Duolingo has fundamentally changed the landscape of self-guided education, starting with language learning. It is now a $9B publicly traded company in a space where everyone thought you could never build a large and exciting company. We’re joined by Duolingo founder and CEO, Luis von Ahn. Luis dives into how learning English was transformative in his personal trajectory and opportunities in his life, inspiring him to create the most successful EdTech product of all time. A few topics in this episode:
- How Duolingo became a leader in the gamification and mobile-first movements in the early 2010s
- How the company balances rigorous experimentation with gut instinct to build an app with customer experience at its core
- The backstory of Duolingo’s “unhinged, yet wholesome” green owl mascot trending on your TikTok feed
What is ACQ2 by Acquired?
ACQ2 is Ben and David's conversations with expert founders and investors. Acquired the stories of great companies — and ACQ2 dives deeper into the lessons we can learn from them, often with the protagonists themselves.