The CEO of $11bn fintech Kalshi once interviewed with Sam Bankman-Fried at Jane Street
Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are the new darlings of the fintech and crypto world, so much so that the big incumbents like Robinhood are trying to replicate their success. Kalshi, which was valued at $11bn earlier this month, is led by a former hedge fund trader with a curious connection to a far more infamous fintech founder of the past.
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Tarek Mansour, Kalshi's CEO, previously interned at Citadel as a macro trader while studying at MIT in 2018. Speaking on the 20VC podcast yesterday, he revealed that Jane Street was once also on his radar, and that Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) of FTX infamy was the person who interviewed him for an internship there. Mansour said that he and SBF met again in person just one more time when they were founders of their respective firms, and that they "were never really close. He was honestly quite cold towards us when things were going well."
This might be because Mansour's approach to running Kalshi was different to SBF's. "We want to do it clean, compliant and regulated first," Mansour said. "In those years, it was very unsexy to be that company." He said that investors would criticise Kalshi for not growing at the rate FTX was growing.
While FTX hired hundreds of employees and shifted them out to the Bahamas, Kalshi initially kept headcount low and focused on New York. It reportedly had a headcount of 75 in September, and Mansour said it has ~110 today. He's particularly picky with who he hires. "Most people that come through your door should not be at your company... [they're] mediocre for the job you're trying to hire them for."
When you're not mediocre, Kalshi can pay quite well. It has 38 open job listings, with some wild (and possibly hyperbolic) salary ranges. A role for a marketing executive, for example, pays between $50k and... $8m. Most open engineering roles, and a quant developer role in its internal trading team, pay salaries of up to $250k.
Although Mansour has put distance between himself and SBF, he hasn't attempted to villainize him. On another podcast appearance with VC firm a16z last month, he said that he "[doesn't] neccessarily believe that Sam had really bad intent." He instead said the foundations of his business were "shaky," which may have led to small mistakes compounding.
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