Kalshi创始人谈双CEO模式：刻意对立，平衡风险与创新

The thing that was unique about us is we never pivoted. It was always Kalshi. I mean, Kalshi is everything in Arabic. Like, we always wanted to build the everything exchange, the exchange for all these different assets. And we didn't build Kalshi to build a company. We built the company to build Kalshi. It It's a It's a bit different.

I see.

We were dragged by the idea. I I I wasn't the type that wanted to be an entrepreneur or Like, I I think if you re-rolled the dice multiple times, I'd probably just be a trader or risk manager. Like, I would not be an entrepreneur.

Got it.

But, the idea was so like glaring in front of us that we just had to do it. Like, we we felt that we had to do it. And so, the whole point of doing this whole thing is the idea.

[music] [music]

Hey everybody. Today we have Tarek on from Kalshi. He is a gem. This is a really good episode. They walked through the desert for many, many years in this company and went sideways. Then they made a very risky bet to sue the federal government and won. And this thing has ripped ever since. It's growing you know, similar rates to OpenAI and Anthropic, but a few years behind. I think you're going to like it. I'll be back at the end for my takeaways.

We just met for the first time a couple weeks ago at Kevin O'Leary's house and it was a CEO dinner. And you had some very unusual ideas about CEO-ing. This is why I wanted to have you on the pod.

Yeah.

And so, I want to get into those. Let's just start with your co-founder.

Yeah.

It sounded like it's a semi-co-CEO relationship. How do you two run the company? How do you split it up?

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, we've over the years you know, constantly been been asked this this question and and and um we never really had a very clean answer to this. And we always thought it was sort of like a weakness. And our perspective on that has changed. I mean, dramatically. I actually think whatever model works for us works for us. Great, you know, and then if you figure that out then, you know,

Yeah.

Um and you know, the way the best way to describe it is I I think like I operate at the very high-level strategy, make sure that we're going in the right direction. Where's the world heading? Where are rights to win? And just thinking, a lot of thinking continuously. And then I'm very very low in the details.

Okay, you're high and low.

Yeah, extremely high.

Head in the sky, feet in the ground.

Yeah.

Okay.

But very very low. I'm talking like

Coding?

Yeah, and more specifically like like marketing and the copy and the details and like everything around how we're marketing something.

Yeah. How we're talking about the product, all these little things that like the end consumer, whether it's someone looking at a billboard or someone who's like in the product is going to experience. Like what are they going to feel? And everything else that is actually running the company is Luana.

Okay.

That's basically, you know, I think one of the best way to describe it. And then I do the external stuff, the regulatory, the policy, you know, the the and fund rate all the other external aspects of the job that tie to marketing and sales. But the the day-to-day running of the company, like making sure that the company's actually run, is Luana.

How do you dis- You must disagree about stuff.

a lot, like all the time.

So, how's that play out?

I actually think we kind of disagree by design. Like we we have this thing this dynamic over time it's become a thing where like we essentially will always take the opposite side of the argument.

Are you a contrarian?

I'm the guy in the room that will be sort of the negative, like everybody's pumped about a plan, I'm like, oh, here here's how it's going to fail and how and all the issues. I have, you know, But but we tend to sort of just like disagree with each other often. And I think also like, you know, again, it's a people like, oh, you know, how you disagree and it it disagreement like continuous disagreement is a is an antipattern, but for us it ended up being a pattern because we're we're coming to we're this very complicated company that has this constant continuous delicate balancing between how much risk to take on the regulatory front and like, you know, innovation and regulatory.

And you have to always balance those two those two things out. And you see it now in our safety and innovation all of that. And like that sort of debate could could is a continuous force to drive us to the middle. We end up getting, you know, not always the right answer, but we're not too far from the right answer. And we never oscillate between the two extremes. And I think that's one of the powers of having like two equally powerful like co- two co-founders in an organization.

Because if you're if you're the only one, you know, anyone like anyone that reports you or whatever, like anyone that you hire that is not a founder it it it's inevitable that they won't always tell you the truth. It's inevitable. Like no matter what culture you build, etc. Like there's different incentive structure than someone who's a founder that owns as much equity as you, etc. And so you can stray. Right? And and and here it's very hard for either of us to stray.

So I talked to Luana to prepare for the interview. It sounds like you're kind of the more conservative of the two.

Yeah.

And maybe you're on the regulatory side and she's on the innovation side. Is that the way it sort of plays out?

More often than not, yeah.

Okay.

Luana is very faith-based like optimist. Sometimes I would say like over like incre- like I super irrational optimistic. Like she she she sometimes doesn't really do the the math on how something is going to work out. Like like on why it's going to work out. And that's And continuously happened at Kalshi. And that used to fr- I mean throughout for years it frustrated me. I was like this is like this really like it doesn't make any sense.

And I'm the other side. I'm like I I'm I'm a risk matcher. I'm par- I'm I have a paranoid demeanor and and and which is also usually an anti-pattern for a founder. I'm I I think about risk and expected values and like I I think probabilistically about the world. And here's all the things that could go wrong. And I think that sort of that tension has led to all the decisions that we've made over time. But it's interesting because you know, like Lu- Luana's uh approach to things and now I now believe that given enough time horizon is going to end up being true.

No matter how irrational it sounds. It's kind of it's kind of amazing. But I think my side is the thing that like for right you know for a company it has to get regulatory right. You have to make sure that like you uh you're doing things the right way. Like I'm kind of that forcing function in the company. And again so I think we land somewhere in the middle where we managed to achieve the results where we've achieved.

I'm actually very bad at a lot of things.

Okay.

It's actually shocking. Like if if you see my day-to-day

Cuz you're obsessive. You're very good at a couple things.

Exactly.

You're a lot of founders are obsessive.

Yeah, but I'm I'm kind of a procrastinator.

Huh.

Like I'm so disorganized. Like if if like people that work around me ask them it's just like such a show. But like Luana like orchestrates everything.

She's organized.

Very and like she drops. But like I'm like the opposite of what you imagine for an operator. But I can get so obsessed with certain things that I want to get good at that I can get good at pretty fast and I like get good. So I don't think I'm a good marketer. I just like obsessed about it for long enough that I you

It's how it worked with my co-founder. He's very obsessive and he goes very deep down a rabbit hole and you can't get him out of that rabbit hole. You've had a long stra

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