Lucy Guo

Lucy Guo (born October 14, 1991) is an American tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist renowned for her contributions to Silicon Valley. She is the co-founder of Scale AI, a data platform dedicated to artificial intelligence, alongside Alexandr Wang. Guo has also established Backend Capital, a venture capital firm headquartered in San Francisco. Currently, she serves as the CEO of Passes, a web3 product designed to facilitate the management and scaling of digital identity and assets.
Guo is recognized for her tech expertise and for sharing candid insights on social media platforms, particularly on her Instagram account, where she boasts a following of 37,000 and shares her personal life and travels.
Guo was named one of Forbes' "30 Under 30 in Enterprise Tech" in 2017, and in 2023, Forbes listed her as one of the wealthiest self-made women in America.
==Early life and education==
Guo was born on October 14, 1991, to Chinese immigrant parents who worked as electrical engineers. Growing up in Silicon Valley, she was exposed to technology from an early age, delving into programming in the second grade and creating websites by the sixth grade. During her high school, Guo generated substantial revenues through internet marketing and advertising.
Despite her innate aptitude for technology and entrepreneurship, Guo's parents, recognizing the gender-related challenges prevalent in the technology sector, discouraged her from pursuing a career in technology.
Guo enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University in 2012, where she began studying computer science and human-computer interaction. However, she decided to forgo her senior year upon being awarded the 2014 Thiel Fellowship. The program provided a $100,000 scholarship and mentorship to individuals under the age of twenty-two to build business ventures.
With the funding obtained through the Thiel Fellowship, Guo developed a food delivery application. The platform assisted sororities in fundraising through bake sales. Although initially successful, the app was discontinued due to the legal complexities within non-commercial kitchen food delivery.
==Career==
As a freelance developer, Guo has created several consumer web and mobile applications that have served over 7 million users across 15+ countries. Notable projects include Pokecrew, a crowd-sourced Pokémon GO sightings map; AccessURL, a browser extension for secure website access sharing; and FriendSwipe, an app that enables browsing Facebook friends' Tinder profiles and swiping on them.
Subsequently, Lucy Guo pursued internships at Facebook and served as a product designer at Quora and Snapchat.
In 2016, Guo co-founded ScaleAI with Alexander Wang, a colleague from Quora. ScaleAI functions as a data platform for artificial intelligence, facilitating developers to use an API for automating repetitive human tasks, including content moderation and business-related phone calls, and has found adoption across multiple startups. Guo departed from ScaleAI in 2018 but retains a 6% ownership stake in the company.
In 2018, Guo co-founded Backend Capital alongside Dave Fontenot. Backend Capital is an early-stage venture capital fund headquartered in San Francisco. The firm has made investments in various companies, including Myria, Replay, and Huddle, among several others.
In 2022, Guo founded Passes, where she currently serves as CEO. Passes is a Web3 platform that enables the management and scaling of digital identity and assets, particularly within the NFT ecosystem. The platform allows NFT owners to access an exclusive superfan club, unlocking premium content such as posts, videos, and personalized interactions, including tips, live streaming, and one-on-one fan calls. Notably, the platform has attracted top influencers, including TherapyJeff, Maren Altman, Emma Norton, and Luke Scornavacco.
==Awards & recognitions==
* Guo was recognized among Forbes' "30 Under 30 in Enterprise Tech" in 2017.
* She earned a place among America's wealthiest self-made women, as recognized by Forbes in 2023.
==Personal life==
Guo resides in Miami, Florida. She is known for her fitness commitment, as evidenced by her three-hour High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) video on YouTube. Her rigorous daily routine includes a second HIIT or strength training session before dinner, with daily runs of 16 to 32 kilometers. With a 5.5-hour daily fitness regimen, she has earned recognition as one of the world's fittest CEOs.
==References==
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Category:1991 births
Category:American technology company founders
Category:American technology businesspeople
Category:American venture capitalists
Category:Carnegie Mellon University alumni