Uncapped with Jack Altman Uncapped #48 | Tarek Mansour from Kalshi
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Apr 29, 2026 
Tarek Mansour, co-founder and CEO of Kalshi and former Goldman/Citadel trader, tells the story behind building a regulated prediction-market exchange. He discusses the long regulatory fight, the landmark lawsuit for approval, and how event-based markets change hedging, pricing of risk, and market incentives.
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Trading Reflected Market Reaction Not Event Prediction
- Tarek Mansour describes how his trading experience at Goldman and Citadel revealed traders were really betting on reactions to events, not the events themselves.
- He recounts the 2016 Brexit and Trump trades where correct event views still lost money due to wrong market-reaction expression.
Hackathon Win Propelled A Regulation-First Launch
- Tarek recounts building a V1 prediction market at a YC hackathon and winning despite judges warning it couldn't exist legally in the US.
- That early win led to YC acceptance and set the team on a regulation-first path.
Regulation Is A Binary Long-Distance Problem
- From day one Kalshi decided not to launch outside the law and devoted years to legal work because regulatory approval is binary and often invisible until it happens.
- Tarek compares regulation to walking a desert with no progress signals until a sudden approval moment.