In April 2025, Lucy Guo, a 30-year-old tech entrepreneur and co-founder of Scale AI, surpassed global pop icon Taylor Swift to become the world’s youngest self-made woman billionaire. Guo’s ascent was propelled by her significant ownership stake in Scale AI, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company she co-founded in 2016, which recently soared to a $25 billion valuation following a major tender offer. This milestone marks a pivotal moment in the tech and business landscape, as Guo joins an elite group of only six self-made women billionaires under 40 worldwide. The achievement not only highlights the growing influence of women in AI and technology but also underscores the shifting dynamics of wealth creation in the modern era.
Guo, who dropped out of college to study computer science, and Alexandr Wang, then 19 years old, cofounded the artificial intelligence company Scale AI in 2016 at the age of 21. Guo oversaw the San Francisco startup’s operations and product design teams, while Wang was appointed CEO. In 2018, both cofounders were listed on Forbes’ Under 30 list. According to reports, Wang sacked Guo that same year after the two couldn’t agree on how the business was being operated. Guo states in a statement, “We had different opinions, but I am proud of what Scale AI has accomplished.”
She wisely kept the majority of her ownership in Scale AI after departing in order to focus on her next venture. Guo will not comment on whether she is selling any of her investment in Scale AI as part of the tender offer, although she still holds an estimated holding of just under 5% of the company, valued at about $1.2 billion. According to Forbes, she is worth $1.25 billion when you include her other assets, such as her stake in her second firm, Passes. “I don’t give it much thought; it’s a little crazy. Guo responds to her new billionaire status with a text message, “Too bad it’s all on paper haha.”
Guo, who was brought up in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the daughter of Chinese immigrants, started learning to code in middle school. She attended Carnegie Mellon University to study computer science and human-computer interactions, but she left before she could graduate to become a Thiel Fellow, a program that pays college-age entrepreneurs to start businesses. Thiel is sponsored by billionaire investor Peter Thiel. Guo met Wang after she was hired as a product designer at the Q&A website Quora in 2015. After leaving Quora, she briefly worked as a product designer at Snapchat before she and Wang agreed to cofound Scale AI in 2016.
The CEO Alexandr Wang, the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, now has an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion, up from $2 billion, thanks to Scale’s value increase.
Guo is one of only six female self-made millionaires under 40 in the world. She is particularly unique in that the majority of her wealth has come from a business she left years ago.
In essence, the business labels the data needed to run AI, performing what Wang has referred to as “the picks and shovels” task. In order to train the AI for self-driving cars, Scale first paid contract workers minimal wages to categorise photographs. Scale’s technology has been used to analyse satellite photos in Ukraine, and its clientele has expanded to include the U.S. government and OpenAI, which helped train ChatGPT.
Guo founded Backend Capital, a small venture capital firm, to invest in early-stage businesses after leaving Scale. A six-figure wager on the financial software business Ramp in 2020, which is currently valued at $13 billion (all three of its cofounders are now billionaires), was one of its finest investments.
She then turned her attention away from the venture capital firm in 2022 to launch her own company, Passes, which is comparable to Patreon and OnlyFans and allows celebrities and creators to interact with fans who pay for online videos and conversations. Passes inked contracts with well-known people like DJ Kygo, basketball great Shaquille O’Neal, and gymnast Olivia Dunne. Guo raised $50 million in three rounds between 2022 and 2024 from investors such as Menlo Ventures, talent agent Michael Ovitz, and Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital, valuing the business at $150 million.
A lawsuit accusing Passes of hosting child sexual assault material (CSAM) was filed against the corporation last month. Passes prohibited all underage artists and cleared the site of their work, as Forbes reported in March, just before the lawsuit was filed. Passes “refutes any claims that it approved or condoned the posting of underage explicit content on its platform,” a representative for the company told Forbes last week. Any attempt to link Passes to the alleged wrongdoing of other parties is unfounded and merely an attempt to involve Passes and its founder, Lucy Guo, in the legal action.
Apart from long working hours, Guo spends her time on daily workouts at Barry’s Bootcamp, a network of gyms. She wrote on Instagram in early April, “Discipline > Sleep. 3000 classes complete,” with a picture of herself holding a sign that said “Lucy Hiits 3000!” at Barry’s in West Hollywood. Photographs from music events like Coachella and the most recent Ultra Music Festival in Miami are her other favourite content to share. It’s an endless combination of effort and enjoyment. Passes hosted a large celebration last weekend in conjunction with the Coachella Music Festival, which began on Friday, April 11. “Quite literally thousands of RSVPs,” Guo texted from her new home in Los Angeles.
