# From Harvard at 18 to Building Crypto's Fastest Exchange | Vlad, Lighter

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/bankless-357756/from-harvard-at-18-to-building-crypto-s-fastest-exchange-vlad-lighter
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/bankless-357756/from-harvard-at-18-to-building-crypto-s-fastest-exchange-vlad-lighter.md
Podcast: [Bankless](https://stenobird.com/podcast/bankless-357756)
Published: 2026-07-27T10:30:00+00:00
Episode link: https://episode.flightcast.com/01KYHFE6GP5G4ER9EPEFZS0QBP.mp3
Audio file: https://episode.flightcast.com/01KYHFE6GP5G4ER9EPEFZS0QBP.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/bankless-357756/episodes/from-harvard-at-18-to-building-crypto-s-fastest-exchange-vlad-lighter
Duration seconds: 3900

## Resource

What does it take to build an exchange that refuses to choose between speed, cost, security, verifiability and composability? Lighter founder Vlad Novakovski joins David to trace his path from international Olympiads and Harvard at 18 to Citadel, early machine learning, Lunchclub and an 18-month ZK engineering bet. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔓NEAR | TRADE CONFIDENTIALLY, GET 20% BACK https://bankless.cc/near-20 📊BITGET | TOKENIZED STOCKS 2.0 https://bankless.cc/bitget-stocks 🧭OKX | TRADE, EARN, PAY to OKX | 120M+ USERS WORLDWIDE https://app.okx.com/join/USBANKLESS 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless 👑BANKLESS PREMIUM | AD-FREE & BONUS EPISODES https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 A Particular Set of Skills 11:33 Harvard at 18 19:03 Citadel and the Search for Alpha 25:14 Machine Learning Before the AI Boom 36:46 ​​Finding Elite Talent Early 41:39 The Lunchclub Matching Problem 45:11 Pivoting Into Lighter 51:18 The 18-Month ZK Engineering Bet 56:38 Lighter’s Five Pillars 1:00:04 A New Generation of Exchanges --- RESOURCES Vlad Novakovski https://x.com/vnovakovski --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

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## Transcript

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