CEO & Co-Founder, Duolingo
Search every verified Luis Von ahn interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo, discussed the origins and evolution of his company in several recent interviews. He stated that Duolingo began as a university project with the goal of providing free education to the world, and that it was later converted into a for-profit company because it was easier to secure funding that way. Von Ahn recalled that a venture capital partner told him the company needed a plan to make money, which led to a period of "freaking out" to figure out a business model. He noted that the English certification market is worth about $15 billion a year. Von Ahn also spoke about his personal motivations and philosophy. He said that after achieving financial security, he wanted to do something that helps people, and that he has long believed education can perpetuate inequality because wealthy people can buy better education. He described Duolingo being used by both Syrian refugees in Europe and Bill Gates, which he found striking. On entrepreneurship, von Ahn advised that most initial ideas are not very good and that the key is to start and be open to changing the idea. He emphasized the importance of being a good communicator and earning the trust of employees.
“I always thought that education actually was something that brought inequality because what happens is the people who have money can buy themselves the best education in the world. and because of that they remain having a lot of money. Whereas the people who don't have very much money barely learn how to read and write...”
“It turns out this is a humongous market. It's about $15 billion a year are spent on people certifying that they know English.”
“I really thought, okay, I'm in a really fortunate position in my life. I've now, you know, I don't particularly need to worry about money. Can I do something that helps people? And so, I really started thinking about education.”
“The partner from that firm sat me down and she said, 'You know, you're not going to find a bigger fool. We're the biggest fool. And nobody else will invest in this company if you don't figure out how to make money. If you have zero plans to make money, nobody else is going to invest in this company.' And that's when we...”
“Con Duolingo el propósito era desarrollar educación y dársela gratis al mundo. Resulta ser y empezamos como un proyecto universitario, no era una empresa, pero en algún momento resultó ser que era más fácil conseguir dinero y fondos para pagar por toda la operación, siendo una empresa que siendo un proyecto universitar...”
“Duolingo estaba siendo usado por literalmente millones de refugiados de Siria en Europa para aprender el idioma del país al que se habían ido... Y la misma semana me enteré que Bill Gates estaba usando Duolingo... la combinación de estas dos cosas que Duolingo está siendo usado. Por un lado, en ese entonces Bill Gates...”
“AI is not going to take your job. Somebody using AI is going to take your job.”
“We have never done a layoff despite what the internet may think. It is important to continue hiring people because a single employee is just way more productive now than they used to be.”
“We have never done a layoff here. I think that it is important to continue hiring people because now you know the way I see it is a single employee is just way more productive now than they used to be. So you know I get better return on investment by having another employee.”
“I don't buy that. If you look at our users, we have more than 100 million active users, half of them are learning as a hobby... whether AI can do it or not it's a hobby... The other half are learning English. And I think anybody who tells you that people don't want to learn a language has not had to learn English.”
“We got to a point where... our user growth slowing down told me we need to do something important change how we operate so that we continue grabbing as many users as possible. Now that comes with a cost which is we are not going to be monetizing our user base as much as we were before... we made the decision consciousl...”
“DAUs grew 21% year-over-year, right in line with what we expected as we make this strategic shift. We introduced spoken tokens which let learners speak their answers to almost any exercise. We started rolling out speaking adventures which put learners in real world conversational scenarios. And we launched flashcards w...”
“We are at the same time undermonetized and overmonetized. It is a weird thing. The reality is that roughly 12% of our monthly active users are paying subscribers. We think that number should be much higher. I mean, if you look at comps of other premium models, they're much higher than that. Uh, you know, Spotify is clo...”
“We are finding that we can do that particularly for example in China we're able to acquire profitably so and and these are English learners so in that in that respect these are these are a bit related but I would say the the main thing with performance marketing for us is that we just historically have under invested i...”
“We are very excited about math. You saw we started this call with a video for math. We we really finally got to the point where our math course really has all pretty much all the content between grades 2 and 12 and it can actually explain things when you got things wrong. So, we're we're very excited about that.”
Luis von Ahn (@luisvonahn) is an entrepreneur and computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He is known for ...
In 2000, Luis von Ahn was starting his PhD in computer science when he attended a talk and happened to learn about one of Yahoo's biggest problems: automated bots were signing up for millions of free Yahoo email accounts, and generating tons of spam. Luis' idea to solve this problem became CAPTCHA, the squiggly letters we type into a website to prove we're human. He gave away that idea for free, but years later, that same idea had evolved into a new way to monetize language learning on the web, and became Duolingo. Today, the popular app is valued at $1.5 billion, and is seeing a big spike in…
Alejandra talks with Luis Von Ahn, creator of Duolingo, who tells us about technology and the learning revolution.
In this fascinating interview, Duolingo CEO and founder Luis von Ahn shares powerful insights about AI, jobs, startups, education, ...
When Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn sent an internal memo about AI last year, he didn't expect it to go viral — or to ignite a firestorm about the future of work. Now he joins Rapid Response to unpack what he got right, what he got wrong, and what the backlash taught him about the real limitations of AI. Von Ahn also reveals why he's made a deliberate pivot in 2026: chasing users, not revenue — and what that bet says about how big Duolingo can get before ads become inevitable. It's a candid reckoning with hype, growth, and the surprisingly complicated promise of technology in education. Chapters:…
05/04/2026 Q&A: 06:20 Duolingo, Inc. operates as a mobile learning platform in the United States, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company offers 250 language courses, including Spanish, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese through its Duolingo app. It also provides a digital English language proficiency assessment exam. The company was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. #duolingo #earningscall #fundamentalanalysis #duol #investing
Luis von Ahn, the visionary co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, joins ShaoLan to discuss the future of education and his surprising past as the inventor of CAPTCHA. In this episode, Luis reveals how he turned an "annoying" internet security tool into a global movement for book digitization and language learning. 🔥 Start learning Chinese FREE — download the Chineasy app: 🍎 iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/chineasy-l... 🤖 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de...\_share 🎧 Love this podcast? Try Talk Chineasy: Speak with Ease — our app for mastering conversational Mandarin: 🍎 iOS: https://a…
📌 Try Granola — the AI notepad that turns meetings into action: https://www.granola.ai/marina or use code MARINA at checkout for 3 months free. Luis von Ahn, the co-founder of Duolingo, gave me the most honest take on AI I've heard from any CEO. If you're figuring out where AI is taking your career or your business, this conversation will reset your thinking. Stay till the end for the jobs blitz: gone in 5 years, gone in 10, or not going anywhere. Timestamps: 00:00 Duo showed up uninvited 01:07 Can you still get hired without AI skills? 04:03 Why everyone should start vibe coding 05:06 How 2…
The Duolingo owl is one of the most iconic and viral mascots in marketing. In this video, Duolingo CEO Luis Von Ahn reacts to the ...
The Science of Learning: How to Remember Anything | Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn Learns Chinese 🔥 Start learning Chinese FREE — download the Chineasy app: ► iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/chineasy-l... ► Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de... 📌 ShaoLan's Note: I recorded this conversation with Luis years ago when Duolingo was a rising star. Today, with 50M+ daily users, his core belief hasn't changed. It’s the same principle hidden in the ancient Chinese character for "learning." Duolingo founder Luis von Ahn joins ShaoLan to uncover why the Chinese word for "learning" holds a secr…
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