Jay Shetty

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Lucy Guo

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Jay Shetty

What advice are people being told about success that you think is outdated?

Lucy Guo

I think that college is no longer needed. That being said, I believe that your network is your net worth and there's no better place to go than college to expand your network.

Jay Shetty

So you're saying go to college but don't go there for the degree?

Lucy Guo

Exactly.

Jay Shetty

How do you think the best ideas are found?

Lucy Guo

Ideas are cheap and execution is everything.

Jay Shetty

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. Today I'm sitting down with Lucy Guo, entrepreneur, investor, co founder of Scale AI and one of the youngest self made female billionaires in the world. Today we dive into the New rules of success, why speed has been a greatest advantage and how AI is reshaping opportunity. Please welcome to On Purpose, Lucy Guo. Lucy, I am so happy to be with you here because not only do we know each other a little bit offline, we've been to some pretty crazy places together. So I saw you last year on Luminara on the yacht trip, which is amazing.

Lucy Guo

Yes.

Jay Shetty

And then I saw you at my house where we did a fundraiser event. Then I saw you at the Dior party. It's. It feels like our lives.

Lucy Guo

We've been worldwide and now we're seeing each other in Cannes next week.

Jay Shetty

Yeah, exactly. It's awesome.

Lucy Guo

But thank you for having me.

Jay Shetty

Oh, no. So excited for my audience to learn from you. I think that right now we're living at such an exciting time where so many young people are driven, they're ambitious, they want to do incredible things. You've already lived that. You've done it. You're going on to do more. I know you've shared some ideas with me, so I can't wait to get inside your brain today. This is going to be fun. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, the first question I have for you is what advice are people being told about success today that you think is outdated?

Lucy Guo

I still think that college is extremely outdated. I think that we're taught to go study and then get a traditional job. But especially in the world of AI, I think that college is no longer needed. That being said, I believe that your network is your net worth. And there's no better place to go than college to expand your network, because college is really the first time and only time in your life where you're going to be thrown into a world where everyone wants to make friends. No one knows each other right. So everyone's open to this, like, emotional connection. I always tell people, like, I actually think one to two years of college is extremely useful because that is where you're going to build your network. And you're going to build the deepest network because their most talented friends are always going to get these, like, multimillion dollar job offers straight out of college. But if you're able to have that emotional connection, like everything is sales, from retaining your employees to selling them to get you them to join your company. And college is the best place where you can, like, really build that emotional connection because everyone is open to it afterwards. Like, you may go work at a company, you may join, like, you know, different, like interest group groups, etc. But it's just not at the same Density as colleges.

Jay Shetty

So you're saying go to college but don't go there for the degree.

Lucy Guo

Exactly right.

Jay Shetty

Go there for the networking, the groups of people, the emotional connections, practicing things.

Lucy Guo

And I think college is a really great place, especially in classes, to learn a lot and learn how to think. But you should apply those skills to practical skill sets or you should apply the skills that you learn into practical use cases. So I would learn how to think in these classes and then I would start using AI tools. Right. And really accelerate what you can do and be that like 10x executor. Earlier on in life.

Jay Shetty

Where did you go to college again?

Lucy Guo

I went to Carnegie Mellon.

Jay Shetty

Did you go to college with anyone that you're still friends with? What are your peers doing now? Like, what else have they done?

Lucy Guo

Straight out of college, I had actually hired the smartest people that I met. So like, you know, my ta, my computer science little, like they had this like, it's not a sorority little, but like within the CS program because they were just like top of their class. Right. So that was a perfect example of like, hey, this is emotional sales and this is emotional retention. When I had dropped out, I had actually met a lot of people within the college network, not my specific university, but like within the United States through hackathons. So I'm still friends with them. And these are people that I've actually invested into after like, you know, hiring them, they went on to go build their own companies. So I think that's just a perfect example of like how they were ready to like, you know, open up and be friends with me. And by maintaining those connections, I was able to hire them as my employees employees, retain them, and then support them when they went to go build their own companies.

Jay Shetty

Wow, that, that's so fascinating that you were able to not only maintain those relationships, but they've become mutually beneficial for everyone.

Lucy Guo

Yeah.

Jay Shetty

And it's a really unique way to look at college actually, because I think right now you have the anti college agenda and then you have people saying you have to go to college because of the old reason. So it's an interesting one. I also wanted to ask you what's a habit that you think ambitious people think is going to make them successful, but actually is slowing them down or holding them back.

Lucy Guo

So this is actually probably an interesting one. I think that ambitious people have this mindset like, I want to learn from the smartest people because that makes sense. Right. So they gather all the mentors that they have possible and then they enter paralysis when it comes to decision making. So they ask all the mentors around them instead of listening to, like, their own gut. And if I had done that, skill actually would have never started because I had a decision paralysis. When I was deciding whether to leave Snapchat versus go build a company, I gathered all my mentors. I asked, asked them, like, do you think I should stay at Snap or go do my own thing? And every single one of them, and I mean every single one of them told me to stay at Snap because Snap was in its hyper growth stage and like, it was, you know, about to go public, people thought I was absolutely insane, given that I was on this extremely special team with only 10 people. And I think I would have entered decision paralysis if I were to have listened to my mentors. So I ended up just listening to my gut and optimizing for learning instead, because I did feel like my learning had become stagnant at the company. But I think that extremely smart people constantly want to learn from others so that they find the smartest people and they ask almost too many questions. It's better to make an imperfect decision but move forwards because you can change your path than to enter decision paralysis.

Jay Shetty

I feel like any good decision I made in my life has often been opposed to some of the smartest people in my life. Because you feel it internally.

Lucy Guo

Exactly. And I think investments are very similar. Right, because you have to go against the grain to make a good investment. Like Airbnb, I think, is a great example. And Uber is a great example. Like, no one thought it would work, but the investors that thought it was work, they went against the grain. And I think that's when the best decisions are made.

Jay Shetty

Did you have to give up? Like, did you have equity? Did you give up stock shares? Like, were you giving up like a ton of money too, to go and do your own thing?

Lucy Guo

So I was giving up a lot of money. I wouldn't call it life changing money for me per se, but I think it was life changing money for other people. Especially because Snap's vesting schedule at that point was like 10, 20, 30, 40, which is a very unique vesting schedule. So that meant that I was leaving the majority of my equity on the table.

Jay Shetty

Wow. So you would have had to really feel a sense of inner confidence that you had an idea.

Lucy Guo

This goes back to. You are like the average of the people you hang around with. And because I was in this Thiel Fellowship network and all my peers were founders that had either raised tens of millions of dollars or had built billion dollar companies, I really did believe that I could be one of those people. I think that being delusional was necessary to be a founder. Because if you're building a venture scalable business, you really have to believe like, I'm going to make it, I'm going to be part of the point.01% that is actually going to build a unicorn. I do think that there are other businesses, like lifestyle businesses, that are much more easier to become successful because you're not shooting for the stars. Right. Like if you're making like less than 100 million a year for venture, that's not great. But if you're doing that like 10 million a year as an individual, like that can support you for the rest of your life.

Jay Shetty

If you are 22, you had no money, no followers, and you felt like you had no connections, what would you do in the next 30 days to change the trajectory of your life?

Lucy Guo

If I were 22, I would actually go live on campus at different colleges because I feel like I would be young enough to do so where I could pass off as a college student. That's actually how I was able to gain kind of a network outside of just Carnegie Mellon, where I had lived on Menlo Avenue at USC and like kind of just hung out at USC as like a student. I was, you know, in San Francisco ago and I was hanging out at Stanford as like a student per se. And when you blend in the college community, like you will just start getting invited to things, whether it's like fraternity parties or hackathons, et cetera. I would also like definitely continue to go to hackathons because hackathons are great. It attracts a certain type of student that wants to do something over the weekend that doesn't involve partying. Right. Like they are side questing to build and learn. And when you go to these hackathons, generally like all the surrounding colleges go as well. So like Mhacks attracted like pretty much all the east coast colleges. So did Penhac, so did hack mit. So you're not only meeting people from that college, but all the smartest students from different universities.

Jay Shetty

So wait, you were, you weren't pretending to go to other colleges, you were just hanging out at other colleges?

Lucy Guo

Pretty much, yeah.

Jay Shetty

And so then you got the benefit of building your network in those colleges too.

Lucy Guo

Yeah.

Jay Shetty

Did you do that because it was fun or did you do that because you knew it would pay off in the long run? Like, what was your mindset as a 22? I guess when you were at college, you were younger than that. What was your mindset as a college student?

Lucy Guo

Specifically? When I had dropped out and this app completely failed before the Teal Fellowship, I was going to build DoorDash. Actually, I built DoorDash at a hackathon. And then in between the hackathon and when I decided to go build a company, DoorDash got built. So I was like, great, I need a twist on it, right? So the twist was, okay, let's have people cook food for other students and deliver it versus restaurants. This has many, many issues, starting from, like, food safety, it's completely illegal, whatever. But I launched at Carnegie Mellon and it did well. And I was like, great, I need to, like, expand other colleges. So that was a mindset in going to live in other colleges, like, you know, really get in the community so I can convince other college students at these universities to cook food for, like, their fellow students. And college is a really great place to do it because. Because it's so high density. Like, you could just make a batch of cookies, for example, and run around campus and deliver it to hundreds of students. People were making, like, $100 an hour. It was great. Yeah, that's crazy. Very illegal. Don't do it. Don't build it anymore.

Jay Shetty

How did you feel when you create your version of DoorDash at a hackathon and then you see the real idea happen?

Lucy Guo

Honestly, I think the ideas are cheap and execution is everything. So for me, it's like, okay, cool, whatever, right? Like, Uber wasn't the first, but they executed extremely well. So I didn't, like, feel any resentment. I was just like, okay, cool. Like, this is a great app. I can use. Like, let me think of something else.

Jay Shetty

Yeah, I think that's what's so fascinating about high achievers like you, where a lot of people think that the idea is the value. And when you see someone do it, you're like, oh, I could have done it. I could have done that. And it's like, well, no, not really. Because actually what it showed you is you had a good idea, someone went and did it already. But that means you could find another good idea.

Lucy Guo

Exactly. There's literally billions of people on this earth. Like, people have ideas all the time. Like, people execute all the time. Like, you can easily hire a developer in India, et cetera, get it done cheap. Now you can use AI and, like, use lovable replit, et cetera, and, like, develop your idea. But execution is everything.

Jay Shetty

Where do you think young people waste most of their time when they're building their career?

Lucy Guo

I think young people are Wasting most of their time working at these larger companies because they have golden handcuffs. Because when you're smart, you're literally getting paid millions of dollars per year. Right. Which is extremely hard to let go of when you want to leave. They add in stock, they add in cash, they add in bonuses. I know some of the most talented people that I think could have built unicorn companies that ended up just staying at Snapchat for 10 years because they just kept on getting equity packages, which I understand from a different perspective because it is like, you know, life changing money over the course of 10 years, like you're making like what, eight figures? I don't want to say their soul because the work is still interesting, but they're trading off what is like extremely life changing money, like generational wealth and like working on something that they want to do, like that one project passion idea that they have in exchange for cash.

Jay Shetty

But do you think everyone could be an entrepreneur?

Lucy Guo

I think everyone can be a certain type of entrepreneur. It just depends on like how much of an entrepreneur you want to be. Like, are you trying to build a $5,000 a month business? Like, yeah, anyone can do that. My friend literally prompted a chat to create a business with like a $50 budget and it actually created business that makes I think a few thousand a month.

Jay Shetty

Wow.

Lucy Guo

Yeah, yeah, the research, it found a domain name and designed a really crappy logo. I think that like anyone can be an entrepreneur. But like, what kind of like what level are you trying to like shoot for in the sky?

Jay Shetty

I guess the people that you're saying, like they could have quit their job and I guess and golden handcuffs, of course there's different levels of it. So even where I grew up, I remember I was trying to leave my consulting job, which felt like golden handcuffs at the time. I was making like 45,000pounds a year. And that felt like golden handcuffs at the time. Because I was like, that at least pays my bills and pays for my rent. I don't know what I'd do without it. When someone's in that position, how should they consider the next move? Like, do you just quit and go all in? Do you come up with an idea first? Like, how do you think about the phases and trajectory of building something when you have golden handcuffs?

Lucy Guo

What I had personally done was I was working on side projects and after I received investor interest, that's when I said I'm going to quit and go build. I think that when people hedge too much as an investor, I don't think they're Serious where they want the money inside their bank before they actually quit their job. So I would say we're on weekends or like, you know, after work, work on side projects, like get some traction because that traction will turn into investor money. But you don't really want to tell investors, like I haven't really quit my job yet because it will make them feel all right. You can say that, but you should make it known that whether or not you get the money, you will quit your job. Or at least just say that. I don't know, because I think you don't want them to think that you're not serious.

Jay Shetty

I think people always get caught between that. Kind of like catch 22 of like, do you quit first and then you find what you want to do or do you find what you want to do and then build it?

Lucy Guo

It is a sacrifice to de risk, but de risking does make sense. So if you're able to work on your side projects over the weekend, after work, et cetera, like yeah, you won't be spending as much time with your friends, but you're also de risking your life essentially. And I do think that like once you have an MVP with traction, which you don't need to quit your full time job to get like you will be able to fundraise.

Jay Shetty

How do you think the best ideas are found?

Lucy Guo

I think the best ideas are found when you're solving a problem for yourself. Because there's so many people in the world that if you're building for yourself, other people are going to have that problem. And then whether or how large of a company it can be is just a function of how many people also have your problem and how much are they willing to pay. But you'll know exactly what to build and then you'll be able to use the product yourself and be able to figure out which features to build, what needs to like how to innovate, etc. So I think the best companies that I've invested in and the best companies that I have built have all been problems I've solved for myself.

Jay Shetty

And that's where people should start.

Lucy Guo

Absolutely.

Jay Shetty

I think today everyone's now thinking, how do you build the next billion dollar company? And that's almost like the most.

Lucy Guo

And the next billion dollar company, it might just be like a small problem that you're solving for yourself, but you decide to expand on the idea afterwards.

Jay Shetty

I've heard you say, Lucy, that your biggest advantage is your speed. And I wanted to ask you what's a decision that people waste six months on in business that they should figure out in six minutes.

Lucy Guo

So I think the thing that people waste the most time on is actually just product development and like design. Because when you go to a large company and you see how long it takes to design small features, it could be months to years because they want the UX to be perfect. But like a common misconception is that the UX needs to be perfect for a product to be adopted. I actually highly disagree. People will go through bad ux. People will deal with bugs if they want the product badly enough. Like for example, let's say there's the new iPhone, right? And like you're checking it out and it just keeps on bugging and it's like, okay, cool. Like the payment didn't go through the payment they go through. You're going to keep clicking that payment button like a hundred times until it goes through. Like you're dealing with the bad bugs because you want the product badly enough. So I believe the best thing to do is just release 90%. Like you can design, I think 90% good UX in one to two days and then just have the engineers build it, ship it, and then see if it's adopted. If it's adopted, then iterate on it until it's a good product. There's very, very few products, I think that need perfect UX for it to get adopted. Most products out there, like, if people want it, they'll buy it. People feel like they need to build the full product in order to sell it. But my philosophy has always been like, create landing pages. Like if you're building a B2B SaaS product, like make a landing page and start doing calls. See if you can get LOI signed. If it's like a low enough price point, see if people enter their credit cards, like save a spot on like the page. If you're building like Even a, like D2C product, I say sell it and then see how much you actually need to produce. And if you're late on orders, just give the customer another free like T shirt or something or whatever you're building to make them feel happy and like not be upset that the order was late. That way you're actually testing demand for the product before wasting so much money and so much time developing just for it to flop.

Jay Shetty

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer

Lucy Guo

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Jay Shetty

if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial.

Lucy Guo

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Jay Shetty

So many people I see when they're launching something, they're spending all the time on the logo and the font and the color and all these types of things and actually you're saying, well put it out there and see if people even sign up.

Lucy Guo

Yeah, exactly, and even care about it.

Jay Shetty

And if they do, then you've got all the time and money now to actually go and build the real thing. What's our addiction to perfectionism? Like, why do we do that?

Lucy Guo

I almost think it's an excuse. I think that people believe that something needs to be perfect in order for it to work. And when it's not perfect, they blame it on the fact that it's not Perfect. And I see this with tech founders all the time too, where it's like, okay, cool. Like we just need to a B test our way into it being perfect for the product to work, but sometimes the sum of all parts doesn't equal a whole. Right? Like, you can a B test to have higher signup rates than like, higher, like engagement, et cetera, but at the end day, like, there's only so much that can fix. Like you probably need an entirely new feature which is not really a B testable. Yeah, I think that it, it really is just an excuse.

Jay Shetty

What's the difference between a good risk and a bad risk?

Lucy Guo

I mean, I think it's all a function of like, what are the consequences? Right. I generally believe that a lot of products could not have been created without taking risks. So, for example, like, I think Uber obviously didn't really listen to anyone and they became so big that now it just exists. I was actually talking to Stripe founders and I don't remember what rule they broke, but even Stripe apparently broke some rules and then they just became too big to fail and like, they just had to make it work. So, yeah, it's a function of just consequences.

Jay Shetty

But how do you evaluate that when you don't know? Because I guess we all start thinking, oh, God, if I do this, then the opportunity cost is this or this is the risk level.

Lucy Guo

I generally evaluate just based on like two criteria, which is like, is this going to be life changing for me and am I optimizing for learning? Because if I'm not optimizing for learning, I'm just not going to do it. Because I think that the knowledge I gained doing the next thing, even if I like, you know, lost a few million at Snap, for example, like, I was going to learn enough being a founder that I can take those skill sets and like, you know, either go get a new job that pays me better and I'll be more successful in my role, or build another company. And then the life changing money thing was also just kind of that where I was like, okay, like, this doesn't necessarily change my life, so it's not worth my time.

Jay Shetty

There's something that we can all use in, in pretty much any decision.

Lucy Guo

Always optimize for learning.

Jay Shetty

That's such a big one. Because it's almost like we want to optimize for success, but you're saying optimize for learning because that would lead to success. Exactly.

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Yeah.

Lucy Guo

Like, everyone always complains like, oh, it's such a big risk to like, you know, quit college or it's such a big risk to like quit this job to build a company. But it's not like you are losing your knowledge and skill sets. Right? If anything, you come out the other side and you have more skill sets. Like, yeah, you might given up, let's call it like a $10 million a year job. But guess what, you'll probably get a $20 million a year job. And I also think that people underestimate like how much like people want talent, which obviously we saw it with Meta, right. Paying like nine figures for AI employees. I think that even if your company fails, if you hire talented people and you yourself are talented, there will be someone that will buy your company for more like than your investors invested in at evaluation. Because they know you want to make your investors whole and they know that you want. And for the talent, they'll overpay.

Jay Shetty

I keep thinking about my life and it was, it was much smaller than that. Like I said, the amount I was making. But making a pivot. Companies were so good at making you feel like, no, but you built a network here, you should stay here. Like there's such a culture of making you feel like you're going to fail if you move on. And I think people believe that people buy into that. How do we break out of buying into the fact that we actually think if we lose a hundred thousand dollars a year job, then we're going to end up with a $70,000 a year job? We don't think we're going to be able to triple it or quadruple it.

Lucy Guo

Yeah, I mean, I think that is just again, your network is your net worth and you are the average of the people that you hang around with. So I was really lucky to hang out with founders that have done it before. So I knew like how it actually went. I was lucky enough to hang out with investors who, you know, they would give exploding term sheets, but they would also tell me, oh, exploding term sheets aren't the thing. Like if the founder came back, we would just give them the term sheet again. People's fear is overcoming their logic. Yeah, yeah. Because logically it's like, why would I not be able to get this job back? Like, if I was valuable to the company, they're going to want me again. And let's say for whatever reason, the role is filled. I mean, companies find roles for people all the time. When they think the person is Swiss army knife and like smart and will be able to help the company, they'll like make a role for that person. Right. But Also there's so many companies out there that will hire you based off of the fact that like you did a great job at like company A. Like company B is going to want you and company the B will fight for you. And like, understand that now you have more knowledge and more skill sets so they'll pay you more. This is really people's fear overriding their logic.

Jay Shetty

Everyone says, find your passion. What's your take?

Lucy Guo

I think you should do what you're best at to have the highest impact on your passion. So for example, like, I really like nonprofits and supporting charities, but at one point in time I thought, like, I'm going to start my own nonprofit and charity and foundation. And you know, that might still happen. But I also realize like, at this age, in this state of my life, I'm really good at making money. So my time is probably best spent making money and in donating to causes I care about and being run by people that actually know how to run an organization or a foundation. I don't know how to run a charity. And like I had actually looked into this where I was like, I'm going to start a foundation, I'm going to do X, Y and Z. And I realized how much work it is, right? And like how it's like quite literally another full time job. Like maybe when I'm older I'll like learn all those skill sets and I'll decide like my time is best spent doing that as my passion. But, but I think optimize for fun. Fun doesn't necessarily need to be your passion, but like optimize for like how you can make an impact in whatever you're passionate about.

Jay Shetty

But that feels hard, right? Because people are like, for example, when I was growing up, I was passionate about soccer. What do I do with that? Because I can't be a soccer player because I'm not good enough. So then what do I do?

Lucy Guo

But you can make enough money to buy a soccer team and then you have a soccer game and have so much fun, right?

Jay Shetty

So you're saying that it doesn't have to be your career, but you may go build a career doing something else, but then use the fruits of that labor to then be closer to your passion.

Lucy Guo

Because like, if you're able to experience your passion, that's what's going to make you happy, right? Like it doesn't have to be your full time job. Well, I guess now music is my career. Ish, my side quest. But I just used everything that I had succeeded in and like, you know, the money I had created to go experience music and like live events and that made me extremely happy. I use like what I've been able to create that helps support causes that I care about, which has made me extremely happy.

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Be.

Lucy Guo

I don't think that needs to be your full time career. And like for most people it's not going to be their full time career because like in certain fields, like even no matter how talented you are, some of it is just luck, right? Like I'll never really understand the music industry or the acting industry because I have so many talented friends in it and it just for whatever reason, they're not making it. And I really do think it's because there's other factors like network luck, et cetera in that.

Jay Shetty

Yeah, yeah, but I like what you're saying that people often say pursue a passion or make it it your work, but actually what you're saying is just go work, do the thing and then connect to your passion. And that feels much more realistic for most people. Like, I think for the majority of people, there are very few people who can do what they love and it makes money. But actually being free to the idea that you can do something not, hopefully that you don't hate.

Lucy Guo

Yeah, hopefully you don't hate. Exactly.

Jay Shetty

Hopefully that you don't hate. But you do something and that something gets you to be able to be closer to all of these things that you love. Which I think is a, is a much more, more genuine, authentic path for most people. Like people can aspire to live that way.

Lucy Guo

Exactly.

Jay Shetty

And like you said, now you're closer to music charities. What were you passionate about? Like if you could have done something, like for me, I could, I would have been a soccer player if I could have, if I was good enough. What would you have done if you could have?

Lucy Guo

Well, it's changed over the years. So when I was younger, I want to be a singer, but I realized I'm basically tone deaf and I can't sing for my life. So that was out the window. And then I remember when I was like, you know, choosing colleges, et cetera, I was like, it would be really cool to like be an FBI agent, like fight the bad guys. Um, but then that's unrealistic because I like this tiny woman and you know, maybe I can learn, you know, some kung fu skills. But like, overall, let's call it unrealistic. Right. And I got really passionate about music and I finally learned I can actually dj. You don't need to be able to sing or play the instruments. Et cetera, to be able to dj. So it's been like a very cool thing that I've been able to do.

Jay Shetty

How do you, at this stage in your career, how do you separate self worth from net worth?

Lucy Guo

This is really interesting. So I was not a confident person until I went to Miami. And when I went to Miami, I just became friends with all these people because they just like my energy, right? Like, I just see standing in an elevator and people would come in and be like, wow, I felt your energy from far away, blah, blah, blah. It was the first time in my life where like I met people that were just like Mikasa Su casa with no questions. There's no agenda. And I think in the past, like in la, San Francisco, New York, there's always like some sort of agenda. People are like, they want to know who I was. It's like, oh, you're a teal fellow. Let me be friends with you. Or you're a founder. Oh, you have a fun. Miami was the first time in my life where no one asked what I did and they just wanted to vibe with me because I gave off good energy. So I became extremely happy there. And I think my self worth is based off of that, where, you know, I have a close relationship with my family again, I'm close with my friends. And every time I meet someone, like, that's a stranger that has no idea who I am, they're just like, wow, your energy's so vibey. Let's dance. And that makes me happy because it, like, it shows people like me for me versus, like, my net worth versus, like, I don't think I had that purity before I had experienced it in

Jay Shetty

Miami, entrepreneurially and professionally. What's something that you thought would go your way but turned into a rejection or a failure?

Lucy Guo

Honestly, like, I'm not someone that sits and weeps. Like, I've never really sat and felt sad. So unless, you know, like a close friend is hurt. Like, I hear bad news from a close friend. But, like, for myself, whenever I face rejection, I'm like, okay, cool onto the next. So I've never, like, felt extremely hurt. One of the more, like, sad ones might have just been when I was so close to like my top VC choice. Like, I was like, I'm 100 gonna get a term sheet. Like, they're whining and dining me. They just flew out to meet me. And then it was just like out of nowhere. It was a no, right? And I was like, what in the world happened? Yeah, I was just like, I Felt a little bit led on, but also like, I didn't really sit and feel bad about it. I was like, okay, cool. Onto the next. Let's find a new lead.

Jay Shetty

Do you think that mindset's integral and important at that level?

Lucy Guo

I think being an extremely positive person that's constantly optimistic is what has gotten me to where I am today. I think the worst thing you can do is think like, oh, like the world is unfair. Why did this happen to me? Stop thinking that way. Like, everyone is born with advantages and disadvantages. You kind of just have to take what you have and go forwards. And if you face rejection, just learn from it and immediately, like, go and fix that.

Jay Shetty

Mindset obviously worked for you. You've made so much money, you've become such a success story. What problems did money take away and what problems stayed or got worse?

Lucy Guo

When I first started out, before I had any money, I was like couch surfing all the time, but I didn't have anything to pair with. Like, I actually love couch surfing. It was fun. You get to meet a lot of people. Like, I found couches extremely comfy. It was like, to the point where I an apartment, I had a bed and I would sleep on a couch. So like, that was like, nothing but like, any stressors of money, like, went away. Right. But I also think that, like, what it can cause is you become a little bit too comfortable, which isn't great.

Jay Shetty

You've been in so many rooms now with so many successful people, incredible entrepreneurs, people that you've worked with, early days at Snap. What do you think is the most surprising thing you've noticed about the people at the top? Something that we'd be surprised or shocked.

Lucy Guo

I think the people at the top are actually not the smartest people in the world at all. I think that they lack frameworks and because they lack frameworks, they don't understand a concept of like, how the world works, which is actually very good. Because startups are built when you break frameworks because you innovate, right? Which is why when you take someone in an industry that's been in industry for decades and hire them in, oftentimes, like, they don't innovate because they're like, things have to be done this way because things have always been done this way. And again, Airbnb, Uber, great examples of this. They weren't transport, were experts, they weren't real estate experts. So they didn't have a framework of like, how things are supposed to be. I think the people at the top completely lack frameworks because they didn't have decades of experience, and because of that, they were able to innovate. But also they tell their employees, like, their employees might be like, that's impossible. And they're like, I don't care. And their employees might be PhDs. And they're like, no, literally, I've been doing this for 20 years. I have multiple PhDs. This is impossible. And they'll just like, no, it's not. Go do it. And they will say things like, okay, whoever does it gets this, like, giant bonus. Whoever does this gets promoted, et cetera. And when people see that prize, that's when people, like, really force themselves to break the framework that they know because they're so desperate to, like, get that thing that was offered to them. I would say, like, when you look at the people at the top, they're not the most educated, really. I think that in general, they have high eq, some of them don't have high eq, but they force the impossible to be possible.

Jay Shetty

You're reminding me of that great conversation between Steve Wozniak and Steve Job Jobs. And so Steve W. Goes up to Steve Jobs and he goes, what do you even do? You're not a coder, you're not a marketer, you're not a salesperson, you're not an engineer. What do you even do? And Steve Jobs replies. He says, musicians play their instruments, I play the orchestra. And it's such a powerful statement because he doesn't know how to do all the bits and bobs. He just. He's like, all I know how to do is put it all together and get it to all work in harmony. But I don't really know everything. And I think. Think people, when they're on their journey, they feel like, I'm not smart enough, I don't know enough. I should be more experienced. So what's that balance, then, with. You know nothing about an industry, which is a. Not having a framework is a positive thing. But then what is different about that entrepreneur? That you don't know anything about the industry. You break all the rules. That's what makes you successful.

Lucy Guo

I think it's also being visionary. Like, I think C is actually a great example of this, where he told his team, like, I don't care if it's impossible. You're going to figure it out, right? I think Elon Musk this, Holden, seen this, et cetera, et cetera, because they lack the frameworks to really understand, like, this is impossible. And it might have been impossible at the time, but obviously innovations do happen in technology and they force their employees to innovate and break those frameworks to make their vision possible. But I think it's being open to the possibility of things like lacking frameworks and then just, just, I don't want to say you like they, they had knowledge in like technology in general. Right. But they might not have been an expert in like real estate, in transportation, in industrial design. But I think that you need just enough knowledge and then just enough grit, just enough persuasion to get the smartest people in the room convince them to innovate.

Jay Shetty

It's almost like having that undeniable belief that we can find a way.

Lucy Guo

Exactly.

Jay Shetty

And it's almost like we have to find a way.

Lucy Guo

Yeah.

Jay Shetty

Because I'm not going to accept anything less.

Lucy Guo

Exactly. And I can literally tell you like this did happen at Apple, obviously this happened at SpaceX. And look at like Elon now.

Jay Shetty

Where does the kind of that leadership zeal or approach can often burn a lot of people as well.

Lucy Guo

All leaders are extremely controversial and polarizing. Like there's no leader out there where like everyone loves. Right. But I think that being polarizing makes you interesting and the people that are on your side are going to work their hardest to make you happy and like to bring that product idea that you have to life.

Jay Shetty

What were the biggest challenges you had? Did you, did you have any friction when you were rising up the ranks and building your company and like where, where were the points that you hit? Difficulties?

Lucy Guo

This comes down to hiring the right people. And again like all leaders are polarizing, but we were like all hands on deck. I think every single company I've been at, it's been all hands on deck where you're not just going to be doing what your job description. So at scale we had like, you know, the engineers labeling data, I had my engineers talking to creators and doing customer support because I think that when you are deep in the weeds, you're going to really understand, especially like when you're working with customers, you're gonna understand like what needs to be built, what bugs there are, like, what's critical, what's not. So I think it's extremely important to be in the weeds, especially early stage, and talk to customers and do things outside your job description. Like even our investors were doing things outside their job description where they were like on Linked, helping us like find new employees to hire. They were like cleaning our office for us when we didn't have time to because we were constantly on sales calls. You can imagine that like that can create a very polarizing environment because people are like I didn't get hired to do this, but the right people that you hire are going to be willing to be all hands on deck.

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Lucy Guo

Yeah, no, I don't need to.

Jay Shetty

I I don't understand.

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Lucy Guo

I'm trusting T Mobile. They have the best network and if we end up in bumtots nowhere, well, we've got T satellite for backup. Whoa.

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I don't trust my carrier that much.

Lucy Guo

We'll just use your phone as a flashlight.

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I'm the host of Irsay The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. This Week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook project Hail Mary Massive Sci Fi Adventure about survival and science and. And what happens when you wake up alone, very far from Earth. I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it. I was like, no. At this point it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book that, that that deeply, emotionally affected me and I left it on the mic. That's great cuz it served the story. People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah dude, me too. Listen to Iray the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jay Shetty

Right now. In this AI world that we're living in, what are three skills that humans should develop? Knowing that AI is going to be able to do pretty much everything.

Lucy Guo

So I think the number one skill they should develop is human connection. Like being able to like have high eq, being able to do sales, et cetera, because that's never going to disappear. AI might be able to like, you know, reach out to agents, like negotiate a contract for you, write the contract for you, but how you're going to close the deal is through human connection. And how you are able to even like win over deals is through human connection. Right? Like so much of it. And this goes back to your network, is your net worth is that like things are emotional sales, emotional retention, like even extending a contract, for example. So I think that's definitely the number one skill in an AI world. Number two is, I think, develop really good taste in like whatever you are doing. Like for example, like AI is going to replace a lot of designers, but the designers with the best taste are going to be able to pick out, okay, like this, this is the best design that this AI has generated. So let's go with this.

Jay Shetty

Yeah.

Lucy Guo

And then I think three, like, figure out how to scale your time with AI and if you're able to do this sooner than everyone else, like let's say you have an idea and you decide to make an app with AI, or like you create these bots and like that helps you scale your time and be like 10x more efficient than everyone else and then you sell that bot to help other people in your role be 10x more efficient than everyone else. You're going to be able to create that wealth before. I don't want to say it's too late but like I do think that AI is going to make a lot of people rich, but the people that fall behind, it's not going to be great for them.

Jay Shetty

You are chatgpt Claude Perplexity what are you using?

Lucy Guo

I use different tools depending on the use case. I think anything I want to say like consumer related and this can be anything from like helping me think of like music ideas to researching like the best hotels out there. I use chat and then for anything enterprise business focused I use Claude. Nothing really beats out Claude code. And cloud's new design tool is absolutely phenomenal. And what's cool is that like you know, you could literally design something in cloud design and then import it into cloud code, which is great. Even like little details. Like Claude is really good at designing like full scale applications. So like UX, UI etc. But if I want like a simple graphic edit that I would normally use Photoshop to do, Chad's actually better at that. There's different reasons to use different tools.

Jay Shetty

How is AI changed the way you're hiring for your new companies versus is your old one?

Lucy Guo

I actually include AI questions in every single role right now and right now I am actually asking my entire team to give take homes to non technical roles. So for example with their AE roles so sales, it's like I want you to figure out how to use cursor replit like Claude code to create a bot where it's like you take an Instagram profile and guesstimate like how much a person will earn. Because A like that's extremely simple to do using AI tools. B I can see kind of how you think based on how you prompt it, like what metrics are you looking at, what are you scraping on the Internet, et cetera to get this number out there. I think that every employee needs to be using AI to be a 10x employee now. So if they're, they haven't taken the proactiveness to actually do that themselves. I want to see how quickly they can learn over a weekend. Because I do think that like some people just like you know, haven't just haven't decided or haven't been in a role where they're like let me learn. But it's so quick to learn. Like I think learning trajectory is everything. So if someone can learn quickly athlete, they could easily become a 10x employee versus someone that like might have had more experience, but stagnant and resistant to learning. So I think take home challenges are really great for this because within 48 hours you can see like, okay, cool, like how much did you do?

Jay Shetty

What job do you think looks safe today but won't exist in 10 years?

Lucy Guo

I think that there are certain creative jobs that look safe today that won't exist in the future. Let's call it like being a, like videographer, photographer. That is a very human job, that's not very analytical, it's very artistic, etc. But I actually think that most models are going to be AI generated. Like a lot of humans are going to license out their likeness. So AI is going to generate a bunch of different videos and photos. Editors might still exist, right? Like, or like the tastemakers will go in and choose the right one and edit it to be what it should have been. Certain jobs like that, like even writers, right, Like AI is going to get extremely good at writing, but editing will still exist.

Jay Shetty

What's the biggest mistake people are making with AI right now?

Lucy Guo

The biggest mistake would probably just be assuming that AI works really well. They're just assuming everything outputted is true, right? Like AI is really only as good as the data that you give it. So if you feed a model like the sky is red, it's going to output. The sky is red. This happens everywhere, even with engineering, right? Like if AI makes one mistake and then it continues to create more and more bugs, but you trust AI to code for you, that's not great. Which is why right now like if you take, take a great engineer and give it AI, like it becomes 100x engineer. But if you take like a mid level or entry level engineer and give it AI, you're just gonna actually end up with a lot of tech debt because they're not fixing the problems that AI is generating. And I think this exists across the spectrum.

Jay Shetty

When did you first start learning about AI?

Lucy Guo

I mean, I would say probably started with scale. Scale is the picks and shovels of the AI industry, right? We weren't creating these like innovative new foundation models. We were literally labeling the data. So like we would have self driving car. Car companies send us lidar data, images, videos and we had labelers around the world say like that's a car, that's a pedestrian, that's a stop sign on the road. Like that was what we were extremely good at. And that's always going to be needed because it goes Back to, like, your model is only as good as the data that you feed it. That was when I really started learning, like, how important data is. Because even like with generative AI, like, if it generates something wrong and it thinks it's correct, like, you're going to get more wrong generations. And that's not great. Which is why, like, reinforcement learning is always going to be a thing. But yeah, like I would say, like, that was probably so back in 2016 was when I first started, like, understanding AI.

Jay Shetty

You learned about AI in 2016. 50 to 60% of the current US population have used AI at least once. And that shows that we just feel like AI just came around two years ago. What's the thing that people like yourself are talking about right now that the world is only going to catch up with in 10 years? You were talking about AI 10 years ago and the average person was not talking about AI. They didn't even know it of was kind.

Lucy Guo

Yeah. I mean, 10 years is a really long time. But I think that right now what I'm thinking about constantly is what's going to happen to college students. Because like I said, AI can make someone exceptional, really, really great. But when you take someone entry level, AI does their job better. Like, Claude just shut down Fable so it's no longer accessible. But Fable is as good as a staff engineer. It's absolutely incredible. So if you're a really great engineer, Hol. Crap. You're going to be like a thousand x engineer. And the better you are, the more useful AI is. But again, if you're like, you know, entry level and you're using it, like, you're not going to be able to utilize it in the same way. And it's not great. I think in general, with new technologies, new jobs are created. Like, prompt engineering is a new job. Right. And it's extremely important new job. So. And like now we have a bunch of people labeling data because that's a new job and that's a huge industry

Jay Shetty

for people who don't know what is a prompt. Engine engineer.

Lucy Guo

Do they basically prompt the AI to output what you want it to output?

Jay Shetty

Okay, so having somebody so good at writing a prompt.

Lucy Guo

Yeah. So good at writing prompts that, like, you get the output that you want

Jay Shetty

because everyone's just putting in these average prompts. Exactly, yeah.

Lucy Guo

My best guess is that, like, AI has actually democratized being able to start companies and be an entrepreneur. So I think more people are going to become entrepreneurs because before you would need to, you know, raise a ton of money, then Hire engineers and a huge team and then go build the product. And now AI is building products like that for free, really or extremely cheap. So I think I ideas people are actually going to be able to execute way better than before. Like in the past, like it was like, okay, cool, like if you're not an engineer, I don't want to invest in you. But now someone that's an ideas person can literally use AI to generate something and get traction on it and then be able to fundraise. And you can now raise significantly less money to get to metrics that you would need to get to before you can raise a series A. So because it's a lot cheaper to start companies and run companies, I do think it's going to democratize the access to being an entrepreneur. And like that is going to be a middle ground people are going to take when like, you know, students realize like, oh, what do I do? Like I can't get a job. They're going to figure out how to use AI to start their own companies.

Jay Shetty

Did you always know you're going to be this successful?

Lucy Guo

I always knew I was going to start companies and the reason why is because like when I was younger I was always just figuring out how to make money and build things. Like I really enjoyed building things and seeing people use my products.

Jay Shetty

What would you build as a kid?

Lucy Guo

So I built like a virtual pet site. I don't know how I convinced a bunch of engineers, designers, artists to work for me for free. So I built, built. I think I was in like fifth grade or something. Yeah, like fifth, sixth grade. Really, really young. I built like arcade game websites, I built like Twitter bots, Internet marketing tools. But what was really exciting to me was just like it could be like a really crappy website like based off of WordPress, but I would submit it on stubble upon and I'd be like, oh my God, there's 10,000 people on my website. Like I just love seeing people use my products. And then I would say like in college when I discovered hackathons, which is very early on, like my freshman year, I was like, I'm going to build a company. Because my first time seeing that there was like so much more to the world than just building marketing tools. I like, wow. I can build extremely impactful companies that really change how someone lives their day to day life. But in terms of being successful, I think that it goes back to like probably after I joined the Teal Fellowship, I didn't necessarily think like, oh, I'm going to be a billionaire But I looked around and everyone around me was raising tens of millions of dollars they were, like, shooting to really change the world with their companies. And obviously, like, I think valuation is a direct measure of how impactful your product and your idea has been to the world. Did I think I was going to impact the world? Like, I guess, yes. I didn't know to what scale.

Jay Shetty

How does it feel to be the youngest female billionaire in the world? Like, how does that feel?

Lucy Guo

I'm still the same person as I was when I was younger, right? Like, I think the difference is, like, when I was maybe 20 years old, I was literally skateboarding to Barry's Boot Camp. And now I have someone that drives me to Barry's Boot Camp.

Jay Shetty

But you're still at Barry's Boot Camp.

Lucy Guo

But I'm still at Barry's Boot Camp every single day at 6am I still wake up at 5:30am every day. I'm still in the office, like, until late. Like, I always try to be, like, one of the first people in the office and one of the last people to leave. Although Brittany might have me beat here with me. The first, not the last to lead.

Jay Shetty

What do you think you had that was different about you that made you design sites when you were in fifth grade? Or what did you have that people around you didn't have?

Lucy Guo

I didn't have friends. Sorry. I have to say that that was like, you were feeding it to me. Um, but I had extremely strict Asian parents, right? So my parents didn't really let me have sleepovers. And then I wasn't allowed to do, like, sports, et cetera. So for. I didn't really have friends. I was not cool, right? I was just. No one wanted to be my friend. And I wasn't a lot of pets either. So I think it all started really with neopets. I started, like, you know, messing around with the Internet. And then I was like, wait, this is really cool. I want my own version of this. As for, like, why I wanted my own version, why I love building things. Like, I learned how to use Photoshop pretty early on. Like, I was learning PHP, like, how to build WordPress sites and edit them. I don't really know, like, why I had that desire that was almost like, innate in me. I want to say I would have been a professional athlete if I didn't have Asian parents. I think that was really it.

Jay Shetty

What sport?

Lucy Guo

I was really good at swim. I had a lot of medals. I was very good at basketball. And then right now I have Olympic qualifying times on a Treadmill on like a very good day. But not in the us I'd have to like go move to Singapore and I compete for Singapore where I have no competition, but I think one of those three.

Jay Shetty

Wow. Still any dreams? Are we going to see an Olympic run in the future?

Lucy Guo

I have Olympic friends that are very upset. I'm not side questing to be an Olympian because they've seen me work out and they're like, you should absolutely train for the Olympics. I've been recruited actually by Olympic like training groups.

Jay Shetty

Really? Yeah.

Lucy Guo

But no, my side quest is currently DJing.

Jay Shetty

Yeah, I love that. I don't know if you decide or plan on being a parent ever, but like how do you feel about that? You had strict age Asian parents. Do you agree with that? Did it work? Would you do it the same way? What would you change?

Lucy Guo

Yes, I think the thing I would change is that like I wouldn't force my kids into a passion and my parents actually didn't force me into like my passion per se. Like they actually wanted me to be a pharmacist because they're like, oh, you can work three days a week, like you'll be able to like find a good husband, get married. And I was like, that sounds like my worst nightmare. Working three days a week. I would be so bored. I don't know what I would do. So clearly that didn't happen. But I think that that prodigies are made and I would want to throw everything at my kids and find what they're passionate about. And I think people are generally passionate about what they're good at. So I would figure out what they're good at and what they seem to enjoy and then really accelerate their development in that one thing, whether it's math, whether it's like being an F1 tricer. Because if you're able to get like a multi year head start, you're just going to be above everyone else. Right.

Jay Shetty

I love it.

Lucy Guo

So I don't want to force them into passion, but once I find it, like I want them to be the very best and their passion.

Jay Shetty

Lucy, honestly, whenever we spend time together, I laugh a lot, I learn a lot. You're exceptionally sharp and smart. I mean, I could tell just how much you thought about the questions that you gave me, answers that surprised me or ones that I've definitely not heard before. Oh, I'm glad. We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five. These have to be answered in one sentence maximum. Okay, so Lucy Guo, these are your final five. The first question Is what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?

Lucy Guo

I mean, this is pretty simple, but I would say the best piece of advice ever received is just like, just ask. Is the worst thing that can happen is that you get a no. And I do this for really everything in my life still. And you have to be able to handle rejection. So be able to handle rejection and just ask.

Jay Shetty

Perfect. Question number two. What is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

Lucy Guo

So I think the worst piece of advice I've ever received is that you need to hire executives with decades long experience to have like an adult in the company. Because especially early stage, when you have an adult in the company, what they end up doing is bloating your team up. And that's not great for early stage, obviously, because you end up burning a lot more money.

Jay Shetty

Yeah, it's, it's so interesting, isn't it? Because you always go through this, like, do you need a young team? Do you have to bring an adult in?

Lucy Guo

You want a young team?

Jay Shetty

Yeah. Very, very trouble. Yeah, you're very emphatic. Question number three, what's something that you learned at 30 that you wish you knew at 20?

Lucy Guo

I think when people believe that you're wealthy, it is a lot easier to move around in this world. And I say this as someone that used to take pride dressing in like, Shein, Walmart, et cetera. I realized how much easier life gets if I just present myself nicer. It opens a lot more doors. And this goes back to like, your network is your net worth, but you actually do want those doors open oftentimes.

Jay Shetty

And what if, what if people say things like, oh, but that doesn't feel authentic to me, and that's not real. And I'm like, what's your take when people say something like that?

Lucy Guo

I think there's a way to be presentable and still feel authentic. Um, but it also depends on, like, are you down to have that trade off? Right. But I just remembered the change and how much easier life got and the connections I've been able to make since I stopped taking pride in dressing like a hobo. Yeah. And like, those are great connections have opened a lot of doors for me.

Jay Shetty

Question number four. Who are your entrepreneurial heroes?

Lucy Guo

I actually really admire Whitney Wolf because we all know the story how she was kicked out of Tinder. Right. But instead of, you know, sitting, having victim mentality and being sad, she literally went, you and created a direct competitor that's doing better, which is just awesome. Like, I love that mentality. Of a fighter.

Jay Shetty

Fifth and final question. We asked this to every guest who's ever been on the show. Lucy, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

Lucy Guo

I mean, this is so basic, but I think just be nice to every human being, right? I think kindness makes the world go around.

Jay Shetty

Lucy Guo, thank you so much. As I said, I've learned so much. Look forward to spending lots more time together. Excited to see what you're going to go build next.

Lucy Guo

Yeah, lots of things.

Jay Shetty

Thank you. This is such a joy. Thank you so much for giving my audience so much of your time, your guidance and your energy. I'm so grateful.

Lucy Guo

Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Jay Shetty

It's fun. If you love this episode, you'll love my conversation with Airbnb founder Brian Chesky on how to tap into your creative potential. And the number one thing people get wrong about success.

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The best people in your life will be people who see potential in you

Lucy Guo

that you didn't see in yourself.

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Lucy Guo

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