$22B Kalshi Co-Founder: What the Market Already Knows About Your Job

📌 Transkriptor records your calls, splits them by speaker, and hands you the decisions and action items — 300 free minutes on a work email: https://transkriptor.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=midroll&utm_campaign=siliconvalleygirl2 Luana Lopes Lara is the world's youngest self-made woman billionaire, by Forbes' count. In 2018, she co-founded Kalshi, a platform where anyone can look up the odds on things that haven't happened yet. This May, the company raised $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation. Her entire job is watching what people bet real money on. So I spent this conversation asking her what the board already knows. What actually changes for a normal person by the end of this year? Will 2026 feel lighter or heavier for most people? Will any jobs suddenly become safer? And of course, how much should I be relying on the public's opinion versus reality? *Timestamps:* 0:00 — Intro 1:16 — The market Luana's team watches most right now 3:04 — What people ask to bet on now vs a year ago 4:05 — The layoffs market and why 73% was a number you could trust 6:20 — How a New York bar used a market as insurance 7:34 — Why 70% of Kalshi users never place a trade 8:50 — One number for the sentiment of a whole country 11:32 — What actually changes for you by the end of this year 13:10 — Will 2026 feel lighter or heavier financially? 14:00 — Which jobs get safer from here 14:26 — The 1% chance on Kalshi that came true anyway 16:51 — How agents changed the way she runs 170 people 18:22 — The weekly planning agent you could copy tomorrow 19:57 — Why she put engineers inside design and legal 23:27 — How long can you stay a solo founder with agents? 26:12 — What Kalshi looks for in job interviews now 28:50 — What years of ballet taught her about building Kalshi 30:17 — How suing the U.S. government helped Kalshi grow 31:48 — Luana's advice for women building something hard *Links:* 📩 Follow my Newsletter: https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com/ 🔗 My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ 📌 My Companies & Products: https://partnerships.marinamogilko.co