Intro

What would you do if someone told you that you had just become a billionaire? Some people would quit their jobs on the spot, go on a shopping spree, or buy a mansion they never dreamed they could afford. But Lucy Guo? When a reporter told her the news that the valuation of her first company—in which she still maintains a sizable stake—had spiked, Guo recalls telling the journalist something along the lines of, “It’s all on paper, LMAO.”

With her stake in data labeller Scale AI, Guo is now the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, a title she seized from pop icon Taylor Swift. She is now CEO of a  second startup, Passes, which is a social platform for content creators—think OnlyFans meets Patreon. On the site, fans can have bespoke relationships with creators, from sharing messages and video calls, to having one-on-one golf lessons.

Passes is quite different from her previous venture at Scale. “I felt like I experienced every challenge and I could go out and build a B2B AI company enterprise. And I think B2B and enterprise is actually much easier to build a large company than consumer,” Guo tells co-host Christine Lagorio-Chafkin on this week’s From the Ground Up. “Consumer is such a gamble. It's so tough, and I think it really is the toughest challenge a founder can do.”

But Guo is no stranger to entrepreneurial challenges. Guo dropped out of college to pursue a Thiel Fellowship, and she used the grant money to build her first business—an app for home-cooked food delivery on her college campus. After that didn’t end well, she took jobs at tech companies Quora and Snap. The former is where she met Alexandr Wang, her Scale AI co-founder. 

Boredom and alleged clashes with Wang led Guo to leave Scale after two years, she says. As Guo notes, running Passes has been a challenge. Most recently, she and Passes have been embroiled in a lawsuit alleging that Passes knowingly allowed the distribution of child pornography on its platform. 

“I've never talked to this person,” Guo says of the accuser. She believes that her wealth has put a target on her back. “People are always going to be coming after you, and you need to show that you're not an easy target,” she says. 

Passes has since boosted content moderation on the platform, as well as made it strictly 18- and-older. But if Passes and Guo can overcome this challenge, Guo is convinced creators will benefit—and maybe even some of them will hit their own jaw-dropping wealth milestones. “I really do think we have the opportunity to really help creators with this … and turn them from these smaller businesses to large, potentially unicorns. I think we have the opportunity, maybe not in the next three years, but in the next 10 years, creating some unicorn creators.”

 Additional research and information:To read more Inc’s coverage on Lucy Guo:

Class-Action Complaint Alleges That Passes Distributes Illicit

ContentLucy Guo Doesn’t Shy Away From Controversy. It Finds HerLucy

Guo Is Now the World’s Youngest Self-Made Woman Billionaire, Beating Taylor Swift

Lucy Guo’s Startup, Passes, Calls Child Pornography Lawsuit ‘Defamatory’ and Seeks Dismissal