"According to a recent profile, her ballet teachers at Bolshoi Theater School in Brazil held lit cigarettes under her thigh to test how long she could hold it up to her ear, without getting burned. She'd sit through academic classes from 7 a.m. to noon before training in ballet classes from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. while also fighting off competition from fellow dancers who'd reportedly hide glass shards in each other's shoes to sabotage one another."
"But it was a third internship at Five Rings Capital in New York City in 2018 that both her and Mansour were accepted on, that cemented their friendship-and future as founders. It was on their walks back home to their intern apartments one night that the idea of a prediction market business-which allows users to bet on the outcome of future events such as elections, sports games and pop culture happenings-was born."
Luana Lopes Lara became the world's youngest female self-made billionaire after her prediction market startup Kalshi reached an $11 billion valuation. She trained as a ballerina in Rio with brutal 13-hour days and endured physical tests and peer sabotage at the Bolshoi Theater School in Brazil. After graduating in 2013 she danced professionally in Austria for nine months before leaving to study at MIT. She met future cofounder Tarek Mansour at college and completed internships at Bridgewater Associates, Citadel and Five Rings Capital. The Five Rings internship solidified their partnership and inspired the idea for Kalshi, which entered Y Combinator and grew rapidly.
Read at Fortune
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