What-if certainty 4/5 debate potential 4/5

Hacker: Strict US immigration rules would benefit European tech

Severin Hacker · Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · May 19, 2025 · at 1:14:10

Severin Hacker is the co-founder and CTO of Duolingo. He discusses European founder brain drain to Silicon Valley.

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“In a way, the best thing that could happen to Europe is if the U.S. Made it really hard to immigrate for founders. You know, if they made it really hard, if they restricted immigration such that you know, people like me couldn't, couldn't move there anymore, then, well, I would build it here.”

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More from Severin Hacker

What-if
Hacker: Duolingo could not have raised any funding in Europe
“But I can guarantee you Duolingo would not have been able to raise any money in Europe.”
Severin Hacker May 19, 2025 ▶ 1:07:53 Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2045
Severin Hacker: AGI and UBI will replace human jobs in 20 years
“I believe that's gonna happen. Again, the big question is, is when is it gonna be? I don't think it's gonna be next five years. It's not going to be, maybe it's going to be next 10 years if you really see a broad adoption of these technologies, more likely may…”
Severin Hacker May 19, 2025 ▶ 18:17 Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Hacker: Many edtech companies are 'homework cheating' businesses hit by ChatGPT
“When ChatGPT came out, one of the first killer use cases for it was homework cheating, for the lack of a better term, okay? So if you were in the homework cheating business, That was devastating. That was really bad. So, so some of our, I'm not going to name t…”
Severin Hacker May 19, 2025 ▶ 29:13 Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Hacker: European AI founders should 100% move to Silicon Valley
“If a young founder, European founder came to me, it's like, Hey, I have this brilliant idea of how to use AI or like a new model or something like that. What should I do? It's like a hundred percent. Go to Silicon Valley. A hundred percent. You absolutely maxi…”
Severin Hacker May 19, 2025 ▶ 1:07:04 Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Hacker: European skepticism toward founder ambition harms its tech ecosystem
“I think a lot in, a lot of people in, in Europe, you just like, you're kind of like, why are you doing this? Like, why, why, you know, like, or they look at it as like, oh yeah, you know, they're just doing it for the money or there's this suspicion. Almost of…”
Severin Hacker May 19, 2025 ▶ 1:09:53 Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Hacker: The EU AI Act is among the dumbest regulation ever written
“I can work with the EU regulation on AI, which is, I think, some of the dumbest regulation ever written. It's literally like, you know, the Ottoman Empire, they had when, you know, they invented the printing press, it's like, oh, this is not good. It's not goo…”
Severin Hacker May 19, 2025 ▶ 1:15:30 Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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