Kalshi Co-founder and COO Luana Lopes Lara on the Long Fight for Regulated Prediction Markets

About this episode

Ali speaks with Luana Lopes Lara, Co-founder and COO of Kalshi, a financial exchange used to trade on outcomes in politics, economics, weather, and more. Long before Kalshi was valued as a $22 billion juggernaut, Luana and co-founder Tarek Mansour spent years trying to persuade the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) that election markets could operate legally. After repeated rejections, layoffs, and a company that felt closer to death than success, she made the extraordinary call to sue the federal government. Luana focuses on the years when almost no one believed Kalshi would make it. She reflects on growing up in Brazil, intense training as a professional ballerina, and…