Kalshi Chief Executive Tarek Mansour says the company’s unconventional management structure, where most employees report directly to its two co-founders rather than layers of managers, is a deliberate strategy designed to keep the fast-growing prediction market highly adaptable as it expands.
Speaking on Sequoia Capital’s Long Strange Trip podcast, Mansour revealed that he and co-founder Luana Lopes Lara collectively oversee roughly 150 direct reports, an organizational model that breaks sharply from the traditional corporate hierarchy used by most technology companies.
Rather than building multiple layers of middle management as the company grows, Kalshi has chosen to maintain a relatively flat organizational structure that gives employees direct access to senior leadership and allows decisions to be made more quickly.
Mansour acknowledged that the approach is far from conventional.
“There’s some functions that like we sort of let them do like what they do, but pretty much most of the company reports to between the two of us,” he said.
Building Flexibility over Bureaucracy
Founded in 2018 after Mansour and Lara met as students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kalshi has grown into the largest regulated prediction market platform in the United States, allowing users to trade contracts on the outcomes of economic, political, sporting and geopolitical events.
As the company expands in a rapidly evolving industry, Mansour believes maintaining organizational flexibility is more valuable than adopting a rigid corporate structure.
He readily conceded that the management model can appear disorderly.
“I think you could build an organization that’s somewhat okay with that, because what you get out of chaos is like continuous, constant adaptability,” he said. “It’s very easy for a company to adapt, very easy.”
According to Mansour, minimizing layers of management enables teams to reorganize rapidly in response to changing market conditions, new business opportunities, or regulatory developments without becoming bogged down in bureaucracy.
His objective is to create an organization capable of continuously redirecting resources toward its highest priorities.
“You want to be able to do that with no friction that’s inherently chaotic,” he continued. “Your structure needs to be as adaptable as possible.”
Rejecting Traditional Leadership Models
Mansour also said he has intentionally avoided relying on conventional management theories or executive playbooks while building the company.
Asked about his leadership philosophy, he described his approach candidly.
“Making it up as I go,” he said.
He suggested that neither founder has been heavily influenced by traditional business literature or leadership frameworks.
“We haven’t read all the books, we haven’t watched all the podcasts,” he said, adding that he and Lara are “probably very sort of like entrepreneurially illiterate.”
The approach stands in contrast to many Silicon Valley founders who frequently cite management books, startup methodologies, or leadership philosophies as guiding principles for scaling their businesses.
Instead, Mansour said Kalshi’s operating model has evolved organically through experience rather than by following established corporate practices.
Although both founders remain deeply involved in the business, they divide responsibilities between long-term strategy and operational execution.
Mansour said he primarily focuses on the company’s broader strategic direction, including product development, growth initiatives, and positioning Kalshi within the rapidly expanding prediction market industry. Lara, meanwhile, oversees much of the company’s day-to-day operations, ensuring that the business executes effectively as it scales.
The pair also intentionally challenge each other’s thinking during decision-making.
“I actually think we kind of disagree by design,” he said.
He explained that constructive disagreement has become a defining feature of their partnership.
“Like we have this thing, this dynamic over time, it’s become a thing where like we essentially will always take the opposite side of the argument,” he added.
Mansour suggested that routinely testing opposing viewpoints helps prevent confirmation bias and leads to stronger strategic decisions before major initiatives are implemented.
A Startup Philosophy That Defies Convention
Kalshi’s leadership structure is seen as part of a broader philosophy shared by some fast-growing technology startups that prioritize speed, experimentation, and adaptability over formal organizational hierarchies.
Many young technology companies initially operate with flat structures to accelerate decision-making and improve communication. As they grow, however, most introduce additional management layers to coordinate larger workforces, improve accountability and reduce the burden on founders.
Kalshi has so far resisted that transition.
The company’s willingness to embrace what Mansour describes as “chaos” reflects its belief that maintaining direct founder involvement across much of the organization can preserve the agility that often diminishes as startups mature.
Whether that model remains sustainable as Kalshi continues to expand will likely become a key test of its long-term governance. Managing around 150 direct reports is highly unusual for a chief executive and can become increasingly challenging as organizations grow. However, Mansour argues that the benefits of faster decision-making, closer collaboration, and the ability to rapidly redeploy teams outweigh the inefficiencies associated with a less conventional management structure.
