The One Discipline That Made Me a Billionaire by Age 30 | Lucy Guo, Passes

My daily routine is essentially waking up between like 5:30 AM to 6:00 AM every day, and I quite literally just roll out of bed, then I go straight to Barry's. And one thing about me is I literally got my house specifically because it's 5 minutes away from Barry's and 5 minutes from the office, so I can reduce my commute and I don't really need a car, which is awesome. I shower and I hit work. Afterwards, I'm usually just in like back-to-back meetings. I try to sometimes block off time 'cause like I need to like be in Figma and like actually give feedback on design. 'Cause I'm usually working until maybe like 8:00, 9:00. I'll get dinner, then I'll go back to work, and And then I'll fall asleep sometime between like 11 PM to 1 AM depending on the day, and then repeat. You know, in YC they tell you you should only be doing 3 things, which is like working out, talking to customers, and building. I see like why working out is so important because it puts you on a schedule, tests your discipline. Like no matter how shitty I'm feeling, I will still get up and go out and work out because I know I'm going to feel better and have more energy to be better at my job the rest of the day. So why my life looks like it is today, but like don't sit still essentially. I don't waste time scrolling through TikTok, watching TV, watching movies. And I think by not sitting still, I've been able to really be efficient with my time and invest it in things that make me happy. Hi, I'm Lucy Guo. I am the founder of Scale AI and Passes, backing capital in HF Zero. I angel invest. I've invested in over 100 different companies, and I'm excited to chat with you guys today. I think in terms of like how it's potentially changed my life, my DMs are popping. Not life-changing, but it's been cool. I mean, I think overall it's probably just like what makes me happy. Everyone's like, okay, cool, like what are you buying with your money, et cetera? But like at the end of the day, like what makes me happy is like what drives every single thing I do, whether it's like, you know, building Passes because it makes me happy 'cause it provides challenges in my life, but I also get to like, you know, change people's lives. So at Passes, we're building infrastructure for creators to monetize their brand. So I think when you look at the largest creators, they really are like unicorns. For example, Kim Kardashian built Skims, Logan Paul built Prime, MrBeast with Feastables. I'm excited for us to eventually build a unicorn creator. I think I got suspended from kindergarten, to be quite honest. I think it came from like me telling the teacher that what we were learning was dumb. But if you think about it, like my parents are trying to teach me, like I was going to like abacus competitions, like multiplication, division, et cetera, back in like kindergarten. And in school they were literally like, here's the alphabet, right? And I was just very bored as a child. So I was always trying to figure out like different things to do. I was like learning stuff on my own. Specifically, like the stuff I learned was to like make money. But eventually I discovered my love for product and I was like, oh, this is actually really fun. But you could see glimpses of it where like, you know, I tried to start my own virtual pet site after being addicted to Neopets. I was playing a lot of online video games, so I was figuring out how to start my own online arcade game website. I mean, I think what really shaped how I'm an entrepreneur today is that through like the early stages of me like making money, my parents found all of my hidden cash and would take it away. So then I was like, I have to like figure out how they don't take away cash. PayPal had come out and then you could just go like buy a Visa debit card, open up a PayPal account. And that's when I started learning how to make money on the internet. And then that's when I got curious about building my own websites. And then like that kind of led to hackathons. And then I would say like the turning point of like real entrepreneurship and like wanting to build lasting companies, like more than just bots, right, was at these hackathons where suddenly I was exposed to the startup world and I was like, wow, I can build apps. that like millions of people use. This is really, really cool. Both my parents are absolutely brilliant. They're both technical. I think it was interesting because they actually really discouraged me from pursuing a technical field because they kind of imagined like my place as a woman was to get married and pop out grandchildren. But they still wanted me in an intelligent environment to find an intelligent partner. I think I ended up pursuing it almost by accident. I thought I was going to be a chemical engineer because I was like, like chemistry was my favorite subject. Like I loved AP Chemistry and I was very very good at it. But when I ended up on this website College Confidential, like, I need help with my college applications, and, um, there's this random stranger who literally looked at my extracurriculars and was like, you're an idiot, if you want to get into the best college, just apply for computer science. And I was like, I guess that makes sense. So that's actually like kind of how I just landed in computer science. My college days were like, I was going to a lot of hackathons. It's like, you know, every few weeks, MHacks, HackMIT, quite literally every hackathon I like was like, I'm going to go to. And then I made a lot of friends. And I say this because, like, I might be biased, but, like, when I was first hiring, like, the first people I went to were the friends I made in college, and they didn't even ask any questions, which is concerning. They definitely should have asked how much the equity was worth. But they were just like, yeah, like, we'd love to come work with you. YOLO, right? And that was because there was that trust that was gained in college. When you're building your next company, your network is your net worth, and, like, you're going to be able to hire The friends that you made in college and you know they're good. I think if I didn't have a rebellious nature, I probably would have been the good girl that my parents wanted me to be and stayed in college, right? And like, I knew I was hurting them when going to do this, but I think that like part of the rebellious nature was I want to prove you wrong and show you that I can forge my own path and I will be successful without college. So I'm sorry I'm hurting you right now, but like, it'll be worth it at the end of the day. I don't think I ever doubted it. And what helped me commit was just thinking like, this is not a risk at all.

fall.

Like, college is always going to be there versus this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I'm going to be learning a lot. I feel like I'm not learning practical skills in college and everything that I've learned was through like hackathons, right? So if I leave college and I dive myself in the startup world, I'm going to learn significantly more and be able to like actually build products that millions of people use versus learning theoretical skills that like I'm probably not going to use in my job. So I was pretty like dead set on it early on. I think my conviction was to optimize learning. So I've always like, that's been my number one rule in life. Like even if you're leaving something and it feels like a risk, it's not that much of a risk if you're optimizing learning because your knowledge is always going to be worth something. And the more knowledge you gain, the more valuable you are later on in life. I think the reaction I got from most people was, you're a fucking idiot. From my parents to my friends to like people who didn't know me, people were just like, Yeah, like, what are you doing? A lot of it stemmed from the fact that I actually only had 4 CS classes left to graduate, like 1 year left, right? So I think the, like, risk mental calculation didn't really make sense for others. But for me, I was like, what am I— I'm losing time, right? But like, what's the worst-case scenario? I take a job. What's the second worst-case scenario? I go back to college. I chose, like, to optimize for that learning and, like, optimize for being in a network of, like, extremely ambitious, intelligent people.

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I think at Snap, I really learned how to think much bigger. Like when I first joined Snap, I didn't realize like kind of the vision Evan had for Snap. And it was very inspiring seeing like his ideas on how he would eventually compete with Amazon, compete with Google, et cetera, which I think like no one even to this day thinks about Snap competing with Amazon or Google. But to see him think so innovatively innovatively about product and not care about like that A/B test portion of things taught me just a lot about like the importance of being open-minded and like product-driven as well. And really about like perfection. Um, I think the lesson I really took away from that is like just get to 90%. You don't need to spend 3 years going back and forth on the design. Um, but also like I remember there was like that zoom out the Snap Maps feature that like no one at the company wanted to build because everyone thought it was so dumb. And he just like kept on insisting it. And it turns out like he was right at the end of the day, right? Um, it ended up like a very natural UX that people love and use, that really almost tells you also that like people don't really know what they want in the consumer field, right? Like it might sound like the dumbest thing, but you really just have to like kind of give it a go. Um, hence like why he was probably just like, you know, just think innovatively, like don't think about like all this like research feedback, etc. Because, um, if he did that, like that would have never been shipped. But like once they got into the hands of people, um, they realized like, oh, I actually, I wanted this, but no one could have told you that when you come up with a product, spend like 2 weeks designing it and then ship it and see how it does. And if there's traction, then go and iterate and improve on it. But people will use products they want to use even if it's super buggy and the UX is shitty, for the most part. So it's better to ship that like 90% with like no user research and then double down on the product like if it gets traction versus wasting like months Doing all this research, et cetera, and shipping it and like it might fall flat. I mean, I would say it's like risk-benefit analysis and then am I learning, right? So for example, like when I was at Snap, I was giving up a few million dollars, but I also was like, that's not life-changing for me. So I would rather optimize learning and also have the opportunity to make life-changing money. And if I don't make that life-changing money, at least I learned a bunch of like new knowledge and I'll be able to like hop to my next job and make more. And all I'm losing is like what, 1 to 2 years? Because that's the amount of time it would take to like figure out like, like, am I going to like be able to build this company? Unless you're crazy. Like, I have friends that like, you know, pivoted for like 6 years and then finally found something, which like, those are obviously the founders I love investing in. If I were making like $100 million at Snap, like, would I have made that jump? Like, I'm gonna be realistic, probably not. I probably would have been like, that's life-changing money, it is worth staying 4 years for $100 million before moving on. Um, so, um, I would say like those 2 things are like my criteria when choosing like when to We were both working at Quora and like, I think it was literally over lunch. We were like, huh, should we start a company together one day? I was like, yeah, let's do it. And then over like winter break, we started iterating on ideas. So we came up with a horrible one, ClassPass for clubbing. And, you know, it got traction, but you know, it's bad when it's only VCs that are subscribing to your service. And then we were like, okay, let's go do something more meaningful. So we pivoted to Ava, which is a healthcare app. So That Ava is a healthcare app. we help you find like the best doctors for specific procedures. So it's like, oh, you need a root canal? Here is like the best person to give you a root canal. Um, also a terrible idea, but that idea ended up getting us into YC. I think mostly because I knew we were going to get into YC because I was like talking to YC partners before the interview and after the interview, and they were just like, oh yeah, like you'll get in because like you guys are both super smart. You're obviously at Snap and a Thiel Fellow, and he is like, you know, MIT. So yeah, we entered YC and then the idea was terrible, so we ended up pivoting to scale. I think like generalized, my most painful failures have been trusting people that I shouldn't have trusted, which is just not great, especially in the workplace. For example, like you might trust an employee and then like when they underperform and you need to fire them, they decide to try to extort you. It's just like you need to make sure that like, be like, you don't want people where like you constantly feel like they're going to like stab you in the back. On figuring out on who to trust, this is very cliché, but go with your gut. But outside of going with your gut, like, you should definitely just do like reference checks on both like friends, like people that know them, or like people that aren't even friends, you know, like acquaintances, because like you're probably gonna get a more honest answer from acquaintances. I think the best way to build trust again is like be extremely authentic. But at the end of the day, if like trust is broken, like sometimes it can't be repaired, and that's when you know that like you might just need to separate. And maturity is understanding that. I think the team self-motivates themselves, but it's innovation. When they see that, like, we can ship a product in 2 weeks and it takes a large company like that's stagnant, like, years to ship a product, that's extremely exciting for the team, especially when, like, you tie that product to actual revenue numbers. And I think it's just constantly emphasizing that. And I think that's why a lot of engineers choose to work at startups instead of larger companies, because they feel like they have more impact. Impact is what motivates them because they're not going to get that same impact at a large company. Leaders need to be doing IC work as well because the only way you can judge people on like their actual job is if you do the job yourself. And like really it's all hands on deck, like nothing is too big to be done. So for example, like everyone was on Intercom when we got a pilot for like a new customer. Quite literally we'd have a war room with like engineers like me, etc., and like we'd all be labeling that data and making sure it's perfect. We really emphasize like nothing is below you. You're going to do what's best for the company. And if like your time is best being spent like helping close this deal, then like you're going to do that. Let's say you're running customer support and you're not doing the customer support tickets yourself. You're not going to know if your customer support reps are answering them fast enough, giving the correct answers, or like if it's, you know, if it's not obvious, like should they know the answer to this or is it like something more obscure? And you really only get that like muscle if You, you do the work. I think the number one thing I look for is like intelligence and hard work, because you can be the smartest person ever, but if you don't work hard, you're going to not impact the company. Hard work is extremely important to me, especially because like with creators, we're very creator-first. That's our culture, which means that like because creators can be 24/7, we need to be 24/7. Like if a creator hits me up at like 2 AM like about a bug, I'm proud to say that I can I can call my engineers, like, and one of them will pick up and fix that bug at 2 AM, which is incredibly important in an industry like this. And I look for people that are willing to, like, go the extra mile. That's not saying, like, you have to work every weekend, but, like, if needed, like, are you going to show up? Yeah, I mean, I think as a leader, one of my, like, biggest values in life is just kindness. It's like you're wanting the best for everyone, right? Like, if someone wins, awesome. Like, if I lose an amazing engineer, I still want to help them succeed. If I lose a crappy engineer, I still want to help them succeed. For me, I think I'm very giving as both a person and a leader. So it's like, okay, I give you chances. You're not working out in your role, but I think that you're hardworking and smart. I try to find a role that you might be better suited for. So I would say it was a mix of things. I think what inspired me was actually living with all the founders. Their energy definitely grew on me, and I wanted these founders to start Bassist, but no one would do it. And then around the same time, I had a friend who asked me to be CEO of his AI company, and I kind of sat on it. Like, I kind of got excited, right? I was like, oh my God, like, I mean, I feel ready to be a founder again, uh, because I think a lot of the reason why I wasn't— I didn't do it sooner was because I was scared of failure. But I finally got to a point where I was like, you know what, if I fail, whatever, it doesn't matter. Like, my life is gonna be fine. Most people don't build 2 successful startups. Like, don't be scared of failure and just go and do the thing, right? And I didn't feel like doing an AI company again, to be quite honest. I was like, I did B2B enterprise, I know how it works, but I would rather, like, if I'm doing a second company and like risking failure, at least have fun doing it. And I had always been attracted to consumer. You can see this with like a bunch of different like random apps I had made. Snap was like one of the most fun experiences of my life. So I like just knew I wanted to do consumer. And I had been sitting on this idea for a little bit. So I was like, okay, like let's see some competitors out there. And really you could only find like Patreon. Existed for a decade, and I saw like an opportunity in the market. I was friends with a lot of creators. I lightly asked my creator friends like, hey, if I were to build this, would you use it? So, you know, like selling before building. They're like, absolutely. I was like, great. And then I just talked to my LPs and they were like, here's money, go build. So it all happened really quickly. Like I would say within the span of like 24 hours of my friend asking me to like be CEO of his AI company and me having having commitments. So the future I see for the creator economy, I think that AI is really going to help creators be copilots. I see more creators becoming entrepreneurs. More kids want to be creators than ever before, so I think the creator economy is going to grow. But also everyone, the creator marketing spend is going up in pretty much every country. And I think this is due to the fact people are realizing their audience and the reach you get is much stronger spending it on creator marketing versus on ads. So I think because of this, we're gonna see more creators work so closely with brands that they're essentially considered co-founders or start their own brands, which is why I think like unicorn creators are possible and like we're excited to help them either get access to the best brands and like get that equity for long-term generational wealth, or if it makes sense to like help them build that next product. I think if 20-year-old me could go back in time, I would stop complaining about some of the people I worked with and just start really like getting to know them better and uplifting them. Why do I think so? I think that like in general, most companies are very gossipy, right? So if you're complaining about people, like it just gets around and then it drives them away, obviously, because they hear about complaints. Like no one wants to be talked badly about. And I think like the best work environments and the most positive ones are when you are like everyone's cheerleader. So I think I would've like spent more effort like seeing the good in people. This is gonna sound very LA, but I feel like I have like manifested everything in my life And because I'm like focused so much on positive energy, I feel like as long as I like put in that hard work to like bring my dreams to life and like surround myself with positive people, like anything is possible. So cheesy, but I really like do believe that's true. And like I have like the best friends in the world that are, you know, are constantly around me and encouraging me and like really doing whatever they can to help. Like they'll go out of my way. They're like truly incredible. And I think that like when I have like such positive people around me, Like, I only look at, like, upside.