-based solar energy startup based in San Carlos called Aetherflux, of which he is the founder and chief executive. The company intends to create a satellite constellation to collect solar energy in space and beam it back to Earth using infrared lasers, distributing energy to remote regions of the world where delivering power is expensive, difficult, or dangerous. Space-based solar power can be traced back to science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s 1941 short story, Reason, while the name of the company was inspired by the idea of aether theories. He appeared in a Fast Company list, "Most Creative People", in 2017, and a Fortune "40 Under 40" list in 2018.

Personal life Bhatt is married to Adrienne Sussman. They have one child.

In popular culture Bhatt is portrayed by Rushi Kota in the 2023 film Dumb Money, a drama about the GameStop short squeeze.