Luis von Ahn is a genius founder/CEO

We love founder-led companies.

Historically they are faster to innovate and are more mission-oriented.

Enter Luis von Ahn, co-founder and CEO of Duolingo.

Born (1978) and raised in Guatemala during a civil war, von Ahn benefited from an excellent education – his mother, a doctor, spent her entire salary to give him a “rich person’s education” despite modest means

An early aptitude for math and technology earned him a scholarship to Duke University at 18, followed by a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University

Uni life

While still a student, he created innovative projects that hinted at his creative, moat-building mindset.

Notably, he co-invented CAPTCHA and later reCAPTCHA, turning the problem of spam bots into an opportunity: reCAPTCHA harnessed millions of users to digitize books while distinguishing humans from bots.

Google acquired reCAPTCHA in 2009, reportedly for around $25 million (von Ahn’s first startup exit)

Duolingo

After a stint as a Carnegie Mellon professor, von Ahn set his sights on a bigger mission: making education accessible to everyone. In 2011 he teamed up with one of his graduate students, Severin Hacker, to found Duolingo, initially aiming to teach English to Spanish speakers for free

Long-term Vision

Long-Term Vision: Luis von Ahn has articulated an ambitious long-term vision for Duolingo: to become the world’s leading platform for education, not just languages. The company’s mission statement is “to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available”

Rather than pursuing quick revenue by paywalling content, he’s kept the core app free to grow the user base and brand. “Our growth starts with users,” he wrote... engagement first, monetization follows

My opinion

I love how mission-driven Luis is. I also think he has the correct approach with AI.. to use it to make the user's learning experience so much better.

He communicates a clear long-term vision and has a record of executing on it. (We even get a CEO letter EVERY quarter!)... The primary caveat might be that Duolingo is still a young public company in a competitive space, so von Ahn will need to continue proving that his approach yields durable, compounding value

Luis owns ~10% of Duolingo stock and has been a net seller since the company IPO'd (as part of a 10b5-1 plan)

Insider Selling at Duolingo

One of the bear cases I've seen on Duolingo has been the high levels of insider selling.

This isn't too big of a concern for me. It's a recently IPO'd startup, insider liquidity events are nothing out of the normal. They have also been alongside transparent plans and positive company developments