LUCY GUO: The Most Common Success Advice That's Secretly Holding You Back

I think that being delusional is necessary to be a founder. You really have to believe, I'm gonna be part of the 0.01% that is actually going to build a unicorn.

What advice are people being told about success that you think is outdated?

I think that college is no longer needed. That being said, I believe that your network is your net worth, and there's no better place to go than college to expand your network.

So you're saying go to college, but don't go there for the degree?

Exactly.

How do you think the best ideas are found?

Ideas are cheap and execution is everything.

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. Today I'm sitting down with Lucy Guo, entrepreneur, investor, co-founder of Scale AI, and one of the youngest self-made female billionaires in the world. Today we dive into the new rules of success, why speed has been her greatest advantage, and how AI is reshaping opportunity. Please welcome to On Purpose, Lucy Guo. Lucy, I am so happy to be with you here because not only do we know each other a little bit offline, we've been to some pretty crazy places together. So I saw you last year on Luminara on the yacht trip, which was amazing.

Yes.

And then I saw you at my house where we did a fundraiser event. Then I saw you at the Dior party. It feels like our lives have just been meshing.

We've been worldwide and now we're seeing each other in Cannes next week.

Yeah, exactly. It's awesome.

Thank you for having me.

Oh no, I'm so excited for my audience to learn from you. I think that right now we're living at such an exciting time. time where so many young people are driven, they're ambitious, they want to do incredible things. You've already lived that. You've done it. You're going on to do more. I know you've shared some ideas with me, so I can't wait to get inside your brain today. This is gonna be fun.

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah. I wanted to ask you, the first question I have for you is, what advice are people being told about success today that you think is outdated?

I still think that college is extremely outdated. I think that we're taught to go study and then get a traditional job, but especially Especially in the world of AI, I think that college is no longer needed. That being said, I believe that your network is your net worth, and there's no better place to go than college to expand your network because college is really the first time and only time in your life where you're going to be thrown into a world where everyone wants to make friends. No one knows each other, right? So everyone's open to this like emotional connection. I always tell people, like, I actually think 1 to 2 years of college is extremely useful because that is where you're gonna build your network and you're gonna build the deepest network because their most talented friends are always going to get these like multimillion dollar job offers straight outta college. But, um, if you're able to have that emotional connection, like everything is sales from retaining your employees to selling them to get you them to join your company. And, uh, college is the best place where you can like really build that emotional connection because everyone is open to it afterwards. Like you may go work at a company, you may join like, you know, different, uh, like interest groups, et cetera. But, um, it's just not at the same density as colleges.

So you're saying go to college, but don't go there for the degree.

Exactly.

Right? Go there for the networking, the groups of people, the emotional connections, practicing things.

And I think college is a really great place, especially in classes, to like learn a lot and learn how to think. But you should apply those skills to practical skill sets, or you should apply the skills that you learn into practical use cases. So I would learn how to think in these classes, and then I would start using AI tools, right? And really accelerate what you can do and be that like 10x executor.

Where did you go to college again?

I went to Carnegie Mellon.

Did you go to college with anyone that you're still friends with? What, what are your peers doing now? Like what else have they done?

Straight out of college, I had actually hired the smartest people that I met. So like, you know, my TA, my computer science little, like they had this, like, it's not a sorority little, but like within the CS program, because they were just like top of their class, right? So that was a perfect example of like, hey, this is emotional sales and this is emotional retention. When I had dropped out, I had actually met a lot of people within the college network, not my specific university, but like, Like within the United States through hackathons. So I'm still friends with them and these are people that I've actually invested into after like, you know, hiring them, they went on to go build their own companies.

Wow.

So I think that's just a perfect example of like how they were ready to like, you know, open up and be friends with me. And by maintaining those connections, I was able to hire them as my employees, retain them, and then support them when they went to go build their own companies.

Wow. That, that's so fascinating that you were able to not only maintain those relationships, but they've become mutually beneficial for everyone.

Yeah.

And it's a really unique way to look at college actually, because I think right now you have the anti-college agenda.

Mm-hmm.

And then you have people saying you have to go to college because of the old reason. So it's an interesting one. I also wanted to ask you, what's a habit that you think ambitious people think is gonna make them successful, but actually is slowing them down or holding them back?

So this is actually probably an interesting one. I think that ambitious people have this mindset like, I wanna learn from the smartest people because that makes sense, right? So they gather all the mentors that they have possible, and then they enter paralysis when it comes to decision making. So they ask all the mentors around them instead of listening to like their own gut. And if I had done that, Scale actually would've never started because I had a decision paralysis when I was deciding whether to leave Snapchat versus go build a company. I gathered all my mentors, I asked them like, do you think I should stay at Snap or go do my own thing? And every single one of them, and I mean every single one of them, told me to stay at Snap because Snap was in its hypergrowth stage and like it was, you know, about to go public. People thought I was absolutely insane given that I was on this extremely special team with only 10 people. And I think I would've entered decision paralysis if I were to have listened to my mentors. So I ended up lis— just listening to my gut and optimizing for learning instead because I did feel like my learning had become stagnant at the company. But I think that extremely smart people constantly want to learn from others so that they find the smartest people and they ask almost too many questions. It's better to make an imperfect decision but move forwards because you can change your path than to enter decision paralysis.

I feel like any good decision I've made in my life has often been opposed to some of the smartest people in my life because you feel it internally.

Exactly. And I think investments are very similar, right? Because you have to go against the grain to make a good investment. Like Airbnb, I think is a great example and Uber is a great example. Like no one thought it would work, but the investors that thought it would work, they went against the grain. And I think that's when the best decisions are made.

Did you have to give up, like, did you have equity? Did you give up stock shares? Like, were you giving up like a ton of money too to go and do your own thing?

So I was giving up a lot of money. I wouldn't call it life-changing money for me per se, but I think it was life-changing money for other people, especially 'cause Snap's vesting schedule at that point was like 10, 20, 30, 40, which is a very unique vesting schedule. So that meant that I was leaving the majority of my equity on the table. Wow.

So you would've had to really feel a sense of inner confidence that you had an idea.

This goes back to, you are like the average of the people you hang around with. And because I was in this Thiel Fellowship network and all my peers were founders that had either raised tens of millions of dollars or had built billion-dollar companies. Um, I really did believe that I could be one of those people. Um, I think that being delusional is necessary to be a founder because if you are building a venture scalable business, you really have to believe like, I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna be part of the 0.01% that is actually going to build a unicorn. Um, I do think that there are other businesses like lifestyle businesses that are much more easier to become successful because you're not shooting for the stars, right? Like if you're making like less than $100 million a year for venture, That's not great. But if you're doing that like $10 million a year as an individual, like that can support you for the rest of your life.

If you were 22, you had no money, no followers, and you felt like you had no connections, what would you do in the next 30 days to change the trajectory of your life?

If I were 22, uh, I would actually go live on campus at different colleges because I feel like I would be young enough to do so where I could pass off as a college student. That's actually how I was able to gain kind of a network outside of just Carnegie Mellon. Um, where I had lived on Menlo Avenue at USC and like kind of just hung out at USC as like a student. I was like, you know, in San Francisco and I was hanging out at Stanford as like a student per se. And when you blend into the college community, like you will just start getting invited to things, whether it's like fraternity parties or hackathons, et cetera. I would also like definitely continue to go to hackathons because hackathons are great. It attracts a certain type of student that wants to do something over the weekend that doesn't involve partying, right? Like they are side questing to build and learn. And when you go these hackathons, generally like all the surrounding colleges go as well. So like MHacks attracted like pretty much all the East Coast colleges. So did Penn Hacks, so did HackMIT. So you're not only meeting people from that college, but all the smartest students from different universities.

So wait, you were, you weren't pretending to go to other colleges, you were just hanging out at other colleges?

Pretty much, yeah.

And so then you got the benefit of building your network in those colleges too?

Yeah.

Did you do that because it was fun or did you do that because you knew it would pay off in the long run? Like what was your mindset as a 22-year-old? I guess when you were at college, you were younger than that. What was your mindset as a college student?

Specifically when I had dropped out and this app completely failed before the Thiel Fellowship, I was gonna build DoorDash actually. I built DoorDash at a hackathon and then in between the hackathon and when I decided to go build a company, DoorDash got built. So I was like, great, I need a twist on it, right? So the twist was, okay, let's have people cook food for other students. and deliver it versus restaurants. This has many, many issues starting from like food safety. It's completely illegal, whatever. But I launched at Carnegie Mellon and it did well and I was like, great, I need to like expand to other colleges. So that was the mindset in going to live in other colleges and like, you know, really get in the community so I can convince other college students at these universities to cook food for like their fellow students. And college is a really great place to do it because, because it's so high density. Like you can just make a batch of cookies, for example, and run around campus and deliver it to hundreds of students. People were making like $100 an hour.

It was great.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

Again, very illegal. Don't do it. Don't build it anymore.

How did you feel when you create your version of DoorDash at a hackathon and then you see the real idea happen?

Honestly, I think the ideas are cheap and execution is everything. So for me it's like, okay, cool, whatever, right? Like Uber wasn't the first, but they executed extremely well. So, um, I didn't like feel any resentment. I was just like, okay, cool. Like this is a great app I can use. Like let me think of something else.

Yeah, I think that's what's so fascinating about high achievers like you, where a lot of people think that the idea is the value. And when you see someone do it, you're like, oh, I could have done it. I could have done that. Yeah. And it's like, well, no, not really. Because actually what it showed you is you had a good idea. Someone went and did it already, but that means you could find another good idea.

Exactly. There's literally billions of people on this earth. Like people have ideas all the time. Like people execute all the time. Like you can easily hire a developer in India, et cetera, get it done cheap. Now you can use AI and like use Lovable, Replit, et cetera, and like develop your idea. But execution is everything.

Where do you think young people waste most of their time when they're building their career?

I think young people are wasting most of their time working at these larger companies, um, because they have golden handcuffs. Because when you're smart, you're literally getting paid millions of dollars per year, right? Which is extremely hard to let go of. When you wanna leave, they add in stock, they add in cash, they add in bonuses. Um, I know some of the most talented people that I think could have built unicorn companies that ended up just staying at Snapchat for 10 years because they just kept on getting equity packages, which I understand from a different perspective. 'Cause it is like, you know, life-changing money over the course of 10 years. Like you're making like what, 8 figures? I don't wanna say their soul 'cause the work is still interesting, but they're trading off what is like extremely life-changing money, like generational wealth, and like working on something that they want to do, like that one project passion idea that they have, uh, in exchange for cash. Yeah.

But do you think everyone could be an entrepreneur?

I think everyone can be a certain type of entrepreneur. It just depends on like how much of an entrepreneur do you wanna be? Like, are you trying to build a $5,000 a month business? Like, yeah, anyone can do that. My friend literally prompted a chat to create a business with like a $50 budget and it actually created a business that makes, I think, a few thousand a month.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. The research, it found a domain name, it designed a really crappy logo. Um, I think that like anyone can be an entrepreneur, but like what kind of entrepreneur, like what level are you trying to like shoot for in the sky?

I guess the people that you're saying, like, they could have quit their job. And I guess, and golden handcuffs, of course, there's different levels of it.

Yes.

So even where I grew up, I remember I was trying to leave my consulting job, which felt like golden handcuffs at the time. I was making like £45,000 a year. And that felt like golden handcuffs at the time because I was like, that at least pays my bills and pays for my rent. I don't know what I'd do without it. When someone's in that position, how should they consider the next move? Like, do you just quit and go all in? Do you come up with an idea first? Like, how do you think about the phases and trajectory of building something when you have golden handcuffs?

What I had personally done was I was working on side projects, and after I received investor interest, that's when I said, I'm going to quit and go build. I think that when people hedge too much as an investor, I don't think they're serious where they want the money inside their bank before They actually quit their job. So I would say work on weekends or like, you know, after work, work on side projects, like get some traction because that traction will turn into investor money. But you don't really want to tell investors like, I haven't really quit my job yet because it will make them feel— all right, you can say that, but you should make it known that whether or not you get the money, you will quit your job. Or at least just say that. I don't know, because I think you don't want them to think that you're not serious.

I think people always get caught between that kind of like catch-22 of like, do you quit first and then you find what you wanna do, or do you find what you wanna do and then build it?

It is a sacrifice to de-risk, but de-risking does make sense. So if you're able to work on your side projects over the weekend, after work, et cetera, like, yeah, you won't be spending as much time with your friends, but you're also de-risking your life essentially. And I do think that like once you have an MVP with traction, which you don't need to quit your full-time job to get, like you will be able to fundraise.

How do you think the best ideas are found?

I think the best ideas are found when you're solving a problem for yourself because there's so many people in the world that if you're building for yourself, other people are going to have that problem. And then whether or how large of a company it can be is just a function of how many people also have your problem and how much are they willing to pay. But you'll know exactly what to build and then you'll be able to use the product yourself and be able to figure out which features to build, what needs to, like, how to innovate, et cetera. So I think the best companies that I've invested in and the best companies that I have built have all been problems that I've solved for myself.

And that's where people should start.

Absolutely.

I think today everyone's now thinking, how do you build the next billion-dollar company? And that's almost like the most counterintuitive. Yeah.

And the next billion-dollar company, it might just be like a small problem that you're solving for yourself, but you decide to expand on the idea afterwards.

I've heard you say, Lucy, that your biggest advantage is your speed. And I wanted to ask you, what's a decision that people waste 6 months on in business that they should figure out in 6 minutes?

So I think the thing that people waste the most time on is actually just product development and like design. Because when you go to a large company and you see how long it takes to design small features, it could be months to years because they want the UX to be perfect. But like a common misconception is that the UX needs to be perfect for a product to be adopted. I actually highly disagree. People will go through bad UX, people will deal with bugs if they want the product badly enough. Like, for example, let's say there's, um, the new iPhone, right? And like, you're checking it out and it just keeps on bugging and it's like, okay, cool. Like the payment didn't go through, the payment didn't go through. You're going to keep clicking that payment button like 100 times until it goes through. Like you're dealing with the bad bugs because you want the product badly enough. So I believe the best thing to do is just release 90%. Like you can design, I think, 90% good UX in 1 to 2 days and then just have the engineers build it, ship it, and then see if it's adopted. If it's adopted, then iterate on it until it's a good product. There's a very, very few products I think that need perfect UX for it to get adopted. Most products out there, like if people want it, they'll buy it. People feel like they need to build the full product in order to sell it. But my philosophy has always been like create landing pages. Like if you're building a B2B SaaS product, like make a landing page and start doing calls. See if you can get LOIs signed. If it's like a low enough price point, see if people enter their credit cards to like save a spot on like the page. If you're building like even a like D2C product, I say sell it and then see how much you actually need to And if you're late on orders, just give the customer another free like t-shirt or something or whatever you're building to make them feel happy and like not be upset that the order was late. That way you're actually testing demand for the product before wasting so much money and so much time developing just for it to flop.

So many people I see when they're launching something, they're spending all the time on the logo and the font and the color and all these types of things. And actually you're saying, well, put it out there and see if people even sign up.

Yeah, exactly.

And even care about it.

Yeah.

And if they do, then you've got all the time and money now to actually go and build the real thing. What, what's our addiction to perfectionism? Like, why do we do that?

I almost think it's an excuse. I think that people believe that something needs to be perfect in order for it to work. And when it's not perfect, they blame it on the fact that it's not perfect. And I see this with tech founders all the time too, where it's like, okay, cool. Like we just need to A/B test our way into it being perfect for the product to work. But sometimes the sum of all parts doesn't equal a whole, right? Like you can A/B test to have higher signup rates than like higher, like engagement, et cetera. But at the end of the day, like, there's only so much that I can fix. Like, you probably need an entirely new feature, which is not really A/B testable. Yeah, I think that it, it really is just an excuse.

What's the difference between a good risk and a bad risk?

I mean, I think it's all a function of like, what are the consequences, right? I generally believe that a lot of products could not have been created without taking risks. So for example, like, I think Uber obviously didn't really listen to anyone and they became so big that now it just exists. I was actually talking to Stripe founders and I don't remember what rule they broke, but even Stripe apparently broke some rules and then they just became too big to fail and like they just had to make it work. So yeah, it, it, it's a function of just consequences.

But how do you evaluate that when you don't know? 'Cause I guess we all start thinking, oh God, if I do this, then the opportunity cost is this, or This is the risk level.

I generally evaluate just based on like 2 criteria, which is like, is this going to be life-changing for me? And am I optimizing for learning? Because if I'm not optimizing for learning, I'm just not gonna do it. Because I think that the knowledge I gain doing the next thing, even if I like, you know, lost a few million at Snap, for example, like I was gonna learn enough being a founder that I can take those skill sets and like, you know, either go get a new job that pays me better and I'll be more successful in my role or build another company. And then the life-changing money thing was also just kind of that where I was like, okay, like this doesn't necessarily change my life, so it's not worth my time.

There's something that we can all use in, in pretty much any decision.

Always optimize for learning.

That's such a big one because it's almost like we want to optimize for success.

Mm-hmm.

But you are saying optimize for learning. 'Cause that will bring you success. Exactly.

Yeah. Like everyone always complains like, oh, it's such a big risk to like, you know, quit college or it's such a big risk to like quit this job to build a company. But it's not like you are losing your knowledge and skill sets, right? If anything, you come out the other side and you have more skill sets. Like, yeah, you might have given up, let's call it like a $10 million a year job, but guess what? You'll probably get a $20 million a year job. And I also think that people underestimate like how much like people want talent, which obviously we saw it with Meta, right? Paying like 9 figures for AI employees. I think that even if your company fails, if you hire talented people and you yourself are talented, there will be someone that will buy your company for more like than your investors invested in at a valuation because they know you wanna make your investors whole and they know that you want money.

Mm-hmm.

And for the talent, they'll overpay.

I keep thinking about my life and it was, it was much smaller than that. Like I said, the amount I was making, but making a pivot, companies were so good at making you feel like, no, but you built a network here. You should stay here. Like there's such a culture of making you feel like you're going to fail if you move on. And I think people believe that people buy into that. How do we break out of buying into the fact that we actually think if we lose a $100,000 a year job, Then we're gonna end up with a $70,000 a year job. We don't think we're gonna be able to triple it or quadruple it.

Yeah, I mean, I think that is just, again, your network is your net worth and you are the average of the people that you hang around with. So I was really lucky to hang out with founders that have done it before. So I knew like how it actually went. I was lucky enough to hang out with investors who, you know, they would give exploding term sheets, but they would also tell me, oh, exploding term sheets aren't a thing. Like if the founder came back, we would just give them the term sheet again.

Yeah.

I think people's fear is overcoming their logic.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because logically it's like, why would I not be able to get this job back? Like, if I was valuable to the company, they're going to want me again. And let's say for whatever reason the role is filled. I mean, companies find roles for people all the time when they think the person is a Swiss Army knife and like smart and will be able to help the company. They'll like make a role for that person, right? Uh, but also there's so many companies out there that will hire you based off of the fact that like you did a great job at like Company A, like Company B is going to want you and Company B will fight for you and like understand that now you have more knowledge and more skill sets, so they'll pay you more. This is really people's fear overriding their logic.

Everyone says find your passion. What's your take?

I think you should do what you're best at to have the highest impact on your passion. So for example, like I really like nonprofits and supporting charities, but at one point in time I thought like I'm gonna start my own nonprofit and charity and foundation. And you know, that might still happen, but I also realize like at this age, in this state of my life, I'm really good at making So my time is probably best spent making money and then donating to causes that I care about and being run by people that actually know how to run an organization or a foundation. I don't know how to run a charity. And like, I had actually looked into this where I was like, I'm gonna start a foundation, I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z. And I realized how much work it is, right? And like how it's like quite literally another full-time job. Like maybe when I'm older, I'll like learn all those skill sets and I'll decide like my time is best spent doing that as my passion.

Yeah.

But I think optimize for fun. Fun doesn't necessarily need to be your passion, but like optimize for like how you can make an impact in whatever you're passionate about.

But that feels hard, right? Because people are like, for example, when I was growing up, I was passionate about soccer.

Mm-hmm.

What do I do with that? 'Cause I can't be a soccer player 'cause I'm not good enough. So then what do I do?

But you can make enough money to buy a soccer team and then you can go to every soccer game and have so much fun.

Right. So you are saying that it doesn't have to be your career. but you may go build a career of doing something else, but then use the fruits of that labor to then be closer to your passion. Exactly.

Because like, if you're able to experience your passion, that's what's gonna make you happy, right? Like it doesn't have to be your full-time job. Well, I guess now music is my career-ish or my side quest, but I just used everything that I had succeeded in and like, you know, the money I had created to go experience music and like live events. And that made me extremely happy. I use like what I've been able to create that helps support causes that I care about, which has made me extremely happy. I don't think that needs to be your full-time career. And like, for most people, it's not going to be their full-time career because like in certain fields, like even no matter how talented you are, some of it is just luck, right? Like I'll never really understand the music industry or the acting industry because I have so many talented friends in it and it just, for whatever reason, they're not making it. And I really do think it's because there's other factors like network, luck, et cetera, in that. Yeah.

Yeah. But I like what you're saying that people often say pursue your passion or make it your work. But actually what you're saying is just go work, do the thing, and then connect to your passion. And that feels much more realistic for most people. I think for the majority of people, there are very few people who can do what they love and it makes money. But actually being free to the idea that you can do something, hopefully that you don't hate.

Yeah, hopefully that you don't hate.

Hopefully that you don't hate, but you do something and that something gets you to be able to be closer to all of these things that you love, which I think is a much more more genuine, authentic path for most people. Like people can aspire to live that way.

Exactly.

And like you said, now you're closer to music, charities. What were you passionate about? Like if you could have done something, like for me, I could, I would've been a soccer player if I could have, like if I was good enough. What would you have done if you could have?

Well, it's changed over the years. So when I was younger, I wanted to be a singer, but I realized I'm basically tone deaf and I can't sing for my life. So that was out the window. And then I remember when I was like, you know, choosing colleges, et cetera, I was like, it would be really cool to like be an FBI agent and like fight the bad guys. Um, but then that's unrealistic because I'm like this tiny woman and, you know, maybe I can learn, you know, some kung fu skills.

Yeah.

But like overall, let's call it unrealistic. Right. And then I got really passionate about music and, um, I finally learned I can actually DJ. You don't need to be able to sing or play the instruments, et cetera, to be able to DJ. So it's been like a very cool thing that I've been able to do.

How do you, at this stage in your career, how do you separate How do you separate self-worth from net worth?

This is really interesting. So I was not a confident person until I went to Miami. And then when I went to Miami, I just became friends with all these people 'cause they just liked my energy, right? Like I would just be standing in an elevator and people would come in and be like, wow, I felt your energy from far away, blah, blah, blah. It was the first time in my life where like I met people that were just like mi casa, su casa with no questions. There's no agenda. And I think in the past, like in LA, San Francisco, New York, there's always like some sort of agenda. People are like, they wanna know who I was. It was like, oh, you're a Thiel Fellow, let me be friends with you. Or, oh, you have fun. Miami was the first time in my life where no one asked what I did, and they just wanted to vibe with me 'cause I gave off good energy. So I became extremely happy there. And I think my self-worth is based off of that, where, you know, I have a close relationship with my family again. I'm close with my friends. And every time I meet someone, like, that's a stranger that has no idea who I am, they're just like, wow, your energy's so vibey. Let's dance. And that makes me happy 'cause it, like, It shows people like me for me versus like my net worth, um, versus like, I don't think I had that purity before I had experienced it in Miami.

Entrepreneurially and professionally, what's something that you thought would go your way but turned into a rejection or a failure?

Honestly, like I'm not someone that sits and weeps. Like I've never really sat and felt sad. So, um, unless, you know, like a close friend is hurt. Yeah. Like I hear bad news from a close friend, but like for myself, whenever I face rejection, I'm like, okay, cool, onto the next. So I've never like felt extremely hurt. One of the more like sad ones might've just been when I was so close to like my top VC choice. Like I was like, I'm 100% gonna get a term sheet. Like they're wining and dining me. They just flew out to meet me. And then it was just like out of nowhere it was a no. Right. And I was like, what in the world happened?

Yeah.

I was just like, I felt a little bit led on, but also Like I didn't really sit and feel bad about it. I was like, okay, cool. Onto the next. Let's find a new lead.

Do you think that mindset's integral and important at that level? Like—

I think being an extremely positive person that's constantly optimistic is what has gotten me to where I am today. I think the worst thing you can do is think like, oh, like the world is unfair. Why did this happen to me? Stop thinking that way. Like everyone is born with advantages and disadvantages. You kind of just have to take what you have and go forwards. And if you face rejection, um, just learn from it and immediately like go and fix.

That mindset obviously worked for you. You've made so much money.

Mm-hmm.

You've become such a success story. What problems did money take away and what problems stayed or got worse?

When I first started out, before I had any money, I was like couch surfing all the time, but I like didn't have anything to compare with. Like I actually love couch surfing. It was fun. You get to meet a lot of people. Like I found couches extremely comfy. It was like to the point where I I had an apartment, I had a bed, and I would sleep on the couch. So like, that was like nothing but like any stresses of money like went away, right? But I also think that like what it can cause is you become a little bit too comfortable, which isn't great.

You've been in so many rooms now with so many successful people, incredible entrepreneurs, people that you've worked with early days at Snap. What do you think is the most surprising thing you've noticed about the people at the top?

Something that we'd be surprised or shocked I think the people at the top are actually not the smartest people in the world at all. I think that they lack frameworks, and because they lack frameworks, they don't understand a concept of like how the world works, which is actually very good because startups are built when you break frameworks because you innovate, right? Which is why when you take someone in an industry that's been in industry for decades and hire them in, oftentimes like they don't innovate because they're like, things have to be done this way because things have always been done this way. And again, Airbnb, Uber, great examples of this. They weren't transforming the industry. Were experts. They weren't real estate experts. So they didn't have a framework of like how things are supposed to be. I think the people at the top completely lack frameworks because they didn't have decades of experience. And because of that, they were able to innovate. But also they tell their employees, like their employees might be like, that's impossible. And they're like, I don't care. And their employees might be PhDs and they're like, no, literally, I've been doing this for 20 years. I have multiple PhDs. This is impossible. And they'll just like, no, it's not. Go do it. And they will say things like, okay, whoever does it gets this like giant bonus, whoever does this gets promoted, et cetera. And when people see that prize, that's when people like really force themselves to break the framework that they know because they're so desperate to like get that thing that was offered to them. I would say like when you look at the people at the top, they're not the most educated really. I think that in general they have high EQ. Some of them don't have high EQ, but they force the impossible to be possible.

You're reminding me of that great conversation between Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. And so Steve Wozniak goes up to Steve Jobs and he goes, what do you even do? You're not a coder, you're not a marketer, you're not a salesperson, you're not an engineer. What do you even do? And Steve Jobs replies, he says, musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra. And it's such a powerful statement because he doesn't know how to do all the bits and bobs. He's like, all I know how to do is put it all together and get it to all work in harmony, but I don't really know everything. And I think people, when they're on their journey, they feel like, I'm not smart enough, I don't know enough, I should be more experienced. So what's that balance then with, you know nothing about an industry, which is a, not having a framework is a positive thing, but then what is different about that entrepreneur that you don't know anything about the industry, you break all the rules, that's what makes you successful?

I think it's also being visionary. Like I think Steve Jobs is actually a great example of this where he told his team like, I don't care if it's impossible, you're going to figure it out, right? I think Elon Musk has told his team this, etc., etc., because they lack the frameworks to like really understand like this is impossible, and it might have been impossible at the time. But obviously, like innovations do happen in technology, and they force their employees to innovate and break those frameworks to make their vision possible. But I think it's being open to the possibility of things like lacking frameworks, and then just I don't wanna say you, like, they, they had knowledge in like technology in general, right? But they might not have been an expert in like real estate, in transportation, in industrial design. But I think that you need just enough knowledge and then just enough grit, just enough persuasion to get the smartest people in the room, convince them to innovate.

It's almost like having that undeniable belief That we can find a way.

Exactly.

And it's almost like we have to find a way.

Yeah.

Because I'm not gonna accept anything less than that.

Exactly. And I can literally tell you like, this did happen at Apple. Obviously this happened at SpaceX and look at like Elon now.

Where does the kind of that leadership zeal or approach can often burn a lot of people as well?

All leaders are extremely controversial and polarizing. Like there's no leader out there where like everyone loves, right? Um, but I think that being polarizing makes you interesting, and the people that are on your side are going to work their hardest to make you happy and like to bring that product idea that you have to life.

What were the biggest challenges you had? Did you, did you have any friction when you were rising up the ranks and building your company? And like, where, where were the points that you hit difficulties?

This comes down to hiring the right people. And again, like all leaders are polarizing, but we were like all hands on deck. I think that every single company I've been at, it's been all hands on deck where you're not just going to be doing what your job description So at scale, we had like, you know, the engineers labeling data. I had my engineers talking to creators and doing customer support because I think that when you are deep in the weeds, you're going to really understand, especially like when you're working with customers, you're going to understand like what needs to be built, what bugs there are, like what's critical, what's not. So I think it's extremely important to be in the weeds, especially early stage, and talk to customers and do things outside your job description. Like even our investors were doing things outside their job description where they were like on LinkedIn helping us like find new employees to hire. They were like cleaning our office for us when we didn't have time to, 'cause we were constantly on sales calls. You can imagine that like that can create a very polarizing environment because people are like, I didn't get hired to do this. But the right people that you hire are gonna be willing to be all hands on deck. Right now in this AI world that we're living in, what are 3 skills that humans should develop knowing that AI's gonna be able to do pretty much So I think the number one skill they should develop is human connection, like being able to like have high EQ, being able to do sales, etc., because that's never going to disappear. AI might be able to like, you know, reach out to agents, like negotiate a contract for you, write the contract for you. But how you're going to close the deal is through human connection and how you are able to even like win over deals is through human connection, right? Like so much of it. And this goes back to your network is your net worth, is that like things are emotional sales, emotional retention, like even extending a contract, for example. So I think like that's definitely the number one skill in an AI world. Number 2 is I think develop really good taste in like whatever you are doing. Like, for example, like AI is going to replace a lot of designers, but the designers with the best taste are going to be able to pick out, okay, like this is the best design that this AI has generated, so let's go with this.

Yeah.

And then I think 3, like figure out how to scale your time with AI. And if you're able to do this sooner than everyone else, like let's say you have an idea and you decide to make an app with AI or like you create these bots and like that helps you scale your time and be like 10x more efficient than everyone else. And then you sell that bot to help other people in your role be 10x more efficient than everyone else. You're going to be able to create that wealth before— I don't want to say it's too late, but like I do think that AI is going to make a lot of people rich. But the people that fall behind, it's not going to be great.

Are you a ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity? What are you using?

I use different tools depending on the use case. I think anything I wanna say like consumer related, and this can be anything from like helping me think of like music ideas to researching like the best hotels out there, I use Chat. And then for anything enterprise business focused, I use Claude. Nothing really beats out Claude Code, and Claude's new design tool is absolutely phenomenal. And what's cool is that like Like, you know, you could literally design something in Claude Design and then import it into Claude Code, which is great. Even like little details, like Claude is really good at designing like full-scale applications. So like UX, UI, et cetera. But if I want like a simple graphic edit that I would normally use Photoshop to do, Chat's actually better at that. There's different reasons to use different tools.

How has AI changed the way you are hiring for your new companies versus your old one?

Yeah. So we actually like include AI questions in every single role right now. And right now I am actually asking my entire team to give take-homes to non-technical roles. So for example, with their AE roles, so sales, it's like I want you to figure out how to use Cursor, Replit, like Claude Code to create a bot where it's like you take an Instagram profile and guesstimate like how much a person will earn because A, like that's extremely simple to do using AI tools. And B, I can see kind of how you think based on how you prompt it, like what metrics are you looking at? What are you scraping on the internet, etc., to get this number out there? I think that every employee needs to be using AI to be a 10x employee now. So if they're— they haven't taken the proactiveness to actually do that themselves, I want to see how quickly they can learn over a weekend. Because I do think that like some people just like, you know, haven't just—

Yeah.

Haven't decided or haven't been in a role where they're like, let me learn. But it's so quick to learn. Like, I think learning trajectory is everything. So if someone can learn quickly, they could easily become a 10x employee versus someone that like might have had more experience, but stagnant and resistant to learning. So, I think take-home challenges are really great for this, 'cause within 48 hours you can see like, okay, cool, like how much did you do?

What job do you think looks safe today, but won't exist in 10 years?

I think that there are certain creative jobs that look safe today that won't exist in the future. Let's call it like being a like videographer or photographer. That is a very human job. That's not very analytical, it's very artistic, et cetera. But I actually think that most models are gonna be AI generated. Like a lot of humans are gonna license out their likeness. So AI is going to generate a bunch of different videos and photos. Editors might still exist, right? Like, or like the tastemakers will go in and choose the right one and edit it to be what it should have been. Certain jobs like that, like even writers, right? Like AI is going to get extremely good at writing.

What's the biggest mistake people are making with AI right now?

The biggest mistake would probably just be assuming that AI works really well. They're just assuming everything outputted is true, right? Like, AI is really only as good as the data that you give it. So if you feed a model like, the sky is red, it's gonna output, the sky is red. This happens everywhere, even with engineering, right? Like, if AI makes one mistake and then it continues to create more and more bugs, but you trust the AI to code for you, that's not great, which is why right now, like, if you take a model and you say, a great engineer and give it AI, like it becomes a 100x engineer. But if you take like a mid-level or early entry-level engineer and give it AI, you're just gonna actually end up with a lot of tech debt because they're not fixing the problems that AI's generating. And I think this exists across the spectrum.

When did you first start learning about AI?

I mean, I would say probably started with Scale. Scale was the picks and shovels of the AI industry, right? We weren't creating these like innovative new foundation models. We were literally labeling the data. So like we would have self-driving car companies send us LiDAR data, images, videos, and we had labelers around the world say like, that's a car, that's a pedestrian, that's a stop sign on the road. Like, that was what we were extremely good at, and that's always going to be needed because it goes back to like, your model is only as good as the data that you feed it. That was when I really started learning like how important data is, because even like with generative AI, like if it generates something wrong and it thinks it's correct, like you're going to get more wrong generations, and that's not great, which is why like reinforcement learning is always going to be a thing. But yeah, like I would say like that was probably so back in 2017. 2016 was when I first started understanding AI.

You learned about AI in 2016. 50 to 60% of the current US population have used AI at least once. And that shows that we just feel like AI just came around 2 years ago. What's the thing that people like yourself are talking about right now that the world is only going to catch up with in 10 years? You were talking about AI 10 years ago and the average person was not talking about AI. They didn't even know it was Yeah.

I mean, 10 years is a really long time, but I think that right now what I'm thinking about constantly is what's gonna happen to college students. Because like I said, AI can make someone exceptional, really, really great. But when you take someone entry level, AI does their job better. Like Claude just shut down Fable, so it's no longer accessible, but Fable is as good as a staff engineer. It's absolutely incredible. So if you're a really great engineer, holy crap. crap, you're gonna be like a 1,000x engineer. And the better you are, the more useful AI is. But again, if you're like, you know, entry level and you're using it, like you're not going to be able to utilize it in the same way and it's not great. I think in general with new technologies, new jobs are created. Like prompt engineering is a new job, right? And it's an extremely important new job. So, and like now we have a bunch of people labeling data because that's a new job and that's a huge industry. For people who don't know, what is a prompt They basically prompt the AI to output what you want it to output.

Okay. So having somebody who's so good at writing a prompt.

Yeah. So good at writing prompts that like you get the output that you want.

Because everyone's just putting in these average prompts. Exactly.

Yeah. My best guess is that like AI has actually democratized being able to start companies and be an entrepreneur. So I think more people are gonna become entrepreneurs, um, because before you would need to, you know, raise a ton of money, then hire engineers and a huge team and then go build the product. And now AI's building products like that for free really, um, or extremely cheap. So I think I do think ideas people are actually going to be able to execute way better than before. Like in the past, like it was like, okay, cool. Like if you're not an engineer, I don't wanna invest in you. But now someone that's an ideas person can literally use AI to generate something and get traction on it and then be able to fundraise. And you can now raise significantly less money to get to metrics that you would need to get to, to before you can raise a Series A. So because it's a lot cheaper to start companies and run companies, I do think it's gonna democratize the access to being an entrepreneur. And like, that is going to be a middle ground people are gonna take when like, you know, students realize like, oh shit, what do I do? Like, I can't get a job. They're gonna figure out how to use AI to start their own companies.

Did you always know you were gonna be this successful?

I always knew I was gonna start companies. And the reason why is because like when I was younger, I was always just figuring out how to make money and build things. Like I really enjoyed building things and seeing people use my products.

What would you build as a kid?

So I built like a virtual pet site. I don't know how I convinced a bunch of engineers, designers, artists to work for me for free. So I How old were you? I think I was in like 5th grade or something.

Wow.

Yeah, like 5th, 6th grade, really, really young. I built like arcade game websites. I built like Twitter bots, internet marketing tools. But what was really exciting to me was just like, it could be like a really crappy website, like based off of WordPress, but I would submit it on StumbleUpon and I'd be like, oh my God, there's 10,000 people on my website. Like, I just love seeing people use my products. And then I would say like in college when I discovered hackathons, which is very early on, like my freshman year, I was like, I'm gonna build a company because my first time seeing that there was like so much more to the world than just building internet marketing tools. I was like, wow, I can build extremely impactful companies that really change how someone lives their day-to-day life.

Yeah.

But in terms of being successful, I think that it goes back to like, probably after I joined the Thiel Fellowship, I didn't necessarily think like, oh, I'm gonna be a billionaire. But I looked around and everyone around me was raising tens of millions of dollars. They were like shooting to really change the world with their companies. And obviously, like, I think valuation is a direct measure of how impactful your product and your idea has been to the world. So, So did I think I was gonna impact the world? Like, I guess yes. I didn't know to what scale.

How does it feel to be the youngest female billionaire in the world? Like, how does that feel?

I'm still the same person as I was when I was younger, right? Like, I think the difference is like when I was maybe 20 years old, I was literally skateboarding to Barry's Bootcamp. And now I have someone that drives me to Barry's Bootcamp.

But you're still at Barry's Bootcamp.

But I'm still at Barry's Bootcamp every single day at 6:00 AM. I still wake up at 5:30 AM every day. I'm still in the office like until late. Like I always try to be like one of the first people in the office and one of the last people to leave. Although Brittany might have me beat here with being the first, not the last to leave.

What do you think you had that was different about you that made you design sites when you were in 5th grade? Or what did you have that people around you didn't have?

I didn't have friends. Sorry, I have to say that. That was like you were feeding it to me. Um, but no, I had extremely strict Asian parents, right? So, um, my parents didn't really let me have sleepovers. Um, and then I wasn't allowed to do like sports, et cetera. So for me, I didn't really have friends. I was not cool, right? I was just— no one wanted to be my friend. And I wasn't allowed pets either. So I think it all started really with Neopets. I started like, you know, messing around with the internet and then I was like, wait, this is really cool. I want my own version of this. As for like why I wanted my own version, why I loved building things, like I learned how to use Photoshop pretty early on. Like I was learning PHP, like how to build WordPress sites and edit them. I don't really know like why I had that desire. That was almost like innate in me, I want to say.

Yeah.

I would've been a professional athlete if I didn't have Asian parents. I think that was really it.

What sport?

I was really good at swim. I had a lot of medals. I was very good at basketball. And then right now I have Olympic qualifying times on a treadmill on like a very good day, but not in the US. I'd have to like go move to Singapore and then compete for Singapore where I have no competition. But I think one of those 3.

Wow. Still any dreams? Are we going to see an Olympic run in the future?

I have Olympic friends that are very upset I'm not sidequesting to be an Olympian because they've seen me work out and they're like, you should absolutely train for the Olympics.

You got to do it.

I've been recruited actually by Olympic training groups.

Really?

Yeah. But no, my sidequest is currently DJing. Yeah.

I love that. I don't know if you decide or plan on being a parent ever, but how do you feel about that? You had strict age Asian parents. Do you agree with that? Did it work? Would you do it the same way? What would you change?

Yes, I think the thing I would change is that like I wouldn't force my kids into a passion. And my parents actually didn't force me into like my passion per se. Like they actually wanted me to be a pharmacist 'cause they're like, oh, you can work 3 days a week. Like you'll be able to like find a good husband, get married. And I was like, that sounds like my worst nightmare working 3 days a week. I would be so bored. I don't know what I would do. So clearly that didn't happen, but I think prodigies are made and I would want to throw everything at my kids and find what they're passionate about. And I think people are generally passionate about what they're good at. So I would figure out what they're good at and what they seem to enjoy.

Yeah.

And then really accelerate their development in that one thing, whether it's math, whether it's like being an F1 racer. Because if you're able to get like a multi-year head start, you're just gonna be above everyone else, right?

I love it.

So I don't wanna force them into passion, but once I find it, like I want 'em to be the very best Lucy, honestly, whenever we spend time together, I laugh a lot.

I learn a lot. Oh, you're exceptionally sharp and smart. I mean, I could tell just how much you thought about the questions that you gave me, answers that surprised me or ones that I've definitely not heard before.

Oh, I'm glad. Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We end every episode of On Purpose with a final 5. These have to be answered in one sentence maximum.

Okay.

So Lucy Guo, these are your final 5. The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever Heard or received?

I mean, this is pretty simple, but I would say the best piece of advice I ever received is just like, just ask. 'Cause the worst thing that can happen is that you get a no. And I do this for really everything in my life still. And you have to be able to handle rejection. So, mm-hmm, be able to handle rejection and just ask.

Perfect. Uh, question number 2, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

So I think the worst piece of advice I've ever received is that you need to hire executives with decades-long experience to have like an adult in the company. Mm-hmm. Because especially early stage when you have an adult in the company, what they end up doing is bloating your team up. And that's not great for early stage, obviously, because you end up burning a lot more money.

Yeah, it's, it's so interesting, isn't it? 'Cause you always go through this, like, do you need a young team? Do you have to bring an adult in?

You want a young team.

Yeah. Very, very emphatic.

I'm in trouble.

Yeah, you're very emphatic. Question number 3, what's something that you learned at 30 that you wish you knew at 20?

I think when people believe that you're wealthy, it is a lot easier to move around in this world. And I say this as someone that used to take pride in dressing in like Shein, Walmart, et cetera, I realized how much easier life gets if I just present myself nicer. Um, it opens a lot more doors and this goes back to like your network is your net worth, but you actually do want those doors opened oftentimes.

Mm-hmm. And what if, what if people say things like, oh, but that doesn't feel authentic to me and that's not real. And I'm like, what's your take when people say something like that?

I think there's a way to be presentable and still feel authentic.

Mm-hmm.

But it also depends on like, are you down to have that trade-off, right? But I just remembered the change and how much easier life got and the connections I've been able to make since I stopped taking pride in dressing like a hobo.

Yeah.

Yeah. And like, those are great connections that have opened a lot of doors for me.

Question number 4, who are your entrepreneurial heroes?

I actually really admire Whitney Wolfe because we all know the story of how she was kicked outta Tinder, right? But instead of, you know, sitting and having victim mentality and being sad, She literally went, fuck you, and created a direct competitor that's doing better, which is just awesome. Like, I love that mentality of a fighter.

5th and final question. We ask this to every guest who's ever been on the show. Lucy, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

I mean, this is so basic, but I think just be nice to every human being, right? I think kindness makes the world go around.

Lucy Guo, thank you so much. Uh, as I said, I've learned so much. Look forward to spending lots more time together. Excited to see what you're gonna go build next.

Yeah, lots of things.

Thank you. This is such a joy. Thank you so much for giving my audience so much of your time, your guidance, and your energy. I'm so grateful.

Thank you for having me. This was fun.

Thank you. If you love this episode, you'll love my conversation with Airbnb founder Brian Chesky on how to tap into your creative potential and the The best people in your life will be people who see potential in you that you didn't see in yourself.

And I often wonder, like, how many people in my life