Early Life
Tarek Mansour was born in California, USA, and spent his childhood in Lebanon. Growing up amidst periods of political and economic instability in Lebanon gave him a firsthand perspective on how real-world events directly impact people's financial well-being, an experience that would later influence his entrepreneurial vision. He attended College Louise Wegmann in Lebanon from 2001 to 2014.
Rise to Success
Mansour returned to the United States to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied mathematics and computer science. It was at MIT that he met his future co-founder of Kalshi, Luana Lopes Lara. Before founding Kalshi, Mansour gained experience in the finance sector. He worked as a global macro trader at Citadel from May 2018 to May 2019, and as an equity derivatives analyst at Goldman Sachs from January to August 2016. While working at Goldman Sachs, he observed the need for direct event-based trading, which would later inform the founding concept of Kalshi. In 2018, he co-founded Kalshi with Luana Lopes Lara. Kalshi became the first federally regulated exchange for event contracts in the United States, receiving approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in November 2020. In 2024, Mansour led Kalshi through a significant legal battle with the CFTC, which resulted in a landmark court decision that allowed Kalshi to offer contracts on U.S. congressional elections.
Key Business Strategies
Mansour's key strategy has been a focus on regulation. He secured approval from the CFTC, which was a slow and expensive process, but he believed it was the only path to scale. Kalshi's platform allows users to trade on the outcomes of various events, including political elections. In December 2025, Kalshi reached an $11 billion valuation following a $1 billion funding round.
Philanthropy
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