The Youngest Self-Made Female Billionaire on Money, Success, and AI | Lucy Guo

What if becoming wildly successful didn’t feel the way you thought it would?

Lucy Guo became the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world — but what she learned about money, ambition, and identity might surprise you. As a co-founder of Scale AI she (an AI unicorn) she shares her thoughts on AI and how to best prepare yourself for what is coming.

In this episode, we talk about what it actually takes to build something at the highest level, why money doesn’t solve the problems you think it will, and how your environment, network, and willingness to take risks shape everything.

Lucy shares the realities behind building billion-dollar companies, the pressure that comes with success, and why some of the most important decisions have nothing to do with intelligence — and everything to do with how you think.

If you’ve ever felt behind, questioned your path, or wondered what it really takes to “make it,” this episode will change how you see success.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The dumbest people can make a lot of money. If
you have a good network. You can have a billion
dollars in net worth but have zero dollars in a
bank account. It was just a number on paper. It
could go to zero at any point in time. Lucywoll
is a billionaire entrepreneur and scale AI code found them.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
She shares unfiltered views on AI wealth, ambition, and the
trade offs behind success.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Everybody wants to be a billionaire, but is there a
side that people don't think about.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
It becomes a lot more lonely.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
It's harder to trust new people nowadays, and that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
You and your friends brought the forefront of what a
lot of people are calling the AI revolution. I'm curious, like,
what do you guys argue about.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
It's probably like fifty to fifty on AGI happening, and
I just don't think we're even close to getting there.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Loms are not human intelligence.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
It takes data and it summarizes it and it kind
of predicts the next word.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
When people say that they're scared AI is going to
take their jobs, what do you say to them.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yes, if you're like an entry level engineer of AI,
it's probably going to replace you. The ones that learn
how to supplement that are going to be extremely successful.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Hi, guys, Kate here, thank you so much for tuning
into today's episode. Lucy Guo is a founder, investor, and
one of the youngest self made women in tech. If
you've been enjoying post run high, please be sure to
follow the show wherever you're listening, and we will be
right back with our conversation after this short break. Today

(01:29):
we are joined by Lucy Guo. She's an entrepreneur, founder,
and at just thirty years old, she's the youngest self
made female billionaire on the planet. Lucy recently unseated Taylor
Swift for this title, but we just found out on
our run that Lucy has recently been unseated as well,
so both Taylor and Lucy now are no longer Ye
cheers too.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Than you and know the founder of Calshi. She's really amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
I think she immigrated from Brazil and if I'm wrong
about that, please don't cancel me.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Okay, but how long did you hold the title for?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
I don't even know months.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
I actually I think it's gonna get unseated like every
few months, especially as evaluations are climbing with tech companies.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
I could see that. Yeah, I could see that. And
I feel like also when it comes to this AI wave,
it's like younger and younger people are kind of at
the forefront of it naturally.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Mm hmm exactly, yep.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
So it is interesting, yeah, and it just like costs
a lot less money to reach higher valuations now because
AI is like ten xting every employee. So I think
we're just gonna see like an unsea every few months,
which is awesome, right, because like we're seeing females win.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
We're seeing females win. But I do have to just
call out, like the fact that you unseated Taylor Swift
is so crazy, right, It's such a wild thing to
think about. What did your parents think when that happened?

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, I mean I don't think they thought anything of it,
because at the end of the day, it's like you
can have a billion dollars in net worth but have
zero dollars in a bank account, which I mentioned on
our run and at that point in time, like you know,
I wasn't liquid, so it was just a number on paper.
It could go to zero at any point in time.
My parents are more so just worried about my safety.
And I think they were a little annoyed too, because,
like you know, with the headlines, people start coming to

(03:02):
them asking them for money, to try to get money
from me, and they're just like, dude, like we don't
have it.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Did you expect the headlines?

Speaker 1 (03:12):
I didn't expect the headlines. It kind of happened by accident.
The Forbes reporter texted me going like, oh, like, wouldn't
this make you a billionaire now? And I was like,
I responded back, lol, only on paper, or like I
wish I were like like I literally sounded like lol.
And then the next thing I know, she's like, oh,
by the way, im running a story on I'm like,
you're what, can I at least change my quote here?

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Right? It is so funny too, because it's like, obviously
now you're more so in the public eye, right, and
like you're on so many podcasts and you do a
lot of press. But I feel like when you are
younger and you're you know, just starting out and you're
building this company, it's like the top thing on your mind,
especially building a company like Scalai, isn't oh I want
to get all this press? You know what? I mean,
so it is kind of a foreign concept, and then
all of a sudden, Yeah, You're on all these headlines

(03:57):
and Forbes is talking.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
About you, and yeah, literally had no idea was coming
out like I had. I probably should have assumed if
a Foures reporter is texting me at this question, she's
writing a story.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
I just didn't think she was.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, what was the emotional reaction in that moment when
you saw those articles drop?

Speaker 1 (04:17):
I really didn't think much of it. I think like
my high, like the emotional high probably came when like
my celebrity crushes started sliding to my DMS.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
And I was like, oh my god, like this is incredible.
But outside of that, like life was normal.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Dowie. Are we allowed to say any of the slip
crushes that slid?

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Nope, I can't say it. I'm friends with them now,
so I really can't.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Okay, that's just like, yeah, isn't that crazy. It's like
when you achieve a certain level of success and then
all of a sudden, some of the people that you've
idolized throughout your life become your peers.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Kind of Yeah, I mean I wouldn't say I necessarily
idolize them. But it'd be like, you know, growing up,
I was like I recognize the face, or like I
thought they were really hot and I was like, oh
my god, like they just slid in my DMS and yeah,
like now we're all homies, which is great.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, the world gets so much smaller. I feel like
the more you grow and the more you just meet
new people and just like network, I know.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
I realized the world is just really small. Actually, I
mean like I feel like I'm probably like three degrees
away from anyone, at least it feels that way sometimes.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
For the purpose of this episode, I would love people
to get to know you, because you have truly lived
such an interesting life and you're so young. So I
want you to kind of take us back and talk
to us about the environment that shaped you growing up
in Fremont, California. Paint the picture for us.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah for sure.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
I mean Freemant is a very small, boring city. So
my parents were immigrant parents a long story shore. They
were super strict, you know, I think traditional tiger parents.
They put keyloggers on my computer. They like really emphasize
the importance of like education and money, hence why they
had the keyloggers. They wanted to make sure that I
was constantly studying and like not playing video games. Unfortunately

(05:52):
I got rid of the keyloggers. But yeah, I grew
up in Fremont and then very quickly wanted to figure
out how to like earn money on the internet because
my parents took away money from me as like punishment.
So I discovered PayPal, and that's when you know, I
got a visa debit card and I like signed up
for PayPal and started getting into like the online gaming world. Uh,

(06:12):
and learned that there's a whole black market where you
can you know, like buy and sell rare items, et cetera.
So I got into like that's kind of how like,
I guess how I learned how to code. I started
building bots on the internet and started building my own.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Websites, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
But freedom was also just like I would say, like
I didn't really have a lot of friends growing up,
and then like the few friends I did have ended
up moving out of Fremont. So I was just like
a little lonely kid on the internet.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
M M. And when you say on the internet, like,
what were you doing on the internet?

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, so it's played a lot of games, so like neopets,
RuneScape battle on et cetera. And then I was on
these like gaming forums where the black markets were happening,
and I was like, you know, literally trading up pets
and like items. I was selling whole accounts, and I
was learning to code. Also, like I both went to
Fries Electronics and just up a bunch of books or
would like sit and read there. And then I would

(07:03):
also like, there are a lot of sources on the
internet obviously teaching you how to do things.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
So I was just learning a lot.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
And what would you say, like, sparked your interest in
that so young?

Speaker 2 (07:12):
You know, yeah, I would say definitely my parents.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
So I was like bullied in school for not wearing
the coolest clothes or like I wanted to have certain things.
My parents were very protective of me. So like one
example is, like I think one of the first things
I bought with the money I was earninge was a
skateboard because I really wanted to skateboard, and like also
those like you.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Know, ripsticks.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
It was called a waveboard, but I loved y like ripsticks, waveboards,
et cetera. And these are all things that like I
was not allowed to have, so I wanted to find
a way to make money and have them, and I
ended up finding a lot of things from just like
the money I made about like an iPhone three.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Amongst other items.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
That's pretty bad ass to be able to buy an
iPhone three when you're younger, you know, Like I mean,
that's a huge flex to have that kind of money.
Think about that, right, and then also be able to
pay the phone bills, like get the payments right? Why
were your parents anti you getting things like a rip stick?

Speaker 1 (08:02):
They are much more conservative than me, so I would say,
like they just viewed it as dangerous, right, And they
really wanted me to like be inside studying all day long,
which I think makes sense because they're Asian immigrants, so
education gave them everything they had in life, Like they
grew up really poor. They immigrated from to America to

(08:22):
like get a better education, but also to have hope.
So I think they wanted that for me too, Like
they were like, if you become a doctor or an engineer,
your step for life. And if not, well, actually, I
don't even think they want to be an engineer. They
just wanted to be a doctor. Their life be as surgeon.
So yeah, like they were just anti everything else.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, And I you know, I've interviewed a lot of
people that come from immigrant households, and I mean, I
think the way your families value education and you know,
getting good grades and going the traditional career paths is
uh like it it is, So it's something to look
up to a way, like I think it is a
really good way to like raise kids. So I'm curious,
you know, from your but there's also there's pros and

(09:05):
cons to everything.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
I mean, like if you look get like Asians make
more money than like everyone else, I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
So, but I'm curious, like growing up in a household
with Chinese parents that were immigrants in the US that
really valued education, what would you say are the things
that you took as pros from your up upbringing and
then maybe things that you could have done without.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, I mean I think the main pro is that
you really learned discipline, right, Like, for example, they threw
me in avocust competitions, and like you really had to
be disciplined to learn the advocusts really well, the memorize
in your head. Then competing in these competitions. I think
that the value of education is really important. It's just
like what kind of education. I think education spans more
than getting good grades. Like I think I would rather

(09:43):
my kid be like a prodigy in one thing and
fail everything else than be like get a's and everything.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
And that is like how I viewed education when I
was younger.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
So like they taught me to work hard, they taught
me discipline, like I would see my parents wake up
at like five am every day and work until midnight
one am, like they didn't really sleep much, and that
was something like that's something that I like value a
lot in my life. So these are all good things
I think things I could have done without, Like I
do wish I was allowed a little bit more of
a social life.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
I wasn't allowed to have sleepovers.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
I wasn't really allowed to like have that much fun.
I was really good at sports, but my parents didn't
let me play sports growing up, Like I remember, like
I was heartbroken one day I had to quit swim
and then I made the basketball team and they forced
me to quit, amongst like every other sport. And I
do think that sports also teach discipline and hard work

(10:37):
and camaraderie and team like like teamwork, and I didn't
really get that experience growing up.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Why do you think there was like the anti sports mindset.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
I think I just thought I wasn't important, right, Like
I think that they're like, okay, cool, like you're not fat,
so like you don't need to play sports. And I
know that's how like that because I remember complaining like
how come my little brother gets to play sports?

Speaker 2 (10:59):
And they're like, well he's fat. Yeah, he's really skinny.
Now he's actually skinnier than me. Now.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
No, it is so interesting, but I mean it is true,
and I like what you said too. It's like people
that play on sports teams do end up making great
work hires because they are good team members and the
camaraderie part is important in your work life, you know, and.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Like to be excellent sports, it requires a lot of
hard work and discipline. Yeah, so I actually really value
hiring athletes because I know they have that hard work.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
And discipline in them.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
And usually, like if you are hard working discipline in
one thing, it can it translates to something else.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, And it's clear that athletics is something that you
always valued because guys, when right before our run, I
found out that this morning Lucy ran seven miles because
she did two back to back Berries classes, and the
audience that listened to this podcast is familiar with Berries.
They know how intense those workouts are. Yeah, so that
is bad. So when did you start doing Berries?

Speaker 2 (11:48):
I feel like a decade ago.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Like what happened was I broke my jaw and I
just couldn't well, I couldn't talk and I couldn't eat.
So in my head, I was like, this is the
perfect time to get hot, right, So I said class
pass discovered Berries as like this is the most amazing
workout because I really like intensity, Like I don't like
feeling like I wasted my time, and when I do
other workouts and I'm not like completely dead and out
of breath, I do feel like I wasted my time.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Even at Berries.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
If a class is too easy, I will like try
to make it harder, like I'll double tread or something.
So yeah, I uh discovered berries and just want every
single day since then.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
So you talked about how your parents were strict with
money and how as a punishment they would take money
away from you, right and you know, maybe not give
you an allowance or not pay for certain things. So
I'm curious like growing up with parents that also you know,
we're frugal with money and maybe saved them every you know,
every dollar they made kind of thing. How did that
shape your relationship with money now?

Speaker 1 (12:42):
I mean it's probably the reason why I am like
so chill, right, Like I don't see the necessity in
going to like nice restaurants like I do.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Think, like, for example, would you describe yourself as chill?

Speaker 2 (12:56):
I mean, okay, let me rephrase. I want to describe myself.
I'm no, no, I'm not that chill, but okay, I have.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
To say it because I just chill. Oh no, no,
because I am not chill at all and so like
but and like just knowing you, I mean the fact
that you're doing two back to back Berry's classes like
six am, seven am, and then like you're going to
raves every week.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Like, yeah, I'm I'm intense. I'm definitely an intense person.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Okay, I have what was the astrology? I think five
scorpios in me, I'm very intense. But I think like
I yeah, like I I like a good deal, and
I think that like I used to see my mom
stack coupons and get like ninety percent off at Macy's
or something so like, for example, like I discovered a
new restaurants by going on Uber Eats and door Dash

(13:40):
looking at the buyo and get one free offers. Then
I cross research it with Yelp and see what it
looks like into reviews and if it's good, then I'll
try one item and if I like the item, then
I go to the restaurant itself and try the other items.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
So I found like all the best hole in the walls.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
This way because it's usually like you know, good restaurants
that just want people to try their food and realize like, oh,
like this is worthwhile to get. Yeah, So I would say,
like I'm chill in that, like I'm not I'm not needy.
I'm impatient and I need stimulation, but I'm not needy.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
And it's kind of like money hacks as a kid
are ingrained with you when you become an adult, like
I do certain things like that. So I love that.
Was there a certain like pressure in your household to
achieve a certain level of success. I think there's.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Definitely pressure to achieve a certain level of success, but
I don't think it was like that high like coming
out of high school. My parents actually just thought it
was a failure because my brother is like ten times
smater than me. So they were just like, we want
you to be a pharmacist, and I'm like, I would
literally die of.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Boredom being a pharmacist.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Not to mention, I would fail pharmacy school because the
one thing I can't do is memorize things, Like I
can't memorize like facts, I can't memorize people's faces.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
I certainly won't be.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Able to memorize medications. I would probably accidentally get the
wrong medication to someone. So I was like, I will
actually like go to jail if you make me go
to pharmacy school because I would fail or I would
make a really severe mistake. But yeah, like I think
they were just like, yeah, but you only have to
work three days a week, and like you make six figures,
et cetera, and then you can find a good person

(15:10):
to marry.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
So that was there, like all they really cared about, even.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Though they knew that in high school you were interested
in programming and computer science.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
So it's interesting, like I didn't even realize to like
major in computer science until this like random person I
met in college confidential told me to I was really
good at chemistry, so I would say, like I was
probably the best in the entire school in ap chemistry,
like ruined a curve on tests, et cetera. So I thought, oh,
I'm going to be a chemical engineer because I'm good
at math, I'm good at chemistry, I'm good at physics.

(15:41):
But yeah, they were like, you can't study engineering because
you're a woman. And I'm like, mom, you were an
electrical engineer and you're a woman. Very outdated ideas, but
I think that like their comeback was just like mom
was the only person in her class that was a woman,
and that being said, she was the best, like she
was actually the smartest person in class, but because she

(16:02):
was the only one, they're like, your mom's just special,
like women can't be engineers.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
I was like, what hell?

Speaker 1 (16:07):
So I almost got like like I was going to argue,
but then like some random person on Internet was like,
you should have had for computer science because your entire
background makes a perfect application for CS.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
That's like good points.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
So yeah, that's what I did, Okay, And was it
true that in high school you started teaching yourself how
to program and code?

Speaker 1 (16:24):
It was in like second grade, so like back when
I was like hacking these neopets, I was learning to
make bots, and I started learning like other programming languages afterwards,
and in high school I did take a computer science class.
I forgot what language they taught, Java maybe, which I
guess I didn't know at that point in time, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Okay, So it started in second grade as a way
to kind of fuel your like fun activity like yeah exautline, Yeah, okay,
that's really interesting. And then why the decision to go
to Carnegie Mellon.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, so I took summer classes at Carnegie Mellon.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
So I took a CS class intellectual engineering class, and
then my professor wrote my letter for electrical engineering, so
I like wrote my recommenation letter for the college, which
this class was like known as a weader class, so
most people failed it. So I already knew I was
like one hundred percent getting in because the professor wrote
me a recommendation letter. And then it was just wayne,
like did I really want to like go to this college?

(17:18):
And I really enjoyed my summer and I knew that,
like I was going to apply for commuter science. I
had like an interest in design because that's why I was, like,
I was learning photoshopping a bunch of things for like,
you know, my own personal projects in high school. And
they were the I think they are the only college
in the US right now ranked like number one for
commuter science and number one for like design and human

(17:39):
computer interactions. So I knew I wanted to be an
HCI major as well. So it's no brainer, Like I
didn't have to really apply to other other colleges and
I was going to go to the number one program
in the country.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
So yeah, right, And.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
So how did your parents feel about that transition from
pharmacists to then going to Cardie.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Oh, they were so happy. They're like a butter science
is so easy.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
It's a girl major because they didn't realize computer science was.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
And then like once I got there and I.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Was like, like I would show them my homework assignmentsider like,
oh wow, this is really hard.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
No, really hard. And I'm curious, you know when you
were in you know, classes with other kids that I mean,
these are like the top students are at carnegimil and
studying the same thing that you're studying, right, what was
it like being in that environment?

Speaker 2 (18:23):
It was great.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
I mean I think that everyone was really friendly at CMU, and.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
I was like, I'm gonna be honest, I was pretty average.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
I would say, like within computer science, I excelled in
like human computer interactions. So but it's the difference human
human interactions, so like, uh, it's more design, right, So
I would call it like ux design.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
So we would learn.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Things on like why like Apple created like the bounce logo,
et cetera, and like we designed random things like weather
apps and other apps. I think it taught you, like
really how to think about products, and obviously I was
interested in building a company and building apps, so I
thought it was like some of my most fun classes.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
But going back, like I really enjoyed my environment. I
guess like I made a lot of friends at Carnegie Mellon.
I think it was like a big change from high
school because it's very lame in call it like in
high school, like you know, didn't have a lot of friends,
wasn't a cool kid at all.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Go to Carnegie Mellon.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
And because I think, I'm like the there's not a
lot of women in the program. So suddenly, like from
day one, I was popular and I was like it
was so strange to me, Like I didn't know how
to feel about it.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
What was the breakdown male versus female, like percentage wise?

Speaker 2 (19:33):
I don't know, if I had to give a guess,
I was like probably.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Somewhere between eighty twenty to like, yeah, maybe it was
like eighty twenty.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
Oh my god, yeah that's that's small.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
I could be really wrong, but yeah it was. There
were not a lot of women.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
I come from an advertising background, and so we would
do a lot of like designs of websites, you know,
so very much so more focused on like the design
aspect of it. But what's cool about you is it's
interesting knowing that you had both that UI background with
then that like love for ux.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah. Now, I would say, like a product was why
I ended up even at Carnegie melon right, because I
was building all these apps, Like I built my own
virtual pet site, I built a Twitter bot, I built
like random internet marketing tools. But like I was always
thinking about like how these things would work. And then
even my freshman year Carnegie Mellon, I was going to
a lot of hack thoughts and really learning about like
actual apps, and I found out about all these startups

(20:38):
et cetera. So like, and my dream was always I think,
like I was.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Always an entrepreneur.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
I should have known my dream was to build a
company and not be a chemical engineer. So it was
just something that like I gravitated very heavily towards when
I realized, like, oh, I could double major in this.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
At Carnegie Mellon, was there a culture of being an
entrepreneur and creating startups?

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Absolutely not.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
I think it exists at like, you know, Stamford, Harvard, Mit,
But we didn't really have it there at Carnegie Mellon because,
like I think we people might fight, but I think
we objectively had the hardest computer science program and it's
super theoretical and people are pretty much just like trained
to go work at a top company.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
There was nothing that like, I don't.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Even know if I knew someone else in college that
like wanted to be an entrepreneur. I remember when I
dropped out of college, like it would have like when
I got the deal fellowship, it would have been celebrated
at any of these other colleges I was like laughed
at at Carnegie Mellon.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Yeah, I would imagine at the time too, when you
were in college, it was like everybody wanted the top
drop at like Dropbox, Yes, right popular.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
Dropbox and Palentarer were popular there in my time.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
Right. Yeah, let's set some context. What were those big
companies at at the time when you were in college
that kids out of Carnegie Mellon wanted to get placed at.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yes, I would say the number one at the point
in time I was in college was paland here, especially
because Palenteer would come and do like these crazy like
challenges and the smartest kids would win prizes. So Palanteer
and Dropbox, what I would say, we're the number We're
the top two.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
While I was at Carneia Mellon.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Okay, you mentioned the fellowship, So this fellowship basically changed
your life, right, I would say, so yeah, okay, so
can you explain to us what the fellowship is and
how you found out about it.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
So I actually found out about the fellowship back in
high school. Someone mentioned that I should visit this hackathon
house called Rainbow Mansions, So I did, and they mentioned
a teal fellowship and I kind of, you know, forgot
about it, but kept in touch with them very lightly.
So I remember, I believe it was my sophomore year
at Carnelie mellen or junior.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
I was graduating early, so and I know what you would.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Call so you did graduate early.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Now I was supposed to graduate early.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
So I have like four CS classes left and four
HCI classes left to get my double major. So my
sophomore slash junior year, whatever you want to call it.
They were like, hey, you should bought for the Teal Fellowship,
and I kind of just thought like why not because
I felt like I was learning more at these hackathons
and I was in college at this point in time.
Because in college, I was learning a lot of theoretical stuff,
but like at these hackathons was actually like, you know,

(23:05):
building maps and learning languages that were applicable to doing
what I wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
So I ended up applying.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
And what the tel Fellowship is for those that don't know,
They were giving twenty kids under twenty years old one
hundred thousand dollars to drop out of school because Peter
wanted to make a point that you don't need college
to be successful.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
And I think there weren't.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Enough results at that point in time, to be honest,
So it was kind of laughed at.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
By a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Now looking back, everyone's like Wow, the Teal fellowship really worked.
I think like everyone in my class is super successful. Yeah,
I just used the like hackthon project I worked on
I think like a week before I applied and ended
up getting it, So made decision to drop out of college.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Just to back up, describe to us what a hackathon is, Like,
what is the atmosphere like when you're walking into a hackathon?
Who are the people that are there? What's going on?

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Well, every hackelon is different, but like these were university hackathons,
So think like university kids from all different college. It
would literally like bust people in from you know, like
Carnegiamil into MIT for example for hack and my tea.
So I think like thousands and thousands of students and
they're like twenty four to forty eight hour coding competitions
where you're judge based off of like what app you make,

(24:15):
Like is there a business use case? Like how does
the design look like, how technical is it, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
So I basically discovered back then.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
The formula for winning, which was created an iOS app
that looked pretty because most of these people attending hacklones
were just pure CS majors. So I didn't really know
how to design an app, and I think because I
already had like such product focused thinking, I could score
on the business aspect of things as well.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
So I was just.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Making these like iOS apps that looked pretty and winning
a prize every single hackathon. I don't think I left
a hackthon without winning like something. So I ended up
collecting like iPads, like a lot of iPads about these
hackthons are just amazing.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, okay, got it. And so at the hackathon, it
was basically like you would go and kind of present
on stage to everybody that was there.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
There wasn't really stage presentation, so like you would basically
it's almost like a science for like a booth, so
because there's thousands of students, right, and then it's teams
of up to four usually, So you would just have
your little booth and then people would come by see
the app, and you would also submit it on a
website and it would score points and then they would
announce winners.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
So did you go solo or did you team up? With?

Speaker 2 (25:22):
People always teamed up. It's so fun as a team.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
But I was like the like I would literally get
so upset if a team member would fall asleep.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
I'm like, guys, like we're we're competing.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Wake up, and you're like, we need a nap, And
I'm like, I don't care you need a nap.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Okay, I love this. So you have a very like
competitive spirit too.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
I love Barries.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
Yeah, that's funny. I feel like you need to get
into like a class though that has like scores, you
know what I mean. Like there used to be like
Flywheel back in the day. I don't know if you
know if it's still a thing, but Flywheel used to
have like a leaderboard when you would go and do
a spin class.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Oh no way, yeah, I mean it'd be kind of
harder to do a Barries, but this one you can
just like you could just eyeball berries. Like I'm like, okay,
I'm lifting heavier weights than everyone in class. Yeah, Like
I'm doing more reps than everyone in class, so therefore
I win.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Do you do the floor or you also do the
treadmill sec Yeah? Okay, So when people are sprinting on
the treadmills next.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
To you, I got twenty miles power. No one's fast
at me.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
I am dead. When Jeremy's going fifteen miles per hour,
I get nervous for him, like I will not go
above a nine on a Barri's treadmill. I'm also pregnant,
but they should.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Run with me.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
I get on fifteen for like a minute nowadays, I
used to be faster. Yeah he should, Like, I like accompetition.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Going out of twenty is insane.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Yeah, but like it's just like it's for thirty second sprints.
But I don't think it's a true twenty mile power
for thirty seconds because it takes like fifteen seconds for
a treadmill to speed up. And then also like I
actually think I'm so fast at berries because I'm lighter,
so I bounce off the treadmills more. At least that's
my hypothesis, because like I've had track stars and like
Olympic athletes run with me and they're just like, how

(26:52):
the hell do you do that? And my answer is literally,
just like I think it's just because I'm tiny.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
No, but you're still going that same speed, Like you're
still going to speed that it says you're going.

Speaker 2 (27:02):
I am still going to the speed I'm going.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah, which it's, guys, a very freaking fast speed. If
you've been to a Barri's class and somebody's going twenty
you know they're going they're sprinting. Teal Fellowship. You have
to start with a company idea in mind, right, So

(27:25):
what did you use your grant for?

Speaker 1 (27:27):
You can apply with anything, and I ended up playing
with the Hackathon project.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
It was like a multiplayer.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Like games thing where you could create like real time
games with friends and for example, like the quiz questions
in it, so you could like study off of these games, so.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Like custom educational games, let's call it that.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
And then got the Teal Fellowship. What I ended up
doing with the Teal Fellowship was this app that it
was another concept of the app I had created a hackathon,
so like at another hacklon, I basically created door Dash
before door Dash existed, but then DoorDash had come out
by the time that I got the TL Fellowship, so
it made a little bit of a change where instead
of restaurants, it was like regular people cooking for other people.

(28:10):
Launched it at my campus and people were making like
one hundred dollars an hour selling different things to students.
And the idea was that because campuses are so like
high density, you can make a lot of deliveries in
a very little time, so you can optimize them out
you're making per hour. AP did well, and then we
were like, let's go expand long story short, this is

(28:34):
actually very illegal for many reasons, like you actually need
like a centralized food kitchen to cook things. I think
they actually they did change through laws over COVID. From
what I hear, the fact that very illegal, so and
it was dropping it and then decided I wanted to
go work at companies and like learn more. I guess
about like launching features and products and seeing that long

(28:57):
term impact and building culture, et cetera, and company. I
felt like I had more learning to do working at places.
So I ended up dropping APP and going to be
a normal person.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
Okay, when you decided to take the Teal fellowship, so
you have to you had to leave school in order
to do it right? Yes, what did your parents think
about that decision?

Speaker 1 (29:15):
Oh, they stopped talking to me for a little bit.
They were not happy, which again, education gave them everything
that they had in life, so I think for them
it was like a really big sign of disrespect and
they felt like they had sacrificed everything, you know, immigrating
to America, leaving their family behind. Et cetera, just for
their kids to be like, Haha, never mind, I'm not
going to college.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Like I think it was probably the biggest slap in
the face for them.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
What were those conversations like when you were like, well,
this is what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
They definitely were disappointed. They're like, we thought we would
raise a child that had like risk analysis and I
They were just like, this makes no sense. Why in
the world would you leave college to have a ninety
nine point nine nine nine percent chance of failure? And
then the conversations kind of just stopped because I marked

(30:03):
my parents as spam and then I guess they emailed
me or actually I didn't mark my parents a spam.
What happened with my dad was sending me a lot
of emails that look the same, and then Gmail marked
them as spam. So then I discovered these emails like
years later, but yeah, he was just in my spam
in box. But he was pretty much saying the same
thing every single day, which is, you're an idiot.

Speaker 3 (30:22):
Go back to school, and how do you deal with
that when you know the people that raised you, that
you know you've taken advice from your whole life are
telling you what you're doing is wrong.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, I mean I know that, Like I just knew
culturally we were so different, right, Like America is all
about taking risks and Chinese culture is about paying, like
what's the most optimal safe path, which is why everyone's
pushed to be a doctor, engineer, or lawyer because those
are three fields where you know, traditionally you'll make a
decent amount of money, right, like you're making at least
six figures, and then adie like upper level if you

(30:52):
do really well, you.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Could be making eight figures.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
So I think that they just had a different idea
of what made sense.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
And again, education gave them everything.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
They had, So I just I knew they loved me,
but this was like the path that I was going
to choose.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
To go on. Yeah, And it also seems like you,
from a young age weren't afraid of taking risks and
trying new things and putting yourself out there.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
I would say, like, I'm pretty risk tolerant.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
I remember, like, I think I was seventeen years old,
maybe seventeen, maybe eighteen, and I went just like I
stole my parents' car and went skydiving, and I'm in
my sky diving license but like I have like no
sense of danger. I went like I was solo traveling,
and like I decided to like climb this mountain and
stay there until after sunset, not thinking about what would

(31:41):
happen when the sunset. Anyways, I ended up going into
a strangerous car like these three guys who didn't speak
English with a dead phone, and just like kind of
tried to go like choot choo choo to get them
to get me to like the train center. But obviously,
like that could have gone really wrong. So yeah, just
zero sense of danger.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
That makes sense. And it's so fun because what I
love about you is you were obviously a serious academic
and you were very smart obviously to get into a
school like Carnegie Mellon and to do what you were doing.
It's hard to learn programming and be able to even
just understand the basics of things like within computer science.
So it's just so cool knowing that you have these
you know, multiple sides too, where you have this like

(32:20):
wild side where you know you love raves and you
love skydiving and things that are adrenaline rushing, right, but
then you're also can be very serious and obviously have
had this incredible career.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, I think life is all that fun.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
So, yeah, you know a lot of people in the
audience that are listening to us, they maybe are children
of immigrants or have parents that sacrificed enormously for a
very specific version of success that we're kind of talking about,
and those people often feel like pursuing their own path
is betrayal. So I'm curious, like, how do you carry
the weight of someone else's sacrifice without letting it crush

(32:54):
your own ambition.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
I mean, I think at the end of the day,
things aren't really as risky as people make it out
to be. So for example, quitting college, right, like you
always have the option to go back to college. Quitting
your job, Like, if you are actually good at your job,
you'll have that job offer again after you attempt to
do like whatever you want to do. So I think

(33:17):
that like when you can get your parents to understand like, hey,
it's not that much of a risk, like they'll be
accepting and they never get there, like you yourself know that
it might be temporary disappointment to them, but it like
you need to do what makes you happy at the
end of the day, and if it's temporary disappointment. Like,

(33:38):
let's say you try it and in five years you
decide like it doesn't work out, you fail, you can
go back to that college, you can go back to
that job, and then they won't be disappointed anymore. Things
are always reversible in general, So like, as long as
the the decision is a reversible decision at the end
of the day, like you're not going to disappoint your
parents forever.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
I love that person. And I actually just had a
really similar conversation with being chenned from gold House when
he was leaving Facebook or sorry, when he was leaving
YouTube to start gold House. It was that exact same
framework of thinking. He was like, well, I could try
to do this and you know, take on this risk
that I think could work out, or I could just
go back to YouTube, you know.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
So yeah, and if you're good at your job, like
you're probably going to be get paid. You're going to
get paid more when you go back to your job.
You might lose a few years, but the like, the
risk is losing a few years of your life, but
it's not a permanent thing. Most decisions are reversible, so
like your parents will be proud one way or the
other at the end of the day.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Okay, so you go from the Teel Fellowship to then
working at companies like Facebook, Snapchat, and Quorra. Right when
did you start Scale AI? And like, how did the
idea come to you guys?

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Yeah, so Scale is actually a pivot.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
We were working on projects during snap so started off
with class pass for clubbing. Terrible idea, and then pivoted
into a healthcare app, which the idea was like, we
would find you the best doctors for procedure. You needed
to think like the best doctor for a jost surgery.
And then terrible idea again. But we were calling doctors
all the time and we were literally like, man, we

(35:09):
wish there was like some way that whenever someone pressed
this button it would call a doctor for us. And
our yc roommates p Nash and Kingston they were like, oh, se,
you mean like an API for humans. And at this
point I had built a bunch of projects and I
knew that that would go viral. So I remember looking
at them and I was like, do you guys want
to work on that because that's a fair thing to do, right,
And then he was just like, no, you can work

(35:29):
on it. I was like, okay, great, So we over
the weekend during YC like made an API for humans.
It was very bare bones or API docs and then
whenever the API was hit, it would manually go to
me and like Twilio would wake me up and be
like hey, like go send a call back, and I
would like manually send a callback so the results back
to the person that sent the API call. So launched

(35:51):
it on product Hunt and I had a lot of
friends from hackathons at this point in time, so I
literally just DMed every single person i'd met hackthons. I
was like, hey, can you upvote it us on product Hunts.
So that's how it reached a top of product Hunt
to like literally DMed hundreds of people. And when it
reaches the top, like it was like the one website.
Vcs were looking at the scope out and new startups
at that point in time, so I had a bunch

(36:13):
of vcs reach out after Wow.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
And I love that you were able to tack to
tap into your network, you know, and that's kind of like,
you know, people use that quote your network is your
net worth.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
It's absolutely true. Like I think the dumbest people can
make a lot of money. If you have a good network.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, and it's almost like, you know, I even feel
like with the Teal Fellowship, like you're around so many
people that even though you know, that business that you
were working on with the Teal Fellowship didn't end up
panning into you know, maybe what you would, I mean,
maybe what you wanted it to, but it obviously led
you to maybe meeting incredible people through that as well.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, I mean I think that when you get thrown
into this environment where everyone thinks you're a prodigy, you
get a lot of more doors that open up for you.
So everyone's willing to spend more time mentoring you, meeting you,
et cetera. So you meet like the best engineers, the
best founders, and obviously you learn from those people and
you become the average of the five people that you
hang around with most, and the five people you're gonna
be hanging out with most are going to be just

(37:12):
like the smartest, most intelligent people, the most ambitious, some
of the hardest working onest planet.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
I think when you're in a Teel fellowship, so everyone
just rubs off each.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Other, right, you're almost lucky if you're the dumbest person
in the room.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Oh you're Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
I definitely felt like the dumbest verson in room several times,
which is great. I loving the dumbest vers in room.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
Yeah, no, because it means there's so much that you
can learn from people around you, you know. I also
read that at SCALI, you were responsible for recruiting some
of the company's first employees, which really sent set the
foundation for the company. Right, So I'm curious. You know,
there's a lot of entrepreneurs and founders that listen to
this show. What would you say makes a good hire?

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Yeah, so this goes back to, like your network, here's
net worth. My advice for people is, if you're in college,
go meet every single person in college that you consider
super intelligent and be friends with them, because they're going
to be the easiest people to recruit.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
I think that college.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
Kids, when they're looking for new jobs, they have higher
risk tolerance than someone with the family, and a lot
of it is emotional, right, Like, there could be a
company willing to pay them millions, but if they are
good friends with you and they believe in you, they
will be willing to give up millions of dollars.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
To work with you.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
If you are not in college, I would highly suggest
just trying to find networks very similar to your college
with the high density of intelligent people. And I think
I just the college is like the best opportunity to that,
right because if you went to like a Harvard and
MIT at Stanford, like everyone around is smart, and there's
very few places in your life where you're going to
be around such a high density of intelligent people. They're

(38:47):
like the same intelligence level as you afterwards, but there
are still communities.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
So because like hiring is all about.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
I think hiring and keeping people is all emotions, right,
Like it's emotional sales and emotional retention, because the best
people are always going to have better offers out there,
and they will choose you because they believe in you,
and they will stay there because they believe in you.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
You ended up leaving SCALEI in twenty eighteen, but you
retained five percent of your steak in the company, and
from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty five, you know, you
kept that steak. You talk to a lot of people
that maybe were co founders. It ended up liquidating, but
you had the patience to say, I want to keep
my five percent stake.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
I actually did some liquidations and that was the worst
mistake of my life, so I would have more than that.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
But yeah, I guess I was kind of patient you were.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
So what made you a what made you liquidate some?
And then be why did you decide to keep that
five percent steak in the business.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah, so I would say I liquidated enough that I
would be able to be like somewhat comfortable. So I
was reading you know, like fat fire on Reddit, and
I was just like, Okay, this isn't necessarily fat fire,
but I would be able to technically live off this
for the rest of my life. So I liquidated a
certain amount and then immediately I bought like the seventy

(40:12):
thousand dollars apartment in Vegas, which is just like I
could live off that, right, And I just wanted to
have like some cushion so I wouldn't be CouchSurfing again.
But yeah, after that, like I just I didn't feel
like a need to upgrade my life, Like my life
was phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
When you say CouchSurfing again, when were you CouchSurfing? Oh?

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, like while I was building right, like during a
teal fellowship, et cetera, I just le find.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Couches really yeah, with friends.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, I mean we would find like, like you know,
my co founder's brother, for examples, couch but we would
just find couches.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
That's so interesting because within the Teal Fellowship, I'm sure
there were some students that used as students, I guess,
or some entrepreneurs that use some of that money to
at least accommodate living, right, I.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Think some people, Yeah, But I wanted to just invest it, like,
I didn't want to use it in places where it
didn't need to be used. So it's like when people
like founders pay themselves a salary versus not paying themselves
a salary, right, Like some founders decide to pay themselves
high salaries, others pay themselves nothing. And I was definitely
the like of the mentality pay nothing and live as

(41:21):
cheaply as possible so we can reinvest in a business.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
What do you think that taught you?

Speaker 2 (41:25):
I mean, I think.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
I think the one lesson I learned from paying yourself
less or paying yourself nothing versus your employees is that
they really respect you when you do that, and they're
willing to take lower salaries when you can pitch as
a founder, Like, hey, like I'm only paying myself X
amount or I'm not paying myself because that's when like
the negotiats have come in, and like when a lot

(41:48):
of I think bitterness comes in, even in like America, right,
Like people look up ceo salaries and be like, wow,
like I'm only getting paid minimum wage, but CEO is
paying themselves X, Y and z, and like for them
to see that your CEO setting an example by not
taking anything because they want to reinvest everything into the company,
it makes your employees believe in a company more.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yeah, I think it's good advice to founders out there too,
especially when you have small teams yep, exactly, and you're
asking a lot from the people that work for you.
During those seven years from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty five,
what was going through your psyche watching the company evolve.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
I'm not gonna I wasn't really paying attention at that
point in time. I was like I was in Ventures,
I was investing in a lot of companies, and I
think because I'm very like all in on what I'm
doing at the moment, so like at the moment Ventures,
I was more all in on like watching the companies
I was investing and grow and it always makes you
so happy when they raise any round or like you know,
they have a win that like I can celebrate with them.

(42:43):
So that was really my focus, to be honest, I
don't think I really like it was like one of
like Scale was one of those companies and for those
audience that doesn't know, like SURGI was a big competitor
that was doing more revenue and also profitable sou even
though we had like all these government contracts and it
was growing, like I was never really certain like was

(43:05):
it going to IPO? When is it going to IPO?
Am I ever gonna be liquid? Will Scale go to zero?
Like it was like kind of a saying that like
Scales one of the fastest growing companies, I can go
to zero tomorrow. So like going back to like you know, liquidity,
it was just like is this money even real? And
I never had high hopes, so I knew there was

(43:25):
always a risk that it would go to zero and
I'm so happy that Meta bought it. But that was
like probably the first time I was like, oh great,
like really the Ferston I've paid attention.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, just goes back to your entrepreneurial spirit. It's like
while you're building a company. It's not like you're not
thinking about your other options.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Right exactly.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Yeah, in twenty twenty five, when Meta acquired it, your
five percent ended up making you one point two five
billion dollars. Everybody wants to be a billionaire or a multimillionaire, right,
whatever it may be. But is there a side that
people don't think about when you actually get to those
numbers and become that.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
I mean, I would say the main side is that,
like it becomes a lot more lonely, right, Like, I'm
so grateful that I had such a good core group
of friends, but it's harder to trust new people nowadays.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
And that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
I think there's a reason why a lot of billionaires
are only friends with other billionaires, and it's because it's
easy to trust other billionaires because they don't have something
to use from you. But I think that, like, if
you're entering that status without like a core, solidive group
of friends initially that you know would never ask of
anything from you or use you, like, you're kind of screwed.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Yeah, that's like the best way could put it.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Was there something simpler about your life before achieving a
certain levels of success and making a certain amount of money.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
I mean, like I have to hire security guards now,
which sucks, Like there's like extra expenses, right, Like I
don't want to hire security, but I kind of have to.
I think about things like I almost want the DC
Mexico City this weekend. I still think I should have.
I'm actually really annoyed none of my friends would go
with me, but they're like being protected. They're like, Lucy,
if we go to DC Mexico City, like the cartels there,
Like what if you get kidnapped? Like you are like

(45:03):
potentially a target And it's like, guys, I'm not a target.
I'm not famous, Like no knows who I am.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Like let's go.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
But like you have like these people around you now
that are suddenly scared to do things with you. Like
if I didn't have this title, I would have raved
this weekend in Mexico City. But I just had protective friends,
And like I would feel a little scared going alone
now too, versus like before I would have no issue
going alone. So I do think like in some ways it.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Limits your freedom.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Yeah, are you dating anybody? I'm not dating anyone, okay,
because I would imagine that was one of my follow
up questions is like, I feel like that gets hard
right when it comes to dating, because that's a whole
other level of trust. You have to like really scope
out the prospects. But you can also just date somebody
that great breakup story.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
But I'm not gonna say anything, Oh my god, Okay, but.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yes, you're right, you will get used and abused. I
think it's like I'm definitely I have to think more
about like, like I'm a very big energy person, so
I can generally tell if someone is using me for
money or not. But I do think that, like you know,
when you're in love that can blind you and you
can like make excuses.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
When they ask for like more and more and more.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
I think like my new dating role would just be
like and I would need someone that's like self made
and like made their own money, or someone that you know,
just didn't care about nice things at all. Because it's
like when you find someone that like didn't make their
own money, but they have expectations of a lifestyle that
they can't afford, that's when issues come in.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Topic of AI, So you've been around AI for a while,
when you started talking about it back in the day,
maybe when you were at Carnegie Mellon or when you
guys were starting scale AI, did you guys have any
idea how big of a deal it would be and
how big it would turn into?

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Not at all, Like I said, so, we've started out
with scale API API for humans, and we weren't even
thinking about AI, Like we thought we were gonna compete
against the BPO industry with phone calls until a like
phone calls are really hard to quality control. But Crew
ended up becoming one of our first customers and we're like,
oh wow, like we can actually take all this data
and use AI and then reduce like the humans and

(47:07):
the loop over time and then that you know, would
increase margins, et cetera. And it was only then we're like, oh, okay, cool,
Like this is going to be a huge company because
self driving is just one market and there's tons of
other markets we can enter, but self driving alone has
billions of dollars to spend in investing in good data.
So I would say like, it wasn't really until that

(47:28):
point of the pivot from scale API to scale AI,
which did happen early in the business, that we were like, okay,
like we have a big company on our hands.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
And then when it comes to AI itself, you know,
you're a lot of people would consider you an AI
expert or somebody that was kind of at the forefront
of what's now going on. So I'm curious. You know,
when people say that they're they're scared AI is going
to take their jobs, what do you say to them?

Speaker 1 (47:53):
I think in general, AI is going to be our
best co pilot. Think of it as like, you know,
a second you that is going to help you not
do the mundane, repeatable tasks that you don't want to do,
because AI is very good at like repeatable tasks, right,
But and then you can focus on the more important things.
So I think the hardest problems to solve, I think
relationship building, et cetera. Like when you think about it,
is AI going to go out and close a deal

(48:15):
for you?

Speaker 2 (48:15):
Like, no, it's not.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
A lot of deals are closed because you wine and
dine people. And I think that there's gonna be new
jobs that are created, Like yes, if you're like an
entry level engineer, like AI is probably going to replace you,
but that.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Means just get better.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
And like the ones that learn how to supplement their
job with AI are the ones that are going to
be extremely successful.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
And you know, even going back to like when you
were at hackathons and learning how to build like iOS apps,
you know, now we were my husband and I were
playing around with Claude the other day and I think
it was Claude. I forget what platform we were on,
but we so quickly were able to just build an app.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah, you probably ruple it, but you could so quickly
build an app nowadays, like you just prompt it and
it'll create an MVP, which has made it to that
I think before you really needed like an engineer to
build a company, and now or like to even like
fundraise for a company, right because investors don't like investing
in projects that don't have an MVP. Like even my

(49:13):
hy thesis as an investor was I only invest in
the best engineers because they can continue building until they
get customers, so their runway just extends a lot longer
than anyone else, because like if you need to hire
a team, like your runway just automatically shortens. But with
all these new AI tools, like I think you can
get to an MVP and get customers without knowing any

(49:33):
engineering honestly, and then to scale that's when you do
need to hire good engineers, but you can now do
that later on. So it's really democratized, I think even
just start up access for people.

Speaker 3 (49:43):
Right, So, you and your friends brought the forefront of
what a lot of people are calling the AI revolution.
So I'm curious, like what do you guys argue about
as it relates to AI, Like where do some people
see it going? Where do other people see it not?

Speaker 1 (49:55):
I would say it's probably like fifty to fifty on
AGI happening and like soon, and I just don't think
we're even close to getting there.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
So that's my take on it.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
I think that a lot of people that are, you know,
more positive it's going to happen next five to ten
years are very incentivized to say that because they own
AI companies.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
And break that down for us, what is AGI?

Speaker 2 (50:20):
I would most simply break it down on like human intelligence.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
Yeah, and so like unpacked that statement though, like literally
explain to me what you just said as if I'm
like a five like a fifth grader, because it's it's
over my head a little bit.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
So right now, like obviously lms are not human intelligence.
It's like you can like it takes data and it
summarizes it and it kind of predicts the next word, right,
whereas is human intelligence is like it thinks like a human.
There's like, you know, the Turing test, where like can

(50:55):
you tell if it's AI or a human? And I
just like, right now, AI doesn't even like if you
were to trying to think of a good examp, sorry,
like if you were to give AI like like it
can't really tell like what's important what's not unless you

(51:15):
like kind of label like this is important, it's not important,
et cetera. So it doesn't really have reasoning. It doesn't
really have memory. Like there is like a certain amount
of memory that AI can have, but it doesn't know
what to keep and what not to keep. There's like
labeling that's kind of helping with that. Like, for example,
it could be like, oh, this is trauma related, we
should probably remember this person that like went through trauma.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
But I just don't think we're getting there anytime.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
Soon, okay, because I feel like the crazy thing with
AI too is even like eight months ago, we were
talking about how everybody was like, oh, you can become
a Oh my gosh, what it's the term. I'm like
Havin like tip of the tongue syndrome. Prompt engineering was
like a big thing, right, people were talking about eight
months ago, and now I feel like prompt engineering is
still definitely a thing in like an industry that's start

(52:04):
like becoming a thing, but maybe even less so just
because of how much AI is adopting and growing, right,
So it's like it's it's My point is that it's
like it's changing so quickly and so rapidly, but like,
when when does that evolution stop.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
I don't actually know when the evolution will stop.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
Yeah, Like I guess it is when the what you're
talking about kind of comes into realitymore.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
I don't know, yeah, but I think that we're pretty
far off from that.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
So have you looked into the SaaS apocalypse at all?

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Oh, you mean with all the SaaS stocks down?

Speaker 3 (52:35):
M hm.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
I mean I know that Clawbot caused that I had
some stocks affected, but overall, I mean I think that
things will improve. I think there's like a fear right
people are like, oh my god, like this AI is
gonna take over software stocks because it's just gonna be
able to do everything by the end. They like all

(52:57):
these companies are very specialized in what they do, and
they probably have proprietary data that make it so that
another AI bot can't do it as well as if
they applied AI to it, because like, your model is
only as good as a data that you provide it,
and AI is just going to make every company more
optimized because every single person can be a ten x employee,

(53:18):
which then means that, like, you know, your margin's are
going to be a higher and profit's going to be higher.
So I hope we met, Like you know, all the
SaaS stocks go back up. I've seen some rebounds, but yeah,
I haven't really checked all my money's invest in hardware now.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
No, it is crazy, and it didn't it. I mean,
it was like this narrative sweeping Wall Street this past week.
It was like all over the news.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Yep, yep, yeah, and now I was down quite a lot.
I had a heart attack when I locked and I
was like, okay, nope, hardware only now.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
Also, I read another headline that said that what's happening
right now with AI is the biggest thing that's happened
since the Industrial Revolution. What is your take on that.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
I think it's bigger than Industrial Revolution. I think it's
going to touch everything that we do. And because AI
does scale, I would say faster and better, we're going
to be seeing changes more rapidly than Industrial Revolution.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
You know, your company now is called Passes, and I
want you to kind of touch on a little bit
about what you guys do. How is AI affecting your business?

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Yeah, so we're in a creator economy. We've created infrastructure
to have creators monetize their brand through different revenue streams,
whether that's merchandise, live streaming, one on one call, subscription.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Et cetera.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Right now, I would say AI is helping us and
that it's like really helping creators workflows. So we, for example,
have a smart pricing model where we help automatically price
content for creators so they can drive more revenue. When
this is turned on, creators actually make an on average
three x more than they would if they were like
to guess the price of how much like fans would
pay for certain things. So that's just one example we're

(54:52):
working on, like agentic tools. So I think the dream
world for a lot of creators is that all they
have to do is create content and AI helps run
their business for them.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
So that's kind of like where our vision is there?

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Why the interest in the creator economy? Like how did
you start tabbling in it?

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (55:08):
I think I became friends with a lot of creators
over COVID, and I realized that creators are entrepreneurs. And
what's interesting about creators is that, like their fans are
like rabbit fans, they don't have the customer acquisition costs
that like I would have if I were launching a product,
like if they just put it on people buy it, right.
So I think that like they really are like these

(55:29):
cmos that cost nothing almost. So I was just like, okay, wow,
like you guys are not thinking about yourself as a
business as much as you should be. I think that
the entertainment industry in general, with like how agents and
managers make money, don't incentivize that either, because you know,
it's usually like a twenty thirty percent take on like
you know brand neals for example, But if a brand

(55:50):
gave you equity, like there's not a contract to get equity,
And these agents and managers don't really understand equity as well,
so they're losing out on like this long term wealth generation,
but like they should owning equity in companies that they're promoting,
they're putting on themselves, and like they're viewing entire marketing
for a brand and blow up. So like around that time,
you know, like Logan Poul had Prime, Jake Paul with
Like Better, and then a Kylie with her Lipstick, et cetera.

(56:14):
Like I saw all these brands pop up, and I
was like, creators really, like there's an opportunity for creators
to like build these large brands. And we've seen, like
you know, we we're literally seen unicorn companies be built,
but not all creators like need unicorn companies. Like I
have friends who you know, have undred million followers, but
they make millions a year off of like hoodies.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
And I think that is an interesting point to make
because like obviously Logan Paul's, Jake Poul's of the World,
Kylie Jenner, like those are such extreme examples of like
the one percent of like celebrity creator. But then yeah,
there's people like I. There's even random examples that somebody
has given me in the past where it's like an
agricultural creator that created like a seed company and it's

(56:53):
so niche, but it creates so much success for their
like distinct audience exactly, Like not everyone.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Needs billions of dollars, but like with like under a
million followers, like you can.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Make millions a year, and that is life changing money
for a lot of people. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
The thing that I find so interesting about you is
you have always been entrepreneurial. You've gone from building your
own businesses to scale AI to now passes. So what
is it that makes you want to keep your skin
in the game when it comes to building businesses? Because
I feel like a lot of people in your situation
would be like, I'm just gonna sit back and do
my thing, and I have enough money now to you know,

(57:27):
get me through the rest of my life comfortably.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Yeah, I mean I think it's uh, well, hey, my brain,
I get very very bored, so I always need to
be doing something. I'd actually tried to retire earlier. I
traveled around the world, et cetera. But I just got
like I felt like my brain wasn't being used. Like
I was happy for sure, like meeting all these new people,
having all these experiences, but I'm someone that like likes
solving problems and it's the best way to use my brain,

(57:51):
I think, and I think I have this passion for
like having people like be entrepreneurs. Like I even went
the Microsoft and did a whole talk, and like my
talk was like Microsoft, go be an entrepreneur.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
Microsoft is like get her out of here.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Yeah, And it's been really nice, like having a lot
of people come up to me, like you inspired me
being an entrepreneur, and like it's changed my life. So
that's something that I really enjoy and I think that,
like that's part of the reason why I continue just building.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I'd be very bored sitting alone.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Like if you're able to like have fun and make
impact in people's lives, like why not?

Speaker 3 (58:24):
Yeah, I mean I agree, And yeah, what is uh
if you could go back and tell your you know,
fourteen year old self, twenty year old self one piece
of advice, But what would it.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Be If I could tell my fourteen or twenty year
old stuff one piece of advice, it would probably be
to like make friends with more people. Again, like your
network is your net worth. And even though I made
amazing friends in like school and ended up hiring them,
I do think I should have stayed in touch with
them more. But like I could have expanded my network
much larger than I did. And that's a regret I have.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
Yeah, I get that, But I also do think there's
benefits to when you're in high school laying a little
bit more low, you know, and doing your thing and
focusing on your interest, because I feel like people can
get up to the wrong things in high school. So
it's cool.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Like, I think that's probably more of a college thing,
like you know, staying in touch with the hackathon community,
et cetera, because I think at that point, I like
stop going hackathons at twenty years old, but I wish
I didn't stop, and I continue, you know, I'm still involved,
Like I will go judge for example, actually.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Ask to judge a lot of hackathons. I did start
a hackathon I guess over COVID.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
But like, I like, like if I continue going, like
you really want to be at the pulse of young people,
and it would be nice to like still be there.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
It's cool to know that hackathons are still going on.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
They are still going on.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
Yeah, I kind of want to check one out and
just to see what these kids are coming up with.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
Yeah, I mean I think like the strongest one here
is probably like, uh la hacks.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
I think that's by UCLA.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
And in cow Hacks because UCLA and Caltech are great
colleges and they get people from both those universities.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Yeah, oh I left that us.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Sorry, Yessie, They're great too well.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Lucy, thank you so much for being with us today
on post Rien. Hi. Thank you for running with us
and then sitting down to chat.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Yeah, of course, thank you for having me. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
Hi. Guys, Kate here, thank you so much for tuning in.
If you made it all the way to the end
of this conversation, you are a real one. Your support
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