Luis Von ahn on business strategy
From Duolingo CEO Reveals The Future of Jobs & AI in 2026 · · Prime Insight Podcast
“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 consciously because we think that if we continued operating the way we were operating... at some point it was going to be capped. Whereas, I think if we really try to get a much larger user base, we're going to be a much larger company in the long term.”
On , Luis Von ahn, CEO & Co-Founder at Duolingo, spoke about business strategy during Duolingo CEO Reveals The Future of Jobs & AI in 2026 on Prime Insight Podcast.
About Luis Von ahn
In recent interviews and earnings calls, Luis von Ahn stated that Duolingo has never conducted layoffs, despite what he described as rumors on the internet. He argued that AI makes individual employees more productive, which he said increases the return on investment from hiring. Von Ahn was quoted as saying, "AI is not going to take your job. Somebody using AI is going to take your job." He described an internal "golden rule" that Duolingo only uses AI to benefit learners, and noted that two employees without engineering backgrounds used AI to build a chess course in six months that became the company's fastest-growing course. Von Ahn discussed a strategic shift in 2026 toward prioritizing user growth over revenue growth, which he acknowledged led to lower revenue estimates and a negative reaction from the stock market. He said the company's daily active users grew 21% year-over-year in Q1 2026. Von Ahn also commented on the company's mascot, revealing that he personally wrote a notification message that reads, "These reminders don't seem to be working, so we'll stop sending them," which he said he did not intend to be manipulative. He added that Duolingo had a video concept where the owl would "try to kidnap people" but decided not to release it.