Kalshi co-founder says having ‘no VPs’ has been key to company’s explosive growth

For fast-growing startups, adding new employees is a critical—but perilous—step to further expansion.

In many cases, a push to add people doesn’t fuel growth, but instead creates confusion and bureaucracy that causes the startup to stumble.

In the case of Kalshi, however, the buzzy prediction market—which one analyst says could soon be worth as much as $42 billion —has figured out how to scale up its staffing without impeding its growth.

According to Kalshi co-founder and COO, Luana Lopes Lara, the biggest problem companies face as they grow is a flurry of new meetings, approval requests, and red tape.

Speaking at Fortune ‘s Most Powerful Women summit in Santa Barbara, California, Lara said Kalshi has avoided this by eschewing formal hierarchies.

“We are able to very quickly make decisions, and adjust very, very quickly.

We’re also a very flat organization.

We don’t have ‘heads of’ or VPs, or all of that structure.

Everyone just reports to me, or one step away from me, and I think that also makes us able to move so much faster,” said Lara.

This approach has clearly been working, as one research firm estimated in June that Kalshi was on track for $4 billion in annualized revenue, up from $775 million in December.

Much of that has been driven by an explosion of sports betting, but the company has also pushed into a wealth of other new products such as futures markets for compute , helping to make it the clear leader in North American prediction markets.

This growth has also brought changes for Lara, 30, who earlier this year became the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.

Asked how she felt about this development, Lara said she “is so very grateful, but it is very weird”—but that her routine hasn’t changed.

“Very little changed in my life.