Von Ahn: Bill Gates spent nearly an hour recruiting him to Microsoft
Luis von Ahn · reCAPTCHA and Duolingo: Luis von Ahn · May 25, 2020 · at 18:32
Duolingo co-founder Luis von Ahn describes being personally recruited by Bill Gates to join Microsoft Research instead of staying as a professor at Carnegie Mellon.
0:00 / 0:14exact quote · 14.5s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I had been an intern, I had been, like a year and a half before that, I had been an intern at Microsoft. And so I had good ties with Microsoft, and they really wanted to hire me for Microsoft Research. And so that is, you know, Bill Gates spent, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour trying to convince me to go there.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Luis von Ahn
Luis von Ahn: Do not bet early on unproven new tech platforms
“What we've learned
Is not to bet on these very new products, because you really never know if they're going to work. So it's not that Apple Watch didn't work. Apple Watch ended up working, but what didn't work was apps on Apple Watch. There's just.
That's ju…”
Von Ahn: Duolingo could charge $150/year and users would pay
“The reality is it's not even 60 bucks a year. I mean, we can charge 150 and people will pay it.”
Von Ahn: Duolingo has 50x Rosetta Stone's users and 5x its revenue
“By now, I would say we probably have 50 times more users than they do. Our revenue is probably five X their revenue.”
Von Ahn: Education companies become marketing-driven because product improvement is hard
“A lot of companies in education eventually turn into marketing companies. For the following reason. You realize, man, making improvements in how well you teach is hard. And it really is very hard. It's, it takes years. So for every dollar you have, you quickly…”
Von Ahn: Duolingo captures 90% of mobile language app users
“If you take all people who are learning languages on mobile apps, 90% of them are using Duolingo.”
Luis von Ahn: Mission-focused founders usually make more money than profit-driven founders
“In my experience, that type of business usually is a lot more successful. Even if early, if the founder is not necessarily all that much into making money, et cetera, they end up making more money than the ones that are where the founder's like, I just want to…”