Lucy Guo is only 30 years old, but she has already made a name for herself as a leader in the tech industry and the creator economy. By 2025, she will be the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, with an estimated net worth of $1.25 billion. Her path from a self-taught coder to a visionary entrepreneur shows a mix of determination, creativity, and unapologetic ambition. Guo is the co-founder of Scale AI and the founder and CEO of Passes. His story is one of brave choices, smart risks, and a never-ending desire to create platforms that will change the world.
Early Beginnings: A Gifted Child in the Making
Lucy Guo was born on October 14, 1994, in Fremont, California, to Chinese immigrant parents who were both electrical engineers. She grew up in a world of technology. She was an entrepreneur from a young age. She started coding in second grade and taught herself how to make bots for online games like Neopets as a teenager. She made money by selling in-game items. These early hustles, like selling Pokémon cards on the playground and making fake streaming sites, showed that she was good at finding opportunities and using technology to make money.
Guo’s parents were worried at first about her becoming a woman in tech, but she followed her passion and enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University to study computer science and human-computer interaction. But in 2014, she made a big decision to drop out of school after getting the Thiel Fellowship, a $100,000 grant that encourages young entrepreneurs to skip traditional schooling and start their own businesses. This brave step started her amazing career.
The Rise of Scale AI: A Base for AI Progress
Guo worked as an intern at Facebook and then as the first female designer at Snapchat, where she helped make Snap Maps. After that, she joined Quora, where she met Alexandr Wang. Through Y Combinator, she and Wang, who was only 19 at the time, co-founded Scale AI in 2016. The company started out with the idea of a “API for humans” and focused on data labeling and quality control, first for self-driving cars, with early clients like Cruise. Scale AI quickly became an important part of the AI ecosystem, giving companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Tesla high-quality training data.
In 2018, Scale AI became a unicorn with a value of more than $1 billion, and Guo and Wang made Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. But that same year, Guo left the company because they had different ideas about the future. Wang is said to have fired him. Even though this was a setback, Guo kept almost 5% of Scale AI, which would turn out to be a huge decision. Her equity was worth about $1.2 billion, which was most of her billionaire fortune, as the company’s value rose to $25 billion by 2025. “I don’t think about it much; it’s a little crazy.” Too bad it’s all on paper haha,” Guo told Forbes, reflecting her grounded perspective on her wealth.
A New Chapter in Building Backend Capital and Passes
Guo never rested on her laurels; instead, she put her energy into new projects. In 2019, she started Backend Capital, a venture firm that helps engineering startups get off the ground. Her investments in unicorns like Ramp, Pave, and Fabric showed that she had a good eye for promising tech companies. But her desire to be an entrepreneur drove her to build again, which led to the creation of Passes in 2022.
Passes is a Web3 platform for content creators that combines features from Patreon, OnlyFans, and Twitch. It has tools like subscriptions, direct messaging, live streams, and one-on-one video calls to help creators make money from their audiences. Passes is different from its competitors because it focuses on personalized engagement. This has drawn in famous creators like gymnast Olivia Dunne, NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, and DJ Kygo. The platform got $50 million in funding from 2022 to 2024, including a $40 million Series A in 2024. This made the company worth $150 million. Guo wants to help creators become “unicorn creators,” which means turning them into businesses that can last.
How to Deal with Controversy and Criticism
Guo has faced some problems along the way. In February 2025, Passes was sued by a group of people who said that the site hosted sexual images of minors. Guo and her team quickly denied the claims, pointing out that Passes had banned creators who were underage and put AI-powered moderation tools in place before the lawsuit was filed. A Passes spokesperson called the claims “baseless” and stressed the company’s dedication to safety and openness. Even though people are watching him closely, Guo is still strong, admitting that moderating platforms on a large scale is hard, especially with the rise of AI-generated content.
People have praised and criticized her for being so honest. Guo is active on social media and shares everything about her life, from skydiving to going to music festivals. She has gotten a lot of hate, especially after coming out as bisexual. “I’ve noticed a change in the hate level since I started talking more about being bisexual,” she told Gaingels. However, she still stands by her identity and way of life.
A Billionaire Who Is Cheap and Works Hard
Even though she is a billionaire, Guo lives a frugal life that fits with the saying “act broke, stay rich.” She shops at Shein, uses Uber Eats deals that let her buy one meal and get another one free, and drives an old Honda Civic to work. “I don’t like wasting money,” she told Fortune. She used to go on spending sprees because she was insecure, but now she puts financial discipline first. She wakes up at 5:30 a.m. and works until midnight every day. She also personally checks Passes’ customer support inbox to make sure that responses are quick.
Guo is dedicated to more than just work. She calls herself a “adrenaline junkie” and has taken over 3,000 Barry’s Bootcamp classes. She also has a skydiving license and has jumped out of planes 40 times. Her social media posts show both her work life and her fun personal life, like when she hosted “Lucypalooza” for her birthday and went to Coachella.
Setting Her Own Standards for Success
Lucy Guo became a billionaire because she was smart enough to keep her stake in Scale AI and was able to switch to new opportunities with Passes. Guo is a unique person in the tech world because she is one of only six self-made women billionaires under 40 and the only one whose wealth comes mostly from a company she no longer works for.
Her story goes against what most people think of as success. Guo is a great founder because she combines hacker culture, design thinking, and being herself without apology. With Passes, she’s changing the way creators talk to their fans, and with Backend Capital, she’s giving the next generation of engineers the tools they need to succeed. Even though there have been problems and people are watching her closely, Guo stays focused on her goal of coming up with new ideas and inspiring others.
She told Gaingels, “I think we’ll see the world move toward everyone being an entrepreneur.” Lucy Guo isn’t just predicting the future; she’s making it happen.
