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How I Built This with Guy Raz

reCAPTCHA and Duolingo: Luis von Ahn (2020)

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.
01:21:39

Episode guests

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

  • CAPTCHA was initially developed to solve the problem of automated bot sign-ups and spam
  • Duolingo found success by transitioning from advertising to a freemium subscription model

Deep dives

Building CAPTCHA and Duolingo

Luis Von Ahn, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, created CAPTCHA, a tool that uses distorted characters to distinguish between humans and computers. He then developed the idea of using these distorted characters as a way to crowdsource the digitization of books. Collaborating with Ben Moore, they created a platform that offered free language learning while simultaneously translating texts using the wisdom of the crowd. This led to the launch of Duolingo, an app that quickly became the most downloaded education app of its time.

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