Lucy Guo’s empire began not with venture capital but with childhood ingenuity. As a second grader, while classmates played tag, she was turning the playground into her first marketplace. According to a report from CNBC Make It, she traded Pokémon cards, sold colored pencils, and even navigated PayPal at age seven by opening an account linked to a Home Depot debit card. When her strict parents confiscated cash for bad behavior, Guo found ways to hide and reinvest it — a glimpse of the resourcefulness that would later make her Forbes’ youngest self-made billionaire with a net worth of $1.3 billion.
Her entrepreneurial spirit soon extended online. A fan of the virtual pet game Neopets, she flipped rare digital creatures and in-game currency for real money. Later, she coded bots to cheat games and sold them, before moving on to building websites and marketing tools that drew revenue through Google AdSense.
From childhood trades to billion-dollar stakes
Guo’s boldness and hustle translated into Silicon Valley success. She co-founded Scale AI in 2016, a company that powers artificial intelligence through high-quality data labeling. When Meta valued the company at $25 billion, Guo’s stake propelled her into billionaire status. Though she left Scale in 2018, her near five percent ownership continues to underpin her wealth.
In an interview with CNBC Make It, Guo reflected on her upbringing: “I would find ways to make money on the playground. I would up trade Pokémon cards and then sell them. I would sell colored pencils, anything I could find.”
Betting on herself over tradition
Raised in Fremont, California, by Chinese immigrant parents, Guo was pushed toward strong academics and abacus competitions. She pursued computer science and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University but dropped out with just a year left. Instead, she pursued the Thiel Fellowship, which gives young innovators $200,000 to skip college and build companies. For her parents, who had sacrificed to immigrate for education, it felt like a betrayal. But Guo says it was simply a bet on herself and her future.
Building companies
Beyond Scale AI, Guo has kept pushing. She launched Backend Ventures in 2019 to invest in early-stage startups and founded Passes in 2022, a platform helping creators monetize their content, which has raised over $65 million. Her days are structured around intense work: 90-hour weeks, early morning workouts, and late-night coding sessions. “Most people could have work-life balance if they cut out time wasted after work,” she told CNBC Make It.
Her company Passes is currently facing a class-action lawsuit alleging distribution of explicit material, claims Guo’s team has called “baseless” and an attempted shakedown. Guo’s work habits and philosophy have ignited debate in the tech world. Admirers see her discipline as proof of what it takes to build enduring companies. Critics, however, say glorifying 90-hour workweeks risks normalizing burnout.
Her entrepreneurial spirit soon extended online. A fan of the virtual pet game Neopets, she flipped rare digital creatures and in-game currency for real money. Later, she coded bots to cheat games and sold them, before moving on to building websites and marketing tools that drew revenue through Google AdSense.
From childhood trades to billion-dollar stakes
Guo’s boldness and hustle translated into Silicon Valley success. She co-founded Scale AI in 2016, a company that powers artificial intelligence through high-quality data labeling. When Meta valued the company at $25 billion, Guo’s stake propelled her into billionaire status. Though she left Scale in 2018, her near five percent ownership continues to underpin her wealth.
In an interview with CNBC Make It, Guo reflected on her upbringing: “I would find ways to make money on the playground. I would up trade Pokémon cards and then sell them. I would sell colored pencils, anything I could find.”
Betting on herself over tradition
Raised in Fremont, California, by Chinese immigrant parents, Guo was pushed toward strong academics and abacus competitions. She pursued computer science and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University but dropped out with just a year left. Instead, she pursued the Thiel Fellowship, which gives young innovators $200,000 to skip college and build companies. For her parents, who had sacrificed to immigrate for education, it felt like a betrayal. But Guo says it was simply a bet on herself and her future.
Building companies
Beyond Scale AI, Guo has kept pushing. She launched Backend Ventures in 2019 to invest in early-stage startups and founded Passes in 2022, a platform helping creators monetize their content, which has raised over $65 million. Her days are structured around intense work: 90-hour weeks, early morning workouts, and late-night coding sessions. “Most people could have work-life balance if they cut out time wasted after work,” she told CNBC Make It.
Her company Passes is currently facing a class-action lawsuit alleging distribution of explicit material, claims Guo’s team has called “baseless” and an attempted shakedown. Guo’s work habits and philosophy have ignited debate in the tech world. Admirers see her discipline as proof of what it takes to build enduring companies. Critics, however, say glorifying 90-hour workweeks risks normalizing burnout.
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