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

**David** (0:03)
Hey, Bankless Nation, in this episode we're going to talk to Vlad Novakovski from Lighter. Vlad is a pretty interesting character, and he's been around the podcast circuit quite a lot talking about Lighter as a platform, how it's different from hyperliquid and other PERP platforms and what its goals are. But I don't think too many people have really explored the beginnings of Vlad, going all the way back to his teenage years when he was just a math Olympiad competing with alongside some of the brightest minds of our age, including Dario from Anthropic and Vlad from Robinhood, and a bunch of other names that have gone on to raise massive companies. And so who Vlad is, I think, is a pretty unique and interesting character. And I just really wanted to ask and answer the question, why do investors love Vlad? And so this is what you're going to hear, a different side of Vlad from Lighter. So let's go ahead and get right into it. We record this in person in a studio in Manhattan, and the beginning of this episode, we just kind of start rolling. So maybe it feels like you start in the middle of the conversation because you kind of do.
So let's go hear from him right now. Vlad, I want to know a little bit more about your background, because people know you as the founder of Lighter, the Perpdex, TheoremLighter2, Perpdex. But your background goes pretty far back into your childhood, I think, with your first relevant set of skills. Talk to me about-

**Vlad Novakovski** (1:15)
Particular set of skills, right? Particular set of skills, yeah.

**David** (1:18)
Talk to me about math. You won a math and physics Olympiad.
Me and most of my listeners probably don't know what that means. What does that mean?

**Vlad Novakovski** (1:28)
Yeah. Well, I started competing in academic competitions, let's just call it that, when I was around 12
And I guess some of the highlights of that were making the US team to the International Physics Olympiad and the International Olympiad of Informatics. On the math side-

**David** (1:45)
Informatics.

**Vlad Novakovski** (1:46)
Yeah, that's the programming one.

**David** (1:47)
Okay, programming.

**Vlad Novakovski** (1:48)
I mean, I tried to do a hat-trick as far as making all three. I was actually the first or one of the, I think one of the first people in the US ever to make two teams. Didn't quite make three, but you know, but it was good.

**David** (2:03)
What does it mean to compete in math and physics? Like how does one actually, what is to compete over?

**Vlad Novakovski** (2:09)
Well, so the Olympiads all have a different format. The programming one is maybe the most, would be like the most exciting to watch. There's actually are like these days, like Twitch streamers and whatnot who do that, where it's like you're writing code, basically have a problem solved. Like, I don't know, the problem could be like, here's a location of two pizza places in New York, find the shortest path given traffic, how to get from maybe, and you have to actually like, it's not theoretical. You actually have to write a program that would actually do it.

**David** (2:39)
Right, it's deterministic. So there's a very clear correct answer.

**Vlad Novakovski** (2:43)
Yes, yes. And so like, you have three problems like that, five hours, two days of that.
So that's the programming one. Math, I'm talking about the highest levels, right? And the ways leading up to that, it's not five hours, right? There's like, it's less intense. But then the math, that one looks like, so it's also two days and you have three problems where you have to find a solution with proof. You've probably heard of the four-color theorem, that you can paint a map with four colors, like any, it doesn't matter if it's states, countries. That one is very hard, but let's say the problem is proof that you can do it with six colors, hypothetically, right? It's not just to show one example, you have to prove that you can always do it. Then you have to write proofs like that for three problems over five hours also, I think, two days. Physics one, there's a theory part and experiment part.
So the theory part is also similar. It's like, you know, like a block of ice is coming down the hill, you know, with, you know, with kind of assumptions like, you know, how fast is it gonna get there while it melts, you know. So it's not just like basic, it's not like Physics 101 where it's like just like a rock, but like because it's ice and melting, you have to like bring in a bunch of different concepts together. But then there's also the experiment part. And that's probably the most different of all these. You like, you actually have to like do stuff with your hands and like, you know, measure something or like build something, design something.