{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Grit","title":"#164 CEO & Co-Founder Duolingo, Luis von Ahn: \"The Pitch Was Never Pittsburgh\"","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/588b84d0\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3829,"description":"Guest: Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of DuolingoWhen Luis von Ahn wanted to go to college in the United States, he had to take a standardized test called the TOEFL, or Test of English as a Foreign Language. But there was nowhere in his home country of Guatemala that could accommodate another test-taker, so he flew to war-torn El Salvador, just to take the TOEFL. Many years later, as the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, Luis and his team “decided this type of thing, we could do a lot better.” Today, more than 4,500 universities accept the results of the online Duolingo English Test — a boon for the estimated 2 billion people currently learning English around the world.In this episode, Luis and Joubin discuss returning to the office, Carnegie Mellon, identifying strivers, the “Luis dashboard,” ignoring Reddit, pre-meetings, the hardest part of learning, sounding dumb, private security, the job of a professor, digitizing books, working out every day, April Fools’ campaigns, Duo the owl, and hiring nice people.In this episode, we cover:Working in Pittsburgh, in-person (00:57)How Duolingo hires (06:48)Growing up in Guatemala (10:29)Luis’ parents, intelligence, and drive (12:09)His morning routine (16:56)Ground truth (19:39)“The smaller the team, the better” (22:29)Language education and human behavior (24:32)Learning English (28:53)Back to Guatemala (32:03)CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA (36:10)Money vs. impact (41:26)Luis’ TEDx Talk and public speaking tips (44:46)Love Language and nontraditional marketing (48:46)Doubling down on what works (53:27)Slow hiring (56:44)Would Luis ever start something new? (59:28)Who Duolingo is hiring and what “grit” means to Luis (01:01:46)Links:Connect with LuisTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/jCea5f44KBONhOsyLyht9nXUrj2YBNfA6fc-kgyfWTM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/Lzk3NzAvMTY2Nzg2/MjQyOC1hcnR3b3Jr/LmpwZw.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}