How Billionaire Lucy Guo Went From College Dropout To Thiel Fellow

Lucy Guo, the 30-year-old cofounder of Scale AI, has been recognized as the world's youngest self-made woman billionaire, unseating Taylor Swift from the title. Before co-founding Scale AI, Guo, the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents, began coding in middle school in the San Francisco Bay Area. She studied computer science and human-computer interactions at Carnegie Mellon University but left to become a Thiel Fellow. After leaving Scale AI, she started Backend Capital, a small venture capital firm that made a significant investment in Ramp, a financial software firm. In 2022, she shifted her focus to launch her second startup, Passes, a creator commerce platform similar to Patreon and OnlyFans, which has signed deals with notable figures like Olivia Dunne and Shaquille O'Neal.