From coder to $1.25 bn: Scale AI co-founder Lucy Guo snatches youngest female billionaire title from Taylor Swift

At just 30, Lucy Guo has become the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. A co-founder of Scale AI, Guo catapulted into the billionaire club after the company’s latest tender offer valued it at $25 billion. That’s an 80% leap from May 2024. Though she left the AI unicorn in 2018, Guo’s sizable stake has now pushed her net worth to $1.25 billion — most of it “on paper,” as she puts it with a laugh.

Guo co-founded Scale AI in 2016 alongside Alexandr Wang when she was 21 and he was 19. The San Francisco-based company specialises in labeling data to train AI systems and has become a key player in the artificial intelligence boom.

Despite exiting the company two years later, Guo retained a significant stake — just under 5% — now worth nearly $1.2 billion. “I don't really think about it much, it's a bit wild. Too bad it's all on paper haha,” she told Fortune.

Adding in her other ventures, including her newer start-up Passes, Guo's total net worth has climbed to approximately $1.25 billion. She is one of only six self-made women billionaires under 40 globally — and notably, she amassed the bulk of her wealth from a company she no longer works at.

Until now, Taylor Swift held the title of youngest self-made female billionaire. The 35-year-old singer reached the milestone in October 2023 with a net worth of $1.6 billion.

After Scale AI, Guo didn’t slow down. She founded Backend Capital, a venture capital firm backing early-stage startups, including a six-figure bet on financial software firm Ramp in 2020.

By 2022, she launched Passes, a creator-centric platform akin to Patreon or OnlyFans, geared toward helping celebrities and influencers monetise their fanbase. The platform boasts partnerships with big names like gymnast Olivia Dunne, NBA icon Shaquille O'Neal, and DJ Kygo.

Born to Chinese immigrant parents, Guo was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and began coding in middle school. She studied computer science and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University before dropping out to join the prestigious Thiel Fellowship — a programme that funds promising young entrepreneurs.

Her early career included stints at Quora and Snapchat, where she worked in product design. It was during her time at Quora that she met Wang, setting the stage for Scale AI.