Vladimir Novakovski

Vladimir "Vlad" Novakovski is the founder and CEO of Lighter, a zero-knowledge-rollup decentralized perpetual-futures exchange on Ethereum, and co-founder of the AI-powered networking platform Lunchclub. Born in Russia and raised in the United States, he competed for the U.S. at the International Olympiad in Informatics (silver medal, 2001) and the International Physics Olympiad, entered Harvard at 16, and graduated with a BA in Economics in 2004. He began his career in quantitative finance at Citadel Investment Group, then spent 2005-2012 as a Portfolio Manager and Director at the systematic macro hedge fund Graham Capital Management. He later led machine learning at Quora and engineering at Addepar before founding Lunchclub in 2017 and pivoting it to Lighter in 2022.

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• Quant employment verification: CONFIRMED. Vladimir Novakovski held actual quantitative-finance roles rather than only student programs or offers. His LinkedIn-index career history lists 'Associate, Quantitative Research' at Citadel Investment Group (start listed as 2004) and 'Portfolio Manager and Director' at Graham Capital Management, L.P. (2005-02 to 2012-06), and his self-published X bio (@vnovakovski) states 'Prev ... HFT @Citadel'. Employer classification: Citadel Investment Group is a hedge fund / market maker (quantitative finance: yes); Graham Capital Management, L.P. is a systematic macro hedge fund (quantitative finance: yes). The additionally listed Fannie Mae 'Financial Engineering Intern, Portfolio Analytics Group' is a government-sponsored enterprise (finance, but not a quant-trading firm). Identity is corroborated by cross-linked profiles naming @lighter_xyz and Harvard. No current quant employment is claimed.Sep 17, 2026
• Current role: founder and CEO of Lighter, a zero-knowledge-rollup decentralized perpetual-futures exchange on Ethereum; X bio lists @lighter_xyz.Sep 17, 2026
• Career timeline from sources: Citadel quant research (from 2004), Graham Capital portfolio manager (2005-2012), then Head of Machine Learning at Quora and VP Engineering at Addepar, then co-founding Lunchclub (2017) and founding Lighter (2022). The two quantitative-finance roles precede the technology and founder roles.Nov 11, 2025
• Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev is listed as an advisor to Lighter, and Robinhood participated in Lighter's 2025 funding round.Jan 10, 2026
• Education: Harvard University, Bachelor of Arts in Economics, graduated 2004; entered at 16 per press coverage.Nov 11, 2025
• IOI record: competed for the United States at IOI 2001 and won a silver medal (48th of 272, 315/600); also a U.S. International Physics Olympiad team member.Jan 1, 2001
• Founders Fund partner Joey Krug told Fortune 'Vlad and the team that he's built is like 85% to 90% of why we made the investment', describing the lead investor's stated reasoning for backing Lighter.Nov 11, 2025
• On the Bankless podcast he said Quora's ML dataset was information-dense enough that 'in principle, we could have built the first good LLM'.Jul 27, 2026