# Lucy Guo

> Lucy Guo is an American founder, investor, engineer and creator best known for co-founding Scale AI and later founding the creator-monetization platform Passes. A childhood fascination with online games led her to teach herself code, a Thiel Fellowship pulled her out of Carnegie Mellon, and retained Scale equity made her a billionaire on paper in 2025. Her subsequent career has moved through early-stage investing, creator tools and, most recently, recording and performing electronic music.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Passes
- **Organizations:** Passes, Scale AI, Backend Capital, HF0, Snap, Quora, Facebook
- **From:** San Francisco, United States
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Computer science and human-computer interaction studies; left before graduating, Carnegie Mellon University, Fellow, Thiel Fellowship
- **Known for:** Co-founded Scale AI in 2016 and retained an equity stake that remained valuable after her 2018 departure., Founded Passes and raised approximately $50 million for the creator platform according to Forbes' 2026 profile., Named to Forbes' 2018 30 Under 30 list in enterprise technology.

## Career timeline

- **2013-2014** — Built and won sponsor awards for multiple hackathon projects while studying at Carnegie Mellon.
- **2014** — Left Carnegie Mellon after being selected for the two-year Thiel Fellowship.
- **2015-2016** — Worked in product design at Snap and Quora after an internship at Facebook; she has described herself as Snap's first female designer.
- **2016** — Co-founded Scale AI with Alexandr Wang through Y Combinator, initially serving the autonomous-vehicle industry's need for labeled training data.
- **2018** — Left Scale AI after disagreements about direction and retained a material equity stake.
- **2019** — Founded early-stage venture firm Backend Capital.
- **2021** — Co-ran HF0's live-in founder residency with Backend Capital partner Dave Fontenot.
- **2022** — Founded Passes, a direct-to-fan subscription and monetization platform for creators.
- **2024** — Passes announced a $40 million Series A, bringing its disclosed funding at the time to roughly $50 million.
- **2025** — Forbes valued Guo's Scale AI stake at more than $1 billion and ranked her the world's youngest self-made woman billionaire from April through December.
- **2026** — Released her debut electronic single, “Champagne on Me,” and discussed plans for more studio work and DJ performances.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Scale AI in 2016 and retained an equity stake that remained valuable after her 2018 departure.
- Founded Passes and raised approximately $50 million for the creator platform according to Forbes' 2026 profile.
- Named to Forbes' 2018 30 Under 30 list in enterprise technology.
- Selected as a Thiel Fellow in 2014.
- Built a portfolio through Backend Capital that included early investments in companies such as Ramp, Pave and Fabric.
- Won or placed in sponsor categories at HackMIT, PennApps, TartanHacks and MHacks while in college.
- Released the electronic single “Champagne on Me” in 2026.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Told Fortune that using autonomous AI agents had expanded rather than shortened her workdays, while discussing Passes and her startup investments.
- **2026-07** — Released “Champagne on Me,” discussed her developing DJ career and said she expected to work on more songs and performances.
- **2026-06** — Forbes updated her profile, estimating a $1.5 billion net worth and noting that Passes had raised $50 million.
- **2026-04** — Passes published an update titled “Passes and the Next Phase of the Creator Economy.”
- **2025-06** — Meta acquired a 49% interest in Scale AI for about $14 billion; Scale shareholders, including Guo, received a dividend according to Forbes.

## Links

- Website: https://link.me/guoforit
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-guo-a7804955/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/lucy_guo
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/guoforit/
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@guoforit

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/lucy-guo
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-26