Secrets behind success of the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire Lucy Guo

Speaking on the "How Success Happens" podcast with host Dan Bova, she said: "I think people over-index on the risk. Like they think that things are riskier than they actually are," according to Entrepreneur.

Her decision to leave university, she explained, stemmed from a desire to learn rather than fear of failure. "Worst case scenario, you gain a bunch of knowledge and then go back to school. Best case scenario? Life-changing money."

Lucy Guo, the world's youngest self-made female billionaire. Photo courtesy of Guo's Instagram

Her decision shocked her parents, who had immigrated from China to the U.S. "I think they [parents] viewed that as a sign that I didn’t love them, and they weren’t very happy with it, when it was just me making a bet on myself and choosing to optimize for what I thought would be a better future for myself," she told CNBC Make It. Despite this, she advised young people to spend at least one to two years in college to form lasting friendships and meet "the smartest people."

Guo said success accelerates when you are "the dumbest person in the room" and if you are not, "find a different room to hang out in." That belief guided her decision to leave college after two years studying computer science and human-computer interaction to join the Thiel Fellowship, a program launched by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel that awards young innovators $200,000 ($100,000 at the time Guo received it) to build companies. She said the fellowship not only provided financial support but also connected her to an ambitious and inspiring network.

She then co-founded Scale AI with Alexandr Wang, who has since joined Meta to co-lead its AI superintelligence project, CNBC reported. Guo left the AI firm in 2018 and went on to establish Passes, a platform that helps creators manage their businesses and brands through tools such as AI insights and wealth management.

Guo’s workday often extends past midnight, occasionally followed by social outings before she wakes up early to exercise. "I could theoretically work until midnight, and then I could go out to the club until 2 a.m., and then I could go to sleep, and then wake up at like 6 a.m. and do Barry's," she said.

She believed she inherited a gene from her parents that allows her to function with little sleep. "I go to bed around 1 a.m. and generally wake up at 5 or 6 in the morning," she told Bova.

The 31-year-old billionaire begins her day with two consecutive sessions at Barry’s Bootcamp fitness studio. "It keeps me energized all day long," she said. "As a founder, you can go a little crazy when you’re putting in a bunch of effort into a project and you’re not necessarily seeing the results. But with exercise, the output you get is the input you put in."