This week, Avi sits down with Vlad Novakovski, founder and CEO of Lighter, the on-chain exchange partnered with Robinhood. Vlad went to high school with Robinhood's Vlad Tenev, competed in the Physics and Informatics Olympiads alongside future Anthropic co-founders and Facebook's first CTO, finished Harvard at 19, and was recruited to Citadel by Ken Griffin himself. We discuss the Olympiad pipeline that produced half of Silicon Valley, what Ken Griffin told him about Bernie Madoff in 2004, why Madoff couldn't have happened on-chain, why he left Wall Street for Silicon Valley and then came back, how he pivoted his company and kept 80% of his engineering team, the custom ZK circuits that let Lighter run finance at 1% of the compute cost, why he thinks Lighter beats Hyperliquid on every axis, the Robinhood partnership and onchain options coming in Q3, and why every dollar of value at Lighter accrues to the token instead of the equity. Enjoy!
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Coming Up on 1000x...
(00:49) Harvard At 16 & The Olympiad Network Behind Anthropic
(10:10) Ken Griffin Closed Me At 18
(12:12) "That's A Ponzi": Ken Called Madoff In 2004
(16:08) Why He Left Wall Street For Silicon Valley
(19:46) How To Pivot And Keep 80% Of Your Engineers
(24:29) Running 40% Of The Economy At 1% Of The Cost
(27:46) Robinhood, Ethereum & Options Onchain
(30:48) All Value Accrues To The Token
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Disclaimer: Nothing said on 1000x is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Avi, Jonah and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.
