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Taylor Swift claimed the title of the youngest self-made woman billionaire in the world in 2023. But two years later, she has been overtaken by Lucy Guo, the 30-year-old cofounder of Scale AI, according to Forbes. Ms Guo, a computer science college dropout, is also one of only six self-made women billionaires on the planet who are under the age of 40. In 2018, she also made it to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list. Currently, her net worth stands at 1.3 billion.
Who is Lucy Guo?
Ms Guo cofounded artificial intelligence firm Scale AI in 2016, when she was 21 years old, alongside then-19-year-old Alexandr Wang. While Mr Wang became CEO, Ms Guo ran the operations and product design teams at the San Francisco startup. But the same year, the duo disagreed about how the company was being run, and Mr Wang reportedly fired Ms Guo.
After leaving the firm, the 30-year-old held on to most of her stake in the company while pursuing her next startup. According to Forbes, she still owns an estimated stake of 5% of Scale AI, which is now worth nearly $1.2 billion. The outlet estimates Ms Guo is worth $1.3 billion, considering her stake in Scale AI and her holding in her second startup, Passes.
"I don't really think about it much, it's a bit wild. Too bad it's all on paper haha," Ms Guo told Forbes.
Ms Guo is now one of only six self-made women billionaires on the planet who are under the age of 40. She is also the only one who's made the bulk of her fortune from a company she left years ago.
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Ms Guo is the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She studied computer science and human-computer interactions at Carnegie Mellon University, but dropped out before graduating to become a Thiel Fellow - a program sponsored by billionaire investor Peter Thiel.
Before finding Scale AI, Ms Guo worked as a product designer at question-and-answer firm Quora, where she met Mr Wang. She then left Quora and worked briefly at Snapchat doing product design before she and Mr Wang decided to cofound Scale AI in 2016.
After leaving Scale, she started a small venture capital firm called Backend Capital to invest in early-stage companies. Then, in 2022, she started her own business called Passes, a platform for creators and celebrities to connect with fans, who pay for online chats and videos.
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