Luis von Ahn, every mention

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every year anyone Severin Hacker 23Harry Stebbings 16Zaria Parvez 8Gina Gotthilf 8Cem Kansu 5Shiv Rao 3Phil Carter 3Victor Lazarte 2Chris Olsen 2

Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where Luis von Ahn comes up

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The Five Year Desert to Product Market Fit & a $5.3BN Valuation with Shiv Rao, Founder @ Abridge · 20VC with Harry Stebbings May 16, 2026 · 3 mentions

20Product: How Duolingo Build Product 10x Faster with AI | Duolingo's Biggest Lessons on Paywalls, Push Notifications and In-App Purchases | Why Small Teams are the Future of Product | Why PMs Will Become Extinct with Cem Kansu, CPO @ Duolingo Jun 20, 2025 · 7 mentions

Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings May 19, 2025 · 37 mentions

  • ▶ 0:42 Harry Stebbings I had Lewis on six or seven years ago, and I've heard so many great things before this show from, I mean, Bing, from KP, Brad now, but from USV, many others. 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 2:59 Harry Stebbings And so take me to that discussion then where you're inside the room with Lewis and the board and you decide, okay, we need to fundamentally change.
  • ▶ 30:46 unnamed speaker You never had a call with Luis where you were like, oh shit, is Sam gonna do this?
  • ▶ 33:41 Severin Hacker You know, the, the other thing is like, it's, it's, the, um, all right, Luis always says, it's like, there's a difference between being a first class citizen and a second class citizen as a, as a, as a feature, right? 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 51:23 Severin Hacker So you need to have someone who's obsessed with details in, in Duolingo that it, that is Luis, uh, to this day. 10 times in the scene
  • ▶ 53:53 Severin Hacker Uh, it was actually interesting because Luis at the time, he's like, 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 59:20 Harry Stebbings Does that not go against founder mode and Louis sitting in the product reviews?
  • ▶ 1:03:13 Severin Hacker Um, for, for example, Luis and I, we had been working, uh, together on, you know, research for two years prior to starting Duolingo.
  • ▶ 1:08:20 Harry Stebbings Louis, I know, is a super smart guy too, out of great institutions.
  • ▶ 1:12:49 Severin Hacker Yeah, you know, by the way, so I, I, uh, I started angel investing with a very similar thesis in Pittsburgh because there's no one other than me and Luis.
  • ▶ 1:20:33 Severin Hacker Luis was a professor, and I was his PhD student. 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 1:25:18 unnamed speaker Was there a question with you and Luis where you were like, dude, do we think five billion, and this is obviously at the time, do we, do we think that's not a bit high? 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 1:26:46 Severin Hacker The other thing I learned on, on, on the fundraising and, you know, Louis did most of this, but is
  • ▶ 1:36:54 Severin Hacker And then, then Luis keeps telling them the true answer.
  • ▶ 1:52:50 Harry Stebbings I spoke to everyone on your cap table, and they all said about the special relationship you and Luis have. 6 times in the scene

Benchmark GP, Victor Lazarte: The 3 Traits All the Best Founders Have · 20VC with Harry Stebbings Apr 14, 2025 · 2 mentions

Phil Carter: Growth Loops, CAC + LTV Benchmarks, Pricing, Discounts, Paywalls... | E1204 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings Sep 20, 2024 · 4 mentions

  • ▶ 34:40 Harry Stebbings I mean, I'm gonna butcher this, and I hope Lewis at Duolingo doesn't sue me, but I think, like, you know, retention rates on Duolingo is like, 50% for 12 months, and that's considered great.
  • ▶ 48:16 Phil Carter Luis Van An, the CEO there, has multiple times talked about their approach to notifications, and I've listened to a couple podcasts where he talks about how he got this warning, um, from one of the other, uh, founders that he looks up to 3 times in the scene

Zaria Parvez: How Duolingo Scaled to 8M TikTok Followers & How to Create Viral Content | E1105 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings Jan 19, 2024 · 8 mentions

  • ▶ 27:00 Zaria Parvez And at the time I remember our CEO messaging, messaging me and being like, bro, like, come on, like, you can't post that. 8 times in the scene

Gina Gotthilf: Lessons Scaling Duolingo from 3-200M Users; How to Master PR and Comms | E1028 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings Jun 21, 2023 · 8 mentions

  • ▶ 9:05 Gina Gotthilf When they put me in charge of growth, um, I remember this conversation very clearly because Luis and several co-founders of Duolingo came to me and said, we need, you know, our, our investors are telling us that we need someone to be head… 3 times in the scene
  • ▶ 25:33 Gina Gotthilf I, I worked very closely with Luis Van An, the CEO and co-founder of Duolingo in the early days, and so I just heard him tell the story over and over, and I memorized it, and then we would just like play off of each other and build on it… 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 27:14 Gina Gotthilf And then I would make sure to schedule a talk by Luis Fanon, not just in one place that had like a, a major name, like for example, a top university, but two. 2 times in the scene
  • ▶ 54:36 Gina Gotthilf Like Louise went on, had a knack for this.

20VC: CapitalG's Laela Sturdy on The Current State of Growth with Crossover, PE and Hedge Funds All Entering, How To Think Through Upside and Downside Scenario Planning at Growth & The Biggest Challenges Startups Face Post Product-Market-Fit but Pre-Scale Jul 8, 2021 · 1 mention

  • ▶ 0:27 Harry Stebbings Duolingo, Gusto, UiPath, and Uncork, to name a few, and prior to Capital G, Leila was at Google as a managing director of emerging businesses, and held leadership roles within YouTube and Search, and this schedule was such a team effort, a…

20VC: The Biggest Trend Of Our Lifetime Is The Decentralisation of Entrepreneurship Away From The Valley, The Biggest Lessons From Learnings The Craft of VC at Sequoia & The Benchmarks Required to Attract Growth Investors with Chris Olsen, Founding Partne Apr 23, 2018 · 3 mentions

  • ▶ 3:06 Harry Stebbings A huge thanks to Louis at Duolingo for the intro, but thank you so much for joining me today, Chris.
  • ▶ 25:41 Chris Olsen When we met with Luis for the very first time, it became clear that, number one, this, this was a, a world-class founder who was in a world of education that was sorely needed technology, and just as we talked about these things earlier… 2 times in the scene
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