Luis von Ahn was a computer science professor who taught the AI class at Carnegie Mellon University.
“I used to be a computer science professor that actually taught the AI class at Carnegie Mellon University.”
Person
Luis von Ahn
1 episodes · 15 quoted claims
Luis von Ahn says Duolingo has never done a layoff and increased its headcount in the year he sent the AI memo.
“we've never done a layoff, we still have never done a layoff. In fact, last year, when I sent that memo, we increased our number of employees, not decreased our number of employees.”
Duolingo has an internal principle called the golden rule of AI usage, requiring AI to be used for the benefit of learners.
“we have this thing we call the golden rule of AI usage, which is you have to use AI for the benefit of our learners.”
Luis von Ahn says the initial memo's plan to evaluate every employee on AI usage was wrong, and Duolingo later removed it.
“my initial memo said that we were going to, uh, um, evaluate every employee on their usage of AI. I don't think that was right.”
Duolingo's user growth slowed toward the end of 2025, according to Luis von Ahn.
“our user growth, particularly towards the end of 2025, did slow.”
Luis von Ahn decided that Duolingo would prioritize user growth over revenue growth in 2026.
“I decided that this year we would really spend it trying to work much more on user growth rather than revenue growth.”
About 90% of Duolingo's monthly active users do not pay, while about 10% pay and generate roughly 90% of its revenue.
“About 90% of our monthly active users are not paying us, and about 10% pay us. But the amount of money we make is flipped,”
Luis von Ahn says about 2 billion people worldwide are learning English, more than any other subject.
“There's about 2 billion people in the world learning English. I don't know of a subject, including math, that has as many people learning it.”
Luis von Ahn says chess is Duolingo's newest subject and has gained the most traction outside languages.
“Chess, even though it's our newest subject, has gotten the most traction outside of languages.”
Luis von Ahn says a computer beat the world chess champion in about 1997.
“you know, a computer beat the world chess champion in something like 1997.”
Luis von Ahn says an English speaker needs about 500 hours of study to learn Spanish.
“If you wanna learn Spanish and you're an English speaker, you kinda have to put in about 500 hours.”
Duolingo has more than 100 million active users, according to Luis von Ahn.
“At the moment, we have s, you know, north of 100 million active users, which is nice.”
Luis von Ahn says Duolingo has an internal hiring rule that it would rather leave a role unfilled than hire someone unpleasant.
“We have this internal rule that we'd rather have a hole than an a hole.”
Luis von Ahn says Duolingo used a limo driver it worked with to report how job candidates treated them, and one candidate was not given an offer partly because of this.
“It wasn't a taxi driver. We would send them like a limo driver that works for us.”
Luis von Ahn says Khan Academy is mostly geared toward K-12 schools, while Duolingo targets the whole population.
“Khan Academy has been mostly geared towards K-12 schools and school usage, et cetera, whereas we're, you know, so many schools do use us,”