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

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That was a very scary moment because I was just like, this is the most important thing in my life.
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The company is the most important thing in my life and... And you're betting the company essentially.
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And I'm betting the company.
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Welcome to Confession, where I invite tech veterans to share their painful lessons.
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We all connect through shared pain.
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And here I offer an outlet to talk about them honestly and think about the lessons learned.
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I'm Ali Partovi, and I run NEO, a venture fund and mentorship community for startup founders.
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We've coached and funded the founders of Kalshi, Cursor, Whisperflow, and many more.
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In this episode, I sit down with one of the startup founders, Luana Lopez Lara, co-founder and COO of Kalshi.
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Kalshi is really successful today, but Luana shares the story of the six-year-long struggle with the U.S. government, and she showed unbelievable tenacity and courage to go all in.
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This is Confession.
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Let's begin.
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I'm so happy to be here with you.
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We've known each other since 2019 when I was just starting NEO and you were just starting Kalshi.
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And Kalshi today is a reportedly $22 billion startup, pioneered the concept of prediction markets or regulated prediction markets.
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Tell me a little bit about your journey prior to that.
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I'd love to go back to like the beginning.
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Where were you born?
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What was young Luana like?
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Absolutely.
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And I want to say, I remember the first time we met was actually in this SF, you guys' office.
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Was it Canopy?
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Yeah.
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And it was just like, both Tarek and I were terrified.
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It's like, oh, we're going to meet this guy so famous.
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Everyone says he's amazing.
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We're so nervous that you're going to like us.
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So I remember that very vividly.
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But yeah, so I was born and raised in Brazil.
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Where in Brazil?
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So I was born in Belo Horizonte, which is like the third biggest city in Brazil.
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And then when I was like five, my dad, he worked his entire life at IBM.
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He was transferred to work in Rio.
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So I moved to Rio.
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And I was there till I was 13.
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And then I got into this ballet school because I used to be a professional ballerina before going to college called the Bolshoi Ballet School.
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Bolshoi Ballet is like one of the probably the best ballet in the world in Russia.
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But they have one school outside of Russia that's in the south of Brazil.
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So I moved there to do three years of high school in the ballet school.
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So it was like... You moved to the south of Brazil for the ballet school?
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Right.
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So I would... With your parents or...
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So that's the thing is like I forced my, I kind of forced my parents to have a long distance marriage for three years.
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Cause my mom, I know my mom went with me because my parents were like, she can't stay by herself.
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Like what is she going to do?
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And then my dad and my sister stayed behind in Rio.
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Split up from your own sibling.
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So every weekend or my dad and my sister would come or we would go.
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And we would try to do that and to make it happen.
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So my parents and my sister were just so, so nice, honestly, to, to, to allow that.
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Yeah, in those three years, I was pretty much like I would wake up very early in the morning, like maybe like 5.36, normal high school in Brazil, a technical school from like 7 a.m. to 12.30.
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That's the time that in Brazil you go to school or in the morning or in the afternoon.
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There's no full time.
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So I would go to school in the morning.
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Then I would go to my ballet school and stay there from like 1 to 9 p.m. And then I would go home.
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My gosh.
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And study because I had to learn English to try to come to the U.S. and all those things.
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So it was the most intense three years of my life, really.
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was those three years of that, like high school, ballet, a lot of that.
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Even though ballet was the thing, probably the activity I loved doing the most in my life, I really, really liked the technical side.
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I've always been a nerd.
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I mean, my dad is at the IBM, he's an electrical engineer, but my mom was a math teacher, my sister did engineering as well.
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So I was doing all the math olympiads and all of that.
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And I was very ambitious since I was very little.
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I wanted to do big things.
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And getting to the last year of high school, I was like,
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I should, you know, like the best schools in the world are in the United States.
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Maybe I should try and who knows, maybe I'll get in.
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So I decided to apply and that's kind of the background of how I got into MIT and everything.
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You said you were very ambitious since you were very little.
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What does a little girl who's ambitious do?
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Whoever I would learn about in school that I thought was awesome, I would write their name in this paper that was like right next to my bed.
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And I would be like, one day I want to do something that's like them in a one way, shape or form.
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And the funny thing is, like, I never even got even close.
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I mean, like the names were like Churchill, Alexander the Great or whatever.
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And I'm like, you know, very, very far from any of that.
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But I think it was just like the concept of I want to do something that will matter in some way.
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I thought it was insane that like thousands of years later, you'd still know and learn about these like very key figures that like changed the history of the world.
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I was always kind of thinking like, I want to be the best and how can I be the best and kind of put myself in a position like this.
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Obviously, I'm
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Not even close to anyone on that list, but I think it was just since I was very little.
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Honestly, since I was probably six or seven, I... Because I was very nerdy.
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I remember also, school in Brazil was January to December because of the calendar.
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But then the books for the year come out beginning of December that you need for the other year.
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So you can buy and you have a summer vacation.
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I would buy all the books the day that they would come out, read all of them before Christmas, and then reread them during the school year as needed for exams.
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So it's like I was like weird.
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I was a weird child for sure.
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That's why I also really wanted to go to do ballet in the Bolshoi.
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It was because...
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It was the best school.
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And I was like, well, why wouldn't I go to the best place?
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And when I decided to come to the U.S., it's like, what was the...
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They're the best place in the world.
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Why wouldn't I want to go to the U.S.?
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Why wouldn't I want it?
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So it was always kind of like common sense to me, which I guess is weird.
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So you wanted to be like Alexander the Great, conqueror.
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That would be awesome.
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Yeah, that would have been awesome.
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So you went to MIT and...
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So I was picking between schools.
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So I was between Harvard, MIT, Yale, and Stanford.
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And everyone was telling me I shouldn't go to MIT because my entire background isn't, even though I did do the math Olympia and all those things, like I was a ballerina.
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That's kind of like if you had to be like a one word description.
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And MIT, of course, would be the worst place if you're a ballerina to go.
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There's no really anything related to ballet there whatsoever.
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And the other schools have a lot more.
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And everyone's like, well, first of all, you're not very good at math, so you're not going to do well at MIT.
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And then two is like, what you really like, they don't have.
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But I thought it was important to really force, kind of really force myself out of my comfort zone.
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And really like, if I'm here to try to be very good at math, I should go to the place that's going to really, really force me to be, to like, just focus and try to get as good as I can be in like four years.
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Versus try to kind of like hedge things.
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my position and be like, well, I can do whatever I want to do in engineering, but I also have the safety of if it doesn't go well, I can just study something else or stuff like that.
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So I decided to go to MIT because I thought it would kind of push me the most.
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What about ballet?
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Like, did you continue ballet at the same time?
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So that is a great question.
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My thinking at the time, because I'm very good at compromising.
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I'm very bad, sorry, bad, terrible at compromising.
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So what I said was, I'll go to MIT.
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And it's not going to be an issue because I can just go to the Boston Ballet and I'll take classes there.
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And then the Boston Ballet is better ballet than any of the other schools I was choosing from.
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And, you know, I might say it's better at the math and computer science stuff than the other.
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So it would kind of be the best of both worlds.
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The problem was the first time I went on a Saturday to the Boston Ballet to take my first class after like a month that I was traveling and like, you know, getting to school orientation, all that.
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Like I was losing my form.
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And I remember like at the end of the hour and a half class, I was just like, I can't do this because I'm going to see myself just get getting so much worse at something I cared so much about that it's just going to be very hard.
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Well, it was never a hobby to me, which is something like I really, really wanted to be very good at it.
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And I thought it was kind of like better to leave on a good note than it was to kind of see myself get worse.
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So I stopped it completely and, you know, started swimming instead.
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Or like whatever else, like trying different things to work out and like school cycle or whatever.
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But focus really on school.
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Yeah, at the start it was very tough because I was definitely very, very behind on the, like in Brazil you cannot really, like you can't learn calculus in high school.
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There's like a mandated government program that every school needs to teach.
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Calculus is not for high school.
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everything that I wanted to do is kind of like I wanted to do this physics class and I was like behind on my math classes that I had to take so it was like very hard at the start it took many years of a lot of nights very stressful and studying and all of that but it was fun
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Really, I also want to talk about failure and fuck ups, you know, and it's something that in general, I think in tech, we don't have enough conversation about how difficult it is, you know, getting to whatever success people are at.
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So I'd love to hear about more about the struggle.
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Oh, absolutely.
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Have any regrets or things you do differently, if you could go back.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And it's funny because, well, 2019, we really started, but it was really 2018.
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So now it's been many, many years, right?
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Seven years, really, that we've been around and building this company.
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And really, the company really started only working a year and a half ago, two years ago.
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And I think before that, there were many, many times...
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that I'm way more optimistic than Tariq.
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So the way that we are is like we're completely, we're very similar in terms of what we studied, what we're good at, background and all of that.
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But we're polar opposites in terms of how optimistic and everything's gonna be great I am and how pessimistic we're about to die and this is gonna be the end of the world Tariq is.
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But for the first five years, it really was way over 90% chance the company was gonna die.
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Even when we were worth a billion dollars, we were like, what are we doing here?
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It doesn't make sense.
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It's a very lonely experience because as a founder, you can't say that to the outside world.
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You have to project optimism to the outside world.
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And you have to, whether you're raising money or recruiting employees or talking to the press, say a certain story.
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And then whatever you're personally aware of or afraid of, you have to just keep to yourself.
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Yeah, and for me, it was always harder even because, so I think, for example, having a co-founder is one of the best things you can do.
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Because at least you have someone else to kind of, you know, freak out to, you know, in a way.
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Really is like the amount of value that is in just having someone that you can freak out to.
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Obviously, you can do that with your family and all of that.
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But it's different because your family, like, they don't really get it exactly what you're going through.
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For me, it was always harder to because I am supposed to be the optimistic one.
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So even if I was freaking out, I couldn't even do that in front of Tariq.
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Because if I even showed a little bit of I might be worried about this or it might not work out, Tariq immediately would be like, oh my God, if you're saying this, it's game over.
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We're done.
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So it's always a complicated thing.
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But I think that there's a story of the overnight success.
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It's just like not a real thing.
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When we started, the biggest question of prediction markets actually was, can this be Leo in the US?
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and took three years.
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It was awful.
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Like right every day we would, Tarek says this, it's like you're climbing a mountain and you think the peak is right above you.
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So you keep climbing.
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And when you get there, you look up and you're like, shit, that was just a little like, you know, a little plateau.
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And I have like to keep going and keep going because it's just always harder than you think.
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And I actually think that helped us because we always thought we were close.
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So if you always have a next goal, it's a little easier.
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You're like, well, I know what I have to do for next one to two months.
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So it's a little easier than thinking about this is what we have to do for three years.
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It would have been, I don't know if we would have done it in a way.
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It's a lot easier to think there's one to two.
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So that helped us kind of get through this.
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It's just like it's one to two months.
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Let's just push through it.
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We need to see it through.
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And then we'd go and then the government would like, here are the answers to your 100 questions.
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And they would be like, well, we agree with 5% of them.
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We have follow-up questions on 90% of them and we disagree with five.
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So we'd have to go and rework everything and do more data analysis to show kind of how these markets behave and all of that.
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You would expect that anything that takes three years, it would be immediate product market fit.
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Right.
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Because it's like imagine, okay, it's an FDA approval or whatever, right?
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But for us, it wasn't the case.
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It was if we are able to get this done, which people thought it was like 1% chance it would get regulated, then we would all we have is the shot of trying to build this and trying to get product market fit into this thing.
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It's not guaranteed that people like trading like this and that is actually a better, a better, a better way to do it.
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It's just that was our thesis at the time.
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Yeah, so first the three-year-long marathon of proving legality, then begin the starting line of what all normal startups have of can you actually build a service that people want and get traction and make money?
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I remember when we got regulated, we were like, well, now it's maybe where we should be going to an accelerator program after the three years.
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You just reached the starting line.
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Obviously, it was like cool.
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And everyone's like, oh, they got approval.
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But no one really cared when we launched.
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It was like there were some people that were the nerds, right?
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They were the prediction market nerds.
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They were in predicted.
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They tried these like crypto offshore stuff like Augur and stuff before.
208
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And they were there.
209
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But we were like, I don't know how many people of these there are.
210
00:13:23.380 --> 00:13:24.921
Maybe they're just all here already.
211
00:13:24.961 --> 00:13:26.362
They're already waiting for us to launch.
212
00:13:26.402 --> 00:13:31.206
And we were an objectively worse product because they really like trading on elections.
213
00:13:31.306 --> 00:13:34.268
They really like these types of markets that we couldn't offer at all.
214
00:13:35.129 --> 00:13:38.531
And right when we launched, we were like, well, at least now we have something else.
215
00:13:38.731 --> 00:13:42.954
So at least we can iterate, talk to users and get metrics and kind of view something.
216
00:13:43.154 --> 00:13:49.859
But at the time, it was clear we needed to figure out how to get election markets because on the more sports side, we weren't even thinking about that at the point because we were like,
217
00:13:51.637 --> 00:13:54.858
The next step is like the next type of contract we need to bring really is the election.
218
00:13:55.318 --> 00:14:02.020
Because it's kind of like the first and only step we can take in that kind of like expanding the type of markets direction.
219
00:14:02.540 --> 00:14:05.060
And then we're like, all right, let's talk to the government again and see if we can do it.
220
00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:07.601
The first time was already like no from the start.
221
00:14:08.021 --> 00:14:09.741
And then we sent something else.
222
00:14:09.761 --> 00:14:12.402
They're like, no, but this time we're going to let you have a comment period.
223
00:14:13.022 --> 00:14:22.864
So we spent months rallying every single person we knew doing a public campaign to get all these people to write in kind of why election markets are good.
224
00:14:23.144 --> 00:14:25.125
And we got a bunch of professors and academics.
225
00:14:25.185 --> 00:14:29.146
And you probably submitted a letter to support of those markets.
226
00:14:29.206 --> 00:14:34.007
And we really wanted to get this by the 2022 election, a midterm election.
227
00:14:34.447 --> 00:14:38.952
Even though I think it was 80 to 90% of the comments were very positive.
228
00:14:39.273 --> 00:14:44.939
Maybe 85 was positive, 10 was kind of neutral and more like, if you do this, you need to have safeguards and all of that.
229
00:14:45.299 --> 00:14:47.081
And then 5%, I think, was very negative.
230
00:14:48.042 --> 00:14:49.584
Even like that, it didn't matter.
231
00:14:49.604 --> 00:14:50.064
They said no.
232
00:14:50.733 --> 00:14:52.415
This is now... 2022.
233
00:14:52.695 --> 00:14:54.117
Fall 2022.
234
00:14:54.197 --> 00:14:57.841
You had been trying to get permission to list a contract on the midterm elections.
235
00:14:58.041 --> 00:14:58.222
Right.
236
00:14:58.242 --> 00:14:59.823
The 22 congressional elections.
237
00:14:59.843 --> 00:15:00.164
Right, exactly.
238
00:15:00.184 --> 00:15:03.768
And we've been doing this and we were trying to do it since the beginning of 2021.
239
00:15:04.188 --> 00:15:06.391
So we worked with them for like a year and nine months.
240
00:15:06.911 --> 00:15:11.697
And it's like what they were trying to do is like everything they would ask us to send, they would send it and they would be like,
241
00:15:12.117 --> 00:15:33.743
six months to get back something like oh we don't agree we need to open for common period and it was kind of like that very slow process but we still had that kind of clear if we get the midterms we're good the midterms come we obviously lose the midterms and then we're like well you lose meaning you don't get the right mission in time for the yeah yeah so yeah
242
00:15:34.358 --> 00:15:58.891
It was really surprising because when the CFTC published their decision, there was like a public dissent by one of the commissioners saying that like we've departed from the rule of law here that not everyone follows this kind of stuff, but it's not common for a government regulator to have like individual members publicly saying they disagree with their own commission's decision.
243
00:15:58.911 --> 00:16:02.333
Yeah, and that's kind of what was so frustrating to us is that
244
00:16:04.100 --> 00:16:07.803
Usually most things felt somehow somewhat in our control.
245
00:16:08.604 --> 00:16:15.149
It was like the approval was somewhat in our control because we could just, you know, work harder and push for more questions and do more.
246
00:16:15.329 --> 00:16:15.770
They were like.
247
00:16:15.970 --> 00:16:18.272
Meaning learn the law and comply with it, basically.
248
00:16:18.312 --> 00:16:18.412
Yeah.
249
00:16:18.472 --> 00:16:21.455
And also just like there were clear like next steps that we could do.
250
00:16:22.135 --> 00:16:36.980
But with the election, the problem is that now after the 2022 election, I think it was when we weren't able to list this market, the first thing that came to my head was like, wow, I don't know if there are things we can actually do because we were clearly legal and right on the law.
251
00:16:37.701 --> 00:16:38.561
In your own opinion.
252
00:16:38.939 --> 00:16:41.580
Yeah, and I mean, and then the judge two years later agreed with us.
253
00:16:41.640 --> 00:16:45.522
But yeah, it's like, in our own opinion, we're clearly around the law and these markets were objectively good.
254
00:16:46.002 --> 00:16:56.106
And then we also look at these comments and we're like, we couldn't have had a stronger kind of track record, like a stronger record of all the people approving and supporting this.
255
00:16:56.466 --> 00:16:59.788
And that was kind of like, the first time I interacted with
256
00:17:00.648 --> 00:17:23.243
politics in a way that sometimes people are just like more worried about their agendas and they're like i want to get crypto jurisdiction so i'm gonna not look at anything that might rock the boat then i'm worried my party's behind or all whatever it wasn't the type of growth that we needed or wanted for the company to be successful it just we would have been like a cool like experiment i guess like social experiment but
257
00:17:24.304 --> 00:17:28.209
And then, yeah, so after 2022, we start continuously engaging with the government.
258
00:17:28.269 --> 00:17:34.916
And then, as you said, it's like even inside the government, they were dissenting with each other and disagreeing and saying that they were being political.
259
00:17:34.976 --> 00:17:37.499
And there was all this drama around it.
260
00:17:38.099 --> 00:17:38.880
And we try again.
261
00:17:38.900 --> 00:17:40.682
And they open it for comment period again.
262
00:17:41.599 --> 00:17:44.142
So we're like, all right, let's call everyone again.
263
00:17:44.182 --> 00:17:47.265
Let's get them to submit letters and support and all of that.
264
00:17:47.726 --> 00:17:54.333
What happened this time is that the actual, the government was actually calling people, asking them to submit things against us.
265
00:17:55.014 --> 00:17:55.214
Wow.
266
00:17:55.234 --> 00:17:56.035
Which is crazy.
267
00:17:56.496 --> 00:17:58.598
It's like they would actually call these like,
268
00:18:00.473 --> 00:18:06.195
think things or whatever that they thought were going to be very against us, say what they wanted them to say, they would do it.
269
00:18:06.215 --> 00:18:07.756
And we were like, that's insane.
270
00:18:07.776 --> 00:18:12.577
It's like, if they're right on the law, first of all, if they actually think they're right on the law, they don't need to do this.
271
00:18:12.917 --> 00:18:14.818
If they think they're wrong, then like,
272
00:18:15.427 --> 00:18:16.548
Why would they do this?
273
00:18:16.588 --> 00:18:18.090
Why wouldn't they just apply the law?
274
00:18:18.490 --> 00:18:23.175
And that, again, was kind of like a very powerless moment for us because we were like, okay.
275
00:18:23.435 --> 00:18:24.736
I mean, in some ways, it's fair.
276
00:18:24.776 --> 00:18:26.558
We are reaching out to people to help us.
277
00:18:27.379 --> 00:18:30.782
But the government shouldn't be kind of like just taking an opposite side.
278
00:18:30.802 --> 00:18:31.923
They should just be applying the law.
279
00:18:31.963 --> 00:18:33.084
It should be a neutral party.
280
00:18:33.324 --> 00:18:33.705
Exactly.
281
00:18:34.893 --> 00:18:37.794
All of that goes, we get rejected again.
282
00:18:37.814 --> 00:18:40.554
And then they asked us another time to engage with them.
283
00:18:40.574 --> 00:18:43.014
We're like, please, like, is there a direction?
284
00:18:43.034 --> 00:18:48.175
And then one of the commissioners was like, maybe if you do this product just for institutions, it will work.
285
00:18:48.195 --> 00:18:49.196
So we work again.
286
00:18:49.556 --> 00:18:51.576
We started working this in the beginning of 2021.
287
00:18:52.096 --> 00:18:54.457
We are ready, like, end of 2023.
288
00:18:55.797 --> 00:18:57.157
And we tried the institution.
289
00:18:57.177 --> 00:18:57.977
It doesn't work.
290
00:18:57.997 --> 00:18:59.757
We were like 100 million.
291
00:18:59.817 --> 00:19:02.578
We were trying to, like, get anything to just get the product out the door.
292
00:19:02.978 --> 00:19:04.479
Product meaning trading on election outcomes.
293
00:19:04.499 --> 00:19:05.500
Trading on election outcomes.
294
00:19:05.760 --> 00:19:13.645
And at that time, it was a very hard time because, first of all, between Tarek and I, I was always the, we need to do elections.
295
00:19:14.066 --> 00:19:17.348
I was like, there's no way this company is going to really work if we don't do elections.
296
00:19:17.388 --> 00:19:24.453
And Tarek was like, well, maybe we switch and we start doing more on like financials and crypto and we just focus on that type of market or maybe we do this.
297
00:19:24.973 --> 00:19:26.675
And I was like, no, we absolutely need elections.
298
00:19:26.695 --> 00:19:26.795
Yeah.
299
00:19:27.881 --> 00:19:32.484
Every time that it didn't work, I was like, shit, he's going to get mad at me.
300
00:19:33.184 --> 00:19:35.646
That's going to be on me yet again.
301
00:19:35.666 --> 00:19:40.169
In the beginning, it was easier to convince him that it was just like, we should do it again.
302
00:19:40.229 --> 00:19:42.270
Because, well, we just tried once.
303
00:19:42.390 --> 00:19:44.351
We know this market is very big, so it's going to be hard to get.
304
00:19:44.371 --> 00:19:46.112
And at this point, it's been almost two years.
305
00:19:46.292 --> 00:19:48.674
A big amount of resources in the company has always gone into this.
306
00:19:48.894 --> 00:19:51.115
Our mind space was always like 20% on this market.
307
00:19:51.675 --> 00:19:51.876
And yeah.
308
00:19:55.627 --> 00:19:57.628
The only option for us was to sue the government.
309
00:19:58.188 --> 00:20:01.089
And I was like, I remember I thought about it.
310
00:20:01.109 --> 00:20:05.490
I was like, well, I'm going to have to argue that we need to sue the government.
311
00:20:05.650 --> 00:20:06.710
How am I going to do that?
312
00:20:06.950 --> 00:20:11.091
Sue the government because you believed it is legal to trade on elections.
313
00:20:11.191 --> 00:20:11.391
Right.
314
00:20:11.911 --> 00:20:13.672
And that their rejection of you was...
315
00:20:13.952 --> 00:20:14.332
Unlawful.
316
00:20:14.552 --> 00:20:14.772
Yeah.
317
00:20:14.792 --> 00:20:16.893
So basically the only reason they would have to stop it
318
00:20:17.713 --> 00:20:26.875
There is legalese, but there's a way like that you can read the statute, the CFTC statute, and you can see kind of like what the CFTC actually has the right to block.
319
00:20:27.356 --> 00:20:28.376
And there are very few things.
320
00:20:28.496 --> 00:20:31.797
It's like contracts associated with war, terrorism, assassination.
321
00:20:32.097 --> 00:20:35.078
I'm thinking to myself, what is my argument?
322
00:20:35.138 --> 00:20:36.098
How am I going to do that?
323
00:20:36.435 --> 00:20:38.276
Your argument to convince Tariq?
324
00:20:38.296 --> 00:20:40.457
To convince Tariq, because I feel like...
325
00:20:40.837 --> 00:20:44.399
Your co-founder doesn't love suing government.
326
00:20:44.779 --> 00:20:47.521
I think it's him and like 99% of the world wouldn't like it.
327
00:20:48.081 --> 00:20:51.843
I think there was a part of me that was worried that the time that I would talk to Tariq about this
328
00:20:52.603 --> 00:20:58.705
He was going to come into a conversation with like, amazing, this proves we need to move on from elections.
329
00:20:58.765 --> 00:21:00.105
It's just not going to work.
330
00:21:00.185 --> 00:21:00.826
Oh, that.
331
00:21:00.846 --> 00:21:04.427
That is just like, we need to move on and do something else and let's just give up on the election thing.
332
00:21:05.027 --> 00:21:07.628
And I was like, he's going to be thinking that.
333
00:21:08.148 --> 00:21:10.068
So if he's thinking that, how am I going to convince him?
334
00:21:10.489 --> 00:21:15.050
And I remember, so Lior actually that we hired through Neo and it's like, like,
335
00:21:15.807 --> 00:21:17.948
I say that he's better than Tarek and I combine times 10.
336
00:21:18.328 --> 00:21:21.210
He joined us like five years, six years ago as an intern.
337
00:21:21.750 --> 00:21:24.371
And I remember I was walking with Lior to get tea.
338
00:21:24.892 --> 00:21:31.295
I told him, I was like, so I think I'm going to tell Tarek that I think we should sue the CFTC.
339
00:21:31.315 --> 00:21:32.515
He's got elections.
340
00:21:33.336 --> 00:21:34.576
What do you think I should tell him?
341
00:21:34.596 --> 00:21:36.117
And he's like, wow.
342
00:21:36.457 --> 00:21:38.278
Yeah, that's going to be a tough one.
343
00:21:39.399 --> 00:21:42.660
And I mean, at the point I was like, look, whatever.
344
00:21:42.700 --> 00:21:43.441
I'm just going to tell him.
345
00:21:43.981 --> 00:21:45.602
what I actually think and we'll see how it goes.
346
00:21:45.902 --> 00:21:46.802
And then I sit down with him.
347
00:21:46.962 --> 00:21:49.384
He's like, all right, so what's the plan for the quarter?
348
00:21:49.404 --> 00:21:50.824
We need to move on, like we need to move.
349
00:21:50.844 --> 00:21:53.906
I mean, like the employees are very upset about this.
350
00:21:54.346 --> 00:22:02.610
And by the way, something I forgot to say, right before this, so when we got the, no, I mean 2023, we kind of didn't have another plan.
351
00:22:03.470 --> 00:22:07.392
So we had to, like a lot of employees started leaving because they were like, these people are delusional.
352
00:22:07.412 --> 00:22:10.594
They just keep thinking that elections are gonna come and they don't come.
353
00:22:11.579 --> 00:22:15.722
We also fired, kind of did a layoff, fired some people because we were like, well, we're not really making money.
354
00:22:15.762 --> 00:22:17.263
How are we going to figure that out?
355
00:22:17.924 --> 00:22:30.213
And it was kind of a very like bad morale moment for the company because I think not just that, I think that like, obviously we've always had investors like yourself, like Alfred, that were very like supportive of us, whatever we did.
356
00:22:30.853 --> 00:22:37.298
But there was also a lot of the like small investors that we had from like our demo day round at YC that started like.
357
00:22:38.717 --> 00:22:40.889
you know, kind of like asking questions and what are you doing?
358
00:22:40.909 --> 00:22:42.880
And we just felt like people were just weren't trusting.
359
00:22:44.100 --> 00:22:45.841
our decision making and how we were thinking.
360
00:22:45.861 --> 00:22:47.701
So it was very like tough time.
361
00:22:48.301 --> 00:22:51.463
And we were kind of like, okay, the company is smaller.
362
00:22:51.483 --> 00:22:52.863
It's just the people that we want here.
363
00:22:53.163 --> 00:22:54.023
So like, what are we going to do?
364
00:22:54.644 --> 00:23:02.746
And by the way, what we did for the people that wanted to stay was actually, we did the layoff and then a lot of people left and we announced it at the same day, the people that were leaving the layoff.
365
00:23:03.147 --> 00:23:09.509
And then we said, if anyone wants to leave the company that wasn't laid off or didn't leave, you can get the same deal.
366
00:23:10.029 --> 00:23:11.269
So like the three month or whatever.
367
00:23:11.429 --> 00:23:11.830
Severance.
368
00:23:11.890 --> 00:23:12.550
Severance, whatever.
369
00:23:13.010 --> 00:23:15.953
And we did get people that took that and, you know, left the company.
370
00:23:16.113 --> 00:23:19.216
But then after that, we were like, okay, this is the team and we're going to figure something out.
371
00:23:19.256 --> 00:23:22.719
And there's five people from that period.
372
00:23:23.920 --> 00:23:26.462
Rainer, also from Neo, who was amazing.
373
00:23:26.943 --> 00:23:29.045
And yeah, and I sat down with Tarek and I was like,
374
00:23:29.565 --> 00:23:33.547
you're going to kill me, but I will be honest with you, I think we should sue the government.
375
00:23:34.408 --> 00:23:36.589
And he's like, you have to be kidding me.
376
00:23:36.629 --> 00:23:41.812
There's no way that your conclusion after this three, two years is that we should sue the government.
377
00:23:41.832 --> 00:23:44.554
And I walked him through, kind of how I was thinking about it.
378
00:23:44.574 --> 00:23:44.994
That was like,
379
00:23:45.317 --> 00:23:50.743
It was a mix of like, there's not that much more damage they could do.
380
00:23:50.904 --> 00:23:52.806
They were doing like death by a thousand paper cuts.
381
00:23:52.886 --> 00:23:57.751
Everything we wanted to do, they would ask like a hundred thousand questions and all these things.
382
00:23:57.832 --> 00:24:00.775
And they started dictating the font that we had to use on our website.
383
00:24:01.255 --> 00:24:02.095
the size of the font.
384
00:24:02.115 --> 00:24:06.397
They're like, this needs to be like a 14 bucks, which is insane.
385
00:24:06.517 --> 00:24:07.717
They can't do this type of thing.
386
00:24:08.497 --> 00:24:11.078
And I told him, I was like, it's the holy grail of the markets.
387
00:24:11.098 --> 00:24:12.039
We're right legally.
388
00:24:13.059 --> 00:24:15.720
We know that they're not approving this because of political reasons.
389
00:24:15.780 --> 00:24:18.961
The judges, the judicial system is supposed to be independent.
390
00:24:18.981 --> 00:24:20.341
They're going to look at this with fresh eyes.
391
00:24:21.301 --> 00:24:22.962
And all of the lawyers say we're right.
392
00:24:23.362 --> 00:24:24.402
So that's the side.
393
00:24:24.883 --> 00:24:26.503
I remember, I was like, this is very clever.
394
00:24:26.643 --> 00:24:27.303
It was very clever.
395
00:24:27.363 --> 00:24:28.164
But I was like, this is very clever.
396
00:24:28.184 --> 00:24:29.164
What I tell him is that
397
00:24:30.055 --> 00:24:48.225
It could actually be a good thing because if they are in a lawsuit with us, if we sue them, they might actually think that they should retaliate less against us because they're worried of like the repercussions with the… If it looks like they're being… If it looks like they're being… Impartial.
398
00:24:48.505 --> 00:24:48.965
Exactly.
399
00:24:48.985 --> 00:24:56.229
So I was like, and maybe it would be a positive and they'll stop retaliating and kind of being so against us on everything else.
400
00:24:56.629 --> 00:24:57.909
And the target was like, well, that's bullshit.
401
00:24:57.929 --> 00:24:58.650
That's not going to happen.
402
00:24:58.670 --> 00:25:03.591
We know it's going to be infinitely worse because if we actually even try to claim to the court, there's retaliation.
403
00:25:03.611 --> 00:25:05.112
That would be like infinitely more complicated.
404
00:25:05.132 --> 00:25:05.692
There's discovery.
405
00:25:05.712 --> 00:25:06.332
There's all these things.
406
00:25:06.932 --> 00:25:08.393
I kept saying, I was like, we have to sue.
407
00:25:08.493 --> 00:25:09.453
That's the only way we go.
408
00:25:10.233 --> 00:25:13.974
And I had a plan of like how we actually detach it.
409
00:25:13.994 --> 00:25:16.055
Because a lot of his argument was,
410
00:25:16.715 --> 00:25:19.056
We can't have the company focus on this again.
411
00:25:19.076 --> 00:25:20.696
And I was like, well, I agree.
412
00:25:20.716 --> 00:25:23.297
So we're gonna hire a law firm, they're gonna handle this.
413
00:25:23.797 --> 00:25:28.778
And we're only allowed to spend an hour, a week on this in the meeting with the litigators and that's it.
414
00:25:29.198 --> 00:25:34.939
He thought I was insane, but honestly, I feel like he was, at that point, he was like, I'm not gonna keep arguing with you.
415
00:25:35.700 --> 00:25:37.260
And he's like, but you were gonna tell the board.
416
00:25:39.440 --> 00:25:41.781
And he was like, you know, he's like, our, I'm,
417
00:25:42.061 --> 00:25:50.207
I have to say, it's very interesting that when you're thinking about this challenge, it's not just the challenge of the government had rejected you.
418
00:25:50.247 --> 00:26:07.358
It's the fear of how to tell Tari that you're still going to push for this after two years of failure and how to bend your own co-founder to your will to try one more time via a lawsuit against the federal government.
419
00:26:07.859 --> 00:26:09.720
The funny thing about Tariq and I, those are like,
420
00:26:11.302 --> 00:26:19.971
The company really would not be close to here if it wasn't for both of us being here, because I'm the over optimistic, like, let's just do it.
421
00:26:19.991 --> 00:26:20.632
Let's try again.
422
00:26:20.792 --> 00:26:21.913
And I just like don't get phased.
423
00:26:22.774 --> 00:26:28.981
But in our business and in our company, we need to kind of like be always looking at every single possible edge case of things that can go wrong.
424
00:26:29.021 --> 00:26:29.201
Right.
425
00:26:29.581 --> 00:26:31.603
And that's what Tarek is like amazing at.
426
00:26:31.724 --> 00:26:32.424
Like, for example.
427
00:26:33.285 --> 00:26:44.050
We, a lot of like how we think about how the company will be in like five, 10 years, is start thinking about all the single edge cases and things that can go wrong, so that we start preparing for it now.
428
00:26:44.410 --> 00:26:47.952
That I wouldn't even think about it because I'm like, things are great and everything's great.
429
00:26:48.232 --> 00:26:53.395
So in a lot of ways, I think that a lot of my work and his work is trying to convince each other.
430
00:26:53.555 --> 00:26:57.877
And I think that's actually one of the best forcing functions we have, because the debate that I have with him,
431
00:26:58.477 --> 00:27:16.758
to convince him that we should take a massive bet and try it again or with him that it's like we should be very worried about this thing and we need to start tackling it now and we need to focus and we need to put people to to solve this big problem and I think because of that is like a lot of our thinking is how do we convince each other and kind of put ourselves in the other person's position so that we can
432
00:27:17.558 --> 00:27:19.960
kind of like calibrate our decision making better.
433
00:27:20.040 --> 00:27:25.743
I don't know if you know this, Luana, but I might have been involved in convincing Tariq as well at this time.
434
00:27:25.964 --> 00:27:27.284
Oh, nice, nice, nice.
435
00:27:27.905 --> 00:27:29.906
There was a phone call, I remember clearly.
436
00:27:30.206 --> 00:27:38.471
We had lots of conversations during the era that you were trying to get approval the nice way, you know, talking to senators and so on.
437
00:27:38.772 --> 00:27:38.992
And...
438
00:27:39.652 --> 00:27:44.216
And I remember Tarek calling me saying, it's failed, it's been rejected.
439
00:27:44.236 --> 00:27:53.044
Not only that it's been rejected, but we're in this place now that the CFTC is micromanaging all sorts of little stuff that they shouldn't be.
440
00:27:53.444 --> 00:27:55.746
And it's not following the law.
441
00:27:55.806 --> 00:27:56.647
It's just like they're...
442
00:27:58.175 --> 00:28:20.862
capricious whims and you know and i asked like well what other option do we have and he said the only other option is to file a lawsuit against them and i said you know i'm not on the board we're one of your earliest investors but we don't take board seats yeah so i said you know like what do your other investors think about this and he said all of them think it's a bad idea
443
00:28:22.012 --> 00:28:24.034
And I said, so why are you calling me?
444
00:28:24.735 --> 00:28:27.177
And he was like, because I kind of think we should do it.
445
00:28:27.917 --> 00:28:29.899
And I said to him, we should do it.
446
00:28:30.300 --> 00:28:30.600
Nice.
447
00:28:30.640 --> 00:28:30.960
Thank you.
448
00:28:30.980 --> 00:28:32.121
Well, I really appreciate it.
449
00:28:32.141 --> 00:28:34.844
And it's partly, I will say, it's partly because of my own experience.
450
00:28:34.904 --> 00:28:39.448
My second startup, we had this aspect of living another day.
451
00:28:39.588 --> 00:28:41.409
We'd have all these small failures.
452
00:28:41.429 --> 00:28:41.770
Mm-hmm.
453
00:28:42.030 --> 00:28:43.671
but we like found some way to survive.
454
00:28:43.691 --> 00:28:44.211
Right.
455
00:28:44.591 --> 00:28:47.952
There were situations where we could have gone all in, but we were afraid.
456
00:28:48.372 --> 00:28:57.856
And so instead we found some way to avoid the potential disaster or potential, you know, big swings in order to survive another day.
457
00:28:58.416 --> 00:28:59.496
And that just dragged it out.
458
00:29:00.217 --> 00:29:01.897
After seven years, that company failed.
459
00:29:02.277 --> 00:29:12.500
And if I could go back, I would have gone all in and either have a success or a catastrophic failure, but like, you know, get it done.
460
00:29:12.821 --> 00:29:23.844
And I said, like, if you guys hadn't sued the government at that time, it would have just been a drawn out, you know, four or five years later, kind of fade into obscurity.
461
00:29:24.088 --> 00:29:24.709
I fully agree.
462
00:29:24.749 --> 00:29:36.300
I think it's more like, there's this kind of thinking in Silicon Valley, which I kind of disagree with, which is like the company that, like success is if you never die, but then you're optimizing for the wrong thing.
463
00:29:36.620 --> 00:29:38.482
You're not optimizing for how big your company can be.
464
00:29:38.502 --> 00:29:43.707
You're kind of optimizing for just like staying, like extending another like couple months or something.
465
00:29:43.727 --> 00:29:44.288
And I think it's,
466
00:29:45.029 --> 00:29:51.095
it's more important to this is what the company should be and that's what you want to be and you should just go for it and be less afraid.
467
00:29:51.135 --> 00:29:56.801
But I think there's this thing in Silicon Valley that it's more, well, if you do this, the company might die.
468
00:29:56.821 --> 00:30:00.926
It's like, yeah, well, it might die, but it's not necessarily like, it's not necessarily.
469
00:30:00.946 --> 00:30:01.887
But it might also survive.
470
00:30:01.947 --> 00:30:04.329
It might also survive and become massive.
471
00:30:05.470 --> 00:30:07.873
And that's one of the reasons, for example, like why we're based in New York.
472
00:30:08.333 --> 00:30:19.303
I feel like the whole when you mentioned the beginning that is just like people in Silicon Valley and it's just like you can't really say you have to always be projecting that the company is going great and all those things.
473
00:30:19.323 --> 00:30:22.666
One of the things I hated about San Francisco is like whenever you go anywhere.
474
00:30:23.386 --> 00:30:25.809
Every single person you talk to, their company is doing amazingly well.
475
00:30:25.849 --> 00:30:27.491
And I'm like, statistically, this is impossible.
476
00:30:27.511 --> 00:30:30.834
There's no way everyone is at the top 10% of startups.
477
00:30:31.715 --> 00:30:36.721
And I think in New York, you kind of isolate a little bit yourself from there, which also helps with decision making.
478
00:30:36.741 --> 00:30:42.127
Because at that point, I've always kind of like really isolated myself from this whole Silicon Valley kind of thing.
479
00:30:42.367 --> 00:30:58.450
a lot of the founders, even here in New York, I like my friends from college and it's like, it also gives you more clarity that you're like less afraid of like, what are people going to think if you yet again, try to figure something out and yet again fail, being free from like external expectations in a way.
480
00:30:58.470 --> 00:31:01.410
Obviously you have investors and all that stuff that still have that.
481
00:31:01.450 --> 00:31:09.132
But when I went to talk the board, our board is Michael Seibel from YC and Alfred Lin from Sequoia
482
00:31:11.592 --> 00:31:13.156
as you said, they were very against it.
483
00:31:13.236 --> 00:31:16.102
They were like anti-pattern.
484
00:31:16.122 --> 00:31:19.410
We've never seen a company that's this... You don't do lawsuits, period.
485
00:31:19.470 --> 00:31:21.214
Let alone against the federal government.
486
00:31:21.522 --> 00:31:22.683
Your own regulator, exactly.
487
00:31:22.743 --> 00:31:24.584
And we were making, like, no revenue.
488
00:31:24.604 --> 00:31:26.845
Like, really, it's, like, very little revenue.
489
00:31:27.125 --> 00:31:31.128
It was funny because we did the whole board meeting and update, and then Tarek's like, Luana wants to talk to you.
490
00:31:31.608 --> 00:31:33.289
And I'm always the quiet one in the board meetings.
491
00:31:33.349 --> 00:31:34.490
I'm like, let's just Tarek speak.
492
00:31:35.070 --> 00:31:40.554
And I'm like, okay, so we are going to sue the government and do this.
493
00:31:40.614 --> 00:31:44.396
And I kind of made it more as a decision because at that point, Tarek and I were on the same page.
494
00:31:45.637 --> 00:31:46.978
And, um...
495
00:31:47.798 --> 00:31:53.181
Yeah, and I mean, at the end they were like, we are against this, but if you guys want to do it, sure.
496
00:31:53.461 --> 00:32:01.024
It's like an anti-pattern, but most times when you said something was very unlikely and you really wanted to do it, it worked out, the same with getting regulated and all of that.
497
00:32:01.505 --> 00:32:05.907
So we sued them, and it was, and Tarek was right and I was wrong.
498
00:32:06.107 --> 00:32:07.868
We were retaliated against that lot.
499
00:32:08.608 --> 00:32:12.830
My little trick there that I thought that maybe they would retaliate less wasn't the case.
500
00:32:13.214 --> 00:32:14.615
The fonts had to be even more.
501
00:32:14.695 --> 00:32:20.377
The fonts were like every single, like even the font family had to be a certain one.
502
00:32:20.397 --> 00:32:27.219
And we sued them and it was, they delayed our clearinghouse application, which you probably remember for like months and months and months.
503
00:32:27.319 --> 00:32:29.060
Like by law, it needs to be six months.
504
00:32:29.120 --> 00:32:30.520
They took two years at this point.
505
00:32:31.481 --> 00:32:32.101
Everything was awful.
506
00:32:32.961 --> 00:32:36.523
But we went in October, October 6th.
507
00:32:37.623 --> 00:32:39.224
Which was like insane.
508
00:32:39.264 --> 00:32:42.005
It was like, you can remember we got the news.
509
00:32:42.225 --> 00:32:42.945
We called you.
510
00:32:42.965 --> 00:32:45.426
You came to the office with a bottle of champagne.
511
00:32:45.446 --> 00:32:46.447
We were all drinking champagne.
512
00:32:46.467 --> 00:32:46.987
It was amazing.
513
00:32:47.007 --> 00:32:47.827
Everyone was crying.
514
00:32:48.047 --> 00:32:50.468
I was in your office that day by coincidence.
515
00:32:50.528 --> 00:32:51.128
By coincidence.
516
00:32:51.148 --> 00:32:51.709
Yeah, that's true.
517
00:32:51.729 --> 00:32:55.390
And I remember looking around and everyone was like reloading on their browser.
518
00:32:55.430 --> 00:32:56.490
Like, is the news in yet?
519
00:32:56.530 --> 00:32:56.711
Nope.
520
00:32:57.091 --> 00:32:57.591
No verdict.
521
00:32:57.771 --> 00:32:59.151
It was the most insane moment.
522
00:32:59.191 --> 00:33:02.433
I remember one of the first times in my life that I actually felt...
523
00:33:03.193 --> 00:33:05.474
When people say weight off their shoulders, I never actually...
524
00:33:07.179 --> 00:33:14.682
understood what that meant up until that moment that I remember I was walking home and I was passing by this Whole Foods here in Bowery.
525
00:33:15.062 --> 00:33:16.723
And I remember I was just like, I just feel lighter.
526
00:33:16.923 --> 00:33:19.564
I just feel like there's like, I'm actually light on my back.
527
00:33:19.924 --> 00:33:31.308
But the problem was next day, the government tried to get an appeal in the state pending appeal, which would again, loses the 2020, like the entire election cycle by delaying the decision a year to the appeals court looked at it.
528
00:33:31.928 --> 00:33:33.709
And then we had, then we couldn't launch.
529
00:33:34.109 --> 00:33:35.730
We had a hearing, all of those
530
00:33:36.970 --> 00:33:41.032
and finally on October 6th, we actually get it for real.
531
00:33:41.352 --> 00:33:51.515
We get the final okay from the appeals court saying that they weren't going to give the government a stay and we were going to win it, and we were going to get the election for that year at least.
532
00:33:52.436 --> 00:33:53.976
And then it was amazing.
533
00:33:54.116 --> 00:33:55.297
It was the best move ever.
534
00:33:55.357 --> 00:33:56.257
I remember I stopped.
535
00:33:57.237 --> 00:33:58.698
I usually try to work out in the morning.
536
00:33:58.718 --> 00:34:04.380
I think it's something wired in my brain with all the ballet I did that if I don't do something physical, I just can't work.
537
00:34:05.300 --> 00:34:25.372
but that month it was just like i was not working out i was not eating we were just like all in the office trying to like build everything for for a month and it was like kind of like a vindication moment but also like we felt so much responsibility over the whole space because it's now it's real we legalize this whole thing and after 100 years to build the actual business
538
00:34:25.692 --> 00:34:26.533
The actual business.
539
00:34:26.573 --> 00:34:29.136
And we're like, and then obviously there was enough thinking in our heads.
540
00:34:29.176 --> 00:34:32.540
It's like, we're going to sprint everything that we can for this election night.
541
00:34:33.140 --> 00:34:37.365
And then we need to figure out how to retain them and what actual markets we're going to do to continue to go forward.
542
00:34:37.385 --> 00:34:40.208
But the lawsuit actually cemented this kind of view.
543
00:34:40.849 --> 00:34:45.793
legal view that the CFTC can't just decide whatever they want, right?
544
00:34:45.813 --> 00:34:51.137
They need to follow the law and they need to own... Congress was very clear with what they can and cannot stop.
545
00:34:51.637 --> 00:34:54.659
And I think that lawsuit kind of like open grounds for us to have now.
546
00:34:54.699 --> 00:34:58.202
We went from 80 contracts right before the election at a time.
547
00:34:58.242 --> 00:35:02.425
Now we have over 5, 10, like I think it's like 7,000 live in the platform right now.
548
00:35:02.765 --> 00:35:07.609
And it's just like that lawsuit was actually ended up having a lot of other positive externalities on top of the
549
00:35:07.849 --> 00:35:09.190
It changed the power dynamic.
550
00:35:09.310 --> 00:35:10.470
It changed the power dynamic.
551
00:35:10.530 --> 00:35:20.654
It kind of put us in the position where we should be, according to Congress, which is a self-regulating entity that we can do things and the government's there to watch it versus not, versus like stop everything.
552
00:35:20.674 --> 00:35:21.214
Change the fonts.
553
00:35:21.254 --> 00:35:21.775
Exactly.
554
00:35:21.815 --> 00:35:22.495
Change the fonts.
555
00:35:22.655 --> 00:35:34.980
So what was the hardest period or was there a moment where you felt particularly lonely or afraid of what's going to happen during those couple of dark years?
556
00:35:35.480 --> 00:35:39.183
The worst part actually was right before we actually sued.
557
00:35:39.643 --> 00:35:43.966
Because when I had, Tarek and I were like, okay, we're going to sue you to the board.
558
00:35:43.987 --> 00:35:45.007
They were gangs, but we did it.
559
00:35:45.087 --> 00:35:45.868
We decided to do it.
560
00:35:46.548 --> 00:35:48.350
Then we like picked the lawyers and all those things.
561
00:35:49.291 --> 00:35:53.093
But then there was like the actual, like, we're going to file it.
562
00:35:53.274 --> 00:35:59.038
And there was a couple of days that Tarek started like going back and he's like, I don't know if we should actually do this.
563
00:35:59.598 --> 00:36:22.124
the expected value was that it wasn't going to work and we're going to get all the all the bad things with it I was like and that is unquestionably going to be on me I'm the one saying like we need to do this I remember I had this we were talking whatever and I was like well if we if you if you pull this out now and if we don't do it I'm going to leave the company and then the cop is going to die and then he's like no we're not you're not going to leave and it was it was this very complicated thing but I thought that
564
00:36:23.164 --> 00:36:27.849
The only way we were actually going to see it, because it's always like, it's always easier to have a plan when you actually have to do it.
565
00:36:27.870 --> 00:36:28.991
And it lasts like 10 minutes.
566
00:36:29.011 --> 00:36:30.272
That's where the hardest thing is.
567
00:36:30.352 --> 00:36:31.353
It's like, you have to do it.
568
00:36:31.694 --> 00:36:33.896
I remember I thought to myself, I was like, I'm going to have to bluff.
569
00:36:33.916 --> 00:36:38.381
I'm going to say, I'm going to have to say that this needs to happen at that time.
570
00:36:38.421 --> 00:36:41.565
And I said it and he was like, all right, so all right, we'll do it.
571
00:36:42.105 --> 00:36:43.227
Wait, what do you mean by bluff?
572
00:36:43.872 --> 00:36:45.133
Because I wasn't going to leave the company.
573
00:36:45.913 --> 00:36:52.798
So you were bluffing to your co-founder Tarek that if we don't follow through with this, you would resign.
574
00:36:52.818 --> 00:36:58.523
I basically said like, look, everything has been in motion for now months at this point that we have to do this.
575
00:36:59.343 --> 00:37:02.125
And it's insane for us to just change our minds like this.
576
00:37:02.706 --> 00:37:04.707
And I think this is the most important thing that we're going to do.
577
00:37:04.767 --> 00:37:08.230
And it doesn't make sense for me to be here if we're not doing things like this.
578
00:37:08.650 --> 00:37:10.351
He was a little bit like, that's insane.
579
00:37:10.371 --> 00:37:11.292
You don't actually mean it.
580
00:37:11.312 --> 00:37:12.213
And I was like, no, I do.
581
00:37:12.953 --> 00:37:14.896
And then he was like, all right.
582
00:37:15.316 --> 00:37:16.939
And then we ended up going and doing it.
583
00:37:16.959 --> 00:37:21.966
But in my head, I was like, I'm obviously not going to leave the company for any reason ever.
584
00:37:23.287 --> 00:37:27.413
But I was like, well, if it doesn't go well, then it's 100% on me.
585
00:37:27.794 --> 00:37:29.416
And then that kind of like...
586
00:37:29.869 --> 00:37:32.171
thinking to myself, should I just be like, never mind?
587
00:37:32.191 --> 00:37:38.336
And like not send the kind of like, the brief or whatever the name is.
588
00:37:38.837 --> 00:37:45.903
And that was a very kind of like, scary thing, because I would talk to my fiance and be like, I don't know, and whatever.
589
00:37:45.963 --> 00:37:47.384
And he's very positive guy too.
590
00:37:47.424 --> 00:37:48.866
He's like, No, it's gonna be fine.
591
00:37:48.886 --> 00:37:51.228
And like, worst case, like Tariq's gonna forget it, don't worry.
592
00:37:51.768 --> 00:37:52.629
And I'm like, I don't know.
593
00:37:52.989 --> 00:37:53.650
I don't know if he will.
594
00:37:54.030 --> 00:37:57.715
You guys had already raised like $100 million of investor money.
595
00:37:57.875 --> 00:37:58.095
Yeah.
596
00:37:58.455 --> 00:38:01.559
You weren't making a lot of money, but you had a lot at stake.
597
00:38:01.739 --> 00:38:02.620
We had a lot at stake, yeah.
598
00:38:02.661 --> 00:38:09.629
And if this lawsuit had been lost or if you had left the company, you know, all these investors would have lost their...
599
00:38:09.789 --> 00:38:11.210
I think Tariq would have figured something out.
600
00:38:11.250 --> 00:38:14.772
But I'm joking, by the way, I would not have actually left Tariq, like saying that I would have.
601
00:38:15.132 --> 00:38:16.013
I wouldn't have actually left.
602
00:38:16.053 --> 00:38:24.438
It was more like sometimes when Tariq is very, very worried about something, he needs like a very strong show of hand on the other side of like, this will happen.
603
00:38:24.818 --> 00:38:26.139
And then he kind of calms down a little.
604
00:38:26.159 --> 00:38:30.021
So it was kind of like a little bit of strategy, I guess, on my end there.
605
00:38:30.301 --> 00:38:35.084
But that was a very scary moment because I was just like, this is the most important thing in my life.
606
00:38:35.304 --> 00:38:35.384
The
607
00:38:38.061 --> 00:38:39.082
And you're betting the company, essentially.
608
00:38:39.102 --> 00:38:41.223
And I'm betting the company, and it's all on you.
609
00:38:41.243 --> 00:38:42.083
And it's all on me.
610
00:38:42.103 --> 00:38:46.726
Yeah, but now the company's doing amazingly well, and everyone's very happy and excited and all of that.
611
00:38:46.866 --> 00:38:48.126
Do you have any regrets?
612
00:38:49.527 --> 00:38:50.408
Any regrets?
613
00:38:50.428 --> 00:38:51.208
That's a good question.
614
00:38:52.389 --> 00:38:56.691
I don't think so, but that's the hard thing with these things, is that, like, everything is about probabilities, right?
615
00:38:56.711 --> 00:39:03.034
So even if we were right on the law, there's always, like, maybe an 80% chance we win, there's still a 20% chance we lose.
616
00:39:03.054 --> 00:39:04.475
So it's just very hard to, like,
617
00:39:05.995 --> 00:39:10.941
know if we're here because we made the right decisions or we were lucky or how to actually think about that.
618
00:39:11.322 --> 00:39:19.411
So I think it's like everything worked out very well, but it could have very easily not worked out very well if just like, you know, the coin flipped in another direction.
619
00:39:19.472 --> 00:39:22.275
But I don't think any regrets with the company, you know.
620
00:39:22.415 --> 00:39:36.686
If you could go back and give a message to the, you know, Luana of, I guess, three years ago or so when you were just beginning that, almost four years ago you were beginning the election effort, what would you say?
621
00:39:37.607 --> 00:39:38.688
Just keep going.
622
00:39:38.908 --> 00:39:39.368
Just do it.
623
00:39:39.449 --> 00:39:44.212
I think it's very easy to kind of like, I have a lot of smarter friends than I am by a large margin.
624
00:39:44.553 --> 00:39:50.617
And I think when people are very, very smart, they become overly obsessed with probabilities and expected value and all those things.
625
00:39:50.697 --> 00:39:51.378
And I think they're like,
626
00:39:51.538 --> 00:39:55.801
You can psych yourself out by... You can psych yourself out of doing anything by it.
627
00:39:56.002 --> 00:40:00.625
Because, first of all, you never start a company because the expected value is awful.
628
00:40:01.045 --> 00:40:02.186
Even like changing jobs.
629
00:40:02.206 --> 00:40:05.589
Like, why would you do that if you're like have a very clear career for the next 20 years?
630
00:40:05.929 --> 00:40:14.696
And I think that like just going for it, taking the risk, kind of believing that, you know, somehow things would work out, I think is very important.
631
00:40:14.836 --> 00:40:15.136
I think...
632
00:40:15.737 --> 00:40:16.037
But...
633
00:40:17.229 --> 00:40:19.570
Yeah, I think just doing it, I think, is an important point.
634
00:40:20.110 --> 00:40:30.835
If you have a culture that everyone is only thinking about, you know, the math of, like, is it going to work or not at every point in time, it becomes a super negative culture that overreacts to every new information you have.
635
00:40:31.335 --> 00:40:36.858
So it's just important to kind of really have a lot of optimistic people and they want to build things in the company.
636
00:40:36.878 --> 00:40:37.058
Yeah.
637
00:40:37.660 --> 00:40:44.767
I doubt that Alexander the Great would ever have conquered Europe if he was doing the expected value the whole way.
638
00:40:44.867 --> 00:40:45.467
That's fair.
639
00:40:45.848 --> 00:40:46.708
That's a good point.
640
00:40:46.748 --> 00:40:47.970
Well, thank you so much, Luana.
641
00:40:47.990 --> 00:40:48.190
Of course.
642
00:40:48.210 --> 00:40:48.790
Thank you for having me.
643
00:40:48.830 --> 00:40:51.032
It's just been wonderful having this conversation with you.
644
00:40:51.132 --> 00:40:57.899
And thank you for all the—honestly, like, I tell you this, and I tell you this so many times, that NIO has been—is by far my favorite investor.
645
00:40:57.919 --> 00:41:00.521
You guys have always supported us and backed us and everything.
646
00:41:00.601 --> 00:41:02.162
Well, you're an inspiration to me.
647
00:41:03.403 --> 00:41:06.345
I wish I could be more like you in my decisions.
648
00:41:06.885 --> 00:41:09.406
And certainly an inspiration to lots and lots of founders.
649
00:41:09.506 --> 00:41:10.147
Thank you so much.
650
00:41:11.266 --> 00:41:14.747
Before you go, if you're enjoying Confession, please subscribe for more.
651
00:41:15.067 --> 00:41:20.189
And leave me feedback, like what's a question that you wish I'd asked, or who do you wish I'd interview next?
652
00:41:20.649 --> 00:41:28.692
We've got a lot more ahead, including conversations with Alfred Lin, Shuo Wang, Ali Gozi, Jeff Lawson, Rose Wang, and more.
653
00:41:29.372 --> 00:41:30.212
I'm Ali Pertovie.
654
00:41:30.252 --> 00:41:32.673
Thanks for joining me, and see you next Confession.