2021
Bob Safian says Duolingo went public in 2021 and is worth more than $4.5 billion.
“you're a publicly traded company worth more than $4.5 billion. You went public in 2021.”
Topic
Duolingo
17 facts from 4 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
2025
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.”
2025
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.”
2025
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.”
2026
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.”
2026
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.”
Undated
Ransbotham says Duolingo's goal is to teach users a language, not translate it, and that it can customize instruction at scale.
“The goal of Duolingo is not to translate language. The goal of Duolingo is for you to learn language.”
Undated
Bob Safian says Shopify and Duolingo announced that staffers must justify work that is not produced by AI.
“Are you like Shopify and Duolingo, who've announced that staffers have to justify anything that's not AI produced?”
Undated
Aaron Levie says the Duolingo memo reflects an emerging idea that teams must prove AI cannot do a task before they can get headcount.
“There's some emerging idea, which is sort of you have to prove that AI can't do this thing for for you to get then headcount.”
Undated
Bob Safian says Shopify and Duolingo have announced that staff must justify work that is not produced with AI.
“Are you like Shopify and Duolingo, who've announced that staffers have to justify anything that's not AI produced?”
Undated
Aaron Levie describes the Duolingo memo as an emerging idea that teams must prove AI cannot do a job before they are given new headcount.
“There's some emerging idea, which is sort of you have to prove that AI can't do this thing for for you to get then headcount.”
Undated
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.”
Undated
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,”
Undated
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.”
Undated
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.”
Undated
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.”
Undated
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,”
Episodes
- 30 Jul 2024Feed Drop: Why Only 10% of Companies Succeed With AI With Sam Ransbotham, Professor at Boston College44m
- 1 Jun 2026Rapid Response: Duolingo’s battle for learning in an AI world, with Luis von Ahn34m
- 24 May 2025Rapid Response: The enterprise AI revolution is underway, with Box’s Aaron Levie36m
- 20 May 2025The enterprise AI revolution is underway, with Box’s Aaron Levie40m