From trading Pokémon cards to tech empire: How Lucy Guo becomes the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire

Guo was born to Chinese immigrant parents and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her parents, both electrical engineers, were laid off early in her life, forcing the family to live frugally. "I was bullied in school for being poor," Guo told Business Insider. "So I was like, okay, I need to make money."

She began finding ways to earn an income at a young age. She sold Pokémon cards and colored pencils, and even mowed lawns for cash. When her parents tried to discipline her by confiscating her self-earned money, she turned to the online world. "I ended up going to the internet where they couldn’t touch my funds," she recalled.

She taught herself coding and spent hours alone on the computer. One of her early successes came from the virtual pet game Neopets, where she used bots to gain in-game advantages and sold leveled-up accounts for thousands of dollars. By the time she was finishing high school, she was earning in five figures by developing bots, including an early Twitter bot, and building digital marketing websites.

Lucy Guo, co-founder of Scale AI. Photo courtesy of Guo's Instagram

She later studied computer science and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, continuing to code and compete in hackathons. But traditional education failed to hold her interest. Guo dropped out after earning a place in the prestigious Thiel Fellowship, which awards US$100,000 to young entrepreneurs who leave school to launch startups.

She went on to intern at Facebook and Snapchat before joining Quora, a Q&A discussion platform, where she met Alexandr Wang. "Alex and I had always talked about building a company," she said. In 2016 the pair co-founded Scale AI after a suggestion from a Y Combinator roommate about creating an "API for humans." "When he said that, I was like, that is so controversial," Guo recalled. "That’s a brilliant idea."

Scale AI carved out a niche in the artificial intelligence industry by doing what Wang described as the "picks and shovels" work, labeling data needed to train AI.

Starting with just a handful of employees and paying low wages to contract workers, the company became integral to the AI boom. Clients grew to include the U.S. government, using Scale’s technology to analyze satellite images in Ukraine, and OpenAI, which relied on its services for training ChatGPT, Forbes reported.

Guo earned her first $5 million through Scale AI’s series B funding round. "I did a small secondary [offering] and invested it, honestly, pretty well, and that turned into more money," she said. As Wang took on the CEO role and Guo led operations and product design, Scale’s rapid growth propelled them onto Forbes’ Under 30 list in 2018.

However, that same year, a reported dispute over the company’s direction resulted in Wang firing Guo. "We had a difference of opinion, but I am proud of what Scale AI has accomplished," Guo said. She retained a roughly 5% stake in Scale, which soared in value as the company’s valuation climbed to $25 billion in 2025. That stake pushed her net worth past $1 billion, making her, 30, and Wang, 28, the world’s youngest self-made female and male billionaires.

In 2019, Guo pivoted quickly, founding Backend Capital, a venture capital firm investing in tech startups. She also invested in digital payments platform Ramp in 2020, which is now valued at $13 billion. But her ultimate ambition was to build her own empire. In 2022 she launched Passes, a platform claimed as a safe-for-work alternative to Patreon and OnlyFans, allowing creators and celebrities to connect with fans for paid chats and videos, according to U.S. magazine The Cut. Between 2022 and 2024 Guo raised $50 million over three funding rounds, which valued the company at $150 million.

Despite her wealth, Guo lives modestly. She told Fortune in 2023 that she once flew for free using a buddy pass from a friend who worked for an airline and even found ways to get complimentary food at airports. "I was eating for free, because I would just book a cancellable ticket on Southwest and then go through airport security, go to the AmEx lounge, eat, and go back," she said. "I had reduced my spending to near $0 per month."

Most of her clothes come from fast-fashion retailer Shein, and she drives an old Honda Civic. "My assistant just drives me in a pretty old Honda Civic. I don’t care. No one’s going to look at me and point at me like, ‘Haha, she’s so broke’ when I’m pulling up in a Honda Civic because, whatever, it doesn’t matter."

Lucy Guo in one of her birthday parties, which she calls "Lucypalooza". Photo courtesy of Guo's Instagram

However, she once embraced a lavish lifestyle, partying with celebrities like Billie Eilish and Charli XCX, attending music festivals, and skydiving for fun. She even hosted her own festival, Lucypalooza, and became notorious for a wild party featuring a lemur and a snake at her luxury Miami condo.

In recent years she has embraced minimalism, guided by a mantra she adopted: "Act broke, stay rich." "I fully admit it; I have gone through that spending spree when I was more insecure, and I felt like I needed to show something."

She believes most billionaires eventually adopt a casual style because they have nothing left to prove. "And I think that’s kind of how I like feel, where I’m past that hump. I don’t really have to prove myself to anyone."

Outside of work, she is passionate about fitness. She wakes up daily at 5 a.m. to attend high-intensity interval training classes and in April marked her 3,000th workout with an Instagram post captioned, "Discipline > sleep." She has yet to take a real vacation, admitting she works at least eight hours a day even when traveling.

The billionaire has donated millions to education and women-in-tech programs. She gave $500,000 to her alma mater Carnegie Mellon to support computer science students and works to break gender stereotypes in tech.

Guo also advises aspiring entrepreneurs: "Be frugal and always live below your means.

"A lot of people up their lifestyles when they start making more money, which causes them to not save as much.

"The more money you save, the more you can invest, which compounds over the years."