How I Built This with Guy Raz reCAPTCHA and Duolingo: Luis von Ahn (2020)
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Dec 18, 2023 
Luis von Ahn, a computer scientist and entrepreneur, discusses his groundbreaking journey from creating CAPTCHA to co-founding Duolingo. He reveals how an academic problem inspired a tech solution that became essential for internet security and digitization. Luis shares personal anecdotes from his childhood in Guatemala and how they fueled his passion for accessible education. He also explains the innovative freemium model of Duolingo and the balance between profitability and providing free language learning, alongside humorous moments that led to his entrepreneurial success.
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CAPTCHA's Origin
- Luis von Ahn developed CAPTCHA to solve Yahoo's bot problem.
- He gave the technology away for free, and it quickly became ubiquitous online.
Wasted Time
- Luis von Ahn calculated the vast amount of time humanity wasted on CAPTCHAs.
- This led to the idea of ReCAPTCHA, using that time for book digitization.
Early Adoption
- ReCAPTCHA's early adoption came from smaller websites, including "Online Booty Call".
- Facebook's adoption significantly boosted its usage, leading to the New York Times contract.