Guo’s wealth, estimated at US$1.25 billion, stems from Scale AI, a firm she co-founded with Alexandr Wang, 28, the youngest self-made billionaire in the world. She later left the firm but keeps a nearly 5% stake in the company.
Here is what to know about Guo’s early and present ventures, as well as some fascinating details about her life:
A hustler since teenage years
Lucy Guo’s entrepreneurial journey began early. Brought up in Fremont, California, by Chinese immigrant parents who were electrical engineers, she started building things out of the desire to earn and what she later recognized as “the itch to build.”
As a teenager, Guo explored various side hustles, ranging from selling Pokémon cards to constructing fake streaming websites with strategically placed ads. She did not wait for opportunities to come to her, she actively sought them out, according to Entrepreneur magazine.
By high school, she had mastered the art of generating income online using PayPal and games such as Neopets and RuneScape, all while teaching herself to code. The internet was not just a resource, it became both her laboratory and training ground.
Her relentless drive led her to drop out of college in 2014, just a few courses shy of completing a double major, to join the Thiel Fellowship, a program backed by billionaire investor Peter Thiel to support young entrepreneurs in launching their startups.
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Lucy Guo, founder of Passes. Photo from Lucy Guo’s Instagram/@guoforit |
Next big move after Scale AI
After leaving Scale AI, Guo set up Passes, a platform that allows creators and celebrities to engage with their fans, who pay for personalized interactions such as chats and videos.
What distinguishes the firm from its comparables, namely Patreon and OnlyFans, is its integration of AI technology. Passes is developing AI avatars that replicate real-life creators, enabling fans to interact with digital representations of their favorite personalities. While these avatars are clearly marked as AI, they have gained considerable popularity with fans and offer a cost-effective solution for creators.
The platform has secured partnerships with notable celebrities, including gymnast Olivia Dunne, basketball icon Shaquille O’Neal, and DJ Kygo, and, according to Guo, reached eight figures in annualized net revenue, according to Business Insider.
Facing controversy
Despite her success, Guo has not been immune to controversy. Recently, Passes has come under fire for its content moderation practices, facing accusations claiming that underage content has slipped past its check.
In March, Passes faced a lawsuit accusing it of hosting inappropriate content featuring children. It had banned all underage creators and removed their content from the platform right before that.
A Passes spokesperson told Forbes that the company denies accusations that it approved or permitted the upload of underage explicit content.
“Any effort to attribute alleged misconduct of third parties to Passes is baseless and nothing more than an effort to entangle Passes and its founder, Lucy Guo, in the lawsuit,” the person said.
A neighbor of David Beckham
Guo resides in her condominium at the One Thousand Museum, a luxury residential tower in Miami, Florida, that is home to several high-profile residents, including English football star David Beckham.
“So I have been in the elevator with David Beckham a few times and I didn’t know it was him,” she told The New York Post in a 2022 interview. “The only reason I found out after was because my friends were in the elevator with me saying, ‘Oh my God, that was David Beckham.’”
Guo has not exactly won over her neighbors in the same building, where condos are priced at $6-33 million. At one point, a small dinner party she hosted spiraled into a wild gathering with over 100 attendees, most of whom were invited last minute via Twitter.
The evening’s unexpected highlights involved a lemur and a snake, both of which Guo had rented from the Zoological Wildlife Foundation.
Daily workouts at Barry’s
Guo once walked Fortune magazine through her daily routine, which begins with a 50-minute high-intensity interval training workout at gym chain Barry’s Bootcamp.
Each morning, a car is ready to take her to the gym, a perk provided by the luxury amenities of her apartment building. Her interval fitness session includes 30 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes of weight training.
Her intense workouts at the chain have become a trait well-known among her Twitter and Instagram followers, turning her into an unofficial ambassador for the brand.
Early in April, Guo shared on Instagram, “Discipline > Sleep. 3000 classes complete” alongside a photo of herself at Barry’s in West Hollywood holding a sign that read, “Lucy Hiits 3000!” The post marked her 3,000th workout at the chain.
