Tarek Mansour, cofounder of Kalshi.
Kalshi's CEO says the scrutiny his company is facing is just part of a cycle that most disruptive startups must go through.Tarek Mansour, the prediction market's cofounder, spoke on CNBC on Monday about the lawsuits Kalshi is facing from multiple states."I think the more interesting thing that's at play here is that you have an industry, the prediction market industry, that is disruptive, that is growing fast, consumers are adopting it, and it's threatening a legacy incumbent industry that is unhappy about that," Mansour said."That has played out over and over. It's played out with taxis and Uber. It's played out with hotels and Airbnb," Mansour said.He added that these industries have "large lobbies" that are "effective at getting actions" filed against new market players."The playbook is very simple. It's: Litigate. Then you try to legislate. And then finally, when you realize that consumer demand is not going to go away, you try to compete and innovate," Mansour said. "That's the cycle that we're going through right now."Uber was hit with lawsuits from taxi companies and regulators in dozens of cities worldwide. Some early lawsuits included allegations that the company was operating an illegal, unlicensed taxi business.
