LUCY GUO: The Most Common Success Advice That's Secretly Holding You Back

Key Takeaway

Stop polishing your idea in private. Today, create a simple landing page that states the problem, your proposed solution, and a clear call to action—join a waitlist, book a call, sign a letter of intent, or pre-order. Then share it with 10 potential users. Lucy Guo’s point: demand matters more than a perfect logo, feature set, or user experience. Use real responses to decide whether to build, iterate, or move on.

Episode Overview

Lucy Guo, co-founder of Scale AI, shares an unconventional playbook for entrepreneurship: prioritize networks, speed, learning, and execution over credentials, perfect plans, and conventional approval. She explains how AI is lowering the cost of building companies while increasing the value of human connection, taste, judgment, and the ability to learn quickly.

Full Transcript

Transcript of LUCY GUO: The Most Common Success Advice That's Secretly Holding You Back from On Purpose. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

I believe that being delusional is necessary to be a founder. You have to truly believe that you're going to be part of the 0.01% that will create a unicorn. What advice do you give people about success that you think is outdated? I think university is no longer necessary. That means I believe your network is your net worth, and there's no better place to go than university to expand it. So , you're saying I should go to university, but not for the degree. Exactly. How do you think the best ideas are found?

Ideas are cheap, but execution is everything. Hello everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. Today I meet with Lucy Guo, entrepreneur, investor, co-founder of Scale AI and one of the world's youngest self-made billionaires . Today we delve into the new rules of success, why speed has been our greatest advantage, and how AI is transforming opportunities. Please welcome Lucy Guo to On Purpose . Lucy, I'm so glad to be here with you because not only do we know each other a little offline, but we've been in some pretty crazy places together .

I saw you last year in Luminara on the yacht trip, which was amazing. Yes. And then I saw you at my house, where we held a fundraising event. Then I saw you at the Dior party. I feel like our lives have been merging. And now we'll see you in Cannes next week. Yes, exactly. It's incredible. Thank you for inviting me. Oh no, I'm so excited for my audience to learn from you. I think we are currently living in a very exciting time where many young people are motivated, ambitious, and want to do amazing things.

You've already experienced it, you've done it. And you're going to do more. I know you've shared some ideas with me. So I'm looking forward to getting inside your head today. This is going to be fun. Yes. I wanted to ask you my first question: what advice do you give people about success today that you think is outdated? I still think the university is very outdated. I think they teach us to study and then to get a traditional job. But, especially in the world of AI, I think university is no longer necessary.

That means I believe your network is your net worth, and there's no better place to go than university to expand it. Because university is truly the first and only time in your life that you will be immersed in a world where everyone wants to make friends. Nobody knows each other, right ? So everyone is open to this kind of emotional connection. I always tell people that I think one or two years of university are extremely useful because that's where you're going to build your network and build the deepest network .

Because your most talented friends will always receive multi-million dollar job offers as soon as they graduate from college. But if you're able to make that emotional connection, it 's all sales. From retaining your employees to selling them something to get them to join your company. University is the best place to build that emotional connection because everyone is open to it. After that, you can go and work for a company, join different interest groups, etc. But there isn't as much density as at the university. So, you tell me to go to university, but not to get a degree.

Exactly. Correct. Go there to network, to meet people, to establish emotional connections, and to practice . I think university is a great place, especially in classes, to learn a lot and learn to think, but you should apply those skills to practical skill sets or you should apply the skills you learn to practical cases. Therefore, I would learn to think in these classes and then start using AI tools, right? And it would really accelerate what you can do and be like a performer 10 times earlier in life.

Which university did you go to? I went to Carnegie Mellon. Did you go to university with someone you're still friends with? What are your classmates doing now? What else have they done ? As soon as I graduated from university, I hired the smartest people I knew. You know, my assistant, my little IT girl, they had something like...it's not a sorority, but within the IT program. Because they were the best in their class, right? That was a perfect example of, well, this is emotional selling and this is emotional retention.

When I left university, I met many people within the university network, not from my particular university, but from the United States through hackathons. So I'm still friends with them, and they're people I invested in after hiring them. They continued to create their own companies. Oh. I think it's a perfect example of how they were ready to, you know, open up and be my friends. And by maintaining those connections, I was able to hire them as my employees, retain them, and then support them when they went off to build their own companies.

Oh. It's fascinating that you've not only been able to maintain those relationships, but that they've become mutually beneficial for everyone. Yes. And it's a really unique way of looking at the university, actually, because I think right now we have an anti-university agenda. And then you have people who say you have to go to university for the old reason. So it's interesting. I also wanted to ask you, what habit do you think ambitious people believe will make them successful, but is actually holding them back or slowing them down?

Well, this is probably an interesting question. I think ambitious people have this mindset, like they want to learn from smarter people because that makes sense, right? So, they gather all the mentors they can, and then they freeze up when it comes time to make decisions. So, they ask all the mentors around them, instead of listening to their own instincts. And if I had done that, Skill would never have started because I suffered from decision paralysis when I was deciding whether to leave Snapchat or start a company.

I gathered all my mentors and asked them if they thought I should stay at Snap or do my own thing . And every single one of them, and I mean every single one of them, told me to stay at Snap because Snap was in its hypergrowth phase and, you know, about to go public. People thought I was completely crazy, given that I was on such a special team with only 10 people, and I think I would have gone into decision paralysis if I had listened to my mentors.

So I ended up listening to my instincts and optimizing my learning, because I felt that my learning had stagnated at the company. But I think extremely intelligent people constantly want to learn from others, so they seek out the smartest people and ask too many questions. It's better to make an imperfect decision but keep going, because you can change your path, than to become paralyzed by decision. I feel like any good decision I've made in my life has often met with opposition from some of the smartest people in my life, because you feel it internally.

Exactly, and I think the investments are very similar, right? Because you have to go against the grain to make a good investment. Airbnb , I think, is a great example, and Uber is a great example. Nobody thought it would work, but the investors who did think it would go against the grain. And I think that's when the best decisions are made. Did you have to give up your assets ? Did you give up shares? Were you giving up a lot of money too to go and do your own thing?

So I was giving up a lot of money. I wouldn't say it was money that changed my life per se, but I think it was money that changed other people's lives. Especially since Snap's rights scheme was 10, 20, 30 and 40, which is a very particular acquisition schedule. So that meant I was leaving most of my capital on the table . Wow, you should have had an inner feeling of confidence that you had an idea. This goes back to "you are like the average of the people you hang out with," and because I was in this Thiel Fellowship network and all my fellowship members were founders who had raised tens of millions of dollars or built multi-million dollar companies, I really believed I could be one of those people.

I think being delusional is necessary to be a founder because if you're creating a scalable business, you have to truly believe you're going to achieve it. I'm going to be part of the 0.01 percent that will actually create a unicorn. I think there are other businesses, like lifestyle businesses, where it's much easier to succeed because you're not aiming for the stars, right? If you're making less than 100 million a year from venture capital, that's not very good. But if you earn ten million a year individually, that can support you for the rest of your life.

If you were 22 years old, had no money, no followers, and felt like you had no contacts, what would you do in the next 30 days to change the course of your life? If I were 22, I would go to different university campuses because I think I would be young enough to do it and pass myself off as a university student. That's how I was able to create a sort of network of contacts outside of Carnegie Mellon. I lived on Menlo Avenue at USC and hung out at USC as a student.

I was, you know, in San Francisco and hanging out at Stanford like any other student. And when you become part of a university community, you start getting invited to things, whether it's fraternity parties or hackathons, etc. I'd also like to keep going to hackathons because they're great. They attract a certain type of student who wants to do something over the weekend that doesn't involve partying, right? They are side missions for building and learning. And when you go to these hackathons, usually all the surrounding universities go too .

For example, MHacks attracted almost every university on the East Coast. PennHacks and HackMIT did it too. So you not only meet people from that university, but also the smartest students from different universities. Wait, so you weren't pretending to go to other universities, but just hanging around at other universities? More or less, yes. And then you also have the advantage of building your network of contacts at those universities. Yes. Did you do it because it was fun or because you knew it would pay off in the long run?

For example, how did you think when you were 22 years old? I suppose you were younger when you went to university . How did you think when you were a university student? Especially when I dropped out of school and this application completely failed before the Thiel scholarship. Actually, I was going to create DoorDash. I created DoorDash at a hackathon, and then, between the hackathon and when I decided to create a company, DoorDash was created. So I thought, "Great, I need to give it a twist , don't I?" The twist was: "Okay, let's have people cook for other students and deliver it instead of restaurants." This has many problems, such as food security.

It's completely illegal, etc. But I launched it at Carnegie Mellon and it worked well, so I thought, "Great, I have to expand it to other universities." Well, that was the mindset when I went to live at other universities and, you know, really get involved in the community so I could convince other students at those universities to cook for their classmates. And universities are a great place to do it because there are so many people. For example, you could bake a batch of cookies and run around campus handing them out to hundreds of students.

People were earning about $100 an hour. It was great. Yes. It's crazy. It's illegal. Don't do it. Don't build it. I mean, you will . How did you feel when you created your version of DoorDash at a hackathon and saw the idea become a reality? Honestly, I think ideas are cheap and execution is everything. So for me it was like, "Okay, cool, whatever," right? Uber wasn't the first, but they executed it extremely well. So I didn't feel any resentment. I just thought, "Okay, great, this is a great app I can use.

Let me think of something else." Yes, I think that's what's fascinating about successful people like you, that many people think the idea is the value. And when you see someone do it, you think, "Oh, I could have done that. I could have done that." And it's like, " Well, no, not really, because what it really showed you is that you have to have a good idea. Someone already did it, but that means you could come up with another good idea. Exactly. There are literally billions of people on this earth.

People have ideas all the time. People execute them all the time. You can easily hire a developer in India, etc., and get them done for cheap. Now you can use AI and use Lovable, Replit, etc., and develop your idea. But execution is everything. What do you think young people waste most of their time on when they're building their careers? I think young people waste most of their time working at these big companies because they have golden handcuffs. Because when you're smart, they literally pay you millions of dollars a year, right?

Which is extremely hard to let go of. When you want to leave, they add stock. They add cash. They add bonuses. I know some of the most talented people who I think could have built unicorn companies and ended up staying at Snapchat for 10 years." Because they kept receiving capital packages. Which I understand from their perspective because it's like, you know, life-changing money over the course of years. It's like you 're earning, eight figures? I don't want to say their soul because the work is still interesting, but they're trading what is like life-changing money, like generational wealth, and working on something they want to do, like that project idea they're passionate about, in exchange for money.

But do you think everyone could be an entrepreneur? I think everyone can be a certain type of entrepreneur. It just depends on how entrepreneurial you want to be. For example, are you trying to create a $5,000-a-month business? Yes, anyone can do that. My friend literally started a chat to create a business with a $50 budget, and he actually created a business that makes, I think, a few thousand a month. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. The research, he found the domain name, he designed a really bad logo. I think anyone can be an entrepreneur, but what kind of entrepreneur?

What level are you trying to aim for within the very top of the Heaven? I suppose the people you're referring to might have quit their jobs, and I suppose with golden handcuffs, of course there are different options. Yes. So, even where I grew up, I remember trying to quit my consultancy job, which at the time seemed like golden handcuffs to me . I was earning about 45,000 pounds a year. Yes. And at the time it seemed like golden handcuffs to me because I thought, "At least that allows me to pay the bills and the rent." I don't know what I would do without that." When someone is in that position, how should they approach the next step?

Do they simply quit and go all in? Do they come up with an idea first? How do you think about the phases and trajectory of creating something when you're wearing golden handcuffs? What I had personally done was work on parallel projects. And after receiving investor interest, that's when I said I was going to resign and get to work. I think that when people hedge their bets too much as investors, I don't think they're serious, that they want to have the money in their bank before they quit their job.

So I would say work on weekends or, you know, after work, work on side projects . In other words, gain some traction because that traction will turn into money for investors. But you don't want to tell investors, "I have n't quit my job yet," because it will make them feel that it's okay. You can say it, but you should let them know that, whether you get the money or not, you will quit your job, or at least just say that. Don't know. Because I think you don't want them to think you're not serious.

I think people are always caught between that dilemma of whether you first quit and then find what you want to do, or find what you want to do and then build it. It's a sacrifice to reduce risks, but reducing risks makes sense. So, if you can work on your side projects over the weekend, after work, etc., it's true that you won't spend as much time with your friends, but you'll also be reducing risks in your life. And I think that, once you have an MVP with traction, for which you don't need to quit your full-time job, you'll be able to raise funds.

How do you think the best ideas are found? I believe the best ideas are found when you solve a problem yourself because there are so many people in the world that if you build it for yourself, other people are going to have that problem. And then, whether it's large or what size a company it is can simply be a function of how many other people also have your problem and how much they are willing to pay. But you'll know exactly what to build, and then you'll be able to use the product yourself and figure out what features to build, what needs to address, how to innovate, and so on.

Therefore, I believe that the best companies I have invested in and the best companies I have created have all been problems that I have solved myself . And that's where people should start. Of course. I think everyone today is asking themselves, "How do you create the next billion-dollar company?" Yes. And that's almost as if the most counterintuitive undertaking could simply be a small problem you're solving on your own, but you decide to expand on the idea later. I've heard you say, Lucy, that your greatest advantage is your speed.

And I wanted to ask you, what is it that people waste six months on in business that they should be able to solve in six minutes? Therefore, I believe that what people waste the most time on is product development and design . Because when you go to a large company, you'll see how long it takes to design small features; it can be months or years. Because they want the user experience to be perfect, but a common mistake is that the user experience must be perfect for the product to be adopted.

In fact, I completely disagree. People will have a bad user experience and deal with bugs if they really want the product. For example, let's say you have the new iPhone, right? And it's like you're checking it and it keeps failing, and you think, "Okay, great. The payment didn't go through. It seems the payment really hasn't been processed." "You're going to keep clicking the checkout button like a hundred times until it finally goes through. It's like you're dealing with serious bugs because you want the product so badly.

That's why I think it's best to launch 90% . You can design, I think, a good 90% user experience in a day or two and then let the engineers build it, ship it, and see if it gets adopted. If it gets adopted, then iterate until it's a good product. I think there are very, very few products that need a perfect user experience to get adopted . Most products out there, if people want them, they'll buy them. People feel like they need to build the complete product to sell it, but my philosophy has always been to build landing pages.

If you're building a B2B SaaS product, build a landing page and start making calls. See if you can get them to sign a letter of intent. If it's priced low enough , see if people enter their credit card information to reserve a spot on the page. If you're building a product D2C, I'm telling you to sell it and see how much you actually need to produce . And if you fall behind on orders, just give the customer another free t-shirt or something, or whatever it is you 're creating, so they're happy and not upset that the order was delayed.

That way, you're actually testing the demand for the product before you waste so much money and time on development only for it to fail. I see a lot of people when they launch something, they spend all that time on the logo, the font, the color, and all that kind of stuff. And you're really saying to them, "Well, just release it and see if people sign up." Yeah, exactly. If they care. And if they do, then you have all the time and money now to go and create the actual product.

What is our addiction to perfectionism? Why do we do that? I almost think it's an excuse. I think people believe that something has to be perfect to work, and when it 's not perfect, they blame it on the fact that it isn't. And I see this all the time with founders. From tech companies too, they think, " Okay, great, we just need to do A/B testing to make the product perfect and functional." But sometimes the sum of all the parts doesn't equal the whole, right? You can do A/ B testing to get higher sign-up rates than to get more engagement, and so on.

But at the end of the day, there's not much you can fix. Maybe you need a new feature, which isn't suitable for A/ B testing. Yeah, I think it 's really just an excuse. What's the difference between a good risk and a bad risk? I mean, I think it's all a function of, well, what the consequences are, right? Generally, I think a lot of products couldn't have been created without taking risks. For example, I think Uber obviously didn't listen to anyone and got so big that it just exists now.

I was actually talking to the founders of Stripe, and I don't remember which rule they broke, but apparently even Stripe broke some rules, and then they got too big to go bust and had to make it work. So, yeah, it's just a function of consequences. But how do you evaluate that when you don't know? Because I guess we all start thinking, " Oh, God, if I do this, then the opportunity cost is this or this is the level of risk." " I generally evaluate based on two criteria: Is this going to be life-changing?

And am I optimizing learning? Because if I'm not optimizing learning, I'm simply not going to do it . Because I think that the knowledge I acquire by doing the following, even if, you know, I lose a few million, isn't, for example, like I'm going to learn enough as a founder to be able to take those skills and, you know, get a new job that pays better and be more successful in my position or start another company. And then, the whole life-changing money thing was also kind of like, well, this isn't necessarily going to be life-changing, so it's not worth my time.

There's something we can all use in almost any decision. Always optimize learning. It's a very important thing because it's almost like we want to optimize success. Yes. But you say optimize learning and that would lead to success. Yes, like everyone always complains, like it's a huge risk to drop out of college or leave this job to start a company. But it's not like you're losing your knowledge and skills, Right? In any case, you come out on the other side and you have more skills. I mean, yeah, you may have given up , say, a $10 million- a-year job, but guess what?

Maybe you get a $20 million-a-year job. And I also think people underestimate how much people want talent, which we obviously saw with Meta, right? Paying like nine figures for AI employees. I think even if your company fails, if you hire talented people and you have talent yourself, there's going to be someone who will buy your company for more than your investors invested in that valuation because they know you want your investors to be satisfied and they know you want money. And for talent, they'll pay more.

I keep thinking about my life, and it was much smaller than that. Like I said, the amount I was making, but when you made a turnaround, companies were very good at making you feel like, "No, but you built a network here." You should stay here. It's like there's a culture that makes you feel like you're going to fail if you keep going. "And I think people believe that. People buy into it. How do we stop believing that if we lose a $100,000-a-year job, we'll end up with a $70,000-a- year job?

We don't believe we're going to be able to triple or quadruple it. Yeah, I mean, I think that's just, again, your network is your net worth, and you are the average of the people you hang out with. So I was very fortunate to spend time with founders who had already done it before. So I knew how it really worked. I was fortunate to spend time with investors who, you know, would give me explosive condition sheets , but they would also say, ' Oh, the explosive condition sheets are the important thing.'" If the founder were to return, we would simply give him the terms sheet again .

Yes. People's fear is overcoming their logic. Yes. Because logically, it's like, "Why couldn't I get this job back?" As if I were valuable to the company, they would want me back. And let's say for some reason the position is filled. I mean, companies find positions for people all the time when they think the person is a jack-of-all-trades, smart, and capable of helping the company. They'll make a position for that person, right? But there are also many companies that will hire you based on the fact that you did a great job at Company A.

Company B will want you and fight for you and understand that you now have more knowledge and more skills. So they'll pay you more. This is really people's fear overriding their logic. Everyone says to find your passion. What do you think? I think you should do what you do best to have the greatest impact on your passion. For example, I really like nonprofits and supporting charities. But there was a time when I thought I was going to create my own nonprofit, charity, and foundation. And you know, that could still happen, but I also realized that at this age and stage of my life, I'm very good at making money.

So I'd probably be better off investing my time making money and donating to causes I care about that are run by people who actually know how to run an organization or foundation. I don't know how to run a charity. I had researched this thinking I was going to create my own foundation. I was going to do X, Y, and Z. And I realized how much work it involves, right? And that it's literally another full-time job. Perhaps when I'm older, I'll learn all those skills and decide that my time is better spent on that, on my passion.

But I think it needs to be optimized for fun. Having fun doesn't necessarily have to be your passion, but you can optimize it so that you can have an impact on what you are passionate about. But that's difficult, isn't it? Because people say, for example, when I was little, I was passionate about football. Yes. What do I do about it? Because I can't be a footballer because I'm not good enough. So, what do I do? But you can earn enough money to buy a football team.

And then you can go to all the football matches and have a lot of fun. Correct. So, are you saying that it doesn't have to be your career, but that you can build a career doing something else, and then use the fruits of that work to get closer to your passion? If you are able to experience your passion, that's what will make you happy, right? It doesn't have to be your full-time job. Well, I guess now music is my career or my side pursuit, but I simply use everything I've achieved and, you know, the money I've made to go and experience live music and events, and that makes me extremely happy.

I use what I've been able to create to help support causes that matter to me, which has made me extremely happy. I don't think that has to be your full-time career , and for most people it's not going to be their full-time career because, in certain fields, even no matter how talented you are, part of it is just luck, right? I'll never truly understand the music industry or the acting industry because I have so many talented friends in it, and for whatever reason , they're not making it, and I really think it's because there are other factors like networking, luck, etc.

in that. Yes, yes. But I like what you say, that people often say you have to pursue your passion or make it your job, but what you're really saying is that you simply have to go to work, do what you want, and then connect with your passion. And that seems much more realistic to most people. I think that for most people, there are very few people who can do what they love and make money doing it. But be free with the idea that you can do something, not with the hope that you won't hate it.

That's what we say. Yes. Hoping that you don't hate it, but that you do something about it, and that something will allow you to be closer to all those things you love. Which I believe is a much more genuine and authentic path for most people. People can aspire to live that way. And as you said, now you're closer to music and charity. What were you passionate about? If I could have done something, I would have been a footballer if I could have, if I had been good enough.

What would you have done if you could have? Well, it has changed over the years. When I was younger, I wanted to be a singer, but I realized that I basically had no musical ear and couldn't sing in my life. So that was ruled out. And then I remember when I was, you know, choosing universities, etc. I thought it would be great to be an FBI agent. Fight the bad guys. But that 's not realistic because I like this petite woman and, you know, maybe I could learn kung fu, but overall, let's call it unrealistic, right?

And then I became very passionate about music and finally discovered that I could be a DJ. You don't need to know how to sing or play instruments, etc. to be a DJ. So it's been a really cool thing that I've been able to do. How do you separate self-esteem from net worth at this stage of your career? This is really interesting. Well, I wasn't a confident person until I went to Miami. And then when I went to Miami, I became friends with all those people because they liked my energy, right?

When I was in the elevator, people would come in and say, "Wow, I felt your energy from afar." Blah, blah, blah. It was the first time in my life that I met people like me, who were like me, without questions. There was no hidden motive. And I think that before, like in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or New York, there was always some kind of hidden motive. People wanted to know who I was. It was like, "Oh, you're a Thiel guy. Let's be friends." "Either you're a founder.

Oh, you have a fund. Miami was the first time in my life that nobody asked me what I did for a living and they just wanted to be nice to me because I radiated good energy. So I felt extremely happy there. And I think my self-esteem is based on that, you know, I have a close relationship with my family again. I'm close with my friends. And every time I meet someone like that, a stranger who has no idea who I am, they just say, 'Wow, your energy is so good.'" Let's dance." And that makes me happy because it shows people like me what I am in comparison to my net worth.

Compared to...I don't think I had that purity before experiencing it in Miami. In the business and professional sphere, what did you think would go well but turned out to be a rejection or a failure? Honestly, I'm not someone who sits around crying. I have never sat and felt sad. Unless a close friend feels hurt. For example, I hear bad news from a close friend. But, in my case, whenever I face rejection, I think: "Okay, great." Let's move on to the next one. "Well, I've never been extremely hurt.

One of the saddest things might have been when I was so close to my main venture capital choice. I thought, 'I'm going to get a proposal without hesitation.' They're inviting me to dinner. They've just flown in to meet me. And then, all of a sudden, it was just a no, right? And I was like, what the hell happened? Yeah, I felt like I'd been given the cold shoulder, but I didn't just sit there wallowing in it. I just thought, okay, great. Let's move on to the next one.

Let's find a new lead." "Do you think that mindset is fundamental and important at that level? I think being an extremely positive and consistently optimistic person is what has gotten me to where I am today. I think the worst thing you can do is think, 'Oh, the world is unfair.'" Why did this happen to me? Stop thinking like that. We are all born with advantages and disadvantages. You simply have to take what you have and move on. And if you face rejection, just learn from it and immediately go and fix it." Obviously, that mindset worked for you .

You've made a lot of money. Yep. You've become a success story. What problems did money eliminate? And what problems persisted or worsened? When I started, before I had any money, I was sleeping on the couch all the time . But I didn't have anything to compare it to. I actually loved sleeping on the couch. It was fun. You meet a lot of people. I found couches extremely comfortable. To the point that I had an apartment, I had a bed, and I slept on a couch. So , it was like nothing, but any stress about money disappeared, right?

But I also think what can happen is that you get a little too comfortable, which isn't good. You've been in many rooms with many successful people, amazing entrepreneurs, people you worked with in the early days of Snap. What do you think is the most surprising thing you've noticed about the people at the top? Something that would shock or surprise us. You know. I think the people at the top are n't actually the smartest people in the world at all. I think they lack frameworks, and because they lack frameworks, they don't understand the concept of how the world works, which is actually a really good thing because startups are built when you break frameworks, because you innovate, right?

So, when you hire someone in an industry that's been around for decades, a lot of times they don't innovate because it's like, things have to be done this way because they've always been done this way . And again, Airbnb, Uber, are great examples of this. They weren't transportation experts, they weren't real estate experts, so they didn't have a frame of reference for how things were supposed to be. I think the people at the top completely lack frameworks because they didn't have decades of experience, and because of that, they were able to innovate, but they also tell their employees that.

Their employees might say that's impossible and they don't care. And their employees might have PhDs and say, "No, literally, I've been doing this for 20 years." this. I have several doctorates. "This is impossible." And they'll simply say, "No, it's not, do it." And they'll say things like, "Well, whoever does it gets this giant bonus." "Whoever does it will be promoted ," etc. And when people see that reward, that's when they force themselves to break out of their familiar frame of reference , precisely because it helps them climb the ladder.

They're so desperate to get what they were offered. I would say that when you look at the people at the top, they're not the most educated, to be honest. I think, in general, they have a high emotional intelligence. Some of them don't , but they make the impossible possible . You remind me of that great conversation between Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Wozniak approaches Steve Jobs and asks, "What do you do ?" You're not a programmer, a marketing expert, a salesperson, or an engineer. What exactly do you do?

And Steve Jobs responds by saying, "Musicians play their instruments, I conduct the orchestra." It's a powerful statement because he doesn't know how to perform all those small technical details. He simply says, "All I know how to do is put it all together and make it work in harmony, but I do n't really know everything." And I think people, when they're on their own path, feel like they're not smart enough, that they don't know enough, that they should have more experience. So, is that balance between not knowing anything about an industry and not having a frame of reference a positive thing?

But what's different about that entrepreneur who knows nothing about the industry? They break all the rules—is that what makes you successful? I think it's also about being a visionary. For example, I think Steve Jobs is a great example of this, when he told his team, "I don't care if it's impossible, you'll figure it out, right?" " ." I think Elon Musk is keeping up the pace, etc., etc. Because they lack the frameworks to truly understand that this is impossible, and it may have been at the time, but it is obvious that innovations happen in technology, and they force their employees to innovate and break those frameworks to make their vision possible.

But I think he's been open to the possibility of things like a lack of frameworks, and then I just do n't mean to imply that they have knowledge of technology in general , right? But they may not have been experts in real estate, transportation, or industrial design. But I think you need enough knowledge, and then enough guts, enough persuasion to bring the smartest people together in the room and convince them to innovate. It's almost like having that undeniable belief that we can find a way. Exactly.

And it's almost as if we have to find a way. Yes. Because I won't accept anything less than that. Exactly. I can literally tell you that this happened at Apple. Obviously, this happened at SpaceX, and look at Elon now. Where is the type of zeal or leadership approach that can often burn out many people as well? All the leaders are extremely controversial and polarizing. There is no leader who loves everyone, right? But I think being polarizing makes you interesting, and the people on your side will do their best to make you happy and bring that product idea you have to life.

What were the biggest challenges you faced? Did you experience any friction as you climbed the corporate ladder and built your company? And where did you encounter difficulties? This comes down to hiring the right people and, again, all leaders are polarizing, but we were all rolling up our sleeves. I think that in all the companies I've been in, everyone was hands-on, where you didn't just do what your job description said. So, on a large scale, we had, you know, engineers labeling data. I had my engineers talking to the creators and providing customer support, because I believe that when you delve into the details, you truly come to understand everything, especially when working with customers; You understand what needs to be built, what mistakes exist, and what is fundamental and what is not.

I believe it's essential to know the details, especially at the beginning, to talk to clients and do tasks that aren't in your job description. Even our investors did things that weren't included in their job description, like helping us find new employees to hire on LinkedIn. They would clean our office when we didn't have time because we were constantly making sales calls. You can imagine that this can create a very polarizing environment because people think, "I wasn't hired for this." But the right people you hire will be willing to get to work.

Right now, in this AI world we live in, what are the three skills that humans should develop knowing that AI will be able to do practically everything? Therefore, I believe the number one skill they should develop is human connection. How to have a high emotional intelligence, be able to make sales, etc. Because that will never disappear. AI could be able to, you know, contact agents, negotiate a contract for you, draft the contract for you. But the way to close the deal is through human connection, and even winning deals is through human connection, right?

Much of it, and this brings us back here, is like your network being your net worth; that is, things are emotional selling, emotional retention, like even extending a contract, for example. So I think that's definitely the number one skill in my world. Number two is to develop excellent taste in whatever you 're doing. For example, AI will replace many designers, but designers with the best taste will be able to choose , okay, this is the best design that this AI has generated. So, let's get on with it.

Yes. And then I think three, like figuring out how to scale your time with AI. And if you're able to do this before everyone else, let's say you have an idea and decide to make an AI app or create these bots, and that helps you scale your time and be 10 times more efficient than everyone else. And then you sell that bot to help other people in your world become 10 times more efficient than everyone else. You'll be able to create that wealth before... I don't want to say it's too late, but I think AI will make a lot of people rich, but it won't be good for the people who are left behind.

Are you a ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity? What are you using? I use different tools depending on the use case. I think anything that means something related to the consumer, and this can be anything from helping me think of musical ideas to researching the best hotels around. I use Chat. And then, for anything focused on business, I use Claude. Nothing beats Claude Code, and Claude's new design tool is absolutely phenomenal. And the great thing is , as you know, you could literally design something in Claude Design and then import it into Claude's code, which is awesome.

Even the small details, like how Claude is really good at designing large- scale applications. Such as UX, UI, etc. But if I want simple graphic editing for which I would normally use Photoshop, chat is better for that. There are different reasons for using different tools. How is AI changing the way you hire for your startups compared to the old way? In fact, right now I like to include questions about AI in every job posting. And right now I'm asking my entire team to give advice for non-technical positions.

For example, with their AE positions, in sales it's like: I want you to discover how to use Cursor, replet, as cloud code, to create a bot where you take an Instagram profile and make a rough estimate of how much a person will earn. Because, well, that 's extremely easy to do using AI tools, and I can understand how you think. It depends on how you request it, such as what metrics you are observing, what you are collecting on the internet, etc., to obtain this figure. I believe all employees need to use AI to become a 10x employee.

I want to see how quickly they can learn in a weekend, because I think there are people who haven't decided or haven't been in a position where they say: let me learn, but they learn very quickly. I believe that the learning path is everything. So if someone learns quickly, they could become a 10x employee compared to someone with more experience who has stagnated and is resistant to further learning. So, I think take-home challenges are really great for this because in 40 hours you can see something like, " Okay, cool.

How much did you do?" What job do you think seems secure today but won't exist in 10 years? I think there are certain creative jobs that seem secure today that won't exist in the future. Let's call it a videographer or photographer. It's a very human job that isn't very analytical, it's very artistic, etc. But, actually, I think most models will be generated by AI. I mean, a lot of humans are going to license their image. Then, AI will generate a lot of different videos and photos .

Editors will still exist, right? Or trendsetters will come in and pick the right one and edit it to be how it should have been. Certain jobs are like that. Even writers, right? AI will get extremely good at writing, but editing will still exist. What's the biggest mistake people are making with AI right now? The biggest mistake would probably just Assuming that AI works really well. They just assume that everything it generates is true, right? AI is really only as good as the data you give it.

So, if you feed a model saying the sky is red, the result will be that the sky is red. This happens everywhere, even in engineering, right? For example, if the AI ​​makes a mistake and then keeps creating more and more mistakes, but you trust the AI to code for you, that's not good. That's why , right now, if you take a great engineer and give them AI, they become a 100 times better engineer. But if you take a mid-level or entry-level engineer and give them AI, you'll end up with a lot of tech debt because they're not fixing the problems the AI ​​creates.

But I think this happens across the entire spectrum. When did you start learning about AI? I'd say it probably started with Scale. Scale was the cutting edge of the AI ​​industry, right? We weren't creating these groundbreaking new models. We were literally labeling the data. For example, companies Self-driving cars were sending us lidar data, images, videos, and we had labelers all over the world. Let's say that's a car, that's a pedestrian, that's a stop sign on the road. That was precisely what we were very good at, and it will always be necessary, as it all comes down to your model being only as good as the data you feed it.

That's when I started to realize how important data is, because even with generative AI, if it generates something incorrect and thinks it's correct, you'll get more incorrect generations, and that's not good, which is why reinforcement learning is always going to be important. But yes, I would say that was probably ... Well, 2016 was when I started to understand AI. You learned about AI in 2016. Between 50 and 60 percent of the current US population has used AI at least once, and that shows that we think AI appeared two years ago.

What are people like you talking about now, that Is the world going to take another 10 years to catch up? You were talking about AI. Ten years ago, ordinary people weren't talking about AI. They didn't even know it was coming. Yes. I mean, 10 years is a long time, but I think right now what I'm constantly thinking about is what's going to happen to university students. Because, as I said, AI can make someone exceptional really great. But when you hire someone who's just starting out, AI does their job better.

For example, Claude just shut down Fable, so it's no longer accessible, but Fable is as good as a staff engineer. It's absolutely incredible. So, if you're a really good engineer, wow , you'll be like a thousand times better. And the better you are, the more useful AI will be. But again, if you're, you know, a beginner and you're using it, you're not going to be able to use it in the same way, and that's not great. I think, generally, new technologies create new jobs. Prompt engineering is a new job, Right?

And it's an extremely important new job . We now have a lot of people labeling data because it's a new job and it's a huge industry . For people who don't know, what does an indications engineer do? Basically, they tell the AI ​​to generate what you want it to generate. Okay, having someone who's so good at writing indications— yes, so good at writing indications— that it allows you to get the result you want. Because everyone is putting out mediocre indications, yes. Exactly. My best guess is that AI has democratized the ability to start companies and be an entrepreneur.

So I think more people will become entrepreneurs. Because before, you had to raise a lot of money, hire engineers and a huge team, and then build the product. And now, artificial intelligence is building products like that for free or very cheaply. So I think the ideas that people are going to be able to execute will be much better than before. Before, it was like, " Okay, great." For example, if you're not an engineer, I don't want to invest in you. But now, someone with ideas can literally use AI to generate something, give it a boost, and then Raising funds.

And now you can raise a lot less money to reach the metrics you'd need to raise a Series A. So, because it's so much cheaper to start and run businesses, I think it's going to democratize access to entrepreneurship, and that's going to be a middle ground that people will take when, you know, students realize, " [ __ ], what do I do?" "I can't get a job. They're going to figure out how to use AI to create their own companies. Did you always know you were going to be so successful?

I always knew I was going to create companies. And the reason is, when I was younger, I was always figuring out how to make money and build things. I really enjoyed building things and watching people use my products. What did you build as a kid? I built a virtual pet website . I don't know how I convinced a bunch of engineers, designers, and artists to work for me for free. I built a virtual pet website. I think I was in fifth or sixth grade, very young.

I built arcade game websites. I built Twitter bots and internet marketing tools . But what really excited me was that it could be a really bad website, like WordPress-based, but I'd submit it to StumbleUpon and think, 'Oh my God, there are 10,000 people on my website.' I loved watching people use my products. And then I was like, 'In college, when I discovered hackathons, which was very Soon, in my first year, I thought, "I'm going to build a company." It was the first time I saw that there was so much more to the world than just building internet marketing tools .

I thought, "Wow, I can build extremely impactful companies that actually change the way someone lives their day-to-day life." But in terms of success, I think it goes back to the fact that probably after I joined the Thiel Fellowship, I didn't necessarily think I was going to be a billionaire, but I looked around, and everyone around me was raising tens of millions of dollars. They were kind of trying to really change the world with their companies, and obviously, I think valuation is a direct measure of the impact your product and your idea have had on the world.

So, did I think I was going to have an impact on the world? I guess so. I didn't know on what scale. What's it like being the world's youngest self-made billionaire? How does it feel? I'm still the same person I was when I was younger, right? I think the difference is that when I was in my early 20s, I was literally skateboarding to Barry's Bootcamp And now I have someone who drives me to Barry's Bootcamp. You're still at Barry's Bootcamp, yeah. At Barry's Bootcamp every day at 6:00 a.m.

I'm still getting up at 5:30 a.m. every day. I'm still at the office late. I generally try to be one of the first people to arrive at the office and one of the last to leave. Although Britney could beat me at this. At being the first, not the last, to leave. What do you think you had that was different that made you design websites when you were in fifth grade, or what did you have that the people around you didn't? Friends. Sorry, I had to say that.

It was like you were telling me. But no, I had extremely strict Asian parents, right? Well, my parents wouldn't let me sleep over at friends' houses, and they wouldn't let me play sports, etc. So, in my case, I didn't have any friends. It wasn't cool, was it? Nobody just wanted to be my friend. And they wouldn't let me have pets either. Well, I think it all started with Neopets. I started messing around on the internet and then I thought, wait, this is cool. I feel this urge to have my own personal version of all this.

As for why I wanted my own version, why I love creating things, I learned to use Photoshop pretty early on, I learned PHP , how to build WordPress sites and edit them. I don't really know why I had that urge. It was almost innate in me, I'd say. I would have been a professional athlete if I hadn't had Asian parents. So I think that was it . Well, what's what? I was really good at swimming. I had a lot of medals. I was really good at basketball.

And right now I have Olympic qualifying times on a treadmill on a really good day. But not in the US. I'd have to move to Singapore and compete for Singapore, where I have no competition. But I think one of those three. Wow. Do you still have dreams? Will we see an Olympic career in the future? I have Olympic friends who are really upset that I'm not on a side mission to be an Olympic athlete because they've I've seen people train and they tell me, "You should train for the Olympics." In fact, I've been recruited by Olympic training groups .

Yes, but no, my current side mission is being a DJ. Yes. I love that. I don't know if you've decided or plan to be a parent someday, but how do you feel about it ? You had strict Asian parents . Do you agree? Did it work out? Would you do it the same way? What would you change? Yes, I think what I would change is not forcing my children to have a passion . And my parents didn't really force me to have my passion. Like, they wanted me to be a pharmacist because they would say, " You can work three days a week." " That way you can find a good husband and get married." And I thought, "Working 3 days a week sounds like my worst nightmare." I would get very bored.

I don't know what I would do." So, clearly, that didn't happen. But I believe that prodigies are made, and I would like to leave it all up to my children and discover what they are passionate about. And I think that , generally, people are passionate about what they are good at. So I would try to figure out what they are good at and what they seem to enjoy, and then accelerate their development in that one thing, whether it's math or being an F1 racing driver. Because if you can get ahead of yourself for several years, you'll be ahead of the rest, right ?

I do n't want to force them into a passion, but once they find it, I want them to be the best at it. Lucy, honestly, whenever we spend time together, I laugh a lot and learn a lot. You are exceptionally sharp and intelligent. I mean, I could tell how much thought you put into the questions you gave me—answers that surprised me or that I definitely had n't heard before. I'm glad. Thank you. We end each episode of On Purpose with five final pieces of advice. These should be answered in one sentence at most.

Okay. So, Lucy Guo, these are your final five pieces of advice. The first question is: what's the best piece of advice you've ever heard or received? I mean , it's pretty simple, but I would say the best advice I've ever received is simply to ask, because the worst that can happen is that you get told no. And I continue to do this with everything in my life. And you have to be able to handle rejection. So learn to accept rejection and just ask. Perfect. Question number two: what 's the worst piece of advice you've ever heard or received?

Well, I think the worst advice I've ever received is that you need to hire executives with decades of experience to have an adult in the company. Because, especially in the beginning, when you have an adult in the company, what they end up doing is inflating your team, and that's not good for the early stages, obviously, because you end up spending a lot more money. Yes, it's very interesting, isn't it? Because you're always thinking: do you need a young team? Do you have to bring in an adult?

Yes. Very, very emphatic. You're very emphatic. Question number three: what What did you learn in your 30s that you wish you'd known in your 20s? I think when people believe you're wealthy, it's so much easier to navigate this world. And I say that as someone who used to pride myself on shopping at Shein, Walmart, etc. I realized how much easier life is if I present myself better. Well, it opens a lot more doors, and this brings us back to the idea that your network is your net worth, but what you want is for those doors to open often.

Yes. And what if people say things like, " Oh, but that doesn't seem authentic to me, and it 's not real, and I'm pre-like," what do you think when people say something like that? " I think there's a way to be presentable and still feel authentic. But it also depends on whether you 're willing to make that trade-off, right? But I was just reminded of how much my life has changed and the connections I've been able to make since I stopped taking pride in dressing like a bum.

Yes. Yes. And those are great connections . They've opened a lot of doors for me. Question number four, who are your business heroes? I actually really admire Whitney Wolfe because we all know the story of how she got kicked off Tinder, right? But instead of, you know, just sitting around with a victim mentality and being sad, she literally said, '[ __ ] you.' And she created a direct competitor that's doing better, which is just incredible. I love that fighter mentality. Fifth and final question, we ask this one of all the guests who have been on the show.

Lucy, if you could create one law that everyone had to follow, what would it be ? It's very basic, but I think you just have to be kind to every human being, right? I think kindness makes the world a better place." Turn. Lucy Grow, thank you so much. As I said, I've learned a lot. I hope we spend a lot more time together. I'm looking forward to seeing what you're going to build next. Yes, lots of things. Thank you. It's a joy. Thank you so much for giving my audience so much of your time, guidance, and energy.

I'm very grateful. Thank you for having me. This is fun. If you enjoyed this episode, you loved my conversation with Airbnb founder Brian Chesky about tapping into your creative potential and the biggest misconception people have about success. The best people in your life will be those who see potential in you that you didn't see in yourself. And I often wonder

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